Levitating Bugs with Sound Could Transform Scientific Photography

PaulHoule | 50 points

There’s also the classic magnetic levitation of bugs:

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-pdf/51/9/36/831336...

The author is as far as I know the only physicist to receive both a Nobel prize (for graphene) and an Ignoble prize (for levitating small animals), and he has commented that he’s equally proud of both.

(He’s also published a non-popsci physics paper about the experiment for those interested, and there are YouTube videos of the experiment.)

setopt | 2 days ago

Cool, I imagine you also could use multiple cameras to make photogrammetric 3D scans of tiny particles and such. You don't have control over the orientation, but that doesn't matter if you can take the pictures fast enough while it is tumbling around.

nom | 3 days ago

Cool! I hoped there would be a video showing the "levitation device" in action, but alas, the only video in the article was an ad...

rob74 | a day ago

"A Comprehensive Review of Acoustic Levitation Techniques and Applications" (2025), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390161963_A_Compreh...

DIY "TinyLev: A multi-emitter single-axis acoustic levitator" (2017), https://brucedrinkwater.com/portfolio/tinylev-a-multi-emitte...

walterbell | a day ago

If anyone has any questions on this, my PhD is on in-air ultrasonic acoustic levitation (and other uses of in-air focused ultrasound) :)

zipy124 | a day ago

Tractor beam!

pyinstallwoes | a day ago
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| 2 days ago