First Steps Toward Artificial Gravity 470
CompaniaHill writes "Have scientists been able to artificially generate a gravitational field? Researchers at the European Space Agency believe so.
"Small acceleration sensors placed at different locations close to the spinning superconductor, which has to be accelerated for the effect to be noticeable, recorded an acceleration field outside the superconductor that appears to be produced by gravitomagnetism. This experiment is the gravitational analogue of Faraday's electromagnetic induction experiment in 1831."
The effect is very small, so don't expect to see it used in spacecraft any time soon. But the effect is still many times larger than the predictions of Einstein's theories.
"If confirmed, this would be a major breakthrough," says [Austrian researcher Martin] Tajmar. "It opens up a new means of investigating general relativity and it consequences in the quantum world.""
Re:Small steps or large leaps (Score:3, Funny)
i don't know about you guys, (Score:5, Funny)
but i'm running scared [imdb.com]
A different approach towards artificial gravity (Score:2, Funny)
I am working on a larger test with 5.9736×10^24 kg of mass that seems to give gravitational field strengths that are roughly the same as we are used to.
Re:Forgot spaceships (Score:5, Funny)
Number Games (Score:2, Funny)
It's been a while since I took a math class but I believe one hundred million trillion is roughly equal to a gajillion.
Who cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Who cares about that, where's my flying car?!
Re:Small steps or large leaps (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously that's because if they let on that it was artificial, elitist snobs would demand the real thing.
Like that time I got slapped for giving that lady artifical respiration..
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Funny)
Have you watched any Hollywood movies lately?
Re:not a gravitational field (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Funny)
Any energineer worth his brains would recognize that nanites would provide this kind of appropriate, precise energy output readout, but of course, deployment of such self-aware entities increases chances of a artificial intelligence takeover, which would suck.
Re:Forgot spaceships (Score:5, Funny)
If you try to attach a shaft to the cat to transfer the rotational energy, the cat will stop trying to land on it's feet, and cling to the shaft. Thus no work is produced.
Attempts have been made to glue magnets to the cat, which is then suspended in a coil. However, it appears that the natural static charge produced by the cat seems to cancel out the expected induced current.
Experiments are continuing with *shaved* cats. I'm thinking about publishing some preliminary results, in hopes of winning an IgNoble.
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Funny)
You must have missed several episodes.
All you need to do is ask it to do something impossible, like calculating the last digit of pi, find an intelligent actor, or correctly fill out a tax form, and it will self-destruct.
Be sure to stay far away when it does, because it usually makes a large mess. You do know that computers are always built out of explosives, don't you?
They're holding out... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Awesome (Score:1, Funny)
Re:More spinning superconductors (Score:3, Funny)
Of course! Don't you know that one of the basic tenets of quantum physics is that the observer always affects the experiment?
Re:Forgot spaceships (Score:5, Funny)
Step one: Shave Shrodinger's cat with Occam's razor...
Who Invented the E-man? (Score:5, Funny)
And what a breakthrough he was! I don't recall who invented him, but man, they don't build jews like that anymore...
Re:Forgot spaceships (Score:3, Funny)
We used to use mice. The cats ate all the mice, so....
Re:not a gravitational field (Score:3, Funny)