WEBVTT - Caught in a Tractor Beam 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.800 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, of 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.640 the podcast that looks at the future and says there's 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.640 a light in the darkness of everybody's life. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.400 I'm Lauren Folke Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.280 we wanted to talk a bit about tractor beams. As 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.080 it turns out, tractor beam. Yeah, tractor beams. So, so 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.080 we're talking about science fiction. No no, no, no, no no, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.080 that would be a later podcast. Right now, we're talking 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:39.040 about science fact, science fact factor. Tractor beams. Yeah, tractor 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.120 beams are a real thing. Yeah, using fact like f 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.400 a k T fact exactly like f a k T. 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.320 So you're you're telling me, they're telling you're telling me 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.040 they're a real tractor beams in the world. It's amazing 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:52.640 to me that you don't know this because you wrote 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.240 the script for that particular episode and I've already recorded it. 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.120 But yes, there are. Do you just not believe your 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.640 own research. We're playing a little fantasy game. I'm sorry, Okay, yes, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.240 what tractor beams? Well, I'll admit that even though I 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.600 did write a script about it. It's still blowing my mind. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.319 You know what. It blows my mind too, because you're 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:17.319 sitting there talking about a phenomena that is incredibly counterintuitive, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:19.039 right right, Well, I mean, you know when when we 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:20.800 see it in Star Trek, it looks like this beam 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.000 of light is pulling something towards it. And how does 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.760 how does that work? Because light pushes on right, Well, 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.080 we actually are talking about light. I don't want to 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.080 nerd out on you, but in star in wait, did 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.720 you say Star Treker star Wars? Oh? Then you're right, 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.399 You're totally right. You're totally right. I'm so sorry. I 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.240 thought you said Star Wars and I was gonna be 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.119 You don't see anything, okay, you just feel it. You're 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.840 just being pulled in, right, They got us locked in, 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:45.640 that's true. Yeah, they got us locked out of the track. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:47.960 You don't see waiting until one is right there over 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.880 at the tractor beam controls that are rightly located next 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.960 to the enormous pit, that big beam going up and down. Yeah. Okay, 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.040 so I will save that for the next podcast, all 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.360 the sci fi stuff. Just just let it be known, okay, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.919 for the like one person in the world who doesn't 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.080 know what a tractor beam from science fiction is. It's 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.600 a force that pulls you toward it, right, right, So 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.560 in science fiction it's often used for a ship to 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.200 be guided into the docking bay of some other vessel 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:24.000 or spaceport, or it's some way of capturing another object 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.280 peacefully without blowing it to smithereens and kind of grabbing 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.640 it taking it with you. Yeah. Yeah, so it's kind 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.560 of like a nons like a like a beam winch right, right. Yeah. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.480 If you don't want the equivalent of having to fire 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.480 out grappling hooks from the side of your spaceship so 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.560 that you can pull some other spaceship in so you 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.440 can board it and and be space pirates, then you 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.239 need some sort of electronic electromagnetic version of that. And 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.680 and tractor beams tends to be the go to um 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.800 magical thing that we talk about to have this happen. 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.440 And as it turns out, we actually have developed a 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.800 type of tractor beam, a couple of different types of 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.360 tractor beams, but they're on a very small scale and 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.680 they use light. Astonishing, Yeah, they use light. They use light, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.080 so they can shine light and pull something toward the 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.480 light source, which is incredibly counterintuitive. Like you were saying, Lauren, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.520 I mean the light is something that pushes, right, It 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.200 has momentum. It behaves as both a particle and a way. Yeah, 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.720 it's even that's not totally intuitive, right, we should stop in. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.600 Some people might be going, wait a minute, what light pushes? Yeah, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.800 it does. It does have momentum. It has a relativistic mass, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.760 which mostly means it as a mass that works out 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.720 in math, if not in what we would consider real 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.080 life situations. But it does have momentum. It can press 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.280 against something. Yeah, you call this the term is radiation pressure. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.400 So you if you imagine the Sun, it's got raised 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.480 coming out of it in all directions. It's also got 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.440 solar wind. So you can understand why solar wind would 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.880 push because that's massive particles. So that's a little lasting 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.960 particles out into space. So if you have something like 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.280 a solar sale, which is a spaceship that's designed to 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.800 ride the force of the Sun outward from the solar system, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.880 that's taking some of the force from that solar wind 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.360 those massive particles coming out, but some of the force 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.159 pushing it is just all it's light Yeah, it's photons. 