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Pop go the magnets! If you place a series of magnets on a table, all with the same magnetic face pointing upwards, they will organise themselves into a grid. But push them closer and closer together, compressing the grid, and eventually one will leap into the air cause them all to snap together.

Nicholas Taberlet at Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France and his colleagues placed a series of magnets on a lubricated table to figure out exactly how and why this happens.

They found that it is caused by slight variations in the table鈥檚 surface 鈥� if one magnet is just a little bit higher up than the others, or slightly tilted, the repulsive forces from the surrounding ones flip it up into the air. Then, its bottom surface, which is attractive to the tops of the other magnets, pulls them towards it and starts a chain reaction.

鈥淚f everything were ideally flat the magnets would have no reason to pop out of plane,鈥� says Taberlet. 鈥淚n theory you should then be able to compact them as much as you want. However, as the density increases, the slightest dust particle might be enough to make them jump.鈥