Right to the core; UW scientists study Earth's magnetic field

From: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Date: February 7, 2005| Author: HARVEY BLACK | Copyright information

On the bottom floor of a nondescript building in the countryside near Stoughton, University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist Cary Forest and his colleagues are learning about the innermost parts of the Earth by studying what happens when 300 gallons of liquid sodium are beaten and stirred like a cake mix in a bowl.

Their goal is to understand how the Earth's magnetic field works. As anyone who has ever held a compass and watched the needle point north knows, the Earth has such a field, a...

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