Everyone’s Magnetism

SEP 01, 1998

Andrey Geim

If you were to tell a child playing with a horseshoe magnet and pieces of iron that his uncle has a much bigger magnet that can lift everything and everybody, the child would probably believe you and might even ask for a ride on the magnet. If a physicist were present at such a conversation, he or she—armed with knowledge and experience—would probably smile condescendingly. The physicist would know well that only a very few materials—such as iron or nickel—are strongly magnetic, while the rest of the world’s materials are not; to be precise, the rest of the world is a billion ${(10}^{9})$ times less magnetic. This number seems obviously too large to allow common substances (water, for example) to be lifted even by the most powerful magnets; a billionfold increase in magnetic fields can be found only on neutron stars. In this case, however, knowledge and experience would mislead the physicist: In fact, all materials can be lifted by using magnetic fields that are rather standard these days. In principle, even a child can be levitated by a magnet, as we shall see below.

References

1. W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Reprints of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism, London, MacMillan (1872).
2. W. Braunbeck, Z. Phys. 112, 735 (1939).https://doi.org/ZEPYAA
3. E. Beaugnon, R. Tournier, Nature 349, 470 (1991); https://doi.org/NATUAS
E. Beaugnon, R. Tournier, J. Phys. III (France) 1, 1423 (1991).
4. M. A. Weilert, D. L. Whitaker, H. J. Maris, G. M. Seidel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4840 (1996).https://doi.org/PRLTAO
5. J. M. Valles, K. Lin, J. M. Denegre, K. L. Mowry, Biophys. J. 73, 1130 (1997).https://doi.org/BIOJAU
6. M. V. Berry, A. K. Geim, Eur. J. Phys. 18, 307 (1997).https://doi.org/EJPHD4
7. T. B. Jones, J. Appl. Phys. 50, 5057 (1979).https://doi.org/JAPIAU
8. D. E. Smylie, Science 255, 1678 (1992).https://doi.org/SCIEAS
9. E. H. Brandt, Science 243, 349 (1989).https://doi.org/SCIEAS
10. R. E. Apfel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1912 (1997).https://doi.org/PRLTAO
11. J. F. Schenck, Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 649, 285 (1992).https://doi.org/ANYAA9
12. For a review, see G. Maret, Physica B 164, 205 (1990).https://doi.org/PHYBE3
13. O. A. Kuznetsov, K. H. Hasenstein, Planta 198, 87 (1996).https://doi.org/PLANAB
14. To see the letter, visit http://www.sci.kun.nl/hfml/levitationpubres.html on the World Wide Web.

More about the Authors

Andrey Geim. University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.