Anti-Gravity

Believe it or not, but people have been trying to find a way to cancel gravity. Why, you ask! The answer is that if gravity could be reduced or eliminated one would have created a method of propulsion that is not dependent on burning massive amounts of fuel. The idea of anti-gravity engines is often thought to be the method that aliens use to power their UFO's.

The reason this interested me is because I used to see offers for a competition of writing an essay to explain how gravity works with an annual prize of $5,000. Roger Babson, the founder of Boston College and the founder of the Gravity Research Foundation, started this and still offers the same prize.

Basically, no one has been able to come up with an anti-gravity device. One can use electromagnetism to levitate objects, but it's based on magnetism not gravity. One method employed a gyroscopic device to achieve the illusion of anti-gravity, but the effect is too small to propel any spacecraft.

Then there is the Gravitoelectric coupling idea proposed by a Russian experimenter, Eugene Podkletov, using superconductors. Supposedly, but running a high current through a superconductor at very low temperatures, one could reduce gravitational force. Other people could not duplicate these reported results. Other subsequent attempts to make a gravity generator device have failed.

Of course, one can create artificial gravity by using centripetal acceleration. This method will eventually be employed on long space voyages to eliminate the ravages of long exposure to zero gravity. Star Trek uses the idea of generating virtual gravitons, the theoretical particle associated with gravity. Something like this will be far in the future.

Presently, the reason for creating an antigravity device is because gravity is a force associated with mass. In order to generate a gravity field large enough to create 1 G or one gravity relative to Earth it would require one heck of a lot of mass, which is impractical. My feeling on this is that antigravity will only be achieved if physicists can create gravitons and harness them. I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

Thanks for reading.