Posted on 10/10/2001 12:45:11 PM PDT by RightWhale
NASA's Controversial Gravity Shield Experiment Fails to Produce
By Jack Lucentini
Special to SPACE.com posted: 11:50 am ET
10 October 2001
After a second round of tests, NASA researchers have failed to detect signs that a machine can weaken gravitys pull.
But they plan to continue the research shocking some mainstream physicists, who call it junk science.
The researchers say a device that loosens the clutch of gravity, sometimes called a gravity shield, may be the only way to enable human spacecraft to blast off to other star systems.
But the research lies on the fringe of accepted science. Some of its own proponents admit it flies against virtually every established law of physics.
Other scientists go further.
"Good heavens. This is incredible," said Robert L. Park, director of the Washington, D.C. office of the American Physical Society, upon learning that the NASA researchers havent given up. "I mean, every physicist I know and they must have some on the staff there has told me how absurd this research was."
The space agency has spent about five years and at least $600,000 on the project.
In a paper presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Research Conference in Salt Lake City in July, the researchers called their latest tests "inconclusive."
The experiments utilized a device made from a superconductor, a ceramic in which, at certain temperatures, electric current can flow utterly freely.
The study was inspired by the work in the early 1990s of a Russian scientist, Eugene Podkletnov. He claimed to have measured a weakening of Earths gravity by 2 percent near a specialized superconductor spinning in a magnetic field.
"Our objective was to design, construct and implement a discriminating experiment which would put these observations on a more firm footing," said the NASA paper. "No conclusion at this time can be made."
The researchers said several factors had hampered the experiment. One was that the balance, for measuring mass, didnt work at very low temperatures.
Its worth trying again with an improved setup, said the NASA paper, whose lead author was Glen A. Robertson, research scientist at the agencys Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It was at least the second time the agency has tried but failed to replicate Podkletnovs results.
The researchers didnt return phone calls early this week. But Randall Peters, a consultant to the project and a physics professor with Mercer University, Macon, Ga., said in an interview that the effort is "worthwhile," despite the difficulties.
David Drachlis, a spokesman for the NASA center, added that the project continues.
What has dogged the research, experts say, is that Podkletnov failed to adequately document his findings. Podkletnov declined to comment for this article.
"Antigravity" research has provoked debate for years.
The idea violates a bedrock principle of physics conservation of energy that says you cant create energy from nothing. It defies this edict because it implies you could lift something without spending the necessary "price" in energy normally required. Then, by dropping it, you could give it an energy boost equaling the full "regular" price.
Yet several considerations make the concept intriguing to some.
First is a rather striking apparent coincidence: Podkletnovs findings appeared to match phenomena earlier predicted independently by a University of Alabama at Huntsville scientist, Ning Li.
Second, many renowned physicists believe nature has an underlying unity, by which all its forces are fundamentally connected.
This means electromagnetism and gravity are somehow linked. The "gravity shield" could conceivably operate at the bridge between the two forces, interacting with both.
The NASA group suggested the link is a recently discovered, exotic form of energy, "zero-point fluctuations." This consists of minute particles that flicker in and out of existence in what we normally think of as empty space.
Had a tad of science in my youth.
My hypothesis, which you confirmed, is that gravity is not fully understood. There is the theory of a gravitational field, but its composition is not yet fully understood.
I suspect a nobel prize is waiting for the scientist that demonstrates the components of the gravitational field.
These notions IMO, all point to the need for research into gravity.
You know -- I'd like to make some sort of remark like "I keep my anti-grav machine between my perpetual motion device and my copy of 'The Handbook of Clinton Morality'".
However, I don't know and I hope it works.
You know -- I'd like to make some sort of remark like "I keep my anti-grav machine between my perpetual motion device and my copy of 'The Handbook of Clinton Morality'".
However, I don't know and I hope it works.
These days the Nobel Prize is awarded for explaining things like why we don't trust the used car salesman.
They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Newton, they laughed at Einstein.
But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
We don't know that it isn't fully understood. There certainly aren't any experimental results that contradict Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The reason we suspect that the gravitational field is quantizable is because every other force we know about is quantized. Electromagnetism is described well by photons, the strong nuclear force is described well by gluons, and the weak nuclear force is described well by the W and Z bosons. The problem with quantum gravity is that gravity is a spin-2 field (i.e., for every unit of momentum carried by the field, there are two units of angular momentum). Unfortunately, when you go and naively quantize a spin-2 field in 4 dimensions, the quantities you calculate are infinite.
As a matter of fact, there are only two spaces in which the calculated quantities from such a field can be finite: one space has 11 dimensions, and one has 26 dimensions. The "superstring" theories that have captured the attention of the press (and M-theory, which relates them to each other) are 11-dimensional theories.
But we can't discount the possibility that nature is just perverse, and gravity really does have a totally different structure from all the other forces. Perhaps General Relativity is all there is.
These notions IMO, all point to the need for research into gravity.
There are gobs of research going on in gravity, particularly in quantum gravity. Every time you see the word "superstrings", it refers to quantum gravity research.
This topic is from 2001. For your convenience, links to the two older topics (both of which are old-style):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=Podkletnov
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7154925d42.htm
Anti-Gravity Beam Claimed
Miscellaneous News Keywords: GRAVITY, RELATIVITY
Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Published: August 3, 2001 Author: Evgeny Podkletnov, Giovanni Modanese
Posted on 08/08/2001 08:02:42 PDT by Nick Danger
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7154925d42.htm
Serious Science: Impulse Artificial Gravity Generator Based on Ceramic Superconductor
Miscellaneous News
Source: Lawrence Livermore Natiional Labs physics document server
Published: August 3, 2001 Author: Dr. Evgeny Podkletnov (Moscow) and Dr. Giovanni Modanese (Palo Alto)
Posted on 08/08/2001 20:53:51 PDT by Khepry
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b72094f03fb.htm
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