When I was at school, and introduced to magnetic fields in a quantitative sense (that is, with a strength attached to it), I remember being told that the S.I. unit of magnetic flux density (B-field) is the tesla, and that 1 tesla is an extremely high B-field indeed. Ha! Not any more. Last Friday night I got to see a MRI machine in action – at Midland MRI at Waikato Hospital – this particular one is a 3 tesla affair. One of my PhD students was making some measurements with it. It needed to be at night – such is the demand for MRI scans we'd never get to play with it during the day. But well worth extending my day's work for.
Now, what does 3 tesla do? First you are advised to check pockets very carefully and remove keys and the like. No pacemakers? Good. Now enter the room. Interestingly, I didn't really 'feel' anything until very close to the machine – then there was just a hint of something slightly 'odd'. Things a little tingly, but nothing really significant.
Two events, however, confirmed that there was a sizeable field indeed. First, my belt unbuckled by itself. That prompted a quick retreat outside to take that off, before bits started flying through the air. Then our host demonstrated what 3 tesla does to a sheet of aluminium.
It's important to remember that alumunium is not ferromagnetic. It is not attracted by a magnet. But it is, most certainly, very conductive. When a conductor moves through a magnetic field, electric currents are induced. These in turn generate magnetic fields, which are such that they oppose the movement. This is Lenz's law. Consequently there is a force felt by the conductor that opposes its motion. And at 3 tesla, that's some force. You can stand the sheet of alumnium on its end. Normally, you'd expect it to fall over, pretty quickly. But not at 3 tesla, it doesn't. Very, very slowly, it topples, taking several seconds to move from vertical to horizontal. I could feel the effect of Lenz's law by trying to flip the sheet over. It was like trying to turn a rapidly spinning gyroscope. Pretty impressive stuff.
You can see a movie of this experiment (not ours, I should add), here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUVfmy-iqM