You’re probably here because you wondered how in the world this chess board was floating, right? Well, it’s not exactly an optical illusion. It’s all possible with the use of magnets!
We probably all have a few magnets around the house, most likely on the refrigerator. But, unless you work in a highly specialized field. you probably don’t remember just how fun magnets can be! Especially repelling magnets!
Before I jump into today’s illusion, I’ll give you a quick refresher course. Magnets, of course, are objects that have magnetic fields. This caused by tiny electrically charged particles, according to scientists, but I suspect that there’s also a bit of sorcery at play there. Every magnet has two distinct sides, or poles—the north pole and the south pole. As you probably already know, magnets are attracted to and will stick to certain metals. Magnets will also stick to each other, but only the opposite poles. For instance, the north pole of one magnet will have a strong attraction to the south pole of another magnet, because apparently opposites attract. Do you remember trying to stick the north and north poles of a magnet together or the south and south poles of a magnet together, though? They repel each other and give you a cool hover effect. No matter how much you try or how hard you push, you’ll never get them to attract to each other.
Repelling magnets are actually pretty cool! Besides being fun distractions in science class when you were a kid, repelling magnets can also be used to make things float!
Check out this video for probably the best example of the magic of repelling magnets that I’ve seen in a while…
The floating chess board is what really caught my eye in this video, but it’s an overall great example of how powerful magnets are, even repelling magnets! They can hold up a stack of books and even a brick! Of course, anything that can float is pretty cool in my book. And it gets me thinking…could repelling magnets finally answer our prayers for some sort of hovercraft in the near future? Maybe Michael J. Fox was onto something…
Could be nice if it were done totally with permanent magnets, but sadly, it works only with electricity. Once the electric power is turned off in the electromagnetic base, the floating table which has the permanent magnets falls down.
I quite like this illusion