This film is part of Free

Magnetism of an Inventor

Magnet draws you back to the future

Current affairs 1965 3 mins

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Overview

TV reporter Clive Gunnell is sucked in completely by Inventor and Scientist who lectures on magnetism at the University of Exeter Herbert W Hayden. This important lesson demonstrates how magnets work in zero gravity as in space. So next time you see an astronaut floating about the international space station, spare a thought for the magnet not losing its properties in the absence of a gravitational field.

In physics, electromagnetism is a fundamental force and thankfully in this demonstration electromagnetism saves the feet of the journalist. Mr Hayden uses a magnet invented during the Second World War used to attach bombs to hulls of ships underwater prompting the question in which medium does a magnet lose its properties? Any comparisons of Mr Hayden to Christopher Lloyd’s Dr Emmett Doc Brown character in Back To The Future (1985) would be purely speculative unless of course time travel were a credible option.