Fall 2013
The tractor beam has arrived
Capt. James T. Kirk: You left spacedock without a tractor beam?
Capt. John Harriman: It doesn’t arrive until Tuesday.
—from Star Trek: Generations
Phil Marston is not a Trekkie, nor has he given much thought to the Star Trek tractor beam that can use focused beams of energy to attract and repel derelict spacecraft or, in one case, USS Enterprise Capt. James T. Kirk.
He was just intrigued by something, in this case, the way an acoustic beam is scattered by a sphere.
“Basically, it goes into the category of a problem you solve because it would be curious to see what … » More …