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121 Comments
- KingBroseph, on 12/31/2007, -4/+46Dugg for Michio Kaku.
- AnonymousSkull, on 12/31/2007, -2/+40You have - no - points - left - on your - licence.
BADA BIG BOOM! - InitialDMP5, on 12/31/2007, -2/+28horseless carriages will never happen. To many scientific and engineering hurdles to deal with. No to mention who would want people driving horseless carriages anyways when they can barely operate horses.
- odigity, on 12/31/2007, -0/+13Problem: Inverse Square Law
- active1x0, on 12/31/2007, -3/+16Real Mediaplayer? Seriously? Get the ***** off the internet, you jackass.
- libervisco, on 12/31/2007, -0/+12Well, maybe this wouldn't exactly allow for cars flying very high above the road (and be stable at that). However, it is already quite a progress if it would allow cars that hover just above the road. This means less friction (actually no friction) and hence less energy to move the car. This also means that some alternative propellants for the cars (more environment friendly, like solar or combo between solar and hydrogen etc.) that couldn't be sufficient for normal wheel-cars may now be sufficient for hover-cars.
In other words, make the cars hover due to superconductivity -> decrease the need for energy -> get the energy in a completely environment friendly way (no oil!) -> one huge pollutant to Earth removed. :)
Cheers - Hockey13, on 12/31/2007, -1/+10Cool video, but "flying cars" as depicted in the videos is a bit of a stretch. You'd have to stay over the road just like now.
- tehWyman, on 08/19/2009, -3/+11........c
.......e n
.....c o r s
....h i p c a
...u s e s b l
..i n d n e s s - S1ngular1ty1, on 12/31/2007, -0/+8Those are actually good lectures you mental midgets.
- inactive, on 12/31/2007, -1/+8O...RLY?
- Joomal, on 12/31/2007, -2/+9Real teachers don't use rm :P
- matrix0f8h, on 12/31/2007, -1/+7Here is a demonstration of the effect from a great teacher: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity- ...
Lecture #19... - S1ngular1ty1, on 12/31/2007, -0/+5Dugg because you aren't as stupid and gullible as most people.
- Elliuotatar, on 12/31/2007, -0/+5The main advantage of floating cars would be that the car would not slow down rapidly as soon as you stopped applying power to the wheels, and some reduction in drag. You could also attain much greater speeds. The problem is, you can't turn or brake easily if you don't have gripping tires.
- sdellboy, on 12/31/2007, -0/+5True, but 'floating over a superconducting road cars' sounds so less cool....
- inactive, on 12/31/2007, -1/+5***** you both
- edein, on 12/31/2007, -0/+4"You've got a degree in baloney" -Futurama
- jggr, on 12/31/2007, -1/+5If you understood sarcasm, you'd agree with InitalDMP5. ;)
- Elliuotatar, on 12/31/2007, -0/+4Obviously the flying cars they show in the video are silly and have nothing to do with superconductors. The whole city would have to be built over a superconducting base.
And cars floating a few feet over a roadway would also be silly, because it would be like everyone driving hovercrafts, which as you may know are hard to turn and stop.
But what if we replaced highways with a superconductive rail system? One would guide their car over the rail like one does at a car wash, and the car would attach itself to the rail. The car would then be puleld along the rail, which would incline a bit at the start to get the car's wheels off the ground, and then the car would be towed by computer to its destination, where it would be switched off onto the appropriate exit, decelerated, and released.
Using magnets like this to levitate the car and keeping it on the rail and controlling it all by computer, we'd be able to make the cars travel much faster, prevent accidents, and use less fuel, because 90% of the power you're using to keep the car moving is due to the ground friction and drivetrain drag, and not the air friction. - Hockey13, on 12/31/2007, -0/+4Good point. White men don't get into accidents! Genocide is funny!
-A white guy - S1ngular1ty1, on 12/31/2007, -0/+4That comment wasn't racist or sexist at all.
- matrixbandit, on 12/31/2007, -0/+3VacuumSux is obviously right, and he was correcting an error in the article description (scroll back up, you'll see it's wrong)
I didn't even notice the mistake the first time though, that definitely could give the wrong idea to people who don't understand this stuff. I dugg your comment up VacuumSux. - Akronos, on 12/31/2007, -0/+3Well, for one, you're comparing static friction (Which is the friction that tires feel unless you are drifting or something) and kinetic friction (Which is the friction that the car feels against the air), and they both have different coefficients even for the same materials interacting with each other since static and kinetic friction are two different types of friction.
