

NYU Professors Develop Real-Life Star Trek Tractor Beam - velodrome
http://mashable.com/2012/10/25/nyu-tractor-beam/

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profquail
The mashable post is light on details; here's the phys.org article they're
referencing:

[http://phys.org/news/2012-10-physics-duo-tractor-dual-
bessel...](http://phys.org/news/2012-10-physics-duo-tractor-dual-bessel.html)

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jchung
As an NYU alum, my reaction was: "Wait, NYU Professors invent something?!"

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aroberge
Your reaction was possibly spot on: see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers> ... has been known for __years
__.

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aroberge
I can't believe what passes for news these days. When I saw the title, I
thought "this sounds like something that a friend of mine had _undergraduate_
students play with about 20 years ago". Sure enough, it has been known for a
long time <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers>

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stephengillie
They're using a configuration of lenses and mirrors which allows laser light
to travel around an object, then push the from the back. I'm not sure how
different this is from solar wind.

