What's wrong with this

[TinselKoala]

Nice demonstration, I can appreciate the time and effort that went into that. But let me relate a little story:

We had a very similar experiment presented to us at ISSO back in 1999 or 2000. Viktor Roznyay had been funded by Joe Firmage to the tune of nearly a million dollars, and he was applying for a renewal of his grant. He had an "antigravity" device that was supposed to work by passing a heavy arc inside a mercury ignitron tube. He made a completely self-contained demonstrator that could be set up on his balance. The device had batteries, a power supply, the ignitron tube and a load bank made of a row of standard cement power resistors, and could be turned on and off by remote control.  The balance was a symmetrical beam balance with a sensitive straingauge readout. We made a draftproof enclosure for it, used a totally wooden table with no metal fasteners, etc. The device was set on the scale and turned on by remote control. Sure enough, it got lighter according to the scale readout over the span of a few minutes, and even at about the same rate and by the same amount as what Tinman shows in the video above. It got lighter and lighter, the weight being continuously recorded by a LabView system on a laptop, making a  nice realtime graph of weight vs time. Ken Shoulders, Hal Puthoff, Hawkins Kirk, and some other big names were there witnessing the event. Viktor assured us all that it was not any kind of thermal effect. When the device was turned off the device slowly returned to its "normal" weight. I still remember Ken Shoulders saying "so antigravity has a memory?" His point was that perhaps a real AG device would have regained its full weight as soon as the power was off. Perhaps.
Well, everyone was amazed in different ways, and we broke for lunch. During the break, several of us thought of some further tests. Since the balance was a beam balance with equal arms and a counterweight on the other "pan", the first thing we did was to swap sides. We put the device on the other pan, and the CW where the device had been for the first test. But we made an " error " in setting it up: The front face of the device faced in the same direction as it had before. That is, the morning test had the device on the left pan, facing away from the balance fulcrum. For the afternoon test we placed it on the right pan, but we didn't turn the device around, and so it faced _toward_ the balance fulcrum.
So we all gathered around, with Viktor and his assistant sitting off to the side. We used the remote control to turn the device on. What do you suppose happened? You can probably guess... it proceeded to get _heavier_ according to the scale readout. Dead silence, eyes turned to Viktor. "Did you know about this?" he was asked. "Yes, but we couldn't explain it so we didn't report it."  Facepalms all round. Clearly there was something wrong. Some further experimentation showed that the weight result depended on the orientation of the device on the balance; if you rotated it to just the right angle, it showed no weight change. It could be made to show a heavier, or a lighter, result depending on the rotation angle.
I had already seen inside the device (I took the covers off to look inside the night before the testing) and I began to suspect what was happening. And we were able to confirm that my guess was right: the framework supporting the load bank resistors was warping slightly from the heat, and this changed the position of the center of mass of the device, tilting the bank towards, or away from, the balance fulcrum. Since Viktor's custom-made balance did _not_ have tilting pans, this effect changed the lever arm of the balance and so produced a false indication of actual weight change. Very subtle, an interaction between something moving inside the device and the odd design flaw in the balance itself.
Needless to say, Viktor didn't get his further million dollars, and went away mad and embarrassed.

I'm not suggesting the _exact_ thing could be happening with Tinman's apparatus, but the story is interesting, isn't it? A laboratory of smart people with a _lot of money_ to support them, over the span of a year, were thinking they had a real weight change effect in their apparatus, when in fact it was a subtle artifact of both the construction of the device and their measuring equipment. They were so confident that they travelled all the way from Hungary to California, set up their equipment in front of an "all star" team of scientists and investigators and a _deep pocket_ funder for a demonstration... and were shot down in flames in a single day of proper experimentation and analysis.

There are some big differences between Tinman's setup and Viktor's, the most easily observable one being the electronic scale, vs. Viktor's balance beam. However... since the time course and magnitude of the weight effect is so similar to what we saw then, it seems very important to me to rule out a similar cause or set of causes.
Remember, Viktor thought that he had ruled out thermal effects... but he hadn't. He thought his very sensitive beam balance was precise and accurate... and it was, but for the design flaw that allowed center-of-mass changes to affect the reading. He thought that his experiments were bulletproof... but they weren't, since he had not done the _critical control experiment_ of putting the device on the other pan, without rotating it. He thought he was a shoo-in for another million dollar grant... but he failed to get it, and in fact based on this experience JF decided not to fund him any more at all, and liquidated the remains of Viktor's local setup.

So the first thing I'd suggest to Tinman is to find another weight measurement system and see if the effect is the same, in both direction and magnitude and time course, with the different system. Vibration, for example from bubbles being released from a submerged heating element, can affect scales of the type used in the video, and this is something that has caused many researchers to believe that they have discovered something. Sandy Kidd, Dean, Cox, and other people have fallen for the vibration artifact-- but different weighing systems respond differently to the vibration effect. Next, I'd examine carefully the innards of the device to make absolutely sure that nothing is moving to change the center of gravity. The device is pretty tall and it is possible that a tilted force on the scale is altering its reading. It is also true that these kinds of scales are subject to faulty readings due to EMI from power supplies and other circuitry, although in that case one would expect the indications to be more strongly related to the on-off state of the power feed. Nevertheless it must be solidly ruled out; using a different weighing system should take care of that.

