Aussie students move particles with laser beam

Aussie students move particles with laser beam

www.news.com.au

* Laser beam moves particles
* Forces them up hollow tube
* Won't work in space

AUSTRALIAN students have invented a tractor beam.

FOX News reports that students from the Australian National University have succeeded in moving particles a metre-and-a-half using only the power of light.

Very tiny particles, admittedly, but particles nonetheless.

ANU researcher Andrei Rhode said the device shines a hollow laser beam around tiny glass particles.

The laser heats the area around the particles, but the particles stay cool and start drifting.


Read more: www.ne...

(visit the link for the full news article)

Alright !

Chalk up another one for Aussie ingenuity !
As the article states,it doesn't work in space ( yet ) which means my galaxy class will have to use grappling hooks for a while yet !

But seriously,we have been seeing alot of advancements from australia in the last couple of years that will have real world applications that should kick along our technological evolutions.

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

Actually this is nothing new..photons impart momentum to objects..i learned in my optics class...do you remember the "light sail" spaceships that use the momentum imparted by sunlight to move the craft. This is just basic physics no new discovery.

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL


The science may be well established , but this particular technical application is in fact a world first, and a marvelous bit of engieering, and applied thought, and I for one am impressed.
Its a shame they havent figured a way to make this work in space... I cant wait to see what the upscaled industrial version of this can do.

reply to post by TrueBrit


It would be able to easily move asteroids out of Earth's path, as well as help us to dock with the space station.

Cool advances being made, that's for sure!

TheBorg

reply to post by TheBorg


Well thats the problem isnt it. Asteroids are space borne threats, and as the article says, they arent capable of making it work in space, because of a lack of gases to work with .
Of course I can see some clever boffin making a similar device for space later on, but for now its just going to be an interesting alternative to (for example) cable in lift shafts.

reply to post by TrueBrit


The brilliant thing about this story is that it's a significant advancement towards the creation of space "tractor beams". It won't be long before we have them, as there are plenty of particles in space to manipulate. It's not a total vacuum out there.

Then again, if the adage that the government has things at least 15 years before we know about them, then I gotta wonder what they got in testing now...???

TheBorg

reply to post by TheBorg


Well , I highly doubt that the reasons given for the apparantly slow march to Mars are genuine. I reckon that engine technology is probably alot further along than we are lead to believe. I mean you may have heard of the dude from Canada that built what he calls a Quantum Free Energy device but was prevented from getting patents to manufacture, and banned from building them small scale, because it would destabilise the economic and political state of the world ... theres a thread on it somewhere on the boards.

I believe this is used to move extremely lethal chemicals, as such a microscopic test tube?
I think the same thing applies for teleportation [which the Vienna university is testing] we have to begin with a few and small particles.

Originally posted by Cygnus_Hunter
Alright ! Chalk up another one for Aussie ingenuity !

Let me know when you can teleport a can of Fosters, will ya?