1
00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:05,480
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:05,559 --> 00:00:14,280
Speaker 1: Stuff Looks Common Hated everyone and Welcome to tech Stuff.

3
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,599
Speaker 1: My name is John and Strickland. I'm one of the

4
00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:19,279
Speaker 1: two hosts of our show, and I'm Lauren Volke Bam

5
00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:21,240
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to laugh at all this episode.

6
00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:24,040
Speaker 1: All right, that's fair. Podcasting is a very serious business.

7
00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:26,000
Speaker 1: It is. Let us, let us be somber, despite the

8
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,680
Speaker 1: fact we're talking about a really cool futuristic technology. Tractor

9
00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:32,640
Speaker 1: bean tractor beans. Yes, yeah, this is This was something

10
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:35,440
Speaker 1: that Lauren had suggested because she saw an item in

11
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:37,840
Speaker 1: the news, and at the time, I would imagine Lauren

12
00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:41,360
Speaker 1: had no idea how incredibly complex a topic this would

13
00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: turn out to be. Yeah, as it turns out, particle

14
00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:47,519
Speaker 1: physics is not simple necessarily, but we're gonna tackle it anyway.

15
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:49,279
Speaker 1: We are. We are indeed, because you know what, we've

16
00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:51,080
Speaker 1: watched a lot of Star Trek between the two of us.

17
00:00:51,159 --> 00:00:53,560
Speaker 1: We have faith in ourselves. So let's let's talk about

18
00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:56,640
Speaker 1: what tractor beam is, especially in that realm of science fiction,

19
00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,240
Speaker 1: because I think that's where most people have encountered the

20
00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:02,640
Speaker 1: original Ida, right sure, and especially since tractor beams do

21
00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: not exist as such in three dimensions in the real world,

22
00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 1: yet not on the macro level anyway, right, not not

23
00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:12,080
Speaker 1: nothing that you could see with your own two eyeballs. Right,

24
00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:17,600
Speaker 1: So essentially it's a intergalactic tow truck kind of thing

25
00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,680
Speaker 1: beam of light that can be used to pull objects

26
00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:24,160
Speaker 1: towards the source of that light. Yeah, which is that's

27
00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:28,639
Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal because, as we understand in physics, light does

28
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,480
Speaker 1: in fact exert a pressure. You might push stuff. Kepler

29
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:37,120
Speaker 1: said that, Yep, exactly, Yep, yep, Kepler. Kepler observed this,

30
00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:40,200
Speaker 1: and in fact it serves as the basis for uh

31
00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:44,560
Speaker 1: futuristic technologies such as sun sales somewhere sales. These would

32
00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:49,120
Speaker 1: be enormous sales, literally sales that you would extend from

33
00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:53,760
Speaker 1: a spacecraft and allow sunlight to press against the sale

34
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:57,320
Speaker 1: and thus propelled the StarCraft. Because you're talking about being

35
00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:00,600
Speaker 1: in an environment where there's no there's no graby that's

36
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:03,600
Speaker 1: affecting you apart from well, I mean, they're gonna have

37
00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:06,600
Speaker 1: gravity within the Solar System, but you're not working like

38
00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:09,000
Speaker 1: trying to escape gravity. At that point. You're actually already

39
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,959
Speaker 1: out in space, so you're not having to worry as

40
00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:16,120
Speaker 1: much about things like friction and gravity, so smaller forces,

41
00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:22,519
Speaker 1: for example, photons can so. So to have a kind

42
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: of light that would be able to trap an object

43
00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:29,600
Speaker 1: and even pull it in is sort of counterintuitive based

44
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:33,400
Speaker 1: upon the knowledge that photons can push stuff away. So

45
00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:36,760
Speaker 1: we've seen tractor beams used in lots of different science

46
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:38,720
Speaker 1: fiction you. Star Trek, of course, is one of the

47
00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:41,480
Speaker 1: big examples. Yeah. The first reference was actually in The

48
00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 1: Skylark of Space, which was a drama by East Smith,

49
00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:49,800
Speaker 1: originally serialized and published a novel in I did not

50
00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,000
Speaker 1: know that. I do know that it's used in Star

51
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: Trek quite a bit. Uh. There are two things that

52
00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:57,480
Speaker 1: you have to remember about Star Trek tractor beams. They

53
00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 1: can pull just about anything any air, and if you

54
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,480
Speaker 1: reverse the polarity, you can turn it into a weapon. Well,

55
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 1: reversing the polarity, as we all know, is how you

56
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:08,360
Speaker 1: do things in Star Trek. Yeah, I was explaining earlier.

57
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:10,480
Speaker 1: It is the have you tried turning it off and

58
00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:13,520
Speaker 1: on again approach in Star Trek. If if it's something's

59
00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:17,480
Speaker 1: not working, reverse the polarity and then it works. Uh.

60
00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:19,760
Speaker 1: And then of course in Star Wars it was used

61
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 1: the Death Star catches the Millennium Falcon in a tractor

62
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:26,799
Speaker 1: beam and a series of tractor beings a whole connexus

63
00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:28,840
Speaker 1: of tractor being right and pulls it back into the

64
00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:31,239
Speaker 1: Death Star so that the Millenium Falcon cannot make its

65
00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,800
Speaker 1: daring escape. This, of course allows Darth Vader to face

66
00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:37,520
Speaker 1: off against Obi Wan Kenobi, and I could go on,

67
00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: but that's not what this episode is about. Also, I

68
00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:43,120
Speaker 1: suspect that a few of our listeners have seen Star Wars,

69
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:46,720
Speaker 1: maybe one or two. Episode four is amazing. If you

70
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:48,360
Speaker 1: have not seen it, you need to go check it out.

