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...which theoretical but apparently sound science provided the background to an amusing discussion I had with the UKPO a while back concerning this little gem:

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=GB23 47912&F=0&QPN=GB2347912

Publication No GB2347912 dated 20.09.2000

Examination requested 07.11.2000

Grant of Patent (Notification under Section 18(4)) 07.10.2003
        Publication of notice in the Patents and Designs Journal (Section 25(1))
        05.11.2003
        Title of Granted Patent ANTI GRAVITY CRAFT

(Sadly, the patent actually granted claims very much less than its title or the EPO application documents would suggest ;-)

A Van De Graaf generator is basically a band of insulating material being rotated in a tower with some means of transferring a charge to it. There are relatively cheap desktop and home models that'll produce nearly half a million volts. Schools use such devices all the time, so if the fireman hasn't seem a voltage that high, he skipped classes.

Having said that, early atom-smashers used Van De Graaf generators only capable of producing five million or so volts. It seems reasonable to suspect something will burn before it is blasted out of existence. So, somewhere between 400,000 volts and 5,000,000 volts, you might be able to ignite something.

However, here we get a problem. You can't just carry around half a million volts and not notice it. Your hair tends to stand on end, for a start. ANYTHING metal - even a doorknob - will cause a discharge to occur. Getting into his car certainly would have - even if the car were carbin-fiber, the key would be metal and the distance short enough for an arc to occur.

There's also the problem of where you lodge a charge that great. A capacitor is basically two electrostatic devices with an insulator between them. In this case, the insulator would be the shoes, and the electrostatic device the person. I'll assume there are enough nails holding the carpet down to act as the other electrostatic device.

But what is the capacitance of a person? The figure I've been able to get with a Google search is an average of 204 pF with a typical range of 95 to 398 pF. (It varies according to height and weight, so a seven-foot sumo wrestler might have a higher capacitance than this range shows.)

In other words, not really what you'd need to carry half a million volts around. The jacket would have carried more, but unless it was made of Tantallum or some other material with very high capacitance, I doubt you'd be able to store enough charge to start setting things on fire.

In other words, there is nothing credible about the story. The voltages are abnormally low for a static device and way too low to actually do any fire damage, there's nowhere a higher charge could have been stored and there would have been too many points at which positively violent arcing would have occurred if it had been stored.

It was badass.

I wonder what the efficiency would be if they dumbed down the light filtering properties of the material then added a second layer on top. Of course the cost vs. value may not be worth it at $45/sqft. Also the article mentions an unbelieveable amount of power is generated by the company's building: 100 mega watts annually. If we covered an entire downtown with this stuff we could possibly reach 18 or 20 gigawatts, enough to power an average size state. And how come I've never heard of this dam before?

The superluminal travel used in Star Trek is based on the manipulation of spacetime.

So the occupants of a vessel in Star Trek would not necessarily be reduced to a fine pulp as you might think.

If only I'd been born a bit earlier, I'd have beaten Miguel Alcubierre to the punch on his theory... I came up with the exact same thing sometime in 1998 trying to come up with an explanation for a method of superluminal travel for a short story I was writing.

This one for a start. Then there is a first discussion of the paper, and here is even more about the "warp drive".

Have fun!

Blender (not only has it been done, you can buy them commercially - 5hp B&H I think)

Go look at what Moller is doing. Other people have suggested hovercraft, but you have four engines. Moller is using them with a ducted fan to make something that hovers and flys about at higher altitudes.

Hovercraft (not much to that)

Lawnmower - Think I'm silly? You're making it, do it the geek way. How about creating some sort of generator, putting an old motherboard in there, add some electric motors and make the whole thing robotic?

I think a lawnmower engine is a little poorly suited, but the Wheelman is too cool, and begs to be copied.

The world's most nausiating Sit 'n' Spin.

Van De Graff generator

Bicycle motor. Just add a rear bike rack. Attach the motor to the rack, and attach a small wheel to the shaft of the motor (actually, some kind of gear reduction box is probably needed) allow the small wheel to engage the rear tire of the bike.

Launcher. Like a scaled up version of a tennis ball server. You could fire nerf footballs or something... Good luck, and be safe!