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Originally Posted by PinZano  They would be almost impossible to split. It is almost hard to spilt the 3 x 1s.
Sounds like a good price thought. |
Sorry this is tenuously related to the sale ... but they are so much fun ...
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ADAM: I like to hunt for esoteric stuff on the Web, and recently I came across a company that sells supermagnets the size of hockey pucks. The Web site says, "Beware—you must think ahead when moving these magnets. If carrying one into another room, carefully plan the route you will be taking." I knew Jamie would be interested. He bought 10. It was the first time the company had sold that many to an individual, so they were a little nervous. They called Jamie to ask how he'd be using their product. He told them he's a MythBuster. That was all they needed to know.
JAMIE: These magnets are so strong that the company ships them by ground for fear of messing with avionics on air transport. One of them can lift several hundred pounds if you are brave enough (or stupid enough) to stick it to the underside of a forklift tine. You need to be extremely careful with them because if you get your hand between one of them and a thick piece of steel you could lose your hand just as easily as if you'd dropped a 500-pound weight on it. When I first got the puck magnets, I was handling them like they were radioactive or something.
After a while, I became more comfortable with them. In my case probably the biggest danger with these magnets is that I am often laughing while using them; they are so ridiculously strong, it's a hoot. One saving grace with handling supermagnets is that there is an exponential relationship between the strength of a magnet and its distance from an object on which it exerts a pull. You need to be within a few inches or so of an object for things to get out of control.
ADAM: The strength of the magnetic reaction also depends on the mass of the attracted object; the same magnet that can lift a big chunk of steel weighing several hundred pounds can't exert several hundred pounds of pull on a paper clip and rip it right through your hand. The clip becomes what is known as saturated, and won't sustain any more pull.
JAMIE: On a recent MythBusters episode, I put supermagnets to work as a means to climb a steel surface. One of the magnets would have been strong enough to support my weight, but a magnet that could do that would be difficult to get off the surface (see above). So I came up with a way to yank the rigs off and reset them higher with one hand while hanging on the other set of them (pictured, page 44). I made my way up a 20-ft.-high air-conditioning duct in 3 minutes.
ADAM: I achieved a slightly slower climbing time on the duct using a battery-powered vacuum pump and suction cups mounted to my hands and feet. I wasn't silent, but I also didn't sound like a guy hitting the duct system with a sledgehammer. The best part of this stunt was hearing Jamie's microphone feed. It was a combination of the hammer blows of the magnets slamming onto metal, and the sound of Jamie breathing real hard and laughing hysterically. We love magnets.
Read more: MythBusters Workshop: Fun with Supermagnets - Popular Mechanics
MythBusters Workshop: Fun with Supermagnets - Popular Mechanics 
Rare Earth Magnets 
