by Tim Blagge
The Gravity
of
Anti-Gravity!
By Tim Blagge
Copyright 2012
Library of Congress
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
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Dedication
“The Gravity of Anti-Gravity”is dedicated to you – the reader. I wrote this story because when I sit down for a few hours of alone time, I love reading fast paced, character driven mysteries about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
You are about to immerse yourself in a wild tale told by a brilliant young scientist, Bill Burton who will soon graduate from Cal-Tech. He invents and builds a machine that will fundamentally change the course of human history.
Our young inventor knows that his anti-gravity device will revolutionize industry; and the ripple effect will touch every person on the planet. So how does he get his device to market without inciting economic chaos and stay alive while he does it?
You are about to find out and the ride will be both fun and entertaining until the end – and whatever you do,
DO NOT READ THE ENDING UNTIL YOU GET THERE!
(Consider yourself warned!)
Tim Blagge
Special thanks to my dear friend Melinda Anderson whose editing skills saved me from myself!
Prologue
The next morning while I was still sleeping, the phone rang. It was Jerry and he sounded frantic.
“Bill, have you seen the news? You won’t believe it. I think you might have, have been responsible.” He stuttered.
“Jerry what are you talking about?”
“Just turn on the news, buddy boy.” Jerry said excitedly.
“I’ll call you back.” I said
I turned on the news. The story was on every station.
“This is KFAJ reporting,” the TV barked. “Scientists are stunned and puzzled at a phenomenon that they have never before observed. About 7:57 P.M. Pacific Time last night, the earth lost seven tenths of a second of time. Now before you go and celebrate that you are younger now than you would have been, it has caused some huge problems. All the satellite navigation systems in the world must be recalibrated. This has affected all forms of transportation. Planes have been grounded, and ships, trains, subways – all other forms of transportation have been stopped awaiting the fix to our global positioning satellites.”
“The militaries of the world have been put on high alert. No one seems to know if this is a natural or accidental occurrence or if some terrorist or rogue nation is sending some kind of message. Until the satellites are recalibrated, most of our offensive and defensive rocket capabilities are also off-line.”
“Scientists and technicians say they will have the GPS satellite systems adjusted in the next hour. Then we should see the world return to normal in a day or two. And it’s a miracle, but so far, there are no reports of death or injury.”
“Let’s go to Norma Woodard who is with Dr. Franz Belter of MIT.”
“Dr. Belter, can you explain what just happened and how the world suddenly lost time?”
“Ms. Woodard, my colleagues and I have met all night and so far, even though we have some hypotheses on this strange phenomenon, we don’t have any definitive answers yet. First we thought that it may have been a giant solar flare, but nothing unusual emanated from there. Then we checked to see if the earth was hit with a large burst of particle radiation from outer space. We have detected nothing like that.”
“Does that mean you don’t know what happened at all?” Woodard questioned.
“Ms. Woodard, we have come only to two conclusions. The first is that something has briefly interrupted space-time. The second is that we think it originated here on earth!”
“The Gravity of Anti-Gravity”
By Tim Blagge
-1-
It was late in my junior year at Cal Tech by the time Pops completed machining all the parts needed to build my machine and make a test run at anti-gravity. We had to do a lot of precision assembly and that in itself, took us over a month.
We installed an electronic scale that we placed on an oversized work bench in the middle of Pops barn. On top of that we placed the center of the four foot square frame of the device so the entire vehicle was supported on the scale. After we had the device placed on the scale, we found out it weighed 167.7 pounds in total. The thought was that if the machine worked as designed, it would lift off and we wouldn’t need the scale. Partial success would be indicated by a reduction in the weight of our device. Pops and I proceeded to hook up all the wiring, double checked all the mechanics and after several hours work we were ready to throw the switch.
“I feel more nervous than the first time I had sex and that was over 40 years ago,” Pops said. “I remember it like it was yesterday and this test is giving me that same weird and wonderful feeling; anticipation coupled with a little dread and fear of failure.”
“A little more information than I need to know Pops.” I said.
“I want you to know Bill, that there is a much higher probability that this won’t work than it will and I don’t want you to feel bad if it just spins and whirls.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to do Pops; spin, whirl and blow a hole in the roof,” I joked. “Actually, I expect it may take a bunch of adjustments before we have a model that works. My calculations do indicate it should work tonight. I have made some assumptions about the nature of gravity that, just maybe, could be wrong. I don’t think so, but just maybe.”
“I appreciate your humility Ego Boy,” Pops commented, “and I am glad we built that plexi-glass shield around the thing. If the machine ever decides to fly apart, at those speeds, they’ll find pieces in Phoenix.”
