Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.
General Physics
Sep 8, 2010
13
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(Phys.org)—A team of scientists from Scotland and the Czech Republic has created a real-life "tractor" beam, as featured in the Star Trek movies, which for the first time allows a beam of light to attract objects.
General Physics
Jan 25, 2013
18
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Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have created a tractor beam on water, providing a radical new technique that could confine oil spills, manipulate floating objects or explain rips at the beach.
General Physics
Aug 10, 2014
12
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Acoustic tractor beams use the power of sound to hold particles in mid-air, and unlike magnetic levitation, they can grab most solids or liquids. For the first time University of Bristol engineers have shown it is possible ...
General Physics
Jan 22, 2018
16
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(Phys.org)—David Ruffner and David Grier of New York University have developed a technique for using Bessel beams to draw a particle toward a source. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters they describe how ...
Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric ...
General Physics
Oct 31, 2011
38
0
A team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Sussex in collaboration with Ultrahaptics have built the world's first sonic tractor beam that can lift and move objects using sound waves.
General Physics
Oct 27, 2015
12
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Last year Asier Marzo, then a doctoral student at the Public University of Navarre, helped develop the first single-sided acoustic tractor beam—that is, the first realization of trapping and pulling an object using sound ...
General Physics
Jan 3, 2017
6
1982
On Feb. 10, 2009, disaster struck hundreds of miles above the Siberian Peninsula. That evening, a defunct Russian satellite orbiting Earth crashed into a communications satellite called Iridium 33 moving at a speed of thousands ...
Space Exploration
Jun 1, 2023
1
171
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers with members from the U.K., Scotland and the U.S. has built a functioning acoustic tractor beam in a lab—one that is able to pull objects of centimeter size. In their paper published ...
