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Anti-gravity device

P

Paul Burridge

Jan 1, 1970
0
I saw on the BBC regional news yesterday that there's this old chap in
Hastings who's invented an anti-gravity device which he's now
developing. He's tried various banks and venture capital outfits to
secure funding to enable him to do this, but they've all told him to
f**k off. Does anyone here fancy a piece of the action? He comes
across as a regular kind of guy and doesn't deserve to be ridiculed.
 
B

Ben Bradley

Jan 1, 1970
0
In sci.electronics.design, "Dwayne"

From the little sidebar under the pic/drawing "How an anti-gravity
device could work:"
1. Solenoids create magnetic field
2. Spinning, super-conducting ceramic ring
3. Liquid Nitrogen acts as coolant
4. Dr Podkletnov claims weight can be reduced by 2% (1kg=980g)

I can guess what happened, the rotating/oscillating magnetic field
pushed up on Dr Podkletnov's mass, reducing the measured weight by two
percent, and also (not being measured by the Dr.) causing the
solenoids to push down on the Earth with the same weight as was 'lost'
from the test mass.
"The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to
have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earth's
pull."....."Dr Podkletnov is viewed with suspicion by many conventional
scientists. They have not been able to reproduce his results."
Dwayne
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
I saw on the BBC regional news yesterday that there's this old chap in
Hastings who's invented an anti-gravity device which he's now
developing.

Such as a carrying strap? Or a rocket engine? Or something
which acts to cause bits of matter to have some repulsion? Or
what?

Anti-gravity says nothing much to me, by itself. But if this
guy is trying to peddle something which goes against current
theory about spin-2 bosonic attraction, such as gravitons, it's
going to need a lot more evidence than just one person's say so.
For example, a scientific track record, peer reviewed articles,
and so on. This kind of stuff just spring out of the blue from
one's head, these days. There is a process to follow and just
one small part of it includes allowing a scientific consensus to
form, among those skilled in the field.
He's tried various banks and venture capital outfits to
secure funding to enable him to do this, but they've all told him to
f**k off.

They may not be smarter about the details, but they are pretty
sharp (if they've managed to keep their money for any length of
time, anyway) about knowing the kinds of characteristics which
are the norm for scams.
Does anyone here fancy a piece of the action?

Not I.
He comes
across as a regular kind of guy and doesn't deserve to be ridiculed.

I'm sure he's a sweet guy. But no claim like this deserves kid
gloves. Being a nice person does nothing to make one's physics
claims any stronger. And physicists can be a rough lot -- but
it's for everyone's own good.

He needs to take the ridicule the way it should be taken -- a
goad for him to show his cards, make his case, and allow others
to validate it. Like anyone else in the science community is
required to do.

Jon
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
This kind of stuff just spring out of the blue from
one's head, these days.

I meant, "This kind of stuff _doesn't_ just spring out of the
blue from one's head, these days."

Jon
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
I meant, "This kind of stuff _doesn't_ just spring out of the
blue from one's head, these days."

Still a mixed metaphor.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
And physicists can be a rough lot -- but
it's for everyone's own good.

Relevant article:

http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-56/iss-2/p54.html


And there are some interesting follow-up letters in the current issue.

I have experienced, first-hand and many times, the culture of rudeness
and arrogance that is common in the physics community. Personally, I
don't think it helps.

John
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Relevant article:

http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-56/iss-2/p54.html


And there are some interesting follow-up letters in the current issue.

I have experienced, first-hand and many times, the culture of rudeness
and arrogance that is common in the physics community. Personally, I
don't think it helps.

Thanks for the article. I can't conclude so completely that it
doesn't help, as you appear to here. It depends, I think.

I enjoyed the article and it's congruent with what I might say,
too. It's important to reserve that behavior to appropriate
times. But my interpretation of my experiences have been quite
positive over the years, much as I can agree with the
difficulties outsiders may feel being either the brunt of it or
watching others "getting theirs."

One can dance around the subject, of course. One can be wary of
feelings. But there is nothing like the hot flame which burns
away the chaff and leaves the stone (or nothing at all.)
Sometimes, the one wielding the flame gets burned right back,
too. But that's just part of the rapid process.

Nothing is so quick to flash away the garbage. And you learn to
tolerate and even appreciate the familiar sting of singed
feelings, because of the results and how the team gets just that
much better as a result.

None of it works well without mutual respect, though.

