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Iron Filings
22 May 2004
![[Animation of iron filings over a moving magnet]](/news/2004/iron.gif)
Much of the past week has been spent labouriously sawing and filing steel bars for a counterweight. A side effect of this activity was a large quantity of iron filings. Much fun for magnetic experiments, as the stop-motion animation shows.
The counterweight in question had to weigh 3.5kg. That amount of steel is quite bulky (467cm3). A much better solution would have been to use depleted uranium (184cm3). Unfortunately at the going rate, that quantity of U235 would cost over $80,000 US. The equivalent mass of scrap steel cost me $5.
