Well, the primary cause for this effect is high magnetism scientists with wayyy too much free time. The secondary cause is magnetisation of just enough blood cells.
Stick anything in a magnetic field and diamagnetism (which is the opposite polarity from ferromagnetism) generates a repulsive force. If your magnetic field is big enough (and pointing upward), you can levitate the object.
I'm pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. IIRC, liquid oxygen has a higher diamagnetic, um, thingy (moment?) than most stuff, so you can make a blob of LOX float in between big-but-not-ludicrous magnets pretty easily.
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dr_tectonic
no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 07:47 pm (UTC)How does that work? I don't get it. Of course, I don't even remember how the levitating superconductor works.
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Date: 2004-10-10 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 10:06 am (UTC)Stick anything in a magnetic field and diamagnetism (which is the opposite polarity from ferromagnetism) generates a repulsive force. If your magnetic field is big enough (and pointing upward), you can levitate the object.
I'm pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. IIRC, liquid oxygen has a higher diamagnetic, um, thingy (moment?) than most stuff, so you can make a blob of LOX float in between big-but-not-ludicrous magnets pretty easily.