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NYU Professors Develop Real-Life Star Trek Tractor Beam

• jchung 14y ago
  As an NYU alum, my reaction was: "Wait, NYU Professors invent something?!"
  • aroberge 14y ago
    Your reaction was possibly spot on: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers ... has been known for years.
• profquail 14y ago
  The mashable post is light on details; here's the phys.org article they're referencing: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-physics-duo-tractor-dual-bessel.html http://phys.org/news/2012-10-physics-duo-tractor-dual-bessel...
• stephengillie 14y ago
  They're using a configuration of lenses and mirrors which allows laser light to travel around an object, then push the from the back. I'm not sure how different this is from solar wind.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
• aroberge 14y ago
  I can't believe what passes for news these days. When I saw the title, I thought "this sounds like something that a friend of mine had undergraduate students play with about 20 years ago". Sure enough, it has been known for a long time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers