Bismuth magnetic levitation question

I think that you're forgetting that you're trying to neutralize the force of gravity with levitation. With diamagnetic levitation you will want only one bismuth pellet. For with a bismuth, magnet, bismuth sandwich the repulsions will cancel each other and gravity will still dominate. Also, I would expect that the bismuth will be much lighter than the magnet and therefore the bismuth will be easier to float than the magnet.

when I ordered the bismuth from the united nuclear web site, they had a picture of two bismuth pellets with a neodymium magnet in the middle levitating. So how would I accomplish this?

Thanks for the reply

Stephen

Stephen

The problem you are having is that diamagnetic repulsion is a very weak force. You can absolutely do what you want, but first you need to overcome the force of gravity that is overwhelming the diamagnetic repulsion.

This is typically done in one of two ways. The first approach would be to have a second magnet below the first. Probably significantly below the first that can be adjusted to provide repulsion to the magnet sitting above it. N-N poles or S-S poles facing each other. The magnetic repulsion overcomes the gravity and the diamagnetic force acts as a stabilizer and gets you past the issues of Ernshaw's Law.

The second approach is just the opposite. You hang a second magnet in an attraction configuration above your first magnet and overcome gravity that way. Same results.

You will need some way of adjusting the distance between the magnets very precisely since there is only a small window where all the forces balance out. Typically people will use a bolt that has the magnet attached to the end to do this. Turning the bolt allows you to make fine adjustments to the distance between the magnets.

Have fun with this. I have done it myself and it is pretty cool.

Doug

Hi StephenD420,

Check out these on You Tube.

Magnetic levitation

There's lot of videos and I know some are what you are looking for.

Good luck and take care.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?rlz=1C1CHMI_enIN291IN303&sourceid=chrome&q=levitron&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Tzm2StbZNpLasQOm3_zRDA&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4#

I have built these before. You need to mount another magnet (doesn't have to be neodymium) above the assembly so that its attraction overcomes the weight of the floating neodymium magnet. You need to adjust its position carefully. There is a neutral point where the floating magnet will jump up to the lifting magnet or fall down. If you mount the bismuth pellets above and below the neodymium magnet at this point, the diamagnetic repulsion will stabilize it. I have found that pyrolytic graphite seems to work as well as bismuth.