The Omnipresent Boson: Part 2 – Connections to Metamaterials

Bosons could be a common element in gMOD experiments.  Tajmar points to bosons as the basis for his gMOD effect.  At superconducting temperatures electrons (normally fermions) form massive bosonic pairs (called Cooper pairs).  In their original 2006 paper de Matos and Tajmar described the use of Type I superconductors (niobium and lead) in three years of experiments.  According to their theory (connected to Heim Theory by Droscher and Hauser) superconductors should form Cooper pairs.  The angular acceleration of Cooper pairs in rotation should result in the dragging of spacetime and with it the generation of acceleration fields (gMOD).

In a recent paper (“Comment on ‘Nonlinearity of the Field Induced by a Rotating Superconducting Shell'”) Tajmar discusses how it is the “lag-current” (cited by both R. Becker in 1933 and F. London in 1961) produced by the massive Cooper-pairs that generates the magnetic field making gMOD possible.  During rotation some of the pairs rigidly follow the superconducting lattice and some lag behind the lattice during rotation.  Lag plays a key role.

But what about other researchers working with exotic materials and bosons.  Have they reported any gravity-related effects with bosons?  The answer is yes.

Researchers Chris Phillips and  John Pendry at Imperial College London reported almost two years ago their success in using negative refraction optical metamaterials to achieve rudimentary “invisibility cloaks“.  Recent advances by their colleagues at St. Andrews University have allowed researchers to employ photonic crystal lattices as metamaterials to control electron waves called “plasmons”.  These plasmons have been used to create an artificial “event horizon” simulating the gravity field of a black hole.

Plasmons are quasiparticle bosons.  The St. Andrews study was inspired by, and simulates, the geometry of space curved by gravitational fields. The metamaterial that makes up the invisibility cloak stretches the metrics of space in a similar way to what heavy planets and stars do for the metrics of space-time in Einstein’s general relativity theory. Metamaterial semiconductors employed by Phillips are essentially artificial atoms that have the capacity to control the speed of light to a slow crawl.

So massive bosons are implicated in peer-reviewed research on gMOD at superconducting temperatures as well as anecdotal reports of gMOD at room temperature.  But bosons also exist as massless virtual particles.  It is in this virtual state that they are implicated in research on invisibility and metamaterials.  A boson producing the collective excitation of the electron’s spin wave structure in a crystal lattice is known as a magnon (a massless boson).

A  phonon is also a boson.  A phonon is a collective excitation of crystal lattice atoms or ions.  For years phonons have been considered the basis for superconductivity, but a recent paper suggests that superconductivity is not caused by the actions of phonons, but of spin excitations (hypothetical Goldstone bosons).  So now we have a potential connection between superconductivity, Cooper pairs (massive paired-electron bosons), massless (virtual) Goldstone bosons and spin wave excitations.  Droscher and Hauser further contribute to the connection between Cooper electron pairs and phonons, say in their paper Spacetime Physics and Advanced Propulsion Concepts that “The coupling of the electron pairs seems to be via phonons, generated by electron movement through the lattice of the superconductor.

Perhaps it is the interaction of Goldstone bosons that is responsible for effects reported by Searl and Hollingshead.  Hollingshead in particular increased the charge density on electrons by sending 220 volts at 480 Hz through the RP, which could have increased spin excitations.  It could also have effected the excitation of crystal lattice atoms in the RP, producing phonons.  A 1991 patent by Motorola suggested that phonon generation can happen at temperatures higher than that for superconductivity and still lead to the formation of Cooper pairs in a superlattice.  Interestingly, the semiconductor employed by Motorola is the same thin-film material as employed by C. Phillips to produce slow-light  solitons.

Finally, there is also the question of the role of ferrite.  The first naturally occurring metamaterials were found in ferromagnets.  Ferrite is the classic example of a ferromagnet and is the component which gives steel and cast iron their magnetic properties.  Perhaps metamaterials are implicated in reports of power generation in Searl’s device and that of others who claim power production from the interaction of magnetic fields.  More on that at a later date.

