Faraday’s Force Fields

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel — Michio Kaku— (Chapter 1: Force Fields)         In science fiction, a force field is deceptively simple: a thin, invisible yet impenetrable barrier able to deflect lasers and rockets alike.       In the same way that Edison's lightbulb revolutionized modern civilization, a force field could profoundly affect every aspect of our lives.       Bridges, superhighways, and roads could in theory be built by simply pressing a button. Entire cities could sprout instantly in the desert, with skyscrapers made entirely of force fields.       The concept of force fields originates from the work of the great nineteenth-century British scientist Michael Faraday.                  The young Faraday was fascinated by the enormous breakthroughs in uncovering the mysterious properties of two new forces: electricity and magnetism.         Faraday made a series of stunning breakthroughs that led to the creation of generators that would energize entire cities and change the course of world civilization — the key to Faraday's greatest discoveries was his "force fields."         If one places iron filings over a magnet, one finds that the iron filings create a spiderweb-like pattern that fills up all space. These are Faraday's lines of force, which graphically describe how the force fields of electricity and magnetism permeate space.         Empty space, to Faraday, was not empty at all, but was filled with lines of force that could make distant objects move.         One day in 1831, Faraday made the key breakthrough when he was moving a child's magnet over a coil of wire, without ever touching it. This meant that a magnet's invisible field could push electrons in a wire across empty space, creating a current.         Faraday's "force fields" which were previously thought to be useless, idle doodlings, were real, material forces that could move objects and generate power.         Force fields of Michael Faraday are the forces that drive modern civilization, from electric bulldozers to today's computers, Internet, and iPods.         Faraday's force fields have been an inspiration for physicists for a century and a half. Einstein was so inspired by them that he wrote his theory of gravity in terms of force fields.