All materials in the world, including this computer screen, your fingers and the air around you are made up of atoms. The atoms have a small, positively charged nucleus, surrounded by a cloud of negative electrons.

All these charged particles are party animals, constantly spinning, dancing and getting down to the beat. This jiving turns them into little magnets with the positive and negative particles grouping together.

In diamagnetic materials like copper, lead, mercury, nitrogen, sodium, chloride and water these atomic magnets always line up in opposition to any external fields, and so repel them.  They are very different to paramagnetic materials which become magnetized in the same direction as the magnet.

You could say the “Diamagnetes” are the rebels of the atom world. Pete Doherty, Mick Jagger and Ossy Osbourne probably have a little extra water and sodium in their blood.

• Try your own diamagnetism experiment
  
• Diamagnetic, Paramagnetic, and Ferromagnetic Materials
  
• Cool experiments with magnets
  
• Read about the history of Magnetic Fields
  
• Uses for magnets
  
• A new world record for magnetic field
  
• A finger that feels electromagnetic fields along with the normal sense of touch? Read about people who have rare earth magnets implanted in their fingers.