Gennady Shipov’s Teleparallel Torsion and the 4-D Gyroscope

October 10, 2025

For more than a century, physicists have stretched Newton’s laws with relativity and quantum mechanics. A fourth extension, rooted in the geometry of “torsion” and championed by Russian theorist Gennady Shipov, goes further, arguing that inertia itself can be engineered. Can a new mechanics yield propulsion without propellant—or is this simply a mirage at the edge of physics?

Shipov’s Physics: Going Beyond Mainstream

Dr. Gennady Shipov trained in theoretical physics at Moscow State University and earned a Ph.D. in 1972 from the People’s Friendship University of Russia. His career spans research posts in Moscow institutes and industry, including leadership roles at the Science Center of Physics of Vacuum and the firm UVITOR. Across papers and monographs, Shipov advances an ambitious program he calls the “Theory of Physical Vacuum,” aimed at extending and unifying familiar physics.

By the late 1980s, he had outlined “Universal Relativity,” a geometrization strategy that attempts to treat gravitation, quantum fields, and gauge interactions within a single vacuum-structure framework. His work sits outside mainstream physics because he reassigns physical meaning to geometry. Where standard gravitation treats torsion as a mathematical option with little empirical role, Shipov elevates it to a first-class field linked to inertia, vacuum structure, and even propulsion. That premise—plus claims such as time-varying effective mass and “jet motion without mass ejection”—diverges from the conservation-law playbook that anchors general relativity and conventional mechanics.

Institutionally, he also works off the usual path. Instead of a trail of peer-reviewed replications, much of his output lives in monographs, slides, interviews, and lab demonstrations—Tolchin-style inertioids, a “4-D gyroscope,” and vortex engines—interpreted through his Theory of Physical Vacuum. For decades, he has worked to expand the limits of human knowledge in physics, with his best-known work a paradigm changing redefinition of “torsion”.

Torsion, inertia and propulsion

In standard differential geometry, spacetime curvature encodes gravity (as in general relativity). Torsion is a separate geometric ingredient associated with how local frames twist. Shipov works within absolute parallelism (teleparallel) geometry, emphasizing a form he calls Ricci torsion, which he associates with inertial properties rather than gravitation itself.

That distinction underpins the central physical claim: if torsion fields generate inertial forces—and if internal rotations in a machine can program torsion—then a device might exchange rotational and translational inertia to produce net motion without expelling propellant. In his nonrelativistic limit, the dynamics even admit a “jet-like motion without rejecting mass,” written compactly as: m(t)·dv/dt = –v·dm/dt.

Torsion field effects vs. Shipov’s inertial effects

When people say “torsion field,” they often mean a new field that couples electromagnetism and gravity—a speculative, propagating interaction sometimes claimed to be long-range or even superluminal. In that narrative, torsion is a kind of field-effect coupling between EM and gravity: energize coils, magnets, or plasmas in special ways and you supposedly stir a torsion field that then pushes on matter. This is not what Shipov is showing.

In Shipov’s work and videos, “torsion” is mechanical/inertial and strictly geometric: it refers to the torsion of the spacetime connection in a teleparallel framework, which he uses to model inertial forces generated by programmed internal rotation. The hardware—a rotor plus a timed brake—is entirely mechanical; no exotic EM–gravity coupling is invoked. The claim is that by sequencing internal spins, the device manipulates the inertial term (encoded by torsion in his equations), producing a net translation of the cart. In short:

Field-effect “torsion”: a hypothesized EM–gravity coupling or new long-range field excited by electromagnetic apparatus.
Shipov’s “torsion”: a mechanics of orientation where internal rotational states alter inertial response via a torsionful geometric description; demonstrated with purely mechanical rotors and control timing.

So, if you hear “torsion field” as EM–gravity cross-talk, set that aside here. Shipov’s demonstrations aim to be an inertia-engineering effect emerging from internal kinematics, not an electromagnetic shortcut to gravity.

Descartesian mechanics in brief

Shipov calls the broader framework Descartesian mechanics—a “fourth generalization” of Newton. The primitive object is an oriented point, meaning a particle with both position and internal orientation. Its motion lives on a 10-dimensional space (four translational + six rotational degrees of freedom). From a torsionful connection on this space, he derives equations of motion that recover familiar limits while introducing new inertial couplings. In a tidy geometric split, gravitational effects arise from the Christoffel symbols (curvature) and inertial effects from torsion; in free fall the two cancel, echoing the elevator thought experiment.

