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20:38
Transcript
0:00
This video is sponsored by me.
0:04
Over the decades, anti-gravity has been
0:06
the stuff of science fiction.
0:08
But with the recent government releases
0:10
of videos showing UAPs doing things that
0:13
we cannot explain, and even
0:15
congressional meetings on the subject,
0:18
one of the fundamental features of these
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0:20
craft, objects, or whatever they may be,
0:23
is their seeming ability to manipulate
0:25
gravity in a way which we simply have no
0:27
clue about.
0:28
Now, this may be just coming from the
0:31
fevered imagination of AI, or just the
0:34
latest form of disinformation or
0:36
perception management, possibly using
0:38
UAP stories as a cover narrative. But
0:41
what it does do is to make us look again
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0:44
at gravity and the seemingly gaping
0:47
holes in our knowledge of what it really
0:50
is, and the attempts to try and make it
0:53
work for us like other fundamental
0:55
forces of nature, like electromagnetism.
0:59
Almost everything so far which has been
1:01
claimed to be a form of anti-gravity is
1:03
just really using other known forces.
1:07
Though there is a very interesting
1:09
effect which, if verified, could be the
1:11
closest we have come so far, and we'll
1:14
look at that later.
1:15
A plane could be said to be an
1:17
anti-gravity machine because it can lift
1:19
you up and away from the surface of the
1:22
earth and the gravitational pull. But
1:24
it's actually using the pressure
1:26
differential of a wing traveling through
1:28
air at speed create lift.
1:31
A rocket does a similar thing by burning
1:33
fuel which expands, creating thrust and
1:36
pushing it along. With enough thrust, it
1:39
can overcome the pull of Earth's
1:41
gravity, but it's nothing more than a
1:43
chemical reaction.
1:45
And magnets can lift objects and
1:48
vehicles so that they float above a
1:50
surface.
1:51
But this is just the effect of repulsive
1:53
magnetism, like when you try and force
1:55
two magnets together with the same poles
1:58
on each. It's just the electromagnetic
2:01
force.
2:02
In the '80s and '90s, gyroscopic
2:04
inertial thrusters were seen as
2:06
potential sources of reactionless
2:09
thrust.
2:10
When seen in action, they appear to be
2:12
able to generate lift and defy gravity.
2:16
They use various methods of leverage
2:18
against the support of a large flywheel
2:21
or gyroscope. And this appears to
2:23
generate lift when the angle of the
2:25
gyroscope is changed, but after years of
2:27
theoretical and laboratory testing by
2:30
NASA and others, no thrust or
2:32
anti-gravity forces in free space were
2:35
found to be produced.
2:37
Other so-called anti-gravity lifters
2:40
using the Biefeld-Brown effect are in
2:42
fact using the propulsive force of ion
2:44
flow.
2:45
By charging a very lightweight object or
2:48
lifter, usually with a positive high
2:51
voltage, the surrounding air is ionized.
2:54
As the ions are attracted to the
2:56
opposite negative electrode, usually the
2:57
ground, they interact with the neutral
3:01
air molecules, creating an air flow with
3:03
enough force to levitate the lifter.
3:06
Some claimed that the effect works in a
3:09
vacuum and therefore must be some form
3:11
of interaction between the electric
3:13
field and the Earth's gravity field, and
3:15
implying that it could be used to create
3:18
an anti-gravity effect. When NASA tested
3:21
it in a vacuum equivalent to that found
3:23
in the lower Earth orbit, the effect
3:25
disappeared, proving that it was caused
3:27
by the propulsive force of ions pushing
3:31
against the air.
3:32
Gravity is one of the fundamental
3:34
forces, and thus anti-gravity, in
3:37
theory, would be impossible.
3:39
It has been proposed that if another
3:41
force could attract matter or repel it
3:45
like a theoretical anti-gravity, then
3:48
maybe a machine could be made to
3:50
simulate that effect.
3:52
One of the simplest possible loopholes
3:54
used to be antimatter. If antimatter
3:57
fell upwards in Earth's gravitational
4:00
field, then it would have been a real
4:02
form of repulsive gravity
4:04
and a major crack in our current
4:06
theories.
