# Diamagnetism

> A chronological documentary of 72 moments spanning 1760–2025.
> Source: https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism · Loreline (loreline.live)

Every ordinary substance — water, wood, glass, a frog — is very weakly repelled by a magnet. Anton Brugmans noticed it in a piece of bismuth in 1778; Michael Faraday proved in November 1845 that it is a property of all matter and gave it a name; and in 1997 Andre Geim floated a live frog on the strength of it. The 250-year story of the weakest form of magnetism, and of what people have built on it since.

_last updated 2026-08-04._

## Eras

- **Before it had a name** — Magnetism meant iron. Then in 1778 Anton Brugmans noticed that a piece of bismuth was pushed AWAY from a magnetic pole rather than pulled toward it — an observation with nowhere to go, because no theory had room for a substance that repels a magnet.
- **Faraday, November 1845** — On 4 November 1845, using an electromagnet borrowed from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, Michael Faraday hung a bar of heavy glass between the poles and watched it turn to lie ACROSS the field. He then found the same feeble repulsion in almost everything he tried — wood, wax, meat, blood, apple. With William Whewell he named it diamagnetism: not a property of exotic materials, but of all matter.
- **Mapping the effect** — The decades of measuring it properly. Plücker at Bonn on magnecrystallic action from 1847, Tyndall from 1850 at Marburg, and Pierre Curie establishing that diamagnetic susceptibility barely moves with temperature — the clue that let Paul Langevin build a working theory of it in 1905.
- **Perfect diamagnetism** — Kamerlingh Onnes liquefied helium in 1908 and found superconductivity in mercury in 1911. In 1933 Meissner and Ochsenfeld showed a superconductor does not merely trap a magnetic field but actively expels it — diamagnetism taken to its absolute limit.
- **Making things float** — Earnshaw’s theorem said stable magnetic levitation was impossible; in 1939 Werner Braunbek showed diamagnets are the loophole. In 1991 Beaugnon and Tournier floated water and organic material at Grenoble, and in 1997 Andre Geim and Michael Berry put a live frog in a 16-tesla bore at Nijmegen — levitating the water in its own tissue. It won them an Ig Nobel; the frog was unharmed.
- **Diamagnetism now** — Graphite floating on a desk magnet, quantum locking, Geim taking the actual Nobel in 2010 for graphene — the only person holding both that and an Ig Nobel. And the commercial edge: medical devices built on pulsed fields, where the physics is uncontroversial and the clinical evidence is not.

## Timeline

### 1760
- **1760** — Antonius Brugmans (engraved portrait). An 18th-century engraved portrait of Anton Brugmans. It is the standard period likeness of the Dutch natural philosopher whose magnetic experiments preceded Faraday by two generations. Useful as a second, more engraving-like visual for the 1778 scene. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/edc65615-ae9f-4d97-834b-5076639a35cc) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAntoniusBrugmans.jpg
### 1761
- **1761-03-01** — Antonius Brugmans, portrait. A painted portrait of Anton Brugmans, professor of philosophy and mathematics at Franeker and then Groningen. Brugmans is the man who, in 1778, noticed that a piece of bismuth was pushed AWAY from the pole of a magnet instead of being drawn to it. That single anomalous observation is the first recorded sighting of diamagnetism. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/996eadd1-af52-4003-89fe-f21da6f2dab6) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APortrait_of_Antonius_Brugmans.jpg
### 1765
- **1765-01-01** — Brugmans, Tentamina philosophica de materia magnetica (1765), title page. The title page of Brugmans's 1765 treatise on magnetic matter and its action on iron and the magnet. It is his major published magnetic work and sets the stage for the bismuth-repulsion observation he recorded in 1778. A genuine 18th-century printed page, so it carries the right typographic period for the opening scene. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/e9884433-9014-46bf-a30b-e1f08dda95f8) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABrugmans%2C_Anton_%E2%80%93_Tentamina_philosophica_de_materia_magnetica_eiusque_actione_in_ferrum_et_magnetem%2C_1765_%E2%80%93_BEIC_170767.jpg
### 1819
- **1819-01-01** — The laboratory of the Royal Institution, 1819. An 1819 engraving of the basement laboratory at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. This is the room, and very nearly the fit-out, in which Faraday worked through the 1840s. Because it predates the discovery by 26 years it is safely period-correct for any pre-1845 scene. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/9b31bcaf-8dba-4fa7-89d9-97a2d60b8ace) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALaboratory_at_the_Royal_Institution_1819.png
