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Tractor Beams Come To Life

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the da-da-da-dadada-dadada dept.

Jamie is helping bring our childhood fantasies/nightmares to life with a link that says "Andrei Rhode, a researcher involved with the project, said that existing optical tweezers are able to move particles the size of a bacterium a few millimeters in a liquid. Their new technique can move objects one hundred times that size over a distance of a meter or more."

11 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Pfft. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Until the bacterium reroute the main power conduits through the deflector beam to create an inverse tachyon pulse. Then what?

    1. Re:Pfft. by Abstrackt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Until the bacterium reroute the main power conduits through the deflector beam to create an inverse tachyon pulse. Then what?

      I think you meant deflector array. Otherwise there's no way such a silly thing could happen. :p

      --
      They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  2. Strangely drawn to this story... by jrmcc · · Score: 5, Funny

    can't quite figure out why?

    1. Re:Strangely drawn to this story... by Dishevel · · Score: 3, Funny

      I did not realize that every aspect of my life needs to be devoted toward helping some other person out.

      Wow!
      This means a major change for me!
      The toilet paper I choose seems to help nothing.
      93.7% of my /. posts help no one.
      I watched the news last night. No one helped there.
      I failed to watch some lecture. No helping there.
      This post.

      You are so right. Have no more time for anything now that I have seen the light.

      Oh wait.
      I meant to say.
      Fuck off.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  3. Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    the tractor beam wont be installed until Tuesday.

  4. Aren't tractor beams all about pulling? by Gotung · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure moving objects with light is cool, but this is pushing, not pulling.

    This tech will do no good in keeping those pesky rebels from escaping your space station.

  5. From the Description... by Philomage · · Score: 3, Informative

    They should call this an optical pipette. (Yes, I did RTFA, and no, I'm not turning in my nerd card.)

  6. Hope you can wait by T+Murphy · · Score: 5, Funny
    FTA:

    Physicists have been able to manipulate tiny particles over miniscule distances by using lasers for years.

    I hope the new tractor beams don't take as long to operate. I don't have that kind of time.

    --
    My webcomic
  7. Not Really a Tractor Beam... by Richard.Tao · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the article "Because this technique needs heated gas to push the particles around, it can't work in the vacuum of outer space like the tractor beams in Star Trek."
    Also it needs lasers on both sides of the object and "tiny glass particles" near the object.This technique can in no way mimic the properties of what I consider a tractor bream: a beam of energy that pulls and object toward it. It's just a better way at moving stuff with light, which is still nifty.

  8. Just reverse it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just reverse it -- use dark instead of light -- and it will pull.

  9. Re:Agriculture by SEWilco · · Score: 3, Funny

    Han Solo: "We're caught in a tweezer beam, it's pulling us in!" No, it just doesn't work. Just doesn't set up the scene correctly at all.

    Sure it does. A maid with a vacuum cleaner large enough to destroy a planet would also have a tweezer beam large enough for one little ship.