Slashdot Log In
Gravitational Repulsion Effect Claimed
Posted by
michael
on Tue Aug 07, 2001 10:21 PM
from the flying-cars-coming-out-real-soon-now dept.
from the flying-cars-coming-out-real-soon-now dept.
TekPolitik writes: "Eugene Podkletnov, the physicist who claimed to have discovered an anomalous gravitational "shielding" effect in the 90s, but withdrew his original paper prior to publication, has finally published a new paper on the topic. The paper describes a new experiment that is related to the original experiment, but the nature of the new experiment is more suggestive of an inverse gravitational effect (that is, the device creates a gravitational push away from it), or in Trekkie terms, a repulsor beam. Aside from claiming to have pushed things around at a distance, Podkletnov claims that the results directly contradict general relativity." Let's see if I can summarize: the author claims that with a certain very cold superconductor transmitting a large quantity of electricity in an intense magnetic field, he has observed a "new" force which repulses objects.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Gravitational Repulsion Effect Claimed
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 575 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
(1)
|
2
History Repeats Itself (Score:3, Interesting)
Why does Slashdot even give crackpots like this a voice? It's typical cold fusion, room temperature super conductors, perpetual motion engine bull shit. It's one guy claiming to have obtained a result that even he admits contradicts general relativity.
That's exactly what they said when Newton proposed the theory of gravitational acceleration (the famous "feather and cannon ball fall at the same rate" experiment) and when Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. Both of those ideas contradicted conventional thinking, but came to be accepted as some of the most valuable scientific contributions of all time. While you could be right in saying that this is the scientific equivalent of vapourware, it would be worth your while to observe this point. History has told us time and time again that more people spend more time thinking and talking about what they can't do than what they can do.
Sure, sometimes these fantastic paradigm-shifting things happen. But when it's this far fetched, how about waiting for at least a little peer review?
Because peer review often takes time to verify/disprove your research. By that time someone else may have discovered it and you want to make sure your hard work accounts for something. So you publish as soon as you have something concrete. Even if it gets retracted later on (Element 118 [slashdot.org], for example) the point is that you've still asked the questions anyway. You may even inspire further research into the field (for instance, the synthesis of transuranics continues to this day).
And as a final note:
Get into the conversation, log in. Most people don't read AC comments.
Now that, I can agree with.
Background on Podkletnov (blatant kw) (Score:5, Informative)
There's the original paper [inetarena.com], written in 1992.
There's the Wired article [wired.com] by Charles Platt which goes into detail exactly what happened after he published the first paper.
And finally there's a web site on Gravity called Quantum Cavorite [inetarena.com]. It seems to be rational, although somewhat optimistic. The main lanl.gov site also has some great material on the two big approaches to G: spin foams & loops (general relativity guys) and noncommutative string geometry (particle physics guys).
What I find really strange about this paper is that after being ignored for years, not having anyone being able to repeat his results reliably and refusing to help out NASA in verifying his methods, the guy is not only back for more, but he's proposing a theory which he says invalidates General Relativity. This looks as suicidal as <obSlash>a startup company proposing to wipe out Microsoft</obSlash>...
I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprisingly little fuss was made about this considering it meant that the most fundamental prediction physics has made about the nature of the universe is wrong. It seemed strange to me that they could be this wrong and yet still claim to know exactly what happened in the first few microseconds of the universe. Imagine walking along with someone in the wilderness, who says we are 5 hours, 3 minutes and 32 seconds from our destination. Later you find out that you're on a different continent to the one he said you were on. Yet still he insists he knows your time of arrival to the precise second. A modicum of doubt would seem appropriate.
Anyway, I wonder if this could be the missing force ?
Does not claim direct contradiction to GR (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how many people actually tried to read the paper. I read it and I don't see anything that directly contradicts General Relativity. It mentions that PERHAPS the effect is related to Torsion theory or others that seem to violate certain principles of GR, but from what I gather these theories don't contradict GR. There is a difference. Quantum Theory often violates GR - or APPEARS to do so, given our incomplete understanding of the universe. And so what if GR is not quite perfect? There is room to learn.
Also, there is no way that this is sending out bursts of electricity or magnetic force the way Taco describes. The experiment used apparatus to shield against electro-magnetism. If it is EM, then it is still very odd behaviour in that it can do something no other EM force previously observed can do.