### 1840
- **1840** — The Royal Institution, Albemarle Street: the laboratory (engraving). A 19th-century engraving of the Royal Institution laboratory from the Wellcome Collection, 3070x2435. It shows the benches, furnaces and glassware of the working space where Faraday ran his magnetic experiments. Wellcome released its historical image library under CC BY. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/b94d345d-a25e-4e3f-b811-b3a00c16cadc) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Royal_Institution%2C_Albemarle_Street%3B_the_laboratory._Eng_Wellcome_V0013852.jpg
- **1840** — Julius Plücker, portrait. A second period portrait of Julius Plücker, catalogued to around 1840. It shows him younger than the 1856 lithograph, closer to the moment he began his magnetic researches. Lower resolution (552x750) so best used small. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/fe521831-7721-4792-83cf-fefcf09bc1b8) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJulius_Pl%C3%BCcker_1856.jpg
### 1842
- **1842-01-01** — Michael Faraday, oil portrait by Thomas Phillips. Thomas Phillips's oil portrait of Michael Faraday, painted in 1842, three years before the diamagnetism experiments. It shows Faraday at almost exactly the age he was when he put a bar of bismuth between the poles of his great electromagnet. The canonical period likeness for the 1845 scenes. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/a9276628-8ca5-4ee6-9f20-e3ed5c19f2cd) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM_Faraday_Th_Phillips_oil_1842.jpg
### 1845
- **1845** — Faraday's 1845 magneto-optical electromagnet and sectored disc. The surviving electromagnet Faraday used in 1845, photographed with one of his sectored discs. This is the actual instrument at the heart of both the Faraday effect and the diamagnetism discovery: the bismuth bar was hung between these poles. A modern photograph of a genuine 1845 object, so it is object-period-correct even though the exposure is recent. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/d0b96ffc-4fa0-4475-a0f1-346755dd241c) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMichael_Faradays_1845_Magneto-Optical_Electro-Magnet_%26_A_Sectored_Disc.jpg
- **1845** — Schematic of Faraday's 1845 electromagnet and disc. A line schematic of the 1845 electromagnet arrangement with the sectored disc between the poles. It makes the geometry legible in a way the photographs of the blackened iron core do not. Good as an explanatory beat next to the apparatus photograph. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/ebb330ff-ed6c-499f-b4ec-0b45f1c4c2d5) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMichael_Faradays_1845_Disc_schematic.jpg
### 1846
- **1846-01-08** — Faraday, "On new magnetic actions, and on the magnetic condition of all matter" - openi…. The opening page of the Twenty-first Series of Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity, printed by the Royal Society and headed "Received December 24, 1845 - Read January 8, 1846". Paragraph 2343 begins the continuation of "On new magnetic actions, and on the magnetic condition of all matter", the paper in which Faraday set out that ALL matter responds to a magnet, most of it by being repelled. This is the primary printed document of the discovery, from Faraday's own copy in the Burndy Library. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/35792e8d-ad0f-4a48-9c8b-271c71fcf6f9) Source: https://archive.org/details/onnewmagneticac01fara
### 1850
- **1850** — Michael Faraday, line engraving by J. Cook after H. Anelay. A 19th-century line engraving of Faraday by J. Cook after a drawing by Henry Anelay. Engravings like this were how Faraday's face circulated to the Victorian public while he was doing the diamagnetism work. Very high resolution (2362x3125) and cleanly period. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/0ede1d51-5ba6-4013-99a7-0185a0f391ba) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMichael_Faraday._Line_engraving_by_J._Cook_after_H._Anelay._Wellcome_V0001856.jpg
- **1850** — Faraday at work in his laboratory at the Royal Institution. A depiction of Faraday standing at his bench in the Royal Institution laboratory, from the Wellcome iconographic collections. Large (3700x2870) and atmospheric, showing the horseshoe of apparatus he worked between. Best used as the establishing shot for the November 1845 experiment. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/8271293e-92e2-404d-aa94-5acfb4d13b57) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A%27Faraday_at_work_in_his_laboratory_at_the_Royal_Institution%27._Wellcome_M0004586.jpg
### 1852
- **1852-01-01** — Faraday's delineation of lines of magnetic force by iron filings. One of Faraday's own iron-filing figures, made 1851-1855, in which he fixed the pattern of magnetic lines of force onto paper. Diamagnetic bodies, in Faraday's language, were those that set themselves ACROSS the lines of force rather than along them - so these figures are the visual vocabulary of his theory. Made by Faraday himself, with brass, glass, ink, iron and paper. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/7199d382-b8d2-4339-a44a-521c41523378) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADelineation_of_Lines_of_Magnetic_Force_by_Iron_filings.jpg
### 1855
- **1855** — Plate from Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. A page image from Faraday's "Experimental Researches in Electricity", the collected series in which the diamagnetism work was published as Series XX and XXI. A genuine 19th-century printed page, 1216x1893. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/08be4da4-f3c8-4530-9864-675a41dc76dc) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AExperimental_researches_in_electricity_012.jpg
- **1855-12-27** — Faraday lecturing at the Royal Institution, 27 December 1855. Alexander Blaikley's famous scene of Faraday lecturing at the Royal Institution on 27 December 1855, with Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales in the audience. Ten years after the diamagnetism discovery, this is Faraday at the height of his public authority. 4000x2957, the best free copy of the image. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/767a8c8d-280a-4f96-bbca-7ca7014b9f56) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AProfessor_Faraday_lecturing_at_the_Royal_Institution%2C_27th_December%2C_1855_RIIC_0006_20110213_BAL_EP.jpg
### 1856
- **1856-01-01** — Julius Plücker, lithograph. An 1856 lithographic portrait of Julius Plücker, the Bonn physicist who followed Faraday into diamagnetism and worked out how crystals orient themselves in a magnetic field. His magnecrystallic work in the late 1840s turned Faraday's qualitative observation into a systematic study. 1683x2500 and exactly contemporary with the work. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/33e870c5-c88a-4535-a86f-42a255dce981) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJulius_Pl%C3%BCcker_Litho.jpg
- **1856-02-16** — Faraday lecturing before the Prince Consort (Wellcome copy). The Wellcome Collection's copy of the Faraday Christmas Lecture scene, catalogued to 16 February 1856. A large, clean 3372x2527 scan of the same iconic composition. Useful as a fallback if a different tonal treatment is wanted. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/2f52117c-0495-4b24-9105-7cf266635e75) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMichael_Faraday_lecturing_at_the_Royal_Institution%3B_Prince_A_Wellcome_V0013854.jpg
### 1860
- **1860** — Photographic portrait of Michael Faraday. A photographic portrait of Faraday taken before his death in 1867, from the Dibner Library Scientific Identity collection at the Smithsonian. Photography rather than paint, so it reads as documentary rather than commemorative. Good for a later-life Faraday scene. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/aabb4b08-caaa-48cf-9baf-0d544e5c63f0) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APortrait_of_Michael_Faraday_%281791-1867%29%2C_Chemist_and_Physicist_%282550779733%29.jpg
- **1860** — John Tyndall, mid-career portrait. A mid-career portrait of Tyndall from around the time of his diamagnetism researches. Small (414x550) but period, and closer in date to the 1850s work than the 1873 photograph. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/fdb85046-b8f3-4c8b-b364-e9911c5db359) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJohn_Tyndall_portrait_mid_career.jpg
### 1870
- **1870-01-01** — "DIAMAGNETISM" - half-title page of Tyndall's Researches on Diamagnetism and Magne-Crys…. The half-title page of John Tyndall's 1870 volume: the single word DIAMAGNETISM set alone in the middle of an otherwise empty sheet of 1870 paper. The book collects two decades of Tyndall's work at the Royal Institution on diamagnetism and magnecrystallic action, including the long fight over whether diamagnetic bodies have a true polarity. As an image it is unusually clean - the word itself, in period type, with nothing else on the page. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/98607eef-6412-4adb-987e-cc3a91f93231) Source: https://archive.org/details/researchesondiam00tynd
- **1870-01-01** — Faraday's laboratory, plate from Bence Jones's Life and Letters of Faraday. The plate of Faraday's laboratory published in 1870 in Bence Jones's "The Life and Letters of Faraday". It is the closest thing to an authorised depiction of Faraday's actual workspace, issued three years after his death. Period-correct engraving, not a modern reconstruction. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/e563ca60-703b-4b0d-bf0a-357537d1077c) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFaraday_Laboratory_1870_Plate_RGNb10333198.05.tif
### 1873
- **1873-07-19** — John Tyndall, photographic portrait. A dated photographic portrait of John Tyndall from 19 July 1873. Tyndall, working first with Knoblauch and later alone at the Royal Institution, spent the 1850s testing whether diamagnetism was a true polarity or a crystalline effect, and eventually collected the work as "Researches on Diamagnetism and Magne-Crystallic Action". A precisely dated period photograph. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/59edc375-178d-4d73-96e1-f65b595de268) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJohn_Tyndall_%281873%29.jpg
### 1882
- **1882-01-01** — Ruhmkorff apparatus for the study of diamagnetism, 1882. An engraving from the 1882 popular-science work "El mundo fisico" showing a Ruhmkorff apparatus built specifically for studying diamagnetism. It is the classroom descendant of Faraday's bench setup: a bar suspended between the poles of a large electromagnet. One of very few period illustrations that names diamagnetism outright. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/38bd9d76-eee2-4de8-9049-e1d87e9e23e0) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEl_mundo_f%C3%ADsico%2C_1882_%22Aparato_Ruhmkorff_para_el_estudio_del_diamagnetismo%22_%284074157117%29.jpg
### 1900
- **1900-01-01** — Marie and Pierre Curie in their Paris laboratory, 1900. The Curies photographed in their Paris laboratory in 1900, five years after Pierre's magnetic-susceptibility thesis. It shows the improvised shed-laboratory conditions in which the magnetic-balance measurements behind Curie's law were made. Small (608x342) but genuinely period and rarely used. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/153d2899-8d74-4c7b-b654-b101fec069b1) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMaria_Sk%C5%82odowska-Curie_i_Pierre_Curie_w_laboratorium_%281900%29.jpg
- **1900-01-01** — The Leiden cryogenic laboratory, room E, 1900. The cryogenic laboratory at the Steenschuur in Leiden photographed in 1900, eleven years before the discovery of superconductivity. It shows the compressors and cascade plant that Kamerlingh Onnes built to chase ever lower temperatures. Small (400x560) but a real, dated interior of the actual room. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/e36c11d2-26be-42d3-bd02-e74f7501e7ec) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHeike_Kamerlingh_Onnes_-_25_-_The_cryogenic_laboratory_in_room_E%2C_1900_Steenschuur%2C_Leiden.png
### 1903
- **1903-01-01** — Pierre Curie. A 1903 portrait of Pierre Curie. His 1895 doctoral thesis measured how the magnetic properties of substances change with temperature and produced what is now Curie's law - the result that separated diamagnetism, which barely cares about temperature, from paramagnetism, which does. Small at 280x396. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/3c7c9efa-51f7-4289-9ec2-76aa930d2e66) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APierreCurie.jpg
### 1906
- **1906** — Pierre Curie, photograph by Dujardin. Dujardin's photograph of Pierre Curie from around 1906, the year he died. At 979x1380 it is far more usable than the 1903 portrait. The standard high-quality period likeness of Curie. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/64bf4ce6-6af3-4095-998d-d25669f41356) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APierre_Curie_by_Dujardin_c1906.jpg
### 1908
- **1908-01-01** — The Royal Institution, 20 Albemarle Street. The Royal Institution at 20 Albemarle Street, Mayfair, as printed in Popular Science Monthly in 1908. The building housed Faraday for over forty years and is where the diamagnetism experiments were done. A period print rather than a modern photograph. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/92e92ac2-3c50-4a15-bf64-fae285a52cca) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APSM_V73_D042_Royal_institution_founded_by_rumford.png
- **1908-07-10** — The apparatus that first liquefied helium, 10 July 1908. The installation with which Kamerlingh Onnes liquefied helium for the first time on 10 July 1908 at the Steenschuur laboratory in Leiden. Liquid helium is what made the 1911 superconductivity experiment possible at all. 400x589. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/16f597f1-10f2-4e83-94ad-dfd053921a51) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHeike_Kamerlingh_Onnes_-_01_-_The_installation_with_which_Heike_Kamerlingh_Onnes_was_the_first_to_liquefy_helium_on_10_July_1908%2C_Steenschuur%2C_Leiden.png
### 1910
- **1910** — Paul Langevin. A portrait of Paul Langevin from the Wellcome Collection. In 1905 Langevin produced the first real theory of diamagnetism, deriving the effect from the precession of electron orbits in an applied field and showing why it is universal and temperature-independent. This is the moment Faraday's observation became physics. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/842b47aa-94bd-4051-8c2f-b1caa6728aae) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APaul_Langevin_Wellcome2.jpg
