The 2024 Legal Defense Fundraiser has ended early due to the Board's decision to settle the suit. Donations will go towards the creation of a legal defense fund. Discussion on the matter can be found at the RationalMedia Foundation noticeboard. Thank you for your generous support.

Information icon.svg Campaigning is open for the RationalWiki 2024 Board of Trustees election.

Levitation

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Serial woo-meister levitator Daniel Dunglas Home is here depicted amazing a number of gentlemen in his parlour with his powers to cause things to rise.
Style over substance
Pseudoscience
Icon pseudoscience.svg
Popular pseudosciences
Random examples

Levitation refers to raising an object against the force of gravity in such a way that it remains suspended without any physical contact. It is quite possible to do this without leaving the realm of physics, the most usual being magnetic levitation where the force of magnetism is used for this purpose. In terms of pseudoscience it refers to the ability to manage this raising by the power of the human mind. This has never been demonstrated — much less repeated — under controlled conditions and is consequently a pseudoscience.

From fiction to non-fiction

Earnshaw's theoremWikipedia is a well established theory stating paramagnetic materialsWikipedia cannot levitate in mid-air in a static enviroment. It was considered for a long time that magnnetic-based levitation was impossible, until in 1984; the spin-stabilized magnetic levitationWikipedia top was patented by Roy M. Harrigan.Wikipedia[1][2] The theorum wasn't wrong, according to Theodore Gray:[2]

It turns out that Earnshaw's theorem is absolutely correct, but it has a couple of loopholes […] It turns out that precession (the rotation of a spinning object’s axis of spin) creates an island of genuine stability in a way that does not violate Earnshaw's theorem, but that went completely unpredicted by physicists for more than a century.

Physicists were shocked to find that levitation was a reality, all because of a misinterpretation of the theorem. The second loophole involved diamagnetism:Wikipedia[2]

His theorem only applies to ferromagnetism, the common north/south pole type of magnetism found in most magnets. Diamagnetism is a purely repulsive magnetic force exhibited to varying degrees by all materials in the presence of a magnetic field. Simply drop a chip of graphite, for example, onto a block of magnets and it will float in midair forever.

Harrigan's patent resulted in the creation of a toy called the Levitron,Wikipedia one variety of which can be seen here:

Fake levitation

Stage Magic

Levitation has been a long standing element of stage magic with various tricks being based on objects and people seemingly defying gravity. In reality these tricks uses things like strings or metal poles [3] to make something look like it's floating.

Religious views

Judaism

Solomon's Carpet is an extra-Biblical Hebrew legend that King Solomon had a flying carpet that was 60 miles long by 60 miles wide.[4] Magic carpetWikipedia legends have also appeared in Arabian (One Thousand and One Nights) and Russian folklore.

Christianity

See the main article on this topic: Christianity

Jesus provides the most well known case of levitation in Christianity by walking on water to his disciples. He is also mistaken for a spirit at first which gives another example of a levitating creature in Christianity.[note 1] More specifically, Catholicism considers levitation to be a symptom of possession by demons, and cause for exorcism.[5] Except when Jesus did it, presumably.

Islam

Solomon's carpet also appears in Qur'an 21:81 and Qur'an 34:12 according to Sunni Qur'an commentator Tafsir Ibn Kathir.[6]

Hinduism

See the main article on this topic: Yogic flying

Galleries

Fake

Real

See also

External links

Notes

References

  1. Levitation device US patent #4382245
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ignorance = Maglev = Bliss: For 150 years scientists believed that stable magnetic levitation was impossible. Then Roy Harrigan came along. by Theodore Gray February 1, 2004. "This spinning top, which hovers above a magnetic base, was patented in 1983 by a Vermonter named Roy Harrigan."
  3. The Levitating Woman – Stage Trick Revealed Rebel Magic
  4. Solomon: Solomon's Carpet by Emil G. Hirsch et al. (1906) 'Jewish Encyclopedia
  5. Demonic Possession & Oppression; Exorcism: Roman Catholic beliefs & practices Religious Tolerance
  6. Fables and Legends of the Quran: Solomon’s Flying Carpet by Sam Shamoun
  7. www.physics.org/facts/frog-really.asp