UCL LUNCH HOUR LECTURES

Professor Quentin Pankhurst – London Centre for Nanotechnology
From Mesmer and the Age of Enlightenment to the present day, ‘magnetic healing’ has had many colourful champions ready to claim they can magnetise water, wood, air and the human body – at a price. This fascination with ‘animal magnetism’ is understandable given the almost mythical properties of magnets. But is this fact or fiction? What have we learned over the years about how we as human beings interact with these sometimes powerful, always invisible, magnetic fields? In this lecture we will trace the many ways that magnets have been used in healthcare over the centuries, how they are used currently, and prospects for their future use.