Diamagnetic levitation

I have recently found out that a hamster was levitated by applying a
strong magnetic field of 16 Teslas using a superconducting
electromagnet.

This is significant to me because you could use the technology to
potentially create artificial gravity on spacecraft.

You could also use it compensate for the effects of acceleration. For
example a car hitting a wall, could be equipped with a magnetic airbag
that decelerates the people without harm to the internal organs.

You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is more
confortable than the usual foam stuff.

You could create an astronaut training facility with magnetic
levitation.

You could make vehicles that hover over the Moons surface and not stir
up dust as they move about.

The applications are endless if you can figure out how to keep your
superconductors cold.

Zoltan

Zoltan Szakaly wrote:


You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.

So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

K Harwood.

(Zoltan Szakaly) writes:

I have recently found out that a hamster was levitated by applying a
strong magnetic field of 16 Teslas using a superconducting
electromagnet.

This is significant to me because you could use the technology to
potentially create artificial gravity on spacecraft.

This idea has been discussed many, many times before in this newsgroup.
The effect depends on the field _gradient_. Given the current material
limitations on superconductor critical field strengths, it is not practical
for objects much larger than frogs or hamsters. Furthermore, the amount of
energy that would be stored in such a field is impractically large, and the
magnetic field would play all sorts of hob with electronics and other
instruments.

_Do_ please try to do some background research and to run some numbers
on your "ideas" before posting them; you will stick you foot in your mouth
less often.


You could also use it compensate for the effects of acceleration. For
example a car hitting a wall, could be equipped with a magnetic airbag
that decelerates the people without harm to the internal organs.

Again, it is not practical for object as large as a human being, even in a
one-gee field, let alone the peak of tens to hundreds of gees experienced
in an automobile collision. Furthermore, even if sufficiently strong field
gradients _could_ be produced, the amount of stored energy in the field
would be impractically large. Still further, the inductance of the field
coils will be so large that it is utterly impractical to energize them
with a fast enough rise-time to offset the rate of onset of the collision.

Finally, since the force is primarily exerted on soft tissues with varying
water contents, while bones are massive and do not contain significant
quantities of water compared to soft tissues, the differential accelerations
sustained by the various parts of the body will still kill you.


You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is more
confortable than the usual foam stuff.

If you could afford the unobtainium superconductors, and didn't mind the fact
that your "bed" will grab every ferrous object in its immediate neighborhood
and accelerate them toward itself at dangerously large rates...


You could create an astronaut training facility with magnetic
levitation.

Except that you can't make a strong enough magnetic field with a large
enough field gradient over a big enough volume --- and even if you could,
since magnetism does not affect every part of the body equally, your
astronaut trainees would experience strong differential forces on different
parts of their bodies, which would utterly ruin the illusion of zero-gee.


You could make vehicles that hover over the Moons surface and not stir
up dust as they move about.

No you can't: The Moon's surface is not diamagnetic.


The applications are endless if you can figure out how to keep your
superconductors cold.

And if pigs had wings they might fly, and if you had some bacon, you might
make some bacon and eggs, if you had some eggs, and if wishes were horses,
even beggars would ride...


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

Keith Harwood wrote:
Zoltan Szakaly wrote:



You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.


So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

Fillings? This isn't inductive.

The big problem is that diamagnetic levitation causes
a force that's proportional to B times the gradient
of B. The larger the object being levitated, the higher
the peak field must be. Good for levitating mice or frogs,
not so good for levitating people.

You could use this technology to locally adjust the
acceleration on protein and water molecules in crystallization
experiments, getting many of the putative advantages of microgravity
in a terrestrial lab. That no one has been doing this suggests
to me that those advantages were greatly overstated.

Paul

And you never want to hear Am radio again;-)

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in
:

You could use this technology to locally adjust the
acceleration on protein and water molecules in crystallization
experiments, getting many of the putative advantages of microgravity
in a terrestrial lab. That no one has been doing this suggests
to me that those advantages were greatly overstated.

Multi-tesla fields make me nervous. I may not be the only one.

--Damon, who hasn't been near one and doesn't think he should be.

Paul F. Dietz wrote:

Keith Harwood wrote:
Zoltan Szakaly wrote:



You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.


So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

Fillings? This isn't inductive.

It is when you are moving into or out of the field, or if
you are already in place, when the field is turned on or
off. Even for the quite modest fields available from iron
magnets small, slow movements in a static uniform field can
heat fillings enough to crack teeth.

Keith Harwood.

In message
"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Keith Harwood wrote:
Zoltan Szakaly wrote:

You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.

So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

Fillings? This isn't inductive.

Unless you stay absolutely still it will be inductive. It's The Law.

Anthony

--
| Weather prediction will never be accurate until we |
| kill all the butterflies |

Keith Harwood writes:

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Keith Harwood wrote:
Zoltan Szakaly wrote:

You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.

So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

Fillings? This isn't inductive.

It is when you are moving into or out of the field, or if
you are already in place, when the field is turned on or
off. Even for the quite modest fields available from iron
magnets small, slow movements in a static uniform field can
heat fillings enough to crack teeth.

....And even without fillings, the EMF induced by too-rapid head-movements
in a multi-tesla field can do, uh, _interesting_ things to your brain...


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

"Gordon D. Pusch" wrote:
Keith Harwood writes:
Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Keith Harwood wrote:
Zoltan Szakaly wrote:

You could create a bed that levitates you and so it is
more confortable than the usual foam stuff.

So long as you don't have fillings in your teeth.

Fillings? This isn't inductive.

It is when you are moving into or out of the field, or if
you are already in place, when the field is turned on or
off. Even for the quite modest fields available from iron
magnets small, slow movements in a static uniform field can
heat fillings enough to crack teeth.

...And even without fillings, the EMF induced by too-rapid head-movements
in a multi-tesla field can do, uh, _interesting_ things to your brain...

Should people be wary of MRI machines?

What I found most interesting about diamagnetic levitation of li'l
critters is that their diamagnetic component (oxygen, I suppose)
overwhelms the ferromagnetic component from the iron in their blood.
Though I shouldn't be surprized... recall Magneto's escape from his
plastic prison in Xmen 2.

Mike Ackerman