Back to the Future, Part II Predicted Techno-Marvels of October 21, 2015

Mr. Fusion aside, this 1989 time-traveling comedy was spot-on about many devices that we now take for granted

By Kat Long and Jess Schmerler | October 8, 2015

Back to the Future II — A surprising amount of Back to the Future tech really is a part of our everyday lives—although when it comes to flying cars and cold fusion, not so much.

*Via Wikipedia © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.*

“The encounter could create a time paradox, the results of which could…destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worst-case scenario.”—Doc Brown

October 21, 2015, was a long way off when Back to the Future, Part II hit movie theaters in November, 1989. That October day was the destination for the film’s time-traveling teen Marty McFly, inventor Dr. (Doc) Emmett Brown, and their flux capacitor–equipped DeLorean car/time machine as they tried to fix a future mess caused by Marty’s nemesis, Biff. Leaping forward 26 years let the makers of the cinematic blockbuster show us a dazzling array of technology—flat TVs! flying vehicles! cold fusion! artificial intelligence!—all of which seemed quite radical in the 1980s. But here we are in 2015 (getting here the slow way, by aging) and it’s time for a reality check on the movie’s speculations. A surprising amount of Back to the Futuretech really is a part of our everyday lives—although when it comes to flying cars and cold fusion, not so much.

Image: Courtesy of Lexus

Hover Boards
In the movie: Marty is chased through town by Biff’s grandson Griff and his gang. To escape, Marty hops on what he thinks is a skateboard, and finds he is cruising without wheels on a hover board.

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Where are we now? Marty’s hover board features three qualities that have proved elusive for today’s real-world inventors: ability to hover and fly above the ground, weight-bearing capacity and long-lasting power. A few recent prototypes that use magnetic levitation technology have gotten close to re-creating the movie ideal. In 2011 inventor Greg Henderson’s Hendo Hoverboard used four maglev engines to rise about an inch off the ground with a 135-kilogram payload, but the battery power lasted only seven minutes. In August 2015 Lexus unveiled its Slide hover board. To create liftoff, the Slide required a powerful magnetic field on the ground to repulse the board’s interior superconductor, which was cooled by liquid nitrogen. It couldn’t fly over nonmagnetic surfaces like concrete but it did sport a neat vapor trail, and could rise four to five centimeters in the air with a rider onboard. Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru set the Guinness World Record for the farthest hover board flight on a device of his own design in May 2015. He flew just over 275 meters, at an altitude of about five meters, over a lake in Quebec before losing power and falling in.

This Week, Back to the Future, Part II Meets Reality

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