I'm afraid that you're facing a difficult problem. Magnetic levitation involving permanent magnets is inherently and unavoidably unstable for fundamental reasons. One permanent magnet suspended above another permanent magnet will always crash. That's why all practical maglev trains use either electromagnets with feedback circuitry (magnets that can be changed electronically to correct for their tendencies to crash) or magnetoelectrodynamic levitation (induced magnetism in a conducting track, created by a very fast moving (>100 mph) magnetized train). There are no simple fixes if what you have built so far is based on permanent magnets alone. Unfortunately, you have chosen a very challenging science fair project.

While the full answer to this question is complicated, the most important issues are the strengths and locations of the magnetic poles in each magnet. Since each magnet has north poles and south poles of equal strengths, there are always attractive and repulsive forces at work between a pair of magnets--their opposite poles always attract and their like poles always repel. You can make two magnets attract one another by turning them so that their opposite poles are closer together than their like poles (e.g. by turning a north pole toward a south pole).

To maximize the attraction between the magnets, opposite magnetic poles should be as near together as possible while like magnetic poles are as far apart as possible. With long bar magnets, you align the magnets head to toe so that you have the north pole of one magnet opposite the south pole of the other magnet and vice versa. But long magnets also tend to have weaker poles than short stubby magnets because it takes energy to separate a magnet's north pole from its south pole. With short stubby magnets, the best you can do is to bring the north pole of one magnet close to the south pole of the other magnet while leaving their other poles pointing away from one another. Horseshoe magnets combine some of the best of both magnets--they can have the strong poles of short stubby magnets with more distance separating those poles.

Returning to the paper question, size is less important than pole strength and separation. The stronger the magnets and the farther apart their poles, the more paper you can hold between them.

If you are asking why doesn't the earth itself get pulled up toward a large magnet or electromagnet that I'm holding in my hand, the answer is that the magnetic forces just aren't strong enough to pull the magnet and earth together. I'm holding the two apart with other forces and preventing them from pulling together. The forces between poles diminish with distance. Those forces are proportional to the inverse square of the distance between poles, so they fall off very quickly as the poles move apart. Moreover, each north pole is connected to a south pole on the same magnet, so the attraction between opposite poles on two separate magnets is mitigated by the repulsions of the other poles on those same magnets. As a result, the forces between two bar magnets fall over even faster than the simple inverse square law predicts. It would take an incredible magnet, something like a spinning neutron star, to exert magnet forces strong enough to damage the earth. But then a neutron star would exert gravitational forces that would damage the earth, too, so you'd hardly notice the magnetic effects.

The earth is a huge magnet and it is made out of metal. The earth's core is mostly iron and nickel, both of which can be magnetic metals. However, the earth's magnetism doesn't appear to come from the metal itself. Current theories attribute the earth's magnetism to movements in and around the core. There are either electric currents associated with this movement or some effects that orient the local magnetization of the metal. I don't think that there is any general consensus on the matter.

Actually, if you drive fast over a real speed bump, it's not good for your wheels and suspension. The springs in your car do protect the car from some of the effects of the bump, but not all of them. However, imagine driving over a speed bump on a traditional bicycle--one that has no spring suspension. The faster you drive over that bump, the more it will throw you into the air.

First, magnets don't involve charges, they involve poles. So the question should probably be "are all metals magnetically poled?" The answer to this question is that they are never poled--they never have a net pole. They always have an even balance of north and south pole. However, there are some metals that have their north and south poles separated from one another. A magnetized piece of steel is that way. Only a few metals can support such separated poles and we will study those metals in a few weeks.

Yes, but only if some of the poles are weaker than other so that when you sum up the total north pole strength and the total south pole strength, those two sums are equal. For example, you can make a magnet that has two north poles and one south pole if the north poles are each half as strong as the south pole. All magnets that we know of have exactly equal amounts of north and south pole. That's because we have never observed a pure north or a pure south pole in nature and you'd need such a pure north or south pole to unbalance the poles of a magnet. A

The absence of such "monopoles" is an interesting puzzle and scientists haven't given up hope of finding them. Some theories predict that they should exist, but be very difficult to form artificially. There may be magnetic monopoles left over from the big bang, but we haven't found any yet.

