User:Puddytang/Electrogravitics

Electrogravitics is claimed to be an unconventional type of effect or anti-gravity propulsion created by an electric field's effect on a mass. The name was coined in the 1920s by the discoverer of the phenomenon, Thomas Townsend Brown, who spent most of his life trying to develop it and sell it as a propulsion system. Through Brown's promotion of the idea it was researched for a short while by aerospace companies in the 1950s. Electrogravitics is popular with conspiracy theorists, who have made claims that it is powering flying saucers and the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

Instead of being an anti-gravity force, this effect has been found to be caused by ionized particles exerting a force between two asymmetrical electrodes that produces a type of ion drift or ionic wind that transfers its momentum to surrounding neutral particles, an electrokinetic phenomena or more widely referred to as electrohydrodynamics (EHD).

Origins
Electrogravitics had its origins in experiments started in 1921 by Thomas Townsend Brown (USA) (who coined the name) while he was still in high school. He discovered an unusual effect while experimenting with a Coolidge tube, a type of X-ray vacuum tube where, if he placed on a balance scale with the tube’s positive electrode facing up, the tube's mass seemed to decrease, when facing down the tube's mass seemed to increase. Brown showed this effect to his college professors and even newspaper reporters and told them he was convinced that he had managed to influence gravity electronically. Brown developed this into large high voltage capacitors that would produce a tiny propulsive force causing the capacitor to jump in one direction when the power was turned on. In 1929 Brown published "How I Control Gravity," in Science and Invention where he claimed the capacitors were producing a mysterious force that interacted with the pull of gravity. He envisioned a future where, if his device could be scaled up, "Multi-impulse gravitators weighing hundreds of tons may propel the ocean liners of the future" or even "fantastic 'space cars'" to Mars. Somewhere along the way, Brown came up with the name Biefeld–Brown effect, named after his former teacher, professor of astronomy Paul Alfred Biefeld at Denison University in Ohio. Brown claimed Biefeld as his mentor and co-experimenter. After World War II Brown sought to develop the effect as a means of propulsion for aircraft and spacecraft, demonstrating a working apparatus to an audience of scientists and military officials in 1952. Research in the phenomenon was popular in the mid-1950s, at one point the Glenn L. Martin Company placed advertisements looking for scientists who were "interested in gravity", but rapidly declined in popularity thereafter.

Claims
Certain fringe researchers claim that conventional physics cannot adequately explain the phenomenon. The effect is seen as an example of something much more exotic than electrokinetics, i.e. as a true anti-gravity technology that can "create a force that depends upon an object’s mass, even as gravity does". Many claims as to the validity of electrogravitics as an anti-gravity force revolve around research and videos on the internet purported to show Ionocraft working in a vacuum, therefor not receiving propulsion from ion drift or ion wind being generated in air. Followups on the claims (R. L. Talley in a 1990 US Air Force study, NASA scientist Jonathan Campbell in a 2003 experiment, and Martin Tajmar in a 2004 paper ) have found that no thrust could be observed in a vacuum, consistent with the phenomenon of ion wind. Campbell pointed out to a Wired magazine reporter that creating a true vacuum similar to space for the test requires tens of thousands of dollars in equipment.

Electrogravitics has become popular with UFO, anti-gravity, and government conspiracy theorists where There are claims that all major aerospace companies in the 1950s including Martin, Convair, Lear, Sperry, Raytheon were working on it, that the technology became highly classified in the early 1960s, that it is used to power the B-2 bomber, and that it can be used to generate "free energy". Charles Berlitz devoted an entire chapter of his book on The Philadelphia Experiment (The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility) to a retelling of Brown's early work with the effect, implying the electrogravitics effect was being used by UFOs. The researcher and author Paul LaViolette has produced many self-published books on electrogravitics, making many claims over the years including his view that the technology could have helped to avoid another Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. There are also claims that electrogravitics was invented by Nikola Tesla.

Effect analysis
Electrogravitics has been characterized as non-scientific/paranormal. Byron Preiss in his 1985 on the current science and future of the Solar System titled The Planets commented that electrogravitics development seemed to be "much ado about nothing, started by a bunch of engineers who didn't know enough physics". Preiss stated that electrogravitics, like exobiology, is "a science without a single specimen for study". The effect is widely referred to as electrohydrodynamics (EHD) or sometimes electro-fluid-dynamics, a counterpart to the well-known magnetohydrodynamics.