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.840 It's just photons pressing against that solar sale. And because 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.560 you're not dealing with gravity in any in any appreciable sense, 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.960 once you get out into interplanetary space, as long as 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.159 you're not getting too close to any particular large body, 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.320 then you can use that to accelerate your spacecraft and 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.120 and travel and use that as a propulsion force. In fact, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.240 that's one of the ones that that scientists have proposed 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.360 as a potential propulsion force once we're building spacecraft in space. 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.680 In fact, you don't even have to look at a 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.279 hypothetical spacecraft to see the force of radiation pressure in 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.840 our solar system. Right, you can look at like a comet. Right, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.560 Comets tails always point away from the Sun. Yep, yep. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.320 That tail is always going to be pointing away. And 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.880 that's because of this this pressure that we're talking about. 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.560 So that's Kepler discovered that, by the way, which which 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.480 comes up a lot in a lot of these articles. Yeah, 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.359 Kepler was a smart cat, let me tell you. So 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:26.520 we're getting into a smart human being. But yeah, well 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.520 Shortinger had a smart cat only half the time. So anyway, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.160 the the the whole point of this is that if 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.719 you're thinking about an energy that has a pressure, like 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.960 it's pressing against something, how could that then draw an 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.800 object toward the source of that pressure. I mean, that 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.960 is very much counterintuitive, right, And the thing is is 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.640 that physicists have figured out ways of getting around this, 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.320 so that what's really happening is the light is pushing 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:58.320 on objects from behind and and thereby making the appearance 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.200 that it's pulling that object towards right. So so really 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.359 what's happening is that there's some sort of pressure building 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.640 on the back side of an object in relation to 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.400 where the source of light is, so that that pressure 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.760 on the back is pushing it towards that light source. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.200 It's not truly pulling, Like It's not like if I 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.600 grabbed Joe and then just started to pull him towards me, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.840 that that would be one thing. But this is more 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.600 like I signal to you, Lauren, and I pushed Joe 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.960 and towards you. By the way, this happens constantly in 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.039 our podcast, and I meant to bring that up earlier 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:33.640 suggest that we not do that, But really, I guess 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.040 it's a discussion for another Come on, guys, the examples 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.520 you're using are different in like eighteen ways. I want 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.880 to see the proof. What does this really look like 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.200 in the lab? What are they doing? All right, Well, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.479 there's a couple of different ways that scientists have looked 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.680 into using light to uh to pull objects. First of all, 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.040 we should say that for a couple of decades now, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.839 scientists have been using light to immobilize tiny, tiny, tiny 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:03.960 object right, So they're they're not wiggle. So in this 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.120 case you're using light. You're using light, it's not it's 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.280 not drawing it towards the source of light. It's just 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:15.200 there to either move something laterally, or you're just immobilizing something. 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.720 This is really important if you're dealing with really really 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:22.160 really tiny objects, like in organic chemistry or any kind 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.160 of biomedical research, you would need to be able to 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:31.720 to uh isolate and and uh and immobilize these tiny 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.560 tiny particles. I imagine we're talking about like the microscale 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.240 nanoscale is Yeah, microscale nanoscale is really what we're talking about. 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.480 Not keep in mind not so a nanometer is one 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.400 billionth of a meter, uh, a micrometer is one million. 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.920 So we're talking between the a few hundred nanometers to 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.160 a couple of microns in size. Uh. Now, one of 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.240 the ways that UH scientists have used is relying on 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.680 something called a bessel beam, which is a very peculiar 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.960 type of light. Yeah, a vessel beam. Uh. If you 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.160 see a vessel beam shined against a wall, you would 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.640 probably see something that looks like a target. It's like 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.440 a bull's eye with concentric circles coming out. Um. But 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:16.360 and that that's the way I've seen it in all 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.120 the videos and images I've seen online. But the essential 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.800 thing about a vessel beam is that it's non refractive, right, 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.440 so it stays focused over a really long distance. And 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.080 so if you're using a laser beam, we think of 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.560 laser beams as being really really concentrated beams of light 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.120 that don't tend to diffuse, but they do over great distances, 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.560 whereas a vessel beam maintains that coherence. Yeah. And the 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.480 other really weird and kind of interesting thing about a 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.920 vessel beam is that, if I'm correct, I think it 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.040 reforms after passing over an object. Right. Right, It's a 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.520 series of concentric circles of light that are formed around 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.680 a single dot, and that center point is created by 