Meissner effect, magnetic levitation, quantum levitation

I did not perform the experiment in the video. Its actually Professor Tom H. Johansen in the Superconductor Laboratory at the University of Oslo, Norway. Thank you Prof. Johansen for contacting me!

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A bismuth-based superconducting disk sits on a copper base and is immersed in liquid nitrogen. Two small, very strong magnets are placed on top of the superconductor. The magnets levitate due to the expelled magnetic field from the superconductor.

Superconductors have the unique property of providing zero resistance for electrical currents when cooled to low enough temperatures. Thus, a current induced in a superconductor will last for an extraordinarily long time. This property also leads to the fact that superconductors will expel all magnetic fields, a phenomenon called the Meissner Effect. As a result of this effect, a magnet approaching a superconductor will "see" an opposite magnet of the same size and field strength as itself, which causes it to levitate.

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Video courtesy of the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), representing the science center and museum field worldwide.

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This video describes my quantum levitation experimentation I did for my 8th grade project at the Novato Charter School.

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At Maker Faire 2014, we met Dylan Dixon, an 8th grade student who built a system to demonstrate quantum levitation for a school project. We chat with him to learn about how quantum levitation works with the manipulation of magnetic fields.

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