How to Levitate -- Seriously!

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr. Thomas Philbin at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland published a startling discovery in the August edition of New Journal of Physics.

The two physicists have managed to reverse the Casimir effect. The Casimir effect a physical force which occurs between objects which are very close together. The Casimir effect is normally only important when objects are within about 10 nanometers of each other, but its effect is to pull the two objects towards each other.

The Scottish physicists have published a method for reversing the Casimir effect -- which means that they can make object repel each other.

Their discovery only works today on very very small objects, but it can effectively levitate those tiny objects.

The initial industrial uses of this levitation will most likely be to reduce friction in small machine parts. It two pieces of machinery do not touch each other, they will not create friction with each other. This will reduce energy consumption and increase MTBF.