Diamagnetic of levitation of graphite

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH1dv69oiMY[/youtube] This is graphite levitating above a powerful neodymium magnet, I recorded the video last summer.

Graphite is the most diamagnetic substance known. The neodymium magnet is N48 grade and it about the strongest permanent magnet you can buy, its 1.41 Tesla/14,000 gauss (the Earth’s magnetic field averages 0.5 gauss). I bought it from e-magnets in the UK. The graphite is artificial, I read that artificial graphite levitates best, but I have levitated natural graphite (from Sri Lanka) as well. It levitates just as good.

The graphite levitates about 2 mm (1/16 inch) above the magnet. Neodymium magnets are insanely strong, about 5 times stronger then an old-fashioned ferrite magnets.

If you had a magnet big and strong enough you could levitate a human, people are diamagnetic because we contain so much diamagnetic water.

Link to Science Week article

Bismuth does that too.

You can't levitate bismuth over a magnet because its too dense, 9.38g/cm3, but you can levitate a magnet between two pieces of bismuth if you use a second magnet to overcome most (but not all) of the force of gravity.