AAWSAP DIRD, The Role of Superconductors in Gravity Research, March 2010

Text

This text came with the file. It may have mistakes. When the text and the image disagree, the image is right.

UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOR: 8ffl@IJllt t:191!! l>flt I
The Role of Superconductors in Gravity Research
Introduction
This paper is a historical survey of the role superconductors have played in the
recent search for laboratory-scale manipulation of gravity. The invention of
superconductors and, in particular, the recent development of high­
temperature ceramic superconductors have provided the impetus for pursuing
a connection between gravity, electromagnetism, and, in particular,
magnetism and matter in the solid state. The discovery of yttrium-barium­
copper oxide (YBCO) YBa2Cu301 ceramics able to superconduct at liquid
nitrogen temperatures allowed many laboratories around the world to
fabricate these superconductors in various experimentally useful sizes. True
Meissner repulsion was obtained by cooling them using relatively cheap liquid
nitrogen rather than liquid helium. For the theoretician, the possibility of
considering the superconductor being a macroscopic quantum object as a
reality rather than a fantasy suggested several avenues for developing
theories connecting gravity and gravity-like forces to engineerable matter. For
the experimentalist, extrapolations from these theories suggested there might
actually be gravitational disturbances in the laboratory that would be
amenable to measurement, assuming all necessary precautions were taken to
exclude artifact.
UNCLASSIFIED//FOA QFFI&IAI:: WSE 8HL'/
iii