New Skateboard Defies Gravity

A futuristic dream only a couple of decades ago, the hoverboard – a skateboard that floats above the ground - has finally been made possible. While still not ready for mass production, it promises to become a cool mode of transport, at least over some surfaces. Mutual repulsion between the same poles of two magnets can counteract the force of gravity, and make an object levitate or hover in space. Since the 1980s, that principle has been employed in so-called maglev trains in Europe,...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - vendredi 21 novembre 2014