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Military Has Been Researching "Anti-Gravity" For Nearly 70 Years
- mLuby 7y agoThere are Gravity Stones from the 60's scattered among US colleges to > "remind students of the blessings forthcoming when a semi-insulator is discovered in order to harness gravity as a free power and reduce airplane accidents" Decent way to get students thinking about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Research_Foundation#Monuments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Research_Foundation#Mo...
- mojomark 7y agoI took a look and found plenty of semi-insulators out there, but no peep about what association those materials have to do with taming the gravitational force - or am I missing the point?
- garmaine 7y agoMaybe it means a gravitational insulator?
- jacobreg 7y agoOh the story behind that is a wild ride from start to finish. Babson's sister drowned when they were children, and he decided the real reason that happened is anti-gravity technology wasn't sufficiently advanced to prevent her drowning. He spent a large amount of his philanthropy funding anti-gravity research for the rest of his life. Edit: Just realized this is mentioned in the article you linked.
- wolfd 7y agoIt's still worth a call-out. The other line in the article that always gets me is "Sometimes, attendees [of the Gravity Research Foundation] sat in chairs with their feet higher than their heads, to counterbalance gravity." It feels like absurd lore in Fallout, but probably actually happened.
- hackerbabz 7y agoWhy did he think to mention airplanes? The whole concept of airplanes would be obsolete with anti-gravity.
- saalweachter 7y agoI feel like in 40% of SF stories it will at one point be important that your spaceship not have the glide ratio of a buttered brick, even if it has an antigravity drive.
- regularfry 7y agoDepends on the nature of the anti-gravity drive. If it's like an engine, which needs some sort of process to operate, then yes, it can fail to work and you want a backup system. If it's a specific material, which works like a magnet in that the anti-gravity effect is present as a result of the passive configuration of matter, less so.
- saalweachter 7y agoThe Enemy could still shoot and destroy your cavorite plates, or the mechanism which turns them so that it does or doesn't block gravity from the desired direction.
- xkcdfan001 7y agoReally? Just do: import antigravity
- GuiA 7y agoIf you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them. Let me warn you, `important problem' must be phrased carefully. The three outstanding problems in physics, in a certain sense, were never worked on while I was at Bell Labs. By important I mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you want to mention. We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack. That is what makes a problem important. When I say that most scientists don't work on important problems, I mean it in that sense. The average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost all his time working on problems which he believes will not be important and he also doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems. Richard Hamming, You and Your Research http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
- kiba 7y agoTime travel back into the past is understood to be impossible.
- myrandomcomment 7y agoThe math say time travel is possible, but the energy required would consume the universe, depending on what paper your read. There is no reason math wise the arrow of time only goes in one direction.
- ekianjo 7y agoErm, there is something fundental discovered in thermodynamics that we call entropy. Energy only flows in one direction and time as well.
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
- officemonkey 7y agoI checked that this article wasn't posted on 1 April.
- walrus01 7y ago> Throughout the expansive Project Outgrowth document, Mead and the other scientists also explored field propulsion, defined as those concepts which use “electric and/or magnetic fields to accelerate an ionized working fluid, hall effect thrusters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-effect_thruster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-effect_thruster totally compliant with conventional physics
- lawlessone 7y agothis too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive
- f2f 7y agooh, you mean since Roswell? ok.
- danschumann 7y agoTo really be able to manipulate gravity, you would also need to manipulate mass, and so far nuclear is the only way I know of, in which we do that, but uhh.. I don't think we'll get anti gravity until we can control mini stars... Little nuclear engines.
- bonestamp2 7y agoWhat if gravity isn't always relative to mass? I mean, all of our scientific evidence suggests it is... but I suppose it's possible that's not quite right.
- gpderetta 7y agoActually we know that gravity in fact not due to mass. Mass is just one component of what actually interacts with gravity.
