We're Missing a Magnetic Monopole, & it's Messing with our Understanding of the Space

You’ve possibly heard of the Higgs boson. This elusive element was predict to exist long ago and helped explain why the space works the way it does, but it took decades for us to notice.

Well, there’s one more elusive particle that has also been predict by quantum physics, and it’s been missing for a still longer time. In fact, we still haven’t spotted one, and not through lack of annoying. It’s called the attractive monopole, and it has a few unique properties that create it rather special.

Those with an attention in physics are probably by now familiar with an exciting monopole, although you may know it by its extra common name: electric accuse.

Opposite electric charges draw and like charges repel through the communication of electric fields, which are defined as running from optimistic to negative. These are the somewhat arbitrary labels for the 2- opposing electric charges.

Electric monopoles exist in the form of particles that have a optimistic or negative electric accuse, such as protons or electrons.

At first glance, charisma seems somewhat analogous to electricity, as there exist a magnetic field with a way defined as running from north to south.

However, the analogy breaks downward when we try to discover the magnetic counterpart for the electric charge. While we can discover electric monopoles in the form of emotional particles, we have never experiential magnetic monopoles.

Instead, magnets live only in the form of dipoles with a north and a south end. When a bar attraction is split into two pieces, you don’t get a divide north part and a south part. Rather you get two latest, smaller magnets, each with a north and south finish.

Even if you split that magnet down into person particles, you still get a magnetic dipole.

When we look at magnetism in the world, what we see is entirely consistent with Maxwell’s equations, which describe the unification of electric and magnetic field theory into classical electromagnetism.

They were first published by James Maxwell during 1861 and 1862 and are still used daily on a practical level in engineering, telecommunications and medical applications, to name presently a few.

But one of these equations – Gauss’s law for magnetism – states that there are no magnetic monopoles.

The magnetism we watch on a day-to-day basis can all be attributed to the group of electric charges. When an electrically charged particle moves down a path, such as an electron moving down a wire, this is an electrical current. This induce a magnetic field that wraps around the direction of the present.

The second reason of magnetism involves a property from quantum mechanics called 'spin'. This can be thought of in terms of an electrically charged element rotating on an axis rather than moving in a particular direction.

This generates an rangy momentum in the particle, causing the electron to act as a magnetic dipole (i.e. a tiny bar magnet). This means we can explain magnetic phenomena without the required for magnetic monopoles.

But presently because our classical electromagnetic theories are consistent with our observations, that does not imply that there are no magnetic monopoles. Rather, this presently means that there are no magnetic monopoles anywhere that we have experiential.

Once we create to delve into the murky depths of theory, we begin to find some tempting arguments for their presence in the space.