Marcus Hollingshead

The Marcus Device is a claimed anti-gravity device. Marcus Hollingshead is said to have invented a rotating magnetic field device.

Marcus Hollingshead is a British inventor who in November 2002 claimed to have developed a device capable of overcoming the force of gravity. He referred to this effect as gravitational lensing as he thought the term anti-gravity inaccurate. However, the veracity of Hollingshead's claims are in question despite approximately 30 pages of detailed construction and experimental notes posted to online groups. During that time he was at the center of intense scrutiny and became something of a phenomenon in alt.sci (alternative science) arenas. Hollingshead's claims were unusual in that he:

1. Claimed to have invented (and tested at the University of Cambridge) a 160 kg working prototype (iteration #161) capable of lifting 2040 Kg of weight while utilizing 4.1 kVA of power (about 5.6 horsepower).

2. Publicly posted detailed written descriptions (but no photos) of the dimensions, materials and construction techniques employed to construct the most recent versions of his device. Several individuals generated 3D computer visualizations from his instructions and found the dimensions to be consistent.

3. Claimed that the original intent of the device was not "antigravity" (a term he disliked) but to model geomagnetic forces in the Earth, and that as an inventor he professed no real idea of the theoretical physics behind its operation.

Hollingshead first became known by posting results of his experiments on the BBC science message boards in November of 2002. He claimed that he had created a device that accidentally had collapsed a Black and Decker Workmate table. After modifying and restarting, it allegedly lifted off from his workbench.

The configuration of the devices #161 and #162 (generically known to Hollingshead as "bob") was six rings arranged in three pairs, each interlinked pair slightly offset from each other and centered around one of three axes: X, Y or Z. The rings in each pair were counter-rotated at 4200 rpm. Rings were wound with wire in a bifilar/caduceus manner. Twelve stubs, coil-wound short lengths of rods with flat points, were attached to the inner circumference of each ring and pointed inward.

At the center of the device was positioned a charged multi-layered spherical capacitor (called the RP, for Reference Point). Each coil ring had its own drive and power supply and was powered through a continuous electrical contact. Power to the stub coils was separate from the rings and capable of being timed to coincide with the approach and retreat from its closest point to the RP.

Hollingshead posted that if all the rings are powered and spun in balance there is no net movement of the device. However, a spherical field would form around it, noticeably darkening and blurring the contained zone to a point where the RP is no longer distinguishable and producing a shell coronal effect (purple/violet) in the dark. This field was one of the first non-propulsive "HAFF" fields produced by the device. It has been suggested but not verified that the acronym HAFF may stand for Hollingshead Anomalous Force Fields, of which Hollingshead reports there are seven.

Hollingshead describes several distinct field effects produced by his devices. Below is a collection of effects in Hollingshead's own words as reportedby Tim Ventura in American Antigravity

The shield effect is a slowly expanded spherical field that is produced by an altered rp and slower increased power and spin changes. This is complete enough a field to form a vacuum and strong enough to be hit with a rubber mallet and chair.

It's possible to produce a 'pull' field effect as well as a 'push'. So far I've been able to focus it for a short period of time on a 5 inch cube of wood 1.8 metres away and then drag the wood back towards the device by 30cm or so, by decreasing the focus range but keeping the power stable.

There are some things that you have to keep an eye out for, such as icing up of the rp - but I hope to correct that by heating the outer shell as per a suggestion by Colin.

Vacuum is a deliberate effect of a slowly increased spherical shield, not normally present in moving variants.

The device acts to produce a regular gravitational field - the field strength is increased until there is equivalence with earths gravitational influence. Power beyond that is 'lensed' to produce movement the lensing is caused by increasing power above G threshold in one or more of the coils (providing they are not opposites).

Hollingshead reported that if the device were powered up and power to a ring pair were increased, then movement of the device would occur in that direction, even when the direction was counter to the force of gravity.

In his audio interview with Tim Ventura in September of 2004 Hollingshead says that there are changes in the nucleus of the iron atoms within the RP (composed of layers of purified iron and kapton as the dielectric). The forces "push protons into becoming neutrons" and soon the iron core is no longer pure iron.

Note: it is true that an antineutrino (nubar ?-) colliding with a proton (p+) will yield a neutron (n0) and a positron (e+), or, ?- + 1p+ —> 1no + oe+. If a positron speeds away, there must be something that flies out in the opposite direction, since it has been determined that the positron momentum is not balanced by recoil of the proton. A neutrino, answering this requirement, is thus also emitted. This suggests the iron atoms become an isotope of manganese.

The result, says Hollingshead, is the release of energy and production of a local gravity lensing effect. However he reports that the diminution of iron in the RP results in nuclear byproducts and a reliable gravity lensing effect for a duration of only 2,000 hours.

Iron comes in four stable isotopes, the most common of which is Fe-56, comprising 91.7% of most terrestrial samples. There is also Fe-54 at 5.8%, Fe-57 at 2.2% and Fe-58 at .28%. If a proton of Fe-56 is pushed to become a neutron the result is Mn-56 (Manganese with 25 protons and 31 neutrons). Mn-56 is radioactive and has a half-life of about 2.5 hours. Thus, an "RP" would be rendered into a radioactive (hazardous) material. This isotope may be the undesired "by-product" Marcus refers to in the interview.

Hollingshead's method of producing his effect through the spinning of electromagnetic fields appears to not follow the work of researchers Ning Li and Eugene Podkletnov who also reported propulsive effects, though by the spinning of superconducting magnets. However, recent ESA-sponsored research by Tajmar, et al (see External links) has produced gravitomagnetic effects through the spinning of superconducting magnets composed of either nobium or lead (dissimmilar to Li and Podkletnov's apparatus) and the artificial gravity field produced was reversible when spin was reversed, similar to Hollingshead's reversible effects.

Tajmar's experimental results have recently been tied to Burkhard Heim's Heim Theory of six elemental forces of nature by Walter Dröscher and Jochem Häuser. In Heim's theory gravito-photons, as of yet unobserved particles, would theoretically allow the conversion of an electromagnetic field into a gravitational-like field. Gravito-photons come in at least two types: one exhibiting repulsive gravitational effects and the other attractive gravitational effects.

A number of incidents have allegedly taken place that cast further doubt on Hollingshead's claims. Paul Horwood (moderator of Antigravity_open-source group), one of the original few to discuss the invention with Marcus on the BBC boards and to create their own Yahoo group, says: "On all the times I saw him, I did not see the device (and I saw him 3 times and spoke to him on those occasions). The only time that looked promising, I went to Marcus's house and waited outside for him all day (8 hours in all!) and he did not turn up, or return home."