71
00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:52,040
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, so, so science fiction is one of

72
00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 1: those things that is a really useful tool for storytellers. Uh,

73
00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,840
Speaker 1: if they have a story about a ship encountering so

74
00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,400
Speaker 1: sort of wreck or other kind of of body out

75
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:05,880
Speaker 1: in space, it needs to be pulled away. And the

76
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:08,200
Speaker 1: nice thing is is that we've got scientists here on

77
00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:11,520
Speaker 1: Earth who are saying, hey, how can we do this

78
00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:16,200
Speaker 1: science fiction thing for reels? Right? Knowing how light behaves

79
00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:18,880
Speaker 1: and uh, and maybe finding new ways to make light

80
00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:23,080
Speaker 1: behave in perhaps an unexpected fashion. Well, I suspect that,

81
00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:26,160
Speaker 1: in fact, Star Trek used some actual research that was

82
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:28,280
Speaker 1: going on in the nineteen sixties as a basis for

83
00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:31,279
Speaker 1: their tractor beam, because according according to the Star Trek universe,

84
00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:33,960
Speaker 1: the way that their tractor beam works is it's actually

85
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 1: a graviton force beam. And I just made a little

86
00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:38,799
Speaker 1: quote marks in the air for the benefit of nobody. Really,

87
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:44,120
Speaker 1: so that was weird. Gravitons are hypothetical particles that that

88
00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:49,000
Speaker 1: essentially mediate the force of gravity. Uh, they're hypothetical because

89
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:52,280
Speaker 1: we have not observed an actual graviton. We don't know

90
00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 1: how we would. We don't we know that in order

91
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:58,720
Speaker 1: for our quantum model of the universe to make sense,

92
00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:03,320
Speaker 1: we need something like a graviton to exist to explain

93
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,640
Speaker 1: the force of gravity. There are four fundamental forces in

94
00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 1: the universe. There's strong, nuclear, weak nuclear, electro magnetic, and gravity.

95
00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:14,200
Speaker 1: Out of those, gravity is the weakest, but it's also

96
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:18,160
Speaker 1: the one that we cannot easily incorporate into the quantum

97
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,240
Speaker 1: model of physics. Right, It's sort of assumed by Einstein's

98
00:05:22,279 --> 00:05:25,680
Speaker 1: general theory of relativity that gravitational waves are a thing

99
00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:30,400
Speaker 1: that exists that ripples in the spacetime continuum caused by

100
00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,600
Speaker 1: very large moving objects, particularly, but nobody has detected these

101
00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:37,320
Speaker 1: so so really the way we observe this is through

102
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,039
Speaker 1: the force of gravity. I mean, that's that's that's we

103
00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:42,880
Speaker 1: can see the outcome. We just can't we can explain

104
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:46,640
Speaker 1: exactly so, And to to explain to you guys how

105
00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:49,919
Speaker 1: weak gravity is in comparison to the other forces, here's

106
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:53,800
Speaker 1: a very simple, uh experiment anyone can do anyone who

107
00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:57,120
Speaker 1: has access to a comb and a balloon. So let's

108
00:05:57,160 --> 00:05:59,360
Speaker 1: say you've got you know, get a balloon. You've just

109
00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 1: inflay the balloon with oxygen. Don't do helium because that

110
00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:06,359
Speaker 1: will negate the results of this test. Check. So oxygen

111
00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:09,720
Speaker 1: inflated balloon, you sat down on a table. Gravity is

112
00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:14,000
Speaker 1: pulling the balloon downward. I am oversimplifying here, so physicists

113
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:17,400
Speaker 1: please don't don't write in and complain. But the balloon

114
00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:20,040
Speaker 1: is held to the table in part due to friction,

115
00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:22,880
Speaker 1: but also in part due to gravity. If you were

116
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:26,120
Speaker 1: to take your comb and rub it against say a sweater,

117
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,839
Speaker 1: and get built up some stag electricity on the comb,

118
00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 1: and then touch the comb to the balloon and lift,

119
00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:34,400
Speaker 1: you would see that the stag electricity that was generated

120
00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,240
Speaker 1: while you were rubbing the comb against your your sweater

121
00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:40,960
Speaker 1: would be enough to attract the balloon and lifted off

122
00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,520
Speaker 1: the table. That means that the any amount of electromatic force,

123
00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:47,080
Speaker 1: the static is stronger than the gravity. And the gravity, Yeah,

124
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:50,640
Speaker 1: You've got an entire planet beneath you that that is

125
00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:55,560
Speaker 1: got this very strong gravitational pull, strong in comparison to

126
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,960
Speaker 1: other things that we directly observe throughout the day. And

127
00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:02,120
Speaker 1: yet it is dwarfed by strong enough comb Yeah, strong

128
00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:04,440
Speaker 1: enough to pull a bowling ball from the top of

129
00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:08,120
Speaker 1: tower right right, so, and and gravity just so. To

130
00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:12,360
Speaker 1: complete the whole picture here, it depends on two things.

131
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 1: It depends on really you have to have two different bodies,

132
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:18,760
Speaker 1: but it depends on the body's mass and their distance

133
00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:23,280
Speaker 1: from one another. But they do exert gravity, a gravitational

134
00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:26,400
Speaker 1: pull against each other. So, for instance, I have a

135
00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:29,520
Speaker 1: cup of tea in front of me. I am exerting

136
00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 1: a very tiny gravitational pull on the cup of tea,

137
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,520
Speaker 1: and it is exerting a very tiny gravitational pull on me.

