Video of a Frog Levitating
I know the levitating frog is old news, but since I ran into this video, I though I might as well post it. The video depicts a frog being levitated by diamagnetism using a 10 Tesla magnetic coil.
Diamagnetism is a form of magnetism that is only exhibited by a substance in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. It is the result of changes in the orbital motion of electrons. Applying a magnetic field creates a magnetic force on a moving electron in the form of F = qv × B. This force changes the centripetal force on the electron, causing it to either speed up or slow down in its orbital motion. This changed electron speed modifies the magnetic moment of the orbital in a direction opposing the external field. -Wiki
This is a LIVE grasshopper. An object does not need to be superconducting to levitate. Normal things, even humans, can do it as well, if placed in a strong magnetic field. Although the majority of ordinary materials, such as wood or plastic, seem to be non-magnetic, they, too, expel a very small portion (0.00001) of an applied magnetic field, i.e. exhibit very weak diamagnetism. The molecular magnetism is very weak (millions times weaker than ferromagnetism) and usually remains unnoticed in everyday life, thereby producing the wrong impression that materials around us are mainly nonmagnetic. But they are all magnetic. It is just that magnetic fields required to levitate all these “nonmagnetic” materials have to be approximately 100 times larger than for the case of, say, superconductors. This experiment was conducted at the Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory. -meanbob088
Related Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
