A Real ‘Back To The Future’ Hoverboard Is Impossible, But Not Wormhole Portals, Claims Neil deGrasse Tyson [Video]

Where we’re going, we don’t need a real hoverboard, never mind an outmoded concept like a road. After all, if Neil deGrasse Tyson is correct, we will have wormhole portals to travel instantly wherever we want, although for some odd reason he claims physics still won’t allow for a Back To The Future hoverboard.

In related reports by the Inquisitr, a Kickstarter campaign has realized a hoverboard that utilizes magnets to float three centimeters off the ground, for the price tag of $10,000. Even pro skater Tony Hawk rode Hendo’s hoverboard, and Marty McFly’s self-tying shoes will be made available in 2015.

The year 2015 just happens to be when Marty time-traveled to the future so he could have a hoverboard fight with Biff’s grandson. Unfortunately, if this ever occurs in real life then Neil deGrasse Tyson believes a real hoverboard would not function like in the movies.

“There are people working on it, and there are working versions of it, but hoverboards that cover everywhere? Where you would have taken a skateboard? I think that’s unrealistic, and it requires a special under surface to support it,” Tyson said, according to The Huffington Post. “I can imagine hoverboards in certain hoverboard venues where they’ve actually done the physics right in the hoverboard and the ground surface as well. But otherwise, no.”

In short, Tyson does not believe it would be possible to take a hoverboard out over the water, which would at least match up with the Back To The Future movie. Of course, Tyson must have never seen this video, which features a Canadian inventor riding his hoverboard a record 905 feet and two inches over Lake Ouareau.

This Back To The Future hoverboard works a bit different than the usual designs we’re used to seeing, and admittedly the vision of Catalin Alexandru Duru works more like the Green Goblin’s hoverboard than the pink wonder used by Marty McFly (which could not fly high into the sky, by the way).

“Stable flight can be achieved with a machine one can stand on and control with their feet, just like in the movie Back to the Future Part II. In our case, the machine is propeller-based. The prototype can be used anywhere, but is usually tested over water because of how dangerously high it can fly (which is ironic considering that the movie joked that it can’t).”

When Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about a real hoverboard being impossible, he is talking specifically about an electromagnetic hoverboard design, not a ridable drone. Regardless, Tyson also believes it is possible that wormhole portals will connect major cities some day.

“Maybe in the future airports would be wormhole portals,” he said. “You open the door, and you’re in London. You pack your bags and still have to go through customs and everything, but the door is a wormhole to London. That’d be cool. Or Tokyo. Or Shanghai. Whatever.”

What would you rather have in real life: a Back To The Future hoverboard or wormhole portals?

[Image via Back To The Future]