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Physicists 'solve' mystery of levitation


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user posted image rLevitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists. In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible. Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.

news icon View: Full Article | Source: Telegraph

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Hover boards, hover cars, hover cafe's ! The future is here. Finally. It's not just in movies or books anymore :o

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I wonder how many decades it will take to eventually get the the level where we can have hover crafts! That would really be cool!

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We are now one step close to make hover boots with little rockets boosters people! :D

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Why wont the government just admit they have alien technology that they are reverse engineering instead of this "OMG WE DISCOVERED SOMETHING NEW COMPLETELY OUT OF NOWHERE WITH NO SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY INVOLVED!" stuff....

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Why wont the government just admit they have alien technology that they are reverse engineering instead of this "OMG WE DISCOVERED SOMETHING NEW COMPLETELY OUT OF NOWHERE WITH NO SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY INVOLVED!" stuff....

Why can't won't you conspiracy theorists just present some actual evidence?

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...Weather balloons.

^_^ Finally! I wants me some hovering weather balloons & swamp gas. Of course, the hoverboards, as well.

TeraLink Was Here!

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is levitation another name for anti-gravity or im i just totally not getting it? :huh:

No. There are thousands of things which oppose gravity (planes, balloons, even just jumping in the air), but for something to be anti-gravitational it would have to manipulate the force of gravity, causing it to repel rather than to attract.

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The future is here. Finally. It's not just in movies or books anymore :o

So it would seem, so it would seem.

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linked-imageLevitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists. In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible. Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together. Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts. Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.The Casimir force is a consequence of quantum mechanics, the theory that describes the world of atoms and subatomic particles that is not only the most successful theory of physics but also the most baffling.

The force is due to neither electrical charge or gravity, for example, but the fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects and is one reason atoms stick together, also explaining a “dry glue” effect that enables a gecko to walk across a ceiling. Now, using a special lens of a kind that has already been built, Prof Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin report in the New Journal of Physics they can engineer the Casimir force to repel, rather than attact. Because the Casimir force causes problems for nanotechnologists, who are trying to build electrical circuits and tiny mechanical devices on silicon chips, among other things, the team believes the feat could initially be used to stop tiny objects from sticking to each other. Prof Leonhardt explained, “The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano-world, in particular in some microelectromechanical systems.

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It looks very familiar...like the levitron toy that has been around for a lot of years...

this thing: http://www.levitron.com/

the toy actually works by using opposing magnetic fields to levitate the spinning top...and it has to spin to work.

http://www.levitron.com/images/levitron.mpg

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Why can't won't you conspiracy theorists just present some actual evidence?

Because then it wouldn't be a conspiracy...duuuuuh :rolleyes:

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Since the dawn of time levitation has been and obsession with humans. I once saw some German footage of an African shaman levitating in a ring of fire with nothing above him. Some believe that through spiritual rituals you can achieve levitation, but magicians like me have come up with more lucrative ways to do this. I'm sure many of you have seen the Ballduci levitation which was popularized by David Blaine. There are many other forms, the King Rise, The Copperfield Levitation, The Adruzzi Levitation, etc. There's a new levitation out now that I think is the ultimate street magic trick, it's called Skywalker (no relation to starwars) where the magician is surrounded at all angles and flots 2-3 inches in the air. But don't expect to see this become very popular, the catch is that the manufacturer has to customize your shoes. I think the reason that levitation is an obsession with people is because it is almost a symbol of power. Think about it, in every movie where some demon, witch, etc takes over the world they can always fly.

Whenever the words "Levitation" and "Magic" are in the same scentence people tend to think of Criss Angel's infamous levitations. Let me make one thing perfectly clear:HE HAS NO SPECIAL POWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE IS JUST AN ILLUSIONIST AND A HUMAN BEING LIKE THE REST OF US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not going to say how he does the levitation where he is surrounded by people and floats, but I will say that it's not camera editing, and it's not wires. The whole reason that he's so famous for that one is because he's the only one that is stupid enough to do it. Because with that particular method you could lose contol and fly away into the sky, or if you move wrong (or at all) *SPLAT!!!* Thankfully he didn't use this when he floated from building to building, or he'd be dead. I'm not sure if it's the one he used for floating above the Luxor.

Edited by crypto-dude
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Why can't won't you conspiracy theorists just present some actual evidence?

Every time we do people go "no, that doesn't count because that's not how I think."

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Every time we do people go "no, that doesn't count because that's not how I think."

Yep, and the most conclusive evidence is just not going be made available in any way to the public.

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There is something flawed here. Why doesn't the object simply disintegrate? How are they able to make this object only resist the gravity of earth? If it isn't resisting gravity, what is it resisting to hover? If it has resisted gravity, then why doesn't it disappear?

If it were no longer bound to earth's gravity, then it would fly out of sight instantly as the earth rotated away from it and the universe expanded.

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do anyone know how this they did it?

They didn't actually levitate anything, they're theorists and this is a theoretical paper. They used the fact that if a certain type of new and interesting material (called a metamaterial) was placed between the plates that normally get pushed together by the Casimir effect, the material would have the effect of changing the rule in between those plates a bit. As the authors put it: "A transformation medium performs an active coordinate transformation: electromagnetism in physical space, including the effect of the medium, is equivalent to electromagnetism in transformed coordinates where space appears to be empty."

Let me give you an imperfect analogy to see what this means. Suppose you're having a garage sale and you're trying to get rid of some old autographed baseball cards. The value of those cards will depend on who comes browsing through them. They might be worth a fair amount to fans of the particular player who autographed them, a bit less to someone who just enjoys baseball or baseball card-collecting, and usually only in the absence of anybody whatsoever are they worth less than the paper stock they're printed on. That is, often things (or rules) depend on the particular surroundings--the "medium." But suppose for some reason the crowd--the medium--at your garage sale turned out to be a bunch of baseball-haters. The value of your cards would be nil, just as if nobody was there at all because, of course, these people won't want to buy them. We could say this particular medium--the crowd of baseball-haters--has the effect of transforming the rules governing the value of your cards so that they act as if the garage sale appears empty of people. It isn't, there are people there. But the particular group of people (medium) is such that the value of your cards is determined by the same rules as if nobody was there at all.

I don't know if that helped at all but in this levitation effect the special metamaterial acts like the baseball-haters. That is, it makes the rules of electromagnetism (like the rules for assigning value to your cards) act as we're in empty space (i.e. nobody's around) and not in a situation where a material is sandwiched between two plates. The overall effect of making electromagnetism act as if it's playing in empty space is to take the standard attraction of the Casimir effect and make it repulsive. But the special metamaterial has to be stuck in there to "reset the dial," so to speak, to empty space.

Weak analogy, I know, but they're not really my thing.

Edited by Startraveler
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The article seems to say that this has nothing to do with magnetism or gravity. The objects are just repeled by other objects. So it is not countering gravity, where it would shoot off into space, or using magnets and spin to effect levitation. Cool.

depending on how much this meta-material costs, we could see flying cars and hover boards fairly quick.

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Why can't won't you conspiracy theorists just present some actual evidence?

Evidence that the government has technology more advanced than the public knows of? We already did that. If you can't accept it now, you never will. Just the existence of these "UFOs" proves it. Besides, you must admit: It's more likely these UFOs are man made and not made by ET. There are also countless videos and images of UFOs taking off and/or landing in area 51. The UFO phenomena is a well researched one.

Edited by Zero of Deism
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