138
00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:38,440
Speaker 1: Now this is dwarfed by the fact that I'm also

139
00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:40,600
Speaker 1: on the planet Earth, and that the Earth is exerting

140
00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 1: gravitational force on both of you. Right, So I you know,

141
00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:46,280
Speaker 1: I can't observe this. I don't really, I'm not aware

142
00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:50,080
Speaker 1: of it in any way, but that's that's yeah. So

143
00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:55,600
Speaker 1: keeping that in mind, one easy, relatively easy way of

144
00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 1: having a tractor beam like effect, even though you wouldn't

145
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:03,040
Speaker 1: be being mean anything, is to use the gravity of

146
00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:08,040
Speaker 1: one object to influence the movement of another object. Now,

147
00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: this is something that we've talked about before on tech stuff,

148
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:14,760
Speaker 1: when we were chatting about could an asteroid destroy the

149
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:18,560
Speaker 1: Earth if, if, if some space agency. I was gonna

150
00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:21,240
Speaker 1: say NASA because that's the one that I'm most familiar with.

151
00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:25,440
Speaker 1: But if NASA were too identified that an asteroid twenty

152
00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:32,360
Speaker 1: years away has the the uh, the potential to h Yeah,

153
00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:35,160
Speaker 1: that would be a bad thing. Yes, as we all

154
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,480
Speaker 1: learned in the documentary Armageddon. Yes, that wonder whole documentary

155
00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:40,360
Speaker 1: that taught me that Steve Busimmy is a better singer

156
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:44,080
Speaker 1: than Ben Affleck uh, which I had no way of

157
00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:47,280
Speaker 1: knowing until I saw that anyway, that one way of

158
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:52,199
Speaker 1: potentially deflecting the asteroid would be to send a spacecraft

159
00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,040
Speaker 1: up so that you move the spacecraft so it's close

160
00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:57,560
Speaker 1: enough to the asteroid so that they are are pulling

161
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,240
Speaker 1: one another with a gravitational hole, and then you use

162
00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:05,560
Speaker 1: thrusters with the spacecraft to just very slowly push just

163
00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:09,040
Speaker 1: not really really it's pull. You're yeah, you're pulling the

164
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:12,240
Speaker 1: asteroid because as you move the spacecraft away, the gravitational

165
00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:15,200
Speaker 1: pull makes the asteroid move with it, and all you

166
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,320
Speaker 1: have to do is move it. The further out you

167
00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:20,080
Speaker 1: go from Earth, the less you need to move the

168
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,240
Speaker 1: asteroids so that it has it misses the Earth, right,

169
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:26,360
Speaker 1: because you're talking about angles, So a couple of degrees

170
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:29,720
Speaker 1: of difference way the way way the heck out in

171
00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:32,760
Speaker 1: space to make enough difference to not kill everything on it, right,

172
00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:34,959
Speaker 1: it will miss the planet entirely. So that's the idea.

173
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:37,640
Speaker 1: So that's kind of like a tractor beam in the

174
00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:40,280
Speaker 1: sense that you're using an object to tow another object,

175
00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:43,160
Speaker 1: in this case objects that are in space, but you're

176
00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:46,640
Speaker 1: not actually shooting a beam of anything, right, However, it's

177
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:48,560
Speaker 1: not it's not made of light. It doesn't do that

178
00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,400
Speaker 1: cool visual effect. Does you have a sound effect, which

179
00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:55,040
Speaker 1: obviously that would not not anything in space anyway? Sure,

180
00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:59,319
Speaker 1: but hey, why why should we start criticizing Now that's

181
00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:01,920
Speaker 1: a that's a whole of an episode. Um and and

182
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,520
Speaker 1: so in the nineteen sixties, people were really excited about

183
00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:09,160
Speaker 1: detecting gravitational waves, and a few people in fact suggested

184
00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:12,800
Speaker 1: that we might make a gravity laser. A couple of people,

185
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:16,360
Speaker 1: Helper and Laurent, proposed that this could be called a gazer,

186
00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:19,320
Speaker 1: which I think is a terrific word. Yeah, and I

187
00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,640
Speaker 1: think means something entirely different. These are modern times, I think, yeah,

188
00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:24,319
Speaker 1: I think I agree with you. I think at this

189
00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:28,640
Speaker 1: point the scientific community would say, can we can? We can?

190
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:33,000
Speaker 1: We can? We vote on this um. They proposed that

191
00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,959
Speaker 1: we could vibrate sometimes of electric crystals and create a

192
00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:38,400
Speaker 1: whole thing, And but that's it's never really come to

193
00:10:38,480 --> 00:10:42,280
Speaker 1: fruition because the above re we have never discovered gravitons,

194
00:10:42,360 --> 00:10:45,320
Speaker 1: We have never measured gravitational waves. Right, for us to

195
00:10:45,400 --> 00:10:48,480
Speaker 1: be able to create an object that would use gravitons

196
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:51,440
Speaker 1: to to make a tractor beam, we first sort of

197
00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:54,559
Speaker 1: need to prove that gravitons in fact exist, yes, because

198
00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:56,800
Speaker 1: again they're hypothetical right now. It's sort of like the

199
00:10:56,880 --> 00:11:00,840
Speaker 1: Higgs boson, right The Higgs boson was a theoretical particle

200
00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:05,280
Speaker 1: that physicists said for our understanding of the universe to

201
00:11:05,440 --> 00:11:09,760
Speaker 1: make sense, we need this thing to exist to explain

202
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,080
Speaker 1: why matter has mass same sort of thing. In order

203
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:16,280
Speaker 1: for our understanding of gravity to make sense within the

204
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,719
Speaker 1: within the framework that we have of our knowledge of

