This anecdote is not about magnetic wine gadgets but an example of
remarkable properties in magnetic materials. (Connection to wine at the
end.)

As a teenager curious about stuff I explored and sometimes learned (not
always what I wanted). One example that went badly wrong, making mercaptans
(for pure knowledge's sake, it goes without saying) is in a 1991 thread on
ethanethiol, butyric acid, and CS gas (also revisited here on AFW, 2004)
which I saved at the time in 1991.* (Summary: A little chemical learning is
a dangerous thing. Modified Sorcerer's-Apprentice tale wherein apprentice
releases noxious genie from a bottle before learning command to "go back.")

Another, more benign experience entailed magnetic materials. The new
technology of printed magnetic stripes had appeared. We see them everywhere
now, on driving licenses, credit cards, etc. But they were unusual at
first, and my friends and I were curious about the information in them. We
had a few examples of them on hand, but no gadgetry to read the magnetized
information.

I did have some notions of ferromagnetism, which turned out to work.
Proceeding from "scratch," a common ferromagnetic mineral with promising
mechanical properties (I omit details) could be made to spread delicately
onto a printed magnetic stripe and align itself sympathetically to the
magnetized pattern. We then plainly saw the data (and even transferred it
to paper, which was more convenient). This was satisfying. We had no clue
what the data actually meant -- it looked fairly random. But even so, it
was visible, which helped demystify the technology. (And made me remember
ferromagnetics.)

Back to wine: Ferromagnetism, from ferrum (iron -- one of the bioactive
minerals prominent in berry juices) is a magnetic-interaction property like
others I cited earlier. Experience (some of it reported above) taught me
that more "learning" there is about subtleties like these, the more respect
develops for the risks of answering a technical claim (even if ultimately
wrong) with too-simple theory.

Cheers -- Max


* Relevant part, currently archived: http://tinyurl.com/38368c

Max Hauser wrote:

Another, more benign experience entailed magnetic materials. The new
technology of printed magnetic stripes had appeared. We see them everywhere
now, on driving licenses, credit cards, etc. But they were unusual at
first, and my friends and I were curious about the information in them. We
had a few examples of them on hand, but no gadgetry to read the magnetized
information.

You had a more productive idea than I did, Max. I was very intrigued by
the first example of a printed magnetic stripe that I saw, on the back
of the tickets used by SF's then new subway system, BART. Since I had
access to magnetic tape readers at the Lawrence Hall of science in
Berkeley, I had the bright idea of trying to splice the excised magnetic
stripe onto an existing magtape and put it through a standard magtape
reader. Alas, two insurmountable technical problems brought this idea
to a dead halt:
1. I found no practical method for removing the magnetic stripe from the
paper backing of the card such that it would be the appropriate
thickness for a magtape reader.

2. Upon closer examination, I realized that the width of the magnetic
stripe (8 mm) on the ticket didn't match any of the magtape widths I had
access to. (Alas, before the democratization of the Internet,
information about magtape readers, etc was harder to come by).

Thanks for the reminiscence!
Mark Lipton

Mark Lipton wrote:

You had a more productive idea than I did, Max. I was very intrigued by
the first example of a printed magnetic stripe that I saw, on the back
of the tickets used by SF's then new subway system, BART. Since I had
access to magnetic tape readers at the Lawrence Hall of science in
Berkeley, I had the bright idea of trying to splice the excised magnetic
stripe onto an existing magtape and put it through a standard magtape
reader. Alas, two insurmountable technical problems brought this idea
to a dead halt:
1. I found no practical method for removing the magnetic stripe from the
paper backing of the card such that it would be the appropriate
thickness for a magtape reader.

2. Upon closer examination, I realized that the width of the magnetic
stripe (8 mm) on the ticket didn't match any of the magtape widths I had
access to. (Alas, before the democratization of the Internet,
information about magtape readers, etc was harder to come by).

