Australia made science roughly 300% cooler today, when researchers there announced that they had a working tractor beam. The technology is still in its infancy, so this thing can only move particles around 1.5 meters. Researchers are confident they can boost that to 10 meters.

See also: Faux News


Sometimes I wish I could see the world in a couple of hundred year's time... and see what crazy things we develop. (And whether we actually survive as a species )

Live long and prosper.

EDIT: Clarity and grammar

Looks like it won't be useful for space battles.

No, but it might do wonders for the domestic cleaning business. Think of it: Tractor Beam cleaners instead of vacuum cleaners!

And at the low low price of only $15m! Get them before they go out of stock!

From tractor beam technology we could expand to shields and dare I say, Lightsabers (high energy light or plasma contained within a field). Or how about hoverboards?

Two things: I can't find anything other than the two articles, with no link to a primary source; and, doesn't look much like a tractor beam to me.

Goldenmane wrote:Two things: I can't find anything other than the two articles, with no link to a primary source; and, doesn't look much like a tractor beam to me.

itwire
Daily Mail
Daily Tech

And this is the primary source (I think):
Australian National University and ANU article

I found the articles on the Google News page.

And I'd agree that it doesn't look like a tractor beam, but, then again, that teleportation device that was made a couple of years ago didn't look like anything except some fancy lights.

Ah, the ANU article includes this:

Whilst the laser beam won’t work in the vacuum of space, the breakthrough has many important uses on Earth

So... not a tractor beam then.

Still pretty cool, though.

Awesome. I attend the ANU and I walk post the Laser Physics Centre everyday. Who knew they were doing such cool stuff in there?

Goldenmane wrote:Two things: I can't find anything other than the two articles, with no link to a primary source; and, doesn't look much like a tractor beam to me.

While it does look like some communication device it looks nothing like a cell phone.

While it looks like a flying machine it looks nothing like an F15

Grimstad wrote:

Goldenmane wrote:Two things: I can't find anything other than the two articles, with no link to a primary source; and, doesn't look much like a tractor beam to me.

While it does look like some communication device it looks nothing like a cell phone.

While it looks like a flying machine it looks nothing like an F15

Oh, give me a break. That's fucking retarded.

Tractor beams, specifically the Star Trek ones (which they're referencing in the articles presented) work in space and on completely different (fictional) principles, at completely different (massive) scales.

This thing isn't a tractor beam. It's a fucking tweezer beam that some nerd got a boner over.

Ouch. That really stung.

Here, have a break.


Though you'll have to take care of the fucking part yourself

Goldenmane wrote:

Grimstad wrote:

Goldenmane wrote:Two things: I can't find anything other than the two articles, with no link to a primary source; and, doesn't look much like a tractor beam to me.

While it does look like some communication device it looks nothing like a cell phone.

While it looks like a flying machine it looks nothing like an F15

Oh, give me a break. That's fucking retarded.

Tractor beams, specifically the Star Trek ones (which they're referencing in the articles presented) work in space and on completely different (fictional) principles, at completely different (massive) scales.

This thing isn't a tractor beam. It's a fucking tweezer beam that some nerd got a boner over.

What wopping pedantry of scale.

No doubt the first ever solar generators generated a miniscule amount of energy in laboratory conditions, yet now we're generating MWs of energy using this tried and tested tech.

My dad's first laptop had a 32Mb harddrive, my computer at home has a 1Tb harddrive. that's an increase of a factor of 300,000.

Don't step on an idea because it isn't "star trek" enough for you. Who holds star trek up as the paragon of scientific advance anyway? Sorry lads, we invented a vaccine for AIDS but its not as cool as what they use in star trek so we won't use it

Edit: thanks grimstad for some excellent comparisons.

NP. My dads first computer had 8k of memory and took up a roughly 9 x 12 room and he programmed it with bit switches, one byte at a time. The switch device looked just like a power strip with several switches on it. Flip the right switches and dump that byte to memory. That would have been around 1967 - 68. It wasn't actually his but he was responsible for it. My first led watch had more kick to it.

I wasn't just dreaming when I mentioned hover boards and light sabers. Todays science fiction is tomorrows science.

Jbags wrote:
What wopping pedantry of scale.

No doubt the first ever solar generators generated a miniscule amount of energy in laboratory conditions, yet now we're generating MWs of energy using this tried and tested tech.

