The Russian scientist's name is Eugene Podkletnov. At the time of this experiment, he was a graduate student at the Tapere University in Finland. The experiment he was running was actually for a study on superconducting materials that lose all resistance to electicity when chilled with liquid nitrogen, which isn't so spectacular. (Next time you do an experiment in lab that seems kind of boring, look for any strange behaviour and have fun with it! Who knows, you might end up with a Noble Prize!) Podkletnov was hoping to learn more about the behavior of these superconductors when he placed ceramic disks in a cold chamber, passed a magnetic field through them, and then spun them rapidly. He found (after noticing the smoke) that the objects placed above the disks seemed to lose as much as two percent of their weight! This may not seem like a lot, however ANY decrease in weight is a major thing, since no one knows how to block gravity at all, even by 0.000001%.

So why isn't every physicist on Earth jumping on this? Well, there are so many possible sources for error in the experiment, many think there was simply a 2% or so margin of error in the experiments that would allow for such readings. Podkletnov, however, insisted that they repeated the experiment numerous times and had taken error into account and still got the same result. Podkletnov also mentioned that they measured a 4 mm reduction in air pressure above the disk, since the air itself had lost weight. Then he took the manometer upstairs to the lab above his and found again a reduction in air pressure. It was as if the spinning disk had partially blocked gravity in a column that extended upwards from it. Podkletnov said, "We measured the weight in every way. We used metal shielding, we used nonmagnetic targets, we enclosed the target in a vacuum - we were very thorough."

Here's an exact discription of Podkletnov's experiment. That site also has many other great links to information that is all relative to this topic. Feel free to check that out too.

A discription of the actual experiments that are currently being done is included in the Current Research section.

Here's a kinda cool video of a magnetically levitating ceramic superconductor. Note what happens when it starts to warm up: