Topic: ESA genrated artificial gravity field: Skeptics commit suicide en masse!  (Read 3641 times)

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Offline Stormbringer

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Artificial Gravity Generator Now Possible?

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=579

An artificial gravity generator is probably the science-fictional pseudo-science device most disliked by physicists. Used as a plot device as early as 1930 by Olaf Stapleton, artificially-produced gravity fields make space flight a lot easier and more bearable for everyone. But it's impossible, right?



(From Facility during testing)
Recent work done by researchers supported by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Martin Tajmar (ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria), Clovis de Matos (ESA-HQ, Paris) and colleagues have successfully produced and measured a very weak gravitomagnetic field.

They summarize their results as follows:

An acceleration field was found to be induced by applying angular accelerations to a superconductor. The field produced is directly proportional to the applied acceleration with a correlation factor higher than 0.96. All mean values are 3.3 times above the facility noise level.
The gravitational field is emitted from the superconductor and follows the laws of field propagation and induction similar to those of electromagnetism as formulated in linearized general relativity.
Gravitational peaks were observed when the superconductor passed its critical temperature while it was rotating. Their sign changed with the orientation of the angular velocity.
For the first time, non-Newtonian gravitational and gravitomagnetic fields of measurable magnitude were observed in a laboratory environment.
The existence of the gravitational Faraday law was shown.
(From Experimental Detection of the Gravitomagnetic London Moment)
The results were presented at a one-day conference at ESA's European Space and Technology Research Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands, 21 March 2006.



(From Experimental Setup)

"We ran more than 250 experiments, improved the facility over 3 years and discussed the validity of the results for 8 months before making this announcement. Now we are confident about the measurement," says Tajmar, who performed the experiments and hopes that other physicists will conduct their own versions of the experiment in order to verify the findings and rule out a facility induced effect.
(From Towards a new test of general relativity)
This is a very intriguing development, if it can be duplicated by other researchers. Artificial gravity fields were almost immediately decried as fantasy, not science fiction. The other method of creating "artificial gravity" was first used in science fiction just a year after Stapleton; Jack Williamson wrote about the City of Space in 1931:


"The City of Space is in a cylinder," Captain Smith said. "Roughly five thousand feet in diameter... The cylinder whirls constantly, with such speed that the centrifugal force against the sides equals the force of gravity on the earth. The city is built around the inside of the cylinder...
(Read more about the cylindrical space station)
Readers might also want to explore a more recently suggested method of obtaining weak artificial gravity for space stations; see this article on non-conductive tethers. Read more about the ESA experiments; nice paper (pdf) also online. Thanks to an alert reader for the tip on this story.

(Story submitted 3/24/2006)


Offline Stormbringer

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Whatsamatta? "Can't" got your tongues? ;D

Offline Just plain old Punisher

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They'll probably use this technology to combat sagging breasts as people age.

"Sex is a lot like pizza.  If you're not careful you can blister your tongue". -Dracho

Offline Death_Merchant

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100 µG is small. Really really small...

and having taken accelerometer measurements, I can attest that they are very susceptible to electric noise at low frequencies.

It will be interesting to see if this is reproduced.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Offline Stormbringer

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100 µG is small. Really really small...

and having taken accelerometer measurements, I can attest that they are very susceptible to electric noise at low frequencies.

It will be interesting to see if this is reproduced.

That's true. i believe the article says that they recieved results well outside what could be expected to result from measurement error. i, too, cannot wait to see if it is independantly reproduced. in a way however, this is a reproduction of podlekev's and boieng's results. as to the small level of effect, i would like to think it is a matter similar to the duration of the wright brother's flight verses todays jet liners; or the computing power of eniac verses todays supercomputers; or any number of such analogies.

Offline Sirgod

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That reminds me, wasn't there an article along long time ago, About Sound waves being used in Propulsion? Does anyone have a copy of that?

Stephen
"You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth - and the amusing thing about it is that they are."- Father Kevin Keaney, Chaplain, Korean War

Offline Dracho

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That was sound being used in fusion, and the researcher is the guy from Purdue that took all of the equipment out of his lab and hid it when peers said they were going to try to duplicate his experiment.

His paper is now viewed with... skepticism.
The worst enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.  - Karl von Clausewitz

Offline Stormbringer

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That reminds me, wasn't there an article along long time ago, About Sound waves being used in Propulsion? Does anyone have a copy of that?

Stephen

There was an article on traveling wave propulsion using a plasma medium. i forget the key words to search for it but i think i posted it here.

Offline Stormbringer

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That was sound being used in fusion, and the researcher is the guy from Purdue that took all of the equipment out of his lab and hid it when peers said they were going to try to duplicate his experiment.

His paper is now viewed with... skepticism.

fortunately he was notthe only researcher to report on this.i remember tracking it for some time. there were other researchers publishing from other research labs reporting virtually the same thing up until this last claim. i think i also may have posted some of them.

Offline Sirgod

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That very well might have been what I was thinking of. The Fusion thingie being Related to the Eventual Propulsion thingie.

Thanks Dracho.

Storm, that very well might have been it. Heck It might have been in one of the Magazines you loaned me also. I'd be interested in Seeing the results yet again.

Stephen
"You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth - and the amusing thing about it is that they are."- Father Kevin Keaney, Chaplain, Korean War