Let's check for gravitational screening, simple...

> [dh]: Our 'push' model of gravity requires that a gravity particle collide with matter thus transferring its momentum as a force, like a billiard ball.

The constraints worked out by Slabinski in his chapter in "Pushing Gravity" indicate that most of the strength of gravity comes from scattered gravitons, not from direct collisions (absorbed gravitons). In fact, the ratio of scattered to absorbed is about 10^29 to 1. But this is just a comment about the mechanics. I see no harm in thinking of the process in the terms you described.

> [dh]: ... further orient the (presumably assymetric) nucleii so that they all exhibit the same, maximal, apparent density along the plane. We could further multiply our chances by adding similar planes to our pile, hence constructing a sort of 'planar crystal' device.

Ordinarily, every nucleus operates independently of every other nucleus while absorbing or scattering gravitons. So it doesn't matter how they are arranged. That probably remains true even if you could pack a bunch of bare nuclei in a minimal volume with no space between nuclei. The nuclei themselves are mostly empty space to gravitons, which normally fly right through countless nuclei while passing through the Earth without noticing.

But speaking in principle, if we lined up so many nuclei along a particular line that the odds are better than 50=50 for a graviton flying along that line to be absorbed, then gravity at the far end of the line of nuclei would be weaker than it would normally be because of gravitational shielding.

A simple way to visualize this is to think of a swarm of bees crossing in front of the Sun's disc. Ordinarily, the percentage of sunlight blocked is proportional to the number of bees. But if the swarm gets thick enough, some bees will be in the shadow of other bees and block no light, so the light blocking becomes weaker than the number of bees would suggest because of shielding.

> [dh]: Having accomplished this fantastic feat of engineering we would then have a situation in which gravitons traveling through our device parallel to the plane in any direction would have a chance of impacting a nucleii ranging from zero - in the voids between planes - to some maximum value within a zone of maximum mass alignment within each plane. If we are able to resolve pushing and pulling forces at this scale then we have accomplished a reduction in the overall size and mass of a device which may be useful in detecting gravitons.

Is the goal to detect gravitons or to demonstrate a shielding effect? I'm assuming the latter, which is easier than the former.

> [dh]: Constructing a graviton detector out of such a planar 'crystalline' device is the tricky part. The device must be able to distinguish between a pulling force and a pushing one. Any configuration which relies on 'shielding' in one direction will therefore not work.

You are losing me here. In principle, if the strength of gravity dips in a particular plane (in accord with your constructed thought example), then we would have demonstrated a shielding effect, which indirectly confirms that gravitons are at work.

> [dh]: The Meta model predicts a minimum circumferentially applied compressive force on the disk when the ring and disk are in 'wax' juxtaposition.

No, it's a maximum, just as for the classical model. But it would be a lower maximum than for the classical model because of shielding effects.

> [dh]: This compressive force would continue to decrease to zero as the ring radius increased to the finite size at which gravitational shielding was complete in the direction tangent to the circumference along the direction of the plane.

No, the force of gravity in-plane would be the maximum possible force that gravity can exert, when all the gravitons are arriving from one side and none from the other. But classical gravity has no maximum, so the predictions of the two models would be as different as they can get.

> [dh]: In principle any solid ring and disk would work given a sensitive enough detection system and a large enough ring.

In principle, the mantle of the Earth is a type of "ring", and the core of the Earth is a type of "disc" thibk enough to possibly produce observable shielding effects. Then Earth's rotation should show gravity variations on satellites that are different from the mass distribution derived from seismic waves traveling through the planet.

In practice, we need the whole Earth blocking the whole Sun to detect the slightest hint of shielding in the two Lageos satellites after weeks of passages through Earth's shadow every four hours.

> [dh]: Perhaps someone smarter than I am could estimate the theoretical size of a device by making some simple assumptions about the densities and using some textbook force values for piezoelectric cells - or shoot down the whole premise.

