Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihlpg.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Do Positrons Have Negative Mass?
Message-ID: <1115@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 18:20:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1115
Posted: Wed Aug 21 18:20:32 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:02:33 EDT
References: <437@ttidcb.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 21

> There's a discussion on net.scifi-lovers relating to negative mass -
> the hope is to produce an FTL drive somehow. This triggered off a
> memory and I'm hoping someone can contribute.
> 
> In about 1966 I attended a seminar by Prof. Fairbanks who researched
> at Stanford U (I think). He was trying to slow down positrons for long
> enough to tell if they fell upwards or downwards.
> 
> Does anyone know how this turned out? If this experiment did not get
> completed, has there been any other work?
--------------------
The existence of negative mass (i. e. mass that falls up) would blow
general relativity out of the water as it violates the equivalence
principle.  Also, the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass
has been shown experimentally to great accuracy (I can't remember the
experimental error).  I don't know whether anyone has directly
experimentally determined that positrons fall down, but if they don't
it would be a great shock to all physicists, expecially to the
one doing the experiment.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan