Jeff and Dorothy Kooistra wrote: > I asked: > >>> What is unconventional about the two "plate" components of a charged >>> capacitor >>> being attracted to each other? > > Harry Reeder replied: > >> The force of attraction is apparently not equal and opposite. >> If the force were equal and opposite it would not lift off the ground. > > Naudin is very good at replicating an effect--but he isn't good at, or > neglects to bother to do, rigorously contolling his experiments. That is, he > shows lift, but the two charged plates are not just interacting with each > other--they are interacting with everything else around them, too, including > the wires supplying the potential to the two plates. When you're at high > voltages, you cannot neglect the exterior circuit, nor the air, nor the walls > of the container, etc. etc. > > It doesn't matter if the air around it does or does not ionize. If I rub a > balloon on my head and put it close enough to the ceiling, it will rise and > stick there. It doesn't need to ionize air to do that. Polarization matters.
Yes, but a lifter carries its own "ceiling" in the form of a wire. > Let me be clear--though I am confident that the Lifters do nothing at all > beyond ordinary physics, I can't be absolutely certain of that. What I am > certain of is that I have yet to see an experiment that adequately takes into > account ALL of the relevant characteristics of the "lifter system", and the > entire system is a very complicated thing. > > That having been said, Lifters are pretty cool regardless of how they work. > > Jeffery D. Kooistra It is unlikely that a single experiment can ever be definitive. There is no end to the number of things you would have to control for it to be definitive. However, Naudin has performed a number of different experiments. Each experiment tests for something different, and taken together they strongly suggest something unconventional is occurring. Harry
