Experimental Results on Podkletnov's
Impulse Gravity Generator

Abstract

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 16:13:38 GMT (147kb)
Impulse Gravity Generator Based on Charged YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-y} Superconductor with Composite Crystal Structure
Authors: Evgeny Podkletnov, Giovanni Modanese
Comments: LaTeX, 32 pages, 7 figures in separated GIF and JPG files
Subj-class: General Physics

The detection of apparent anomalous forces in the vicinity of high-Tc superconductors under non equilibrium conditions has stimulated an experimental research in which the operating parameters of the experiment have been pushed to values higher than those employed in previous attempts. The results confirm the existence of an unexpected physical interaction. An apparatus has been constructed and tested in which the superconductor is subjected to peak currents in excess of 10^4 A, surface potentials in excess of 1 MV, trapped magnetic field up to 1 T, and temperature down to 40 K. In order to produce the required currents a high voltage discharge technique has been employed. Discharges originating from a superconducting ceramic electrode are accompanied by the emission of radiation which propagates in a focused beam without noticeable attenuation through different materials and exerts a short repulsive force on small movable objects along the propagation axis. Within the measurement error (5 to 7 %) the impulse is proportional to the mass of the objects and independent on their composition. It therefore resembles a gravitational impulse. The observed phenomenon appears to be absolutely new and unprecedented in the literature. It cannot be understood in the framework of general relativity. A theory is proposed which combines a quantum gravity approach with anomalous vacuum fluctuations.

[Evgeny Podkletnov]:

When you hold your hand in the projection area during the discharge you can feel the force or a short push to your hand together with a kind of an air push on your hand. If you do not keep you hand tight but a bit relaxed you can feel the slightest movement of the skin on the palm of the hand. The feeling is a bit strange and it is not easy to describe it. No electric shock, just a feeling that the hand is moved similar to the acceleration in a fighter plane but more powerful and very short. No sensation of cold or warmth. It is technically impossible to measure the air pressure as the gravity impulse itself is perhaps one million of a second or even shorter, the time of the electric discharge is much longer. The main impulse is harmless but the backward radiation is dangerous.

I do not regard our experiment as something extraordinary but more as a natural development of scientific knowledge in the area of gravity research. Unfortunately I have a long history of sufferings from different institutions if gravity is concerned. Various magazines refuse to publish my articles because the term "antigravity" is a forbidden one in the physical community and also because the field of gravity is a crossing point of several sciences and the knowledge of various subjects in physics and chemistry is needed. People in my team represent experimental and theoretical physics, electricity, physics of low temperatures and superconductors. We do not regard the goal of our research and the latest publication as the attempt to get a Nobel prize, these awards are given mainly for political reasons. We wanted simply to prove that it is possible to control gravity creating artificial gravity field or changing the local gravity field or organising strong gravity impulses. Modern physics should be changed in many aspects. Humanity did not have much progress in understanding Gravity mechanism since the times of Holy inquisition. You know what happened to a guy who was trying to prove that the earth was round at that time. So, we are prepared to fight with "politically correct science" and we do not expect to get any reward for our achievement. Still, we do not lose hope and we are glad that many real scientists are on our side of the barricade.


Discussion and Commentary:

[R. N. Boyd]:

I am convinced that the same effect will show up, without the requirement for superconductors, when the rotation velocity is increased to either the mass resonance of the rotating object (which will, of course, vary with the material used), or to a rotational velocity exceeding 27,000 rpm. One of the keys here is high voltage applied to the rotating object.

The effect has a direct relationship to the experiments at NASA by Li and Torr, which also involved voltages applied to a rotating object.

I've been saying "high voltage on counter-rotating masses" for two years now on this forum. How many times do I need to repeat myself?

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve which I have been discussing with Russ and Vic, which I expect will enhance the effect, and produce additional anomalies, at room temperature, with no exotic materials or vacuum requirements.

If these experiments are successful, then there may be a method to accomplish similar results in a solid-state material with no moving parts. (Hint: Hyperdimensional materials)

Oh, and by the way, the direction of rotation of the single rotating mass will make a difference, due to the chirality of the vacuum, and the axis of universe, both of which cause spatial anisotropies which are locally observable.

