Where We're Going...

A lot of you have probably been thinking, “OK, world, this is the future. Where is my flying car?”

"I need something more... stylish."

Well, before you get your proverbial panties in a bunch, think about how that would work. Without involving jets (which are dangerous for a commercial vehicle) and propellers (which would make your car a plane) the only thing left to make your car fly would be the power of magnetism. Everyone’s pushed a magnet across a table before; in theory, a strong enough magnet would be able to push off a metal surface and, with, a motor in it, possibly drive itself around. However, that magnet you pushed does flips, skids, and is just entirely unstable if pushed from the bottom. How could one implement your fantastic new magnet technology in a stable car, one that wouldn’t flip over when you turned it on? The answer: superconducting levitation. Believe it or not, that is a real phrase, and the technology is being implemented as we speak.

The Fundamentals, Part 2: Electromagnetism, a.k.a. "The positive side has the bump, right?"

Ah, electromagnetism. This fundamental interaction of matter is so much more important than most would believe. Like gravity, the effects of electromagnetism have always been known by humankind, in one form or another. However, it wasn’t until way, way later that we found out what it truly was, or how integral it is to the existence of... well, everything. It took a man by the name of James Clerk Maxwell to get science on its way. He published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873, pointing out several interconnected properties between the two phenomena, like: 

Point 1: Electric charges of different sign (positive, negative) attract, and like ones repel. The same goes with magnetic poles: north pulls south, and pushes away other norths. 

Point 2: Running an electric current through a wire creates a magnetic field. Likewise, moving a magnet through a loop of wire creates an electric current. 

What he had described was the newly understood phenomena called... electromagnetism. 

Little Glowy Things

See these?

Shiny.

These are called quantum dots. They are incredibly tiny semiconductors, the applications of which are nearly endless. And you’ve probably never heard of them.