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Re: Bar magnets

At 10:20 PM 2/16/01 -0500, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

The suspended magnet moved suddenly to the hand-
held magnet
....
I expected the equilibrium at: k*x=mg+Fm.


There undoubtedly was equilibrium.
There was not, alas, stability.

In other words: it was an unstable equilibrium.

See
http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/how/htm/equilib.html
for a definition of terms, and general discussion, with illustrations.


Constructive suggestions:
1) Try using a spring-scale with a shorter natural length... a length
comparable to the gap between the magnets.

2) Prove that item (1) is a necessary and sufficient condition.