The reaction of most people on this list is that he has just made a EM field - come on ... obviously it's not. Read the paper and you will see that the radiation emitted is proportional to the mass of the target objects, and that it is not in any way slowed down nor does it alter it's course through material that 'normal' radiation is at least effected by. If his results are correct, this is not electromagnetism.
I am not saying that this guy has discovered what he suspects: I don't know. But it's pretty damn interesting, and of course other people should try to duplicate the results.
Here's the part that interests me: (Score:3, Interesting)
"It cannot be understood in the framework of general relativity."
If this isn't bogus, it means that there's a great big hole in Einstein's view of gravity in particular and possibly the universe in general. The question is how big the hole is.
When you're talking about faster-than-light travel in the realm of special relativity, you have three choices:
1.) Causality - event A causes event B, such as "I push key on keyboard, then letter appears on screen.
2.) FTL - moving faster than 3E8 m/s.
3.) Relativity - No matter how fast you go, light is always measured to be going 3E8 m/s in relation to you. Space-time itself is altered to make this so.
Of those three, you can only have two. If you move faster than light under relativity, you begin to move backwards in time. Even worse, causality goes out the window. Using the example of my keyboard again, all observers moving slower than the speed of light see that I press the key BEFORE it appears on the screen (but they disagree on how long before), so I essentially cause it to happen. Photons see everything as simultaneous (literally. A photon considers my typing to be simultaneous to the big bang). A person moving faster than light, though, will instead see that the letters appearing on my screen before I type, meaning that the words are causing me to press the keys. Under relativity, it looks this way because it IS that way, because all observations (in an inertial frame of reference, blah blah blah) are by definition right under relativity. This means nothing really causes anything, since it can be proved that both A caused B and B caused A. The universe runs entirely on coincidence if this is the case.
This also leaves the door open for headache-inducing paradoxes (give two duelers tachyon pistols and they will both shoot each other before the other fires), but that's another long story.
If we can find holes in relativity, though, it may be the one of those three options we throw out. This will let us get to the next star system in a reasonable amount of time while still being able to prove that we invented warp drive, not the other way around. :)
The state of belief these days. (Score:3, Informative)
Whether this guy is right or wrong, the vast majority of us won't be involved in that determination. Mostly, we're not scientists. And so we debate back and forth on the merits of this paper, but without reaching any conclusions.
If you feel SO strongly about this paper, for or against, then get yourself into a lab.
Because you aren't helping us and you aren't helping yourself with empty claims of insanity or genius on the part of this researcher.
Try to keep in mind a few points: First, that in nearly every case of claims of fundamental breakthroughs, it does not pan out.
Second, try to wrap your mind around the fact that our knowledge of the universe is woefully incomplete, will probably always be so, and that any totally new discovery MAY seem impossible in light of current understanding.. because current understanding is wrong.
There is no armchair way to determine the truth or falsehood of this guys claims, you HAVE to test.
I almost am of the opinion that anyone claiming a sufficiently strange new theory should build a device which demonstrates this new knowledge as an obvious effect. In other words, if you claim to have discovered a storage effect for "life-force" (whatever that is), then you had better go on and build a battery. Because no one will believe you. And usually, they'll be right. But not always.
This is nothing new at all (Score:3, Interesting)
One writer discusses that power through conductors creates magnetic fields. That's true. We all knew that. High amounts of power through conductors creates large magnetic fields. That only stands to reason. High amounts of power also creates high amounts of heat in the conductor causing the conductor to burn out like a filament in a lightbulb. Enter superconductors.
Now we can create (very) large magnetic fields that can be sustained. But why? Well, look at your hard drive. See that voice coil? See how quickly and accurately it moves? Imagine a vehicle fitted with a superconducting "voice coil system" that can literally surf on the Earth's magnetic field. This technology has existed secretly for quite some time.
I've always been kind of excited by the technology. It's very cool when you think about it. Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
OMG! (Score:3, Funny)
So I read the article... (Score:5, Informative)
(a) He has fudged his data or left out some important part of his apparatus.
(b) He has discovered something important.
Not having been published in a peer reviewed journal, and having no physical collaboration from independent observers (his co-author never actually participated in the experiment), I would have to lean toward choice (a).
His experimental apparatus is also very home grown. What does he mean that he couldn't "get a good enough vacuum to prevent condensation on the superconductor" ??? His home brew method to manufacture his SC coating looks EZ Bake style to me also.
However, if his experiment and results are God's honest truth, there are some interesting implications.
