How to levitate a piece of metal

Electromagnetism is one of the most powerful and useful areas of science. This branch of electrical physics allows us to move motors, pick up metals and perform a huge number of everyday tasks. Next, we will look at how to levitate a piece of metal in a simple way. Such an experiment is quite interesting and can be presented at a science fair.

Materials

- 3 cm wooden strip.

- A magnet.

- Nylon thread.

- One league.

- A light piece of iron or a paper clip.

Creating our experiment

This experiment is quite simple, the first thing we are going to do is to cut three pieces of wood from the 3 cm strip. This way, we get the three sides of the support for our experiment, once this is done, it is time to sand the pieces of wood.

Now, we make a kind of inverted L shape with a base and a left side piece. These pieces of wood will be glued together with a strong glue.

Next, we will glue the magnet on the left side of our inverted L. Now, we knot the clip with a nylon, attach it to the other piece of wood and glue this last piece to the vertical strip.

As a last step, we attach the other end of the nylon thread to the base of the structure and when we release it, we will see how the piece of paper clip levitates on the structure. In this way, we have a very attractive and eye-catching experiment that we can show at a science fair.

How it works

The magnetic field of the magnet competes with the force exerted by the acceleration of gravity on the paper clip. We can observe a kind of almost static balance of forces that allows the paper clip to stay in the air, giving a special effect as if the paper clip were levitating in the air.