It was just another antigravity experiment. It was yet another attempt to produce Wells's creation developed by the mysterious Doctor Cavor. What material could act as an impenetrable path to gravity? It was alright to have the idea of such a substance in a story but part of the mystery was how it could be stored because it would take some time to make enough to cover the globe shaped space ship in Well's story. Wells carefully avoided making any references to what must have been anti-cavorite. The newly produced cavorite would have to be kept in anti-cavorite containers until enough had been produced to cover Cavor's space ship. The next quesation is: how can one make anti-cavorite?

Every anti-gravity researcher has to think of the various ways to combat gravity. Cavorite or something like it is a gravity barrier. Other ways are to create some sort of field that makes things weightless or can create a reverse form of gravity - real anti-gravity. I had concentrated on making things weightless in my experiments. I had chanced once on a fluky form of butane gas that effectively repelled gravity. You may have read about my adventure with a cigarette lighter. I do remember that the experiments which led up to the discovery has had almost the reverse effect of what I was trying for. The unit somehow converted electrical power into incredible weight or something as effective. It dropped through a draining board and sunk partway into some concrete. A reversed unit attracted air from the room so effectively that the air was compressed into liquifaction on its surface. Although I tried to take precautions in my makeshift kitchen workshop I knew that what I was working on could have extremely dangerous consequences. How does one prepare for the effects of an unknown physical property? Had I created a form of artificial gravity? I rechecked my drawings and did some very basic calculations. Assuming the Isaac Newton's laws applied, the gravity (if that was what it was) would fall off with the square of the distance from its source. The active element was only half a centimetre away from the base of the cake tin I used to hold the experiment. At one centimetre away from the base of the cake tin the gravity would only be one quarter of the strength at its surface.At two centimetres away it would only be 1/16th as strong. Although the calculations were based on approximations, the way the cake tin behaved when I tried to throw it out of a window seemed to bear some relationship to Newton's inverse square law.

This was the information I had in mind when I started to plan my next experiment. I would try to organise it so that it would use very little power so that any effects it had would be less devastating if things did not work out in the way I hoped would occur. It was hard trying to scale things down from the level of a 12 kilowatt searchlight to a 3 watt flashlight. Everything has to be made smaller and more delicate. My original ideas were to provide the basis for a way to travel in space. Then a megawatt system would be needed to lift a space ship weighing many tons. Now, because I wanted to make sure that I didn't do any damage to anything or anyone, I had to think of a safe way to prove the principle.

There was an advantage in making everything smaller. The cost of the components was less and I could add some extra parts to provide an indication of how it was performing. the simplest was one light emitting diode to show it was switched on and another that had its current controlled by a strain gauge to give an indication of the gravity being generated. It was easy to use a multimeter to check how much power was being consumed. I didn't have anything that could monitor the power used in my 12 kilowatt experiment. The whole thing was housed in a small container made from half a beer can. When I switched it on it drew 320 milliamps - no more than a modest sized radio. The crude gravity indicator LED gave no indication of anything happening. It looked like 320 milliamps going nowhere. There was no sign of air being liquefied on the top of the can. I looked at it for a while, wondering what it was doing if anything. I remembered what happened with my 12 kilowatt experiment and decided to see what happened when I turned it over on the kitchen worktop. I didn't notice the effect at first because it was so slight. The can had sunk around 3 millimetres into the worktop. I picked it up, expecting to see a depression where the can had stood.. Thre was no sign of a mark where it had been. I turned it over again in a different place to see if the same thing happened. It did. My new experiment could do something that was unbelievable. The can seemed like it was floating in water but the water was a solid melamine faced chipboard work top. I wondered if it would do the same thing with other materials. A kitchen is a poor place to test what I had discovered because it is short of dense materials. I compromised by standing the can in its upside down state on a thick earthenware plate. It sank into the plate in just the same way as it had on the worktop. It left no trace it had been there when it was removed. Absentmindedly I put it into my other hand when I went to replace the plate in a cupboard. It was only when I realised what I had done that I checked my hand. I had felt nothing unusual when I transferred it. Just the weight of it. The can had sunk a little way into my hand. When I removed it my hand was unscathed. I then switched it off and had a spell of serious thinking to do.

I spent several hours trying to work out the significance of what I had discovered. I could not think of any practical use for the device as it stood. It was something very strange and unique. An object that can go some way into another quite solid object and come out again leaving no trace that it had affected the object it entered in any way. It even worked with living things. It had not had an apparently harmful effect on my hand. I spent a few more hours trying to work out experiments that I could do with the device. I also wondered what I could call the effect. I decided to sleep on it and give Deidre and the children a demonstration the next day.

