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'Flying carpet' of conductive plastic takes flight

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dipsydoodle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-30-11 08:02 AM
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'Flying carpet' of conductive plastic takes flight
A miniature magic carpet made of plastic has taken flight in a laboratory at Princeton University.

The 10cm (4in) sheet of smart transparency is driven by "ripple power"; waves of electrical current driving thin pockets of air from front to rear underneath.

The prototype, described in Applied Physics Letters, moves at speeds of about a centimetre per second.

Improvements to the design could raise that to as much as a metre per second.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15106231
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-30-11 04:59 PM
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1. I had a toy in the 80's that would do that.
You built small flying saucer type ships from light foam/plastic and tape and hovered them with a wand that was chaged with static electricity.
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laconicsax Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-30-11 05:10 PM
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2. Clarke was dead on.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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Control-Z Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-30-11 05:19 PM
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3. K&R
I love this kind of progress!
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