I found a counter-quote to Michealson's assertion about progress being
made only in the sixth decimal place. This one was in the Science Joke
archive. From the title of the reference one would suppose that Wigner
reaches an opposite conclusion to that of Horgan when researching the
same topic:
There is no natural phenomenon that is comparable with the sudden
and apparently accidentally timed development of science, except
perhaps the condensation of a super-saturated gas or the explosion of
some unpredictable explosives. Will the fate of science show some
similarity to one of these phenomena? - Eugene P. Wigner
...in an essay ``The Limits of Science'' intended to estimate them,
originally in Procs. of the _Amer. Philosophical Soc._ v. 94, #5 (1950)
Though Horgan believes that scientists of the turn of the century did NOT
believe as he does, that science is finished, I suspect that Horgan
himself has put an end to this foolishness. In fifty or 100 years, after
more huge upheavals brought about by new discoveries have taken place,
someone is bound to start claiming that Science is Done. But next time
the more wise among us won't have just Michaelson as a reference. Instead
they'll be able to whip out an ancient copy of a silly book written by a
certain senior writer from Scientific American, and shame the doom-sayers
into silence.
Speaking of discoveries, see below. Astounding, Dr. Cavor! ;)
......................uuuu / oo \ uuuu........,.............................
William Beaty voice:206-781-3320 bbs:206-789-0775 cserv:71241,3623
EE/Programmer/Science exhibit designer http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/
Seattle, WA 98117 billb@eskimo.com SCIENCE HOBBYIST web page
Date: 01 Sep 96 11:26:42 EDT
From: Chris Tinsley
Reply-To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Tampere 'antigravity'
Article in Sunday Telegraph (UK), September 1 1996, page 3.
BREAKTHROUGH AS SCIENTISTS BEAT GRAVITY.
by Robert Matthews and Ian Sample
SCIENTISTS in Finland are about to reveal details of the world's first
anti-gravity device. Measuring about 12in 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 combatting 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 bitcome 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.