Pops looked at me with a newly found determination and said, “Ready Billy? I’ll start the power feed to the machine and you look to make sure the motors are working and the gear clusters look solid. We’ll start slow and if things look good, we’ll carefully increase the speed. I want you to stand back when the whole thing gets cooking. If something comes apart, you don’t want to be too close.”
Pops threw the power switch and everything began turning. We had installed an electronic rheostat that would allow us to slowly increase the power and speed. We rechecked the weight on the scale and it still read 167.7 pounds. We were keeping records on an older computer which I’d hooked up to the scale and all the other components so we would have a record of every aspect of our trial run. Pops was monitoring the power and the computer information.
After about 60 seconds Pop said, “The central Orb is spinning at 20,000 RPM’s. And the four side orbs are spinning at exactly half that speed. It all looks good so far!”
“Pops you did a great job of machining these parts. There is virtual
ly no vibration.” I said.
“We’ll see if that’s what happens when we really get this thing cranking,” Pops answered.
With that he looked at me and did a one index finger twirl indicating that he was going to increase the speed. I gave him a thumbs-up and the machine began rotating faster. The sounds got louder and higher pitched.
“Main orb 50,000 RPM’s” barked Pops “and everything still looks O.K. Should I go farther or is this good for the first test?”
I went over to the computer to check to see if there was any weight reduction. I didn’t expect any and that’s what I found – no change. Based on my calculations, somewhere between 85,000 and 110,000 RPM’s is where something would happen – if it were going to happen at all.
I had to raise my voice to get over the noise and yelled, “so far so good, let’s take it up some more.”
After I said that I saw a major look of concern on Pops face. He had suggested earlier that we go to half speed, shut it down and inspect the moving parts for wear.
Curiosity and impatience drove me to push the machine to its limits so I yelled, “It’s running great Pops, let’s keep going!”
I moved near Pops, away from the machine and near the computer to a safer location if the machine did came apart. Pops turned the knob and the machine speeded up. “75,000 RPM’s. Billy let’s shut her down!”
“Pops we’re so close. I am hearing what sounds like a very small vibration. The computer says it’s in one of the side orbs – number three. Pops, I still vote we go up some more. We’ve been working on this thing for nearly two years. I believe orb three will hold.”
With that, Pops shook his head and gave me a look that said he thought we were making a huge mistake. But against his better judgment he grasped the knob and gave it another turn. The apparatus continued to get louder and louder.
“80,000 RPM’s” Pops yelled, “85,000, 90,000, 95,000.” Just as he was starting to say 100,000, the machine proceeded to fly apart with metal parts hitting the plexi-glass shield with amazing force and a colossal crash!
We both ducked but the shield held. Fortunately Pops had the presence of mind to hit the kill switch at the same time the fireworks started.
After we pulled ourselves together, we looked at the computer screen to see if we could figure out what happened. “Yep, Orb number three vibrated itself to death at that speed,” I said. “All the other apparatus looked like it was working fine. It was just a weak link.”
When I looked at the computer screen one more time, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Pops,” I yelled, “the weight recorded at the time everything flew apart was 164.4 pounds – a reduction of 3.3pounds!”
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Pops and I did a preliminary inspection of my anti-gravity device and decided that our salvage work could begin the next day. I had to attend two classes at Cal Tech and then work a six hour shift at my job at the In-N-Out Burger so we planned to go out to the barn after dinner.
When we arrived at the barn the next night and inspected the machine, our suspicions were confirmed. Orb three had fractured and scattered parts around inside the plexi-glass shield. It had damaged two out of the remaining three small orbs but the large main middle orb survived unscathed.
“Bill I’m really sorry. I must have been a little off when I machined that orb.”
“No apologies needed, Pops. It was probably a flaw in the metal and not you.”
“I don’t know about you,” I continued, “but I laid awake half the night thinking about what we’ve accomplished. Even if it was just a little, I believe, for an instant, we interrupted the force of gravity. I can’t wait to tell my Physics Professor, Dr. Cummings.”
“No, you can’t do that Bill!”
“Why not Pops? A discovery like this will change the world!” I said trying to sound like Dr. Frankenstein when his monster first moved on the table.
“First, we’re not absolutely certain that the machine’s vibration didn’t cause the weight reduction.” Pops explained. “You know things were really screaming there at the end. Or maybe the scale malfunctioned and we got a faulty reading. I think we need to run a few more tests before we go and shoot our mouths off.”
“Pops, do you think the machine that we gave our hearts, soul and sweat to for almost two years won’t work?”
