6 ms·

I wonder how much money and power it would take to build a human sized magnetic levitation chamber...

trapper 17y ago
I'd certainly pay for the privilege! Go DannoHung, startup awaiting :)
ujjwalg 17y ago
a levitation chamber wont be that much fun. I think a tool which you can wear or maybe shoes which can replicate the magnetic field, will be more relevant. A chamber will be equivalent to a gravity-free chamber, which, already exists.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  But gravity-free chambers are dependent on fast downward drops and so are limited by time. A magnetic one you could float around in for as long as you were prepared to keep paying for the electricity. Another voice here for the startup idea...to be frank, you could probably make the money back just from people who wanted to have zero-g sex.
  - eru 17y ago
    Should be very difficult. (The sex, and getting enough resources to generate a human-hovering magnet field.)
jrbedard 17y ago
I would be more interested to get in the Hoverboard business with this kind of technology.
- sown 17y ago
  It seems like this hoverboard, though, would work best over water.
  - tocomment 17y ago
    I wonder if there is enough water in the air under a potential hoverboard or in soil, roads, etc? I guess hovering over water, snow and ice would still be cool.
- tfh 17y ago
  First you have to think for a braking system for the hoverboards.
  - dkersten 17y ago
    Thats easy: turn off the hovering!
    - tetha 17y ago
      The wise man avoids the face-brake. :)
joeyo 17y ago
According to the original paper, they needed a 17 Tesla magnet to lift a 10 g mouse. I'm not exactly sure how to extrapolate that, but if it's linear it seems like you would need on the order of 100 kiloTelsa to lift a 150 lb person.
- rms 17y ago
  And 100 kilotesla is much greater than the largest magnet ever created -- the cost of building a magnet of increasing strength increases exponentially. The most powerful continuous magnetic field is 45T and the lab has 300 employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_field)#Between_1_and_1000_teslas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_f... http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0 http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0
- ars 17y ago
  I'm quite sure it's not linear by weight supported. The field exists in the entire area, each water molecule gets supported individually by the field. So the field needs to be strong enough to lift a single water molecule against earths gravity. (Plus some extra since water is also lifting misc other stuff in the body.) You don't need a stronger field, you need one that covers the entire area, at the original strength. To do that you do need it somewhat stronger due to the dropoff by distance from the magnet. But you don't need it stronger to support the weight.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Magnetic fields drop off as the cube of the distance, because the molecules further away will experience much less force you will need a much larger magnet anyway. That's not 'somewhat' stronger, that's a lot stronger. If a mouse is 25 mm high and you would want to levitate something the size of a human of say 1.75 m high with the same density as a mouse then the required magnet would have to be roughly (8^6)/2 times as strong for the same effect. Then you still have to take into account the size difference at the base of the field, figure another factor of about 10 or so for that. If you take the 'easier' approach and levitate a person while laying down (probably a wise thing) then the required magnet strength would be smaller, but still not that much smaller, you now have a vastly large surface area to work with ~40 times as large, (30,000 square cm opposed to 75 square cm), and the height is still 10 times as much so figure another 8^3 as much for that.
spyrosk 17y ago
Wouldn't this cause some trouble on humans? If I understand how this works correctly, unless they have a completely empty stomach or levitate in a horizontal position there could be some unwanted levitation of fluids taking place..

I'd certainly pay for the privilege! Go DannoHung, startup awaiting :)

a levitation chamber wont be that much fun. I think a tool which you can wear or maybe shoes which can replicate the magnetic field, will be more relevant. A chamber will be equivalent to a gravity-free chamber, which, already exists.

anigbrowl 17y ago
But gravity-free chambers are dependent on fast downward drops and so are limited by time. A magnetic one you could float around in for as long as you were prepared to keep paying for the electricity. Another voice here for the startup idea...to be frank, you could probably make the money back just from people who wanted to have zero-g sex.
- eru 17y ago
  Should be very difficult. (The sex, and getting enough resources to generate a human-hovering magnet field.)

jrbedard 17y ago

I would be more interested to get in the Hoverboard business with this kind of technology.

sown 17y ago
It seems like this hoverboard, though, would work best over water.
- tocomment 17y ago
  I wonder if there is enough water in the air under a potential hoverboard or in soil, roads, etc? I guess hovering over water, snow and ice would still be cool.
tfh 17y ago
First you have to think for a braking system for the hoverboards.
- dkersten 17y ago
  Thats easy: turn off the hovering!
  - tetha 17y ago
    The wise man avoids the face-brake. :)

joeyo 17y ago

According to the original paper, they needed a 17 Tesla magnet to lift a 10 g mouse. I'm not exactly sure how to extrapolate that, but if it's linear it seems like you would need on the order of 100 kiloTelsa to lift a 150 lb person.

rms 17y ago
And 100 kilotesla is much greater than the largest magnet ever created -- the cost of building a magnet of increasing strength increases exponentially. The most powerful continuous magnetic field is 45T and the lab has 300 employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_field)#Between_1_and_1000_teslas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_f... http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0 http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0
ars 17y ago
I'm quite sure it's not linear by weight supported. The field exists in the entire area, each water molecule gets supported individually by the field. So the field needs to be strong enough to lift a single water molecule against earths gravity. (Plus some extra since water is also lifting misc other stuff in the body.) You don't need a stronger field, you need one that covers the entire area, at the original strength. To do that you do need it somewhat stronger due to the dropoff by distance from the magnet. But you don't need it stronger to support the weight.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Magnetic fields drop off as the cube of the distance, because the molecules further away will experience much less force you will need a much larger magnet anyway. That's not 'somewhat' stronger, that's a lot stronger. If a mouse is 25 mm high and you would want to levitate something the size of a human of say 1.75 m high with the same density as a mouse then the required magnet would have to be roughly (8^6)/2 times as strong for the same effect. Then you still have to take into account the size difference at the base of the field, figure another factor of about 10 or so for that. If you take the 'easier' approach and levitate a person while laying down (probably a wise thing) then the required magnet strength would be smaller, but still not that much smaller, you now have a vastly large surface area to work with ~40 times as large, (30,000 square cm opposed to 75 square cm), and the height is still 10 times as much so figure another 8^3 as much for that.

spyrosk 17y ago

Wouldn't this cause some trouble on humans? If I understand how this works correctly, unless they have a completely empty stomach or levitate in a horizontal position there could be some unwanted levitation of fluids taking place..