While metal detectors can easily distinguish between ferromagnetic metals such as steel and non-ferromagnetic metals such as aluminum, gold, silver, and copper, it is difficult for them to distinguish between the particular members of those two classes. Ferromagnetic metals are ones that have intrinsic magnetic structure and respond very strongly to outside magnetic fields. The non-ferromagnetic metals have no intrinsic magnetic structure but can be made magnetic when electric currents are driven through them.

Good metal detectors produce electromagnetic fields that cause currents to flow through nearby metal objects and then detect the magnetism that results. Unfortunately, identifying what type of non-ferromagnetic metal is responding to a metal detector is hard. Mark Rowan, Chief Engineer at White's Electronics of Sweet Home, Oregon, a manufacturer of consumer metal detecting equipment, notes that their detectors are able to classify non-ferromagnetic metal objects based on the ratio of an object's inductance to its resistivity. They can reliably distinguish between all denominations of U.S. coins--for example, nickels are relatively more resistive than copper and clad coins, and quarters are more inductive than smaller dimes. The primary mechanism they use in these measurements is to look at the phase shift between transmitted and received signals (signals typically at, or slightly above, audio frequencies). However, they are unable to identify objects like gold nuggets where the size, shape, and alloy composition are unknown.

A rail gun is a device that uses an electromagnetic force to accelerate a projectile to very high speeds. This acceleration technique is based on the fact that whenever an electrically charged particle moves in the presence of a magnetic field, it experiences a force that pushes it perpendicular to both its direction of travel and the magnetic field. In a rail gun, this perpendicular magnetic force--known as the Lorentz force--pushes the projectile along two metal rails and can accelerate it to almost limitless speeds.

The rail gun's projectile must conduct electricity and it completes the electric circuit formed by two parallel metal rails and a high current power source. During the rail gun's operation, current flows out of the power source through one rail, passes through the projectile, and returns to the power source through the other rail. As it passes through the two rails, the electric current produces an intense magnetic field between the rails. The projectile is exposed to this magnetic field and as charged particles pass through the projectile, they experience a Lorentz force that pushes them and the projectile in one direction along the rails. The projectile picks up speed as it travels along the rails and doesn't stop accelerating until the current ceases or it leaves the rails. In practice, the power sources used in most rail guns is a large bank of capacitors. These devices store separated electric charge and supply enormous currents to the rails for a brief period of time.

As long as the track is straight enough that the train doesn't experience severe accelerations up, down, left, or right, there is no limit to how fast it can go. In fact, the levitation process becomes more and more energy efficient as the speed increases. However, the moving train does experience a pressure drag force (a type of air resistance) that increases roughly as the square of the train's speed. The power needed to overcome this drag force increases as the cube of the train's speed, making it impractical to propel the train forward above a certain speed.

A magnet is an object that has magnetic poles and therefore exerts forces or torques (twists) on other magnets. There are two types of these magnetic poles--called, for historical reasons, north and south. Like poles repel (north repels north and south repels south) while opposite poles attract (north attracts south). Since isolated north and south magnetic poles have never been found in nature, magnets always have equal amounts of north and south magnetic poles, making them magnetically neutral overall. In a permanent magnet, the magnetism originates in the electrons from which the magnet is formed. Electrons are intrinsically magnetic, each with its own north and south magnetic poles, and they give the permanent magnet its overall north and south poles.

The most sensible propulsion system for a magnetically levitated train would be a linear electric motor. This motor would consist of electromagnets on the train and electromagnets on the track. By turning these electromagnets on and off at carefully chosen moments, they can be used to pull or push the train forward for propulsion or backward for breaking. The timing is important because, for propulsion, the magnet on the train must always be attracted toward the track magnet in front of it and repelled by the track magnet behind it. For breaking, this relationship must be reversed.

Electric currents are magnetic. That's the basis for electromagnets--if you run an electric current around a coil of wire, that coil of wire will develop a north magnetic pole at one end and a south magnetic pole at the other end. But an electromagnet made with normal copper wires consumes electric power all the time. The current passing through those wires wastes energy because of friction-like effects in the copper and the wires become hot. The electromagnet also needs a power source to keep its current flowing.

