A long time. Like millions of years long IIRC. Certianly longer than humans would have to worry about anytime soon. Also, while the field former known as the magnetosphere deflects some radiation, again IIRC the increased amount is not going to be enough to start killing people in short order. Probably a modest increase in cancer rates at worst.
No magnetic fields would be a pain in the ass, but then again IMO we aren’t going back the stone age either. Getting through the collapse of society and the rebuild would be a pain in the ass probably.
Venus doesn’t even have a magnetic field and is closer to the Sun yet its atmosphere is about 100 times denser than Earth’s (of course, it may have been much denser billions of years ago):
The loss is significant enough that with the right equipment Venus looks like a comet.
Which is why Sinestro is not typically associated with hugs and puppies.
Perhaps I am to blame for adding a light-hearted hypothetical to my main question, which really was simply: without magnets, what ways could we generate electricty?
It’s the main job of the electron! Atomic nuclei would just fly apart, and the universe would just stop working as we know it if it just went all neutral on us.
No there’s not, because that’s not specific enough. But it’s perfectly possible to give factual answers to questions that rely on something physically impossible. It may not be practically possible to consider every effect of the change but a reasonable answer can still be given.
In this case, the hypothetical answers are pretty uninteresting and unsatisfying since electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same thing. You’d actually have to limit your imagination.
The more interesting hypothetical (to myself, at least) is imagining what would happen if the electron became neutral.
I guess I’m wrong on this one and it’s a subject for another thread. Those in fields like mine that deal with both electric motors and internal combustion engines tend to think of motors as electrical and thus distinctly different from engines.
If someone tells me the motor on the irrigation pump won’t run it’s a very different job then them telling me the engine for their pump won’t run.
In general a motor has an external power source and an engine’s power source is on board.
Using engine and motor interchangeably would leave many professionals under the impression you have no clue what you’re talking about. You don’t say my windshield wiper engine needs to be replaced nor would you say I’m rebuilding a jet motor.
On the topic of the thread I have little doubt GaryM was referring to electric motors when he said
as he is a person who works with both electric motors and internal combustion engines.
If I’m wrong on that assumption I apologize in advance.
Then the next question would be if it would be OK to use magnets in motors to convert the electric energy into mechanical energy, or if we’re toasted there too.
And each has their own problems. There’s no current way (no pun intended) to generate electricity in enough quantities to sustain most of society in first and second worlds, which would be devastating to the development of alternatives.
I think that the hypothetical would only make sense if you were to go back to the mid 1800s and start over, but just ignore Faraday’s contribution.
Could you develop a society into become technically advanced enough to generate sufficient electricity without utilizing the law of induction?
Don’t forget also that since transformers wouldn’t work, long-distance transmission lines, or even shorter distances, since you would have to generate power at +/- 120 volts (+/- so you can get 240 volts from phase-phase like with AC, which is really two 120 volt lines 180 degrees out of phase) wouldn’t work that well, and everything would have to be DC, not that heaters and light bulbs care about that, or most modern electronics, but switch-mode power supplies use inductors and transformers, just at higher frequencies; otherwise, things like computers would still be possible (not with modern CPUs though, which require inductor-based* switching regulators to efficiently generate their high current low voltage supplies; with a linear regulator, they would need to draw 50-100 amps at 120 volts with 99% of that wasted as heat).
Of course, this all assumes that electromagnetism can be somehow separated and the magnetic component eliminated without matter imploding into itself (or exploding, or whatever would happen without the EM force).
*Switching regulators can be made using capacitors instead of inductors to step voltages up or down, but usually only for low-power loads and to increase voltage.