There are still too many questions and not enough published research to make any conclusions about the relatedness of these researchers.  Until more independently verifiable data is made available the research by Tajmar combined with improvements suggested by Droscher seem the best bet for the first generation of gMOD.

The Omnipresent Boson: Part 1 – Anecdotal Inventors

Though Dr. Tajmar and his colleagues including Clovis de Matos and Walter Droscher are in general (though not complete) agreement on the theory behind gravitomagnetic field modification they represent only a few of the researchers in gMOD.  Mention of the gravitomagnetic effect goes back as far as Heaviside in the 1880s.  Researchers include academics, but also inventors and, admittedly, some zealots.  If only some of these researchers’ reports of gMOD effects are true one would presume that they must be based upon the same physics as that of Tajmar et al.

Skepticism is the rule with regards to the inventors.  There is far more anecdotal reporting in that group than peer-reviewed research by them.  But when effects are reported that fall into line with Tajmar’s results, then perhaps they too have found some aspect of gMOD worth investigating.

First I’ll divide the discussion into two categories:  those devices that operate in the temperature range of condensed matter (i.e. superconducting) and those that operate at or near room temperature.  Tajmar is in the condensed matter (CM) camp, but we should also make mention of University researchers Ning Li and Douglas Torr.  In the room temperature (RT) camp are inventors John Searl, Henry Wallace and Marcus Hollingshead.  Others exist in both camps, but the key points can be made with these exemplars.

In their peer published papers (Physical Review B), researchers Li and Torr used Type II superconductors rather than Tajmar’s Type I superconducting materials.  Li posited that time-varying magnetic fields would produce a small a small gravitomagnetic effect through the spin alignment of lattice ions (see phonons in Part 2).  This contrasts with Tajmar’s assertion of Cooper pair bosons as being the component eliciting the effect.   Li’s last paper on the topic was in 1992.

The RT camp is not represented in peer-reviewed literature and is reported only anecdotally.  Searl reportedly configured magnetic rollers (rotors) to rotate around a central magnetic plate (stator). After a critical angular acceleration was reached the powered device ionized the air and accelerated electrons, producing superconducting temperatures and a CM state.  In recent years his Web site has discussed how the gravity effects were generated through the formation of unimpeded Cooper pairs (similar to Tajmar’s theory).  Several devices were supposedly lost to flight before a dielectric was employed to moderate the effect.  This supposedly happened in the mid 1940’s, 60 years before Tajmar reported his results with de Matos.

Wallace, a scientist at GE Aerospace, was issued patents in the early 1970s for the generation of a “kinemassic” (gravitomagnetic) field.  He posited the effect was due to nuclear spin, not electron spin.  The resultant precession of nuclear angular momentum was suggested to be similar to a rapidly spinning ferrous material.  Wallace based his experiments upon elements with odd number of nucleons (neutrons and protons), saying that there was an analogy between un-paired  angular momentum in these materials and the un-paired magnetic moments of electrons in ferromagnetic materials (ref <a href=”http://www.padrak.com/agn/WALLACE.html”>Stirniman</a>).

In November of 2002 Hollingshead reported effects when he spun three pairs of counter-rotating rings composed of electromagnet stubs (looking like inward-pointing stud collars) around a central soft iron <i>reference point</i> (RP) stator.  The RP stator was configured as a sphere, wrapped in a dielectric and surrounded by another layer of metal, thus acting as a capacitor when electrically charged.  When the rings were spun synchronously gMOD effects were achieved at least four orders of magnitude higher (literally lifting boulders and crushing work benches) than Tajmar’s micro-g experiments.  Hollingshead also reported that when the device was stationery and spun up a dramatic drop in temperature surrounding the RP occurred.

Hollingshead makes no claims regarding the pairing of electrons, but like Wallace suggests that nucleonic mechanisms are in play and that “protons are pushed into becoming neutrons” in the iron nuclei of atoms in the RP.  He even discusses contamination of the RP with “by-products” that attenuate the effect over time.  Whether Hollingshead now claims bosonic interactions is unknown due to his publicly taciturn nature.

