[Techspot] Quantum Levitation Demonstration

[Obambam]

Quantum levitation demonstrated in viral video

By Shawn Knight
October 18, 2011, 2:00 PM EST

A demonstration by Tel-Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group School of Physics and Astronomy shows quantum locking in action. The video was recorded at the Association of Science – Technology Centers Annual Conference and has already been viewed nearly 400,000 times in only two days.

The video was posted on YouTube on October 16 by ASTCvideos and shows a permanent magnet being used to levitate a thin superconductor layer in an effect called quantum levitation. In layman’s terms, the superconductor is so cold that it’s locking the magnetic field in three dimensions. The superconductor can seemingly “hover” in space and even move along a track freely because the magnetic field stays the same.

quantumleviation.com provides more information about the elements at play. The semiconductor (0.5micron) is coated with a sapphire crystal (500micron) layer, wrapped in plastic and chilled in liquid nitrogen. The end result is that the chilled wafer is essentially locked in space above the magnet.

This works because at a normal state (warm), the magnetic field is able to penetrate freely. Cooling creates quantum trapping and the magnetic field penetrates in the form of quantum flux tubes. The quantum flux tubes are pinned in defects, locking the superconductor in space and allowing frictionless movement.

It’s still way too early to determine just exactly how such a technology could be used commercially but it certainly looks promising.

Quantum levitation demonstrated in viral video - TechSpot News

 

[westtowel]

Tel-Aviv University good job.can somebody explain quantum levitation?

 

[Raja.Pakistani]

 

[Dubious]

Will We Get A Real-Life 'Back to the Future 2' Hoverboard By 2015?

"History has told us that some of the best and brightest people in the world had to defy the rules to give us the technology that we take for granted today."

That's from inventor, designer, and would-be hoverboard creator Robert Haleluk's recent interview with Motherboard, where he talked at length about his desire to bring everyone's second favorite piece of "Back to the Future" tech* into the real world.


Haleluk, who began a $1 million-targeting Indiegogo funding campaign at the end of June, hopes to build the first open-source hoverboard platform by the summer of 2015: right around the time that they were supposed to exist in the Robert Zemeckis film. The funds would be used to set up a knowledge base at Hoverboard.org as well as develop and prototype designs for an iOS-controlled hoverboard.

Here's Haveluk's description of the proposed piece of current science fiction:

The Hoverboard will be powered by omni-direction tubeaxial blowers, which is similar to the technology being used in the hover-bike above and throughout the aerospace industry. As a matter of fact, the company that we purchase them from is a defense contractor who manufactures parts for stealth submarines, torpedos and other military applications. The Hoverboard will be powered by an on-board rechargeable battery and it will be controlled from your iPhone or Android device.

In the Motherboard interview, the inventor talks a lot about taking inspiration not from existing hover-thing projects like the recent hover-bike concept, but instead from the world of defense contractor designs such as vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) craft.

The open source part comes in with the app, whose SDK Haltek Industries will release for free to any ambitious developers out there looking to design games for the prospective hoverboard**.

The response has been somewhat muted, though: as of this writing, the campaign has reached around $2700 since it launched on June 28. There's still 21 days to go, though, so if you want to put your support behind the project (which offers a functional hoverboard at the $5,000 and $10,000 backer levels), then get in on it now.



MTV Geek – Will We Get A Real-Life ‘Back to the Future 2′ Hoverboard By 2015?

 

[Mythal]

This would make a super cool air-hockey puck