Levitation Transportation: Are We Now Living In The Future?

Today I saw a Youtube clip of a flying hoverboard. I am one that is fascinated by how things work. Little wonder the science TV channel, How It's Made, is my favorite.

First, I would like us to be on the same page by knowing what our topic of discussion is.



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What is a hoverboard?

Technically, a hoverboard is a levitating platform (that looks like a skateboard without wheels) that can be used for personal transportation.

It is often the favorite mode of personal transportation used in fictional stories. That is made popular by the Back To the Future film franchise.

But today, Lexus has been able to make a flying hoverboard. So, it is no longer a subject of fiction but of reality.

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^{Courtesy: Youtube.com clip of the Back To The Future movie showing a hoverboard scene}

While Lexus hoverboard may not fly like that seen in the video clip, it does hover above the ground.

How It Works (Science Behind The Levitation)

The hoverboard was able to float over a three magnetic rail through a phenomenon is known as Meissner effect (or Meissner–Ochsenfeld effect).

First, you create a superconductor, with little resistance to electric flow, the hoverboard is cooled below their superconducting transition temperature. As it is transitioning into the superconducting state, there is the expulsion of a magnetic field.

The superconductor is now in the Meissner state (state of little or no magnetic field).

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The hoverboard is made from superconducting material and cooled by liquid nitrogen to about -197°C.

Since it is placed on a magnetic rail, it produces a repulsive force big enough to levitate the hoverboard.

When the cooling process is switched on and the blocks in the board become superconductors, they effectively trap the lines of the magnetic field from the track. This causes the blocks to be pinned at a fixed height above the track, a process known as flux pinning, which provides much more stable levitation. Flux pinning ensures the hoverboard doesn’t deviate either horizontally or vertically from the track.

Watch the video of this incredible feat of engineering built by Lexus in 2015 at work at the special hoverboard park Cubelles, in a village outside of Barcelona in the video below.

^{Source:Youtube.com}


Skateboard fans should relax as soon this hoverboard would be the new means of personal transportation. The future is sure going to be an exciting one.



^{image source: unsplash.com. Skateboard fans brace up, the hoverboard would soon be the next big thing :)}

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