Both Searl and Hollingshead reported creation of an ionized halo around their stationary devices, even though Hollingshead claimed he had never heard of Searl before developing his device.  Both reported the generation of a vacuum around the devices as air was pushed outward.  Wallace also hypothesized the generation of a shield effect, while Hollingshead claimed actual generation of a shield… and reported bouncing small objects off of it.

In a 2006 article in New Scientist, Tajmar similarly discussed the potential ability to create a “shield” with such a gravity effect.  He said, “Levitating cars, zero-g playgrounds, tractor beams to pull objects towards you, glass-less windows that use repulsive fields to prevent things passing through.  Let your imagination run riot: a gravitomagnetic device that works by changing the acceleration and orientation of a superconductor would be the basis for a general purpose force field.”  When asked by this blogger about Hollingshead however, Tajmar replied that he did not think that effect (if true) was related to his research. [see my Addendum to Inventors in COMMENTS]

Continued in Part 2

enhancing local industries

I’ve mentioned previously how gMOD could enhance Minnesota’s economy by turning part of Duluth Airport into a spaceport for export and shipping to other locations on the globe… or even beyond our globe.  This capability would expand existing port facility capabilities in Duluth.  What other industries in Minnesota would benefit from similar adoption of gMOD technology to enhance our local economy?

Generation of a propulsive gravity field might first be employed by manufacturers of small motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles, ATVs and motorcycles.  Manufacturers such as Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Manufacturing Company, ArcticCat and Polaris have filled a valuable manufacturing position in the state for decades.  As the legal requirements for such vehicles are generally less onerous than that for cars and trucks, these manufacturers may find an early niche in the production of recreational gMOD vehicles.

The first gMOD vehicles might be more like RVs, allowing owners to live in their vehicle… even tour on vacation in it.  RV motorhome customizers such as Kingsley Coach and Waldoch Crafts are well suited to larger vehicle production in small quantities.

Another potential industry for the first residential gMOD vehicles might be boat builders.  Manufacturers such as Bluewater Yachts or Genmar, and manufacturers of smaller vessels such as Crestliner, Premiere Marine and Lund Boats may easily transition to hull-based gMOD vehicles. Also, these need not resemble boats per se.  The canal houseboats in Amsterdam clearly show that floating residences need not be seaworthy boat-like vessels.  In fact, floating homes in Seattle’s Puget Sound or on Portland’s Willamette River show that perhaps even the construction industry could find a niche here.

Prior to hurricane Katrina the thirteen hotel-casino barges off of the U.S. Gulf Coast had an occupancy of many thousands of guests and collectively were the nation’s third-largest casino market.  Casinos have the capital to invest in novel technology such as gMOD if it can be used to attract new visitors.

In Minnesota barges are not necessary as Indian Gaming casinos such as Mystic Lake, Treasure Island and Grand Casino are owned and operated by tribal communities that establish their own gaming laws.  Paired with barge manufacturers from the gulf region, we might find that it is the tribal communities of the state that become the first to employ gMOD floating architecture on a large scale.

more on eht

I’ve been asked what direct connection there is between EHT (Extended Heim Theory) and Dr. Tajmar’s work.  Such descriptions are beyond me to generate, though I can relate the writings of others.  So let me refer you to comments made recently on the PhysOrg public message board by Duane J. Oldsen.  Duane seems to have a good handle on the issues at hand.  Here are some direct outtakes:

To start off, Heim Theory (currently EHT, Extended Heim Theory) must be considered somewhat left field. It was Burkhard Heim’s private baby for several decades, since at least the ’50s, making rare German language forays into academic presentation and release. As far as I know, there is only Heim’s 1977 monograph and a 1976 presentation at MBB (now part of EADS) that are part of Heim’s official record.

