Stable levitation of Dia- or paramagnetic substances by magneto-archimedes

摘要

We succeeded in making water levitate in air, usingnot an extreme by strong magnet such as a Bitter- type hybridmagnet, but a compact superconducting magnet. The levitatedwater ball had a spherical shape and levitated stable for over a day.We named this phenomenon "magneto-Archimedes levitation,"because, to achieve it, we used gravitational and magneticbuoyancy forces in the presence of pressurized oxygen gas. Inaddition, our method enables paramagnetic substances to levitatein air, which has been considered to be impossible owing to theMaxwell relation, divB=0. We also succeeded in makingparamagnetic aqueous copper sulfate levitate in air. To the best ofour knowledge, this is the first demonstration of stable levitationof paramagnetic substances in the atmosphere.