Nexus - 0403 - New Times Magazine-pages

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NEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCE DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS to create superconductivity. In recent years, a class of materials was found which became superconducting at tens of degrees absolute—a tremendous improvement, but not quite enough. The second problem relates to the amount of current which a superconductor can carry. When a material becomes superconducting, a strange thing happens: all external magnetic fields are expelled from the body of the material. If we cause a current to flow in a superconducting wire, only the outer surface of the wire will carry current; the bulk of the wire does not Participate at all. This means that the supercurrent is extremely intense, and a point is quickly reached where this current intensity destroys the superconducting con- dition. From the nature of the apparatus given in Figure 1, it seems that the experimenters were testing the ceramic material for its ability to sustain a certain current intensity. The gravitational effect might therefore have been due to the three levitating sole- noids, or the two 'wraparound' solenoids, or the start-up procedure, or a combination of any or all these things. a single electric charge behaves the same way. If a 12-inch sphere had been charged up, the effect of its field on the next floor would have been about 1/60th of the effect near the sphere. The Finnish experimenters will no doubt have determined how the influence drops off with distance, both vertically and hori- zontally, but they have not said. We might assume that it either falls off as the inverse square, like natural gravity, or as the inverse distance, as with radio waves ema- nating from an antenna. Had the drop-off been more rapid, it would have been quite difficult to measure over a distance of sev- eral floors. The experimenters also suspended an object from a weighing device and observed a 2% reduction in its weight. To eliminate non-gravitational effects, this object would have been a non-magnetic metal like copper, lead or aluminium. They would have earthed the device and the weight to eliminate electric forces, and measured the weight with a device like a spring balance which does not depend on gravity for its action. The last item of information is that when two devices were stacked one above the other, the weight reduction was doubled. This tells us that this influence is linear and allows us to predict that by either intensify- ing the action, or by stacking up devices, or both, any degree of gravitational effect will ultimately be achievable. Nothing was said about the effect below the apparatus. Was there an effect there also? Was it to reduce weight or increase it? The fact that nothing was said would seem to imply that below the device there was also a weight reduction, and that it The Internet version includes a diagram (which was presumably published by the Sunday Telegraph) of the apparatus used in this experiment. The diagram shows a ring-shaped ceramic superconductor spin- ning at 5,000 rpm about a vertical axis of rotation (see Figure 1). This ring is about 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter on its outside, and possibly 5/16th inch (8 mm) thick. Three solenoids are positioned under the ring and produce a magnetic force which supports its weight (levitates the ring). The same solenoids were probably used to levi- tate and spin up the ring before it became superconducting. More on this later. Another two solenoids seem to wrap around the ring. They were “used to put magnetic field around the ring". Since the discovery was accidental, we infer that this apparatus was designed for a different pur- pose. We need to speculate on the original purpose of these experiments in order to appreciate better exactly what electromag- netic effects were being produced that might have led to the gravitational effect. CURRENT RESEARCH ON SUPERCONDUCTORS Superconductors are a technical innova- tion with tremendous commercial poten- tial; hence the huge research effort by many scientists. Much of this work is directed at overcoming two problems that stand in the way of this commercial appli- cation. One is that the temperatures have to be very low. Until recently, a few degrees above absolute zero were needed ANOMALOUS OBSERVATIONS Before looking at these processes in more detail, let us consider exactly what was observed. The outside of the cryostat was probably cold due to imperfect insula- tion, and the air in contact with it would have been cooled, too, and descended towards the floor. When the visitor made some of this air visible with smoke, the sci- entists were surprised to see the air rising towards the ceiling. Being a little warmer than the surrounding air, the smoke rose, but near the cryostat the cooling effect of the apparatus predominated. The experi- menters were no doubt surprised to see the descending air, as revealed by the smoke. They measured the pressure of the atmosphere above the device and found it to be a little lower. We are not told how much change was measured, but a pressure reduction was also obtained on other floors of the laboratory, directly above the device. This tells us the effect had a long range. The effect of a bar magnet drops off as the cube of distance, i.e, very rapidly. If we had placed a 12-inch-long bar magnet where the device was, its effect on the next floor would have been only 1/500th of the effect near the magnet. Natural gravita- tional fields fall off with the square of dis- tance, i.e., not so rapidly. The field around *24. Magnetic Field “== — Solenoid Current — Surface Supercurrent Solenoid 1. Air Space ‘Ring Figure 2: 'Wraparound' solenoids create a supercurrent as shown in the radial section view above. 2! Magnetic Field Solenoid Current Surface Supercurrent Figure 2: 'Wraparound' solenoids create a supercurrent as shown in the radial section view above. 48 = NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1997