Watch this episode of This Old House and in the first 4 minutes you'll see the answer to your question.
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tv/video/0,,20618950,00.html
A magnetic field of any strength will attract any magnetic object as long as the forces that prevent the object from moving are low enough. On a kitchen table a small magnet may not move a magnetic object 1 meter away but in zero gravity and a vacuum it should slowly pull the object to the magnet.
Then you wasted 70 years because you could have found the answer to these basic chemistry questions on Wikipedia in 5 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volta_pile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_electrode_potential...
These lectures should help. This is the way physics should be taught everywhere.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/
Also the common cold is not just one disease it's actually caused by many different combinations of viruses. As time goes on and you catch a cold your body becomes immune to that strain of the common cold and as you get older you are less likely to become infected with the common cold...
That schematic makes no sense. The last thing you want to do is switch high voltages. The Jacob's ladder should be hooked directly up to the output of the transformer with the power switch on the 110V input to the transformer. Drop that class and find another professor.