Electrogravitic Systems
13-1-00034-5879
AF WRIGHT AERONAUTICAL LABORATORIES
An examination of electrostatic motion,
dynamic counterbary and barycentric control.
Prepared by
Report GRG 013/56 February 1956
It has been accepted as axiomatic that the way to offset
the effects of gravity is to use a lifting surface and considerable
molecular energy to produce a continuously applied force that, for a
limited period of time, can remain greater than the effects of
gravitational attraction. The original invention of the glider, and
evolution of the briefly self-sustaining glider, at the turn of the
century led to progressive advances in power and knowledge. This has
been directed to refining the classic Wright Brothers' approach.
Aircraft design is still fundamentally as the Wrights adumbrated it,
with wings, body, tails, moving or flapping controls, landing gear and
so forth. The Wright biplane was a powered glider, and all subsequent
aircraft, including the supersonic jets of the nineteen-fifties are
also powered gliders. Only one fundamentally different flying
principle has so far been adopted with varying degrees of success. It
is the rotating wing aircraft that has led to the jet lifters and
vertical pushers, coleopters, ducted fans and lift induction turbine
propulsion systems.
But during these decades there was always the
possibility of making efforts to discover the nature of gravity from
cosmic or quantum theory, investigation and observation, with a view
to discerning the physical properties of aviation's enemy.
It has seemed to Aviation Studies that for some time
insufficient attention has been directed to this kind of research. If
it were successful such developments would change the concept of
sustentation, and confer upon a vehicle qualities
that would now be regarded as the ultimate in aviation.
This report summarizes in simple form the work that has
been done and is being done in the new field of electrogravitics. It
also outlines the various possible lines of research into the nature
and constituent matter of gravity, and how it has changed from Newton
to Einstein to the modern Hlavaty concept of gravity as an
electromagnetic force that may be controlled like a light wave.
The report also contains an outline of opinions on the
feasibility of different electrogravitics systems and there is
reference to some of the barycentric control and electrostatic
rigs in operation.
Also included is a list of references to
electrogravitics in successive Aviation Reports since a drive was
started by Aviation Studies (International) Limited to suggest to
aviation business eighteen months ago that the rewards of success are
too far-reaching to be overlooked, especially in view of the
hopeful judgement of the most authoritative voice in micro-
physics. Also listed are some relevant patents on electrostatics
and electrostatic generators in the United States, United Kingdom
and France.
Gravity Research Group
25 February 1956
Electrogravitics might be described as a synthesis of
electrostatic energy used for propulsion - either vertical propulsion
or horizontal or both - and gravitics, or dynamic counterbary, in
which energy is also used to set up a local gravitational force
independent of the earth's.
Electrostatic energy for propulsion has been predicted
as a possible means of propulsion in space when the thrust from a
neutron motor or ion motor would be sufficient in a dragless
environment to produce astronomical velocities. But the ion motor is
not strictly a part of the science of elctrogravitics, since
barycentric control in an electrogravitics systems is envisaged for a
vehicle operating within the earth's environment and it is not seen
initially for space application. Probably large scale space
operations would have to await the full development of
electrogravitics to enable large pieces of equipment to be moved out
of the region of the earth's strongest gravity effects.
So, though
electrostatic motors were thought of in 1925, electrogravitics had its
birth after the War, when Townsend Brown sought to improve on the
various proposals that then existed for electrostatic motors
sufficiently to produce some visible manifestation of sustained
motion. Whereas
earlier electrostatic tests were essentially pure research
Brown's rigs were aimed from the outset at producing a flying
article. As a private venture he produced evidence of motion using
condensers in a couple of saucers suspended by arms rotating round a
central tower with input running down the arms.
The massive-k situation was summarized subsequently in a
report, Project Winterhaven, in 1952. Using the data some conclusions
were arrived at that might be expected from ten or more years of
intensive development - similar to that, for instance, applied to the
turbine engine. Using a number of assumptions as to the nature of
gravity, the report postulated a saucer as the basis of a possible
interceptor with Mach 3 capability. Creation of a local gravitational
system would confer upon the fighter the sharp-edged changes of
direction typical of motion in space.
The essence of electrogravitics thrust is the use of a
very strong positive charge on one side of the vehicle and a negative
on the other. The core of the motor is a condenser and the ability of
the condenser to hold its charge (the k-number) is the yardstick of
performance. With air as 1, current dielectrical materials can yield
6 and use of barium aluminate can raise this considerably, barium
titanium oxide (a baked ceramic) can offer 6,000 and there is promise
of 30,000, which would be sufficient for supersonic speed.
The original Brown rig produced 30 fps on a voltage of
around 50,000 and a small amount of current in the
milliamp range. There was no detailed explanation of gravity
in Project Winterhaven, but it was assumed that particle
dualism in the subatomic structure of gravity would coincide
in its effect with the issuing stream of electrons from the
electrostatic energy source to produce counterbary. The Brown
work probably remains a realistic approach to the practical
realization of electrostatic propulsion and sustentation.
Whatever may be discovered by the Gravity Research Foundation of
New Boston a complete understanding and synthetic reproduction
of gravity is not essential for limited success. The electro- gravitics saucer can perform the function of a classic lifting
surface - it produces a pushing effect on the under surface and
a suction effect on the upper, but, unlike an airfoil, it does not
require a flow of air to produce the effect.
First attempts at electrogravitics are unlikely to
produce counterbary, but may lead to development of an electrostatic
VTOL vehicle. Even in its development form this might be an advance
on the molecular heat engine in its capabilities. But hopes in the
new science depend on an understanding of the source and matter of
gravity. It is fortuitous that lift can be produced in the
traditional fashion and if an understanding of gravity remains beyond
full practical control, electrostatic lift might be an adjunct of some
significance to modern thrust producers.
