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The Hoverboard Lie


xlrwrite

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Was anybody else here ever convinced at one time that hoverboard technology was right around the corner? I know I was, and it's nice to see that I wasn't alone. I've talked to a few people about this over the last couple days, and I've gotten the same response in each case;

 

"Hey, remember the Hoverboard from Back to the Future II?"

"Yeah! Y'know, at one time, I thought the hoverboard was real."

"Yeah! Me too!"

 

And I wasn't some silly kid in grammer school when that movie came out... I was a second year engineering student. Even within the halls of higher learning, I met a lot of people who thought the idea was at least feasable. I remember talking about the hoverboard with some other tech nerds in class, and we were trying to figure out how they worked. Obviously, there had been no recent advancements in anti-grav' technology so, we all assumed it must somehow work with magnetism. I can still remember some of the debates.

 

"It can't be magnetic. There's nothing on the ground for it to repel against."

"Well maybe they're not showing us everything. Maybe there's a metal strip under the ground that we can't see."

"I don't buy it. Those metal discs can't be electromagnets. There's no place to put a power source big enough to run 'em. It would need a lot more power when you step on it to support your weight."

"And if that's the case, why doesn't it rise up significantly higher off the ground when you step off of it?"

"I dunno. Maybe it's sophisticated enough to have a sensor that..."

 

... on, and on it raged. It was a couple of months or so after that when it finally began to dawn on me that maybe it was all a bunch of hooey.

 

So why was the myth so popular? Who perpetuated this vile canard?

 

Here is the answer.

Edited by xlrwrite

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Back when the movie first came out, my friend and I knew that it wasn't "real" in the way shown, but we planned on building a platform carpeted with magnets to repel a truckless skateboard covered in magnets glued to both sides (all with the same polarity) to try and duplicate the effect... I should ask him if he still wants to do it :P

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Back when the movie first came out, my friend and I knew that it wasn't "real" in the way shown, but we planned on building a platform carpeted with magnets to repel a truckless skateboard covered in magnets glued to both sides (all with the same polarity) to try and duplicate the effect... I should ask him if he still wants to do it :P

 

with video please :D

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