Paramagnetism

Titanium is paramagnetic. A magnet will attract it and cause it to rotate
“Continue reading” to see other paramagnetic examples.

Paramagnetism is the attraction of a substance to a magnetic field, without being a magnet itself. Niobium is an interesting element and is as close by as your nearest MRI machine where is is used as an alloy with tin to make superconducting wire. The Large Hadron Collider uses 600 tons of it.

The “paramagnetism of niobium” has quite a nice ring to it. This is not exactly a hot dinner table topic but I was in the shed holding a magnet and you know how things go…

In this little experiment a niobium sheet weighing 3.94 g is reduced to 3.65 g by a magnet above it. While this is a force of only 7% of the weight of the Niobium, the magnet covers only a small amount of the sheet. The plastic containers are to elevate the magnetic field away from the measuring surface where it does interfere a little.

And with the magnet added:

This is the gap between the magnet and the specimen:

This is one example.

Magnesium seemed quite strong. So much so that perhaps 26% of it’s weight is lifted by a standard NIB magnet of 1/2 Tesla (0.576 measured) at centre of the south pole. In part this was due to it being a block which I trimmed to fit under the magnet.

Could be it be lifted by the boosted field of a pyramidal array? This might require 2.0 Tesla. A bit of a stretch but would be cool. “MY Magnet is so cool it picks up Magnesium”