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  • 9th December 2006

    Scientists Have Levitated Insects with Sound, Are We Next?

    posted in future science |

    taken from http://www.livescience.com/technology/061129_acoustic_levitation.html

    I know it sounds crazy, but it is actually true. And of course, Chinese scientists have done it:

    “In the past, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, China, used ultrasound fields to successfully levitate globs of the heaviest solid and liquid—iridium and mercury, respectively. The aim of their work is to learn how to manufacture everything from pharmaceuticals to alloys without the aid of containers. At times compounds are too corrosive for containers to hold, or they react with containers in other undesirable ways.

    “An interesting question is, ‘What will happen if a living animal is put into the acoustic field?‘ Will it also be stably levitated?” researcher Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University, told LiveScience.

    Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.

    After the investigators got the ultrasound field going, they used tweezers to carefully place animals between the emitter and reflector. The scientists found they could float ants, beetles, spiders, ladybugs, bees, tadpoles and fish up to a little more than a third of an inch long in midair. When they levitated the fish and tadpole, the researchers added water to the ultrasound field every minute via syringe.

    The levitated ant tried crawling in the air and struggled to escape by rapidly flexing its legs, although it generally failed because its feet find little purchase in the air. The ladybug tried flying away but also failed when the field was too strong to break away from.” read more here

    The thing to remember is that the amount of energy required to levitate a human being also would rip a human being apart. The key is to create some kind of impervious vessel….. hmmm…

    watch the video below of the levitation taking place:

    Sphere: Related Content

    This entry was posted on Saturday, December 9th, 2006 at 12:25 pm and is filed under future science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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