[Question from B. Hamilton]: I have been saying "counter-rotating magnets" for a long time. I have still not tried the experiment. What do you think?

[R. N. Boyd]:

I've looked at this for a long time, since the 1970's. Moray King has had a similar attraction to the concept.

If one considers the magnetic field as a vortex in some superfluidic media, and we cause an interaction such that two vortexes shall intersect rotating in opposite directions, what should we expect to observe, based on fluid mechanics?

Consider unipolar and homopolar induction. Why is it that when a magnet and a conductor are rotated while fixed to each other, that current is produced in the conductor at the same rate as when the magnet and the conductor are *not* fixed and rotated or counter- rotated separately? Remember that there is always a relation between E and B...

Lombardi, Landau, and Lifshitz, all pointed out that a static magnetic field has a component of angular momentum. The angular momentum of the fields is the volume integral of the fields, which is:

W cross (E cross B)

where W is the angular velocity (field?), E is the electric feild, and B is the magnetic field.

Or the Lorentz force equation as:

E = (omega X r) X B

The volume charge density due to [E = B omega r] has a nonvanishing divergence, which is at odds with both general and special relativity, because this shows that 'absolute' rotational motion of a rotating disc relative to an inertial frame can be determined. [See: Landau and Lifshitz, "The Classical Theory of Fields, at page 79.]

Sommerfeld, whom I greatly respect and admire, based on the above, concluded: "...Minkowski's theory (i.e., Special Relativity) ...is not directly applicable to problems involving rotation." [Sommerfeld, Volume III, at page 363]

As you say, such an experiment is trivial to perform...

But, what will you be looking for? And how will you instrument it?

Look at http://hometown.aol.com/dmboss1021/NEWPH/Page37.html

"...theory that could lead to experiments to verify or dismiss the notion that this aether flow/stretch/change in density/reflection of 4D wave motion from boundary layers, as actually "warping" the space (aether) around magnets in such a way as to set up a preferential drift of the natural "gravity flux", and that the same or opposite "warp pattern" of other magnets interact to cause the "force" of attraction and repulsion. Thereby showing the possibility that magnets are gravity modifiers, and their forces are in fact gravity! (resulting from the patterns produced by the flow of aether)"

I haven't looked at the antigrav archive yet, but here is a relevant posting from the forcefeildpropulsion egroup. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forcefieldpropulsionphysics/message/591

"We've been through all this before on antigravity forum. Last I knew, Project Greenglow had committed some research funding in this direction of enquiry of charged counter-rotating discs."

Remember this? Feb 2000. During this month, Greenglow made mention that some funding would be designated for such researches. Looks like Podkletnov and Modanese got there first!

A.I.Veinik made tens of types of generators based on rotating masses. These generators could change their weight (Very slightly. If a mass ~1 kg is rotating with the angular velocity ~ 20.000 rpm then the "inner force" ~30*10 -5 N.), and their "chronal" fields could affect practically all physical and biological objects and could not be shielded by "usual" screens [4]. It is also useful to note V.M.Yurovitsky's patented generators which are based on spinning magnets. V.M.Yurovitsky was the first who pointed out that many phenomena could be explained as a result of manifestation of long-range fields generated by spin or angular momentum density. Later generators based on mechanically rotating magnets were developed by V.V.Bobyr and many others. As a result of a series of experiments conducted in the Institute of Material Research ("Institut problem materialovedeniya" in Russian) (Kiev, Ukraine) it was established that the emanation produced by this sort of generator is able to change the inner structure of any substance (its spin structure).

"The largest effects might be produced by solid state methods that manifest dual, counter-rotating, acoustical, lattice spinor waves." -Moray King

These were all early in 2000, involved with studies of inertial motion:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forcefieldpropulsionphysics/message/586
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forcefieldpropulsionphysics/message/589
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forcefieldpropulsionphysics/message/613
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forcefieldpropulsionphysics/message/622

The Podkletnov experiment is similar to one conducted by Morton (see "Breaking the Law of Gravity, by Charles Platt 3/98," http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigravity_pr.html.


