the.com/monopole
the magnet with one face, hunted for ninety years and still hiding.
means A hypothetical magnetic particle carrying only a single magnetic charge — a lone north or south pole with no opposite, unlike every ordinary magnet which always has both.
from From Greek 'monos' (single, alone) plus 'polos' (pivot, axis — the point around which things turn, the same root behind the celestial 'pole'). The 'pole' of a magnet borrowed this word because compass needles point toward the Earth's poles. 'Monopole' is a modern scientific compound, built in the 20th century to name a thing not yet found: the magnetic counterpart to the electric charge, predicted on theoretical grounds but never confirmed in the wild.
- theory
- Dirac proved one would quantize all electric charge
- score
- Every magnet split keeps two poles, infinitely
- sighting
- One 1982 detector blip, never repeated
- price
- Predicted heavier than entire bacteria, nearly
- reward
- Finding one likely earns a Nobel
parker solar probe — nasa spacecraft searching for magnetic monopoles in solar wind since 2018
south pole magnetic anomaly — earth's strongest localized magnetic field near wilkes land, antarctica, proposed monopole candidate