The following article is based on an invited paper in cryogenics presented before the American Physical Society at its meeting in Washington, D.C. last spring. The author, who enjoys an international reputation as a low‐temperature physicist, is a member of the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory at the University of Leiden.
Some substances , for example iron and nickel, show a rather complicated magnetic behavior at room temperature. When placed in a magnetic field they show a magnetic moment which not only is a function of field and temperature, but which also depends on the history of the specimen; that is, it depends on the fields and temperatures in which the substance has been before. These materials are called ferromagnetics. One characteristic property is the occurrence of remanent magnetism, i.e., if the material is taken out of the field the moment does not fall back to zero but it goes to a certain value also determined by the history.
With strong magnetic fields and intense lasers or pulsed electric currents, physicists can reconstruct the conditions inside astrophysical objects and create nuclear-fusion reactors.
A crude device for quantification shows how diverse aspects of distantly related organisms reflect the interplay of the same underlying physical factors.