Richard Hill

Magnetic Levitation has captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike. It is well-known that stable levitation of a static arrangement of permanent magnets is impossible by Ernshaw's theorem. However, stable levitation of diamagnetic materials is not impossible, as was famously demonstrated by levitation of a live frog, which won the IgNobel prize for Prof Andre Geim and Sir Michael Berry in 2000.

In this talk, I present experiments, including videos, of diamagnetic levitation using a 17 Tesla superconducting magnet, including levitation of plants, flotation of gold, lead and diamond in liquid oxygen and cold oxygen gas, and mineral separation using differential gravity.

Diamagnetic levitation can also be used to investigate the behaviour of liquids in weightless conditions. I present an experiment on a levitating spinning water droplet, which changes shape as the angular velocity is increased. The equilibrium shape of the droplet is governed by the balance between centrifugal and surface tension forces. Above a critical angular velocity the droplet forms a peanut shape. At higher angular velocity we observe, for the first time, the theoretically predicted triangular, three-lobed shape.

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