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Suppose you have a ball that is covered in magnets, in which the North Pole of every magnet faces outward. Is this a monopole? Or at least "functions" as a monopole? And what will happen if you placed the ball over a floor tiled in magnets with the North Pole of every one facing up?

Also, I recently saw another poster's question on what would happen if you positioned a ball plated in magnets North Pole outward inside a hollow ball that was plated on the inside North Pole facing inward. One answer-er said if you built the sphere perfectly, then the forces would cancel out, and the ball would drop to the floor. The answer for me seems kinda counter intuitive, as if the ball was dropping toward the floor, the bottom-hemisphere's magnetic field would have greater potency while the upper hemisphere's would fade away. Wouldn't it just levitate at least? Of course not in the center, as it is affected by gravity, but wouldn't it still levitate contrary to one of the physical laws I heard of? Thanks guys, I'm kinda confused.

HyperLuminal
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Or at least "functions" as a monopole?

I'm afraid not. A magnet is a magnetic dipole and there is, as far as I know, no configuration of magnetic dipoles that can give a monopole field.

Alfred Centauri
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I agree with Alfred Centauri that there is no configuration of a monopole, but on the second question, depending on how big the surface of the magnetic floor is, the strength of the magnets, and some other conditions I would imagine that it would levitate over the floor. On the third question, I believe that if it were a perfect sphere, the center ball would levitate(unless some other strong enough force is acting upon it), depending on the strength of the magnets in about the middle.

By the way here is a cool levitating hover board(the first one ever): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSheVhmcYLA

Benichiwa
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