Gravity got no waves yet we can surf it.
Still half asleep a few days ago, I caught a glimpse of a gravity surfer effortlessly gliding through the air. He was standing on what seemed a circular board, without visible wheels or any other mode of propulsion such as a jet or propeller. It was simply a board, a bit like Captain America had decided to step on his shield and take to the air.
The idea I got was that of a “gravity board” creating a personal gravity field for the rider.
A Russian discovery
Viktor Grebennikov came to mind, the Russian scientist who found that the wing covers of certain bugs had a definite anti-gravity effect. He collected a lot of those wing covers and experimented. Mounted on a board, they would lift him into the air when standing on it.
Grebennikov devised a system to control the effect by covering and uncovering sections of the board. This allowed him to steer his contraption and to control the velocity of flight. At full speed he flew fast but was protected from the wind by a bubble of sorts forming around him and his apparatus. Here’s a short video documenting what filtered out to the West… ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kXFHB0g6Y )
The Segway
Dean Kamen, the prolific inventor best known for his two-wheeled Segway personal transport scooter, was another thought that came that morning. At a time I was hopeful he might do an updated “flying version” of the Segway but sadly, it remains firmly planted on the ground… A story went around that he died riding a Segway – that turned later out not to have been the inventor himself but Jimi Heselden, the owner of Hesco Group, a company to which the Segway invention had been sold. Kamen has numerous inventions to his credit. This article gives us an idea of what kind of man he is…
Maglev
Of course while thinking about surfing gravity, another personality came to mind, Prof. Eric Laithwaite. He was a British electrical engineer and academic/inventor. Also called “the father of the Maglev train”, he developed the principle of trains levitating on magnets.
But for this purpose I remembered a specific video demonstration of Laithwaite. A heavy steel wheel he could only lift up with effort, was spun up to high rotations. It became light enough to swing it with one hand, rising above his head. Antigravity of sorts that didn’t involve magnets but simply a fast spinning flywheel. The following video is original footage of such a demonstration. The video is from 1983.
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZeQJclDuDE )
How could it work?
Now back to our gravity surfer … he was effortlessly gliding down from up high – where he had arrived, he told me conceptually, by spiralling upward – falling as it were into a vortex of upwards directed gravitation.
How might it have worked? I’d bet on a combination of a Laithwaitean disc spun up fast, creating a Grebennikovian personal gravity field. All of this put together in an elegant fashion by Kamen, who really wasn’t dead at all. At least in that morning’s flight-of-fancy of mine.
Gravity
Gravity isn’t waves like light. There are no ‘gravity waves’ and no particles being exchanged to give rise to it. Gravity is a spinny thing, it needs some kind of spin to arise. All particles have inherent spin. Those spinning particles gravitate – they develop an affinity, an attraction – to other spinning particles. Spinning masses gravitate similarly. The rotation of a mass – a planet, a star or a galaxy, may well cause a stronger gravitational field than that caused by its spinning components, the particles, alone. And sometimes, geometry may be sufficient to induce spin and a modified gravitational field, as in the case of Grebennikov’s micro-structured bug wing covers.
It is my opinion that spin, in all its forms, puts a twisting stress on space, the Russians call that torsion. Gravity, the attraction, is caused by a torsion-induced change in the space matrix that ‘feels’ a need to be relieved. This results in two gravitating ‘things’ feeling attraction. They are seeking to come closer to each other in an effort to relieve that torsional stress.
It seems complicated at first yet it’s very simple … once you wrap your mind around it.
A historical precedent
The ancient Chinese, it seems, had it down, too.
Another method of surfing gravity by creating the necessary spin through power of the mind was one of the Chinese Taoist Warriors’ secrets. Fascinating how they were able to nullify gravity for their advantage. You can find it in some of the old wuxia movies but alas, we seem to have lost that art.
The movie that got me interested in wuxia and the ancient techniques of overcoming gravity was “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”. It is available on Vimeo if you’d like to take a peek. https://vimeo.com/668453726
So anyway, we are reduced to finding a technical solution. Perhaps a fast spinning disc inside a disc shaped cover for now. That is, until we discover or perhaps re-discover other ways to do the same thing.
Yes it was a dream … a vision of sorts and no, I hadn’t smoked anything if you’re wondering. It was early in the morning, just laying back in bed enjoying the rest for a few moments.
The title image has my initial notes, jotted down in that half dreamy state as the vision came in …
Sepp Hasslberger
Terceira island
July 2023
See also this earlier article for a more technical description of what gravity does. Not to be worried, it has no math formulas
Spin and rotation in gravity, magnetism and star formation
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2015/04/spin_rotation_gravity_magnetism_star_formation.html