Research into electrostatics
could prove beneficial to turbine development, and heat engines in
general, in view of the usable electron potential round the periphery
of any flame. Materials for electrogravitics and especially the
development of commercial quantities of high-k material is another
dividend to be obtained from electrostatic research even if it
produces no counterbary. This is a line of development that Aviation
Studies' Gravity Research Group is following.
One of the interesting aspects of electrogravitics is
that a breakthrough in almost any part of the broad front of general
research on the intranuclear processes may be translated into a
meaningful advance towards the feasibility of electrogravitics
systems. This demands constant monitoring in the most likely areas of
the physics of high energy sub-nuclear particles. It is difficult to
be overoptimistic about the prospects of gaining so complete a grasp
of gravity while the world's physicists are still engaged in a study
of fundamental particles - that is to say those that cannot be broken
down any more.
Fundamental particles are still being discovered - the
most recent was the Segre-Chamberlain-Wiegand attachment to the
bevatron, which was used to isolate the missing anti-proton, which
must - or should be presumed to - exist according to Dirac's theory of
the electron. Much of the accepted mathematics of particles would be
wrong if the anti-proton was proved to be non-existent.
Earlier Eddington has listed the fundamental particles as:
e The charge of an electron.
m the mass of an electron.
M the mass of a proton.
h Planck's contant
c The velocity of light.
G The constant of gravitation, and
L The cosmological constant
It is generally held that no one of these can be
inferred from the others.
But electrons may well disappear from among
the fundamental particles, though, as Russell says, it is likely that
e and m will survive. The constants are much more established than
the interpretation of them and are among the most solid of
achievements in modern physics.
Gravity may be defined as a small scale departure from
Euclidean space in the general theory of relativity. The
gravitational constant is one of four dimensionless constants:
first, the mass relation of the nucleon and electron. Second is
e2/hc, third, the Compton wavelength of the proton, and fourth
is the gravitational constant, which is the ratio of the electrostatic
to the gravitational attraction between the electron and the proton.
One of the stumbling blocks in electrogravitics is the
absence of any satisfactory theory linking these four dimensionless
quantities. Of the four, moreover, gravity is decidedly the most
complex, since any explanation would have to satisfy both cosmic and
quantum relations more acceptably and intelligibly even than in the
unified field theory. A gravitational constant of around 10-30 has
emerged from quantum research and this has been used as a tool for
finding theories that could link the two relations.
This work is now
in full progress, and developments have to be watched for the aviation
angle. Hitherto Dirac, Eddington, Jordan and others have produced
differences in theory that are too wide to be accepted as consistent.
It means therefore that (i) without a cosmological basis, and (ii)
with an imprecise quantum basis and (iii) a vague hypothesis on the
interaction, much remains still to be discovered. Indeed some say
that a single interacting theory to link up the dimensionless
constants is one of three major unresolved basic problems of physics.
The other two main problems are the extension of quantum theory and a
more detailed knowledge of the fundamental particles.
All this is some distance from Newton, who saw gravity
as a force acting on a body from a distance, leading to the tendency
of bodies to accelerate towards each other. He allied this assumption
with Euclidean geometry, and time was assumed as uniform and acted
independently of space. Bodies and particles in space normally moved
uniformly in straight lines according to Newton, and to account for
the way they sometimes do not do so, he used the idea of a force of
gravity acting at a distance, in which particles of matter cause in
others an acceleration proportional to their mass, and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between them.
But Einstein showed how the principle of least action,
or the so-called cosmic laziness means that particles, on the
contrary, follow the easiest path along geodesic lines and as a result
they get readily absorbed into space-time. So was born
non-linear physics. The classic example of non-linear physics
is the experiment in bombarding a screen with two slits. When
both slits are open particles going through are not the sum of
the two individually but follows a non-linear equation.
This
leads on to wave-particle dualism and that in turn to the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle in which an increase in accuracy
in measurement of one physical quantity means decreasing
accuracy in measuring the other. If time is measured accurately
energy calculations will be in error; the more accurate the
position of a particle is established the less certain the velocity
will be; and so on. This basic principle of the acausality of
microphysics affects the study of gravity in the special and general
theories of relativity. Lack of pictoral image in the quantum physics
of this interrelationship is a difficulty at the outset for those
whose minds remain obstinately Euclidean.
In the special theory of relativity, space-time is seen
only as an undefined interval which can be defined in any way that is
convenient and the Newtonian idea of persistent particles in motion to
explain gravity cannot be accepted. It must be seen rather as a
synthesis of forces in a four dimensional continuum, three to
establish the position and one the time. The general theory of
relativity that followed a decade later was a geometrical explanation
of gravitation in which bodies take the geodesic path through
space-time. In turn this means that instead of the idea of a force
acting at a distance it is assumed that space, time, radiation and
particles are linked and variations in them from gravity are due
rather to the nature of space.
Thus gravity of a body such as the earth, instead of
pulling object towards it as Newton postulated, is adjusting the
characteristics of space and, it may be inferred, the quantum
mechanics of space in the vicinity of the gravitational force.
Electrogravitics aims at correcting this adjustment to put
matter, so to speak, 'at rest'.
One of the difficulties in 1954 and 1955 was to get
aviation to take electrogravitics seriously. The name alone was
enough to put people off. However, in the trade much progress has
been made and now most major companies in the United States
are interested in counterbary. Groups are being organised to
study electrostatic and electromagnetic phenomena. Most of
industry's leaders have made some reference to it. Douglas
has now stated that it has counterbary on its work agenda but
does not expect results yet awhile.
