HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gross@maxwell.ucsc.edu (Mike Gross)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Anti-gravity/antimatter related?
Date: 10 Nov 1992 04:23:26 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: maxwell.ucsc.edu

In <1992Nov9.180551.60551@cc.usu.edu> ronb@cc.usu.edu writes:

>	Since everyone's been complaining about the idea of anti-gravity
>recently, I've got another idea (probably even worse than the one you just
>read - also my crazy idea.)  What are the odds that antimatter would be
>anti-gravitational?  Or, since gravity is a relatively weak force, that
>anti-matter would have a repulsive effect on 'normal' matter that would be
>enough to overcome the force of gravity?

The odds are very small. There have been experiments to weigh antimatter,
and it still has positive mass.

Here is a simple (and oft repeated) one: The basic equation for cyclotron
motion is F = ma = qvB, which corresponds to circular motion. If one changes
the sign of both q and m, as you are proposing, nothing changes. If one changes
only the sign of q, then the force acts in the opposite direction, and one has 
to reverse the velocity (and the direction of rotation) in order to make it
work.

There are several particle/antiparticle single-tube colliders in existence. In
these machines, particles and antiparticles are accelerated with the same
magnetic field B in opposite directions to speeds approaching the speed of
light. If they accelerated in the same directions, it would not be possible
to collide the beams, so the fact that one can get results from LEP (etc) shows
that antiparticles must have positive inertial mass. Positive gravitational
mass follows from the Equivalence Principle.

Mike Gross
Physics Board
Univ of California               GO SLUGS!!!!!!!
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
gross@maxwell.ucsc.edu
From: tarl@sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: gravity-neutralizing
Date: 11 Nov 92 16:48:31 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: coyoacan.sw.stratus.com

In article <Hq0ZTB6w165w@Blue.Kludge.COM>, alizard@Blue.Kludge.COM (A.Lizard) writes:
> My understanding of patent law says that anything with a patent number
> on it is at least theoretically supposed to work...

Nobody checks such. As proof, I am the proud owner of a software patent
that, by the time the lawyers got done with it, was pure gobbledygook and
not possible to derive any useful information from it. If anyone was able
to figure out what I was patenting from that application, they are better
than I am at reading between the lines.

In any case, I looked over that purported antigravity patent. The patent
is on a machine that demonstrates the antigravity effect by measuring the
tilt on a carrier with a gyroscope, balanced on a knife edge. Flaws:

   a) The data supplied shows an effect of less than 1/4th of the noise
      level and not enough data points to ensure it is a real effect, and

   b) The experiment is fatally flawed in not isolating the carrier from
      other forces, such as electromagnetic, vibration, air currents, ect.

The purported effect that was actually measured was TINY (witness that the
noise level was four times larger). From this, he patented a spaceship
(the next patent).
-- 
         Tarl Neustaedter	tarl@sw.stratus.com
         Marlboro, Mass.	Stratus Computer
Disclaimer: My employer is not responsible for my opinions.
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: tomes@iastate.edu ()
Subject: Re: GETTING AROUND
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 23:59:23 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.145758.130374@zeus.calpoly.edu> mhorning@zeus.calpoly.edu (Mark E. Horning (Captain Neutrino)) writes:

>But not impossible in theory, and the mass of the object was never
>mentioned. Anyone know of a good way to generate 450 KiliAmps?

450 breeding pairs of Kilis, obviously.

Seriously, folks, at what voltage? for how long? AC or DC?  The pulse radar
guys I was reading about when I worked at Collins were talking that power
level, but for VERY short pulses.

Talk to someone in the electric utility business.  A friend of mine applied
for a job at an electric motor design firm, and was turned down because he had
no experience with "large" electric motors.  The bonehead interviewer didn't
comprehend that utility companies have electric motors and generators big
enough for a family of four to live comfortably inside the housings.