205
00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:23,439
Speaker 1: the universe, knowing that we are by our very nature

206
00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:27,720
Speaker 1: limited in our understanding, a graviton needs to exist for

207
00:11:27,880 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 1: that model to really make sense. So we're talking about mathematically, yes,

208
00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:35,960
Speaker 1: these things have to exist, but in reality we just

209
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:38,640
Speaker 1: haven't tracked it down yet. So if we ever do,

210
00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,319
Speaker 1: maybe we can make some sort of technology that can

211
00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:45,400
Speaker 1: take advantage of that. But until then, until then, maybe

212
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:49,719
Speaker 1: no gravitational lasers. Yeah, I personally hope that we do

213
00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:52,559
Speaker 1: crack that nut, because that would be I mean, it

214
00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:55,920
Speaker 1: would be an incredibly useful tool, and not just in

215
00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:59,160
Speaker 1: the context of space exploration. That's the one that we

216
00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:01,480
Speaker 1: all think about, but us again in science fiction, that

217
00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:04,280
Speaker 1: tends to be where tractor beams come into play. But

218
00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:07,640
Speaker 1: as it turns out, tractor beams can have a really

219
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:11,880
Speaker 1: useful uhuh, well in implementation here on Earth and space

220
00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,319
Speaker 1: on the planet, and I mean, moving things is hard,

221
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,000
Speaker 1: they're heavy or even if they're or they're really small,

222
00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:23,040
Speaker 1: and so uh yeah, we'll talk a bit in a

223
00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:29,520
Speaker 1: second all about how some scientists are making micro versions

224
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,960
Speaker 1: of tractor beams here on Earth and what those could

225
00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:35,679
Speaker 1: be used for. But first, let's take a moment to

226
00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:38,920
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor for this episode, and now back to

227
00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:41,559
Speaker 1: the show. All right, So we've talked about using gravity

228
00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:46,040
Speaker 1: to create a tractor beam like effect, or possibly even

229
00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:49,800
Speaker 1: using gravitons, assuming we ever understand them. But that's not

230
00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:53,480
Speaker 1: the only way scientists are looking into creating a tractor

231
00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:56,760
Speaker 1: beam like device. There's actually been quite a bit of

232
00:12:56,760 --> 00:13:01,959
Speaker 1: news over the last decade about scientists using various ways

233
00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: of manipulating light to pull an object as opposed to

234
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:09,959
Speaker 1: push it away. Right, Starting way back in six people

235
00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:14,079
Speaker 1: started playing with what's called optical tweezers, which are lasers

236
00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:18,160
Speaker 1: that are capable of manipulating molecules and moving them with precision.

237
00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:22,840
Speaker 1: And now this is not pulling a particle towards the

238
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:26,120
Speaker 1: light source, so it's not technically attractor beam, right, but

239
00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 1: it is. It is a method of manipulating microscopic particles

240
00:13:30,280 --> 00:13:32,920
Speaker 1: very precisely. So if you're thinking about a plane like

241
00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:37,040
Speaker 1: an X and y axis, you could move particles within

242
00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:39,439
Speaker 1: the X and y axis, but you're not moving them

243
00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:42,360
Speaker 1: along the Z axis. That would be you know, from

244
00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:45,480
Speaker 1: the source of light to wherever the particle is. So

245
00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:47,840
Speaker 1: in relation to the source of light, the particle would

246
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:51,200
Speaker 1: not get closer further away, but you could trap it

247
00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:54,920
Speaker 1: and move it within that x y plane. That's that's

248
00:13:54,920 --> 00:13:57,800
Speaker 1: my understanding. Yeah, yeah, and these are well, I I

249
00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:00,719
Speaker 1: that's my understanding as well. These the laser beams that

250
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:03,640
Speaker 1: are being used for this have a Gaussian intensity profiles,

251
00:14:03,679 --> 00:14:05,960
Speaker 1: which means that they're brighter in the center than they

252
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:09,040
Speaker 1: are at the edges. Right. A Gaussian distribution is a

253
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:13,839
Speaker 1: normal distribution, and it can be for anything from lasers too. Really,

254
00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:16,240
Speaker 1: you can even see this in social sciences where you

255
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:18,840
Speaker 1: do a survey and you have a bell curve that

256
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:23,600
Speaker 1: shows a normal distribution that's essentially a Gaussian distribution. So, okay,

257
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,360
Speaker 1: light has momentum right, right, and so when it hits

258
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,680
Speaker 1: an object, the object bends the light, which changes its momentum,

259
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:33,400
Speaker 1: and thus the object is pushed back equally and oppositely

260
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:36,320
Speaker 1: by the light. Okay, I see, so the lights momentum

261
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,560
Speaker 1: has changed. The object's momentum is also changed, correct according

262
00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 1: to the conservation of momentum, which you can see in

263
00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:48,280
Speaker 1: normal non microscopic classic physics. Right, And so the Gaussian

264
00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:50,480
Speaker 1: beam is important because if the sample gets off center

265
00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:52,280
Speaker 1: in the beam, the weaker light of the edges is

266
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,720
Speaker 1: bending around the object and pushing it out, but the

267
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,120
Speaker 1: stronger lighted center is bending around it and pushing it

268
00:14:57,160 --> 00:15:00,920
Speaker 1: back in, and the stronger force winds. I see. Oh okay, yeah,

269
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,400
Speaker 1: that makes way more sense than everything else I read,

270
00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:06,760
Speaker 1: because everything I read was a lot of this. This

271
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:09,520
Speaker 1: research that we did for this particular podcast is in

272
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:12,440
Speaker 1: is from scientific journals and uh, and this is a

