The future of food presentation has arrived – and it’s floating above the tables at NYC’s Chelsea restaurant Morimoto. While molecular gastronomy and scientific trailblazing in the kitchen have created countless new flavors, the restaurant’s executive chef Erik Battes is thinking differently. Instead of geeking out with the food, he’s upping the ante on the presentation, using Quantum Levitation to create a mini hoverboard for an amuse-bouche.

If case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the quantum levitation (or, more accurately, quantum locking) video that’s taken the internet by storm in the last 36 hours.

And while quantum locking (also known as “flux pinning”) may not have anything to do with Weeping Angels, it’s still pretty freaking amazing. But how does it work, and where the hell is your hoverboard?

Researchers at the school of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University have created a track around which a superconductor can float, thanks to the phenomenon of “quantum levitation”.

The reason this works is something called the Meissner effect and magnetic flux pinning. The Meissner effect dictates that a superconductor in a magnetic field will always expel the magnetic field inside of it, and thus bend the magnetic field around it. The problem is a matter of equilibrium. If you just placed a superconductor on top of a magnet, then the superconductor would just float off the magnet, sort of like trying to balance two south magnetic poles of bar magnets against each other.

In a world where seeing is believing, one of the chief disadvantages of quantum physics is that it’s largely invisible. The wonderfully bizarre rules that allow a vanishingly small particle to exist in two places simultaneously, for instance, usually apply at scales too small to be seen by the naked eye. But not always….

In de moleculaire keuken wordt wetenschap toegepast bij het bereiden van eten. Deze twee mannen presenteren een amuse die zweeft. Ze vertellen hoe dit precies werkt.