Is antigravity a bunch of hot air?

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22 years 4 months ago #2817 by tvanflandern
[Youjaes]: From time to time, I like to visit various sites to challenge a very basic concept from the time of Archimedes: Bouyancy.

Unfortunately for our purpose here, which is to find a solution to the question you posed, the above means you have acquired a bias against finding a simple explanation. Indeed, you later state that you have developed your own theory now.

Meta Research has become a magnet for theories because we aren't much influenced by preconceptions or majority opinions, but stick with observation, experiment, and reasoning. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, when approached by someone with little experience with the peer review system who has already made an investment in a particular direction, the discussion often goes badly. I hope this does not describe you, and that you are still open to a simple explanation different than the one you have settled on.

> [Y]: Why does warm air rise?

The answer comes from understanding what it means for an air molecule to be "hot". That means it travels faster. The hotter it is, the faster it travels; and vice versa, because these are one and the same thing.

To simplify the problem, suppose we have molecules distributed at random in a simple container, each molecule being either "hot" or "cold". Then the cold ones have little inclination to do much besides fall under the force of gravity, whereas the hot ones are more inclined to keep moving in random directions until they hit something and change to a new random direction of motion.

Because the cold molecules have a net downward motion compared to the hot ones, they eventually settle as low as they can, given what small random speeds they still have that keeps them stirred up. (At absolute zero, when they have no speed left, they would fall to the bottom of the container and stay there.) For the hot molecules, if they try to move down, they hit another molecule quickly and change direction because the cold molecules below are denser. If the hot molecule tries to move up, it is less likely to hit something and change direction because the molecules there are less dense. So the hot molecules spend much more time above than below because it is too difficult to keep moving downward when collisions occur so often.

> [Y]: As an illustration, consider an hot air balloon, fully inflated and aloft. The balloon is open at the bottom, so any excess pressure inside has the opportunity to escape. What's holding up the balloon?

The hot air molecules striking the top of their container is holding up the balloon. It's not impossible for a hot molecule to make its way through the cold ones and escape, but that is pretty difficult. Collisions just keep happening until the molecule takes the path of least resustance -- upward.

> [Y]: What is it about the hot air inside that forces the nylon balloon upward against the pull of gravity, yet not escape out of the open bottom of the balloon?

Rapid motion, mainly directed upward, is what keeps the balloon up against the pull of gravity. The cold molecules at the open bottom of the balloon have no particular tendency to escape if they are the same as room temperature because the density is the same outside or just inside the balloon's bottom. The hot air molecules near the top inside would like to escape, but find it too difficult to get through the dense, cold molecules below themselves.

> [Y]: There aren't any popular theories to explain this behavior, though I have one of my own that predicts this situation. For now, I'll leave everyone to ponder what I've written. Antigravity, here we come.

If one teacher doesn't have a good answer, ask another. But if your quest is to sell your own theory rather than to find a satisfactory explanation, you will need to continue your journeys to various other web sites. -|Tom|-

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22 years 4 months ago #2521 by Jim
Replied by Jim on topic Reply from
The hot air is not acting against gravity, it is being pushed by the dense cold air- up and down are determined by gravity. If gravity was not in this game the hot air would not be pushed in any direction, but, that would not be a demo of antigravity. I want to see the theory of James about this effect.

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22 years 4 months ago #2884 by Youjaes
Replied by Youjaes on topic Reply from James Youlton
I'm inpressed by the fact that you didn't simply dismiss the problem out of hand by citing a density or bouyancy issue. You were going great until you missed an important feature of hot air, as I'll attempt to explain below.


[Youjaes]: From time to time, I like to visit various sites to challenge a very basic concept from the time of Archimedes: Bouyancy.

[tvan] Unfortunately for our purpose here, which is to find a solution to the question you posed, the above means you have acquired a bias against finding a simple explanation. Indeed, you later state that you have developed your own theory now.

Actually, I found a solution before I came up with this problem and before I learned to doubt the principle of bouyancy as an absolute.

[tvan] Meta Research has become a magnet for theories because we aren't much influenced by preconceptions or majority opinions, but stick with observation, experiment, and reasoning. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, when approached by someone with little experience with the peer review system who has already made an investment in a particular direction, the discussion often goes badly. I hope this does not describe you, and that you are still open to a simple explanation different than the one you have settled on.

