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220 19097 <4349in$lmm@ixnews5.ix.netcom.com> article
Path: ix.netcom.com!netnews
From: Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz <uncleal0@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Altering gravitational and inertial mass
Date: 12 Sep 1995 15:39:03 GMT
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I would like some critical comment upon this, posted or by e-
mail.  The chance of success is obviously very small, but the
experiment is straightforward, and the tests are unambiguous and
sensitive.  Might expressed mass versus moles of matter be
amenable to manipulation?

Al Schwartz
uncleal0@ix.netcom.com  ("zero" after "uncleal")

Dr. Bernhard Haisch and many others theorize that gravitational and
inertial mass derive from interaction with vacuum quantum zero point
fluctuations (ZPF).  He has a FAQ sheet dated 29 August 1995.

Haisch in Feb 1994 Phys. Rev. A
Science vol 263 p 612
Scientific American vol 270, p 30
New Scientist 25 Feb 1995 p 30

A savory experiment rattles within my mind.

Casimir force shows that ZPF is excluded from a dielectric gap.
Etalons exclude classical EM radiation.  Assemble a mass of
Casimir etalons to exclude ZPF from a chunk of matter.  Will it
accelerate at 9.8m/s^2 dropped down a vacuum tower?  Will its
static weight be commensurate with the moles of contained matter?

Proc. Royal Soc. A 312 435 (1969)
Ann. Phys. (NY) 56 474 (1970)
Edward G. Harris, "A Pedestrian Approach to Quantum Field
 Theory," Wiley-Interscience, NY 1972, pp. 108-9

Vacuum deposit alternating layers of 80 nm metallic aluminum and
50 nm magnesium fluoride, thousands of them!  Each dielectric gap
should exert 2081 dynes/cm^2 as Casimir force.  As etalons, the
primary propagation window is 140 nm.  Would ZPF exclusion alter
gravitational and inertial mass (or do it differentially, and
crack the Equivalence Principle)?

J. Opt. Sci. Am. 51 719 (1961)
J. Opt. Sci. Am. 51 913 (1961)
J. Opt. Sci. Am. 53 620 (1963)
Melles Griot 1995/6 Catalog, Sections 5-29 and 13-26pp

Haisch opines that applicable ZPF interactions may extend to the
Planck frequency, 1.86x10^43 Hz, making such an experiment an
assured exercise in futility.  However, the thus infinitesimal
ZPF fraction excluded from a whopping 500 nm gap, Casimir force
which varies inversely as the fourth power of the separation, has
been experimentally measured.  An empirical test is implied!

Assays:

         1) Differential anomaly:  Will Casimir matter released
in a 100 meter vacuum drop tower fall with other than 9.8
meter/second^2 acceleration with (sub)microsecond precision?
(Break weak, narrow light beam to start and top timing;
calibration is alternately dropping pieces of aluminum and
magnesium fluoride.)

(An ultracentrifuge at 100,000 g is another test - will a static
rotor balancing balancing a gram of Casimir matter against - say,
water - remain balanced at speed?  A reviewer says mechanical
vibration will excite lattice phonon modes, invalidating the
experiment.)

         2) Conserved anomaly:  Will Casimir matter show an
anomalously low weight for the mass of aluminum metal and
magnesium fluoride contained?  (Weighing performed in a
vibration-free vacuum to avoid exciting lattice phonon modes.)
At least a gram of Casimir matter (Al and MgF2 as controls) is
hermetically sealed in a low mass pyrex or silica vacuum ampoule,
and weighed to the nearest microgram or better.  The ampoule is
heated to 700 Celsius to destroy the lattice, cooled, and
reweighed.


The vacuum deposition will be boring, and does require rigor.
Cumulative errors will limit the number of alternating stacks.
Relativity has defeated challengers - until the EPR Paradox and
the Bell Inequality.

Chemists have fabricated nanometer-void metal sponges and infiltrated
metal into meso-porous molecular sieves.  One might electrolessly
plate/intercalcate conducting sheets between the molecualr layers of 2-D
dielectrics like mica, smectite clays, or tantalum disulfide.  Would such
conducting lattices with vacuum or physical dielectric interstices,
obtainable in quantity, exhibit anomalous gravitational/inertial
behavior?

I invite comment upon my peregrinations.

Al Schwartz
uncleal0@ix.netcom.com  ("zero" after "uncleal")
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220 19338 <43hb49$jbv@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> article
Path: ix.netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!netnews
From: Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz <uncleal0@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Gravitational and Inertia Control
Date: 17 Sep 1995 14:25:13 GMT
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Dear Jerry,

Summary:  A straightforward, relatively inexpensive, and
unambiguous experiment may allow for the coherent or differential
alteration of gravitational and inertial mass of a given number
of moles of matter.  This would falsify a fundamental boundary
condition of orthodox physics.