If the detectability of the effect could be magnified by 10^48, as AB has suggested, we would have a good chance to see this in a lab experiment. But I was unable to follow AB's descriptions. Yours I could understand, and I thank you for that. Your thought experiment works in principle (even if a bit differently than described), but the numbers suggest we are a long way from a useful lab experiment at our present stage of technology.

Does anyone happen to know what kinds of matter densities are possible in state-of-the-art condensed matter experiments? -|Tom|-

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> ... If the detectability of the effect could be magnified by 10^48, as AB has suggested, we would have a good chance to see this in a lab experiment. But I was unable to follow AB's descriptions. Yours I could understand, and I thank you for that. Your thought experiment works in principle (even if a bit differently than described), but the numbers suggest we are a long way from a useful lab experiment at our present stage of technology.


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Don Holeman's scheme, in it's first half, follows the same idea that I was trying to explain, that's using the highly organized structure magnifies the shielding effects along certain directions. From ordinary crystalline structure I derive about 10^3 effect amplification. Further, I proposed the detector to be in acoustic resonance with the forced vibrations of the "transmitter" crystall. From the Q-factor of that resonance I get another 10^13 amplification. Cubing the resultant 10^16 comes from the dimentionality, since my scheme is essentially unidimentional, while Earth to the Lageoses is a three-dimentional shield without any orderly monocrystalline structure. Whatever's hard to understand here, it escapes me completely...

<b>I a few words - 10^3 from ordered structure, 10^13 from acoustic resonance, cubing from dimentionality.</b>

And the most important part - an experiment with two quartz xtalls placed across the street from each other is cheaper than dirt in between.

In a few words - 10^3 from ordered structure, 10^13 from acoustic resonance, cubing from dimentionality.

I get the 10^3 part. I don't get the other two factors. (I know now what "Q" means and what dimensionality means, not not how these numbers follow from anything you have said.)

One last time (unless Don or someone can help out again): Why would any oscillation make gravitational shielding stronger (let alone 10^13 times stronger)? Each part of the crystal is standing dead still as each graviton passes through its entire body in less than 10^-19 seconds. So why should a relatively slow oscillation make any difference?

And why should the effect be cubed? The detector, whether it be a Lageos satellite or another crystal across the street, is in one direction from the source. The gravitational force on the target is the sum of the forces from all individual "matter ingredients" in the source, regardless of how they are arranged, EXCEPT for any instance of two matter ingredients in the same line, which reduces the net gravitational force in that particular direction. What difference does it make if I line up nuclei in a 10-cm crystal or simply squish them closer together in a 1000-km planet core? The shielding effect will be proportional to how many nuclei the graviton must pass through, either way.

Are my questions clear, at least? -|Tom|-

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One last time (unless Don or someone can help out again): Why would any oscillation make gravitational shielding stronger (let alone 10^13 times stronger)? Each part of the crystal is standing dead still as each graviton passes through its entire body in less than 10^-19 seconds. So why should a relatively slow oscillation make any difference?

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There's no amplification to the shielding itself. It's the sensitivity of the receiver xtall that's amplified at its resonance frequency by that very factor. As the atoms/nuclei of the "transmitter" xtall oscillate from alignment to misalignment wrt the atoms/nuclei of the "receiver", the shielding is modulated, which in turn is felt like pushes/pulls by "receiver" xtall's atoms; and those pushes/pulls are summed over 10^13(equals Q-factor) cycles.

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And why should the effect be cubed?

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The simple explanation - the effect I described scales with the diameter/thickness of the shielding object; so to produce a static shielding effect as great, the shield must be of 10^16 diameter and hence of 10^48 the volume and mass, assuming comparable density.

A more esoteric explanation - in a crystalline structure all the dimensions are effectively wrapped due to internal order. Only if that Lageos were one atom sized and all the atoms of Earth were placed on straight lines passing through it, the effect magnitude for Lageos would be comparable to that in my scheme.
Having two identical crystalls in a resonance scheme is like having all the mass of each crystall stuffed into one-atom-sized volume, that's because almost every atom in the "transmitter" xtall has its twin counterpart atom in the "receiver" one - that's what I mean by "wrapped dimensions" in a crystalline structure.

