Boeing Joins In Anti-Gravity Search 606
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?"
Anti-gravity (Score:1, Funny)
It's about time. (Score:5, Funny)
I was promised flying cars.
Since when do we need shielding against gravity? (Score:3, Funny)
Looks simple (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll take the latter. (Score:5, Funny)
Working prototype lost. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Since when do we need shielding against gravity (Score:2, 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
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)
Re:small (Score:3, Funny)
As soon as you create a machine that allows you to put those two little words on the screen you can do all sorts of things - hey! You could display a whole encyclopedia!!!
As soon as you prove you can do something AT ALL you know its worth figuring out how to do more of it.
Creating a Zero G device is like making love to a beautiful woman. When your young you pull your first woman. Yeah - she might be a dog, but hey! she was willing to sleep with YOU! So you try again with some chick who's a bit nicer looking, or has bigger boobs, or washes a bit more often. Some of you will stay with her - glad not to be alone. But some of you with vision will keep climbing that mountain until you finally get to nail a pretty one! THEN my boy, THEN you'll be floating on air!
That first shag proves it is at least POSSIBLE. Same with the 2%.
( I dont think the observations hold up - but if they HAVE achieved a 2% effect then WOWOWOWOW!!! )
a 2% reduction (Score:2, Funny)
Never have to sit next to a fat person on a plane again.
HH
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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:Looks simple (Score:4, Funny)
In the words of Garth Algar, "It's almost
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.
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.
Park is committing the graver scientific sin (Score:3, Funny)
Podkletnov probably simply committed an experimental error--it happens. That's why experiments get reproduced. Let's be grateful that there are still people willing to come forward with unexpectd scientific results. It may be like cold fusion, but the alternative where people only publish what can be explained by currently fashionable theories would be worse.
Park, however, is apparently giving up on any scientific training he has in order to further some agenda of scientific orthodoxy. Park is committing a grave scientific sin. It's regrettable that people like him create a climate in which people are less and less inclined to come forward with unexplained scientific results.
Re:It's about time. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Or maybe it *is* that unbelievable (Score:2, Funny)
So this is very simple then.
All we need to do is generate a quantium singularity in the vacinity wher we wish to block the forces of gravity...
what do wo do then after we are sucked into the singularity?
Oops... the earth was destroyed today when boeing ran some tests on a gravity shielding system they have been devising..
The american government responded with "we would have been very interested in the device as a doomsday weapon, unfortunately we no longer have anything we want to blow up... If boeing can discover a race or another planet we can threaten with the device, we will be very interested."
Senator hollings was not available for comment.
Gravitons are different, silly (Score:3, Funny)
I once snuck a tennis ball inside and tried to throw it to my buddy on the far side of the cylinder, but it didn't travel in a straight line. Spooky.
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?"
Baron Harkonnen? (Score:2, Funny)