I had several ideas to try when I set things up to show Deidre and the children. John and Andrea were already used to my wierd experiments and loved to play on the monorail I had set up. Helen was only just beginning to take an interest in what I did. She was just at the stage when she was beginning to try to walk. She would crawl to a place where she could use something to help herself stand up. It could be a chair or a handle on one of the lower kitchen cupboards. She was a messer of the worst sort. She was able to cover her hands with sticky goo that seemed to come from nowhere. This mess then transferred quickly to the area around her mouth making her look as if she never ever had her face washed. Today she was standing on a kitchen chair that faced away from the work top. She was holding onto the back of the chair to support herself as she peered over the top of the work top. John and Andrea stood at a respectful distance away. They had seen the effects of some of my experiments and did not want to be scared of a new strange thing happening. I had told Deidre what I had found and that I thought it was extremely interesting but relatively safe.

I set up the device well out of Helen's reach so that she could not make a grab for it. I switched it on and nothing apparently happened as in yesterday's trial. I then turned it over and saw it sink a little into the worktop. I picked it up to show that the worktop was unaffected and put it down again a few centimetres away from where it had sunk into the work top. It was then that Helen decided to add to the experiment. She couldn't reach the device but she could reach a saucer that was in front of her. She made a grab for the saucer and only succeeded in knocking it sideways so that it hit my test unit. This caused a wire to become disconnected, effectively switching it off. The can stayed just where it was but it was now fixed to the worktop. I immediately thought of the possibilities of having an instant permanent fixing mechanism. If it could be incorporated into two items that had to be joined together permanently without the need for heat, screws or glue, it could be extremely useful. I reconnected the wire and found that the can could be lifted free of the work top as if it had not been switched off.

I felt the worktop where it had been and felt a depression. I pulled my hand away quickly. I didn't know how long the effect would last and I didn't want my fingers to be permanently embedded in the work top. I picked up a teaspoon and prodded the area with its handle. The tip of the handle sank into the worktop around 5 millimetres. I removed the teaspoon and tried the worktop in the other places where I had tested the device. There were no other depressions or other signs that my device had been tested in those places. I then laid the teaspoon so that the bowl of it was in the invisible depression. The bowl sank into it around four millimetres. The most curious thing was that the bowl appeared to be filled with the work top materal with its rim just showing above the surface. If the worktop had been white, the spoon would have looked like it was almost immersed in milk. The work top was grey but I could not help thinking of the analogy. On impulse I wonderd what would happen if the device was put back where it had been - on top of the spoon. It behaved exactly as it had before when the spoon wasn't there. It had evidently sunk through the spoon in just the same way as it had sunk into the desk top. I wondered if I could pull the spoon out from under the device and grabbed its handle. It came out from under the device as if it was just lying on the work top. The device didn't move. It was only when I put the spoon back on the work top that I discovered that the spoon had been altered as the work top had been. It sank into the work top as it had in the depression. I picked it up again and tried its bowl end vertically against the work top. It sank into the work top around four millimetres. When I let go of it, it fell back so that most of it was lying on the work top with its bowl immersed in the work top as before. I picked it up again and tried it against the wall. It sank into the wall just as it had with the work top. I opened the cutlery drawer and took out another teaspoon. I tried the bowl of the affected teaspoon against the handle of the other teaspoon. It sank into it showing the part of the unaffected teaspoon's handle across its bowl. This gave me more to think about. Helen was bored and started to wail. Andrea grabbed her and carried her out of the kitchen. John and Deidre looked on, wondering what I would do next. John asked. "Dad, will that place on the work top always be like that now?"
I had no answer. I picked up the unit and switched it off. I said. "I don't know John. Nobody has ever made anything that can go through something else like a ghost that can go through walls before. I will see what happens to the teaspoons if they are left together for a while. Then I will have some idea of how long the effect lasts and what happens when it stops working if it does stop."
I picked up the two teaspoons which were not stuck together and put them on a high shelf in the same arrangement as they had been on the work top. I thought that if the apparent transparency of the affected spoon wore off, and the two spoons became welded together, I had found an almost perfect way of fixing two things together without glue. John then asked. "Shouldn't we put something where the work top is funny so we will know where it is?" I answered. "That is a good idea John. What shall we use?"
"We can use a spare fridge magnet. It is smaller than the can you used and thick enough to show above the work top." I agreed with John that it should be done because I wondered if a magnet would affect the change in the work top's properties where the device had been. The magnet had no apparent effect. It sank into the work top around four millimetres and stopped there. I grabbed a saucer from the cupboard and inverted over the fridge magnet. I said. "I don't want anything else to go into the funny place on the work top while we leave it to see what happens. I want to know if the spoon and the work top change differently or it something else happens to the work top. This could just be a funny thing that I have discovered or something that could be very useful."
Deidre said. "If you could make a thermometer that will go into things without touching them, it would be very useful for cooks who want to know if the middle of something is cooked right through."
I answered. "Dearest, it only goes in a few millimetres with the device I have made. I would need to make something that can go right through things or at least to a depth of 10 centimetres or more. What I have done so far is very strange and ghostly. I need to know what this device does before I try to make something that has a greater effect. I don't want to make something that will drop through a floor and keep going down forever. It could be very dangerous."
John said. If you made one big enough you could make a person so that he could walk through walls."
"That is almost what I am afraid of John. Just think, if a person could walk through walls, he or she would go through floors too and sink into the earth. He or she could not grab hold of anything to stop falling downwards. His or her hands would go through anything as if it wasn't there. I haven't checked if there is any change in weight with the teaspoon that can sink into the worktop but it seemed be the same as another teaspoon that is ordinary. A human who could go through walls would probably weigh just as much as normal so would sink through the ground."
"Couldn't you take someone's weight away with antigravity?"
"I suppose it could be possible but then the person would die of thirst or hunger because he or she could not touch anything."
John was clearly disappointed that I couldn't make him into a ghost - at least temporarily.
I said. I am sorry John but apart from making things act strangely, it is useless for anything practical."
Deidre took the hint and escorted John out of the kitchen so that I could have time to myself for a while.