EHT is composed of eight dimensions, the four of human experience, and an additional four that can be thought of as “bookkeeping” dimensions. Burkhard Heim had initially limited this to 6D, and EHT provides for an absolute maximum of 12D…

Heim was introduced to one Walter Droscher c.1980. At some point thereafter, the two begain working on Heim’s ideas together. Droscher reworked Heim’s original 6-dimensional model into an 8D model, which purportedly is able to account for all known forces and interactions, as well as predicting two additional forces. Droscher, in cooperation with Jochem Hauser, have been refining and publishing the Extended Theory via AIAA publications since at least 2002.

Structurally, EHT is similar to Loop Quantum Gravity… It predicts two additional forces, and claims the ability to predict the masses of fundamental particles from pure theory.

The two additional forces are variant gravitational forces, much weaker than normal gravity. “Quintessence” is a repulsive gravitational force that seems to match dark energy VERY closely. However, the timeline indicates that Heim predicted this force by the mid ’60s at latest, at least 5 years before universal expansion was observed. The second gravity-cousin is the gravito-photon force. EHT provides mathematical models that allow for the transformation of photons into attractive and/or repulsive gravitational particles, gravitophotons. It is the gravitophoton that is purported to allow the manipulation of gravity, and which provides the direct link to Tajmar’s work.  This is an excellent overview:[Note: Here is the link to the pdf referenced].

Until 2006, they were also reporting on a more radical claim, that the EHT physics potentially allow for FTL</i> [Note: Faster Than Light] travel. <i>However, at that time they thought that the technical requirements for even the STL (Slower Than Light) reactionless method would require truly gargantuan magnetic field strengths. 20+ Tesla for the most basic STL experiment, 80+ for the FTL. Since even the most minuscule laboratory verification would come nowhere near to real world application, the more extreme claims to gin up interest were probably justified.

After Tajmar’s announcement in 2006 however, Droscher & Hauser went back and took another look. They found that EHT gave good predictive agreement with the results Tajmar had reported. The Tajmar experiment and the proposed STL lab bench demonstrator were moderately similar, albeit that the gravitational fields produced were directed along different vectors. And each set of revised results from Tajmar is reported to have brought Tajmar’s observed results and the EHT predictions into closer and closer agreement.

Per private communication w/Hauser, Tajmar has many more results than those he has released. The released results being those best verified to the most anal retentive degree. Per public releases, Hauser and Tajmar have been in close contact for at least the last year.

is gmod green?

As in the debate over biofuels, the total “environmental accounting” for a new technology should be taken into consideration before declaring one method as environmentally superior or more beneficial than another.  We will look at the possible environmental drawbacks of gMOD (from ore extraction to disposal) at another time.  Today I’d like to focus upon its environmental benefits for transportation.

One environmental benefit of gMOD is its potential to replace the burning of fossil fuels (FF) as a means for producing propulsion.  Configured for propulsion, a gMOD generator could replace the burning of fossil fuels by automobiles, trains and ships to produce both forward movement and braking.  A gMOD generator employed within a family vehicle would therefore be the environmental equivalent of an electric vehicle, since it converts electrical energy into vehicle propulsion, though field propulsion as opposed to mechanical propulsion.

However, any requirement to generate large magnetic fields (e.g. in the multiple Tesla range) or to cool generator coils to superconducting temperatures could easily make a gMOD generator an energy “hog” and unsuitable for mobile applications.  In addition, any need for a coil of several dozen or more meters in diameter (as suggested by Tajmar’s patent) would similarly make it impractical for single vehicle usage.  So a compact profile and efficient energy conversion are essential to its usefulness for many transportation needs.

Reduction of operating friction is another potential advantage of gMOD.  Small devices could provide lift-assist in airplanes, dirigibles and maglev (magnetic levitation) trains to improve their efficiency without relying exclusively on gMOD.  Even the conventional family car could benefit from the reduction of friction on wheel bearings, thus reducing operational temperatures and improving fuel efficiency… all made possible with an assist from a small gMOD generator. If standing fields can be shaped according to need then such fields could also be suitable for forming transient airfoil and hydrofoil shapes for reducing air drag and improving mileage.  The field could either form the entire envelope or provide the ability to dynamically change the displacement of air/water as speed or direction changes.

