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Floating Carbon
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It is well known that you cannot float a stationary permanent magnet in a magnetic
field established by other permanent magnets. This was proved by Ehrenfest (see
www.ccmr.cornell.edu/~muchomas/8.04/Lecs/lec_TDSE/node8.html).
However, you can float a magnet over a superconductive disk (this apparatus
is sold by Edmund Scientific, though you are on your own to get the liquid nitrogen
required), and you can float a diamagnetic substance over sufficiently powerful
magnets at room temperature.
It is this last effect that is demonstrated here. I was able to get the slip
of pyrolytic carbon to float a bit higher than what is typical by thinning it
down to a fraction of a millimeter.
The carbon and the extremely strong magnets are available from my friend Simon
Field (www.scitoys.com), whose site has
a good explanation of what is going on.
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