Guest lecture - The Laws of Levitation

Dr. Mishkat Bhattacharya, Associate Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology gives an open lecture titled: The Laws of Levitation

Dr. Bhattacharya is currently writing a popular book telling the story of humanity’s quest to master levitation, and on the physics and engineering that is making this enduring fantasy evermore a modern day reality.

Abstract.   

This accessible popular lecture will discuss the physics and principles of levitation, a topic which is experiencing a resurgence in areas such as precision sensing and explorations of quantum mechanics at the mesoscale.

Levitation, namely the rising of a human body or other objects into the air, was once only a mainstay of mystical or paranormal fantasy.   However, there does exist a scientific and mathematical basis for levitation and it is known as Samuel Earnshaw's theorem.  Samuel Earnshaw's theorem forms the keystone of the current scientific understanding, and practical engineering, of levitation. The discussion will include historical elements and will be at a general level. I will conclude by describing our recent work on optically levitated particles.