4:07
But in 2023, CERN's Alpha G experiment
4:11
directly measured [clears throat] the
4:12
motion of antihydrogen and found that,
4:15
within the limits of the experiment,
4:17
antimatter falls downward like normal
4:19
matter. That does not explain why the
4:22
universe contains so little antimatter,
4:25
but it does make the most obvious form
4:27
of anti-gravity much less likely.
4:30
So, what about gravity shielding,
4:32
similar to a Faraday shield for radio
4:35
waves? Electromagnetic fields are easy
4:38
to shield because they have both
4:40
positive and negative charges. By
4:42
arranging these charges in a conductor,
4:45
like the Faraday shield, you can cancel
4:47
out an external field.
4:50
To see if any material does have an
4:52
effect on the weak equivalence
4:54
principle, this has now been tested to
4:56
an extraordinary level of precision. The
4:59
weak equivalence principle, or WEP, aka
5:02
the universality of free fall, states
5:05
that all uncharged, structureless test
5:08
particles fall with the same
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acceleration in a gravitational field,
5:13
regardless of their mass or composition.
5:16
This is very similar to the hammer and
5:18
feather test that the Apollo astronauts
5:20
did on the moon to see if in a vacuum
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they both fall at the same rate.
5:25
Universal attraction, according to WEP,
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says that all mass energy acts as a
5:30
single type of gravitational charge.
5:33
Because there is no known negative mass,
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you cannot create a configuration of
5:39
matter that cancels out the gravity of,
5:42
say, a nearby object, like another
5:45
planet, by adding more matter. The only
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thing it does is it just increases the
5:50
total gravitational pull.
5:52
From 2016 to 2018, the Microscope
5:56
satellite compared how different
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materials fall in Earth orbit and found
6:01
no violation of the WEP down to one part
6:06
in a quadrillion, or one with 15 zeros
6:09
after it.
6:11
If ordinary materials could block or
6:13
alter gravity in any simple way, that
6:16
was the kind of experiment where the
6:18
difference might have started to show
6:20
up.
6:21
Now, this episode's sponsor is me.
6:24
I've mentioned occasionally that I'm a
6:25
bit of a synth head, and I've been into
6:28
electronic music since I was 12, way
6:30
back in 1974.
6:32
That was the year that Tangerine Dream
6:34
released Phaedra. Kraftwerk released
6:36
Autobahn, and Isao Tomita released
6:38
Snowflakes are Dancing, three landmark
6:41
electronic albums from pioneering
6:43
artists that had a huge influence on me.
6:47
But it was Tomita's work that really
6:49
fascinated me. Over nine albums from
6:52
1974 to '84, he took classical works by
6:55
composers like Debussy, Mussorgsky,
6:57
Stravinsky, Holst, and many others, and
6:59
recreated them electronically using
7:01
synthesizers such as the Moog modular.
7:04
Now, this was similar in concept to
7:06
Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach, but
7:08
Tomita's music was more colorful,
7:10
surreal, and flamboyant.
7:12
Back then, I knew almost nothing about
7:14
classical music, and the sounds Tomita
7:16
created were completely new to me and
7:19
everyone else.
7:21
That combination of classical
7:23
composition and the strange, beautiful,
7:25
otherworldly electronic sound was
7:28
utterly fascinating.
7:30
It followed the original scores, but
7:31
somehow sounded like nothing else.
7:34
Since 1998, on and off, I've been making
7:37
electronic music inspired by that same
7:40
approach.
7:41
I'm not covering the same pieces Tomita
7:43
did, but reworking other works by some
7:47
of those composers using a mixture of
7:49
hardware and software synthesizers.
7:52
Last year, I finally had an album's
7:54
worth of material that I felt was good
7:56
enough to release.
7:57
This is what I'm promoting today.
8:00
As I've [music] been speaking, you've
8:02
been hearing snippets of the music from
8:04
the album.
