I suspect the writer is mistranslating or misunderstanding some things.
Original:
Copper is what's known as an inductor, Henderson said. An inductor is a metal that isn't magnetic. When you put a magnet near such a metal, an electric current starts to flow in the metal. This current, in turn, causes a magnetic field to develop outward from the metal. If the magnetic field that develops is strong enough, it can levitate the magnet. If it's really strong, it can also levitate any object that happens to be attached to the magnet, including a hoverboard.
Might help if you look up "Lenz Effect" and "Eddy Currents" first. This is the principle which you may find in some powder scales, where a static strong magnetic field across a little copper plate damps the swinging of the scale arms due to Eddy Currents in the copper plate, which generate their own magnetic fields, which in turn oppose the magnetic field in the body of the scale, thereby damping the swinging of the balance arms.
Sample:
http://www.rcbs.com/downloads/instructions/Model_10-10_Scale_Instructions.pdf(See the "About" diagram and look for vane and damping in the blurb.)
It's the same principle involved in those old-fashioned electric meters which had AC electromagnets turning an aluminum disc geared to the meter dials.
It might also help if the writer had written the above-quoted paragraph this way:
Copper is what's known as a NON-MAGNETIC ELECTRICAL conductor, Henderson said. [STRIKE]An inductor is a metal that isn't magnetic[/STRIKE]*. When you MOVE a magnet near such a metal, an electric current starts to flow in the metal. (IS INDUCED IN THE METAL.) This current, in turn, causes a magnetic field to develop outward from the NONMAGNETIC CONDUCTIVE metal. If the magnetic field that develops is strong enough, it can levitate the magnet. If it's really strong, it can also levitate any object that happens to be attached to the magnet, including a hoverboard.
The problem in understanding this is that the magnetic field which induces the current in the non-magnetic metal (the copper base over which the hover board moves) must be either moving or changing. A static magnetic field will not induce a current and hence develop a repulsive magnetic field in the "base metal."
So it SOUNDS as if the magnets which induce the currents in the base metal must be be energized by alternating current (AC), and slightly out of phase with each other to generate both the thrust and the levitating effect. (See ETA below.)
How they do that would be interesting to see, but it seems to be a company secret.
Terry
* That sounds as if they're redefining "inductor" to fit their mode of operation.
ETA: There's no reason that all these fields cannot be induced in water if the water is conductive. There are pumps which move water by passing a current through it one way, with an external magnetic field around it, which result in ELECTRICAL eddy currents in the water which develop their own repulsive magnetic fields in the water so that the water is pushed along. And the "fluid" need not be water, it could be a molten metal like mercury or molten sodium. You'll have to look that up yourself... something like "magnetic hydrodynamic pump" or some such.
