# Slinky Down a Spiral Staircase

Writing an (maths) exam question for 'ordinary' level engineers, examining vectors, I had written a question along the lines of "a slinky of mass 1 kg goes down a flight of stairs... the top of the stairs is at $A$ while the bottom is at $B$... find the work done by the gravity force $-9.81\,\mathbf{k}$ in pulling it down the stairs..."

Then I thought maybe I could spice it up by a little by having a spiral staircase and I would basically have the same question...

However then I realised there was no centripetal force that would keep the slinky in circular motion...

The only thing I could posit --- and wouldn't put on the exam --- was that the slinky might be ferromagnetic and the central pole might be a magnet...

Is it theoretically possible for a ferromagnetic slinky to travel down a "magnetic" spiral staircase analogously to how it goes down a 'linear' staircase.

I believe it is but I couldn't convince myself (in particular my recall of the properties of the magnetic field isn't great).