Hiller has referred to new
forms of flying platform, Glenn Martin say gravity control could
be achieved in six years, but they add that it would entail a
Manhattan District type of effort to bring it about. Sikorsky,
one of the pioneers, more or less agrees with the Douglas verdict
and says that gravity is tangible and formidable, but there must
be a physical carrier for this immense trans-spatial force. This
implies that where a physical manifestation exists, a physical
device and be developed for creating a similar force moving in
the opposite direction to cancel it. Clarke Electronics state
they have a rig, and add that in their view the source of
gravity's force will be understood sooner than some people
think.
General Electric is working on the use of electronic rigs
designed to make adjustments to gravity - this line of attack
has the advantage of using rigs already in existence for other defence work. Bell also has an experimental rig intended, as the
company puts it, to cancel out gravity, and Lawrence Bell has said he
is convinced that practical hardware will emerge from current
programs.
Grover Leoning is certain that what he referred to as an
electro-magnetic contra-gravity mechanism
will be developed for practical use. Convair is extensively
committed to the work with several rigs. Lear Inc., autopilot
and electronic engineers have a division of the company working
on gravity research and so also has the Sperry division of
Sperry-Rand. This list embraces most of the U.S. aircraft
industry. The remainder, Curtiss-Wright, Lockheed, Boeing
and North American have not yet declared themselves, but all
these four are known to be in various stages of study with and
without rigs.
In addition, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
is working on gravity, the Gravity Research Foundation of New Boston,
the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the
CalTech Radiation Laboratory, Princeton University and the
University of North Carolina are all active in gravity.
Glenn
L. Martin is setting up a Research Institute for Advanced Study
which has a small staff working on gravity research with the
unified field theory and this group is committed to extensive
programs of applied research. Many others are also known to
be studying gravity, some are known also to be planning a general
expansion in this field, such as the proposed Institute for Pure
Physics at the University of North Carolina.
A certain amount of work is also going on in Europe.
One of the French nationalized constructors and one company outside
the nationalized elements have been making preliminary studies, and a
little company money has in one case actually been committed. Some
work is also going on in Britain where rigs are now in existence.
Most of it is private tenure work, such as that being done by Ed Hull,
a colleague of Townsend Brown who, as much as anybody, introduced
Europe to electrogravitics. Aviation Studies' Gravity Research Group
is doing some work, mainly on k studies, and is sponsoring dielectric
investigations.
One Swedish company and two Canadian companies have
been making studies, and quite recently the Germans have woken up to
the possibilities. Several of the companies have started digging out
some of the early German papers on wave physics. They are almost
certain to plan a gravitics program. Curiously enough the Germans
during the war paid no attention to electrogravitics.
This is one
line of advance that they did
not pioneer in any way and is still basically a U.S. creation.
Townsend Brown in electrogravitics is the equivalent of Frank
Whittle in gas turbines. This German overlooking of
electrostatics is even more surprising when it is remembered
how astonishingly advanced and prescient the Germans were in
nuclear research. (The modern theory of making thermonuclear
weapons without plutonium fission initiators returns to the original
German idea that was dismissed, even ridiculed. The Germans never
went very far with fission, indeed they doubted that this chain would
ever be made to work.)
The German air industry, still in the embryo
stage, has included electrogravitics among the subjects it intends to
examine when establishing the policy that the individual companies
will adopt after the present early stage of foreign licence has
enabled industry to get abreast of the other countries in aircraft
development.
It is impossible to read through this summary of the
widening efforts being made to understand the nature of matter of
gravity without sharing the hope that many groups now have, of major
theoretical breakthroughs occurring before very long. Experience in
nucleonics has shown that when attempts to win knowledge on this scale
are made, advances are soon seen.
There are a number of elements in industry, and some managements, who
see gravity as a problem for later generations.
Many see nothing in
it all and they might be right. But as said earlier, if Dr. Vaclav Hlavaty thinks gravity is potentially controllable that surely should
be justification enough, and indeed inspiration, for physicists to
apply their minds and for management to take a risk. Hlavaty is the
only man who thinks he can see a way of doing the mathematics to
demonstrate Einstein's unified field theory - something that Einstein
himself said was beyond him.
Relativity and the unified field theory
go to the root of electrogravitics and the shifts in thinking, the
hopes and fears, and a measure of progress is to be obtained only in
the last resort from men of this stature.
Major theoretical breakthroughs to discover the sources
of gravity will be made by the most advanced intellects using the most
advanced research tools. Aviation's role is therefore to impress upon
physicists of this calibre with the urgency of the matter and to aid
them with statistical and peripheral investigations that will help to
clarify the background to the central mathematics and physical
puzzles.
Aviation could also assist by recruiting some of these men
as advisers. Convair has taken the initiative with its recently
established panel of advisers on nuclear projects, which include Dr.
Edward Teller of the University of California. At the same time much
can be done in development of laboratory rigs, condenser research and
dielectric development, which do not require anything like the same
cerebral capacity to get results and make a practical contribution.
As gravity is likely to be linked with the new
particles, only the highest powered particle accelerators are likely
to be of use in further fundamental knowledge. The country with the
biggest tools of this kind is in the best position to examine the
characteristics of the particles and from these countries the greatest
advances seem most likely.
Though the United States has the biggest of the
bevatrons - the Berkeley bevatron is 6.2 bev - the Russians have a 10
bev accelerator in construction which, when it is completed, will be
the world's largest. At Brookhaven a 25 bev instrument is in
development which, in turn, will be the biggest. Other
countries without comparable facilities are of course at a
great disadvantage from the outset in the contest to discover the
explanations of gravity. Electrogravitics, moreover, unfortunately
competes with nuclear studies for its facilities.
The clearest
thinking brains are bound to be attracted to locations where the most
extensive laboratory equipment exists. So, one way and another,
results are most likely to come from the major countries with the
biggest undertakings. Thus the nuclear
facilities have a direct bearing on the scope for electrogravitics
work.