However, a superconducting electromagnet is one in which the wires are superconducting--the current passing through them doesn't waste any power. Once a current has been started in a coil of superconducting wire, it flows forever. Since it doesn't waste any power, that current needs no source of power and produces no thermal energy. In fact, you can buy superconducting magnets with the current already started at the factory. As long as the wires are kept cold (as they must be to remain superconducting), the current will continue to flow and the coil will remain magnetic forever.

Magnetism is one sector of the electromagnetic interactions of matter. From a classical perspective, magnetism consists of an energy-containing field that surrounds magnetic poles and that exerts forces on other magnetic poles. At a higher classical level, magnetism and magnetic fields are part of the full electromagnetic interaction, meaning that they are inextricably mixed with electricity and electric fields. Finally, from a full quantum mechanical perspective, magnetism is associated with energy-containing quantum fields, the fields of quantum electrodynamics, that govern the electric and magnetic interactions of matter. These quantum electrodynamic interactions are mediated by virtual photons, cousins of the real photons that include light and radio waves. From this quantum viewpoint, magnets interact with one another by exchanging virtual photons and, like all quantum objects, these photons are emitted and absorbed like particles but travel as waves. Thus magnetism is both a wave and particle phenomenon. It isn't undefined at all; in fact, quantum electrodynamics is probably the most well-established and precise theory in modern physics.

I am not aware of any effects of magnetism on plant growth. The effects of magnetism on most molecular processes are incredible slight and I don't see how any but the most extreme magnetic fields could affect plant growth.

At present, I believe that the only magnetically levitated trains are those undergoing development and testing.

There are many techniques for supporting a train on magnetic forces, but the simplest and most promising involves electrodynamic levitation. In this technique, the train has a strong magnet under it and it rides on an aluminum track. The train leaves the station on rubber wheels and then begins to fly on a cushion of magnetic forces when its speed is high enough. Its moving magnet induces electric currents in the aluminum track and these currents are themselves magnetic. The train and track repel one another so strongly with magnetic forces that the train hovers tens of centimeters above the track.

To demonstration this effect, you can lower a very strong magnet above a rapidly spinning aluminum disk. In my class, I spin a sturdy aluminum disk with a motor and lower a 5 cm diameter disk magnet onto its surface. I hold the magnet firmly with a strap made of duct tape, so that the magnet won't fly across the room or flip over as it descends. Instead of touching the spinning disk, the magnet floats about 2 cm above it. If you try this experiment, don't spin the aluminum disk too fast or it will tear itself apart. It should spin about as fast as an electric fan on high speed. Also, be careful with the magnet, because it will experience magnetic drag forces as well as the magnetic lift force. If you don't hold tight, it will be yanked out of your hand.

For a simpler experiment that anyone can do, float an aluminum pie plate in a basin of water and circle one pole of a strong magnet just above its surface. The pie plate will begin to spin with the magnet. You are again inducing currents in the aluminum, making it magnetic. While the forces here are too weak to lift the magnet in your hand, they are enough to cause the pie plate to begin spinning, even though you never actually touch it. This technique is used in many electric motors. That's physics for you--the same principles just keep showing up in seemingly different machines.

Not really. While you could make an electromagnetic "wall" of laser beams or X-ray beams, it wouldn't really be "invisible" and it wouldn't feel like a solid wall. It would just cause injury if you put your hand through it. For a surface to feel like a wall, it would have to push your hand backward if you tried to move your hand through it. A real wall does just that and it does so with electromagnetic forces--when you touch a wall, electromagnetic forces that the wall's atoms exert on your atoms push your hand back and prevent it from penetrating the wall. So a clear window could be described as an "invisible wall of electromagnetic fields," but that isn't really what you want. A freestanding electromagnetic field, one that doesn't involve atoms yet prevents your hand from penetrating it, just isn't possible.

