A team of scientists from the St. Andrews University of Scotland has demonstrated that levitation may be possible through the reversal of Casimir force. The technology needed to make the science a reality is still a long way from completion, but using a special lens, of a type that is already in existence Prof Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin believe that levitation can be achieved.
Casimir force is caused by “fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects.” It’s existence was first suggested by Dutch scientists Hendrik B. G. Casimir and Dirk Polder. It is the force that allows a gecko to walk up walls or on ceilings, a force that causes non-magnetic objects to be attracted to each other. By reversing the force and causing it to repel instead of attract, levitation may possible.
The initial application of the science is likely to be in nanotechnology. One of the great barriers to nanotechnology has been the attraction of tiny objects to each other. By causing objects to repel, rather than attract each other, tiny machines would be able to run more smoothly. While initially, this technology is likely to be applied to tiny objects, there is no theoretical reason that larger objects including humans cannot be levitated.
Sources: Wikipedia, ABC Science, The Telegraph
Image Source: Chiaroscuro
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Tags: casimir-force, Concept, Science
5 responses
Aug 11, 2007 at 6:34 pm
So basically they added or subtracted ions to the objects probably causing the objects to temporarily become repelling magnets. A cold ion beam might have been used, I think. Tell me what you think of my theory?
Aug 12, 2007 at 11:15 am
I really could not tell you, perhaps someone else could. I picked this up as a general interest science story and tried to approach it with a bit more depth. I managed to put things in layman’s terms as best I could, but must admit, the physics lost me in some of the more technical publications. If I had the time and energy, perhaps I could have attained a better understanding. In the end, I opted to use simpler sources and took the easy way out.
Your theory sounds interesting, note that there was some mention of a particular type of lens in the article. Perhaps some physicists could jump in.
Aug 12, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Thank you C. S. Magor! I think maybe they came up with a way to use a photo or pizo dipole magnetic lense. Like a photo-cell only their cell would create a one magnetic pole N creating a repelling field above, and or below the lense.
Jan 8, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Probably by using a metamaterial with a negative refractive index. If you sandwich a lens between a regular right-handed material and a left-handed (negative refractive index) metamaterial then the Casimir effect is reversed and becomes a levitating force of repulsion.
New scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12429-three-ways-to-levitate-a-magic-carpet.html
The actual journal article:
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0608115
Jan 9, 2009 at 7:50 am
Kind of like Dia-magnetisim.
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