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Boeing Joins In Anti-Gravity Search
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jul 29, 2002 07:12 AM
from the believe-what-you-will dept.
from the believe-what-you-will dept.
SimcoFrappe writes: "BBC News reports that Boeing is trying to extend the research of Russian scientist Dr. Yevgeny Podkletnov to develop a device to shield against gravity. The military branch of the British BAe Systems announced a similar program in 2000. One step closer to cheap space travel or just more sci-fi jive?"
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Boeing Joins In Anti-Gravity Search
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It's about time. (Score:5, Funny)
I was promised flying cars.
Re:It's about time. (Score:5, Funny)
I'll take the latter. (Score:4, Troll)
First NASA, now Boeing. Rubbish, I'm inclined to believe.
Re:I'll take the latter. (Score:5, Funny)
Since when do we need shielding against gravity? (Score:3, Funny)
Worth it (Score:5, Interesting)
But... if on the off chance that it really works and could be used in commercial projects and could bring billions (trillions?) in sales and licensing royalties...
Seems like a worthwhile risk to me.
Looks simple (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Looks simple (Score:4, Funny)
Powered, no doubt, by a slice of buttered toast strapped to the back of a cat!
But wait, how will cat-based purr-petual motion machine work if there's no gravity to pull the cat towards the floor? It's going to take all of Boeing's engineering talent to work that one out
Re:Looks simple (Score:4, Funny)
In the words of Garth Algar, "It's almost
Re:Looks simple (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, much research remains to be done before the BT-FAGE becomes reality. We are dealing with forces far beyond our present understanding of the universe. All experimenters who have attempted to harness these forces have ended up with multiple flesh wounds, covered in butter, or both.
Its not THAT Unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)
Some elementary electromagnetism courses will teach you about faraday cages, which block electromagnetic radiation. Pretty much everyone has experienced this. Ever walk into a concrete building and lose cell phone reception? This is because the concrete is reinforced with steel bars which form a kind of metalic cage around you, this is a faraday cage.
Now like electromagnetism, gravity is one of the four fundamental forces. If we can create a shield to block one of them why not block gravity?
Re:Its not THAT Unbelievable (Score:4, Insightful)
People used to say that "extraordinary claim needs extraordinary proof". But, if you want to siphon money from the military-industry complex "extraordinary dubious claim makes you money".
Or maybe it *is* that unbelievable (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm, although I agree it's difficult to say that shielding against gravity is impossible, the above is not exactly sound logic. You need to look at the origin of the forces in question to see why.
The general relativistic model of gravity as the effect of warped spacetime would seem to indicate that blocking gravity could be a fundamentally different problem than blocking electromagnetic radiation.
Electromagnetic radiation travels through spacetime, i.e. it follows the curvature of spacetime. Blocking it is simply a matter of constructing the right kind of interfering device, such as a faraday cage, to prevent electromagnetic photons/wave packets from penetrating.
OTOH, according to GR, gravity as we perceive it is essentially a secondary effect due to the curvature of spacetime. To "block" it, you would have to be able to uncurve spacetime in the vicinity you wish to block. This is a little different from blocking photons. The only thing we've ever discovered that's capable of warping spacetime is "mass". So sure, we can counter the effects of gravity, there's no mystery about it: simply use a mass as large as the mass of the object whose gravitational effects you want to counter.
Unfortunately, in the case of gravity, this doesn't really work the way we want. Let's say I create a black hole with a similar mass to that of the Earth (I have a fairly well-equipped basement). In the vicinity of the black hole, I would feel a force towards the hole (please no goatse jokes) of approximately 1G (adjust masses to achieve appropriate effect outside the Schwarzchild radius, etc.) So if I hang the black hole from my ceiling, I could create a micro-gravity environment in my basement, with the force upward cancelling the force downward.
Astute readers have by now noticed a slight problem with this scenario. Despite my well-equipped basement, I don't happen to possess a means for suspending an Earth-mass object a few feet above another Earth-mass object (i.e. the Earth itself). There's not going to be a heck of a lot I can do about the fact that my black hole is going to shoot down towards the earth under a combined force of 2G and a momentum that would require numbers with "E" in them to describe. (I had better not be standing beneath it, if I want to avoid rather nasty tidal effects as the black hole travels through my body - that killed a guy on Mars once.)
Because of the nature of gravity, "shielding" against its effects may not even be meaningful. Even if it is possible, it's highly doubtful that we will stumble across the solution by random experimentation with e.g. spinning disks. Spinning disks might confuse researchers, but they don't confuse the universe.
Re:Or maybe it *is* that unbelievable (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that gravitons are the particle representation of quantum physicists' inability to think of things other than particles.
Hmmm... that probably sounded like more of a flame than it should have. It's really one of those "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" things.
Re:Or maybe it *is* that unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing we've ever discovered that's capable of warping spacetime is "mass".
IANAP, but I've heard that, according to some current theories, it's actually energy that curves the space. Matter just happens to have a lots of it. I would think this would have radical cosmological implications as the mass (with respect to gravity) of the universe would be a constant. Or maybe it's just an urban legend.