### 1911
- **1911-04-08** — Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 resistance-versus-temperature plot for mercury. The original 1911 graph in which the resistance of a mercury capillary falls vertically to zero just below 4.2 kelvin. This is the primary document of the discovery of superconductivity, drawn by Kamerlingh Onnes's own laboratory. Nothing else in the story is this directly evidential. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/f14fbfe5-a29c-4497-802e-603e5d454a15) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASuperconductivity_1911.png
- **1911-11-02** — First Solvay Conference, Brussels, 1911. The first Solvay Conference, Brussels, 2 November 1911 - Kamerlingh Onnes is in the group, the same year he discovered superconductivity. It fixes the moment in the wider history of physics. 1920x1362. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/3f019616-bed7-45ef-ba60-bd18591bf577) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1911_Solvay_conference.jpg
### 1919
- **1919-01-01** — Kamerlingh Onnes and Gerrit Jan Flim at the second helium liquefier, 1919. Kamerlingh Onnes standing with Gerrit Jan Flim, the chief of the cryogenic laboratory, beside the second helium liquefier in 1919. Flim was the instrument-maker who actually built and ran the plant. A rare shot of the human machinery behind the discovery. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/99183b9e-e19a-4f44-9f50-e26f38ad702b) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHeike_Kamerlingh_Onnes_-_47_-_Kamerlingh_Onnes_and_chief_of_the_cryogenic_laboratory_Gerrit_Jan_Flim_%28left%29_with_the_second_helium_liquefactor%2C_1919_Physics_laboratory_%28Natuurkundig_Laboratorium%29%2C_Steenschuur%2C_Leiden.png
### 1926
- **1926-01-01** — Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. A portrait of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, the Leiden physicist who liquefied helium in 1908 and then, in April 1911, found that mercury lost all electrical resistance below about 4.2 kelvin. Superconductivity turned out to be the extreme case of diamagnetism. 1200x1676. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/050f9b6b-aabe-43a4-9d0a-f75fd9f47e6d) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHeike_Kamerlingh_Onnes%2C_1926.jpg
### 1927
- **1927-01-01** — Solvay Conference 1927, with Langevin presiding. The 1927 Solvay Conference photograph, the most famous group portrait in physics; Paul Langevin sits at the right-hand end of the front row, having chaired the meeting. It places the author of the theory of diamagnetism inside the founding generation of quantum mechanics - which is exactly where the diamagnetism story goes next. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/26e4b9c8-cc61-4598-9d0f-c55d2f739624) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASolvay_conference_1927_Version2.jpg
### 1929
- **1929-12-01** — Faraday's original 1845 electromagnet at the Science Museum. A 1929 press photograph of the original electromagnet made for Faraday in 1845, then on show at the Science Museum in South Kensington. Shot for the Faraday centenary, it is itself now a historical document. At 4076x5220 it is the highest-resolution view of the actual apparatus available freely. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/804bcef1-e612-44e8-beef-d38c5963998d) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOriginal_electro-magnet_made_for_Faraday_in_1845%2C_Science_Museum%2C_South_Kensington%2C_Acme_Newspictures%2C_c._December_1929%2C_from_the_Digital_Commonwealth_-_1_22_10_001309_0005_A.jpg
### 1964
- **1964-01-01** — Magnetic flux expelled from a tin cylinder at 1.6 K. A laboratory photograph of the field around a tin cylinder cooled from 4.2 K to 1.6 K in a constant 80-gauss field: as the tin goes superconducting, the flux is pushed out of it. This is the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect recorded on the same metal Meissner used. Dated 1964, so far closer to the original era than any modern demo. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/8dbf1565-7a09-4d2e-91bc-44d58fdc65d3) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATin_80gauss_1.6K.jpg
### 1968
- **1968** — Walther Meissner. A portrait of Walther Meissner, who with Robert Ochsenfeld showed in 1933 that a superconductor does not merely fail to resist current but actively expels magnetic field from its interior - perfect diamagnetism. This is the result that made superconductivity a magnetic phenomenon, not just an electrical one. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/9dafc410-8acb-4055-911c-fa67d1e775d3) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWalther_Meissner.jpg
### 1997
- **1997-04-15** — News footage: scientists make a frog float in mid-air. Associated Press coverage from 1997 of the Nijmegen experiment: a live frog held in the bore of a Bitter solenoid by the diamagnetism of the water in its own body. Contemporary news film of the moment the effect stopped being a laboratory curiosity and became famous. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/529e2778-1b7b-4cbc-aa38-a3ca8c227bd5) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlJsVqc0ywM
