At 08:45 PM 2/1/03 -0600, Julia Thompson wrote:
Erik Reuter wrote: > > On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 06:32:17PM -0600, Julia Thompson wrote: > > Someone on one of my other lists posted this link: > > > > http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/28/1043534050248.html > > > > My BS detector started going off at the sentence "I am not a crank." :) > > You got that far? :-)Actually, I guess that was the point that *nailed* it. :) > > Anyone better at ferreting out the BS in the details want to take a > > crack at pointing out to me just where the fatal flaws are? (I'd be > > very interested in hearing from Dan, Erik and Gautam on the whole > > thing. Any other response is quite welcome, as well.) > > I didn't see any facts. A bunch of wild speculations and typical crank > gibberish. He talks about "electrogravitics" like it is some well known > science or technology. Outside of Star Trek, it isn't. Not much more to > say, unless there was something specific that sounded plausible to you > that you want to discuss. Mostly I wanted something *specific* to use in a response to the person who first brought the URL to my attention. Something a little more than a vague dismissal on the grounds of the author having no grasp of thermodynamics (which was the shoot-down on another whacked page that someone else suggested folks look at on that list) or something similar. Partway through, something just started screaming "Dean Drive alert! Dean Drive alert!" in my head. Of course, it never said "Dean Drive", so I can't just find an explanation of why *it* doesn't work and post *that* URL.
What the author may have been referring to is something called the "Podkletnov Effect". Back in 1992, a Russian physicist named Podkletnov reported that he had conducted an experiment in which the weight of a metal disk appeared to decrease by about 2 to 3%, which he concluded was due to some kind of previously unknown effect acting to partially "shield" the disk from the pull of Earth's gravity. NASA scientists, including some at UAH�, attempted to duplicate Podkletnov's results, but AFAIK were unsuccessful. (Reminiscent of the "cold fusion" story, in which no one else seemed to be able to replicate the Pons and Fleischmann experiment and generate the excess heat they reported.)
If you want more information, note that a Google search for "Podkletnov Effect" will turn up a lot of weird stuff . . .
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�The University of Alabama at Huntsville, which does a lot of work with Marshall Space Flight Center.
-- Ronn! :)
Ronn Blankenship
Instructor of Astronomy/Planetary Science
University of Montevallo
Montevallo, AL
Disclaimer: Unless specifically stated otherwise, any opinions contained herein are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent the official position of the University of Montevallo.
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