Modern ScienceHow Quantum Computing can change the world

The Inconvenient Problem of Climate Change

December 2014

Create ferrofluids on your own

The effects of the discovery of the Higgs Boson on physics

Table of ContentsLetter from the editor 4

Staff Biographies 5

The Discovery of the Higgs Boson 6 The latest breakthrough in particle physics

Make Your Own Ferrofluids 12 Create liquid magnets at home.

Quantum Computing 17 A new age of computing

The Inconvient Problem 23 How the earth is changing it is our fault.

2 | Modern Science Cern

Staff BiographiesCassidy is a 14 year old student at LASA. He is a member of the robotics freshman team. He helps build the robots that LASA competes with in regional, state, national, and world wide competitions. He enjoys working with his team to create the robots. Cassidy likes

biology. He is intersested in cell growth and division, and wants to be more involved int the UT stem cell research. Other subjects he is proficient in, are Spanish, in which he is quite fluent. He also plays baseball and has been doing so since the tender age of 5. He enjoys being a batter and fielder, but enjoys being in LASA.

Sammy is a 14 year old who is an avid sports enthusiast. He enjoys playing his favorite, baseball and football, though he admits sucks at both. His favorite baseball player is Cory Kluber and his favorite football player is Johny Menziel. He likes how

well he practices amazing discipline while playing. His favorite team is the Cincinnati Reds. He watches basketball too, and his favorite player is Chris Paul because he is a great role model to look up to. When Sam has free time, he likes to play with his brothers John and Will. They both, like him enjoy sports, and live happily in Austin.

Ojas is a 14 year old student at LASA who enjoys doing anything and everything that’s related to computers. He also enjoys playing his favorite sports, tennis and ping pong. His favourite food to eat is Shakshouka. In his free time he likes to program in Java. He is quite

accomplished in the skill of computer science; he has a Raspberry Pi and uses pushes it to the limits. He is also a quiz bowl member who uses his knowledge and skills to participate in tournaments. In the future Ojas hopes to become a professional in the field of computer science, and already is well on his way.

Abhi is a 15 year old student at LASA. He enjoys school and playing basketball. His favorite subject is math, because he is quite proficient at it. His favorite basketball team is the San Antonio Spurs, because they are in the state he lives in, and they

have one of his favorite players, Tony Parker. His favorite player of all time is Michael Jordan because he was simply amazing at what he did. In science, his favorite field is physics and thus he did the article on Quantum Computing. He took physics in middle school due to his fascination, and he is still learning more.

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The Discovery of the Higgs Boson

4 | Modern Science The CMS detector at CERN iunder the French-Swiss Border

By Ojas Ahuja

Five hundred and seventy four feet below ground level at the French-Swiss border lies one of the largest and most complex experiments ever built. It consists of a gigantic ring 17 miles in circumference, can collide particles at 8 teraelectronvolts, was built with a budget equivalent to nine billion dollars, and was designed by 10,000 scientists from more than 100 countries. The facility is solely dedicated to the advancement of high-energy particle physics. On 14 March 2013, the facility’s scientists announced the conformation of evidence indicating the existence of the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is crucial to the Standard Model: the prevalent theory of particle physics. The generally accepted “variant” of the Standard Model calls for a “Higgs field,” a type of field (such as the electromagnetic field) which cannot be turned off. The Higgs Boson is the smallest possible excitation of this field. Even though this field is present everywhere, it is very hard to confirm the existence of it because creating an excitation (a Higgs Boson) requires tremendous amounts of mass and energy, in addition to the fact that the probability of an excitation is low even if the conditions are right. Therefore, in order to study the Higgs Boson, scientists required both constant generation of high energy particles as well as the ability to accumulate lots of data. This was the driving force behind the creation of the LHC. If the Higgs Boson were confirmed not

to have existed, then particle physics would have to be rewritten. However, “the discovery of the Higgs Boson is not an earth-shattering discovery, ” said John Stormberg (a teacher at LASA High School), “it simply confirms what scientists had been hypothesizing for many years.” In that sense it is not a revolutionary discovery but one which confirms our suspicions and assures us that we are, at least, somewhat correct. The Higgs Boson can be explained using a simple analogy. Since the Higgs Boson is merely an excitation of the Higgs field, we can use an analogy for the Higgs field and relate it back to the Higgs Boson. Peter Onyisi, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin, finds that the easiest

way to explain to students the Higgs Boson is to use an analogy of a fish in the water; “as you move about you notice that there’s

something preventing you from moving, but you live in thing all the time so you think that it’s maybe a fundamental property of the way the world the way