The OEEC report in January made the following points:
The U.S. has six to eight entirely different types of
reactor in operation and many more under construction. Europe has now
two different types in service.
The U.S. has about 30 research reactors plus four in
Britain, two in France.
The U.S. has two nuclear-powered marine engines. Europe
has none, but the U.K. is building one.
Isotope separation plants for the enrichment of uranium
in the U.S. are roughly 11 times larger than the European
plant in Britain.
Europe's only heavy water plant (in Norway) produces
somewhat less than one-twentieth of American output.
In 1955 the number of technicians employed in nuclear
energy work in the U.S. was about 15,000; there are about 5,000 in
Britain, 1,800 in France, and about 1,000 in the rest of
Europe.
But the working party says that pessimistic conclusions
should not be drawn from these comparisons. European nuclear
energy effort is evenly divided at the moment, but some
countries have notable achievements to their credit and important
developments in prospect. The main reason for optimism is
that, taken as a whole, "Europe's present nuclear effort falls
very far short of its industrial potential".
Though gravity research, such as there has been of it,
has been unclassified, new principles and information gained
from the nuclear research facilities that have a vehicle application
is expected to be withheld.
The heart of the problem to understanding gravity is
likely to prove to be the way in which the very high energy
sub-nuclear particles convert something, whatever it is, continuously
and automatically into the tremendous nuclear and electromagnetic
forces. Once this key is understood, attention can later be directed
to finding laboratory means of duplicating the process and reversing
its force lines in some local environment and returning the energy to
itself to produce counterbary.
Looking beyond it seems possible that
gravitation will be shown to be a part of the universal
electro-magnetic processes and controlled in the same way as a light
wave or radio wave. This is a synthesis of the Einstein and Hlavaty
concepts. Hence it follows that though in its initial form the
mechanical processes for countering gravity may initially be massive
to deal with the massive forces involved, eventually this could be
expected to form some central power generation unit. Barycentric
control in some required quantity could be passed over a distance by a
form of radio wave. The prime energy source to energise the waves
would of course be nuclear in its origins.
It is difficult to say which lines of detailed
development being processed in the immediate future is more likely to
yield significant results. Perhaps the three most promising are:
first, the new attempt by the team of men led by Chamberlain working
with the Berkeley bevatron to find the anti-neutron, and to identify
more of the characteristics of the anti-proton* and each of the string
of high energy particles that have been discovered during recent
operations at 6.2 bev.
A second line of approach is the United States National
Bureau of Standards program to pin down with greater accuracy the
acceleration values of gravity. The presently accepted figure *(The
reaction is as follows: protons are accelerated to 6.2 bev, and
directed at a target of copper. When the proton projectile hits a
neutron in one of the copper atoms the following emerge: the two
original particles (the projectile and the struck neutron) and a new
pair of particles, a proton and anti-proton.
The anti-proton
continues briefly until it hits another proton, then both disappear
and decay into mesons) of 32.174 feet per second per second is known to
be not comprehensive, though it has been sufficiently accurate
for the limited needs of industry hitherto. The NBS program
aims at re-determining the strength of gravity to within one
part of a million. The present method thas been to hold a ball
16 feet up and chart the elapsed time of descent with electronic
measuring equipment. The new program is based on the old, but
with this exceptional degree of accuracy it is naturally immensely
more difficult and is expected to take 3 years.
A third promising line is the new technique of measuring
high energy particles in motion that was started by the
University of California last year. This involves passing
cosmic rays through a chamber containing a mixture of gas,
alcohol and water vapour. This creates charged atoms, or
positive ions, by knocking electrons off the gas molecules. A
sudden expansion of the chamber results in a condensation of
water droplets along the track which can be plotted on a
photographic plate.
This method makes it easier to assess the
energy of particles and to distinguish one from the other. It
also helps to establish the characteristics of the different
types of particles. The relationship between these high energy
particles, and their origin, and characteristics, have a bearing
on electrogravitics in general.
So much of what has to be discovered as a necessary
preliminary to gravity is of no practical use by itself. There is no
conceivable use, for instance, for the anti-proton, yet its
discovery even at a cost of $9-million is essential to check the
mathematics of the fundamental components of matter. Similarly
it is necessary to check that all the nuclear ghosts that have been
postulated theoretically do in fact exist. It is not, moreover,
sufficient, as in the past, only to observe the particles by radiation
counters. In each instance a mechanical maze has to be devised and
attached to a particle accelerator to trap only the particle
concerned. Each discovery becomes a wedge for a deeper probe of the
nucleus.
Many of the particles of very high energy have only a
fleeting existence and collisions that give rise to them from bevatron
bombardment is a necessary pre-
requisite to an understanding of gravity. There are no shortcuts
to this process.
Most of the major programs for extending human knowledge
on gravity are being conducted with instruments already in use for
nuclear research and to this extent the cost of work
exclusively on gravitational examinations is still not of major
proportions. This has made it difficult for aviation to gauge
the extent of the work in progress on gravity research.
CONCLUSIONS
1. No attempts to control the magnitude or direction of
the earth's gravitational force have yet been successful. But if the
explanation of gravity is to be found in the as yet undetermined
characteristics of the very high energy particles it is becoming
increasingly possible with the bevatron to work with the constituent
matter of gravity. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the new
bevatron may, before long, be used to demonstrate limited
gravitational control.
2. An understanding and identification of these
particles is on the frontiers of human knowledge, and a full
assessment of them is one of the major unresolved puzzles of the
nucleus. An associated problem is to discover a theory to account for
the cosmic and quantum relations of gravity, and a theory to link the
gravitational constant with the other three dimensionless constants.