Alan Schwartz
uncleal0@ix.netcom.com  ("zero" after "uncleal")


Given the days passing since I introduced my modest thoughts
about altering gravitational and inertial mass, I had grown to
wonder just how much response postings garnered.  Allow me to
gather some wool, then we will get down to the straight skinny.

We know that orthodox physics has a powerful grasp upon reality
because it is empirically proven re diode lasers, FETs, and solid
state devices in general; particle accelerators, satellite (GPS!)
orbital and solar system flights; quantum mechanics vs experiment
in atomic and molecular chemistry...  The list is immensely long
and powerfully conclusive.  We also know that epicycles are
capable of the same accuracy as Copernican models of the solar
system, albeit with nasty computational overhead and poor
intuition because epicycles are an unwieldy model of the physical
state.  Solid state gigaflop orreries suggest that the solar
system is perhaps ultimately ruled by chaos, and over long time
scales Copernicus is also woefully inaccurate.  Whatever truth
is, we can but approximate, seeking the most powerful paradigm
with the least intrinsic labor and the most facile predictive
abilities.

Heterodox physics seeks chinks in orthodox physics' armor.  Its
claims are often protected from criticism by complexity, expense,
and subtlety of effect.  The laborious calculations of quantum
mechanics and its philosophical ambiguity - Copenhagen vs Many
Worlds vs Bohm interpretations - whisper that, like epicycles, it
is a tremendously clever and possibly an unnecessarily difficult
way to conceptualize and quantify.  The devil lies in the details
of what is better - equally accurate but easier - and in
identifying a contradiction within business as usual.

Cold fusion has incinerated perhaps $100 million in grants in
North America and Japan, and still provides no experiment
definitive in effect and repeatable at will.  The world is rife
with Coriolis levitators which "almost" work.  Can orthodox
physics be hit squarely between the eyes for modest budget?  I beleive it
can be shown to be fundamentally incomplete.

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox and its experimental
realization in the Bell Inequality give unambiguous empirical
demonstration of non-local effects exceeding lightspeed limits on
information transfer - depending upon your school of quantum
mechanical thought, of course!.  It cannot be obscured by hand
waving, as measurements of the speed of tunneling through
classical impenetrable barriers have been compromised by
"chirping" arguments.  Quantum mechanics may have the wherewithal
to bust Relativity's guts in select cases.  What other
macroscopic manifestations of quantum mechanics are there?

(A fundamental and undeniable gainsaying of a boundary condition,
cheaply reproducible in any lab at will, is necessary to get
physics out of its rut.  If orthodox physics is indeed the Truth,
it is not a rut, it is the highway - and experiment will verify.)

The failure of Relativity to provide a deep understanding (i.e.,
the ability to manipulate) of gravitational and inertial mass
within its framework provides a fulcrum for enquiry.  The
Equivalence Principle is assumed.  If gravitational and inertial
mass can be coherently or differentially altered for an
unambiguous number of moles of matter, orthodox physics will be
forced to look without as well as within.  General Relativity
will be shown to be incomplete.

Let us cut to the chase.

The Casimir force is theoretically sound and experimentally
measured.  It confirms the evanescent reality of quantum zero
point fluctuations (ZPF) of the vacuum.  Varying as the inverse
fourth power of the dielectric separation of two plates in the
500 nm experiment, gaps near a few tens of nanometers will not be
subtle at all!  A fundamental change in the quantum properties of
the vacuum can thus be wrought, and well to the left of the
decimal, albeit acting upon very small volumes.  Thin film vacuum
deposition allows us to (relatively) inexpensively and easily
fabricate such an experiment, and sum it hundreds if not
thousands of times - layer by layer by layer - upon tens or
hundreds of square centimeters of substrate. Alternate deposition
of conductive and >reflective< aluminum 80 nm thick (60 nm
minimum; play it safe) and 50 nm of magnesium fluoride (to give a
doubled half-wavelength path of 140 nm) would create such Casimir
matter by direct effect.  It would also be a volumetric stack of
etalons excluding a classical EM spectrum except for narrow
windows.

By weighted average (Al=2.702 g/cm^3, MgF2=3.14 g/cm^3; partial
densities of MgF2 have lower refractive indices and drive the
etalon windows to shorter wavelengths), the lamellar construct
would have a density of 2.87 g/cm^3.  Of that, 1.2 g/cm^3 or 42%
will be Casimir gap-modified ZPF dielectric.