273
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:15,200
Speaker 1: good point for us to make. Lauren and I we're

274
00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:20,600
Speaker 1: advocates of science education. We both love science. That being said,

275
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:23,840
Speaker 1: neither of us are scientists, and we certainly are not

276
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:26,960
Speaker 1: particle physicists. And so when you get down to the

277
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:30,640
Speaker 1: quantum level, there's a certain level of understanding that we

278
00:15:30,680 --> 00:15:33,760
Speaker 1: are able to achieve. And beyond that, this stuff is

279
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,280
Speaker 1: my It is like magic to us. So we're going

280
00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,520
Speaker 1: to explain things as best we can, but please understand

281
00:15:39,560 --> 00:15:44,000
Speaker 1: there are subtleties to this that we cannot easily uh explain,

282
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: because we haven't dedicated our lives to understanding them exactly.

283
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 1: And and but so if we get anything wrong, please

284
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,600
Speaker 1: do right us in Um, we love getting that kind

285
00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:56,040
Speaker 1: of feedback, right, Yeah, No, we definitely want to to

286
00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,440
Speaker 1: communicate the correct information as best we can. But uh,

287
00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:02,240
Speaker 1: you know this, this is exciting stuff. So in this case,

288
00:16:02,320 --> 00:16:06,400
Speaker 1: what Laurence talking about is using light to to uh

289
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:13,120
Speaker 1: to isolate and then manipulate microscopic particles. But at this

290
00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:15,960
Speaker 1: point the stage what we're talking about does not include

291
00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:20,560
Speaker 1: pulling those particles towards the light source. However, we have discovered,

292
00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:24,240
Speaker 1: or rather I should say we not reedibly smart people

293
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,360
Speaker 1: have discovered ways of using light to actually pull things

294
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:31,080
Speaker 1: towards the source in a bunch of different ways. Actually, um,

295
00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:35,240
Speaker 1: there's one of those is called an optical vortex. Um.

296
00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:39,680
Speaker 1: Sounds kind of kind of freaky, uh people. The the

297
00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:42,400
Speaker 1: main research that I've read from this was from Australian

298
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:47,600
Speaker 1: National University around so pretty recently, and the the idea

299
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:50,160
Speaker 1: of this one is that they use a hollow laser

300
00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:55,160
Speaker 1: beam to trap light absorbing particles, and um, they get

301
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:57,320
Speaker 1: trapped in the center of this laser beam because the

302
00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 1: heated air molecules around them are pushing in on them goutches,

303
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:04,080
Speaker 1: so they cannot they can't escape the laser beam. They're

304
00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:06,720
Speaker 1: stuck in that little hollow center in the hollow center

305
00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:12,840
Speaker 1: in the in the the doughnuts shaped laguer Gaussian laser beam. Yes,

306
00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:16,399
Speaker 1: that right there, that thing exactly that you just said. Yeah,

307
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:19,720
Speaker 1: I have the note. I'm so glad that you did

308
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:22,040
Speaker 1: more research on this, because when I read that, my

309
00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:24,840
Speaker 1: eyes kind of glazed over. Yeah. Apparently they were able

310
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:27,879
Speaker 1: to move particles about one and a half meters in

311
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:30,520
Speaker 1: the air. Yeah, it's it's really exciting. By they found

312
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,480
Speaker 1: out that by using too concentric hollow lasers, they can

313
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:36,760
Speaker 1: adjust to the brightness of the two of them, there

314
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:40,360
Speaker 1: by heating and cooling the air around the molecules and

315
00:17:40,359 --> 00:17:43,920
Speaker 1: and then therefore have the molecules move up and down

316
00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:47,320
Speaker 1: as they will through this hollow tube of light. Wow.

317
00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:49,720
Speaker 1: So so you're using two different lasers in order to

318
00:17:50,280 --> 00:17:52,680
Speaker 1: make that maintain this kind of movement. That makes sense,

319
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:55,800
Speaker 1: I understand now. Yeah, I was wondering how that worked beforehand.

320
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:57,639
Speaker 1: But yeah, that that totally makes sense. And yeah, and

321
00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:00,440
Speaker 1: these are nanofoam particles that they were using to the

322
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:02,960
Speaker 1: got transported over a meter and and all of this

323
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:06,359
Speaker 1: is on the scale again of a very microscopic things. Right,

324
00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:08,800
Speaker 1: That's something that's important, and we'll talk a little bit

325
00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:11,000
Speaker 1: more about that when we finish with all the different

326
00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,920
Speaker 1: laser methods. But yeah, the methods we're talking about are

327
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:18,640
Speaker 1: very exciting, Don't get us wrong. They are incredibly exciting,

328
00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:23,520
Speaker 1: particularly in certain very specific implementations like in the medical field.

329
00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:26,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is all going to be extremely exciting

330
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 1: for for example, removing bacteria from samples, sorting cells, imnically

331
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:34,119
Speaker 1: manipulating DNA strands is something that optical tweezers have been

332
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:37,000
Speaker 1: used extensively for, right, so that there are really uses

333
00:18:37,040 --> 00:18:40,159
Speaker 1: for this. But these are not the same technologies that

334
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:43,960
Speaker 1: will let us move spacecraft like toe spacecraft away. And

335
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:45,639
Speaker 1: we'll talk about why that is when we get a

336
00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:47,199
Speaker 1: little further in, because there are a couple of other

337
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:50,560
Speaker 1: laser methods that we need to talk about, right right, Um,

338
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:53,520
Speaker 1: back back on the kind of sale, the sort of

339
00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:57,840
Speaker 1: solar sale theme that we were discussing earlier. Optical lift