As I was working outside of conventional physics I doubted that I would be able to find any answers in my comprehensive set of reference books. All that I could establish was that I had somehow stumbled on a way to allow one set of molecules to make use of the spaces between another set of molecules.while maintaining the cohesive integrity of both sets. Had I somehow moved one set into a different dimension while retaining the usual visual appearance of the changed items? The teaspoon that was partially converted was still apparently a complete teaspoon. It seemed to weigh as much as a normal teaspoon when I picked it up although I had not actually checked its weight with a weighing scale. There was another factor which had become apparent when the device was switched off. It was then embedded in the work top and apparently fixed there. After it was removed it left an invisible depression in the work top. Did the fact that it was switched on while embedded change the nature of the worktop? Why had the teaspoon suddenly developed a porous bowl when it had only been exposed to one dose of the device's influence? Did the affected material in the work top have an influence? Every aspect of the strange effect seemed to ask more questions than I could find answers for. The only thing I could do for the time being would be to see if time restored things to normal. I was particularly curious about the spoons. Would they become stuck together or would the bowl of the affected spoon be ejected from the handle of the other spoon? I also wondered if the magnet in the invisible depression would have an effect. I had the fanciful idea of making a form of armour have the property of allowing one solid object to pass through another. Then it would make a person bullet proof - literally. A bullet could then pass through a person without touching anything.
I decided to take the device out of its can to see if anything had changed inside. I didn't want anyone to play with it until I knew a lot more about the way it worked. I make sure that there was no residual power in the capacitors in the device and took it out of its can. It was when I put the device on the work top next to the empty can that I noticed something I had not thought of earlier. The working element was four millimetres below the top of the can. The can had only sunk into the work top when inverted. I imagined the inverted can in the same situation as the teaspoon bowl nearly filled with work top. It was possible that when something solid came in contact with the active element it ceased to have any more effect. This gave me the idea for a further experiment. I used a small pile of plates and bread board to create a platform the same height as the bare unit. I then found some dried peas to use as test subjects. I set the unit up beside the bread board and switched the unit on, making sure that I never put my hands above the unit.
I the put a pea on the breadboard and flicked it so that it would pass over the active element. The pea just dropped into the work top and disappeared. I tried again with the same result. I switched the unit off and disconnected one of the internal connections to make sure that it could not be switched on again without my knowledge. I then looked in the cupboard under the work top to see if there was any sign of a dried pea there. It was gone.to wherever such modified dried peas go. I checked the assorted storage conatainers in the kitchen and found one that I could hide the unit in. It had once contained dried sultanas. I put the unit in the tin and put the lid on. I put the sultana tin back in its place. I resolved not to try any more experiments with the device until I knew what had happened to the teaspoons and the fridge magnet. I put the plates and breadboard back where they had been and left the kitchen to play with the children.

The next day I checked the teaspoons. They were fixed together. The fridge magnet was nowhere to be seen and the worktop seemed to be as smooth and solid as it had been when I first tried out the device.

It was some days later that Deidre found a plate with two dried peas embedded in it. I knew then that what I had created could be misused by the wrong hands. Nothing would be secure when the door of a safe could be made effectively transparent for a few hours. I decided then to dismantle the unit and to hide all the drawings and notes that I had made about it. I kept the teaspoons in my tool box as a souvenir. The fridge magnet was found later by using a pocket compass. It is still buried in the work top.

Wilf James
22/10/2008

E-mail   wilf dot james at ntlworld dot com
This version of my email address is to beat spammer's robots.
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