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Which jobs use electromagnets?

In today's world almost all jobs other than a goat herder use some type of electromagnet. They are everywhere. Electric motors are a type of electromagnet. Cars have dozens of electromagnets that move things or generate electricity. There are all sorts of interesting applications for larger electromagnets. The most obvious and biggest example is electricity. There are some interesting applications like dumping shredded garbage through powerful magnetic fields to sort out and recycle metal bits. At Jefferson Lab we do something similar when we shoot our particle beam through very powerful magnetic fields. The particles neatly sort themselves out by mass.

One area that I would really like to see more of is the development and use of electric cars. Electric motors are actually much better suited to the type of driving most people do than internal combustion engines. Contrary to what most people believe, electric cars are not zero pollution. The electricity comes from somewhere and it's usually generated by a big power plant. The motors used in electric cars are very advanced though. It would be great if scientists could do more research on energy storage systems, batteries for example.

Author:

Brian Kross, Chief Detector Engineer (Other answers by Brian Kross)

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