I think that a large slow moving concrete flywheel (~1000 tons) geared to a
motor/generator assembly could generate that power.  I seem to recall that
as the preferred method of energy storage for a research center.  It would draw
power from the grid for a couple of days, spinning the cylinder up.  When they
did the experiment, they brought it to rest in a matter of minutes.

Since most of the things you use current for can be massaged (more turns of 
wire, higher voltage, etc) why do you want this much current?  It seems to
me that if it lasts for any length of time you would melt just about any non-
superconducting device.

CP Tomes
If they get close enough to shoot back at you, you've failed.
From: graff@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Eugene M Graff)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Size of a PHOTON?
Date: 10 Nov 92 14:41:45 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

The size of Dan Quayle's brain.
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: GETTING AROUND
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 04:26:07 GMT

In <BxJ4vt.6Fo@news.iastate.edu> tomes@iastate.edu () writes:

>In article <xeno.721443261@aviator.cc.iastate.edu> xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) writes:
>>Well, lessee...  e=mc^2, right?  and particles/antiparticles are created
>>in pairs?  e = 2*mc^2 = 2 * (.1kg) * (3e8m/s)^2 = 1.8e16 joules
>>
>>Wow...  I could run one millions microwave ovens on high for four and a half
>>months...  And that's assuming 100% efficiency...  am I wrong?
>>
>>---Xeno

>You are probably right, but my father told me when he was at MIT the cyclotron
>pulled enough power to require them to wait for the grid to recover...

>A big well-funded research facility might even have their own fission power
>plant.  Or two. Or more.  Power (electrical, that is) doesn't seem to be the 
>problem.

>Maybe 1kg instead?  Ooooh, I can think of 2 or 3 things immediately that
>are ideal applications for antiprotons...like stealth nukes.  Nothing that a
>self-respecting government would be interested in.

Too dangerous...

To keep plutonium from reacting, you just don't let too much of it pile
up in one place, but to keep anti-matter from reacting, you must provide a
constant field to contain it.

---Xeno





Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: time travell ??
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:44:37 GMT

In <1992Nov10.014223.156121@zeus.calpoly.edu> mhorning@zeus.calpoly.edu (Mark E. Horning (Captain Neutrino)) writes:

>sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) states
>>In <1992Nov7.161752.1@vms.ocom.okstate.edu> chorley@vms.ocom.okstate.edu writes:
>>
>>>So-called anti-matter has been shown to have "positive" mass.
>>
>>Not so.  It is currently an experimental question which is receiving 
>>considerable attention.  No one knows whether antiprotons fall up or down.
>>We may know in a few years.
>>
>>We *do* know that antimatter has positive energy density.  If antiprotons
>>fall up, then GR is not correct.  But we don't yet know.  Of course, most
>>people expect antiprotons to fall down.
>>
>	My memory is not to good on this but I'm prety sure I read about
>somebody doing an experament whereby they put positrons into a storage
>ring. Measured the time it took for them to complete a revolution.
>Then took it to the top of a mountain and did it again. Since the
>particles act as a clock, they should react to the gravitational
>field of the earth acording to relativity. I thought that they reacted
>just as electrons would. 
>	Would this not imply that they have positive mass?

>If im just blowing smoke please say so.


Hmmm... Seems to me that this only indicates that the magnitude of the
acceleration is the same, not the direction.  Although I fully support the
notion that positrons would fall 'down,' I don't think this offers proof.
It seems likely that the repulsive gravity, if there is such a thing, would
have the same magnitude of the attractive acceleration at any given elevation.

I *proposed* that entropy would always decrease in any system of
anti-matter.  Please note that it is still possible for entropy to only
increase in the universe as a whole, as the processes to create anti-matter
would add considerable entropy to our universe, enough perhaps to always
at least balance the 'negative' entropy that the anti-matter would produce.

