In undergraduate physics, the student association had a file cabinet containing all exams from approximately the last 10 years in ALL classes required for a degree. In fact, to make money we took the last few years of exams for 1st year courses, solved the problems and copied and bound them and sold the booklets to people taking the course. Before the final we would hire a grad student or two to essential teach problems out of the book. When we started, we made nothing more than a few hundred dollars. By the end of my undergrad there, we were pulling in about $5k a semester because students realised that this prior knowledge was a key to passing the classes.

If their primary focus was education, you'd never attract good researchers. The university would make less money (since they get a piece of all the incoming grant money) and tuition would go up - way up. Without the good researchers, there would be a dramatic decrease in graduate students, which would mean the need for more instructors to teach labs - i.e. more money and even higher tuition.

Most universities I've been at recently, the large first year courses are getting more 'focus' and are often taught by dedicated instructors who don't do research or their research revolves around education (such as physics education which is actually a very large field).

Personally, I think back to the good old days when universities were for academics and research not just accepting 1000's of students so they can get a degree. I think it waters down the whole point of a degree and takes many hours of time which could be used for productive work. Yes, I admit I am an academic working as a researcher at a university and I'm proud of it. It took me many years to get where I am and yet I get paid a pittance in comparison with some of my friends who have either no degree (work in a trade as journeymen or masters) or have a bachelor's degree.

In reality, I expected to not make as much money but knowledge was its own reward... still, it would be nice to help pay some bills.

Interesting thought experiment.

I think that the answer is reasonably simple though based on the understanding of a standard dipole magnet. If you "look" at a dipole magnet, you see the north (south) pole is populated by more positive (negative) charge. If you cut that magnet in half, you still have the same configuration.

Therefore, I believe what you would get is a migration of electrons toward the north pole of the dipole magnet you touch to the wire. You get electrons moving since they are more "free" than protons in matter. as the electrons propagate, even just a little, you get tiny bar magnets forming along the wire. The new magnet would completely form when the dipole field was reached at the far end. Depending on the resistance of the material, etc it would be a time related to the ability of the electrons to move in the material.

The interesting part would be the fact that there maybe (I don't know the answer as I am not a specialist in material science nor EM physics) tiny magnetic perturbation fields that propagate along the wire do to the small "shift" in the electrons (electron motion is a current - current produces a magnetic field).

So based on this physics, I would say no, this is not a "current of magnetism" as you put it. Monopoles are not moving, electrons are.

This article is theoretical in nature however. They have obviously made some assumptions in their model (no model is ever 100% correct - or even close). So while they say that it is 2 orders of magnitude too small, is this because of their assumptions? What could be the error? We/They should look for actual evidence (you know, an experiment or observations in the real world) to back this claim up.

(I guess that is the experimentalist in me... I never do trust models that much, especially when they don't predict the actual observations under the same conditions)

Actually, not the Earth's field at all. Cosmic rays are influenced by the Sun's magnetic field. If the field is larger there are less cosmic rays in the heliosphere thus less interacting with the planets.

The sunspot number data are actually very continuous - as your figure shows. There is no "sporadic" data. Observations (telescopic) started around 1610 by the English astronomer Thomas Harriot and Frisian astronomers Johannes and David Fabricius.1 as well as Galileo.

And, surprisingly, the thickness of tree rings corresponds very well with the isotope concentration. The is also related to the temperature at the tree of course. Whether the two are directly related - unknown...

It is not for consumer technology in the Antarctic. The radars they are building will measure the plasma in the ionosphere which, correlated with the other 20 SuperDARN radars and other space science instruments, will provide information on how space weather can affect communication satellites, GPS, and ground-based networks such as cell phones and electrical systems globally. The Antarctic and Arctic regions sit in a very good position to measure the affects of the Sun on the Earth as the solar wind directly interacts with the upper atmosphere in the polar regions. A better understanding leads to better technology, for example better electrical transformers exist now to protect against surges due to large solar storms.

Actually, this is a very interesting observation. In the last 5 years or so there has been a flurry of activity on this particular point.

Recently an article by Scaffeta and West (Physics Today - maybe 2007? Don't have the reference handy) tried to link the temperature drop to the solar cycle, specifically solar flares. In my opinion they got the conclusions wrong. They should have related the tropospheric temperature changes to the number of sunspots (a semi accurate value representing the solar activity).

Looking at past data, the Little Ice Age where a drop of 2 degrees in average temperature in Europe as measured, there was a period also known as the Maunder Minimum in which there were very few to no sunspots for about 75 years (7 solar cycles). It has also been noted that when the Sun is not very active and it's magnetic field (the heliosphere) is weak cosmic rays are greater. Therefore it is possible to measure from tree rings a similar cooling (tree rings are smaller when it is cooler) much further back then when sunspots were being counted. These periods of weak solar activity often correspond to climate change on Earth - usually cooling.

With the current solar cycle not true having started and the solar wind at it's lowest average velocity ever measured, it is safe to say the Sun is not very active (I qualify this since it does have some activity). Whether this means that we are entering into a period of little solar activity similar to the Little Ice Age of the 1650-1770 or just going through a lull in activity is not clear.

Given this reasonable evidence, it could be concluded that the Sun does affect the Earth's climate. However, it is also being affected strongly by humans. Therefore, "global warming" may continue but at a slower rate if the Sun remains quiescent.

Actually, forecast prediction has increased dramatically in the last 10 years based on the data from satellites nearer the Sun such as ACE and SOHO. Based on the solar information, ground-based and near Earth measurements have provided scientists (and engineers) the ability to combat potential events that could damage satellites (such as communication or GPS) or ground electrical systems. Based on observations of the Sun, we can give a forecast of as much as 3 days in advance with reasonable accuracy. Unexpected events do happen but overall, forecasting space weather is much easier than local tropospheric weather.

Indeed - you are correct by saying geostationary but they are also geosynchronous. GOES and LANL are geosynchronous but are at the zero inclination (this is a special case of geosynchronous orbit - called geostationary). In fact, looking at the LANL satellite page you see they also refer to it as "geosynchronous". Perhaps we use the term loosely but we do use it correctly.