340
00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:02,359
Speaker 1: is another version of of light that can be used

341
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:05,920
Speaker 1: to do stuff. It's it's actually just a really simple

342
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,800
Speaker 1: analog of aerodynamic lift, which of course is when um,

343
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:13,960
Speaker 1: you create huh, how is it it's higher pressure under

344
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:16,640
Speaker 1: awing than over a wing, and therefore letting a plane

345
00:19:16,680 --> 00:19:19,720
Speaker 1: lift off the ground in the game. Before we get

346
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:24,800
Speaker 1: any further physicists, that's also an oversimplification, and we acknowledge that, yes,

347
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 1: there's more than just there's more than just that when

348
00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:31,080
Speaker 1: it comes to getting an airplane off the ground. Absolutely

349
00:19:31,080 --> 00:19:33,480
Speaker 1: know all about the other forward momentum and everything else,

350
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 1: but but that that is the concept of lift. Yes,

351
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,680
Speaker 1: thank you, And so to get slightly fewer angry emails,

352
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 1: it's only because Chris and I received all of those

353
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 1: emails already, but but deservedly so, right, Oh no, absolutely, yes,

354
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:53,120
Speaker 1: we love negative feedback. But so I nearly spit tea

355
00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:56,560
Speaker 1: all over my laptop. Please don't take that as a

356
00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:59,520
Speaker 1: as a Please don't take Lawrence. Lawrence's statement as a

357
00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 1: knee means to send us the most negative feedback ever,

358
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:06,000
Speaker 1: because my feelings do get hurt. Oh and I, I

359
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,119
Speaker 1: apparent you just made a complete liar out of me.

360
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:13,960
Speaker 1: That you almost snorfing your tea completely made me crack up. Excellent.

361
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 1: But anyway back to optical lift, it's uh. The scientists

362
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:21,800
Speaker 1: have discovered that that you can take an object with

363
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,920
Speaker 1: a differently shaped top and bottom surface, and it will

364
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 1: experience a lift force when placed in a uniform stream

365
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,640
Speaker 1: of light that's fast. This is all blowing my mind

366
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,800
Speaker 1: because before we did this research, I never knew about

367
00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:37,480
Speaker 1: these different properties of light and and it just it

368
00:20:37,560 --> 00:20:41,280
Speaker 1: really stresses to me one amazing universe. This is, you know,

369
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:44,760
Speaker 1: to know that things behave on such a different level

370
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 1: than my previous understanding, and also illustrates quite effectively how

371
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,400
Speaker 1: ignorant I am. But I love to learn, so that's okay, Yeah,

372
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,159
Speaker 1: we get we get paid to learn this stuff and

373
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,120
Speaker 1: pass it on to you, which is basically the most

374
00:20:57,119 --> 00:21:01,199
Speaker 1: exciting thing. Um. One of the other categories that I

375
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:05,040
Speaker 1: ran across were optical conveyors, which are really fun. Those

376
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:07,080
Speaker 1: are those are the ones that are using bessel beams,

377
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:09,240
Speaker 1: and I think I think Jonathan has a whole section

378
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: about this one. Yeah, not a whole section, but I

379
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:12,959
Speaker 1: can at least tell you what a bessel beam is,

380
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: because when I encountered that term, I thought, huh, what

381
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 1: what exactly do they mean by bessel beam? It's a

382
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:24,640
Speaker 1: specific type of radiation, and that sort of radiation can

383
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:27,879
Speaker 1: be a laser, it can be electromagnetic, it can be acoustic,

384
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 1: it could be gravitational. It doesn't really matter what the

385
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 1: type of radiation is. It's the form it takes. And

386
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 1: that form as a radiation where the amplitude is described

387
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:41,560
Speaker 1: by a Bessel function of the first kind. Does that

388
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: mean essentially, it means that as this radiation moves forward,

389
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,040
Speaker 1: it does not diffract in any way. It doesn't diffuse,

390
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:53,720
Speaker 1: it does not spread out. In other words, it remains concentrated.

391
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:56,399
Speaker 1: So what we think of that like a laser beam.

392
00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:58,880
Speaker 1: When you shine a laser beam, it doesn't spread out

393
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: like a flashlight does. But this is a very specific

394
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 1: format of that. And in fact, because actually those those

395
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,200
Speaker 1: laser beams that were that you point at something are

396
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:10,239
Speaker 1: Gaussian laser beams. That's we discussed there, and so this

397
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 1: is different, is different. This is different. It is it

398
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 1: is focused, It does not diffract in any way, it

399
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:19,160
Speaker 1: does not spread out at all. And in fact, one

400
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 1: a a a feature of a true vessel beam would

401
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 1: be that if you were to just interrupt part of

402
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 1: this vessel beam, let's let's imagine that the vessel beam

403
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,879
Speaker 1: is as big around as a pencil, Okay, just for

404
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:36,879
Speaker 1: the purposes of illustration, and then Imagine that you had, uh,

405
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,480
Speaker 1: used a sheet of paper and cut a little slit

406
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: in that pencil, and you make the sheet of paper

407
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 1: interrupt the vessel beam. Right, So you've got the sheet

408
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:46,640
Speaker 1: of paper that's interrupting half the vessel beam. The other

409
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 1: half is going beyond the edge of the paper. A

410
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 1: true vessel beam will heal itself beyond the point of interruption.

411
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: So if I were to interrupt that beam further down

412
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:00,320
Speaker 1: the beam, it would become whole against so it would

413
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 1: be the same diameter as it was um at the

414
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 1: before a point where you had that interruption. So that's

415
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 1: an awesome thing about a vessel beam. Now here's the

416
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:16,119
Speaker 1: here's the caveat. A true vessel beam would require essentially

417
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: unlimited power. Uh So Dr Doom would want to make one, certainly,

418
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: but none of us would be capable of doing it.

