Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.

First of all, I'm just registered and am glad to be here. ^_^\/

One of my major interests in the field of Quantum Physics is Zero-point energy.

One day after reading about the Casimir force, and remembering that handy little tool from Half Life 2 that everyone admires so much that everyone admires so much, I thought of a way to get that sort of touchless object manipulation effect.

In the Casimir experiments, two uncharged metal plates in a vacuum at near-zero-kelvin temperatures generated a measureable net force and they were pushed together. This is because the small space between the plates was shielded from some of the radiation pressure, causing an imbalance between the inside and outside of the plates. Thus, the plates were pushed together.

I thought that if a device could cause an imbalance between itself and an object, the object would be pushed towards and held the device. Just like the ZPE Field Manipulator in the Half Life 2 game can do.

What are your thoughts?