Video – Quantum Levitation

By Tuesday October 18, 2011

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field.



32 Comments
  1. Bobo says:
    10/18/2011 at 3:21 am

    Flying Cars!!!

    • nilum says:
      10/18/2011 at 3:46 am

      Yeah all we will need is roads made out of giants magnets and cars that are completely frozen in liquid helium.

      Sounds practical to me!

  2. pwuk says:
    10/18/2011 at 3:53 am

    It’d make a great beermat

  3. Drake says:
    10/18/2011 at 3:57 am

    Anyone else having trouble with this website. It locks my Chrome like it locks this frozen disk.

  4. Dallas says:
    10/18/2011 at 5:46 am

    It’s humbling we humans know so little of the 4 basic forces around us. Strong, Weak, electromagnetic and gravity.

    We need another progressive thinker like Einstein to link them!

  5. LibertyLover says:
    10/18/2011 at 6:25 am

    Now THAT was bad ass.

  6. Zybch says:
    10/18/2011 at 6:43 am

    This effect has been known about and demonstrated for years and years. Nothing new here, just search for superconductor levitation on youtube and you’ll get videos going back decades.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=TeS_U9qFg7Y

    • Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says:
      10/18/2011 at 6:55 am

      Yeah? Well we have been doing it for 100s if not 1000s of years!

      http://youtube.com/watch?v=nLXL_q50ymo

      😛

      • Zybch says:
        10/18/2011 at 7:03 am

        But which bit do you pour the liquid nitrogen on??
        I think I know, but it would preclude one from ever procreating…

        • msbpodcast says:
          10/18/2011 at 8:46 am

          The portion that gets the liquid nitrogen is the levitating puck. That would be under (or over for some designs,) the train carriage.

          The track would be magnetized (temporarily in small segments for electromagnets,) which leads to all kinds of other problems in shielding.

          I really don’t thing we want to live with or even near unshielded multiple Tesla coils.

          For one thing, it would make cooking extremely difficult, what with the pans and the whole fucking stove getting torn from your grasp and through your kitchen wall every time a train went past near your house.

          The NRA would be up in arms (sorry about the pun there,) over gun owners having their weapons torn from their grasp.

          • Olo Baggins of Bywater says:
            10/18/2011 at 9:30 am

            I’ve got a pile of super-magnets right here, and no kidding they remind me of those cartoons. Put one in your pocket, and be careful when you walk through a metal door frame. Do not get your fingers between them.

            Magnetism drops off exponentially with distance, so don’t get too excited about the tracks attracting random appliances. 😉

          • Zybch says:
            10/18/2011 at 2:25 pm

            Those neodymium magnets can be a killer. Even a couple of small ones hurt like hell on either side of a finger, and those yogic flying guys must have them on their wangs, no wonder they always have a pained expression…

        • msbpodcast says:
          10/18/2011 at 8:49 am

          “it would preclude one from ever procreating”

          Don’t let the “Planned Parenthood” people ever find out.

      • deowll says:
        10/18/2011 at 6:42 pm

        They aren’t magnetically locked at some angle. The little trains rock back and forth. I think it’s the fact that the lock occurs which is important.

  7. msbpodcast says:
    10/18/2011 at 8:32 am

    Don’t care. This demonstration just leaves me cold.

    —-

    But seriously, I can tell that the superconducting “levitation puck” was frozen in liquid nitrogen.

    Depending on the levitation/locking force applied per area of superconductor, this could/should/would make it possible to adapt for transportation needs. (Sing it with me:♪♫♪♫♪ Trains good, planes bad … Whoohoo… ♪♫♪♫♪)

    Electrifying consecutive segments of a magnetic track would take care of providing a motive force. That’s old hat.

    I saw demonstrations of this in the 1960s.

    But the guy was handling the puck wearing big bulky gloves because the superconductive puck was frozen at nearly absolute zero; also it didn’t last long.

    This is possible because research in material science which has raised the temperature from ~0ºk to 80+ºk which makes it nearly economically feasible; (but nearly is only good in throwing horse-shoes, hand-grenades and thermonuclear bombs.)

  8. julio says:
    10/18/2011 at 9:05 am

    i heard a rumor of the nxt iphone having this feature, no more broken phones…

  9. hale-bopp says:
    10/18/2011 at 9:27 am

    Yeah, nothing new. I was making the so-called 1-2-3 superconductor back in the late 80’s when I was an undergrad in college. It’s not difficult…could probably be made in high school chemistry (it was discovered in 1987 so I couldn’t have made it in high school!)

    The other issues with the high temperature superconductors is that they are ceramics which means it is difficult to make wires out of them.

  10. soundwash says:
    10/18/2011 at 9:34 am

    lol.. given that we have been basically programmed to be the most scientifically inept/ignorant public of all the “advanced” civilizations, its a simple matter to re-brand this 40-50 year old hat trick as “quantum” (anything) to wow the plebeians.

    (and then re-brand .gov grant requests to fund and investigate this exciting “new” field of quantum scamming)

    this is a stones throw from simply exploiting the diamagnetic properties of most all materials. -anyone remember some years ago of scientists suspending a frog in a very powerful electromagnetic field?

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=mOt-rYBu0gg

    (stick “diamagnetic levitation” in a search for more interesting vids and info)

    so they manipulated a relatively “passive setup” to stay “locked” within the field domain of the magnetic track, -big deal.

    how do you think many “ufos” manage to zip around defying (our) flawed physics? same principals. only they actively generate and control a local EM and gravity field to pull off basically the same trick.

    but you know.. our science says “nonono can dooOo -because it would require insane amounts of energy!” (and besides, we still don’t know how gravity works anyways) –purehogwash.

    Only say “wow” when they finally show you the room temperature superconducting materials they have been sitting on for years doing it.

    (ie: polymer-based Ultraconductors -which in a large part, came to western science out of russia after the fall of the soviet union. -very “anti-oil” “anti-consumerism” technology. -so pretty much banned from major we$tern re$earch)

    “look ma, no rare-earths required!”

    Silly Hoomans.

    -s

    • ± says:
      10/18/2011 at 11:29 am

      … geez, another nutcase who thinks trillion dollar
      technologies can be repressed.

  11. Uncle Patso says:
    10/18/2011 at 11:43 am

    soundwash says:

    “lol.. given that we have been basically programmed to be the most scientifically inept/ignorant public of all the “advanced” civilizations, its a simple matter to re-brand this 40-50 year old hat trick as “quantum” (anything) to wow the plebeians. ”

    Reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which begins and ends with a travelling show that amazes the villagers with – – – a magnet!

    There’s also a quote from a Dick Tracy villain:
    “He who controls magnetism controls the world!”

    http://medicaltees.com/mrhewhocomac.html

  12. ECA says:
    10/18/2011 at 6:06 pm

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=VyOtIsnG71U

    For those that dont get the point..
    OLD TECH and they feed us the CRAP..
    Anyone deep into computers can give you an idea of things that are waiting IN THE PAST, they havent been GIVEN/SOLD to us at 1000 TIMES the cost.

  13. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says:
    10/18/2011 at 9:45 pm

    Wow. I just saw how f’d up the comments section is. Comments in random order.

    HEY EDITOR. LOOK AT THE TIME STAMPS ON THE COMMENTS AND LOOK AT THE ORDER OF COMMENTS.

    NO CORRELATION.

  14. sargasso_c says:
    10/19/2011 at 6:03 am

    A superconductor has zero electrical resistance. In any static magnetic field an electromagnetic induction will create an equal but opposite magnetic field to oppose the effect of an applied physical force. In this case, gravity.

  15. sargasso_c says:
    10/19/2011 at 6:07 am

    Posting from a different time zone, messes with the order. I am in tomorrow already (not time travelling).


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