Up Next
Back to Show
PBS Space Time
Why Magnetic Monopoles Should Exist
Season 7
Episode 31
What happens if you cut a bar magnetic in half? We get two magnets, each with its own North and South poles. But what happens if you keep on cutting, into fourths and eighths and sixteenths and so on? Will we ever get to a single pole? Here's the answer for you: we don’t know! But the idea of magnetic monopoles remains one of physics’ most tantalizing maybes.
Support Provided By
16:26
There’s a new generation of experiments that may unlock the gravity particle.
18:33
The universe thrums with quantum fields, except something may be missing: the sterile neutrino.
18:42
Gravitons, the particle of quantum gravity, may be impossible to detect.
25:02
2025 was the international year of quantum science, but today we examine its origins.
21:17
We’ve found lots of “habitable” worlds but we don’t know what factors are needed for life.
21:31
What is the graviton, and does it even exist?
19:52
Antimatter drives sound like science fiction, but they may not be as far as you think.
23:22
Does quantum mechanics allow the future to retroactively influence the past or not?
19:14
Life on mars could result in humanity’s destruction via Fermi Paradox.
19:01
How to build a particle collider the size of the solar system.
12:39
One of the most important reasons we go to space is to know our own planet better.
16:18
Is there evidence for the existence of an enormous number of other universes?