Tokyo researchers created the strongest controllable magnetic field in history (opens in new tab)

> just blew the doors off an iron enclosure intended to contain the massive magnetic field

Now, I'm by no means a physicists, but aren't iron enclosures particularly bad at containing magnetic fields?

I was waiting for Gordon Freeman to emerge from behind the machine with his crowbar...

>> I wouldn't have expected them to interact much at all.

They don't interact directly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compre...

Magnetic fields tend to decay with distance from the source which helps.

I don't have a source on hand but I have read some study that theorized a very powerful electromagnet in a mars-sun lagrange point could be used to create a magnetic field to shield mars from cosmic radiation in a similar way to earth's magnetosphere. I seem to remember the power needed being (obviously) very large but surprisingly not many orders of magnitude out of plausibility. For a much smaller entity than a planet (spaceship) it may be possible with a low enough power consumption to make it possible. I would imagine there would be many many engineering concerns with having such a high powered magnet in your spaceship though.

Some examples of Tesla unit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)#Examples & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_...

8 T – the strength of LHC magnets

11.75 T – the strength of INUMAC magnets, largest MRI scanner

16 T – magnetic field strength required to levitate a frog

17.6 T – strongest field trapped in a superconductor in a lab as of July 2014

35.4 T – the current (2009) world record for a superconducting electromagnet in a background magnetic field

45 T – the current (2015) world record for continuous field magnets

100 T - Strongest pulsed non-destructive magnetic field produced in a laboratory

1200 T - Record for indoor pulsed magnetic field, (University of Tokyo, 2018)

2800 T - Record for human produced, pulsed magnetic field, (VNIIEF, 2001)

1 MT - 100 MT - Strength of a neutron star

I hate when I see a sciency article from them. They are great with human interest stuff (if you like their spin) but the technical stuff is always lacking. You can tell where the writer hits their wall of undertanding and tries to fill it with quotes instead of working with someone knowlegable on the subject.