Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!decuac!news
From: baker@wbc.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: RE: magnetocryogenics
Message-ID: <1990Sep28.171459.7466@decuac.dec.com>
Date: 28 Sep 90 17:13:02 GMT
Sender: news@decuac.dec.com (Network News)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 26

-Message-Text-Follows-

>In A recent issue of Popular Electronics (?) there was an article about
>using magnets and certain alloys such as something called "galadinium"
>for cryogenics. 
> 
>This "magnetocryogenics" as it was called worked on a principle similar
>to that used in thermionic cooling, according to the article.
.
.
.
>jd
>onymouse@netcom.UUCP                 CI$: 75530,347
>   ''   @cup.portal.com              GEnie: onymouse


	I think they may mean "gadolinium" -- a trivalent magnetic
	rare-earth element.

	As to the magnetocrygenic stuff, one of the techniques used to
	lower the temperature of liquid helium is let it stabilize in a
	magnetic field, then remove the magnetic field; in a rather sneaky
	thermodynamic way, the helium is "doing work" and it cools off a
	little bit.  I don't know if this is what pop-tronics had in mind.

	Art Baker