{"id":93320,"date":"2019-07-08T15:03:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T22:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/the-magnetohydrodynamic-drive-is-real-and-you-can-build-one"},"modified":"2019-07-08T15:03:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T22:03:39","slug":"the-magnetohydrodynamic-drive-is-real-and-you-can-build-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/the-magnetohydrodynamic-drive-is-real-and-you-can-build-one","title":{"rendered":"The Magnetohydrodynamic Drive Is Real\u2014and You Can Build One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-magnetohydrodynamic-drive-is-real-and-you-can-build-one.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I know it\u2019s an old movie (and it was an even <em>older<\/em> book before that), but I want to look at the physics of the special submarine drive in <em>The Hunt for Red October<\/em>. In the story, the Russians build a so-called \u201ccaterpillar drive\u201d using hydro-magneto power instead of the traditional propeller. This new drive is way quieter than the traditional type\u2014so quiet that it could sneak up on the United States and blow it up. Spoiler alert: It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the cool part: This magnetohydrodynamic drive, which turns water into a sort of rotor, is a real thing. (Although <em>technically<\/em> in the book version this drive is something other than magnetohydrodynamic. Quibbles.) In fact, it\u2019s pretty simple to build. All you really need is a battery, a magnet, and some wires. Oh, also this will have to operate in salt water, so you might need some salt. Here is the basic setup.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve read your last complimentary article this month. To read the full article, <a to=\"https:\/\/subscribe.wired.com\/subscribe\/splits\/wired\/WIR_Edit_Hardcoded?source=finalbarrier_text_failsafe\" href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.wired.com\/subscribe\/splits\/wired\/WIR_Edit_Hardcoded?source=finalbarrier_text_failsafe\">SUBSCRIBE NOW<\/a>. If you\u2019re already a subscriber, please <a to=\"\/account\/sign-in\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/account\/sign-in\/\">sign in<\/a> and and verify your subscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know it\u2019s an old movie (and it was an even older book before that), but I want to look at the physics of the special submarine drive in The Hunt for Red October. In the story, the Russians build a so-called \u201ccaterpillar drive\u201d using hydro-magneto power instead of the traditional propeller. This new drive [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1509,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}