Monopole

A monopole is a magnet that only has one pole, an idea first proposed by Pierre Curie in 1894 in his paper On the possible existence of magnetic conductivity and free magnetism, and later explained in quantum form by Paul Dirac in his 1931 paper Quantised Singularities in the Electromagnetic Field.

Normally, magnets have a north pole and a south pole, and it is impossible to make a magnet that only has one pole under normal circumstances. A typical bar magnet has a north pole at one end, a south pole at the other hand, and a neutral middle. When a bar magnet is chopped in half, the half that had a north pole on one end develops a new south pole in the area that was chopped, and the half that had a south pole on one end develops a new north pole in the area that was chopped. This is the type of magnet which people have on a refrigerator, or the type used in an electric generator.

Similarly, the other common type of magnet, an electromagnet, which is used in an electric motor, also has a north pole and south pole, with the magnetic field governed by the electric field of the electricity running through the wires, both of which together form the electromagnetic field of the electromagnet.

A magnetic monopole is a different type of magnet entirely, since it only has one pole, and cannot be made through the same techniques as the 2 common types of everyday household magnets people use, bar magnets and electromagnets. A magnetic monopole is a type of topological defect of the universe, in the same category of space-time anomaly as a cosmic string or an extra dimension. Magnetic monopoles, like other types of topological defects, are only hypothetical in the real world and whether or not they actually exist is a controversial topic among scientists.

However, in Robotics;Notes, a number of magnetic monopoles are generated by the Sun, travel along the solar wind, and eventually fall to Earth. This strange event is actually predicted by the Kimijima Reports. Kaito Yashio is able to gather several magnetic monopoles, which he then takes to Tetsuharu Fujita to see if Tetsuhara can make a monopole motor out of them.

The theory regarding the Sun having a connection to magnetic monopoles dates back to a 1972 paper by John M. Wilcox of Stanford University entitled Why Does the Sun Sometimes Look Like a Magnetic Monopole?, based on NASA observations of the Sun showing monopole-like behavior in early 1965. John M. Wilcox was a prodigious writer of scientific papers and specialized in the study of magnetic fields at the solar surface and in the interplanetary medium.

In Robotics;Notes, Tetsuharu Fujita succeeds in constructing monopole motors, which are essentially a type of perpetual motion machine. Monopole motors are basically the same as homopolar motors, the first type of electric motor ever invented, except they do not require continuous electrical input to produce mechanical output (although some electrical input is needed at the beginning to start them up). They violate the laws of thermodynamics, so the scientific consensus is that they are impossible. Nevertheless, in Robotics;Notes, monopole motors are successfully constructed, showing that the laws of thermodynamics are not entirely correct in the Science Adventure Series.

Regarding monopole motors in the real world, although the scientific consensus says that they are impossible, there are quite a few YouTube videos and DIY websites online claiming to show working perpetual motion machines in the form of monopole motors, and people have been making claims like this for many years. There are also some similar perpetual motion machine claims that involve regular magnets rather than monopoles.

The most credible of these claims, which also has some similarities to the monopole motors in Robotics;Notes, is the perpetual motion machine claim by Thane Heins of Ottawa, Canada, which MIT Professor Markus Zahn saw operating (although it uses regular magnets, not monopoles). According to Professor Zahn, “It’s an unusual phenomena I wouldn’t have predicted in advance,” as Zahn told The Toronto Star. “But I saw it. It’s real.” This particular machine apparently turns an electromagnetic effect known as Back EMF, governed by Lenz’s law, which normally slows things down similarly to friction, into acceleration, which speeds things up.

Thane Heins explained that by overloading the generator to get a current and causing the wire to build up a large electromagnetic field, he was able to create a large amount of Back EMF, which would normally grind the motor to a halt, but instead the opposite happened and the motor kept accelerating until its magnets flew off and were thrown around the room in all directions, basically self-destructing. The most important factor in such a device, then, is to engineer it in a more stable way so that it does not self-destruct.

The monopole motors in Robotics;Notes operate based on a similar principle. They are used to power Super GunBuild-1, an upgraded version of the GunBuild-1 giant robot, now powered by monopole motors. This gives the Robot Research Club a working giant robot after GunBuild-2 is destroyed.