“Up until the early 90s we didn’t have the energy [to create higgs bosons], period.”-Peter Onyisi

The search for the world’s most elusive particle

The CMS detector at CERN iunder the French-Swiss Border

Simulated data modeled for the CMS particle detector

is,” he said. That fundamental property in this instance is the Higgs field. It can’t be removed, and is very hard to detect, but is still present everywhere. The bigger you are, the harder it is for you to move. Ripples are comparable excitations of this field (which are Higgs Bosons themselves). There are some ways in which this analogy fails completely. This is because Newton’s Laws of motion are inconsistent with the movement of elementary particles. A particle could possibly keep moving through the field without losing any energy to the Higgs field, while in reality, moving through water or another substance will slow you down and disperse your kinetic energy of motion. So why did this particle take so long to find? The concept of the Higgs Field was first theorized by a group of scientists - Robert Brout, François Englert, Peter Higgs,

Gerald Guralnik, C. Richard Hagen, and Tom Kibble - who published a set of papers which became to be known as the PRL symmetry breaking papers (in 1964). Part of the reason lies in the fact that the Higgs Boson is a very massive particle; it takes a huge amount of energy to produce. “Up until the

early 90s we didn’t have the energy [to artificially create a Higgs Boson], period.” The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built partly as a result of this requirement, since the largest supercollider at the time, Fermilab, was not nearly powerful enough to study Higgs Bosons. In

addition to the requirement of having a high amount of energy, scientists needed a large amount of data to be collected (because, even under the right conditions, creating a Higgs Boson was a matter of probability: the only way to get a large amount of useful data is to conduct the experiment many times/continuously). The LHC

serves both of these purposes. The LHC went live on September 10th, 2008. The next step from being able to produce A model of the ATLAS detector at CERN

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Robert Brout, François Englert, Peter Higgs, Gerald Guralnik, C. Richard Hagen, and Tom Kibble

“...it [Higgs Boson] needs to be more popular. I have heard the words but I don’t know what they really mean.”-Sahil Vaidya

particles (with enough energy, of course) and producing them at a steady rate is being able to detect the presence of the Higgs Boson. There are two implementations of a detector which accomplishes this: ATLAS and CMS. Both take slightly different approaches on how to detect the various attributes of particles. There are four layers to the ATLAS detector: the inner part of the detector, which measures the momentum of each charged particle which passes through it; the calorimeter, which measures the energy of each individual particle; the muon spectrometer, identifies and measures the momenta of muons; and the magnet system, the part of the detector which bends the particles so that their charges and momenta can be measured by the other parts. The fourth layer is where ATLAS and CMS differ in their implementations. ATLAS takes the view that particles should travel a long distance for their attributes to be measured (resulting in a bigger experiment but a weaker magnetic field), while CMS takes the view that applying a strong magnetic field will cause the particles to be measured in a lesser distance (resulting in a stronger magnetic field but a smaller experiment.) When looking at the data from the detector, there are several ways in which a Higgs Boson decays. The boson has never been observed directly, but we have overwhelming indirect evidence for it’s existence. In fact, the detectors only observe what comes off when a Higgs Boson decays, not the Higgs Boson itself. Why do people not know about it if it is so fundamental to physics? Perhaps because it won’t affect most people in the near future. “It’s a very theoretical thing. There might be spinoffs of the technology in the colliders, but nothing resulting from the discovery,” said Stormberg. Most of it’s publicity is derived from a book by the physicist Leon Lederman, The God Particle Lederman wanted to

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name his book The Goddamn Particle, in reference to being so hard to find, but his publisher wouldn’t let him). Sahil Vaidya, a Student at LASA, says that “it [Higgs Boson] needs to be more popular. I have heard the words but I don’t know what they really mean.” The fact that this is a monumental discovery in physics and that many people do not know about it needs to be changed.

All images are courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation.