3. Though the obstacles to an adequate grasp of
microphysics still seem formidable, the transportation rewards that
could follow from electrogravitics are as high as can be envisaged. In
a weightless environment, movement with sharp-edged
changes of direction could offer unique manoeuvrability.
4. Determination of the environment of the anti-proton,
discovery of the anti-neutron and closer examination of the other high
energy particles are preliminaries to the hypothesis that gravity is
one aspect of electromagnetism that may eventually be controlled like
a wave. When the structure of the nucleus becomes clearer, the
influence of the gravitational force upon the nucleus and the nature
of its behavior in space will be more readily understood. This is a
great advance on the Newtonian concept of gravity acting at a
distance.
5. Aviation's role appears to be to establish facilities
to handle many of the peripheral and statistical investigations to
help fill in the background on electrostatics.
6. A distinction has to be made between electrostatic
energy for propulsion and counterbary. Counterbary is the
manipulation of gravitational force lines; barycentric control is the
adjustment to such manipulative capability to produce a stable type of
motion suitable for transportation.
7. Electrostatic energy sufficient to produce low speeds
(a few thousand dynes) has already been demonstrated. Generation of a
region of positive electrostatic energy on one side of a plate and
negative on the other sets up the same lift or propulsion effect as
the pressure and suction below and above a wing, except that in the
case of electrostatic application no airflow is necessary.
8. Electrostatic energy sufficient to produce a Mach 3
fighter is possible with megavolt energies and a k of over 10,000.
9. k figures of 6,000 have been obtained from some
ceramic materials and there are prospects of 30,000.
10. Apart from electrogravitics there are other rewards
from investment in electrostatic equipment. Automation, autonetics
and even turbine development use similar laboratory facilities.
11. Progress in electrogravitics probably awaits a new
genius in physics who can find a single equation to tie up all the
conflicting observations and theory on the structure and
arrangement of forces and the part the high energy particles
play in the nucleus. This can occur any time, and the chances
are improved now that bev energies are being obtained in
controlled laboratory conditions.
APPENDIX I
EXTRACTS FROM AVIATION REPORT
ANTI-GRAVITATION RESEARCH
The basic research and technology behind
electro-anti-gravitation is so much in its infancy that this is
perhaps one field of development where not only the methods but the
ideas are secret. Nothing therefore can be discussed freely at the
moment. Very few papers on the subject have been prepared so far, and
the only schemes that have seen the light of day are for pure research
into rigs designed to make objects float around
freely in a box.
There are various radio applications, and
aviation medicine departments have been looking for something
that will enable them to study the physiological effects on the
digestion and organs of an environment without gravity. There
are however long term aims of a more revolutionary
nature that envisage equipment that can defeat gravity.
Aviation Report 20 August 1954
MANAGERIAL POLICY FOR ANTI-GRAVITICS
The prospect of engineers devising gravity-defeating
equipment - or perhaps it should be described as the creation of
pockets of weightless environments - does suggest that as a long term
policy aircraft constructors will be required to place even more
emphasis on electro-mechanical industrial plant, than is now required
for the transition from manned to unmanned weapons.
Anti-gravitics
work is therefore likely to go to companies with the biggest
electrical laboratories and facilities. It is also apparent that
anti-gravitics, like other advanced sciences, will be initially
sponsored for its weapon capabilities. There are perhaps two broad
ways of using the science, one is to postulate the design of advanced
type projectiles on their best inherent capabilities, and the more
critical parameters (that now constitutes the design limitation) can
be eliminated by anti-gravitics.
The other, which is a longer term
plan, is to create an entirely new environment with devices operating
entirely under an anti-gravitic envelope.
Aviation Report 24 August 1954
THE GREATER THE EASIER
Propulsion and atomic energy trends are similar in one
respect: the more incredible the long term capabilities are, the
easier it is to attain them. It is strange that the greatest of
nature's secrets can be harnessed with decreasing industrial
effort, but greatly increasing mental effort. The Americans
went through the industrial torture to produce tritium for
the first thermonuclear experiment, but later both they and the
Russians were able to achieve much greater results with the
help of lithium 6 hydride.
The same thing is happening in
aviation propulsion; the nuclear fuels are promising to be
tremendously powerful in their effect, but excessively complicated in
their application, unless there can be some means of direct conversion
as in the strontium 90 cell. But lying behind and beyond the nuclear
fuels is the linking of electricity to gravity, which is an
incomparably more powerful way of harnessing energy than the only
method known to human intellect at present - electricity and
magnetism. Perhaps the magic of
barium aluminum oxide will perform the miracle in propulsion
that lithium 6 hydride has done in the fusion weapon. Certainly
it is a well-known material in dielectrics, but when one talks
of massive-k, one means of course five figures.
At this early
stage it is difficult to relate k to Mach numbers with any certainty,
but realizable k can, with some kinds of arithmetic, produce
astounding velocities. They are achievable, moreover, with decreasing
complexity, indeed the ultimate becomes the easiest in term of
engineering, but the most hideous in terms of
theory. Einstein's general theory of relativity is, naturally,
and important factor, but some of the postulates appear to depend
on the unified field theory, which cannot yet be physically
checked because no one knows how to do it. Einstein hopes
to find a way of doing this before he dies.
Aviation Report 31 August 1954
GRAVITICS FORMULATIONS
All indications are that there has still been little
cognizance of the potentialities of electrostatic propulsion and it
will be a major undertaking to re-arrange aircraft plants to conduct
large-scale research and development into novel forms of dielectric
and to improve condenser efficiencies and to develop the novel type of
materials used for fabrication of the primary structure. Some
extremely ambitious theoretical programs have been submitted and work
towards realization of a manned vehicle has begun.