Am I any clearer now?

<img src=" members.cox.net/dholeman1/Graviton%20Detector.gif " border=0>

I made this diagram to illustrate the points I made earlier and better explain my device.

First, let's discard the use of the term "crystalline", it is an unneeded distraction. I posted on this thread for continuity but dismiss the idea of some sort of crystalline resonance as a solution to the issue of proving the Meta Model.

Instead, assume the existance of a theoretical material with a structure in which contiguous parallel layers exists as alternating zones of very high density and very low density.

Assume a device composed of this material configured as a small central disk surrounded by a ring of radius r.

Assume the Meta Model of gravity and ignore all gravitons impinging on our device from any direction except those parallel to the planes of alternating density.

Assume that the radius r is made long enough such that the high density layers of the ring are capable of completely diffusing gravitons before they reach the central disk. Conversely, gravitons pass through the the regions of very low density without diffusing.

When the alignment of the disk and ring are in Wane position, in which the layers of the ring are opposite those of the disk, then gravitons passing along the low density zones reach the disk where they impart a concentric compressive force on the disk. Gravitons passing through the high density zone are deflected before they reach the disk but there is a net compressive force on the disk due to the zoomies in the low density zone.

When the alignment of the disk and ring are in Wax position, in which the layers of the ring match the layers of the disk, then zoomies in the low density zone pass completely through the device without imparting any force in the direction of the plane. Zoomies in the high density zone do not reach the disk because they are completely diffused. Therefore, there is zero compressive force on the central disk in the direction parallel to the planes of the device (because we assumed a finite value for r sufficient to allow for the complete diffusion of gravitons along the path of the high density zone).

To test the classical model of gravity assume an attractive force between the ring and the disk. When the device is in Wax alignment, there is a maximum attractive force in the direction of the plane of the device, and when the device is in the Wane alignment there zero attractive force in the same direction. As the radius r grows the attractive force in Wax configuration grows as the inverse square of the radius, and continues to increase to infinity as the radius increases.

Both the directionality and concentricity of the device are critical to its function.

Another question comes to mind. Tom mentioned earlier that the gravitational force is thought to be due primarily to scattering of gravitons rather than their absorbtion. This implies that a fairly enormous amount of energy must be contained in a graviton, an amount perhaps inverse to the scale of its existance. This seems counterintuitive. How can such a little entity carry such enormous energy? Am I perceiving the energy relationship wrongly?

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First, let's discard the use of the term "crystalline", it is an unneeded distraction. I posted on this thread for continuity but dismiss the idea of some sort of crystalline resonance as a solution to the issue of proving the Meta Model.

Instead, assume the existance of a theoretical material with a structure in which contiguous parallel layers exists as alternating zones of very high density and very low density.

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And why exactly should we dismiss crystalls?! They are quite real, unlike the hypothetic material you describe. Furthermore, the acoustical resonance of crystalls is widely used in electronic devices around you, there's a few crystall oscillators is your computers, TVs, watches, toys etc. You are literally surrounded by thousands of those. If the acoustic resonance frequencies of both parts of your device were identical, the resultant effect could be magnified by exactly the Q-factor figure of that resonance, that's in case you force vibration in the shield by an external acoustic wave
or piezoelectric effect.

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Another question comes to mind. Tom mentioned earlier that the gravitational force is thought to be due primarily to scattering of gravitons rather than their absorbtion. This implies that a fairly enormous amount of energy must be contained in a graviton, an amount perhaps inverse to the scale of its existance. This seems counterintuitive. How can such a little entity carry such enormous energy? Am I perceiving the energy relationship wrongly?

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Gravity is primarilly a transfer of momentum, and not energy of gravitons or any other medium. Scattering transfers more momentum that absorption; I hope this is obvious.
When a small high-energy particle is absorbed, it normally leads to exitation of the absorbing agent with further irradiation of "photons" or, otherwise, with some kind of fission of the absorber, i.e. irradiation of matter particles.