Magnetic Whine

I was flying back from Washington, D.C. on Tuesday when I got a little bored.  So I picked up the SkyMall catalog to see what outrageously expensive crap they had. 

These three items piqued my curiosity, so I ripped the page from the catalog.

Put your bottle of 2 Buck Chuck on one of these, and then somehow the magnets "realign the particles." Pardon my language and borrowing from Penn & Teller, but Bullshit!

I've dealt with this issue once before in Swirling Wine.  In my Electricity and Magnetism course, the students understand that magnets interact with other magnets, and they come to understand that a magnet does not necessarily have to be those things we stick to out refrigerator.  Electrical currents (moving electrons) also interact magnetically.  That's why we have electromagnets.

While there might be tiny, tiny amounts of iron in the wine, there is no process in which magnets will change the character of cheap wine.  

Now if I could get golfers to stop buying the magnetic bracelet crap.

What goes "Quack"? Dr. Oz?

URGENT!  On tomorrow's Dr. Oz show, he investigates features claims that magnets are a cure for chronic pain.  I won't be able to watch it, but I hope to catch either a rerun or find it on the web.  If any reader sees it, leave a comment.

Note to faithful readers - Sorry it's been a while since a post.  My beer post is coming soon.  Life at Rio Hondo College has been hectic.  I wish I could fill you in, but one day, I promise to regale you with details either here or at River Deep Faculty.

Maxwell's Silver Magnet (apologies to the Beatles)

In the post on wine swirling, i didn't bring up one of of Ralph de Amicis' incorrect comments, because there were so many that were wrong. This one though, deserves it's own post.

The positive pole is more highly charged, just like the North Pole of the Earth,…

A frequent mistake that people make is to mix up the electric charge with the magnetic pole. Both are basic characteristics of matter, just as mass is, but they're not interchangeable. Incredibly, I've even heard one of my science colleagues make this mistake in his class.

When I rub a balloon on my sweater, the balloon rips electrons from the fibers. When I put the balloon near the wall, those extra electrons on the balloon repel the electrons near the surface of the wall leaving a slight deficit of electrons (or a slight surplus of protons). Now notice those little plus (+) signs and negative (-) signs. Benjamin Franklin realized that electric charge comes in two types. He named them positive and negative. I think those are rather apt names, because in mathematics a negative sign can mean 'opposite.'

Now let's play with a magnet. When I place a magnet near a compass which is just a small magnet, I notice that the one end of the compass (white in the figure) is attracted to the red end of the magnet and vice-versa. I also notice that the red end of the compass is repelled by the red end of the magnet. When I take the compass outside, I see that the red end always points North. Historical note: The Chinese invented the compass 4500 years ago.

Since not all magnets have red and white ends, we need to name the two ends. I guess that since the red end points toward the North Pole, some ancient people (probably either the Chinese or the Greeks) called that end the north pole and the other end the south pole. Now look at the figure with the Earth. Since the north pole of the compass (the red end) points toward the North Pole of the Earth, the North Pole is really a magnetic south pole. Every semester when I teach this, I wish we used the terms red end and white end.

Two separate characteristics, two different phenomena. Charges created static electricity. Poles create magnetism.

What's really cool though is that although charge and pole are different characteristics of matter, they are related. Scientists like Faraday and Maxwell realized in the 19th century that by moving charges (like in electrical currents), we can create an electromagnet and by moving magnets we can create electrical current. These are the principles that give us electrical motors and generators.

Swirling your wine.

Last night for dinner, I opened a great bottle of Syrah from my favorite vinery, Blackjack Ranch near Solvang, California. It prompted me to finally write about some wine science, the science of wine swirling.

Swirling your wine helps release the volatile aromatic compounds and exposes the wine to oxygen allowing the esters, ethers and aldehydes to oxidize. These chemical reactions enhance the bouquet of the wine, The bouquet of the wine is especially important, because it is your sense of smell that mostly determines what you taste. These same reactions though will eventually turn your wine into something nasty. So if you open a bottle, drink it.

Being right handed, when I swirl wine I tend to swirl it counterclockwise. It never occurred to me to try to swirl it the other way. That is, not until I came across this - Wine Swirling, Left or Right? It Matters! Read it and be awed by Ralph de Amicis.

Lets start with this:

Like all living things wine cells have a magnetic polarity, just like humans and the Earth.

What in the hell is a wine cell? The basic component of all life is the cell. WIne is fermented grape juice. It's not alive, although wine sometimes makes me feel more alive. Cells do not have a magnetic polarity, although some cells may contain magnetic compounds. It is thought that this may be a mechanism that allow birds to navigate during their migrations.

Next!

"The positive pole is more highly charged, just like the North Pole of the Earth, which is why there are Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle, but not Southern Lights in the Antarctic."

The Earth's magnetic field causes the Northern Lights, but he claims there no such thing as the Southern Lights. So what is this a picture of? The Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) as seen from the International Space Station.

"This polarity tends to keep wine cells generally upright, spinning on their axis when they are being swirled. This magnetic action within a liquid is commonly demonstrated in laboratories. Because plant molecules are mostly liquid, when they form they are also subject to the electromagnetic forces that are a component of the rotation of the Earth. As a result, the pores on the surface of the molecules develop based on that rotation, like the shingles on a roof." 

I can't take it! Plant molecules are liquid? Nonsense. The electromagnetic forces that are the component of the Earth's rotation. Please make it stop! Molecules have pores? Now this is actually starting to hurt.

"When you swirl the wine counter-clockwise you are pushing against the molecules nap, just like stroking the fur of a cat the wrong way…"

Now I'm rolling on the floor imagining petting a molecule the wrong way.

But on a serious note. I have no doubt that Ralph believes every word of what he writes, and he provides the perfect rationale for why serious scientific research, especially ones involving human subjects, always are double-blind studies. In a double-blind wine tasting, one researcher would take the samples of wine label, pour them into glasses, and label the glasses so that the wine's identity is unknown to anyone else. These samples are then given to second researcher who would then present the samples to a subject. Using this method, the second research cannot inadvertently influence the subject and skew the results. When subjects are allowed to be influenced you get humorous results like these studies.

If this blog post accomplished anything, I hope it was to get you to open a nice wine and enjoy. Cheers!