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v. P. Kartsev
THREE
THOUSAND
YEARS

OF

MAGNETS

Translated
from the Russian

by
Ann Feltham

-Mir Publishers
Moscow

to the reader
Mir Publishers welcome your comments on the content,
translation and design of this book.
We would also be pleased to receive any proposals
you care to make about our future publications.
OUf address is:
USSR, 129820 Moscow 1-110, GSP
Pervy R izhsky Pereulok, 2
Mir Publishers
Printed in the Union of So viet Socialist Republics

First Published 1975

Revised from the 1972 Russian edition

Ha

aH2AUllCKOM suiutce

English translation, Mir Publishers, 1975

CONTENTS
PREFACE

MAGNETISM IN NATURE 9
9

INTERSTELLAR WANDERERS

SECRETS OF THE GOLD CYLINDER

EARTH-THE

23

BLUE MAGNET

WHAT LIGHTNING HAD TO TELL US

THE

15

27

DISCOVERY OF ELECTROMAGNETISM

ELECTROMAGNETS WITH STEEL CORES

MAGNETS ON PARADE

27

45

45

HIGH-FIELD MAGNETS 57

57

ELECTROMAGNETS WITHOUT STEEL CORES

PULSED MAGNETIC FIELDS

69

ABOUT THE SUPERWEAPON THAT FAILED

IT ALL BEGAN WITH AN ELECTRIC EEL

MACNETS AND EXPLOSIONS

69
70

77

THE MAGNETIC SYSTEMS IN ACCELERATORS

POWERFUL MAGNETS IN MODERN SCIENCE

86
86

MAGNETIC TRAPS FOR THERMONUCLEAR RESEARCI-I

THE KEY TO THE MAGNET

125

GIANTS SHOULD BECOME EXTINCT

MISTAKE OR DISCOVERY?

129

125

107

SOME PROPERTIES OF SUPERCONDUCTORS

THE JOSEPHSON EFFECT

132

139

A DISCOVERY'S NEW LEASE OF LIFE

150

THE STRANGE COLD WORLD OF SUPERCONDUCTORS

152

CAUTIONI THEORETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE EQUIPMENT

WORK 157

AT

SUPERCONDUCTORS IN OPERATION

162

OBTAINING, STORING, AND TRANSPORTING LIQUID

HELIUM 183

PREFACE

The universe is magnetic, from its vast, distant nebulae

right down to elementary particles, and man is permeated
through and through with myriads of magnetic fields from
all sorts of sources.
We now take the magnet for granted and have a rather
supercilious attitude toward it as an old-fashioned part
of school physics lessons, with no idea, at times, of the
number of magnets around us. I counted up one day; in
my flat there are dozens-in my electric razor, in the radio loudspeaker, in the tape-recorder, and in a jar of nails.
And I myself am a magnet; the biological currents in me
give rise to a fantastic pattern of magnetic lines of force.
Our Earth, too, is a gigantic blue magnet; and the Sun,
a great, yellow sphere of plasma, is an even more powerful one. Galaxies and nebulae hardly visible even by means
of radio telescopes are magnets of unfathomable size.
Nobody has ever been able to say (and probably never
will): 'I know everything there is to know about magnets.'
The question 'Why does a magnet attract?' will always
fill us with a sense of Nature's inexhaustible variety and
encourage to thirst after new knowledge and new discoveries. And, because of the immensity of the problem of magnets, this book will not provide a complete answer either.
Nevertheless we do know a great deal about magnetsin any event enough to exploit their power to our own
advantage.

New materials, new magnets, amazing new equipment,

and the most complex and sophisticated machines all became possible when scientists began to understand the
mysterious manifestations of magnetism. The magnet, it
seems, which not so long ago was incomprehensible and
uncontrollable, is beginning without demur to obey the
orders of man, who is penetrating its secrets. And here we
would do well to recall the words of the] poet Velimir
Khlebnikov: 'No one could fulfil an order more exactly than
the Sun if he were told to rise in the morning in the east. '

MAGNETISM IN NATURE
Interstellar Wanderers

Wherein we present information on theories of cosmogony,

an essential of which is the presence in galaxies of a magnetic field.
In a pine forest not far from Serpukhov, a town near
Moscow, there is a clearing with a rather strange shape.
Viewed from the air it looks like a colossal circular
embankment. Under the bank lie huge concrete slabs,
forming a corridor that stretches for a kilometre and a half
around the circle. In the corridor is housed a synchrophasotron, one of the largest particle accelerators.
Around the synchrophasotron a science city has grown
up, where scholars from the Soviet Union, the People's
Democracies, and France work.
Scientists come to Serpukhov in order to work on the
accelerator there, which can impart the collossal energy
of 76 thousand million electron volts (76 Gev) to protons.
And yet the Earth is constantly bombarded on all sides
by the particles of cosmic rays from the secret depths of
outer space, many of which have an energy thousands of
millions of times greater than that obtained in the Serpukhov accelerator.
V L. Ginsburg, Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, thinks that cosmic particles achieve these inconceivable energies in gigantic interstellar accelerators. The
essence of his theory is that in the vast expanses of our
9

Galaxy, in other distant worlds and in intergalactic space,

there are magnetic fields in which particles can gather
speed as if in an enormous natural cyclotron.
The sources of cosmic rays may be ordinary stars (like
our Sun, for example), magnetic stars that can produce
cosmic rays of much greater intensity than the Sun, and
supernovae, and also, possibly, novae stars, which, we
know, not infrequently appear.
Scientists were helped to this conclusion, in particular,
by Chinese chronicles, in which, for thousands of years,
the chroniclers had methodically and scrupulously noted
down everything thought worthy of posterity's attention.
Thus a chronicler who lived more than five hundred years
ago described how a star had suddenly flared up in the
sky, shining almost as brightly as the Sun. It was the
first written record of a supernova ever made. Since then
observation has established that such flares occur comparatively frequently-about once in 50 to 100 years.
How can the great brightness of supernovae, which lasts
for a comparatively short period, be explained? According
to the most commonly accepted of today's theories the
cloud of gas and interstellar dust from which a star is subsequently formed possesses a certain rudimentary magnetic
field, not very strong, possibly some thousandths of a gauss*.
The lines of force of this field are very far a part (and the
density of magnetic lines of force is usually taken to reflect the strength of a magnetic field). Through the force
of gravity the cloud, which is made up of separate specks
of dust and atoms of gas, begins to contract toward its
centre. And the atoms and dust, in moving toward the
centre, 'pull' the lines of force of the magnetic field with
them.

* The gauss is the unit of induction in a magnetic field in the

C.G.S. system. In a vacuum it is numerically equal to the strength
of the magnetic field (see p. 17).
10

In this way gravitation causes the lines of force of the

cloud's magnetic field to draw closer together and so increases their density and consequently the strength of the
field. The cloud contracts faster and faster, a corollary
of Newton's law of gravitation that the closer particles
of matter are to one another, the more strongly they attract
one another. Something like a chain reaction takes place.
As the cloud contracts, the lines of force of its magnetic
field also contract faster and faster. When the cloud approaches the size of a sphere with the 'critical gravitational
radius', the induction of its magnetic field is already several thousand million gauss. Fast electrons coming into
this field are sharply braked, giving off enormous quantities
of radio waves and visible light. And that is possibly when
supernovae shine so brightly.
A discovery made at the turn of the century by the Dutch
physicist, Pieter Zeeman, helped to confirm this hypothesis. While investigating the radiation spectra of various
substances he noticed something unusual: as soon as the
investigated substance was put into a magnetic field the
lines of the spectrum began to split up (Fig. 1). And the
stronger the magnetic field around the substance, the more
the lines, in consequence, break up. Therefore, if division
of the lines is noted in the spectrum of a particular object,
we can confidently assume that the object is in a magnetic
field and we can judge the strength of the field by measuring the degree of division.
Using this method to investigate the spectra of several
stars, Hiltner, the American astronomer, noticed that the
light from stars was sometimes strongly polarized when
it reached the Earth, as if a polarization filter, like that
used by photographers to get rid of unwanted highlights,
had been put in its path. In addition it was observed that
the blue end of the spectrum of stellar light had been totally filtered out, which is normally a sure sign that the
light has passed through interstellar dust and gas clouds.
11

Fig. 1. The effect of a magnetic field on the emission spectrum of a

substance: the stronger the field the more the spectral lines are divided.

Putting these two aspects of stellar radiation together,

scientists concluded that the polarization was not a result
of the properties of the star itself but had occurred during
the ray's long journey across the expanses of the Galaxy.

12

What causes the polarization? We can explain it if we

assume that interstellar space is filled with particles that
are not spherical, but have been stretched in one direction
or another by the galactic magnetic field.
Having measured the displacement of the spectral lines
astronomers calculated that the magnetic field was several millionths of a gauss. That, it would seem, is insignificant; but it is difficult to imagine the immense role that
a magnetic field, even one as weak as this, apparently
plays in the structure of galaxies.
How do galaxies manage to preserve their shape over
thousands of m.illions of years?
Why do the gigantic gravitational forces, acting over
such a long period of time', not crush the galaxies and drive
them all to a single centre, and lead to gravitational collapse, which would be the logical result of the process?
The magnetic field of the galaxies, as the German astrophysicists Shluter and Lust have shown, hinders these
processes. Furthermore it is because of magnetic forces
that our Galaxy is able to revolve as a single whole without disintegrating (during its existence it has completed
more than fifty revolutions). Figuratively speaking, the
magnetic field is the stable framework that protects galaxies against the destructive action of gravitational forces.
Certain other characteristics of nebulae, for example
their spiral and fibrous structure, can also be explained
by the presence of a magnetic field.
The gas of luminous nebulae, electrically charged (i.e.
electrified by stellar radiation), moves along the lines of
force of the magnetic field. As a consequence the structure
of the nebulae frequently resembles the pattern usually
obtained when iron filings are tapped on a piece of paper
above the poles of a magnet.
The similarity of the shape of galaxies to this pattern
was convincingly demonstrated by the veteran Soviet
astronomer, Professor B. A. Vorontsov-Velyam inov , He

13

Fig. 2. The shape of some galaxies resembles that of the lines

of force of a bar magnet.

made a unique 'collection' of galaxies, both single and interacting, and compared them with the field patterns of
a uniformly magnetized sphere or bar and of interacting
magnets. They were almost completely identical. In several cases it was clearly visible how the gas, moving along
the lines of force, flowed from one pole of the galaxy to the
other. Calculations convincingly demonstrated that the
magnetic field earlier measured in our Galaxy was quite

14

sufficient to preserve the latter's shape for thousands of

millions of years.
The magnetic fields in galactic space, however, are not
exclusively weak. In investigating the radiation of several stars physicists concluded, from analysis of the splitting of spectral lines, that they had very strong fields.
A field of 34 400 gauss has been measured on a star (to
an accuracy within 300 gauss). Strong magnetic fields
have also been measured on giant stars with diameters
a hundred Limes that of the Sun and were found to be
around 1000 gauss.
Magnetic fields have now been noted on a hundred stars.
Astronomers think that the induction of the magnetic
field at certain latitudes on some of them is between 50 000
and 100 000 gauss. If this proves the case, scientists will
succeed in clarifying many of the ambiguities in theories
of the generation of cosmic rays and radio waves in the
Sun and stars.
But what gives rise to the magnetic fields of stars?
The English physicist P.M.S. Blackett, F.R.S., tried
to answer that.

Secrets of the Gold Cylinder

Wherein we tell of the intuition against which the gold
cylinder rebelled, thereby undermining one of the most
beautiful theories of the origin of the magnetic fields of
the Sun and stars.
Blackett's train of thought was rather curious. After
analysing a great many physical formulae he came to the
conclusion that the most fundamental laws in physics
could be stated quite simply (we need only recall Einstein's
very simple expression of the relationship between mass

15

and energy-E = mc2 ) . Paul Dirac, who had also noticed

this, said that any physical theory should be mathematically elegant. In addition many formulae from apparently
different fields of physics are often written in a very similar way (recall, for instance, the law of universal gravitation and Coulomb's law). From considerations like these
Blackett wrote a simple, mathematically very pleasing
equation, which in his opinion linked the magnetic field
with the motion of a body. Any body, with translational
or rotational motion, he suggested, created a magnetic
field around itself.
'I'o check his hypothesis a massive cylinder of twenty
kilograms was made from pure gold and was taken out
into the country in order to get away from the 'background'
of industrial magnetic fields. There it was rotated at high
speed, but the experimenters failed to establish any noticeable connection between its mechanical and magnetic
moments. The formula that had looked so pleasing when
written down was unfortunately not verified by the experimental results.
But Blackett must be given his due: he was not one to
be embarrassed by the results of experiments on a small
gold cylinder. He had his sights set on the planets and the
stars.
Here, indeed, he does find some support, first and foremost from the Earth, Jupiter, the Sun, and the star 'White
Dwarf E 78 in the constellation Virgo. In all these heavenly bodies the relationship of the angular momentum and
magnetic moment is identical and approximately of the
order that Blackett predicted.
There are, however, stars whose magnetic fields are
known for certain to be constantly changing and whose
sign sometimes even alters. In order to present a balanced
picture Blackett was forced to admit that the mechanical
moment of a star also changes sign, which meant that from
time to time a star would begin to rotate in the opposite
16

direction. Although there are bound to be many more secrets and surprises in the depths of the universe, that would
not only astound the ordinary man but lead any researcher
up the garden path, scientists nevertheless regard such a
possibility with scepticism.
Only further research will show whether or not Blackett
was right.
The strange character of the Sun's magnetic field has
given rise to doubts about his theory.
The Sun's magnetic field was first detected more than
half a century ago, using Zeemans technique, which we
mentioned above. The measurements showed that it was
very similar to the Earth's, with poles, magnetic meridians, and a magnetic equator. Its strength is approximately 50-100 times greater than the Earth's and averages
25 to 50 oersteds. *
Further research, however, yielded completely unexpected results. Instead of a strict pattern of lines of force repeating the field of a uniformly magnetized sphere, researchers saw a disorderly conglomeration of variously magnetized regions.
The strength of the magnetic field fell sharply and proved to be only one or two oersteds. On the other hand, the
field in sun spots is immensely strong, 3000 oersteds and
more. Two neighbouring spots, normally joined by an enormous fiery flare, must necessarily be of opposing polarityif the magnetization of one was north that of the other
must be south. From study of the shape of the flares solar
physicists concluded that they exactly repeated the pattern
of the lines of force of a horseshoe magnet. I t has now been
reliably established that super-hot gas flows out from the
spots along these lines of force (the gas is charged and con-

* The oersted is the unit of magnetic field strength in the C.G. S.

system. The strength of the Earth '8 magnetic field is approximately
0.5 oersted.
2-1656

17

sequently cannot move across them; for only when charged

particles move along the lines of force are they unaffected
by magnetic forces).
In the solar system it has been found that the magnetic
field of Jupiter, which is as high as 50 to 100 gauss, is the
strongest.
Signs of a very strong field have also been noted, on 10,
one of Jupiter's satellites. And a sizeable field has been
detected on Mercury. The American interplanetary station
Mariner-10, which flew past Mercury, 'reported' back to
Earth that Mercury's magnetic field is a hundred times
weaker than that of the Earth. It is not excluded that
Mars has a weak dipole field. The Apollo-16 astronauts
Young and Duke and the Soviet Lunokhod-2 both observed a weak magnetic field on the Moon.
A group of Soviet scientists sought to explain the role
of the Earth's magnetic field. From analysis of the parameters of its rotation they concluded that the rotation
is caused by the magnetic field.
From this theory it follows logically that we are indebted to the Earth's magnetic field for day and night and the
four seasons, and therefore for nothing more nor less than
life itself.
Apart from the cosmic rays that bombard our Earth,
the Sun sends out streams of charged particles, many of
which have an energy greater than 100 million electron
volts (100 MeV).
During the Sun's chromospheric flares, for example, protons with an energy above 100 MeV are generated in vast
numbers. In years of heightened solar activity (the cycle
of the Sun's activity is eleven years) more than 3000 flares
are observed, of which 15 per cent are major ones. It is now
thought that during each flare the SUD ejects streams of
plasma in one particular direction. Approximately 4 per
cent of them reach the Earth. In addition to the ordinary
flares large relativistic flares occur once every three months,

18

discharging powerful currents of protons with an energy of several giga-electron volts.

The density of particles in the Earth's orbit is approximately 10 8 particles per cubic centimetre. Most of them
never reach the Earth's surface, as they are screened by
the magnetic field. Any charged particle entering this
field has its trajectory bent, is pulled onto the lines of
force, and consequently begins to orbit around the Earth,
so that only an insignificant fraction reach the surface.
If the Earth did not have a relatively strong magnetic
field it would long since have been turned into a desert
scorched by cosmic rays and be as lifeless as the Moon.
People only became aware of the existence of the Earth's
magnetic field comparatively recently, some three hundred
years ago, although they had been unknowingly exploiting
it for thousands of years before that.

**

Caravans tread the boundless sands of the Gobi Desert.

To right and left, as far as the eye can see, are cheerless
yellow dunes. The sun is shrouded by yellow dust. It is
a long way from the imperial pagodas on the banks of
the Yangtze to the minarets of the kingdoms of the Kushans. The caravaneer would be hard pressed had he no
white camel in his train-a white camel with its precious
load, priceless although not gold, or pearls, or ivory. Lying
between the camel '8 humps and protected by a carved
wooden box is a clay pot of water in which floats a cork with
an oblong piece of magnetized iron. The edges of the pot
are painted in four colours-red for south, black for north,
green for east, and white for west. The pot and its bit of
iron are a primitive compass showing the caravaneer the
way across the endless sands.
In Chinese chronicles we also find descriptions of magnetic gates through which an armed ill-wisher was unable
to pass, of magnetic roadways, and of other applications
2*

19

Fig. 3. One of the first compasses, huil t thousands of years

ago. The arm of the figurine
fixed onto the carriage always
points south.

of the magic stone chu-shih, which was simply magnetic

iron are.
One Chinese legend tells of the victory of the Emperor
Huang-ti nearly five thousand years ago, which he owed
to his craftsmen. They had made a chariot on which they
fixed the figurine of a man with its arm outstretched. The figurine swivelled round so that the arm always pointed south
(Fig. 3). With this chariot Huang-ti's troops were able to
attack the enemies from the rear in a thick mist and defeat them. If we abandon legend for firmly established
Iaets , the compass becomes much 'younger' In old Chinese encyclopaedias there is information that the magnetic
needle was used on ships in 400 B.C. In a museum collection there is a Chinese compass a 'mere' thousand years
old resembling in shape a traditional Russian (Khokhlo20

Fig. 4. Chinese spoon-like compass.

rna) painted wooden spoon.

In Europe, too, the Earth's magnetism was apparently
long exploited for orientation, employing a lodestone suspended from a thread or fixed to a small piece of wood
floating on still water. In an early French novel a magnet was described as a 'marinette' from which we may conclude that magnets were used at sea.
From the beginning of the eleventh century all discoveries concerning the magnet and compass of any value
were made in Europe. Thus scholars think that the inhabitants of the I talian coastal town of Amalfi (some even say
the jeweller Flavio Gioia) may first, some six hundred
years ago, have made the compass as we know it today,
when they furnished it with a rotating disc marked out
in divisions. All the great geographical discoveries were
made with the aid of such a compass.
Magnetic variation or deviation, by which we mean the
angle between the geographic and magnetic meridians,
21

was also known quite long ago. On 13 September 1492

Christopher Columbus wrote in his log that before nightfall the compass showed a declination toward the northwest, but that by morning this variation was less marked.
It made Columbus's superstitious sailors panic because
they were well aware that the needle should by rights be
slightly displaced toward the east. They became mutinous.
Unbeknown to the sailors Columbus moved the compass
card so that it once more showed the 'normal' deviation.
And to make everything seem all right, and so as not to
contradict the astronomical observations, he was forced
to declare that the compass had not changed its direction,
but that the Pole Star had moved from its accustomed
place. The change in the magnitude and sign of the variation of the magnetic needle on any parallel of latitude is
now a well-known phenomenon and is widely employed in
determining ships' positions.
True, not by everyone. In Rockwell Kent's book N by
E, for example, we find the following conversation between the author and the mate of a fishing vessel:
'''When I say North," said the mate, "I mean where
the compass points."
'''When I say North," I answered, "I mean North.
'At the end of three quarters of an hour it was terrific.'
After Columbus's time many scientists painstakingly
studied the Earth '8 magnetic field and magnetic deviation,
but it was only in 1600 that an explanation of why the
compass needle was attracted toward the Earth's poles
was given, when William Gilbert, court physician to Queen
Elizabeth I, published his famous treatise on magnetism
De Magnete magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete
tellure.
In this book Gilbert convincingly demonstrated with
an enormous amount of experimental material, that the
magnetic field of the Earth is like the field of a uniformly
magnetized sphere made of magnetic iron ore. In explai22

ning terrestrial magnetism Gilbert suggested that the Earth

was made of magnetized iron, which created the magnetic
field; but his proposition was not correct. He himself discovered that iron, at the high temperatures that we now
know to exist at the centre of the Earth, completely
loses its magnetic qualities.
Gilbert's book laid the foundations for the scientific
approach to magnetic phenomena in general and to terrestrial magnetism in particular. 'For nearly two centuries,'
Prof. A. N. Krylov, Member of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, wrote about his work in 1920, 'nothing of substance that was not in Gilbert's book, or was not either a
repetition or a development of what he had already done,
was added to the subject.'
Magnetic observatories, voyages by demagnetized ships,
the dramatic adventures of Sir J ames Ross on his expeditions to the North and South magnetic poles, the Arctic
drift of the Papaninites (I. D. Papanin, E. E. Fedorov,
P. P. Shirshov, and E. T. Krenkel), and the launching of
geophysical rockets and artificial earth satellites-have
all been directed to furthering the study of terrestrial
magnetism. And we can say with confidence that the magnetic maps of our planet have been drawn with no less accuracy than the geographical ones.

Earth-The Blue Magnet

Wherein we touch on the possible causes of terrestrial magnetism and introduce the reader to the 'pra-field' and
the strange idea that the Earth is nothing more nor less
than a gigantic electric machine.
But the main problem-what causes terrestrial magnetism-has still not been solved. Gilbert's hypothesis, as we
23

Fig. 5. Gilbert's figure of a smith at his anvil, illustrating his discovery that a piece of red-hot iron struck by a hammer in the northsouth position (septentrio-auster) becomes magnetic (From the De
Magnete).

have seen, did not hold water, and for that matter neither
have many other more modern theories.
The most popular theory today is probably that of the
'self-exciting dynamo'
This theory has been proposed in various guises and at
various times by a number of eminent physicists, among
whom we will single out J. I. Frenkel of the USSR, the
American W. M. Elzasser, and the Englishman E. C. Bullard.
The theory is founded on the discovery made a century
and a half ago by the Danish scientist Hans Christian Oersted that there is a magnetic field around every conductor
carrying electricity. In order to explain terrestrial magnetism along these lines one must assume that an electric
current of some sort circulates in the depths of the Earth.
In principle that is not impossible since it has been demonstrated that the planet has a liquid conductive core,
24

through which electricity could freely flow. The problem

is-where could the current arise?
This is where the 'dynamo' theory comes in. In the
Earth's metallic, liquid core conditions may be created
by temperature variations at different points that could
give rise to convective currents in the conductive material.
If the motion should occur in even a very weak magnetic
field an electric current would be generated capable of
giving rise to a relatively strong terrestrial magnetic field.
Exactly where the primordial, albeit weak, magnetic field
comes from is still not quite clear. It may be that it is
left over from the earliest periods in the evolution of our
galactic system; for that is not impossible since the colossal size of these heavenly bodies (and consequently their
low electrical resistivity) would have led to extremely long
periods when the electric currents and the magnetic fields
were attenuated.
Many of the magnetic fields recorded by astronomers'
radiotelescopes are thousands of millions of years old.
I t is possible that the Earth's 'pra-field', giving rise to
the field in which we find ourselves, is the remains of some
remote cosmic catastrophe.
Magnetic fields are also a characteristic of individual
atoms, nuclei, and electrons. Scientists suggest that there
are magnetic fields of millions of gauss deep within atoms.
Living nature, too, has its magnetic fields. It has been
convincingly shown that biocurrents exist in animals and
vegetative currents in plants. And if you consider that a
current inevitably sets up a magnetic field around it, obviously every human, and every tree, and even the mi nutest living organisms, have magnetic fields, though not
very large. When a person flexes his muscles he sets up a
magnetic field on the surface of his arm with an induction
of one-hundred-thousandth of a gauss.
The presence of a magnetic field in the human heart was
exploited, in particular, in the first magnetocardiographic
25

apparatus, made in Voronezh. By using this apparatus

which recorded the slightest change in the heart's magnetic
field, doctors were able to obtain essentially new information about the functioning of the heart and to make it
easier to give an early diagnosis of such dangerous diseases
as dystrophy of the myocardium and hypertrophy of the
heart muscles. Magnetocardiographs have made it possible
to discover heart defects that even the most sensitive electrocardiographs could not spot.

WHA T LIGHTNING HAD TO TELL US

The Discovery of Electromagnetism

Wherein we talk about the discovery of electromagnetism,

which has been attributed to certain definite persons, although thousands, many of whom died long ago, were
actually involved, to whom in the final analysis we owe
the discovery of one of the fundamental laws of the universe, now expressed in the first of Maxwell's equations.
Among Leo Tolstoy's writings are some in a popular
science vein. Here is what he had to say about electricity:
'After electricity had been thought of, it began to be
applied practically: ways were invented of using it for
gilding and silvering, for lighting and for transmitting
signals over great distances. To do so pieces of different
metals are put into small jars of liquid. Electricity accumulates in the jars and is led along a wire to any spot designed, and there another wire leads it into the earth.'
We must suppose that when he says 'after electricity
had been thought of' he has comparatively recent times
in mind-something in the region of 100 or 150 years before his own time or 150 to 200 years from the present.
Modern scholars have several reasons for believing that
electricity was 'thought of' some three or four thousand
years ago and that 'ways of using-It for gilding and silvering' were invented at the same time. The evidence
may lie in the strange objects found by archaeologists in
the dried and hardened silt not far from the banks of the
Tigris, south of Baghdad.

27

What are these 'strange' objects, and what is it that is

strange about them? Mainly the fact that archaeologists
could not understand their significance for a long time.
These small vessels made of dried clay were filled with
unusual objects, small, corroded copper cylinders and iron
bars. After examining the cylinders archaeologists decided
that the corrosion was most probably the effect of acetic
or citric acid, both of which were well known at that time.
But the most unexpected surprise came at the bottom of
the vessels-a thin, unsightly layer of bitumen which even
today is sometimes used as an insulator.
The minds of the scholars worked as follows: if copper
and iron plates were put in a pot of acid, and separated by
an insulator (bitumen), it would be nothing more nor less
than the most ancient chemical source of current, the discovery of which we attribute to a man who lived some
three thousand years later!
Some archaeologists think that the gold plating on Babylonian jewellery is so fine that it can only have been
done galvanically (i.e. electrolytically).
The ancients may have known much more about electricity than we suspect.