There was to have been a demonstration in early 2003 at Chepstow racecourse, a large building for internal practice of horse jumping. But the demo was cancelled at the last minute as many uninvited "guests" turned up with cameras. Writer Nick Cook of Jane's Defence Weekly (JDW) indicated that he'd dropped by unannouced to get some footage after Marcus had cancelled his first public demonstration (to which Cook had been invited). Cook reported that Marcus relayed a story about "the government confiscating his work" and turned Cook away at the door.

Later that Spring demonstration versions of the device were to have been sent to test areas in Europe and North America. Photos of the device were also to have been sent, but neither devices nor photos were received.

On several occasions, Marcus claimed that it was a hoax. However, he later recanted both that it was a hoax and that the government had confiscated his work, saying that he did it to avoid the intense scrutiny he was receiving (which included receiving several thousand emails a day, according to Tim Ventura of American Antigravity).

According to Paul Horwood, Hollingshead now claims he has a number of engineers working on the device at Thornbury just outside Bristol, Somerset under a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to produce propulsion and that he has over 50 million pounds in investment. This area, including Filton, is heavily invested in the aerospace industry, including BAE Systems.

American Antigravity - Marcus Device Interview

I've just completed a 1/2 hour audio interview with Marcus Hollingshead -- the inventor of the controversial "Marcus Device". It was a brief, off-the-cuff overview of his remarkable technology, and I hope to follow up with a more in-depth interview in the near future. I'm busy collecting questions for the follow-up, which I hope will be as informative as the first.

The interview can be accessed from the main page of the website in the news section:

The Marcus Device Controversy

Tim Ventura

This overview of the Marcus device began as an email response to a request for information on the Marcus device -- a device created by inventor Marcus Hollingshead that encountered more than its share of publicity and controversy between November 2002 and march 2003, before Hollingshead went silent and withdrew from public scrutiny.

The problem with Marcus has been that he was pressured by way too many people, way too fast to produce results. I started talking to him in November, and he's always sounded like an honest, rational man with a good heart. The problem is that once people started to hear his private claims that he could lift something like 2 tons of weight, things kind of went south.

It's not really anything that one person in particular did -- at least not from what I gather. I talked to him on the phone several times, and found the man to be intelligent, well-spoken, and generally altruistic. The problem arose when his daily email jumped to several thousand pieces per day.

Also, while people in general have been very well-meaning, they are desperate to solve many of our current energy-problems, and when Marcus appeared with a potential solution it kind of got
out of control. Pretty soon film crews were showing up at his house unannounced, and he was getting unwanted phone calls from people who'd looked up his number online. While he seemed
to enjoy conversations with the people in his working group online, having lots of unknown persons call wanting proof about what his device might do can be a scary proposition at best, People in the Antigravity group started getting itchy because he'd promised proof but hadn't delivered, and it degenerated from honest speculation in early January 03 to outright name-calling in late February.

In my opinion, its really a problem of a "social dynamic" at work here -- too many people, with too much access, all at once. This also correlates to the type of person that different people are.
For instance, I am a very open person, and I really don't value my privacy a heck of a lot -- therefore, when TV crews drop by with 5 minutes notice (and they have), I tend to just let them in for a demo. However, Marcus, who is much more of a private person, seems to have become a bit overwhelmed at this proposition.

Also, keep in mind that I had initiated working with the media because I felt that it was time for the excellent work in the Lifters groups to see the light of day. There was some debate about
this, but the Lifters group as a whole has greatly benefited from being about to tell people about this new technology.

Marcus hadn't actually "gone public" about his work. He had leaked information about his research to a few people, and from there it was leaked to several others, who in turn told their
friends about it. Kinda like a chain-letter, except that in this case there was a real person on the end of it that was affected by all of the publicity.

His inbox overnight went from 10 to 1000 email messages -- he had to take on a second email address just to remain in contact with the people that he usually talked to from before the publicity. Unlike the Lifter technology, which has hundreds of people that can talk about how it works and where it came from, Marcus technology was represented solely by himself. That means that everything surrounding his device came back ultimately to him alone. Without any real group ownership of the expertise behind the device As I said before, Marcus was new to the publicity, and didn't have time to prepare the resources that the rest of us have had to answer questions, provide demo materials, etc. Naudin and Saviour have a masterful manner with regard to teaching people about Lifter technology, but they've had years to prepare this information and perfect a method of presenting it to people. Most of us in the AG groups tend to proselytize for the technologies that we believe in. I know that I do, and if you haunt the newsgroups much you'll notice that everybody there believes in something and can go on for months non-stop telling the world about it (again, I do this).

Marcus, however, doesn't really have this personality -- he's more of a "take it or leave it" type of person. For me, this was another indicator that he was the "real deal". You have to understand that I have never seen working prototype pictures of the Marcus device, and all that I had to go on was the feeling that I got from interacting with him on the phone and online. The fact that he didn't try to "sell me" on the idea was a big plus. He told me about the device, and his story was always consistent. The other people that he talked to also had a consistent story -- I haven't talked to anybody and heard a different version than I heard from Marcus himself. That's a big plus from the credibility perspective.

Again, its the social dynamic here that soured Marcus to things. For instance, Nick Cook indicated that he'd dropped by unannouced to get some footage with Bruce Goodison after Marcus had cancelled his first public demonstration. Cook had been looking for evidence like the rest of us had that Marcus had something real, and not just a "vaporware" claim about a new technology that might not have even existed. Marcus fabricated a cheap story about "the government confiscating his work" and turned Cook away at the door, which is the point at which Nick became soured to the idea himself. I talked to Marcus about this much later on, and he indicated that he'd just made up a story on the spot to get Nick to leave. It had nothing to do with either Nick or Bruce Goodison -- they're both excellent journalists with lots of experience, integrity, and a desire to help the world by spreading news about new technologies. The problem is that at the time when they'd dropped by, Marcus was getting tons of unsolicited email (much of it literally demanding a demonstration) as well as unsolicited phone calls from people he'd never even talked to instantly asking him for both video footage as well as a demonstration of the device in public. Marcus initial goal (from when I started talking to him in November) was to gradually ease into working with the public to tell them about the technologies he was working on. Unfortunately, I probably aggravated the issue a great deal, because his early descriptions of the technology might have gone unnoticed if it hadn't been for some of the things he'd mentioned about his research.

