Everyone has felt two magnets push apart. Magnetic levitation is that repulsion used on purpose: a magnetic field strong enough to hold an object up, so it floats without touching anything.
Two like poles (north facing north, or south facing south) push each other away. If the push at least matches gravity, the top magnet hovers. Simple in principle — but tricky in practice, because a stable hover needs more than two magnets.
Why stable levitation is hard
Left alone, floating magnets wobble and slide sideways until they flip and stick together. A physics result called Earnshaw's theorem shows that static magnets and gravity alone cannot hold a magnet steady — something else must add stability, such as rotation, electronic control or special materials.
Where magnetic levitation is used
- Maglev trains — trains that float above the track and glide with almost no friction; commercial lines already run at high speed.
- Frictionless bearings — rotating parts that never touch, so there is no wear and no lubrication needed.
- Levitating displays and products — floating globes, speakers and desk toys that hover for effect.
What about superconductors?
Superconducting levitation works differently: certain materials, cooled to very low temperature, lock onto a magnetic field and float stably with no electronics. It is used in research and some experimental maglev designs, but the extreme cooling keeps it out of everyday products.
Practical tip
Most "floating" consumer gadgets are not true levitation — they hide a small coil and an electronic control loop that actively holds the magnet up. To experiment at home, spin-stabilized levitators are the simplest design to build.
Read on: pull force explained → · magnetic circuits →