**

The eminent Egyptologist Heinrich Karl Brugsch (Brugsch Pasha) established that the Egyptian temples had
lightning conductors, in the shape of tall wooden masts
with a metal sheath. The ancient Hindus also used similar
poles, only made of iron.
The tall bronze Roman statues of the time of Numus
Pompilius and Tullus Hostilius also served to avert the
blows of Jove the Thunderer from the sinful heads of citizens.
In the reign of Charlemagne Roman peasants set up
tall stakes in their fields to 'bend the thunder'. But we
should note that the emperor himself strictly forbade the
28

erection of such stakes on the quite modern pretext of

combating superstition.
Surely the electrical nature of lightning was as apparent
to the ancients as it became comparatively recently to
I3enjami n Franklin?
It is generally accepted that man has known about electricity since the young daughter of Thales of Miletus, that
outstanding observer and materialist philosopher, noticed,
when trying to clean tiny specks of dust and thread from
her amber spindle, that they quickly stuck to it again when
wiped off.
The property of amber to attract bits of cloth, thread,
and straw was apparently very well known before Thales,
and not just in Miletus. This attraction probably explains
the name for amber in various languages: electron, that
which attracts to itself (Greek); harpax, the robber (Latin),
kaouba, that which attracts chaff to itself (Arabic).
Amber and objects like it had yet another mysterious
property: when rubbed in the dark amber gave off bluish
sparks, wh ieh were accompanied by a slight crackling or
almost inaudible rustle. The phenomenon was so feeble
that it was almost unthinkable to identify it with the
great flashing sword, the lightning and thunder that filled
the ancients with terror and panic. It took thousands of
years to bridge the gap between them so close in nature
yet so different in scale.
Amazingly, it was not for nearly two thousand years
after Thales that the mysterious properties of amber attracted the attention of William Gilbert of Colchester.
He was a man highly respected by his contemporaries.
He was a confirmed investigator. All the time left to him
after his 'main job' he devoted to experiments on electricity and magnetism. The very word 'electricity' was introduced by him.
The task he assumed, to put the host of known facts into
logical categories, was enormous.
29

What exactly was the job Gilbert took on? What were
the facts he had to analyse?
From the Middle Ages only certain fragments of true
knowledge had come down to Gilbert, and they were in
the weirdest combinations.
Mediaeval scholars thought that everything in the world
was divisible into 'magnets' and 'feameds' Magnets embraced all the objects that attracted each other: magnet
and iron, amber and dust, the barnacle and the bottom
of a ship, bees and flowers. Feameds included all things
that exhibited an antipathy for each other: magnet and
candle flame; the like poles of a magnet, and so on.
By going without entertainment and pleasures Gilbert
paid out of his own pocket for the countless experiments
that led him to several extremely important conclusions.
One was that the attraction of amber and of a magnet is
different in nature. In other words, he succeeded in separating magnetic and electrical phenomena into two classes,
which from then on were investigated separately. And it
took some time, nearly 200 years, and the efforts of many
scientists before electricity and magnetism were once more
united, this time on a new basis.
Gilbert also discovered quite a few substances which,
like amber, were able to attract small pieces of material
and specks of dust.
Anxious to find out more about these substances Otto
von Guerike, the inquisitive burgomaster of Magdeburg,
in Germany, made a strange machine, which consisted of
a globe of sulphur rotated by a simple mechanism. A metal
chain attached to a long metal beam suspended on ropes
just touched the rotating sphere. When the sphere was held
in the hands while turning it developed a sizeable electric
charge which was led off to the beam by the chain. The
machine could be used for electrical experiments.
The globe of sulphur was prepared as Iol lows. A thin
glass sphere was filled with molten sulphur. When the

80

Fig. 6. Early experiments on electrostatic machines. 'These are terrifying experiments and I do not recommend anyone to repeat them',
one of the first investigators wrote.

sulphur had cooled the glass was broken, leaving a sulphur

ball. Unfortunately, von Guerike had too much respect
for the scholars of his time to rotate a simple glass sphere.
He required a sulphur ball like the one Gilbert had written about. Very little was known then about the electrical properties of glass. If the burgomaster had only tried
rubbing his glass sphere with his hands he would have
got a much more powerful machine.
The sulphur ball, however, enabled him to do some very
effective experiments: when the globe was excited by the
friction of his palm, sparks, some quite large, flew from
his hands to the beam. His machines enjoyed overnight
popularity and, not surprisingly, many electrical effects
were discovered with their help.
An unusual event happened in the famous Leyden labo81

ratory. A student called Cuneus used von Guerike's machine

to charge the water in a glass flask with electricity. The
charge was delivered through a chain attached to a beam
on the machine and lowered through the neck of the flask
into the water. Cuneus was holding the flask in his hand;
after a time he decided to remove the chain from the water
with his free hand. When he touched it he received an electric shock, from which he nearly died.
It was found that a very great deal of electricity could
accumulate in vessels like that. The 'Leyden jar', the simplest form of condenser, had been discovered.
News of the new invention quickly spread through Europe and America. In all the laboratories and aristocratic
salons amazing experiments were put on which were at
once unpleasant, amusing, and mysterious.
The French capital naturally had not remained aloof
from the Leyden craze. Seven hundred Parisian monks
held hands; as soon as the first monk grasped the neck of
the jar all seven hundred were seized by a single convulsion and cried out in terror. Despite the unpleasant sensation thousands of people wanted to have a go at this experiment. New, more powerful jars were prepared.
The Leyden jar became an indispensable item for many
experiments and made it possible to obtain electric sparks
several centimetres long.
The most far-sighted concluded that the forked lightning
that split the stormy sky was also an electric spark, only
on a grandiose scale, produced by a giant Leyden jar.
The man who demonstrated it was Benjamin Franklin.
It is difficult to imagine a more remarkable and popular
personality of that day. He was born in 1706 in Boston and
lived to 84. He only concerned himself with physics for
the seven years between 1747 and 1753, after hearing a
lecture on electricity at which an electric spark was discharged and the unpleasant effect on man of the charge from a
Leyden jar was demonstrated.
32

Franklin gave science t.he concepts of negative and positive electricity. WIlen we use the words 'battery', 'condenser', 'conductor', 'charge", 'discharge', and 'winding'
we seldom remember that it was Franklin who first gave
all these objects and phenomena their names.
In his last years he was one of the most eminent figures
in the political life of America and an active fighter for
America's liberation from England's colonial yoke.
At twenty-seven he was the most popular writer in America. His Almanacks, widely known as Poor Richard's
because of his pseudonym Richard Saunders, came out
annually ill large editions.
'I might in this place attempt to gain thy Favour,' he
wrote frankly in the preface to one, 'by declaring that
1 write Almanacks with no other View than that of the
publick Good; but in this I should not be sincere; and Men
are nowadays too wise to be deceiv'd by Pretences how
specious soever. The plain Truth of the Matter is, 1 am
excessive poor ... The Printer has offer'd me some considerable share of the Profits ... '
He was one of the most charming and educated men of
his time, gay, full of vitality, and physically fit, and always surrounded by interesting people, diplomats, and
scientists.
But let us go back to his seven 'electrical' years, or
rather to those concerned with his proof of the electrical
nature of lightning.
After his chance hearing of the lecture Franklin developed
a quite simple but elegant and correct theory of static
electricity and of how it was transmitted from one body
to another, the same theory we learn at school when we are
first introduced to electricity. Only one correction needs
to be made now; Franklin took it for granted that the body
that accumulated electricity had a positive charge and that
the body that lost it a negative one. We now know that
the negatively charged electron is the bearer of electricity
3-)656

88

in conductors. Therefore, in our view, the electrified body

must be identified as negative. Franklin naturally could
not have foreseen this; in order not to] destroy the established view, held since his time, the direction of current
(from 'plus' to 'minus ') is now accepted as the reverse of
what happens in the actual process, i.e. in the movement
of electrons.
Franklin's clear ideas about the nature of electricity
helped him to develop a theory that represented lightning
as an electric spark. In one of his works he described how
one should set about demonstrating this experimentally.
A Frenchman Dalibard set up a device in Marly for the
experiment suggested by Franklin: he fixed a metal rod
on a hill so that one end of it could be brought close to a
stake in the ground. During a thunderstrom on 7 May 1752
Dalibard got a large blue electric spark from the thundercloud, accompanied with a bright flash and the smell of
ozone. Eight days later he demonstrated it to the king.
Though Dalibard was the first to coax lightning from
the sky, it is clear that it was Franklin who was the real
discoverer. In 1753 he made his famous experiment with
a kite.
In the same year Michael Lomonosov and G. V. Richman made similar experiments. Richman wanted to measure the electrification in a bolt of lightning. He negligently
bent too close to the rod of his 'thunder machine' and was
struck on the head by lightning. I-Iere is how Lomonosov
described his attempts to bring Richman back to life:
'The first shock from the line suspended on a thread got
him on the head and a cherry-red spot appeared on his
forehead. The vast electrical force passed out of him through
his feet into the planks. His feet and fingers were blue and
his boot was ripped but not burnt through ....
'The doctor and philosopher C. G. Kratzenstein arriving,
massaged the scientist '8 body with Hungarian vodka, bled
him, and pinching his nostrils, blew into his mouth so that

84

breathing might be brought into movement. All to no

avail. Sighing, he pronounced him dead.'
Franklin, properly comprehending the electrical nature
of lightning, invented the lightning rod (or possibly repeated a more ancient invention), which has saved thousands
of lives and a great many buildings.
There have always been many weird tales and cock-andbull stories about lightning. The famous French astronomer Camille Flamrnarion wrote in one of his books (L' Atmosphere) of a very hairy man, caught in a thunderstorm,
having the hair shaved off by lightning in strips allover
his body, rolled into balls, and thrust deep in the muscles
of his calves.
Flammarion also told a story about a certain Dr. Drendinger of Vienna who lost his purse (or rather had it stolen) as he was returning home by train in the summer of
1865. The purse, made of tortoise shell, had his monogram,
two intertwined 'D '8', set in iron on the lid. Some time
later the doctor was called out to a foreigner who had been
'killed' by lightning. He found him unconscious under a
tree with the doctor's monogram branded on his thigh.
The 'dead man' was brought round and taken to hospital.
The doctor said the hospital people would find a tortoiseshell purse somewhere in the man's pockets. His prediction
was correct; the man proved to have been the thief who
had stolen the purse. The lightning had branded him with
the metal monogram.
In an old Russian encyclopaedia there was an account,
in the volume on electricity, of lightning having struck the
earth between a cellar and a cistern near Manchester on
2 August 1809 and 'moved a wall a yard thick and more
than twelve feet high, in such a way that part of it was
shifted more than three feet in one direction and ten feet
in another, all the wooden connecting sections being destroyed. More than 7000 bricks were displaced, weighing in
all around 26 000 kilograms.'
S*

85

It has been reckoned that in thirty-three years in the

eighteenth century in Germany 170 bell-ringers were killed
and 400 bell towers damaged by lightning. So many bellringers being killed could not have been a fluke. Man's
natural defence against lightning at that time was the ringing of a bell, which drove away evil spirits. When a thunderstorm began bell-ringers were generally sent up the bell
towers to ward off the spirits. The bell tower was generally
the highest building in a place and was therefore naturally
the first target for the giant spark from the charged cloud
(the spark would sometimes be tens of ki lomatres long).
But no one felt sorry, for the ringers; it was] thought
that lightning was a weapon of retribution in the hands
of Providence and it was a sin to oppose it, they were
its main victims. That a lightning conductor does to some
extent protect bell towers can be seen from Solomon '8
Temple in Jerusalem which was not once damaged by lightning over a thousand (!) years; it was roofed with metal
tiles.
After 1760 when Franklin had put the first lightning
rod on the house of Mr. West, a Philadelphia merchant,
Europe and America were divided into two camps: that
of those who ardently favoured lightning conductors and
that of those who equally ardently opposed them. At one
time in Paris it even became fashionable to wear hats with
lightning rods. About the same time, de Viseri, who had
erected a conductor on his house in Saint-Opera, was exposed to the violent opprobrium of his neighbours, who
eventually, in 1780 brought an action against him that
dragged on for four years. A still unknown lawyer Maximillian Robespierre appeared as defence counsel for the
lightning conductor; the expert Jean Paul Marat appeared
on behalf of its opponents. In the end de Viseri won his
case, but Frenchmen opposed conductors for a long time.
And they might have gone on doing so for much longer
but for a rather curious event.
86

By 1782 400 houses. in Philadelphia had been fitted with

lightning rods (the town had only 1300 houses all told).
The roofs of all public buildings, with the exception, of
course, of the French Embassy, were crowned with their
metal points. During a thunderstorm on 27 March 1782
lightning hit precisely this exception; the Embassy was
partially destroyed and a French officer living in it was
killed. This event had a great effect on public opinion and
after it lightning conductors were fitted on all buildings.
And they were recognized even officially by France.
It was possibly only after these momentous trials and
events that the electrical nature of lightning was generally
accepted. There was no longer room for any doubt that
lightning was an electrical phenomenon. The connection
between lightning and electricity had been firmly established.
About the same time scientists began to move gradually toward the idea that lightning was also in some way
connected with magnetism. But that was a big hurdle to
jump, largely because there was very little systematic
information about magnets.
What unknown, mysterious force controls the needle of
a compass? What forces give an inanimate stone the capacity to move as if it were animate?
It is hardly surprising that the philosophers of antiquity explained the unusual qualities of magnets by their
being divine. Verses were written about them, ascribing
hundreds of the most incredible qualities to them. In particular it was thought that they were created by evil demons for the ruination of people, and for the benefit of
thieves and robbers because magnets had the power to
open locks and bolts.
Magnetism had medical applications without number.
One of William Gilbert's remedies (you will remember
he was physician-in-ordinary to Elisabeth I) was for preparing iron for chalybeate medicine. He advised taking
the best iron, chalybean, steel, or siderite and sawing it

87

down to a very fine powder. The powder was then steeped

several times in very strong vinegar and dried each time
in the sun, and then washed in spring water, or other suitable water, and once more dried. It was then again reduced
to a powder by pulverizing it on a porphyry slab, passed
through a very fine sieve, and stored for use. The powder
was administered to patients with swollen or too humid
livers, or enlarged spleens. It restored health and beauty,
Gilbert said, to girls suffering from paleness or bad colour,
because it dried and bound without causing harm.
By 'iron' Gilbert meant magnetite or loadstone, the only
magnet known in the Middle Ages. He cautioned against
using it as a penacea for all ailments. He considered magnet
to have a dual nature, mainly noxious and pernicious.
And though, in its pure form, it occasionally not only could
be harmless but also had the capacity to put over-humid
and putrefying intestines into order and improve their
condition, in most cases daily experience, and the weakness
and death of patients convinced even the most negligent
and slothful physicians of its harmfulness.
The doctors of classical times, and Gilbert, and even
some of our modern doctors, held similar views on magnets
having a suppressive effect on the nervous system, neutralizing its activity. This property could naturally be put to
good use. Even in antiquity the Aesculapii had noted that
magnets reduced pain in the wounded, gave relief to headaches, and helped in the treatment of diseases like epilepsy connected with heightened activity of the nervous
system. As for the effect of a magnetic field on the healthy,
scientists are no less divided today than they were several
centuries ago.
You may have seen friends wearing 'magnetic bracelets'
or heard of the 'magnetic armchairs' and 'magnetic beds'
made by Japanese firms. Japanese scientists maintain that
wearing such bracelets lowers the blood pressure. But it
is difficult to say which has the greater effect-the magne38

Fig. 7. Magnetic breastplates were mass produced in the nineteenth

century in various sizes, much as with clothes and shoes.

tic field or the auto-suggestion. In the history of medicine

both ancient and comparatively modern one can find numerous cases of doctors who not only recommended their patients magnetic bracelets but also advised them to put
magnetic plates on their feet, head, neck, and chest (Fig. 7).
Soviet physicians and cardiologists who were the first
to investigate the supposed curative qualities of magnetic
bracelets, belts, armchairs, etc., concluded that none of
these inventions were an effective means of treating hypertensive disease, a view now held by many scientists abroad,
including Japanese. Taking all this into account, the Collegium of the USSR Ministry of Health proposed dropping
tests with magnetic bracelets and did not recommend either
their production or their use.

39

In antiquity there was another field in which magnets

were used-conjuring. Then, and in the Middle Ages, a
trick very much in vogue was 'the obedient fish' The
fish were made of wood and swam. in a basin, obeying the
slightest movement of the conjurer's hand, which made
them m ove about in every conceivable direction. The
secret of the trick was extremely simple: the conjurer had
a magnet hidden up his sleeve and in the head of each fish
was a little piece of iron. You can still buy a variant of
the game today.
Another modern variant is the small but powerful magnets
sold in some countries for recovering objects from the
bottoms of ponds and reservoirs.
Some years ago a group of adventure-seekers lowered
such a magnet over the side of their launch after a race
near the Bahamas. The boat suddenly lurched and pulled
up sharply. Divers searched the bottom near the spot where
they had stopped and discovered that the magnet had been
attracted by the anchor of a Spanish galleon sunk by pirates off the Bahamas in the seventeenth century. While inspecting the ship the divers discovered a chest full of gold
and silver plate for rich families in the New World. Archaeologists use similar magnets not for treasure hunting
but in searching for the traces of ancient civilisations.
But to return to conjuring, the most recent use of magnets we recall was in the sleight-of-hand of an English
conjurer called J ones. His crowning number was to ask
members of the audience to put their watches on a table.
Without touching them he was able to alter the position
of the hands at will-naturally, by means of a magnet.
Electromagnetic clutches, with which electricians are very
familiar, are the modern equivalent of the same idea.
They can be used to turn equipment separated, for example, from the motive force by a wall.
It is still not clear how Gamuletsky, the famous Russian illusionist, performed his trick with a magnet in his
.40

'Temple of Charms or the Mechanical, Optical and Physical Cabinet of M. Gamuletsky de Kolla' His study, which
existed until 1842, had a further attraction; as visitors
mounted the carpeted staircase past the decorated candelabra, they could see from a long way off on the top landing the life-size gilt figure of an angel hover above the
study door with no visible support or suspension. (Anyone
who so wished could check that the statue had no support
whatsoever.) And when visitors stepped onto the landing
the angel raised its arm, put a horn to its lips, and 'played, moving its fingers in a most natural manner'
Gamuletsky explained that it took him ten years to
find the point and the weight of magnet and iron that
would support the angel in the air; and that he had put a
great deal of money as well as effort into the marvel.
No more suitable role than conjurer '8 prop could apparently be found for the mysterious magnet.
A great many explanations have been advanced at various times as to why a magnet and a piece of iron should
experience such a strange attraction for each other.
In the songs of Orpheus there are SOIne lines about how
iron is attracted by a magnet like a bride by her betrothed.
The philosopher Epicurus explained it much as follows:
the shape of the atoms and indivisible bodies, flowing from
stone and iron, so suited each other that they were easily
coupled together; so, on striking the hard parts of stone
and iron and bouncing off toward the centre they immediately came into contact with each other and attracted iron.
And Plato, the idealist, wrote that, in view of the fact
that a vacuum never exists, bodies jostled each other from
all sides, and when they separated and united, they all,
having changed places, crossed to their normal places;
and that those who carried out a proper investigation would
probably be brought to confusion by involved inter-relationships.
In speaking about 'involved inter-relationships' Plato

41

was surprisingly far-sighted. Subsequent discoveries convinced scientists that the nature of magnetism was much
more complex than the mechanistic notions of the ancient
philosophers, who reduced the problem to one of the 'engagement' of particles.
As with electricity it was lightning that put scientists'
thinking about magnetism on the right path.
Early in the nineteenth century the French scientist
Arago published some curious notes on thunder and lightning, which probably led to his friend Ampere, the physicist, becoming the first to provide a correct explanation of
magnetism.
In July 1681, Arago wrote among other things, the ship
Quick was struck by lightning. When night fell the position
of the stars showed that two of its three compasses, instead
of pointing north, were pointing south, while the third
pointed west.
Again, in June 1731 in Wakefield, a merchant put a large coffer full of knives and forks and other iron and steel
objects in the corner of his room. Lightning penetrated
the house exactly in the corner where the coffer was, smashed it, and scattered all the things inside it. All the knives and forks became very strongly magnetized.
It became increasingly obvious that lightning and magnetism were very closely connected. Since the link between
lightning and electricity was already well known, clearly
the most perspicacious would soon see the link between
electricity and magnetism, Many had almost guessed the
connection, and it only required a little mote effort to
bridge the gap dividing the two great forces of nature.
On 7 September 1758, at a general meeti ng of the Russian
Academy in St. Petersburg, Franz Ulrich Theodore Epinus
read his treatise On the Similarity Betioeen Electrical and
Magnetic Forces and came close to solving the problem.
All that was needed was a link, a connecting thread.
Sir Humphrey Davy, the famous English scientist, also

42

very nearly solved the problem. He established that an

electric arc is deflected by a magnetic field. Here was the
connection, albeit tenuous, but it was not given the necessary significance.
Only a very persistent and very purposeful person could
find the solution. This man was the Danish physicist,
Hans Christian Oersted, who investigated the connection
between electricity and other known phenomena like light,
heat, and sound. Only one connection eluded him, that
between electricity and magnetism. Nothing, it seemed,
connected these two forces, and each existed independently
of the other and in no way connected with it.
But lightning? Now that seemed to bind electricity and
magnetism together in the closest way! And Oersted searched continuously for this elusive connection. It is said
that he always carried a magnet about with him to remind
him of his complex problem. His efforts were in vain-till
suddenly everything changed. He nearly solved the problem in a single day, on 15 February 1820.
On that day Professor Oersted was lecturing on the connection between electricity and heat to his students at the
University of Copenhagen. We are all now familiar with
electric stoves, immersion heaters, and electric blankets,
which employ the heating effect of electric current; but
then it was completely unknown, and the fact that wires
carrying electricity became hot caused a great deal of excited curiosity.
Two fortuitous things occurred: first there happened to
be a compass by the wire being heated and second, during
the lecture, a student (whose name we do not know) happened to glance at the compass, which had nothing really
to do with the lecture. He was very surprised to notice that
when a current flowed along the wire the needle of the compass was deflected. The electric current had created a magnetic field!
After that events developed like wildfire. In a few days
43

the French scientists Arago and Ampere had built a device

that gave the same sort of magnetic field as a permanent
magnet made of magnetite or magnetized iron. This device,
later called a solenoid, was simply a spiral along which a
current flowed.
The similarity between a magnet and a solenoid, which
is a large number of coils bearing current, led Ampere to
an inspired guess: inside a magnet were a large number
of miniature circuits. This theory has been brilliantly confirmed: electrons revolving around nuclei form circuits. A
new era in the understanding of magnetism was opened.

ELECTROMAGNETS WITlI STEEL CORES

Magnets on Parade

Wherein we talk about the rivalry between magnet-makers

in various countries.
The first electromagnet in the world was demonstrated
to the Royal Society of Arts by William Sturgeon on 23
May 1825. It was a varnished iron rod a foot long and half
an inch in diameter that had been bent into a horseshoe
and covered allover with a single layer of uninsulated copper wire. Current was fed to it from a chemical source.
The electromagnet weighed 200 grams-force but was able
to support a weight of 3600 grams-force, and was considerably stronger than natural magnets of the same weight.
It was a brilliant achievement for the time (Fig. 8).
J ames Prescott Joule (after whom the unit of energy is
named) was a student of Sturgeon's. Experimenting with
Sturgeon's first magnet later the same year he was able
to increase its lifting capacity to 20 kilograms-force.
Sturgeon was not prepared to lose his lead in exploiting
his own invention. In 1830 an electromagnet was built to
his order capable of lifting 550 kilograms. But he already
had a very strong rival on the other side of the Atlantic.
In April 1831 Prof. J oseph Henry of Yale University (after
whom the unit of inductance is named) built an electromagnet of 300 kilograms-force and able to lift around a ton.
These magnets consisted of a horseshoe core around which
a wire was wound. In November 1840 Joule designed and
built a magnet consisting of a thick steel tube cut along the
45

Fig. 8. The world's first electromagnets were made by the English

craftsman William Sturgeon.

axis below the diameter. The magnet itself was quite compact yet proved to be very powerful, lifting 1.3 tons. About
the same time Joule built a completely new type of magnet
that attracted a load not by the usual two poles but by a
much larger number, which greatly increased its lifting
capacity. His magnet, which weighed 5.5 kilograms-force
lifted a weight of 1.2 tons. Electromagnets began to appear
in great numbers in physics laboratories, in aristocratic
salons, and in doctors' surgeries. They even began to be
used in clothing factories (in the machines) and in concert
halls (as a part of the 'magnetic organ '). By 1869 magnets
were already widely used as a drive for Jacquard looms and
for punching holes in metal plates.
A little later, when several more large magnets had been
built and everyone was convinced of their strength, reliability, compactness and convenience, it was suggested that
they be used to lift iron and steel items in steel works and

46

Fig. 9. An old electromagnet.

engineering factories. In the 1930 's a very large electromagnet was built for equipment to destroy defective castings.
Its load was an iron ram weighing 20 tons. The advantage
of the electromagnet was that the ram could be dropped
simply by switching off the current. Even more powerful
magnets were soon built, capable of lifting 50 tons. Their
power was growing hourly.
In Europe and America magnets became widely used in
flour mills to clean the grain. And in Russia, at the turn
of the century, the Horse-Tram and Omnibus Company
used them to remove nails from the oats fed to the horses.
The cleaning of grain in flour mills became the prototype of one of the most important of today's applic.ations of
magnets, of what are called magnetic separators. These
function on the principle of passing a mixture of useful
rnaterial and rubbish on a conveyer belt past the poles of
a magnet. Any rubbish that is magnetic is pulled out of
the mixture. The principle was first proposed as far back
47

as 1792, long before the invention of the electromagnet.

I t is now used in many branches of mining, particularly
in coal mining, where it is beginning to rival the 'wet'
method of concentration.
Almost everywhere coal is concentrated in special jigging or flotation plants. Both methods are wet processes
because the concentration occurs in water; as a result both
the waste and the concentrated coal are saturated and have
to be dried. A great deal of water is required (thousands
of cubic metres) and there are problems of cleaning the polluted water and of preventing the particles from freezing
in cold weather.
Almost all the harmful admixtures in coal are magnetic,
so that it is possible to avoid using wet processes by putting
a ribbed, magnetic roller in the path of the belt conveying
the pulverized coal. The roller attracts and removes the impurities. This method of cleaning, first proposed and tested
in the Soviet Union, reduces the ash content of coal fines
from between 12 and 17 per cent to around 7 or 8 per cent.
How can rocks like pyrites, which are not magnetic, be
removed from the coal? Scientists have also found a way:
the pyrites are treated in a mixture of air and steam
at 270-300C and covered with a layer of magnetic
oxides.
In the 1880's Thomas Edison invented another type of
separator. The story goes that, on a daily morning walk,
strolling along the shore of Long Island, he noticed that
the sand on the beach contained tiny bits of iron oxide. If
you sprinkled it between the poles of a magnet it might
be easy to divide the non-magnetic particles from the iron
oxide. Edison '8 idea solved one of the problems they were
facing at that time, namely, what to do with are deposits
with a low iron content. He suggested treating the ore so
as to make it like the easily separated sand on the beach,
in other words, to grind it. After grinding in a crusher the
ore is passed to a tower and poured from the top. As the

48

particles fall they meet the fields of several powerful electromagnets of increasing intensity. The magnetic iron oxide
settles on the magnets and is periodically removed from
them. The gangue falls to the bottom without hindrance.
I t is hardly surprising that the town that arose on the 'poor'
deposits was called Edison City.
Magnetic separators are also used in agriculture to free
clover, flax, and lucerne seeds from weeds. Engineers have
turned the enemys weapons against him. The seeds of
weeds (like bitterling and rye grass darnel) are rougher
as a rule and covered with tiny spikes that enable them to
stick to clothing and animals and so promote their rapid
spread and struggle for survival. When fine iron filings
are strewn on seeds contaminated with weeds, they stick
to the weed seeds while the smooth grain remains clean.
Then, by using a magnetic separator of some sort, the grain
can easily be cleaned.
A very similar method is also used for catching criminals.
The sweaty, greasy finger-prints the criminal leaves at the
scene of the crime are often very faint and more often than
not are on material with a coarse texture (planks, veneer,
or cardboard). The criminologist V. I. Sorokin suggested
using a 'magnetic brush' instead of dusting the prints with
coloured powders as used to be done. The brush is a small
magnet with narrow poles, which is passed back and forth
in various directions over the surface being examined. The
magnet is first put into a dish of very fine iron filings, which
cling to the poles in the normal way. As it is passed over
the dirty surface the filings, which act as the 'bristles' of
the 'brush', adhere to the swea t and grease of the fingerprint and colour it a characteristic dark grey; the rest of
the surface remains clean. The prints brought out by the
Iili ngs are readily copied on special film.
Lifting magnets are widely used in industry and other
fields where a specially strong force of attraction is required. When Professor Auguste Piccard, for example, explo4-1656

49

red ocean deeps in his famous bathyscaphe, a powerful electromagnet supported its iron ballast.
Electromagnets are also used in transport. As early as
1910 railway engineers magnetized the wheels of wagons
in order to improve grip on the rails (by increasing friction).
The electromagnet tripled the coefficient of friction, and
consequently the load capacity.
This, of course, is by no means the whole extent of the
application of magnets in transport. There is, for example,
Weinberg's famous scheme for a magnetic road, a tube along
which small wagons suspended in a magnetic field would
move in a vacuum, attaining very high speeds (of the order
of 1000 km per hour). Small models of his system were built,
and were used at one time to transport letters at the Moscow
Post Office.
Great advances have recently been made in the United
States on the magnetic suspension of trains, in particular
with Francis Bitter's magneplan at the National Magnetic
Laboratory, which develops a speed of 300 miles an hour.
It is also planned to use electromagnets for docking spacecraft. Magnetic boots for spacemen would be another
not unimportant development.
But to make a magnet that is good enough, powerful
enough, and with all the required characteristics is not so
simple. First of all it must be correctly designed, and that
didn't happen at once. And naturally, before electromagnets could be brought into general use in industry, transport, and other fields, they had to be tested in the laboratory.
The first magnets were made 'trusting to luck' Nat every
shape, however, produced a good result. It was purely
accidental that Sturgeon chanced upon a very successful
one; horseshoe magnets have been made ever since. Lack of
experience and of any elementary method of designing magnets led to shapes that now seem quite absurd.
A three-pronged magnet, for instance, could not work
properly because the magnetic fluxes in each prong would
50

largely counteract each other-the current in one would

form a circuit with the second where it v/ould act in the
opposite direction to the actual current
that prong.
The type of magnet that used to be made, consisting of
three smaller magnets wound separately, was once very
popular but today is thought useless, because the fields of
two neighbouring magnets cancel each other out in the space in between them.
Laboratory magnets used to be made by eye. There was
no theory that made it possible to predict their properties
in advance. The Russian scientists E. K. Lentz and B. S.
Jacobi made the first contribution to a theory of magnetism,
by pointing out the connection between the lifting power
of an electromagnet and the product of the current in coil
and the number of turns in the winding. Following Lentz
and Jacobi the Englishmen John and Edward Hopkinson
.made an enormous contribution to the theory of designing
magnets with their proposal of a method for calculating
'sat nration ', a phenomenon that had long been noted by
the designers of magnets. A magnet of given shape has a
certain limit after which it is impossible to improve its
lifting capacity significantly by increasing the current in
the coils. Modern theory links this phenomenon with the
fact that when a magnetizing current reaches a certain limit all the previously haphazardly ordered elementary
magnets in the iron now lie in one direction, and further
increase has no effect. The saturation of steel prevents the
magnetic field of primary magnets from exceeding 20 000
gauss.
A new era of more powerful magnets was opened, based
not on increase in their size but on improvement of their
shape and on combating saturation. It cannot be said, however, that the struggle against saturation was very successful. In the hundred years of the physicists' war the inductance of the magnetic field was only a little more than doubled.

in

4*

51

Fig. 10. Contempory Japanese M-50 magnet.

Leading physicists and electrical engineers like Faraday,

Becquerel, and TholHSOIl worked on the problem.
r"ljWhat could physicists counter pose to nature? Only very
accurate calculations and full exploitation of the natural
properties of the materials. So magnets were made with
short conical poles, and massive yokes, and huge coils.
They quickly increased in weight, mainly due to the increased weight of the coils. In 1881 the largest magnet in

52

any laboratory in the world weighed about a ton; by 1930

there was already one that weighed 120 tons.
Even in this way, however, they still did not succeed in
increasing the inductance of electromagnets to, say, one
million gauss. And such a field is still the physicists' unattained dream-primarily because of saturation.
Nowadays magnets are mass produced. They do not break
records, but it is possible with their help to obtain the
quite considerable field of 40 000 to 50 000 gauss needed
for research from a medium-sized magnet weighing a few
tons.
What are magnets used for in modern physics laboratories?
They are needed for studying the behaviour of substances
in strong fields, for research into galvanomagnetic, thermomagnetic, and magnetostrictive phenomena, and for obtaining super-low temperatures (only a thousandth of a degree
above absolute zero) by adiabatic demagnetization. They
are also used in quantum generators (masers), for analysing
particles by their mass in magnetic mass-spectrometers,
and for research into the interactions of atomic particles,
and in medicine and biology.
Magnets are widely used in studying elementary particles. We are not thinking here of accelerators but of the instruments used to study the reaction products obtained by
bombarding targets in them.
Every schoolboy now knows how a Wilson cloud chamber,
one of the most irn port.ant instruments for investigating
nuclear processes, is built. Usually it is filled with moist,
cleaned air. When a high-energy particle enters a chamber
it disturbs all atoms along its path, knocking out the weakest electrons so that a positively charged path is formed
in its wake. The positive ions that make up its track can
become centres of precipitation of water vapour from the
air in the chamber. So that the process can occur with
greater intensity the air in the cloud chamber is allowed to
expand suddenly. The ions of the 'trail' begin to be envelo-

58

ped by tiny droplets of water and a misty visible trail,

rather like one left by jet aircraft, is formed, which can be
observed and photographed. A particle, so small as to be
unimaginable, becomes visiblel So the cloud chamber enables us to follow the collision of particles and the formation
of new ones. Atomic physicists cannot do without it.
But just as it is impossible to judge the type of jet aircraft by the trail it leaves in the sky, so it is also impossible to say exactly what sort of particle enters a cloud
chamber from what is left behind. The answer to the dilemma was found by the Soviet physicist, P. L. Kapitza,
and published in 1923 in a brief communication in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in which
he described several experiments allowing observation of
the tracks of particles in a cloud chamber. His arrangement
differed from Wilson's in that the chamber was placed in
a strong magnetic field.
What did that give? It revealed that in a magnetic field
a charged particle moved in a curve, the radius of which was
mu

r=JT
where m was the mass of the particle, v its velocity, and H
the strength of the magnetic field.
Thus, by knowing the strength of a magnetic field and
measuring the radius of the trail of a particle in a cloud
chamber, we can ascertain its impulse (mv); and knowing
its mass, we can determine its energy.
So long as the energy of the particles studied was relatively small, the Wilson cloud chamber was an indispensable
piece of laboratory apparatus. But in the Fifties, in the
USSR, the USA, and other countries, a series of giant accelerators were brought into service capable of imparting colossal energy to particles, an energy so great that particles
passed through cloud chambers without hindrance and were
scarcely deflected by the magnetic field (which is not sur-

54

Fig. 11. A powerful bubble chamber. The yoke (on the left) and the
coils of the electromagnet are clearly visible.

prismg because the chambers-:Jwere filled with gas,r'{which

offered almost no resistance to them). It became necessary
to study particles in some other way.
A 'bubble chamber ' was suggested, which could also be
called an 'anti-cloud chamber'. In the Wilson cloud chamber the track of a particle consists of tiny droplets of liquid
condensing on ionized atoms, whereas the track in a bubble
chamber consists of tiny bubbles of gas formed in a liquid

55

medium by the heat given off during the formation of charged ions by an 'energetic' particle. Organic liquids or liquefied gases are usually used. The useful volume of bubble
chambers varies from a fraction of a litre to hundreds of
litres. And likewise the magnets used with them also vary
(Fig. 11). For the Soviet freon chamber (diameter 115 em;
height 50 em) for example, a magnet with a field of 26 500
oersteds, and weighing 72 tons, was made.
There are even bigger chambers and magnets. On one of
the anti-proton channels of the synchrotron in Duhna , not
far from Moscow, there is a propane chamber, one of the
largest, with a diameter of two metres.
At the exit of the Serpukhov accelerator the very large
French Mirabelle bubble chamber, with a functioning diameter of five metres, has been installed.
But physicists are drawing up new schemes, and a liquid hydrogen chamber with a diameter of seven metres is
on the drawing boards waiting its turn for use in studying
that all-penetrating particle, the neutrino.

HIGH-FIELD MAGNETS
Electromagnets Without Steel Cores

A chapter about magnets with fields half a million times

as strong as the Earth '8, and about waterfalls, and the
fission of uranium, and forces that annihilate each other.
A place of honour in the history of building powerful
electromagnets belongs to the American physicist Francis
Bitter. He was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, in 1902.
At 28 he got his Ph.D. for research into the magnetic properties of gases. He then joined the Westinghouse Company,
where he worked on theoretical and engineering problems
of magnetism. Later he took up teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he built his famous
'Bitter' solenoids. His whole life was dedicated to the study
of magnets and magnetism. Even during the war he continued his favourite research, working on magnetic mines
and defences against them.
Bitter built the most powerful electromagnets of his time. In the thirties he needed a powerful magnetic field of
approximately 100 000 oersteds for his research into the
fine magnetic phenomena in gases and had to build a magnet
quickly that would sustain this terrific field, 200 000 times that of the Earth, for a long time, a matter of several
hours.
Before starting on the job, however, he decided to review everything that had been done before him in this
field.
Very powerful experimental electromagnets with steel

57

cores were then working in Bellevure, outside Paris (with

a field up to 60 000 oersteds), and at Uppsala University
in Sweden (with a field around 70 000 oersteds). These were
huge affairs with magnetic steel cores and a yoke, classical
magnets weighing around 100 tons.
Bitter also knew that it was very expensive to induce a
field as high as 60 000 or 70 000 oersteds. Compared with
compact, ordinary magnets with field of 30 000 to 40 000
oersteds and weighing around a ton, the magnets in Paris
and Uppsala were like enormous, prehistoric monsters.
There was no point even in considering how to obtain a
field of 100 000 oersteds by using an electromagnet with a
steel core, although theoretically it could easily be shown
that there was no limit, despite saturation, to the strength
of the field obtainable from steel magnets. An infinite field
would be possible if the whole Universe, with the exception
of the point where the magnetic field was created, were
completely filled by magnetized iron.
Francis Bitter was well aware that, to get a field of 100 000
oersteds, he would have to fill perhaps not the whole Universe but at least his whole laboratory with saturated steel.
Steel cores were simply out.
Another method had been known since the days when
Arago and Ampere invented the solenoid. The unpleasant
properties of this method had been formulated by the French
electrical engineer Charles Fabry and expressed in the Fabry formula, published in 1898 in the journal Eclairage electrique. This formula, which has withstoodJ the stormy
onslaughts of the twentieth century, is:

H =G

WA/pa

whereH is the strength of the magnetic field of the solenoid

in oersteds; G is a coefficient (the Fabry factor) equal to
0.1-0.29; W is the power dissipated by the solenoid in watts;
A is the ratio of the volume of the bare conductors to the
total volume of the coils; p is the specific resistance or re-

58

sistivity of the material of the coils, in ohms per centimetre;

and a is the inside radius of the solenoid, in centimetres.
What does the Fabry formula tell us? It shows that if
we want to make a magnetic field ten times stronger we
must increase the power dissipated in the solenoid by 10 2
or 100 times. Whole power stations would be needed to obtain strong magnetic fields. In 1923-7, when Kapitza obtained a field of 500 000 oersteds, he was not faced with this
difficulty because his field only had lasted 0.001 second.
And his method, too, was of no use to Bitter, who wanted
fields of long duration.
The only solution open to him was to have a powerful
solenoid without steel. In 1936 he went to the Edison Electric Company in Boston and persuaded the directors to release power to him during the hours when the city slept
peacefully, so that he could tryout his voracious magnet.
The magnet, about the size of a motor-car tyre (by intense
cooling he had been able to make it small), was installed
in one of the power station's buildings. When he switched
it on for the first time something quite unbelievable happened: from all corners of the room fine iron dust, iron filings,
nails, and small bolts hurtled toward the little bronze box,
to which led two big water-pipes carrying cooling water
from a heat exchanger washed by river water. The magnet
in fact consumed around 1.7 megawatts of power, almost
converted into heat, which had to be dissipated in order
to prevent the temperature from rising. (If it were not washed with cooling water at a rate of 50 litres a second it would
burn out.)
Bitter designed his own original magnet. It proved so
successful that solenoids designed on the same principle
are called after him. The first Bitter solenoid, with which
a field of 100 000 oersteds had been maintained for a considerable time, was a series of stamped copper discs with
a radial slit and 600 holes for cooling water. The slit made
it possible by bending each disc slightly to join it to the

59

o
Copper

Mica

disc

disc

Copper

Mica

disc

disc

Fig. 12. The principle of the Bitter solenoid.

next one and thus make an unbroken spiral carrying a current (Fig. 12).
Being then the most powerful solenoid in the world, it
was in constant demand for science up to the time research
began to require even stronger fields. The only interruption came during the wartime Manhatten Project, when
it was employed at Oak Ridge for experiments in separating uranium isotopes. Natural uranium contains only 0.7 per
cent of U 235 which was needed for the atomic bomb; Bitter's
powerful magnet was used to separate U 235 from the natural
mixture.
The rapid development of many branches of physics in
the 1960's, especially magnetic retention of plasma and
study of superconductivity, antiferromagnetism, quantum
optics, and elementary particles, made super-powerful
magnetic fields a basic requirement. Special laboratories
and institutes were set up in the USSR, the USA, and Great
Britain to obtain them.
In 1965 a field of 220 000 oersteds was obtained, i.e.
60

Fig. 13. The world '8 most powerful electromagnet in the US National Magnetic Laboratory

500 000 times stronger than that of the Earth, 100 times
greater than that of sunspots, and only a quarter that calculated to exist in the atomic nucleus.
This field was obtained at U.S. National Laboratory of
Magnetism by means of three co-axial solenoids, built by
Henry KoIrn, using Bruce Montgomery's design. The magnet
had an inside diameter of ten centimetres and used 16 000
kW of power. The outside was wound with a hollow copper
tyre of square cross-section. The inside was filled with copper discs, on which radial cooling channels had been etched.
More than three tons of copper were used in the magnet;
and the pressure of the magnetic field inside it was so great
that the copper began to 'flow' The pressure, incidentally,
was more than three times that at the bottom of the deepest
ocean deeps.
'I'he magnet had an interesting cooling system that employed the latest advances in building atomic reactors.
61

The solenoid designed by Montgomery employed the principle of 'film boiling' The temperature on the surface of
the cooled copper spiral, being over 100C, caused numerous tiny bubbles of steam to form, which were dispersed
in thousandths of a second in the huge volume of comparatively cold water that poured like a waterfall onto the solenoid. * Because the specific heat of vaporization of water
is very great, much more energy was dissipated by the bubbles developing on the surface of the spiral than would be
the ease with heating of the cooling water. This principle
of 'local' or 'film' boiling was first used in Kolm '8 small
magnet that yielded a field of 126 000 oersteds. Compared
with Bitter's 100 000 oersted solenoid it was tiny, only
one-twenty-fifth the volume.
The magnets of 400 000 oersteds built in America and of
700 000 to one million oersteds built in the Soviet Union
are cooled on the same principle. The power required by
the Soviet magnets is colossal, 1000 megawatts, equal to
the output of two of the generators in big hydro-electric
stations like that at Krasnoyarsk.
The huge field of 220 000 oersteds obtained by Kolm
occupied a comparatively small volume, although the magnet itself was more than a metre wide. Large-scale research
was difficult with it and therefore designers have been searching for new ways of obtaining strong fields in significant
volumes.
Perhaps another cooling agent could be used?
An interesting experiment was carried out at the University of California. A solenoid cooled with kerosene had already been built in 1959. Kerosene was used because water, especially water with impurities, is not an ideal in-

* We say 'waterfall' deliberately. A river not far from the laboratory was used to cool the magnet. The energy dissipated in the
solenoid was so great that the water in the river below the laboratory
was O.5C warmer than the water higher up stream.
62

sulator, and at a certain voltage its electrolytic properties

begin to make their effect so that water-cooled coils corrode.
Analysis of the suitability of other liquids as cooling
agents showed that refined kerosene enclosed in a vessel
filled with a neutral gas was the best as regards heat capacity, cost, and damage to the coils.
The kerosene solenoid, with an inside diameter of ten
centimetres, was wound with a copper bus bar. It used 6000
kW of current and 100 kilograms per second of purified
kerosene, and produced a field of 100 000 oersteds. It was
installed in a special gallery 2.5 metres wide and 23 metres
long. All fastenings-bolts, nuts, frames, and other parts,
within a radius of five metres were made of non-magnetic
materials. And to avoid an explosion the whole gallery was
filled with an inert gas.
Kerosene was not the only candidate for the role of 'best
coolant'. As far back as the beginning of the century Kamerlingh Onnes and his colleagues in the Cryogenic Laboratory in Leyden were already studying the temperature dependance of electrical resistance of various materials as the
temperature was lowered. They had expressed confidence at
a conference then that it would be possible within a few
years to construct a solenoid with a field of a million
oersteds by subjecting the conductors to extreme cooling;
but more than half a century had passed and not one scientist had yet succeeded in obtaining a stationary field of
a million oersteds.
How had Kamerlingh Onnes and his colleagues come to
this conclusion? TIley were studying the electrical resistance of various metals at very low temperatures (-100 to
-250C or approximately 170 to 20 0 K ) and had found
that resistance dropped sharply as the temperature fell.
And in Fabry's formula, which was already known, electrical resistivity is in the denominator. When a new lowered
resistivity was put in the formula it turned out that the
field increased for the same expenditure of power. So Ka-

63

merlingh Onnes and his colleagues apparently had good

grounds for supposing that a field of a rnillion oersteds was
not beyond the bounds of possibility.
They had, however, underestimated two things: first,
low temperatures are difficult to obtain and require a considerable expenditure of energy; and second, as the magnetic field grows due to what is known as magnetoresistance,
the electrical resistance of metal also increases, the effect
of magnetoresistance being especially strong at low temperatures.
In one of his articles Kapitza presented the results of
his checking of the idea proposed in his time by J. Perrin,
of cooling solenoids with liquid air. To cool a solenoid with
a field of 100 000 oersteds and a diameter of one centimetre
it would be necessary to pass liquid air through it at 24
litres a second. A whole factory producing nothing but liquid air would be needed to ensure smooth operation of
the solenoid.
Possibly because of these factors, possibly for other reasons, the development of low-temperature but not superconducting magnets ("cryogenic magnets" as they are sometimes called) was greatly retarded (Fig. 14).
The first attempt to use low temperatures to reduce electrical resistance was made in 1961 with an aluminium solenoid of 100 000 oersteds cooled with liquid neon (which
has a boiling point of 27K). The inside diameter of the
solenoid was 30 cm and its length 200 em and the total
weight of its aluminium coils five tons. In view of its huge
field it was considered one of the biggest, if not the biggest,
in the world. It was intended for thermonuclear research
and had 'magnetic plugs' at each end with a field of 200 000
oersteds. But it could only function for one minute, for in
that time all the liquid neon in its cryostats was converted
into gas.
Many other attempts were then made to increase the field
by using other cooling agents (e.g. liquid nitrogen and li-

64

Fig. 14. Current losses can be

substantially reduced in solenoids by putting them in a
low-temperature medium in
which the resistance of the
windings is much decreased.

lt~{jid

mtroqen

quid hydrogen) and other materials for the coils (e.g. sodium pressed into a thin steel tube). Although the results
of these experiments were promising, no one succeeded in
producing a stronger field.
These magnets are usually fed from their own power
installation generating several thousand kilowatts of direct current. When this power is insufficient (as happened
with Kolm's record-breaking solenoid) a fly-wheel is put
on the shaft of the machine. By storing sufficient energy
in it, it is possible, as Kapitza did many years ago, to draw
several times its nominal power from a generator for a short
period. At the Royal Radar Establishment in Great Britain
5-1656

65

Fig. 15. A magnet that has

not yet been built. Kolm's
hydromagnet. A stream of
liquid silver or sodium would be used as coils.

powerful submarine accumulators were used as the power

source for a solenoid.
In the search for new paths, Kolm worked out the design
of a solenoid he called a hydromagnet. It consisted of two
co-axial tubes, between which a good conducting liquid
like liquid sodium or liquid silver was circulated in a radial direction. The two tubes were put into a small magnetic exciting field (Fig. 15). The incoming liquid crossed the
lines of force of the exciting field and electromotive force
was induced in it. Under the action of the e.m.f. an electric
current began to flow in the liquid in the same direction
as the current inducing the exciting field. Thus the liquid
itself became the solenoid coil. The strength of the magnetic field that can be obtained from this 'coil' depends upon
the velocity of the liquid, its electric conductivity, and
the strength of the excitating field. Kolm calculated that
it would be possible to obtain a magnetic field of 400 000
oersteds in a hydromagnet filled with molten silver at a
temperature of 1000C and a magnetic excitating field of
60 000 oersteds, using 70 megawatts of power and an input
velocity of 200 litres per second for the silver.

66

Fig. 16. Coils wound in this way are almost free from the terrible
drawback of powerful electromagnets, as the forces generated in the
coil by the pressure of the magnetic field are reduced.

Other difficulties apart, however, the material from which

the coils are made begins to flow at such enormous fields
because of the pressure of the magnetic field. As we have
already mentioned, the pressure in Kolm's 220 000 oersted
solenoid was three times the pressure at the bottom of ocean
deeps. And the pressure increases in proportion to the square
of the field. So if we increase the field a little more than
three times the pressure increases tenfold.
With a field of one million oersteds the magnetic forces
are equivalent to those at the muzzle of a cannon when it
is fired. Maintaining it is much the same as trying to fire
a gun in such a way that the shell is retained in the breech
and not ejected and the gun does not explode.
Is growth of field strength invariably connected with
5*

67

increase in pressure? Electromagnetic force is al ways set

up because of the vector product of the current density in
the coil and the induction of the magnetic field (this is the
same Lorentz force that deflects particles in accelerators).
The vector product of the t\VO vectors is at its greatest when
the direction of the current is at right angles to the direction
of the magnetic field and is zero when the directions of the
current and of the field coincide. Some scientists have
employed this circumstance and designed a configuration
of the coils and solenoids in which forces are almost totally
absent, and which they have called 'force-free' A huge
'force-free' system for research into thermonuclear reactions
has recently been built that operates on quite a different
principle, that of transferring the forces from the solenoid
coils into a massive steel base.
From studies of the possibility of building 'force-free'
coils Soviet and American scientists have concluded that
the problem is by no means hopeless.
Let us consider, for example, a coil built like a long spiral with a large pitch. It would set up two fields (there is,
of course, only one field, but for convenience's sake, it is
often divided into an axial and a radial part, which together make up the whole field): the total field, which is directed along the axis, and the field that surrounds each
separate wire. The axial field tends to split the coil; the
field surrounding the coil, on the other hand, tends to compress it. In this way the forces acting on different sides cancel each other out (Fig. 16).
Another coil made in several layers, the inner one almost
parallel to the axis and the outer one almost perpendicular
to it, would possibly be more acceptable. In it the transition
from the axial to the radial field would be gradual and the
compressive forces would be spread out evenly over all the
layers. This system is the prototype for the powerful systems
of the future in which colossal magnetic fields will be combined with elegant design.

PULSED MAGNETIC FIELDS

About a Superweapon that Failed

Being a description of the role of the scale that can be used

to measure the enormous strength of the magnetic field
obtained by Soviet scientists.
At the end of the nineteenth century an American, Col.
King devised a 'superweapon' He wound telegraph wire
around the muzzles of two massive howitzers and switched
on a current. The steel barrels of the howitzers were instantly transformed into the cores of an immerse electromagnet.
The colonel thought that the field it set up would 'fool'
the compasses of enemy ships and either bring them within
range of shore batteries or make them run aground.
But the scheme failed and the compasses of ships were
not affected. The 'terrible' magnets were too far away from
the enemy. But within two metres it was quite impossible
to keep anything iron about your person. And on the barrel
of the magnet-gun hung five cannon balls, each weighing
about 200 kgf. It was rather like a rniniature version of the
magic magnetic mountain in The Arabian Nights that used
to pull the nails out of ships. The cannon had a magnetic
field of about 500 oersteds.
Other things being equal, the force of a magnetic field
is proportional to the square of the strength of the magnetic
field. So the field of 25 million oersteds achieved by Soviet
scientists bears thinking about. It has a force ten times
greater than that at the centre of our planet!
And it does have some useful applications.
69

That is why the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences M.V Keldysh touched on this question during his
speech at the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union in 1966. The award of a Lenin Prize in 1966
to the group of physicists who had theoretically demonstrated the new possibilities of obtaining super-powerful magnetic fields underlined the significance of the problem.
It All Began with an Electric Eel
In which tribute is paid to the 'great bookbinder', a tribute that is more symbolic than rea] insofar as the first man
to open the door to the new field of physics, that of superpowerful magnetic fields, was Prof. P.L. Kapitza, Mern.
USSR Acad. Sci.
Pulsed magnetic fields are widely used in modern
research and have been since Peter Kapitza began using
them in the Twenties.
There is no need to look far to demonstrate the earlier
sources from which the experiments probably developed.
In the famous argument between Volta and Galvani it
was Volta, we know, who emerged as the victor: the frog
legs twitched because of an electromotive force that developed in the artificially created source. It was simply that
frogs' legs are a sensitive measuring apparatus. But Galvani was also to a certain extent right. His thesis about the
electricity that exists in all living creatures anticipated
by two centuries the teaching now familiar to everyone
about bioelectricity. All living things without exception
have biocurrents. The human heart, for example, creates
an electric current on the surface of the body of approximately one-thousandth of a volt, and the brain a current onetenth of that strength. The giant electric ray can emit a
current of some 50 to 60 volts, capable of killing a large
70

fish. And the electric eel, that dwells in South-American

rivers, can develop a potential difference on the surface of
its body of 500 volts.
When Volta invented his electrochemical cell he suggested that the electrical organs of the eel worked on a similar
principle.
But, as later became clear, the electrical organs of fish
are not analogous to a galvanic cell, which can maintain
a constant current over a long period of time, but to a condenser, in which more or less lengthy accumulation of charges precedes a powerful discharge.
Electricians have a golden rule: before you write about
a new discovery, always read Faraday carefully. Ninetynine times out of a hundred you find that the 'great bookbinder' had either already made the discovery or else had
suggested that work should be done in this direction, or
had simply thought about it.
So, before beginning this chapter on pulsed magnetic
fields, I also browsed through a brown volume with Faraday's profile stamped on the cover. To my great surprise I found that the first classic experiments on the nature of the electric eel had been made by Michael Faraday.
He presented the results to the Royal Society in December
1838. Faraday touched the fish with two metal electrodes,
which had copper wires at their other ends. The wires in
turn were joined to a small solenoid consisting of a spiral
of wire with an iron wire inside it. When the eel discharged
a current the solenoid created quite a strong magnetic field,
which magnetized the wire. Faraday determined the polarity of the current in the eel from the arrangement of the
poles in the wire. The experiment has long remained an
exotic episode in the history of physics. Only many years
later did Kapitza begin to master pulsed magnetic fields.
Peter Kapitza was born in 1894 in Kronstadt. He graduated from the Petersburg Polytechnical Institute, and in
1921 was sent to England to work under the famous British

71

physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S., at the Cavendish

Laboratory in Cambridge.
Kapitza began working with Rutherford and stayed in
Cambridge for about 14 years. His first researches were
concerned with nuclear physics, but after a time the young
physicist found a completely new field of activity for himself. Initially, he had suggested that a Wilson cloud chamber be put in a magnetic field in order to study the properties of alpha particles. The trajectory of the charged particle was deflected in the magnetic field, the radius of the
deflection depending upon the speed of the particle. After
completing a series of experiments in fields up to 43 000
oersteds Kapitza decided to extend his measurements into
more intense fields. For this he had to build solenoids with
a field ten times stronger than anything yet achieved.
The basic difficulties in creating powerful fields were
that they required an enormous current and that there was a
real danger that the solenoid would be ruined by overheating. He proposed to get around these problems by creating
powerful fields for very short periods, which would allow
him to make the necessary measurements and at the same
time avoid destruction of the solenoid.
Any coil possesses thermal inertia, and it cannot be heated instantly to melting point even by a very heavy current.
On the other hand, in systems working briefly, the problem
of a powerful source is greatly simplified, as the current is
only required for a short time. Therefore devices can be
used that give a powerful instantaneous discharge followed
by a comparatively prolonged period of recharging.
There are quite a few such systems. It would have been
possible, for instance, to use the electric energy accumulated in a condenser battery, discharging, for all intents and
purposes, through a short circuit.
I t was also possible to utilize the magnetic energy accumulated in a transformer. According to Kapitza's calculations a field of 500 000 oersteds would require a transformer

72

Fig. 17. Kapitza's condenser battery (accumula tor) l-india-rubber

discs; 2-rubber washers: 3-solid slate slabs;4-holts; 5-lead end-plates (35 crnX 35 cm x 1.5 mm) (from theProceedings of the Royal Society).

with a small number of coils on the secondary winding and

a core two or three metres long and 30 to 40 centimetres
in diameter.
Kapitza made this experiment on a small scale with
P.M.S. Blackett. It did not work. It became clear that it
was almost impossible to break the transformer's primary
winding quickly by mechanical means; at breaking point
an arc developed and the energy of the magnetized iron,
instead of being brought down in an avalanche to the secondary winding, returned to the primary and was discharged in the arc.
The condensers of the time were also unsuitable because
they were very primitive and clumsy.
Kapitza turned to storage batteries of accumulators. They
also had to be specially built, as it was essential that their
capacitance and active resistance be minimal (Fig. 17).

73

With his new storage batteries he succeeded, by shortcircuiting them, in obtaining a momentary current of 7000
amperes and an instantaneous power of 1000 kilowatts.
Discharging the battery on a solenoid with an internal
diameter of one millimetre Kapitza got a magnetic field
of 0.5 X 106 oersteds for three-thousandths of a second until
the solenoid exploded. Experiments were made on all sorts
of solenoids with this battery. In one, wound with copper
wire, a field of 130 000 oersteds was measured; when it was
dipped in liquid nitrogen it proved possible regularly to
obtain a field of 250 000 oersteds. This was the largest field
they managed to obtain then using batteries. For larger
fields it was essential to find another, more powerful source
of power. At the same time the source must produce something in the order of 50 000 kilowatts in the time needed to
heat the coil to 150C (the thermal limit of the insulation),
which was one-hundredth of a second.
For his source Kapitza used a generator with a nominal
rating of 2000 kW, which did not overheat when shorted
as normal generators did, and gave 50 000 kW for 0.01 of a
second without dangerous consequences. The generator was
built by Metropolitan Vickers to the specifications of Kapitza, M.P. Kostenko, and Miles Walker. It was driven by
a special electric motor powered by accumulators.
The rotor of the generator weighed 2.5 tons and had a
diameter of 50 centimetres. Its large moment of inertia
made a special flywheel unnecessary. The generator produced
alternating current, which was very essential, since a large
short-circuit current was only wanted for a short period of
time. If the generator had produced direct current it would
have had to be switched off after 0.01 of a second, and that
was a very complicated problem. Alternating current, of
course, passes twice through zero in each rotation and it
does not present special difficulty to switch the generator
off as the current approaches zero. They had only to synchronize the moment when the current approached zero accura-

74

tely with the moment when the generator was short circuited. It is impossible to do it with absolute accuracy: the
shorting could coincide with the time when the current in
the winding was not yet zero. Just in case Kapitza had to
design a switch for a current of 5000 amperes (the strength
of the current was 30 000 amperes), opening the circuit for
0.0001 of a second, which in itself was a feat of engineering.
The solenoid that had to take the huge current of the
short-circuited generator was made from square copper
wire. In later experiments an alloy of copper and cadmium
was used instead as it possessed greater durability at heightened electrical resistivity. When the current from the generator passed through the coil immense mechanical forces
of tens of tons developed in it; and so that they should not
smash the coil it was reinforced on the outside by a strong
steel ribbon, which bore the brunt of the pressure.
But that was not all. The powerful forces induced the
coil to unwind slightly and its ends to come away from the
contacts that fed the current into it; coil after coil was
ruined because of this secondary phenomenon, which developed after the basic difficulties seemed to have been overcome. It took several months to overcome this snag. Finally
a solution was found. Kapitza made a coil which could
'breathe', or expand automatically; one of the contacts
was moveable, and after several tests it took up the position
that 'suited it best'
Another serious obstacle was the shortness of the time
for making all the measurements. For the magnetic field
in the solenoid lasted for a hundredth of a second and all
the experiments had to be begun and completed in that
time.
The work was further complicated by the micro-earthquakes that occurred when the generator was sharply braked at the moment the coil was shorted. Although the generator was mounted on a massive foundation, resting on
a rock base with a shock-absorbing cushion, the wave of

75

the micro-earthquake still distorted the measurements.

