AntiGravity

Holy Grail of the 21st Century

British Aerospace, NASA and independent researchers worldwide are on a quest to understand the mysteries of hyperdimensional physics and unlock the secrets of antigravity.

Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003)
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
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by Bruce A. Smith © 2003
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Yelm, Washington 98597, USA
Email: bruceasmith49@yahoo.com
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A Primer on the Role of Electromagnetic, Electrostatic and Torsion Fields in Antigravity and Field-Effect Propulsion

While singing in the shower before visiting a University of Washington physics professor to talk about electrostatic propulsion and hopefully anti-gravity, I realised: Hey, birds defy gravity. So do 747s, for that matter. They apply the laws of physics and lift off the ground. That's antigravity, isn't it? Yes, that's true, I suppose in a metaphorical sense. Seagulls, jumbo jets and spacecraft all manifest antigravitic effects, strictly speaking, but the kind of phenomenon I want to address here is not the overcoming of gravity but, instead, the neutralising of it.

Dr Eugene Podkletnov and the Hunt for Antigravity

Dr Eugene Podkletnov, one of the foremost researchers in antigravity and whose work is sought by NASA, Boeing and British Aerospace (now known as BAE Systems), describes the hunt for antigravity as the greatest scientific quest of this century. He calls for an international effort, akin to the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, to conquer the secrets of antigravity and usher in a new era of scientific understanding whose technological development will be at a scale so vast that the potential outcomes are merely hinted at by our previous achievements. Just getting such a project off the ground will require unprecedented international cooperation, and public disclosure as well--the potentials are that vast, that scary, and that dangerous.

Dr Dan Marckus, noted British avionics expert, states in The Hunt for Zero Point--the seminal work to date on antigravity, written by Jane's Defence Weekly aviation editor Nick Cook--that the secrets of antigravity in the wrong hands will make thermonuclear weapons look like firecrackers.

The secrecy surrounding antigravity research is phenomenal. Boeing refuses to acknowledge publicly any activity in antigravity development despite the fact that its competitor and sometime subcontractor British Aerospace (BAE Systems) does--and has provided funds for four university research efforts as part of its Project Greenglow, one of which was a Podkletnov replication experiment headed by Dr Clive Woods at the University of Sheffield. Further, Nick Cook publicly, and privately to me in an email, states quite directly that George Muellner, former director of Boeing's ultra-secret Phantom Works, claims Boeing sought the services of Dr Podkletnov to unlock the secrets of his gravity-shielding research. Cook says that Muellner states Boeing was denied Podkletnov's services due to the objections of Russian officialdom--which the Russian-born Podkletnov must pay attention to, apparently, despite the fact that he works in Tampere, Finland. Dr Podkletnov, wisely perhaps, chooses not to clarify these particulars despite our several emails.

Perhaps Boeing can deny any activity on antigravity because NASA is doing its own research, and as a prime contractor to NASA, such as by running the Space Shuttle Program, Boeing probably knows what NASA knows. NASA spent US$600,000 recently in its Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) program to purchase Podkletnov replication equipment. Inexplicably, that equipment sits in boxes in NASA's Marshall Research Center in Huntsville, Alabama, awaiting more funding, according to an email I received from NASA propulsion researcher Ron Koczor.

But enough of the cloak-and-dagger business. What do we know about antigravity?

The search for that answer has taken me to some exciting and obscure places in this world, like the Aeronautics and Astrophysics lab at the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. I called those folks because Nick Cook, in The Hunt for Zero Point, mentions that UW received a NASA contract to study theories of inertia as part of its BPP program. That's a good place to start, I thought, but it took backtracking to BPP Project Director Marc Millis at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland to find Dr John Cramer at the UW Physics Department. His mission was to confirm with Dr James Woodward the latter's 1996 preliminary research into the loss of gravitational mass in a targeted piece of metal from oscillating capacitors. Although Woodward's initial data appeared encouraging, NASA's Millis told me that their funding dried up before they'd completed their research.

Furthermore, the entire BPP became unfunded in 2002, and now, in 2003, has become a hazy, privatised version of its former NASA subset self.