Jon
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's brilliantly simple, actually. He super-accelerates a rotating
disk until a point is reached where the centrifugal force within it
completely cancels out its own weight. The slightest upward pressure
exerted on the disk will now propel it effortlessly into space. His
main difficulty lies in preventing the counteracting centripetal force
from tearing the disk apart. That's the limiting factor with high
rotational speeds. But it's a truly 'revolutionary' idea, you might
say. :)

Okay. Now I see why he's being abused.

Jon
 
C

Chuck Simmons

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
Since then, I've seen many examples of rude arrogance among
physicists, even when they are dead wrong. Some are very nice and
thoughtful, but the culture permits what I consider to be apalling
boorishness. That incident is one reason I became an engineer.

John

That is unfortunate that you had that sort of experience. When I was a
technician at the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Berkely in the mid 60s,
there was only one physicist I tended to avoid, however, his grad
students, when I was called to work on equipment, were always very nice
and helpful. Quite often they would tell me about their experiments and
their progress. Later when I was a technician at the University of
Arizona, I though I had a theft problem because instruments went missing
from my lab. A physicist who had a lab on the same floor as I said to
me, "Have you looked in Dr X's lab? He has the attitude that what is his
is his and what is yours is negotiable." After that I moved to the
Astronomy department where I found exactly one person I did not get
along with. It was the head of the department. In spite of that, I
worked in the department for a few years until I decided to go back to
school. I found the math faculty quite cordial (only two or three of
them knew I was married to a former head of the department). The then
head of the department was a very grim and formidable man. He loved to
teach and was good at it. He was very patient and was very different
from his appearance. In those early 15 years of work before I got a
degree, I was around various sorts of scientists almost every day -
heck, I did some work for the dendrochronology laboratory. There were
few I disliked.

Chuck
 
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Chuck Simmons

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck said:
That is unfortunate that you had that sort of experience. When I was a
technician at the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Berkely in the mid 60s,
there was only one physicist I tended to avoid, however, his grad
students, when I was called to work on equipment, were always very nice
and helpful. Quite often they would tell me about their experiments and
their progress. Later when I was a technician at the University of
Arizona, I though I had a theft problem because instruments went missing
from my lab. A physicist who had a lab on the same floor as I said to
me, "Have you looked in Dr X's lab? He has the attitude that what is his
is his and what is yours is negotiable." After that I moved to the
Astronomy department where I found exactly one person I did not get
along with. It was the head of the department. In spite of that, I
worked in the department for a few years until I decided to go back to
school. I found the math faculty quite cordial (only two or three of
them knew I was married to a former head of the department). The then
head of the department was a very grim and formidable man. He loved to
teach and was good at it. He was very patient and was very different
from his appearance. In those early 15 years of work before I got a
degree, I was around various sorts of scientists almost every day -
heck, I did some work for the dendrochronology laboratory. There were
few I disliked.

Chuck

Make that I was married to the daughter of a former head of ... .

Chuck
 
J

Jonathan Kirwan

Jan 1, 1970
0
<snip>
There are a lot of people with better credentials who get
ridiculed and don't deserve it;

And a lot of people who do deserve it. More of those, probably.
the history of science and
technology is full of such instances. Usually the people who
do the ridiculing are narrow-minded and lacking in
intelligence to do something brilliant or inventive on their
own.

Berzelius, for example, severely ridiculed Thomson when he
published atomic weights in 1825 supporting Prout's idea that
all elements were composed of units of hydrogen. It wasn't
until 1920 when Rutherford would demonstrate Prout's idea and
give it the name, proton. Narrow minded, perhaps. But no one
realistically doubts Berzelius' brilliance, contributions, or
inventiveness.

Such attacks should be taken as challenges; and legitimate ones
when they come from people like Berzelius.
They're also the same ones who become strangely silent when a
new idea brings in money, or changes the way we do things, or
expands the realms of science.

Are you changing subjects to engineering, perhaps? Science is
about theory and result; nature. This may or may not "bring
money" or "change what we do." But I don't imagine that good
scientists are "strangely silent" when someone expands science
theory and science result. The way you've put those ideas above
suggests you aren't clearly delineating concepts in your mind.
But it's a fact of life that research of any kind takes money
and to get that money, you need to have something working that
will bring in more money— Catch-22. But I wish the guy well.

Some research really is fundamental and important and doesn't
and never will likely "bring in more money" on a scale that
anyone alive today can possibly care about. Does that mean it
should be attended? No. It should be. And I guess one good
thing about some societies today is that some long term research
does get funded.

