Nerding out over Levitation - yes, Levitation

Every once in a while you come across something like this and it blows your mind. Not always because of what it is but what it can be. How will we use this? How will it work? Monorails? Flying Cars? Those little hoverboards from Back to the Future II? Granted, I don't know much about Quantum Physics (read: anything), and even have a tough time understanding the magnets on the fridge, but the tiniest bit I can grasp of this I find amazing.

Now, I will stop talking and let you watch the video.

Isn't that nuts!? So I went on a Quantum Levitation website (which I recommend). I read, I studied, I spent hours awake at night scribbling on a chalkboard and I finally scratched the surface of how this works. This is no ordinary magnet repelling magnet, this is magnet locking superconductor into position. Whatever position it wants.

Here is where I attempt to explain this in the most ordinary way:

The puck is made of a relatively unexciting material (crystal sapphire) and coated with another unexciting material (ceramic yttrium barium copper oxide - whatever that is). However, when the latter is cooled to an outrageous temperature (by dipping it in liquid nitrogen), it becomes a superconductor.

"A superconductor conducts electricity without resistance, and with no energy loss"

The superconductor rejects the magnetic field. However, since the puck is so thin, a few "tubes" pierce through it while the rest of the field wraps around the outside, all locking it in place.
Imagine a donut placed onto a fork. Whatever position the donut is in, it will stay, it won't fall down on the fork because of the integrity of the delicious pastry, however it also will not teeter or fall off because the multiple prongs of the fork holding it in place.

So the puck is locked into space by its interaction with the magnetic field. And the best part? This works in every direction. That means levitation as well as suspension. That means, if the side of a building is coated with magnets, then Batman can drive his hovercar right up the wall to the roof. Duh.

I don't know what this means. I don't know how to apply this to greater technology. All I know is that this is a potentially life-changing discovery and I'd be excited to see how it becomes integrated into our daily lives - in about 44 years or so.