A tractor beam is a device with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance. The concept originates in fiction: In Philip Francis Nowlan's Buck Rogers novel, Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928), the enemy airships used "repellor beams" for support and propulsion, similar to the "eighth ray" beams used for support and propulsion of Martian airships in the Barsoom/John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first published 1912-1943.
The term "tractor beam" was coined by E. E. Smith (an update of his earlier "attractor beam") in his novel Spacehounds of IPC (1931). Since the 1990s, technology and research has laboured to make it a reality, and have had some success on a microscopic level.
Gravity impulse and gravity propulsion beams are traditionally areas of research from fringe physics that coincide with the concepts of tractor and repulsor beams..
This week, a look at tractor beams.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you or would you like to break some more furniture?" - Counselor Deanna Troi, to Commander Worf, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Birthright"
ST50 - Tractor Beam by fredwine
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