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Can Superconductors Block Gravitational Fields?
jswitte writes "Raymond Chiao, of the University of California at Berkel, believes that superconductors can convert electromagnetic radiation into gravitational radiation. His full paper can be found here. His theory is based on the idea that superconductors might be able to block the so-called 'gravitomagnetic' field just as they block the electomagnetic field in the famous Meissner effect allowing superconductors to levitate in magnetic fields. He claims that when he 'adds the gravitomagnetic field to the standard quantum equations for superconductivity, he confirms not only the gravitational Meissner-like effect but also a coupling between the two breeds of magnetic field. An ordinary magnetic field sets electrons in motion near the surface of a superconductor. Those electrons carry mass, and so their motion generates a gravitomagnetic field.'"
If it doesn't happen then that's also fine, it means that a hypothesis was shown to be not an accurate model of how the universe works.
The method described is science in action, the way it is supposed to work.
Of course if this does work then they are going to have some surprises when they enable those underground superconductive power cables in, IIRC, downtown Chicago. (Detroit? Somebody help me out here, please?)
-C
Note that the Scientific American article is very cautious: they state the implications if it's true. While, if true, this is a breakthrough on the level of relativity or quantum mechanics, one should take this with a large grain of salt. Plenty of other "revolutionary" theories haven't managed to pan out.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
No doubt that the symmetry between Maxwell's equations and Einstein's equations is stark, but does this also mean that they are equivalent in meaning and applicability?
If superstring theory is correct, then they've been known to be equivalent since the 1920s. The Kaluza-Klein equations show that in a 5-dimensional space-time (4xspace + 1xtime) or higher, Einstein's equations and Maxwell's equations both come out. See Kaku's Hyperspace for more info.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Nobel prize material if it works. Footnote in Physical Review Letters if it doesn't.
If you mean "gravitational waves", then no, they are *not* different from the curvature of space. It's exactly the same stuff, though gravitational waves passing close to the Earth are probably very weak.So yes, they look like ripples on our pretty flat curvature, but they're just smaller-scale, generally weak curvature perturbations on a much more uniform background curvature.
As an aside, the term "gravity wave" is usually taken to mean "wave formed by a process where gravity is significant", like some types of water wave. Not actually what's been talked about here.
Excerpt of the article in the paper version of SciAm:
Chiao has published the paper describing the theory, complete with mathematical arguments that "seem to be correct." Now, he's moving on to perform the experiments that will either verify or refute the theory. This is the way it's done! Black Holes were nothing more than a theory with mathematical arguments that "seem(ed) to be correct", until CHANDRA started supplying experimental evidence. General Relativity was a theory with mathermatical aruments that "seem(ed) to be correct", until we managed to observe light bending around the mass of the sun. There's nothing wrong with publishing a theory that has yet to be proven; many theoretical physiscists never participate in experimentation. They publish theories.
Ordinary gravitational attraction is dominated by "gravito-electric" force, or in normal language the force generated by stationary masses. In everyday concerns the Earth is the only mass that matters and it is stationary to a good approximation for nearly everything humans do.
The paper talks solely in terms of affecting "gravito-magnetic" forces, which are those exhibited by moving masses (and generally only significant among masses moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light). Simply put there just isn't enough gravito-magnetic force in every day life to notice any change. If there were an appreciable gravito-magnetic force in ordinary everyday gravity then yes you could test it, though I'm not clear how to expect it to react.
To put things another way, Newton described gravity purely in gravito-electric terms and most of us will never notice the more complex gravitiational interactions that Einstein discovered and this physicist cares about.
Dr. Podkletnov was discounted as a hoax by many sources (cited that rising gases from the coolant, air flow from spinning or magnetism influenced his results), his university ejected him and now he has retreated to a hermetic existence.
Here is a story on Wired for your reading pleasure.
Much more to look if you search Google.
pronoblem
I've just finished my own version of the experiment.
I took a tin pie tray and stuck it in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Then I rummaged through the attic and found that old turntable that used to scratch all my Barry Manilow LPs back in the '70s.
After running an extension lead from the socket on the kitchen bench over to the freezer, I stuck the plate on the turntable, set it to 78RPMs and let her rip.
The inital results were somewhat disappointing. Several spiders and a rodent that was either a very large mouse or a small rat ran out the back of the turntable and disappeared into a bag of frozen mince -- but the pie tray didn't lift up an inch.
Not to be discouraged, I figured that perhaps the reduced gravitational field only appeared above the pie tray -- so I grabbed the cat (which just happened to be passing by at the time) and pressed its warm little bottom onto the frozen pie tray.
I guess it was a little cold for him because he didn't half get excited -- or maybe I should have taken that spindle out of the center of the turntable first -- oh well.
Anyway, after a bit of hissing, growling and some bleeding (my blood not his), the cat eventually settled down enough for me to release him.
He sat their with a glazed look in his eyes and once again I flicked the switch to 78 RPMs.
Horray -- Success!
The cat lept several feet into the air, schrieking, hissing, wailing and spinning wildly at what I figured was probably 78RPMs.
But alas, the effect was short lived.
No sooner had this levitated feline lifted into the air than he crashed back down onto the rotating pie tray.
Ah, what the hell -- I slammed down the freezer lid and sat down in front of the TV with a beer.
I'll go back later and see whether he's settled down. Maybe tomorrow.
Anyway -- it looks as if there is some effect there but measuring it requires the use of protective garments and probably a more cooperative cat.
Now there's some guy called Schrodinger at the door asking whether the cat in my freezer is dead but telling me not to open the lid.
What the hell's going on there I wonder?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Yes, academic credentialism is driven by publishing. So? How does that translate into your assumption that all the 'recent theorizing' is bunk? Publishing is hard work. You don't just make up crap and watch is magically traverse the gauntlet of peer review.
Oh, right, because there's no such thing as fusion. That's why we know it's a boondoggle. Oh wait. It seems fusion is actually a common physical process! Maybe we should look into it. If, you know, that's all right with you. Work up the math, develop a consistent theory with provable axioms, then we'll talk. This isn't consultancy, s390, this is science. Golf, blowjobs, and 'intuition' won't cut it. Oh, and physics on LSD went out 20 years ago.Have you actually *read* the General Theory of Relativity? Go get Wheeler's "Gravitation". It deals with your confused theory, and much more besides, all coherently.
There are things to be said in favor of conformity. Science was created in a time of mystics and frauds. Actually having to prove what you claim was a big jump, and conformity is a natural side-effect of that. On the other hand, there is too much conformity in the university environment these days, but for that the blame can be laid at the doors of the administration. Nationwide, administration staff has doubled relative to student&faculty populations. All the bone-headed management theories that the private sector spent the last decade or two working through have trickled into the Uni, and all the 'free thinkers' fear for their jobs. Tenure, the great bulwark of high-performance original thinkers, is on the way out. Work through the math, get back to us. Perhaps if your 'scientific intuition' was better grounded in, say, math and science, then you wouldn't troll with this garbage. Oh, we broke the Standard Model 3 years ago. Better update your notes.What is that saying... copy one person and it's called plagarism.. copy 30 and it's called research.