It appears that scientists have discovered how to get objects to levitiate, they claim that the same theories will make it possible to levitate humans as well.

It looks like we are in for a few more technological advances this decade

Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation - Telegraph

That's really cool. I doubt I'll live long enough to see this come to reality, but my grandchildren might.

As an aside, there was a mind blowing show on the History Channel a couple of nights ago regarding nanotechnology. It'll be on again I'm sure...

Nanotechnology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Levitation would be funky. Would bring a whole new meaning to my mediatation practice.

To be honest, I don't think we will have to wait that long to see all these new developments. Think back to the technology of 1997 and you will see that we have come on leaps and bounds.

This research has been going on at St. Andrews for quite some time. I've seen it myself in the physics department; quite surreal, actually.

As the article stated, they have been able to levitate objects for quite some time. The first way discovered was to use a superconducting material cooled by liquid nitrogen. A magnet can then be levitated above the superconductor because the superconductor will repel the magnetic fields present around the magnet (this is called the Meissner effect in physics).



Much of the technological advances over the past decade have been the in the GRIN technologies - Genetics, Robotics, Information technology and Nanotechnology. Engineering (structural) hasn't progressed exponentially in the past decade, nor have purely theoretical physical applications grown hugely in the past decade. I don't think we'll see levitation of humans or other comparatively large masses within the next decade, but maybe that's just me.