When I read Marcus' firsts posts on the device, my very first thought about his claims was that they were bogus. Judging from the reaction of the Antigravity newsgroup, I gathered that a few other people also had that same initial reaction. The reason might be a little selfish -- after you hear claims but don't see results for a long enough period of time, you tend to protect yourself emotionally by becoming skeptical to the idea that somebody can be lifting hundreds of pounds of weight using a completely new and revolutionary technology.

Nonetheless, something that Marcus had said resonated with me. I remember that he was talking about his results being based on a study of the Earth's fields, which is something that I'd read about myself during the college years. Telsa had done a lot of work involving the Earth's electrical and magnetic-fields, and I'd always felt that this research might come in handy later as a potential basis for Antigravity research. However, I didn't have any specific ideas, and began asking Marcus questions offline to find out more about his research. So in terms of helping to make things more public I have some guilt about helping things get out of control for the poor fellow, because instead of being able to ask small questions in public without much public knowledge about what he was doing or how he was doing it, all of a sudden I was putting pieces together online, which tended to bring him into more of a public focus. All of the little questions that he'd asked innocently enough to different people in the newsgroups now came into some type of focus in mid-December as indicators that he was working on a new and radically different technology.

In reality, I'm nobody special, so I think that perhaps this would have happened in any event no matter what my reaction would have been. Certainly I'm not the only person that took an early interest in his work, and from what I learned later he'd already been a little bit too honest in the BBC online newsgroup before he ever became involved with the Antigravity newsgroups. From January to mid-February Marcus became like somewhat of an addiction in the newsgroups. This was a strange phenomenon to watch, but if he didn't answer questions in the newsgroups for even a day people started asking whether he'd been kidnapped or the government had assassinated him.

You have to understand that most inventors tend to segregate their time into "public" and "private". I do, Naudin does, heck -- pretty much everybody does this. When you talk to the public about what you've built, you really get into it -- but when you are actually working on it, you tend to hole up in the garage and put the entire world on "ignore" until you've finished with whatever it is that you're doing.
It's not uncommon for me to take an entire week and hole up in the garage without talking to anybody. It can be very rewarding to emerge later with a completed project, and usually I have a few hundred photos that I can post online to answer questions. Naudin is even worse -- he'll go a few weeks without really talking to anybody, but in his case he'll emerge from his lab with a 15-page spread detailing a completely new technology. It's because without the ability to focus and concentrate you're pretty much stuck on being able to develop a new idea.

In the case of Marcus, his research time went from "whenever he wanted to work on it" to "highly-measured". Imagine having to tell people when you want to take a couple of days to work with something he claimed he'd been working on at leisure for 7+ years. Suddenly it appears that his time isn't his own, and that if he doesn't make sure that everybody knows he'll be away from the computer the entire online community is going to start having panic attacks that he was snatched by 'The Men in Black'. I know that it sounds like I am playing up the publicity aspect of Marcus research, but I'm really not. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, had any idea how big it would get, and how fast. I typically get about 40 to 50 emails per day. A lot of those are spam from people who get my email address online and want to sell me HgH or Viagra (?), and I typically delete those immediately. The rest are honest questions from persons like yourself that I can answer easily and in a straightforward manner. Last year I went on the Art Bell radio show and Wired Magazine Online did a feature about Lifter technology within a 1-month period of time. Even at that point I was only getting maybe about 300 emails per day -- and most of them were easy to answer, because I'd already written a detailed article that explained a lot about how the technology worked. The people that I couldn't help went to Naudin's site, and many more went to the Lifters online community with its (back then) 700+ members. We were sitting pretty on the media front -- we had the ability to handle the amount of attention that we were getting, and we were able to tell a lot of people about the new technologies as a result.

Marcus literally blew us all away. I KNOW that he wasn't lying about the volume of email that he was getting, because his email box would fill up to "over mailbox limit" about halfway through each passing day. This is within a 1-month period of time that it did this. Marcus really started to get publicity in late November 2002, and it built up over a few week period of time. By mid-December, he had a healthy following in the Antigravity newsgroup and people in the 5 or 10 other AG newsgroups were develping more than just a passing interest. Great stuff for Marcus -- he'd thought that he was the only person doing this research, and it turned out that lots of people shared this common interest with him. We had lots of really valuable and productive exchanges.

Marcus bided his time working on the projects -- he'd initially stated that he could lift around 200 pounds of weight with his November version (prototype #161, if I remember correctly). He didn't have a digital camera, and he didn't want to publish photos until he had a better prototype anyways. That was OK with me -- I'm used to working with a variety of inventors and came to realize a long time ago that everybody has their own style. I was content to wait until Marcus had additional data, and the only thing that I insisted upon was that sooner or later he ante-up and provide some photographic evidence.

Despite lacking photos or video evidence, Marcus did have documentation. In fact, he wrote more documentation about his device than I'd ever hoped to receive. He cranked out about the equivalent of 30-pages of "real" documentation in a very detailed form within 1-month, and had the email equivalent of many more pages in postings about how the device worked online. The compilation that I sent you earlier contains what Jerry Montgomery was able to put together from Marcus postings, and that's based solely on newsgroup correspondence taking place within a 1-month period of time. At that point Marcus had already been publishing details online for about 2.5 months.

Despite the incredible amount of published data that Marcus was able to complete, in some ways it made things worse for him than not having anything at all. The reason was the nature of his research. My work, currently focused on Lifters, was in a technology that's easy to explain -- the device is built like this, it works like that, and it can be described in a manner similar to some other thing ....basic, easy to explain, and easy to compare.

After all, Lifters have been accused by science of being ion-wind devices. If nothing else, rebutting this claim gives us someplace to start -- something to compare against to provide people with an idea about how the device works. Additionally, we had TONS of video and photographic evidence to back up our claims. We had so much data that the entire group was running out of places to store it online. On the CD-Rom's that I sell on the AAG site, I now have

300+ megs of data -- much of it being photographic and video evidence regarding how the Lifters work. That 300 megs is mostly just my own research -- Naudin probably has a stack of CD's as tall as a book-case containing the work from his website...

In Marcus case, the documentation that he provided made things worse because his technology is so utterly different. It's not ion-wind, nor the Biefeld-Brown effect, nor apparently the Searle effect. In fact, the more than you tried to pin down exactly what it was, the harder it became to describe it.

Also, its not like he could simply fall back onto describing the construction of the device -- reason being that it contained a series of interrelated coils with a unique configuration that were intrinsically tied to the operation of the device. Every time he wrote a detailed summary of the construction of the device, we'd come away with more questions than we'd started out with. After a time I gave up trying to understand how it was constructed, because I only had bits and pieces.

