Welcome to my floor.
I think this is the first video I have ever
filmed on the floor.
But desperate physics calls for desperate measures
or something.
So I found this video online of the coolest little contraption.
It was called world's simplest electric train.
I'll put the link in the description.
And it was this little set up, a spring, a coil like this,
made out of copper and then a battery with magnets
attached on either end just like this.
And you stick the train in one end of the coil.
And it just shoots through kind of like this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
When I first saw this, I thought, blimey!
That is so simple and so cool.
I have to make it for myself.
But I have to make it better, which
is why I have tons of cylindrical and spherical
magnets all over the place.
And you'll notice how far apart all these magnets
are, because they're neodymium magnets.
And they are so stupid strong, they will fly together.
And they will pinch you.
Not that it's happened to me 10 times already today.
It's on.
Ow.
And this-- Oh no.
Ow.
Aw.
Oh no!
[SIGHS]
And it's just a mess here, because I
wanted to make the best, most epic electric train.
And I made the world's longest copper coil track.
I'm all about those world records today.
But they're actually not world records.
We've got our track.
This was 195 feet of, like, 20ish gauge copper wire.
And so we're-- I'm gonna hope that this is gonna go all
the way around.
We're gonna get a full loop.
Let's see.
Here we go.
Woo!
Yeah!
Oh, it's coming around.
Yes!
[GASPS] It is going so fast.
We're stuck.
This is awesome.
I feel like a little kid.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh no.
Disaster.
So I cannot go on with life without talking about how this
works.
So we put magnets on either end, which should be
a clue as to what's going on.
One magnet goes on the positive terminal.
And one goes on the negative terminal.
Then when you stick this magnet train into the copper coil,
and ideally, the magnets are gonna
be bigger than the battery so that the magnets are touching
the wire, one of the magnets touches the coil on one side.
And one touches on the other side
so that you get electricity.
You get electrons flowing through the coil.
When you run electricity through a coil,
it makes a magnetic field like this.
And you can tell that that current
is flowing because sometimes, if you flip one of the magnets
around and then try to push it through,
it will actually spark sometimes.
And it just vibrates.
It won't go.
So why do the magnets have to be in a certain orientation?
In an electric field, bear with me, an electric field,
a negative electric charge will feel force in one direction.
And a positive electric charge will feel a force,
it will be pushed, in the opposite direction.
In a magnetic field, it's very similar.
A north magnetic pole will be pushed in one direction
in a magnetic field.
And a south pole will be pushed in the other direction.
The problem is that you never find north and south poles
without the other.
So if you just put a magnet with a north and south pole
in a magnetic field, it's not gonna move.
But if the magnetic field is not the same all over,
what you call a non uniform magnetic field,
you might feel a slightly bigger push on the north pole
than on the south pole of the magnet.
And that is what's happening here.
The magnetic field being created by that current
is strongest in the middle.
And then it spreads out.
It diverges, or becomes weaker, on the end.
Where you've got these poles facing each other, say,
two norths in the middle, they're feeling a stronger push
than the souths on the outside.
And if that push is in the right direction,
it's gonna shoot straight through like so.
So now we know it works.
Now it's time to play.
I've got this pretty large steam magnet and a huge copper coil.
We're gonna put these inch diameter magnets on either end.
This is dangerous, because they don't stay on very well
to this little nubbin thing.
This is probably not gonna end well.
But I'm gonna try it anyways.
OK.
I couldn't get the magnet to stay.
So I put some sticky tack on the end of this one.
I don't know if this is gonna work.
We're gonna try.
[LAUGHS]
It's like an old man train.
It is so slow.
I really thought that was gonna be a lot cooler than it was.
Well, that was a little disappointing.
But there's more.
This is a tiny little coil.
And I found these batteries.
They're so skinny.
This is a quadruple A battery.
I didn't even know these existed.
I'm really excited about this one.
So here goes.
That was cool.
This is my favorite little magnet train,
'cause it's just so cute.
Like, you could fit that into your pocket
until these neodymium magnets smack together
and pinch you in the butt.
Yeah.
All right.
I've got to say that the AA battery is
by far the best one so far.
I wonder if you could do more batteries like this,
like a-- let's try this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It totally worked.
I'm gonna do it with three.
Yeah!
That was awesome.
You know what this means.
I can put this through the big track.
I need some space.
All right.
Here we go.
Ready?
Three, two, one.
Come on.
Yeah!
Woo!
That was so awesome.
This is amazing.
You know, you can even jump these.
[LAUGHS] I'm having way too much fun.
This is all getting very unscientific
except for the fact that this is all
possible because of physics.
I definitely encourage you to try this at home.
And truly, happy physicsing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]