Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Tractor Beams!

Yes, indeed, scientists at New York University have developed actual tractor beams from lasers, which means they are able to make things move around by aiming lasers at them. Granted, you can make people move by aiming lasers at them, even though most lasers available to the general public can't do much harm.

But the scientists at NYU are talking about moving molecules through water, and molecules have never been known to be all that skittish or move very much according to their own will. They said that although the energy required to move larger objects would be prohibitive, the concept suggests that such devices would be possible.

Now that's gonna be awesome and I don't care who you are.

5 comments:

latoberg said...

It can't be that hard. Wil Wheaton did it when he was like 14 on ST:TNG.

Friar said...

Potential wrinkle: Tractor beam operators will turn into hated characters who exist only to fulfill childhood fantasies of television show creators...

latoberg said...

And then eventually morph into typecasted roles based on what people's opinions were of his original character.

latoberg said...

I hate your anti-robot proof test.

Friar said...

Dude- blame Google...