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Weekend


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March 19, 2004

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q.  Levitation -- floating in midair as if by turning off gravity -- sure looks like fun in magic shows.  Is it true a real frog has been levitated?  And if a frog, why not you?

    A.  To the world's amazement, researchers at the Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory in Holland did manage to suspend a frog in midair with a balancing force of magnetism, as close perhaps as we'll get to a sci-fi anti-gravity machine, they said.  The key is diamagnetism, a quantum phenomenon by which it turns out everything from wood to pizza to "frogs and even humans can be lifted by a magnet -- providing it is strong enough," says Roger Highfield in "The Science of Harry Potter:  How Magic Really Works."


     
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