Secondly, on this page, it says that the coefficient of static friction is 1 for a tire on concrete.
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2002.web.dir/B ... - JoeRW, on 01/01/2008, -0/+3Get RealAlternative then. Theres no spam at all and it plays rm.
- VacuumSux, on 12/31/2007, -6/+9It's not liquid Nitrogen that becomes superconducting. It's a ceramic material, which when cooled down to liquid Nitrogen temperature (77 Kelvin), turns superconducting.
- nhprm, on 12/31/2007, -0/+3If the super conductor is the bottom of your car wouldn't the earths mag field induce secondary magnetism and allow you to float anywhere?
- marklar69, on 12/31/2007, -1/+4BIG bada boom!
- gn0stik, on 12/31/2007, -1/+4Death does that to a career. Kaku is awesome IMO.
- Fogdelune, on 12/31/2007, -1/+4Sagan's work is still pretty relevant, and his books are always a good read. Kaku is the closest thing we have to Sagan. He shows a genuine enthusiasm with science that is infectious.
I think when Cosmos came out, cable TV was in its infancy, so less choices drove a lot of people to watch it. Now, I don't know if such a program would be as far reaching, since cable has muddied the waters a bit. The same medium that gives us the Science Channel and National Geographic brought us Spike and Lifetime, not to mention all the reality TV. That being said, I love my cable. - n00blet, on 12/31/2007, -0/+2http://www.free-codecs.com/Real_Alternative_downlo ...
- bassplayeradam, on 12/31/2007, -0/+2I had Kaku for a science class last semester at CCNY, best teacher I have ever had in my life.
- JDRay, on 12/31/2007, -0/+2A huckster that's been trying to "invent" a flying car for about forty years. He makes just enough progress to keep funding rolling in, blames a lot of failures on regulatory requirements, and is always six months away from a production-ready prototype (he's been "six months away" for at least ten years). He's also the inventor of the SuperTrapp muffler, a beautiful bit of engineering. Google for "M-4 Skycar" to read all the hype.
- odigity, on 12/31/2007, -1/+3Thanks :)
- silvershadow21, on 12/31/2007, -0/+2The inventor of the Moller Skycar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller
- offspring06, on 12/31/2007, -0/+2I would hate to see someone talking on their cell phone iflying a car.
- inactive, on 12/31/2007, -1/+3Yep... but there is no way in hell, that I will EVER install that piece of ***** called RealPlayer on my pc!
- DenRoedeBaron, on 12/31/2007, -1/+3True. That means more powerful magnets would be required and the distance between the object and the emitter would have to be as short as possible.
- CaviMike, on 12/31/2007, -1/+3I take it you didn't watch the video.
- kd1s, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1It's not going to be THAT simple to get mageno-levitating cars. Power is still an issue and we need to focus some research on greater power storage devices. Capacitors are starting to take the forefront since they are rapid current charge/discharge devices. A flux capacitor anyone?
- merkk, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1The description is wrong - it's not turning liquid nitrogen into a superconductor. The LN2 is turning the ceramic into a superconductor by cooling it.
- vornan19, on 12/31/2007, -2/+3I can't see what you did there.
- ahvi, on 01/01/2008, -0/+1I thought that was implied?
- vornan19, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1Maybe. How big of a car are we talking?
- GamerVer05, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1No.
- lendrick, on 01/01/2008, -0/+1> This means less friction (actually no friction) and hence less energy to move the car.
...and no practical means of turning it. I'll keep my wheels, thanks. :) - odigity, on 12/31/2007, -1/+2It means you can't wear a watch or belt while driving your flying car. Magnets strong enough to project a field with non-negligible effect more than a few inches away will never, ever be used for anything wide spread. Magnets are cool, but there are many things they simply can't be used for. Either we invent anti-gravity, or we keep funding Mr. Moller. :)
- sdellboy, on 12/31/2007, -2/+3What if you added this tech to the driverless car tech (as seen on Top Gear)? Then we all could float/fly places whilst reading Digg on our in-car internet...
- amarketingman, on 12/31/2007, -0/+1awesome I have been waiting for a hover-board ever since i first saw back to the future
- dermarr5, on 12/31/2007, -1/+2BZZZZZZZZZ!
-Chris tucker - meebabo77, on 12/31/2007, -1/+2"Watch how liquid nitrogen is turned into a superconductor."
FAIL -
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