He says that he measured the force on pendulums of ceramic, wood, rubber, etc hanging from cotton strings seperated from his spark discharge machine by distances of SIX and ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY meters, including walls and steel plates. One must not that he does not publish the results for the 150m experiment. His primary results are from a rubber sphere, and he doesn't explicitly publish any other data. However, he claims to have imparted about 2 milliJoules of energy into the ball about 20 feet away. That's a 1/2 ounce ball on a 30 inch string given enough kick to swing 6 inches. If this is correct, it really is truly amazing.
His writing style and lack of clarity also lead me to believe that his results do not speak for themselves.
Once we get some replication of his setup, then we can see for ourselves. Nobel Prize - or Cold Fusion.
/Muerte
Re:So I read the article... (Score:5, Informative)
Chucking theory, we are left with two experimental results: a rather plausible effect and an implausible one. The plausible result is his description of how the discharge evolves through T_c. Still, he gives no explanation of what T_c was and more importantly he never mentions transition width. His mention that in his first experiments the YBCO film degraded makes me think that his temprature control was highly questionable so he may have been still above T_c even with claims to the contrary. Still, he may be right when he says that his setup represents a new or at least unusual N-S junction.
The implausible result is his claims of a force beam and that his beam does not dissipate through walls, air and other things. He claims that his discharge has a side effect of producing a beam capable of significant mechanical effects. The sheer difference in scale between known gravitational effects and his measurements makes me wonder if the beam exists at all. The lack of dissipation combined with its strong effect on the balls leaves me wondering if conservation laws would be violated.
The paper is horridly written. Parts aren't proper English (which I am ready to excuse as he is not from an English speaking country), parts aren't proper physics (like when he claims that the electrons forming his discharge are coming from pair condensate without any justification to substantiate such an implausible scenario), parts aren't proper experimental procedure (e.g his vacuum quality, his lack of pictures to illustrate discharge dynamics, etc). His figures don't have captions and some have unlabeled axes. His theoretical discussion includes passages trying to say, in effect: people don't know where this comes from in high T_c so it may be related to our effect. Still, I would not judge a book by its cover. If only one of the effects he observed is real then he has made a contribution to science, though after reading his paper, I doubt there will be revolutionary advances coming from this.
paramagnetic? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:paramagnetic? (Score:5, Informative)
It was found that the force of the impact on pendulums made of different materials does not depend on the material but is only proportional to the mass of the sample. Pendulums of different mass demonstrated equal deflection at constant voltage. This was proved by a large number of measurements using spherical samples of different mass and diameter.
This seems to suggest either 1) antigravity etc or 2) paramagnetism. It would seem to rule out contamination with iron as someone else suggested. It would also be nice to know from some of the physicists around here whether or not there is a lot of experience with magnetic fields of this strength at this temperature.
Considering how deadly this kind of research must be to your career, you have to admire this scientist. It would seem obvious that if we began to understand it we would be able to control it in some way, that it would seem like a logical course of scientific inquiry.
Documentation of artifical gravity. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:translation? (Score:5, Informative)
They have theories as to why it is, but they're not sure, and they want other people to try it too, which is why they spend so much time explaining EXACTLY what they did.
I'm very interested in seeing someone get a positive result replicating this, don't care much about negative results becuase it's probably fairly touchy, like semicondutors, superconductors, cold fusion, etc.
--Mike--
Insightful my ass! Read the damn article (Score:5, Insightful)
Another glib, uninformed remark rated as Insightful -- two people who obviously didn't bother to read the article. Well that's the Internet for you.
To sum it up: They built this magic superconductor thingy in a vacuum chamber, charged it up and measured the effect at different distances on pendulums of various materials, weighing 10 to 50 grams, hung in a separate vacuum chamber see their rough drawing [lanl.gov]. When they fired up the superconductor, the pendulums swung away several inches.
The amount of movement varied with the mass of the pendulums, but not the distance or the materials (they mention metal, glass, ceramics, wood, rubber, plastic). Pendulums 6 meters and 150 meters away in a different building, separated by brick walls and an inch of steel, showed identical effects. Even with "trace amounts of iron" a magnetic effect would vary with the square of the distance. But what do I know?
Of course, perhaps I'm prejudiced against people who criticize research without bothering to read it (and moderators who hand out points like candy).
