A SCIENTIFIC MARVEL

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 25, 6 January 1928, Page 2

A SCIENTIFIC MARVEL

PRODUCT OF RADIO LABORS TORY A picee of steel floating unsupported in the air is one of the scientific marvels produced in the radio laboratories of the Westinghouse Electric and Manuniacturing Company. Only a thin Wire serving as an anchor to keep the steel ‘from escaping is attached. With that exception, the bar, which is six: inches long, one-half iuch wide and one-half ineh thick, has ebsolutely no visible means of support. The auswer to the mystery is spelled by the word ‘‘magnetism." Below the floating bar is a companion piece of steel of similar size and composition, and two bars, mognetised with like poles opposite, are held apart by the magnetic repulsion between them, which exceeds the force of gravity. The material used is cobalt stcel alfoyed with tungstown, which, according to Westinghouse engineers, forms the strongest permanent magnet known. The alloy was developed bv Dr. P. Hf. Brace, Westinghouse research enyinectr, after months of experimentation. The new alloy is so highly magnetised that, when nsed as horseshoe magnet, it will lift a bar thirty times its own weight, representing a strength five times that of the ordinary magnet, according to Dr. Brace. In addition, the alloy clings tenaciously to its magnetic power, and will not lose it. Cobalt steel, such as is used, is relatively expensive. Jt will be used only where performance is worth more than ‘price, as in delicate meters, fine -phonographs and such precise machines as the Westinglionse cescillograph or "QOsiso,"?