Posted by David Brooks on December 11, 2003 at 13:52:46 from 208.210.80.40 user DavidBrooks.
In Reply to: Dowsing, posted by John Nichols on December 06, 2003 at 22:41:30:
> Moving water generates a magnetic field - it is called the Hall effect.
This is a slender reed that dowsers like to grasp when selling their services - but alas, if the Hall effect could take an iron rod that weighs several ounces and shift it against the friction of your skin, just think what it would do to the delicately-balanced needle of a compass! It would make compasses impossible to use: every underground flow would alter the reading. Since compasses work just fine even when held by dowsers, I think we can rule out that hypothesis.