8:05
This is made very much in the spirit of
8:07
Tomita, classical pieces reimagined
8:10
through synthesis with dark, bright,
8:13
strange, colorful [music] sounds and a
8:14
deliberately electronic character.
8:18
So, if you're a fan of Tomita-styled
8:20
music, or you're into the more eclectic
8:22
electronic music, you can hear the whole
8:25
thing for free on my Bandcamp page,
8:28
paulshelitommusic.bandcamp.com.
8:32
If you enjoy it, you can purchase the
8:34
album or individual tracks for the price
8:36
of a coffee or two.
8:38
It helps support the channel, and it
8:40
also helps keep this slightly unusual
8:43
corner
8:44
of electronic music alive.
8:52
In scientific papers published between
8:55
1991 and '93, American scientist Ning Li
8:59
claimed that anti-gravity effects could
9:02
be achieved if the ions in a
9:04
Bose-Einstein
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condensate, that's a state of matter
9:08
where all the atoms in it can act like
9:11
one, could be trapped into a
9:13
high-temperature superconducting disk
9:15
with a time-varying magnetic field. A
9:18
huge amount of energy could be stored in
9:20
its lattice structure in this way.
9:23
As each ion would spin rapidly, it would
9:26
create a tiny gravitational field.
9:28
However, because all the ions in the
9:31
Bose-Einstein condensate would be
9:33
aligned, the effect would be magnified
9:35
by the billions of ions in the disk.
9:39
The theory is that this would create a
9:41
gravity-like field that could either
9:43
increase or decrease the effect of
9:45
gravity, which Ning Li called AC gravity
9:48
because it could be attractive or
9:50
repulsive in nature.
9:51
She said that the experiments in the lab
9:53
had created a beam-like effect above the
9:55
disk, which affected matter for some
9:58
distance and this backed up her
10:00
theories.
10:01
Even though it had created a lot of
10:03
interest at the time, in 1997 she
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published another paper saying that
10:08
using new measurements with a more
10:10
sensitive gravimeter had shown the
10:12
effect to be either very small or
10:14
non-existent. In 2000 Ning Li left the
10:17
University of Alabama and set up her own
10:19
company, AC Gravity LLC. And in 2001 she
10:24
was awarded a grant worth just under
10:26
$450,000
10:28
from the Department of Defense to
10:30
investigate it further.
10:31
Since then she has all but disappeared
10:33
and nothing more has been heard about
10:35
her research but the company, AC Gravity
10:38
LLC, apparently was still in business.
10:41
Ning Li died in 2021
10:44
and as of now there is still no public,
10:47
independently repeated demonstrations of
10:49
her AC Gravity idea. So her work remains
10:53
one of the more intriguing anti-gravity
10:55
claims to come from the 1990s and early
10:58
2000s but it is not a confirmed
11:00
technology.
11:02
Experiments carried out by Evgeny
11:04
Podkletnov in the early 1990s using
11:06
rotating superconducting disks in a
11:08
magnetic field claimed to decrease the
11:11
effect of gravity by about 2% on objects
11:14
placed above the disk and again it
11:17
appeared to act like a beam above the
11:19
disk for a considerable distance.
11:22
However, these results had not been able
11:24
to be verified by other scientists. He
11:27
claimed that the other researchers had
11:28
not used the same setup and that's the
11:30
reason why they could not reproduce the
11:32
same results.
11:33
And when NASA was about to complete the
11:35
experiments they ran out of funding and
11:38
the research was taken over by the
11:39
Department of Defense and he was shut
11:42
out of any further research in the US
11:44
because of his Russian citizenship.
11:47
This and Ning Li's work is said to have
11:49
prompted Boeing to investigate the
11:51
effect of rotating superconductors with
11:54
Project GRASP, Gravity Research for
11:57
Advanced Space Propulsion.
11:59
With potential uses including space
12:01
launches, artificial gravity on
12:03
spacecraft, aircraft propulsion and
12:06
fuel-less electricity generation.