CMS DetectorSilicon Tracker

Electromagnetic Calorimeter

Muon Detectors and Return Yoke

Superconducting Solenoid

Hadron Calorimeter

Interaction Point

Measures the momentum of each charged particle by measuring degree of curvature imposed on it by the magnetic field.

Measures the energy of electrons and photons with high energy.

Measures energy of hadrons, as well as particles made out of glouons and quarks. These include Protons, neutrons, pions, and kaons.

A magnet whose purpose is to curve particles’ paths traveling toward it. It’s magnetic field is 100,000 times stronger than the Earth’s.

Detects Muons because they are the only particles to make the journey this far.

A cross section of the CMS Chamber

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ATLAS DetectorInner Detector

Calorimeter

Muon Spectrometer

Magnet System

Measures the momentum of each charged particle by measuring

degree of curvature imposed on it by the magnetic field (analogous

to silicon tracker).

Measure energy from the particles by absorbing them. Has both a inner and hadronic version,

which both use use high density metal to sample the resulting particle shower (analogous to

elecotromagnetic tracker).

Consists of three parts, a magnetic ring provided by three

magnets.

Two large superconducting systems to bend particles so that their momenta can be measured.

A cross section of the ATLAS Chamber

Interaction Point

The color green represents hadrons,

the yellow represents high energy photons

and electrons, and the blue represents

muons.

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How the common computing can be

changed in the rapidly approaching future

Quantum

10 | Modern Science

By: Abhi Dhir

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Wikipedia Foundation

Computing

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An average citizen in the near future wakes up. Even before he wakes up, every outcome of the day is predicted for him. His schedule, temperature of coffee, traf-fic and weather alerts all get calculated in a fraction of a second. His alarm clock had already connected to the house and, the temperature changes automatically when he is about to wake up. The lights turn on and off in the respective rooms he visits. The oven starts heating last nights left-overs, and the water boiler for the shower is already turning on. It is time to go, the garage door opens and the car engine au-tomatically starts. All this for hundreds of millions of people could be computed in a fraction of a second in the near future. Quantum Computers are efficient, era-changing devices that can help the world progress. “The world would be skyrocketing in terms of new technology,” as said by Harrison Tran a highly informed computer science follower in high school. He has had a passion for computer science since a very young age and has researched extensively on the topic. The world could create and innovate into the future, pushing the limits of computational power. This could be the life of every middle and upper class citizen in as soon as 20 years! “If implemented extensively, quantum computers would drastically change our lives directly and indirectly,” said Tran. The whole world around us could change for the better in all fields of technology. The computer can tackle complex optimization problems that exist across many domains such as: Optimization, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition and Anomaly Detection, Medical help Financial Analysis, Software/Hardware Verification and Validation, as I got from Susan Davis an employee of D-Wave, the maker of the quantum computer, “We could be looking at a new era in technology as we know it.” First off, lets check on what the basic component of D-waves quantum computers

are. “The main valuable component is the Qubit,” said Cassidy Dreyfus, an Advanced Placement computer science student.

To understand what a qubit is, let us first think of what a regular bit is inside a traditional computer. Bits can store a value of either on or off, 1 or 0 respectively. With more and more bits, the more combinations of on and off you can get. If you have two bits, you can have four possibilities, with 3, you have eight possibilities and so on. In the normal computers, one can store these bits on computer chips in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and even terabytes. This may seem like many combinations for fast computational ability, but even this can get vastly trumped by the Qubit.

Essentially the Qubit is a charged particle that can store up to three values. The values are 0, 1, and both 0 and 1 at the same time. This may not seem like much compared to the traditional bit, but with two Qubits there are nine possibilities and with three Qubits there are 27!

This means that, with n being a certain number of bits, you can do n squared calculations. With Qubits, you can do n cubed calculations! This means that one can now solve problems that were out of the range of capacity for the computers of five years ago.

Wikipedia Foundation

A model of a qubit, showing the different dimensions and axis of the semi-charged

Wikipedia Foundation

The conditions that the computer needs to work in are very obscure and hard to get. The company D-Wave has its headquarters in Canada for a reason: the cold.

For the Qubit, to function properly, it must be as close to absolute zero as possible. Absolute zero is at −459.67°F, much colder than the Earth has ever been. To even achieve this is resource intensive. But, as D-Wave said “Performance increases as temperature is lowered - the lower the temperature, the better.”

To escape the limits of the traditional computer we must use an immense amount of energy. The lowest temperature the quantum computer has reached is around 20 millikelvin where zero

Now one may be wondering how important quantum computers can be in the future. Well as Tran put it “It’s quite unimaginable how much quantum computing will help in our technological progressions.” The only limit to this technology is our imagination of how the world could use it. The databases in our hospitals could be instantaneous, to give diagnoses as soon as the symptoms are noted down. Lag and inefficiency are

terms of the past. Artificial intelligence could be up to par with normal humans, with their fast reaction time and researching capabilities. But the progress also comes with a price. “I fear that the usage of quantum computing may make cyber warfare and hacking a major problem,” said Tran. Cyber Warfare might be the next front for criminal activity. If quantum computers became readily accessible to everyday citizens, hacking would become exponentially

easier. But at the moment it is not currently an issue.

What our generation needs to focus on right now is how to implement the next big thing into our daily lives. Our homes interacting with our daily schedules is only a taste into what could actually take place after quantum computers become easily

Unanswered questions in mathematics and science could readily be solved and the new world around us could be changed in a radical way. It was only last century when we discovered that whatever we see throughout our entire lives is only a small fraction of what is really out there.

As D-Wave states it “Our need to better understand everything, from the universe to our own DNA, leads us to seek new approaches to answer the most difficult questions.” And as the future approaches us, all one can do is wait and watch as the world around us changes.

“Our mission is to integrate new discoveries in physics, engineering, and manufacturing”- D Wave

A quantum chip, the main control for the computer to function and process equations in a functionally efficient way

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The Inconvenient ProblemBy Sam DiCarlo

The human race is trying to kill itself and the earth. Carbon dioxide levels are at a record high and the earth’s temperature is rising, this is causing rising sea level and massive droughts. With new research, leading scientists are trying to stop the world from natural disaster by producing clean efficient energy. New technologies in recycling and composting, as well as green renewable energy sources are emerging to help the fight against climate change. Renewable energy is gaining support and there still might be a chance to save the earth from disaster.

A solar panel gathering energy in the sun

A chance to save the world.

Ficker.com Landfills are filling up and the world need to find a way to make trash not go into the landfills. Recycling and composting are the answers to this problem. The U.S. has been promoting recycling and composting but there is still a long way to go if these are really going to help keep a lot of trash out of the landfills. Recycling works by reusing paper, plastics and metals to make new paper, plastic, and metals products. Composting helps keep trash out of the landfills and it produces very fertile soil by rotting plants like fruits and vegetable.

The landfills are not the only thing that needs fixing. Coal burning power plants have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere which is causing global warming and is heating up the planet. There is an answer to this problem though. New renewable energy sources that bigger than ever. Solar energy is now producing more energy than ever but humans still have a long way to go. Wind and other energies are now also emerging and will make a difference to protect the planet.Composting and recycling are great

16 | Modern Science

ways to reduce the amount of trash in the landfills. Recycling is much more wide spread then composting because recycling is a commercial services and composting is not yet commercial but is getting there fast. Currently the average America produces 4.3 pounds of trash a day. Think about all you through away, it has to go somewhere. All of this trash goes into landfills. Landfills are giant piles of trash and are now becoming a major problem because of all the trash we are making. There are new ways to divert trash out of the landfills and put them to good use.

The two main ways that are used are recycling and composting to keep trash out of the landfills. Composting relies on bacteria rotting old food and turning it into soil. Composting used to be mainly in peoples back yards, and it is now being able to be picked up at your house like trash but more than half the US does not have compost pick up at their houses. There are many programs that are trying to make community composts but there is still a long way to go before composting will be a commercial service in the whole country. Because of commercial

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This is a uncontrolled dump that people are using. Dumps are worse that landfills because landfills have clay in the bottom so contaminated water does not go to the water supply and dumps don’t so they hurt the environment more than landfills.Wikipedia

Krasnoyarsk Dam hydroelectric dam in Russia.