- **1997** — A live frog levitating in a 16-tesla Bitter solenoid, Nijmegen. The famous photograph of a live frog floating inside the 32 mm vertical bore of a Bitter solenoid at about 16 tesla, at the High Field Magnet Laboratory in Nijmegen. Andre Geim and Michael Berry were levitating the water in the animal's own tissue - every ordinary substance is weakly diamagnetic, and a strong enough field gradient can hold it against gravity. The frog was unharmed, and it won Geim and Berry the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/ed72ee83-7f8a-4ff9-92f4-a0f273a706f7) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFrog_diamagnetic_levitation.jpg
### 2005
- **2005** — Pyrolytic graphite levitating over a neodymium magnet array. A roughly 6 mm chip of pyrolytic graphite floating over four 5 mm neodymium cube magnets whose poles alternate in a checkerboard. Pyrolytic graphite is diamagnetic enough to hover over ordinary permanent magnets at room temperature, with no power and no cooling - the cheapest possible demonstration of Faraday's effect. Released into the public domain by its author. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/f32258aa-c7a1-4abe-bb93-5ad9a1c777ff) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADiamagnetic_graphite_levitation.jpg
### 2006
- **2006-01-05** — Bismuth crystal, macro. A macro photograph of an iridescent hopper crystal of bismuth. Bismuth is the strongest diamagnet among ordinary metals, which is why Brugmans in 1778 and Faraday in 1845 both happened to be holding it when the effect showed itself. 2272x1704. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/ea96eb61-22c1-46a0-b23a-300ea0e88fc9) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABismuth_crystal_macro.jpg
- **2006-01-13** — The levitating frog, ten seconds of it. Ten seconds of the frog turning slowly in the field. Nothing is holding it but the repulsion of ordinary water against a 16-tesla magnet. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/a016ba1c-1c1e-4946-ac38-dd734035eab0) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vyB-O5i6E
### 2008
- **2008-04-27** — A Bitter electromagnet plate. One of the perforated copper disks that are stacked to build a Bitter electromagnet. Francis Bitter's 1930s design is what makes continuous fields of 16 tesla and above possible, and it is a Bitter solenoid at Nijmegen that levitated the frog. CC0, 1058x1040. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/a4288692-9f1f-49da-b053-57ca43c31c28) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABitter_electromagnet_disk.jpg
### 2010
- **2010-05-26** — Pyrolytic carbon levitation, high resolution. A high-resolution (2832x2128) photograph of a pyrolytic carbon plate suspended above a checkerboard magnet array, with the shadow gap clearly visible. The best-quality free image of a room-temperature diamagnetic levitation. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/be934f14-e267-4aef-9610-03bd3795c1c5) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APyrolytic_Carbon_Levitation_%284648369634%29.jpg
- **2010-05-27** — Andre Geim, 2010. Andre Geim photographed in 2010, the year he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for graphene. Geim is the only person to hold both an Ig Nobel (2000, for the levitating frog) and a Nobel - a fact he has said he values. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/d1579544-1f67-491a-bda6-27c7c9b231e5) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAndre_Geim_2010-1.jpg
- **2010-06-05** — A rubber horse riding a levitating pyrolytic carbon plate. A toy rubber horse standing on a plate of pyrolytic carbon that is itself floating over a magnet checkerboard. It shows that the levitation carries real payload, and it is the kind of playful demonstration that runs in a direct line from Geim's frog. 2832x2128. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/55ecf564-a230-4e3e-9e4e-e62844e2a7e3) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARubber_horse_surfing_pyrolytic_carbon.jpg
- **2010-10-16** — Diamagnetically stabilised levitation. A magnet held stably in mid-air between diamagnetic plates — the trick Werner Braunbek worked out in 1939 as the loophole in Earnshaw’s theorem, which had ruled stable magnetic levitation impossible since 1842. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/577976d3-0f34-4e9b-aea7-c541616f65bc) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX1XhphXOSo
- **2010-12-07** — Nobel Prize 2010 laureates' press conference, Stockholm. The 2010 Nobel laureates at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences press conference in Stockholm on 7 December 2010, with the physics prize going to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for graphene. Thirteen years after floating a frog, the same experimenter is at the Academy. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/55a9582c-5a43-4781-ae6d-c96c829f04e6) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANobel_Prize_2010-Press_Conference_KVA-DSC_8009cr.jpg
