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Underground > Laboratory >

Artificial Gravity?

13:09 / 24.03.06

Am I reading this this article right?

Have they actually created a gravity generator in a lab, this sentence suggests that right?

"It demonstrates that a superconductive gyroscope is capable of generating a powerful gravitomagnetic field, and is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the magnetic coil."

This is also interesting,

"Although just 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth's gravitational field, the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts."

Wow in a word, now that's your actual future happening right there.

08:59 / 26.03.06

Hmmm.

By allowing force-carrying gravitational particles, known as the gravitons, to become heavier, they found that the unexpectedly large gravitomagnetic force could be modelled.

Gravitons are still entirely hypothetical, so being able to measure their weight is just one of many things that flags this up as probably being bullshit to me. Unless this is just lazy or intentionally confusing writing that is really saying: "they say that in theoretical models of gravitons, heaver particles would lead to gravity being stronger". Which I would guess is probably trivial and taken for granted.
Not that I'm a physicist or anything.

17:21 / 27.03.06

The researchers do seem sane in some other papers they've published. It's pretty weird stuff, though.

I don't get it all, but it seems like this is just some kind of empirical support for an up-till-now theoretical construct.

This article seems to be clearer about the same discovery. What I *think* it means is that this experiment offers proof that there are gravitons and that they may be more powerful than thought. Or, rather, the other way around -- the hypothetical force "gravitomagnetism" which would be carried by gravitons seems to exist (as in "fits the model this experiment creates") and is much more powerful than expected, meaning that gravitons might be more useful than other models for explaining how gravity works.

"...It demonstrates that a superconductive gyroscope is capable of generating a powerful gravitomagnetic field, and is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the magnetic coil. Depending on further confirmation, this effect could form the basis for a new technological domain, which would have numerous applications in space and other high-tech sectors," says researcher Clovis de Matos.

While 100 millionths of the acceleration due to Earth's gravitational field may not seem particularly astounding, the Gravitomagnetic London Moment detected by the team is a staggering one hundred million trillion times larger than what Einstein's Theory of General Relativity predicts. The results were so astonishing that the team did not believe the results themselves, but it soon turned out that the inconceivable had entered the realms of reality.

Spinning superconductors were components of the anti-gravity experiments from Podkletnov or whatever his name was.

17:28 / 27.03.06

If it helps clarify, "gravitons" would be the quantum particles in any "quantum theory of gravity." The two terms are saying the same thing.

17:52 / 27.03.06

Yeah, I think I was a bit hasty, there. I've been looking into it to try and get my head round it but I'm still on electron coupling in superconductors, so give me a while. Still, the explanation needs some serious tidying up.

20:51 / 27.03.06

I think part of the problem is that it was a simple reprint of an ESA press release. Needed a better translator or something. (I saw the same words in a few different places on Google.)

04:04 / 30.03.06

It does seem to be a reprint of the ESA press release, and not a complete one, at that.

gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field
would have been better phrased as "gravitational equivalent of an electromagnetic field," since it's clear later on that that's what they meant.

The gravitomagnetic field is said to be predicted by Relativity Theory, but is supposed to be negligible in that Theory. Tajmar and DeMatos' findings are significant because:
a) They detected an effect around spinning superconductors that they say provides the first empirical evidence for a gravitomagnetic field.
b) The size of the gravitomagnetic field that was induced can be explained if the (theoretical) gravitons are assumed to be much heavier than predicted by theory.

The really neat thing about that is if they really have generated a "gravitomagnetic" field, then empirical evidence of gravitons could ensue, and then actual study of the beasts. And then, at long last, we (well, abstruse incomprehensible physicists) could start to understand gravity.