It will remain held in place forever unless the magnet heat up. Dave
-----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sat, Nov 14, 2015 1:53 am Subject: Re: [Vo]: How many atoms to make condensed matter? On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 12:25 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: The loss in the current carrying magnet is due to series resistance and if that resistance is eliminated it would not require any additional power once the current is set up. I was thinking about that. But let's make the example extreme. Suppose you have a superconducting magnet set up in an industrial grade structure, and you run a current through sufficient to keep a one-hundred ton block of iron ten meters off the ground. Will the solenoid hold up the block indefinitely, or will some process of loss (other than through resistance) cause the electrons to gradually radiate away the input energy until the block eventually falls? (We can neglect for the moment the energy needed to cool the current loop in order to keep it superconducting.) Eric
