A team of physicists at the Australian National University has developed a technique for controlling waves that could make them useful for cleaning up oil spills and moving floating objects.
The technique involves creating a "tractor beam" with the use of wave generators for moving floating objects in different directions, and has even allowed the scientists to move them against the waves, according to CNET.
"We have figured out a way of creating waves that can force a floating object to move against the direction of the wave," said Dr. Horst Punzmann from the Research School of Physics and Engineering. "No one could have guessed this result."
The researchers demonstrated this technique by controlling the movements of ping-pong balls on waves in water. They were also able to determine what size and frequency of a wave necessary for moving the object in the targeted direction.
The success of the experiments is due to the waves being able to generate currents of the surface of the water, thanks to tracking tools created by Dr. Nicolas Francis and Dr. Hua Xia, which provide allow the key to exploiting them to control the balls' motion, The Register reported.
Prof. Michael Shats, leader of the research team, said that "above a certain height, these complex three-dimensional waves generate flow patterns on the surface of the water. The tractor beam is just one of these patterns; they can be inward flows, outward flows or vortices."
The physicists plan to create a mathematical theory that will allow them to explain how this process works.
Punzmann said that while there is no such theory that can explain the team's experiments, they can still be replicated in a bathtub by anyone, CNET reported.
The team's research was published in the journal Nature Physics.