[Moray King]:

Neil,
You're right on...
Moray


[Tony Smith]:

With respect to http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0108005 Impulse Gravity Generator Based on Charged YBa2Cu3O7_y Superconductor with Composite Crystal Structure by Evgeny Podkletnov and Giovanni Modanese you ask "... Comments anyone? ...".

This is something that Neil Boyd had mentioned during the last few days, and I have looked at the paper.

I don't have enough details of their actual experiments to comment on whether or not their experimental observations are correct (I am not sure whether they are seeing "really unusual" effects or things related to plasmas, paramagnetic levitation such as already done with frogs at http://www.sci.kun.nl/hfml/levitate.html or some other "normal" phenomena).

However, I do have some comments on the theory. Their paper states:

"... In nature, mass dipoles do not exist as real sources. Nevertheless, the dipolar fluctuations mathematically have such a form.

Being vacuum fluctuations, they are invariant under translations and Lorentz transformations, they are homogeneously allocated in space and at all length scales. That is, the dipolar fluctuations correspond to the fields produced by dipoles of various sizes, distributed in a uniform way.

They can only show their presence if, in some way, their homogeneity and uniformity are broken. ...".

In my opinion, such "dipolar fluctuations" may be theoretically equivalent to what I call conformal graviphotons, which under normal circumstances cancel out but under certain geometries and circumstances can produce what is equivalent to special conformal solutions of Maxwell's equations, and which are (like Podkletnov and Modanese dipolar things) not reduced by the big factor G ( which is like 1 / planckmass^2 ).

The dipolar mass fluctuations can generate my graviphotons just as electromagnetic dipolar things can generate EM photons.

My opinion is reinforced by their observation that they get better results with toroidal structures than spherical ones, since my conformal graviphoton stuff works well with Rodin Coil geometries, which are related to torus geometry.

This is also probably closely related to (if not also equivalent to) the conformal structures and 6-dimensional things that Ark is now using in his new paper not yet released.


[Ed Scanlon]:

I believe Podkletnov's recent experiments sound very much like Morton's. It may interest you to read up on Pete Lindaman's discoveries in regard to radiant electricity. Whether or not you "believe" in that phenomenon, he brings up a few points that are too interesting to ignore. The most important, I believe, the one that holds relevance here, is the so called "magnetically quenched spark gap." Pete has told us that, by placing a magnetic field around a HV spark gap, one can increase or decrease local potentials. Essentially, a voltage amplication occurs, and objects local to the device can have positive or negative charge drained, or added to them, at a distance, with this method. It seems, in Podkletnov's experiments, this was taken a bit further, and certainly to a degree far greater than Morton.

Morton's last work, in an article I read on the web (whose link may have been posted on this forum..however, unfortunately, I've lost it), used a neon sign transformer, circuitry to form a difference in potential, a pie plate shaped positive electrode, and a thin metal pipe cathode. The air spark gap between the two was covered in a glass dielectric. So, Morton was still on his "force concentration" kcick. In the article, he described a type of supraluminal exchange of momentum between the capacitors. Indeed, even Lindaman believes that pure potential propagates instantly within a conductor. As a random side note, Sparky Sweet also mentioned the latter, peculiar idea in his Something From Nothing paper.

It is a mystery to me exactly why superconductors would be used in a discharge experiment except for utilizing the "magnetic quenching," and potential modification effect. I've done some experiments on my own in this regard, using permanent magnet quenched gaps, and *believe* the effect to be real, however, I'm a lay amateur without good instruments. My methods too, are, intuitive, and objective "studies" have not been done as of yet.

At any rate, I just wanted to mention Lindaman's information in regard to this stuff. Do a search for "cold electricity" and I'm sure you'll find his site.

It is clear the unique characteristics of the specially designed superconductor disk is a requirement for the effect. The difference between this disk and ordinary YBCO SC would be between a Pentium chip and a solar cell. It would not be surprised when an solar cell can not run an operating system.