Also, please note that if you were actually a creature made of anti-matter
examining the universe, and anti-particles were simply standard matter
traveling the opposite direction in time, you would see yourself as being
made of matter with your entropy increasing, and the vast majority of the
universe around you as being made of anti-matter with decreasing entropy.

>Mark E. Horning, Physics 	A penny saved is a congressional oversite.	
---Xeno

>		*** H. Ross Perot in '96 ***

Here, here!  ;)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: GETTING AROUND
From: mhorning@zeus.calpoly.edu (Mark E. Horning (Captain Neutrino))
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 14:57:58 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) states
>In <BxGIJ0.G5F@news.iastate.edu> tomes@iastate.edu () writes:
>
>
>>Of course, someone mentioned that a rail gun (mass driver?) had already
>>succeeded in throwing a small object to low earth orbit from somewhere in
>>New Mexico....
>
>>chuck the merciless.
>
>Excuse me?  Who mentioned this?  This can work on the moon because of the
>lack of atmosphere, but the drag imparted by ours would make this EXTREMELY
>difficult.
>
>---Xeno

But not impossible in theory, and the mass of the object was never
mentioned. Anyone know of a good way to generate 450 KiliAmps?


Mark E. Horning, Physics 	A penny saved is a congressional oversite.	
mhorning@pan.calpoly.edu	Don't steal, the IRS hates competition.
The meek can _have_ the Earth, the rest of us are going to the stars.(Heinlein)
		*** H. Ross Perot in '96 ***
From: Lauren.Podolak@mechanic.Fidonet.org (Lauren Podolak)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: ALTERNATIVE Comet Rendez
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 17:21:10 PDT
Organization: Mechanic: The Usenet<->Fidonet Gateway oF St. Pete Florida

MC>               The Russians have spacecraft called "COSMOSPHERES",
MC>          which were originally built and used for "Star Wars" defense.
MC>          They are spherical in shape, INvisible to radar beyond about
MC>          50 miles away, atomic-powered [possibly Migma fUsion],
MC>          electro-gravitic (can hover against gravity), and equipped
MC>          with "Psycho-energetic Range Finding" (PRF) which tunes-in to
MC>          the actual atomic signature of an object or target.

   [utter drivel deleted for space]

Can you take this to a more appropriate echo like Alt.Sci.Fantasy?
___
 X OLX 2.1 TD X FORMATING  Cyl 001  HD 05

--  
Internet: Lauren.Podolak@mechanic.Fidonet.org
UUCP:     ...!myrddin!tct!mechanic!Lauren.Podolak
Note: Mechanic is a free gateway between USENET & FIdonet.
      For information write to chief@mechanic.fidonet.org

Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: Size of a PHOTON?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 23:24:07 GMT

In <FRANL.92Nov5180651@draco.centerline.com> franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio) writes:

>xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) writes:

>> If I threw a baseball near the speed of light, it's relativistic mass
>> (that same type of mass you use in your example of radiation pressure),
>> especially in combination with spacial contraction, might lead one to
>> believe that it would become a black hole and collapse in on itself.
>> But from the baseball's point of view, we here on good ole' Mother Earth
>> would have already become a black hole while it was still accelerating
>> (ignore problem of black hole accelerating a baseball ;)  It should be
>> apparent that this can't be right...  

>Are you trying to imply that it "can't be right" for two identical
>observers to each measure the other's mass to be greater than their
>own mass?  For each to measure the other's length in the direction of
>travel to be shorter?  For each to see the other's watch ticking
>slower?  If so, read a good book on Special Relativity.

Actually, I was implying that it "can't be right" for object A to
become a 'black hole' relative to object B before the reverse happens.
If this were true, then there would be an event horizon from object A's
perspective that did not exist from object B's perspective.  In addition,
any event horizon formed would be reversible merely by decelerating, which
rather blows away the whole concept of an event horizon.

>> Where is the flaw in the logic?

