Physics Toys is a website (and Instagram account) of kinetic curiosities. Check out all the cool double pendulums, which exhibit chaotic behavior that put fidget spinners to shame. Here’s a neat statuette of an alchemist who have a levitating magnetic cube between his hands.
The Alchemist: cast from diamagnetic Bismuth, a neodymium cube magnet levitates trapped between the hands of the ancient scholar. Diamagnetic substances only have magnetic fields of their own when placed in an external magnetic field from another source- here the cube shaped magnet supplies the field. Diamagnetic fields are pretty weak though so a cylindrical neodymium magnet hangs above the figure and is adjusted to help lift the cube magnet against gravity. Trapped in equilibrium by these magnetic fields, the slightest air currents can send the cube magnet dancing. Although alchemists never succeeded in transmuting lead to gold, in 1981 physicists used the particle accelerator at Berkeley to shoot Carbon nuclei at thin foils of Bismuth- the resulting collisions did produced a tiny amount of Gold atoms! So modern nuclear physics, applied to the element Bismuth, finally accomplished the aspirations of the alchemists.
The creator of the statue, Ernie McElhannon, is selling it for $299 on Etsy.
Here are some other cool things:
120 Sided Die (Disdyakis Triacontahedron):
Lenz’s Law demo: