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Greetings to the group,

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Some more interesting properties of the “mystery wire”.? Although I don’t have a way to quantify the results, I can at least qualify the results.

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Regarding the magnetic properties of the wire, it appears to be somewhat “neutral”.? I tried to qualify this in two manners.? I hooked up a small solenoid coil to an inductance meter and determined the inductance of the “bare” core,? that is, nothing within the cavity of the core.? The result was 0.42 mH.? As expected, if I introduced a steel screwdriver into the cavity (ferromagnetic composition, that is, can be formed into a ‘permanent’ magnet), the inductance increased (1.53 mH).? If I introduced a few strands of 16-gauge copper wire (diamagnetic composition, that is, repelled by a magnetic field) into the core, the inductance decreased (0.38 mH). ?A roll of aluminum (paramagnetic composition, that is attracted to a magnetic field) also decreased the inductance (0.39 mH).? When I introduced several strands of the mystery wire into the cavity, the inductance didn’t change at all, suggesting that it may be only paramagnetic (attracted to a magnetic field, although in this case only slightly to a strong neodymium magnet).

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Along a similar vein, I pulled out a cheap metal detector and checked its response to various metals.? When the discriminator was properly tuned and producing a steady tone, a pair of pliers or screwdriver (both steel/iron) produced a softer or absent tone, whereas a spool of copper produced a stronger/louder tone. A spool if the “mystery wire” resulted in no change in the tone when the metal detector passed over it.

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Although metal, the “mystery wire” appears to be almost ‘neutral’ in its response to a magnetic fields.? Granted, a small piece (<1 cm) of the wire will “stick” very loosely to a strong neodymium magnet, it does not appear to produce any detectable response to my two electromagnetic tests. I will admit neither test is by no means quantitative, but I do find the qualitative results intriguing.

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When Geo suggested the wire might be some type of “supermetal”, it made me start thinking.? I began to wonder if the composition of the wire was deliberately “tuned” to have a neutral response.? A bit of background into the wire.? I used to work at a facility that had some E-field sensors around it to detect potential intruders.? The “mystery wire” used to be stretched along the perimeter of the facility to detect any objects entering within the vicinity of the wires.? I have no idea if the process worked on detecting changes in inductance, capacitance, or both, but if one were attempting to minimize the inductive response, it might make sense to “tune” the wire composition to be relatively ‘neutral’, that is, neither ferromagnetic (e.g., steel wire), diamagnetic (e.g., copper wire), and minimally paramagnetic.? On top of that, the mixture is strong, stiff, hard, resilient, and has a high tensile strength.? All of these properties would lend well to creating an E-field sensor.

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All speculation on my part.? Thanks for your analyses, George.? Like you said, aren’t supermetals a hoot??

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Ken