Paula Berinstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "technology"
Acoustic levitation is real!
In Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis, Amanda's friend Clive Ng (see drawing) uses the acoustic levitator he built to get the kids past some formidable locked gates. The levitator lifts the pins out of the hinges so the kids can open the gates from the sides.
What you may not know is that acoustic levitation isn’t science fiction. It’s real, and it’s been used for decades. Of course whether it could do what Clive does in the book is debatable, but it's still a proven technology.
The ability of sound to lift things relies on the fact that sound travels in waves and can bounce off surfaces. Those waves can be harnessed to do work.
An acoustic levitator consists of a transducer, which vibrates and makes sound, and a reflector, which causes the sound to bounce back. By placing a reflector in the right place relative to the transducer, you can create a standing wave, which appears to hover in one place but doesn’t really, and that is what creates the pressure needed to lift things.
There’s a great article on acoustic levitation at How Stuff Works. There are even YouTube videos on the subject. Check them out!
What you may not know is that acoustic levitation isn’t science fiction. It’s real, and it’s been used for decades. Of course whether it could do what Clive does in the book is debatable, but it's still a proven technology.
The ability of sound to lift things relies on the fact that sound travels in waves and can bounce off surfaces. Those waves can be harnessed to do work.
An acoustic levitator consists of a transducer, which vibrates and makes sound, and a reflector, which causes the sound to bounce back. By placing a reflector in the right place relative to the transducer, you can create a standing wave, which appears to hover in one place but doesn’t really, and that is what creates the pressure needed to lift things.
There’s a great article on acoustic levitation at How Stuff Works. There are even YouTube videos on the subject. Check them out!
