New Developments in Quantum Levitation! Vincent Van Gogh's take...
A team at Tel-Aviv University has conducted a startling demonstration of quantum levitation. (See video below).
In short, quantum levitation involves reversing the typical behavior of objects being attracted to each other in order to make an object float/levitate.
This process and the mechanics of it are too involved to go into here; it would take a book to explain (probably several books).
Why is this so cool?
We have seen quantum levitation in books and movies for some time. Think the Jetsons and the hoverboard scene with Marty Mcfly and Griff in Back to the Future II.
Flying cars and hoverboards are an obvious application. But why have we been fascinated with this concept for so long? I think because it doesn't seem like it should work.
Vincent Van Gogh's "Flying Fox"
What I find so striking is this creature looks like it has no business flying. But there it is! Wings spread and in the air.
This painting gives me of the feeling I get when I'm sitting down with a book waiting for the plane to take off. Nothing is out of the ordinary; thousands of people fly every day. I fly often so I'm kind of bored, and then it hits me: this huge metal tube that I'm in is capable of traveling through the air!
Vincent Van Gogh certainly captured this strange feeling in this painting for me.
Here is another:
Vincent Van Gogh's "Crows"
Looking at these works it would be hard to believe that the artist did not have ideas of flight in mind for us as humans. Present day would Van Gogh have been an artist or a physicist atTel-Aviv University
Levitation and our love of flying is represented in books and movies very often: Harry Potter, Iron Man, Arabian Nights, Peter Pan etc. We really want to get in the suit that Tony Stark made in Iron man, however, levitation (of humans) is often portrayed as the first sign that something is going very wrong (The Exorcist, The Gate).
I think this combination of freedom and fear adds to our allure and fascination.
I hope we see the practical applications of the technology demonstrated in the video while I am still here. The physicists must have had a similar feeling as two brothers from Dayton, OH.
I wanted to write this because everyone gives Leonardo Da Vinci all the credit for "ahead of his time" technological thought. Please check out more of Van Gogh's works; you won't find diagrams for helicopters, but his love of nature, all things flying, and grasp that we as humans would one day harness some of these curious abilities he saw in nature is evident in his work.
A team at Tel-Aviv University has conducted a startling demonstration of quantum levitation. (See video below).
In short, quantum levitation involves reversing the typical behavior of objects being attracted to each other in order to make an object float/levitate.
This process and the mechanics of it are too involved to go into here; it would take a book to explain (probably several books).
Why is this so cool?
We have seen quantum levitation in books and movies for some time. Think the Jetsons and the hoverboard scene with Marty Mcfly and Griff in Back to the Future II.
Flying cars and hoverboards are an obvious application. But why have we been fascinated with this concept for so long? I think because it doesn't seem like it should work.
Vincent Van Gogh's "Flying Fox"
What I find so striking is this creature looks like it has no business flying. But there it is! Wings spread and in the air.
This painting gives me of the feeling I get when I'm sitting down with a book waiting for the plane to take off. Nothing is out of the ordinary; thousands of people fly every day. I fly often so I'm kind of bored, and then it hits me: this huge metal tube that I'm in is capable of traveling through the air!
Vincent Van Gogh certainly captured this strange feeling in this painting for me.
Here is another:
Vincent Van Gogh's "Crows"
Looking at these works it would be hard to believe that the artist did not have ideas of flight in mind for us as humans. Present day would Van Gogh have been an artist or a physicist at
Levitation and our love of flying is represented in books and movies very often: Harry Potter, Iron Man, Arabian Nights, Peter Pan etc. We really want to get in the suit that Tony Stark made in Iron man, however, levitation (of humans) is often portrayed as the first sign that something is going very wrong (The Exorcist, The Gate).
I think this combination of freedom and fear adds to our allure and fascination.
I hope we see the practical applications of the technology demonstrated in the video while I am still here. The physicists must have had a similar feeling as two brothers from Dayton, OH.
I wanted to write this because everyone gives Leonardo Da Vinci all the credit for "ahead of his time" technological thought. Please check out more of Van Gogh's works; you won't find diagrams for helicopters, but his love of nature, all things flying, and grasp that we as humans would one day harness some of these curious abilities he saw in nature is evident in his work.