One the evidence,
there are far more definite indications that the incredible claims are
realizable than there was, for instance, in supposing that uranium
fission would result in a bomb. At least it is known, proof positive,
that motion, using surprisingly low k, is possible. The fantastic
control that again is feasible, has not yet been demonstrated, but
there is no reason to suppose the arithmetic is faulty, especially as
it has already led to a quite brisk example of actual propulsion. That
first movement was indeed an historic occasion, reminiscent of the
momentous day at Chicago when the first pile went critical, and the
phenomenon was scarcely less weird. It is difficult to imagine just
where a well-organized examination into long term gravitics would end.
Though a circular platform is electrostatically convenient, it does
not necessarily follow that the requirements of control by
differential changes would be the same. Perhaps the strangest part of
this whole chapter is how the public managed to foresee the concept,
though not of course the theoretical principles that gave rise to it,
before physical tests confirmed that the mathematics was right. It is
interesting also that there is no point of contact between the
conventional science of aviation and the New: it is a radical offshoot
with no common principles.
Aerodynamics, structures, heat engines,
flapping controls, and all the rest of aviation is part of what might
be called the Wright Brothers era, even the Mach 2.5 thermal barrier
piercers are still Wright Brothers concepts, in the sense that they
fly and they stall, and they run out of fuel after a short while, and
they defy the earth's pull for a short while. Thus this century will
be divided into two parts - almost to the day. The first half
belonged to the Wright Brothers who foresaw nearly all the basic
issues in which gravity was the bitter foe. In part of the second
half, gravity will be the great provider. Electrical energy, rather
irrelevant for propulsion in the first half becomes a kind of catalyst
to motion in the second half of the century.
Aviation Report 7 September 1954
ELECTRO-GRAVITICS PARADOX
Realization of electro-static propulsion seems to depend
on two theoretical twists and two practical ones. The two
theoretical puzzles are: first, how to make a condenser the
centre of a propulsion system, and the second is how to link the
condenser system with the gravitational field. There is a
third problem, but it is some way off yet, which is how to
manipulate kva for control in all three axes as well as for
propulsion and lift.
The two practical tricks are first how, with say
a Mach 3 weapon in mind, to handle a 50,000 kva within the envelope of
a thin pancake of 35 feet in diameter and second how to generate such
power from within so small a space. The
electrical power in a small aircraft is more than a fair sized
community the analogy being that a single rocketjet can provide
as much power as can be obtained from the Hoover Dam. It
will naturally take as long to develop electro-static propulsion
as it has taken to coax the enormous power outputs from heat
engines. True there might be flame in the electro-gravitic
propulsion system, but it would not be a heat engine - the
temperature of the flame would be incidental to the function of
the chemical burning process.
The curious thing is that though electro-static
propulsion is the antithesis of magnetism,* Einstein's unified field
theory is an attempt to link gravitation with electro-magnetism. This
all-embracing theory goes on logically from the general theory of
relativity, that gives an ingenious geometrical interpretation of the
concept of force which is mathematically consistent with gravitation
but fails in the case of electro-magnetism, while the special theory
of relativity is concerned with the relationship between mass and
energy.
The general theory of relativity fails to account for the
electro-magnetism because the forces are proportional to the charge
and not to the mass. The unified field theory is one of
a number of attempts that have been made to bridge this gap, but it is
baffling to imagine how it could ever be observed. Einstein himself
thinks it is virtually impossible. However, Hlavaty claims to have
solved the equations by assuming that gravitation is a manifestation
of electro-magnetism.
This being so it is all the more incredible that
electro-static *(Though in a sense this is true, it is better
expressed in the body of this report than it was here in 1954)
propulsion (with kva for convenience fed into the system and not
self-generated) has actually been demonstrated. It may be that
to apply all this very abstruse physics to aviation it will be
necessary to accept that the theory is more important than this
or that interpretation of it.
This is how the physical constants,
which are now regarded as among the most solid of achievements in
modern physics, have become workable, and accepted. Certainly all
normal instincts would support the Einstein series of postulations,
and if this is so it is a matter of conjecture where it will lead in
the long term future of the electro-gravitic science.
Aviation Report 10 September 1954
ELECTRO-GRAVITIC PROPULSION SITUATION
Under the terms of Project Winterhaven the proposals to
develop electro-gravitics to the point of realizing a Mach 3 combat
type of disc were not far short of the extensive effort that was
planned for the Manhattan District.*
Indeed the drive to develop the
prime mover is in some respects rather similar to the experiments that
led to the release of nuclear energy in the sense that both involve
fantastic mathematical capacity and both are sciences so new that
other allied sciences cannot be of very much guide. In the past two
years since the principle of motion by means of massive-k was first
demonstrated on a test rig, progress has been slow.
But the
indications are now that the Pentagon is ready to sponsor a range of
devices to
help further the knowledge. In effect the new family of TVs would be
on the same tremendous scope that was envisaged by the X-1,2,3,4 and 5
and the D.558s that were all created for the purpose of destroying the
sound barrier - which they effectively did, but it is a process that
is taking ten solid years of hard work to complete. (Now after 7
years the X-2 has yet to start its tests and the X-3 is still in
performance testing stage). Tentative targets ...
One thing seems certain at this stage, that the
companies likely to dominate the science will be those with the
biggest *(The proposals, it should be added, were not accepted)
computors to work out the ramifications of the basic theory.
Douglas is easily the world's leader in computor capacity,
followed by Lockheed and Convair. The frame incidentally is
indivisible from the engine. If there is to ba any division of
responsibility it would be that the engine industry might
become responsible for providing the electrostatic energy
(by, it is thought, a kind of flame) and the frame maker for the
condenser assembly which is the core of the main structure.
