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CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists have found a way to levitate the very smallest objects using the strange forces of quantum mechanics, and said on Wednesday they might use it to help make tiny nanotechnology machines. They said they had detected and measured a force that comes into play at the molecular level using certain combinations of molecules that repel one another.
Originally posted by NuclearPaul
It's good in a way that these scientists have finally learned how to "levitate small objects".
Maybe they should go for a trip to Tibet and learn how to levitate big ones...
Originally posted by science lol
reply to post by NuclearPaul
Please, short of scientists using powerful magnets, noones 'levitated' anything.
Especially in the sense that I imagine you're referring too.
you'd normally call that floating. the mechanisms behind how they work is well understood.
Originally posted by Now_Then
Originally posted by science lol
reply to post by NuclearPaul
Please, short of scientists using powerful magnets, noones 'levitated' anything.
Especially in the sense that I imagine you're referring too.
I was under the impression that hot air balloons and hovercraft's levitated
Edit: Helium balloons, The Hindenburg.... I'll think of some more later
[edit on 12/1/2009 by Now_Then]
Originally posted by detachedindividual
reply to post by smokecrops
I've seen previous evidence that we can all already create movement with the power of our minds.
There was an experiment done several years ago involving the use of alternative remedies.
A scientist was developing study to see if a minute amount of any substance added to a greater diluting solution still retained the original substance. The idea was that, through diluting, any substance would eventually become non existent.
The results of the test were hard to explain. They were seeing that the small substance still existed in equal volume. All data showed this.
But when it was analyzed externally, without the data provided, other labs couldn't find anything within the solution.
After repeated attempts to explain the discrepancy, they eventually had to propose that, somehow, the lab staff who knew what testing they were doing were somehow "creating" the substance with an unknown ability or power. It simply needed the awareness of what they were seeking in order to create it.
I don't know what they did after this, but it does suggest that Humans have an ability to manipulate microscopic particles, or even to destroy/create them.
I'll try to find a link to it, but to be honest, it was about ten years ago and I don't know where to start a search on it.
Originally posted by smokecrops
I didn't realize it at the time but its also very similar to the Observer effect, and to a lesser extent, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The Observer effect states that the act of observation will make changes to the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. I layman's terms its like what I was talking about in my earlier post, the simple act of observing changes the what you are observing. Even though this mainly applies to the realm of quantum mechanics and quantum theory, there are very concrete parallels, in most all branches of science and thought. Anything can be anything if its unobserved, that is all things can exist in all their possible states until they are measured or observed. Lights can be and are both on and off at all times, until someone checks to see. Its a very interesting theory, its like the ancient proverb about a tree in the forest. In regards to this theorem, the tree both makes a sound and is silent, until someone walks into the forest. Very very mind "bottling" to put it in the words of Will Ferrel from Blades of Glory
The experiment you were referring to also has interesting applications in relation to people's preconceived notions. You'd think scientists were the most objective people in the world virtually unaffected by preconceived notions, but as you referred to previously, even the scientific method can be affected and contaminated by subjectivity and opinions.
still looking for info about that experiment.
In this theory, an electron that is not being observed does not exist as a particle at all, but has a wave-like property covering the areas of probability where it could be found. Once the electron is observed, the wave function collapses and the electron becomes a particle. This theory rather neatly explains the behaviour of the particles in the double slit experiment. When we are not looking at the particle, the probability wave, of even a single particle, is spread out and will pass through both slits at the same time and arrive at the detector as a wave showing an interference pattern. When we observe the electron by placing detectors at the slits, it is forced into revealing its location which causes the probability wave to collapse into a particle. If the theory is correct, its implications are staggering. What it suggests is that nothing is real until it has been observed!
Nothing is real until it has been observed!
Originally posted by science lol
you'd normally call that floating. the mechanisms behind how they work is well understood.
levitate Verb to rise or cause to rise, suspended, in the air
float
1. a. To remain suspended within or on the surface of a fluid without sinking.
b. To be suspended in or move through space as if supported by a liquid.