Marcus was using an arrangement of 6-coils, and what are described as "bifilar windings". Essentially, this means that you wind two wires together around a coil and then tie one of the ends to together, making the two wires essentially one long wire wound "against itself" down the length of the armature its on. There are 6 of these armatures on the device, mounted around a central RP (or reference point).

Marcus created all of the terminology for these parts -- this lends additional credibility to the idea that he'd had 7 years of experience with it. These are ideas that you just don't "make up" for publicity. For instance, the bifilar windings on the armature-coils are self-cancelling fields, and even a basic-electronics education will tell you that. However, the interesting thing is that once you really start to get into the advanced "post-scientific" research on magnetic fields you start to see self-cancelling magnetic coils all over the place. The reason is apparently that while the "B-field" of the coils cancel, the "A-field" that Tom Bearden keeps talking about doesn't -- which means that you can isolate the really interesting effects from the coil without having to deal with the high field-intensity effects from normal electromagnetism.

Marcus had described these six armatures as being activated in a series, or order, to obtain results. Each of the coils was spun by an electric motor mounted on the armature, and when the coil was spun up to a certain speed and "stubs" mounted a periodic intervals on the side of the armature were fired in sequence the antigravity effect was created.

Marcus Antigravity effect was a directional force that was applied in a unique manner depending on which coils were activated. This means that by activating (for instance) coils 1 and 3, he could create an antigravity effect AND move the device left -- or something to that effect. Turning on and off each set of coils gave him movement on one axis of thrust, which corresponded to X, Y, or Z in a standard 3-D geometric graph. Since you can move in either direction down any given axis of thrust, this means that you have 6 axis of movement height (up and down), width (left or right), and depth (forward or backward). His device provided movement on any axis by either one coil or an arrangement of coils.

For a while Marcus didn't want to talk about side effects, but I pressured him into it. The reason was that I have seen side-effects that were pretty darned strange in a number of different experiments, and I was willing to bet that if I pressured him a bit he'd talk about what he'd seen but didn't want to reveal (for fear that people wouldn't take him seriously). It turns out that I was right.....

Marcus had talked about the RP, or "Reference Point" upon several occassions. This is a multi-layered device that acts somewhat like a capactive element. It sits in the direct center of the Marcus device, and it IS the reference-point for the entire device. The RP is manufactured from cast-iron, and Marcus says that he has a local company build them for a few bucks each by pouring iron into a mold based on one of his designs.

You can active the RP at the same time that you activate the coils. You have coils rotating around the RP, with "stubs" on the coils firing periodically at points corresponding to spots on the surface of the RP. Meanwhile, you also have an electrical charge on the RP itself, which means that there are a lot of elements interacting at once to create a very complex dynamic. One of the interesting side effects was a darkening and "blurring" effect of the RP, as if light was being reflected off it. Another was a Star-Trek like "force shield" around the RP. These ONLY occurred when ALL of the coils were activated at once. Also note that since the coils are opposing in nature (one for each direction on each axis), that when you are creating the force field effect the device cannot be levitating. However, the device is operational, and you have a force-field that you can apparently bounce a heavy hammer off of without being able to penetrate it (Marcus description).

Another interesting note is that the force-field effect can be modified to create a vacuum. I'm not sure how Marcus noticed this, but he'd said that it appeared to create a vacuum inside of the field's boundaries during operation. Interestingly, it also ran VERY cold -- apparently down to a hundred degrees below zero, but only within the localized boundaries of the field. I am not a professional physicist, but this is something that has been reported with the Searl effect and several other experiments, and the reason that I believe it occurs is because you are taking the kinetic energy of the devicem as well as some of the kinetic energy of its molecules (ie: heat energy), and injecting it into another dimension. After all, anytime we directly modify a gravitational field we are creating a dimensional effect, but in normal life we don't notice it because the boundaries between gravitational fields are very gradual.

Well, in the Marcus device the boundary between gravitational fields is not a several thousand mile-long gradient like the Earth's field is -- instead of you have a gradient perhaps 10-times more intense focused within a 3 to 4 inch area. That means that you area creating essentially a rift in time and space (self-healing) that is kept open by the energy that you're pumping into the device.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the most accurate description that I have seen yet for why his device does this. Marcus himelf couldn't explain why these effects occurred, and to be honest I scared him more than a little when I told him my theory.

In the hypothesis that I just put forth on the origin and functionality of the Marcus device effect, the interesting this is that there really isn't a direct correlation between input energy and the effect itself. That's because you aren't using the input energy to actually cause an effect -- you are essentially using the input energy to translate the device into another dimension ( although it is still partially within ours).

Einstein called these "frames of reference". The idea is that the energy input is used only in putting the device into another frame of reference, but that any interaction between us and our "normal" frame would have to be modified for any interactions with the "modified" frame.

Again, this takes place in normal physics -- but usually it involves motion, and normally it takes place over a vastly larger gradient of time/space/whatever. The difference between two frames is the difference between two locomotives moving at different speeds -- the energy input goes into accelerating each locomotive up to that speed, but the actual work performed if those two trains interact is solely a product of the frame of inertial reference (mass & velocity = energy).

Another excellent example is a helium-balloon. You put the energy into condensing the helium and pumping it into the balloon, but it's not the helium that creates lift --it's the surrounding atmosphere. In a very real sense a helium balloon gets its energy from the surrounding environment. The energy that you put into "maintaining flight" in a helium balloon is only the strain on the fabric used in holding the helium into the confines of the bag that encloses it. With the Marcus device, I'd bet money that its not the input energy creating these effects -- it's instead the difference in frames of dimensional/inertial reference between "our" environment and the "device's" environment, whatever that difference may be.

You see, even though this sounds like a load of BS, magnetism isn't real. This isn't an idea that I'm making up -- in fact, it's an entire chapter in the physics 101 textbook kicking around downstairs in my house. Take two magnetic fields, and project them in the same direction at the same speed. Field A can't interact with Field B, because neither of the fields really exists -- they are merely ripples on a pond, and that pond is the background of the time-space continuum.

People that believe in relativistic gravitational effects take for granted that things like this happen -- after all, gravity isn't a force per se in relativity -- only a modification of the dimensions of time-space. Well, most people don't realize that Einstein based his theory of gravitational force on his study of magnetism. Magnetism is the same thing -- its a modification of the fabric of time-space.

