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Stand aside, Wesley Crusher: there's a new tractor beam on deck that pulls objects using nothing more than laser light. The device has already grabbed NASA's attention as it could one day prove useful on space missions.
It is well known that light can push on objects – this is the basis for using solar sailsMovie Camera to propel a spacecraft. But getting light to pull on something is a bit trickier.
David Ruffner and David Grier of New York University instead projected two Bessel beams side by side and used a lens to angle them so that they overlapped, creating a pattern of alternating bright and dark regions.
Fine-tuning the beam caused photons in the bright regions to scatter toward the beam source, pushing a particle in the beam to the next bright region. The beam thus acts like a conveyer belt, constantly drawing the particle toward the source.
"NASA contacted us," says Ruffner. "They were wondering, can we put this on a space probe and get dust from a comet?" It is possible, he says, but not any time soon. "This is still very much in its infancy."
Makes the stories of UFO's using bright laser like beams to suck people up into their craft seem a little more legit.
A laser is light and that's how it works, by using the concentrated power within the laser beam.
Probably. But if we can figure out how to do this with light.
Me? A length of Kevlar. I'll leave the fancy stuff to the guys with labs.
Hey Phage, if you were to create a tractor beam to lift people what would you use.
Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by BASSPLYR
Hard to say where any "obscure" techniques can go. Just think about moving very tiny objects around without getting into contact with them. Why would you want to?
The article mentions medical applications. I can imagine applications with developing new materials and coatings. Maybe something with nanotech?
Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by BASSPLYR
Makes the stories of UFO's using bright laser like beams to suck people up into their craft seem a little more legit.
I think the power density required to lift a human would render that human rather crispy.
Originally posted by cconn487
So reverse it, put enough power to it, and we could have something like anti gravity? That is if it could hold large amounts of weight without destroying anything.
Not a technical guy, probably impossible, but a guy can dream
I'm so bummed we haven't got hover boards yet. Back to the Future 2 was one of my favorites back in the day. Only 3 years to go! Better get cracking scientists!edit on 19-10-2012 by cconn487 because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by Quantum_Squirrel
I think more efficient versions of anti gravity already exist ,P
Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by BASSPLYR
I'd use a diambient stream discriminator to create a metaquantum containment frame which would create a auto-nucleonic force field. This, combined with some timey wimey stuff, would create an effective tractor beam which would not harm the subject.
That's how I'd do it but I don't' have a lab.edit on 10/19/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)