A simple experiment

I've shown pictures of magnets several times to those of you who have been following my blog. I've told you how much I loved them as a kid, and how my interest in them as an adult goes a little deeper.  Studying them in my retirement has lead me to watch a series of physics lectures from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), on YouTube and lots of other videos, covering the types of magnetism, crystalline atomic structure, unpaired electrons, electron shells, and quantum fields, to name a few.  Do I understand everything?  Of course not.  My math skills peaked in a Calculus class at NMU in 1971, and they've been declining ever since.  

Nevertheless. I have discovered in my old age that I can still be wowed by what I learn.  As humans, with our limited senses, we are unable to directly appreciate much of the wondrous world we live in. Magnets allow us to perceive what's happening at the atomic level and that simply astounds me. I have some magnets set up in our living room here in New Zealand and I never get tired of visualizing the fields that they create. The fields may not be visible, but their effects certainly are when I place other magnets close to, or within the fields and watch them interact.   

This is a shot of my magnet display as it is today, 9/30/25. As I sat and looked at it about half an hour ago, I got to thinking about that chain of magnets standing straight up on the lower shelf. How much do you suppose they weigh, standing like that? I should find out.   

So, in this post, we are going to be looking at just that part of the display. The upper portion doesn't affect what we're going to investigate to a measurable degree.  

We all know that magnets have magnetic fields, which attract or repel other magnets.  If a magnet is attracting another magnet, then it will be exerting a force on that magnet or, in this case, magnets.  In this experiment, I'm going to measure just how much attraction might be occurring in my display. 

There is a cylindrical, 20 mm wide by 24 mm, N42 neodymium magnet in the porcelain box. It is supported from above by the magnets in the stainless steel container on the top shelf. (first picture)   

Below the cylindrical magnet, there are 41, five mm, N35 neodymium magnets, which are called buckyballs, in contact with each other and forming a 'chain.'  

This is a kitchen scale, set to read in lbs.  I chose to use pounds since the scale shows thousands of a pound. More accurate than using grams. 

I intend to weigh the buckyballs first on the scale with no outside magnetic field interaction, and then on the scale with the straight chain of balls inserted into the magnetic field of the cylindrical magnets above them. (As in my display) I should see a difference in the weight before and after placing the balls in the field.  My question is, how much of the weight of the buckyball chain is the cylindrical magnet supporting?  

The thickness of the scale is about 20 mm, or four of the Buckyballs, so I removed four of the 41 shown in the picture above, to keep the separation between the cylindrical magnet and the top of the buckyball chain consistent with my display.  

The weight of 37 with no outside magnetic field acting on them is .024 lbs. (Because they're all magnets, they just happened to form a ring when I dropped them on the scale.)

The weight of the buckyball chain with the upper end inserted into the magnetic field of the cylindrical magnet reads zero.  It would appear that the entire weight is being supported, however, 

The kitchen scale I used is not accurate for very low weights.  As you see here, two buckyballs show no weight at all.  Using my finger, and then later trying three buckyballs, the lowest number I could generate on the scale was .004 lbs.  

Despite the inaccuracy of some measurements, it is obvious that a large percentage of the weight of the buckyball chain is being supported by the field from the cylindrical magnet.  

Since it required three buckyballs to show a weight of .004 lbs., and the weight of the buckyball chain in the photo read 0.0 lbs., I can assume that the true weight of the buckyball chain must be less than three buckyballs.  At least 95% of the weight of the chain, and probably a little more, is being supported by the other field.

I experimented a little further. I found that if I added one more buckyball to the chain for a total of 38, the chain would be pulled up into contact with the cylindrical magnet. Obviously then, over 100% of the weight was overcome.     

I would love to be able to suspend a chain of buckyballs in midair.  It would make a great display, but I don't think I could get the tolerances to work out.  I'd need some much smaller buckyballs for one thing for 'fine-tuning' and much steadier hands to pull it off.  It might be so touchy that air currents could affect it.  

I had fun today.  I don't want to invest in a really accurate scale, but I'm going to continue to think about lifting my chain of buckyballs.   

Do you have any ideas?   -djf

In case you're wondering, here's the story with the upper magnetic display.  