Let's say I create a black hole with a similar mass to that of the Earth (I have a fairly well-equipped basement). In the vicinity of the black hole, I would feel a force towards the hole
Not quite, because the force is inverse square of distance. If the mass of the black hole is 1 earth, you'd have 1G at the distance of earth's radius, i.e., about 6300km. At one meter... have fuuunnnnnnnnn......!
There's not going to be a heck of a lot I can do about the fact that my black hole is going to shoot down towards the earth under a combined force of 2G
To be precise, the earth would pull the black hole towards it with 1G and the black hole would pull earth with 1G (on average). It would therefore accelerate just as much towards the earth as earth would accelerate towards it, if we look from somewhere else, say from Sun.
Even if it is possible, it's highly doubtful that we will stumble across the solution by random experimentation with e.g. spinning disks.
Assuming that it was random. I think I saw an argument a few years back that Einstein had mentioned about such a possibility.
Working prototype lost. (Score:4, Funny)
Derision for Podkletnov (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite quote from one of the above:
Re:Derision for Podkletnov (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely if the energy required to maintain the "gravity shield" exceeds the energy output by the wheel, the laws of thermodynamics hold? That quote only applies if there is a gravity-proof material that doesn't require any power to function, must as a waterproof material doesn't require a power source to remain impermeable to water. The Pokdletnov device does require a power source.
Just what science didn't need... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem with "research" like this is that it brings out the very worst in the peer review system which usually serves scientists so well. As soon as a journal dares to publish something so dubious, there is a huge backlash by the establishment, to the extent that real, innovative research can be stifled.
The best-known example of this phenomenon was the cold-fusion debacle of the late '80s. A group of researchers claimed (essentially) to have initiated nuclear fusion in a beaker using heavy water and palladium electrodes. No-one else was able to reproduce the experimental results. The result, however, was not just to discredit the report's authors, but to cause a scepticism so immense that no electro-chemist could publish a paper which mentioned a similar experiment. I can see the same happening to unsuspecting scientists working on superconductors now.
I would link to an interesting editorial in this month's NewScientist [newscientist.com], which describes the phenomenon in considerable detail, but it would appear that they only put it in the print version. Shame, that.
Artificial gravity? (Score:4, Insightful)
But what about artificial gravity? Once we get into space zero-gravity is a problem. Do you just rotate it to the left instead of right or vice-versa?
The Gravity Stone (Score:4, Interesting)
History Repeats, Don't Sell Nukes (Score:3, Interesting)
erconductors today are like electricity was in the 1800s. Back then, we understood little about how magnatism and electricity worked. It had a mystique about it that led to gypsies and sayonces (sp?) trying to contact the dead. Commonly, they used this new 'electricity' to contact lost relatives, loved onces, ect. Of course, they were debunked.
Superconductivity is today's mystery phenomenon. We see things float in air, we see electricity move sans resistance, and other principal physics phenomena simply discarded. It's something new, and not as well known. With this mystique, people can claim to have done wonderous things, and have at least a portion of the general population go along with it. Or invest in it.
Also, have you seen the Russian economy? How the brilliant scientists are treated? There's no money for them, they live in near poverty. I don't blame a Russian scientist if he tries to make money this way, legitimate or not. Personally, i find it much preferrable than him selling old USSR equipment (uranium, nukes, hot material, ect) to the highest bidder, in order to feed his family. If you don't think so, that's your problem.
Results not reproduced so far (Score:4, Informative)
He pointed to the fact that an Irish university (sorry - don't remember which) had spent quite some time reproducing the experiment, and that this re-running of the experiment had failed to verify a single claim.
I'd love this to be true. Sadly however, at this moment I'd have to put myself in the non-believer camp.
Cheers,
Ian
Remember Josephson junctions? (Score:3, Funny)
Or maybe BAe are trying it, and have succeeded with Boeing...
The way things are going... (Score:5, Funny)
a simpler way (Score:3, Funny)
1. Cats always land on their feet, and
2. A buttered slice of bread will undoubtedly land on the carpet butter side down,
we could strap said buttered slice of bread onto the cats back, then drop the whole thing to the floor.
Re:a simpler way (Score:5, Funny)
Under the quantum physics interperetation, since both the cat's feet and the buttered toast are equally likely to land on the floor, the cat-toast enters a superposition where both cat and toast are simultaneously on the floor until it is observed, at which point a radioactive particle decays, and the cat is skinned in a number simultaneous, equally likely, yet distinct ways.
Relativity predicts that the intense attraction to the floor will, in fact, bend space-time in such a way that the floor actually is in contact with both the cat and the toast. If the cat is of the black variety, then it will thus cross its own path, generate a singularity, and vanish in a puff of logic.
The debate continues, as attempts at experimental verification have thus far failed. Dr. Kibble at Princeton's IAS said "Look, have YOU ever tried to hold a cat still and strap some friggin' TOAST to its back?"
Military Uses (Score:5, Funny)
Step 1: Lower gravity to 0
Step 2: Wait for enemies to accelerate upwards.
Step 3: Increase gravity to 255, watch enemies splatter all over the ground.
Been there, done that. (Score:3, Interesting)