Electromagnetic Containment of a Plasma Field

However, the University of Washington is continuing related research, such as into magnetically confined fusion energy generators--and by using electromagnetism to contain an inner field, this, in my view, makes it a close cousin of antigravity and field-effect propulsion.

I spoke with Professor Uri Shumlak who told me that he and other UW staff from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, along with a bevy of their grad students, are building a prototype of a fusion generator called an HIT, which stands for Helicity Injected Torus. Doughnut-ring shaped, the torus encloses a roundish chamber. Within that chamber a vacuum is first created, and then a volume of hydrogen gas is introduced and heated to a few million degrees Celsius, which separates the electrons and protons from their atoms, turning the whole stew into a quasi-neutral foam of plasma. Then the torus envelops the plasma with a magnetic field to keep it away from the sides of the chamber, enabling the plasma mass to stay hot and keeping the rest of Seattle cool. (While I was standing next to his little eight-foot-long gizmo, Prof. Shumlak assured me there was no danger of a couple of million degrees of heat escaping. The heat density of the plasma was "too low" for me to, well, break a sweat over. His quote was, "There's no more heat mass inside that chamber than what's contained in a cup of coffee." I sure hope you're right, Doc.) Then, once the plasma field is contained, the magnetic field squeezes the plasma, fusing the nuclei of one hydrogen atom into another. As the hydrogen couples combine, a helium atom is created and a neutron is released, along with lots of energy in the form of heat.

One day, such a generator will give us unlimited amounts of electricity, as the heat can be transferred to other mediums to produce voltage. The UW predicts lots of electrical power on the cheap, and the Department of Energy agrees--once the details of building reliable magnetic field generators are solved.

What does magnetic fusion have to do with antigravity? Two things: firstly, magnets. Electromagnetism seems to be one of the major players in antigravity, particularly the use of electromagnetic fields to contain other fields, such as plasma fields in the HIT or torsion fields in antigravity devices--but more about that later. Secondly, the HIT works--or is about to work. It's real, and mainstream science embraces it; while antigravity is, well, a little more "out there" and reliable data harder to obtain. So the technology of HIT lays a base that other research can build upon, such as not only containing other fields but also building field-effect propulsion systems, the most elementary of which is electrostatic propulsion--and aspects of this are already being applied by NASA.

Electrostatic Propulsion Systems

Electrostatic propulsion uses electrical fields differently than electromagnetism does. In EM a current flows and creates a field, while in electrostatic systems the current is static and a charge builds up in a field, such as in a capacitor or a fuel tank.

These theories are utilised on NASA's Deep Space I, a probe bound for the outer reaches of our solar system. On board the probe, the propellant--a tankful of xenon gas--is excited electrostatically into positive ions. The containment vessel of the engine has a negative charge at the exit end, so the charged xenon rushes out the tail pipe with a greater thrust than if it was just using conventional chemical propellants. In fact, the electrostatic propulsion system on Deep Space I allows it to fly at 60,000 mph, or 10,000 mph faster than it would with a conventional rocket. In addition, only 82 kg of xenon is needed for its entire mission, so with its smaller mass and weight the probe will fly alongside its intended target, a comet, and drag-race on equal footing while filming and conducting studies. Again, not antigravity per se, but electrically charging Deep Space I's fuel field sets the stage for a closer look at electrostatic propulsion.

Taking that closer look is Tim Ventura and his fellow researchers at American Antigravity, an organisation based in Kirkland, Washington. Ventura and his crew use electrostatic asymmetrical capacitors to create a field that levitates objects, such as their small, kite-like "lifters". These lifters are very light, weighing only a few ounces, and have balsawood struts that support the capacitors. When two capacitors of different size and load receive their share of a 30,000-volt charge, the lifter lifts--with no motors, no wings and no apparent source of lift. How, no one really knows, in my judgement. The phenomenon is replete with controversy and mystery. But as one who has seen a lifter fly, let me tell you what one looks like and what I saw when Tim Ventura's took off.

Tim has been building lifters since he was a kid and has perfected a 4 x 4 x 4-foot triangular lifter which has flown so many missions in his garage that the silver aluminium foil has turned white. The thin, chopstick-like balsawood ribs that hold the aluminium foil in place are joined every few inches by a vertical strut (much like a telephone pole on an HO model railroad set) which sticks up and secures the copper or stainless steel wire of the upper capacitor. The ribs are intersected every 10 inches or so by the strut of an interior triangle, since the whole lifter is composed of interconnected isosceles triangles which give the necessary strength to the balsawood frame. All told, there is about 30 linear feet of aluminum foil and a similar run of wire.