Wikipedia

composting compost piles from communities are very large, this makes it so the bacteria create a lot of heat so almost anything can be composted if it is not plastic or metal. Some people believe composting is the wave of the future but others are not as enthusiastic about it catching on. Recycling and composting activist and volunteer Laura DiCarlo said “I hopes so but I don’t know. Some people are will to help but others just don’t see the benefits of composting.” She goes to schools to help promote and show how to compost but there is not a lot of cooperation and support. Nowadays people have something in their hand, see a can, don’t think and just through it in the nearest

can without thinking if it supposed to go there. Laura DiCarlo sees this a lot and said that nothing annoys her more than people doing this. Other people like Mark Dreyfus, Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Communications at Austin Energy believes composting will be the answer to the trash problem. “Composting is a great way for an individual or family to take steps at home to reduce their environmental footprint.” He said. Composting is a new way to reduce the environmental footprint and is get new support.Recycling is similar to composting in that there are the same problems but there are still many upsides. Recycling reuses materials so that they can be used again. Things that can be recycled are paper, plastics and metal. It requires a lot more energy to make new metals than to reuse them. This is so for aluminum, it takes 5% of the energy to recycle aluminum than to make it new. 70% of trash in the landfills can be recycled but only 30% is. Recycling helps keep things out of the

land fill and because things like aluminum take a lot of energy to make it save energy. Solar energy and wind energy are emerging renewable energy sources. Hydroelectric energy is currently leading in energy produced in the U.S. but it is a lot less known because you can only produce energy from large rivers and the ocean tides. Hydroelectric power is produce in the U.S. manly by dams like the Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. Water is stored in a reservoir behind the dam and then flows downhill though the penstock to the turbine witch then is turned by the water which then turns the generator which produces energy. There is no harmful by-products and it harness the power of gravity to produce energy. The Hoover Dam currently produces 23% of the energy for Nevada and 18% for Arizona. The down side hydroelectric energy is that you can only dam up a river so many times and sometime it will harm the ecosystem of the river because fish can’t swim from one side to the

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Wind turbines in the mountains. wikimedia

other. Hydroelectric power’s up sides are better than the down sides and is a good way to make energy and is currently the leading source of renewable energy in the U.S. Solar energy is currently thought as the renewable energy source of the future although it is only a small part of renewable energy in the U.S. Solar energy is gaining a lot of support because any one can have solar panels and profit off of them. If there was a gird of solar panels that covered 10%

of Nevada it could power the whole U.S. Solar panels work by photons hitting the silicon sheets knocking electrons loose, these electrons go to metal wires that carry them as electricity. The great thing about solar panels is that they can be almost anywhere. Some people think solar panels are ugly but they are hardly ever seen unless you try to look for them. Solar panels aren’t the only type of solar energy. Another type is solar mirrors but solar mirror aren’t nearly as common. A solar mirror works by reflecting sunlight

onto a small space by using curved mirror. The light heats up the center which is then used to turn water into seam and produce energy by turning a turbine. This use of solar energy is not as common because you have to have a generator and you have to turn the angles of the mirrors constantly. Solar energy has the most potential to produce energy out of any source of energy because the sun produces so much energy. Solar energy is not the only type of emerging renewable energy, wind energy is also a very good way to make clean energy. Wind power is a very reliable way to make energy because the wind will always blow. Wind turbines are like pinwheels; wind hits them straight on and because there blades are curved and this turns them in one direction. This turns the turbine which generates electricity.Renewable energy is helping reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air but is not the only thing we need to do to save the planet for disaster. Some people aren’t as convinced as others, Ayush Bhansali feels this is helping but it won’t help enough “The way statistics are going you can tell we are obviously screwed.” He said. He has a good point, unless there are manger improvements in renewable energy we will be screwed. There is still a chance to save the world but everyone needs to help if we are to win this war against ourselves.

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Hydraulic FrackingHow it Works

Down side

Hydraulic fracking is a way to get natural gas and petroleum out of the ground specifically oil in shale. The well goes about 7000 feet down then makes horizontal cuts call veins. Then they water and sand at very high pressure into the well. The water breaks holes

in the rock call fishers and that is what get to the oil and natural gas. The san that was pumped in holes the fishers open which allows the oil the flow freely out. The pressure then forces the oil up into storage tanks and then you have oil.

