Patent issued for anti-gravity device

[nashville_brook]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20051109-13140400-bc-us-antigravity.xml


WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. patent office has reportedly granted a patent for an anti-gravity device -- breaking its rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics.

The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity.

One of the main theoretical arguments against anti-gravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy.

(cut)

very short article. so interesting the patent "rule" -- nothing that breaks the rules of physics. to assume that what we know about physics is all there is to know, goes against Enlightenment reasoning that "progress" is a "constant."

wonder what the ID take on this is...

[flowomo]

1. very cool!

gotta get me one.

[bleever]

2. I checked this out on the U.S. Patent Office website and it's true!

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,960,975.WKU.&OS=PN/6,960,975&RS=PN/6,960,975


WTF?


:crazy:

[bleever]

3. "By creating alternative anomalies and modulating their parameters, the

space vehicle's crew would dilate and contract time and space on demand."



What if I don't want space and time fucked with???


:crazy:

[salvorhardin]

4. Too late

You're already moving through space at a nice clip on a large spinning rock. Your personal space and time has already been fucked with.

[bleever]

9. Nah, I'm used to this. I've grown up with it.

Well, "gotten older" with it...

[ret5hd]

7. well, first you need to leave the vicinity of anything with a...

gravity field...including your own body.

[Patsy Stone]

15. What if I do? Huh?

There are moments I relish the idea of time travel. :hi:

[valerief]

5. Whoa! I can't wait until Disneyworld builds it!

[ashling]

6. There was a guy who

for years tried do develop and patent a perpetual motion machine.

[bleever]

8. I trust the laws of physics more than my government these days,

as much as I would like to believe this.

:)

[undergroundpanther]

10. This implies free energy is

possible folks.
This direction of exploration could put an end big oil, big coaland big pollution if the people who figure out a way to reliably tape the free energy DO NOT attempt to dominate the market and OWN it all and are ruthless to get a monopoly on the new technologies like the greedy fuckers in the energy business do now.

[nashville_brook]

14. !

:bounce:

this is pure silliness, but there's a point somehow:

when i was a kid i had a dream about pinball machines. what IF there were more than one ball. one ball is too easy. we need more balls. when Centaur came out, I thought we had acheived technological greatness (living in the New Frountier) and flying cars were just around the corner.

lately i've been all up in arms about elecrrical cords. no dreams. but electrical cords seems so out of place with wireless networking. how come my whole life history can be access "in the ether" so to speak, but hubby still has to spend weeks in the basement wiring circuits so the "juice" can travel "here" but not "there." if you stop and think about electricity, it's really hamfisted. inelegant; and out of place in the rest of our world.

what if "wireless energy," should have been totally obvious in the "radio age"?

we need more balls.

[Tesha]

18. Tesla actually tried this.

> what if "wireless energy," should have been totally obvious in
> the "radio age"?

Nicola Tesla actually tried this, building a huge Tesla coil; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnifying_Transmitter.

It was a bit tough to direct the power output though, especially
when compared to the ease of string Romex throughout your house.

Tesha

[Boo Boo]

11. Unfortunately, since the Patent Office was spun-off, so to speak,

you can get a patent on just about anything.

Ford got a patent for their method of attaching an aluminum panel to a carbon fiber panel. You see, you stick them together with glue. Isn't that special? I kid you not. Ford patented laminating two materials together with glue. So if you want to take a carbon fiber panel and stick a sheet of aluminum to it... sorry, Ford owns that.

At a certain telecommunications company, there was a joke making the rounds that went: take any existing description of an invention or technique and put the words "on a cel phone" after it, and voila!, a new patent.

The Patent Office is seriously fucked up---although, this one is particularly hilarious within the great pantheon of lame-ass U.S. patents, it is, in all likelihood, worthless. Nobody got hurt. The Ford patent is symptomatic of something that's a lot worse, creating a business environment where only those that can afford to litigate can play.

[benburch]

12. You can literally patent anything. It does not have to work.

Or even make sense! It just has to be unique.

[dave29]

20. then I shall patent myself

(thank you, thank you -- I'm here all week)

[GAspnes]

13. What about the working model?

Isn't one required for submission?

[bleever]

16. Nope. But they're very picky about making sure that you're not

horning in on something already patented.

Probably not a problem in this case.

:)

[Phoonzang]

17. Before we declare it scientific heresy...

...we may want to actually look into this fellow's idea. Yes, a ton of patents are given out for useless devices, but what if this one actually happens to be viable? I don't get how it violates the laws of physics unless the physics you're looking at are from 20 years ago. New physics have become open to other options (see Michio Kaku's book Parallel Worlds) and anti-gravity devices don't neccesarily violate the "rules".

There are potential sources of unlimited energy, but does this superconducting shield make that a neccesity? The Park fellow in the article seems to be making assumtions about this particular invention. I swear...you even mention possibilities like this and alot of "scientists" immediately stick their fingers in their ears and go "LALALALALALA!!!"

Viable or not we're going to need SOMETHING like this to propel our future spacecraft. We're sure as hell not going to ever get anywhere using primitive rockets engines...

[SteppingRazor]

21. Not to stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALA, but...

I think this is all crap.

Are we to believe the laws of physics as we know them, or some guy in Indiana who says he can do this?
Of course, I hope he can, and if he does create a working model, I'll certainly applaud his accomplishment, but in the mean time I won't hold my breath.

And I'm unaware of any "new physics" of the last couple decades that would allow for a perpetual-motion machine, which an anti-gravity machine must be, in order to counteract the constant force of gravity.

You say "viable or not" we're going to need something like this. But if its not viable -- and this almost certainly isn't -- why would we waste our time pursuing it?

[slutticus]

19. A warp drive?

This was invented by Zefram Cochrane in 2063. :D