Lifter in a Bubble

last updated:02 Nov 2002

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Lifter in a Bubble (12 Oct 2002)

No, its not a Portugese Man of War on my scales. My new lifter in a bubble experiment yielded some unexpected results. Above is pictured my lifter in an inflated bubble (2 1/2 gallon heafty ziplock freezer bag). The lifter is taped to the bottom of the bag so as to not fly up to the top.

The high voltage wires are let out of the bag through small slits which are taped over.

Don't blow in to the bag to inflate it, unless you want to rebuild your lifter. The moisture from your breath will cause electrical arching which will destroy your lifter. Here I used a mechanical pump to inflate the 'bubble'.

Here is a close up of the lifter in the bubble. According to standard theory, nothing should happen when voltage is applied to the lifter. According to T. T. Brown, the apperatus should get lighter when voltage is applied. What I measured is that the appartus got heavier.... I need to investigate this further to make sure there is not an electrostatic effect going on here.

Download Video of Lifter in a bubble (3.2MB)

Here is a picture of my lifter flying free, outside the bubble

Download Video of Lifter (1.1MB)

Lifter in a Bubble update(2 Nov 2002)

My newest experiment was to rule out electrostatic charging of the pastic bag as the source of the mysterious force that caused the lifter/bag combination to weigh more. This is a picture of the lifter in the bag a-top of the plastic tube (several feet long)

My line of reasoning is, if the force is caused by charging of the bag intracting with the surroundings (the base of the scales, the floor, etc.) then if I elevate the bag away froms these objects and the same weigh increase is observed, then the anomolous effect must be real.

Above is the lifter before take off.

Here is the lifter after take off.

Here is the reading from the scales (before and after). No change was observed. If there is an electrogravity effect here, it is smaller than the resolution of my scales (0.1 gram). This is not necessarily contrary to what T. T. Brown said. Remember the force he generated was proportional to the voltage, dielectric constant, and mass of the dielectric. Here the dielectric is air (which weighs very little), the dielectric constant is aproximatly unity (which also does not help). So according to T. T. Brown, the lifter device should not produce a very large electro-gravitic effect. My next experiments will probably use a more suitable dielectric medium.

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