To avoid this Kapitza suggested an extremely elegant solution. He put the solenoid and the object under study at
the other end of the hall, 20 metres or so from the generator.
The earthquake wave, travelling at the speed of sound in
the given medium, took 0.01 of a second to travel the 20
metres and so reached the solenoid when the measurement
had already been made.
When a short-circuit current flows through a coil extremely high local temperatures are induced, which gradually
even out. It has been calculated that these local temperatures should exceed that of the Sun. Professor Eddington joked
that although the temperatures at the centres of the stars
might be millions of degrees they were quite cool compared to the Cavendish Laboratory when Kapitza was at work
and Rutherford was trying to split the atom.
When Rutherford was in Cairo in 1925 Kapitza wrote to
him about his experiments to say that they had obtained a
field greater than 270 000 in a cylinder one centimetre in
diameter and 4.5 centimetres long. They couldn't go any
further because the coil exploded, and did so with a deafening roar that would undoubtedly have given Rutherford
great satisfaction if he could have heard it ....
But the explosion only caused a great deal of noise,
since, apart from the coil, no other apparatus was destroyed. The coil had not been reinforced with an outer rim,
so they now intended to remedy that.
Kapitza said he was very happy that everything in general had gone well; and assured Rutherford that 98 per cent
of the money had been put to good use and that everything
was working properly.
The accident had been the most interesting part of the
experiment and finally confirmed their confidence in success, since they now knew for certain what happened when
a coil exploded. They also now knew what an arc of 13 000
amperes looked like. The apparatus was apparently in no
76

particular danger, nor the experimenter, providing he stood

far enough away .
.K apitza concluded that he was very anxious to see Ruthetford again in the laboratory so that he could give him
all the details, some of which were very funny, about their
skirmish with the machines.
Using a pulsed generator Kapitza managed to do systematic research in magnetic fields up to 320 000 oersteds.
This field, occupying a volume of only two cubic centimetres, became the upper reliable limit. Kapitza, jointly
with other scientists, investigated Zeeman and PaschenBack spectra, magnetic resistance, magnetostriction, and
other phenomena up to this limit.
In one of his articles reviewing the possibilities of obtaining even stronger fields, he pointed out that even at
that time (in the Twenties) technology was sufficiently
advanced to build condensers able to give a pulse of two or
three million oersteds.
The technical obstacles, however, proved so great that
only now, forty years later, have we succeeded in obtaining
the fields about which Kapitza spoke. The record he established stood for more than twenty years and was not broken
until the Fifties.
Magnets and Explosions
In which we describe how the most intense magnetic field
ever at man's disposal was obtained.
Groups of physicists in the USA and the USSR became
concerned with the problem of obtaining intense magnetic
fields through the need to study the properties of elementary
particles in thick photographic emulsions. For example,
physicists at Harvard U ni versity 's cyclotron laboratory
wanted to get a field that would noticeably deflect the

77

Fig. 18. Turns for developing pulsed magnetic fields of (a) 800 000
oersteds; one million (b) and (c) 1 600 000 oersteds.

trajectory of particles entering emulsion. The needed field

would have to be more than 200 000 oersteds.
The problem of obtaining such fields proved so complex
and interesting that the physicists became far more involved in it than the finding of a method for treating photoemulsion, which had been the original stimulus, would
have dictated.
Results were soon obtained that exceeded all expectations. Using powerful batteries that could produce one million kilowatts in 0.00001 second (the famous Dnieper Dam
only produced 600 000 k \V), they got a field of over one
million oersteds. The sudden release of such vast energy
was accompanied with a bang like a clap of thunder.
The whole avalanche of power was driven into one solitary, massive coil (Fig. 18). As Kapitza had shown, a normal solenoid, wound with copper wire, was good only for
fields up to 300 000-350 000 oersteds. Bitter solenoids,
made of copper discs, are stronger, but even they cannot
78

ra)

(el

(6)

(e)

(fI)

rti)

rg)

Fig. 19. Examples of various metals that have been in a pulsed

magnetic field of 600 000 oersteds: (a) copper, (b) steel, (c) special
steel, .(d) brass, (e) tungsten, (/) silver-plated brass, (g) aluminium.

withstand fields between 500 000 and 700 000 oersteds. Solenoids are unable to counteract the huge forces set up by
such fields. The insulation between the turns is an especially weak point; to get over this drawback it is necessary to
lise a single massive turn and holder made of copper, tempered
steel, or beryllium bronze.
The aim of experiments became primarily to discover
how far metals could withstand the mechanical and thermal
consequences of very intense pulsed fields (Fig. 19). It was
found that no metal could support the forces set up in a
field of a million oersteds and it began to look as though
the progress made with intense fields would be limited by
this figure. But physicists now seem to have found a way
out of this difficulty, too, by using the 'force-free' windings
we discussed earlier.
A large number of 'force-free' and low-power windings
have been devised. Until such times as more durable and
refractory materials are discovered 'force-free' coils are
physicists' last hope of obtaining stable strong fields in
indestructible coils.
It is now common for fields between 200 000 and 700 000
oersteds to be obtained by discharging powerful condenser
banks onto a Bitter solenoid sometimes reinforced with
ceramic for strength or onto a single turn. In the Soviet
Union, there are such installations at Moscow University,
the Physics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
and in Sverdlovsk, and other centres.
But was there no other way of obtaining intense fields
than suddenly bombarding a solenoid with vast energy?
In 1940 the Soviet electrical engineers G. Babat and M.
Lozinsky published a paper in which the idea of a flux
'concentrator' was mentioned for the first time.
The idea is fairly easily understood. Imagine a slotted
cylinder carrying current, closed at the slotted end by a
metal piston. The current sets up a magnetic field inside
the cylinder, the strength of which is characterized by the

80

density of the magnetic lines of force, i.e. how many there

are per unit of area of the internal cross-section of the cylinder. When the piston is suddenly driven into the cylinder the cross-section of the latter is sharply reduced. And
because the number of the lines of force concentrated in
the tube cannot be instantly altered, their density in the
reduced section increases just as sharply. Consequently,
the magnetic induction and intensity of the magnetic field
also increase.
So the principle of flux concentration is that first a comparati vely small field is set up in a large volume by normal
methods and then the cross-section of the magnetic flux
is somehow made very much smaller so that the field increases sharply.
If the wires of the winding were superconductors, the
expanding field could be maintained for as long as convenient. In normal conductors induction currents quickly
die away and the field lasts for only a fraction of a second.
Using Babat and Lozinsky's idea, Howland and Foner
made a concentrator in which there was no mechanical
reduction of the working area of the magnet. It was found
that, by putting a massive coil of small internal diameter
into the solenoid, it is also possible to achieve a concentration effect. With a pulse of current in the outer winding,
the eddy currents are set up in the massive coil, which force
the magnetic flux to the bore of the coil. With the help of
the concentrators they obtained a field of 450 000 oersteds,
where a solenoid without a massive coil would have had a
fiold of only 350 000 oersteds.
In other experiments they succeeded in obtaining a field
of 200 000 oersteds in a quite large volume, approximately
that of a tumbler. In this space they placed thick photoemulsions to investigate nuclear processes. The battery
of condensers weighed more than 30 tons.
The high point of all this research into super-powerful
magnetic fields was the series of experiments made some
6-1656

81

ClJ

Fig. 20. The principle of the MC-2 magnetocumulative generator

(which employs a charge of TNT to corn press the part containing the
magnetic flux); CD, detonator capsule; E, explosive.

years ago by Soviet physicists R.Z. Lyudaev, E.A. Feoktistova, G.. A. Tsirkov and A.A. Chvileva under the guidance of A.D. Sakharov. Examining the idea of concentration of the magnetic flux and realizing that its effectiveness,
increased with the speed at which the zone of concentration is 'collapsed', they concluded that the effect would be
optimum if it were produced by means of explosives. For
when a field is set up within a massive closed coil and the
coil is then compressed by a cumulative explosion, the density of the lines of force and, consequently, the strength of
the magnetic field inside the contracted coil are greatly
increased, because the magnetic flux within its contours
cannot instantly change.
Similar ideas were tried out by American physicists at
the Los Alamos Laboratory. The principle of the device
used in the Soviet experiments is shown in Fig. 20. An
initial magnetic field of one million oersteds has been obtained with apparatus employing an explosion.
The metal ring, 7.5-10 em in diameter, holds four to
eight kilograms of explosives. When the outer field reaches
its maximum the explosives are fired and the diameter of

82

MC-2.

Fig. 21. The assembly of MC-1 and MC-2 magnetocumulative generators used to obtain a record magnetic field of 25 million oersteds.

the ring is compressed several millimetres at a rate of 'collapse' around 0.5 em in 0.000001 second (5 km/s).
The Soviet physicists recorded the incredible field of
25 million oersteds* and the Americans a field of 18 million
oersteds. Further measurements of the field were impossible
as during 'collapse' the diameter of the ring decreased so
much that it crushed the sensor that was taking them.
The whole process took only a few millionths of a second.
Many eminent scientists think that the field obtained
is not the limit and that fields of 100 million oersteds and

* The record i'ield was obtained by consecutive use of two explosive or magnetocumulative generators-MC-1 and MC-2. The second
generator was used to create a 'spark' field that then collapsed the
MC-2 generator. The arrangement of these two unique pieces of equipment is shown in Fig. 21.
6*

88

Fig. 22. Apparatus for stamping metal details by means of magnetic

pulses.

higher could be obtained in the same way. Such unimaginable fields exist only in the depths of planets and stars.
Since the pressure of a magnetic fields increases in proportion to the square of its intensity, such immense fields would
develop corresponding pressures (thousands of million atmospheres).
TIle carrying out of experiments that simultaneously
combine such enormous fields and pressures is of inestimable
value, for example, for studying the processes taking place
within planets and stars, during the gravitational collapse
of superstars, and so all.

84

Have pulsed fields any application in engineering? They

have, and although their technological use is still only in
its infancy, its future is extremely promising.
A pulsed magnetic field is used, for example, to clench
a protective metal covering on steel cable. The pressure
from the field is so great that the covering is pressed against
the uneven surface of the cable tighter than is possible in
any other way.
The electromagnetic forces set up in powerful magnetic
fields can be used in exactly the same way to stamp out
details, to press leads into insulating bushes, and for other
technical purposes (Fig. 22).
It also looks as if super-powerful magnetic fields will
find application in long-range space radio communications, and in the study of elementary particles and the
properties of plasma.
Possibly the most grandiose and daring plan for exploiting pulsed fields in physics research was the one devised by
Sakharov. He suggested using a large magnetocumulative
generator to obtain charged particles of a colossal energy.
To impart an energy of 1012 electron volts to particles, it
would be necessary to use an atomic charge. The proposition
was to make an explosion in a chamber with a volume of
10 000 cubic metres at the bottom of a 1000-metre shaft.
Surprisingly enough such an apparently extremely expensive arrangement would be considcrahly cheaper than a
conventional accelerator giving particles of equivalent
energy.

THE MAGNETIC SYSTEMS

IN ACCELERATORS
Powerful Magnets in Modern Science

In which we tell about the most powerful magnets built

by man, giant steel wonders between whose polished poles, atomic particles, so tiny that it is difficult even to
imagine them, whirl in a dizzy waltz.
The first cyclotron was built by E.O. Lawrence in 1932
at a cost of 1000 dollars. The American 6000-MeV synchrotron already cost 30 000 dollars, while the Brookhaven synchrotron (30 000 MeV) cost an enormous sum of 34 000 000
dollars. The 76-GeV Serpukhov accelerator cost 400 million
roubles. The larger accelerators are even more expensive.
More than half the cost goes on making their enormous
magnets, the largest and most expensive magnets in the
world and necessary elements in most charged particle
accelerators. And although their magnetic fields do not
exceed 15 000-17 000 oersteds accelerators are far and away
the largest machines used in physical investigations and
engineering.
Accelerators were built for two basic purposes: first to
discover new particles and second for research into the
structure of the objects of the microworld (i.e. of these
particles) .
Previously unknown particles could be obtained in an
accelerator through the interaction of accelerated particles
and the nuclei of various elements. Study of the minutest
structures in the microworld in accelerator was based on
the fact that a flux of accelerated particles, in accordance
86

with the laws of quantum mechanics, can be represented

as waves of a definite length. The higher the energy of the
particle, the shorter is the length of the wave. We know
from physics that we can only see objects whose linear dimensions exceed the length of the wave (light waves are
relatively long so that the possibilities 'of seeing tiny objects through an ordinary microscope are very limited).
A particle accelerated to the maximum has the shortest
possible wave and is therefore suitable for studying the
super-small objects of the microworld.
To resolve the problems connected with research into
the structure of space (whether the structure of space possesses quantum properties within the range of distances
of 10- 15 em and less) and also the structure of time (it may
be that time does not flow continuously but in bursts at
intervals equal to or shorter than 10- 25 of a second l) particle accelerators with energies up to a million MeV are
needed. That is almost a million times more energy than
Lawrence obtained in 1932. Such accelerators will need
ring magnets with a diameter of three to five kilometres.
Scientists hope to find answers to many questions with
the aid of powerful new accelerators. Why, for example,
did nature choose hydrogen as the element for synthetizing
all the others? Why is a proton exactly 1836 times heavier
than an electron? Is there any connection between electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena, and between these
and other 'strong' and 'weak' nuclear interactions? Is
there a fifth force in nature other than the four? Could
a 'fifth force' explain the non-conservation of parity in
some nuclear reactions? Are there such things as monopoles in nature, particles with only one magnetic pole, equivalent to electric charges?
Finally, are there 'quarks t, from which all e Jementary
particles, possibly, are com posed?
So it is necessary to keep on increasing the energy of
particles. How can it be done?

87

In a book by E.G. Komar, one of the best-known builders

of the big Soviet accelerators, there is an interesting list
of the various ways of accelerating matter. * When we say
we accelerate a particle or impart energy to it, what exactly
do we mean? We mean we increase its speed. When we throw
a stone, we accelerate the charged particles that make up
its atoms. Particles may be accelerated by other means,
too, for example by firing them from a gun.
Let us look at what happens when we fire them. Say the
bullet weighs 100 grams and flies at a speed of one kilometre per second. Its kinetic energy can be expressed by
this formula:

E=

mv

==

10

100 X 10

erg = 3.13 X 101'1 MeV

Shooting would seem to be the ideal method for accelerating

particles, as, with little expenditure, we obtain energy far
in excess of what even the more 'shameless t physicists have
dreamt of. But it is not quite as simple as that. This colossal energy is distributed between the particles, and the
energy of each particle taken separately, which determines
the intensity of the nuclear transformations, will of course
be insignificant. Each proton in the system would acquire
only 0.005 eV, which is quite inadequate.
Can the speed of the bullet be increased? In the energy
formula it is the squared term and strongly affects the rate
of acceleration. It has been calculated, however, that even
if the bullet reached cosmic speeds the energy of the elementary particles would still be insufficient.
Could the idea that underlies all electrical motors perhaps be used for accelerating particles? Suppose we had
a very .long electromagnet-of the order of several kilometres, with a field in the gap of about 20 000 oersteds. If a
conductor were then placed in the gap the conductor would
E.G. Komar. Uskoriteli zaryazhennykh chastit s (Charged Particle Accelerators). Moscow, 1964.

88

begin to move; and when it had finished moving it would

have acquired considerable energy, providing, of course,
it had not melted. The higher the acceleration we want
to achieve the greater the current in the conductor has to
be. Fusion occurs in ordinary conductors at a velocity of
107 cm/s, which is clearly inadequate for accelerating to
high energies.
Hopes for realizing this method were revived in 1961
after the discovery of superconductors that did not lose
their zero resistance in strong magnetic fields (of more than
100 000 oersteds) when a current of high density (above
1000 A/mm 2 ) passed through them. In the movement of the
superconductor with a current density i along directing
rails in a magnetic field H the force acting on 1.0 cubic
centimetre of the substance is
p = 0.1 Hi dynes
The acceleration caused by this force is
p

0.1 Hi

"1

"(

a~-=--cms

where 'Y is the density of the superconductor in g/cm3

If H=10 5 oersteds, j==10 5 A/cm 2 , and 1=7 g/cm 3 , the
acceleration will be
6
5
_ 1 4 X 108
a -_ o.t X 107 X 10 .
cm Is2

and the length of the accelerator will be

v2

1=
2a

If we want to obtain a velocity of 107 cm/s the accelerator

will have to be 36 kilometres long. Even using superconductors the dimensions of the magnetic system for comparatively small velocities prove to be extremely large.
The most effective method is to accelerate charged particles in an electric field. Under the influence of a potential

89

difference of one million volts an electron acquires an energy of 1 MeV. Since modern technology can operate quite
freely with voltages of the order of five million to ten million volts, obviously this method has no equal.
But multiple acceleration, in which the particle repeatedly passes through the same 'accelerating gap' in which
the potential difference is between 100 000 and 400 000
volts, is more commonly used. This method was proposed
by Lawrence, who used a magnetic field to return particles
to the accelerating gap, as it was known that any charged
particle moved in a circular fashion in a magnetic field.
Lawrence placed accelerating gaps at two places on the
circle.
As the energy of the particles obtained in accelerators
rises, so the radius of their orbits increases and with it the
diameter of the magnets, which is why the biggest magnets
in the world are those in accelerators.
A charged particle is subjected to two forces in a cyclotron: centrifugal force, which tends to eject it from the cyclotron, and centripetal or Lorentz force that impels it to
move around the circle.
Centrifugal force, as we know, is expressed by the following equation:
mv 2

p
=rC

where m is the mass of the particle, v is its velocity, and

r is the radius of the orbit.
The Lorentz force can be expressed by the equation

PH = O.1eZHv
where eZ is the charge of the particle, and H is the strength
of the magnetic field.
These equations show that the magnetic field in a cyclotron must be uniform, that is to say, it must be consistent
in size and strength along the whole of the orbit. If, for

90

example, it dropped sharply to zero at some point of the

orbit the particle would not be held by the centripetal force
at that point and would shoot out of the cyclotron.
So it follows that the intensity of the field along the orbit
of a cyclotron must be absolutely constant.
The equality of the centrifugal and centripetal forces
in the equilibrium orbit ensures what is called the 'horizontal stability' of the particle. What exactly does that mean?
Let us suppose that a particle passes from the equilibrium
orbit to a larger one under the influence of some force or another. The centripetal force will then be greater than the centrifugal force and as a result the particle will be thrown toward an orbit of shorter radius until it once more achieves
an orbit of equilibrium.
As the radius of the orbit shortens an opposite picture
is observed.
But what happens if the particle crosses to a lower or
a higher orbit? If the pole pieces of the magnet are parallel to each other and the magnetic lines of force, which
should be perpendicular to its steel surfaces, are parallel
and straight, then the magnetic field will remain constant
whether the particle takes a higher or lower orbit. All orbits-high, low or medium-will be all the same to the
particles, which will lead (because of the unideal state of
the surfaces of the poles) to their becoming 'lost' in the
poles of the magnet.
To prevent that from happening Of, as they say, to maintain the 'vertical stability' of the particle '8 movement, the
poles of the magnet are beveled so that the distance to their
edges is increased.
In fact, however, it is not the poles that are beveled but
the magnetic sides of the vacuum chamber in which acceleration takes place.
In this case the magnetic field of the accelerator is altered: the lines of force directly under the centre of the
pole will still be straight, perpendicular to the plane of
91

the poles, but those at the outside of the pole will he bent
outward, giving them a 'barrel-shaped hulge'. Around the
'equator' of the 'barrel' the field is minimal, hut increases
on either side of it. A particle moving in such a field cannot hit one of the poles because it would have to cross over
from an area with a weak field to one with a strong field
and thus expend a certain amount of energy.
The poles themselves are conical so that the magnetic
lines of force of the dispersion flux diverge from them along
their height. Thus the further the flux passes along the poles
from the working zone, the more intense it is.
What would happen if the pole were cylindrical and its
cross-section constant in height? The induction in the pole
near the working zone in that case would be very low
(B -==<1>/8, tI> being the magnetic flux and S the cross-section
of its path) and extremely high far from the working zone.
The poles would be loaded differently in various sections
and (and this is the main point) irrationally. To prevent
that they must be conical. The smaller section will then
correspond to the smaller current, induction will be the same in all sections, and the pole will be evenly loaded.
The scientists ebdeavour to get the induction in the pole
equal to that in the working zone, i.e. 14 000-17 000 gauss.
Why didn't they take a higher induction? In principle
they could have but at higher levels the magnetic core is
strongly 'saturated', so that it requires a large magnetizing current to induce a magnetic flux along it. Besides
which, if the poles are saturated, it is difficult to ensure
the required distribution of the magnetic field in the working zone.
The conical poles for the electromagnet of a cyclotron
are generally made from a single steel forging.
The main coils, usually mad.e of copper or aluminium
husbar, with a cross-section of 50-100 mm'' and an opening
inside, through which cooling water is circulated, are fastened to poles, creating a strong magnetic field.

92

In addition to the main winding, cyclotrons have a supplementary one near the gap, usually made from two coils
placed Ileal' the edge of the pole. TIley 'aim ' the particles
at the target, in other words they regulate the height of
the plane along which the particles move in the cyclotron.
Because of various accidental factors this plane is not
usually, contrary to expectations, in the middle between
the poles. Anything nearby, a safe, or a steel door, or a
gas cylinder, can displace the median plane.
One of the biggest electromagnets of the 'armoured ' type
already described was built for the 660-MeV synchrocyclotron at the J oint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.
It has pole pieces six metres in diameter and weighs 7000
tons. The synehrocyclotron at Berkeley, California, is rather
smaller.
The weight of cyclotron magnets can be calculated from
the following formula:
G == 4.8 X 10-3 r 2 5 tons

where r is the radius of the pole in centimetres.

The weight of conventional accelerator magnets is measured in thousands of tons. The magnets are enormous and
expensive, and so, consequently, are the cyclotrons themselves. They are normally housed in special buildings surrounded by concrete walls several metres thick, which
serve as protection against radiation.
Cyclotrons are mainly used for research. But in recent
years they have also been used to produce radioactive isotopes for industry and agriculture. In several countries
there are cyclotrons that simply serve as technological
equipment for producing isotopes and not for research.
There proves to be an upper limit to the energy of the
particles accelerated in a cyclotron. I t is im posed by the
theory of relativity. The mass of any particle increases
as its velocity approaches the speed of light. So a particle
of large mass is less 'agile' and begins to lag behind particles

98

of less energy and to reach the accelerating gap later, Le.,

it arrives at a moment when the accelerating electric field
is small or is directed against the particle.
It has been calculated that the upper limit of proton
energy achievable in a conventional cyclotron is 25 MeV.
The greater the intensity of the magnetic field the more
revolutions a charged particle makes per unit of time. The
question therefore arises whether it is possible to increase
the magnetic field from the centre of the pole pieces to their
ends. Then the increase in mass, and consequently in the
'inagility' of the particle as its energy increases would
be compensated, and the energy of the particles obtainable in a cyclotron increased.
But a cyclotron works the other way round. The magnetic
field falls off toward the edge of the pole, causing 'vertical
focusing' How can these opposing demands be reconciled? How could they simultaneously get vertical focusing
and build-up of the field from the centre of the pole toward
the edge?
The problem had interested people for a long time. Back
in 1938 the American, L. H. Thomas, suggested a formula
for modulating the magnetic field at the gap or aperture of
an isochronous cyclotron, which provided both these conditions at the same time. But the shape of the pole proved
too complicated, so the idea of an isochronous cyclotron
did not find much support then.
Later the position changed. Instead of Thomas's complicated poles engineers suggested conventional cylindrical
poles covered with steel plates of simple shape. The plates
ensured both build-up of the field outward along the radius
and vertical focusing. Normally a complex system of concentric and sectional correcting coils and plates is used
to modulate the field in the aperture (Fig. 23).
Isochronous cyclotrons permit the energy of the particles
obtained to be raised to 700 or 800 MeV. Any further increase is problematical because, for technological reasons,
94

Fig. 23. The supplementary

plates and coils that transform a cyclotron into an
'isochronous cyclotron' and
increase the energy of accelerated particles twenty-fold.

it is difficult exactly to meet all the requirements as regards the configuration of the magnetic field at such high
energies (Fig. 24).
Magnetic systems of the cyclotron type are also used in
another type of accelerator, known as a synchrocyclotron,
or phasotron, which differs from the cyclotron in the fre-

95

Fig. 24. This refined shape of the poles helps increase the energy of
the particles obtained in a cyclotron.

quency of the accelerating voltage decreasing as the energy

of the particles rises, so allowing the particles that are
gaining in mass to cross the accelerating gap in time. This
change in frequency is equivalent to the change ill the field
in an isochronous cyclotron. The upper limit of particle
energy obtainable in synchrocyclotrons also tends to be
700 to 800 MeV
Cyclotron magnets have also been installed in the microtrons used for resonance acceleration of electrons in an
electric field at microwave frequencies. Microtron magnets
usually have small induction, approximately a tenth of
that used in cyclotrons.
For various reasons of a theoretical and technical nature, some of which we have already mentioned, it is
impossible to build conventional cyclotrons with energies
higher than 25 MeV, and isochronous cyclotrons and synchrocyclotrons with energies higher than 800 MeV. But
there are also economic factors that limit the building of
super-powerful accelerators.
96

Let us figure, for example, how much a cyclical accelerator with an energy of 10 000 MeV (or 10 GeV) would
weigh. If the magnetic field on the final orbit is to be 14 500
oersteds then its radius must be around 25 metres. Substituting that radius in the equation we had earlier for the
weight of a magnet
G = 4.8 X 10-3 r 2 6 tons
we get a magnet weighing 1 500 000 tons. It would be pointless even to consider building it.
Why do high-energy cyclotrons weigh so much? One reason, apparently, is that we have chosen a magnetic field
of low strength. If we could increase it several times the
radius would be reduced by a corresponding amount and
the weight of the magnet by 2.5 times that amount. But
the magnetic fields in cyclotrons cannot be significantly
increased because the steel would become magnetically
saturated.
Another reason is the very principle on which a cyclotron works. Since its magnetic field is constant in time, a
particle acquiring a definite 'dollop' of energy in the accelerating gap begins to move along a wider orbit, so that
its trajectory resembles a spiral. And it is this spiraling of
the orbit that makes it necessary for a cyclotron to have
a full set of radii from zero to that of the final orbit. In other
words the pole has to be cylindrical, that is to say massive
and heavy.
Apparently, however, it is not absolutely essential to
have a full set of orbits of varying radii. If the magnetic
field in the accelerator altered as the particle '8 energy
rose, 3S stated in the formula
r

mv

then the radius of the orbit could remain constant. And

that only requires ensuring that the rate of change in the
7-1656

97

magnetic field approximates the rate of change in the particle '8 energy.
In that event it would be possible to leave a narrow ring
at the edge of the pole instead of having cylindrical poles,
and to do away with the core of the pole altogether. It is
only accelerators like that that now enable us to obtain
beams of high energy particles at relatively low cost (in
comparison with a hypothetical cyclotron of the same energy). These ring-shaped accelerators, as they are called,
include synchrotrons and synchrophasotrons, the largest
and most expensive bits of equipment physicists have ever
had at their disposal. Their magnetic system usually consists of several sectional magnets set out in a circle separated by the accelerating gaps. The cost of the magnets
for either type (there is little difference between them) amounts to around half the cost of the complete installation,
which is hardly surprising when you consider that the ring
of magnets has a diameter of tens, if not hundreds of'metres.
Vertical focusing operates in synchrotrons on the same
principle as in cyclotrons; the magnets are so set up that
the magnetic field on their outer radius is less than on
the inner one. Thus every particle leaving the median plane
experiences a force from the barrel-shaped field impelling
it to return, a principle that is called 'weak' focusing.
Table 1

Data on Selected Existing Synchrotrons

Place

Beam energy, in GeV

Radius of orbit. in
metres

200

1000.0

Serpukhov

76

236.0

BrOOkhaven
Geneva (CERN)
Dubna

33

128.5
100.0
28.0

Batavia

27

10

98

In synchrotrons of this type an energy of "lup to around

15 000 MeV can be obtained. As we write, the machine at
Dubna, that yields particles with an energy of 10 GeV and
has a magnet weighing 36 000 tons, is the largest of its
type in the world.
Higher energies cannot be obtained using weak focusing
because the accelerator radius has to increase with the energy of the particles. The increase in the radius can be calculated from the following formula:
E = 300}ir
where E is the energy in electron volts; II is the strength
of the magnetic Held in oersteds, and r is the radius in
centimetres.
The larger the radius, however, the higher the oscillations of the particle around its stable orbit. Chance molecules of gas in the vacuum tube or fluctuations in the accelerating voltage and frequency can knock the particle
out of its orbit. It is therefore necessary to increase the working zone (the aperture of the beam) so that the particle
does not get lost in the metal of the magnet while making
its roughly :500 OOO-kilometre journey in the accelerator;
and that is ..extremely expensive-a weak focusing accelerator of 30 GeV would weigh 100 000 tons. To minimize
oscillation around particles' stable orbits and to reduce
the cross-section of the beam, stronger focusing would
have to be introduced, in order as far as possible to prevent particles from moving out of their stable orbits.
Up to 1951 no one knew how to do that. A solution to the
problem was suggested by the Brookhaven group consisting
of E.D.j Courant, M.S. Livingston, and W.G. Schneider.
Livingston proposed calculating how a particle would behave if accelerated in a system of several magnets, if the
direction of field reduction was altered in each successive
magnet. An electronic computer showed that the particle
would travel along a stable orbit and in addition would
7*

99

(a)

(b)

Fig. 25. The comparative sizes of accelerator magnets with (a) weak
and (b) strong focusing.

be subjected to strong focusing forces. In the sector where

the pole turned inward there was strong vertical focusing
and horizontal defocusing; in the next sector, where the pole
turned outward, focusing was the other way round. To the
surprise of the Brookhaven group the total effect was that,
with a definite arrangement of the sectors, the beam was
strongly focused and the deflection of particles from the
stable orbit was very small. The effect of the magnets was
equivalent in ~ way to that of two lenses-concave and convex placed one after the other-i.e. of collecting rays.
It proved a very fruitful idea and was used for the Brookhaven and CERN accelerators, which have energies of the
order of 30 GeV. A very valuable result was obtained in the
Brookhaven machine, the first successful detection of an
antideuteron-an atom of antimatter and not just an elementary antiparticle.
The 76-GeV proton accelerator commissioned a few years
ago in Serpukhov works on the principle of strong focusing.
After visiting it a Soviet popularizer of science said: 'The
architect's pen is no longer adequate to describe the Serpukhov synchrophasotron, the world's largest, operating at
76 thousand million electron volts. One needs the landscape
artist's brush.