This is why I believe others have acquired only transient phenomena. In Podkletnov's original experiment there were several factors which I find very important:

Heat conductivity of the material (which was high) and... a gradient of entropy was present in the material--where crystalline structure was more highly organized, and much more finely so, toward the top of the disk, and more dispersed and random at the bottom.

The former point has an important relationship to the latter. The superconducting condition degrades in quality and time duration toward the bottom, where it is more highly conserved toward the top. This is a form of potential gradient, in many respects. I would wonder what a cone shaped DC coil, spun to high RPM's in an AC field and stable physical arrangement, would do, given this reasoning? I say this because I believe, or hope, the material only trapped a condition replicable by the application of more "brute means." So, perhaps this is indeed only a form of B-field torsion (as has been suggested by others than myself)?

A point I must concede is that the lattice structure of the material likely amplifies the phenomena, especially in regard to any nucleon spin resulting from the rotation of the disk. I wonder if the nucleons retained momentum as the total disk speed was decreased**+. The reason being, that would form a potential of increasing entropy, as an deceleration of increasing negentropy, in the scalar sense, distributed in the physical crystal lattice gradient, forming another, vectored relationship, pointing in the vertical orientation. All of these factors go in to play with how the B-field is distributed by this particular form of superconducting lattice.

How the transference of this energy occurs to the subjected materials, or what the mechanism involved may actually be, I have no idea. But I believe enough information may be extrapolated from this experiment to provide for a "science hobbyist" friendly replication. The basic method has been suggested by me, and if so inclined, I invite anyone to step up to the plate and experiment or discuss the ideas.


[Bill Beatty]:

Don't miss the important point: Morton did all this decades ago, with no helium chamber and no superconductors. Gotta VandeGraaff machine? ;)

Also, note that in Podkletnov's paper the mysterious "beam" is reaching out ONE HUNDRED FIFTY METERS, while the pendulum mass being deflected is inside a vacuum chamber. At the very least, this cannot be sound. If it is a mistake, it has to be some kind of weird EM thing rather than an acoustic pulse. But radio waves don't form the tight beams described unless their wavelength is way less than 1mm (it would be sub-millimeter microwaves or shorter). And radio waves don't deflect pendula unless the energy flow is absolutely immense. If you stuck your hand in a narrow beam of megawatt microwaves, you'd know it! Same if it was x-rays. (Test for x-rays with some zinc sulfide glow-in-the-dark plastic toys.)

But then... he claims that the beam goes right through metal objects. If it was microwaves, the metal would act just like a mirror.

If this is real, then someone should try building a tiny one that runs at 10KV instead of 1MV. Rather than increasing the voltage, increase the FIELD. ... then make a dense array of them on a PCB. It would be like an LED rather than an arc lamp: much safer and much easier to use for hobbyist-style experiments.

Do these things put out a reaction thrust? The articles in ESJ seem to conclude no. (I'm missing one ESJ issue though.) Supposedly it produces thrust UPON distant matter. More like a Star Trek tractor beam than like an antigravity engine, eh?

One ESJ article mentions "tunneling talcum powder into containers", also "vanishing powder." What does that mean?


[Colin Quinney]:

I have some rotation ideas that may enhance the effect based on theory recently presented on the Greenglow forum, and also (possibly) on the Morton Effect. Our understanding proceeds from experiment.

The various paths lead to the same goal, but I believe that the use of SC's will simply cloud the issue with complexity at this time. This may set back the basic understanding of the underlying principles for years to come, unless simpler non-SC experiments are concurrently done. Here is a post that I sent to the Vortex list yesterday on this subject:

A great paper Hamdi. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. A related phenomena MAY be the Morton Effect, first described in Electric Spacecraft, http://www.electricspacecraft.com/bissues.htm - (#'s 4, 29, 30, 31,) where a high KV discharge disturbed some (shielded) powder at some distance. This occurred in-line with the spark also, I believe.

There is another possibly related paper in the 2001 June issue. (#32.) Emeritus Professor Les Hale of Penn State University describes how Electric Polarization Waves from lightning-related electric fields, when rapidly applied, will penetrate normal metallic shielding much more deeply than predicted by the mathematical concept of skin depth.

