One big difficulty in designing electro- magnetic systems to levitate bodies, such as vehicles to run without wheels, is how to keep them lifted. There are various ways of doing this but most involve unwanted dissipation of power or control by some form of external `feedback`. It has now been realized that using superconducting material makes it possible to levitate iron bodies in a stable way. Extra power is needed only to reduce the temperature of the material to the low level necessary for superconductivity. This has been confirmed by performing experiments on elementary systems that might be prototype suspensions for high-speed trains.
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