The lower and larger capacitor is a strip of aluminium foil stretched between the horizontal balsawood struts. The second capacitor is a thin strip of 50-gauge wire mounted about one inch above the aluminium foil. As capacitors, they store electrical charge but don't pass it on in a current.

The negative lead goes to the lower aluminium foil, and the positive lead is attached to the upper wire. The three corners of the lifter are tethered to the work table so that the electrical leads from the power source are not broken off in flight.

The power source kicks out 15,000 volts at 250 watts. Tim uses a voltage generator made by Information Unlimited, Inc., but, before the current reaches the capacitors, the voltage is stepped up to 30,000 volts by Tim's home-made voltage multiplier stack. At full throttle, the lifter is straining at the tethers, bending the balsawood frame near the point of fracture.

The capacitors of the lifters are controversial, for asymmetrical capacitors are not supposed to hold charges of two different volumes. Yet the lifters fly and the question of how is a mystery that gets stacked on top of the controversy. But here is what happens.

Throw the switch, and at around 17,500 volts the lifter begins to quiver in take-off. At full power of 30,000 volts, the lifter is roaring and a noticeable downward breeze is observed. Many physicists call it "ion wind" and say that this is what causes the lifters to fly. But what exactly is ion wind, and can it be the cause of flight?

According to Ventura, "Ion wind is the movement of ionised air particles which flow downward according to electrical charge". Here's his theory. The positively charged wire on the top part of the lifter steals electrons from the surrounding air, leaving the affected air molecules positively charged. These positively charged air molecules, or ions, then head downward toward the large source of negatively charged electrons generated by the aluminium foil. These air molecule ions are bigger and heavier than the electrons seeking them, so there is a net thrust downward, pushing the whole lifter up.

That's the theory--and, frankly, all I can do to verify it is to tell you what others tell me. Before I do that, though, let me tell you what I experienced while standing next to a levitating lifter. In flight, the lifter emits a high whining, hissing buzz, and I could feel a good breeze coming up at me from the work table underneath the lifter. Also, while standing next to the lifter but not touching it, the hair on the back of my head started to rise up in electrostatic-like fashion.

To analyse the air currents, Tim blew baby powder at the top of the lifter. The majority of the particulate cloud was drawn into the middle area of the lifter and then sucked downward. A kind of vortex was created at times, for intermittently I could see a cloud forming into an organised column beneath the lifter and then spreading out 360 degrees once it hit the work table surface.

Is that ion wind? Well, there certainly was a breeze, and it sure felt like air, but how would I know if it was ionic? Something definitely sucked the baby powder down, but was it more than just regular air blowing past me? Again, I don't know.

Is the movement of wind why lifters fly, regardless of whether the air is ionised or not, or is the wind just a by-product and not the propulsion? Could the capacitors be creating a field that neutralises gravity, allowing the craft to levitate? Or are they creating some kind of new field that is localised, the surrounding ambient field pushing this "field bubble" up--much like a helium balloon is pushed up by the surrounding heavier air trying to fill the emptier "field" of the lighter helium?

Ventura thinks at least two phenomena are at work. Ion wind is definitely one, he feels, for the breeze is self-evident. However, he thinks a second effect is at work, too, and many agree with him. Most speculation concerns what is called the Biefeld-Brown effect, the "Brown" being T. Townsend Brown, whose name is well known in early quantum research and whose work is prominently discussed in Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point.

The Biefeld-Brown effect, according to Ventura, is the theory that low-efficiency, high-voltage, air-gapped capacitors with different or asymmetrical capacities generate a net directional force upward from the larger element to the smaller element, which on the lifter is from the aluminium foil to the wire. This force then pushes against the ambient energy field of the surrounding area, perhaps pushing against a more rigid energy field of the zero point energy field.

