A question you may be able to help me with...

[Guest ~Kandi~]

A friend posed this question...

To date we are unable to manipulate gravitational energry or store it.

 

I've been thinking of a way to store this energy to use as a form of transport.

 

Ok, to the point

 

With electricity, if you run it through a wire wrapped around a screwdriver, you can create a magnet. Additionally, if you spin a magnet, you can create electrical engery.

 

With gravity, if you have a large amount of mass it creates gravity. However, gravity can cause light to bend. So I was thinking if you could bend enough light, it would create gravity. If you placed this gravity in front of say a spaceship, you could use it to pull the ship along, removing the need for much fuel on long distance travels.

 

Apart from using gas to bend light, does anyone have any ideas?

 

This is all just theoretical, maybe it's been done before, maybe it hasn't.

 

I want to find a way to store this energy, and open up a can of gravity.

[VendingMenace]

well...gravity will also bend the trajectory of a thrown ball (ok, so accourding to GR the ball is still traveling in a straight line, but lets not consider this here), so if you just have a ball and bend it path then you would be creating gravity too???

 

I think that perhaps you are confusing cause and effect here. Just because gravity causes light to bend, does not mean that bending light causes gravity. It is a logical fallicy to believe that. For example, i might give you $20 dollars because i have a debt with you, however, if i randomly give you $20 that does not mean that i had a debt with you. Does that make sense?

 

As far as electrcity and magnitism goes moving electric charges can cause magnetic fields and magnetic fields can cuase electic charges to move. Howver, this is only becuase they are really two aspects of the exact same phenomenon. Light and gravity to not appear to be the same phenomenon, so there is no reason to suspect that bending light would cuase gravity.

 

Of course, i could be wrong here and you should still feel free to try whatever you want. SOme of the coolest things come out of ideas that others say are crazy. HOwever, do not be disapointed if you idea does not really pan out. EIther way have a great time checking things out

 

 

NOw to answer your question, any change in dessities will bend light. YOu could look at prisms, lenses, ect.

[swansont]

~Kandi~ said in post #1 :

 

To date we are unable to manipulate gravitational energry or store it.

 

I disagree. Hydroelectric plants, for example, do this all the time. There are some that will pump water up into a reservoir to be used at a later time at peak electrical demand.

[rebeldog]

The hydro plants that do that are inefficient producers of energy. They buy the electricity to pump the water up at cheap rate and release it at peak time and sell it to the grid at peak time. Behind the dam is stored 'potential energy'.

[VendingMenace]

not all hydroelectric plants do this. Some actually use reseviors that are filled by rivers. Thus, it is very cheap energy. Besides, the point is not wether it is inexpensive or not. I think all that swansont was pointing out was that we can, in fact, store gravitational energy, and we do it all the time.

[YT2095]

another classical way it`s stored and put to practical use are original cukoo clocks and grandfather clocks (the ones without windup springs) they rely on weights attatched to a chain, as the weight falls it turns a gear, changing linear motion into rotational

[Sayonara]

"Holding something up" is not the same as "Storing gravitational energy".

[YT2095]

Whut?

 

One of the basic corner stones in Physics uses Gravity in the equasion to calculate the Joule and Watt.

Raising 100 grams 1 meter perpendicular to Gravity in 1 second = 1 Watt.

it is indeed storing gravitational energy.

[Sayonara]

Can you tell me what gravitational energy is?

[YT2095]

the force exerted upon an object in opposition to a gravitational feild.

a body in free fall does not have this force exerted upon it, and is in effect free of gravitational force, or "Zero G" as is sometimes known.

[Sayonara]

So is the equation you posted above actually merely a ground-level quantification and nothing to do with storage?

 

Since gravitational effects reach far further than we can, is it not the case that by your logic everything on the planet is in a permanent state of gravity storage which is not distinguishable from any other storage 'position'?

[YT2095]

good call, yeah the 1`st part is exactly what Im saying, everything not in free fall or in the dead center of a gravitational vortex, indeed has stored energy.

we can manipulate this to store even more by conversion.

I expend 100 calories (for arguments sake) put a house brick on a shelf. I have in effect stored that energy.

Gravity itself is a force, and in itself has no Energy, it`s one of the weaker Nuclear forces. this can be exploited quite easily for storage of energy though.

[Sayonara]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

I think I see the problem.

 

It's because when I type "storing" and "storing", there's no way of telling that one is a passive verb and one is an active verb.

 

Ha ha ha

[YT2095]

[swansont]

YT2095 said in post #8 :

One of the basic corner stones in Physics uses Gravity in the equasion to calculate the Joule and Watt.

Raising 100 grams 1 meter perpendicular to Gravity in 1 second = 1 Watt.

it is indeed storing gravitational energy.

 

1 Watt = 1 Joule/sec, and

1 Joule = 1 kg m²/sec²

 

moving 100 g a distance of 1 m in 1g = .1 kg * 9.8 m/sec² * 1m = .98 Joules

 

It's close, but is not the way the Watt is defined.

[YT2095]

well hey, what`s 0.02 Joules between friends?

it was the principal more than anything I was after

[Guest quaternion68]

Artificial gravity can be produced by a properly shaped and modulated electrostatic field, on a specific vector anyhow,essentially this would be nullified or antigravity which is the same as gravity along a vector opposite the earth's, 180-degrees in phase, to intensify, 180-degrees out of phase to nullify

,realize this: electrostatic energy is by far the most powerfull force in nature,1000's of times more powerfull than gravity itself.

[YT2095]

A shaped and resonance modulated electrostatic feild will indeed generate "LIFT" but it`s not true anti-gravity, it`s the principal behind ION Drive engines. or the "wind" you feel from the needles of a domestic Air Ioniser.

no one disputes that gravity is a weak force, one only need look at how a simple fridge magnet can pick up a paper clip against the pull of gravity to recognise this

[VendingMenace]

well put YT!

 

there is definately a difference between creating a force that will act opisite the force of gravity (like picking something up with our hands) and creating something that actually nullifies the cause of gravity (antigravity).

[multi]

skirting a pretty fine line with the brick on the shelf. yes the brick has potential energy but to call it a gravity starage device is well pushing it a bit no?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Right. Gravity storage would imply gravity has mass and can be held. It doen't have mass, unless "dark matter" is gravity. Potential energy can be sometimes storing gravity (if you call it that way) if, for example, you are on a roller coaster on top of a hill. You have potential energy in gravity.

 

Did I make sense?

[elfin vampire]

There is a reason physical matter is called 'electrodynamic bodies' and that is because in physics it is composed of:

a) electricity

b) gravitation, a dynamic of space-time

 

Ultimately the direction you're headed should arrive at electric transportation such as the Japanese bullet-trains.

 

With gravity, if you have a large amount of mass it creates gravity.

 

Mass and gravitation are dynamics associated with bodies of matter. They are provided by space-time and the existence of electricity.

As has been mentioned there is a little presented confusion between cause and effect and the composition of physical matter.

If you have a large astronomical body for example, its presence denotes gravity. However far from causing gravity, it is in part composed of gravity.