Take the two magnetic fields that didn't interact from a moment ago, and now change the direction that one of them is travelling in. Suddenly, the two fields that coudn't even see each other a moment ago now create an incredible "torque" - this is the same thing that we see in bar-magnets and electric motors. This is the "torsion field" research that Russia spent millions of dollars on in the cold-war, because they understood that magnetism is the MOST misunderstood force in the Universe.

Bar magnets are different than pure fields because they are composed of the discrete fields of thousands of tiny magnetic "domains". That's why the fields from bar-magnets are never "invisible" to each other -- its because that the fields in bar magnets are too jumbled to ever really "line up" to the point of being invisible. Pure fields can do this, however, reinforcing the supremacy of Einstein's relativistic effects with relation to electromagnetism.

Anyhow, that's about it for now -- I will try to come up with a more detailed picture for you on this if you like, but I expect that you will probably have more questions about Marcus theory and device in near future. It's a very complex idea underlying his research, but the basis of it is the idea of "rotating magnetic fields".

If you want to do additional research on your own into related fields of study, I would definitely look up "relativity and magnetism" -- it provides an excellent example of how to visualize relativity theory in the study of magnetic field interactions. This is something that electronics engineers aren't taught, which is why you've never heard of this in an engineering sense before. However, in physics is a well-known concept, although most physicists prefer to work with quantum mechanics rather than relativity these days.

In terms of rotating magnetic fields, you can look up "torsion fields" - again, the Russians have the best understanding of advanced torsion field physics, although their best material probably hasn't been translated yet. Additionally, rotating magnetic fieds are the basis for the Searle Effect and the Hamel device.

Marcus was intrigued by Searle's claims, because they appear to have matched many of his own results. Interestingly, Marcus had developed his work within an "intellectual vacuum" and had never heard of Searle before I told him about the similarities. Nevertheless, force-fields, ice-cold operating temperatures, and antigravity seem to be a pervasive similarity between all manner of experiments that have been reported using rotating magnetic fields. I'd assumed that Searle's claims were bunk, but after hearing about similar effects from Marcus' research its led to to reconsider some of the criticism surrounding Searle lately.

One a final note -- one group that may lend additional credibility to this research is Godin and Roschin in Russia. They obviously benefit from the years of knowledge that the Russians accrued in magnetic field systems theory, and they attempted a replication of the Searle effect device some years back (and claimed to get some results). I hear that they have been working on a revised version of their experimental setup recently and hope to have even better results in the very near future.

Tim Ventura
http://www.americanantigravity.com &
http://www.americanantigravity.com/marcus.html

Marcus Device Drive Specifications

Compiled by Jerry Montgomery

( Feb 13, 2003 )

Edited by Tim Ventura, 02/27/03
http://www.americanantigravity.com

… Original Message plus Additions from Other E-Mails
This is built around the E-Mail
From: Marcus Hollingshead <marcus.ho@virgin.net>
To: aggroup@yahoogroups.com<aggroup@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:31 PM
Subject: RE: [aggroup] Full specifications

To answer Andrews questions - (by the way this stuff is in the pack as well). The dimensions are variable - according to the version involved. Put simply -- What is isn't - It isn't a levitator based on the ‘Townsend’ or ‘Biefield-Brown’ principles, nor a ‘Searle’ engine, nor is it based on superconductors, very high voltages or very large spinning masses.

161 is comprised of 7 charged components, 2 drive mechanisms - one primary one backup - and that’’s it. 6 of the charged devices are coils - the other is a sphere comprising a number of layers some metallic some dielectric.

161 is rated up to 6.75Kw, 162 to 15.3Kw and 163 to 500W(0.5Kw) 161 is tested to lift over 5200Kg to date 161 is tested to accelerate at over 60m/s^2 Some elements are made for me by engineering prototyping firms.

Toroid -- The coils can be thought of as rings (simplistic view), more a sort of modified toroidal coil. If you imagine the core is a ring of mild steel with a bifilar winding then you are close. One winding is pulsed +ve/-ve the other -ve/+ve offset by 90 degrees. If you imagined the toroid had a central hub (it doesn't) much as a car wheel then the toroid ring spins around its virtual hub at a speed of approx 4,200 rpm. The coils are mounted in individually fixed drive units on the outer edge of the device. The drives house the power take off brushes and drive cogs that spin the toroid in place.

All six coils are 'linked' much as the two links of a chain, but all six are linked together and not in series. Asymmetrically placed for each coil is the charged fixed device termed the ‘rp’. All six coils are free to rotate without impacting each other and each pass very close to one side of the ‘rp’.

No one coil can be made separately and then added. The cores are first linked and precision welded then heated to yellow heat for an hour, annealed and cooled, then the inner stubs are attached with an insulating spacer. The stubs are wound and then each of the coils is wound. The coils are then balanced (for weight)

Each coil is held at the furthest point away from the rp in an adjustable drive capable of spinning them up to 5000rpm (4,200rpm is sufficient). The drive is mounted and connected to each of the coils from an external cuboid frame which is also used to mount the centrally charged device (rp - reference point). Adjustment is made so that the coils do not interfere with each other and run as close as is possible to the rp. The coils spin around a virtual hub -- in plane -- much as a bicycle wheel would do if the back of a bicycle is held up and the wheel is spun. But of course the hub is virtual.

The coils are adjusted so that they pass very close on one side of the rp. (loop position rp)

Within the inner circumference are 12 small insulated coils perpendicular to the toroid which are appositionally pulsed -- depending on their spin position relative to the ‘rp’.(diagram loop 4stub shows just 4 of the 12 stubs)

The first versions that produced MAJOR effects were all 6 coils intertwined. (reason is position re rp) I am sure there are other configurations however. Each pair of coils is set in either x/y/or z plane but each pair are obviously slightly out of plane to provide clearance. +ve rotate clockwise -ve anticlockwise. Push follows left-hand rule, Pull follows Right hand rule (rp polarity reversed) ‘Rp’. Rp is physically at the center can be a sphere or pointed shape

Toroid -- purified Iron. (the latest versions anyway as I've had them cast molded)(variants include steel welded) [3% silicon iron (note this is the same as transformer steel]

Core -- Purified Iron Core (variants steel, aluminium, copper, gold plated copper)

Dielectric -- Kapton (variants - silicon rubber, ptfe, wafer ptfe, pe foam). Dielectric strengths from 1Kv to 12Kv/mm

Shell -- Purified Iron sphere shell (sectional) (variants -aluminium, steel, gold plated carbon fibre, copper, gold plated copper)

Windings -- Toroid: 15cm torus is 12awg 90 turns. 10/12 AWG bonded bifilar double wound helical 90degree offset. Windings are 30degree to edge, second winding begins one quarter diameter (90 degrees) after the commencement of the first. Each Bifilar winding is 90 degrees offset

Think of a helix, with an out of plane pitch 30 degrees off perpendicular to plane, so as you commence with two wires, beside each other originally then one passes to the right, one to the left of the plane, and then back up and over again. The windings are 120 turns bifilar (helical) on 161 (12 AWG). The windings are 210 turns bifilar (helical) on 162 (10 AWG)

"Windings are 30degree to edge, second winding begins one quarter diameter (90 degrees) after the commencement of the first."

