Categories
back to the future casimir effect douglas kastle future hoverboard levitation robert zemeckis

Hoverboard by 2015?

It is a common joke that the future predicted when we were young is not the present we currently live in. A lot of people are very agrieved that there are no flying cars or colonies on the moon. Well you can keep all that, the greatest abuse of my childhood dreams is that the Hoverboard has not yet been invented. Seen in Back to the Future II as a levitating skateboard. Robert Zemeckis toyed with my innocence at the time by saying they really existed, but had been band by parent groups, however they were lucky enough to get their hands on some.

I was to find out later that he was lying, all for the purpose of a joke, and there is no such thing as a hoverboard and a little piece of me died that day. However there may be hope yet, to Zemeckis credit there is still 8 years until 2015 (When Back to the Future is set and where we find the hoverboards) which means there is still time (no pun intended). That and the fact that scientists have announced that they have reversed the Casimir effect, so that it repels instead of attracts. The Casimir effect in attraction mode is supposed to the technique that geckos stick to glass or ceilings.

Already they have announced that this discovery could lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. Why have Physicists such small vision? They should halt that work and start developing the hoverboard. As a personal message to any Physicists reading this, you have teased us with such fanciful futures now is you chance to prove it. That and it could be the “Tickle me Elmo” of 2015, think about it!