Magnetics

[calpha]

Just wateched a discovery channel special where they were doing some research on highly classified planes and helicopters.

ONe included an eye witness report of a helicopter over his farm field that was hovering but there was absolutely no sound. They followed that report with a video of a canada man who had figured out how to give small objects via a static charge----as I understood it----reverse polarity...thus causing them to immediately fly (although not vertically....but more at an angle). They were speculating that the research projects there were doing some advanced electro-magnetic experiments with planes and helicopters. THey interviewed a retired Lockheed employee who used to work there, who wouldn't deny or confirm the magnetics questions...and when they showed him the video of the canada man......he only said that they were working on magnetic propulsion/lift systems 20 years ago...but wouldn't say anything further.

Some people were speculating that the video the man from canada created was a fake....and I sure thought it was. As I understand magnetics....there's two poles. A Negative, and a Positive...just like electricity.

Their use of polarity greatly confused me.....if you take a magnet on a swivel and let it rest....it will always point to the north (positive pole). If you reversed the magnets polarity...wouldn't it point to the south pole instead?

Lastly.....if the man was able to make objects weightless, and not affected by gravity...wouldn't this be the first step towards the possibiltiy perpetual motion (albeit, in a vacuum for the sake of argument)?

Greatly confused.

 

[talshiar99]

Reducing noise of a helicopter can be done by using black noise. Sending out the inverse wave form that the rotors create when traveling through the air. Luckily the rotors make almost the same noise all the time so you can reduce a great portion with out having external mics and processors to create the waveform (the sound is created near the tips of the blades anyway).

As for making stuff move, there is always a gauss gun where you use electromagnets and timing relays to shoot a metal projectile in one direction. As for making things levitate w/ natural magnetism that really isn?t possible as far as I know, there just isn?t a strong enough field. You have to have a strong magnate cooled down (liquid nitrogen) to levitate something. Scientists have levitated frogs in a small space before but they were enclosed in huge electromagnets, basally the size of a CAT scanner.

While the military has some very advanced projects going on, its unlikely they have been able to levitate a tank or a helicopter using just magnets.

 

[everman]

I think I do recall seeing either this show or something similar. This guy had a device with a small space inside which anything placed in there including a living frog and various insects would float inside, magnetizing them. One of his points was that "anything" could be magnetized, but obviously some things are easier than others such as metals. Biological material can be too but it requires more power.

There are mag lev train systems which basically have the train hovering above the track and propelled by pusing and pulling the train with the fixed magnets on the track. Very expensive but also great potential for moving things faster.