- **2010-12-08** — Andre Geim’s Nobel lecture: Random Walk to Graphene. Geim’s 2010 Nobel lecture. The same physicist who floated a frog for an Ig Nobel in 2000 took the Nobel Prize in Physics ten years later for graphene — the only person to hold both. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/c80884c6-81a9-4931-80a2-a579030076db) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiVQfXDk7po
### 2011
- **2011-03-28** — Grave of Werner Braunbek, Bergfriedhof Tübingen. The grave of the physicist Werner Braunbek in the Bergfriedhof in Tübingen. Braunbek proved in 1939 that Earnshaw's theorem does not forbid stable levitation if a material with permeability below one - a diamagnet - is involved, which is the theoretical licence for every levitation image later in this story. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/81bf22c2-6d05-4b15-9e56-a3d94b454776) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABraunbek_Werner_a.jpg
### 2013
- **2013-07-04** — Andre Geim in his Manchester laboratory. Geim in the University of Manchester laboratory where he works on graphene. A working-scientist portrait rather than a ceremonial one, and 2448x2448 square, which crops well. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/372c48a6-437e-4313-a783-abff223e2785) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAndre_Geim_2013.jpg
### 2015
- **2015** — Bismuth crystal, high-resolution macro. A very large (5184x3456) macro of a bismuth hopper crystal with the characteristic stepped spiral growth and oxide colours. The best-resolution free bismuth image found. Good for a full-bleed scene about the metal itself. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/4a7138fa-64c3-4aa9-9a35-de96a2464b5c) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABismuth_crystal_macro1.jpg
- **2015-07-24** — Flux pinning / quantum locking. A superconducting disc locked at a fixed height and angle above a magnetic track by flux pinning. It shows the limit of the diamagnetic story: a type-II superconductor lets some field through in quantised vortices and is then trapped in place. 2034x1375. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/b7ff0476-3841-44da-8f5e-4c75fce462d1) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AQuantum_locking.jpg
- **2015-08-07** — The Meissner effect, demonstrated. Harvard’s lecture demonstration of the Meissner effect: cool a superconductor below its critical temperature and it expels the magnetic field entirely, floating the magnet above it. Meissner and Ochsenfeld first showed this with tin and lead in 1933. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/6033dcc8-9b00-4f94-a603-90bd49e967f0) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRLvVkkq5GE
### 2018
- **2018-11-17** — A magnet levitating above a superconductor cooled in liquid nitrogen. A permanent magnet floating above a high-temperature superconductor in a pool of liquid nitrogen vapour. The magnet is held up by the field the superconductor refuses to let inside it - the Meissner effect, i.e. perfect diamagnetism, made visible. 4048x3036. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/6be49166-7a02-471c-96d2-c5fb14afd826) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMagnet_levitating_on_top_of_superconductor_cooled_by_liquid_nitrogen.jpg
- **2018-11-17** — Meissner state demonstration. A close view of the Meissner state, with a magnet suspended in mid-air over a chilled superconductor. A cleaner, more diagrammatic alternative to the liquid-nitrogen photograph. 1280x960. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/f83df2e0-c1b4-42eb-8ddf-0c9305bdd338) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMeissner_state.jpg
- **2018-11-26** — Pyrolytic graphite levitating on four magnets. A wafer of pyrolytic graphite resting on nothing above a square of neodymium magnets. Graphite is strongly enough diamagnetic to do at room temperature, on a desk, what the frog needed a 16-tesla superconducting magnet for. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/812b782a-b258-4dea-a4bf-a9b8e176308b) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPLKWxhRu0
- **2018-11-30** — Diamagnetic levitation demonstrated with pencil lead. Diamagnetic levitation shown with nothing but a few 3 mm neodymium magnets and a piece of ordinary pencil graphite. It is the most accessible version of the experiment and closes the loop from Faraday's heroic electromagnet to something anyone can do on a desk. 3092x1836. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/a067fecd-8709-427c-b8aa-040dfb7856f7) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADiamagnetism_levitation_simple_experiment.jpg