Moving electric charges are inherently magnetic. That's because electricity and magnetism are intimately related and aren't really separate phenomena. To see why this is true, imagine two electrons sitting motionless in front of you--they push one another away with electric forces. But now imagine that you and those two electrons are moving northward in a train and someone standing beside the track is watching all of you pass. From that person's perspective, the two electrons are moving and they exert both electric and magnetic forces on one another. What appears to you to be a purely electric effect appears to the person near the track to involve both electricity and magnetism. Without the appearance of magnetic effects in moving charges, grave inconsistencies would appear in the dynamics of objects view from different perspectives.

So the current in the wire of your electromagnet is inherently magnetic. The magnetic field it produces aligns the tiny magnetic domains in the steel nail so that the nail's magnetic field greatly strengthens that of the current in the wire.

Probably not. The magnetic top that you mention is a wonderful invention, sold under the name "Levitron". It uses gyroscopic precession to stabilize what is normally an unstable arrangement: two oppositely aligned magnets, one supporting the other. In air, you can get the Levitron top to stay aloft for a couple of minutes before its spin rate declines to the point where it stops being stable. In a vacuum, I'd expect it to last much longer but not forever. Thermodynamics overwhelms just about everything sooner or later and the Levitron won't be an exception. Even if you get rid of air resistance, the spinning top's strong magnetic field will interact with its environment and will allow the top to exchange energy with that environment. While there is always the possibility that these exchanges will make the top spin faster, such favorable exchanges are relatively unlikely. Instead, the energy exchanges are much more likely to extract energy from the top and slow it down. For example, any conducting surfaces near the Levitron top will exert a magnetic drag force on the top and will convert its energy into thermal energy in those conducting surfaces. Forever is a long time and the top will certainly slow to a stop eventually. Still, it might be interesting to see how long it can stay spinning. I'll bet 10 minutes is the realistic maximum. If I have a chance to test it out, I'll let you know what happens.

Whenever an electric current--a current of moving electric charges--flows through a wire, that wire becomes magnetic. This phenomenon is an example of the wonderful interconnectedness of electric and magnetic effects--electricity often produces magnetism and vice versa. Because of its magnetic character, a current carrying wire will exert magnetic forces on another current carrying wire and they are both effectively electromagnets.

A more effective electromagnet uses a coil of wire and a core of very pure iron. Wrapping the wire into a coil gives it specific north and south magnetic poles and adding the iron strengthens those magnetic poles dramatically. Iron is a ferromagnetic material, meaning that it's intrinsically magnetic. All materials contain electrons and an electron has a spinning character that makes it magnetic. But the electron magnetism in most materials cancels completely and only a few materials such as iron retain the magnetism of their electrons. While iron's magnetism is hidden as long as its tiny internal magnets are randomly orientated, its magnetic character becomes obvious when it's inserted in an electromagnet or placed near one. When current flows through the wire coil of the electromagnet, the iron's magnetic poles align with those of the electromagnet and the electromagnet becomes extremely strong.

Although there are a variety of schemes for magnetically levitating trains, perhaps the most promising is a technique called electrodynamic levitation. In this scheme, the train contains very strong magnets (probably superconducting magnets like those used in MRI medical imaging systems) and it travels along an aluminum track. The train starts out rolling forward on wheels but as its speed increases, the track begins to become magnetic. That's because whenever a magnet moves past a conducting surface, electric currents begin to flow in that surface and electric currents are magnetic. Thus the moving magnetic train makes the aluminum track magnetic. For complicated reasons having to do with electromagnetic induction, the track's magnetic poles are oriented so that they repel the magnetic poles of the train--the two push apart. While the track can't move, the train can and it floats upward as much as 25 cm (10 inches) above the track. Once the magnetic forces can support the train, the wheels are retracted and the train floats forward on its magnetic cushion. To keep the train moving forward against air resistance (and a small magnetic drag force), there is also a linear electric motor built into the train and track. This motor uses additional electromagnets in the train and track to push and pull on one another and to propel the train forward (or backward during braking).

