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Scientists Levitate Mice

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Re: Scientists Levitate Mice

#3
""It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating. "

That mouse got high in more ways than one.

Re: Scientists Levitate Mice

#5

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

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.

Re: Scientists Levitate Mice

#7
post #5

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

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.

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.

Re: Scientists Levitate Mice

#8

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

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.

Re: Scientists Levitate Mice

#10
post #8

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

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.

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_f... http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0

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