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potent magnets

Interesting. Over on Tech Reports was a thread with cautions about Neodymium magnets and then leenks cites a page about Dirk’s Accident. Dirk has pictures. He squashed a finger tip.

Dirk had an accident. Below is the X-ray showing his totally crushed finger tip. It took 1 1/2 hours of surgery to remove the shattered bones and repair the damage. Medically speaking, he crushed his right index finger distal phalange. The magnets had a 50 cm (20 inch) separation when they decided to fly together.

When you are talking about hundreds of pounds of force between chunks of metal you can hold in your hand, there is a hazard for anything that gets between them, especially if they come together over a short distance. In this case the magnets were N45 at 20 inches. When together they’d need 400 lb or more to pull them apart. That means at 20″ the pull was probably more than 40 lb still.

ouch.

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