Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Anti-gravity
Summary
Anti-gravity (also known as non-gravitational field) is a hypothetical phenomenon of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or to balancing the force of gravity with some other force, such as electromagnetism or aerodynamic lift. Anti-gravity is a recurring concept in science fiction. Examples are the gravity blocking substance "Cavorite" in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon and the Spindizzy machines in James Blish's Cities in Flight.
"Anti-gravity" is often used to refer to devices that look as if they reverse gravity even though they operate through other means, such as lifters, which fly in the air by moving air with electromagnetic fields.
History of gravitational theory
The possibility of creating anti-gravity depends upon a complete understanding and description of gravity and its interactions with other physical theories, such as general relativity and quantum mechanics; as of 2023 physicists have yet to discover a quantum theory of gravity.
During the summer of 1666, Isaac Newton observed an apple falling from the tree in his garden, thus realizing the principle of universal gravitation. Albert Einstein in 1915 considered the physical interaction between matter and space, where gravity occurs as a consequence of matter causing a geometric deformation of space which is otherwise flat. Einstein, both independently and with Walther Mayer, attempted to unify his theory of gravity with electromagnetism using the work of Theodor Kaluza and James Clerk Maxwell to link gravity and quantum field theory.
Theoretical quantum physicists have postulated the existence of a quantum gravity particle, the graviton. Various theoretical explanations of quantum gravity have been created, including superstring theory, loop quantum gravity, E8 theory and asymptotic safety theory amongst many others.
In Newton's law of universal gravitation, gravity was an external force transmitted by unknown means.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.