Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion (46 page)

11.2 • LOW-VOLTAGE SAWTOOTH-WAVE EXPERIMENTS

In the mid-1990s, Dimitriou conducted an experiment in which he radiated sawtooth waves from the end of a specially configured dipole antenna.
⁵
The antenna, which is shown in figure 11.4, measured 18.5 by 12.5 centimeters.
A detailed explanation of why it was constructed in this fashion may be found in his master’s thesis.
He excited the antenna with a 1.1-megahertz, 15.5-volt peak-to-peak RC-Norton signal of the sort graphed in figure 7.6b.
The oscillating current would have reached its maximum value along its central wire axis and attained lower values in the two outlying wires, each of which was capacitively loaded with a total of 53 picofarads.

Dimitriou discovered that the antenna created a gravitational force in line with its central axis when it was being excited with this sawtooth wave.
He suspended a 4.1-gram, 1.5-centimeter-diameter glass sphere at the end of a 2-meter cotton string from the ceiling, positioning the sphere close to one end of the central antenna wire.
A grounded copper plate was placed between the antenna and the pendulum to screen any electromagnetic effects.
He observed that when the antenna was energized, a longitudinal force was exerted on the nearby test pendulum.
When placed near the negative end of the central antenna wire, the bob was attracted with a force of 4 dynes, indicating that it was subject to a gravitational attraction of 0.1 percent.
When placed near the positive end of the central wire, it was repelled with a force of 3 dynes, that is, repelled with a gravitic force of 0.08 percent g.
Dimitriou theorized that this gravitic force was exerted on the test mass by a beam of gravity waves emitted from the end of the central wire.

Figure 11.4.
An antenna constructed by Stavros Dimitriou that
radiates longitudinal gravity waves from either end of its central conductor.
C
₁
,
C
₂
, C
₃
, and C
₄
are loading capacitances.
The
pendulum bob was hung 3 centimeters from the antenna in line with the central
conductor.

In yet another experiment, Dimitriou demonstrated that sawtooth waveforms produced frequency shifts in light being emitted from the junction of a light-emitting diode (LED).
He reasoned that the LED’s junction functioned as a miniature capacitor and that the sawtooth wave created a gravitational force that induced it to move, with the motion producing a Doppler shift of the LED’s frequency.
He measured the resulting velocity change of the junction by observing the amount and sign of the frequency Doppler shifting that this motion induced in the LED’s light.
A blueshift (frequency increase) indicated a forward thrust of the LED’s light-emitting junction, and a redshift (frequency decrease) indicated a reverse thrust of the junction.

Dimitriou excited the LED with a 1.85-megahertz sawtooth wave having an amplitude of about 2 volts peak-to-peak.
The voltage was adjusted so that the LED began to emit its light just when the voltage reached its peak value.
This was done because as the LED junction reaches full luminance, it loses its capacitive characteristics and, hence, no longer functions electrogravitically.

He studied the effect of two types of waveforms.
One was an RC-RC waveform of the type pictured in figure 7.5b, with an exponential voltage rise that lasted one-third as long as its exponential voltage decline.
The other sawtooth wave was a ramp-type wave having a linear rise and linear fall, also in a one-to-three duration ratio.
The leading edge of the exponential waveform produced a frequency blueshift equal to 8.16 millimeters per second, and its trailing edge produced a frequency redshift equal to 2.85 millimeters per second, which was 2.86 times less.
The ramp sawtooth waveform surprisingly produced frequency shifts as well, with the leading-edge velocity shift being 2.57 times the trailing-edge velocity shift.
Also, the ramp wave produced velocity shifts that were about 2.7 times less than those produced by the exponential waveform.

The velocity change cannot be attributed solely to the electrogravitic effects of virtual charges since, if such were the case, the ramp waveform, whose potential varied linearly with distance, should have induced no velocity change in the LED junction.
Alternatively, it is possible that the frequency shift of the LED junction arose because the sawtooth waves induced changes in the electrical characteristics of the junction through some unknown effect.

Dimitriou also performed a series of experiments in which he repeatedly charged and discharged a parallel plate capacitor with an RC-Norton sawtooth wave similar to that shown in figure 11.5 and looked for evidence of whether the capacitor was experiencing a gravitational thrust.
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He experimented with sawtooth-wave frequencies ranging from several hundred kilohertz up to slightly more than 1 megahertz, having a comparably low peak voltage of up to 12.4 volts.
He produced this waveform using the circuit shown in figure 11.6, which consists of a 7555 integrated circuit chip, two capacitors, and a charging resistor R
₁
in series with the test capacitor.
The value of this resistor was chosen to be 2,367 ohms, 2πZ
_o
, in which Z
_o
is the free space impedance of 376.7 ohms.

Dimitriou applied this waveform to two capacitors attached to either end of a 38-centimeter-long rotor arm, repeatedly charging and discharging them at a 238-kilohertz frequency (see figure 11.7).
Each capacitor measured 8 centimeters and consisted of a 1-centimeter-thick slab of copper flanked by two thin sheets of dielectric that, in turn, were flanked by 0.5-millimeter-thick bronze end plates.
The outer bronze plates served as the capacitor’s positive and negative electrodes.
Dimitriou reported that when he energized them with this sawtooth wave, the capacitors developed a thrust in the negative-to-positive direction, causing the rotor arm direction to twist by about 5 millimeters, which was equivalent to a one-degree rotation.
He also ran a similar test made with an air gap instead of a dielectric between the capacitor’s plates and reported that it also produced a thrust.
Thus he concluded that the effect did not depend on the presence of a dielectric.

Figure 11.5.
An RC-Norton sawtooth wave having a gradual exponential voltage rise and rapid linear voltage decline.
The ramp voltage drop was made to last about 3 percent of the duration of the voltage rise phase.

Figure 11.6.
Circuit diagram for producing the RC-Norton-type
sawtooth wave.

In March 2007, I conducted my own tests of Dimitriou’s thrust capacitor effect.
I constructed printed circuit board capacitors measuring about 3.5 by 5 centimeters and having a capacitance of about 410 picofarads.
A piece of aluminum foil formed one plate and the copper-clad printed circuit board formed the other plate, both separated by a layer of double-stick tape.
I also built an RC-Norton oscillator based on the circuit diagram shown in figure 11.6 and used it to energize the capacitor with 15-volt sawtooth waves having a frequency of about 1 megahertz.
I hung an 80-centimeter-long pendulum bob near one face of the capacitor, but observed no deflection when the capacitor was energized (i.e., Δx < 1 mm).
This indicated that any lateral gravitational acceleration produced in the immediate vicinity of the capacitor would have had to be smaller than 0.1 percent g.
I also used a waveform generator built by Dimitriou and got the same null result.

For another test, I constructed a capacitor measuring 10 by 13.5 centimeters and placed it horizontally on a milligram balance that was sensitive to 1 milligram weight changes.
When energized with the RC-Norton sawtooth waveform, no weight change was observed.
Since the capacitor itself weighed 85 grams, this indicated that there was no change in gravitational acceleration larger than 0.001 percent g.

Figure 11.7.
The capacitor rotor set up in the Dimitriou sawtooth-wave experiment.

To check the Dimitriou capacitor rotor experiment, I built a rotor setup similar to that shown in figure 11.7.
The capacitors were constructed from two 30-mil rectangular copper slabs measuring 10.5 by 14 centimeters and separated from one another by a thin polyethylene-film layer.
The capacitors each weighed about 200 grams and had a capacitance of 655 picofarads.
They were mounted at opposite ends of a 90-centimeter-long stick that was suspended from the ceiling at its center point (see figure 11.8).
The sawtooth-wave generator and its battery-power supply was attached to the stick.
I worked with Professor Panagiotis Pappas and his assistants to carry out tests of the apparatus in his Athens laboratory.
We energized both capacitors with the RC-Norton wave, but could see no persistent rotation of the apparatus.

Checking the sawtooth wave with an oscilloscope, we found that an unwanted high-frequency oscillation was present in the waveform, which was due to inductance added by a long lead wire connecting the wave generator to both capacitors.
To eliminate this oscillation, we placed the wave generator as close as possible to one of the capacitors and disconnected the wire supplying RF to the other capacitor.
The second capacitor, then, was used as an inert counterbalance weight at the opposite end of the rotor arm.