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.
> Actually, not the Earth's field at all. Not according to the article:
In addition to being protected by the Sun, we are also safeguarded by our planet's own magnetic field, which is strong enough to deflect the vast majority of incoming space radiation, or convert it into harmless, elementary particles.
Actually, that is somewhat true. The Earth's magnetic field does protect us from the solar wind which is the vast majority of the incoming radiation. However, this is not true for cosmic rays (I'm talking galactic cosmic rays also) which travel near the speed of light (energies near 1 GeV or greater). They are modulated solely by the Sun's magnetic field. The Earth's field is far to weak to deflect them. The Earth is protected from cosmic rays by it ATMOSPHERE. Cosmic rays enter the neutral atmosphere where they collide and produce a wide range of charged and uncharged particles including protons, electrons, and neutrinos. Most of these particles do not reach the ground and are "swallowed" by continuous interactions with the neutral atmosphere (save the neutrinos which travel unimpeded through the Earth).
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.
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.
This is wrong. The GOES satellites are geo-synchronous, meaning they remain at continuous location with respect to the Earth. This also means that they are not in polar orbits. These satellites are similar to the LANL satellites but occupy the western hemisphere. You may be thinking of the DMSP satellites.
GOES is useful at measuring the magnetic fields. It does not, however, measure the ionospheric particles such as is done with the SuperDARN coherent scatter radars or the EISCAT or PFISR incoherent scatter radars. The group at the University of Saskatchewan has also received money to build a new radar which is scheduled to be built on the NE corner of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. It will be their 5th radar.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.