Scientists at the ANU say they are close to inventing a device that closely resembles the sonic screwdriver. The future is now, folks.
You may think the Doctor’s handy sonic screwdriver is only the stuff of science fiction, but the folks at Australia National University say it could actually happen.
The Canberra Times featured the story, reporting Physicists Marcus Doherty and Michael Barson have designed an actual prototype for a, “a handheld device that will be able to analyse an object’s chemical properties.”
The idea came to Dr. Doherty after he’s worked with quantum physics for ten years and realized he could combine that technology with diamond nanobeads.
Dr. Doughter told the Canberra Times, “It’s very close to the idea of an MRI image of a single molecule that will give us the ability to identify what is in that molecule,” and when on to explain, “Quantum microscopes is an amazing technology where we can use an individual atom to detect what’s in its environment.”
Although it seems impossible, the real sonic screwdriver could be used across all kinds of fields, to include biology, physics, and medicine.
The invention of such a device would allow scientists far greater insight into the subjects they are studying, and could advance medicine by leaps and bounds. “Imagine a doctor has a medical sample and they want to know what proteins are in it. They can put the sample into the device and be able to identify the different proteins and the relative concentrations of it,” Dr Doherty said.
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The same technology used in the “real” sonic screwdriver device is loosely based on that used in atomic clocks and gravitational wave detectors. Although Doctor Who has been using his sonic screwdriver for years and years, the implementation is still in it’s early stages.