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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Patent issued for anti-gravity device

The U.S. patent office has reportedly granted a patent for an anti-gravity device -- breaking its rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics.

The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity.

One of the main theoretical arguments against anti-gravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy.

"If you design an anti-gravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine," Robert Park of the American Physical Society told Nature.

Park said the action shows patent examiners are being duped by false science.

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I would like to see this device...

[Maddad]

I am not comfortable with the theoretical objection. This one at least. Unlimited energy may be one way to achieve it, but might not be the only way.

Gravity is the bending of space and time. Bend it one way, contract it, and objects move closer together. Bend it the other way, expand it, and they move further apart. We observe both in the natural world. While my salt shaker will fall to the floor because the space between the table top and the floor contracts, we also see distant galaxies receeding from one another because the space between them expands.

While we cannot, yet, duplicate this inside a lab, we are not watching anything that will defy the laws of physics.