Finnish Scientists Discover Anti-Gravity Device
'Anti-gravity' device gives science a lift
By Robert Matthews and Ian Sample
SCIENTISTS in Finland are about to reveal details of the world's first
anti-gravity device. Measuring about 12" across, the device is said to
reduce significantly the weight of anything suspended over it.
The claim - which has been rigorously examined by scientists, and is due
to appear in a physics journal next month - could spark a technological
revolution. By combating gravity, the most ubiquitous force in the
universe, everything from transport to power generation could be
transformed.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that Nasa, the American space agency, is
taking the claims seriously, and is funding research into how the
anti-gravity effect could be turned into a means of flight.
The researchers at the Tampere University of Technology in Finland, who
discovered the effect, say it could form the heart of a new power source,
in which it is used to drive fluids past electricity-generating turbines.
Other uses seem limited only by the imagination:
Lifts in buildings could be replaced by devices built into the ground.
People wanting to go up would simply activate the anti-gravity device -
making themselves weightless - and with a gentle push ascend to the floor
they want.
Space-travel would become routine, as all the expense and danger of
rocket technology is geared towards combatting the Earth's gravitation
pull.
By using the devices to raise fluids against gravity, and then
conventional gravity to pull them back to earth against
electricity-generating turbines, the devices could also revolutionise
power generation.
According to Dr Eugene Podkletnov, who led the research, the discovery
was accidental. It emerged during routine work on so-called
"superconductivity", the ability of some materials to lose their
electrical resistance at very low temperatures. The team was carrying out
tests on a rapidly spinning disc of superconducting ceramic suspended in
the magnetic field of three electric coils, all enclosed in a
low-temperature vessel called a cryostat.
"One of my friends came in and he was smoking his pipe," Dr Podkletnov
said. "He put some smoke over the cryostat and we saw that the smoke was
going to the ceiling all the time. It was amazing - we couldn't explain it."
Tests showed a small drop in the weight of objects placed over the
device, as if it were shielding the object from the effects of gravity -
an effect deemed impossible by most scientists.
"We thought it might be a mistake," Dr Podkletnov said, "but we have
taken every precaution". Yet the bizarre effects persisted. The team
found that even the air pressure vertically above the device dropped
slightly, with the effect detectable directly above the device on every
floor of the laboratory.
In recent years, many so-called "anti-gravity" devices have been put
forward by both amateur and professional scientists, and all have been
scorned by the establishment. What makes this latest claim different is
that it has survived intense scrutiny by sceptical, independent experts,
and has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Physics-D:
Applied Physics, published by Britain's Institute of Physics.
Even so, most scientists will not feel comfortable with the idea of
anti-gravity until other teams repeat the experiments. Some scientists
suspect the anti-gravity effect is a long-sought side-effect of
Einstein's general theory of relativity, by which spinning objects can
distort gravity. Until now it was thought the effect would be far too
small to measure in the laboratory.
However, Dr Ning Li, a senior research scientist at the University of
Alabama, said that the atoms inside superconductors may magnify the
effect enormously. Her research is funded by Nasa's Marshall Space Flight
Centre at Huntsville, Alabama, and Whitt Brantley, the chief of Advanced
Concepts Office there, said: "We're taking a look at it, because if we
don't, we'll never know."
The Finnish team is already expanding its programme, to see if it can
amplify the anti-gravity effect. In its latest experiments, the team has
measured a two per cent drop in the weight of objects suspended over the
device - and double that if one device is suspended over another. If the
team can increase the effect substantially, the commercial implications
are enormous.
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