Cool a superconductor down and it actively pushes magnetic fields out of itself

In 1933, Walther Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld found that a superconductor doesn't just resist magnetic fields passively — below its critical temperature, it expels any magnetic field from its interior entirely. That expulsion is what lets a magnet hover stably above a superconducting disc, rather than just sliding off.

— Walther Meissner & Robert Ochsenfeld, Ein neuer Effekt bei Eintritt der Supraleitfähigkeit — Naturwissenschaften, 1933

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