Antigravity-Electrogravitic Systems

Electrogravitic Systems - part 2 of 3

A certain amount of work is also going on in Europe. One of the French nationalized constructors and one company outside the nationalized elements have been making preliminary studies, and a little company money has in one case actually been committed. Some work is also going on in Britain where rigs are now in existence. Most of it is private tenure work, such as that being done by Ed Hull, a colleague of Townsend Brown who, as much as anybody, introduced Europe to electrogravitics. Aviation Studies' Gravity Research Group is doing some work, mainly on k studies, and is sponsoring dielectric investigations.

One Swedish company and two Canadian companies have been making studies, and quite recently the Germans have woken up to the possibilities. Several of the companies have started digging out some of the early German papers on wave physics. They are almost certain to plan a gravitics program. Curiously enough the Germans during the war paid no attention to electrogravitics. This is one line of advance that they did not pioneer in any way and is still basically a U.S. creation. Townsend Brown in electrogravitics is the equivalent of Frank Whittle in gas turbines. This German overlooking of electrostatics is even more surprising when it is remembered how astonishingly advanced and prescient the Germans were in nuclear research. (The modern theory of making thermonuclear weapons without plutonium fission initiators returns to the original German idea that was dismissed, even ridiculed. The Germans never went very far with fission, indeed they doubted that this chain would ever be made to work.) The German air industry, still in the embryo stage, has included electrogravitics among the subjects it intends to examine when establishing the policy that the individual companies will adopt after the present early stage of foreign licence has enabled industry to get abreast of the other countries in aircraft development.

It is impossible to read through this summary of the widening efforts being made to understand the nature of matter of gravity without sharing the hope that many groups now have, of major theoretical breakthroughs occurring before very long. Experience in nucleonics has shown that when attempts to win knowledge on this scale are made, advances are soon seen. There are a number of elements in industry, and some managements, who see gravity as a problem for later generations. Many see nothing in it all and they might be right. But as said earlier, if Dr. Vaclav Hlavaty thinks gravity is potentially controllable that surely should be justification enough, and indeed inspiration, for physicists to apply their minds and for management to take a risk. Hlavaty is the only man who thinks he can see a way of doing the mathematics to demonstrate Einstein's unified field theory - something that Einstein himself said was beyond him. Relativity and the unified field theory go to the root of electrogravitics and the shifts in thinking, the hopes and fears, and a measure of progress is to be obtained only in the last resort from men of this stature.

Major theoretical breakthroughs to discover the sources of gravity will be made by the most advanced intellects using the most advanced research tools. Aviation's role is therefore to impress upon physicists of this calibre with the urgency of the matter and to aid them with statistical and peripheral investigations that will help to clarify the background to the central mathematics and physical puzzles. Aviation could also assist by recruiting some of these men as advisers. Convair has taken the initiative with its recently established panel of advisers on nuclear projects, which include Dr. Edward Teller of the University of California. At the same time much can be done in development of laboratory rigs, condenser research and dielectric development, which do not require anything like the same cerebral capacity to get results and make a practical contribution.

As gravity is likely to be linked with the new particles, only the highest powered particle accelerators are likely to be of use in further fundamental knowledge. The country with the biggest tools of this kind is in the best position to examine the characteristics of the particles and from these countries the greatest advances seem most likely.

Though the United States has the biggest of the bevatrons - the Berkeley bevatron is 6.2 bev - the Russians have a 10 bev accelerator in construction which, when it is completed, will be the world's largest. At Brookhaven a 25 bev instrument is in development which, in turn, will be the biggest. Other countries without comparable facilities are of course at a great disadvantage from the outset in the contest to discover the explanations of gravity. Electrogravitics, moreover, unfortunately competes with nuclear studies for its facilities. The clearest thinking brains are bound to be attracted to locations where the most extensive laboratory equipment exists. So, one way and another, results are most likely to come from the major countries with the biggest undertakings. Thus the nuclear facilities have a direct bearing on the scope for electrogravitics work.

The OEEC report in January made the following points:-

The U.S. has six to eight entirely different types of reactor in operation and many more under construction. Europe has now two different types in service.

