Slashdot Mirror
The Physics of Lexus's Hoverboard
benonemusic writes: Lexus' hoverboard may never become commercially available, but is it scientifically feasible? You'd need to place a superconducting material in a magnetic field powerful enough to support the board and the rider. Steve Gourlay of Lawrence Berkeley Lab's Superconductor Magnet Group provides insights, including the possibility that Lexus put some very strong rare-earth magnets underneath the sidewalk in the video.
I got 99 jmmies and your post rustled none.
This is a garbage story
After that hendrix board or whatever it was called, I was pretty dubious. Also its pretty clear that its using some kind of super conducting magnet... that's what the wispy dry ice smoke probably is... it could be liquid nitrogen or whatever. But whatever it is, they would have had to put something under the sidewalk. Its not magnetically levitating on concrete.
Frankly, I'd like for them to stop trying to make prospective inventions from stupid movies real. Especially when they haven't figured out a reasonable way to do it.
The other hover board that they even got tony hawk to shill for some how was a complete fraud. The damned thing gobbled absurd amounts of power just to levitate and could only do it on some kind of copper sheet.
More infuriatingly the inventor was talking about levitating buildings. That is entirely dishonest because the power requirements to actually do that using their technology would have required megawatts of power... PER building.
The technology lexus is using appears to be less obnoxious in that it probably uses a lot less power. BUT it does appear to require super conducting magnets that are being kept cool with what appears to be liquid nitrogen or something... and of course... something has to be under that fucking sidewalk.
I'm just annoyed by the misrepresentation.
The Hyperloop is possible. A global micro sat internet is believable. But this hoverboard shit... Even if you actually had a hover board... this is possibly the most useless application of the technology. Seriously. Think if you had some kind of levitation tech. Where would you apply it first?
1. Construction?
2. Trains that zip over the surface of the ocean and then seamlessly get on tracks on the coasts?
3. Mobility for the disabled?
No no... lets sell it to punk kids so they can do something they can already do with regular skateboards but in a more expensive and pretensions way. Because that's what a kid with a skateboard needs... I way to show he's better than everyone else that has wheels because his daddy dumped 1000 dollars on an f'ing skateboard for no reason.
The whole thing is dumb.
Its like inventing a human level intelligence AI and then marketing it as a blow job machine. Yes yes... people like to have orgasms... I'd sooner put a wire into your brain that let you press a button to give yourself an orgasm whenever you wanted. Then you could just sit there pressing the button while the AI was doing something more productive.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Fun for all ages!
Caution: Do not open. May freeze fingers off.
Magnetic levitation is certainly feasible, but it is almost certainly economically impractical.
For example, Ken Pence at Vanderbilt University has built a prototype magnetic levitation platform that uses spinning NdFeB magnets. I've seen it in action. It requires an aluminum sheet underneath the platform, and uses about 20 kW of power to lift a maximum of 300 pounds. Prof. Pence's ultimate goal is to make it steerable and have a demo with students driving it around a room.
However, Prof. Pence will cheerfully admit that the technology is far from practical for consumer use. You'd need to install aluminum sheeting under every roadway, and the power requirements for the amount of load being lifted are excessive. 20 kW is enough to push an electric car down the road at 60 mph. He will jokingly admit that his magnetic platform would only do 60 mph if you drove it off a cliff.
So why build it? His students constructed it as part of a Management of Technology course, where they learn firsthand the practical limitations of building a "gee whiz" device. I've seen some pretty interesting gadgets come out of that class (e.g. a wireless power transmitter), but as his students figure out, just because something is possible doesn't make it the least bit practical.
Call me when they have a thrust and power system that is unlike anything before. A hoverboard requiring a track and super conductors is about as innovative as someone re-inventing the wheel. If it can't go anywhere but its track, it's a pointless gimmick.
Oh come on people, there's no story here. Notice how the video ended just as whoever it was put a foot on the 'hoverboard'? It's obvious that while there may be magnets involved, it wasn't for-real and as soon as any weight was put on it, it was on the ground and not going anywhere. Old trick, nothing to see here, move along, people..
At best this 'story' is just a shameless shill for Lexus, even more reason to ignore it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Flying carpets were perfected by Arab magicians centuries ago.
http://www.moillusions.com/fly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Points in case:
- Obviously supercooled.
- We do not get to see how much it dips with passenger. Hence it very likely only carries its own weight, which may be almost nothing.
This thing is no hover-board, it just looks like one. Levitating superconductors are nothing new. The only thing cool or noteworthy is the clever misdirection by Lexus.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... including the possibility that Lexus put some very strong rare-earth magnets underneath the sidewalk in the video.
I don't see why we couldn't just do that everywhere. It won't cost more than a trillion dollars, and it would pretty much solve all the problems we constantly have with sidewalks lacking strong magnetic fields.
I mean, it would create some new problems for non-hovering skateboards, bikes, carts, segways, other wheeled vehicles, people in wheelchairs, people with piercings or surgical plates, people who wear steel-toed boots, people carrying hard drives, clumsy people who drop ferrous items, people whose job it is to clean debris off sidewalks, compass-wielding explorers, and any metallic objects anywhere near street level in cities or suburbs. Small price to pay for working hoverboards everywhere!
Nothing posted to
Experimental evidence for the formation of CoFe2C phase with colossal magnetocrystalline-anisotropy
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/106/21/10.1063/1.4921789