Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/24/2013 12:45 pmQuote from: djolds1 on 06/24/2013 01:41 amQuote from: JohnFornaro on 06/23/2013 04:33 amQuote from: djolds1 on 06/23/2013 12:13 amI have a reflexive-disgust reaction to retrocausality as well. But if it works, so be it.What does the word "if" mean in your comment?Retrocausality.Sorry to go all grammatical on you. That's what the word "it" means...De nada. I can go Grammar-Nazi myself at times.[/quote[Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/24/2013 12:45 pmNo question, if there is such a thing as retrocausality, the dictators of yesterday and today will rejoice at the new possibilities.Quote from: DJThe political dictators don't worry me so much. ... But the philosophers who over decades and centuries shape the intellectual climates in which societies, sensibilities and novel political implications develop? The effective death of free will will allow THEM to go hog wild, and the creeds they create to be eventually exploited by the political dictators will be a severe problem.Which is what I'm getting at in fewer words. The dictators pick up on the philosophies when they are seen to be pragmatically useful. In some ways, we are in the early stages of a philosophy of compulsion, with the insistance on correct speech from either side of the aisle.The good news is that the universe is autonomous from the dictator. A famous example being Stalin's insistance on the adoption of Lysenko's theories. Today's dictators are better at listening to the scientific oligarchy. But we digress.Quote from: djolds1 on 06/24/2013 01:41 amWoodward insists on calling the thrust mechanism "recycled propellant propulsion," as distinct from the more typical "reactionless propulsion." In practical terms there is no effective difference, but Woodward insists the former is the more technically correct.Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/23/2013 04:36 amHe's pumping electricity into it, and expects the damn thing to float across the conference table. Technical that.Quote from: DJThe current level of output, if accurately reported, certainly isn't going to be floating across conference tables. OTOH, technical qualifications of that nature are precisely the type of answer you want to see out of the physics end of the equation that (hopefully) results in practical applications.Don't care about the output level; the first I/C engine was a good bit less powerful than the I/C engines of today.I'm talking about the conversion of electricity to forward momentum, which this device purports to do, plain and simple.I had not heard the "recycled propellant propulsion" meme yet, but it is not true. He puts electrical energy in, and expects the device to move forward. If he can do that, he can conserve energy by converting it into an equivalent forward momentum, less resistive and other losses.Also, there are other claims of "free energy" which I mention in passing.Quote from: DJA great cartoon from a few years ago ...A case where a few words can substitute for a picture.
Quote from: djolds1 on 06/24/2013 01:41 amQuote from: JohnFornaro on 06/23/2013 04:33 amQuote from: djolds1 on 06/23/2013 12:13 amI have a reflexive-disgust reaction to retrocausality as well. But if it works, so be it.What does the word "if" mean in your comment?Retrocausality.Sorry to go all grammatical on you. That's what the word "it" means...
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/23/2013 04:33 amQuote from: djolds1 on 06/23/2013 12:13 amI have a reflexive-disgust reaction to retrocausality as well. But if it works, so be it.What does the word "if" mean in your comment?Retrocausality.
Quote from: djolds1 on 06/23/2013 12:13 amI have a reflexive-disgust reaction to retrocausality as well. But if it works, so be it.What does the word "if" mean in your comment?
I have a reflexive-disgust reaction to retrocausality as well. But if it works, so be it.
No question, if there is such a thing as retrocausality, the dictators of yesterday and today will rejoice at the new possibilities.
The political dictators don't worry me so much. ... But the philosophers who over decades and centuries shape the intellectual climates in which societies, sensibilities and novel political implications develop? The effective death of free will will allow THEM to go hog wild, and the creeds they create to be eventually exploited by the political dictators will be a severe problem.
Woodward insists on calling the thrust mechanism "recycled propellant propulsion," as distinct from the more typical "reactionless propulsion." In practical terms there is no effective difference, but Woodward insists the former is the more technically correct.
He's pumping electricity into it, and expects the damn thing to float across the conference table. Technical that.
The current level of output, if accurately reported, certainly isn't going to be floating across conference tables. OTOH, technical qualifications of that nature are precisely the type of answer you want to see out of the physics end of the equation that (hopefully) results in practical applications.
A great cartoon from a few years ago ...
Stand at the other end of the universe, at that distant moment in space and in the future, for a sec. From that viewpoint, at some random point in time, a wave would be generated, moving backwards in time at -c, in order to conserve the momentum that I tweaked in firing up my ME thruster.
Woodward seems to be grasping at straws
he can conserve energy by converting it into an equivalent forward momentum, less resistive and other losses.
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/25/2013 01:25 amStand at the other end of the universe, at that distant moment in space and in the future, for a sec. From that viewpoint, at some random point in time, a wave would be generated, moving backwards in time at -c, in order to conserve the momentum that I tweaked in firing up my ME thruster.Not a random point in time. The exact point in time that the retarded wave from the thruster's action reaches the matter "at the other end of the universe" that generates the advanced wave in response. Nothing has to know anything beforehand.QuoteWoodward seems to be grasping at strawsThis isn't even his idea, as I've said before - it's been used already in quantum mechanics, to explain "spooky action at a distance" that manifestly occurs in experiments.
