Anti-gravity propulsion comes ‘out of the closet’

Jane's Data Service ^ | 29 July 2002 | Nick Cook

[LS]

Vlad, as I say, I'm a Christian and I actually believe the Bible. Therefore, I believe it when it says that Moses, who was someting like 140 years old, I think---he was a seriously old man---was neither blind nor lame; that Abraham had a kid at 100 (and he was just starting) and that Ezekiel outran a chariot at age 80. Nothing the human body can do---in the right spiritual setting---would surprise me. If you look at it, in fact, the original Adamic body was of course immortal and every piece we now have functioned perfectly. So all our medicine is doing is really getting back to that.

[Physicist]

That's why I'm not at all put off by "wild" predictions, because every time in history someone has something completely nutty, it tends to become a reality in about 50 years!

See, that's part of the problem with a historian's view of things. People only write down the stuff that pans out, so in retrospect it does look like that. But take my word for it, for every nutty idea that becomes a reality, ten thousand end up in the rubbish tip.

The reason that the best ideas seemed nutty at first is because people do not start out with a very good "physics sense". The conclusions we form on the basis of our intuition are most usually wrong.

Antigravity is a good case in point. Because there's an attractive force, it "stands to reason" that there will be a repulsive force to go along with it. But the math says otherwise, and the it knows so much more than we do.

[LS]

No, I am one of those who CERTAINLY looks at failures---because in economics, failures virtually guarantee success, more so than in science. Moreover, EVERY major entrepreneur who succeeded did so only after one, and usually many, failures.

I didn't necessarily say anti-grav would be "the" solution---but is symbolic of the breakthrough that the "next" transportation breakthrough will take. By the way, doesn't the "math" say that a hummingbird can't fly?

[Physicist]

I didn't necessarily say anti-grav would be "the" solution---but is symbolic of the breakthrough that the "next" transportation breakthrough will take.

The next transportation breakthrough will come from computers and communications: drive by wire. You get in the car, punch in the location (or better yet, say the location) and the car takes you there.

Once that system is in place, flying cars will become possible. We've long been able to support a vehicle with counterrotating fans; the problem is that the average, untrained consumer can't be trusted to operate one safely. Eliminate the need for a pilot and the market breaks wide open.

By the way, doesn't the "math" say that a hummingbird can't fly?

Perhaps you're thinking of bumblebees. When people couldn't get the equations to work out, what it was really telling them is that they didn't properly understand how a bumblebee moved its wings. Once they got that right, everthing worked out. It turned out that "the math" was right all along.

[madvlad]

Well, there you have it!!!

We were orignially intended to be immoral,
er a immortal, but were waylayed in our
'original zygote', ie, Adam and Eve.

So, science is paying the dues for what
we once were intended for free!

Mad Vlad

[Doctor Stochastic]

History is not only written by the winners, it's written about the winners.

[LS]

Science can only do so much, too. So my faith certainly isn't in test tubes.