The Rule Breaker
He flipped on the power. He was shocked!
For the first time, something actually worked! Before him a chunk of wires,
metal, and electrical circuits was breaking every law of physics he had ever
been taught, levitating eerily about five inches above a metal plate. What he
was seeing could only be explained trough quantum-mechanics and
positron-reversal-theory. The boy prodded at the contraption and it rolled onto
its side, still suspended in mid-air. This was fantastic! Glancing over at a
holographic interface, he was thrilled to note that the readings indicated what
he had hoped for. He did understand he was merely doing what other people had
been doing for decades: operating a simple electromagnet. The only difference
was that Leon had created, for the first time in recorded history, an electromagnet
with only one pole. On paper, it didn't seem like much, but in application, it
was revolutionary. And he was only sixteen! What could he produce within the
next decade? For the first time in his life he had created something entirely
new, different, and phenomenal.
Leon
had always been interested in physics and electromagnetism. When he was eight,
his parents got him his first "Electricity for Kids Kit", with which
he made his own 3-D printer. When he was ten, he was banned from using his
homemade carbon-nano-tube elevator to get up to his treehouse because it was
too dangerous. When he turned twelve, his was gifted with a "Zero-G Speed
Racers" racetrack. The super-cooled super-conductors, magnets with
extremely low temperatures that levitated around a racetrack at a fixed
altitude, utterly astonished him. Leon began to search for other
"black-magic" stunts that could be produced with the magic of
electromagnetism. He didn't get very far with the super-conductors, however;
their special properties deteriorated after they warmed up, and besides, they
had to be reoriented manually. This had been during the summer break of 2119.
While experimenting with the super-conductors, Leon did manage to come up with
an idea. What if he could make a magnetic device that could levitate anywhere,
at any temperature, even in the absence of magnetized metal?
And
that's how Leon discovered monopole magnets. No one had ever seen them before.
Scientists of the previous century didn't even believe they existed. But now,
right in front of him, was a magnet without a south pole: only a north pole.
The young genius hoped the other residents of the neighborhood weren't bothered
by the power shortage while he had been "charging-up" the magnets in
his Aeon Crucible.
Leon
continued to poke at the levitated metal, which rolled about while it floated
in the air. Underneath it was a flat metal slab-magnet that only had a north
pole. The floating device was also a north-pole. Since opposite charges repel
each other, the machine was pushed away from the magnet on the table and
floated in the air. When this stunt was performed with two normal magnets, the
north poles of each had to be kept facing each other, or else the floating
magnet would flip around and become attracted to the other. But the two
monopoles could be oriented in any way and would still repel each other.
By
now Leon had encapsulated the invention in a clear, 3-D printed plastic casing
to protect it. He heaved it over to the iron floor. Letting it go with a slight
push, he gazed at it as it glided over the floor. Suddenly, it clanged to the
ground. Leon had to switch off the magnet in order to pry it from the iron. The
monopole had realigned the iron and become attracted to the south pole of the
floor. The new properties of the monopole were intriguing. And to think! He was
the first person to even observe the behavior of this scientific anomaly in
real life!
The
next day, Leon was again in his basement laboratory. He had barely been able to
contain his excitement during school. The morning classes: grammar, math, and
history and philosophy, had been dull as usual, but the second period was much
more entertaining. Every student of Titan Young People Educational Academy got
to pick what subject they wanted to study for after lunch period. This allowed
them to pick a subject that interested them and they would like to excel in for
their future occupation. Leon had obviously picked the physics class.
Today they had learned about nuclear
fusion and dual-dimensional quantum singularities for the third time and
accidently turned a table in the lab into hypermatter.
In
fact, this incident was the only thing that distracted Leon the entire day, for
he had been thinking about his invention. Amazingly, he had refrained from telling
anyone. He wanted to make his creation perfect
before revealing what he had been working on. He had also come a step closer to
making his universal levitation theory a reality. Leon opened his backpack and
withdrew a cylinder of metal. Placing it inside his Aeon Crucible, a personal
particle accelerator, he clamped it down and pulled up its holographic display.