The U.S. has about 30 research reactors plus four in Britain, two in France.

The U.S. has two nuclear-powered marine engines. Europe has none, but the U.K. is building one.

Isotope separation plants for the enrichment of uranium in the U.S. are roughly 11 times larger than the European plant in Britain.

Europe's only heavy water plant (in Norway) produces somewhat less than one-twentieth of American output.

In 1955 the number of technicians employed in nuclear energy work in the U.S. was about 15,000; there are about 5,000 in Britain, 1,800 in France, and about 1,000 in the rest of Europe. But the working party says that pessimistic conclusions should not be drawn from these comparisons. European nuclear energy effort is evenly divided at the moment, but some countries have notable achievements to their credit and important developments in prospect. The main reason for optimism is that, taken as a whole, "Europe's present nuclear effort falls very far short of its industrial potential".

Though gravity research, such as there has been of it, has been unclassified, new principles and information gained from the nuclear research facilities that have a vehicle application is expected to be withheld.

The heart of the problem to understanding gravity is likely to prove to be the way in which the very high energy sub-nuclear particles convert something, whatever it is, continuously and automatically into the tremendous nuclear and electromagnetic forces. Once this key is understood, attention can later be directed to finding laboratory means of duplicating the process and reversing its force lines in some local environment and returning the energy to itself to produce counterbary. Looking beyond it seems possible that gravitation will be shown to be a part of the universal electro-magnetic processes and controlled in the same way as a light wave or radio wave. This is a synthesis of the Einstein and Hlavaty concepts. Hence it follows that though in its initial form the mechanical processes for countering gravity may initially be massive to deal with the massive forces involved, eventually this could be expected to form some central power generation unit. Barycentric control in some required quantity could be passed over a distance by a form of radio wave. The prime energy source to energise the waves would of course be nuclear in its origins.

It is difficult to say which lines of detailed development being processed in the immediate future is more likely to yield significant results. Perhaps the three most promising are: first, the new attempt by the team of men led by Chamberlain working with the Berkeley bevatron to find the anti-neutron, and to identify more of the characteristics of the anti-proton* and each of the string of high energy particles that have been discovered during recent operations at 6.2 bev.

A second line of approach is the United States National Bureau of Standards program to pin down with greater accuracy the acceleration values of gravity. The presently accepted figure *(The reaction is as follows: protons are accelerated to 6.2 bev, and directed at a target of copper. When the proton projectile hits a neutron in one of the copper atoms the following emerge: the two original particles (the projectile and the struck neutron) and a new pair of particles, a proton and anti-proton. The anti-proton continues briefly until it hits another proton, then both disappear and decay into mesons)of 32.174 feet per second per second is known to be not comprehensive, though it has been sufficiently accurate for the limited needs of industry hitherto. The NBS program aims at re-determining the strength of gravity to within one part of a million. The present method thas been to hold a ball 16 feet up and chart the elapsed time of descent with electronic measuring equipment. The new program is based on the old, but with this exceptional degree of accuracy it is naturally immensely more difficult and is expected to take 3 years.

A third promising line is the new technique of measuring high energy particles in motion that was started by the University of California last year. This involves passing cosmic rays through a chamber containing a mixture of gas, alcohol and water vapour. This creates charged atoms, or positive ions, by knocking electrons off the gas molecules. A sudden expansion of the chamber results in a condensation of water droplets along the track which can be plotted on a photographic plate. This method makes it easier to assess the energy of particles and to distinguish one from the other. It also helps to establish the characteristics of the different types of particles. The relationship between these high energy particles, and their origin, and characteristics, have a bearing on electrogravitics in general.

So much of what has to be discovered as a necessary preliminary to gravity is of no practical use by itself. There is no conceivable use, for instance, for the anti-proton, yet its discovery even at a cost of $9-million is essential to check the mathematics of the fundamental components of matter. Similarly it is necessary to check that all the nuclear ghosts that have been postulated theoretically do in fact exist. It is not, moreover, sufficient, as in the past, only to observe the particles by radiation counters. In each instance a mechanical maze has to be devised and attached to a particle accelerator to trap only the particle concerned. Each discovery becomes a wedge for a deeper probe of the nucleus. Many of the particles of very high energy have only a fleeting existence and collisions that give rise to them from bevatron bombardment is a necessary pre- requisite to an understanding of gravity. There are no shortcuts to this process.

