A tractor beam is a hypothetical device with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance. Since the 1990s, technology and research has laboured to make it a reality, mostly at microscopic level. Less commonly, a similar beam that repels is called a pressor beam or repulsor beam. Gravity impulse and gravity propulsion beams are areas of research from fringe physics that coincide with the concepts of tractor and repulsor beams.
Famous quotes containing the word beam:
“It was at that moment, just after Krug had fallen through the bottom of a confused dream and sat up on the straw with a gasp—and just before his reality, his remembered hideous misfortune could pounce upon him—it was then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an inclined beam of pale light—causing instantaneous madness, but at least saving him from the senseless agony of his logical fate.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)