Watch these magnets hover, wobble, and spin as they’re pushed and pulled between a base of pyrolytic graphite, a strong magnet, and other nearby magnets vying for position. Mellow background music, Thin Places by Jesse Gallagher, accompanies the footage.
The Magnet Tricks and Magnetic Games YouTube channels teamed up to share these ‘levitation stations’ for both teeny tiny magnets and stacks of larger magnets that seem to move like alien spaceships.
Pyrolytic graphite is a diamagnetic material, “a material that creates a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field. This weak opposing field produces a repelling force.” The result: Diamagnetic levitation.
Watch more footage via Magnetic Games:
Watch these related levitation and magnet videos next:
• Freezing soap bubbles on a levitating magnet
• The Meissner Effect: How to levitate a neodymium magnet
• Levitating Superconductor on a Möbius strip
Also fun: Chaotic Pendulum, a DIY physics demonstration
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