combination of a magnetic field with a linear force tagged posts

Researchers at NC State University have created several soft robot devices that make use of a fundamental advance in controlling soft robots. The new technique uses magnetic fields to remotely manipulate microparticle chains embedded in soft polymers. Credit: Joe Tracy

A team of engineering researchers has made a fundamental advance in controlling so-called soft robots, using magnetic fields to remotely manipulate microparticle chains embedded in soft robotic devices. The researchers have already created several devices that make use of the new technique. “By putting these self-assembling chains into soft robots, we are able to have them perform more complex functions while still retaining relatively simple designs,” says A/Prof Joe Tracy, North Carolina State University ...

Physicists at Penn State University have for the 1st time proposed a way to test a little-understood form of quantum mechanics called nonassociative quantum mechanics. So far, all other tests of quantum mechanics have dealt with the associative form. “Nonassociative quantum mechanics has been of mathematical interest for some time (and has recently shown up in certain models of String Theory), but it has been impossible to obtain a physical understanding,” said Martin Bojowald. “We have developed methods which allow us to do just that, and found a first application with a characteristic and instructive result. One of the features that makes this setting interesting is that much of the usual mathematical toolkit of quantum mechanics is inapplicable.”

Standard quantum mechanics is cons...