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Gravitational Repulsion Effect Claimed
TekPolitik writes: "Eugene Podkletnov, the physicist who claimed to have discovered an anomalous gravitational "shielding" effect in the 90s, but withdrew his original paper prior to publication, has finally published a new paper on the topic. The paper describes a new experiment that is related to the original experiment, but the nature of the new experiment is more suggestive of an inverse gravitational effect (that is, the device creates a gravitational push away from it), or in Trekkie terms, a repulsor beam. Aside from claiming to have pushed things around at a distance, Podkletnov claims that the results directly contradict general relativity." Let's see if I can summarize: the author claims that with a certain very cold superconductor transmitting a large quantity of electricity in an intense magnetic field, he has observed a "new" force which repulses objects.
If someone can debunk the original experiment, and find a more conventional cause for things, then I do care.
As for the touchy aspect of things, let's go back the beginnings of research of a similarly touchy phenomenon back in the 1940s.
Physicists had just learned of the nature of nuclear fission, and had hypothesized about a "chain reaction", which would be self sustaining, if a critical mass of fissionable material could be gathered, with a moderator to slow down the neutrons enough to be captured.
The Germans tried using graphite as a moderator, and came to the conclusion that it was unsuitable, and thus devoted all of their energy to using heavy water as a moderator.
When the scientists at the U of C here in Chicago did the same experiment, they came to the conclusion that it was marginal as a moderator. Fortunately for them, Leo Szilard knew that Boron (which absorbs MANY neutrons) was used in the commercial production of Graphite in the US. Once they had that impurity out of the way, we did what the Germans knew was impossible, on December 2, 1942, and had our very own sustained nuclear chain reaction.
I suspect there are similar effects at work in Cold fusion, and in the experiments we're discussing here. Failure to replicate an experiment, does not invalidate it.
--Mike--
I read a small article in Popular Science, though I cannot presently locate it, within the last year or so that stated a female researcher had developed a disc with a very similar function. I find it interesting that this man's research is portrayed as being the first in his field. Also, I have an article in my home directory that came from the PS website (found it while looking for the first article) that gives Thomas Townsend Brown credit for testing similar discs in the 50's!
This experiment won't really work. Even under General Relativity and assuming the speed of gravity is the speed of light (and not instantaneous), the equations show that the Earth will orbit a point fairly close to where the Sun actually is, not where it appears to be. The relative velocity between the Sun and the Earth distorts the point of attraction such that the Earth appears to orbit the Sun's actual position (or pretty damn close -- if it was perfectly accurate, binary pulsar orbits wouldn't decay). The only way to check this would be to stop the relative motion between the Sun and the Earth. If gravity were instantaneous, you'd see the difference right away, whereas under GR, for eight minites the Earth will orbit where the sun would have been if it hadn't stopped dead in its tracks. Unfortunately, this is not an easy experiment to set up...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Why does Slashdot even give crackpots like this a voice? It's typical cold fusion, room temperature super conductors, perpetual motion engine bull shit. It's one guy claiming to have obtained a result that even he admits contradicts general relativity.
That's exactly what they said when Newton proposed the theory of gravitational acceleration (the famous "feather and cannon ball fall at the same rate" experiment) and when Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. Both of those ideas contradicted conventional thinking, but came to be accepted as some of the most valuable scientific contributions of all time. While you could be right in saying that this is the scientific equivalent of vapourware, it would be worth your while to observe this point. History has told us time and time again that more people spend more time thinking and talking about what they can't do than what they can do.
Sure, sometimes these fantastic paradigm-shifting things happen. But when it's this far fetched, how about waiting for at least a little peer review?
Because peer review often takes time to verify/disprove your research. By that time someone else may have discovered it and you want to make sure your hard work accounts for something. So you publish as soon as you have something concrete. Even if it gets retracted later on (Element 118, for example) the point is that you've still asked the questions anyway. You may even inspire further research into the field (for instance, the synthesis of transuranics continues to this day).
And as a final note:
Get into the conversation, log in. Most people don't read AC comments.
Now that, I can agree with.
