Poem for 12 January, 2013 Invisible Designing magnets might sound complicated,
but it’s a simple art.
First you collect the experimental specifications.
Scientists want their magnetic fields
to act certain ways. Sometimes they need a steep field profile,
one that hits ions with brute Gaussian force. Sometimes they need something more subtle,
a gentle rise of magnetic power
that coaxes particles in desired directions. You start by estimating
what your magnet might look like,
taking into consideration
the specifications desired
and your past experience
with similar specifications.
Specifications are the shit. You feed the parameters of your design
into a computer program
that calculates a field map,
and out spits a topographical chart
showing the magnetic field
at any point near your magnet. You make adjustments and do it again,
and again,
and again,
finally reaching something
that approximates the desired outcome,
but never quite matches it.