And on another note, ignoring science and focusing just on the
business end. I've been involved (as a recipient) of seed
investment -- a million dollars of it. I can tell you a little
about the investors -- they were very sharp people who knew well
how to find holes in something someone says but are also very,
very interested in making a killing, too. If there is any solid
possibility of making good money on a project in a reasonably
short period of time (the bigger the carrot, the longer they
might wait for it, up to a point) and if enough people can be
found who back the idea and actually put their time into it
without the investment in place, then investors will be found.
They are a pretty competitive lot. But they won't toss money
down a hole, either. (Or at least, those that will, don't last
long enough for you to ever have a chance to meet one.)

The rule here is that if you can convince 20 people to put in
their weekends and evenings into a project idea and keep it up
for a year, and if the idea has financial value, you'll find the
investment rather easily. But if you are expecting those with
money to make others get interested by paying them to be
interested and that seems to be the only way to find people
supporting the idea, well... maybe it's not such a good idea,
after all.

Jon
 
M

Mike

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's brilliantly simple, actually. He super-accelerates a rotating
disk until a point is reached where the centrifugal force within it
completely cancels out its own weight. The slightest upward pressure
exerted on the disk will now propel it effortlessly into space. His
main difficulty lies in preventing the counteracting centripetal force
from tearing the disk apart. That's the limiting factor with high
rotational speeds. But it's a truly 'revolutionary' idea, you might
say. :)

I dunno, Paul. I'm trying to see this, but I keep coming back to what I was
taught in school: centrifugal force acts in the plane of rotation, not
perpendicular to it. Did I miss a lecture?

If spinning it that fast makes it counteract gravity, wouldn't the
slightest downward pressure propel it effortlessly into the ground?

-- Mike --
 
H

Howard Henry Schlunder

Jan 1, 1970
0
in message
What they do not realize is that Frisbees are aerodynamic
in nature- circular wings and their spin is creating lift.

I disagree that spin creates lift. The spin makes the frisbee stable,
preventing much change in direction of the rotational axis. It is the same
principal that keeps tops, gyroscopes, and bicycles from falling over.

Any lift would be created in the same way fixed wing aircraft make it. They
are bowed up on the top and flat on the bottom. Air can travel straight
across the bottom of it, leaving atmospheric pressure on the bottom, but air
must curve up over the arch of the frisbee, leading to the same amount of
air spread over a larger volume, thus lower the air pressure on the top.
The partial vacuum above it pulls it upwards.

Howard Henry Schlunder
 
B

Ban

Jan 1, 1970
0
Make that I was married to the daughter of a former head of ... .

Chuck

I already thought you live in a state where all male marriages are allowed.
:) apologies for that

ciao Ban
 
Z

Zak

Jan 1, 1970
0
Mike said:
I dunno, Paul. I'm trying to see this, but I keep coming back to what I was
taught in school: centrifugal force acts in the plane of rotation, not
perpendicular to it. Did I miss a lecture?

As soon as something behave a little bit un-intuitive, it is possible to
write nice stories around it. Gyros and magnets are often used (where
does the energy in a magnet come from? It can pull again and again...
now if you make that attracted iron on the magnet 'go away' you can
attract new iron, and so pull out this enormous amount of energy...)

Anyway for the flywheel anti-gravity I could propose the following:


Flywheel with 'centripetal force'

<----- [=======|=======] ----->

\ /
\ direction of gravity /
_V V_
*************
***** *****
*** EARTH ***
** **




As "anyone" can see the curvature of the earth makes the gravity have a
slight non-vertical component. Thus it is possible, ahem, to offset this
through the, ahem, centripetal force.

The vector addition to make everything come out at 0 vertically is left
as an excercise for the reader - but I guess using a slightly
dish-shaped flywheel might help.


:)



Thomas
 
D

Don Pearce

Jan 1, 1970
0
You can't do that. I have a patent on it, and I'm not licensing it to
anyone. :)

Rob

How can you have a patent on a pile of bricks in MY garden? You don't
even know where I live - Ha!

d

_____________________________

http://www.pearce.uk.com
 
L

Leon Heller

Jan 1, 1970
0
Paul Burridge said:
I saw on the BBC regional news yesterday that there's this old chap in
Hastings who's invented an anti-gravity device which he's now
developing. He's tried various banks and venture capital outfits to
secure funding to enable him to do this, but they've all told him to
f**k off. Does anyone here fancy a piece of the action? He comes
across as a regular kind of guy and doesn't deserve to be ridiculed.

I saw the programme (I also live in Hastings) - he's obviously a nutter.

Leon
 
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