Yes. However, you can't suspend a stationary object in midair with permanent magnets. Instead, you must either use a moving object or you must use electromagnets that can be adjusted in strength in order to balance the object. Such magnetic suspension is an important issue because people are trying to suspend trains above tracks using magnetic forces. Magnetic levitation is useful because it eliminates the friction and wear that occur between wheels and track. Some of these schemes are based on electronic feedback that turns electromagnets on or off in order to keep the train floating properly. Other schemes use electromagnetic induction to turn the metal track into a magnet so that the moving magnetic train automatically hovers above the track. I should also note that there is a wonderful toy called a Levitron that's a spinning permanent magnet that hovers above a permanent magnet in its base. The spinning behavior of the magnetic top keeps it stably suspended about an inch above the base. It's a fantastic invention.

The magnetic fields that are responsible for the interesting behaviors of magnets can be created either by (1) moving electric charge or (2) changing electric fields. We can ignore the second process because it has very little to do with permanent magnets. Instead, let's focus our attention on the first process: moving electric charge producing magnetic fields. Whenever electric charges flow through a wire, a phenomenon that we call an electric current, they create magnetism. Many appliances use electricity and electric currents to create magnetism, notably televisions, motors, and audio speakers. But a permanent magnet doesn't use an obvious electric current to create its magnetic field. Instead, it uses the spinning character of the electrons inside the material from which that magnet is made. Electrons are electrically charged and they have an intrinsic spinning character. A simplistic view of an electron is as a spinning, electrically charged ball. Since its charge is in motion, an electron acts as a magnet and has both a north pole and a south pole. In most materials, the magnetic electrons are turned in opposite directions, canceling out one another's magnetism so that the overall material is non-magnetic. But in a few special materials, including most steels, the cancellation is imperfect and some magnetism remains. In a permanent magnet, this remaining magnetism is particularly apparent. The material is, in effect, a big collection of magnetic electrons that all work together to create a large magnet.

To determine which end of a permanent magnet is its north pole and which is its south, take a compass and hold it a reasonable distance from one end of the magnet. If the north end (often the red end) of the compass needle points toward this end of the magnet, you know that this end of the magnet is a south pole! That's because opposite poles attract and the "north" end of the compass needle, a north pole, is attracted to south poles. Interestingly enough, the magnetic pole near the earth's geographic north pole is actually a south magnetic pole. That's why the north pole of the compass needle points toward the earth's north geographic pole. When you use a compass to detect which pole of the magnet is north, be careful not to bring the compass needle too close to the permanent magnet. A strong permanent magnet can remagnetize the compass needle and reverse its poles. To make sure that this hasn't occurred, check to see whether the compass still points toward the north pole after you bring it near strong permanent magnets.

When you talk about "magnetic energy," you are referring to magnetic potential energy. A potential energy is energy stored in the forces between objects. In the case of magnetic potential energy, that energy is stored in the forces between magnetic poles. But there is only so much potential energy in any given collection of objects. Potential energy is released by allowing the forces between objects to push the objects around and once it is used up, there isn't any more available. That's because energy is a conserved quantity--something that can't be created or destroyed and that can only be transferred between objects or changed from one form to another. While you can store energy in a collection of magnets, that potential energy is limited by how much was put in in the first place. So to answer to your question: yes, magnetic energy can be used to power a vehicle, but not indefinitely. The only practical magnetic energy storage proposals I'm aware of are ones that suggest using huge superconducting magnets to store electric power. While such devices might be practical for an stationary power company, they would be impractical or even dangerous in a vehicle--picture cars containing incredibly strong magnets driving down the road, repelling or attracting one another as they pass.

They are mostly iron, cobalt, or nickel, which are intrinsically magnetic metals. But to help them retain their magnetic alignments, permanent magnets have other elements in them, too. Iron is magnetic at the microscopic scale, but that magnetism is broken up into lots of tiny regions that all point in random directions. To make a whole piece of iron magnetic, something must help those tiny regions stay pointing in the same direction. The good permanent magnets have structures that keep all the tiny regions pointing in one direction.