"Depending on the geometry, the polarization waves will frequently penetrate the shielding virtually unattenuated, because in the 1-D approximation they satisfy curl E = 0, and hence have no time-varying magnetic fields." (Les Hale. ESJ. June 2001. Issue #32, p.8)

I note that neither of these effects were listed under "other possible explanations".

IMHO, the use of high strength electric fields and/or supercurrents in probing the relationship to inertial and gravitational mass is worthy of research even without the use of SC's . (KIS)


[Steve Burns]:

I know aether is more exciting but the Halbach Array can easily be explained with anisotropic domain rotation. Since magnets are anisotropic materials, certain crystallographic axes are favored by the magnetic moments that prefer to lie along these directions since this results in lower quantum energy states. Applying an external magnetic field causes the domains to rotate occupying higher energy states. Removing the external field causes the domains to swing back to the lower energy alignment state (reversible). In addition, the magnet itself will have a higher permeability than air so the field lines will concentrate in the adjacent magnets instead of the surrounding air. Domain interaction in terms of QM Weiss mean field coupling yields different values from the integer Bohr magnetron electron spin value for different materials. This is due to electron orbital motion not being localized at the atomic sites. For example, nickel domain wall directions will be 71 and 109 degrees as opposed to iron with 0 and 180 degrees. So in effect, alternating magnetic fields by 90 degrees will cause a non-linear external field and even cancellation and amplification of opposite external fields. GMR heads in disk drives work on a similar principle.

An interesting note regarding field momentum = W X (E X B). Notice if E and B are orientated just right, all momentum is in the direction of the B field (or E field if rotated 90 degrees). All other orientations give a vector sum momentum from both fields.


[Andrew King]:

I seem to remember a posting here some while ago which concerned a company which was contracted to make a high speed motor, in the construction of which magnets were spun at around 30,000 rpm. When this happened all sorts of weird effects took place including time dilation etc - perhaps Fred with his incredible memory for facts will recall! I believe the upshot was that there was some kind of clamp down by the authorities and no more was heard (or is this my paranoia?) and another co was contracted to produce the motors of a more conventional manufacture.

One might also recall that Schauberger made the point that for his vortex turbine he needed a special high speed motor which he could only obtain by some unofficial means from the then Luftwaffe. There may be a connection here in that rotational speeds in excess of some 450cps are needed before some atomic-level effects begin to take place.

Wilbert Smith also used spinning magnets to alter the rate of time, which he achieved under Project Magnet of the late '50s and early '60s from the horse's mouth - this is not published), though I don't know what rotational speed he used.

Unfortunately these are rather higher rotational rates than the average garage experimenter can hope to achieve ( let alone safely!), unless one can get hold of special equipment.

It would be interesting to know of any other instances of this.


[Fred Epps]:

The effect has a direct relationship to the experiments at NASA by Li and Torr, which also involved voltages applied to a rotating object.

This has been self-evident to me for a long time, but since nobody ever seemed to want to try the obvious, I gave up on it.

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve which I have been discussing with Russ and Vic, which I expect will enhance the effect, and produce additional anomalies, at room temperature, with no exotic materials or vacuum requirements.

If these experiments are successful, then there may be a method to accomplish similar results in a solid-state material with no moving parts. (Hint: Hyperdimensional materials)

One possibility I've suggested before is ceramic ionic conductors. Another one is to simply use electron beams in a circle, as Pages did back in the 70s (?). Another one is "rotator" molecules in a crystalline form. For instance, the polarized side chains on crystalline camphor should rotate in a quadrature rotating electric field. I don't see any restrictions on how fast they can go.


[Jones Beene]:

This Podkletnov experiment has turned up on at least five of the forums that I try to periodically monitor - and it is interesting to compare the various responses.

On vortex, many think the effect is primarily electrostatic related to Morton's experiment (or T. Brown): http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/morton1.html

On the hydrino forum there is some interest in trying to shoehorn it into Mills hypothesis that the free electron feels no gravity.

The Woodward effect, or changing mass/inertia GIT effect, also could be relevant.

The basic gyroscopic, or spinning masses idea is also relevant but you guys appear to be an order of magnitude too low in requisite speeds.

