• nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    No. Electromagnetic radiation. It doesn’t need a conductor. Think of it as a loop antenna except instead of a coil of wire generating the field a permanent magnet does.

    An electric field is produced by any moving magnet, all a nearby conductor does is provides easily movable electrons that can flow in response to it.

    • ChapolinColoradoNZ@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So are you saying that a fidget spinner equipped with a couple of magnets and spun fast enough to generate that radio frequency can interfere with a purpose built radio broadcasting antenna set for the same (or resonant) frequency? In other terms, it will be able to radiate enough mV over the air to disrupt it?

      • nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        The fast enough part is key. To generate a signal on the AM broadcast band you would have to rotate it at 800 thousands rotations per second. As for being able to interfere, radio signals are often in the microvolt/m range by the time they reach the reciver, and a strong magnet can produce a few volts in a small (10-20 turns) coil just being moved by hand. If you somehow managed to get a magnet spining at the 1575 million rotations per second as in the meme (without it disintegrating on contact with air, or getting ripped apart, or turning the air to plasma), it would produce massive amounts of field, tens of thousands of volts per meter.

        GPS signals are actually especially weak, as low as 0.3 uV/m.