Up sideProduces more US made oil

Creates jobs

Makes money

Use a lot of water

Pollutes ground water

Sometimes creates earth quakes May be dangerous

This is a diagram of how fracking works

Wikimedia Foundation

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Normal Oil DrillingHow it Works

The regular oil well is fairly strait forward. They drill down using rotating gears called bits. These push mud behind them, which then is pumped up to the surface when they hit oil the pressure so deep underground pushes it up. Most of the problems come now because

the pressure underground is so high. The oil shots up extremely fast and sometimes comes out uncontrolled. Oil will shot out unstoppable. The BP oil spill in 2010 in the gulf was caused in this way. After that you have your oil.

Down SideUp SideDoes not use water

Uses less energy

Proven safe

Can’t get much oil in the U.S.

Cant access oil in hard rocks

An oil well in the Washington oil field.Wikimedia Foundation

This is a diagram of how normal oil drilling works

Wikimedia Foundation

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Make Your Own Ferrofuids

A professionally made ferrofluid (above) and a home made

ferrofluid(below)

By Cassidy Dreyfus

Fun with liquid magnets

Steve Jurvetson

Wikimedia Foundation21 | Modern Science

Magnetic liquids can be very difficult to make because almost all magnetic metals lose their magnetism before they melt, like iron, it loses its magnetism at 770 degrees Celsius and melts at more than twice that. There are a few ways to make a magnetic liquid though, yet it is normally an expensive industrial process, but they can also be made in a cheaply and easily in five minutes.

Ferrofluids are a solution of fine magnetic particles combined with a solvent to hold them. They were first discovered by NASA in 1963, and are used in a variety of specific commercial roles. The industrial ferrofluid production process is complicated and expensive, requiring many complex machines, but ferrofluids can also be made by combining iron filings with common cooking oil. Ferrofluids are “nanoscale ferromagnetic, particles suspended in a carrier fluid usually an organic solvent or water” Matt Stalberger, the ferrofluid exhibit manager at the Thinkery in Austin said. Ferrofluids are made of magnetic nanoparticles mixed into a solvent, and a surfactant to keep the particles from clumping. “A magnet moved close to

the ferrofluid will make it ‘solid’ until the magnet is removed and the ferrofluid will become ‘liquid’ again.” Stalberger said. The solvent provides the main structure for the solution holding both the particles and the surfactant. Most ferrofluids use a thin oil for the solvent. The magnetic particles are what make the solution react under the presence of a magnetic field. They are normally very small pieces of

iron. The surfectant keeps the particles spread out and stops them from clumping together, the most common example, and easiest to find surfactant is normal soap. All ferrofluids are made of only these three things, all of these are also readily available around anyone’s house. Soap can be found in the bathroom, oil is kept in the kitchen, and magnetic particles can be made from old audio tapes.The first ferrofluids were made by NASA in 1963 while developing spacecraft propellant to be used in zero gravity. Magnets have no more charge than any other materials, magnets are just made when the electric charges of all the electrons inside the atoms of that substance form into lines, instead of just random directions. Normal materials have the same amount of overall magnetism, but all of it is facing in random directions, which makes it cancel itself out. Magnetic materials have all the small fields from the electrons facing the same direction. This is also what causes magnets to have a positive and a negative side: all the negatively charged electrons face toward one side, this organized movement makes this side negative, which makes the other side positive. “A magnet moved close to the ferrofluid will make it ‘solid’ until the magnet is removed and the ferrofluid will become ‘liquid’ again.” Stalberger said. Ferrofluids consist of many small magnetic particles suspended in a carrier fluid. When a magnetic field is exposed to the ferrofluid the magnetic particles in the carrier fluid align along the pole lines, which makes the fluid into a confined shape. This transition turns the fluid into a solid. Ferrofluids have a variety of specialized commercial roles, they are also required in very small quantities which makes them so expensive to buy. Some of these roles are to provide a buffer for high quality speakers, to

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“Ferrofluids are liquids with iron nanoparticles suspended in them”

create a protective barrier around fast moving computer hard drives, and are being experimented as a type of cancer treatment. “Common uses Sealants, switches, solenoids, sensors, audio speakers to cool inner parts, coolant liquids for large power transformers, MRI contrasting agent and other medical applications.” said Stalberger. All uses are very complex and technologically advanced, because ferrofluids are only used in very small quantities.

