There was lots of exciting news this week about the much-anticipated Hyperloop, a high-speed train that would be able to make the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 35 minutes.
A startup called Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies) built the first full-scale test track for the transportation system in the desert outside Las Vegas and tested its propulsion system for the first time this week.
Meanwhile, another startup called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced that it had licensed a promising technology known as Inductrack from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for its own Hyperloop design.
Confused? Here’s a short explainer video on the physics of the alternate approaches. Will we have a working Hyperloop in the near future? Only time will tell.