1. Reversing The Polarity Of The Neutron Flow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7MC2QJwz-E Despite the fact that he only said it, like, one time, "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" became something of a catchphrase for the third Doctor, but does it actually mean anything? Yes and no. Neutrons, by their very nature, do not have a charge (because they're
neutral), so you can't reverse that. But nearly all particles in the universe do have
spin, a kind of intrinsic angular momentum for all subatomic particles that generates a magnetic moment
. A neutron is a spin-½ fermion and, despite not having any electrical charge, gets its magnetic momentum from the spin of the quarks that it is made up of. If we're being picky, The Doctor probably should have said "neutron beam" rather than "flow", but he probably had other things to worry about, like the oncoming horde of Sea Devils. Polarised neutron beams are actually used by scientists in labs all over the world to make all kinds of measurements. Granted, this isn't quite the same as blowing up a Sea Devil colony, but the concept is there. Alternatively, we could have misunderstood the good Doc all along, and he might have mean that he was going to reverse the direction of flow, not the polarity of the neutrons. Either that, or it was a bit of techno-fluff made to sound impressive. Certainly not the kind of thing that one waste their time should picking apart on the internet. *ahem* Phew. Well, after all that sciencing, it's time to reward ourselves with a video of David Tennant and a basket of kittens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHp0mYhKito
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