Reversing Gravity
A Futurist View by Barton Kunstler, December 21, 2001
Barton's columns appears regularly in The Metrowest Daily News


Will human beings ever reverse gravity and harness the power of weightlessness? Few physicists believe gravity can be reversed or that an anti-gravity technology is remotely feasible. Yet, science's future is unwritten and the past confirms time and again how the future confounds us.

Gravity is the force of attraction that exists between any two objects. Gravity governs the movement of planets, stars, falling apples, and floating lint. It is one of four elemental forces that hold matter together at sub-atomic levels, the others being the "strong" and "weak" forces, and electromagnetism (EM).

Some experimenters consider the link between EM and gravity a key to anti-gravity devices. One breakthrough may have occurred in Finland in the 1990s. Dr. Eugene Plodkletnov spun a super-conductive (very low electrical resistance) ceramic disk, suspended in a magnetic field, at 5000 rpm. Plodkletnov found that objects positioned above the spinning disk actually lost 0.5 percent of their weight; apparently, the odd EM field somehow shielded objects from gravity. Soon after, however, questions arose over just who actually participated in the experiment and other scientists asserted that the results could be due purely to EM effects. Disheartened by the controversy, Plodkletnov withdrew his article from consideration for publication and his results remain unverified.

Perhaps the most plausible anti-gravity experiment was performed by scientist J.F. Woodward. Woodward based his work on Mach's Principle, which states that any objectís inertia - the force that keeps a body at rest or in motion - derives from the combined gravitational pull upon that object by every other object in the universe. By manipulating electrically charged capacitors in his lab, Woodward shifted the systemís inertial mass, reducing the capacitors' weight. In theory, at least, Woodward's method can reduce an object's weight by more than itself, thus achieving a state of weightlessness.

Oddly, energy sometimes occurs in negative quantities! To imagine this, it helps to redefine gravity. Einstein's theories show that time is literally the fourth dimension, as real as height, length, and width. We really live in "space-time", not "space". Meanwhile, all positive energy has mass, and all mass distorts space-time just as bubbles distort the smooth clarity of running water. These distortions create gravity and its aspect of attraction, which account for the structure of our universe and how objects behave within it.

Weird? Well, imagine the distortions in space-time created by negative energy. Negative energy occurs when the fluctuation of sub-atomic ìquantaî (energy packets) dips below the state defined as zero energy by quantum physics. Negative energy might well twist space-time into "wormholes", four-dimensional tunnels through which you could travel instantly from Earth to a distant galaxy, or to centuries future and past!

Unfortunately, it would require more energy than 10 billion stars produce in a year to generate a wormhole one meter wide, according to physicists Lawrence Ford and Thomas Roman, writing in Scientific American. Theoretical physics allows only for sub-sub-atomic-sized wormholes in our universe.

From which of these theories might an anti-gravitational technology spring? For now, the answer appears to be "none." However, the last century witnessed undreamed of discoveries in physics. Might we someday use the physics of negative energy to create wormholes large enough to function like cosmic pedestrian malls?

Plodnetkov and Woodward point elsewhere: pursuing new directions in existing technologies. Antonio Tesla, the great 20th century inventor who created our electronic grid, developed technologies that seem inconceivable today. Yet many of his experiments succeeded, possibly including anti-gravity devices. Tesla's work often focused on the extraordinary effects of wave resonance, and the science behind his achievements remains a mystery today. Ancient civilizations perhaps mastered resonance technology; it would be ironic if humanity lost this technology twice, once long ago and once with Tesla's death. In 1979, NASA engineer Alan Holt proposed that the resonance of EM and gravitational fields could be used to overcome gravity, enabling space travel at "warp" speeds. Is science being shortsighted by not investigating the startling effects EM energy exhibits under extreme conditions?

Perhaps it hasn't been. The Russian and U.S. militaries have both worked at modifying elemental energies for use in weaponry and aircraft. Both have engaged in "remote viewing", wherein supposed psychic operatives, seated comfortably in Virginia or Novosibersk, project their minds through space to observe distant enemy installations. Will wormholes one day be excavated through uncharted dimensions of mind rather than space-timeís four dimensions?
Neutralizing gravity would be the most revolutionary event in human history. Imagine building homes, cities, and transport systems that operate weightlessly. Imagine magnificent crop harvests, travel to distant stars, the inter-penetrability of space, and the irrelevance of war. But the most startling effects may lie in subtle shifts in the space-time-mind continuum, shifts that propel us into universes in which our human forms, perhaps, lose all relevance to our existence.