And then there are “flying platforms”.  A fleet of pilotless (autonomous) platforms controlled by Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and carrying a wide range of cargo containers could navigate between cities/nodes via satellite GPS.  Shipping goods between cities is perhaps the largest initial growth area for gMOD, even surpassing transport for people.  Such a system would reduce traffic load on highways and reduce wear and tear by fleet vehicles.  This would reduce maintenance costs and increase the longevity of our highways including the consumption of FF-based bituminous roadway material.

How do you ensure the success of a new technology today?  Answer:  Make it an essential strategy for Wal-Mart.  This has been true with RFID chips and it could be true with gMOD.  The biggest horizontal industry in the world is logistics — getting raw materials in, processing of products, packaging products, transporting, warehousing, distributing and retailing to the consumer.  gMOD platforms could fill that need.

If gMOD is found to be practical, there are only a few criteria which must be met to overcome barriers to introducing a gMOD generator.  These include:

1)The technology must be competitively priced both to purchase and to operate in comparison to alternate conventional technologies.

2)It must operate at an efficiency that allows it to perform work at various scales (ideally from palm-sized generators capable of lifting several kilos to closet-sized generators capable of lifting several tons.)

3)Its operation must not present unacceptably high risks to operators, citizenry, or the environment.

4)Any byproducts of its usage must be managed and disposed of safely.

Of these, items 3 and 4 represent areas of potential environmental impact.  It is these areas which represent the potential negative environmental impacts of gMOD technology.  Unfortunately, not enough is known about byproducts or safety risks specific to this technology to address them today.  We’ll reserve speculation about them for another day.

spaceport duluth

One of the most often described purposes suggested for gravity modification is space travel.  Space travel suggests the establishment of a spaceport and spaceports are actually common.  They currently exist in California (California Spaceport and Mojave Airport), Alaska (Kodiak Launch Complex), Florida (Kennedy), Virginia, Oklahoma, and Texas .  Plans are also in various stages of development for Wisconsin (Sheboygan) and the New Mexico Southwest Regional Spaceport for space tourism.

However, such tourist facilities won’t have the infrastructure for shipping large tonnage of cargo.  Why is tonnage a factor?  Because even if we we don’t ship slabs of “blueberry” laden hematite from Mars to face building exteriors on Earth, or import tons of diamond-bearing kimberlite pipe ore from Olympus Mons, gMOD would still be useful for delivering suborbital payloads to ports around the world.  And for that tonnage we need a candidate port to become the first industrial spaceport.  Preferably it will be an existing major international airport or shipping port already transporting millions of tons of cargo a year.

Duluth could act as that first industrial spaceport.  The city is already an international port, one of the largest in America as gauged by tonnage.  It also has an international airport and an underutilized world-class aircraft facility.  The $25 million, 300,000 sq-ft Northwest Airlines Airbus Maintenance facility is located in Duluth International Airport.  Despite it capabilities, the underpayment of taxes by Northwest Airlines since May 2005 and the looming potential of a merger with Delta leaves the facility’s future uncertain. So why not reserve it as our first industrial spaceport facility?

Duluth’s location on Lake Superior has ready access to the two most desirable resources for industrial expansion into space: steel for building and fresh water for drinking.  Minnesota Steel Industries plans to bring in 2,000 construction workers to the defunct Butler Taconite site in Nashwauk to erect North America’s first fully integrated taconite-mine-to-steel mill.  The $1.6 billion plant is on a two year fast track for development.

Also, Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world.  There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America with a foot (30 cm) of water. Though water levels have declined in recent years, Superior could still contain all the other Great Lakes and three more Lake Eries.

The long expanse of Lake Superior from Isle Royale eastward would allow space vehicles to depart from the Duluth spaceport, climb over the lake, and reach orbit… matching most currently eastward orbits.  This is a necessary step before the first industrial goal:  removing the millions of pieces of space debris (space junk) currently in orbit.

Once cleared, satellite platforms could be placed into orbit.  Such platforms become not just satellites but potentially (thanks to gMOD) geosynchronous satellites suitable for all sorts of communications needs.  Payloads for the platforms could also include anything from orbital hostels (less formal the the five star hotel of the film “2001”) to fueling platforms for flights to the moon and planets.