30 degrees probably means the section of the toroid ring between the snubs, but does the second winding refer to the second wire (bifilar means 2 wires), or does it refer to winding on the next 30 degrees of the toroid ring? Or do you wind one winding first, and then on top of it a second winding, as opposed to winding the two wires at the same time, next to each other?

Oh, I think I'm beginning to get it. You wind one winding first, and then start the second one quarter diameter of the toroid ring further, but I'm still unsure about the 30 degrees to the edge. And I assume that 90 turns means 90 turns of each of the 2 wires, not total.

Hi -- sorry if it’s not clear. Simplest bifilar arrangement is to take TWO single strands (not bonded bifilar) and hold them so that when you commence winding around the torus you are winding TWO wires in parallel - so the simplest way of thinking of it is as winding a PAIR of wires not just one. In the ones sent there are actually 4 wires (2 pair of bonded bifilar) You'll notice one wire is green one red for each winding pair -- these are parallel connected - I have tried series connected as well. The TWO pairs of bonded bifilar are a counter-wound caduceus (think DNA) coil. These are series connected -- again I have tried parallel.

30 degrees to edge isn't any too clear - I'm sorry - imagine you are looking down on the top of a torus so that it looks just like a rectangular section. If you commence winding so that the wire is being wound (approx.) + 30 degrees from perpendicular to the long axis (or the plane of the torus) then you've got it.

Sorry - meant to say that for the helically wound the cross overs are top and bottom -- so there are precisely STRAIGHT lines of bumps - on the upper and lower median of the
torus. Sort of like a spine.

Toroid -- Toroid is a circular flattened ring (variants from 15cm up to 50cm in diameter) Six coils intertwined. Two coils make up the -x/+x -- think of them as left and right. Two coils make up the -z/+z -- think of them as near and far. Two coils make up the -y/+y -- think of them as up and down. Weight of each coil is about 0.7 Kg or 1.5 lbs. x sectional ratio is, width = 1.5* depth (15cm torus 18mm*12mm)

Stubs -- Stubs are flat pyramid bullet nosed cylinders. Height 8mm (variants 6mm) Diameter for use on 15cm Torus =12mm (variants 10mm 8mm and flat topped). Stubs are arranged on the inner circumference of each torus perpendicular to the plane of the torus. There are 12 stubs on each torus. They are arranged 30degrees separation. The stubs are insulated from the main torus by a 0.5mm insulator disc.

‘Rp’-- Rp is physically 18mm in diameter (variants 16mm, 20mm 10mm+, 12 section 16mm)(8Kv/mm variant 18mm) parabolic section 18mm, point (variant spherical base 12mm -- virtual sphere 18mm)

Core -- diameter is always at least 5mm less than overall spherical (parabolic concave 7mm less)

Mounting -- Toroids Each Torus is clamped within a 4 wheeled curved drive - the drives can be powered individually or in groups of three. The drives clamp the torus at the furthest point from the ‘rp’. The torus's are always driven (for lift and motion) +ve clockwise, -ve anticlockwise.

Studs -- Stubs are point powered in pairs at the point where two stubs exactly bracket the ‘rp’ at their closest point.

‘Rp’ -- ‘Rp’ is held by six insulated arms woven through the torus sets.

Drives -- Toroids Torus drives are tooth belt and geared drives (2 motors 165) producing maximum rotational speed of torus of 4500rpm - (4220 is sufficient for reliable results) Torus is housed and clamped in position by the drive unit which is adjustable. The drive unit provide power t.o.'s for the stubs and torus coil. For each pair one MUST rotate clockwise, its partner counter clockwise.

Power --- Elements Voltage applied to all components 210V AC Freq 420Hz (variations 220V, 240V, Freq 60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz 330Hz) All produce similar (although variably efficient) results. Therefore 8 circuits required. Any standard power controls/meters for each Capable of handling the power requirements are suitable. 15cm (165 variant) has a maximum tested power of 3.8Kva (1.7Metric Tonne lift) Toroids All torus coils are powered independently Toroidal inductance depends on dimensions and material used 165 (15cm) 90 turns. 161 is wound 120 turns, 162 wound 200 turns.

Stubs -- All stubs are powered exactly the same and at the same power (motion variant only). The drive unit provide power t.o.'s for the stubs and torus coil. Stubs are powered in steps but all powered equally. Each stub is fired twice per revolution. Power to stubs is never (for motion) more than one half balance on 15 cm torus sets balance power is 0.58Kva power to stubs is therefore 0.29 Kva (210V). (161 balance = 0.72Kva)

‘Rp’ -- All torus coils are powered independently as is the rp. Electrical connections are by means of the arms. Polarity can be reversed on the ‘rp’. Charged negatively antigravity, positively stronger gravity

2. Rapid temperature reduction around the rp -- Approx 100Kelvin when in motion.

3. Loss of reflected light from the rp. Increasing amounts of power (in balance -- i.e., no movement) leads to a gradual darkening around the rp -- eventually to the point where the rp is
no longer distinguishable.

4. Inertia less movement -- instant change of direction for the device and anything contained directly in the field -- not true for carried objects that are too large to be so contained.

5. Fixed device (prevented from moving) is capable of exerting a force on unattached objects - pushing them away.

6. Field is capable of being broadened and weakened or narrowed and amplified - termed gravitational lensing.

7. The field is capable of producing an air tight 2.2m diameter spherical vacuum. Maximum lift achieved 5220Kg - power required 6.2Kva (vs 161) Maximum Accn (nonload) 61.2m/ssqd (vs 161)

Spherical field effect is a production of a standard spherical rp but with all stubs powered and toroids powered beforehand - toroids and ‘rp’ are then spun and powered in phase to produce shield field.

Pull is reverse polarity on ‘rp’ and right hand rule(not left hand rule ) for spin on toroids.

Is that sufficient for now Andrew? - if I've missed any let me know what you need.

