Was the Nazi Bell a True Antigravity Device?

[emc2cracker]

Friends:

I am a sci fi writer and I have started a book that is based on the myth about the "Nazi Bell". The only evidence of this device comes from an author Igor Witowski who claims he saw documents in Poland that speak about the interrogation of a Nazi SS captain that described a device the nazis built supposedly for anti gravity. The location for the device exists, and there has been documents uncovered that point to a top secret program being developed there. The person in charge of the project was Hans Kammler and he by himself is a good mysterious story. He was the guy that designed the death camps, he increased their efficiency to kill 10x more people and yet he is a historical unknown. His body was never recovered and it is thought he had opportunity to escape with the device to Argentina or even to the USA. The most damning evidence in my eyes is the fact though he was a die hard nazi, he was ordered to execute the scientists at penemunde but he refused. He took them to a location to be picked up by the USA, I find that such a killer wouldn't do that out of mercy.. maybe he cut a deal.

In any case back to the topic. This device is supposedly counter rotating cylinders filled with an unknown fluid that some have guessed to be mercury. But it was supposed to glow when in operation, and I wonder if maybe the device was actually synthesizing francium or trying to bombard francium with protons or neutrons to form a new element. Now I'm going to need someone here to make a leap of faith. If you had seen two counter rotating cylinders producing some kind of anti-gravitational effect, if you knew that was done and was fact. What model would you attribute it to? Is there a model of physics that has room for this behaviour? So far I am having a difficult time linking this experiment to anything to make it plausible. Other than say an attempt at making a stable francium isotope for use as a dirty water bomb. However that's not as entertaining as explaining the source of UFO's in your first book lol.

 

[torquil]

Disclaimer: I don't believe that such a device has been constructed, or will be in the foreseeable future :-) However, I seeing this from the perspective of writing a good science fiction book.

From what I understand, you are looking for possible "explanations" using physics-terms, for a phenomenon that is in all probability inconsistent with the current state of known physics? I.e. some explanation that is based on some credible future development of physics?

If I had seen such a thing demonstrated to me I would react in the following manner:

1) Get suspicious about there being some hidden mechanism that I'm not seeing. Investigate this.

2) Even if I were not able to discover any such hidden mechanism, I would need other qualified folk to also investigate before I conclude that it is real.

3) If lots of qualified folk verify that there is no such hidden mechanism, them I would start believing it could be a real phenomenon.

4) Try to explain this phenomenon by analyzing the system in terms of known physics, and try to find methods to determine where known physics goes wrong. For this more specialized experiments would have to be done on the unit. E.g identify all materials and so on. Describe its behaviour as accurately as possible.

5) In the end, one would have to try to create a testable theory to explain the phenomenon. E.g. modify the theory of gravity. I guess this is what you are interested in mainly. Regarding this, I would look at the properties of spin and gravity. It is not easy for a physicist to believe that some particular atomic element should suddenly have different gravitational properties than the others, because all the elements are in essence built out of the same building blocks, only with differing numbers of e.g. protons and electrons. If I have to, and since you mention rotation, I would go for an explanation in terms of the gravitational properties of spinning cylinders.

Of course, it would probably be easy for most physicists to see that this is incorrect in terms of current theory, probably most likely by referring to the known solution for the metric around cylinder (possible spinning). But it could be a plausible explanation for non-physicists. You could say that two objects spinning extremely fast in opposite directions would create a special gravitational field that was not explained by Einsteins gravititational theory. The special materials/elements could e.g. have been there e.g. to lubricate the motion of the cylinders, not to contribute to the anti-gravity in itself. This point is also highly unlikely to a physicist, but what the hell! :-)

Although in order not to create new myths, you could write the this purported theory is known to not be consistent with current physics, but is used for "dramatic effect", because the anti-gravity device is essential to your entire book.

So in conclusion, as far as I know there is nothing in current physics that has room for this, but you could make up a faulty and/or questionable explanation using physics-terms that would be plausible for non-physicists. Although please also mention elsewhere in your book that it is just made up.

EDIT: The concepts of dark energy and vacuum energy could of course also be used in this connection, with good dramatic effect! If some ordinary element is to be used, it would be best to use something very dense. As far as I know, the material with the highest density is made of Osmium at around 22-23 g/cm^3.

Torquil

 

[emc2cracker]

I appreciate the quick put together there that was actually pretty good. To be honest I have been studying this thing for about 3 years. The only other real physicist to help me out on this only did so out of the good of sci fi material lol.

Let me tell you what I have come up with so far I have two ideas. The first idea takes modified gravity in the form of scalar vector tensor and stretches it to include unified field. In that instance the fluid could just be mercury. I theorize in the book that vector fields are not necessarily tied to mass alone, that electromagnetism can tap into a vector field and kind of fool nature into believing a super massive object is there. So that gives the engine the super massive objects vector field but not its gravity field, and the vector field is in fact an anti gravity in that model. Thats quiet a stretch even for me a novice in physics.

Then I have the idea that Mr. Brownstien gave me. I can make this device a gravitational wave drive. That requires a huge stretch of chemistry, so that I can have a super dense material that is very very stable and won't fly apart. That one would be the longest explanation and is going to require a lot more research on my part.

I have to have something that would make even physicists think.. maybe exploit some unexplained problems in the standard model. I"ve even been considering some kind of Sonoluminescence reaction. Its frustrating I tell you lol.

 

[Doug Huffman]

Yeah LOL. Maybe you could channel Doc Forward. Or call your writing fantasy like Piers Anthony

 

[Blibbler]

There are no plausible models for antigravity because of what gravity is. Gravitation isn't a bipolar force like electromagnetism; it is always attractive.

However, an antigravity-like force i.e. one that accelerates "upwards" could be made by electromagnetic means, and the EM force is 10^120 stronger than a G field of the same energy so would be the logical choice for a 1G force with a power supply smaller than the Earth! The way to do this with some rotating mechanism would be to make the rotating fluid have a net charge. Thus its toroidal rotation would induce a poloidal magnetic field which could conceivably be used to react against some asymmetrical external magnetic field to generate a force.

Of course, it's fiction. But at least it's plausible. There is nothing worse than reading sci-fi where the author doesn't know whether to simply show the technology or to explain it with silly fake science.

Show, don't tell. And good luck - it sounds like a fun story.

 

[emc2cracker]

There are no plausible models for antigravity because of what gravity is. Gravitation isn't a bipolar force like electromagnetism; it is always attractive.

However, an antigravity-like force i.e. one that accelerates "upwards" could be made by electromagnetic means, and the EM force is 10^120 stronger than a G field of the same energy so would be the logical choice for a 1G force with a power supply smaller than the Earth! The way to do this with some rotating mechanism would be to make the rotating fluid have a net charge. Thus its toroidal rotation would induce a poloidal magnetic field which could conceivably be used to react against some asymmetrical external magnetic field to generate a force.

Of course, it's fiction. But at least it's plausible. There is nothing worse than reading sci-fi where the author doesn't know whether to simply show the technology or to explain it with silly fake science.

Show, don't tell. And good luck - it sounds like a fun story.

I like that. I think I'm going to use something like that, diamagnetic metal in one cylinder, ferro magnetic analagram or somethin in the other.. yeah man I like that. Something like that will work nicely.

 

[haael]

The only evidence of this device comes from an author Igor Witowski who claims he saw documents in Poland that speak about the interrogation of a Nazi SS captain that described a device the nazis built supposedly for anti gravity. The location for the device exists

Hey, guys! I'm from Poland and my uncle is pretty into this. He even has a stone stolen from this "location", as you say, namely a circle of concrete columns ("flytrap", as he calls it). There are bunch of this "flytraps", I have seen one of them and people say that secret Nazi devices were mounted onto them.

The point: I was thinking, if this was remotely true, that this device was not anti-gravity, but gravity shielding. It did not have negative weight (this is physically impossible), but its weight was lowered. The materials of the device is not important - it's sci-fi anyway.

Suppose a hypothesis: gravity is somehow connected to electromagnethism (of course it is), gravitons can split into photons or they "strongly" interact with them. We could then "catch" gravitons in the way between the Earth and the device, thus lower the attraction force.
The one problem is: gravity is a central force. One can not escape it not giving anything in exchange. If one body should become weightless, some other body would have to gain weight to preserve conservation of energy. The worst case would be if the shield itself gained weight. It wouldn't be suitable for flying then. But we can assume that something else gets hit with stronger gravity, i.e. distant stars or the air surrounding the device.

If the Nazi device is lighter, a small jet would suffice to get it flying.

The problem with this hypothesis is that gravity is an extremely weak force. A graviton interacts with matter weaker than a neutrino. I doubt there exists a means to interact with gravity so strongly using ordinary materials. You'd better employ black holes than mercury.

 

[emc2cracker]

I'll just say this, our understanding of gravity is very lacking to be able to make any solid claims about how it works or by what methods. Gravity shielding is a popular notion, but its unproven, time and space warping around mass is even unproven.

The "flytrap" is nothing more than the base for a cooling tower. That has been pretty much shown by the layout of that site vs other cooling towers.. almost identical design. BUT the mine itself is unexplored and still flooded, if they pump the mines out and go look they might discover what was going on down there.

The problem with knowing is that that town once was part of Germany, after the war the residents were deported to germany and polish people moved in, so nobody there today has any idea what went on during the war. And tracking down those that war has proved difficult as it seems the records of that were locked away somewhere.

I think this device is very similar to an idea about gravitational wave experiments. It is assumed that there can be no source of energy powerfull enough to generate gravitaitonal waves in a lab, however our limited understanding of the forces involved may implly something happens that we do not understand making it possible.

Its also possible that this device was simply some kind of dirty bomb held in a magnetic trap. The only way to know is to go into the mine or to replicate the experiment.

 

[Kracatoan]

The closest we will probably get to antigravity is either -

a) Using magnetism to exploit the Earth's magnetic field. Just becuase it is described as an 'Anti-gravity' device, doesn't mean it needs to use mystical concepts, Science Fiction is Fiction and not fantasy because it usually uses plausible effects to make fun objects do fun things, magnetism could easily be used to lift an object into the Earth's Magnetic field if you were clever enough. Also, the whole idea of two liquids spinning round reminds me of the Earth's core and the magnetic field it generates.

or b) Creating Vacuum Energy and exploiting its negative pressure. We can make antimatter via the Casimir Effect. However, the negative pressure made by the Casimir Effect is irritiating because it goes away when you remove the plates. Oh well.