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Re: 'Spinning'

On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Chuck Britton wrote:

Bill B's spinning disk magnets just MAKE me ask the list:

Is anybody familiar with the theoretical and experimental
considerations of spinning superconducting disks producing a
'measurable' decrease in the local gravitational field strength
directly over the spinning disk?

That's an experiment inspired by a quantum gravity theory. Podkletnov was
kicked out of Tampere university (Finland) after publicizing it.
"Antigravity" experiments are as taboo as c-violations or Cold Fusion,
especially if they are successful. If a chemist actually manages to
convert lead into gold, he'd better be quiet about it, or he'll bring
shame upon his institution and quickly find himself out on the street.
WIRED magazine had an interview, which is still on www:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigravity_pr.html
http://www.sightings.com/ufo/nasaendors.htm

If he's wrong, then it's just another crackpot incident. If he's right,
then here's an appropriate quote:

"The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]...presents
difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss
the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's
insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed
impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually
accomplished."
-Sir Richard van der Riet Wooley, British astronomer, reviewing P.E.
Cleator's "Rockets in Space", Nature, March 14, 1936

The trouble with actively attacking obvious crackpotism is that sometimes
the crackpots are right. So, not only were scientists prejudiced against
flying machines, AND against space ships, but now also against gravity
engines? If we're lucky, Podkletnov's observations are wrong and such
things are truely impossible. This hopefully won't become another
historical event where a new discovery is suppressed by a hostile response
from those who are protecting us all against physicists to dare to
experiment with obvious crackpotism like "quantum mechanical gravity
shielding."


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William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com http://www.amasci.com
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