An EXCELLENT 'teachable moment'.
Tell them that this is a prime example of golly-gee whiz, LOTS more substantial funding for this neat stuff is needed NOW!!!!!
I won't say that the research is fraudulent - it's not. BUT it IS bordering on it in its presentation.
Your IB students need to understand Maxwell's equations and the asymmetry that is in them because of the monopoles NOT being included.
Historically, they might enjoy the Blas Cabrerra episode at Stanford that 'seemed' to have detected a REAL monopole as opposed to these 'virtual' monopoles described in the current research. (I have to wonder if Richard Feynmann was at Stanford when the chart recorder 'blip' occurred. He would have known exactly what the signature would have to look like and WAS known to have a certain devilish sense of humor).
The article is intended to get eh public excited. No problem with that. The public NEEDS to ge t excited about physics research.
What the article lacks (IMHO) is the requisite 'waffle words' that would tell the discerning reader that we won't be modifying Maxwell's equations because of this stuff.
And including the 'Energy' topic is WAY off base.
Your IB students might like to go thru the exercise of dessigning an energy producing perpetual motion machine that can be allowed by adding the monopole density term to the Maxwell equations. Leave it to the students to figure out the SECOND monopole term that would complete the symmetry and also (conveniently) remove the energy generation possibility.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Sylvester <mark.sylvester@spin.it>
To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:49:10 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Phys-l] spin ice monopoles?