Related Work
In 1990, two University of Alabama physicists, Douglas Torr and Ning Li, had predicted that superconducting magnets might reduce the effect of gravity. After Podkletnov's apparent confirmation of this prediction, Torr persuaded David Noever, a colleague at the nearby Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to attempt to reproduce the gravity shielding experiment.
Torr soon moved to the University of South Carolina and commenced work on a most unusual device. According to Platt, Torr describes this device as a "gravity generator" that can "create a force beam in any desired direction". Officials of the University of South Carolina, however, apparently disavowed association with this work (in an interview by reporter Charles Platt), and it seems that Torr is seeking private funding to continue his research.
James Woodward, an adjunct professor of physics at Cal State in Fullerton, CA, claims to have constructed a device which achieves "time varied changes in mass" using rather ordinary capacitors.
Marcus Hollingshead, a British inventor, claimed in 2002 to have invented a device with similar gravity-modifying effects, though more related to the non-superconducting spinning S.E.G. configuration proposed by John Searl.
In 2006, Martin Tajmar and several coworkers at the Austrian Research Center (ARC) Seibersdorf announced their claim to have measured the gravitomagnetic London moment of Cooper pairs in a superconducting ring spinning at 6500 rpm. Despite the similarity to the apparatus used by Podkletnov, the authors carefully state in their eprint (see citation below) that their claimed result should not be confused with the claims of Podkletnov; specifically, they measured a tangential gravitomagnetic force created by Type I superconductors, (Elemental Lead and Niobium rings at liquid helium temperatures) but failed to measure an axial force from Type II superconductors (YBCO and BSSCO ceramics at liquid nitrogen temperatures) as described by Podkletnov. Thus, their results suggest a magnified form of "frame dragging" rather than gravity reflection. However, there are major differences between the experiments, such as the method of driving the ring. (In the ARC experiments, the ring was physically driven by a motor, while Podkletnov's experiment levitated and spun the ring using magnetic fields.)
Read more about this topic: Eugene Podkletnov
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