The effect is generally believed to rely on corona discharge, which allows air molecules to become ionized near sharp points and edges. Usually, two electrodes are used with a high voltage between them, ranging from a few kilovolts and up to megavolt levels, where one electrode is small or sharp, and the other larger and smoother. The most effective distance between electrodes occurs at an electric potential gradient of about 10 kV/cm, which is just below the nominal breakdown voltage of air between two sharp points, at a current density level usually referred to as the saturated corona current condition. This creates a high field gradient around the smaller, positively charged electrode. Around this electrode, ionization occurs, that is, electrons are stripped from the atoms in the surrounding medium; they are literally pulled right off by the electrode's charge.

This leaves a cloud of positively charged ions in the medium, which are attracted to the negative smooth electrode by Coulomb's Law, where they are neutralized again. This produces an equally scaled opposing force in the lower electrode. This effect can be used for propulsion (see EHD thruster), fluid pumps and recently also in EHD cooling systems. The velocity achievable by such setups is limited by the momentum achievable by the ionized air, which is reduced by ion impact with neutral air. A theoretical derivation of this force has been proposed (see the external links below).

However, this effect works using either polarity for the electrodes: the small or thin electrode can be either positive or negative, and the larger electrode must have the opposite polarity. On many experimental sites it is reported that the thrust effect of a lifter is actually a bit stronger when the small electrode is the positive one. This is possibly an effect of the differences between the ionization energy and electron affinity energy of the constituent parts of air; thus the ease of which ions are created at the 'sharp' electrode.

As air pressure is removed from the system, several effects combine to reduce the force and momentum available to the system. The number of air molecules around the ionizing electrode is reduced, decreasing the quantity of ionized particles. At the same time, the number of impacts between ionized and neutral particles is reduced. Whether this increases or decreases the maximum momentum of the ionized air is not typically measured, although the force acting upon the electrodes reduces, until the glow discharge region is entered. The reduction in force is also a product of the reducing breakdown voltage of air, as a lower potential must be applied between the electrodes, thereby reducing the force dictated by Coulomb's Law.

During the glow discharge region, the air becomes a conductor. Though the applied voltage and current will propagate at nearly the speed of light, the movement of the conductors themselves is almost negligible. This leads to a Coulomb force and change of momentum so small as to be zero.

Below the glow discharge region, the breakdown voltage increases again, whilst the number of potential ions decreases, and the chance of impact lowers. Experiments have been conducted and found to both prove and disprove a force at very low pressure. It is likely that the reason for this is that at very low pressures, only experiments which used very large voltages produced positive results, as a product of a greater chance of ionization of the extremely limited number of available air molecules, and a greater force from each ion from Coulomb's Law; experiments which used lower voltages have a lower chance of ionization and a lower force per ion. Common to positive results is that the force observed is small in comparison to experiments conducted at standard pressure. This is likely to be the result of the massively reduced number of ions produced by the experiment, although this could also be interpreted to be a different force entirely.

Patents


T. T. Brown was granted a number of patents on his discovery:
 * GB300311 — A method of and an apparatus or machine for producing force or motion (accepted 1928-11-15)
 * — Electrostatic motor (1934-09-25)
 * — Electrokinetic apparatus (1960-08-16)
 * — Electrokinetic transducer (1962-01-23)
 * — Electrokinetic generator (1962-02-20)
 * — Electrokinetic apparatus (1965-06-01)
 * — Electric generator (1965-07-20)

Historically numerous patents have been granted for various applications of the effect, from electrostatic dust precipitation, to air ionizers, and also for flight. A particularly notable patent — — was granted to G.E. Hagen in 1964, for apparatus more or less identical to the later so-called 'lifter' devices. Other ionic US patents of interest: 2022465, 2182751, 2282401, 2295152, 2460175, 2636664, 2765975, 3071705, 3177654, 3223038, 3120363, 3130945

Biefeld Brown effect electrohydrodynamics

 * Blaze Labs Research: What is an EHD thruster? — Introduction on EHD thrusters, ionocrafts, lifters and lots of related information
 * NASA: Asymmetrical Capacitors for Propulsion (PDF)
 * Army Research Laboratory, Thomas B. Bahder:Force on an Asymmetric Capacitor