More on Dröscher and Hauser

In the short version of the paper, <a href = “http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/AIAA5595JCP2007DarkAbbreviated.pdf”>”Advanced Propulsion Systems from Artificial Gravitational Fields”</a>, Walter Dröscher and Jochem Hauser discussed how they would reconfigure Tajmar’s apparatus to reflect one of their earlier designs that had previously employed fermionic coupling under a 25 Tesla magnetic field.

Their paper was published through the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as document AIAA 2006-4608 in August of 2006.  But only now, it seems, are Dröscher, Hauser and Tajmar collaborating on a combined paper that will (apparently) address how combining D & H’s z-axis configuration for improved field propulsion with Tajmar’s bosonic coupling approach could provide a rapid way forward to gMOD.

What does this mean?

In contrast to Tajmar’s device which produced a field tangental the axis of rotation, D & H’s configuration would generate a gravitational field acting parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotating ring and “thus can serve as a field propulsion principle”.  In short, rather than Tajmar’s 200 meter rotating ring to provide 1g of lift, a coil half a meter in diameter with 4 square meters of surface area rotating at 200 meters per second is calculated to be able to lift itself from the surface of the Earth… IF it employs bosonic coupling.  This interaction between electromagnetism and gravitation is predicted by EHT (Extended Heim Theory), of which D & H are the primary authors.

Even though Tajmar has (very conservatively) spoken of generating a milli-g of acceleration within five years, Dröscher and Hauser’s configuration would make Tajmar’s configuration 3 orders of magnitude more efficient.  No news yet on the expected publication date for early drafts of the paper, but with the testing currently going on at EarthTech with Dr. Tajmar in attendance is it any wonder why some in the physics community are holding their collective breath?

why gmod?

I’ve recently changed the title of this blog to “gMOD: gravity modification”.  Why gMOD?  First, it stands for “gravity modification”.  The traditional use of the term “antigravity” has been a hinderance to earnest researchers.  Dr. Ron Koczor of the Science Directorate, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center knows about choosing the terminology to match your audience.  During an interview with him for a previous article he told me, “When you talk to the general public or the kids whose eyes are half-glazed with anticipation, call it “antigravity”.  But when you talk to people who control the course of research and who themselves have the credibility of their decisions questioned by higher-ups, I think you need to rethink your use of that term.”

Others, such as Dr. Tajmar, have used “artificial gravity”.  However that brings to mind only positive gravity that attracts.  Dr. Tajmar’s studies have discussed both an attractive and repulsive effect, so artificial gravity draws upon the wrong imagery to cover these effects.  In lieu of the term artificial gravity, Dr. Koczor prefers “gravity modification”.

I have used the term “modified gravity”, or modG, in past articles.  However, the term “Modified Gravity” has recently been used to describe a theoretical distance-dependence of gravity as an alternative to “dark matter” or Modified Newtonian Dynamics.  Therefore I’ve returned to Ron’s use of gravity modification to describe methods of modifying gravity locally whether attractive or repulsive.  Hence, “gMOD”.

There is also the “iPod” effect.  Like the first generation of digital “e” functions (email, eLearning, eCommerce, etc.), Apple has glommed onto the “i” devices (iPod, iPhone, iMac, etc.) and has defended it vigorously.  So I’ve coined “gMOD” or “gMod” as a way to described gravity-related functions and devices.  Hey, why not?

I also have a logo.  The floating “g” suggests that gravity is modified… even optional!  Enjoy.

g_MOD logo

 

 

earth tech international begins replication study

Earth Tech International of Austin Texas has <a href=”http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/tajmar/”>begun studies </a>to replicate Dr. Tajmar’s artificial gravity experiments.  ETI is a privately funded research organization dedicated to the exploration of new frontiers in physics.  ETI’s key principal is Dr. Harold Puthoff.

Theory papers: archive abstracts, downloadable papers, background notes can be found HERE.

Experiment papers: archive abstracts and downloadable papers can be found HERE.