Is Gravitation under human control?
Is Gravitation
under human control?
Let's be clear, we're talking about incredibly small
gravitational fields here, not the type of 'artificial gravity' that's used
throughout science fiction to keep characters on shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica walking,
not floating, around spacecraft. As yet, that technology isn't possible.
Physicist
proposes using magnetic fields to supply and come across gravitational fields
Produce
and find out gravitational fields at will the use of magnetic fields, control
them for analyzing them, paintings with them to supply new technology — it
sounds daring, but Prof. André Füzfa of Namur college has proposed clearly that
in a piece of writing published within the clinical magazine bodily review D.
If observed, this idea have to rework physics and shake up Einstein’s idea of
fashionable relativity.
At present, scientists study gravitational fields passively: they examine
and try to understand existing gravitational fields produced by large inertial
masses, such as stars or Earth, without being able to change them as is done,
for example, with magnetic fields. It was this frustration that led Füzfa to
attempt progressive approach: creating gravitational fields at will from
well-controlled magnetic fields and gazing how these magnetic fields could bend
space-time.In his article, Füzfa has proposed, with supporting mathematical proof, a device with which to create detectable gravitational fields. This device is based on superconducting electromagnets and therefore relies on technologies routinely used, for example, at CERN or the ITER reactor.
The theoretical device he's proposed is based on large superconducting electromagnets, like the kind currently used in the Large Hadron Collider, to generate well-controlled and very strong magnetic fields that would allow physicists to observe the way these magnetic fields bend spacetime.
Füzfa's method hasn't been experimentally tested, so we can't get too excited about it just yet, but he's done the maths behind the proposed device, and everything appears to add up. Although his claim sounds pretty out-there, it's not too far from the realm of possibility. It's based on something called the equivalence principle, which is at the centre of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and which states that all types of mass and all types of energy produce and are affected by gravitational fields in the same way. So that means electromagnetic fields can theoretically curve spacetime just like a planet or a sun could, but the only problem is that the curves produced by anything here on Earth are so minuscule, we can't detect them.
Now, Füzfa has shown, mathematically speaking, that by stacking large superconducting electromagnets we would be able to produce a very weak gravitational field, and that we'd be able to detect it using highly sensitive interferometers. These interferometers would work by basically superimposing gravitational fields on top of each other so that physicists could obtain information about them.
The big problem is that an IRL device of this kind would be incredible expensive and challenging to make. And that's a pretty big investment with only mathematical proofs to go on. But being able to manipulate gravity the way we manipulate the three other fundamental forces - electromagnetic, and strong and weak nuclear forces - might just be a big enough prize to take a gamble on.
Although this experiment would require major resources, if conducted, it could be used to test Einstein's theory of general relativity. If successful, it would certainly be a major step forward in physics: the ability to produce, detect and, ultimately, control gravitational fields. People could then produce gravitational interaction in the same way as the other three fundamental interactions (e.g. electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces). That would usher gravitation into a new experimental and industrial era.
Till now, a scientific advance like this was a dream of science fiction, but it could open up many new applications tomorrow, for example in the field of telecommunications with gravitational waves: consider calling the other side of the world without going through satellite or terrestrial relays!
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