1. If power is increased to all coils and rp in equal amounts, the device does not move, BUT the area surrounding the rp becomes darker and darker, until at high power loads the rp is no longer discernible. If the lighting levels are low it is possible to make out a shell coronal effect (purple/violet), a sort of hollow ball of plasma surrounding the rp but spaced out from it a few cm's. At very high balanced power the corona appears 'pinched' in towards the rp in the interstices of the coils. This affects radio and other e-m wave forms directed through the rp. Not seen when the device is moving at all.

2. When moving or producing an effect like the laser-lensed field or spherical shield field, the temperature of the rp drops suddenly to approx 100K (-173C). The only tests I have on this are for 161 and the original rp only showed a lesser drop until the rp was improved constructionally. This might get even lower as the device is improved.

3. Turns are immediate, if you take the device up and produce a +X vector, then switch immediately to a +z vector the turn is immediate. Carrying a large load this is not true. It appears anything small enough to be held within the field can be inertially compensated for. It does not 'turn' like a car, but just processes sideways, instead of forwards.

4. A two chambered vessel held within the field, one chamber holding liquid, divided from the other chamber with no liquid shows that anything carried within the field effect also is subject to inertialess turns.

5. The spherical field produces a perfect vaccuum as it is powered up and formed. It also forms a barrier that can be physically felt and hit.

6. The beamed field effect can be used to knock things over or knock a hole through thin sheet copper.

7. Two devices can be used in close conjunction with each other with no obvious interference.

Device Effect Notes

Edited by Tim Ventura
( 02/27/03 )

Vacuum is a deliberate effect of a slowly increased spherical shield, not normally present in moving variants.

… Just to correct:
The shield effect is a slowly expanded spherical field that is produced by an altered rp and slower increased power and spin changes. This is complete enough a field to form a vacuum and strong enough to be hit with a rubber mallet and chair. So sorry - not really an anomalous effect - just one we hadn't discussed. Since then I've refined the design to the point where 161's balance power is about 1.2Kva - with 162 I hope to have this down nearer 1Kva.

Current tests on 161 at Cambridge have shown a lift capacity of 2040 Kilos for an overall input power of 4.152 Kva. Or approx 5.6 Horsepower. Overall weight inclusive of 161 was 2162 Kilos therefore overall gross efficiency was 520 Kilo/Kva approx 470 Kilos/Hp.

Designing a World Without Gravity

[Part 1]

Gregory Daigle examines Marcus Hollingshead's 'gravity-lensing' device

Gravity research is hot. Today, a satellite circles far above the earth measuring the effects of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Using rotating spheres ten thousand times smoother than a billiard ball in a near-perfect vacuum, the Gravity Probe B experiment is gathering data to prove (or disprove) if speeding objects drag space-time with them in gravitational fields.

In an adjacent area of research, several labs in Europe and the U.S. are vying to be the first to detect gravity waves. British oddsmakers Ladbrokes gives 6 to 1 odds that gravity waves will be detected by 2010 and several labs say it will happen even sooner. Other researchers are less interested in detecting gravity than in generating gravity. In other words -- antigravity.

As a youngster I read about "cavorite" the antigravity metal discovered by Mr. Cavor and which propelled a spacecraft in H.G. Wells' Edwardian science fiction novel "First Men in the Moon." Until now antigravity has existed only in the domain of cartoons and science fiction. But in November of 2002 one inventor made public that he had stumbled upon a method to produce and control gravity. Lots of gravity! If successful it would change nearly every aspect of society and how we perceive our place in a three dimensional world.

Like Mr. Cavor, Marcus Hollingshead is a British inventor. But before we stereotype him, he is also an IT consultant and was trained as a biochemist. In November of 2002 he began posting the results of his 12+ years of "tinkering" with geomagnetic models of the Earth on the Yahoo Magnetic-Levitation online newsgroup (which is no longer active). What he reported to other newsgroup members seemed fantastic and more in the realm of science fiction.

His posts described a series of experimental devices quaintly known as "Bob." An early Bob crushed his Black and Decker workmate table when it was switched on. Redesigns produced a Bob that produced a "darkening halo effect" around its center when its fast-rotating rings were powered in balance. When out of balance -- it levitated!

At first Hollingshead assumed that the forces being manipulated were magnetic. But a professor from Cambridge acting as a reviewer for his patent attorney countered that it was, " ... motive power without apparent thrust ...", "A new form of propulsion...", "... characteristics appropriate to an anti-gravity device ...". Over a few months in late 2002 and early 2003 fellow experimenters coaxed the reticent Hollingshead to reveal increasingly detailed accounts of his construction and experiments with his most recent Bobs (now renamed versions 161 and 162). And then -- silence.

Since March of 2003 little mention of his ongoing work has made it to the newsgroups. Small wonder. At the peak of his postings he was inundated by thousands of emails a day. Over 100 uninvited "guests" showed up at Chepstow racecourse in February 2003 for a supposedly private demonstration of his technology to Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, Nick Cook of Jane's Defense Weekly and others. This caused him to shun inquiries, falsely report that his device had been confiscated by the government and, alternately, that the whole thing was just a hoax.

This despite his already having posted on newsgroups pages worth of descriptions and engineering specifications for his version 161, providing enough data for many enthusiasts to build their own computer models. And those computer models all seemed to fit together to form a complex-but-not-implausible design looking somewhat like a ringed Ptolemaic model of the solar system with an iron sphere at its center where the Earth would be. So were his claims real?

Tim Ventura, editor of the newsgroup American Antigravity, keeps track of online newsgroup topics such as "tensor fields," "lifters" and other "electro-gravitic" oddities which are the focus of enthusiasts ranging from weekend hobbyists to certified engineers. His experience has given him a good sense of each claimant's level of credibility -- and many are lacking.

You can often identify those with empty claims by their inconsistent facts or their requests for additional funding to pursue unspecified research. To be sure, not all those seeking support for research are scammers. Some are legitimate researchers in the physical sciences working with accredited universities. At least one researcher held enough sway to be contracted both through NASA (in their Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project) and to ESA (the European Space Agency).

In these past few years Ventura has had several communications with Marcus Hollingshead and conducted one of the most recent and in-depth interviews with him. Ventura gauges his consistency and credibility as high. "[He] always sounded like an honest, rational man with a good heart," said Ventura. Being neither a physicist nor having publicly solicited funding, Hollingshead was and still is an enigma.

In one recorded interview (.WMA) Hollingshead described himself to Ventura as "a complete layman [in terms of physics]", and that when it comes to what's happening in the physics realm, "I really don't understand it." Apparently straight talk from an inventor who describes his discovery as "actually more of an accident." But what he lacks in formal training in the physical sciences, he compensates with quiet persistence and constant tinkering with his device.