“In the Descartesian mechanics model, any movement is considered rotation — even linear motion, because it occurs in curved space.” – Gennady Shipov

The Descartesian equations can be obtained from a variational principle and, in suitable limits, reduce to Newton’s second law with two geometric contributions: one from curvature (gravity) and one from torsion (inertia). In a Schwarzschild-like setting, these terms are equal and opposite in free fall, offering a geometric route to weightlessness. The leap from mathematics to machinery is the claim that torsion can be programmed via internal rotation—thereby engineering inertia and, potentially, motion.

Moving from theory to lab experiments

To make the abstractions testable, Shipov designed an inertial propulsion device he describes as a “four-dimensional gyroscope”: a central mass that oscillates along an axis while two smaller masses counter-rotate on a radius. The center-of-mass velocity v(c) couples to the internal spin ω via a time-dependent function Φ(t) constructed from the torsionful geometry. When Φ→0, the device reverts to Newtonian behavior; when Φ≠0, torsion-driven inertial forces appear in the equations, allowing controlled exchange between rotation and translation.

In demonstration footage, the apparatus is a low, wheeled cart carrying a rotor and a motor-brake that momentarily retards the spin. The cart advances in a distinctive “gait”: a short retreat followed by a longer surge forward, cycle after cycle. The control program intentionally times the braking pulses so that internal angular momentum changes coincide with phases where the geometry predicts a positive Φ(t), producing a forward inertial shove.

To address the perennial “it’s just friction” objection, comparison runs are shown with and without braking. With the brake disabled, the cart exhibits only the baseline drift you’d expect from imperfections; with the brake engaged, the video shows repeatable surges whose timing matches the commanded pulses. In more instrumented demonstrations, the rotor is servo-driven so the wheels only move forward, ensuring static and rolling friction always oppose motion rather than help it. Reported average drifts are on the order of several centimeters per second, with per-cycle excursions sometimes described as roughly −2 cm back and +12 cm forward. The intended takeaway is causal alignment: each braking pulse perturbs ω, spikes Φ(t), and coincides with a forward jump in the cart.

What experimental data reportedly shows

Descriptions of bench trials emphasize the motor-brake as the conversion element: brief braking pulses convert internal rotation into forward impulse. Runs with and without braking are contrasted to isolate frictional baselines. In representative tests, observers report net forward drift with a repeating “back-then-forward” signature that tracks the control program.

From these demonstrations, proponents argue that programmed internal rotation can steer the center of mass—with Φ(t) as the control knob. Critics counter that table-top rigs often harbor subtle sources of bias (rolling friction phasing, compliance, electromagnetic cross-talk), so the only dispositive way forward is to remove the table.

Tolchin’s Inertioids & the 4-D Gyroscope

Russian experimenter Vladimir Tolchin is often cited as the clearest mechanical cousin to Shipov’s ideas – and His rigs use off-center, phase-shifted rotors to create an internal cycle that is deliberately non-reciprocal: within each period, angular momentum is stored, redirected, and partially quenched so that the forward portion of the cycle isn’t perfectly paid back by the return. To blunt the “it’s just friction” critique, Tolchin and collaborators have run demonstrations on very low-friction tracks and even on water, where hydrodynamic drag is modest and stick-slip is strongly reduced. In the torsion/teleparallel reading, such devices are not Dean-drive fakes that push against bearings; they are attempts to program inertia by sequencing internal rotations so that the center of mass drifts in the direction set by the control law.

“I know without a doubt that the Tolchin device’s propulsive force isn’t simply dependent on constrained rotary motion. I’m fully confident that it will move in space more effectively than it already does in air, on water, or on the Earth’s surface.” – Gennady Shipov

Shipov’s certainty about the Tolchin device is based on more than just his theory: in 1981, a group of eight scientists it the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University commissioned the aerospace design firm Tupolev to manufacture two samples of Tolchin’s inertioids based on the drawings in his book. The devices weighed 800 grams each, and successfully demonstrated a net propulsive force during testing on an air cushion platform designed to minimize friction forces.

