Patent issued for anti-gravity device

Science Daily.com ^ | November 9, 2005 | UPI

[Junior]

The plasma, mercury based, is pressurized at 250,000 atmospheres at a temperature of 150 degrees Kelvin ...

I dunno. Something under that much pressure should be a lot warmer than 150 degrees above absolute zero. I'm pinging RWP because he might set me straight on this.

[George Smiley]

Link to Patent 6,960,975 at uspto.gov

Link to Images for Patent 6,960,975 at uspto.gov

[Chinito]

"He patented Hillary's Lovely Thighs?...........
Wait, those don't counteract gravity, do they?
Are you in a position to enlighten us?"

Actually, due to the extreme mass involved, there is enough
gravitational pull generated in those thighs to capture a
small moon....

[untrained skeptic]

"If you could block the effect of gravity, you could use it to lift a large weight with a small amount of energy..."

If you used an item to block the effects of gravity on an item, you could use a small, additional force, to lift the weight.

"...after which you could turn off the device, and capture the energy as the weight fell back down."

Which would return some of the total energy that it took to lift the object. The total energy to lift the object was the energy required to negate gravity on the object plus the energy required to lift it.

Unless the efficiency of the system is 100% or greater, it's not a perpetual motion machine. I didn't look through closely, but I didn't see any claims that this anti-gravity device wouldn't require an input of energy.

"This cycle could be repeated indefinitely, yielding inexhaustible free energy. That energy could in principle be used to power the device, hence perpetual motion."

That's based on the false assumption that gravity could be negated without an input of energy.

[Reaganghost]

"alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft
Warp field?

Sounds like the patent examiner interned on the Enterprise. Certainly sounds futuristic, patenting things that haven't been invented yet.

[bk1000]

The standard idea of 'anti-gravity' is that of a hovering vehicle. I think if such a device were to switch off gravity's effect on it, said device would instantly be flung into space.

[DallasMike]

It looked pretty good until I got to the sentence that said "Insert warp drive here."

[bk1000]

"Try Unobtanium or seldomseenium."

A lot of electronic equipment I work with is made of an odd colored metal we call 'Japanesium'.

[conservativewasp]

Aren't you assuming it only uses a small amount of energy to do block the acceleration due to the force of gravity? Perhaps it requires 6.?? Gigawatts.

[ASA Vet]

[conservativewasp]

"Check out the TR3-B websites."
I don't think the old sports car I just found while searching trb3 will defy gravity, though it does remind me of a rumor I heard of a sports car that could travel through time. As I recall it had enormous power requirements.

[Toddsterpatriot]

The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 to Boris Volfson Paul Craig Roberts of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity.

[mcshot]

I sure hope we have some unknown good stuff for all the $$ that goes into the "black projects fund".
The SR -71 is still my favorite.

mc

[Surtur]

BigCinBigD wrote:Where are the flying cars? THEY SAID THERE WOULD BE FLYING CARS!

---

Here is your flying car http://www.moller.com/skycar/m400/, now shaddup about yer flying car, ya big baby. Just Kidding 8^)

[Right Wing Professor]

I dunno. Something under that much pressure should be a lot warmer than 150 degrees above absolute zero. I'm pinging RWP because he might set me straight on this.

The problem is the author neglected a vital aspect of any discussion of antigravity shielding -- tin foil tightly wrapped around the cranium.

You're right. Nothing is a plasma at 251 kbar and 150 K. Nothing, even helium, is anything other than a solid at 251 kbar and 150 K.

[calex59]

"If you design an anti-gravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine," Robert Park of the American Physical Society told Nature.

Only if it takes no energy to maintain the anti-gravity. If it takes energy, and I see no reason to believe it wouldn't, then you do NOT have a perpetual motion machine. As soon as the energy needed to maintain anti-gravity is gone so is the anti-gravity, hence no perpetual motion.

I don't know if anti-gravity is possible but other things have seemed impossible over the centuries until someone actually did it. Nuclear subs would seem like perpetual motion to people in the 19th century but when the fuel runs out so does the sub.

[Mase]

LOL

Park said the action shows patent examiners protectionists are being duped by false science economics.

[Physicist]

It seems to me that you could have some amount of anti gravity without any means to produce perpetual motion. This being due to a large amount of energy being required to produce a small amount of anti-gravity.

But that's conventionally possible. Move a large amount of material from below the object, and suspend it over the object. Voila, you've reduced the amount of gravity acting on the object by changing the local curvature of space, at a substantial energy cost.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

In other news, the demonRAT party has been granted a patent for a system that allows them to take all sides of an issue, (depending on their specific audience), and then to never, ever, have to explain their hypocrisy.

This patent joins others granted recently to the demonRAT party. The most notable one being the system which allows millions of dead people to vote for the demonRATs.