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YouTube user graybum devises many simple and ingenious uses for Buckyballs, such as this amazing electric motor. It's just Buckyballs, a wire and a battery. Redditor gloon explains how it works:
When you touch the wire to the side of the magnets, you complete an electric circuit. Current flows out of the battery, through the magnet to the wire, and through the wire to the other end of the battery. The magnetic field from the magnet is oriented through its flat faces, so it is parallel to the magnet's axis of symmetry. Electric current flows through the magnet. If you took physics at some point, it's possible that you'll remember the effect that a magnetic field has on moving electric charges: they experience a force that is perpendicular to both their direction of movement and the magnetic field. Since the field is along the symmetry axis of the magnet and the charges are moving radially outward from that axis, the force (Lorentz force) is in the tangential direction, and so the magnet begins to spin.
-via reddit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JuUDpMAAUg
I believe if you didn't interrupt the circuit then it would just oscillate back and forth instead of rotating. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.
ps - lol ObviousTroll
Buckyballs are Buckminsterfullerene, a spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms, named in honor of Buckminster Fuller because they somewhat resemble geodesic domes. In fact they more closely resemble soccer (ie, football) balls since they have a mix of pentagonal and hexagonal faces where the dome is entirely triangular faces. They are also a brand of small, magnetic ball bearings, which have nothing to do with B Fuller.
Isn't the wire spinning, not the magnet?
I teach gifted and talented kids at a Michigan elementary school. This is an awesome project the kids would really get excited about. Thanks for posting it.
Wait, I can: http://www.ihighfive.com/
Free electricity!