Sure we all like to sleep in comfort, but how many of you would be willing to pay $1.5 million for a one-of-a-kind bed? Anyone? Anyone at all? Well Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars is hoping that
someone will shell out big bucks for that floating slab you see pictured above, as he's apparently spent six years of his life in the noble pursuit of a sleeping surface that can be suspended entirely by magnets. Do you actually get a better night's sleep on a bed that's only attached to a solid surface with a few narrow tethers? Probably not, but it seems that anyone spending a million bucks on something like this is more concerned with impressing potential overnight guests than waking up refreshed in the morning, anyway. If you just have to get your hands on one of these, but you'd prefer to remain below the seven-figure price point, Ruijssenaars was also showing off a smaller version at the Miljonaire fair in Kortrijk that goes for a more affordable $146,000; at 1/5th the size of the regular model, it's much too small for you to sleep in, but it would sure make a great perch for your already-spoiled dog or cat.
[Via
OhGizmo]
posted July 3rd 2006 3:45PM
"Ruijssenaars was also showing off a smaller version at the Miljonaire fair in Kortrijk that goes for a more affordable $146,000; at 1/5th the size of the regular model, it's much too small for you to sleep in, but it would sure make a great perch for your already-spoiled dog or cat."
...or a Back to the Future 2-like hoverboard! Sure, as mentioned in the movie it wouldn't work over water without some 'extras'. Or in this case, over pavement, grass or... well... anything other than a same polarity magnet :P
"Lower the bed please, HAL", "I'm sorry, I Can't do that dave." "I can't allow you to endanger the mission Dave"
Definitely on my list of things to buy when I become a multi billionaire. Don't know how safe it is but it looks seriously cool for bragging rights. Imagine if the chick that comes with it floated too- Haha
If i sleep on it, will i have dreams and/or hallucinations akin to dave bowmans trip when he passed through the monolith in 2001? =p
Oh oh! look out. You'll wake up one day after a magnetic sleep with Penal cancer tumors!
Magnetic field exposure related to cancer subtypes
N. Wertheimer and E. Leeper
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver 80262.
Certain subtypes of cancer (notably nervous system cancer) showed an association with two indices of exposure to 60-Hz alternating magnetic fields (AMFs): Subtype similarities were seen in those people potentially exposed to AMFs by their occupations, and in those potentially exposed by high-current power lines near their homes. The incidence-age patterns observed in exposed and nonexposed groups suggest that prolonged AMF exposure may act as a cancer promoter.
rAKA, yes, exactly. alternating magnetic fields from 60hz A/C current. Not a steady field from a fixed source. Many people use magnets as therapy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy
what if the power goes out?
It would be fun to jump on.
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I think you will all agree that Brazilian supermodels are well worth 1.5 Mil
LOL i think the maid would love it. real easy to clean under.
I wonder if it has controls to raise and lower it ?
if i bought this thing (as in, if i had so much money i didn't know what to do with it), then i wouldn't sleep on it... maybe lie there every once in a while
this thing is only to look extremely cool in front of guests
What if there's a power outage ? If this thing is based on electromagnets, will you crash to the floor ?
Get a water bed for christ sake...
Actually- I don't think magnetic fields (as in natural magnets) are not all that bad for you- they are only bad for you if they are of the electromagnic type; especially those EM fields created by AC power... I see all kinds of magnetic shoe insoles and bracelts for sale that are actually said to be beneficial to the body (yea- just like quartz crystals)
My question is what does this thing do to laptop and ipod hard drives that come too near the areas that are not 'safe for credit cards' and such?
And I would be tripping over those damn cables all the time- what the hell were they thinking with those?
How do you vaccuum under the bed while it's magnetised? And wouldn't sleeping in or around a magnetic field be kind of harmful?
"Normally said can a magnetic field erase a bank pass, but for that is the field according to the architect negligible small."
apparently disk/card wiping is not a real issue... and just so's you know, Pete Avila, fillings and implants are not magnetic... What kind of idiot would do that?
alternating magnetic fields...
But yes, I would think that magnets have effect on the body, as it definitely does contain metals. Though, surely those magnets are shielded.
Maybe he should try making a floating hoverboard, it should be cheaper and more valuable.
Magnetic fields won't affect blood. The iron in your blood is ferric (non-ferrous, which is a function of the valence number of an iron-bearing compound). Similar to the way that sodium in water is flammable or explosive, but when bound with chlorine to make salt, it behaves differently.
This is a fun little calculator:
http://www.intemag.com/designtools/Calc_filles/PullAndPushBetween2RectMagnets.asp
A pair of 36" x 36" x 6" neodymium magnets would repulse each other with a force of 630 lbs with a 2-foot separation, but the magnets would weigh about 2100 lbs (raw neodymium is 7.3 grams per cubic centimeter). Unfortuantely the math gets way too complex for a simple online calculator when comparing the repulsive forces of magnets of different sizes, which is how I imagine the bed is made.
