I've been searching too--and I think some of claims have been interesting, but the magnitude of what is being measured and how they are measuring it seems to be well within the limits of 'noise' in the experimental apparatus. As such--they are all as yet inconclusive as far as I am concerned.

I've studied and understood a little of Milner's "The Quantum Vacuum" which is a wonderful graduate level text on the subject of spacetime modification at the quantum vacuum level. One of the most intruiging things I can think of is the Casimir Effect which is a real-measured, quad-inverse (1/d^4) force between parallel, conductive plates. The force is there even if a grounding wire is connected between the plates ensuring that they are not charged with respect to each other. The force becomes substantial as the distance between the plates decreases below one millimeter--and becomes very strong as they approach 100 nanometers. Casimir-like effects may be able to explain things like capillary effects, Van Der Waals Forces which is an induced-dipole interaction between molecules (a critically important concept of chemistry!) and amazingly enough might be able to explain the actual physical mechanism of how catalysts work...

The Electromagnetic Quantum Vacuum can be imagined as an isotropic 'mode' sea: an even and completely random distribution of electromagnetic waves of every frequency, phase and orientation, distributed throughout the volume of space-time. Casimir Forces work by suppressing locally some of these 'modes;' by suppressing some of the local modes a differential vacuum energy density is created, which appears as a differential radiation pressure. Crazy as it sounds, this radiation pressure difference is manifest as the Casimir Force. Any method can be used to create these regions of 'mode' suppression: using parallel plates to exclude longer wavelengths within the plates; creating small cavities or pits on the surface of a metal--catalysts...; folding proteins to create clefts or 'fissures' where Van der Waal's forces suppress locally some of the field modes--origin of the catalytic effects of enzymes.

Years ago, I imagined a stack of 'shoeboxes' and then wondered about vacuum field energy density in each box. I then imagined the boxes getting smaller, more numerous, etc. As the numerical density of boxes or partitions increased, the more restrictive the effect on the vacuum energy density of the quantum vacuum. I found that if an array of gold coated 'cubby holes' could be etched throughout the volume of a block of silicon, that when the sizes of those voids decreased to 100 nanometers or less, then the bulk material would begin to become 'anomolously' light: quantum vacuum energy density reduction ought to manifest itself as an anomolous mass reduction. By carefully measuring the mass of the silicon array in vacuum, the mass discrepency may become large enough to manifest itself well above the experimental 'noise' of the apparatus: a clear signal that this effect is real.

The problem is, in order for ordinary matter to become 'weightless' would require the dimensions of the individual 'boxes' to approach 1 nanometer, which is of course smaller than the atoms! So an antigravity producing quantum vacuum "Cavarite" appears out of the question, but as a thought experiment it is useful.

It is my hope that some application of the ideas of 'zero point energy' may infact allow us to manipulate matter on a small scale, heretofore unkown to humans.

-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 17:32, 2008-07-19

The crazy thing about the 'Podkletnov' effect is that it is observed in spinning superconductors--the force of gravity is partially reduced by the device.

Years ago, I wondered why this could be...and a thought experiment showed me the way:

if you think of gravity (actually space-time) in a cylindrical cross section as a thick bundle of uncooked spaghetti noodles. As the superconductor rotates, frame dragging will 'twist' the column of spaghetti noodled so they are now symmetrically 'skewed.' If you measure the height of the 'twisted-skewed' column of spaghetti noodles you will notice that the column is shorter. In the same way, space-time becomes distorted over a spinning mass: and as such this reduces the magnitude of the force of gravity over the spinning mass. If the density of the spun mass is increased, and the speed of rotation is also increased, then the dynamic energy associated with matter in motion will modify local space-time so that gravity will be less, slightly. Of I could do the tensor calculations, I am sure that specific magnitudes could be estimated: unfortunately I can't do the general relativistic calculations--but conceptually speaking, I can see how it works.

Ty

One think that you need to note is that the effect is many orders of magnitude higher than predicted by general relativity.   This is because the gravitational constant is so small, i.e.  k=8pG/c².   If this effect is real is would seem that quantum gravity has some higher modes beyond what happens between two inert masses.  The dependence on superconductors is interesting because this is an example of a quantum bases process that has a macroscopic effect. (Lasers are another.) 

Raymond Chiao of the UC-Berkeley Physics Department published a series of papers along these lines a few years back, i.e. superconductor and gravity waves. (It seems he has retired and now is at UC Merced)  He papers explore aspects of GR that have close analogies with Maxwell's electrodynamics. 

As I've mentioned before it seems that more than one attempt at quantum gravity in addition to the basic spin two graviton also has associated spin one particles.  There particle could be the quantum manifestation of what Chiao is looking at on the classical level.

Something interesting my come from this...or not!  It merits continued study.

I've given this one some thought: m/s^2 is the mks unit for acceleration. The standard 'g' is defined as a multiple of 1 earth gravity acceleration: 9.80665 m/s^2. But there is no SI name for the unit 1 meter per second per second.

The Gal is short for Galileo, and is defined as 1 cm/s^2; it's most often used in gravimetry--the study of small variations in the Earth's gravitational acceleration, useful in scouting drilling locations for the oil industry. The unit there is usually the milligal, or variations in thousandths of a cm/s^2.

And we don't want to use the word Newton, because that already describes a unit of force: 1 N = 1 kg*m/s^2, and works very well in the SI.

And yet, Sir Isaac Newton was instrumental to first understanding the nature of gravity, so I would recommend that if a unit be named for someone, it ought to be him. But he already has a unit named after him...

Albert Einstein, also instrumental to the understanding of gravity would be a great choice; but again, there is already an SI unit named after him: The Einstein is the SI unit for the energy contained in a mole of photons...

SO: it's probably got to be a tossup between Newton and Einstein. How about first names:

1 Isaac = 1 m/s^2 ---or---

1 Albert = 1 m/s^2.

I suspect that the Albert-based nomenclature might be less ambiguous than an Isaac, but a specific name for the mks unit of acceleration is probably more ambiguous than just leaving it alone. However, if a name is needed, I think I'd vote for 'Albert' just because it sounds better than the 'Isaac.'

Ty

-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 23:46, 2008-07-29