Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 20:06:40 -0700 (PDT) From: William Beaty To: freenrg-l@eskimo.com Subject: crude test of Morton effect [THIS FIRST ONE DOESN'T MATCH MORTON'S EXPERIMENT VERY WELL] Got my VDG back running again, and spent a couple of hours playing with it. This DOES do something interesting. I'm letting sparks jump to a 24" square of cardboard covered with aluminum foil, glued down with rubber cement. I messed about with thin glass tubes, and found that it's very difficult to make a spark proceed along the interior. Surface leakage probably changes the field patterns inside. The arcs are dim and jagged, and go over the outer surface, or they are triggered at the edge of the glass tube, then change path to propagate through the air. Finally I just stuck some styrofoam rods between the flat plate and the VDG sphere, with about 2.5" distance between sphere and foil. The sparks aren't attracted to the styrofoam, and this gives fat, bright, perfectly straight sparks with interesting internal structure. Unfortunately, every spark originates at a different spot, so if these sparks are creating a narrow "beam" of some sort, its path is jumping around over a 3" region. The rep rate on these sparks is a little faster than 1 hz. A neon bulb (an old front-view Nixie bulb) flashes dimly orange during a spark when held by hand at any position within 12" distance of the VDG sphere. But when held BEHIND the grounded foil plate in the shielded region, at the approximate location of the sparks, it flashes distinctly brighter. The RF impulse seems to be penetrating the foil, and MIGHT be stronger near the spark than elsewhere. The tube only flashes for about 1 in 3 sparks. Either the spark energy is varying, or the location of the spark on the other side of the foil is important. I wish I had a big, flat, neon-filled plasma panel that I could place against the back of the foil. My hand can't feel any force pulses when held near the cardboard opposite the spot where the sparks are striking the foil. I'll have to try dangling some small objects on threads. I think I'll try attaching a large number of NE2 bulbs to an acrylic panel, and see if I can detect any small hot-spots or beam-like lines. No obvious response by zinc sulfide, but I'll have to wait for dark to make certain. I tried stablizing the location of the sparks by using various ball bearings attached to the VDG sphere, but this converts the sparks to "weak mode", where they are very thin, dim purple, jagged, and have multiple branches like tree roots. Even a 1.25" diameter ball bearing did this. Perhaps I can paint part of the metal sphere with insulator, while leaving a tiny clear spot, and that will stop the sparks from wandering. ------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 03:04:08 -0700 (PDT) From: William Beaty To: Vortex Subject: Test of Morton effect... nada I finally managed to duplicate something vaguely similar to Morton's VandeGraaff test. No interesting results. I dented the center of the aluminum-coated cardboard to produce a involute curve about 1" in diameter, then cut a crude hole in the dented region about 3/4" diameter. A quick test shows that the sharp edges don't produce any corona (and the sparks don't tend to switch to dim/branching mode, and don't tend to home in on the hole edges.) I tested 2cm glass tubing, also 1" I.D. acrylic, both approx 3" long. The glass is useless since its surface adsorbs humidity, and rather than producing sparks, the surface of the glass glows very dim blue in the dark and hisses. I suppose I could bake it out with a propane torch, but first I'm playing with the acrylic. The sparks ignore the acrylic, they only rarely go through the tube. Therefore I affixed the tube in an acrylic plate approx 5"x7", sealed flat to the end of the tube with plexi #3 cement, with a big hole poked through the flat plastic. I taped this to the aluminum foil. Sparks now follow the inside of the plastic tube surface. They repeat at about 2Hz, and are slightly jagged, but are bright and make a "crack" sound. They no longer have that line-like geometry which they exhibit when in the free air between the VDG sphere and the flat foil. If that "line like" effect is important, well, the presence of the tube is screwing it up. Walking around the setup while holding a 6" flourescent tube and a 12" flourescent tube does not reveal any hotspots (no apparent "beams".) The flourescent tube flashes brightly when held against the cardboard opposite the side receiving the sparks. However, this is handheld, and when I instead attached the 6" flourescent tube to a long plexiglas rod, the bright flashing no longer occurs. When the fluor. tube on the rod is held in various positions against the foil, I see no flash. When held in the region near the hole in the cardboard, no flash. As long as I keep it within about 24" of the VDG sphere, there is a dim flash if I hold the tube anywhere but behind the foil-covered cardboard. Even if I approach the VDG sphere quite closely, the flash is dim. As long as the flour. tube is suspended on plastic, the foil-covered cardboard does create a "shadow" region behind itself. Exploring the region on the opposite side of the sphere in line with the sparking does not reveal any hotspots there either. The collapsing e-fields surrounding the VDG sphere do affect the hair on my arms, and as long as the machine is sparking, I feel like I'm being hit by high-velocity