In later tests in 2000, Shipov built & demonstrated a computer-controlled gyroscopic inertia drive, sometimes described as a “4-dimensional gyroscope” propulsion system. This device employed rotating masses/gyroscopes whose spin axes were dynamically reoriented in a programmed sequence (utilizing the extra degrees of freedom from 4D/torsional mechanics). His team used a thin film instead of an air cushion for friction isolation, and the device periodically advancing in increments 8 centimeters with a 2cm – a net motion of 6cm per rotational cycle.

Going beyond Tolchin: The Poliakov and Menshikov drives

Behind Tolchin’s approach is a deeper lineage that includes Spartak Poliakov’s “vortex drive.” Poliakov argued that carefully choreographed internal rotations could couple to the inertial structure of the vacuum—a notion he expressed in fluid-like metaphors of vortices and circulation. In practice, his schemes used counter-rotating masses with timed phase offsets, not fluids, and they strongly influenced later designs. Read through Shipov’s lens, Poliakov’s “vortex” language maps onto non-reciprocal loops in orientation space: the machine traces a closed path in its internal angles each cycle, and the area of that loop—together with stored angular momentum—sets the predicted drift. That framing yields tangible signatures: reversing the timing flips the drift; symmetric cycles sum to zero; and net impulse should grow with rotor momentum and the loop’s geometric area.

At the institutional level, Valery Menshikov at Russia’s Scientific Research Institute for Space Systems (SRISS) explored “inertialess” drives for satellite station-keeping, reportedly evaluating tolchin-style and related mechanisms. Public descriptions mention bench thrusts in the tens of grams and plans for flight-like tests—figures dramatic enough to demand meticulous metrology. The right playbook is clear: run in vacuum on air bearings or magnetic suspensions; isolate power and control to avoid cable forces; instrument with torsion pendula and phase-locked telemetry of rotor speed, brake timing, and chassis motion; and repeat under parabolic flight or drop-tower conditions that remove surface coupling entirely. If thrust scales with the programmed cycle and survives unconstrained regimes, the case strengthens; if it fades as artifacts are eliminated, the field learns exactly where the illusion crept in.

Measuring torsion with Mössbauer and NMR probes

Because magnetism arises from aligned electron spins—and spin is tied to microscopic rotation—Shipov argues that magnetic materials should co-emit a torsion field alongside their magnetic field. This view motivates experiments with spin-rich media and permanent magnets as potential torsion sources. Two spectroscopic probes are often proposed to look for torsion-field effects beyond mechanics:

Mössbauer spectroscopy of Fe-57, comparing line shapes before and after operating a nearby “torsion generator” for extended periods at small separations. If robust, line-shape changes could indicate spin-lattice effects not easily faked by vibration or thermal drift.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), where relaxation times or spectral features in well-characterized samples could reveal a coupling to a torsion disturbance. As with any subtle signal, the key is pre-registered protocols, blinding, environmental logging, and open raw data.

A Russian lineage—and a cultural headwind

Shipov casts his work as a continuation of Einstein’s forays into teleparallelism, fused with a specifically Russian torsion tradition that grew in the 1980s and faced skepticism in the 1990s. He argues that acceptance may come less from academic debate than from practical adoption under social and economic pressures—a stance that explains the engineering tilt of much of the literature.

In interviews, he sketches a broad roadmap of “torsion technologies,” from transport and power to metrology, communications, medicine, and agriculture—claims that underscore the need for hard-nosed validation, and have caused friction with the Russian scientific establishment. To avoid what he has described as scientific “inquisitors”, Shipov conducted his later research in Thailand. This led to his “torsion motor” being patented in Thailand, but the prototype was built by an international team of engineers and physicists.

The Bottom Line

Shipov’s project is bold: start with a geometry that separates curvature (gravitation) from torsion (inertia), show that inertial fields can be written geometrically and—crucially—controlled via internal rotation, then build machines that do just that. On paper, the framework is internally coherent and reproduces familiar limits; on the bench, the claims range from intriguing to extraordinary.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. If careful replications in friction-free, unconstrained regimes show net impulse that tracks Φ(t) as predicted, an era of inertia engineering might be upon us. If the effects fade under stricter controls, we will have learned something valuable about how easily clever mechanisms and subtle couplings can fool us. Either way, the test is worth doing—and the physics will be clearer for it.

References with Hyperlinks

Official

Primary interviews & lab descriptions

Engineering analysis (inertial / “inertioid” drives)

Shipov’s own materials (books, talks)

Context & critique