Look, I already do understand it, the balls are suspended in mid air by the magnetic outer race and inner race by the force of repulsion. Now, here’s where I’m trying to be realistic, it’s not possible, might be a shocker for you, but it just isn’t. What I’m saying is all permanent magnets have 2 poles. It would be impossible to suspend the balls in mid air, because due to the nature if magnets. The inner race and outer race and the balls would constantly move. Say they found a way to construct the bearing so it doesn’t do that, well, the bearing wont be able to withstand the force of a throw, and will most likely come apart in the yoyo.
It’s the shape and size of the bearing that’s an issue. Trying to get those forces to operate in a circle is a lot different than having them operating on something straight like a rail line.
It seems you don’t understand it. There are no balls involved. It’s just the inner and outer races with the outer race suspended above the inner race. Also it will work, if you don’t believe me look up maglev.
Oh, so it’s just the two races? It still won’t work though, can’t be applied to something as small as a bearing and expect it to work. Maglev trains and such require a ton of power to keep the train up, it doesn’t use natural magnets.
not If one was negative and one was positive. There would be very little friction. Maybe I’m wrong
____ magnets. How do they work?
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the idea of a magnet bearing would be great where there would be no friction. but a bearing of this small size would not be able to handle the force of the yoyo being thrown. it’ll probably break easily.
and it would cost too much just to make. nobody has the time and money to design and invent something nobody would buy.
neodinium cheap and the strongest magnet in the world
Ok, so I looked up magnetism on Wikipedia and this is what I found out:
All permanent magnets have two poles. I know this has been said before, but it’s true. A particle, atom, ore magnet with only one pole would require all the laws of electromagnetism would have to be rewritten. So, a nonelectric magnetic bearing is impossible, I think.
Traditional Magnetic Bearings ^
http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/physicsfaq/General/Levitation/levitation.html
The problem with non-electric magnetism in bearings ^
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/spacemech/workshop02/mag-brg.html
NASA trying their hand at it ^
A way of working around the problem somewhat ^
It would be fantastic if it could be done, but it looks like the kind of bearing you have in mind is impossible. Although I’m not going to pretend that I just understood a single word of the above articles. =P
Maybe NASA will perfect their Passive Magnetic Bearings some day, but as far as yoyos are concerned… it aint happening.
And so the universe is righted, and my question is answered.
Magnetic bearings already exist.
Unfortunately, the biggest drawback with magnetic bearings or races, is precisely the conditions under which a yo-yo operates. Electric bearings are practical when they are used for large, consistent loads. Where the load varies; the advantages of an electric bearing diminish rapidly. Add to that the constant, large power requirements, and the whole engineering problem begins to balloon.
Where they make sense is in something like a large power generating dynamo. In this application, the rotating axle and turbine are all very heavy. Using traditional ball-bearings would lead to increased maintenance and associated downtime because of the need to constantly lubricate/replace these bearings. Electric bearings can bear the load efficiently and cause much less wear and tear due to non-physical contact in the rotating electric bearing itself.
Very wrong… opposite poles attract each other. They would have to be the same pole. To do this in a cylinder shape, with natural magnets, is impossible. All natural magnets have two poles no matter how big they are. They have broken up magnets into only particles and they still have two poles… its jut not possible yet.
Electromagnetism is the only way a bearing would work. In order to do this in yoyos, you need a very powerful current flow. Unless the yoyo was absolutely huge and had huge power supply, I dont think it would be possible.
oh whoops I ment if they were both positive or both negative 
always forget opposites attract 
Lololololololololololololololololololol
I’m done.
Ok, so what if someone were to take a bunch of triangular prisms, very tall, make the bottom North and the top South, then form all these triangles into some king of spherical object. The South Pole would be inside the sphere, wouldn’t it?
Doesn’t work quite that way, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it did, and you had a bunch of cylindrical or bar magnets organized in such a way that they roughly formed a “circle” with poles arranged to point inward/outward: at the scale we’re talking about (one wall of a C-sized bearing) there wouldn’t be nearly enough magnetic force. Not by a long shot.
How does it, then?
Doesn’t he answer that in the section of his post that you deleted? lOl
I think there is a mis-understanding about how electric motors work. Only one-set of the magnets can be permanent type. The stator, the stator AND the rotor, or the rotor, can be variable field magnets. The powered (non-permanent) magnetic coils constantly change their charge and strength to impel the rotor in a constant direction. The attractive force that pulls the rotor around from 12:00 to 6:00, is shut-down and a new set of magnets pushes the rotor from 6:00 to 12:00. Repeat this process over and over, very quickly for best results - like a Tesla.
The great thing about electric motors is that they have constant performance and can be teamed together to make larger forces than conventional internal combustion engines. You can take two 20,000 tractive-ton locomotives and hook them together to make one 40,000 locomotive. Ever seen two steam engines hooked together?
… But I digress.