| MadSci Network: Physics |
Hi James!
This is the infamous film of the Biefeld/Brown antigravity experiment (I think from the 1950's or 60's)
Search for T. Townsend Brown and 'antigravity' on the WWW.
Try these:
Please be aware that all of this is "alternative" science (scientists would call it "crackpot" science!) Brown claimed that parallel plate capacitors, when storing a high voltage, will produce a tiny linear thrust force, and that this force is proportional to the density of the capacitor dielectric. For example, Brown claimed that Lead Oxide produces a larger force than plastic dielectric. Scientists say "balderdash!", because there is no way that electricity connects with gravity, it would violate the laws of General Relativity.
In the Biefeld/Brown video, his "umbrella" device is suspended from wires and flys in a circle because of a sideways thrusting force. I recall that he was also able to "fly" the device with vertical thrust (but without the very large, heavy 100KV power supply on board.) His device was build from balsa wood and foil.
However, much of the thrust in these devices comes from charged air streams (ion wind). This is not "antigravity". I recall reading that Brown enclosed his devices in a vacuum chamber, and the thrust became less but did not vanish. Ion wind thrust is easily explained. If the thrust still remains even when air is missing (and it is not simply due to electrostatic attraction/repulsion), then there may be some interesting undiscovered physics here. Or maybe not. But since "antigravity" is a "taboo" field of science, the claims are hard to investigate because reputable scientists cannot look int it, they would be attacked by their fellows. Antigravity is regarded as impossible, same as psychic
phenomena and UFOs, and scientists who investigate it will be accused
of wasting funding on ridiculous crackpot-ism. But things are changing slowly (NASA was recently able to put on a symposium about exotic propulsion, including antigravity, and the outraged objections of scientists was somewhat less than has been usual in the past.)
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Physics.