Brown apparently made his case for these electromagnetic effects, receiving patents in the 1960s for his research. NASA's Dr Jonathan Campbell at Marshall Research Center in Huntsville, Alabama, confirmed to me that recently he also has received a patent for his research into the thrust effects of asymmetrical capacitors.

However, prominent physicist Hal Puthoff--whose research cuts a broad swath across the fields of the "new physics", as featured in Lynne McTaggart's The Field and Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point, and who was also the military's "top psychic" as the director for 12 years of the CIA's remote-viewing squadron--has a different perspective: "I'm quite certain at this point that the so-called 'lifter' phenomenon is just an electrostatic ion wind phenomenon, not 'antigravity'."

But Dr John J. Rusek, Adjunct Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at both Purdue University and the United States Air Force Academy, says that "Initial findings of 'classroom' experiments with lifters show ionic wind to be way too small a factor, by three orders of magnitude". Dr Rusek has formed a technology company, Swift Enterprises, to continue this research and bring it to the level that is "presentable to the mainstream physics community".

Along these lines, Jean-Louis Naudin shows on his extensive website not only how to build a lifter but also several photos of research into the ion wind issue. Naudin's team has wrapped test lifters in plastic, yet they still produce antigravitational effects.

Dr Fran De Aquino's Space-time Bubbles

Others may have a clue to the second or even a third force at work. Researcher Fran De Aquino, professor of physics at Maranhão State University in São Luís, Brazil, has described in the literature that "bubbles of localised space-time" can exist in variance to the surrounding fields.

Anecdotal experience suggests that the lifters may be undergoing such space-time anomalies.

Tim Ventura has a heavy cast-iron bench vise on his work table. Intermittently, he gets zapped by a charge when he touches the vise. But his experience is seemingly out of time, because he gets zapped before he turns on the machine. He also gets zapped occasionally during a lift-off, and can be jolted again days after turning off his lifter.

Further, he finds anomalous magnetic events in his garage. Firstly, the lifter does not fly straight up. It goes back to the rear wall of his garage and is stopped and held in place by the sheet-rock. What could be in the wall that attracts it? What could be there that is not present elsewhere in the garage?

Why not be attracted to a freelance journalist standing adjacent? Secondly, Ventura finds he has intermittent and inexplicable magnetic fields up to 14 feet away from his lifter, and these fields linger for up to 15 minutes after he switches off the machine. Could all of these effects be part of a larger, more esoteric phenomenon?

Dr De Aquino stated the following in an email to me: "If a particle absorbs or emits electromagnetic energy (for example, photons), its gravitational mass (not inertial mass) is changed. The gravity, as we know, is proportional to the gravitational mass; consequently, gravity is also altered." Could the lifter be levitating because it weighs less, bathing in the glow of 30,000 volts and some kind of anomalous magnetic field? Further, could it be levitating because gravitons are blocked in some kind of gravity-shielding manner? Ventura believes this is possible; so do some at NASA.

The Hunt for Zero Point states that NASA sought the services of Dr Eugene Podkletnov. However, while NASA's replication research languishes, the book claims that researcher Ning Li, of Huntsville, Alabama, is pursuing this line of research as a private contractor to NASA.

Another Huntsville operation, Transdimensional Technologies, is exploring these multi-faceted phenomena, and its extensive website shows it to be a frequent contractor to NASA, conducting research into "asymmetrical capacitive propulsion" and capacitor-based devices to test "ion wind" forces. Jeff Cameron, of Transdimensional, is said by Ventura to be "the father of the lifter", having developed the device while exploring anomalous torsional effects of high-energy lasers. The lasers twisted and broke the metal frames of unrelated test material, and at the time this was considered a nuisance. But the unknown forces at work later led Cameron to found Transdimensional, develop lifter technology to a commercial level and subsequently patent many pieces of related technology. Unfortunately, I have been unable to reach Jeff Cameron or anyone at Transdimensional for any kind of confirmation.

Vacuum Energy and Torsion Fields

Nevertheless, how would gravitons be blocked or gravity shielded? Dr Hal Puthoff says there are two ways of looking at it. Firstly, one can look at the issue from a quantum point of view: that there is a particle exchange between the gravitons and something else, and the net effect is antigravity. The hows and whys of that are speculative, so Puthoff turns to a classical approach for answers. He prefers the notion of "engineering the vacuum". To do that, one must first consider what the vacuum is.

As I understand it, we are all in the vacuum; everything is. The "vacuum" is the matrix that contains all matter and all energy. It is the engineering perspective of the zero point energy field, or "the field"--as popularised by Lynne McTaggart in her masterpiece, The Field:

Dr Puthoff shared with me statements from fellow researcher Dr T. D. Lee: "The vacuum is the seat of energetic particle and field fluctuations, andÉis the seat of space-time structureÉthat encodes the distribution of matter and energyÉ The vacuum is energetic in its own right."

Thus energy can be drawn from the field, and spacecraft can have "vacuum propulsion systems, or propellant-less propulsion"--in other words, field-effect propulsion. Tim Ventura may be flying his lifter by having his capacitors push against the energy field of the vacuum.

At any rate, more and more physicists are thinking that the vacuum can give them a whole lotta oomph--enough to propel spacecraft--and when they learn how to corral it, a whole bevy of new phenomena may be encountered, including antigravity. This new potpourri of research is being called by many the "new physics". And although his approach is classical, Dr Hal Puthoff seems to be sensing what's out there waiting to be discovered.

Dr Puthoff's current research has been to explore "Éthe perturbation of atomic or molecular ground states, hypothesized to be equilibrium states involving dynamic radiation/absorption exchange with the vacuum fluctuations. In this model, atoms or moleculesÉare expected to undergo energy shifts that would alter the spectroscopic signatures of excitations involving the ground state."

Puthoff says he's had no success so far with this approach, but his words remind me of De Aquino's speculation that objects lose mass as they absorb energy. Pull energy from the field around you and you lose weight. BingoÉlift-off! But how does one pull energy from the field?

Torsion fields might play a role here, according to many, and the literature on antigravity is filled with the term "torsional effects". But what exactly is a torsion field?

"It has something to do with spin," Nick Cook told me on the phone. "You have a torsion field when you spin something. Add a little electromagnetism and you might have antigravity."

That's the shorthand version of it, and here's a deeper look.

Mike Wright, resident physics expert at BeyondTheOrdinary.Net webstream radio, told me this:
"When forces create curvature (such as rotation) in more than two planes, a torsion field results. Not only does the object go around, but it goes around and 'down' or 'up', and the up/down movement is an additional acceleration in that dimension. EM and gravitational fields differ by having a magnitude of force and only one direction of movement.
"A tornado is a structure of air in air. A whirlpool is a structure of water in water. So, because more than two planes are involved, objects can be created from 'nothing'; that is to say that objects can be created from the medium of the environment, such as a tornado from two air masses of differing temperature."

So, spin plus movement is the key. Again, Tim Ventura is on the hunt. He demonstrated to me that spinning magnets will cancel out their magnetic fields sufficiently so that two magnets facing each other with like poles (positive-to-positive, or negative-to-negative) will not push each other away if one of the magnets is rotating perpendicularly to the force of opposition. It's not antigravity, but it gets us closer to the heart of the matter.

Furthermore, Russian physicists, such as N. A. Kozyrev, have been researching the torsional effects of subatomic particle spin and the loss of gravitational mass in planets from the angular momentum of their orbits.

Spinning makes something happen, but what? Tornadoes and Mother Nature might have a few clues. Tornadoes spin, in a sense, although no one in Oklahoma who has spent a night in a storm shelter during an F5 event would describe the tornadoes in the night sky as "spinning". Nevertheless, tornadoes have anomalous effects that are legendary: blades of grass stuck into mirrors, a piece of straw embedded flawlessly into a tree trunk. How? It seems as if the laws of mass, gravity and inertia are melted as winds swirl at speeds up to 300 mph in an organised vortex pattern. Is this a clue to melting the pull of gravity?

Getting information to answer this question has not been easy. Many scientists, including particle physicists at major US universities, claim not to have even heard of torsion fields. So, again I turn to Nick Cook and The Hunt for Zero Point.

Cook's cloaked source, Dr Dan Marckus, says that if "Éyou generate a torsion field of sufficient magnitude, the theory says you can bend the four dimensions of space around the generator. The more torsion you generate, the more space you perturb. When you bend space, you also bend time."

