Three ways to levitate a magic carpet

15:38 06 August 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Zeeya Merali

It sounds like a science fiction joke, but it isn't. What do you get when you turn an invisibility cloak on its side? A mini flying carpet.

So say physicists who believe the same exotic materials used to make cloaking devices could also be used to levitate tiny objects. In a further breakthrough, two other research groups have come a step closer to cracking the mysteries of levitation.

Scientists have levitated objects before, most famously using powerful magnetic fields to levitate a frog. But that technique, using the repulsive force of a giant magnet, requires large amounts of energy. In contrast, the latest theories exploit the natural smaller amounts of energy produced by the quantum fluctuations of empty space.
Force reversal

In May 2006, two research teams led by Ulf Leonhardt at St Andrew's University, UK, and John Pendry at Imperial College, London independently proposed that an invisibility cloak could be created from exotic materials with abnormal optical properties. Such a cloaking device – working in the microwave region - was manufactured later that year.