Re:Magnetics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because a phenomenon is new doesn't mean that nobody except for its discoverer is qualified to look at it. There are plenty of people in the same general area of experimental physics who are fully qualified to judge whether he's adequately controlled for experimental variables, done proper experimental design, fully considered alternative explanations within currently accepted physical law, etc. Most of the time that somebody discovers something new it turns out that the real explanation is a flaw in their experimental controls, data analysis, etc. and not a genuinely novel phenomenon. Getting other people who know what they're doing to doublecheck your results is a good way of catching that kind of error. That's why peer review exists. Somebody who trumpets his discovery before having others double-check his methodology is doing something highly questionable.
Re:Magnetics? (Score:5, Informative)
My mistake for replying to a reply, rather than taking a quick glance at the article. Since this is being presented on xxx.lanl.gov [lanl.gov], that means that he's basically putting out a preprint. I don't see it mentioned anywhere, but it may actually have been submitted for review somewhere.
I guess that the original poster (who made the remark about not submitting to peer review) is unfamiliar with the way that physicists do things these days. They now put articles that are still under review (or even very preliminary results that aren't ready for formal review yet) on preprint servers like xxx.lanl.gov so that people can read them ASAP with the understanding that they're still preliminary. The authors aren't avoiding review; they're just getting the news out quickly through normal channels.
Magnetism and Electrostatic forces seemed weak too (Score:4, Insightful)
Gravity is the weakest form of energy, it needs an incredible amount of mass to create a noticable amount of effect.
Sure, that's easy to say now, but not 200 years ago. 200 years ago, a lodestone was *the* magnet. It was a piece of rock that attracted iron filings.
A couple of weeks ago while I was out at a wrecking yard digging up parts for one of my cool old cars, I watched an electromagnet lifting cars. That's a lot of iron filings.
Similarly, 200 years ago, an ebony rod attracted grains of pepper. Now, we harness electrostatic attraction and replusion for all sorts of things, ranging from TV sets and computer monitors to Van de Graaf generators which power linear accelerators at nuclear research facilities.
Consider that, to my knowledge, we've still got no higher understanding of why two positively charged ions repel, or why a positively charged ion attracts a negatively charged ion. Nor do we really understand anything more about magnetism's lines of force than the pretty little lines of iron filings on the paper when we rest it over a bar magnet. Like gravity, they're fundamental forces. We know a little bit about how to use them - the variables involved. Mass, materials which maintain an electrostatic charge well, and ferrous metals. We know they're inter-related. But how do the forces themselves work?
With our present knowledge, we're at about the level of proficiency of a secretary who is good with Excel and yet still refers to her computer as a "hard drive". We can make two of these forces do the things we want them to do, but we don't have any higher knowledge of how they work.
Gravity is, of course, the most difficult of the fundamental forces to research, because it would require either huge masses that you can manipulate at will or incredibly accurate measuring instruments. 200 years from now - maybe even sooner, who knows - we'll probably be able to manipulate gravity at will. Maybe not around the Earth, but maybe around a space ship which we wish to launch from the surface.
Certainly, there's a huge motivation to studying it, especially if it can be harnessed as easily as magnetism. How much does a Space Shuttle booster tank cost to fill?
Re:Magnetism and Electrostatic forces seemed weak (Score:5, Insightful)
> A couple of weeks ago while I was out at a wrecking yard digging up parts for one of my cool old cars, I watched an electromagnet lifting cars. That's a lot of iron filings.
> Similarly, 200 years ago, an ebony rod attracted grains of pepper. Now, we harness electrostatic attraction and replusion for all sorts of things, ranging from TV sets and computer monitors to Van de Graaf generators which power linear accelerators at nuclear research facilities.
Yes, but the important difference between weakness of magnetism 200 years ago, and weakness of gravity right now is the reason why such weakness was observed.
Your ebony rod is so weakly electified because although it comprises an impressive number of charges, most balance out (there are positive and negative charges which cancel each other's effect out). Net electric charge is only caused by an imbalance between positive and negative, and this imbalance is incredibly low: maybe only one electron per atom, and only on the surface. ALthough the mass of the object may be high, only a tiny part of that mass contributes to the effect. And during the last 200 years, we've just been getting better at augmenting the proportion of the mass that has an effect.
Magnetism involves movement of charges. In case of natural magnetism, this is the (non-cancelled) movement of electron around the atom's nucleus. In most materials, this cancels out because:
Today, the strongest magnets are, as you correctly pointed out, electromagnets. In those we have a macroscopic movement of charges (i.e. electric current), which we can theoretically make as high as we wish (as permitted by the electrical resistence of the material and electric power at our disposal...)