Marckus continues: "If you dippedÉone of these whirlpoolsÉinto the zero point energy field, the seething mass of latent energy that existed on an almost undetectable level all around us [in the field would]Éreact in an almost magical way by directing that energy."

The torsion field, in effect, is "a pump, a 'coupling' device that could dip into and then direct energy out of the zero point energy field".

"But," Marckus continues, "the vortex wasn't a three-dimensional phenomenon or even a four-dimensional one. It couldn't be. For a torsion field to be able to interact with gravity and electromagnetism, it had to be endowed with attributes that went beyond the three dimensions of left, right, up-and-down, and the fourth-dimensional time field they inhabited; something that the theorists for convenience sake labelled a fifth dimension--hyperspace."

Cook concluded from further conversations with Marckus that the torsion field would "bind with gravityÉto produce a levitational effect--an antigravity effect", yet "it wasn't doing so in the four dimensions of this world, but somewhere else". That somewhere else is hyperspace.

Entering Hyperdimensional Space

So how do we activate torsion fields and enter hyperspace? Dr Eugene Podkletnov may have a clue.

Podkletnov, the Russian researcher working in Finland, has studied the gravity shielding effects of superconductors. Again, Nick Cook in The HuntÉ relays vital information. He says Podkletnov claims that "[i]f the superconductors are rotated considerably faster than 5,000 rpmÉperhaps five to 10 times as fast, the disc experiences so much weight loss that it actually takes off". Or 25,000-50,000 revolutions per minute within some kind of torsion field creates levitation.

I emailed Dr Podkletnov to find out more about this issue. He replied:
"[A] fast rotating object can, under certain conditions, cause the polarization of the volume that it occupies in space and around it. This polarization causes the gravitational effect as it modifies [the] local gravity field. The vortex of the polarized particles will create a vertical thrust with a certain force and spatial momentum. Some scientists call these polarized particles gravitons.
"The term graviton is an artificial one and at present we are not sure if it is a wave or a particle and what type of particle. Maybe it is a usual tachyon or a superluminal neutrino [a faster-than-light particle].
"Polarization of the media means that the spins of electrons, protons, neutrons and of small subatomic particles that constitute the fabric of space or vacuum would be parallel. Then a kind of gravity well is formed and the objects tend to fall into this well. We observe this picture as an object rising to the sky.
"Polarization of the media (of space) causes some glow around the object as it acquires additional energy and, because of it, the glow around some objects is observed."

What I understand from Dr Podkletnov is that gravity is the effect of spin--the spin of all subjected particles, from the subatomic level and up, being parallel, thus they are all aligned to fall into the gravity well of Earth. And spinning objects, such as his superconducting discs, when influenced additionally by an electromagnetic field will experience a shift in the spin of the subatomic and atomic elements. They will be turned and not be aligned in parallel. Thus, they are able to levitate.

But how to polarise the media and get things spinning? Enter Dr Marcus Hollingshed, an enigmatic figure allegedly from Cambridge University. Dr Hollingshed claims to have built a six-ringed toroidal coil antigravity device which achieved great effect using rotating magnetic fields. In January 2003, he announced on the Internet that he has developed a 160-kg vehicle able to lift in excess of 2,000 kg and that it has both horizontal and vertical drive features.

His device not only can go up and down and sideways, but it can push things away and pull objects to it, much like a Star Trek™ tractor beam.

In addition, the field that the device purportedly generates is capable of being broadened and weakened, or narrowed and amplified in a lensing effect, with the field producing an absolute vacuum of 2.2 metres in spherical diameter. Best of all, when it's cranked up, the core of it goes invisible, although the term Dr Hollingshed uses is that there is a "loss of reflected light".

There are no reports of independent confirmation, and Nick Cook says he hasn't been invited to see the device, so he's sceptical.

Where does this leave us? Perhaps Dr Podkletnov's words sum up our current situation.

"Modern theoretical physics cannot give you the direct answer to your questions [levitation, torsion fields, etc.], and a scientist who would agree to give you the answer cannot be regarded seriously, softly speaking. If you had asked Dr Einstein if he were an expert on gravity, the answer would be 'No'. I can repeat his words: 'No, I am not a magician, yet; I am still learning.'"

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