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Quantum levitation demonstrated in viral video
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.
User Comments: 42
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Tekkaraiden said:
That was really cool.
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That's one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.
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KG363 said:
Jaw is dropped
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MaXtor said:
Levitating urinal cakes, what else will they come up with?
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Now that is cool!
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That's friggin amazing! Way to go Israel!
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Quantum flex tubes! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?! The answer has been in front of me the whole time!
Curses!
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Ya that was really really cool!
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Staff
This is by far the coolest thing I have seen for a long time!
My jaw really did drop!
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That's unreal ! Love it.
Looking forward to the highways of the future, where cars are free to levitate like this along
a magnetic road, while being powered by Tesla's wireless electricity, supplied by poles that run alongside it... All trips would be a breeze.
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Unbelievable. Definitely many applications for this, especially for transportation.
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Pretty amazing!
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I would be more excited for them had it been brand new, (its still neat but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3asSdngzLs)
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Guest said:
That's unreal ! Love it.
Looking forward to the highways of the future, where cars are free to levitate like this along
a magnetic road, while being powered by Tesla's wireless electricity, supplied by poles that run alongside it... All trips would be a breeze.
When I was 10 I had this kind of idea, magnetic roads, magnetic shell of car = flying car... But I don't think the way forward would be by building magnetic roads :3
Not very cost effective and theoretically sounds unsafe, imagine having a metal necklace, you get of car and you get zapped to the road... Death-trap :X
Anyway this is fricking awesome, love it!
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This is very close to super conductive perpetual motion... Imagine generators running via perpetual motion = very cheap/free energy.
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@Wendig0 - No, just no, that is wrong on so many levels.
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It's not perpetual because you have to keep cooling the superconductor thats quite a lot of energy...
More importantly tho this could be the first step towards some kind of hover tech, would make sense that it should work with electromagnets also? You could wire up a whole road and only power the sections with "cars" over them to save power and still have great mobility.
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Hover-boards!
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This is just like all the other superconductor videos I've seen. Why is this one viral? It's nothing new. Superconductivity was discovered in 1911.
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Night Hacker said:
maxtor, you made me laugh so hard, thanks for that comment! XD
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EDWARD LEEDSKALNIN, if you haven't heard of this guy, look him up and all that you can find that relates...some real stuff going on here.
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Commercial use? What about travel?
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Very cool. Now if they can just figure out a way to do this without having to cool it down so much there would be a million practical uses for this...
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I cannot stop smiling!
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Very nice, but not possible in commercial use at this point in time, think about the energy requirement to just to cool the superconductor below its critical temperature...
The only use of this type of levitation are the MAGLEV's in China and Japan
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