12:09
Although others have pointed out that if
12:11
the effect could be proven and directed
12:13
into a beam, it would be able to be
12:15
weaponized creating steerable artificial
12:18
gravity forces to destabilize missiles,
12:21
planes and satellites.
12:23
Since the information was released,
12:25
Boeing has backtracked and said it was
12:27
offered the proposal but chose not to
12:29
fund it with company money but refused
12:32
to comment if this was a black project
12:35
on the company books.
12:37
This is also where the story starts to
12:39
overlap with the more controversial
12:41
subject of classified aerospace work and
12:44
UAP claims.
12:46
To keep the known science separate from
12:48
speculation, there is no public evidence
12:50
that Boeing, NASA, the Department of
12:52
Defense or any private contractor has
12:55
demonstrated working anti-gravity
12:57
propulsion.
12:59
What does exist are historical
13:01
proposals, rumors and claims around
13:04
black projects, some of which use the
13:07
same language of superconductors, field
13:09
propulsion, gravity beams or inertial
13:12
mass reduction.
13:14
These and others are based on the idea
13:16
of gravit electromagnetism which looks
13:18
at the analogies between Maxwell's
13:20
equations for electromagnetism and
13:23
Einstein's equations of relativistic
13:26
gravitation.
13:27
Basically the premise is that just as a
13:29
spinning electron creates a magnetic
13:31
field, then a massive spinning object
13:34
like the Earth will create drag on
13:37
space-time, a bit like when you spin a
13:39
ball in a viscous fluid like oil.
13:42
Although this drag was predicted nearly
13:45
a hundred years ago, Einstein called it
13:47
frame dragging, it's taken the best part
13:50
of a century to prove if it actually
13:52
existed with several independent
13:55
satellite missions which did indeed
13:57
measure a small but noticeable dragging
14:00
effect. This is important because our
14:02
current theories of gravity are that
14:04
mass curves the otherwise flat
14:07
space-time and this deformation of
14:10
space-time is gravity.
14:13
This is shown quite well with the weight
14:15
in a rubber sheet experiment that
14:17
represents the Sun and pulls the sheet
14:20
down in the center.
14:21
A ball rolling in a straight direction
14:24
follows the curve. This is like the
14:26
Earth which is traveling in a straight
14:28
line but is caught in the curve of
14:30
space-time created by the Sun's mass and
14:33
so long as the Earth's speed is
14:35
constant, it orbits the Sun.
14:38
If the frame dragging effect is real,
14:40
then it is affecting gravity and a
14:42
moving object near a massive rotating
14:45
object would experience acceleration not
14:48
predicted by Newtonian laws.
14:51
It's been suggested that this effect
14:53
might be behind the massive jets of gas
14:56
that are ejected from quasars and
14:58
galactic nuclei. Rotating supermassive
15:01
black holes at the centers of galaxies
15:03
would also create enormous frame
15:05
dragging effects.
15:07
This is where the spinning
15:09
superconducting disks in Ning Li's and
15:12
the GRASP experiments come in
15:14
to simulate this frame dragging and the
15:17
gravitational warping effect but on a
15:20
very much smaller scale.
15:22
But the elephant in the room is that we
15:25
still don't know what gravity really is.
15:28
Yes, we have Newton and Einstein's laws
15:31
which predict with amazing accuracy the
15:34
effects of gravity but these theories
15:36
don't tell us how gravity works or what
15:39
the mechanism is that makes mass bend
15:43
space-time. All we know is that gravity
15:46
is a consequence of mass and the greater
15:48
the mass, the greater the bending of
15:50
space-time and hence the greater
15:51
gravity.
15:53
Although gravity works over huge
15:55
distances on the grand scale of planets,
15:57
stars and galaxies,
15:59
we don't know how it really works on the
16:01
very small things at the distances of
16:03
atomic scale because its effect is then
16:06
so weak and difficult to measure.
16:09
Conversely, we don't know how it works
16:12
where gravity is incredibly strong such
16:15
as in a black hole.
16:17
There are many theories as to how
16:18
gravity actually works but none of which
16:21
have been proven.