The first way I tried to make my ferrofluids was taking standard iron filings and putting them in canola oil. This way was not successful because the filings were too big. To create a ferrofluid the magnetic particles must be very small: less than ten nanometers. This size can rarely be achieved by standard crushing of solid iron. These particles would sink to the bottom of the oil, and they would move without pulling the oil. These properties gave them a consistency more like sand than a fluid. When the field was exposed the particles would hold any shape given to them, so the mixture could be sculpted and shaped, but when the field was removed the particles would return to being structure less.

My next try was more successful than my first, though the process was slightly more complicated and involved potentially dangerous acetone. To get the smaller particles needed to make a successful ferrofluid I stripped them from old audio tapes, each tape contains only a very small amount of magnetic material so many tapes are required. I first removed the actual tape from the cassette. Now came the potentially dangerous part, to get the magnetic material from the plastic and glue that is also in the tape. To remove this I bathed the tape in acetone for a few hours. I filled a sealable container with acetone then put the tape in. Caution acetone

is extremely flammable, do not do this anywhere near a flame or something even remotely warm, acetone can also cause severe symptoms if inhaled or swallowed, large amounts of acetone on skin can also be potentially harmful causing rashes or irritation. Be very careful and wear gloves. I did not try this but a safer way to do this may have been to use nail polish remover and let it sit for longer. Nail polish’s main ingredient is acetone, but the concentration is smaller so this would be safer. The next part of the process is to use a magnet to remove the magnetic particles from the acetone solution, to do this take a magnet wrapped in a paper towel, and wave it over the solution. Then let the particles dry on the paper towel, unless you have an electromagnet that you can turn off use a paper towel or the particles will never come off the magnet. When drying the particles spread them out as much as you can because if they dry in clumps they are very difficult to break up. Now all you need to do is put the particles in a cup, then add oil; add it slowly because you can add more but if you add too much, then you need to start over. Finally put a small amount of soap in the solution to stop the particles from clumping again.

When picking a magnet be smarter than I was and pick a large iron magnet not a small neodymium magnet, they are brittle and can sent pieces shooting out, Use safety glasses when working with neodymium.

A ferrofluid exposed to a strong magnet underneath it

Gregory M

axwell

23 | Modern Science

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Steps You will need a light oil (I used canola oil) old audio tapes, acetone and a magnet. Canola oil and audio tapes can be found at home. Acetone can be bought at any home improvement store in the paint section. Magnets can be bought at most stores. Use multiple cassettes each only produces a very small amount of magnetic material.

1. Materials

2. Break The Tape Get the black tape out of the middle of the cassette by smashing it with a hammer. Now take the tape out. Discard the plastic of the cassette; it is not needed.

3. Acetone Pour the acetone into a bucket with a lid. Do this in an open well-ventilated area. This will be used to remove the magnetic material from the tape.

4. Let It Sit Put the tapes into the bucket of acetone, and let them sit for a few hours. This will take the magnetic material off of the protective layer of the plastic.

5. Collect

Wrap the magnet in a paper towel then collect the magnetic particles by waving the magnet over the acetone. The towel stops the particles from permanently sticking directly to the magnet.

6. Mix

Mix the powder colected from the tape with oil and a very small amount of soap. THen stur the mixture until it has smooth consistency.

7. Done Enjoy your ferrofluids. USe your magnet to make them into cones shapes. You can also use the magnet to make the ferrofluid jump. Do not let the magnet directly touch the ferrofluid or the ferrofluid will not be able tobe removed.

25 | Modern Science

Modern Science talks about the issue of climate change, how the Higgs boson works and what it is, the advancing technology of the quantum computer, and the existing properties of Ferro Fluids. All of these are using new technologies to make the world a better, more exceeding place. We talk about a very wide variety of subjects for a wider audience. All of our features stories are to inform people about the how the world is changing and new sciences that are helping the world. We are informing you about how the future will be and what to expect. I love doing science and

learning about new things. I am currently a th grader at LASA (Liberal Arts and Science Academy), which is the 7th best high school in the nation. Also we ran into so very annoying problems when making this magazine. Since everything in Modern Science in very cutting edge and new, new information was coming out when we were creating and editing Modern Science. New statistics about recycling was coming out almost every day making very hard to have hard data. In the end Modern Science first issue came out very well.

Letter from the Editor

26 | Modern Science

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