Maglev, a floating vehicle for land transportation that is supported by either electromagnetic attraction or repulsion. Maglevs use magnetic forces—like poles repel each other, and opposite poles attract—to lift, propel, and guide a vehicle over a track.

In Maglev, superconducting magnets suspend a train car above a U-shaped concrete guideway. Like ordinary magnets, these magnets repel one another when matching poles face each other. “A Maglev train car is just a box with magnets on the four corners,” says Jesse Powell, the son of the Maglev inventor, who now works with his father.

Some commercial trains have used magnetic levitation, or “maglev” — which involves electrifying a magnetic field to push or pull vehicles at high speeds — since the 1980s. China, Japan and South Korea all use maglev trains today.