That's essentially how maglev trains work. It isn't that you can't propel something with magnetism, it's that you can't to it for free. The 'fishing pole with a magnet' concept doesn't work, but there are lots of ways that do work. It just requires the expenditure of energy.

@@JeffersonLab definitely agreed

Beats the alternative.

Depends. What are you trying to do?

Only if the floor was hot lava. He stands on the floor while touching the Van de Graaff in this video. He didn't die. Ending up on the floor accidentally isn't materially different than ending up on the floor intentionally. The results would be the same.

Okay, so you have remote controlled vehicles. How are you making them move? With a motor? If that's the case, then what's the point of the magnets? Remove the magnets and use the vehicles as they are. As far as a flexible cable... Instead of hanging one magnet by a string, as was done in the video, replace the string with a rubber band. That's effectively a flexible cable. Won't make a difference.

"Like, there was zero mention that there isn't enough amperage to kill a person." - Yes, there was. It was talked about for nearly a minute, starting around 6:25. For a video that's only about 8 minutes long, that's nearly 12 percent of the time dedicated to this. I don't that qualifies as 'zero mention'. "Birds aren't electrocuted because wires are insulated" - Transmission wires are not, in general, insulated. The short runs that go to individual houses are insulated, since they are low to the ground, are at a relatively low voltage, and are far more likely to be touched. The rest, though, are not insulated. It just isn't worth the cost to do it. That's why the wires are so high up and so far apart. Air is used as the insulation. Of course, underground transmission wires would need to be insulated, but you don't get too many birds landing on those. (And, the bulk of the transmission wires are aluminum, not copper. Aluminum isn't as good a conductor as copper, but it costs a lot less and it doesn't weigh nearly as much, so you don't need to build as many transmission towers. It doesn't make sense to throw away that weight savings by wrapping each wire in half a foot of rubber.) Glad you enjoyed the video, though!

Not quite.

@@JeffersonLab ok, looked again: 2 males, 2 females

1. Sure. A person could hold a magnet while sitting in a car. Nothing is stopping them from doing so. 2. Is this battery powered arm reaching out and grabbing something so that it can pull the car forward? Otherwise, it's not going to work.

Okay. I'll believe it when I see it.

That's basically a train, right? One large engine can be more efficient than many smaller engines, but the use of magnets in pace of a physical connection doesn't change things.

It would not.

Are the cars intertwined in such a way that it's effectively one car? If so, then no.

...has nothing to do with this.

Correct, it will not work. It's no different than the two models that are in the video. If one car is going to grab the back of the other car with some sort of lip, why not make it official and just weld the two cars together? And then, you might as well remove the wheels from one of the two cars. After that, you're right back to what's in the video - two magnets attached to the same car. All forces are acting on the car, so nothing happens. Sit on a bike and push on the handlebars. The bike won't move. Get off the bike and push on the handlebars and the bike will move (as you and the earth move in the opposite direction).

Is the umbrella attached to the chair? If so, then it won't work (assuming the umbrella catches all of the air). Is the umbrella attached to something other than the chair? Then, yes, you'll move, but not in the direction of the umbrella. You'll move in the direction opposite to the direction that the air blower is pointing. And, actually, the umbrella is redundant in this set-up. If you inflate a balloon and let it go, it flies away without benefit of a nearby umbrella. There's no functional difference between air being blown out of a balloon and air being blown out of an air blower.

More mass also means more inertia. The one with more mass has more energy, but the one with more mass requires more energy to make it move at a given speed.

Sorry, but I'm not sure how your comment relates to this video.

You can kind of see this in the video when 'the hand' holds the magnet. When this happens, the car does move since the hanging magnet is no longer being supported by the car. However, if you were to make that magnet float, it would then be free to respond to the magnet attached to the car - either fly towards it due to attraction or fly away from it due to repulsion. You'd get a temporary movement from the car, either moving towards the floating magnet in the case of attraction or away from it in the case of repulsion. You wouldn't get sustained motion as you do when the 'hanging' magnet is being externally supported and actively moved.

How's that?

@@JeffersonLab I believe they already have some trains sitting on magnet tracks so it allows the train to almost float over the tracks removing friction. Add some movable big magnets on the track to push and pull

If you're going to go through the trouble of making some sort of vehicle that's capable of moving magnets along a track, why not just stop once that vehicle has been made? Why bother with the magnetically levitated car at all if it requires an external, self propelled vehicle in order to make it move?

@@JeffersonLab only if it has to ability to save money, more eco-friendly or efficient. All inventions are sceptical until they work

The inefficiencies are cumulative. You're going to have whatever inefficiencies are associated with the self propelled vehicle in addition to whatever inefficiencies are associated with the levitating vehicle. Best case scenario is that the levitating vehicle is perfectly efficient, in which case you're still no better off than with the self propelled vehicle alone.

No baloney! Just science!

You realize that a magnet is effectively a slab of metal, right? It's just a magnetized slab of metal rather than an unmagnetized slab of metal.

@@JeffersonLab i do realize that which is why i asked. A slab of metal has no where near the magnetic charge as a magnet am i right to assume that? So how do the forces balance each other out if ones force is stronger?

One force isn't stronger. Even if one magnet is stronger than another, or if it's a magnet and a slab of metal, the force of attraction between both objects is the same and opposite. Imagine this. There are two identical pieces of metal. One is magnetized and the other is left in its unmagnetized state. You come along and place one of the pieces of metal in one hand and the other in your other hand. You bring them close together and you feel them attracting each other. Are you able to feel which piece of metal is magnetized and which is not?