I am metallurgist who, having been made redundant 9 years ago, now works as a school I.T. Technician. Ever since my own school days I have harboured a crackpot idea and a recent television program on gravity made me think about it again.

It has been observed that when a star is occulted by the sun or a planet then the light from that star is bent. This indicates a relationship between light and mass and so gravity.

My thought is that if a coil was constructed from optical fibres and light is shone through the coil then a field may be produced through then centre of that coil that could be gravity - positive or negative. The coil would be large with multiple starts and perhaps millions of turns with large lasers as the source.

Now, yes the light would not actually be bent but would reflect internally, but if different colours and phases from big lasers were shone through different turns then the overall effect may be that of a bent beam.

Light is sometimes considered particular rather than waveform so could the analogy to an electromagnet only producing gravity force instead of magnetism work?

No doubt those with knowledge can dismiss the idea out of hand but someone might think a test would be worthwhile, to be able to reduce or produce gravity would have great benefits.

On todays roads especially motorways with many hazards and roadworks it is essential that advance warning is given to drivers of these hazards. Lane closure and diversion signs can easily be missed especially in foggy conditions. A new company called "Vocal Surfaces" has been set up after many years research by a well known university to provide a solution to this problem.

We have all noticed how, when we drive along, the noise generated by our car tyres on the road can change as we drive over different kinds of road surface. This is due to our tyres being made to vibrate at different frequencies and transmitting different sound tones into our car. Even in the best cars, tyre noise can often be heard. Researchers thought that like the surface of a gramophone record the surface of the road could be formed specially to make any desired sounds. If narrow strips of tarmac were laid down at right angles to the direction of travel to look like a giant bar code, then as the car drove over them the tyres would make the required noise.

After initial experiments it was found that sounds like horns and alarms were easily reproduced but eventually it was found possible to make actual speech. A large road tarmac surfacing machine was specially adapted so that the tarmac was laid in thin strips under computer control. The computer was programmed such that words entered via a keyboard were analysed and converted to the bar code type configuration which the machine laid onto the road.

Trails on the M6 have shown that although the speech is not perfect, a limited vocabulary can be laid which is easily understandable. As the speed of the car increases the pitch of the sound rises so it may be possible to lay messages such as "SLOW DOWN" which are only audible above the speed limit.

Vocal Surfaces are hoping to win a Ministry of Transport contract to provide this service in Britain and following enquiries form overseas other languages will be possible.

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