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Those Amazing Antigravity Machines?
surfimp writes "Wired is running an interesting article about 'lifters', hovering UFO-looking vehicles that have no moving parts, no onboard power supply, and are capable of levitating simply through the application of high amounts of electrical current. Enthusiasts claim their vehicles are examples of a nascent antigravity technology, while more traditional scientists - including some funded by NASA - view them as nothing more than contraptions harnessing ionic winds."
Hasn't anybody tried to put this into a vacuum chamber to see if it still works? I think that would pretty much settle it.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
Volts jolt, but mills kill.
You can pump hundreds of thousands of volts through the human body and it won't actually kill you as long as the current is low enough. However, it only take a small amount of current to kill yourself. I forget the actual numbers, though.
If you take some time to read, its not antigravity, its got a more rational theories of how they work, dealing mainly with ion flow.
Its also an old story.. been posted several times in the past.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I haven't read the Wired article yet, but I would guess it's not just an ion machine. It works in a vacuum also if it's what I think it is. (I'll read the Wired article later). I think a guy name Townsend Brown was working on it before he died. Lots of people claimed WITH GREAT AUTHORITY that it was an ion machine. He had his detractors, too. remins me of a guy I worked with. He was the software lead with a EE background. He told me that leds would not provide a voltage when light was applied. I proved him wrong. He also tried to tell me (I'm just a dumb software engineer) that if you bent an optical fiber the light would be constant at the receiving end. I proved to him that light escapes the more you bend the fiber. The thing is with pedantic people that they KNOW the truth until it bites them in the ass. Betcha you learned a lot in college and believed every word of it.
I have a balloon floating around my room right now at about 5 ft. altitude above the floor. I assure you it has a grand total of one part, which could not be defined as moving.
I have a number of small hot air balloons (small meaning under 10 ft. diameter) with one nonmoving part.
God only knows how many solid fuel rockets with no moving parts I've launched at great velocity into the sky.
I've made kites. No moving parts.
Oh, and a hang glider. The only way this thing could be considered to have a moving "part" is if you think I am a "part."
If you consider a flap of cloth a "moving part" than your radio dials sure as hell are too. I can't even begin to tell you how much time I've wasted over the past 30 years dealing with wonky pots. I gaurun-damn-tee you my flap of balloon cloth is more reliable than your radio dials.
One of my kites ( you know, the kind with a bit of string tied to it) has lifted a man clear off the ground, and didn't require a single volt of electricity to do it. Just a bit of naturally occuring wind. ( Ok, it was a biiiig frikkin kite. I misspent my youth on such endeavors).
How much weight has your dangerous high voltage bit of oven wrap lifted so far?
I'm waiting.
In the meantime there's a helium ( a safe and inert gas) filled bladder over in the corner of my room just hanging in mid air. It should be able to do so for days.
No energy source required.
And no moving parts.
KFG