The accelerator began bombarding the cylinder with beta particles, all with a
topspin of 8 degrees. Or, wait? Wouldn't that need be square root of negative
64? After about thirty minutes and 18 more steps, he had a south-pole-only
magnet. Within another hour, a soldering iron, circuit board , snack break,
quick nap, and electromagnetic detector, his monopole levitation device was
ready to test again.
The
invention now hovered over the iron floor for much longer. He had rigged it to
switch between the south- and north-pole magnets to compensate for the
realignment of the metal floor. However, it wobbled up and down widely until it
finally couldn't keep up. Plus, the magnets affected the sensor's readings. Leon
would need some sort of sensor that wasn't affected by the monopoles, and maybe
even an onboard computer to handle the adjustments.
-----
A
few months later, Leon was in his basement lab again, this time with his
classmate, Arc.
"This
is so amazing! I wonder how many
physicists roll over in their graves when you turn this thing on," he
exclaimed while Leon watched him play with the invention. There were about 20
dipole magnets covering the basement floor, each one had either its north or
south pole facing up. The monopole contraption was able to glide over the grid,
thanks to the simple processor Leon had installed. Whenever the north monopole
came near a south pole, the device switched to the south monopole in order to
stay levitated.
"Have
you tried it with ferrofluid yet?" asked Arc. The two boys gave each other
looks of curiosity looks and dashed over to the desk. Leon picked up a big jar
of ferrofluid and poured it into a large tub away from the other magnets while
Arc brought the monopole invention over. After turning it on, Leon held his
contraption over the tub and let go. It fell, but the magnetic fluid parted and
jumped out of the container, blasted away from the magnet and all over the
room.
"That
was interesting."
It
took them the rest of the day to clean up the lab.
Each
time Arc came over to Leon's house, he had improved his invention. Leon had
been trying to think of a way to make the monopole stay levitated anywhere, but
he couldn't come up with a proper answer. He tried to get the levitated
monopole to drag the magnet under it with it, but the two chunks of metal only
flopped around in a very unwieldy and frightening manner. Leon had even tried
using magnetic silicone polymers, but that was way to slow and sticky. The only
thing that had worked so far was the ferrofluid Arc had suggested. So Leon had
been using that.
Finally,
after many months and countless hours, Leon had a creation bordering on
super-natural. His family and a few friends watched as a glowing sphere danced
seamlessly with a puddle of magnetic liquid. The magnetic sphere wrapped the
black, shimmering liquid around itself, and then contorted it into exotic and surreal
patterns and shapes. By quantum-entangling his monopole magnets, the young
inventor was able to use them to transfer the magnetic fields created by the
machine to points other than where the magnet really was. He pushed and prodded
the sphere, but it stayed in the air by creating "out-of-bound"
magnetic fields to push the fluid under it and then repelling itself away from
it into the air. At the end of the performance, Leon's audience was dead-silent
with awe. Only Leon's grandmother could be heard. She was snoring softly.
"Leon,
I didn't even know this was physically possible!" cried his mother. Grandmother
jerked awake and began clapping. Leon's mom had seen the magnetic device do
some minor levitation tricks before, but she was a history teacher and didn't quite
understand how amazing it was. Until now. His father was a nova-mechanic, and
understood a little better what was going on, but hadn't known how far Leon had
already gotten in programming.
"Son,
you really should try and present this to some sort of science group. Maybe
they could help you apply this type of technology in a way that could make
money or save lives." Visions of fame and fortune flashed before the boy's
eyes. But then the device's entanglement field straightened out and a bolt of
orange light accompanied the explosion of ferrofluid all over the room. It
still needed adjustments. But Leon wasn't done breaking the rules of reality yet.
Not even he knew how far he would go.
-----
The
spotlight hit the stage. The curtains withdrew. A glowing blue sphere hovered
ethereally into view, surrounded by an ever-flowing mass of liquid. An onlooker
fainted at the sight of this "black-magic". The monopole device
halted and began twisting the ferrofluid around itself to form a spiral
staircase. Leon strode to the top of the tower and began to speak nervously,
facing over 2,000 nova-physicists, scientists, quantum-mechanists, astronomers,
and chemists.
"My
name is Leon Polaris, and I'm eighteen. I believe what I'm about to demonstrate
for you will break every law of physics you have ever been taught."
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