NASA's little mission to turn our world upside down (NASA plans to repeal the laws of gravity)

HoustonChronicle.com ^ | March 29, 2002, 11:51PM | MARGARET WERTHEIM

[rw4site]

Damn! Ginger ("It") may already be obsolete.

[putupon]

The disc is cooled to below -233 degrees centigrade and levitated using a magnetic field

COOL!

[dr_who]

If it doesn't work, I hope NASA does take a hit.

[isthisnickcool]

Kewl....

[DoctorMichael]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........I've heard The Art Bell Institute of Technology and Engineering has already been working on this for some time now.

I suppose any knowledgable claim should be checked out but.........I have a BIG problem with researchers who say, "I did it!.......But, I'm not going to tell you how. Its a secret!"

99.9999999998% of such cases are usually false.

[medved]

At the heart of the device is a purported effect so radical it could change the way we interact with one of nature's most fundamental forces...

If gravity were a fundamental force or a basic property of mass and space as Einstein described it, there would be no possibility whatsoever of doing anything such as is being described. Gravity turns out to be a sort of an electrostatic dipole effect and not a basic force of nature at all.

[ex-Texan]

This is disinformation being spewed out for the media.

The U.S. already has 'stealth blimps' for weather control and special forces intel gathering. We already have top secret anti-gravity 'flying triangles' which have been seen all over the U.S. Most recently, flying tringles were seen in the U.K. displaying typical red and blue warning lights ... Why would alien craft display such lights? DUH

[rw4site]

Yeah, I'd believe The Art Bell Institute before I'd trust anything from NASA. </sarcastic humor> (-;

[jlogajan]

Your two "blocks" are not behaving correctly after the collision. One or both of the blocks would have to preserve components of the spinning block's angular momentum. One of them would therefore have to proceed off at angle if the self-spinning component was halted.

Also they proceed away together, which would seem to be different than any other equal mass collision (except inelastic) wherein you usually get a momentum exchange.

[dr_who]

Obviously, aliens adhere to their own system of traffic laws in outer space, and that includes putting blue and red warning lights on their vehicles.

[rw4site]

Want to elaborate? Which sites do you get info about "flying triangles?" Weather control? Where? I want to know more....

[prisoner6]

I read this a couple of days ago and after thinking about it I don't see what the big deal is. It isn't >really< anti-gravity. All that is happening as far as I can tell, is that the mass of the object >appears< to be reduced. WHether it actually is or not is open to debate but for the sake of an argument lets say it is.

So now we have an object and let's say ti's mass has been reduced by half. It ISN't levitating. It's still sitting right where it was, albeit with apparently half the mass.

Yes it should be easier to move the object, but of course you'd have to also move the machine that is reducing it's mass and so the net reduction may be nil at best.

And I'm not sure something with negative mass, assuming that could be achieved, would levitate. Why should it?

Doubling the power of the mass reduction machine may not lead to a direct redcution in the target's mass. In fact the closer you get to zero mass, the more power it may require. It may well be one of those unreachable limits.

But heck, what do I know? I don't get to play in the abstact universe anymore...sigh.

prisoner6

[isthisnickcool]

Your two "blocks" are not behaving correctly after the collision

Uh, uh, I just thought they were pretty:)

Actually, I stole those off one of the sites links form this story led to. Interesting stuff. At some point American ingenuity will come up with something.

[Valin]

Given all the money the governments wastes I (for one) don't really have a problem with nasa spending $600,000 to see if there's anything to this.

[Axelsrd]

Wasn't Mr. Peabody working on a similar device in the early 1960's but accedently changed one of the signs(+/-)in his calculations and ended up with the Way Back Machine?

[ihatemyalarmclock]

Damn! Ginger ("It") may already be obsolete.

Oh, I don't know. It might take a new form, something resembling Marty McFly's "hoverboard." (smile)

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Given all the money the governments wastes I (for one) don't really have a problem with nasa spending $600,000 to see if there's anything to this

The Soviets went big time in researching the psychological paranormal. What a waste of state resources. Look what happened to them being led by the intellectually elite commies. They spent their resources and lost the confidence of their citizens. This should be a lesson about the worthlessness of granting public money on pipe dreams. It the science behide it has any merit, let a hard nosed venture capitalist fund it and gigure out a good use for it. Computers didn't become useful until capitalists saw their merit and mass produced them.

[chuknospam]

Nothing new. Florida State University has been doing anti-gravity experiments for several years. They have a device that counteracts gravity. Huge magnetic affair, the weightless "chamber" is only large enough to float a small frog. It's been published publically on several occasions. One Link of sources

FSU Magnetic Lab

[backhoe]

"Gravity-shielding?" So H.G. Wells' "Cavorite" wasn't so loony after all?