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When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
Is there a proof that gravitity does NOT travel instantly? If yuo can proof this you've a proof for gravity waves, right? Another mystery yet
:o)
That gravitiy does travel instantly is not a proof on violation of the relitiy theory. You must proof that gravitiy CHANGES can travel instantly, and that one can transfer information through this. Something not in contrast to the idea gravity expands instantly, so how about to say a remote view can only see changes in gravity after enough time has passed that lightspeed time/space factor passed toward him. You can't destroy or create masses, right? So you can't create or destroy gravity force. You can only pull apart an object into two, so the attraction force toward that object is seperated into two, so the once unified force is split into two, but does the remote viewer "feel" this "instantly" or not? Does the gravitiy information that these objects splitted travel with lightspeed or faster than light? Does there travel any information at all? Maybe the sum of attrcation stays the same, so theres no information send over. However my calculations do show a change in force.
Can I use two objects by frequently joining them together and ripping them a part to generate gravitiy waves? How fast would they travel then? Would gravitiy waves obey to the same laws as the electro/magnetic do? (light)
I wish I had a huge labratory where I can manipulate with millions of tons of mass
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
(Note: I am not a "REAL physicist")
Thought experiment #2
You have two buckets, set up so water flows out of one, into the other via gravity. You set up the Average Household Water Transfer Device (aka a pump) so that it forces water from the lower bucket into the higher one. Instant perpetual motion machine and violation of thermodynamic law! Except...
Entropy increase applies to a closed system. No part of thermodynamics is violated by a localized decrease in entropy so long as the total entropy of the system increases.
Your mistake is in treating the buckets plus the Average Household Gravity Manipulation Device(tm) as a closed system, when it is not. The AHGMD, just like the pump, would require energy from the outside in order to continue operating. Without that energy, the AHGMD shuts down, the gravitiational "shielding" stops, and so does your "perpetual" motion device.
So, even with gravitational repulsion, in this house, we still obey the laws of thermodynamics.
(Actually, I think I can come up with an explanation that doesn't require a powered AHGMD, but I'm not quite so certain as to its validity.)
But then again, I could be wrong.
I wonder how many people actually tried to read the paper. I read it and I don't see anything that directly contradicts General Relativity. It mentions that PERHAPS the effect is related to Torsion theory or others that seem to violate certain principles of GR, but from what I gather these theories don't contradict GR. There is a difference. Quantum Theory often violates GR - or APPEARS to do so, given our incomplete understanding of the universe. And so what if GR is not quite perfect? There is room to learn.
Also, there is no way that this is sending out bursts of electricity or magnetic force the way Taco describes. The experiment used apparatus to shield against electro-magnetism. If it is EM, then it is still very odd behaviour in that it can do something no other EM force previously observed can do.
The reaction of most people on this list is that he has just made a EM field - come on ... obviously it's not. Read the paper and you will see that the radiation emitted is proportional to the mass of the target objects, and that it is not in any way slowed down nor does it alter it's course through material that 'normal' radiation is at least effected by. If his results are correct, this is not electromagnetism.
I am not saying that this guy has discovered what he suspects: I don't know. But it's pretty damn interesting, and of course other people should try to duplicate the results.
"It cannot be understood in the framework of general relativity."
If this isn't bogus, it means that there's a great big hole in Einstein's view of gravity in particular and possibly the universe in general. The question is how big the hole is.
When you're talking about faster-than-light travel in the realm of special relativity, you have three choices:
1.) Causality - event A causes event B, such as "I push key on keyboard, then letter appears on screen.
2.) FTL - moving faster than 3E8 m/s.
3.) Relativity - No matter how fast you go, light is always measured to be going 3E8 m/s in relation to you. Space-time itself is altered to make this so.
Of those three, you can only have two. If you move faster than light under relativity, you begin to move backwards in time. Even worse, causality goes out the window. Using the example of my keyboard again, all observers moving slower than the speed of light see that I press the key BEFORE it appears on the screen (but they disagree on how long before), so I essentially cause it to happen. Photons see everything as simultaneous (literally. A photon considers my typing to be simultaneous to the big bang). A person moving faster than light, though, will instead see that the letters appearing on my screen before I type, meaning that the words are causing me to press the keys. Under relativity, it looks this way because it IS that way, because all observations (in an inertial frame of reference, blah blah blah) are by definition right under relativity. This means nothing really causes anything, since it can be proved that both A caused B and B caused A. The universe runs entirely on coincidence if this is the case.
