This Article From Issue
July-August 2004
Volume 92, Number 4
DOI: 10.1511/2004.48.0
To the Editors:
In "Optically Trapped Fermi Gases" (May–June), authors John Thomas and Michael Gehm describe how the electric field gradient of a light beam causes the attraction of a neutral atom. An everyday example of that principle is a charged comb attracting a neutral piece of tissue paper. It's a magical feat I find akin to picking oneself up by the bootstraps. Maybe if there were also a repulsive gravitational force, we could pick ourselves up in the gravitational field gradient of the Earth.
George Prans
Manhattan College
Bronx, New York
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