“Actually Billy, I think it will work. I think it did work. And I think, at least for now, we need to keep quiet about it. Before we pick up the pieces here, there is something about this barn that you don’t know,” Pops said with an eerie seriousness.
“What could you possibly tell me about this old barn that I don’t already know?” I asked. “I’ve only spent half my life here the last seven years.”
“Billy, do you remember when I built this barn?” Pops asked. “You were only about four years old. When I was about twelve, I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and it scared the crap out of me. The fact was that Russian nukes were 90 miles off our shores caused most of the country to think we were all on the brink of annihilation. When things calmed down, that memory fostered a rash of construction of fall-out shelters. I decided at the age of twelve, that when I got my own place, I would build myself one.”
“Pops, you’re not going to tell me you’ve got a bomb shelter here are you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am!” Pops said proudly, “Pretty well hidden don’t you think? If you, Mr. Brainiac, have no idea where it is, then no one else should be able to figure it out either. Follow me please.”
Pops led me over to a dark corner of the barn. It had a bunch of junk stacked in front of a kind of make-shift bookcase. There was no electric light in the area – only a little light shining in from the main part of the barn. The bookcase was crooked and looked like if anything was moved around it, it would collapse. The left side of the bookcase appeared to be supported by the side of the barn. On the right side, there was a wall about three feet deep mounted at a right angle to the back wall which looked to be supporting the other side of the bookcase.
“Come on Billy, help me move some of this stuff over a little bit.” Pops requested.
After we cleared the junk out from in front the bookcase, I still had no idea where a bomb shelter might be. Then Pops reached behind what looked like some old dusty tools on one shelf of the bookcase. He moved a lever and as smooth as silk, the crooked old bookcase swung outward to reveal the back wall of the barn.
“Great Pops, looks like somebody made off with your bomb shelter” I commented.
“Look a little closer smart ass,” he said.
I did and I didn’t see a thing. Then Pops had me step back as he reached for the old round Coke sign that had been in the same place on the barn wall ever since I could remember. He rotated the sign 90 degrees to the right, then he rotated the sign to the left about 30 degrees past center and then rotated it back to the right to its starting position.
I heard some mechanical rumblings and watched a three foot wide by six foot long section of the floor gently move down about four inches. Then after about a two second delay, it began to slowly move to the right. In about 20 seconds, it had moved completely out of the way revealing a set of concrete stairs leading down.
Even though I hadn’t seen the rest of Pop’s bomb shelter, I was absolutely stunned and humbled by the clever technical ingenuity I was witnessing.
“Now I see why I didn’t pick up on the opening” I said slowly as I considered what I was looking at. “The right, the left and the back edge of the door in the floor are concealed underneath the walls. And the front edge looks like just another plank in this old wood floor. I knew you were clever but I am totally blown away! I can’t wait to see the rest.”
“Billy, have you thought about why I am showing you this now?”
“Not really. Oh my god, you’re not dying and need to show someone, are you Pops?”
“Billy we’re all dying but as far as I know I’ve got another decade or two to go before
I’m shovel ready,” Pops answered with a half smile.
“Why now then? Tell me, what’s on your mind Pops?”
“Billy I have a lot of confidence in you,” Pops went on. “And I have a lot of confidence in the real world. I have confidence that you might actually pull off this anti-gravity fantasy, pardon the expression. And I have confidence that, if it works, there are evil people all over the world who will try to take it from you. I’ve been thinking about this for months now, and I am certain that we need to keep our experiments strictly between you and me. Do not, under any circumstances, tell your friends, professors, class mates or anyone else what we are working on. Don’t tell Joanna or your Grandma. If your brainchild works to even the smallest degree, the people with any knowledge of it could be in danger.”
“Pops, aren’t you being a little overly dramatic?” I argued. “If it actually works, the benefit to the world would be huge. Transportation would be revolutionized. The energy required to move freight and people from point to point would be a fraction of what it is now.”
“Stop right there!” Pops said emphatically. “You are talking about fundamentally tearing down and rebuilding a gigantic industry. Transportation includes not only the manufacturing of vehicles including trains, planes and automobiles but it would also have a profound effect on industries like big oil. Do you think big industrial corporations would go down without a fight? Everyone and everything that would be affected would weigh in – sometimes honorably, many times not. And that’s just two industries. The ripple effect would touch everyone in the world to some extent. It’s both exciting and scary to think about”.
“OK, OK, I get it. Now show me the bomb shelter,” I demanded.
“Go ahead and go downstairs,” Pops said as he unfolded his hand and arm and pointed downstairs.
The solid concrete stairs went down about eight feet to a landing where they turned in the opposite direction and continued down. They led to a steel door about three feet wide and six feet high.