ROSE MARY PUBLIC SCHOOL

2023 - 2024

PHYSICS
INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT
MAGNETIC
MONOPOLES

S. BALA MURALI KRISHNA

XII 'C'
 CERTIFICATE

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT S. BALA MURALI KRISHNA

OF CLASS XII HAS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED HIS

INVESTIGATORY PROJECT ON THE TOPIC "MAGNETIC

MONOPOLES" UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

MR.MANIKANDAN DURING THE YEAR 2023-2024

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF PHYSICS PRACTICAL

EXAMINATION CONDUCTED BY AISSE , NEW DELHI .

INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

PRINCIPAL
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY DEEP GRATITUDE

TO MY TEACHER, MR.MANIKANDAN WHO WAS A

CONSTANT SOURCE OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND

VALUABLE ADVICE. THIS PROJECT WOULDN’T

HAVE COME TO A SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION

WITHOUT HIS GUIDANCE. FINALLY, I WOULD LIKE

TO THANK MY PARENTS FOR BEING THERE

WITH CONTINUING SUPPORT BOTH MORALLY AND

FINANCIALLY

S. BALA MURALI KRISHNA

 Content
TOPIC PAGE NUMBER

AIM 1

ORIGIN OF MAGNETS 2

WHO DISCOVERED THE MAGNET 5

WHAT ARE MONOPOLES? 9

PROOF FROM MAXWELL’S

10
EQUATIONS

PROOF FROM DIRAC’S STRING 12

THE SEARCH FOR NATURALLY

13
OCCURING MONOPOLES

ATTEMPT TO CREATE NEW

15
MONOPOLES

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF
17
MONOPOLES

BIBLIOGRAPHY 18
 Pg No-1

AIM
To study and conclude about the possibilities of the
existence of magnetic monopoles and their
practical applications if they theoretically exist
 Pg No-2

ORIGIN OF MAGNETS
Magnetism is caused by two kinds of electron
motions in atoms: one is the motion of electrons in
an orbit around the nucleus, which is similar to the
motion of planets in our solar system around the
sun, and the other is the spin of electrons around
their axis, which is similar to the rotation of the
Earth around its axis.

Each electron acquires a magnetic moment as a

result of its orbital and spin motions, causing it to
behave like a tiny magnet. The rotational force
experienced by a magnet in a magnetic field of
unit strength acting perpendicular to its magnetic
axis defines its magnetic moment.
Because of the Pauli exclusion principle, which
states that each electronic orbit can only be
occupied by two electrons of opposite spin, the
magnetic moment of the electrons cancels out in a
large fraction of the elements.
 Pg No-3

However, several so called transition metal atoms,

such as iron, cobalt, and nickel, have magnetic
moments that are not cancelled, making them
common magnetic materials. The magnetic moment
in these transition metal elements is derived solely
from the spin of the electrons.

The effect of electron orbital motion is not

cancelled in the rare earth elements (which start
with lanthanum in the sixth row of the Periodic Table
of Elements), so both spin and orbital motion
contribute to the magnetic moment. Cerium,
neodymium, samarium, and europium are examples
of magnetic rare earth elements.

Magnetic moments can be found in a wide range of

chemical compounds containing transition and rare
earth elements, in addition to metals and alloys.
Metal oxides, which are chemically bonded
compositions of metals with oxygen, are among the
most common magnetic compounds.
 Pg No-4

According to a fundamental law of electromagnetism,

a magnetic field is created by the passage of an
electric current, the Earth's geomagnetic field is the
result of electric currents produced by the slow
convective motion of its liquid core.

The Earth's core, according to this model, should be

electrically conductive enough to allow for the
generation and transmission of an electric current. The
resulting geomagnetic field will be dipolar, similar to
the magnetic field produced by a conventional
magnet, with lines of magnetic force lying in
approximate planes passing through the geomagnetic
axis.

Who discovered the

magnet?
Magnets make the world go-’round, and tales of their
discovery and application appear to come from all
corners of the globe.
 Pg No-5

Greece:
Magnes, a Greek shepherd, is said to have been
tending his sheep in Magnesia, a region of northern
Greece, around 4,000 years ago. When he took a
step forward, the nails holding his shoe together and
the metal tip of his staff became stuck to the rock he
was standing on! He began digging, intrigued, and
found the first known lodestone. Magnesia or
Magnesia was probably the inspiration for the name
"magnetite" given to lodestones.

Magnes
rome: Pg No-6

Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, and naturalist who

undertook important scientific research for the then-
Roman Emperor Vespasian in the early AD years
described a hill made of a stone that attracted iron.
Pliny attributed magnetite's powers to magic, igniting
a flurry of superstitious theories about the material,
including the possibility that ships that had gone
missing at sea had been drawn to magnetic islands.
Pliny died in the eruption of Pompeii, which is
unrelated but curious.

