Page:Fantastic v08n11 1959-11.djvu/77

end-up the battery almost doubled in weight as soon as he connected the coil. Of course he was just judging the weight by feel, but he was sure he couldn't be fooling himself to that degree. Moreover, the coils strained toward the floor in that position, tending to creep along the cylinder and bunch together. (In later tests he made a point of anchoring them individually with adhesive tape.)

Held terminals - end - down the battery weighed almost nothing at all. It seemed as light as if it were a painted balsa-wood model of itself. The transition from twice-weight to no-weight, as felt by his hand, was as mysteriously alarming and delightful as a mild electric shock.

Clearly the gravitic field was dipolar as he'd surmised. The terminal-end was the negative or repulsive pole, seeking to push away from the earth—or push the earth away! The other end was the positive or attractive one. (A bit later he discovered what he told himself he should have guessed at once: that if he wound the coil the opposite way, say clockwise instead of counter-clockwise, it reversed the poles—they really had nothing to do with the location of the terminals on the battery.)

For light objects nearby, the battery's tiny gravitic field was more powerful than that of the earth—a circumstance that shouldn't surprise him, Ronald reminded himself, as earth's center of gravity was 4,000 miles away while the battery's was right in his hand. The attractive pole would snatch a cork off the floor from the height of two feet—he could actually see the cork falling upward faster and faster—while the repulsive pole would bat away the same cork dropped on it from above. And the attractive pole always became covered with dust when used, while the other pole stayed clean.

Brought close to his forearm, the repulsive pole made a shallow, saucer-shaped dimple in the flesh, while the attractive one tugged at the tissue in a way that somehow felt deeper than suction.

It was vastly exciting to say the very least, and Ronald could hardly wait to step up the power of the field by increasing the number of turns in the coil—this being one of the times when his delight and wonder got the better of him.