Anti-Gravity Device Patented 416
October_30th writes "According to the United States Patent Office website, Boris Volfson has recently patented a "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state", which is essentially an anti-gravity propulsion device." The validity of this patent remains to be seen, but the general consensus of the physics community seems to be that it is complete malarky.
What the other side has to say (Score:4, Interesting)
Well even they agree that the patent examiners have been duped and it would never fly. For a interesting compilation of discussions going within the community have a look at this article [zpenergy.com].
Though real science aside, it would be very cool if it worked.
Re:What about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, I had a potential malarky propulsion system of my own (can anyone shoot it down for me? Thanks!):
You have two gigantic electromagnets, one light hour apart - magnets A
and B. A is turned on, and left on for one minute, then turned off. It generates an intense magnetic field that propogates in all directions (at the speed of light, assumedly?). A is left off. An hour later, as the field from A is just starting to reach B, B is turned on, with its field aligned opposite that of A's (so it repells). B clearly will have a (miniscule) force excerted upon it. However, A is a light hour away, and is not even on any more. In fact, by this time, it could have been destroyed - perhaps tossed into a star and no longer be composed of even the same elements. So, it would seem that while B will have a force excerted on it, A will not. Is it possible that relativistic effects can make it so one electromagnet can have a force excerted on it but not the other, and if so, could this be considered propulsion against space itself?
Re:I'll tell you... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
The reporting on this is really bad. (Score:2, Interesting)
First, since when does Robert Park's view represent a consensus in the physics community. Second, I have read the patent, and while the theory is a bit flawed, I posit a theory that is more consitent with current theory:
Collapse the space between you and a gravitational body far away from you relative to one that is close. This puts you in the shared gravitational well between the two, and decreases the distance you have to travel, to boot.
A problem I see increasingly is that people build devices and come up with poor theories to describe the device's workings, then established scientists come in and say that the theory is unworkable, which it is, but then falsely conclude that the device isn't doing anything significant of study. Then there are the "testers" of devices that come in, find a part that doesn't work like they expect, falsely conclude the part is faulty, repace the part with a conforming part, and of course the device doesn't work like it would if they ran it as it was, and then they declare, "See, the device doesn't work!"
Re:What about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What the other side has to say (Score:2, Interesting)
These are the people who always think there is some magical free energy out there, and there's a huge government conspiracy to cover it up. This explains how their devices always fail to work, and why no corporation has decided to make 'over-unity' devices. (Aka, pepetual motion machines.)
They are the 'intelligence design' version of physics. They propose something, claim it works, can't demonstrate it, eventually have to admit it's a failure, but luckily they have this new and improved thing... It's exactly the same as ID. It's not science, it's crappy engineering combined with sci-fi, a bad understanding of physics, and a lot of wishing.
This guy just don't like this theory because it claims space is a vaccuum which messes up their pet zero-point energy idea. (Yes, I know ZPE could work. In theory. Once we understand quantum physics a hll of a lot better.)
The actual reason this device won't work is that you can't bend damn spacetime without a lot of effort, if it is at all possible.
Re:Star Trek Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Namely, how'd he patent something that'd been clearly explained in various 'Physics of Star Trek' books over the last decade?
Of course, Star Trek didn't invent the idea of bending space to go FTL. It's just the best known for a 'warp drive'.
There are basically only four basic ways to go faster than light that stand up to any physics scrutiny at all: Hyperspace(1), going into another dimension where C is higher or space is smaller; bending our space, via wormholes(2) or making space in front of you smaller and behind you bigger(3); and teleportation, by swapping out two chunks of spacetime(4), or by making all the particles in your body appear elsewhere via quantum teleportation(5); quantum entanglement, which doesn't actually move anything FTL, it destroys it in one place and instantly recreates it elsewhere(6) (This is actually what people are talking about when they speak of quantum teleportation)
Any of these might require you changing form, like to energy, first, but I'm talking about the actual 'FTL' part.
Those are really the only ways we've ever come up with. I'm sure we'll invent more forms of the ways, but anyone with a basic grounding physics could come up with the ones we have. Allowing someone to patent a form of the second is idiotic.
1) B5
2) Andromeda. Stargate, after turning you into energy. Note that Stargate also has (1) for ships
3) Star Trek (ST beaming, incidentally, is not FTL)
4) The new Battlestar Galactica
5) This one is Not Bloody Likely and hence nothing uses it. Quantum teleportation happens at the scale of electrons tunneling through atoms, not people leaping across lightyears.
6) The 'teleporter' in Andromeda's episode 'Banks of the Lethe'. Ironically only works in one region of space so functions more as a time machine than as an FTL drive.
Re:uh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Read TFP instead of TF National Geographic article. There's no mention of any violation of the second law anywhere. Several other laws, sure, but not the second.
Re:rather than power a craft by ANTI-GRAVITY (Score:3, Interesting)
Pug
Re:rather than power a craft by ANTI-GRAVITY (Score:1, Interesting)