Do I have to have a 50KV power supply For the Anti-Gravity

[DeadArby5]

Hey,

Im Thinking of doing this Project http://www.all-science-fair-projects.co ... _57_2.html
Do I have to have a 50KV power supply or can I use a 10 KV or 12 KV


Thanks

[deleted-71588]

CAUTION: HIGH VOLTAGE experiments have serious safety issues.
You need more than typical "Adult Supervision", you need close supervision by someone trained in HIGH VOLTAGE SAFETY.

You need to do some of your own research into Lorentz Force to understand the various factors involved in the repulsive forces produced in this experiment so you can determine what is theoretically possible with any given component.

The physics involved is independent of the magnitude of any of the measurements. You can alway attempt to do things on different scales.
The types of problems you introduce when you scale down are being able to measure effects in the presence of "noise". You will have to reduce the mass of what you are lifting and the spring coefficient of the connecting wires. At some point, forces from room air currents may become a "noise" factor causing an instability in the balance of what you are lifting. You could constrain what you are lifting in some insulated column to eliminate room air currents as a "noise" factor, but you are now constraining the connections and possibly introducing another "noise" factor.

If you scale this down into the millivolt or microvolt range, you now have to contend with electrical "noise" from AM/FM radio/TV/cellphones/etc.

The difficulty in scaling things is finding a compromise that allows you to safely measure the effect with sufficient precision in the presense of noise to allow a scientific conclusion to be drawn.

[deleted-93346]

Craig has provided some excellent guidance. Be SURE to heed his safety warning! I have one more caution to add. I went to the site that you mentioned, and reading introductory page I found the following statement:

"The gravity fields of a positive pole and a negative pole are opposite in direction."

This is utter nonsense; there is no such thing as a gravity pole. So I urge you to be very skeptical of other information you may find at this site. To the best of current knowledge "anti-gravity" does not exist. But electric and magnetic fields do exist, and they can be used to "levitate" objects in various ways, some of which might make good science fair topics. I admire your enterprise in seeking out a science fair project, but before investing time or money it is a good idea to do what you have done, that is check with your teachers or with experts such as you can find here at Science Buddies to be sure that information you find on the internet is actually true.

Best of luck!

[deleted-93346]

You might also wish to research magnetic levitation, which does not require high voltages.
We have a couple of science fair projects involving this effect in our Science Fair Project Ideas section. Two that I found were:

"Abracadabra! Levitating with Eddy Currents!" at
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p053.shtml

and

"Magnetic Levitation: Experiments with 'Anti-magnets'" at
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p041.shtml

I hope these may be helpful.

[Lorismith68]

Did you end up doing this project? If so, how did it work out and what did you end up doing for a power supply?

My son is doing this project now and we are a little concerned.

Thanks.