419
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 1: It's a true vessel beam is effectively impossible for us

420
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,919
Speaker 1: to make. We can make things that approach vessel beams

421
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: and that emulate many of its features, but a true

422
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: one is beyond our capability. That is the short and

423
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: sweet definition of vessel beam. And do keep in mind

424
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: we're not just talking lasers, Like I said, it could

425
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: even be acoustic, so you could create a vessel beam

426
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: of acoustic energy and make a noise that could be

427
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: heard perfectly at the destination, no matter how far away

428
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: it was. That that is fascinating, pretty awesome, That's terrific.

429
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,479
Speaker 1: So so researchers are using these. Specifically, some people at

430
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,640
Speaker 1: New York University, building on research by a Chinese team

431
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 1: at the a Star Data Storage Institute, I believe in

432
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: around two thousand people have been working on using a

433
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: lens to bend and overlap two of these vessel beams

434
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 1: um thereby creating what I can crudely, crudely describe a

435
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 1: kind of a strobe effect that will, Okay, it'll hit

436
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 1: the front of a particle, and because of that, because

437
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: it can reform around an object, it will reform behind

438
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: the particle with enough energy that it actually pushes the

439
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: particle back towards the light source. All right, So what's

440
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: happening is the photon is is hitting the particle in

441
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: such a way as to give it a little kick

442
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: back toward the actual source of the photons correct, which

443
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 1: is kind of crazy. It's awesome. Like, there was one

444
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: point where I was reading one of these descriptions, and

445
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 1: I was thinking, the only way I could describe this

446
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: is if you were thinking about having a smaller particles

447
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: being put forward, because larger particles are sinking down, so

448
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: instead of being pushed down, they're actually going up. And

449
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: then the more I read about, the more I'm like,

450
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: this is a complete misunderstanding of this, and I cannot

451
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 1: go with this analogy. And that's what I thought. I

452
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: hope Lauren has got discovered, and luckily she did. Yes,

453
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: I like the physics. The physics were always the interesting

454
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: part to me. I was always terrible at algebra, but

455
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 1: really good at geometry. See, I love classical physics. Quantum

456
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 1: physics makes my head hurt. I just that's a fun headache.

457
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: I like that. I like the quantum physics headache. If

458
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: better you than me, what's that terrific quote off? If

459
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: you're not kind of upset by quantum physics, you haven't

460
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: understood it properly. I think all of us haven't understood

461
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: it properly. I think the people who haven't understood it

462
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: probably the most have the biggest headaches. Those are quantum

463
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 1: physicists anyway. But then I say that as as I

464
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 1: you know, every quantum physicist interview I've said I've watched

465
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: tends to include a question that's all similar to, but

466
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: do you really understand what it is you're talking about?

467
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: In the quantum physicist almost always says, you know, there's

468
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: a certain level where I don't like there's certain things

469
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 1: that you just say, all right, this is how it is,

470
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: because that's how it is. But to be able to

471
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: answer why I can't and so it's, you know, one

472
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 1: of those things you just have to accept and my

473
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: brain starts to melt out of your ears. Yeah, there's

474
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: a lot of screaming and waving of fists inside the

475
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: cranty the Yeah. But so the special being optical conveyor

476
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: technology might be an interesting practical use for it could

477
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: be to test the tensile strength of cells. For example,

478
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 1: if if a cell has been infected with malaria, it's

479
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: more rigid than a normal blood cell, and so it

480
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: could be super useful in tiny, microscopic medical purposes. Similar

481
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 1: to another breakthrough that was very recent as of the

482
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast. We're recording this in early February,

483
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: and there were some publications that we're talking about an

484
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: experiment that had been performed by scientists from Scotland and

485
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 1: the Czech Republic about using a beam of light with

486
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:13,120
Speaker 1: a specific geometry to pull particles of polystyrene. And these

487
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: particles are very very small, in fact, beyond microscopic. We're

488
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: talking about nanometers, four nimes, about four d ten nanometers specifically.

489
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: Think most of the particles we've been talking about have

490
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: been on on that scale. Yeah, pretty pretty tiny stuff,

491
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: but nimes and one thousand nanometer particles essentially, think about

492
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: tiny spheres of polystyrene that are only a few hundred

493
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: nimeters in diameter. That's essentially what we're talking about here.

494
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: And they found that by uh polarizing the light in

495
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 1: a particular way, they could manipulate these particles. And in fact,

496
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: not only could they manipulate the particles, but depending upon

497
00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: the way they polarized the light, they could so electively

498
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: manipulate particles of a certain size while not affecting particles

499
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: of another size. Yeah, there's a there's a little video

500
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: of this, by the way, and a press release will

501
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: link it somewhere on our on our tech staff media. Yeah,

502
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: you'll have to take a look at this. It's pretty

503
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: amazing because you think about that that means that you

504
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: will be able to selectively uh grip, sort and move

505
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: right particles, so that way you could you could keep

506
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,959
Speaker 1: some undisturbed while you're while the ones you're interested in,

507
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 1: those are the ones you can manipulate. And uh and

508
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: that is a huge breakthrough you're talking about just by

509
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: by again changing the nature of the light itself, being

510
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: able to affect very specific sizes of particles, and it

511
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter what the particle is made out of.

