Posted on 11/09/2005 10:57:31 AM PST by aculeus
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. patent office has reportedly granted a patent for an anti-gravity device -- breaking its rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics.
The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity.
One of the main theoretical arguments against anti-gravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy.
"If you design an anti-gravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine," Robert Park of the American Physical Society told Nature.
Park said the action shows patent examiners are being duped by false science.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
I dunno. Something under that much pressure should be a lot warmer than 150 degrees above absolute zero. I'm pinging RWP because he might set me straight on this.
Actually, due to the extreme mass involved, there is enough
gravitational pull generated in those thighs to capture a
small moon....
"If you could block the effect of gravity, you could use it to lift a large weight with a small amount of energy..."
If you used an item to block the effects of gravity on an item, you could use a small, additional force, to lift the weight.
"...after which you could turn off the device, and capture the energy as the weight fell back down."
Which would return some of the total energy that it took to lift the object. The total energy to lift the object was the energy required to negate gravity on the object plus the energy required to lift it.
Unless the efficiency of the system is 100% or greater, it's not a perpetual motion machine. I didn't look through closely, but I didn't see any claims that this anti-gravity device wouldn't require an input of energy.
"This cycle could be repeated indefinitely, yielding inexhaustible free energy. That energy could in principle be used to power the device, hence perpetual motion."
That's based on the false assumption that gravity could be negated without an input of energy.
Sounds like the patent examiner interned on the Enterprise. Certainly sounds futuristic, patenting things that haven't been invented yet.
The standard idea of 'anti-gravity' is that of a hovering vehicle. I think if such a device were to switch off gravity's effect on it, said device would instantly be flung into space.
It looked pretty good until I got to the sentence that said "Insert warp drive here."
"Try Unobtanium or seldomseenium."
A lot of electronic equipment I work with is made of an odd colored metal we call 'Japanesium'.
Aren't you assuming it only uses a small amount of energy to do block the acceleration due to the force of gravity? Perhaps it requires 6.?? Gigawatts.
"Check out the TR3-B websites."
I don't think the old sports car I just found while searching trb3 will defy gravity, though it does remind me of a rumor I heard of a sports car that could travel through time. As I recall it had enormous power requirements.
The problem is the author neglected a vital aspect of any discussion of antigravity shielding -- tin foil tightly wrapped around the cranium.
You're right. Nothing is a plasma at 251 kbar and 150 K. Nothing, even helium, is anything other than a solid at 251 kbar and 150 K.
Only if it takes no energy to maintain the anti-gravity. If it takes energy, and I see no reason to believe it wouldn't, then you do NOT have a perpetual motion machine. As soon as the energy needed to maintain anti-gravity is gone so is the anti-gravity, hence no perpetual motion.
I don't know if anti-gravity is possible but other things have seemed impossible over the centuries until someone actually did it. Nuclear subs would seem like perpetual motion to people in the 19th century but when the fuel runs out so does the sub.
Park said the action shows patent examiners protectionists are being duped by false science economics.
But that's conventionally possible. Move a large amount of material from below the object, and suspend it over the object. Voila, you've reduced the amount of gravity acting on the object by changing the local curvature of space, at a substantial energy cost.
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