What Happens When a Neodymium Magnet Reaches Terminal Velocity?

any guesses?

This home experimenter displays the awesome power of neodymium magnets.  These are the super powerful magnets that are being used more often.  They have only been around for a few decades.  There are also a lot of home videos floating around YouTube of cool efficient energy inventions that people have uploaded.  Here is what is being displayed in this cool experiment:

4 Hexagon layers of Neodymium magnets reaching Terminal Velocity with the help of some compressed air. Hanging from a string of Neodymium magnets.  The magnets reach such a high speed the magnetic force can no longer repel the centrifugal forces supplied by the compressed air.  We have tried several different formations and it would seem mass does have an effect on how high of an RPM you can reach before they give out.

Have you seen any of these efficient energy devices using the neodymium magnets?

Can you figure out what might happen in this video?

Let’s see what happens with these super powerful magnets in the video on page 2

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60 Comments

  1. Billy Simpson said:

    What do you think a bunch of tiny magnets does when the spin to fast. It breaks I to tiny pieces. I can call this one without even watching it lol

  2. John Wadley said:

    The magnetic bonds break at the outer edge first because those magnets are moving faster than the inner magnets. The acceleration they experience through centrifugal force is related to F = m*a = m*v^2/r where m=mass of each magnet, v=velocity at radius r from the axis of rotation. The forced air into the pockets between the magnets at the edge is probably also contributing the the breakup at the rim. The rotating magnetic field this creates might also induce current in the string of magnets holding it up. Did you see any electrical arcing at the top?

  3. Brant Donovic said:

    “shocking” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

  4. George Baker said:

    On a side note, they’ve been using neodymium magnets in PA speakers for 20+ years. It makes them so much lighter. They seem to be working OK. I still like my ‘Black Widows’ though 🙂

  5. Jim Parker said:

    What a meaningless, unshocking, unawsome experiment. What did he think would happen to this or anything else if it was spun fast enough.
    Oh, and go look up the correct usage of “terminal velocity.”

  6. Randy Hoexter said:

    The compressed air was clearly necessary because they couldn’t spin the magnets fast enough to get them to come apart. Renders the demonstration meaningless in my opinion.

  7. John Gadient said:

    This is bogus. It hit the friggin air jet. It doesn’t even show how centrifugal force can overcome a magnet. And who cares unless they can relate it to a better understanding of gravity.
    It hit the damn air jet.

  8. Seth Forbis said:

    omg lammmest crap ever, can you say, clickbait?!?! who would have thought that if you swing magnets around fast enough the centrifugal force would break the magnetic force??!?!?!any child older than 7 could have told you this would happen…

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