From the POV of the inhabitants of that distant time and place. Without cause, seemingly at random, a retarded wave from the past would be there, and instantaneously an advanced wave would go back at -c.
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/25/2013 02:14 amFrom the POV of the inhabitants of that distant time and place. Without cause, seemingly at random, a retarded wave from the past would be there, and instantaneously an advanced wave would go back at -c.From the point of view of a mirror, without cause, seemingly at random, a retarded electromagnetic wave from the past would be there, and instantaneously another retarded wave would go back at c.Okay, it's not a perfect analogy, but it seems that what you're really objecting to is the concept of an advanced wave.And if the concept is valid in quantum electrodynamics, why shouldn't a little-studied branch of gravity physics exhibit similar behaviour?
how about multiverses to solve these questions? You can go back in time and kill your own father. So what? Its just one of an infinite number of branches of time. In an infinite number of them, you never came back in time. In others, you were not even born, simply because a different spermatozoa fecunded your mothers egg, so another person was born and that person became a dentists instead of someone travelling faster than light in a warp drive.
... I will give you a hint. The electrodynamic Hall thruster that is the M-E thruster's nearest conventional electric rocket analog has a maximum specific force of ~0.05 N/KWe with a specific impulse (Isp) of ~2,500 seconds dependent on anode voltage. The M-E device I built back in 2003 not only had a specific force almost an order of magnitude larger than the best Hall thrusters, see below URL, its equivalent Isp based on energy flow into the device where mass = E/c^2 , yields an equivalent Isp of over 1x10^12 seconds. Yes, a functional M-E based thruster matters and it could matter in a big way if we can perfect it.http://www.busek.com/technologies__hall.htm
One question? In more relatable layman's terms. When you say an ME thruster would have an order of magnitude greater than a Hall thruster you really mean that you would have the equivalent of a high efficiency MHD thruster that never needs fuel and needs very little maintenance, correct. You should be able to save mass in both fuel and in the size of any onboard power generator and theoretically you can accelerate for as long as you have a power source available(nuclear, solar) or a very long time.
Question two? Would the time curve effect or mach effect provide a cumulative or multiplying kinetic effect. In other words would you draw more energy from the effect the longer you accelerate,(Like drawing energy from a steady wind or water current) after all the potential kinetic energy well could be nearly as infinite as the expansionary forces of the Universe.
On causality:The blanket rejection of retarded/advanced waves on the point of causality is a bit of a red herring, especially on the basis of a conception that isn't essential to the actual theory.
The advanced waves that would be required in order to cancel out the original retarded wave, for it to appear 'instantly', have to match the retarded wave --is produced via interaction with all the mass in the universe, not via local interactions with handy mass in the future. Additionally, to be self-consistent, any such attempt would also produce a reaction propagating into its own future and the consequent advanced wave that would cancel out the attempt to send a wave unbidden into the past.
On the other hand, if the conception is taken properly--as a conceptual device that helps our three dimensional brains in a one-way arrow of time comprehend how such effect could be consistent with the limitation on propagation of everything at the speed of light--it gets a lot less silly. The math works either way and doesn't require causality.
*update to clarify. What I'm trying to get at here is that the speed-of-light and arrow-of-time objections are red herrings because both objections are based on an implicit rejection of Mach's Principle, which is dishonest in an argument that starts from the assumption that Mach's Principle is valid.
How the gravitation like interaction occurs and propagates is in fact an aside to the actual question of whether or not it occurs at all.To return to the thread title, clearly the Woodward Effect, not the Mach Effect is the proper name, and yes, it is all about space flight.
Quote from: cuddihyThe advanced waves that would be required in order to cancel out the original retarded wave, for it to appear 'instantly', have to match the retarded wave -- is produced via interaction with all the mass in the universe, not via local interactions with handy mass in the future. Additionally, to be self-consistent, any such attempt would also produce a reaction propagating into its own future and the consequent advanced wave that would cancel out the attempt to send a wave unbidden into the past.You may think that this makes sense, but I do not. I'm driving my starship. It is made out of "handy mass" in the local present. As I travel left and right in my erratic trip thru the galaxy, these advance waves have to be there to meet me in, well, advance, somehow predicting my whimsical left and right turns.It makes no sense.. . .<snip> . . .Unless there is instantaneous action at a distance, with all the mass in the universe, no matter which direction your fancy takes you, no starships here, move along.
The advanced waves that would be required in order to cancel out the original retarded wave, for it to appear 'instantly', have to match the retarded wave -- is produced via interaction with all the mass in the universe, not via local interactions with handy mass in the future. Additionally, to be self-consistent, any such attempt would also produce a reaction propagating into its own future and the consequent advanced wave that would cancel out the attempt to send a wave unbidden into the past.
Just because you can't personally travel into the future and then reflect back into the past doesn't mean a gravitational interaction can't, or more to the point that it perhaps must in order for inertia to be gravitationally derived.