In a faraway secure room in central Tokyo, an electromagnet, when powered with an electrical current, generates a magnetic field capable of blowing open the heavy doors of the facility. This magnet has already created one of the most powerful magnetic fields on Earth and it only keeps getting stronger. The magnetic field recently reached a strength of 1,200 teslas (for reference, the most powerful MRIs in the world only clock in at 3 teslas). How Is a Magnet Like This Created? The team in Tokyo was able to achieve that massive level of power by pumping 3.2 megajoules of energy into a small electromagnetic coil. The inner lining of that coil is designed to collapse in on itself once it reaches Mach 15 or 3 miles per second. When it collapses, the magnetic field created inside of the coil gets squeezed until its force reaches a strength impossible to reach with conventional magnets. As soon as that happens, the coil will collapse fully, destroying itself entirely. Shojiro Takeyama, a physicist at the University of Tokyo and lead author of the study believes that the device can reach strengths of 1,800 teslas if their team can apply 5 megajoules rather than the previous 3.2. However, future experiments will need to be conducted outdoors due to the dangers. But Why? Why would we need a magnet that strong? Takeyama says that the purpose of the experiments is to “study hidden physical properties of electrons that are invisible under normal circumstances.” Their team will put different materials into the magnet to learn how those electrons will behave under extreme conditions. Studying those moments of extreme magnetism before the coil’s self-destruction should reveal properties of electrons normally invisible to science. The main issue with magnetic fields this powerful is that they almost always self-destruct within moments of their birth. So much energy is exerted on the device generating it that at least some part of the device fails. In the future, magnets like this could become commonplace and might be more manageable but until then, we’ll need to invest in some stronger doors on our laboratories. To stay up-to-date on the latest door-busting magnetic news by signing up for our newsletter and following along with our News & How-To’s blog.