posted on Dec, 27 2005 @ 09:26 PM
now my idea for a flying saucer powered by magnets in this, inside the outer disc you have north and south magnets with the disc itself having
magnetic properties, just keep flicking the magnets on and off so the outer disc will spin
I have a picture in my head of what you're talking about, and since I'm a crappy artist, I had a look on the internet to find something similar.
Does your idea bear any resemblance to
this? (Imagine a disc shaped thing attached to the
rotor for your flying saucer)
Im not sure if this is true or not, but i think i remeber seeing something on tv about a scientist from a while back that discovered that the
faster something spins it starts to weight less?
Actually, according to Einstein's Relativity, if something spins faster it gets heavier, but you have to spin it incredibly fast to really notice,
i.e. a speed that is comparable to the speed of light.
Superconductors can also be used to levitate things magnetically. A superconductor will expel all magnetic fields from itself while it is
superconducting, and this property can be used to levitate it. (meissner effect) Maybe a flying saucer powered by magnets would levitate in this
manner? (I rather doubt it actually would, but just something to think about) The trouble with superconductors is that they work only when colder
than a certain critical temperature (usually a few degrees Kelvin, but as high as about 100 K for some special ceramics) and if the magnetic field
around it gets too large and exceeds a value known as the critical field, then the superconductor can't repel the field anymore, and it instantly
stops superconducting, just as it does if it gets too hot.
(see
this link for a graph relating magnetic field and temperature in a
superconductor) Also, it should be noted that what I described above is a Type I superconductor, as shown on that link; a type II behaves slightly
differently, and can actually have some magnetic field inside them before they shut down.
It's not unreasonable to imagine that a small disk could be built that would levitate a few inches or so and spin around like a flying saucer; I'm
almost 100% sure it could be done. It would need quite a bit of electrical power to do so, though, as levitation consumes a lot of power. Oh, and as
fingapointa said, be careful with high voltages and currents, it would probably be a good idea to read up on some electrical safety before
experimenting with anything high power.