Test Results

1. Column of Air: Test B74, June 2001 - January 2002

2. Column of Water: Test B372, May - October 2006 download or open

3. New Column of Water: Test372, January - March 2007, with new method to determine TGa: Figure 4 download or open

1. Column of Air

In 1998 I started with my first experiments: Would it be possible to show a temperature difference in a column of gas, warm on the bottom, cold at the top instead of the acepted opinion of identical temperatures?

When planning my initial experiments, I did not know what to expect. If there was a temperature difference, it would be a very small one, as otherwise somebody would have measured it long ago. But was it .01 K/meter of height, or .001 or only .0001K/m?

I settled very quickly on the use of thermocoupples to measure the temperature difference. Thermocoupples are comparatively inexpensive and one could use them arranged in sequence in the form of a thermopile to get a multiple signal. And the main advantage: they don't introduce any energy into the experiment. So they cannot create temperature differences where none would be without their use. Just the opposite is true: the heat conducted through the thermocouple wires could only reduce the temperature differences I tried to find.

For measuring the voltage produced by the thermocouple I selected a multimeter with a resolution of .1 Microvolt, which, dependent on the type of thermocouple selected, would have a resolution of about .003 K.

The most difficult task has been, and still is, to insulate the actual experiment from the temperature influences in the space around it. Depending on the type of heating or cooling method used, the surrounding typically has a temperature gradient during the heating or the cooling seasons of about 1K/meter of height, warm at the top and cold at the bottom. In addition, the temperatures fluctuate from day to night, from winter to summer. How can one expect to measure meaningful temperature differences of a few thousands degrees if the outside temperatures show fluctuations more than 100 times as great?

In my BOOK I describe different ways to alleviate this problem as far as possible. A very nice solution is a double walled drum shown in the following picture:

The inner drum is stationary and allows experiments with a height of .5 meters. The outside drum rotates around the inner one. This results in temperature differences in the inner drum, warm at the top and cold at the bottom, of only about .003 K. The best feature of this apparatus is the fact that the inner drum can be turned by 180 degrees along with the experiment mounted in it, so the experimental body is turned on its head. This can be done without any interference with the insulation around the experiment or interruption of the ongoing test including the temperature measurements. You can find a detailed description in my BOOK. For ordering information turn to the ORDER FORM.

Test B74.

In my BOOK I describe a number of experiments, successful and unsuccessful ones. For this website I selected just one, B74. It demonstrates a very consistent result, cold at the top and warm at the bottom, taking place over a 6-month time span.

Description of the test set up:

This picture shows the setup of the experiment. A Dewar insert of a commercial Thermos bottle (1) is mounted within a wide mouth Dewar insert of 1 liter size (2) which is covered by a similar Dewar insert of 1/2 liter (3). The space (4) between the innermost Dewar and the two outside Dewar inserts is filled with fine PET fibers.

The innermost Dewar (1) of 1/2 liter is filled with a fine powder in order to eliminate convection currents and radiation between the inner wall surfaces. A thermocouple (5) is arranged vertically in the middle axle with a distance between junctions of 170 mm. A second thermocouple (6) is mounted on the outside of the Dewar insert (1) with a vertical distance of 180 mm. A third thermocouple (7) is mounted on the outside of Dewar insert 2 with a vertical distance of 230 mm.

The Dewar inserts are held in place by fine PET fibers within a box (8) fabricated out of 40 mm thick polystyrene foam panels. This box is surrounded by 50 mm thick panels (9) consisting of copper wires pressed together into rectangular blocks. The whole setup is insulated against the room air by 100 mm thick polystyrene foam panels (10).

The diameter of the thermocouple wire is kept as small as possible in order to reduce any heat conduction through these wires. The measuring instrument measures the voltage of the thermocouple with a resolution of .001K.

Test results of B74:

The temperature differences shown by the three thermocouple were recorded every 4 minutes over a period of half a year. The following picture shows a printout where each point represents the average of all measurements over a 4 hour time span.

Any point above the zero line means that the upper junction of the thermocouple is warmer than the lower junction.

It can easily be seen that the temperature difference on the outside of Dewar insert 2 is quite constant and always warmer at the upper junction than at the lower one by about .045K. This is the result of the temperature gradient in the surrounding room air, which is warmer at the top and colder at the bottom, typically by 1K/meter of height. The insulation around the Dewar inserts and especially the thick copper plates are the reasons for reducing this gradient for the Dewar inserts.

An opposite effect can be seen at the inner axle as most of the time the temperature of the upper junction is lower than the lower one.

This result is more clearly demonstrated in the following picture showing average values from the beginning of the test until the date in question:

The results from this graph can be compared with the theoretical value calculated under TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES, when they are normalized for a height of 1 meter as in the following table:

Average Temperature differences over 6 month:

		distance
		between junctions:		for 1 meter:
Dewar 2:	04 K	.23 m		.17 K
Dewar 1:	-.001 K	.18 m		-.0055 K
Middle axle:	-.012 K	.17 m		-.0705 K

That the middle axle shows, on the average, a temperature gradient cold at the top and warm at the bottom cannot be explained by applying the normal formulas for the conduction of heat. Under these laws, heat can travel only from an area with a higher temperature to an area with a lower temperature. The value of the inner axle of -.0705 is surprisingly close to the theoretical value of -.07 as calculated under TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES. One would expect a measured value somewhat lower, which means closer to "0", than the theoretical value, as heat conduction in the walls of the Dewar inserts would tend to lower the measured values.

This is a very surprising result. The fact that the upper junction of the thermocouple inner axle is colder at the top than at the bottom can be explained through the effect of gravity on the molecules in the innermost space of Dewar insert 1, as discussed under THE DANCING MOLECULES. The air molecules in this innermost space are transporting heat from the top to the bottom and thus creating the temperature difference, cold at the top and warm at the bottom. Energy is being transported not from warm to cold but in the opposite direction, from cold to warm! And this difference is being created in spite of the fact that the surrounding Dewar glasses show a temperature distribution opposite to this, namely warm at the top and cold at the bottom.

In the BOOK you can find a more detailed description of this experiment B74 along with the results of other experiments set up in a number of different ways.