Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation

This sounds cool, though I don't no how reliable the story is, or even how they are supposed to do it. Did they find it accidentally, working with this Casimir force?

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.


~~
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.

~~
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.

Link

[edit on 7/8/2007 by Sauron]

Cool, is it stable though?


Like magnetic poles will attract and can assuming-ly be used for levitation, but the two forces need to be exact for it to maintain it's levitation.

Also, super-cooled magnets float/levitate too, just look it up.

Hmmmm - that's interesting, Sauron...

The levitating object in the photo is a model of toy called a Levitron. It uses a small spinning magnet floating above a larger base magnet. There are several versions available. I have a few myself. Saw it first in the old OMNI mag about 15 yrs ago.

A more recent 'deluxe' model has a chromed top like in the picture. www.levitron.com. Once you get it spinning and floating above the base you can do neat tricks like slide a drinking glass around it, cup it in your hands, or make it appear as if it is floating between your fingers (as in the photo above).

As for the Casimir force the article refers to: Well, maybe. Once we can see an actual prototype of the technology in a working model, that would indeed be something to get excited about. IMO, it's a bit disingenuous to talk about floating levitation technology but actually show a picture not of the technology discussed but rather of a regular production toy available on the market (eBay search for "levitron" to get one for yourself to play with...

Otherwise - intrigued by the possibilities, that's for sure!