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Comment by zacinbusiness | Hacker News Reader

What would be required to make a real hover board? I assume that first off it would need to be a bit larger. And some kind of control mechanism, maybe near the toe area? But as for the actual tech, is it even remotely possible?

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I'm sure you've seen this, but I was REALLY hoping the video was some kind of large scale riff on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA

And more awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zqmd...

It's already 3 years old, so I'm waiting for people to use this technology or an extension of it for something cool.

The more awesome one was also a viral fake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhlpyP-2ooE

To do it with magnets, I'm guessing you'd need a magnetic field so powerful it would destroy electronics as you passed by them (you'd have to repel off of the EM field of the Earth). To do it with air, your "board" would be more of a "tank". Maybe there are other mechanisms you could exploit, like a static field (although I wouldn't want to stand anywhere near it), but none of them seem practical.

I guess if we had room temp superconductors and you could install them under all of the roads and sidewalks, and the hover board had really strong magnets onboard, that might hover.

Or if it's a self contained theme park "ride" you could possibly use existing super conductors and actively cool them. (I'm imaging a super cold skate rinc concept)

Can anyone correct my physics understanding?

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