Scandinavia :

With a large lodestone deposit in Scandinavia and

insufficient light to navigate ships by during the
winter, the Vikings had every incentive to put
lodestone's magnetic properties to good use. The
Vikings are believed to have used a compass-like tool
made of lodestone and iron as early as 1,000 B.C.
Viking sailors used a magnetized iron needle inserted
into a piece of straw and float in a bowl of water to
signify north and south, according to legend.
 Pg No-7
China:
The Chinese may have invented a mariner's compass
that was similar in construction to the Vikings'. As early
as 800 A.D., the Chinese used a splinter of lodestone
floating on water to navigate. Explorers such as Marco
Polo brought the magnetic compass back to Italy,
allowing Europeans to finally explore the oceans that
the Vikings had been navigating for at least 500 years
using their version of the compass.

France :
One of the first written accounts of the scientific
properties of magnets was authored by French scholar
Petrus Peregrinus in the 1200s. The freely pivoting
compass needle–a key component of the first dry
compass–is depicted and discussed in his report.
Peregrinus is said to have composed these works while
taking part in a papalsanctioned crusade/attack on
the Italian city of Lucera.

Petrus Peregrinus
 Pg No-8

England :
William Gilbert, a physician from the United Kingdom,
was the first scientist to create a magnet. He found in
1600 that magnets could be forged out of iron and that
their magnetic properties could be lost when that iron
was heated.

Denmark :
Hans Christian Oersted began studying the relationship
between electricity and magnetism two hundred years
later, in 1820. He proved his theory by placing a
magnetic compass near an electrical wire, which
caused the compass's accuracy to be thrown off.

William Gilbert Hans Chrisitan Oersted

 Pg No-9

What are MONOPOLES?

The study of electric charges by isolating a single
charge has been going on since time immemorial. But
have we ever taken the time to wonder why magnets
aren’t studied in the same way.

Let’s take a normal bar magnet for example, It is

painted in blue and red to help us identify the two
poles namely, North (red) and South (blue).

Even a naturally occurring magnetic material has 2

poles, which can be distinguished easily when another
magnetic material is brought close to it and either
attraction or repulsion occurs.

There has been a debate going on among scientist

for years regarding the existence of such a monopole
magnet. And those who claim that it does indeed exist
have tried to find such a naturally occurring magnetic
material and have tasted bitter failure.

There have been attempts to create such a magnet

artificially under drastic conditions and it could be
said that some of those people have presented us
with positive results.
 Pg No-10
PROOF FROM MAXWELL’S
EQUaTIONS
The equations are named after the physicist and
mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, who, in 1861 and
1862, published an early form of the equations that
included the Lorentz force law. Maxwell first used the
equations to propose that light is an electromagnetic
phenomenon.

Gauss's law for magnetism states that electric

charges have no magnetic analogues, called
magnetic monopoles.

No north or south magnetic poles exist in isolation.

Instead, the magnetic field of a material is attributed
to a dipole, and the net outflow of the magnetic field
through a closed surface is zero.

This is because magnetic field lines form a closed

loop by exiting from the North pole and entering
through the South pole. So, the entering flux is equal
to the leaving flux and they cancel out each other.

∮ B dS cos ϴ = 0
 Pg No-11

For a monopole magnet the net magnetic flux would

not be equal to zero because the leaving flux would
not enter again and vice versa.

Such a magnet has been discovered yet and

thus, Gauss’ law for magnetic flux stands strong
to this day and rejects the proposal of the
existence of monopole magnets.

PROOF FROM DIRAC’S STRING

When a small solenoid has a magnetic flux, there are
interference fringes for charged particles which go
around the solenoid, or around different sides of the
solenoid, which reveal its presence.

But if all particle charges are integer multiples of e,

solenoids with a flux of 2π/e have no interference
fringes, because the phase factor for any charged
particle is exp(2πi) = 1.
 Pg No-12

Such a solenoid, if thin enough, is quantum-

mechanically invisible. If such a solenoid were to carry
a flux of 2π/e, when the flux leaked out from one of
its ends it would be indistinguishable from a
monopole.

Dirac string links monopoles and anti-monopoles of

opposite magnetic charges formed by a practically
impossible solenoid.

Experimental searches for magnetic monopoles can

be placed in one of two categories: those that try to
detect preexisting magnetic monopoles and those
that try to create and detect new magnetic
monopoles.
 Pg No-13

THE SEARCH FOR NATURALLY OCCURING

MONOPOLES
Daedalus has pointed out that if there are natural
monopoles, they will congregate close to the
magnetic poles (this may explain why no natural
monopoles have so far been found in nature).

Passing a magnetic monopole through a coil of wire

induces a net current in the coil. This is not the case
for a magnetic dipole or higher order magnetic
pole, for which the net induced current is zero, and
hence the effect can be used as an unambiguous test
for the presence of magnetic monopoles. In a wire
with finite resistance, the induced current quickly
dissipates its energy as heat, but in a
superconducting loop the induced current is long-
lived.

By using a highly sensitive "superconducting quantum

interference device" (SQUID) one can, in principle,
detect even a single magnetic monopole.
 Pg No-14

What inflation theory does potentially explain, is the

extremely low density of magnetic monopoles in the
universe. The idea here is that magnetic monopoles, for
some unknown reason, are extremely unlikely to form,
even in the intensely energetic and hot crucible of the
Big Bang. According to standard inflationary
cosmology, magnetic monopoles produced before
inflation would have been diluted to an extremely low
density today. Magnetic monopoles may also have
been produced thermally after inflation, during the
period of reheating. It is quite possible that, post-
inflation, the magnetic monopole density in the universe
is so low that only one exists within the observable
universe.

There have been many searches for preexisting

magnetic monopoles. Although there has been one
tantalizing event recorded, by Blas Cabrera Navarro
on the night of February 14, 1982 (thus, sometimes
referred to as the "Valentine's Day Monopole"), there
has never been reproducible evidence for the existence
of magnetic monopoles. The lack of such events places
an upper limit on the number of monopoles of about
one monopole per 1029 nucleons.
 Pg No-15

ATTEMPT TO CREATE NEW MONOPOLES

A team of researchers from Cologne, Munich and
Dresden have managed to create artificial magnetic
monopoles, the scientists merged tiny magnetic
whirls, so-called skyrmions. At the point of merging,
the physicists were able to create a monopole, which
has similar characteristics to a fundamental particle
postulated by Paul Dirac in 1931.

Researchers from Cologne, Munich and Dresden

describe the discovery of new type of artificial
monopole in a solid, i.e. particles, which have similar
characteristics to monopoles, but which only exist
within materials.

Over the last few years, materials in which magnetic

whirls, so-called skyrmions, are formed, have been
examined intensively. These whirls influence the
movements of the electrons in exactly the same
manner as magnetic fields. For this reason, artificial
magnet fields are used to describe these whirls as
well as their influence on the electrons.
 Pg No-16

They were able to observe on the surface that the

magnetic whirls apparently coalesce when the
skyrmion phase is destroyed.

Due to the fact that every whirl carries an artificial

magnetic field, their creation or destruction occurs
at the point of merging. "This means that an artificial
magnetic monopole has to sit on this point,"
describes Prof. Rosch, "whenever two magnetic whirls
merge in the experiment, an artificial magnetic
monopole has flown through surface."

Despite this, artificial monopoles cannot solve

Dirac's problem: only electrons in solid state, but not
protons, feel the artificial magnet fields.
 Pg No-17

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF MONOPOLES

It would also explain the quantization of electric
charge, because Dirac proved there is a
quantization condition on the (hypothetical)
magnetic charge in terms of the electric charge.

An inward monopole will store ether from the

surroundings.Monopole dust will always move to the
north or south when released, making it a rather
simple compass.

One unusual effect of monopoles is that they produce

electric fields when moving. A monopole bullet will
create such a strong electric field that it becomes
surrounded by toroidal arc lightning, increasing its
damage potential (especially against electronic
targets).

If a monopolar object is placed close to a

currentcarrying wire, it will begin to orbit it. This
could be used as an elegant motor (or generator)
with no need for other moving parts than a flywheel
with fixed monopoles placed around the electrical
axis.
 Pg No-18

Result
Ever since the discovery of magnetic poles, it was believed that a
magnetic mono pole could not exist in isolation by itself and that
every North magnetic pole had a South magnetic pole, and vice
versa. Many physicists believed that Gauss' law for magnetism
completely extinguished any possibility of existence of such
magnetic mono poles but that was nothing but a consequence of
their short handed development of research of their time. Now,
many modern theories like the universally accepted Dirac's string
suggest us strong affirmations about the sparse but sure
presence of these infamous magnetic mono poles. The discovery
of just one such particle amidst the the entire universe would
prove to be of huge significance and nevertheless the successful
creation of artificial magnetic mono poles would change our world
in an inconceivable manner.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_mon
opole

https://www.quora.com/What-would-
happen-if-we-could-make-magnetic-
monopoles

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithaba
ng/2021/09/03/ask-ethan-what-impact-
could-magnetic-monopoles-have-on-the-
universe/?sh=18bfdfe76818

https://phys.org/news/2013-05-artificial-
magnetic-monopoles.html