Would this wheel spin from magnetic force?

[ShaneD]

Recently I was thinking random thoughts and thought to myself, if there was a windmill like wheel with powerful magnets on each blade, would it spin? Here is a poorly drawn picture to help explain myself:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/magneticwheel.png/ [WARNING -- a user has reported that this link freezes his browser. --bcrowell]

The N's and S's are representing the different poles. Excuse my poor paintdrawing skills... lol paint is difficult to be precise in :P

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't spin(it doesn't seem likely), but can any of you think of a structure that would spin? This sort of stuff interests me. Thanks :D

 

[danR]

clicking that link gave me a forced Mac modal-box pop-up blurb. Had to restart browser. Just saying.

 

[Dale]

Hi ShaneD, welcome to PF!

You can certainly put magnets on a rotor and make it spin, that is what an electric motor does. Of course, you obviously also have to create a field outside of the rotor to push it. That assembly is called the stator.