Biefeld–Brown effect

[1] The "Biefeld–Brown effect" was the name given to a phenomenon observed by Thomas Townsend Brown while he was experimenting with X-ray tubes during the 1920s while he was still in high school.

[1][6] This discovery caused him to assume that he had somehow influenced gravity electronically and led him to design a propulsion system based on this phenomenon.

The article also mentioned the "gravitator," an invention by Brown which produced motion without the use of electromagnetism, gears, propellers, or wheels, but instead using the principles of what he called "electro-gravitation."

[10] In his 1960 patent titled "Electrokinetic Apparatus," Brown refers to electrokinesis to describe the Biefeld–Brown effect, linking the phenomenon to the field of electrohydrodynamics (EHD).

[1] The effect is generally believed to rely on corona discharge, which allows air molecules to become ionized near sharp points and edges.

[citation needed] This leaves a cloud of positively charged ions in the medium, which are attracted to the negative smooth electrode by Coulomb's Law, where they are neutralized again.

Whether this increases or decreases the maximum momentum of the ionized air is not typically measured, although the force acting upon the electrodes reduces, until the glow discharge region is entered.

Below the glow discharge region, the breakdown voltage increases again, whilst the number of potential ions decreases, and the chance of impact lowers.

As part of a study in 1990, U.S. Air Force researcher R. L. Talley conducted a test on a Biefeld–Brown-style capacitor to replicate the effect in a vacuum.

Campbell pointed out to a Wired magazine reporter that creating a true vacuum similar to space for the test requires tens of thousands of dollars in equipment.

According to their report, the researchers wrote that the effects of ion wind was at least three orders of magnitude too small to account for the observed force on the asymmetric capacitor in the air.

[16] Around ten years later, researchers from the Technical University of Liberec conducted experiments on the Biefeld–Brown effect that supported one of ARL's hypotheses that assigned ion drift as the most likely source of the generated force.

[17] In 2004, Martin Tajmar published a paper that also failed to replicate Brown's work and suggested that Brown may have instead observed the effects of a corona wind triggered by insufficient outgassing of the electrode assembly in the vacuum chamber and therefore misinterpreted the corona wind effects as a possible connection between gravitation and electromagnetism.