>Something does not collapse into a black hole just because a
>fast-moving observer measures its mass to be incredibly large.  You do
>not age slower just because a fast-moving observer sees your watch
>ticking slower than his.  In fact, while he sees your watch ticking
>slower than his, you see his watch ticking slower than yours.  This is
>counter-intuitive, but in the limit of flat spacetime, it is the way
>the universe works.

I don't find it counter-intuitive at all...  If you do, then perhaps you
should read a better book on Special Relativity.  ;)

>Special Relativistic effects are symetric between two uniformly moving
>observers.  No one's reference frame is special.
>--
>franl@centerline.com   || Fran Litterio, CenterLine Software R&D
>617-498-3255           || 10 Fawcett St, Cambridge, MA, USA 02138-1110
>"It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself."  -- Chris Stevens

---Xeno
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Hey! Armchair physicist's!
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Date: 14 Nov 92 00:32:56 GMT

etljmme@etlxd10h.etlxd (Jim) writes:

>Let's assume that at the moment of creation, the universe was probably
>a single, pretty-damn dense point.  This point would also, therefore, 
>be spacetime.
>Until this point expanded to a size where particles could be 
>seperate entities, could
>gravity exist without seperate objects with which to interact??  
>If not, do we need
>to unify gravity into a situation where it could not exist??

This is actually a very good question, and the answer isn't really
known.  For one thing, nobody knows whether or not there is some
extended size to particles or not; in string theory, for instance,
there might well be a minimum "size where particles could be separate
entities," but in the standard treatment where fundamental particles
are pointlike, there isn't any size to them at all-- though there
is a scale called the Compton wavelength, below which you can't
localize the particle without creating lots of other junk from the
requisite energy, roughly speaking.

The other part of the problem is that nobody knows whether the
picture of spacetime as a smooth geometry whose curvature yields
gravity really holds at very small scales.  Many people working
on this subject think that on a scale of something like 10^-33
centimeters, very strange things should happen to spacetime;  roughly,
geometry should become subject to quantum-mechanical uncertainties.
Nobody knows how gravity would work on that scale, since nobody has
a good quantum theory of gravity yet.  Presumably in the very, very
early universe, these effects should be quite important since
everything is squashed down to very tiny scales.
-- 
Matt McIrvin
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Scientists debunk astrology...and what else?
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:34:30 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <11NOV199214421758@csa3.lbl.gov>, sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
> In article <347@mtnmath.UUCP>, paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes...
> 
> >may be appropriate to recall that the Vietnam war was conducted by the `best
> >and the brightest'. It was an attempt to solve by intellectual means
> >a problem that could not be solved in that manner. One can argue that 60,000
> >Americans and a great many more Vietnamese died in part because of the one
> >sided intellectual approach to problems that dominates our culture.
> 
> This would be funny if it weren't so sad.  One side of a war always looses.  
> So what?  One baseball team always looses the World Series.  Does the 
> failure of the losing team imply that reason is inferior to astrology?
> Give me a break.

I do not think and did not imply that reason is inferior to astrology.
I said that astrology is in part a method for developing human intuition.
Intuition is neither superior nor inferior to reason but complimentary to it.
I am convinced that the *one-sided* emphasis on rational approaches to
problems is a source of many of Western culture's greatest difficulties.
I think it was a major contributing factor to the debacle of Vietnam.
Seeing the Vietnam war as mainly about winning and losing teams is a
good example of a narrow rational view. That is how the `best and
the brightest' who managed that war thought. The problem with Vietnam
was not that we lost, but that we fought it in the first place.

Paul Budnik
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: Scientists debunk astrology...and what else?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:45:11 GMT

In <347@mtnmath.UUCP> paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:

>In article <1992Nov11.024228.19183@nuscc.nus.sg>, matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Brett McInnes) writes:
>> I have tried [without much success] to follow the thread on mixing
>> science and religion. I note that many people argue that the two are
>> indeed immiscible. I wonder how these people feel about astrology? Many
>> of us feel that scientists have a moral obligation to speak out against
>> popular delusions of this kind. Are we mistaken? Should we take the view
>> that astronomy and astrology don't mix?

