Spinning a magnet can make another one levitate – and now we know why

Researchers have filled in details of how rotating one magnet can make another levitate, a phenomenon they initially found completely baffling. Quickly spinning a magnet makes another levitate above it in a configuration much more unexpected than two magnets attracting or repelling each other. Frederik Durhuus who worked on the project says that you can make a magnet move away from another by aligning their like poles, but usually after a short time magnetic torque flips one of them and they end up sticking together. Here, rotation counters that magnetic torque, like how for a spinning top rotation counters the downward pull of gravity, he says. Learn more ➤ Subscribe ➤ Get more from New Scientist: Official website: Facebook: Twitter: Instagram: LinkedIn: About New Scientist: New Scientist was founded in 1956 for “all those interested in scientific discovery and its social consequences”. Today our website, videos, newsletters, app, podcast and print magazine cover the world’s most important, exciting and entertaining science news as well as asking the big-picture questions about life, the universe, and what it means to be human. New Scientist