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The Feature Creep

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Artificial Gravity Created

03/25/2006 6:17 AM

For the first time, non-Newtonian gravitational and gravitomagnetic fields of measurable magnitude were observed in a laboratory environment. It looks like ESA scientists Martin Tajmar and Clovis de Matos have successfully created an gravitation field for the first time in history. Looks like we can abandon the notion of "spinning ships to create gravity" view of space travel from Babylon 5 and get to the cooler Star Trek/Star Wars model of spacecraft.
Here is a summary of the discovery.
Here is the actual paper for those who are interested.

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The Engineer
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#1

This is Nonsense

03/24/2006 6:46 PM

A discovery of this magnitude would be on the front-page of every paper in the world. There is no physical reason a rotating magnetic field should produce a gravitional field. Also, there is no such thing as antigravity, or at least no proof of it. Physicists are not even sure if there is a force carrier (graviton) for gravity. The website this story links to is a scam.

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Participant

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#2
In reply to #1

Re:This is Nonsense

03/25/2006 11:04 PM

This article seems to be unpublished. If it is legitimate it will be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and others will have to reproduce the results of these authors. It can take months or even a couple years for others to verify if this paper's findings are correct.

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#3
In reply to #1

Re:This is Nonsense

03/26/2006 8:45 PM

Not necessarily. It took almost a decade after the Wright brothers flew their first flight before the news was published in a major newspaper. People just would not believe it, even thou neighbours were watching them fly around their farm. Although, given the numerous hoaxes and dire science experiments the level of scepticism is high in the "anti-gravity"/possible Graviton particle field of science. Can anyone confirm if this story is authentic?

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#4
In reply to #1

Re:This is Nonsense

03/27/2006 9:04 AM

Maybe. I can't say I understand the physics that is presented with their paper, but the paper's writing style does not strike me as a scholarly paper. Most scientific papers are written in APA style. This one reads more like a personal diary. What do I know?

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The Feature Creep

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#5
In reply to #1

Re:This is Nonsense

03/27/2006 9:33 AM

I don't thing that that possible creation of artificial gravity and compare with the news that Nick Shea had banned the name "Jessica" from the set of his video...
Science is one of those things that unless it has a supermodel or a scandal that people really care about.
Besides, it hasn't been independent verified yet.

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Guru
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#6

Gravity of the situation

03/27/2006 10:44 AM

This may or may not be legitimate. The article did point out that they were seeking other researchers to duplicate their work, and hopefully results. Not unlike the time scientists thought they had discovered a new form of water, which had ramifications for cold fusion, only to find out later that the "water" was actually being affected by the quartz glass capillary tubes in which it was contained.

I, for one, would like to know more about "non-Newtonian gravitational and gravimagnetic" fields. Is this a proven scientific theory or merely conjecture? Are we simply the victims of a pre-April Fool's Day prank? Sometimes, you have to start early if you want to have a lot of momentum for your prank by April 1st!

I believe we will see rotating "artificial gravity" structures on the first manned Mars missions. Whether these structures are external (as envisioned in several recent Sci-Fi films) or completely contained internal structures, daily workouts or work-time in AG will probably be necessary to keep the astronauts prepared for the gravity of Mars. We may have proven that long-term zero-G environment is safe, however, conditioning is still required for full mobility and functioning in a planetary gravitational environment like Mars.

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