16:23
In quantum mechanics, there is a
16:24
prediction that a force-carrying
16:27
particle called a graviton might exist
16:30
even though there has been no proof
16:33
found of their existence.
16:34
But as all the other three fundamental
16:37
forces, strong nuclear force, the weak
16:39
nuclear force and the electromagnetic
16:42
force have at least one force carrier,
16:45
it's believed there must be one for
16:47
gravity, too, if gravity is a true
16:51
force.
16:52
Another route is quantum gravity. There
16:55
are now serious proposals for small
16:57
laboratory experiments that try to test
16:59
whether gravity can create quantum
17:02
entanglement between tiny masses.
17:04
If that is shown, it would suggest that
17:06
gravity has quantum properties. But
17:09
again, this would not be a gravity
17:11
control device. It would just be a clue
17:14
about what gravity really is at the
17:16
smallest scales.
17:19
Gravity appears to have virtually no
17:21
interaction with any other forces and
17:24
works on any form of matter, even ones
17:28
which we can't currently detect, namely
17:30
the still unknown dark matter.
17:33
There is also no known way to shield
17:36
against it because it bends space-time
17:39
which is the underlying fabric of the
17:41
universe and as such it's not really a
17:43
force.
17:45
We can only feel the effects of it when
17:47
we are stopped from moving like when
17:49
we're standing on the ground but being
17:51
pulled by the mass of the Earth below
17:53
us.
17:54
If we were free falling in space
17:56
just above the Earth, we would feel
17:58
nothing at all.
18:00
True anti-gravity would need something
18:02
deeper, negative mass, negative energy,
18:06
a new force or some way to manipulate
18:09
the geometry of space-time itself.
18:12
Then there are the observations of the
18:14
physical universe that show that the
18:16
rate of expansion from the Big Bang is
18:18
speeding up instead of the expected
18:20
slowing down under the effect of
18:22
gravity.
18:23
So either we have a major problem with
18:25
our theories of gravity or there is
18:27
something else out there that is
18:29
providing a yet unknown force which is
18:32
overpowering gravity and pushing the
18:35
universe apart in all directions which
18:37
we currently call dark energy.
18:40
And like dark matter, we cannot detect
18:43
it directly but only see the effect it
18:46
has a bit like gravity itself.
18:48
Dark energy is still one of the
18:50
strangest parts of the story. It behaves
18:53
on the largest scales like a repulsive
18:56
effect causing the expansion of the
18:58
universe to accelerate
19:00
but it's not something that we know how
19:02
to collect, focus or switch on inside a
19:05
machine.
19:06
If dark energy is a kind of
19:08
anti-gravity, then it is a cosmic one
19:11
and not an engineering tool.
19:13
So given all this, is true anti-gravity
19:16
or some form of gravity control a
19:18
realistic proposition? We still don't
19:20
know if anything has really come from
19:23
the research by Ning Li and Project
19:25
GRASP. It's been rather quiet on that
19:27
front in recent years.
19:29
A source at NASA said that the science
19:31
appeared to be sound but the difficulty
19:33
was in scaling it up.
19:35
At some point in the future when we have
19:37
a much better understanding of what
19:39
gravity really is and how it really
19:40
works, we might find a way to manipulate
19:43
it as we want but unless a new
19:46
breakthrough is announced, it appears to
19:49
be in the realm of science fiction. As
19:51
it stands, antimatter does not fall
19:53
upwards. Simple gravity shielding looks
19:56
like it's even less likely, and the old
19:58
superconducting claims remain
20:00
unverified.
20:01
But some theories, namely warp drive
20:03
mathematics, negative energy, quantum
20:05
gravity, modified gravity, and dark
20:08
energy all show that gravity is not yet
20:11
a finished subject.
20:13
But the gap between our theories and our
20:16
understanding of the real-world
20:17
engineering that will be required,
20:20
however, is still enormous.
20:24
So, if you enjoyed the video, then
20:25
please thumbs up, share, and subscribe.
20:27
And a big thank you goes to all our
20:28
patrons for their ongoing support.
— end of transcript —
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