the Chinese test that defies the laws of physics

China has a particular fascination with seemingly impossible numbers, and this time they looked at physics, smiled and asked, “What if…?” Researchers in the country placed an experimental magnetic levitation vehicle, weighing about a ton, to start from scratch and reach 700 km/h in just two seconds. It’s not science fiction, it’s not animation: it was a real test, recorded by Chinese state television.

The prototype, which looks more like a laboratory tracked chassis, traveled a track of just 400 meters using a superconducting magnetic levitation system. The result? The highest speed ever recorded for platforms of this type, accompanied by impressive images of the vehicle enveloped in steam, accelerating almost instantly and braking just as suddenly at the end of the journey.

This progress is not the result of chance. It took the team from the National University of Defense Technology ten years to get here, facing challenges that read like a list from science fiction movies: electromagnetic propulsion at “ultra-high” speeds, guided suspension with surgical precision, ultra-high power energy storage and the use of high-field superconducting magnets.

But what does all this mean outside the laboratory?

According to the researchers, the results portend a future in which maglev trains travel inside vacuum tubes – something close to the concept of a hyperloop – at speeds much higher than…

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