- tim58 7y agoI change the location of my gravitational field every time I move my body. I modify my gravitational field with every breath as I breath out heavier gases and breath in lighter gases. The thing about gravitational energy is that it's the weakest of all fundamental forces. Nuclear energy is more about releasing the energy stored in the Strong/Weak Nuclear Interaction than it is about gravity.
- fsh 7y agoIt is a common myth that nuclear reactions "turn mass into energy". What actually happens is that the products of the reaction have less binding energy than the initial nucleus. Since energy gravitates, this reduces the mass of the products. The exact same thing happens in chemical reactions. If you burn something, the product are lighter than the initial substances by the mass equivalent of the energy released.
- amdavidson 7y ago"...energy gravitates, this reduces the mass of the products." "...the product are lighter than the initial substances by the mass equivalent of the energy released." How are these not restating "turn mass into energy"? Both scenarios approximate: High Mass => Low Mass + Energy
- ISL 7y agoPhysicists have been searching for variations in the coupling of materials to gravity for more than a century, and by some measure, for more than a millenium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle#Tests_of_the_weak_equivalence_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle#Tests_of... Every experiment anyone has ever tried has come up empty. The equivalence principle is a postulate (Einstein's "happiest idea") that underlies General Relativity, making it essential to test. (Source: This is literally what I do for a living.)
- jeffdavis 7y agoAssuming we find dark matter, do you think it will represent some departure from our current understanding of gravity and how it relates to mass? Or do you think it will just be some boring dust clouds?
- ISL 7y agoWe have already tested the equivalence principle toward dark matter [1]. It appears to fall like everything else, at the 1% or better level. It is extremely difficult for modifications of gravity to simultaneously fit the cosmic microwave background, big-bang nucleosynthesis, galactic rotation curves, and the Bullet Cluster. The safe bet these days is on some sort of non-baryonic dark particle (which is why so many people are looking for them). Most other loopholes are closed or in the process of being closed. The coming decade or two should have something significant to say about dark matter. We will either discover its nature or severely constrain its properties through a plethora of varied experiments and searches. [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.2442.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.2442.pdf
- Brotkrumen 7y agothis is all fine and dandy, but when do you think will we have anti-grav drives?
- ISL 7y agoDon't bet more than you can afford to lose.
- shireboy 7y agoI hear the research has been looking up.
- misterprime 7y agoIs this article just a derivative of the patents that were discussed on HN several weeks ago? I liked that discussion. Plenty of varying perspectives such as "Bob Lasar was proven right!" and "in an arms race, keep your enemy busy [with disinformation]". Is there new info here?
- bonestamp2 7y agoI agree it's just a rehashing of information they know will get a lot of clicks. I have a vested interest in this topic so I've been following it closely and I don't see anything new here.
- hanniabu 7y agoThey must have some reason to think it's possible. I've also always wondered if Coral Castle was really constructed using some ancient lost technique to harness this power. Takes foil hat back off...
- bumblebritches5 7y agoWhich is totally a coincidence that that's around the time of the Roswell crash.
- newsbinator 7y agoWhat is the currently accepted answer to the question, "what is gravity"?
- tus88 7y agoCurvature in spacetime.
- ralusek 7y agoThat which maketh the apple bonk the skull most uninvitedly.
- polynomial 7y agoApple bonkers?
- dvh 7y agoGravity is one of the essential forces in nature. If you want to explain it in simpler terms it is not possible because gravity is the simpler thing. You can use gravity to explain other things, but you cannot use other things to explain gravity.
- ThemalSpan 7y agoMaybe. Maybe not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity
- pmorais 7y agoThat’s not really true. The other 3 “fundamental” forces are irreducible yet still entirely explained by the standard model.
- gpderetta 7y agoWell, gravity is similarly explained by general relativity.