Most of the major programs for extending human knowledge on gravity are being conducted with instruments already in use for nuclear research and to this extent the cost of work exclusively on gravitational examinations is still not of major proportions. This has made it difficult for aviation to gauge the extent of the work in progress on gravity research.

CONCLUSIONS

1. No attempts to control the magnitude or direction of the earth's gravitational force have yet been successful. But if the explanation of gravity is to be found in the as yet undetermined characteristics of the very high energy particles it is becoming increasingly possible with the bevatron to work with the constituent matter of gravity. It is therfore reasonable to expect that the new bevatron may, before long, be used to demonstrate limited gravitational control.

2. An understanding and identification of these particles is on the frontiers of human knowledge, and a full assessment of them is one of the major unresolved puzzles of the nucleus. An associated problem is to discover a theory to account for the cosmic and quantum relations of gravity, and a theory to link the gravitational constant with the other three dimensionless constants.

3. Though the obstacles to an adequate grasp of microphysics still seem formidable, the transportation rewards that could follow from electrogravitics are as high as can be envisaged. In a weightless environment, movement with sharp-edged changes of direction could offer unique manoeuvrability.

4. Determination of the enviroonment of the anti-proton, discovery of the anti-neutron and closer examination of the other high energy particles are preliminaries to the hypothesis that gravity is one aspect of electromagnetism that may eventually be controlled like a wave. When the structure of the nucleus becomes clearer, the influence of the gravitational force upon the nucleus and the nature of its behaviour in space will be more readily understood. This is a great advance on the Newtonian concept of gravity acting at a distance.

5. Aviation's role appears to be to establish facilities to handle many of the peripheral and statistical investigations to help fill in the background on electrostatics.

6. A distinction has to be made between electrostatic energy for propulsion and counterbary. Counterbary is the manipulation of gravitational force lines; barycentric control is the adjustment to such manipulative capability to produce a stable type of motion suitable for transportation.

7. Electrostatic energy sufficient to produce low speeds (a few thousand dynes) has already been demonstrated. Generation of a region of positive electrostatic energy on one side of a plate and negative on the other sets up the same lift or propulsion effect as the pressure and suction below and above a wing, except that in the case of electrostatic application no airflow is necessary.

8. Electrostatic energy sufficient to produce a Mach 3 fighter is possible with megavolt energies and a k of over 10,000.

9. k figures of 6,000 have been obtained from some ceramic materials and there are prospects of 30,000.

10. Apart from electrogravitics there are other rewards from investment in electrostatic equipment. Automation, autonetics and even turbine development use similar laboratory facilities.

11. Progress in electrogravitics probably awaits a new genius in physics who can find a single equation to tie up all the conflicting observations and theory on the structure and arrangement of forces and the part the high energy particles play in the nucleus. This can occur any time, and the chances are improved now that bev energies are being obtained in controlled laboratory conditions.

APPENDIX I

EXTRACTS FROM AVIATION REPORT

ANTI-GRAVITATION RESEARCH

The basic research and technology behind electro-anti-gravitation is so much in its infancy that this is perhaps one field of development where not only the methods but the ideas are secret. Nothing therefore can be discussed freely at the moment. Very few papers on the subject have been prepared so far, and the only schemes that have seen the light of day are for pure research into rigs designed to make objects float around freely in a box. There are various radio applications, and aviation medecine departments have been looking for something that will enable them to study the physiological effects on the digestion and organs of an environment without gravity. There are however long term aims of a more revolutionary nature that envisage equipment that can defeat gravity.