Aviation Report 12 October 1954
GRAVITICS STUDY WIDENING
The French are now understood to be pondering the most
effective way of entering the field of electro-gravitic propulsion
systems. But not the least of the difficulties is to know just where
to begin. There are practically no patents so far that throw very
much light on the mathematics of the relation between electricity and
gravity. There is, of course, a large number of patents on the
general subject of motion and force, and some of these may prove to
have some application.
There is, however, a series of working
postulations embodied in the original Project Winterhaven, but no real
attempt has been made in the working papers to go into the detailed
engineering. All that had actually been achieved up to just under a
year ago was a series of fairly accurate extrapolations from the
sketchy data that has so far been actually observed. The
extrapolation of 50 mph to 1,800 mph, however, (which is what the
present hopes and aspirations amount to) is bound to be a rather vague
exercise.
This explains American private views that nothing can be
reasonably expected from the science for yet awhile. Meanwhile, the NACA is active, and nearly all of the Universities are doing work that
borders close to what is involved here, and something fruitful is
likely to turn up before very long.
Aviation Report 19 October 1954
GRAVITIC STEPS
Specification writers seem to be still rather stumped to
know what to ask for in the very hazy science of electro-gravitic
propelled vehicles. They are at present faced with having to plan the
first family of things - first of these is the most realistic type of
operational test rig, and the second the first type of test vehicle.
In turn this would lead to sponsoring of a combat disc.
The
preliminary test rigs which gave only feeble propulsion have been
somewhat improved, but of course the speeds reached so far are only
those more associated with what is attained on the road rather than in
the air. But propulsion is now known to be possible, as it is a
matter of feeding enough KVA into condensers with better k figures.
50,000 is a magic figure for the combat saucer, it the is the amount
of KVA and this amount of k that can be translated into Mach 3 speeds.
Meanwhile Glenn Martin now feels ready to say in public
that they are examining the unified field theory to see what can be
done. It would probably be truer to say that Martin and other
companies are now looking for men who can make some kind of sense out
of Einstein's equations. There's nobody in the air industry at
present with the faintest idea of what it is all about. Also, just as
necessary, companies have somehow to find
administrators who know enough of the mathematics to be able
to guess what kind of industrial investment is likely to be necessary
for the company to secure the most rewarding prime contracts in the
new science.
This again is not so easy since much of the mathematics
just cannot be translated into words. You either understand the
figures, or you cannot ever have it explained to you. This is rather
new because even things like indeterminacy in quantum mechanics can be
more or less put into words.
Perhaps the main thing for management to bear in mind in
recruiting men is that essentially electro-gravitics is a branch of
wave technology and much of it starts with Planck's dimensions of
action, energy and time, and some if this is among the most firm and
least controversial sections of modern atomic physics.
Aviation Report 19 November 1954
ELECTRO-GRAVITICS PUZZLE
Back in 1948 and 49, the public in the U.S. had a
surprisingly clear idea of what a flying saucer should, or could,
do. There has never at any time been any realistic explanation of
what propulsion agency could make it do those things, but its
ability to move within its own gravitation field was presupposed
from its manoeuvrability.
Yet all this was at least two years
before electro-static energy was shown to produce propulsion.
It is curious that the public were so ahead of the empiricists
on this occasion, and there are two possible explanations. One
is that optical illusions or atmospheric phenomena offered a
preconceived idea of how the ultimate aviation device ought to
work. The other explanation might be that this was a
recrudescence of Jung's theory of the Universal Mind which
move up and down in relation to the capabilities of the highest
intellects and this may be a case of it reaching a very high peak
of perception.
But for the air industries to realize an
electro-gravitic aircraft means a return to basic principles in
nuclear physics, and a re-examination of much in wave technology that
has hitherto been taken for granted. Anything that goes any way
towards proving the unified field theory will have as great a
bearing on electro-gravitics efforts as on the furtherance of
nuclear power generally.
But the aircraft industry might as
well face up to the fact that priorities will in the end be
competing with existing nuclear science commitments. The
fact that electro-gravitics has important applications other
than for a weapon will however strengthen the case for
governments to get in on the work going on.
Aviation Report 28 January 1955
MANAGEMENT NOTE FOR ELECTRO-GRAVITICS
The gas turbine engine produced two new companies in the
U.S. engine field and they have, between them, at various
times offered the traditional primes rather formidable
competition. Indeed GE at this moment has, in the view of some,
taken the Number Two position. In Britain no new firms managed
to get a footing, but one, Metro-Vick, might have done if it had
put its whole energies into the business. It is on the whole
unfortunate for Britain that no bright newcomer has been able to
screw up competition in the engine field as English Electric have
done in the airframe business.
Unlike the turbine engine, electro-gravitics is not just
a new propulsion system, it is a new mode of thought in
aviation and communications, and it is something that may
become all-embracing. Theoretical studies of the science
unfortunately have to extend right down to the mathematics of
the meson and there is no escape from that. But the relevant
facts wrung from the nature of the nuclear structure will have
their impact on the propulsion system, the airframe and also
its guidance.
The airframe, as such, would not exist, and what
is now a complicated stressed structure becomes some
convenient form of hard envelope. New companies therefore
who would like to see themselves as major defence prime
contractors in ten or fifteen years time are the ones most likely
to stimulate development. Several typical companies in Britain
and the U.S. come to mind - outfits like AiResearch, Raytheon,
Plessey in England, Rotex and others. But the companies have
to face a decade of costly research into theoretical physics and
it means a great deal of trust.
Companies are mostly overloaded
already and they cannot afford it, but when they sit down and
think about the matter they can scarcely avoid the conclusion
that they cannot afford not to be in at the beginning.