This also leaves the door open for headache-inducing paradoxes (give two duelers tachyon pistols and they will both shoot each other before the other fires), but that's another long story.
If we can find holes in relativity, though, it may be the one of those three options we throw out. This will let us get to the next star system in a reasonable amount of time while still being able to prove that we invented warp drive, not the other way around. :)
I am not aware of all the uses for superconductors, but I am aware of one specific one... I cannot give out specifics but I can certainly explain the principles behind it.
One writer discusses that power through conductors creates magnetic fields. That's true. We all knew that. High amounts of power through conductors creates large magnetic fields. That only stands to reason. High amounts of power also creates high amounts of heat in the conductor causing the conductor to burn out like a filament in a lightbulb. Enter superconductors.
Now we can create (very) large magnetic fields that can be sustained. But why? Well, look at your hard drive. See that voice coil? See how quickly and accurately it moves? Imagine a vehicle fitted with a superconducting "voice coil system" that can literally surf on the Earth's magnetic field. This technology has existed secretly for quite some time.
I've always been kind of excited by the technology. It's very cool when you think about it. Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Are they so poor in russia that their universities do not have their own domian presence?
For one, I don't appreciate this troll.
For two, this is some "research center", not a university.
For three, from what I know about the situation, Podkletnov was sacked from several research institutes in the past, and I am unaware of anything that is called "Moscow Chemical Scientific Research Centre" in Moscow, especially not at that address and zip code. If it's a respectful government research agency, then it happened to successfully elude most research institute listings in Moscow. If it's something private: it's their own damn problem if they can't get a domain (which costs pennies in the .ru zone, and you can always get a free .org.ru domain). Something is screwey here, if you ask me...
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
While not entirely foolproof, one way to make something look crackpot is to a) make a claim that X contradicts a well accepted scientific principle and then b) stir in a lot of flummery mentioning newly discovered phenomena or relatively recent theories. The a) part gets attention (it's working) and the b) part makes it look like you're being scientific.
One of the more valuable experiences I had as a graduate student was to take several of the "crackpot" letters (all the professors I knew would get a few of these every year) and work out in some detail the explanation for what was wrong with the "innovation" being proposed. It was really practice for being a critical peer reviewer, though I didn't realize it until later. Finding the hidden flaw in "obviously" crackpot material was often extremely hard work.
I have a great fondness for people who earnestly try to find new perspectives from which to examine scientific problems. Richard Dawkins, in writing The Selfish Gene, created some stimulating currents in evolutionary thinking through just such a perspective change. I was fully convinced by at least one quantum mechanics revisionist, A. Lande, Quantum Mechanics in a New Key (1973) but I've never found anyone else who's looked at it.
Vacuum fluctuations make sense to me, even though I have little more than Hawking's popularizations to go on. Quantum gravity, I don't know what to think yet. Whether I believe in them or not makes no difference in the appearance of being crackpot -- they just look like trendy, misdirecting camouflage to dress up a minor mystery about some strange happenings when you collapse a strong magnetic field.
Of course, the trouble with this sort of crap detector is, even though it allows you to dismiss a lot of claptrap out of hand, it will likely cause you to incorrectly ignore, once in your lifetime, something that looked crackpot but eventually turned out to be important.
If I read that paper correctly, (and I may not have, simply because I only have 3 years of physics experience in a lab enviornment) the device that he has designed can manipulate magnetic fields to a point where it can force objects away. Similar to a magnet, although much more controlable, and able to be used on what would normally be considered "non-magnetic" The downside is that this is in an experimental stage at this point. Imagine haveing long distance satallites using this..(the vacumn of space has an ambient tempurature of around 3k.. just low enough for use of superconducting items in the liquid helium range.)
:) But it would be nice to simply turn those small objects away.
Many micrometeors have sizes smaller than a fraction of an inch, and we cannot accurately scan for them (it has been described almost as a life sized comparison to Heisenburg's Uncertainty Princible.) This would honestly help out small satellites, because a small micrometeors can disable or destroy those satallites with a single pass. With NASA now focusing on a "smaller, faster, cheaper" mantra, this may not be worked on as a viable option for quite some time. (I live in the states, and NASA is a seen as the world leader in Space... please don't flame me ESA members...)
