Scientists crack levitation

Now where's my flying car?

Iain Thomson

Scientists in Scotland have found a way to levitate small objects by reversing naturally occurring forces.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin of the University of St Andrews School of Physics & Astronomy have developed a special lens that allows them to reverse Casimir force – the natural attraction that draws small particles together.

Advertisement

Casimir force, first discovered in 1948 and measured in 1997, is a major problem in nanotechnology, since it causes atomic-sized particles to clump together.

Professor Leonhardt explained: "The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano-world, in particular in some microelectromechanical systems.

"Such systems already play an important role – for example tiny mechanical devices which trigger a car airbag to inflate or those which power tiny 'lab on chip' devices used for drugs testing or chemical analysis. Micro or nano machines could run smoother and with less or no friction at all if one can manipulate the force."

By using a lens to reverse the effect the team were able to keep particles apart, by turning the attractive force into repulsion.

"At the moment, in practice it is only going to be possible for micro-objects with the current technology, since this quantum force is small and acts only at short ranges. For now, human levitation remains the subject of cartoons, fairytales and tales of the paranormal," explained Professor Leonhardt.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Tags:

Do you agree?

Further reading

Child-robot with Biometric Body

Boffins build bionic baby

Child-robot with Biometric Body has 200 optical, auditory and tactile sensors

Japanese boffins develop vampire battery

Tiny fuel cell runs on human blood

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

Summit: Views From the Valley

V3.co.uk's US office weighs in on the information overload crisis

John Chambers speaks on collaboration

Cisco boss talks up new offerings

Analysis and Reports

Remote access - Three steps to getting connected

3.4 million UK professionals now work from home – is your company equipped?

Cost benefits of a global collaboration network

This white paper is a must read for organisations looking for evidence of the bottom-line benefits of high-definition video and voice communications

Poll

Impact of Information Overload poll

Impact of Information Overload poll

What is the biggest problem your firm faces as a result of the data explosion?

View poll results

Advertisement

White paper library

Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies; IThound.com brings you over 6,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Advertisement

Spotlight

Information management

Summit: Quiz IBM experts on information strategies

Join our live chat session on Thursday at 11am to...

RIM discusses new developer tools

Blackberry exec on the latest offerings for programmers

Houses of parliament

Summit: Doubts raised over Tory plans for NHS records

Experts say data quality could be an issue

Researchers take down spam botnet

Researchers from security firm FireEye have been able to effectively...

Primary Navigation