100

'Imagine something of the order of a geological formation, the panorama, for instance, of a lunar crater big enough to be noted on their maps by modern selenographers.
The crater is neither empty nor uninhabited, but populated
and covered with grass, and lies in the attractive surroundings of a Russian forest. OUf Volga car runs around the foot
of it just like an ant on a bicycle tyre. On the very brow
of the crater and near it are buildings of concrete and steel.
These imposing, quite unique buildings house the separate
parts of the accelerator and its various services.
'The apparent lightness of the architecture hides what
is a veritable fortress. It has walls, ceilings, and gates of
such fabulous strength that even the most arrogant builders
of mediaeval castles would bow to. The fortified appearance of king Atom's palaces is a necessary precaution against
radiation. The circular tumulus reminiscent of a lunar
crater is also defensive, protection against lethal radiation. For the first time physical apparatus, a proton accelerator, almost three times as powerful as its European
and Transatlantic fellows, has achieved the size of a small
town or a big industrial works.'
To provide strong focusing in the Serpukhov accelerator
and similar machines magnet sections in which the field
decays in opposite directions are set up one behind the
other; when the field in the first magnet falls off toward
the outside radius (vertical focusing) it is reduced toward
the centre of the next, reducing the horizontal cross-section
of the beam. As a result, the cross-section of the beam and
consequently the dimensions of the working zone of the
magnet are smaller, which enables the energy of particles
to be increased without any substantial increase in the
weight of the magnet.
The principle of strong focusing soon began to be used in
other things than accelerators. Rotary magnets and quadruple
lenses working on this principle are widely used, for example,
to focus beams and feed them to the experimenter's table.

101

Fig. 26. The most powerful solenoid in the USSR. A constant magnetic field of 200 000 oersteds can be obtained.

The building of accelerators with strong focusing permitted higher energies to be obtained with lighter magnetic systems. But the building of a synchrotron of say 300
GeV needs the economic resources of powerful states. The
problem of building one has to be decided at government
level, like the building of a new town. The comparison
with a town is a very apt one, as a scientific centre with a
whole township of scientists and technicians develops rapidly around every large accelerator.
Of course the cost of larger accelerators is considerably
higher. A tOOO-GeV accelerator would cost around 1000
million roubles. Its sectional ring magnet would be about
seven kilometres across. Its construction would involve
thousands of people and hundreds of organizations. True,
by using strong focusing the magnet required would be kept
down to a mere 30 000 tons. For protection against radiation a concrete wall twelve metres thick would have to be
built around the accelerator.

102

Fig. 27. A model of a 300-GeV synchrophasotron. The magnet would

he 2.4 kilometres in diameter.

So the building of such an accelerator is a definite strain

even for countries like the USA and the USSR. The strain
is 'mental' as well as financial. In one way or another it
would involve some 2000 highly qualified professors, a
whole army of scientific workers. Therefore the press in
some countries often argues that such high-energy accelerators should be built as a joint venture by all developed
countries, the USA, the USSR, and the other countries
of Europe.
At the conference on high-energy accelerators held in
Dubna in 1963 American and West-European scientists produced plans for strong-focusing accelerators of 150 and 300
GeV, and Soviet scientists for 500 and 1000 GeV. But such
energies raise new difficulties as regards focusing. The diameter of a tOOO-GeV accelerator would be around seven

108

kilometres, and so that the particle would not deviate from

the stable orbit or become lost in the poles of the magnet,
the magnet would have to he accurate to one-tenth of a
millimetre. The magnetic systems of these gigantic accelerators function on cybernetic principle. Any error in the
change of a direction of a beam is immediately registered by
instruments and commands are sent to the accelerating
system from the computing centre to change its parameters
so as to bring the errant beam back to its orbit.
It has still not been decided whether such accelerators
will be built separately by various states, or by groups of
states, or by the 'whole world' Is it not possible that physicists will find a more elegant solution that will enable
us to obtain colossal new energies at comparatively low
cost?
Not so long ago, for example, quite new ideas for building
super-powerful accelerators have been advanced. One is
that the nucleus and the target, i ,e. the particle and the
target, should be 'shot' at each other by relatively small
accelerators so that they meet and smash into each other
with immense, unprecedented force.
Among those awarded the Lenin Prize in 1967 were the
Novosibirsk scientists G.I. Budker, A.A. Naumov, A.N.
Skrinsky, V.A. Sidorov, and V.S. Panasyuk. They were
the first to successfully implement the idea of colliding
beams of electrons and positrons. With their VEPP-2 machine, with magnets only three metres across they obtained
energy equal to 2000 GeV from the interaction of particles.
Not every country in Europe could house a conventional linear accelerator of such power.
The idea of using an accelerator without magnets belongs
to Enrico Fermi. He, of course, had in mind an accelerator
without magnets, but not without a magnetic field; otherwise the machine would need to be immensely long. Fermi
suggested utilizing the Earth's magnetic field, instead of
magnets, by employing an accelerator of the synchrotron
104

type consisting of a vacuum tube encircling the globe along

the magnetic equator. Although realization of the project
would produce beams of particles of immensely high energy,
its cost would obviously be enormous. Furthermore, the
particles' orbit must be circular, and the Earth is far from
an ideal sphere. To guarantee an ideal circle it would be
necessary to blast tunnels through mountains and build
viaducts over the oceans, and so on. And there would be
the problem of how to ensure that apparatus encircling the
Earth would remain hermetically sealed and a high vacuum.
What energy can particles be given in accelerators? The
largest accelerator possible on our planet would have to
be located at the Equator. The intensity of this enormous
magnet would be determined by the saturation of steel
and would be approximately 20 000 oersteds. In those conditions the maximum energy of accelerated protons would
be 107 GeV.
Cosmic schemes are characteristic of the space era. One
is the 'lunatron' An accelerator is accommodated in several artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. The focusing
magnets, accelerating plates, and injectors would be installed in satellites. With such a system it would be theoretically possible to obtain energies of the order of 105 GeV.
The 'lunatron 's ' great advantage would be that it would
not be necessary to create a vacuum for the working space
as it would already be outside the atmosphere in natural
conditions of high vacuum.
G.I. Budker, Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
suggested an extremely interesting idea, of creating a powerful circular beam of electrons by means of a weak inducing field. To all intents and purposes this beam would
be a flexible conductor along which a very high electric
current would flow. An electric current always sets up a
magnetic field that tends to constrict the cross-section of
the conductor (pinch effect). But the smaller the diameter
of the conductor, the higher will be the magnetic field creat105

ed on its surface by the same electric current. Budker pro..

posed using a very strong magnetic field as the working
field of the accelerator. In a beam of electrons six metres
in diameter it would he possible to obtain protons with
energies up to 10 GeV
Physicists set great hopes on superconductivity. The
induction saturation of steel (about 20 000 gauss) limits
the magnetic field of accelerators; but if it is not used many
other problems arise, for example resistance to the magnetic
flux increases. In order to maintain the flux at its former
level it is necessary greatly to increase the capacity of the
supply coil (and in an accelerator with steel this power
is enormous). The power supply of the American Bevatron
is 100 000 kW, which is equivalent to the amount required
hy a town with a population of 100 000.
When examining the plan for the Bevatron the Pacific
Coast Gas and Electric Co. was particularly concerned whether all the lights in the towns of Berkeley and Oakland
would be dimmed when each beam of protons was speeded
up in the accelerator.
But the Bevatron is a comparatively small accelerator;
it uses steel as well. In accelerators of 300 to 1000 GeV
without steel the need for electricity would he much greater
and the accelerator itself would be correspondingly more
expensive and cumbersome. What is more this colossal amount of energy would he largely spent to no purpose. No energy is required to maintain a magnetic field; a permanent
magnet has no source of energy and its magnetic field does
not expend energy in attraction. Energy is only needed to
create the field: if in an area of space there is now a magnetic field where there was none before a certain amount of
energy must have heen expended. The rest of the energy
goes on heating the coil, which possesses electrical resistance. If it had no resistance the loss would vanish. The
amount of energy in accelerators put to good use is therefore
in fact insignificant.
.

It is just that which stimulates attempts to use superconductors as the material for the coils of accelerator magnets. A superconductor has no ohmic resistance, so that
consequently there would be no loss of energy. Another
positive aspect of using superconducting coils would be
the possibility of greatly increasing the magnetic field and
thereby reducing the radius of the accelerator; for a field
of 100 000 oersteds the radius could be reduced by 80 per
cent.
So, one way or another, large accelerators and magnets
will be built, for all our atomic projects and our knowledge of elementary particles are based on information obtained. from accelerators. New, more powerful ones would
seemingly help (a) to explain the innermost secrets of matter and (b) to use the facts obtained for the technology of
the future.
Magnetic Traps for Thermonuclear Research
In which we talk about how magnets are helping to tame
thermonuclear reactions.
Uranium fission can now be considered well mastered;
and the cost of atomic power is now already comparable
with the cost of power from thermal power stations. But reserves of radioactive elements capable of being split are
not unlimited. The energy obtainable from the uranium
and thorium to be found on Earth is about 100 times as
much as the energy obtainable from conventional fuels.
But there is as much water-the fuel used in the synthesis
reaction-as we need. I.E. Tamm, Member of the USSR
Academy of Sciences, has written that as much energy can
be extracted from the deuterium in one litre of water as
from 350 litres of petrol. So the energy of the five oceans
is equal to 1750 oceans of petrol. Even with a hundredfold

107

increase in demand, such a supply of energy should be sufficient to last man for thousands of millions of years.
We must not forget that the waste from conventional
atomic power stations is highly radioactive. If, for example, the USA generated all its electricity in atomic power
stations, the radioactivity of the wastes would be colossal,
equivalent to that caused by exploding 200 000 atomic
bombs; and by the year 2000 it would be equal to the radiation from 8 million atomic bombs in a year. That is clearly
too great a price to pay for power. In contrast, synthesis
reactions, or thermonuclear reactions as they are called,
are 'clean' as regards radioactive contamination.
To master controlled thermonuclear reactions, however,
is much more complicated than it seemed at first. We must
stress the 'controlled' because the hydrogen bomb, in which
a thermonuclear synthesis occurs, is an example of an
uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction. One of the serious
difficulties facing physicists is that the plasma escapes
from the 'magnetic bottles' that hold it. What are these
'magnetic bottles '? And why are they needed?
The purpose of a controlled thermonuclear reaction is
to give man electric energy, for electric energy has the
advantage over other forms of energy that it can be converted more efficiently and easily into other forms of power.
During a controlled thermonuclear reaction it is possible
to obtain electricity from the kinetic energy of the hot
gasses, from the energy of the light pulses, and from the
thermal energy.
A thermonuclear reaction occurs when the nuclei of approaching deuterium or tritium atoms acquire such high
energy that they can overcome the electrostatic forces of
repulsion and so collide and interact with each other. This
happens only when the gas has been heated to a temperature
of several million degrees, at which matter takes the form
of strongly ionized gas or plasma.
108

What sort of vessel can withstand such a high temperature? If plasma, heated to millions of degrees, simply touches the walls of the vessel, it will either cool to a temperature such as to make the reaction impossible or vaporize
the wall, as the steel tower was vaporized in the thermonuclear explosion at Bikini. No material can withstand such
high temperatures and so the question arises: how can we
contain the plasma? In the Fifties scientists allover the
world devoted much attention to this problem.
The physicists of the Soviet Union, the USA, and Great
Britain, which were then the atomic Big Three, though
separated from one another by impenetrable barriers of
secrecy, began work 011 it about the same time. When after
I.V Kurchatov's report in 1956 at Harwell on the Soviet
programme of thermonuclear research the barriers of secrecy were removed it turned out that they had come to
the same conclusion, that the only way to contain plasma
without cooling it was to use a magnetic field. Though
invisible and intangible, its network of lines of force would
hold the plasma away from the walls of the vessel, which
would otherwise be reduced to ashes.
The idea of magnetic thermo-insulation of plasma is based on the known property of electrically charged particles
moving in a magnetic field to follow a curved trajectory
and move in a spiral along the lines of force of the field.
In a non-uniform magnetic field this bending of the trajectory throws the particle out at the place where the field
is weakest. The problem then was to surround the plasma
on all sides with a stronger field. Many laboratories worked
on its solution.
When there is ordered movement of some sort in one direction in plasma, it means that the plasma is in effect a
flexible column with an electric current, because by definition an electric current is the ordered movement of charged particles.
Every current creates a magnetic field around itself,
109

Fig. 28. The pinch effect. ~A current

flowing in plasma sets up a magnetic
field around, it which constricts the
plasma into a thin column in the
centre. of the' vessel. In principle this
should make it possible to keep
plasma away from the walls of a
vessel and so. provide magnetic thermo-insulatlon of the plasma.
I-magnetic lines of force; 2-constri
cted plasma column; a-insulating
wall; 4-conducting wall; 5-direction
of current.

and lines of force encircle the conductor along which it

flows. One of the most important properties of lines of force
is that they tend to take the shortest path, so that their
pressure and Maxwell tension lead to their striving to constrict the conductor carrying the current. With conventional copper conductors the pressure of the lines of force
cannot reduce the diameter of the wire because the crystal
lattice of solids is a firm skeleton quite difficult to deform.
110

Fig. 29. Pictures of unstable plasma. It is still, unfortunately, not

possible to find the shape of magnetic field that will preserve the
shape of the plasma for long and prevent it from touching the walls
of the vessel.

When current flows along a plasma column the pressure of

the lines of force surrounding the colurnn will constrict its
cross-section and cause it to move away from the walls
of the chamber containing it. This phenomenon, called
pinch effect, seemed to answer the problem of rnagnetic
thermo-insulation of plasma (Fig. 28). It seemed it would
be worthwhile to 'arrange' the current in the plasma so
that it would pull itself away from the walls and constrict
it into a fine column or pinch in the centre of the vessel.
111

But here the property of charged particles (and plasma

is a multitude of charged particles-positively charged
atoms stripped of their electron shells and electron shells
separated from their atoms) to be rejected to the area where
the magnetic field is weakest, came into play.
And this ejection of particles (and of plasma as a whole)
where there are fewer lines of force, i.e. where they are
less densely concentrated, continues to play dirty tricks
on physicists. Because of it, the first thermonuclear apparatus based on the 'pinch effect' proved comparatively
inefficient, for the slightest imperfection in the plasma
column, be it a bend or a local constriction, in the end
led to breakdown (Fig. 29).
Let us suppose, for example, that a small bend has formed by chance in the column. In the convex part of the
bend the lines of force of the magnetic field will he further
apart, and in the concave part denser. The column begins
to be pushed out from the region where the lines of force
are more densely concentrated to the walls of the chamber.
The bend will then increase until the plasma touches the
walls of the chamber. It behaves just like a long compressed spring that is unstable under transverse pressure. In
exactly the same way a local constriction in the plasma
column will increase until the column itself breaks.
A magnetic field helps combat these phenomena. If there
are lines of force of a magnetic field from an outside source
along the plasma column their pressure should ensure that
any curve or constriction forming accidentally will be removed, approximately the same as happens when stretched
elastic strips are put inside springs. So, to restore stability more quickly it is necessary to create a very strong
longi tudinal magnetic field in the plasma.
Another effective way of overcoming bending in the plasma column, especially bends of large radius, is to employ
a more or less massive metal casing or vessel to contain
the plasma, with a magnetic flux between the casing and

112

the column, i ,e. a magnetic field with conventional lines

of force. If the column moves out of position, the magnetic
field between the lines of force and the casing becomes distorted and changes shape, the lines of force being compressed in one place and spread ou t in another. And if we remember that magnetic lines of force are elastic it will be
clear that they will strive to return the plasma column
to its former position along the axis of the chamber.
The stabilizing of plasma with a longitudinal field is
especially effective when the field can be made to exist
in the plasma only and not outside it, i ,e. when there is
no field between the walls of the chamber and the column.
This can be done when the plasma column constricted by
a strong current carries with it all the lines of force of a
longitudinal field set up in the whole volume of the chamber. In pulling away from the walls the column takes with
it all the lines of force previously existing in the chamber,
creating a magnetic vacuum for the longitudinal field between itself and the walls.
All these ideas began to be tried out in practice during
the Fifties. Earlier, it is true, at the end of the war, experiments. were being made in the USA on the magnetic
containment of plasma. They were directed to military
ends and were supervised by Enrico Fermi and Edward
Teller, two of the men who built the American atomic
bomb.
Intensive work on controlled thermonuclear synthesis
began almost simultaneously (as we have said) in the USSR,
the USA and Great Britain. The first apparatus was a glass,
china or quartz torus-shaped chamber* (later chambers were
generally Blade of thin rustproof, unmagnetized steel) into
which were put working chambers, sometimes called liners,
with thick copper walls. Around the chamber wound a

* A torus is a ring-shaped solid or doughnut of circular crosssection. -Tr.

8-1656

118

coil that set up a longitudinal, stabilizing magnetic field

of 500 oersteds. The chamber within the torus was filled
with gas forming a circular gas coil that acted like the secondary of a transformer. The outer, metal casing of the
chamber, attached to a powerful accumulator, served as
the primary, though sometimes a conventional copper coil
was used. And in order to improve the magnetic connection
an iron core was put inside the tOfUS.
/
One of the first machines called Zeta* consisted of two
separate cores with circular inner apertures in which the
discharge chamber was located. The cores, which had an
inner diameter of 1.5 metres and an outer diameter of three
metres, were coiled from transformer steel strip.
When a powerful pulse of current is discharged from the
accumulator to the primary of such a transformer, an electric current is also set up in the secondary gas winding,
passing along the gas, heating it to a high temperature,
and turning it into plasma. And the current itself constricts
the plasma column and takes it off the walls.
Other early experimental machines had a similar design.
The results of the numerous experiments performed on them,
however, made the scientists pessimistic. It became clear
that the stabilizing longitudinal field, contrary to the original predictions, could do little to stabilize the plasma
column during chance upheavals of any sort. The longitudinal field was too weak in comparison to the plasma's
own field. The elastic strings inside the spring proved too
weak to protect it from damaging curves.
In order to overcome this difficulty it was necessary
greatly to increase the longitudinal field and to weaken the
column's own field. The problem was resolved by Tokamak**, in which powerful coils maintaining a pressure of

* The name of the British apparatus at Harwell, an acronym from

Zero Energy Thermonuclear Apparatus.
** From the Russian for toroidal chamber with magnetic axial
control.
114

100 atmospheres in the magnetic field were used to create

the longitudinal field. These huge solenoids had to be fed
from the powerful pulse generators normally used for synchrotrons. Although the magnetic field thus created was
pulsed (the pulse lasted approximately one-fifth of a
second) it was 100 times greater than the length of
the discharge and in relation to it was practically
constant.
The longitudinal field of Tokamak was as high as 35 000
to 50 000 oersteds, i.e. 100 times stronger than the field
in Zeta.
But how were they to avoid the radius of the column
being constricted by pinch effect? As the radius diminishes
the column's field grows and the advantages obtained from
using a powerful.longitudinal field would be wiped out. But if
the column's field is weak the column remains too thick
and so touches the walls of the chamber and cools. In order
to overcome this contradiction the builders of machines
like Tokamak decided to put a diaphragm in the toroidal
chamber with openings that were small in comparison with
the diameter of the chamber. Experiments showed that
the cross-section of the column would then not exceed the size
of the apertures in the diaphragm. In Tokamak-3, which was
built at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in 1962,
the aperture of the diaphragm had a diameter of 20 centimetres, the liner a cross-section of 40 centimetres, and
the external casing a diameter of 50 centimetres. The diameter of the torus was two metres. Eight coils with an
outer diameter around one metre set up a longitudinal field
of 40 000 oersteds. Each coil consisted of 352 copper turns
baked in epoxide resin; and they were fed by an impact
generator, i.e. one that worked for only a short period,
with a power of 75 000 kilowatts. In 1964 an improved installation Tokamak-5 was commissioned, in which the position of the plasma column in the chamber was automatically adjusted, and later Tokamak-6 (Fig. 30). The tempe115

at

Fig. 30. Tokamak-6,

the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy.
Soviet scientists put great hopes in it to help them achieve the physicists' dream of controlled thermonuclear reactions.

rature of the plasma in Tokamak is as high as seven million

degrees, which is only one-fifteenth of what is needed. In
the much improved Tokamak-10 it is expected to obtain
temperatures as high as 30 million degrees.

116

The results of the experiments on the Tokamak series

were very encouraging and it seems Iikelythat similar SYSi..
terns will be used in future research.
Reasonable results were obtained from the Levitron at
the Livermore Laboratory. This idea, proposed by A.D.
Sakharov early in 1951, was that plasma constricted by
its own field would experience supplementary constriction
from the magnetic field of a special conductor placed in
the centre of the plasma column, but of course isolated
from it. In Levitron, the plasma column was ring-shaped
and extremely stable. But the need to isolate the circular
stabilizing conductor from the plasma, and to fix it in the
centre of the chamber, reduced chances of the system finding wide practical application.
An article written in 1950 by Sakharov and Tamm opened
up a completely new dimension in the work on the magnetic
containment of plasma. They proposed containing it in
magnetic traps (or 'magnetic bottles' as they are often called) and relegating the plasma's own magnetic field to a
secondary role. The first trap they suggested was a torusshaped chamber with a longitudinal magnetic field. Any
charged particle injected into the chamber would move
in such a way that its trajectory 'wound' onto the magnetic
lines of force. But they soon found a serious defect in their
own system. It turned out that the intensity or induction
of the magnetic field (the density of the lines of force) in
the torus-shaped chamber, in which the magnetic lines
of force were distorted, was higher inside the walls of the
tube than outside. The explanation was that the pressure
of the lines of force impelled them to take the shortest possible route so that more lines of force accumulated on the
inner wall where the path was shorter than on the outside
wall.
The non-uniformity of the magnetic field altered the spiral orbit of particles. Near the inner surface where the field
was stronger they had to move along a shorter orbit than

117

near the outer surface. As a result they drifted across the

lines of force of the magnetic field with positively charged
nuclei moving to the 'top' of the tube and electrons to the
'bottom' .
The drift was bad enough in itself but its side effect was
simply catastrophic. When particles separated according
to their sign an unforeseen electric field was set up within
the chamber, which completely distorted their orbits, throwing them against the walls of the chamber.
How can this non-uniformity of magnetic field be avoided?
How can all the paths of the lines of force in the toroidal
chamber be equalized?
It could be done if a line of force passing along the inner
surface of the chamber could be forced to change places
at some point with a line of force passing along the outer
surface. Then the lengths of all the lines of force would
be identical and all would enjoy the same conditions; each
line of force having made a full turn would not return to
its former spot but would form something called a magnetic
surface. This effect could be obtained by bending the lines
of force around the axis of the torus, so that they had approximately the same pattern as the strands in a rope.
In a magnetic field, transformed by twisting, particle
drift would be reduced to the minimum. For that the magnetic line of force had to describe a circle in the torus at
the same time as it twisted constantly around the chamber
axis. This would be possible by using a winding with a
large pitch, as shown in Fig. 31. Similar windings were
used in the Model C Stellarator built some years ago in the
USA. In plan the chamber looks rather like the cinder track
in a stadium. Its inner radius is 20 centimetres, the length
of the axis is 12 metres, and the intensity of the magnetic
field is of the order of 50 000 oersteds. The power consumption is 15 000 kilowatts.
The American physicist L. Spitzer and L.A. Artsimovich,
Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, suggested ano118

Fig. 31. Physicists have great hopes of the Stellarator, a system in

which the- magnetic lines of force describe a special surface known
as the magnetic surface.

ther method of 'rotational transformation' or 'twisting'

of the lines of magnetic force.
We have already spoken of how an ordinary untwisted
longitudinal magnetic field has ununiformities which leads
to negative particles sinking to the 'floor' and positive
particles rising to the 'ceiling' of the chamber. But what
would happen if half of the torus remained unaltered and
in the other half the 'ceiling' and 'floor' were reversed?
That is to say imagine the torus as a doughnut twisted into
a figure of eight. Having begun to fall in the first half of
the figure of eight a particle would then begin to 'fall upward'
in the second half and so remain in the centre at the same
distance from the chamber's axis.
119

Toroidal chambers of the stellarator type that have a

spiral winding and have been twisted into figures of eight
seem to be the best magnetic systems for containing plasma
at the present time. Their drawback is that they are difficult and expensive to make.
A simpler system, for example, is the trap with magnetic
mirrors or corks (which Russian physicists jokingly call
a 'probkolron' from the Russian word probka, cork). It
was proposed by Budker and consists of a long tube in which
a longitudinal 'magnetic field is set up. The coils wound
round the ends of the tube are more massive than those
in the centre so that the lines of force at the ends are denser
and the magnetic field stronger. A particle injected into
this kind of magnetic bottle therefore cannot escape through
the ends of the tube. In 1958 I.N. Golovin built a huge
magnetic trap at the": Institute of Atomic Energy for Ogra-I
on this principle. The vacuum chamber was 19 metres long
and had an internal diameter of 1.4 metres. The average
diameter of the winding creating the magnetic field was
1.8 metres and the intensity of the field was 5000 oersteds at
the centre of the chamber and 8000 oersteds in the mirrors.
But, as it turned out, the 'probkotron' in its 'pure' form
also had serious drawbacks. In this system the magnetic
field is weakest at the walls in the middle of the channel.
The plasma tends to this spot during a discharge and in
less than 0.001 second is already on the walls.
A new step toward perfecting the 'probkotron' was made
at the Institute in 1963 when the PH-5 was built (Fig. 32).
The idea was suggested by B. B. Kadom tsev , who had been
trying to discover why the original 'probkotron' had failed, and who had discovered that it was necessary to have
a magnetic field with a more complex configuration in order
to contain the plasma more successfully. He suggested supplementing the system of magnetic mirrors by another
winding along the active cylinder in such a way that the
current in neighbouring conductors would flow in opposite

120

Fig. 32. The PR-5 (Probkotron) magnetic trap.

directions. That should set up a supplementary magnetic

field near the walls of the cylinder, and keep the plasm a
away from them.
By applying a field Irom rectilinear conductors to the
field-tube a m.agnetic field with a very complex picture
was obtained. If, for example, the tube formed by the lines
of force in the centre of the chamber has a circular crosssection, at the boundaries of the chamber it will have the
shape of a curvilinear triangle.
The apparatus was built by a team of physicists headed
by 1\1.8. Joffe. Rectilinear conductors were placed under
the coils creating the magnetic field of mirrors. The longitudinal magnetic field was 8000 oersteds in the centre of

121

Fig. 33. A thermonuclear reactor of the future. A mock-up in the

Soviet Pavilion at E XPO-67 in Montreal.

the chamber and 12 000 oersteds at the mirrors. The magnetic field of the rectilinear conductors was 8000 oersteds near
the walls. The working volume was 1.5 metres long and
40 centimetres in diameter. Soviet physicists were greatly
encouraged by the results of their first experiments. The

122

Fig. 34. Schematic diagram of

a superconducting plasma trap:
l-input of gaseous helium under pressure; 2-input of liquid helium; 3-spiral heat ex4-superconductive
changer;
coil; 5-nitrogen screens; 6working zone; 7-exit for gaseous helium.

plasma was 35 times more stable than in the original 'probkotrons' and lasted for several hundredths of a second.
In 1964 Ogra-II was built, also on the principle of combined magnetic fields.
It is now accepted in all countries that a complex configuration of the magnetic field is the key to long-lived
plasma. Magnetic systems with opposing fields, as in Orekh
(the Nut) in which the direction of the current from one
of the mirror coils is 'confused', installations with highfrequency mirrors, 'antiprobkotrons', and still more. sophisticated machines have already been built, and scientists in the Soviet Union and other countries are working
intensively on making other magnetic traps (Fig. 33).
What will a thermonuclear generator be like? The magnetic trap is likely to be very large, for only then will
128

the power it consumes be small compared with the genera..

tor's power. This is the case because the power of the generator is proportional to the cube of the linear dimensions
of the system while the power required by the coils is directly proportional to them. Therefore knowing the power
required by the magnetic trap we can be sure that a thermonuclear generator will have to be several metres in diameter and several dozen metres long. Only then will its
useful power be greater than the energy required by the
magnetic system.
'There is little doubt,' L.A. Artsimovich wrote, 'that
the problem of controlled nuclear synthesis will be solved
in the end.'
It is not excluded, however, that we may well be able
to build huge superconducting coils in the future, which
would greatly increase the efficiency of generators (Fig. 34).
The cost of electric energy from thermonuclear power
stations will be very low because of the cheapness of the
initial raw material (water). The time will come when power
stations will generate literally oceans of electric energy.
And with this power it may become possible not only to
alter the nature of life on the Earth radically (to reverse
the flow of rivers, drain marshes, and irrigate deserts),
but also to change the appearance of near-by outer spaceto inhabit the Moon and to give Mars an atmosphere.
One of the basic difficulties is clearly that of creating
a magnetic field of set shape and strength. The strength
of the field in contemporary thermonuclear traps is relatively small considering the huge volume of the chambers,
the absence of a ferromagnetic core, and the special shape
of the field required, which all make the building of such
systems much more difficult but it must be admitted that
the traps we already have are a great technological achievement. The traps that will replace them will be the pride
of a new branch of physics-the physics of high and superhigh magnetic fields.