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.760 the light from the concentric circles, so it can it 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.240 can your form when something want to encounter something that's 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:07.319 path because it's not entirely being covered some of these 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.000 I see, So some of the outer circle is getting 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:14.120 around that object and therefore can reform that dot part 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.880 on the back side of that object. So it's not 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.120 the same thing as if it were to encounter, say 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.839 an enormous wall. It's more like if it had a 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.120 smaller object that would normally block that little dot, but 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.480 some of that concentric circle gets around, some of the 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.800 outer bits get around and behind. So the interesting thing 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:33.920 here is that you've got a laser beam that for 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.640 very tiny objects is uninterruptible, like it'll just it'll. If 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.640 you were to interrupt that light, it reforms on the 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.959 other side. It almost seems like magic when you think 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.559 about it, because it's like, uh, you've you've blocked off 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.240 that little dot from the source, and yet it still 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.760 reappears on the other side of the object. So if 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.559 a beam of light can reform on the other side 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.719 of an object, I wonder if there's a way to 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.840 time it so that when the beam hits the object, 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.040 it's at a low energy in its wavelength, and when 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.400 it reforms on the back of the object. It's at 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.920 a high energy. Well, gosh, Joe, it's almost like you 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.720 read that script you road, because in fact, that's exactly 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.960 what scientists have managed to do. They've managed to exactly yeah, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.120 well with with with with two of these vessel beams. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:21.839 When you when you yeah, yeah, when you when you 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.959 when you bend two of them together and kind of 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.040 focus them correctly, right right. What happens is you you 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.800 create a greater amount of pressure on the back side 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.240 of this tiny, tiny object. Remember we're talking about on 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.200 the micro scale here here. Uh, then you can create 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.640 enough force to push it toward what is the source 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.520 of that light. So, uh, it's exactly what you said, Joe. 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.200 You've got a lower amount of pressure on the front 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:47.959 side and a greater amount on the back side, and 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.240 that's what creates this movement. So this is one way 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.360 that scientists have discovered where you can actually use light 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.760 to move objects. Now keep in mind this is tiny, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.720 tiny scale. We'll get into scalability issue. I know, Joe, 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.319 you're chopping at the bit to talk about that, But 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.880 we have another unusual and exotic way of using light 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.640 to manipulate objects. And in fact, it's this the second 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.360 method is incredibly technical, and we're really just going to 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.440 give an overview of it because to go into great 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.640 detail would one require that we'd actually bring someone in 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.480 who is a particle physicist, a particle physicist, because that's 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.880 how complex an optical physicist, Yeah right, you know, photons 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:35.080 of particles. But or we could uh this fight later, 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.719 geek fight um, or we can uh you know, so 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:41.559 we've had to either bring in an expert or we 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.480 would spend a lot of time gesticulating wildly in an 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.120 audio podcast room, which does not translate so well in 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.319 audio format. It's it would be fine for us, but 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.199 y'all listening might be a little bit, right, Yeah, so 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.160 we'll do our best here. Let's let's talk about this. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.920 So it's this is from uh some some researchers who 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.720 are working out of both Scotland and the Czech Republic. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.000 It's kind of a it's a it's a consortium of 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.400 of scientists and engineers who are working on this. And 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.160 and then this was just first published in on January. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.320 So this is really cutting edge. Yes, this is really 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.480 really new and exciting stuff. But it's also the closest 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.319 thing to the Sci Fi tractor beam that we've seen yet. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.200 It is and what's being used. They're using a Gaussian 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:34.199 laser beam. A linearly polarized polarization is referring to if 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.760 you think about the movements of a photon, they tend 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.800 to move generally speaking, this is really simplifying, but they 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.920 tend to move into planes, a horizontal plane, in a 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.880 vertical plane. Polarized light you can you can polarize light 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.559 in such a way so that it all moves within 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.920 a single plane, and then you can manipulate that plane 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.040 so that you are working with a very specific type 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.360 of light. We actually use this in UH practically in 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.880 three D applications. If you have passive three D glasses 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.320 that are the polarized lenses, then those lenses are polarized 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.200 in such a way to allow one type of light 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.920 through the lens while blocking another type. This allows you 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.679 to get two different um UH types of light in 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.320 you know, one in each lens, so that your brain 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.720 then combines the images that you're receiving into a single 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.920 image that gives you that illusion of depth. Right, So 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.480 it's it's tricking your brain into thinking that there's depth 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:31.120 there when really you're just looking at two different flat images. Okay, 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.760 but how do they use it so and to move 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.640 a little balls. All has to do with the geometry 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.839 of the light. First of all, we should say what 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.800 they are doing. They are moving tiny, tiny, tiny little 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.360 balls a little little styrene spheres that are suspended in fluid. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.600 And I think one thing that's interesting is a lot 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.199 of these tests they seem to be dependent on the conditions, right, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.280 so like we can move something this size in air, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.000 or we can move something this size and a vacuum, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.760 or and in this they were talking about suspended in water, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.480 right And and this would obviously be something that would 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:09.040 be interesting again in biomedical UH applications, where you're talking 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.880 about lots of different fluids and particles that you might 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:13.360 want to be able to move around. One of the 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.640 cool things about this is depending upon the geometry of 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.000 the light that they used, they could manipulate certain sized 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.000 objects while leaving everything else alone. So you could be 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.480 very specific and hone in on exactly the size of 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.440 particle that you want to UH to manipulate while ignoring 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.920 all other particles. Wow, I bet that makes a lot 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.760 of people in medical apps salivate. Yeah, because you're talking 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.840 about sorting on an incredibly precise basis very exciting, like 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.120 a laser sifter, right right. What was really exciting to 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:43.960 me about this research is that they said that under 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:49.000 certain conditions, objects held by the beam would automatically rearrange 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.520 themselves to make the pulse stronger. I don't even know 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.480 what that means. That's yeah, it's we're getting into star 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.320 trek territory here with reversing the poet, and you're like 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:09.720 brain washing the balls the polystyrene spears, your brainwashing them 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.840 to do your bidding. Okay, all right, so these spears 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.240 tended to be but for the for this particular research project, 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.640 we're between about four and ten nanometers to one thousand 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:26.720 nanometers or one micron in size, and one thousand nanometers 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:32.480 that's huge to an atom. Yes, to us, it is 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:37.160 incredibly tiny. It's pretty big for being pulled by light. Yeah, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.880 I being pushed around by photons. That's not bad at all. Yeah. 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.880 I can actually quote a little bit of this. So 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.080 here here's an example of how complex this gets, right 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:47.680 to the point where we would need to have a 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.640 specialist in here to really explain in Layman's terms, what's 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.680 going on there? We go The optical force originating from 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.640 the Galcian intensity profile normal distribution along the z axis 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.360 attracts the particles towards the center and so acts against 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.560 both the pulling or the pushing forces, as it was 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.040 explained in figures to A. B. C. Of the main text. Therefore, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.800 if the beam is switched on or its polarization has changed, 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.080 the pulling or pushing forces propelled the particles to their 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.560 new equilibrium positions established in the Gaussian beams. To develop 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.960 an appropriate theoretical description of the geometry, we need to 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.560 take into account not only the Gaussian beam intensity profile 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.120 dragging particles to the beam center, but also the influence 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.320 of the scattered field reflected on the mirror back towards 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.360 the particle. This means that they were using a mirror 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.560 to um to help create interference within this Gaussian beam, 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:34.880 and Gaussian beams, we should say, are our beams that 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.120 are stronger in the center than they are at the 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.720 at the outsides. So again, it's similar to that vessel 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.600 beam approach where they were using two vessel beams in 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.240 order to interfere with one another and create that pressure 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.720 but in this case, you're using a beam to interfere 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.560 with itself, one beam in a mirror. Yeah. And the 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.360 other thing that's interesting that uh you you might not 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.480 have caught from that passage you read, but they can 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.240 change how the beam interacts with the particles by messing 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.720 with the polarity. Right, So if you tweak the polarity 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.000 of the beam, you could say push instead of pull. Right. Yeah, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.200 So it gives you a lot of different options for 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:16.240 manipulating these these uh, microscopic or smaller objects. Now it's 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.520 you know, this lends itself to lots of different applications. Uh, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.520 and that we're just starting to kind of consider right 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.159 now because we're still in the very much the early 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.520 early stages of developing this technology. But you could hypothetically 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.200 sort um different kinds of particulates out of something that 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:33.800 you didn't want in there. You could use it to 