Dr. Bernhard Haisch's proposals suggest that such Casimir matter
will have altered gravitational and/or inertial masses.  Will the
alteration be experimentally accessible?  Theory is ambiguous,
but suggests the effect of the excluded fraction of the ZPF is
too small to measure by maybe 30 orders of magnitude.  HOWEVER,
THE 500 nm GAP CASIMIR EXPERIMENT IS READILY MEASURABLE.  THE 50
NM GAP EXPERIMENT IS AMPLIFIED 10,000 TIMES IN EFFECT, AND
ANOTHER 100-1000 TIMES BY REPETITION.  Isn't it still a case of
excluded ZPF fraction?

A 100 meter vacuum drop requires about 4.5 seconds.  Timing
bracketed by breaking a light beam between optical fibers should
be precise to one microsecond trivially, and to one nanosecond
with off-the-shelf technology.  A parts-per-billion test for
differential alteration of gravitational vs inertial mass is thus
accessible.  Calibration is with corresponding pieces of aluminum
and MgF2. Precision, not accuracy, is required.  It is an awfully
easy and cheap experiment to test a fundamental assumption.  Drop
towers exist in the US and in Germany (I believe a
Naturwissenshaften article on drop towers appeared between
February and May of this year.)

Weighing of a couple of grams of matter (Casimir matter contained
in a thin-walled silica vacuum ampoule) to microgram precision is
trivial, and another factor of 10 or 100 ought to be within
reasonable reach. Parts-per- billion test of coherent alteration
of gravitational and inertial mass, with control by thermally
disrupting the lattice and reweighing (hell, zap it with a laser
while still in its vacuum weighing enclosure), is difficult
(weight of surface contamination) but not very difficult.  It is
an awfully easy and cheap experiment to test a fundamental
assumption.

Another, less rigorous approach would be to incorporate metal
precursor(s) during fabrication, and thereafter diffuse
reductant, photoreduce, infiltrate, deposit, or electrolessly
plate metal within an interconnected controlled-pore dielectric
solid.  For instance, Geltech produces sol-gel silica glasses up
to an inch in thickness with interconnected uniform porosities
between 25 and 275 angstroms:

Geltech, Inc.
One Progress Blvd.
Number 8
Alachua, FL 32615
(904) 462-2358 (vox)
(904) 462-2993 (fax)

Metal sponges with nanometer-scale voids are made by template
deposition into collumnar alumina filters, Millipore membranes...
Mesoporous molecular sieves (Science 268(5215) 1324 (1995)).
have been metal filled.  Consider lamellar dielectric solids like
mica (natural and synthetic), smectite clays, tantalum disulfide,
boron nitride, metaborates, zirconium phosphate, synthetic
functionalized zirconium phosphonates... Countless layered
inorganic and organic materials exist which can be intercalcated
by metallic or other conducting planes.  Can we plate micelles or
liposomes inside and out?  Metallic cobalt hexagonal planar
nanocrystals precipitate from basic hydrazine solution with
ultrasound (Science 267(5202) 1338 (1995)).  Adsorb a transparent
polymer about each and then consolidate.  What about the ceramic
superconductor perovskites with their molecular scale conducting
and insulating planes?

The nature of science is such that I would not be overmuch
surprised if we already had in hand matter exhibiting the most
remarkable and subtle anomalous properties - if we deigned to
look at it just right.  What is exceptional about niobium
stannide, or single crystal alumina with a fraction percentage
doped chromium, or an obscure fungal secondary metabolite called
penicillin... except when viewed in the proper milieu?


In my state of ignorance, I believe that heterodox physics
finally has an acceptable, reproducible, and relatively
inexpensive experiment capable of ready reproduction and
inarguable data.  While the chance of success is indeed small, it
is balanced by the awesome potential results.  Consider the
monies expended on "fifth force" studies - with equally low
expectations of success in a profoundly more difficult
experimental theatre.

I am an organic synthetic chemist with a background in medical
devices and novel means of arthropod control, in industry.  (Let
there be no doubt within your mind that slaying cockroaches pays
better than saving human eyes.  You are up about $100 million in
FDA costs, for instance.)  I find it amusing that while R&D is
powerfully exploited within our culture, most >discoveries<
require accident and serendipity.  One does not need a license to
think, but be careful that your doctor is a certified MD!

I seek suitable professional referees and reviewers for my
thoughts.  The experiment seems so simple and fundamental, if
unlikely to succeed.  I seek somebody in academic physics to
hazard a grant application and give it a go.

Alan Schwartz
uncleal0@ix.netcom.com  ("zero" after "uncleal")
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