New computational techniques developed at MIT confirmed that the complex quantum effects known as Casimir forces would cause tiny
objects with the shapes shown here to repel each other rather than attract.
New computational techniques developed at MIT confirmed that the complex quantum effects known as Casimir forces would cause tiny objects with the shapes shown here to repel each other rather than attract. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. MIT researchers have developed a powerful new tool for calculating the effects of Casimir forces, complicated quantum forces that affect only objects that are very, very close together, with ramifications for both basic physics and the design of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). One of the researchers? most recent discoveries using the new tool was a way to arrange tiny objects so that the ordinarily attractive Casimir forces become repulsive. If engineers can design MEMS so that the Casimir forces actually prevent their moving parts from sticking together ? rather than causing them to stick ? it could cut down substantially on the failure rate of existing MEMS. It could also help enable new, affordable MEMS devices, like tiny medical or scientific sensors, or microfluidics devices that enable hundreds of chemical or biological experiments to be performed in parallel. Quantum mechanics has bequeathed a very weird picture of the universe to modern physicists. One of its features is a cadre of new subatomic particles that are constantly flashing in and out of existence in an almost undetectably short span of time. (The Higgs boson, a theoretically predicted particle that the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is trying to detect for the first time, is expected to appear for only a few sextillionths of a second. There are so many of these transient particles in space ?
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