Magnetic braking of magnets sliding along a sloped aluminum surface

[RunningBare]

I've often wondered about the earths magnetic strength, that is one hunk of dynamo rotating at the core and it creates the magnetosphere that protects the earth from solar winds, now that's reaching out a long way, but why is it that metals near the pole do not slam into the ground, if the field is strong enough to deflect solar winds in orbit you'd expect it to be extremely powerful at the earths surface.

[TinselKoala]

You've hit upon, I believe, the physical meaning of Maxwell's equations. The divergence of B is zero but the gradient of B has a value at any point in the field. (The curl of B also, but that has a different meaning.)
What this means is that the attraction (or repulsion) isn't an effect of the strength of the field but rather its spatial distribution, specifically how it falls off with distance. In a uniform field a magnetic substance only experiences a torque, not a pull. This is why a compass needle (or a needle on a cork floating in water) isn't forced to move northward,  it just rotates to align with the local field lines.
The earth's field is uniform over small scales in the lab, so magnets and iron don't migrate.

I think.

[BEP]

Hypothesis only…
Presume for a moment that the reason static charges of the same polarity repel is purely because of the magnetic field resulting from spin.  Also, then the main energy transfer is due to the combining or clashing of individual magnetic fields â€"or- you can push a magnet with another magnet when they are repelling.

If the main conveyance is through the magnetic fields then there is a possible explanation of a non-moving magnet staying at rest â€" when moving it falls under the influence of the ambient magnetic field. This would be no different than a point charge angular velocity due to Lorentz.
In plain terms: the Earth’s magnetic field sees the moving magnet the same as it would see a moving point charge. It applies torque to the assumed point charge (the incredibly tiny magnet and field) but only when the field of the magnet is moving perpendicular to the Earth’s field . In other words, the moving charges/magnetic fields are all realigned but only when moving relative to the ambient field.

Sound ridiculous? The results of these experiments seem to be pointing to Faraday disk like results.

The suspended magnets worked like a perfect compass when the disk was not rotating. When the disk was rotating it was rotating within two magnetic fields, Earth’s and the suspended magnets. If you have two fields out of phase from another a third vector can be created â€" rotation. If you have rotation and one field you create another field. If the direction of rotation is wrong you would only have deflection. If it is right one of the fields would be caused to rotate.

As far as bulldozers not being  stuck to the ground and unable to move….
I think they must be in a very deep hole if this ever happens.
This may fall under near/far field. Another definition that varies. My belief is far field can easily cause a torque with almost no attracting/repelling while near field can do it all with much more force.
The reason I say this is I remember a grade school experiment with a magnet floating on a plastic lid in water. It was a good compass but we had to keep pushing it back to center and it always headed for the North edge of the water container even if we placed it on another edge.

Just open thoughts above….

[BEP]

Strike my last mention of rotation of the suspended magnets caused by a rotating field and static field creating a third vector.

I just replaced my thread with monofilament and it only deflected but at different amounts. At the moment I'm thinking the attractive fields generated in the disk are simply stronger with the disk rotating one direction as opposed to the other direction. It may have only been stretching the thread more in one direction of disk rotation.

[Justalabrat]

Magnetic levitation with a WHOLE lot of copper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ngx8YMLOzU