Inside the stainless steel container are three cylindrical 24mm outside diameter, by 15 mm, N42 neodymium magnets with a central hole of 5 mm.  A bronze rod (Non-magnetic) of 4 mm diameter extends through them, resting in a dent in the floor of the container.  Above the container, three more magnets of the same size, repelled by the three inside the container and by each other, float along the rod.  They are not attached to it of course but are held in place by the repelling forces that their like-poles generate.  (North to north or south to south)  

Did you know?  

I've read that neodymium magnets last a very long time, losing only about 5% of their 'strength' per 100 years.  Imagine my top display magnets resisting gravity, and each other, for century after century. 

A cold magnet is generally 'stronger' than a warm one.  

When we think of magnets, we're thinking of ferromagnetism, but did you know that there are also diamagnetic, paramagnetic, antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic materials?  

Magnetic 'bottles' can be formed and used to contain high temperature plasma? 

Are you becoming even a little more interested in magnets?  

Here is a video, one of many I've watched, that is interesting.  I generally get bogged down part way through, but try to stick it out until the end, when the presenter summarizes. I understood that pretty well. ''

One side note.  The presenter talks in this video about 'virtual photons.'  When Allie and I were talking about this video not long ago, she commented that the virtual photons should really have been called 'faux-tons.'  I agreed.  Science jokes, gotta love 'em.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb9pdRjbQRo&t=338s

Just Pictures

Today's post has no theme other than that of showing you what I consider to be interesting photos. All taken recently by me from around our home in the retirement village called, Waitakere Gardens, here in Henderson, a western suburb of Auckland, NZ.  

I hope you enjoy them.  

From our balcony in the morning.

From Earth, at night.  Admire the edge and craters of the Moon. 

This photo is unusually sharp. We live at sea level and since our climate is classed as, "temperate rainforest," our humidity levels are general high, which makes getting closeup shots like this difficult.  I often have focusing problems due to the water vapor in the atmosphere. 

But every now and then....

I haven't seen this product before.  I found them in St. John's Butchery in Glen Ennis. These are apparently lamb-filled pockets of dough, that you bake for dinner.  

An explosion of color, halted at .0001 second.  

An early-bird

A moment in time. 

Flowers in a planter along our roundabout

Life and death in a planter on our balcony.  Jeanne and I sat and watched the drama play out.  

A close-up of the preceding photo. As this honey bee, no doubt from our hives, passed by, a spider reared up and grabbed it, probably instantly injecting some venom into it. It buzzed madly for only seconds before dying.  The spider then slowly dragged its succulent meal down into the darkness beneath the growing succulents.  

This was taken today, 9/24/25.  We've had over an inch of rain already.  This was taken from outside the cafe, at the end of the Atrium, looking across some of the rose gardens to the apartment building called, Millbrook.  

Again, from our balcony in the morning.  I hope you enjoyed them all.  -djf

Moon

Those of you who have been reading my blog since 2014 have learned that I love photographing the Moon. 

As it happens, we recently had a lunar eclipse occur, so I'll start today's post with some shots taken during that event, which I watched for about an hour or so.  Here, in New Zealand, the Moon was setting, just before dawn, as the eclipse unfolded.  Remember that it started as a full moon.

It disappeared below the horizon shortly after this. 

Although the Moon is tiny in this next eclipse view photo from earlier this year, I like the shot. It was taken from Heather's apartment on the 5th floor of the Vines. She happened upon Jeanne and I taking shots from a lounge on the 5th, and suggested her balcony would be much better. 

This is a shot I took during another eclipse a few years ago.

A friend of ours, Margaret, suggested that this picture deserves to be in a caption-writing contest. Do any of you have a caption? Leave it (them) in a comment if you like. Here are some mine.

'Little Johnny's homemade warhead far exceeded his family's expectations.' 

'Well, we can quit tracking Asteroid Bennu, I guess.'

For these next captions, I'm pretending the Moon is Mars.  Looks kind of like it after all.  

'That had to be Phobos. Deimos wouldn't have made that big a splash.'

'Well, if there is life on Mars, it's extinct now.'  

This is a shot I took about a week ago. I zoomed in for the second and third pictures.  

I'll leave you with this last one, a favorite of mine.  That's at Moonrise, of course.  -djf