- **2018-12-06** — Levitating highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (animated). An animation of a square of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite floating and drifting above a magnet array. Motion sells the effect in a way a still cannot: the plate can be nudged and it simply stays up. 480x360 GIF. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/116e927f-4a69-4666-89c9-06f71f4616de) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALevitating_Highly_Orientated_Pyrolytic_Graphite.gif
### 2019
- **2019-03-28** — Pyrolytic graphite. A close look at pyrolytic graphite, the material that made diamagnetic levitation a thing you can own rather than a thing you visit a magnet laboratory to see. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/34dd6055-a34b-4873-b9c2-2ca65cf54523) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3seHNmNs8
- **2019-04-12** — High Field Magnet Laboratory, Nijmegen. The High Field Magnet Laboratory building at Radboud University in Nijmegen, where the frog was levitated and where fields above 30 tesla are still produced today. 4032x3024, CC BY 4.0. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/2da8e23d-e29c-4eb2-b7ed-4613072f889b) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHigh_Field_Magnet_Laboratory%2C_Nijmegen.jpg
### 2020
- **2020-04-16** — Diamagnetic devices. a company presentation from PERISO, 16 April 2020. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/1f9e3dc8-9744-4dc1-90a0-64230ad7e71f) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIn0ie53MPk
### 2021
- **2021-04-07** — Periso Academy - Diamagnetism and diamagnetic therapy by MD Pietro Romeo. a PERISO Academy training session for practitioners, 7 April 2021. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/7c46c4fb-bde6-455a-b984-690caff5d0d7) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIjOjRwsp9o
### 2022
- **2022-01-25** — Pompa Diamagnetica: Caratteristiche e Peculiarità. à — a company presentation from PERISO, 25 January 2022. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/04c40a7b-5bd4-4978-85b0-20db70b2e156) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdaIGmnP9_Q
- **2022-06-20** — ICDT - Diamagnetism and diamagnetic effect - Antonio Espino. Antonio Espino presents on diamagnetism and diamagnetic effect at the First International Congress of Diamagnetic Therapy, 20 June 2022. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/26633077-8565-4da5-9a1d-37939f24708c) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THD9hLEm0fA
- **2022-06-20** — ICDT - Behaviours of molecules exposed to the diamagnetic effect - Salvatore Pullano. Salvatore Pullano presents on behaviours of molecules exposed to the diamagnetic effect at the First International Congress of Diamagnetic Therapy, 20 June 2022. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/6b887ada-2f4e-40c7-97b7-5eedc56aa8c5) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q-7_EGbSqQ
- **2022-06-21** — ICDT - Diamagnetotherapy, from its origins to nowadays - Thodoris Moschos. Thodoris Moschos presents on diamagnetotherapy, from its origins to nowadays at the First International Congress of Diamagnetic Therapy, 21 June 2022. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/d57293bd-76f0-4b61-b40f-147facdbae26) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwG49UO4luw
- **2022-10-27** — How did Michael Faraday invent?. The Royal Institution on Faraday’s method: no mathematics to speak of, an unmatched instinct for apparatus, and a willingness to hang anything he could find between the poles of a magnet to see what it did. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/5b8d80ae-4533-4397-92a7-122eac016bb6) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1uOsg2-LTA
### 2023
- **2023-11-13** — Discoveries from Faraday’s laboratory. The Royal Institution on the room where diamagnetism was found, and the way Faraday worked — the notebooks, the improvised apparatus, the habit of testing every substance he could reach. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/95e3a7e2-319e-4a07-8001-f37f74604dfd) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3NBRECJ8cg
### 2024
- **2024-05-02** — Native bismuth in quartz. Skeletal crystals of native bismuth in quartz from the La Espuela de San Miguel mine, Cordoba, Spain, field of view 5 cm. This is bismuth as it occurs in the ground, rather than the lab-grown rainbow crystals. 6960x4640. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/3513b594-9da5-43f0-b4ec-d48cbcb389f4) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANative_bismuth1.jpg
### 2025
- **2025-02-15** — The strange magnetism of bismuth. Bismuth is the substance where the effect was first noticed, and the most strongly diamagnetic ordinary metal there is. A modern demonstration of exactly what Brugmans saw in 1778 — a magnet pushing metal away instead of pulling it. [scene](https://loreline.live/loreline/diamagnetism/scene/6749b39f-2049-48f0-acc9-7603b1ea08aa) Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-77EcyI9iY

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72 moments · Attribution: Loreline (loreline.live) · Public contributions welcome.