Electric charges themselves push and pull on one another via electrostatic forces. Magnetic poles push and pull on one another via magnetostatic forces. We can also think of the forces that various electric charges exert on one charge that you're hold as being caused by some property of the space at which that one charge is located. We call that property of space an electric field and say that the charge is being pushed on by the electric field. We could do the same with magnetic poles and a magnetic field. But these two fields are more than just a useful fiction. The fields themselves really do exist. You can see that whenever moving electric charge creates a magnetic field or when a moving magnetic pole creates an electric field. Light consists only of electric and magnetic fields.

Current measures the amount of (positive) charge passing a point each second. If many charges pass by in a short time, the current is large. If few charges pass by in a long time, the current is small. Voltage measures the energy per charge. If a small number of (positive) charges carry lots of energy with them (either in their motion as kinetic energy or as electrostatic potential energy), their voltage is high. If a large number of charges carry little energy with them, their voltage is low.

Current is ultimately the killer. A current of about 30 milliamperes is potentially lethal when applied across your chest. But your body is relatively insulating, so sending that much current through your chest isn't easy. That's where voltage comes in. The higher the voltage on a wire, the more energy each charge on the wire has and the more likely that it will be able to pierce through your skin and travel through your body. Thus it's a combination of voltage and current that is dangerous. Current kills, but it needs voltage to propel it through your skin.

Volts is a measure of energy per charge. Thus if you tell me how much charge you have and the voltage of that charge, I can tell you have much energy that charge contains. I simply multiply the voltage by the amount of charge. Current is a measure of how many charges are moving through a wire each second. If you tell me how much current a wire is carrying and for how long that current flows, I can tell you how much charge has gone by. I just multiply the current by the time. To figure out how much energy electricity delivers to something (such as a person zapped by a stun gun), I need to know the voltage, the current, and the time. If I multiply all three together, the product is the energy delivered. In a stun gun, the voltage is important because skin is insulating and it takes high voltage to push charge through skin and into a person's body. But current is also important because the more charge that passes by, the more energy it will carry. And time is important because the longer the current flows, the more energy it delivers. So all voltage and current are both important. I can't guess which one is most important.

When a magnetically levitated train is operating properly, it doesn't touch the track and experiences no friction. In principle, it shouldn't get hot at all. The magnetic drag effect will warm the track slightly, but that won't matter to the train's magnets. Actually, the train's magnets will almost certainly be superconducting wire coils with currents flowing in them. That type of magnet doesn't depend on the magnetic order of permanent magnets. It's the magnetic order of permanent magnets that is destroyed by heat. An electromagnetic coil will stay magnetic as long as current flows through it, even if it's so hot that it's ready to melt.

Electricity and magnetism are interrelated in a great many ways. At the very basic levels, they are manifestations of the same fundamental physical concepts. As a result, electricity can produce magnetism and magnetism can produce electricity. One way in which electricity can produce magnetism is for charged particles to move. When an electric current passes through a coil (or any wire, for that matter), it creates a magnetic field. The coil develops a north magnetic pole and a south magnetic pole. I can't really explain why because the answer is simply that moving charges create magnetic fields; that's the way our universe works and no one has ever seen otherwise.

A steady, motionless magnet can't induce a piece of normal metal (not iron, cobalt, or nickel) to become magnetic. Only a moving or changing magnet can do that. When a metal is exposed to a changing or moving magnet, it does become magnetic. That metal becomes a type of magnet; an electromagnet. The metal itself isn't really the magnet; the electric charges inside it are. These charges move in response to the changing or moving magnet nearby and they become magnetic, too. The effect is always repulsive, not attractive. The temporarily magnetic metal repels the magnet that is making it magnetic.

When you slide a strong magnet quickly above a metal surface, there is a friction-like magnetic drag effect. This effect occurs even when the two objects don't touch. The origin of this effect lies in the repulsions between the metal and magnet: it's strongest slightly in front of the moving magnet so the magnet encounters some difficulty heading forward. The reason why the magnetization of the metal is strongest slightly in front of the moving magnet is related to the loss of energy by current moving in the metal. The magnetization (of the metal surface) in front of the moving magnet is fresher than the magnetization behind it. The current responsible for the magnetization behind the magnet has been flowing for long enough to have lost energy. But the faster you move the magnet across the metal surface, the less time the currents in it have to lose energy and the less friction-like force the magnet experiences.