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Apergy

From Kook Science

Apergy is a hypothetical repulsive force that represents an opposition to gravitation as an attractive force, sometimes described as the centripetal force to gravity's centrifugal force. According to the speculations on apergy, the two forces would neutralise one another, and an increase of apergy would produce an anti-gravity effect.

The early sources of apergetic theory are science fiction novels of the late nineteenth century, including Percy Greg's Across the Zodiac (1880) and John Jacob Astor's A Journey in Other Worlds (1894), as well as writings on John Worrell Keely's alleged discoveries during that same time period. Indeed, in certain sensationalist press coverage, Astor's purchase of Keely Motor Company stock was linked to the possibility that apergy was real and Keely had tapped into the secret of it.

Sources

  • Greg, Percy (1880), Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record, Deciphered, and Translated by Percy Greg, Hamburg: K. Grädener, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001420236  — see Chapter II. OUTWARD BOUND.
  • "Forty Million Miles Away; Or, A Voyage to Mars", New York Morning World, 1889  — serialised in the Morning World beginning March 1889
  • Astor, John Jacob (1894), A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future, New York: D. Appleton & Co., https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000244549/Home 

    "With this force, obtained by simply blending negative and positive electricity with electricity of the third element or state, and charging a body sufficiently with this fluid, gravitation is nullified or partly reversed, and the earth repels the body with the same or greater power than that with which it still attracts or attracted it, so that it may be suspended or cause to move away into space." (p. 29)

    "If apergy can annul gravitations, I do not see why it should not do more, for to annul it the repulsion of the earth that it produces must be as great as its attraction, unless we suppose gravitation for the time being to be suspended; but whether it is or not, does not affect the result in this case, for, after the apergetic repulsion is brought to the degree at which a body does not fall, any increase in the current's strength will cause it to rise, and in the case of electro-magnets we know that the attraction or repulsion has practically no limit," he continued, " for if a projectile could move away from the earth with no more rapid acceleration than that with which it approaches, it would take too long to reach the nearest planet, but the maximum repulsion being at the start by reason of its proximity to the earth — for apergy, being the counterpart of gravitation, is subject to Newton's and Kepler's laws — the acceleration of a body apergetically charges will be greatest at first." (p. 88-89)

    With apergy it is as essential to have some heavy body on which to work, within range, as to have water about a ship's propellers. Whether, when apergy is developed, gravitation is temporarily annulled, or reversed like the late attraction of a magnet when the current is changed, or whether it is merely overpowered, in which case your motion will be the resultant of the two, is an unsettled and not very important point; for, though we know but little more of the nature of electricity than was known a hundred years ago, this does not prevent our producing and using it. (p. 96)

    "It seems to me that all this leads to but one conclusion, viz.: apergy is the constant and visible companion of gravitation, on these great planets Jupiter and Saturn, perhaps on account of some peculiar influence they possess, and also in comets, in the case of large masses, while on earth it appears naturally only among molecules — those of gases and every other substance." "I should go a step further," said Bearwarden, " and say our earth has the peculiarity, since it does not possess the influence necessary to generate naturally a great or even considerable development of apergy. The electricity of thunderstorms, northern lights, and other forces seems to be produced freely, but as regards apergy our planet's natural productiveness appears to be small." (p. 295)

  • Ward, Duren J. H. (1922), The Modern God, Denver, Colo.: Up the Divide Pub. Co., https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008410334/Home 

    Several experimenters believe they are on the verge of discovering a method of controlling the Ether stress in such a way as to make it efficient in raising or moving masses of matter in any and every direction without an equal expend ture of power, as in the present types of machinery. It has been called "Apergy" and will be power almost without cost. These researches seem to be on the borderland of Acoustics. It is expected to come by the production of sympathetic vibrations. In this way the usual direction of etheric stress is deflected or redirected, and gravitation is to be partially overcome or used in another direction. It is suspected that some day gravitation, cohesion, chemism, and even the inter-atomic force itself may yield to this understanding. (p. 15)

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