Cited on HN 3 times, 2020–2022, never outright recommendedscore 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Cited as a visual example of dynamo flows and of the care needed when handling reactive liquid sodium.
Veritasium shows an experiment from Prof. Dan Lathrop's lab with a spinning sphere of molten sodium, used to study how turbulent convection in Earth's core generates a magnetic field. It is a short demonstration of dynamo physics.
“using liquid sodium for... anything requires an enormous amount of care” (HN, 2022)
I thought it was well-accepted that current flows and their resultant magnetic fields were the dominant forces in the Earth's core. Modeling a chaotic dynamo is difficult, but people are working on it. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I am with this article. [this video]
Related to dynamo flows in a spinning sodium sphere
Considering our very recent understanding of sodium Coulombic explosions[0], using liquid sodium for... anything requires an enormous amount of care[1]. [0] [link] [1] [this video]
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