Back in WWII we had electric motors spinning at 50,000 rpm. Some of the Japanese gyroscopic experiments are up around 300,000 rpm with only an apparent weight change of a percent or so.

Above this level you usually exceed the tensile modulus of strong materials such as graphite fiber. It has been hypothesised that to go into seven figure rpms one will have to actively balance out the forces, ala opposed centrifugal and centripetal forces perhaps with something similar to what that guy in New Zealand (?) has been doing with the double axis approach. Wonder if he has ever tested his rotor at high speed for antigravity?

In the "what if" department wouldn't it be nice if you could do counterrotating charged disks, the pairs spinning together on one axis but the whole spinning on another orthogonal axis, and at seven figure rpms?


[M. B. Kennel]:

It is clearly a serious and major attempt. The paper is 32 pages long and reasonably detailed. The experimental results are quite striking . In sum, he produces via a bizarre system of superconductors and discharge an apparently reasonably tightly focused gravitational repulsion beam.

This beam was observed to go through walls and not be shieldable electromagnetically, but still couples strongly to matter as it induces repulsive deflections on pendulums (in evacuated containers) of a magnitude independent of the composition of the test mass. And it does not appear to attenuate strongly with distance(!).

Wow, this is real Star Trek stuff. If nothing else it could be great for those killer asteroids. The results and paper are much better quality than what exists for Sys-G. Unfortunately the setup looks too difficult and expensive for even a dedicated hobbyist. Theoretically I have NO clue how to think about this, but Modanese does give his theoretical hypothesis.


[Hamdi Ucar]:

These are my notes about the device and the experiment:

- The device appears highly evolved and engineered to create reported effects. I mean this is not a setup for only show a phenomena but designed and optimized to make a useful work. Please consider an acceleration of 1000 g is estimated by the impulse.

- Nondispersive, beam like characteristic of the impulse appears related the nature of the phenomena, not to the macroscopic characteristic of the device. It is reported only the initial device having spherical shape had produced impulse on the direction of the varying discharge.

- Apparent absence of back reaction give an important clue about the nature of the effect.

- Original (1996) Podkletnov experiment have similar characteristics with the later. Only excitement method is different, and pulse method used instead of continuous excitation. it appears the pulsing method provide 50,000 times increase on the effect.

- It is clear the unique characteristics of the specially designed superconductor disk is a requirement for the effect. The difference between this disk and ordinary YBCO SC would be between a Pentium chip and a solar cell. It would not be surprised when an solar cell can not run an operating system.

- G.Modanese's tried to evaluate results under various theories of physics. I think several good points are reached despite non of these theories does not predict such an effect.

- I think the effect is in gravitational mature but not a force beam. As Podkletnov once stated, the effect is indirect like a transistor switch a current, it does not require lot of energy. I mean the beam produce a gravitational anomaly on its path so the equilibrium of gravitational forces get disturbed and acceleration is produced.

It is always considered as a problem the weakness of gravitational force when compared to electromagnetic and nuclear forces, and it is suspected that gravity behave differently in microscopic scale. (So far sub millimeter measurement of gravitational force yield no difference.) This fact combined by Podkletnov experiment and the ease of producing 1000 g suggest to me:

1) Gravity have microscopic structure.

2) Microscopic gravity is far more stronger than the bulk gravity. This can be interpreted in two way: a) Gravity does not obey 1/d^2 on microscopic scale. This approach could be compatible to GR. b) Creation or interaction of gravitational forces (say gravitons) is effective as electromagnetic forces and nuclear forces, but become ineffective when they are accumulated, because they mostly cancel each others.

3) Under Podkletnov beam this self cancellation is disturbed and accompanied by a spatial polarization. Say if natural self cancellation of gravity is effective as 10^30 (after self cancellation strength of gravity be to reduced to 1/10^30) and under Podkletnov beam the effectiveness of self cancellation is reduced to 10^25, an anomaly of such a 1000 g is produced. So even large order of magnitude of acceleration (like 10^20 g) can be produced by more effective cancellation process.

The term "gravitational coherence" sound good in this context and coincide by the nature of superconductors.