Gravity-Superconductors Interactions: Theory and Experiment
Giovanni Modanese · Glen A. Robertson
Summary and citation · read the original at the source
In one page
This is the field’s standard reference, and it is a single book rather than a scattered literature. Giovanni Modanese and Glen Robertson gathered thirteen chapters from the researchers most directly involved in one question: can a laboratory-scale piece of condensed matter — a superconductor — generate or modify a gravitational field? Their reasoning for asking is stated plainly in the introduction. If gravity is ever to be reconciled with quantum mechanics, then the one place where quantum behaviour is already macroscopic, visible on a benchtop rather than inside an atom, is exactly where to look. General relativity and lowest-order quantum gravity both predict extremely small effects here, so anything measurable would have to come from a strong quantum effect nobody has written down yet. The volume therefore runs on two tracks at once: pragmatic verification and characterisation of the reported anomalies, chapter by chapter, and the creative theory-building that would be needed to explain them. Podkletnov, Tajmar, Chiao, Fontana and Modanese all appear in it.
Why it matters hereChapter 11 is the superconductor road to gravity control, and this is the one volume that puts the whole road in a single binding — theory, experiment, replication attempts and the criticism, side by side, from the people who did the work. It is also chapter 1’s evidence ladder made visible: the book’s own framing is that these results must first be verified and characterised in a model-independent way, and only then explained.
What it claims
01If gravitation has to be eventually reconciled with quantum mechanics, the macroscopic quantum character of superconductors might actually matter — which is why the volume asks whether it is possible to generate gravity-like fields by condensed-matter systems, in conditions accessible in a laboratory.Publisher’s description of the volume, opening
What to watch02General relativity and lowest-order quantum gravity both predict very small emission rates for gravitational effects from condensed matter, so these phenomena can only become relevant if some strong quantum effect occurs.Publisher’s description of the volume
Published and peer-reviewed03The experimental evidence of anomalous interactions between gravity and superconductors requires, on one hand, a pragmatic approach for the verification of the effects and their detailed characterisation in a model-independent way; on the other hand it is a challenge to develop new physical and formal concepts for their explanation, in unknown territory placed between general relativity, quantum mechanics and new physics.Publisher’s description of the volume, closing
What to watch04A high-temperature superconductor can be treated as a quantum source of gravitational waves — Giorgio Fontana’s chapter sets out the HTSC gaser, the gravitational counterpart of a laser built from high-temperature superconducting material.Chapter, pages 58 to 73
Designed, not yet built05Stimulated graviton emission in superconductors can be evaluated within quantum gravity itself, and Modanese’s own chapter carries out that evaluation; Glen Robertson’s chapter derives the power radiated in gravitational waves from quantum effects in a type II superconductor.Chapters, pages 105 to 131 and pages 74 to 104
Published and peer-reviewed06The volume carries the experimental side in full: Evgeny Podkletnov and Modanese report the interaction of light with gravity impulses and measurements of the speed of those impulses, and Timo Junker gives the setup for replicating the impulse gravity generator experiment.Chapters, pages 169 to 182 and pages 183 to 202
On the bench now
The way in
https://doi.org/10.2174/97816080539951120101The edited volume Gravity-Superconductors Interactions: Theory and Experiment, Bentham Science Publishers, 2012, edited by Giovanni Modanese of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Glen A. Robertson. Online ISBN 978-1-60805-399-5, print ISBN 978-1-60805-400-8. Thirteen chapters running from page 3 to page 324, sold whole or chapter by chapter, with no open licence, so this page carries no reproduced text: the summary, the claims and the contents below are the site’s own, written from the publisher’s own description of the volume and from its verified table of contents. The description quoted in the claims is the publisher’s abstract for the book, recovered from the OpenAlex record for the DOI; the chapter titles, authors and page ranges are read from the publisher’s own contents listing at benthambooks.com. Two chapters of this volume have their own pages on this site: the Hathaway and Reiss chapter on experimental method at /library/stm-bf318d42ac and the Woods chapter on high-frequency gravitational waves at /library/stm-0538084744.
How to cite it
Giovanni Modanese, Glen A. Robertson (2012) Gravity-Superconductors Interactions: Theory and Experiment. doi:10.2174/97816080539951120101
Where it sits in the curriculum
Gravity control and superconductorsThe evidence ladderInertia and gravity from the vacuum