What makes the "Marcus Device" (not to be confused with the pulp novel by Ib Melchior) work?

Along with the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force, gravity is one of the four fundamental forces in nature. Like electromagnetic force (light, radio waves, etc.) gravity gets weaker with the square of the distance. You move it twice as far away and its force is one quarter of what it had been. Move it four times as far and it diminishes to a sixteenth the force. But gravity initially starts off far, far weaker than the other forces. How much weaker? If electromagnetic force had a value equal to 1.0 you would have to move the decimal point 36 places to the left before you matched the weakness of gravity. It's a billion, billion, billion, billion times weaker!

The force of gravity affects all matter with mass. Electromagnetic force affects just electrically charged particles. Imagine how dramatically everyday life has changed since the harnessing of magnetic fields in the late 1880s for industrial and domestic purposes. These range from multi-story dynamos for producing electricity, particle accelerators, vacuum pumps, huge electric motors to drive industry -- down to modest home appliances such as refrigerators, vacuum cleaners or clothes dryers.

How the Marcus Device creates "gravity-lensing" (a term Hollingshead prefers to "antigravity") is not well established. The nature of gravity itself is not well known. Several theories are in play: string theory, loop quantum gravity -- but no proposed theory has suggested that such a device was within reach.

Physically, the first generation of his devices that produced gravity-lensing fields consisted of six rotating flattened rings. The rings were arranged in offset pairs, each rotating counter to the other. One pair was oriented in the x-y plane, another pair oriented at 90 degrees to that plane (x-z) and the third pair in the y-z plane. None of the rings had hubs. They were all powered by a set of roller-clamps, not unlike the wheels on a roller coaster car. That left the center to be occupied by a spherical capacitor (called the "RP" -- for Reference Point) composed of layers of metal and non-conducting material.

Recall that Hollingshead was originally trying to simulate the generation of magnetic fields in the earth's core. In emulating the circulation of local magnetic zones he studded the rings with pyramid-shaped stubs wound as electromagnets. All the rings were wound with criss-crossing wires to cancel any overall electromagnetic fields. Then he spun the rings at over 4,000 RPMs, timing the stubs to fire at specific intervals and connected it all to a high voltage power source capable of various frequency outputs. Obviously this configuration was not only dangerous to operate but also not one a mere weekend hobbyist is likely to replicate.

What's going on at an atomic level? Hollingshead (and the Cambridge physicist) suggests that the RP focuses the fields generated by his device and pumps electrons into the nucleus of the iron atoms in the RP. In capturing the electron a proton is converted to a neutron and an atom of iron (Fe) becomes an atom of manganese (Mn). The RP becomes a source of gravitational energy just as a light bulb can be described as a source of light (electromagnetic) energy. The RP gradually loses its ability to focus the fields because it is increasingly composed of manganese rather than iron. This diminishing effect has contributed to some of the delays in bringing the technology to market.

Ventura and others have persuaded Hollingshead to reveal details (PDF) of recent iterations of his device. These include:

# Replacement of its fast-spinning rotating rings with a new solid state design
# 6,000 to 7,000 kilograms of lift
# Seven distinctly different field effects (named "HAFF" 1 through 7)

If you think that overcoming gravity through gravity-lensing sounds like science fiction, then the seven HAFF field effects associated with gravity-lensing are even more fantastic. Five of these fields: HAFF1, HAFF3, HAFF4, HAFF6 and HAFF7 have very practical applications. The others are still shrouded in secrecy.

HAFF3 relates to thrust, traction and propulsion -- just the thing for providing lift for different forms of transportation in the air or in orbit. This is the only field effect generated while the device is in motion. The other field effects occur when the device is stationary.

HAFF4 constrains atomic motion and reduces temperatures 100 degrees K or more. This makes it suitable for transporting granular material that would otherwise shift its load, or bulk material degraded either by chemical reaction or internally produced heat.

HAFF6 produces standing fields, shearing fields and membrane fields. Shear fields are suitable for manufacturing processes such as punching, shearing and forming of sheet material. Standing fields are suitable for well walls, windows, flood defenses (are you listening New Orleans?). Membrane fields reportedly can be struck with a mallet and the mallet bounces off. HAFF6 fields reportedly can be breached with HAFF1 fields.

Less physical in their outcomes are HAFF7 fields which influence light and electromagnetic fields. Potential applications from these fields include lens optics, light sculptures and 3D displays.

The demonstration of controlled gravity-lensing would be a sea change in everyday life. There isn't a part of our society that wouldn't be affected. Preparing the next generation of engineers, planners and designers to employ HAFF fields would be the first step. How would we imagine the "antigravity" age? Then, how do we design it?

Science fiction writer-critic Ed Bryant was once quoted to have said, "If this were 1890, it would take an inventor to predict the automobile, and it would take a real visionary to predict highways and gas stations. But it would take a science fiction writer to predict the traffic jam."

Demonstrating a gravity-lensing generator today would be the equivalent of demonstrating an electric generator in the early 1800s. It changes the rules. What will be the everyday applications of this technology in transportation, architecture and manufacturing? How will such a technology change social institutions, commuting, privacy or land ownership rights? How does a potentially disruptive and destabilizing technology establish itself without the creative destruction of existing industries? And how long before it just becomes part of the background of everyday living?

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web it took entrepreneurs almost no time to imagine the social impact of browsers and Web sites. If gravity-lensing is successfully demonstrated it could be adopted faster than was the Web.

No doubt there will also be a Web extension for gravity devices, though its difficult to imagine now what it would be. Like the Web's spawning of "i" devices (iMac, iTunes, iPod) and "e" services (email, e-commerce, e-learning, e-government), start looking for "g" devices and services to proliferate.

If gravity-lensing is demonstrated then public policy planning can not afford to wait for wide public acceptance. Every industry potentially threatened by it would begin lobbing for state legislation restricting use and protecting existing commercial interests. Recently, citywide wireless broadband technologies have similarly been blocked by protectionist state legislation backed by threatened cable and telecom providers.

Federal and international regulations should be established to develop standards for usage. International bodies overseeing transportation, trade, manufacturing and other arenas should seek coordination of oversight. Each nation, province, state, even local municipalities would need to develop plans for embracing a technology that could potentially disrupt their economic base in unforeseen ways.

Just navigating those waters would be a growth industry. But it's also an opportunity for institutes and schools of public policy, technology management, transportation, architecture and design to anticipate, forecast, and get ahead of a pending (gravity) wave.