Those BART tickets were pretty interesting at the time, weren't they?
As a young electronics enthusiast, I figured I could probably
get something useful if I took a tape head from a reel-to-reel
tape deck (back in the mid-1970s, they were commonly available
at yard sales and the like), unmount the head and extend the
connection with a piece of shielded audio cable. I could then swipe
the tape head over the magnetic stripe. Lo and behold, I heard
a series of beeps in a fixed pattern. My parents were worried
that the BART police would come take away a 13-yo boy for
messing around with used tickets, so they talked me out of
further experimentation with them.

On a related topic (though not related to wine), I remember the one
perfect summer day where a few of my summer-school friends (that's
back when we had really good elective summer-school in CA) decided
to take a day off and go to San Francisco on BART. We got on in
Pleasant Hill and pushed our bikes out into daylight at Powell and
Market. I can't remember what all we did, probably went to record
stores, but we all got home that afternoon and my parents were none
the wiser. Of course, it's a sobering thought that my _youngest_ is
almost 13, the same age I was then... :-)

Dana

"Dana H. Myers" in :
Mark Lipton wrote:

You had a more productive idea than I did, Max. ...
access to magnetic tape readers ... splice the excised
magnetic stripe onto an existing magtape and put it
through a standard magtape reader. Alas ... technical
problems brought this idea to a dead halt.

...
As a young electronics enthusiast, I figured I could probably
get something useful if I took a tape head from a reel-to-reel
tape deck ... swipe the tape head over the magnetic stripe.
Lo and behold, I heard a series of beeps in a fixed pattern.


You folks had much better equipment than we, alas, did. But our "low tech"
improvise revealed the data very clearly. (Not to mention incidentally
teaching about magnetic materials.)

The larger topic of insight, and inspiration especially, from little
enterprises to do something (not always completely benign ;-) has engaged a
few friends of mine lately, who made serious careers in science or
technology and in each case had experiences in their youth such as I'm
describing.

One person I don't know, but who fit this pattern and spoke publicly about
it, was Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel. I put notes from his talk (and a
follow-up from one of those friends) on sci.electronics.design at the time
(late 2005). Here's a current archive link if you're interested:

http://tinyurl.com/ysopbf

In article , says...

This anecdote is not about magnetic wine gadgets but an example of
remarkable properties in magnetic materials. (Connection to wine at the
end.)

As a teenager curious about stuff I explored and sometimes learned (not
always what I wanted). One example that went badly wrong, making mercaptans
(for pure knowledge's sake, it goes without saying) is in a 1991 thread on
ethanethiol, butyric acid, and CS gas (also revisited here on AFW, 2004)
which I saved at the time in 1991.* (Summary: A little chemical learning is
a dangerous thing. Modified Sorcerer's-Apprentice tale wherein apprentice
releases noxious genie from a bottle before learning command to "go back.")

Another, more benign experience entailed magnetic materials. The new
technology of printed magnetic stripes had appeared. We see them everywhere
now, on driving licenses, credit cards, etc. But they were unusual at
first, and my friends and I were curious about the information in them. We
had a few examples of them on hand, but no gadgetry to read the magnetized
information.

I did have some notions of ferromagnetism, which turned out to work.
Proceeding from "scratch," a common ferromagnetic mineral with promising
mechanical properties (I omit details) could be made to spread delicately
onto a printed magnetic stripe and align itself sympathetically to the
magnetized pattern. We then plainly saw the data (and even transferred it
to paper, which was more convenient). This was satisfying. We had no clue
what the data actually meant -- it looked fairly random. But even so, it
was visible, which helped demystify the technology. (And made me remember
ferromagnetics.)

Back to wine: Ferromagnetism, from ferrum (iron -- one of the bioactive
minerals prominent in berry juices) is a magnetic-interaction property like
others I cited earlier. Experience (some of it reported above) taught me
that more "learning" there is about subtleties like these, the more respect
develops for the risks of answering a technical claim (even if ultimately
wrong) with too-simple theory.

Cheers -- Max

Max,

I just applied your technique from the 4th paragraph, and combined your
knowledge from paragraph 5. I did this with a bottle of Caymus SS '94, and LO!
there was a message formed. "Drink Now!" was what it said. I repeated the
experiment with a J. Phelps Insignia '01 and it revealed "Hold - Do Not Drink
Yet!" Kinda' like a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. G

Hunt