Scientists demonstrate Stokes drift principle
Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - 05:00
in Physics & Chemistry
In nature, waves – such as those in the ocean – begin as local oscillations in the water that spread out, ripple fashion, from their point of origin. But fans of Star Trek will recall a different sort of wave pattern: the tractor beam. Tractor beam technology, if it were to exist, would be based on waves that go in the opposite direction, converging from out in space onto the point of origin. In the show, the starship Enterprise would send out a tractor beam, like a cowboy's lasso, to latch onto an object floating in space and pull it back toward the ship.