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.840 sort um diseased cells versus healthy cells, or or bacteria 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.320 versus healthy cells. Right. If the stuff you wanted to 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.879 take out of a solution, whether it was within a 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.879 person or in a you know, some some sort of 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.760 chemical whatever. Um, as long as that stuff was of 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.240 a very specific size, that was different from all the 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.480 stuff you wanted to leave in. This would be a 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.200 great way of doing it because you would know automatically 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.320 that your methodology you was not going to pick up 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.080 anything you didn't want. It was just gonna concentrate on 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.120 the stuff you wanted to remove. Because again, that geometry 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.200 only allows this light to interact with particles of a 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.600 specific size and it ignores everything else as far as 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.800 the pulling is concerned. You know, there's another good tangent 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.720 on what these types of lasers can do in in 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.280 tiny town. Uh, they said the vessel beams, So the 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.720 one from the first study we talked about that. They said, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.520 those are really cool for what's called optical injection. So 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.159 what is that. That's where you use a laser to 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:38.280 stab a hole right in a cell and that allows 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.480 things that you're trying to put in the cell to 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.880 flood in. Gotch. So if you wanted to without necessarily 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.119 killing the cell. Right. So, So, if you're doing some 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.159 medical research and you really needed to be able to 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.720 manipulate cells on an individual basis and see what a 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.359 particular type of medication perhaps might do, or if you 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.080 just need to study the cell and you need to 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.399 insert some form of chemical so it will show up 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.639 on whatever imaging technique you're using. Then these could be 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:12.600 very useful techniques. It's kind of interesting stuff. So so Joe, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.879 let's let's talk a little bit about scaling this up. 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.280 So we figured out that we can use light to 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.359 pull stuff what we want toward us. What if the 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.320 stuff what we want is really big, Like, let's say 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.159 it's not even that big. Let's say it's a I 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.520 don't know the size of a soccer ball or football 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:36.040 to our friends in Europe or or yeah, okay, or 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.000 or size like a podcast host or something like that. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:40.679 Don't bring me into this. I don't want to get 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.280 burned up by your laser. Yeah. Part of the problem is, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.479 uh so immediately, of course, when this study came out, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.639 everybody is like, oh, yes, we've got tractor being. We 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.479 can reel in ships. We can, you know we can. 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.320 We don't have to worry about asteroids that because we 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.840 can just use the tractor beam to reposition it. Who 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.440 needs a tether for spacewalking anymore? Right? You know, you 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:07.399 go outside for a stroll. That's how the International Space Station. 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.920 You just take a walk. You get lost. Oh and 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:13.880 you're back home, and it makes that noise too, even 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.960 in the reaches of space. No. Part of the problem 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.639 is that, um, these beams require a lot of energy, 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.240 and if you were to scale them up so that 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.760 they were powerful enough to move heavier objects, they'd be 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.240 delivering more and more energy as you did that, which, 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.399 of course, when it strikes the object would turn into heat. 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.879 So you're essentially developing a thermal weapon as opposed to 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.200 a tractor beam. Yeah, it'd be like, well, it would 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.200 be more like a blaster if we want to stick 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:48.120 with Star Wars or a phaser. If we're talking story, Hey, 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.720 how about like a like a death Star planet killer 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.880 weapon and something like that. Instead of moving the asteroid, 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.440 you've just delivered a huge amount of thermal energy. Snow, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.600 it's a really hot rock that's heading to our Maybe 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.080 maybe they were really just trying to move Alderan somewhere. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:05.240 Maybe they didn't want to destroy it. I'm pretty sure 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.560 got off. Tarkin was pretty clear on his intentions, and 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.119 I don't even note see based on the scientists that 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.560 I read, I don't even know if it's technically possible 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.480 to pull things that at a huge scale, but I 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.720 know that this this heating up objection exists, so you 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.960 definitely destroy it in the process of pulling it, even 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.000 if you could pull it. So if you were if 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.680 you were a space station trying to pull a shuttle 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.040 into dock, then you would suddenly have this molten slag 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.200 coming towards your space station as opposed to you know, 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:40.280 that would be the best case scenario, right So anyway, Yeah, 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.200 so that that's why even with this amazing breakthrough, and 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.080 we don't mean to to diminish it at all. It 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.960 is phenomenal and really exciting stuff. It's it does not 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.360 mean that we are going to arrive at some sort 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.399 of science fiction future where we are going to have 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.400