Thread: Floating City

Hi, I'm Hannah and I am working on ideas for my science fair this year. I wanted to experiment on whether or not a floating city (levitating, not floating on water) is possible. Can somebody help me? What types of variables could I test? Please help!

Hi Hannah, this certainly seems like an interesting project for a science fair, I would suspect if your planning to base your project around existing technology (no existing anti gravity technology currently in the public domain) then your best option is magnetic levitation. This can be acheived using magnets with matching poles facing each other, you can do this by making a base with magnets in and then constructing a model city also with magnets in. I would think you would make a nice model using these also if you were to attach the base magnets batteries, creating 'electromagnets' you could increase the levitation. Then for the science aspects you could make calculations of the size and weight of an 'actual' city and scale up how much power be required and the size of magnets from the model. I suppose you could also expel the virtues of a floating/levitating city for a future senario in which sea levels have risen and normal cities are prone to flooding. Hope this helps.

Hi Hannah,
I like to think about floating stuff too, take a look at this video on Youtube Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display - YouTube. It's a prototype for a tactile interface hologram, basically a hologram that you can feel and touch. The cool thing about this technology is that if you can imagine it upside down and pointing to the ground, it could possibly be used to make something hover. That device in the video is called a ultrasonic transducer, they create ultrasonic vibrations in the air and it can have a almost sort of force field effect.

Today most ultra sonic transducers are used for medical devices like a ultrasonic test to view a child growing inside a mothers woob. In the future it could be possible to create a super ultrasonic transducer that has could have the power to create more powerful vibrations in the air, so powerful that if one was under a car it could make the car hover using only clean green electronic energy possibly from battery's.

In the future technology like this can be used to make craft or even platforms fly without using those dirty gas eating expensive engines we all use today. Also something to note if you're interested in using this ultrasonic transducer idea, they wouldn't be propelled by lift like all aircraft today instead they would be propelled by force.

How about a lighter than air city using a combination helium, solar heating perhaps augmented by lift. Any a model from balloons, balsa platforms, walkways, fabric bubble homes etc below, some calculations about how many people could live there etc. Fun.