Fred,
Glad to hear of your success. Have you had a chance to read about Majorana's experiments in gravitational force shielding? Attempting to duplicate his experiment would be difficult and expensive: ten megagrams of lead, and the equipment to move it between shielding and non-shielding positions, just for starters. But I think the mass required could be reduced to a hundred kilograms or so with some clever engineering.
1st problem:
How sensitive is your Cavendish Balance? Do you think it could reliably detect a mass change in the 10th decimal? (Add or remove 1 microgram to a 10 kilogram test mass.) I suspect that if the answer is yes. it is just barely able. But by modifying the balance (making the horizontal beam longer), the sensitivity could be improved. Actually, building a custom balance is most likely the best course.
2nd problem:
The balance needs to be able to detect a mass change in the 10th decimal or better, with the test mass about 600 mm away from the beam mass. (The gap is where one of two shielding masses would be placed.) Once again, all that is needed is a longer beam to increase sensitivity. There is no theoretical limit, but there are practical limits to doing this that might (or might not) come into play before the required sensitivity is reached. Clever engineering might or might not be able to overcome them.
Determining whether or not a Cavendish Balance like this can be built might be good for several self-directed experiments. It's not a small project, and thus could be broken down into several parts that work toward the ultimate goal of verifying or refuting Majorana's results.
A faculty advisor might be able to help you schedule your classes so that you obtain the theory needed as you prepare for each new phase of the project. And if you get a job as a lab instructor you will pretty much have free access to all of the facilities. Especially the shop. You can build a lot of cool stuff in a university's physics shop. At least, that's the way it was back when I was in school. But I hear that security is a little tighter now days.
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But be careful how you talk about it. Gravitational shielding is not as controversial as FTL propagation, but it is still outside the realm of mainstream physics. (Until someone demonstrates it, of course.)
Regards,
LB
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is.