THE KEY TO THE MAGNET

Giants Should Become Extinct

In which our basic aim is to show that the electric razor

is not the only device that uses electromagnets and that
today's gigantic magnets are already giving engineers a
slight feeling of irritation, and sometimes not so slight a
concern.
At the end of 1962 the American International satellite
suddenly stopped giving the signals that witnessed that
it was functioning properly. A little later Transit, which
crossed exactly the same region, broke off its broadcast in
mid-sentence. Attempts to restore communications failed.
Investigations gave the following explanation for all
these mysterious space accidents. In July 1962 American
atomic scientists exploded Starfish, a one-and-a-half megaton nuclear device, 400 kilometres above Johnston Island. The explosion caused indignation throughout the
world, and created an artificial radioactive belt at the centre of which the hourly dose of radiation was 500 times
the lethal dose for humans. The powerful currents of electrons given off by this nuclear explosion damaged the radio
apparatus of the artificial satellites.
The same effect, only on much bigger scale, should be
met in the natural radiation belts of the Earth. The danger
that these radiation belts present has attracted special attention since man first went into space.
At first glance the problem of protection against radiation might not seem so complicated, particularly since

125

Nature offers us a marvellous example of how she has solved it. For that matter, if there is so much dangerous radiation in the space around the Sun, how is it that the human
race has survived? Why has the Earth not been turned into
a desert, a lifeless plain?
As we said earlier, the Earth is protected against radiation by its own magnetic field. As soon as a charged particle
enters this field its path is deflected and it begins to orbit
the Earth, revolving along the lines of force of the magnetic field.
Therefore a magnet can be used to protect a spaceship
against radiation. It would have to be approximately equal
to the diameter of the ship, of course, and the field strong
enough to repel dangerous particles.
This problem did not seem to be too complicated. After
all, in the 150 years since Sturgeon made the first electromagnet engineers have learnt how to make electromagnets
of appropriate dimensions and with quite strong fields.
And since Arago.. and Ampere demonstrated that a spiral
carrying direct current behaves in exactly the same way as
a natural permanent magnet, attracting small bits of iron,
all modern electromagnets have worked on that principle;
each always has a spiral (usually copper or aluminium)
that carries a current.
Theoretically there is no limit to the intensity and induction of a magnetic field of an electromagnet. The power
lost in the electrical resistance of the coil is the sole obstacle to obtaining super-high magnetic fields; and it increases with the square of the intensity of the required magnetic field. The record permanent electromagnet, built
in the USA with a water-cooled copper spiral, creates a
magnetic field with an induction of 250 000 gauss and consumes 60 megawatts. One scheme for an electromagnet with
a field of one million gauss envisages supplying it from
generators with a total power of 1000 megawatts.
In order to reduce the power required by an electromag-

126

net 'a steel core is put inside the spiral. The power can be
substantially reduced this way but the weight of the magnet
is increased 100 fold by the steel armour around the inside
and the outside of the spiral. Such magnets are used for
small fields of set uniformity (up to 20 000 gauss) as in the
magnetic systems of charged particles accelerators.
But quite obviously heavy magnets cannot be used on
spacecraft. So if magnetism is to be used as protection from
radiation it can only be done with relatively light systems
without steel cores. I t seemed as if the solution lay along
these lines. But the calculations did not support the idea.
An electromagnet in the form of a water-cooled copper coil
would have to weigh twenty or thirty tons, or more, in
order to meet the demands put on it and would need a power
station and a pumping station installed on the spacecraft
to serve it.
A new type of magnet was clearly needed that would be
light, compact, and highly economic, quite unlike the
multi-ton copper and steel monsters that have occupied
huge physics laboratories and the underground lairs of gigantic synchrophasotrons.
It is difficult to imagine how complicated it was to create
new magnets. We can now say 'was' because thousands
of such devices have already been tested in the laboratory.
They are not only intended for outer space, after all many
terrestrial branches of science and technology are connected
in some way or another with the application of magnetic
fields.
This is probably the best place to explain what magnets
we shall now be concerned with. We use magnets very often
in our daily life-every time we switch on an electric razor,
a tape recorder, a vacuum cleaner, a radio set, an electric
floor polisher, or a television set. Bu t these magnets are
relatively weak; their fields are nowhere near 10 000 gauss
(ten kilogauss) and the volume in which they operate is
measured in cubic millimetres.

127

But that is not the type of magnet we are concerned with.

Twentieth-century physics and technology use magnets
hundreds of times larger in physical size and in strength
than these little devices.
Modern generators producing oceans of electricity have
10 to i5-metre rotors revolving at high speeds. Those are
magnets.
In magnetic fields half a million times stronger than
the Earth's, scientists are researching into the properties
of matter. In these fields a force greater than t\VO tons per
square centimetre of tho coil's surface is exerted. The apparatus to produce them occupies a whole laboratory block.
I t is also a magnet.
One can name hundreds, even thousands of the most
varied physical, technical, and purely practical engineering jobs that have one thing in common, that they all require light, powerful, economic magnets. It is a matter of
building new generators, of diving work to raise sunken
ships, of atomic faclories, and of effecting controlled thermonuclear reactions.
A powerful magnet is the key to all these and to many
other problems. But the key to it has eluded scientists
for a long time.
Why do available magnets not suit engineers and scientists? To begin with because, as we have said, they are too
voracious.
Whereas laboratory electromagnets of 20 000 gauss need
power measured in hundreds of kilowatts, magnets dozens
of times that strength would need a power source hundreds
of times stronger, of the order of tens of thousands of kilowatts (or tens of megawatts).
Things are no better as regards size. Since it is difficult
to obtain a field higher than 20 kilogauss with steel magnets
designers have frequently had to increase the size of the
magnets in order to achieve the desired effect. And so the
magnets of accelerators are hundreds of metres in diameter

128

and the more powerful pieces of nuclear artillery, being

planned or built, have magnets with diameters measured
in kilometres.
And that does not exhaust the deficiencies of 'traditional'
magnets. They are naturally very heavy (basically because
of the steel armour of the core which is used, not very successfully, to lower power requirements). The giant magnet
in the Dubna synchrophasotron, for example, weighs 36 000
tons, the weight of several long, fully loaded railway trains.
And in the future? How big and heavy and voracious will
powerful magnets be? For it is clear, that with the increasing sophistication of scientific and engineering problems
and the growth of industry, these already huge figures,
which are evidence of the serious drawbacks of the magnets,
will go on becoming larger and larger.
But that will not happen. And here is why.

Mistake or Discovery?
In which an eminent Dutch scientist, after long doubts,
communicates a new discovery to the world.
An eminent physicist once said that the modern scientists involved with superconducting magnets 'have stolen
the pie from Onnes and are gobbling it up' But actually
there is as big a difference between modern superconducting
magnets and Kamerlingh Onnes's ideas as there is between a pie and its recipe. Back in 1911 the Dutch
physicist Kamerlingh Ormes while working in his Leyden laboratory accidently stumbled upon the phenomenon
of superconductivity and at first took it for an error in his
experiments.
And it was a very long time before he realized that superconductivity was not an experimental error or proof
of his incorrect theory of electrical resistance but a totally
9-1656

129

unknown, unexplained phenomenon heralding a new era

in electrical engineering.
Here are the stages that led up to the obtaining of superlow temperature and to the discovery of superconductivity:
1877 -the Frenchman Louis Cailletet obtains liquid oxygen in the form of drops of mist (90.2K).*
i883-the Poles Z. Wroblewski and K. Olszewski produce
liquid nitrogen (77.4 OK).
1898-the Scotsman J ames Dewar produces liquid- hydrogen (20.4K).
1908-the Dutchman Kamerlingh Onnes first obtains
liquid helium as a small cloud of mist (4.2K).
1911-Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity in
mercury.
Before 1911 it had not been clear how the electrical
resistance of metals would change as their temperature
was lowered. There were then three schools of thought.
1. It was known from the classical theory of electromagnetism that the resistance of a conductor diminished
as its temperature fell and it was fairly simple to explain
the phenomenon. An electric current is a flux of free electrons passing through the crystal lattice of a metal. The
probability of electrons colliding with the lattice at hight
temperatures is great because of the thermal oscillation
of the atoms in it, an oscillation that hampers the movement
of the electrons and sets up a resistance to the current.
At low temperatures, when the amplitude of oscillations
of the atoms in the lattice decreases, the probability of
electrons colliding with the lattice diminishes and so the
current encounters less resistance. At absolute zero the lattice would be still and the resistance of the conductor
zero.

* The Kelvin scale is used here. Temperature is read from absolute zero (0 OK = -273.16 C).
180

2. Even at absolute zero there would he resistance to

current because some electrons would collide with the
crystal lattice, especially as the lattice is not, as a rule,
perfect, but always contains defects and includes impurities.
3. The resistance of metals should increase as one nears
absolute zero because, as the electrons condense on the
lattice (a crude analogy would be the formation of drops
of water on a cold spoon when it is held above a cup of
hot tea), they will continuously grow fewer in number
as the metal cools; consequently the electrical conductivity
(which is the opposite of resistance and is determined by
the number of free electrons) will decrease.
In the spring of 1911 Kamerlingh Onnes froze some
mercury in a Dewar flask containing liquid helium. Then
he passed a current through the mercury and observed on
his meters how, as he expected, resistance fell with temperature. The correlation between resistance and temperature was maintained until the temperature fell to 4.12K.
Then electrical resistance suddenly disappeared; there was
not even any resistance in the mercury due to defects and
impurities in the lattice.
He repeated the experiment. He took some very impure
mercury so that the residual resistance caused by the impurities should be clearly noticeable. But close to the
same temperature, 4.12K, resistance almost as suddenly
vanished. How could the resistance of the column of mercury be increased so that it could be measured on the meters? It was apparently necessary to increase the length
of the column and reduce its cross-section. He prepared
a column of mercury finer than a human hair and 20 centimetres long. He measured the resistance again and was
astounded to see that the meters did not move.
He made a ring of mercury and hung it on a fine thread.
If a current were induced in the ring (for example by switching off an electromagnet) the thread would revolve through
9*

131

a certain angle, which could be measured with great

accuracy by fixing a small mirror on the thread and following the reflection. If there were any resistance in the
ring the current would be gradually extinguished. The
twist of the thread would weaken and the reflection would
move. He carried out the experiment. The reflection did
not move.
It could only mean that there was no electrical resistance in the ring, i.e. that the mercury was superconductive
at temperatures near absolute zero. But it was more than
half a century before superconductivity ceased to be a laboratory curiosity and became sure ground for physicists
and engineers.
Some Properties of Superconductors
In which we largely stick to our title but also range over
the Universe, 'Mahomet's Grave' and the mysterious theories known as BCS and GLAG.
The best known and, apparently, valuable property of
superconductors is their zero electrical resistance to direct
current.
I t is impossible to prove the fact of zero resistance experimentally; all one can say is that the resistance of a
superconductor is not greater than the smallest unit measurable on the instruments. The upper limit of specific
electrical resistance in a superconductor is considered to
be 3 X 10- 23 ohm-centimetre*. From that it is possible
to calculate that the current in a superconducting circuit

* At 4.2 "K copper has a resistivity of i.OX 10- 9 ohrn-centimetre, which is at least 33 X 1012 greater than that of a superconductor. So copper is often used as an electrical insulator for superconducting wire.
132

is reduced by an amount that can only be observed experimentally over a period of not less than 100 000 years.
It is now understandable why, in one of the experiments
carried out from March 1954 to September 1956, the researchers failed to notice the slightest fall in the current
in a lead circuit. An experiment that took ten years yielded the same result.
But during research into the fading of magnetic flux
inside a niobium-zirconium tube (25 per cent zirconium)
it was found that the flux did die away in logarithmic
progression; in the first second it fell by 1.0 per cent, in
the next ten seconds by 1.0 per cent, and so on. To fade
away completely, or rather to the point where nothing
is measurable by means of modern instruments, would
take 10 92 years. It follows, of course, that one has to approach the results of such experiments warily. Any ring
creating a magnetic field is known to experience forces tending
to increase its size or simply to disrupt it. An increase
in the diameter of the ring, if only by one millionth, would
immediately be reflected by a fall in the field, which
might be ascribed to the presence of electrical resistance
in the superconductor.
It was 22 years after the first, main property of superconductors-the absence of resistance-was (in 1911) discovered that their second major property became known.
In 1933 the German physicists Meissner and Ochsenfeld
discovered that superconductors were ideal diamagnets.
What did that mean?
We, for example, are always in the Earth's magnetic
field. Its lines of force penetrate everything around us.
When anything ferromagnetic, like a piece of iron, comes
into their path they become denser. But when they meet
a dimagnet they spread apart and form a vacuum of lines
of force. Magnetic lines of force do not generally penetrate
a superconductor. In other words a superconductor is
a perfect d iamagnet ; its interior is ideally screened from

133

external magnetic fields (the Meissner effect) by currents

flowing in a thin layer at its surface. A magnetic field penetrates this layer (to a distance known as the penetration
depth and signified by Iv). The diamagnetism of superconductors can be used to give the lines of force of a magnetic
field a certain configuration, for example, the field passing
around the superconductor and the lines of force adopting
its contours.
A superconductor differs essentially from an ideal conductor with a resistivity p ==0. A magnetic field can penetrate an ideal conductor but there is no way to force one
to penetrate a superconductor.
Or rather there is one way: when the intensity of a magnetic field rises above a certain critical value at one point
of the superconductor the latter is no longer at that point
in a superconducting state. This critical field is low for
pure metals and does not exceed hundreds of oersteds, as
can be seen from Table 2.
A current flowing through a superconductor can also
cause it to lose superconductivity. In pure superconductors its strength is linked with the critical magnetic field
by Silsbee's rule, i ,e, that superconductivity is quenched
by a current in the conductor strong enough to create a
field on its surface equal to the critical magnetic field.
The strength of the field on the surface of the conductor
can be established from the Ampere Law.
Every superconductor also has a critical temperature,
the transition temperature (T c ) above which it suddenly
loses its superconducting properties. These temperatures
vary widely (see Table 2).
The mechanical stresses in a specimen affect the critical
temperature, but only weakly. As a rule, but not invariably,
an increase in mechanical stress causes a rise in the critical temperature. It is only possible to ascertain this by
highly sensitive methods.

134

Table 2
Transition Temperatures and Critical Magnetic Fields of
Metals
Element

Titanium
Ruthenium
Zirconium
Cadmium
Uranium
Osmium
Zinc
Gallium
Aluminium
Thorium
Rhenium
Thallium
Indium
Tin
Mercury
Tantalum
Vanadium
Lanthanum
Lead
Niobium

Transi tion (or crt tical)

tempera ture
T c, oK

0.4
0.49
0.55
0.56
0.6

0.71
0.82
1.1
1.2
1.37
1.7
2.39
3.4
3.72
4.15
4.4
5.30

5.95
7.17

9.22

Selected

Cri ti cal magnetic field

H c,

oersteds

100
66
47
30

-2000
65
52
51
99

162
201
171
278
309

411
780
1310
1600
803
1944

An analogous dependence exists between mechanical

stress and the critical magnetic field. It has been shown,
in particular, that the critical field of a specimen of tin,
which is 210 oersteds at 2 "K, is raised to 15 000 oersteds
after strong mechanical stresses had artificially been set
up in the tin.
Diminishing the size of a specimen to approximately
one micron causes an essential change in the properties

135

of a superconductor; it is no longer diamagnetic and its

cri tical field and curren t increase abruptly.
By reducing the thickness of a specimen its critical field
can be increased one hundred fold. A superconducting
lead strip 20 angstroms thick has a critical field of 400 000
oersteds.
The density of the critical current in thin superconducting strips also rises quickly. In layers around 100 angstroms thick it reaches 107 to 108 amperes per square centimetre.
When the frequency of the magnetic field or the current
is increased a superconductor gradually begins to acquire
resistance, but at frequencies under 10 7 hertz it is still
practically zero.
In 1950 the American physicist A.B. Pippard established that the range of critical frequencies for tin was between 1.2 and 9.4 gigahertz (1.2-9.4 GHz).
As L.N. Cooper, a young American scientist, showed
in 1956, electrons form pairs in the superconducting state,
the formation of these pairs becoming possible when the
interaction of the conduction electrons with anti parallel
spins (roughly speaking, turning in opposite directions)
and the lattice* gives rise to forces of attraction between
them that overcome the forces of electrical repulsion.
The dimension of the Cooper pairs is quite large, greater
than the penetration depth in pure conductors and rather
less in alloys.
On the basis of Cooper '8 postula te a theory of su perconductivity, known as the BeS theory after the names
of its authors-J. Bardeen, L.N. Cooper, and J.R. Schrie-

* The role of the lattice in the development of the superconducting properties was demonstrated in 1950 by E. Maxwell, who
discovered the isotopic effect, i.e. the dependence of the critical
temperature on the frequency of oscillation of the lattice (the mass
of the atom).
136

ffer*-was developed, and also

N.N. Bogolyubov's
t.heory.
Energy must be expended to disrupt the Cooper pair.
Therefore the energy of the superconducting electrons is
smaller than the energy of normal electrons by a definite
amount, the difference being known as the energy gap.
Pure superconductors (with the exception of niobium)
are of the first kind, hut most (and around 1000 have already been discovered) belong to the second kind, a term
introduced in 1952 by the Soviet scientist A.A. Abrikosov
in further developing the GL (Ginsburg-Landau) theory.
The term is essential for distinguishing superconductors
with a negative surface energy from those with a positive
surface energy (first kind) at the transition from the superconducting phase to the normal one. Negative surface
energy occurs when the Ginsburg-Landau parameter k is
greater than 1/V2.
Superconductors in which k is greater than 1/V2 are
mainly the various superconducting alloys. From the
GLAG theory (from the names of V.L. Ginsburg, L. D. Landau, A.A. Abrikosov, and L.P. Gorkov**) it follows that
the critical fields and transition temperatures of superconductors of the second kind should be very high.
J .E. Kunzler's discovery in 1961 of the superconductivity
of Nh 3Sn in a field of 88 000 oersteds verified this theory.
It later bee-arne clear that the critical fields of many alloys
(like NbaSn and V3Ga) exceed 200 000 to 250 000 oersteds
and that these alloys have higher critical fields and transition temperatures than superconductors of the first kind.
It is possible that superconductors with even better superconducting properties will be discovered in the near future.

* Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer received the Nobel Prize in

1972 for this work.
* Gorkov substantiated the equations of the Ginsburg-Landau
theory.

137

But theoretical physicists do think that there is a limit

to the properties of superconductors and take the limit
of critical temperature to be 4ooK , which applies to the
type of superconductivity now known, in which an electron
pair capable of moving through the lattice without friction is formed by the field of lattice vibrations. In this field
one electron emits a vibration quantum and another absorbs it; consequently there is no loss of energy or any electrical resistance.
If the mechanism of superconductivity worked some
other way it would be possible to achieve even higher critical temperatures. In the American press there has heen
a discussion of the possibility of superconductivity in
linear polymers at critical temperatures up to 1000 oK.
The properties of superconductors of the first and second
kinds are strikingly different; in those of the second kind,
for example, the transition to the superconducting state
proceeds very smoothly with a broad range in the intensity
of the magnetic field. A superconductor of the first kind
can readily be converted into a one of the second kind by
introducing atoms from outside (a few per cent are sufficient) or by deforming its crystal lattice by some means
like mechanical coercion. The outcome is paradoxical,
the worse the lattice the greater is the critical current in
the superconductor.
According to the GLAG theory, alloys should have two,
and not one, critical fields. The intensity of the magnetic
field below which a superconductor remains absolutely
diamagnetic is represented by H el - At higher intensities
the field begins to penetrate the superconductor in the
form of fine filaments parallel to the external field and
containing quanta of magnetic flux.
In a field H e2 a superconductor no longer obstructs the
lines of force. So the field can be expanded by increasing
the concentration of defects in the superconductor. In very
uniform superconductors of the second kind, the theory

138

predicts, there will be no hysteresis (the loop in the magnetization curve).

Nevertheless, for alloys consisting of large sectors with
differing concentrations of defects (or a different composition) the correlati-ons of the GLAG theory are not observed, and they possess very pronounced hysteresis. Such
superconducting alloys are sometimes called superconductors of the third kind.
The non-homogeneity of alloys to a significant extent
determines their critical current, but has no effect whatsoever on the size of H c2
Since superconductors of the second kind are permeable
to magnetic fields and, having a non-homogeneous composition, are subject to hysteresis, supplying them with alternating current or placing them in a fluctuating magnetic
field causes losses. The magnitude of these losses, for a
niobum-l-zirconium alloy (25 per cent zirconium) at 50
hertz, it has been shown, is 300 watts when a current of
ten kiloamperes is passed through a superconductor one
metre long. The losses can be significantly lowered by
reducing the dimensions of the superconductor-by drawing
it into fine threads, for example, or pressing it into a porous material.
Such 'synthetic' superconductors have two advantages
at least: first, their superconducting properties are improved when their dimensions are reduced; second, losses to
eddy currents in the non-superconducting parts are reduced.
The Josephson Effect
In which we tell briefly about a discovery made, surprisingly enough, with a fountain pen, that may possibly
become one of the technological sensations of the age,
but may equally remain simply an intriguing curiosity
of theoretical physics.

189

Was it foresight? Or the result of many years' hard work?

Or a series of happy coincidences? Apparently it was a
combination of all three. Some years ago Brian D. Josephson, a research student at Cambridge University, published
a short paper in Physics Letters that aroused unusual
interest among physicists.
Josephson was apparently in a hurry. Physics Letters
publishes new research that people want to make quickly
known, and its publication time had been reduced to six
weeks or two months! And it really was necessary to hurry,
because a matter of weeks might decide whose name would
be given to the new effect.
What was it in Josephson's article that aroused such
great interest? Has the Josephson effect any practical application? Or is it. just a curiosity?
The Josephson effect is a tunnel effect in superconductors, a mysterious flowing of superconducting, i.e. nonfading, current through a non-superconducting layer dividing two superconductors.
Let us begin with a tunnel effect. What is it? To explain
let us make a small experiment.
As you undoubtedly know, a vacuum is an ideal insulator. However thin the vacuum layer is, it reliably insulates electrically charged particles from each other. Now
let us take a condenser or capacitor with two plates, to
which a constant potential difference is applied. How will
the current alter in the circuit if the plates are moved nearer to each other? The answer seems obvious. While the
plates are separated, if only by a single angstrom, no
current should flow in the circuit. But experiment proved
the opposite. At a distance of approximately 100 angstroms (for our purpose it is unimportant how it is done),
an electric current begins to flow through the plates. How
is that? It is against all the rules. But yes, as the plates
come closer together we move out of our classical macroworld into a world where quite different laws operate,
140

namely the laws of quantum mechanics by which the carriers of electricity, electrons, have exactly the same characteristics as visible light. We now have to judge
the behaviour of an electron by the laws that govern
light.
We all know what total internal reflection is. When the
angle at which light strikes the interface of boundary between two surfaces, e.g. glass and air, is less than a certain,
critical, angle the wave coming from within the glass to
its surface will not pass out into the surrounding space
but will be reflected back into the glass from the interface.
So it will not enter the space around the glass; in other
words no light will pass out into the air. And in fact we
see no signs of it at first. But what is this?
As we bring a second glass plate closer and closer to
the interface, we begin to notice a faint luminescence in
it. Where does the luminescence come from? For the wave
was reflected back from the edge and did not come out
into the surrounding atmosphere. It appears that, as we
bring the second glass plate closer to the first, an undamped wave is formed in it like that in the first plate and in
this case the solution of Maxwell '8 equation is also unexpected. Outside the glass, it seems, there is an electromagnetic field that quickly fades with distance. If we investigate the reason for the luminescence in the second glass
we can say that the light wave has crossed from the one
piece of glass to the other through a 'tunnelling' effect.
Approximately the same thing happens whan the plates
of a condenser are brought close together. Despite the
apparent total reflection of the electron waves from the
interface of the metal condenser and the vacuum, there is
an electric field in the vacuum that fades with distance
from the plates. By bringing the plates close together we
obtain what is called tunnel effect.
Tunnel effect is no novelty in physics. It has been thoroughly studied in semiconductors, and intensively in141

vestigated between metals. It is also known between superconductors.

What remained for Josephson?
Superconductors! He had theoretically discovered the
tunnel effect between superconductors. But come! It was
known! No, it wasn't. All tunnel effects previously discovered had assumed the presence of electrical resistance
between the plates; Josephson's barrier itself was superconducting.
Like Leverrier, Josephson had made his discovery with
'the tip of a pen' To understand his reasoning we must
recall a few factors bearing on the theory of superconductivity. The first, perhaps, is the famous superconducting
ring, i.e. a ring made from a superconductor, in which a
current does not fade.
It has been verified experimentally that the current
'frozen' in the superconducting ring can only be reduced
in steps, which corresponds to Bohr '8 postulate that an
electron impulse can only accept strictly defined, discrete
values. It has been calculated for single electrons moving
along a crystal lattice that the step must equal 4.14 X 10-7
maxwell. B.S. Deaver, Jr. and W.M. Fairbank, trying
experimentally to determine the height of the step, came
to the unexpected conclusion that the quantum of current
obtained was 2.07 X 10-7 maxwell, i.e. half the predicted
amount. The divergence could only be explained if we assumed that the carrier of the superconducting current had
a double charge, i.e. was a pair of electrons.
A pair of electrons! How could that be? For electrons
are negatively charged particles and consequently surely
repel each other! What can hold them together? What
would unite them?
The first to solve that problem was the American physicist Fritz London. He introduced a totally new idea into
the theory of superconductivity that in the end led Josephson to his discovery.
142

London said that a current is set up in a metal because

electrons move by preference through a metal lattice made
up, roughly speaking, of positive ions. An electron moving
near such an ion attracts the latter to itself so that the
whole lattice is distorted; in one region it has more positively charged -ions than before, and in another fewer.
The region with a surplus is able to attract another electron.
In the end, because of the mediation of the lattice, two
electrons are attracted, if not to each other, then to the
same place, and form a pair. Whether they are strongly
or weakly linked depends on the strength of their interaction with the lattice. In metals like copper and silver,
which are considered the best conductors of electricity,
the link is unstable so that no pairs are formed. By the same
token they are not superconductors, for superconductivity
arises as the result of the formation of pairs. Nor is that
all. If the pairs were to move by themselves in an uncoordinated fashion, they would still be dispersed in the crystal
lattice. It is a peculiarity of a superconducting current
that all the pairs are closely linked to one another and
move in a single system, in a single rhythm, closely intertwined with each other. It is impossible to stop anyone
pair; its extensive links would result in complete stoppage
of all the electrons throughout the volume of the metal.
In that sense a superconductor is analogous to a single,
gigantic molecule. Therefore only two states are possible
for it; either no current flows or it flows without let. In
principle a superconductor cannot have electrical resistance.
So a superconductor is a single gigantic molecule, a single organism with a single rhythm, to which all the electron pairs are subordinated. From quantum mechanics we
know that any particle possesses wave properties. In that
sense a superconductor is a single ocean of waves and the
waves are of equal length and, moreover, are all in phase,
i.e. coincide with each other, a fact that is especially important for explaining the Josephson effect.
143

Josephson's contribution was that he wanted to study

the concept of phase in superconductors in greater depth.
We have already seen how all electron waves in superconductors have the same phase. Hut what phase? Unfortunately, physicists cannot say exactly. All waves in one
part of a superconductor are in phase, and all the waves
in another part are also in phase. That is not disputed.
The question is whether or not they are in the same phase.
Josephson was unable to demonstrate that they should
be the same. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not.
So we get the following picture. One phase is set up in a
large section of a superconductor through the powerful
mutual influence of pairs. If the superconductor is then
cut in two and the pieces separated by a significant distance (say a centimetre, which in atomic terms is an enormous distance), there may now be different phases in them
since the mutual influence of pairs is now completely absent. Might there not also be an intermediate state in which
different phases and the mutual influence of electron pairs
would be preserved? Josephson decided that this could
quite possibly happen. If the two pieces of the superconductor were now moved to within an infinitesimal distance
of each other, smaller than the dimensions of the electron
pairs (ten to twenty angstroms, say), then, as a result of
the normal wave properties of electrons, i ,e, of normal
tunnel effect, the two superconductors with their different
phases should exchange electron pairs. And once such an
exchange had taken place the barrier between the two
superconductors (in its simplest form a vacuum) should
be unable to offer any electrical resistance to the movement
of pairs, i ,e, the barrier would be superconducting. This
was the new thing that Josephson had noticed. In addition, he surmised that if different phases were somehow
set up in two superconductors, the exchange of electron
pairs that would occur when they were sufficiently close
together would be more intense in one direction than in
144

the other. In other words, an unfading electric current

should flow across his barrier.
Josephson apparently thought it unlikely that it would
be possible to check his theoretical discovery in the near
future. For it was easy to say 'move the two bits of the
superconductor to within 10 angstroms of each other',
but it was quite something else to do.
But within a year of Josephson's communication a paper
appeared in Physics Reuieui Letters from P.W. Anderson and J .M. Rowell, that opened with the following
words: 'We have observed an anomalous de tunneling
current at or near zero voltage (sic! superconducting!-V.K.)
in very thin tin oxide barriers between superconducting
Sn and Ph, which we cannot ascribe to superconducting
leakage paths across the barrier, and which behaves in several respects as the Josephson current might be expected
to. '
This was the first experimental verification of the existence of an effect discovered by means of an unusual piece
of apparatus-a fountain pen. For the vacuum layer Anderson and Rowell substituted a layer of oxide, which was
incomparably simpler to prepare. Painstaking checking
indicated that the effect discovered experimentally was
the Josephson effect. The magnetic field acted as arbiter
in the debate. Investigating the dependence of the current
in the barrier on the applied magnetic field by means of
the apparatus of quantum mechanics, Josephson concluded
that it should resemble the dependence of the intensity
of Fraunhofer lines on their distance from the centre of
the picture. Experiments in the dependence indicated that
he was quite right; the similarity of the curve with the
picture of the lines of Fraunhofer diffraction through an
aperture that repeated the shape of the silhouette of the
barrier once more demonstrated the quantum-mechanical
character of the effect, which showed in tangible form on
conventional instruments like ammeters and voltmeters.
10-1656

145

So the first of Josephson's effects was verified. And

the time came for his second effect also to be confirmed.
We have already said that Josephson had really discovered two effects, although the second was a consequence
and logical continuation of the first. In the first the barrier remained superconducting, i.e. there was no voltage
in it. But what happened if a voltage V were applied to
it? Then a pair of electrons crossing from the one superconductor to the other should have their energy increased
by 2eV, where e is the electron charge. But the exchange
of electron pairs between two superconductors is a superconducting exchange, and the energy of the pair should
not alter. Therefore a pair crossing from one su percond uctor
to the other must get rid of this newly acquired energy,
which it does by radiating photons, i ,e. quanta of highfrequency electromagnetic radiation. The frequency of the
radiation can be expressed by the formula

where e is the electron charge and 11 is Planck's constant.