feathers. The surface of my hands cannot feel this (no hair to respond,) but the backs of my hands do feel it. I suspect that my hair is intercepting the ion flow in the air around the VDG and becoming charged. When I first present my arm to the VDG sphere, I barely feel the pulses, but after about 5 seconds the feeling grows strong. I imagine that uncharged hair barely responds, but once the hair becomes charged, it wiggles far more when the e-fields change. This "feather impact" effect is not present behind the grounded cardboard panel. No "beams" of hair-pulsing can be felt there, or in the region greater than 3ft away from the VDG sphere. To sum up: I see no major difference between this setup and a simple sphere-pair with sparks jumping between. There are various EM and ion pulse effects, but these occur in a roughly spherical region around the device, and there are no "beams" extending outwards. The original Morton diagram doesn't work as shown, since the sparks ignore the tube and leap through the air (I had to cover the metal facing the VDG sphere with plastic to force sparks to go through the tube.) The German replication in Electric Spacecraft Journal #6 talks about the "beams" and even claims that moving the position of the grounding clip causes the "beam" to propagate from the opposite side of their device. And if Podkletnov's device is an independent discovery, his description of narrow beams suggests that he has stumbled across a similar phenomenon. So, are their claims a network of delusions, or is my setup too unlike Morton's original to be a fair replication? Time for the usual "crackpot experimenter rant!" This brings up the "Experimenter's Regress" mentioned by Collins and Pinch: when investigating totally unexplored regions of physics, we cannot tell if our replication is flawed, or if instead the phenomenon doesn't exist. We don't have any solid theoretical predictions, and also we can't start building a theory based on experimental results which are suspicious. Is contemporary physics theory wrong because it doesn't predict the experimental results, or is the experiment wrong because it violates known theory? Only wide replication can expose reality, since we can always find a reason to distrust an experiment or a theory. If theories were only based on experiment, there'd be no difficulty, but the need for replication and more importantly the need for CONCENSUS AGREEMENT as to the trustworthyness of experimental results can cause problems of circular reasoning. If we're confident about a theory because it makes correct experimental predictions, but we're confident that our experiments are unflawed because the results are in line with theory... then our confidence is very misguided. Feynman mentions this in regards to Millikan's error in measuring the charge on the electron, and the slow change over years in the "accepted value" for e caused by researcher's unwillingness to question the initial incorrect results. Wide replication of an experiment can expose the flaws both experimental and theoretical, but when social forces are involved, it might take years. Remember Jefferson's quote: "I'd sooner believe that two yankee professors had lied, than to believe that rocks could fall from the sky." The existance of meteors conflicted with the current theory of the time. There can be no rocks falling from the sky because there are NO ROCKS IN SPACE. So we though. So for decades we rejected the evidence. Morton's and Podkletnov's observations seem to conflict with contemporary physics... so do we look for flaws in physics, or in the experiment? People who insist that theory is based on experimental evidence have not encountered situations where revolutionary experimental evidence is resisted for long periods because it conflicts with theory! ((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billbeskimo.com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits science projects, tesla, weird science Seattle, WA 206-789-0775 freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L [ AUG 29 2001, NOTE] John Schnurer mentioned that the VDG sphere must be negative, otherwise the mechanical impulse effect is very weak and is revered in direction. Mine VDG is positive. Also, the 5-legged fuzzy discharge in the Podkletnov paper propagates out of his ground terminal and toward the VDG. I see an identical effect, but it is oriented opposite. I need to put something on the surfaces of my VDG rollers to reverse the output polarity. Also, about that 5-legged discharge. Electric sparks branch in the direction of propagation. If two plasma filaments should ever break out on the SAME electrode, they repel each other and do not join, yet a single filament can split into two branches as it extends. Therefore Podkletnov is NOT seeing five sparks propagate outwards, only to join together to form one spark that continues. Instead he has it backwards, and is seeing a spark propagate out of his ground terminal and reach out toward the SC-coated VDG... while at the same time the claimed mechanical impulse effect goes in the opposite direction. If the Morton effect depends on spark direction, the apparent rule is that the mechanical impulse travels OPPOSITE to spark propagation. Or, if it only depends on the direction of charge flow, then it doesn't matter if the spark starts out on the ground terminal and extends towards the VDG, or the reverse, and only the polarity of electrodes matter