Posted on 01/31/2024 8:18:58 AM PST by Red Badger
In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have unraveled an anti-gravity mystery that seemingly defied the norms of classical physics, potentially paving the way for revolutionary advancements in magnetic levitation technology.
The breakthrough centers on a unique form of magnetic levitation, first demonstrated in 2021 by Turkish scientist Hamdi Ucar, an electronics engineer from Göksal Aeronautics in Turkey.
Typically, the setup becomes unstable when you try to balance two repelling magnets to counter gravity. However, in a study featured in the journal Symmetry, Ucar revealed that when positioned close to another swiftly rotating magnet, a magnet can both spin and levitate in the air.
In his experiment, Ucar used a Levitron toy with a magnet attached to a motor spinning around 10,000 rpm. When positioned just a few centimeters beneath the swiftly spinning rotor, a second magnet also started to rotate and achieved a stable state of levitation.
Magnetic levitation isn’t a novel concept, with the most familiar example being Maglev trains. However, existing technologies use slow-spinning mechanics or external stabilizers to control the powerful magnetic forces used for lifting and propelling. In contrast, Ucar’s setup relied on high-speed rotation and a unique interaction between the rotating magnets.
The baffling behavior of the levitating magnets in Ucar’s experiments left researchers perplexed, as it appeared to go against the core principles of physics and the established norms of how magnets interact.
Intrigued by the scientific puzzle, Dr. Rasmus Bjørk and a team of researchers from the Technical University of Denmark embarked on a quest to demystify the unusual phenomenon.
“Magnets should not hover when they are close together. Usually, they will either attract or repel each other,” Dr. Bjørk explained. “But if you spin one of the magnets, it turns out, you can achieve this hovering. And that is the strange part. The force affecting the magnets should not change just because you rotate one of them, so it seems there is a coupling between the movement and the magnetic force.”
The researcher’s approach was twofold. The first involved replicating Ucar’s results using off-the-shelf items like neodymium magnets and power tools. In a second, more sophisticated experiment, the scientists used motion-tracking technology to take precise measurements of the
The findings were revelatory. Experiments showed that as the floater magnet began rotating, it locked in frequency with the rotor magnet, assuming a near-vertical orientation.
The polar axes of the two magnets, nearly perpendicular to each other, formed a configuration that would typically be unstable. However, in this setup, the spinning magnetic field of the rotor exerted a torque on the floater, locking it in a stable, levitated position.
Through computer modeling that considered the magnetostatic interactions between the two magnets, the research team says they solved the physics-defying anti-gravity mystery and confirmed the discovery of a new form of levitation.
VIDEO AT LINK............
In a paper published in Physical Review Applied, researchers detailed how the rotating magnet’s spinning field created a torque countered by the gyroscopic action of the levitating magnet’s rotation. This delicate balance of forces allowed for a stable levitation, with the magnetic forces creating both an attractive and a repulsive component, balancing the “floater” magnet in midair.
Rather than defying the laws of magnetostatics, the findings revealed that the equilibrium position of the levitating magnet is actually due to the magnetostatic interactions between the rotating magnet.
Dr. Bjørk explained the phenomenon is akin to a spinning top, where rotation locks the object in position, defying gravity or, in this case, the push and pull of magnetic forces.
Speaking with Physics Magazine, Ucar acknowledged the precision of the recent study and suggested further improvements in the simulations, particularly in accounting for the role of eddy currents. Meanwhile, Bjørk’s team concludes that these currents are negligible in this levitation mechanism.
In addition to solving a perplexing mystery, this newly understood interaction between magnetic forces could open the door to a world of possibilities in magnetic levitation technology.
Some experts, like Marcel Schuck, CEO and founder of No-Touch Robotics in Zurich, have already noted that a system using this newly discovered magnetic trapping and manipulation method could simplify and enhance existing magnetic levitation technologies.
“Other possibilities will depend on the extent to which the phenomenon can be up- or down-scaled and how low the energy cost will be,” study co-author and PhD candidate at DTU, Frederik Laust Durhuus, told Physics World. “This will require further investigation.”
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Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com
Yep.. :)
At about the 2 min mark in the video you posted, there is a brief description of both magnets' pole orientations. Both the attraction magnet and levitating magnet begin with their north poles perpendicular to the axis of rotation. So, perhaps as long the levitating magnet has rotational balance, the shape of the magnet doesn't matter?
The video posted is excellent and the presenters do a good job of describing this.
Thanks, and the OP, for posting! Very interesting!!
So that is why “flying saucers” always seem to be spinning??
That would be cool to try
Interesting. Negating inertia would seem to eliminate G-forces. I always wondered about the “Hyper-drive” travel in Star Wars. Obviously all inertia would have to be removed.
Kecksburg probably as well.
Unsolved Mysteries had a segment on it.
Now we know why all those flying saucers are spinning at the outer edge.
Kosmos 96?
Except when I fall. Then I am very much anti-gravity.
My UFO design would be a very powerful but small magnet spinning above the main portion of the saucer craft. The saucer section would also spin according to the experiment, consequently an inner module would have to have the same set up with a spinning magnet but it is timed to exactly counter act the spin of the upper magnet.
Hopefully you can angle the main magnet to provide lift and directional capability. Or it may take 6 more lifting magnets that are orthogonal to each other to provide direction.
My physics is probably complete malarchy but something like this may work someday.
Science cannot define ‘gravity.
Science cannot define ‘magnetism’.
Science cannot define a ‘woman’.........................
They been making these things for years but when they start the up they go ping ponging about the universe, they haven't perfected the off switch yet.
LAte to the game
Spindizzy:
In its day, one of the best-loved items of sf Terminology. The spindizzy is the Antigravity Invention used to drive flying Cities through the Galaxy at Faster-than-Light speeds in James Blish’s Okie series. This was collected as Cities in Flight (omni 1970), though Blish was using the term as early as 1950 – notably in “Bindlestiff” (December 1950 Astounding), incorporated into the first-published Okie novel Earthman, Come Home (April 1950-November 1953 var mags; fixup 1955; cut 1958). He gave the spindizzy a wonderfully plausible Imaginary-Science rationale, rooted in theoretical Physics, in which Gravity fields are seen as generated or cancelled by rotation owing to the “Blackett-Dirac effect”. The term “spindizzy” dates from the late 1930s as a nickname for the hand-built model racing cars or “tether cars”, a US fad of that era, which raced one another in grooved tracks or solo – against the clock – while tethered to and circling a central pole. Blish presumably had these in mind when he wrote in the prologue of Earthman, Come Home that the Dillon-Wagoner gravitron polarity generator (the Invention’s official name) was “almost immediately dubbed the ‘spindizzy’ in honour of what it did to electron rotation”.
Authors who have adopted the term for their own sf include J F Bone in The Lani People (1962) and Confederation Matador (1978), and Ken MacLeod – with due credit to Blish – in The Execution Channel (2007). Poul Anderson’s “gyrogravitics” gravity-control Technology in Tales of the Flying Mountains (April 1963-September 1965 Analog as by Winston P Sanders; fixup 1970) suggests a nod to the spindizzy.
(https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/spindizzy#:~:text=The%20spindizzy%20is%20the%20Antigravity,James%20Blish%27s%20Okie%20series.)
I’ve been there and it’s pretty amazing
Here it Kommt!
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