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Old 10-19-2011, 10:08 AM   #1224
photon
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http://www.quantumlevitation.com/lev...e_physics.html

The way I understand it is this is just a the standard Meissner effect but in this case because the superconductor is very thin (most of the floating puck in the video is dry ice) and the fields are strong, rather than going around the object as with regular Meissner effect videos we've seen (where you have the thing floating in mid air), in this case the magnetic field is compressed into tubes that go through the superconductor along defects (or through the superconductor where it takes less energy to go through than it takes to go around).

And because stretching magnetic field lines takes energy, when it's left to itself (i.e. moved and then left alone) the superconductor will tend to stay in the orientation it was left in (the tubes of field lines hold it in place I guess you could say, though I'm probably making someone who actually understands this cringe).

Then they just use various configurations of fields to get the various results.

Very cool effect.
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