Great Scott! It’s Back to the Future Day
Meagan Boisse studies in the Department of Journalism. For her current undergraduate work term with the Institute for Co-operative Education, she is employed as a roving reporter at Concordia.ca.
Welcome to the future ladies and gents! Yes, that’s right, today is October 21, 2015: the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown visited in Back to the Future II. And, as one might suspect, the internet is collectively going bananas over what is essentially the pop culture equivalent of a rare celestial event.
All this begs the question: how does Marty McFly’s 1989 vision of 2015 stack up?
One of the most tantalizing predictions is the film's contention that flying cars and hoverboards would be today’s most popular mode of transit. If only.
But despite the current limitations of flying tech, Eric Del Balso from Concordia’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) says we’re really not that far off.
“There has been a lot of work done on the concept of the flying car, with at least one company promising it’s going to happen in the next decade. It's just that right now, the automotive industry is a little more focused on alternative fuels and power sources, so flying has kind of been put on the back burner.”
Another unfortunate miscue is that we have yet to develop a fully functional DeLorean time machine. This, Del Balso says, is something you shouldn’t hold your breath for.
“Time travel hasn’t been explored on a static scale, so in terms of a pod being able to transfer an actual person into another time all together, at this point, we’re not there.”
Okay, so they’ll be no automotive time travelling anytime soon. But let’s talk about what the film got right — namely that Donald Trump may actually be Biff Tannen.
As the good people of the 'net have noted, the American presidential GOP candidate shares a few uncanny similarities with Back to the Future’s bad guy, who uses real-estate riches to shake up the Republican Party, assume political power and transform Hill Valley into a dystopian wasteland.
Coincidence? I think not.
Find out more about the Concordia Society of Automotive Engineers.