But at least the numbers seem to be in the right range.
Oh well. I can't imagine what 9 cubic feet of the world's most expensive magnetic material would cost.
Probably a million bucks, heh heh heh...
9 cubic feet of grade 45 NdFeB magnets will cost you no more than $226,800, if you purchase them from United Nuclear: http://www.unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm
$175 for a 2"x2"x3" magnet. As they point out, a single one of these will affect CRTs in an entire room, and two of them have the potential to break bones. Probably not a good idea to try and homebrew one of these, beyond just that a magnetically levitating bed is stupid.
You think it might be a problem for my Prince Albert?
You people need to realize that this permenant earth magnet has no negative side effects on your health, unless you have ferrous material in you, such as a pace maker, or have swollowed some magnets. If you actually read up on the bed you would have seen that a bulk of the money went into designing ways of preventing the field from effecting unnecessary areas, therefore
1) I don't know about all this ferric/ferrous stuff but I do know only some metals in their pure form are magnetic and there are many metals not affected by magnets. (for example: pure magnesium, zinc, lead, and aluminum are NOT affected by magnets)
2) Electromagnetism is not very different in "EM" waves than it is in a conductive material (a person's body) when it passes near a magnet, the biggest difference is the "EM" forces in the wave vibrate at a certain frequency but are a relatively steady one way force in the case of someone moving in one direction near a strong magnet.
3) Most cancer seems to be caused by cellular irritation, so a cell might be irritated by rubbing it back and forth (physically or by "EM" wave) but a one way force (squishing with a finger or a steady force) will not likely cause irritation. The cell would be more likely to burst before it could get irritated from a steady force.
Dont knock it till you've tried it that's what I say... I've actually got one of these babies, and let me tell you it's great, only mine has these 4 little wooden legs instead of the narrow tethers.
In response to the person who said magnets don't harm the body... that's not entirely true. If the magnetic field was too strong, it would impede your brain's own sensory functions. I HIGHLY doubt that the magnetic field from this bed would ever reach the level required for that though. (For the record, the measure of the magnetic field is Gauss... and 8 Gauss is the upper limits of what the human brain can handle and still be able to function. Anything higher than that causes increasingly higher interference with the brain's own brainwaves, and after 10 Gauss the magnetic field is too strong to overcome and the brain, for lack of a better explanation, "cooks" itself.)
A magnetic bed may hold an attraction for some. But for those, say, with an implanted heart pacemaker, the first night's sleep may well be their last. . . .
What if you have an iron plate in the shoulder after surgery, or even a pacemaker?
oh damn. think about the hot sex you could have on this thing. all the humping in the world could go on and it wont wake your neighbors with and 8.0 earthquake.
OK, let's clear some things up, as there's been a lot of bullshit posted so far:
1. 'Scorpious': 8 gauss is in a similar order of magnitude to the Earth's magnetic field. I think you meant Tesla. And a magnetic field cannot harm the nervous system. 'Brain waves' are electroencephalographic readings of electrical activity on the scalp, not changing magnetic fields within the brain. The only possible way to harm a brain in a magnetic field is to move it quickly with respect to the field, inducing eddy currents. 10 tesla is not strong enough for this.
2. If you really are worried about the excess magnetic fields in the bed somehow damaging the user, I would be very surprised if the magnets within the bed (permanent, because there is no power source to the bed) were not arranged as a Halbach array (which largely cancels the magnetic fields on one side of the array and augments them on the other side).
3. It's likely that this is done using electromagnetic fields in the floor and ceiling, but it could theoretically be done using a large diamagnetic block in the floor. I doubt pyrolytic carbon would be up to levitating this weight, so this would probably need to be super-cooled superconducting material. Or, to reduce the weight of the bed, the bed itself could be made out of a diamagnetic material and the magnets (incredibly strong) placed in the floor.
4. Electromagnetism and magnetism are the same thing, fundamentally.
5. Not all magnetic materials rust (!).
6 'If this bed flips, the opposite poles will slam and crush you'. Simply untrue. If that was going to happen, it would happen immediately; it is impossible to levitate a permanent magnet in a permanent field simply by sitting the magnet on the opposite pole. Either this is diamagnetism (in which case both N and S poles are repelled from the floor) or an alternating electromagnetic field (in which case the effective pull towards the ceiling would be the same whichever way up the bed was).
What if u were victim of frequent synutations that would eventually lead to your demise through internal implosions?.......quimtastic idea
Amazing! However, is it really all that comfortable? For a million dollars, I would hope the mattress material was higher quality memory foam or even latex. Interesting.
SM
http://www.MemoryFoamNetwork.com