{"id":238327,"date":"2026-06-04T02:32:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/water-wave-tweezers-steer-tiny-surfers-without-touching-them"},"modified":"2026-06-04T02:32:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:32:55","slug":"water-wave-tweezers-steer-tiny-surfers-without-touching-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/water-wave-tweezers-steer-tiny-surfers-without-touching-them","title":{"rendered":"Water-wave tweezers steer tiny \u2018surfers\u2019 without touching them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/water-wave-tweezers-steer-tiny-surfers-without-touching-them2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Summer brings with it the sight of surfers moving seamlessly across wave crests, with ocean waters carrying them along coastlines. A team of scientists has now created a similar phenomenon\u2014with small objects rather than surfers\u2014that can be controlled by humans rather than by nature.<\/p>\n<p>Through a series of experiments on a replicated mini-beach, NYU researchers show how water waves can be used to move floating objects or hold them firmly in place\u2014all without direct touch or contact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur study shows how <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-03-technique-precisely.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">beaming water waves<\/a> at a floating object can cause it to move sideways or be \u2018tweezed\u2019 and held precisely in place,\u201d explains Leif Ristroph, a professor at New York University\u2019s Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science and the senior author of the study, which <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/6884-kzv4\" target=\"_blank\">appears<\/a> in the journal <i>Physical Review Fluids<\/i>. \u201cThese surprising effects could be used to manipulate particles and structures, controlling their motions and positions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summer brings with it the sight of surfers moving seamlessly across wave crests, with ocean waters carrying them along coastlines. A team of scientists has now created a similar phenomenon\u2014with small objects rather than surfers\u2014that can be controlled by humans rather than by nature. Through a series of experiments on a replicated mini-beach, NYU researchers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}