512
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: They were using polystyrene in a liquid solution, So again

513
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: this was another breakthrough, was that this was something that

514
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: could work within a liquid, making it very useful for

515
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: medical purposes. So if you wanted to take a blood

516
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: cell and you needed to move certain particles in that

517
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: blood cell out or off to a side so that

518
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: you could either examine them more closely, or perhaps get

519
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: them out of the way so you can examine something

520
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: else in the blood cell more closely, it would be

521
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: a very useful tool. I one description that I saw

522
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: of this said that uh and and this one in particular,

523
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: there are a lot of very intelligent people have said

524
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: very erudite things about all of the rest of these

525
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: forms of tractor beam manipulation, and I read them and

526
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: have said them back to you. This one is so

527
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: new that not that many people who are smarter than

528
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: us have really said that many things about it, and

529
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: so therefore my understanding is tenuous. But one explanation that

530
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: I saw said that they used a mirror to bounce

531
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: the laser beam back across itself, interfering with the head

532
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: on photons and thereby pushing right the The interesting thing

533
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: to me was that it was through that interference that

534
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: creates this pulling. It was not, however, because you you

535
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: hear mirror and you think, oh, well, all they're doing

536
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: is shooting the photons, bouncing it off the mirror, and

537
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: then the photons hit the particle and then push the particle.

538
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: But that's not what's happened. That's not what's happening. It's

539
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: the it's the interaction of the uh, the oncoming beam

540
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: and the reflected beam that create this pulling motion. And that,

541
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 1: to me is phenomenal because at first I thought, oh, well,

542
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: what they're really doing it is just a mirror. Yeah,

543
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: they're just they're just pushing, they're not pulling. But that's

544
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: not the case. That actually is pulling. Actually, they're The

545
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: really fascinating thing about this is that apparently, under certain conditions,

546
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: the objects held by the beam rearranged themselves into a

547
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: structure that made the pull stronger. That's pretty awesome. I

548
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: mean this, this is so mind blowing to me that this,

549
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: this world on the nanoscale is every time I read

550
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: anything about it, it amazes me. It's like, you know,

551
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: the two areas I find the most interesting when it

552
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: comes to exploration are outer space and nanospace because there

553
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: are a lot of parallels, I mean, weird parallels between

554
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: outer space and nanospace fractals. Fractals say that that's a

555
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: that is a known quantity. That just makes me think

556
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: of the Jonathan Coulton song Mandel Brought Set, which is awesome.

557
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: Have you heard that? I do not believe I have

558
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: what I guess what we're doing. After the podcast is over,

559
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: you get to hear a song. Alright, So uh we

560
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: we we alluded to the fact that this is stuff

561
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: that works on a microscopic scale and would not translate

562
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: to macroscopic Yes, and here's the reason why. Yeah, the

563
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: reason why is that all of all of this work

564
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: with lasers. Lasers of course, um can burn stuff and

565
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: if you had a big enough laser to move you know,

566
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: the one of the physicists I think mentioned a football.

567
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: I assume that they were meaning a soccer ball because

568
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: they were from Scotland and that was that was Thomas Sismar.

569
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: There you go, um, and it would fry a long

570
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: time before you would move that soccer ball. Yeah. In

571
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: other words, the laser would have to be of such

572
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: an intensity and size as to destroy whatever it was

573
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: you were trying to move. So it might move, but

574
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: only because someone didn't want it to burn down everything else, right,

575
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: it would be moved by someone else who's saying, why

576
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: do you have this flaming soccer ball in the middle

577
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: of the field. Yeah, that's the that's a problem obviously.

578
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a it's a non trivial problem,

579
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: and I mean, I know it's a non trivial problem,

580
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: and it sounds like I'm being silly, but no, it's

581
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: non trivial, and that as far as we are able

582
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: to determine, there's no way to get around that using

583
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: this particular implementation of the tractor beam idea. So this

584
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,719
Speaker 1: would strictly be on the nano and micro scale and

585
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: never get beyond that. That does not mean that we

586
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: won't find some other way of creating a tractor beam.

587
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: We very well made, but it's not going to be

588
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: using these particular methods because obviously we would end up

589
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: destroying whatever it was we were trying to manipulate. So

590
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: we hope, we hope that we will see some of

591
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: that in the future. Yeah, it's a really exciting area

592
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: of development. And uh, any of you who are interested

593
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: in this sort of stuff, there are a lot of

594
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: different articles that are available out there, including articles that

595
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: have been published by these scientists. So if you are

596
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: of a scientific mind and you want to learn more,

597
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: there are lots of opportunities to learn about it online.

598
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: And well we'll we'll link to some of those on

599
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: our various social media outlets since you can get a

600
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: chance to take a look at it. Because it really

601
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: is fascinating stuff. And uh, and we love tackling these

602
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: these uh, these sort of topics. They're very challenging, and

603
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: challenge is a good thing. I mean, if you if

604
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: we just sit there and talk about, hey I like

605
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: video games. Hey I also like video games, that it's

606
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: boring for everybody. I mean We know you guys would

607
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: get tired of that too. So if you have specific

608
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: topics that you think you know. I know this would

609
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: be a tall order, but I really want to hear

610
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: more about it, send it our way. Do you want

611
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: to know about invisibility cloaks, Let us know. We will

612
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: look into it and we will explain them to you.

613
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: Maybe not even using Harry Potter as a reference. That's unlikely.

614
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: That's a tall order. But but if you have any requests,

615
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: send them our way. There are multiple ways to get

616
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: in touch with us. One of them is email and

617
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: our email addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot com, or

618
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,959
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook or Twitter. You can find

619
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: us at both those locations with the handle text stuff

620
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: H s W and Lauren and I will talk to

621
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this and thousands

622
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it hastaff works dot com