My dad's first laptop had a 32Mb harddrive, my computer at home has a 1Tb harddrive. that's an increase of a factor of 300,000.

Don't step on an idea because it isn't "star trek" enough for you. Who holds star trek up as the paragon of scientific advance anyway? Sorry lads, we invented a vaccine for AIDS but its not as cool as what they use in star trek so we won't use it

Edit: thanks grimstad for some excellent comparisons.

Except that the examples you give (and that grimstad gave) aren't really valid in this context. For one thing, the principles in solar generators and harddrives were/are scalable. The principle used in this thing doesn't appear to be scalable on anything like the level to justify calling it a tractor beam. As I said, it's a tweezer beam, and whoever made the initial comparison appears to be guilty of getting over-excited.

I had a mental image of Crocodile Dundee riding a tractor before I read the article. Pretty cool stuff anyways

Goldenmane wrote:

Jbags wrote:
What wopping pedantry of scale.

No doubt the first ever solar generators generated a miniscule amount of energy in laboratory conditions, yet now we're generating MWs of energy using this tried and tested tech.

My dad's first laptop had a 32Mb harddrive, my computer at home has a 1Tb harddrive. that's an increase of a factor of 300,000.

Don't step on an idea because it isn't "star trek" enough for you. Who holds star trek up as the paragon of scientific advance anyway? Sorry lads, we invented a vaccine for AIDS but its not as cool as what they use in star trek so we won't use it

Edit: thanks grimstad for some excellent comparisons.

Except that the examples you give (and that grimstad gave) aren't really valid in this context. For one thing, the principles in solar generators and harddrives were/are scalable. The principle used in this thing doesn't appear to be scalable on anything like the level to justify calling it a tractor beam. As I said, it's a tweezer beam, and whoever made the initial comparison appears to be guilty of getting over-excited.

The Wright Flyer is not scalable at all. It had to be completely redesigned several times and several other technologies implemented to achieve the F15. Yet they are both planes. Bell's phone is not scalable to the point of a cell phone. It required the implementation of two completely different technologies to become wireless and cellular. Yet they are both phones. The hard drive started as little holes in pieces of paper.

Reading the ANU official media release and the newspaper articles it's classic tabloid science reporting
It's an interesting development in it's field but it's not a tractor beam in the sense it was reported.
I think the star trek tractor beam is always gonna be science fiction. I'm assuming it supposedly used gravitons (if the graviton model is correct) but I can't see a feasible way they could be manipulated in that way.

astrowhiz wrote:Reading the ANU official media release and the newspaper articles it's classic tabloid science reporting
It's an interesting development in it's field but it's not a tractor beam in the sense it was reported.
I think the star trek tractor beam is always gonna be science fiction. I'm assuming it supposedly used gravitons (if the graviton model is correct) but I can't see a feasible way they could be manipulated in that way.

Hah! A vehicle that flies? How preposterous. Air is light, and machines are heavy. I can't see a feasible way to make a machine fly through the air.

To believe that math and science have reached their zenith is a short sighted contention that ignores all historical precedent and modern affairs.

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such"
-Francis Fukuyama, 1992

aberneth wrote:

astrowhiz wrote:Reading the ANU official media release and the newspaper articles it's classic tabloid science reporting
It's an interesting development in it's field but it's not a tractor beam in the sense it was reported.
I think the star trek tractor beam is always gonna be science fiction. I'm assuming it supposedly used gravitons (if the graviton model is correct) but I can't see a feasible way they could be manipulated in that way.

Hah! A vehicle that flies? How preposterous. Air is light, and machines are heavy. I can't see a feasible way to make a machine fly through the air.

To believe that math and science have reached their zenith is a short sighted contention that ignores all historical precedent and modern affairs.

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such"
-Francis Fukuyama, 1992

Erm... ok. Well if gravitons exist and are detectable, and it's a big if considering gravitational waves are proving so elusive to detection, the only analogy I can think of at the moment is - I can't think of a feasible way of picking up a pen with my mind alone.
It's nothing to do with short-sightedness it's that certain physical laws are immutable throughout the universe and producing a collimated beam of gravitons which only affect a specific target is literally science fiction.
I'll stand corrected if Klazmon or Twistor59 say otherwise though..