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British Scientists Reverse Casimir Effect

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the where's-my-hover-car dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph reports that Scientists at the University of St. Andrews have developed a technique to cause the Casimir effect to repel instead of attract. This discovery could lead to near frictionless machines or in theory even levitation."

14 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. wait... by flanker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't it "repel" rather than "repeal"?

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  2. They'd better be careful by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or they'll vaporize the universe with this contraption. I suppose somebody's out there looking to make a weapon out of the thing.

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    1. Re:They'd better be careful by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or they'll vaporize the universe with this contraption. I suppose somebody's out there looking to make a weapon out of the thing.


      Probably. Many major scientific breakthroughs have come from researchers working on weapons technology. And vice-versa -- many new weapons technologies have come from researchers working on scientific breakthroughs.

      Imagine causing all of the atoms in a tank to repel each other. Messy.
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  3. Being British... by clickclickdrone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Invent/discover something cool
    2. Tell everyone about it
    3. ???? 4. NO Profit

    It's sad to say that here in the UK we never learn and have a long and distinguished history of brilliant research followed by total fumbling of the ball and making no money out of the discoveries whatsoever.

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    1. Re:Being British... by Pecisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And this is bad because...?

      Woah, you want to tell me that there are scientists who actually do science for...err...sake of science, not money? What a surprise!

      Without irony, I personally don't believe in profiting from BIG discoveries. If you get some applications going from that discovery, then it is understandable that you can and you will profit from them, but not from discovery itself.

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    2. Re:Being British... by Chief+Camel+Breeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From the researcher's point of view:

      1. Discover something cool.
      2. Publish results in peer-reviewed journal and get famous.
      3. Get better research job (or more money, security in current one).
      4. Profit!

      Step 3 doesn't have to involve selling technology.

  4. an almost content-free article by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Apart from saying it uses a "special lens" there's no information about how the team managed to reverse this effect. In fact there's more space given to the hocus-pocus aspects (that every straight thinking /.'er dismissed in an instant) than of any actual science.

    The thelegraph is supposed to be one of the more serious british dailies. So heaven help us all if this is what they pass off as a science story.

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  5. Doesn't sound useful on a large scale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Given the distance over which the force operates, it doesn't sound like you can use this to levitate large items. Surface roughness is measured in micro-meters and the force operates over nano-meters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roughness

    A standard solution for a 'frictionless bearing' is an air bearing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bearing

    The utility of this work seems limited to very small things.

  6. Re:In Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Unless you have some kind of experimental evidence to back that up I suggest that you are actually hypothesizing rather than theorizing.

  7. "Scientists" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Are they some special bunch of scientists that they deserved to be addressed as "Scientists"?

  8. Same team unveiled invisibility cloak by Nezer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    According to TFA, the same team announced, last week, some breakthrough with an invisibility cloak. This week they make another spectacular claim regarding levitation (granted on a very small scale). Either this team is having an incredible run and some serious intellectual luck or they are totally full of shit. Given the history of such claims, my money is on the latter.

    Maybe next week they will announce they have discovered cold fusion.

    I hate to be such a skeptic but these claims seem to lack truthiness according to my gut. Your gut may differ. Either way, I'd take these claims with a very fine grain of salt.

    1. Re:Same team unveiled invisibility cloak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe this discovery that works by means of 'a "perfect" lens with a negative index of refraction' is somehow related to their work on the invisibility cloak, which is based on metamaterials with a negative refraction index.

  9. Re:Disintegrators by dapsychous · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ummm... They do?

  10. Re:I, for one by Doddman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why the hell did this get modded down? I think this is an insightful point.. he is right.

    I used to post AC when doing this, but it's just Slashdot. I don't give a shit about my karma anymore. Mod me down all you want.

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