The National MagLab is funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida.
These demonstrations about laws and tools associated with electricity and magnetism allow you to adjust variables at and to visualize invisible forces — which makes them almost better than the real thing.
Seeing is believing. In these animations, we show you what electricity and magnetism might look like if they weren't invisible.
Learn about electricity and magnetism — and have some fun while you're at it!
How do Maglev trains work? What are comets made of? How do bugs walk on water? This section demonstrates these and other concepts related to magnetism, electricity and other areas of science.
Whether you prefer your science short & sweet or long & detailed, we spell it out for you here in easy-to-understand language.
Read fun science stories told in comic strip style.
There is beauty and art in science. Gaze on these stories of discoveries that could be featured on museum walls instead of scientific journals.
Explore these surprising, unconventional and sometimes downright strange stories about high magnetic field research.
These special science graphics explain science stories in digestible steps and include optional detours for readers wanting more background to customize your reading journey.
Get to know these pioneers who went down in history for their groundbreaking work, including scientists behind common terms such as Amp, Celsius, Kelvin, hertz and tesla.
From the world's first compass to the magnetic force microscope and beyond, explore a variety of instruments, tools and machines throughout history.
Our timeline takes you through the highlights of electricity and magnetism and across the centuries.
Take a field trip to these high magnetic field landmarks around the globe.
Mass spectrometers are instruments that give scientists insight into the composition of complex materials. These spectrometers can analyze materials and identify atoms and molecules by examining how they react to magnetic fields.
The simpler single sector mass spectrometer is made with a single magnetic analyzer. This tutorial explores a widely used variation of this technology, namely, the double sector mass spectrometer. It has two analyzers – one magnetic, one electrostatic.
The interactive tutorial below gives you a look inside of a dual sector mass spectrometer.
The ions enter the first (magnetic) analyzer, where they interact with the magnetic field and are sorted by mass-to-charge ratio. The ions that make it through that curve proceed into the second (electrostatic) analyzer. The ions are traveling at different speeds, and without the help of the electrostatic field, most would crash before making it to the Detector. The charge of ion reacts to the charged walls of the chamber. If the ions are repelled from the walls enough to make it through the chamber, they get counted.
