Engineering and fabrication
How do you keep a metal ball suspended in the air?
I have no real physics background but I was wondering, is it possible to keep a metal ball suspended in the air by using multiple magnets of the same strength around it? Also, that is possible, could you move one of the magnets and move the position of the metal ball? Like, how someone would bounce a yo-yo up and down. I'd be obliged, thanks!
Public Comments
- Yes, what you are asking about is possible, What strength magnet would be needed could be done by math, or simple experimentation.
- I heard you can do it with a cold cold superconductor magnet. Actually, I saw a picture of that. It's really cool: a metal block suspended above a superconductor magnet cooled by liquid... nitrogen/helium? (can't remember).
- As long as the magnets can counter the effect of gravity, then your situation is possible. If the magnets are not strong enough, then the ball will simply be taken down by the force of gravity.
- gravity is rediculously weak, somewhere in the order of 50 times weaker than magnetism, and besides, what you're talking about is already being used in Japan to levitate and propel a train with a track made from electro-magnets that they keep cold using liquid helium, where have you been? They use giant electro-magnets to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then smash them into each other, just so they can see what happens when they do...
Making a magnetic toy that plays with a yo-yo would not be hard.
