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.

Comments

Re: ass piss forst asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

I got 99 jmmies and your post rustled none.

Garbage story

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a garbage story

I knew it was bs from the start

[Karmashock]

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.