Gravity is different though: there are no "negative" gravity particle which could cancel out the normal positive gravity, or at least there are none known today. Weakness of gravity thus does not come from cancellation, but is rather inherent in the force itself! The active principle in gravity is mass, and the only way to get "better" gravity is indeed to augment the mass. Moreover, unlike magnetism, gravity is not tied to movement, thus we cannot manipulate it either by speeding up the objects (at least not until we reach relativistic speeds).
> Consider that, to my knowledge, we've still got no higher understanding of why two positively charged ions repel, or why a positively charged ion attracts a negatively charged ion. Nor do we really understand anything more about magnetism's lines of force than the pretty little lines of iron filings on the paper when we rest it over a bar magnet. Like gravity, they're fundamental forces. We know a little bit about how to use them - the variables involved. Mass, materials which maintain an electrostatic charge well, and ferrous metals. We know they're inter-related. But how do the forces themselves work?
We may not know the philosophical reason why magnetism and electricity exists at all, but we have a pretty detailed understanding however how they interact (Maxwell equations), why the electric/magnetic field is shaped the way it is, how those forces propagate, etc.
> With our present knowledge, we're at about the level of proficiency of a secretary who is good with Excel and yet still refers to her computer as a "hard drive". We can make two of these forces do the things we want them to do, but we don't have any higher knowledge of how they work.
Our knowledge of magnetism/electricity may not be complete enough to satisfy a philosopher, but it is certainly complete enough for an engineer, and well beyond that of your Windows toting secretary knowing nothing else than Excel.
Violates DMCA (Score:3, Funny)
The Gravity Advocates Association (GAA) has announced plans to file suit against the "repulsor beam", claiming it "circumvents established gravitational force technology"
In other news, Podkletnov has been arrested by the FBI and is being held without bail on charges of "violating basic scientific laws"
Re:Violates DMCA (Score:4, Funny)
You have violated the spelling of the DMCA and will be jailed with the Village People.
Gravitational Field (Score:3, Funny)
"Gravitational Field." Hmph! This whole story is repulsive!
theory (Score:3, Informative)
at least at first look,
people have been talking about this
kind of thing for ever.
Basicly it leads to the idea that
gravity travels instantly
which violates relitivity
which in turn, up ends everything
all the way to string (super string) theory...
wasn't there some CEO who vanished after he started doing reasearch with some guy about this stuff?
Re:theory (Score:5, Funny)
yes, shortly after beginning the research, he inexplicably was shot off into outer space.
This is rather interesting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Many micrometeors have sizes smaller than a fraction of an inch, and we cannot accurately scan for them (it has been described almost as a life sized comparison to Heisenburg's Uncertainty Princible.) This would honestly help out small satellites, because a small micrometeors can disable or destroy those satallites with a single pass. With NASA now focusing on a "smaller, faster, cheaper" mantra, this may not be worked on as a viable option for quite some time. (I live in the states, and NASA is a seen as the world leader in Space... please don't flame me ESA members...)
An workable model formed on this approach could see itself attached later to the space station or even the shuttle (The shuttle has sensors, (and so does mission control) that scans constantly for items that could hit the shuttle and destroy it. Think the opening sequence to Armegeddon, (well, maybe not that bad...
This will be interesting to see how these finding develop.
Re:Totally Offtopic (Score:5, Interesting)
Are they so poor in russia that their universities do not have their own domian presence?
For one, I don't appreciate this troll.
For two, this is some "research center", not a university.
For three, from what I know about the situation, Podkletnov was sacked from several research institutes in the past, and I am unaware of anything that is called "Moscow Chemical Scientific Research Centre" in Moscow, especially not at that address and zip code. If it's a respectful government research agency, then it happened to successfully elude most research institute listings in Moscow. If it's something private: it's their own damn problem if they can't get a domain (which costs pennies in the .ru zone, and you can always get a free .org.ru domain). Something is screwey here, if you ask me...
+5 gratuitous joke. (Score:5, Funny)
It's called a subwoofer.
Big woop, so now it's superconducting.
</bad joke>
Yes, every editor is Taco. Especially that fascist Michael.
I discovered repulsion many years ago! (Score:3, Informative)
The effect is inversely proportional to distance.
It also seems to be inversely proportional to the mass of the woman.
You don't need superconductors to do all that (Score:4, Funny)
not news (Score:4, Funny)