Right when Obi-Wan Kenobi stated, “that’s no moon. It’s a space station!,” Han Solo decided to reverse engines, but it was too late. The Death Star already had the Millennium Falcon in its tractor beam. Whether it’s Star Wars, Star Trek, or name your favorite sci-fi – if it’s got space in it, it’s got a tractor beam thingy somewhere.
Scientists Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi, and Jun Rekimoto, from the University of Tokyo and Nagoya Institute of Technology have figured out how to levitate and even move (albeit very tiny, tiny) objects in 3-dimensional space. The size of the wee object being levitated and moved is determined by the size of the sound wave being used. So… will it hold the Enterprise at bay? Not unless it’s being flown by Ant Man… but then again, not in space at all. Sound requires an atmosphere – so no atmosphere means said tractor beam is earth bound until they figure out how to do this another way. Just remember – every historic journey begins with one small step.
The video below shows the items (including an LED light and a resistor among other objects). If you’re a font snob like me, however, you may need a barf bag handy – there is heavy use of Comic Sans (shudder). At least the instrumental is pretty. 🙂
You can read more about this from the University of Cornell’s Library website – but you will definitely need to be wearing your pocket protectors to read it. 🙂