What strength would my magnet need to be to levitate 250 pds of the ground?

Question

What strength would my magnet need to be to levitate 250 pds of the ground?

Answer 1

what are you levitating?

a 250lb block of iron will be a lot easier than a 250lb man

the frog here is in a field of about 16 tesla apparently

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ_gzB0WK...

which is one h**l of a strong field

when you find out what you're trying to levitate, you can look here for some more help

http://www.hfml.ru.nl/levitate.html

Answer 2

"strength" in this context is ambiguous. It could mean field intensity or magnetic field energy. Even then, there is not enough information. You need shape of load and magnetic and material of load to answer.

That said, just from playin' around, if you had a 250 lb steel anvil, you could probably lift it with a high quality permanent magnet (Samarium Cobalt, for example) that weighed about a pound.