A high-frequency electromagnetic field is one with an
alternating current. Consequently, by applying a constant
potential difference to the Josephson barrier, we obtain an
alternating current in the barrier circuit of very high frequency, whore effect in the external space should be detectable by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the
barrier, the existence of which had been postula ted by
Josephson.
Verifying of the existence of this second effect proved
immeasurably more difficult than proving the first, primarily because the power of this radiation was extremely
small and the waves were in a very awkward wave band,
about which physicists still knew little. Because of that
another way was taken, mainly involving organ pipes,
146

?r ra~her the principle on which they work. An organ pipe

built for a certain, definite frequency, the same frequency
that B.ach and Buxtehude had in mind when they wrote
a particular not~ on. the staff. It also has the interesting
property of echoing Its frequency (or resonating) wherever
that frequency is generated. So it singles out a weak signal
of its frequency and transforms it into a strong and beautiful sound.
Exactly the same thing happens if the pipe is vibrated
by frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental, i ,e,
by what are called overtones.
It was precisely this effect that the scientists used. They
decided to apply electromagnetic vibrations from an external source to the Josephson barrier. The apparatus was
made in such a way that the radiation frequency could
be altered. At certain frequencies a sharp increase in the
current was observed in the circuit. And when these frequencies were measured it was found that they corresponded exactly to the formula above, offering beautiful but
indirect proof of Josephson's second effect.
Several members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences,
I. Janson, V. Svistunov, and I. Dmitrenko, and the American scientists Scalapino, Taylor, and Eck decided to try
for direct proof. They applied a waveguide to the barrier,
using a metal pipe of rectangular cross-section in which
an electromagnetic wave could be propagated practically
without damping. The other end of the waveguide was
attached to a supersensitive wave detector, so sensitive
that it was capable of measuring the electromagnetic power entering the human eye from a hundred candlepower
electric lamp situated 500 kilometres away from the observer. The apparatus did its job, and the existence of the
second Josephson effect was firmly established.
The physicist A. Mieckewicz (better known under the
pen-name of A. Dneprov) once predicted that all physical
effects would eventually find practical application. The

IS

10*

147

area in which the Josephson effects could be used is now

quite clear, and it is one of surprising beauty.
The Josephson effect is a very rare and unique physical
phenomenon. In it quantum-mechanical effects, that are
invisible and unsensed because of their ephemeral smallness, make themselves felt in our human, macroscopic
world. Such a success is seldom the lot of a scientist. By
simultaneously measuring the voltage and frequency of the
radiation in the barrier, it is possible to measure the universal physical constant elk with a degree of accuracy
hitherto undreamt. The charge of an electron-just one!and Planck's constant, which are needed at every step in
physics will be measured by means of the most conventional earthly apparatus.
Fantastic possibilities are opened up for superaccurate
measurement of magnetic fields by means of Josephson
barriers. Each step in the volt-ampere characteristic of
the barrier owes its occurrence to a change amounting
to one quantum of flux in the magnetic flux passing across
the barrier. It is almost inconceivable! To count the number of quanta in flux! For a quantum of flux is minute,
only 2.07 X 10-7 maxwell (for comparison, the flux in a
classroom horseshoe magnet is measured in hundreds of
thousands of maxwells). Here, as before, quantum phenomena can be measured with ordinary laboratory apparatus. Magnetic fields of millionths of a gauss have already
been measured by means of Josephson barriers.
In this way the Josephson effects, themselves a product
of theoretical physics, will serve for the further development of the theories of quantum mechanics, especially
those concerned with superconductive states.
They may possibly also find application in engineering.
The unusually high sensitivity of Josephson barriers to
a magnetic field and the relatively strong output signal
have given scientists the idea of using them in the logic
element for electronic digital computers. In a field of 0.5
148

gauss the conventional barrier, tin-oxide-tin, gives a signal output up to one microvolt, which even breaks the
record set by the famous cryotron. To switch a cryotron
requires a field of between 5 and 50 gauss, while its output
voltage is only one-tenth that in the Josephson barrier.
Another very attractive possibility is that of utilizing
the second Josephson effect to generate electromagnetic
waves in the millimetre band. Unfortunately this part
of the electromagnetic spectrum, with waves varying in
length from a centimetre to hundredths of a millimetre,
is comparatively little used in science and engineering
because obtaining them is a vastly difficult and expensive
business. The Josephson barrier presents a cheap, convenient, and straightforward source of low-power coherent
radiation (i ,e, all the waves in the same phase) and monochromatic radiation (all the waves of equal length) in the
millimetre band.
There is, finally, another, at present still fantastic,
possibility. The sensation that stirred the world several
years ago never took place. The superconductors, predicted by Little-long organic molecules retaining their superconductivity even at several hundred degrees Celsiusfor a number of reasons proved impracticable. At the International Conference on Low-Temperature Physics held
in Moscow in September 1966 Little himself stated that,
thanks to the help of Soviet colleagues, he had found a
mistake in his calculations. The idea of a long, superconducting, organic molecule, however, closed in on itself and possessing surprising properties, was correct. The
question that remained was how to use it. For it would
have no ends, being closed in on itself. Who would need
this superconducting 'thing in itself'? And what could
we do with it?
There was silence in the hall until a young Soviet D .Sc.,
I. Dzyaloshinsky, rose and asked, half jokingly: 'Well,
perhaps ... the Josephson effect?'
149

A Discovery's New Lease of Life

In which we learn how much scientific authority costs
and make a trip to the Dutch laboratory where the phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered, where hopes
faded and gave way to despair, but were revived again.
Back in 1913 Kamerlingh Onnes decided to build a superconducting electromagnet of 100 kilogauss that would
not require any energy. He reasoned that since the resistance in a superconductor is zero, the current in a superconducting ring would circulate forever without fading.
As we know, any current induces a magnetic field. So why
not use a superconducting coil to make a powerful electromagnet that would not require a power supply? It would
be a veritable revolution in electrical engineering and
would save humanity millions of kilowatts at present futilely expended not only in the coils of magnets but also
in the windings of electrical machines and transformers.
And it would be possible to transmit electricity along
superconducting lines without loss of energy.
Unfortunately Kam.erlingh Onnes ' dream of a superconducting solenoid of 100 kilogauss could not be realized,
at least not in his lifetime. As soon as he attempted to
pass a significant current along the superconductor, its
superconductivity disappeared. Soon after it was discovered that a weak magnetic field, no higher than a few
hundred gauss, also destroyed superconductivity. Since
such small fields could be obtained more easily with permanent magnets, no one then was seriously concerned with
building a superconducting magnet. And so the position
remained for some twenty years.
Hopes of building powerful superconducting magnets
were revived in the early Thirt.ies when the Dutch physicists De Haas and Vuugd, Onnes 's successors at Leyden
(Onnes had died in 1926 and so did not live to see the prac-

150

tical application of his discovery), established that an

alloy of lead and bismuth retained its superconductivity
in fields in excess of 15 kilogauss. That at least made it
possible to build superconducting magnets with fields up
to that intensity. But no one did. The eminent physicist,
W.R. Keesom , who was also working at Leyden laboratory, declared that the maximum currents at which a magnetic field cut off superconductivity in an alloy of lead
and bismuth were insignificant. Sentence had been
passed.
Possibly the most dramatic event in the history of superconducting magnets then occurred. It later emerged
that Keesom had done something he had no right to do;
he had extrapolated data obtained in weak fields into the
realm of powerful fields. Unfortunately he had too much
authority and standing. As soon as physicists heard about
his results they gave up the idea of building superconducting
magnets and turned to other things. I t is now, however,
known that the critical current for an alloy of lead and
bismuth in fields up to 20 kilogauss is high enough to permit the building of high-field and extremely economic
superconducting magnets. Keesom '8 authority cost physics
very dear: the construction of superconducting magnets
was set back another thirty years.
In 1961 Kunzler and his colleagues in the Bell Telephone
laboratory announced that a bit of wire made of an alloy
of tin and niohium-c-NbgSn-c-remained superconductive in
a field of 88 kilogauss even when a current of 1000 amperes
per square millimetre passed along it .
Despite all its sensational nature this discovery was
hardly a bolt from the blue for theoretical physics, since
the Soviet physicist, A.A. Abrikosov, had already, in 1957,
predicted the existence of high critical fields for compounds
of this type. (It is worth mentioning here that Abrikosov,
L.P. Gorkov, and V.L. Ginsburg were awarded the Lenin
Prize in 1966 for their work on the theory of superconduc151

ting alloys and the properties of superconductors in high

magnetic fields.)
The properties of the newly discovered superconductors
made plans for utilizing superconductors in engineering
more realistic. Superconductivity was given a new lease
of life, as it were, and was now no longer a laboratory novelty but a phenomenon opening up very considerable
perspectives for engineering practice.
The Strange Cold World of Superconductors
Which first gives a brief description of some supereonducting materials and then recalls a quite strange, and
at the same time unpleasant, phenomenon that rather
marred the pleasure of the 'second birth' of superconductors.
If everything has gone so successfully, you may well
ask, why are mammoth conventional magnets still being
used? Why have superconducting magnets not yet won
their rightful place?
Well, in the first place, because superconductors wit.h
good properties are very capricious materials. In order to
handle them scientists have had to find the answers to
new technological problems and develop a new approach
to the nature of superconductivity. A great many superconducting electrotechnical materials have already been
developed that are suitable for electromagnets, including
such alloys as niobium -l-zirconium and niobium +titanium.
These alloys lend themselves well to machining, and it is
comparatively easy to draw them out into wire. Cynics,
of course, would say that the wire is extremely expensive,
as it is still made by the scientists themselves. But superconducting wire is already being produced in factories,
which will inevitably bring down the price.

152

The most promising superconducting materials, however, alloys of niobium and tin and vanadium and gallium,
are extremely fragile (for example the alloy of vanadium
and gallium is easily reduced to powder between the fingers). Such compounds must therefore be packed into flexible tubes or laid on a flexible lining. Yet such a complicated process is justi fled, if only because magnetic fields
up to 170 kilogauss can be obtained with superconducting
solenoids wound from steel strip bearing a layer of a niobium-tin alloy. Furthermore the magnet weighs only a
score or so kilograms and requires hardly any power instead of the scores of tons and thousands of kilowatts needed by a non-superconducting magnet of the same
strength.
Superconducting solenoids can function almost without
power, since a current once generated in them does not
fade. And the amount of energy expended in the helium
liquefier and in maintaining the magnets at low temperatures bears no comparison with the huge amounts used in
non-superconducting magnets.
Naturally the building of superconducting magnets is
not an easy business. One of the worst and unexpected difficulties designers encounter is the problem of the 'degradation' of the supercondu cting wire in the solenoid.
In order to understand what degradation is let us look,
for example, at how the load a beam will support is determined. It is not necessary of course always to make tests.
It is sufficient to know the material from which the beam
is made and the character of the load being applied. The
strength of the material being known-from small sam ples-the problem is reduced to one of making simple ealculations. Roughly speaking, the ratio of the load a heam
will support is directly proportional to the ratio of the
cross-section and the maximum load of the sample. In
other words whatever the length or the thickness of the
beam its properties can be calculated in advance with more

153

or less certainty so long as we know the properties of a

small sample of the same material.
But for superconducting alloys there are no such simple
dependencies. If the cross-section of a wire is ten times
greater than that of another wire made of the same material that in no way means that a current ten times as big
can be passed along it. Moreover, the characteristics of a
superconductor wire measured in a small bit do not coincide with those of long bits wound into a coil. Coils calculated for one field will actually produce another, significantly lower field.
This phenomenon is now explained by the magnetic
field penetrating the superconductor as quanta of flux.
Because the penetration is spasmodic and any change of
the field in time induces emf, eddy currents are set up in
certain sections of the wire that heat it and prematurely
return it to the normal state. It is therefore necessary to
increase the volume and weight of the coil in comparison
to what would have been the case had the characteristics
of short and long bits of wire been the same. That is a great
disadvantage, especially on economic grounds, as superconducting wire is still not very cheap (about 1000 roubles
a kilogram).
The problem of degradation is now being intensively
studied. Occasionally they manage to compensate degradation. It can be reduced, for example, by coating the
superconducting wire with copper; and it has been found
that by increasing the thickness of the copper layer the
properties of superconducting solenoids are significantly
improved, So some researchers have concluded that the
best material for superconducting magnets is copper into
which a superconductor has been pressed. In such 'stabilized' systems the effect of degradation is totally absent.
Strangely enough another problem, which had been
considered one of the more insurmountable ones, in fact
proved comparatively simple to solve. In hitherto known

154

compounds superconductivity existed only at temperatures very close to absolute zero. No known superconductor can maintain its superconducting state at a temperature higher than 23K (the transition temperature of
a niobium-germanium alloy). And the forecasts of theoretical physicists were not very encouraging. They had established that, given the known mechanism of superconductivity, it was impossible in principle to obtain a substance
that would remain superconducting at temperatures higher
than 40 oK, i.e. -233C.
Helium, which liquefies at 4.2K, is used to obtain low
temperatures. Since even the slightest amount of heat
penetrating the vessel containing liquid helium can cause
it to evaporate rapidly liquid helium must be stored in
special vessels with extremely efficient heat insulation.
The designers of superconducting magnets did not in
fact have to solve the problem. They were able to make
use of the results obtained by the people working on space
research. The advances made by Soviet and American engineers working on the storing of rocket fuel in cryostats
led to a reliable design and effective means of insulating
these vessels, in which liquid helium can be stored for
several months.
In addition, the problem of building a superconducting
magnet whose field will persist at room temperature can
also be considered solved (how it was done is shown in Fig.

35).
Victory over degradation and solution of the technical
problem of maintaining superconductors at superlow temperatures have enabled scientists to create unique supercondueting magnetic systems for research into plasma and for
the magnetohydrodynamic installations of bubble chambers. In the USA for example a superconducting magnet
has been built that induces a field of 40 kilogauss in a cylindrical volume 20 centimetres in diameter and 1.5 metres long. And a field of 70 kilogauss for a bubble chamber
155

Fig. 35. The magnetic field of a superconducting coil at the temperature of liquid helium can also be used at room temperature if the
Dewar flask holding the helium is tubular; I-liquid helium; 2-evacuated cavity; 3-superconducting coils.

has been obtained in a superconducting magnet with a

diameter of 18 centimetres. Superconducting magnetic systems with fields around 20 kilogauss and a working diameter up to five metres have been built and tested. Thus the
superconducting magnet of the bubble chamber at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States has a magnetic field of 20 kilogauss and coils three metres high,
weighing 45 tons, with an inner diameter of 4.8 metres and
an outer diameter of 5.3 metres; Iour hundred kilograms of
their weight comes from a superconducting Nb-Ti alloy
and the rest from 'st abilized' copper. A brilliant success
of superconductor technology was the building, in 1973,
at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, of a 'hybrid' magnet with a field around 250 kilogauss and a working
volume three centimetres in diameter. In this 'hybrid'

156

the field of a superconducting magnet is superimposed on

that of an 'ordinary', water-cooled copper solenoid. American scientists have also reported the building of a 'hybrid'
magnet with a field of 195 kilogauss.

CAUTION! Theoretically Impossible Equipment at Work

In which, without attempting in any way to convince
the reader of the existence of a perpetuum mobile, we cannot resist the temptation of saying a few words about 'impossible' apparatus, and after quoting from Gulliver's
Travels we describe a working d-e transformer that many
patent experts had thought, until recently, could not exist.
In exploring the new, cold world of superconductors scientists had to look again at a host of problems they thought
had already been solved. For example, what source of current is suitable to feed a superconducting system? When
we are concerned with comparatively small currents then
conventional batteries, generators, and accumulators would
do in principle. But a current up to 1000 amperes can be
passed along a superconductor with a cross-section of one
square millimetre, and that is more than 100 times stronger
than the current that can be passed along a copper wire with
the same cross-section. This colossal advantage of superconductors gave engineers a new headache. For these thousand
amps had to be obtained from a generator working at room
temperature, and then transmitted along wires to the cryostat of liquid helium housing the superconducting magnet.
The cross-section of the wires carrying the current (not
being superconducting) had to be at least 100 times bigger
than that of the superconductor, and (according to Fourier's
Law) such a large cross-section would cause heat from the
room to pour into the cryostat as if the floodgates had been

157

thrown wide open, So that the helium would boil away

instantly and the superconductivity would be lost.
Therefore the designers had to devise apparatus that
would generate these high currents not outside the cryostat
but inside it. They managed it by utilizing the various
special properties of superconductors, for example their
diamagnetism. Diamagnetism is the explanation for the
experiment of the 'suspended magnet' sometimes demonstrated in physics laboratories. Normally description of 'suspended magnets' usually abound in books on low-temperature physics; and they are also to be met in other books.
'I walked awhile among the rocks; the sky was perfectly
clear, and the sun so hot that I was forced to turn my face
from it; when all of a sudden it became obscured, as I
thought, in a manner very different from what happens by
the interposition of a cloud. I turned back, and perceived a
vast opaque body between me and the sun, moving forwards
towards the island ... As it approached nearer over the place
where I was, it appeared to be a firm substance, the bottom flat, smooth, and shining very bright from the reflection of the sea below.'
What Lemuel Gulliver, 'at the start a surgeon and later
a captain of several ships', had seen was a flying island.
At its centre a magnet had been set up on diamond supports,
which, being repelled by some substance deep in the Earth,
created lift.
Swift could hardly have foretold that two hundred years
later the Moscow physicist V.K. Arkadyev would realize
this 'mad' idea in almost exactly the same form, though
on quite another scale. In his experiment a small magnet
hung suspended, without any means of support whatsoever,
above a lead plate. The experiment, sometimes called 'Mahomets coffin' (according to legend, the coffin bearing the
body of the Prophet Mahomet was suspended in space without
support of any kind), was carried out at a temperature very
close to absolute zero at which lead becomes superconduct158

ing. The experi~ent is. very important to us because it demonstrates the Ideal diamagnetism of certain superconductors. The lines of force of a magnetic field cannot penetrate
a diamagnetic body; and a diamagnet is an insurmountable
barrier to them, an impenetrable wall or plane. But if that
plane is not diamagnetic at even one point, it becomes a
ring for the magnetic field, the same as the ring from which
we obtain an electromagnet when we pass an electric current
along it.
The difference between the magnetic properties of the
superconducting and normal states of a conductor is so
striking that it is quite possible to speak of there being two
different materials. So it follows, in particular, for example,
that a superconducting ring must not necessarily have a
hole, Le, an aperture in the conventional mechanical sense.
A superconducting plate without an aperture can be considered, in the magnetic sense, as a ring if its superconductivity is destroyed at even one single spot not in contact
with its edge.
A non-superconducting or 'normal' zone in a superconductor can be treated by various means: by heating it at
some point to a temperature above the critical point, by
applying a strong local magnetic field, or by illuminating
a small area with a narrow beam of light (in the last case
superconductivity is also lost through the dispersion of
heat).
Using the fact that the location of the normal region (or
'aperture ') on the surface of the su perconductor is easily
shifted, it is possible to create an accumulator of magnetic
flux or, as it is sometimes called, a topological generator.
Let us suppose that a superconducting plate has a real hole
1 in which a magnetic flux q>1 is set up and that in an area
2 the superconductivity is at the same time disturbed in
some way without being mechanically destroyed. This nonsuperconducting region will act as a hole for the magnetic
lines of force set up by the current flowing in the newly

159

formed ring. Now, if the location of hole 2 is shifted it is

possible to create a situation in which the flux <1>2 of the
second hole will merge with the flux <1>1 of the real hole which
is the functioning area of a coil carrying a current. As a
result the flux in hole 1 grows which is equivalent to an
increase of the current in the coil surrounding it. In that
way it is possible to obtain as large a current as required
in a superconducting circuit without it coming into electric
contact with the circuit that is at room temperature. The
hole can be shifted by passing a sufficiently strong magnet
over the surface of the superconducting plate. Through the
action of its magnetic field, both the superconductivity
and the diamagnetism will disappear and a hole will appear
that will move together with the magnet. What is particularly notable about this design is that the direct current is
taken from the stationary part of the apparatus. In essence
it is a direct-current generator without a commutator,
which has many times been demonstrated to be impossible
in principle. Several dozen 'impossible' pieces of equipment are now working in Soviet, American, and Dutch laboratories.
It is not without interest that many eminent scientists
have even said, on more than one occasion, that the idea
of a d-e generator in which voltage would be taken from
the stationary part of the machine is unrealizable. We must
stress however, that their mistake was only that they were
convinced that slipping brushes would be needed to pick up
the current. The direct-current transformer is another of the
machines considered impossible; and certainly, in a nonsuperconducting transformer a direct current cannot be
obtained in the secondary winding. When a direct current
is applied to the primary winding, a weak pulse current
develops in the secondary winding but fades quickly because of the winding '8 electrical resistance.
But if the transformer has a superconducting secondary
winding then, when a current is applied to the primary
160

winding, emf is induced in the secondary creating a current

th~t cannot fade even when the emf is no longer operating.
WIth such d-e transformers with liquid helium a small
current passed by fine conductors into a cryostat has been
stepped up to 25 000 amperes.
So the special properties of superconductors are being
used to overcome the difficulties arising from these same
properties; and thanks to that approach generators and
transformers have already been developed by which a superconducting magnet can be supplied with a current thousands
of amperes strong. These immense currents circulate along
the superconducting coils while a current of only a few amperes travels from the region at room temperature to the
transformer or generator.
Such equipment also helps reduce the requirements or
superconducting magnets for liquid helium, thus making
them more economical.
What forecasts can we make at this stage about the future for superconducting magnets? The complete uncertainty on this question of a few years ago has given way to confident optimism. It looks as if in the not so distant future
we shall have superconducting magnets with fields round
250 kilogauss and operational areas measured in metres.
The magnets with such parameters will, of course, be many
metres long, and weigh hundreds, or even thousands, of
kilograms, and will require tens of kilowatts of power for
their cooling systems. But, even though these figures are
not inconsiderable, by comparison with non-superconducting magnets, we must remember, they are not so great, and
are reckoned in metres not in kilometres, in kilowatts not
in megawatts, in kilograms and not in tons.
Many people have been writing in recent years about the
possibility of superconductivity being found in several
linear polymers at room temperatures. Scientific opinion
is divided on the feasibility such superconductors being
synthesized. One thing, however, is clear: since it would
11-1656

161

theoretically he possible then to obtain virtually any magnetic field, the opportunities for utilizing superconducting
magnets would actually be infinite.
Where they might be employed is the subject of our next
chapter.
Superconductors in Operation
A lengthy chapter in which we trace what has already been
done with superconductors and what may yet be done.
Machines have penetrated all the forbidden corners of
nature, it would seem; there are no unattained heights,
and the bits of drilling rigs are boring into the bottom of
the ocean. Man has tamed the terrors of pressure and the
most rarified vacuum. There are installations in which he
has created temperatures of millions of degrees; and the logic of events in technology is now leading to the first technical devices being lowered to the bottom of the temperature well, into the strange world of the lowest temperatures, as well as physical instruments that impassively register what happens there. And like any still unexplored
world, the world of low temperatures conceals new enigmas
and new treasures.
When, sixty years or so ago, superconductivity was discovered, the Dutch scientist Heiko Kamerlingh Ormes, who
did it, immediately realized that the golden age had dawned
for electrical engineering. If we could eliminate the
electrical resistance of conductors in the electromagnets of
electrical machines, transformers, and transmission lines,
current would flow in them without fading, and their properties would immediately become unique-their efficiency
would be raised to nearly 1000.
Unfortunately, Kamerlingh Onnes 's radiant dream of
'roses without thorns', of electrical engineering without

162

electrical resistance, was not to be. The very first research

showed that a current of even the slightest significance could
not circulate in the superconductors he had discovered (mercury, tin, and lead) without quenching their superconductivity. So the technical revolution he dreamed of did not
come about, and the striking phenomenon of superconductivity passed, it seemed, into the limbo of student lab work
as an intriguing physical curiosity, the embodiment, as it
were, of perpetual motion; in many low-temperature laboratories around the world a current, albeit not very big, has
circulated for years in superconducting lead rings immersed
in liquid helium, without losing energy.
That rather dismal state of affairs was altered in the Fifties when the Soviet physicist A.A. Abrikosov showed
the possibility in theory of there being superconductors
with extremely favourable properties, such that they could
he used with success in engineering. The widespread search
for new superconductors that followed led to thrilling discoveries, A joyful gust of optimistic articles rustled the
pages of scientific journals. New superconducting materials
were discovered in many countries, and not now just metals but alloys as well that did not lose their superconducting
properties even at very high currents and in strong magnetic
fields. These materials proved mainly to be alloys of niobium
and tin, zirconium, titanium, etc. Subsequent work led to
the making of conductors, cables, and busbars from superconducting materials. Now technical application of superconductivity could begin.
The first d-e electrical machine with a superconducting
field winding was built in the USSR in 1963. It consists
of two parts: a low-temperature part cooled to 4.2K (the
boiling point of liquid helium) and a high-temperature part
that is kept at room temperature. The low-temperature part
consists of a cylindrical metal Dewar flask (41 mm in diameter) with double copper walls between which a high vacuum is maintained. The total thickness of the heat insula11*

168

Lion is five millimeLres. Inside the Dewar flask is a shortcircuited coil made of a niobium and tin alloy and immersed in liquid helium. The magnetic axis of the coil is
perpendicular to the axis of the flask.
The superconducting coil for exciting this machine is
made from an NbsSn alloy and has four hundred turns. By
means of a magnet that sets up a field of 20 000 oersteds
a constant magnetic flux was 'frozen' into the coil as follows: the Dewar flask (without liquid helium) was put between the poles of the powerful electromagnet so that the
axis of the coil coincided with the direction of the lines of
force in the gap. In this way the coil was at the same temperature as the nitrogen jacket of the flask, I.e. 77K, and
was not superconducting (the critical temperature 'I'; for
the NbaSn alloy is 18K). Then the helium (boiling point
4.2K) was poured into the flask and the coil became superconducting. When the electromagnet was switched off, by
Lenz's law a current was set up in the superconducting coil,
that supported the constant magnetic flux connected with
the coil. In that way the coil itself became electromagnetic.
The magnetic flux in the coil short-circuited along the magnetic core intersects the wires of the winding of the rotating
rotor. The voltage is drawn off from the rotor by means
of conventional brushes.
Industry, and the power and electrical engineering industries in particular, could not let slip the broad opportunities being opened up by the application of superconducting materials. We may cite as an example the 2400-kW
unipolar motor already built in Great Britain with a superconducting winding. In all respects (weight, size, cost,
operating expenses, and reliability) this electric motor is
superior to similar machines with copper field windings.
The outlook for superconductors as material for the
windings in the very large electrical machines of big power
stations (turbogenerators and hydroelectric generators) seems
particularly exciting. The capacity of these machines is
164

growing year by year, but at the same Lime it becomes more

and more difficult to build them. It is not a question of
gigantornania but of the demands of the times; the greater
the capacity of a single unit the lower is their unit cost
of manufacture, the lower the volume of the civil engineering work on the power station, and the cheaper their
operation; the faster is new generating capacity brought
into operation, and the higher is the tempo of electrification.
Unfortunately, the possibilities of increasing the capacity of electrical machines are not unlimited. The 1200-megawatt generator with hydrogen and water cooling being built
in the USSR is already close, it would seem, to the limit
for machines of this type. Capacity is limited by many factors, namely: by the impossibility, with present cooling
systems, of removing the great quantities of heat created by
the electrical resistance of the windings; by the difficulties
of making very large forgings; and even by 'railway dimensions', that is to say the limits imposed by railways (and
road transport) on the dimensions of consignments.
If the field winding of an electrical machine (a field winding is, in fact, an electromagnet of special form) were made
from a superconductor, that would immediately resolve
a number of problems. First, the heating of the winding
would cease. Second, the magnetic fields and currents in
the machine would immediately increase several times over,
which would lead to a marked reduction in its dimensions.
Research already carried out indicates that a 2000-megawatt generator with a superconducting field winding would
be much smaller than a 'conventional' one of a tenth that
capacity. It is not surprising then that the development
of superpowerful electric generators with superconductors
is now one of the most important problems. Let us compare,
for example, certain indices for hypothetical 'conventional'
and- 'superconductor' turbogenerators of 2000 megawatts
capacity (taking the data for the 'conventional' one as 100).

166

Turbogencrator
Of conventional

design

Active length of stator

External diameter of stator
core
Magnetomotive force
Overall length of rotor
Weight
Efficiency

100

With superconducting

windings

37

100

97

100
100

680

100
100

50
30

100.5

How close are these plans to realization? What degree of

reality can we attribute to such glowing prospects? Consider the progress that has already been achieved today in
'superconductor' turbogenerator technology.
In 1973 the Westinghouse Co. in the USA started testing
a 5-MVA superconductor generator. Its field winding is
housed in a cryostat filled with liquid helium and replen.ished from a 500-litre reservoir. The liquid helium cools the
rotor winding through a specially developed assembly. The
dimensions of the generator are close to those of a 'conventional' one. The designers hope to increase the power of
their machine to 15 megavolt-amperes (15 MVA).
Thus the first steps towards superconductor generators
have already been taken.
Great attention is now being paid in the USSR and other
industrial powers to magnetohydrodynamic devices, the
prototypes of very economic electric generators converting
thermal energy directly into electricity.
The principle of MHD generators is well known; in accordance with Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction,
an electromotive force arises in a conducting medium moving between the poles of a magnet. In MHD generators
plasma at a temperature of 2000-3000 OK is used as the con-

ducting medium. Since the temperature of steam in modern

boilers and turbines does not exceed 700C and the efficiency of the conversion of thermal energy into electricity is
greater the higher the temperature of the working body,
it can be easily seen that the efficiency of MHD power stations would be significantly greater than that of conventional power stations. And the efficiency of a magnetohydrodynamic generator is theoretically as high as 70 per cent
against the 40 per cent of the best conventional power stations.
But the efficiency of an MHD power station would in
fact be considerably lower than that because the MHD generator itself consumes a certain amount of power to feed
the magnet that maintains the magnetic field. It has been
estimated that a careless magnet or 25-MW MHD station
would require 20 megawatts. The power needed by a magnet
with a core would be lower but expenditure of materials
would rise to 150 tons per megawatt against the one to five
tons per megawatt of conventional turbogenerators.
The power needed by the electromagnet in a 500-M\\t
MHD station would be approximately 60 megawatts. Such
a large self-demand for energy is obviously im practicable
and MHD generators will only be economic when they have
superconducting magnetic systems.
To get an MHD generator of 200 megawatts capacity,
a magnetic field of six teslas* would be required in a volUIllC of 15 ill x 5 m x 5 m. To obtain such an immense magnet
hy 'conventional' means, that is to say by means of copper
windings, would call for a power consumption only a little
less than the capacity of the generator. Only economic
T

* The tesla is the unit of magnetic induction, being the induction

of a field such that each metre of conductor carrying a current of one
ampere and lying perpendicular to the vector of induction is acted
on by a force of one newton. It represents a flux of one weber per
square metre. (See L. A. Sena. Units oj Pysical Quantities and Their
Dimensions. Mir Publishers, Moscow, 1972.)
167

superconducting magnets will enable this problem to be

solved.
But is it really plausible to think of using superconductors,
which normally function at 4.2K, in equipment whose working parts are at 2500 0K? In fact it is quite feasible, for
modern types of insulation make it possible to separate
2500 0 K and 4.2K by a wall only 1.5 to 2 centimetres thick.
We can visualize what the superconducting magnetic
system for an MHD generator would look like. Two superconducting coils would be placed along the sides of the channel containing plasma, and the channel would be separated
from them by multi-layer thermal insulation. The coils
would be canned in titanium cassettes with titanium bars
between them. The cassettes and bars should have to be
extremely strong because the electrodynamic forces in the
current-carrying coils would tend to break them and to attract them to one another. The forces would be quite large:
in a field of 50 000 oersteds, for example, the elements
would be under a pressure of 100 atmospheres.
As no heat is given off by a superconducting coil, the refrigerator needed by the superconducting magnetic system
would only have to draw off the heat penetrating into the
cryostat containing the liquid helium through the thermal
insulation and the electrical leads. The losses due to the
latter would be practically nil if short-circuited superconducting coils fed by a superconducting d-c transformer
were used.
The helium liquefier making good the loss of helium boiled
away by the heat influx through the insulation, should,
it is estimated, provide five to ten litres of liquid helium
an hour. Such liquefiers are produced by industry and
occupy a space the size of an average room.
Several MHD generators with superconducting coils have
been built, and others, albeit small ones, have been tested.
That is also the situation with thermonuclear power
installations, which may possibly be successfully developed
168

in the not too distant future. The essential elements in such

generators, for which ordinary water will be the fuel, will
also be powerful superconducting magnets with fields of
an intensity such as cannot be provided by conventional
systems. The job is obviously insoluble unless superconducting materials are used.
Until very recently the conventional way of obtaining
powerful fields by means of copper coils cooled by air,
water, or oil was employed to make the 'magnetic bottles'
and stabilizing coils for plasma research. But in largescale experiments all these magnets have to be very bulky
and consume much power. It has been calculated that the
power needed to feed them would exceed the output of the
thermonuclear generators and that at best a large, special
power station would be needed to start up the generator.
Few doubt today that the only way to resolve this problem is to use superconducting coils. Then the power needed
to maintain the magnetic field would be absurdly small,
and power would only be needed to work the helium liquefier or refrigerator.
Equipment for thermonuclear research with a working
area 20 centimetres in diameter and 120 centimetres long
has already been built with a field at the centre of the
solenoid of 300 000 oersteds. All the windings were made
of a niobium-zirconium superconducting wire (25 per cent
zirconium) 0.25 mm in diameter.
A mere 50 kilograms of superconducting wire were needed. The superconducting system works on the principle
of a closed superconducting ring. Its initial feed comes
from a rectifier employing power from normal a-c mains
network.
So that damage to one coil should not destroy the whole
system the system is divided into 24 parts, each fed separately. The current density in the superconducting coils
reaches 400 amperes per square millimetre. The total weight
of the system is 230 kilograms-force. It requires half a
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169

litre of liquid helium an hour. The liquefier to supply it is

housed on a table.
Thus it is that the whole future of our power industry
largely depends on the development of powerful superconducting magnetic systems. Happily, the outlook in this respect is very encouraging. The cost of superconductors,
still very expensive, is falling steadily; experience of working with low-temperature equipment is piling up, and so
too is experience of working directly with large supercondueting magnetic systems.
We can assert with confidence that already, in the years
ahead, superconducting systems, with a magnetic field
of five or six teslas within a working volume of the order of
several cubic metres will have been developed.
For more than half a century now there has been a steady
flow of applications into the patent offices of various countries from inventors who want to patent proposals for transmitting power along cables working at low temperatures,
including superconducting cables. But only recent ly , with
the discovery of new superconducting materials, could this
idea be given tangible form, and even now only in experimental set-ups'. The first superconducting power lines are
aluminium tubes coated with a thin layer of niobium alloy
and carried inside pipelines through which liquid helium
circulates. The helium pipeline, in turn, is inside another
carrying liquid nitrogen, which serves as a kind of heat
screen. In spite of the seeming complexity and cost of such
a set-up, it is quite competitive with ordinary transmission
lines, according to estimates that take into account the cost
of the power lost in ordinary lines; and as supereonducting
materials become cheaper, superconducting lines wi ll cost
less than conventional ones.
We can already take it as proved that supereonducting
power lines with high transmission capacities will cost
less than conventional ones. Research carried out in the
USA into three-phase superconducting cables has been car-

170

ried out on a pilot project with 38-mm niobium strands,

rated at 1690 MVA at a voltage of 138 kilovolts and a current of 7.05 kiloamperes. The external diameter of the cable
is 38 centimetres. The overall unit cost of building such a
transmission line is 880 dollars per megavolt-ampere, which
is approximately half the cost of a conventional cable system with the same parameters.
I t is suggested that superconducting grids will be built
along the following lines. A pipeline with liquid nitrogen
will be laid in the ground between the end points. Inside
this would he another pipeline with liquid helium carrying
the superconducting line. The helium and nitrogen would
flow along the pi pelines because a pressure difference of
several atmospheres would be created between the two end
points. There therefore would only be liquefying and pumping stations at the ends of the line.
There would have to be electrical and thermal insulation
between the conductors and the ground. The load on the
helium refrigerator is significantly reduced by the use of
liquid nitrogen in the pipeline, acting as thermal screening.
Another feasible form of thermal insulation would be a
high vacuum surrounding numerous reflecting screens.
But such a system would not ensure reliable electrical insulation while the electrical capacity of the numerous screens
could be extremely large, which would be undesirable from
the point both of transmission and of safety. And because
of that the walls of the vacuum insulator would have to be
of equal electric potential.
In the system with liquid nitrogen the nitrogen can be
used simultaneously as a dielectric. Then insulated by the
vacuum-screen device, the nitrogen pipeline would be below
the potential of the earth and could contain nitrogen at a
pressure of 12 to 15 atmospheres. The helium pipeline would
also have vacuum insulation and would be supported inside
the nitrogen pipeline by dielectric mailar or teflon posts
(the dielectric properties of most insulators improve at
171

low temperatures). The helium pipeline in turn would be

lined with a superconducting layer.
Taking into account the losses unavoidable at the ends
of the line .where the superconductor would come out onto
the surface, it has been calculated that the total loss would
be 1.2 per cent, which is a very low figure. Conventional
transmission lines have losses of 1.5 to 2.0 per cent.
Finally we should note that power transmission employing
superconductors at lower voltages and stronger currents
presents special interest where overhead cables are ruled
out (for example, in densely populated areas and with submarine power transmission).
It will probably become possible, also, by means of superconductors, to realize the most cherished dream of power engineers, that of storing large quantities of electricity.
Electric power, we know, is an 'instant' product, if we can
so express it. Power produced has to be consumed here and
now, small accumulators do not come into it. But we still
do not know how to store large amounts of power until they
are needed. And so, in order to meet temporary maximum
loads, power systems have to have huge, costly reserves of
capacity that are drawn on only peak moments. If we could
have 'power stores' it would not be necessary to build expensive reserve capacity; we could draw power from the
'store' as needed.
Here we may well recall the perpetuum mobile, the superconducting ring in which an electric current circulates
indefinitely without loss of power. It is estimated that the
peak loads of all the power grids of the European part of
the USSR, for example, could be met by an enormous superconducting ring in which three thousand million kilowatt-hours of current were stored. The ring, with an inner
diameter of 70 metres and a cross-section of 20 metres,
would be a huge superconducting coil in the magnetic field
of which power would be stored. The magnetic field would
be so intense that the ring would have to be put in some

172

Fig. 36. The diamagnetism of superconductors can be used to make

frictionless bearings in which the shaft does not touch the supports
but is 'suspended' by the lines of force of the magnetic field.

sparsely inhabited locality, in order to avoid the harmful

effects of the field on human beings.
All that, of course, is still fantasy. But the rapid development of superconducting technology is evidence, without
doubt, that superconductors will soon occupy an honourable place in large-scale power engineering.
Quite new possibilities also exist now for the designers
of low-power machines. The superconducting micromachines built so far are quite unlike conventional ones.

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Because of the diamagnetism of a niobium disc the magnetic field set up in a coil made from superconducting wire
can levitate the disc. Experiments indicate that one square
centimetre of the 'hanging' surface can support a load of
300 grams. Quite big objects have already been lifted in
this way. There is an account, for example, of a five-kilogram lead cylinder floating above the winding.
The 'magnetic mirror' princi pIe can be used to make
bearings which permit the shaft to float in a vacuum without contact with the support. Many models have already
been built and tested.
The machines in a laboratory in America are of great
interest. Not only do their bearings work on the 'magnetic
mirror' principle but so does the electromagnetic interaction between stator and rotor.
If the rotor shaped like an empty tumbler is made from a
superconductor and stood hott.om uppermost with a magnet
inside it, the tumbler 'surfaces' on the rnagnetic lines of
force. If it is now put into the stator of a three-phase motor ~
t he revolving magnetic field becomes the equivalent of
two small magnets revolving around the surface of the stator on a single axis. Both the magnets repel the rotor and
naturally there is no torque, since the direction of the
force of repulsion passes through the tumbler's axis of rotation. If the glass is made hexagonal, for example, instead
of round, there wi ll be a torque that causes it to revolve
at the velocity of the revolving field, since velocity increases
as the frequency of the supply current rises .
.A. model working on this principle has been built in the
US.A.; its speed of rotation reached 20 000 rpm and was
only limited to that because the ni ob ium glass (which
weighed 26 grams) "vas then destroyed by the centrifugal forces. In this machine the rotating field is set up by sending
pulses of direct current through the stator or by setting
the voltages in two phases at a certain angle.
The disadvantage of such a design, however, is that it
174

is complioated to link it mechanically with equipment

working at normal temperatures. A shaft connecting the
motor (which operates at 4.2K) with equipment operating
at room temperature (300 0 K ) would cause rapid boiling
of the helium because of heat transfer. Therefore these machines still have only a limited field of application, namely,
to drive low-temperature pumping equipment and precision superconducting gyroscopes.
A most difficult problem for physicists is separation of
the isotopes of the different elements. Isotopes are atoms
of the same element containing the same number of protons
in their nuclei but having different numbers of neutrons.
Consequently the masses of their nuclei differ, and so do
their orbit when moving in a magnetic field; the trajectories of heavier nuclei are less distorted; therefore heavier
nuclei move along different orbits than the lighter ones in
a magnetic field. Even very similar isotopes can be divided
in a powerful magnetic field but this method has not hitherto been widely used because huge magnets are needed
to divide them effectively. Superconducting coils can literally revolutionize this branch of the atomic industry.
The possibility of superconducting magnets effecting
a technical revolution in charged particle accelerators is
also not excluded. The problem is that to get higher particle energies in accelerators, the latter must also be bigger
and bigger. Modern synchrophasotrons weigh tens of thou..
sands of tons and have diameters measured in hundreds
of metres. Plans for accelerators of 500 to 1000 giga-electron
volts envisage the building of magnets taking up an area
between two and five kilometres in diameter. And of course
such magnets will be incredibly expensive. It is very difficu It to make them smaller because induction in a steel core
of the magnets is limited by the saturation of steel and the
diameter is in inverse proportion to the induction of the
magnet. It has been calculated that, if it were possible
to increase the intensity of its field from 16 000 oersteds

175

to 300 000, the gigantic accelerator at Berkeley could be

stood on a dining table.
Their low energy requirement, lightness and small size
make superconducting apparatus extremely convenient in
space engineering. Indeed, since every joule of electricity,
every gram of weight, and every metre of space must be
taken into account, superconductors will be indispensable.
On Earth it may be possible to sacrifice these characteristics
for other considerations. The use of superconductors, for
example, requires more sophisticated equipment, but in
rockets, artificial satellites, and space vehicles that does
not count: they cannot have apparatus that is large, heavy,
or that consumes much power.
The American journal Astronautics and Aeronautics
has described the valuable properties of superconducting
systems for magnetic shielding against radiation. It is already possible to make large superconducting solenoids, and
despite their high cost, arising basically from the cost of
the superconductor (one kilogram of 75:25 niobium-zirconium alloy then cost 100 dollars), a superconducting screen
has great advantages over those of other types because it is
light and requires little power for cooling. In the cold of
outer space (a few degrees above absolute zero) the need
for refrigeration equipment is greatly reduced because the
thermal influx from outside is very small. Only the influx
from the walls of the cryostat heated by the Sun's rays will
be large. And so as to avoid wasteful vaporization of the
liquid helium in the cryostat space 'umbrellas' have been
developed that reflect the Sun's rays and prevent the vehicle from overheating. The 'umhrellas ' are made of laminated mylar coated with an aluminium film stretched on
special frames and inflated with helium. The whole world
followed with interest the installation of a huge defensive
'umbrella' on the American Skylab space laboratory.
In designing the magnetic defence system for space vehicles the concept of the Stormer radius was used. In phy176

sical terms it is the radius of the circular orbit of a particle

in the equatorial plane of a solenoid. The idea was developed by the physicist F.C. Stormer during research into the
aurora borealis. It difines the zone that is not penetrated
by a charged particle of given energy. To protect a volume
of 144 cubic metres effectively against protons with an
energy less than one giga-electron volt by means of a Stromer radius of ten metres a 150-ton system would be needed
which would include the weight of the supporting apparatus,
the superconducting coil, and the cryogenic equipment.
More than nine-tenths of the weight of a magnetic screen
is taken up by the weight of the supporting structure that
prevents the solenoid being exploded by the very large electrodynamic forces (in a field of 500 oersteds the magnetic
pressure is one atmosphere, but at 100 000 oersteds it is
around 400 atmospheres).
Alternative screens, such as aluminium shields, are much
heavier (more than three times as much) and have the drawback that when they are bombarded by high energy particles they can form secondary neutrons that add considerably to the resulting radiation behind the massive screen and
the walls of the craft. And individual protection against
radiation, in the shape of a double-layer diving suit with
the space between the thicknesses filled with particle moderating drinking water, is less reliable.
The thrust developed by modern rocket engines is measured in thousands of tons. The big American Saturn-5 rocket
used for moon shots has a thrust of 3 400 000 kilogramsforce, which enables it to overcome the pull of the Earth's
gravitational forces. When the rocket leaves the area effected by strong gravitational forces, however, such thrust
is no longer necessary. Then, since the resistance of the
medium is negligible the rocket can be accelerated by a
much smaller thrust-a few grams only.
The first such small engines were employed on the Soviet
Zond-2 interplanetary station. They are magnetohydrody-

177

namic in action, and it is no accident that magnet is the

first term in this description. Everything that we have said
about superconducting solenoid systems for shielding against
radiation applies to the magnets in MHD motors, which can
only be powerful, light, and economic if they employ superconducting magnets.
The most important part in the automatic piloting system
of a space vehicle is the gyroscope. In most cases it consists
of a disc revolving rapidly about an axis. No matter how
the position of the vehicle alters in space the direction of
the gyroscope's axis remains unchanged; or rather its position would remain absolutely unchanged if there were no
friction in the gyroscope. Friction leads to definite errors
in the vehicle's course; therefore the constructors had to
concentrate on reducing friction in the gyroscope's supports. By using a magnetic pillow based on the ideal diamagnetic properties of superconductors they found it possible to reduce friction significantly and increase accuracy.
With magnetic suspension there is only friction between
the revolving part of the gyroscope and the gaseous helium
always present in the cryostat.
The first superconducting gyroscopes have already been
built and tested, and they have proved to be freer of friction than any other type of gyroscope.
A major prob lem in building superconducting gyroscopes
is the need for careful machining of the rotating sphere;
any defect in its surface will seize the magnetic flux and
cause zero to drift.
Another interesting possibility is that of using superconducting magnetic systems in the braking equipment of
space vehicles.
The weight (or more exactly, the mass) of interplanetary
stations could he significantly reduced if friction could
be used, on entering a planet's atmosphere, to reduce speed.
If a vehicle enters the atmosphere without braking it hecomes heated due to friction and to the heating of the atrnos178

phe::e in the jump of de~sity arou~d its head; and the greater Its speed the hotter It gets. ThIS heating could be redu?ed by me.aI?-s of magnetohydrodynamic equipment, but it
IS only efficient when the temperature of the gases is very
high, as happens when the vehicle is travelling at high speed
and the electrical conductivity of the plasma behind the
jump in the condensation becomes so high that it can then
be used as the working body of the MHD apparatus. If a
magnetic field is applied to this plasma both it and the vehicle will be braked relative to each other without coming
into contact, with the magnetic forces rather than the nose
cone offering resistance to the flow.
By selecting the degree of the interaction between plasma
and magnetic field it is possible to eliminate flow completely from the body so that its pressure and heat transfer
to the body completely disappear. In such conditions braking forces will only develop in the coil creating the magnetic field. And since the area in which it is possible to
create a magnetic field is quite large the effective braking
section of the body is much increased.
So, by using this type of magnetic aerodynamics, more
effective braking can be achieved without the vehicle itself
becoming overheated. It is also useful that braking could
begin in the more rarified layers of the atmosphere.
Even though entry into the atmosphere lasts only a few
minutes, the value of using superconductors for braking
is obvious, since the source needed to sustain the magnetic
field even for this short period of time adds considerably
to the weight of the vehicle. Furthermore the power needs
of superconducting coils are several times lower than those
of normal coils.
The number of processes both on Earth and in outer space
that require instantaneous power is growing all the time.
Such power can only be obtained by gradual accumulation.
Today, condenser batteries are usually used or dynami te.
Dynamite, however, can only be used when mechanical

179

power is required for a short period of time; in all other

instances condenser batteries are used. But when considerable amounts of power are involved the batteries are very
large so that, where weight is a decisive factor, they cannot
be used.
Research has shown that the most suitable substitutes for
condenser are coreless inductive coils. Large amounts of
energy can also be stored in them; and while the density
of the accumulated energy in a battery of condensers is
0.4 megajoules per cubic millimetres one hundred times as
much can be accumulated in inductive coils and their
superiority increases with the growth of stored capacity.
A basic problem when storing energy in a magnetic field
is the loss of energy through the electrical resistance of the
coils. If one million joules were stored in a field of 100 000
oersteds in a water-cooled copper coil the heat loss would
be 1000 kilowatts and that, clearly, is not a sensible proposition.
It becomes much more economic to store energy in a magnetic field when superconducting coils are used. The absence of electrical resistance in the coils means that they
can be slowly charged from a small power source, while
there will be no losses through the Joule heating. I t is possible to build a snperconducting short circuit that stores
energy for an infinite period of time. Superconducting magnetic stores of energy with a capacity of 2000 joules and a
discharge rate of 0.001 second have already been tested.
The largest superconducting magnet in the world is three
metres high, has an internal diameter of 30 centimetres and
a magnetic field of 40 000 oersteds. Its power losses are incomparably less than in non-superconducting magnets with
the same parameters.
Comparing the weight of such systems storing one million
joules (the weight of the coil is determined in the main by
the weight of the elements preventing it from breaking down)
with the corresponding parameters for dynamite (0.24 kgf

180

per million joules), a curious fact emerges; the explosive

power of dynamite is only ten times greater than that of
a magnetic store. But the energy stored in the magnetic
field is incomparably more convenient; it can be converted
into electricity at any moment and then into light, mechanical force, thermal energy, etc.; and, moreover, it is possible to control the rate at which it is liberated.
All these properties ensure that magnetic energy stores
will be widely used, especially for feeding the pulse lamps
that fire masers. The prospects for using them in space are
particularly attractive for there the vacuum can be utilized for thermal insulation and, with appropriate screening,
low temperatures can be maintained by low-powered refrigeration.
The fact that superconducting energy stores have large
currents at small voltages is also a great advantage in space,
since most of the energy converters in space vehicles
also have small voltages. The energy source can be joined
directly to the store.
The apparatus discussed above do not, of course, exhaust
the possibilities of superconductors in space. There are
schemes, for example, for docking vehicles in space by means
of superconducting magnets, for space 'workshops' where
metals will be worked by means of superconductors, and
for building electrical distribution circuits on the Moon
consisting wholly of superconducting elements. But we must
add that all these projects are still only in their preliminary
stages.
They are all still only dreams but reality gives them a
solid basis. A few years ago scientists found the key to
the most important problem, that of the magnet. And the
key was superconductivity. And it may yet open up new,
even more fantastic possibilities; then everything we have
only been dreaming about in this chapter will be ordinary
entries in the record of the progress achieved by means of
superconductivity.
181

Obtaining, Storing, and Transporting Liquid Helium

A chapter that explains itself.
We have been talking about how superconductivity,
which promises such a brilliant future for the technology
of high magnetic fields, can exist only at temperatures close
to absolute zero. Liquid helium is usually used to obtain
these low temperatures because it is the only substance that
does not solidify in the temperature interval between 1 "K
and 10 oK.
The best method so far of cooling gaseous helium and
obtaining it in liquid form was devised by P .L. Kapitza
in 1934 and involves a detander, a compressed-gas driven
engine. Essentially what happens is that the helium gas is
expanded in a special vessel, pushing a piston and therefore, in doing work, giving off energy. So the helium cools.
By repeating the process many times it is possible, in principle, to cool the helium down to 4.2K at which it liquefies.
But the process is generally combined with other methods
of cooling such as throttling.
In throttling, helium that has already been compressed
and cooled is passed through a narrow slit or throttle, in
which it expands. The physics of cooling by throttling (the
Joule-Thomson effect) is that the gas increases in volume
when it expands in the throttle and the intermolecular
distances in it increase and thus work is done against the
forces of attraction. So the gas loses internal energy and
consequently cools.
One of the best modern helium expansion liquefiers, the
G-3, was built at the Institute of Physical Problems of the
USSR Academy of Sciences. It works on the following principles.
A piston compressor compresses helium coming from
gasholders and forces it into the liquefier, at a rate of 350
cubic metres an hour at 22 or 23 atmospheres. Initially

182

0K).

the helium is cooled in a bath of liquid nitrogen (70

Then some of the cooled gas is passed into a detander where
it expands, driving the piston; there its temperature drops
to 11 or 12 oK. This cold helium is now used to cool fresh
amounts of helium. Another part of the cooled gas passes
to the throttling stage where it is forced through the throttle, which causes it to cool even further; about 10 per cent
of the original quantity of helium is liquefied.
The apparatus produces 45 litres an hour, consuming
2.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity per litre of cooled helium.
This efficiency is not the limit. Apparatus has been built
more recently in the USA that produces 200 litres of liquid
helium or more an hour. Is that high or low productivity?
The heat of evaporation of liquid helium is rather low
(4.8 kilocalories per kilogram); a four-watt electric lamp
burning in liquid helium would vapourize more than 50
litres in an hour.
Nevertheless, the total absence of resistance in superconducting coils and, consequently, the fact that no heat is
liberated mean that such quantities of liquid helium are
quite enough even for the largest coils. It is only necessary
to ensure excellent thermal insulation around the supercon"ducting coil to prevent influx of heat from outside.
The best insulation is a good vacuum (with a residual
pressure of 10- 5 to 10- 6 mm Hg). Then the thermal conductivity of the residual gas is too low for there to be any noticeable heat transfer. With vacuum insulation heat transfer
through radiation is of decisive importance. In order to
eliminate, or at least substantially to reduce, heat transfer
from the high-temperature region to the low-temperature
one through radiation, reflecting screens cooled by some
cooling agent have to be put in the vacuum. The screens
must be cooled because radiant heat transfer is proportional
to the difference of forth powers of the surface temperatures.
Therefore reducing this difference can have a big effect on
the thermal insulation. Suffice it to say that a screen cooled
188

by liquid nitrogen cuts the flow of heat into the low-temperature region by 200 times.
Liquid helium is kept in special Dewar flasks, which
are normally spherical since a sphere has the smallest surface area for a given volume and every superfluous square
centimetre of surface represents extra heat flow. The vessel
most commonly used in the USSR holds about ten litres of
liquid helium. The helium is contained in a spherical reservoir inside a nitrogen bath, which in its turn is kept
inside a spherical holder that is at room temperature. A
high vacuum is created in the space between the outer holder and the vessels containing nitrogen and helium; the
loss of helium is less than 2 per cent a day.
There are larger standard vessels holding, for instance,
50, 80 or 100 litres, and the development of superconducting
technology may lead to much larger capacities. In the USA
helium cisterns holding 10 000 to 30 000 litres are already
used to provide a centralized supply of helium. In these
gigantic installations rather different principles of thermal
insulation are employed. So-called multi-screen vacuum
insulation is used, that is to say the vacuum gap filled with
as many as 100 layers of aluminium foil separated by insulating materials like glass cloth or glass paper.
The problem of transporting liquid helium through pipes,
which especially concerns those working on developing
superconducting power lines, is to all intents and purposes
solved. The principle on which these pipes or cryostats are
built is practically the same as that of Dewar flasks. An
inner pipe containing liquid helium is surrounded by concentric nitrogen screens, which are placed in turn in an
outer casing at normal temperature. The inside of the helium pipe is coated with a superconducting film which is
the conductor for this still exotic power line.
The first experiments in developing large cryogenic systems have brought reassuring results. We are sure that
we shall soon witness surprising new progress in this field.