Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Levi t Ation on 25/02/2011 12:21:41
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i am currently working on a project at home and i desperately need a question answered, please bear in mind that i am not a physisist just a fairly uneducated person with an over inquisitive mind, so the question is this, i need to levitate a neo dymium magnet above a surface, from what i can gather bismuth will be the best material to use for this, in all the videos ive seen however there always seems to be two sheets of bismuth, i may be wrong but is the reason for this to stop the magnet flipping over, if i am able to remove the possibility of the magnet flipping can i then get away with a single sheet of bismuth and still have the magnet levitate, or does the second sheet cause a required effect in the bismuth. i hope some one can answer this as i need to purchase some bismuth to test this.
If anyone can suggest another metal that will repel a neo dymium magnet that would be great also, thankyou in advance
Levi
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There is plenty of information available via google on diamagnetic levitation using bismuth and graphite. use the search set +Magnetic +Levitation +bismuth to find it. The levitation of magnets is not really a true levitation because most of the weight is being taken using a large magnetic field to attract the smaller magnet. however light graphite sheets can be levitated properly. You requite high temperature superconductors to demonstrate diamagnetic levitation reasonably powerfully.
Using a single sheet of bismuth is probably very difficult to stabilise
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soul surfer
Thank you, in your last sentence you answered my question perfectly, now i can proceed.
Levi