Aviation Report 8 February 1955
ELECTRO-GRAVITICS BREAKTHROUGHS
Lawrence Bell said last week that he thought that the
tempo of development leading to the use of nuclear fuels and
anti-gravitational vehicles (he meant presumably ones that create
their own gravitational field independently of the earth's) would
accelerate. He added that the breakthroughs now feasible will advance
their introduction ahead of the time it has taken to develop the
turbojet to its present pitch.
Beyond the thermal barrier was a
radiation barrier, and he might have added ozone poisoning and
meteorite hazards, and beyond that again a time barrier. Time however
is not a single calculable entity and
Einstein has taught that an absolute barrier to aviation is the
environmental barrier in which there are physical limits to any
kind of movement from one point in space-time continuum to
another. Bell (the company not the man) have a reputation as 30-
experimentalists and are not so earthy as some of the other U.S.
companies; so while this first judgment on progress with electrogravitics is interesting, further word is awaited from
the other major elements of the air business.
Most of the
companies are now studying several forms of propulsion
without heat engines though it is early days yet to determine
which method will see the light of day first. Procurement will
open out because the capabilities of such aircraft are
immeasurably greater than those envisaged with any known form
of engine.
Aviation Report 15 July 1955
THERMONUCLEAR-ELECTROGRAVITICS INTERACTION
The point has been made that the most likely way of
achieving the comparatively low fusion heat needed - 1,000,000
degrees provided it can be sustained (which it cannot be in
fission for more than a microsecond or two at a time) - is by use of a
linear accelerator. The concentration of energy that may be
obtained when accelerators are rigged in certain ways make the
production of very high temperatures feasible but whether they
could be concentrated enough to avoid a thermal heat problem
remains to be seen.
It has also been suggested that linear
accelerators would be the way to develop the high electrical
energies needed for creation of local gravitation systems. It
is possible therefore to imagine that the central core of a
future air vehicle might be a linear accelerator which would
create a local weightless state by use of electrostatic energy
and turn heat into energy without chemical processes for
propulsion.
Eventually - towards the end of this century - the
linear accelerator itself would not be required and a ground
generating plant would transmit the necessary energy for both
purposes by wave propagation.
Aviation Report 30 August 1955
POINT ABOUT THERMONUCLEAR REACTION REACTORS
The 20 year estimate bye the AEC last week that lies
between present research frontiers and the fusion reactor
probably refers to the time it will take to tap fusion heat. But
it may be thought that rather than use the molecular and
chemical processes of twisting heat into thrust, it would be more
appropriate to use the new heat source in conjunction with some
form of nuclear thrust producer which would be in the form
of electrostatic energy.
The first two Boeing nuclear jet
prototypes now under way are being designed to take either
molecular jets or nuclear jets in cse the latter are held up
for one reason or another. But the change from molecular to
direct nuclear thrust production in conjunction with the
thermonuclear reactor is likely to make the aircraft designed
around the latter a totally different breed of cat. It is also
expected to take longer than two decades, though younger
executives in trade might expect to live to see a prototype.
Aviation Report 14 October 1955
ELECTROGRAVITICS FEASIBILITY
Opinion on the prospects of using electrostatic energy
for propulsion, and eventually for creation of a local gravitational
field isolated from the earth's has naturally polarized into the two
opposite extremes. There are those who say it is nonsense from start
to finish, and those who are satisfied from performance already
physically manifest that it is possible and will produce air vehicles
with absolute capabilities and no moving parts.
The feasibility of a
Mach 3 fighter (the present aim of studies) is dependent on a rather
large k extrapolation, considering the pair of saucers that have
physically demonstrated the principle only achieved a speed of some 30
fps. But, and this is important, they have attained a working
velocity using a very inefficient (even by today's knowledge) form of
condenser complex. These humble beginnings are surely as hopeful as Whittle's early postulations.
It was, by the way, largely due to the early references
in Aviation report that this work is gathering momentum in the U.S.
Similar studies are beginning in France, and in England some men are
on the job full time.
Aviation Report 15 November 1955
ELECTRO-GRAVITICS EFFORT WIDENING
Companies studying the implications of gravitics are
said, in a new statement, to include Glenn Martin, Convair,
Sperry-Rand, Sikorsky, Bell, Lear Inc. and Clark Electronics. Other
companies who have previously evinced interest include Lockheed,
Douglas and Hiller. The remainder are not disinterested, but have not
given public support to the new science - which is widening all the
time.
The approach in the U.S. is in a sense more ambitious than
might have been expected. The logical approach, which has been
suggested by Aviation Studies, is to concentrate on improving the
output of electrostatic rigs in existence that are know to be able to
provide thrust. The aim would be to concentrate on electrostatics for
propulsion first and widen the practical engineering to include
establishment of local field forcelines, independent of those of the
earth's, to provide unfettered vertical movement as and when the
mathematics develops.
However, the U.S. approach is rather to put money into
fundamental theoretical physics of gravitation in an effort first to
create the local gravitational field. Working rigs would follow in
the wake of the basic discoveries. Probably the correct course would
be to sponsor both approaches, and it is now time that the military
stepped in with big funds.
The trouble about the idealistic approach
to gravity is that the aircraft companies do not have the men to
conduct such work. There is every expectation in any case that the
companies likely to find the answers lie outside the aviation field.
These would emerge as the masters of aviation in its broadest sense.
The feeling is therefore that a company like A.T. & T.
is most likely to be first in this field. This giant company (unknown
in the air and weapons field) has already revolutionized modern
warfare with the development of the junction transistor and is
expected to find the final answers to absolute vehicle levitation.
This therefore is where the bulk of the sponsoring money should go.
Aviation Report 9 December 1955
Declassified in 1990
TECHNICAL LIBRARY
Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base, Ohio 45433
Gravity Research Group
Aviation Studies (International) Limited, London
29-31 Cheval Place. Knightsbridge
LONDON S.W. 7 England