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Walt Disney is not the only one who is able to conjure magical carpets that soar the skies with princes minus their white horses and damsels in varying stages of distress. Such a carpet may soon be a reality, at least according to Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumnus who is presently associated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Forget about pronouncing his name. This scientist along with his Harvard colleagues has actually devised instructions on how to make a magic carpet! They were the logical conclusion following the study of the aerodynamics involved in a flexible, rippling sheet moving through a fluid. Researchers came to the amazing conclusion that making a carpet that would stay aloft may well be possible.

Mahadevan told Nature Magazine:

“In order to stay afloat in air, a sheet measuring about 10 centimeters long and 0.1 millimeters thick would need to vibrate at about 10 hertz with amplitude of about 0.25 millimeters. As waves propagate along a flexible foil, they generate a fluid flow that leads to a pressure that lifts the foil, roughly balancing its weight.”

Researchers have confirmed that a magic carpet needs a ripple uplift that pushes against fluids like air and water. The rippling creates a high pressure in the gap between a horizontal sheet and the floor.

For now at least, the magic carpet will not be able to ferry passengers. Well, we can’t have everything, can we?

Read [New Launches]

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