- 7y ago
- jml7c5 7y agoThis is a terrible article that is little more than conspiracy theorist baiting. For example, the author takes this quote from Ben Rich: >“We have some new things. We are not stagnating. What we are doing is updating ourselves, without advertising. There are some new programs, and there are certain things, some of them 20 or 30 years old, that are still breakthroughs and appropriate to keep quiet about [because] other people don’t have them yet.” and by throwing the quote at the end of a long series of anti-gravity/EM papers tries to give the impression that the military is hiding something wild like a secret anti-gravity device. It's very National Enquirer. There are other examples of this. The discussion of the WEAV pulls the quote "no moving parts and assures near-instantaneous response time", which presumably is to hint that this explains those instantly-accelerating discs seen in various videos. That "near-instantaneous response time" refers to the ability to change thrust quickly and not velocity is, of course, obscured.
- DoctorOetker 7y ago>This is a terrible article From what I have read up till now on thedrive, the whole outlet is terrible, all their articles seem to be drivel like this.
- duchenne 7y agoI love the following Feynman's quote: ``In those days, one of the theories proposed was that the planets went around because behind them were invisible angels, beating their wings and driving the planets forward. You will see that this theory is now modified! It turns out that in order to keep the planets going around, the invisible angels must fly in a different direction and they have no wings. Otherwise, it is a somewhat similar theory!`` The point is that, still today, we have no idea why mass attracts mass. We observe it. We measure it. We model it. We predict it. But, we do not understands its mechanism. At that time, it was making people crazy to think that an object could remotely affect another one. Now, people just accept it. But, when you think about it, it really sounds magic.
- croh 7y agoThus journey in spirituality starts.
- lliamander 7y ago> At that time, it was making people crazy to think that an object could remotely affect another one. Astrology?
- rurban 7y agoGravity is very similar to magnetism, a "magically" attracting force of distinct objects. The explanation is very easy via fields. Just trying to explain it via particles will get you into trouble, e.g. the flawed standard model, or the Higgs. Einstein was pretty close in his spacetime bending explanation, but this still doesn't explain dark matter or the recent gravity experiments with fast rotating magnets in strong supra conductors. There are better gravity field theories out there, but they are lacking experimental verification. Some experiments are cheap, but most are cosmic scale, beyond simple galaxies. This army guy came up with nice and cheap experiments, similar to Tajmar's experiments. We will see what will come out of it. Tajmar is also holding an old patent of an Anti-Gravity device, which nobody built so far. The army device with two rotating fields seems to be much better.
- ben_w 7y ago
- StrotherLJ 7y agoI postulate that in an expanding universe, stationary particle don't move, thereby giving the illusion of gravity. Seriously, what is that nonsense doing on Hacker News.
- philip142au 7y agoGravity is related to time and entropy.
- excalibur 7y ago> Throughout his career, Witten conducted research into gravitation, quantum gravity, and general relativity. The last one of these is the theory first put forward by Albert Einstein that proposes that gravity is essentially a warp or curve in the geometry of space-time caused by mass. You're assuming that your readers are already familiar with quantum gravity, but need an introduction to general relativity?
- martincmartin 7y agoThey're assuming that the readers will infer, from the name "quantum gravity", that it has to do with gravity. From just the name, "general relativity," people who don't know what it is probably wouldn't guess it's a theory of gravity.
- sgt 7y agoThey'll at some point stumble across a Goa'uld device that does precisely that. But for the love of God, don't just plug it in!
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoNot surprising in the 1950's. Every other science fiction author was a believer - they wrote endlessly about shields that 'blocked' gravity, fields that interacted with gravity, materials that had variable gravitational force, and on and on. Their speculation helped fuel/was fueled by science investigation of that era.
- conexions 7y agoFor anyone interested, a book was written on this about 15 years ago by a reporter from "Janes Defense Weekly". "The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology". Not as tin-hat as you might think, mostly a story of a lot of dead ends while trying to research some DARPA dark projects.
- claytongulick 7y agoNot sure how this topic could be covered without a mention of Dr. Ning Li's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning_Li_(physicist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning_Li_(physicist)
- carapace 7y agoIf you like this, do check out Rex Research. You have to sift through a lot of BS but there's some great stuff buried in it. http://www.rexresearch.com/index.htm http://www.rexresearch.com/index.htm