How to float like a stone

[UM-Bot]

What goes up no longer has to come down. British scientists have developed an antigravity machine that can float heavy stones, coins and lumps of metal in mid-air. Based around a powerful magnet, the device levitates objects in a similar way to how a maglev train runs above its tracks.

Peter King, a physics professor at Nottingham University, said: "We can take an object and float it in mid-air because the magnetic forces on the object are enough to balance gravity.

View: Full Article | Source: The Guardian

[smallpackage]

Now thats a good topic!

[fallingalien]

maybe UFOs are us from teh future now?

[Red-eye Dragoon]

whoa, thats awsome

know we just need to apply that to a car

or atleast a hover board

[merlinhoot]

Here is a similar story but not sure if they are talking about the same device

ESA Portal - Floating in Weightlessness

[snip]...the European Space Agency's Research & Technology Centre (ESTEC) at Noordwijk in the Netherlands. In its Erasmus building, some uncanny things happen in an elegant woven-metal structure 13-metres tall.

The installation called a drop tower demonstrator was inaugurated last November. A capsule containing an experiment is allowed to drop down the structure and will experience weightlessness for 1.5 seconds before its fall is cushioned in a 1.75 metre deep pit filled with PVC spheres.

The ESTEC drop tower is not primarily used for scientific research but as a demonstrator of gravitational effects for students and an interested public and to explain the function of the Zarm drop tower at the University of Bremen in Germany.

"The 9 seconds of free-fall that are achieved at the drop-tower of ZARM may not seem long compared to the 25 seconds of parabolic flights or 12 minutes of sounding rockets , but it is enough to give experimenters a good idea of the phenomena they are investigating," comments ESA's Massimo Sabbatini.

And another - Scientists Succeed At (Cryogenically Enhanced Magneto-Archimedes) Levitation

Scientists at the University of Nottingham have succeeded in levitating some of the heaviest elements in nature, including lead and platinum. Their techique involved immersing objects in both liquid oxygen and a strong magnetic field. (has a picture of it.)

Edited May 17, 2005 by merlinhoot

[AztecInca]

It seems that the things we only thought about as only science fiction are starting to become a reality more and more!

[ROGER]

But Scotty, We need more power! To heck with your "Poor Bearings!"