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| Jared Baumeister is a cow who welches on bets | 12/10/25 |
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Date: December 10th, 2025 5:29 PM Author: Jared Baumeister is a cow who welches on bets For nearly two centuries, scientists believed the magnetic part of light didn’t really matter. That assumption just collapsed.
Researchers have shown that the magnetic field of light plays a much stronger role in how light interacts with materials than previously believed. They demonstrated that light’s magnetic component can directly exert a magnetic torque on matter, not just pass through it. When applied to Terbium Gallium Garnet (TGG) — a crystal often used to test magnetic-optical effects — they found that light’s magnetic field accounted for about 17% of the polarization rotation in the visible spectrum and up to 70% in the infrared. This overturns the long-held assumption (dating back to the 1845 discovery of the Faraday Effect by Michael Faraday) that rotation came almost entirely from the electric part of light. This insight suggests that the magnetic field of light has quietly shaped our optical technologies all along — and opens the door to new spin-based devices, magnetic materials, and possibly advances in quantum computing, optical storage, and communication systems.
Study: Faraday Effects Emerging from the Optical Magnetic Field, Scientific Reports (2025)
https://x.com/i/status/1998739924095226145 |