Aussies Invent Tractor Beam: Future Gets Nerdier
The baby-tractor-beam works by shining a hollow laser beam at a particle. It heats up the air around the beam but not the air inside it, which draws the particle in the direction of the beam. Speed and direction can be changed by altering the laser's brightness.
Who knows, in 50 years we could be using tractor beams for delicate surgery or hazardous material work. It's truly exciting to see the first emergence of a technology with such broad-reacing implications. end quote.
I wonder if one could draw something closer like a plane or a ship on the water with a really large hollow laser in the air or the water. But since there is no air in space there is no air or water to heat up to create a current. So actually using it as a tractor beam in space I don't think would work using the hollow laser method.
However, in air and water and possibly just using the air to create heat and therefore suction this could be useful on earth. All kinds of things could be moved toward a location or away from it. I could see this being really useful in manufacturing and moving things quickly from one location to another as long as people didn't get in the way of the hollow beams and get crisped and disappear in a puff of dust like in "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise.
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