Neat device, levitating solar powered motor!:

My dad had one of those but without the motor. I like the ones that don't have any point of contact with the ground at all. I have one that you have to spin like a top to get it to float and it is quite difficult to start and it obviously slows down and stops in a minute or so. You can buy more modern ones that have a motor that keeps spinning - and floating - as long as they have batteries in.

For more really interesting magnet ideas see this:
YouTube

Originally posted by twhitehead
My dad had one of those but without the motor. I like the ones that don't have any point of contact with the ground at all. I have one that you have to spin like a top to get it to float and it is quite difficult to start and it obviously slows down and stops in a minute or so. You can buy more modern ones that have a motor that keeps spinning - and float ...[text shortened]...
For more really interesting magnet ideas see this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IANBoybVApQ

That is really brilliant, printing magnets on existing magnets. They are right, this development is a gamechanger.

I can see products like a magnetic combination lock where there are no moving parts except for the latch itself.

New kinds of magnetic motors, more horsepower, smaller, lighter, cheaper.

Magnetic gearboxes, where you couple power through a magnetic transmission.

Smartphone loudspeakers that don't use rare earths, instead close confinement of fields using ordinary iron magnets.

I wonder if this could develop into ways of controlling long distance magnetic fields like the kind you need for MRI's? A way to force magnetic lines to be strong in one direction but say 2 feet apart where a person could fit inside an MRI chamber but the external field could be controlled so well that an iron object in the room would not meet an extreme field like the one that killed that 5 year old kid when a fire extinguisher was accidentally left in the MRI room and the field attracted the metal with such force it crushed the kid's skull.

It could also make for levitated trains where the field is confined so close you have maybe a few mm of clearance and still supports a 20 ton train car. Then driven by a linear motor with like confined fields making that device much more efficient energy wise.

I can see this development being militarized also, for instance, the present work on those magnetic rail guns could be done in a rifle instead of on the top of a 50 foot long
flatbed truck or taking up major space on an aircraft carrier.

So a rail gun rifle would have an infinite shot capacity only limited by the power supply, you could have boxes of pure bullet penetraters with no need for the cartridges holding the powder. So the same rifle size converted to a rail gun could have 3 times the rounds as a regular battlefield rifle in the same volume.

The bullet velocity could be almost anything, 5000 feet per second, 10,000 feet per second, rapid fire 1000 rounds per second if you had enough power supply energy.

You seem to think it will somehow result in stronger magnets. I don't think so. I think most the applications for the technology simply haven't been thought of yet.

I am sure I read somewhere that stable leviation without motion was impossible. So how does this work?
YouTube

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am sure I read somewhere that stable leviation without motion was impossible. So how does this work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEExd0wlsPo

You notice it is not just a simple magnet against magnet, there is a ribbon cable leading off clearly revealing electronics inside that does the trick. It has been done that way a lot.

Here is one where you use bismuth crystals that do the same thing with no electronic tricks: This one is diamagnetic. And at room temperature, it is not a superconductor.

YouTube

Originally posted by sonhouse
You notice it is not just a simple magnet against magnet, there is a ribbon cable leading off clearly revealing electronics inside that does the trick. It has been done that way a lot.

Yes, I suppose electricity counts as movement.

Here is one where you use bismuth crystals that do the same thing with no electronic tricks:
But it does require something above it.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yes, I suppose electricity counts as movement.

[b]Here is one where you use bismuth crystals that do the same thing with no electronic tricks:
But it does require something above it.[/b]

yes but nothing but the two crystals and a magnet. No powered devices on this gadget

I am a bit surprised at how relatively far away the top magnet is. I guess if you want to levitate larger magnets you would move the top magnet closer.