>Certain aspects of astrology, predicting ones fate based on the moment of
>one's birth, are known to be false and should be condemned. Many aspects
>of many religions are known to be false and should be condemned. A
>blanket condemnation of either makes as much sense as as a blanket
>condemnation of physics because it was responsible for nuclear weapons.

[...]

>Paul Budnik

'Knowing' something is false does not necessarily mean one should condemn it.

This comdemnation eventually leads to the stagnation of new ideas...  and even
if these human precepts are false, they give us insight into our own inner
workings, so they serve a valuable philosophical and psychological purpose.

I realize that the author may not have intended to say that this wasn't the
case, but 'condemn' is a strong word.

---Xeno
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: Size of a PHOTON?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 23:41:48 GMT

In <mcirvin.721007824@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:

>xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) writes:

>>If I threw a baseball near the speed of light, it's relativistic mass
>>(that same type of mass you use in your example of radiation pressure),
>>especially in combination with spacial contraction, might lead one to
>>believe that it would become a black hole and collapse in on itself.

>Nope.  The source term for gravity in general relativity isn't the
>total energy (or "relativistic mass" if you prefer to use such an
>inelegant concept), but the stress-energy tensor, which contains
>energy density, momentum density, and local stresses.  This is
>different for a fast-moving baseball with a certain kinetic energy and
>for a heavy still object with the same energy in the form of mass.  For 
>a moving baseball, it doesn't produce a black hole.  

>The easiest way to get the moving baseball's gravitational field
>is to perform a coordinate transform on a stationary baseball's
>field.  If you don't have a black hole to begin with, you don't
>get one. 

I was hoping someone would bring this up...  An interesting side effect
of this is that the baseball near the speed of light would have very little
gravitational field in front or behind it.  At the limit of 'c' the field
would become a plane.  If this were true, it would imply that 'gravitational
waves' were intantaneous and were not bound by the speed of light.

Therefore, alternate theories of gravity do not satisfy the 'transforming'
method you've mentioned.

>This is a fine example of the pitfalls in store when one uses the
>concept of relativistic mass in the seemingly obvious manner.  It's
>better not to use it at all, but if you must, you have to be 
>careful.  See the sci.physics FAQ for a further explanation.
>-- 
>Matt McIrvin

That was part of the point of this 'exercise'...  ;)

---Xeno
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:55:42 EST
From: <BAV2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Spin Numbers

In article: <1992Nov10.123121.1@woods.ulowell.edu> <1dpe8kINNd2e@uwm.edu>
   Gerald Graef writes:

>Mathematically, anything is possible.
> However, anything other than integral
>and half-integral spin has no physical basis.

Hmmm... I don't think that exotic spin numbers are _mathematically_
possible. As I understand the spinor algebra there is not room
for spinors describing spins other than 1/2*n. Of course one can
construct  a _new_ mathematics for spins but it wouldnot be the same
thing.

Boris

Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: GETTING AROUND
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:54:21 GMT

In <BxIuDz.M6E@news.iastate.edu> tomes@iastate.edu () writes:


>I also find it hard to believe that someone hasn't generated a large enough
>quantity of antiparticles to figure out the gravity question.  How long
>has the capability to create them been around?  Sure, it would be damn
>expensive, but having 100g of antiprotons to play with might give someone
>with a LOT of resources some interesting answers.

Well, lessee...  e=mc^2, right?  and particles/antiparticles are created
in pairs?  e = 2*mc^2 = 2 * (.1kg) * (3e8m/s)^2 = 1.8e16 joules

Wow...  I could run one millions microwave ovens on high for four and a half
months...  And that's assuming 100% efficiency...  am I wrong?

---Xeno

>Chuck The Merciless
>Believe all of what you hear...you'll be right more of the time than the
>people who doubt everything.