An workable model formed on this approach could see itself attached later to the space station or even the shuttle (The shuttle has sensors, (and so does mission control) that scans constantly for items that could hit the shuttle and destroy it. Think the opening sequence to Armegeddon, (well, maybe not that bad...
This will be interesting to see how these finding develop.
Blah Blah Blah.
"Well aren't you going to take the bones out?!"
"If you took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it?"
"Witty Phrase."
While I question the researchers' conclusions, if the effects they claim to observe occurred, it's probably worth trying to duplicate the experiment. If nothing else, it would teach us about how to properly shield and isolate discharge rigs to prevent spurious effects like they saw, and at best there might even be something new going on here.
My personal suspicion is that either their Faraday cage was flawed, or they neglected to put the capacitor bank in the cage (the whole discharge circuit loop will act as an induction coil), or that they neglected to put both the discharge rig (with bank) and the test jars on vibration isolation tables (send a current pulse through a loop of cabling, and the cabling will *vibrate*).
That, or the observations are false or embellished.
Either way, the experiment is easy to duplicate (they were very good about describing their apparatus and methods), and there are quite a few points where more thorough control would help pin down the nature of whatever's happening. It's cheap enough, so I can see a university's physics department doing it for a lark. This is exactly how science should work.
All objects (not just ferrous) are slightly magnetic. This article about flying frogs explains it well.
.mpg of the levitating frog.
direct link to the
I apologize in advance if this post is not grammatically correct and if anything is not spelled properly, I wrote it in kind of a hurry..
This type of effect IS accounted for by physics, only not the physics that is taught in every school in the world....
I'll try to keep this short, for further info, read the entirety of the paper that I'm going to link to at the bottom of this post...
It turns out (i may be slightly wrong on some of my info here, but i think for the most part i got it right) that a guy by the name of Oliver Heaviside (and another guy named William Gibbs) hacked a massive chunk away from Maxwell's original equations that described electro-dynamic effects. (you don't believe me? go find an original (pre-1873) copy of Maxwell's 'Treatise' and surprise surprise, the four equations that are commonly known as 'Maxwell's Equations' will NOT be there....
Heaviside viewed quaternions as an 'abomination' and considered them 'too mystical' so he axed over 200 of them from Maxwell's original work, so it actually turns out that the four surviving 'classic' equations that have Maxwell's name on them are in all actuality 'Heaviside's Equations' as they NEVER appeared in any original paper by Maxwell.
Anyhow, in 1919 a guy by the name of Theodr Kaluza introduced a fifth (spatial) dimension to Einstein's theories, which unified Einstein's theory of gravity with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic radiation (showing how gravity and light are fundamentally mathmatically unified)
Since Einstein used time as the fourth dimension, Kaluza's fifth was actually the same spacial dimension as 4-space designations used by Maxwell (and others) over 50 years earlier....
however, short-sighted scientists would not believe something that seemingly could never be experimentally proven (the reason for the lack of proof lies in the fact that this new dimension had somehow collapsed to the Planck length - 10^-33 cm)
sorry, this post has gone on longer than i intended it too, if you are interested in a much better explanation of this, check the paper at the following link...
http://www.enterprisemission.com/hyper1.html
the government knows full well of the existence of this effect, in fact they've been studying and experimenting with these theories ever since they first got their grubby little hands on alien technology way back at Roswell...
you need more proof that this is going on in the government? http://www.disclosureproject.org
that should be all the proof you need, assuming of course that you are open-minded enough to listen to what those people are saying...
I have a little theory about how this extra spatial dimension ties in with human consciousness, but i'll leave that for another post
Rather than conjuring images of the impossible (by our current paradigm) a more logical step would have been to assume the simpler explanation, as Occam would. Paramagnetism is not a new concept; non-ferrous materials can undergo coercion (heh, that's an interesting use of the word) by magnetic fields, although it's weak. From what the paper says, it seems far more likely that the high energy involved is manipulating a quirk of paramagnetism, as one would expect, rather than creating some 'new force'. Just my two bits 1/0.