Re: Can bismuth be used to make a 'zero gravity' chamber?

This answer is going to come in a few parts. It is a very difficult question to deal with, and raises several quite separate issues.

(1) Bismuth cannot be used to make a 'zero gravity chamber' in the way you describe. Even if there has been a successful experiment of the general sort you describe, it is not producing zero gravity in any sense. Magnetic forces -- even the much weaker and more exotic diamagnetic forces -- are quite a different phenomenon to gravity. You do not produce 'zero gravity' by producing a different type of force that opposes gravity. If you did, you could say that a cable from a crane, or a helium balloon, or a helicopter rotor was a zero gravity device!

(2) You need to learn to read reports of strange scientific results like this rather critically. "I have read somewhere that ..." is not a promising start. Where have you read that? Does the magazine where you read it have a good reputation for accurate reporting? Was a scientist's name mentioned? Or a reference to an original scientific paper?

When a scientist does some research and makes a discovery, she or he tries to get the paper published in a scientific journal. An important part of this process is that before publication, the paper is sent for review to a couple of other scientists who work in the same field, or very closely related ones. It is their job to check up on what is being said: has the scientist correctly carried out the experiments as claimed? Is the interpreatation correct? or are there other possible interpretations that might work just as well or better? Has proper account been taken of other work on the same problem? These reviewers advise the editor on whether or not the article should be published, modified, or rejected, and why. The author of the article normally gets some right of reply to the review. Usually scientists do not put too much trust in reports of unusual effects unless it has been through this sort of peer review process.

I would never claim that the sort of effect you are talking about is impossible. What I would say is that it is implausible, and that I would like to see a reference to a peer-reviewed article where I can read about the details of the experiment before I would take it too seriously.

(3) Finally, I will talk a bit about magnetic forces to explain why I think the report is implausible. The sorts of magnetic forces you are familiar with come either from permanent magnets (ferromagnetism) or electric currents flowing in wires (Ampere's Law). But all sorts of substances are affected by magnetic fields in a much weaker way. Paramagnetic substances are attracted to magnetic fields; diamagnetic substances are repelled. The forces involved are about one millionth of the force that a similar lump of iron would experience. They really are minute!

Magnetic levitation, using iron and a strong magnet, can be used to levitate and propel vehicles along a steel track. It is a well established technology using ferromagnetism (Maglev). But diamagnetic repulsions are a million times weaker. Bismuth, in its solid elemental form, actually has one of the highest diamagnetic susceptibilities of any substance. Even so the forces involved are still very weak. I would think that, in order to levitate a frog, which might be as light as 1 gram, you would need a very strong magnet as well as a fair quantity of bismuth. And how did the magnetic force work on the frog anyway? Was it wearing a chainmail vest? A person would weigh up to 100 000 times as much as a 1 gram frog. I am quite sure the amount of bismuth and/or the strength of whatever magnet was required would make levitation of a person by diamagnetic effects all but impossible.