Good for you, Brad, for setting up your demonstration and showing the result. It's a very good starting point. I especially like the balloon, showing that there is not any buildup in pressure which might have swollen the outer container and produced some change in buoyancy in air. (Don't laugh... this buoyancy in air due to a swollen container was the cause of another reproducible measured weight loss in a device designed by Jim Woodward, that was finally tracked down by another scientist with a proper control experiment. The effect is larger than you might think, easily capable of producing a few grams change in a large device like Tinman's.) But the non-swollen balloon _probably_ rules out that effect here.

Cheers mate, and keep experimenting, and don't forget the +proper+ control experiment.
--TK   

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"The easiest person to fool is... yourself."
--Richard Feynman

[MarkE]

I decided to spend the $60,00 odd today,and throw together a quick device to show the effect taking place. The workings of the internals of this vessel are a very quick throw together job,and quite inefficient for the size of the vessel. But none the less,you can see what happens when i apply power to the internal working's. The effect is small,but it is there. I have run the test 11 times now,and the results are always the same. The one problem with running the device out of the water is the heat created,although it is very little with this one,as the P/in is only about 2 watts. Higher power levels produce much faster and higher result's in weight loss,but cooling is also needed when the power levels are that high.

It may be time to open up your mind's,and give rise to the possability that man hasnt tried all there is to try,regardless of his 2000 years experiance with buoyancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhPVk0JaweA

OK so so far we have an experiment where:

1) A vessel containing some liquid and (a heating element?) indicates an initial weight of 2.773
2) Over a period of several minutes powered the weight indication decreases to 2.768 or -0.18%
3) Statements that the experiment has been performed repeatedly with similar results each time
4) Statements that in prior runs if the heat is removed that the indicated weight returns to its original value  (I am not sure how that was obtained as the scale shuts off.)
5) A proposed conclusion that the heating process reduces the weight of the vessel plus contents

Is this correct?

I too like the experiment and the effort applied to obtain objective results.  I take it that the block of wood is intended to keep the weigh pan from heating up.

So, now we have the issue of how to perform adequate null experiments within your time and budget.  I have a couple of suggestions.  If the hypothesis is that state change of whatever liquid is being used reduces weight, then a shorter container with the same initial amount of liquid and a similar heating element should indicate weight loss at the same absolute rate.  If however, the CoG is shifting, then the absolute rate will probably change much more slowly with a shorter structure.  Alternatively, without building anything else, you might just repeat the experiment by carefully rotating the tower 90 degrees then 180, and then 270 degrees even before heating the innards to see how that affects your scale.

[MileHigh]

TK:

Dead silence, eyes turned to Viktor. "Did you know about this?" he was asked. "Yes, but we couldn't explain it so we didn't report it."  Facepalms all round. Clearly there was something wrong. Some further experimentation showed that the weight result depended on the orientation of the device on the balance; if you rotated it to just the right angle, it showed no weight change. It could be made to show a heavier, or a lighter, result depending on the rotation angle.

Since Viktor's custom-made balance did _not_ have tilting pans, this effect changed the lever arm of the balance and so produced a false indication of actual weight change.

That's an amazing story.  For the first highlight the guy deserves a cut-off in funding and a kick in the ass as he went out the door.   That even looks like a scam for another million dollars so they could ultimately sit at their desks and surf the Internet and try to look busy like what I always speculated about Steorn.

The second highlight is again almost unbelievable because the moment you mention "beam balance" you see the "scales of justice" balance in your mind.  No pans and no fixed fulcrum for the pans means it is not even a beam balance.  It's a retarded Bizarro balance.  That deserves a second swift kick in the ass as the guy went out the door and consulting with the local district attorney.

That's just as bad as the university guy that made the "retarded rotating spaghetti laser interferometer experiment" in search of the ether but all that it did was deform under the varying stresses of gravity as it rotated through a complete cycle.  Or the 10-coiler powering a house!

MileHigh

[MarkE]

The difference with Tinman is that AFAICT he is honestly trying to approach the situation objectively. 

Another thought occurred to me:  Get a second scale, and place the tower on a stiff platform of plastic or wood that spans the two identical scales.  Take the sum of the readings from the two scales.  Then repeat the experiment with the platform rotated 90 degrees relative to the scales.  This will show any shift in CoG along one axis in each experiment.  It should also allow one to null out any shift in CoG in one axis during each experiment by using the sum of the readings from both scales.

[tinman]

OK so so far we have an experiment where:

4) Statements that in prior runs if the heat is removed that the indicated weight returns to its original value  (I am not sure how that was obtained as the scale shuts off.)

I too like the experiment and the effort applied to obtain objective results.  I take it that the block of wood is intended to keep the weigh pan from heating up.

4)-I find it hard to believe that a man of your tallent and knowledge wouldnt know how something as simple as this could be done. When the scales switch off and then turned back on,they zero back out with the vessel still on them. When the vessel is removed the scales read a negative value that is equal to the weight value of the vessel. 2nd method-the vessel is removed from the scales,and then after cooling off,is placed back onto the scales to read a value that is the same as the test starting point value.

There is 3 pieces of timber glued under the vessel acting as feet, as there is two S/S bolts protruding out of the bottom cap of the vessel which are the conections to the cell inside the vessel.