Aviation Report 20 August 1954

MANAGERIAL POLICY FOR ANTI-GRAVITICS

The prospect of engineers devising gravity-defeating equipment - or perhaps it should be described as the creation of pockets of weightless environments - does suggest that as a long term policy aircraft constructors will be required to place even more emphasis on electro-mechanical industrial plant, than is now required for the transition from manned to unmanned weapons. Anti-gravitics work is therefore likely to go to companies with the biggest electrical laboratories and facilities. It is also apparent that anti-gravitics, like other advanced sciences, will be initially sponsored for its weapon capabilities. There are perhaps two broad ways of using the science, one is to postulate the design of advanced type projectiles on their best inherent capabilities, and the more critical parameters (that now constitutes the design limitation) can be eliminated by anti-gravitics. The other, which is a longer term plan, is to create an entirely new environment with devices operating entirely under an anti-gravitic envelope.

Aviation Report 24 August 1954

THE GREATER THE EASIER

Propulsion and atomic energy trends are similar in one respect: the more incredible the long term capabilities are, the easier it is to attain them. It is strange that the greatest of nature's secrets can be harnessed with decreasing industrial effort, but greatly increasing mental effort. The Americans went through the industrial torture to produce tritium for the first thermonuclear experiment, but later both they and the Russians were able to achieve much greater results with the help of lithium 6 hydride. The same thing is happening in aviation propulsion; the nuclear fuels are promising to be tremendously powerful in their effect, but excessively complicated in their application, unless there can be some means of direct conversion as in the strontium 90 cell. But lying behind and beyond the nuclear fuels is the linking of electricity to gravity, which is an incomparably more powerful way of harnessing energy than the only method known to human intellect at present - electricity and magnetism. Perhaps the magic of barium aluminum oxide will perform the miracle in propulsion that lithium 6 hydride has done in the fusion weapon. Certainly it is a well-known material in dielectrics, but when one talks of massive-k, one means of course five figures. At this early stage it is difficult to relate k to Mach numbers with any certainty, but realizable k can, with some kinds of arithmetic, produce astounding velocities. They are achievable, moreover, with decreasing complexity, indeed the ultimate becomes the easiest in term of engineering, but the most hideous in terms of theory. Einstein's general theory of relativity is, naturally, and important factor, but some of the postulates appear to depend on the unified field theory, which cannot yet be physically checked because noone knows how to do it. Einstein hopes to find a way of doing this before he dies.

Aviation Report 31 August 1954

GRAVITICS FORMULATIONS

All indications are that there has still been little cognizance of the potentialities of electrostatic propulsion and it will be a major undertaking to re-arrange aircraft plants to conduct large-scale research and development into novel forms of dielectric and to improve condenser efficiencies and to develop the novel type of materials used for fabrication of the primary structure. Some extremely ambitious theoretical programs have been submitted and work towards realization of a manned vehicle has begun. One the evidence, there are far more definite indications that the incredible claims are realizable than there was, for instance, in supposing that uranium fission would result in a bomb. At least it is known, proof positive, that motion, using surprisingly low k, is possible. The fantastic control that again is feasible, has not yet been demonstrated, but there is no reason to suppose the arithmetic is faulty, especially as it has already led to a quite brisk example of actual propulsion. That first movement was indeed an historic occasion, reminiscent of the momentous day at Chicago when the first pile went critical, and the phenomenon was scarcely less weird. It is difficult to imagine just where a well-organized examination into long term gravitics would end. Though a circular planform is electrostatically convenient, it does not necessarily follow that the requirements of control by differential changes would be the same. Perhaps the strangest part of this whole chapter is how the public managed to foresee the concept, though not of course the theoretical principles that gave rise to it, before physical tests confirmed that the mathematics was right. It is interesting also that there is no point of contact between the conventional science of aviation and the New: it is a radical offshoot with no common principles. Aerodynamics, structures, heat engines, flapping controls, and all the rest of aviation is part of what might be called the Wright Brothers era, even the Mach 2.5 thermal barrier piercers are still Wright Brothers concepts, in the sense that they fly and they stall, and they run out of fuel after a short while, and they defy the earth's pull for a short while. Thus this century will be divided into two parts - almost to the day. The first half belonged to the Wright Brothers who foresaw nearly all the basic issues in which gravity was the bitter foe. In part of the second half, gravity will be the great provider. Electrical energy, rather irrelevant for propulsion in the first half becomes a kind of catalyst to motion in the second half of the century.

Aviation Report 7 September 1954

(end of part 2)