Physicists may have solved the mystery of levitation, figuring out how to make objects, and even people, float in midair. How? By countering the Casimir force, that strange phenomenon holding molecules together. Now British physicists are figuring out how to reverse that effect, making objects repel each other, and hope to first use the technique to reduce friction in nano machines, and someday maybe even levitate people. The discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.
Beam Me up blog is the sister/support site For the Beam Me Up podcast. It contains links, discussion and material that might be or have been discussed on the show. Also links to new show listings and material. Be sure to check out the live stream every Saturday at 4pm eastern at http://www.wrfr.org/links.html and select stream
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Scientists discover technology that may someday levitate human
Physicists may have solved the mystery of levitation, figuring out how to make objects, and even people, float in midair. How? By countering the Casimir force, that strange phenomenon holding molecules together. Now British physicists are figuring out how to reverse that effect, making objects repel each other, and hope to first use the technique to reduce friction in nano machines, and someday maybe even levitate people. The discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment