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Artificial gravity-generator discovered?!

Posted: 24.03.2006, 01:25
by Malenfant
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html

This is really rather intriguing. Apparently if you spin up a superconductor you get a 'gravitomagnetic field' and it's been measured in the lab. By (apparently) reputable scientists, no less!

If this pans out into something usable, it could result in some rather nifty technologies...

Posted: 24.03.2006, 11:35
by eburacum45
I am not surprised that something like this is possible. However I wouldn't expect artificial gravity in spaceships just yet; this is a very small effect, and even if scaled up the gravity gradient from (say) an underfloor gravitomagnetic generator would be completely different to the gravity gradient on a planet.
Imagine standing on the floor in a ship with artificial gravity generators; your feet are close to the generator and are heavy, while your head is far from the generator and practically in free fall. In such a situation you would get blood pooling in your feet and probably black out in short order.

Posted: 25.03.2006, 01:32
by wcomer
You are right, but for the wrong reasons. The ring doesn't create a gravitational field, rather a gravitomagnetic field. Unless you were wearing another such ring, you wouldn't be pulled towards it. However, a toroidal ring of such rings could be used to generated an gravity field within the hole of the torus. This would be a gravitational dipole, much like a magnetic dipole. You could accelerate objects through the hole of this torus (though there are easier ways to accelerate objects.) I guess a larger torus of such torii could be used, to cause an object to orbit within it's tube. Maybe in another 50 years, undergrads will be studying gravito-gravitomagnetism in the same manner as electromageneticsm is taught today.

cheers,
Walton