The equations I use are based on previously peer reviewed material, specifically, "The Handbook of Physics", edited by E. Condon (1960's). With a minor expansion of his equations for the dynamics of a rigid body, I'm able to predict anomalous results in a number of experiments. Before finding these equations, which I had to do quite a bit of digging to find, I was trying to derive these equations based on the anomalous results of experiments I had done. When I found them, I was both elated to have found the answer, and disappointed that I wasn't the first. Still, I found them useful and I began my quest to tell people about it. Later, I was reviewed by the USAF and was requested to become a 'spokesman' for these ideas. Frankly, I'm somewhat agoraphobic and I suffer from severe nerve damage, so I prefer to remain a private person. I do feel an obligation of patriotism to tell people of these ideas, however I don't feel the need to 'take credit' for finding what was already known.

> [Y]: Why does warm air rise?

[tvan] The answer comes from understanding what it means for an air molecule to be "hot". That means it travels faster. The hotter it is, the faster it travels; and vice versa, because these are one and the same thing.

[snip]

You've missed an important aspect of "hot" that is nearly universally overlooked, specifically the "spin" of the molecules. In terms of the conservation of angular momentum, the internal and external angular momenta couple, producing the appearance of an antigravitational effect.

An example of the coupling of angular momenta is Schaffer's Pendulum, the device used in aircraft artificial horizons. Effectively, the device acts as if its center of mass coincides with the center of the Earth instead of its geometric center of mass.

> [Y]: There aren't any popular theories to explain this behavior, though I have one of my own that predicts this situation. For now, I'll leave everyone to ponder what I've written. Antigravity, here we come.

If one teacher doesn't have a good answer, ask another. But if your quest is to sell your own theory rather than to find a satisfactory explanation, you will need to continue your journeys to various other web sites. -|Tom|-

My quest is to challenge common beliefs that are counterproductive to the advancement of society.

James



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22 years 4 months ago #2526 by Youjaes
Replied by Youjaes on topic Reply from James Youlton
<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
The hot air is not acting against gravity, it is being pushed by the dense cold air- up and down are determined by gravity. If gravity was not in this game the hot air would not be pushed in any direction, but, that would not be a demo of antigravity. I want to see the theory of James about this effect.


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I'll put together a more detailed explanation tomorrow. I have too much to do today.

James

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22 years 4 months ago #2818 by tvanflandern
> [James]: You've missed an important aspect of "hot" that is nearly universally overlooked, specifically the "spin" of the molecules. In terms of the conservation of angular momentum, the internal and external angular momenta couple, producing the appearance of an antigravitational effect.

It remains difficult to see why the explanation I offered is insufficient, or how spin can add anything useful to the physics of molecular collisions. To be useful, wouldn't your explanation require non-random spins? What could possibly cause that? -|Tom|-

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22 years 4 months ago #2554 by Youjaes
Replied by Youjaes on topic Reply from James Youlton
> [James]: You've missed an important aspect of "hot" that is nearly universally overlooked, specifically the "spin" of the molecules. In terms of the conservation of angular momentum, the internal and external angular momenta couple, producing the appearance of an antigravitational effect.

[Tom] It remains difficult to see why the explanation I offered is insufficient, or how spin can add anything useful to the physics of molecular collisions. To be useful, wouldn't your explanation require non-random spins? What could possibly cause that? -|Tom|-

In ballistics, projectiles behave as orbiting bodies, i.e. they exibit Coriolis effects in relation to the surface of the Earth and projectiles fired in an easterly direction tend to go farther than objects fired in a westerly one.

Keeping this in mind, we return to the hot gas situation and test against the ballistic molecules model. If molecules are ballistic objects, and it appears to be a safe assumption, then we should not use the surface of the rotating Earth as a frame of reference.

Now, if hot gases are simply molecules that are moving faster than molecules of cool gases, hot gases should circulate from top to bottom about an axis perpendicular to the center of the Earth and intersecting the Earth's axis. This doesn't appear to happen as hot gas molecules tend to 'sort' themselves by altitude. In addition, a 'hot' molecule moving in a westerly direction has less angular momentum about the Earth, and therefor a greater tendency to move down, than the same molecule with the same velocity in an easterly direction relative to the surface of the Earth, which is a frame of reference that I've invalidated for ballistic objects.

Now, about spin. Yes, a non-random axis of spin of gas molecules and atoms is a reasonable assumption, though I haven't yet determined it to be a requirement. It appears highly likely to be non-random, in my opinion, based on experiments I've done with spherical pendulums.

In order to go further to show how spin can manifest itself as an antigravitational effect, it becomes necesary to introduce some math for which I am currently still putting together jpegs. I'll post again to your next reply when I'm satisfied with my jpegs.

James

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