MRI

This machine is shrouded in mystery. Just WTF is it all about?

Seeing as I know a thing or two about them I thought I'd post some info after seeing medical shows totally get it wrong.

It is a super conductor, which means its full of liquid helium to get as close to Absolute Zero as possible (about 2 degrees kelvin or -456.07 degrees Fahrenheit, -271 Celsius) to flow electricity better. Because the colder things are the better electricity flows, which is why it is freaking cold around the magnet.

The magnet itself is a massive electromagnetic conductor of incredible strength. Magnets are measured in tesla scale named after Nikola Tesla the inventor of the 2nd industrial revolution because of his work with electricity and magnetism and physics. But what's it all mean? Lemme illustrate: The big magnet at a junkyard that picks up cars is a 0.2 tesla magnet. The MRI magnet my dad works with everyday is a 2 tesla magnet. There are 3 tesla (60,000 times more powerful then the earth's magnetic field) magnets out there with experiments in the 6 tesla range (patience experience short term memory loss,and dizziness in such a machine).

Because of its incredible magnetic strength NO METAL IS ALLOWED IN THE ROOM. Unless you run the magnet and are showing off to your kid, then it's ok. More on that later.

If you have any magnetic devices like an ipod, credit card, tape, or computer within the magnetic field it will be erased, inoperable and pulled toward the magnet at an exponential rate. That means from 6ft away if you drop a wrench to the ground it will arc towards the magnet, which pulls it more, and swing up towards it and fly right at it and accelerate at an incredible speed, but only in the last few inches as it accelerates from 30mph to 100mph. (safety video of them dropping a wrench and showing it shatter a block of concrete.)

Right, so no metal. But what about jewelery? Gold isn't magnetic so it should be fine right? Wrong! The magnet uses a powerful radio frequency (RF) to take pictures (more on that later) and when you pulse a radio frequency into a ring of metal it resonates (the molecules get agitated, creating heat) within a magnetic field. So what happens? It heats up to the point it can burn your skin, which burns, obviously. So no earrings, bracelets, necklaces or rings. This includes piercings in naughty places which some people try to hide cause they don't want anyone to know. So they walk in with the magnet (one woman burned her clit. YIKES!) and scream, but not at first cause its a slow heating process. So no jewelery.

Strangely, tattoos can be problematic because some of the dyes are metal based like the colors green and red, and those too can heat up, or in the case of prison tattoos, get pulled out of the skin because it is ferromagnetic. (iron, steel, etc.)

Ok so now the crazy part, how do you use RF and magnetism to take pictures of the human body, and why MRI as opposed to X-ray? Excellent question!
Thank you.
You're welcome.
The magnet is shaped like a tunnel (some are shaped differently, but the best ones are shapped like a tunnel) with the magnet making the tunnel walls. You go to the center of the machine and lie very still while the machine makes a rukus. Seriously, high decibel levels, you need earphones/earplugs for to prevent damage. So now the MRI machine has it's powerful magnetic field encircling you and holding your atoms in alignment. Trippy huh? Holding your atoms in alignment, all of them. Then it uses the Radio Frequency mentioned earlier to pulse to the target area (say your back hurts, or your foot, the target area would be those places) at a specific frequency to reverse the aligment of hydrogen atoms.

Because we are made up of so much water this works out well. So the magnet holds the hydrogen atoms in alignment and the RF hits it and flips them 180 then the computer watches the speed and energy at which they return to normal. Because the hydrogen in fat rotates and gives off different levels of energy then those of bone, tumor, or blood, the computer can digitize an image showing your internal organs without any damage to your body. That is why it is essential that you don't move, cause the machine is measuring your spinning atoms.

So now that I got that out of the way, let me correct medical shows getting it all wrong.

-The magnet can not be turned on or off with the flip of a switch, they are always on (super conductor requires constant enery flow).
-An MRI is a complicated technical machine requring technicians to operate, it is not a lightswitch that anyone can flip, even if they are the worlds greatest brain surgeon and wants to take the pictures himself.
-....I just remebered I have to write my woman a farie tale.

got to go