/sci/ - Science & Math

Alright I have a dumb fucking question. My intuition tells me it obviously won’t work but I can’t tell (from a physics diagram point of view) where the forces cancel out.

Why can’t we make a thruster made from electromagnets? For example, take the pic related. Those rings are repelled to the top of the shaft. What if we pushed the rings to the bottom and secured them. Assuming they were super magnetic and we turned the electromagnet WAY up, there would be a huge repulsion force acting on them. Why can’t we use that repulsion force to “lift” the whole device? Is this just akin to using a crane to lift your own crane like in that episode of whacky races? Where do the forces cancel out; I feel retarded