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It has been nearly fifteen years since this question first was posed
to a small group of physicists and physics teachers - including, John
Rigden, David Goodstein, and Richard Feynman, and a number of others
- immediately following a meeting of the Southern California AAPT
(November, 1987). The animated discussion of the many speculations
that followed was sheer joy. Then a surprising answer was offered by
Caltech's Goodstein - which evoked an immediate and gleeful "Of
course!" from Feynman (and I might add, from the rest of us as
well!). It was like being on hallowed ground, as John Rigden was
later to write. The question is, what did Goodstein say that the rest
of us agreed with so quickly? And why do we think his answer was
right? This discussion will include how magnets and superconductors
interact, Faraday's law, the Meissner effect, and London's equation,
magnetic forces, induced currents and persistent currents - and which
of those principles and ideas are important to answering this
question. And the answer will be clear.
He dropped an aluminum meter stick, oriented so that it extended
vertically along its longest dimension, through the space between the
poles.