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2018.04.01 magnetic levitation sled:




These "sleds" are made by attaching lots of small cube magnets to a metal plate, in such a way that, as viewed
from above, you would see a pattern of North and South magnets, arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The magnets
DO NOT like being in this arrangement very well, (they're VERY unstable) so the metal backing is required to
keep them from re-arranging themselves.

But once you've made the sled (or platform if it's more square) you can do some interesting things with it.
Non-ferrous metal coins will slide down the sled slowly. LIGHT coins (like aluminum) will slide down the sled
VERY slowly. Copper coins also resist moving along the sled.

Pyrolytic Graphite chips are highly diamagnetic (resist the presence of magnetic fields) AND are very light,
so they will levitate above a magnetic sled because of the "magnetic bumps" that are all over the top of it.
As far as I know, this is the ONLY known method of stable unpowered magnetic levitation.



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last updated 09/15/2023 at 09:01:11