Did ‘Back To The Future Part 2’ Predict 2015 Correctly?

(Written for Lost In The Multiplex)

Back to The Future Part II was shown on TV this weekend, leading me to question how right it was in its prediction for 2015.

At first I thought they had got it all wrong; we don’t have flying cars, so surely that’s enough to say that we haven’t reached the level of technology that the film foresaw. But after reading an article referring to a prototype of an electric DeLorean and the experimentation of a hoverboard, the world predicted in Back to the Future Part II looks closer to reality than I first imagined.

Earlier this year, Nike introduced Air Mag sneakers that resemble the self-lacing power sneakers Michael J. Fox wears in the 1989 film. This month, the sports car company DeLorean, who created the gull-wing door car used as the time machine in the films, announced plans to introduce an all-electric DeLorean car.

The car, called the Electric DeLorean DMC-12 is expected to have a top speed of 125 mph from 260 horsepower, which will cost between from $90,000 to $100,000. A prototype of the car was also unveiled at the company’s headquarters in Texas.

Tech site Geekologie then posted two videos, which can be seen below, showing levitating quantum superconductors in action at Tel Aviv University, and an experiment at Paris Diderot University using a superconducting skateboard cooled with liquid nitrogen that can carry a person along five-meter rail.

Both of these videos show that technology like the hoverboard is possible, and with a prototype of the DeLorean already made, maybe we will be at the stage of Back to the Future Part II’s 2015 in three years time. We would never be late for school again.