Author Topic: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application  (Read 1042128 times)

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #440 on: 06/30/2009 10:44 pm »
In the case of the steel ball, which I did not pluck from the air; this has already been the topic of discussion: the ball ought to experience M-E.  All objects under similar conditions ought to experience M-E, billiard balls, etc.  Why has this effect then not been noted?

In short, because in order for it to be noteworthy, it would need to be rectified.  Regardless of the magnitude of the effect, for it to be noteworthy one wants to rectify it.  Remember, for each event that causes a mass fluctuation, there will be essentially four fluctuations: first heavy (positive fluctuation), then light (negative fluctuation), then heavy again, then light again--all the result of a single event that causes the effect.

Now in the case of the steel ball, to note the effect at all you have to have a very fast load cell or some other experimental measurement apparatus.  The ball will change mass in a time varying, cyclic fashion but if you're not measuring the mass of the ball to start with, and not measuring fast enough to see the fluctuation, then it will go unnoticed.

Load cells exist as well as all the other salient apparatus to do the experiment with a steel ball and look for M-E.  This experiment has not been done yet for two reasons.  First, Jim is the only person working on this stuff near full time because he's old enough to be retired.  The rest of us have day jobs even when like you, those include writing a dissertation.  :-)  Second, we've already done a proof of concept test of M-E, looking for the effect alone rather than rectifying it into useful force as with the MLT and UFG thrusters.  The results of those test were posted here in this thread back around March or April (about the time you were off caving.)  Given the utter lack of interest in such black and white test results, I think we now have to presume we need more than proof of M-E.  We need thrust.  But anyone wanting to pursue the steel ball experiment is certainly invited to do so and there are many in Jim's technical working group who would help one approach this experiment.  Again like the rotator, this is a relatively cheap experiment because you don't need vacuum and a thrust balance.  Vacuum would improve the noise floor but I think people have already determined it is not necessary for the experiment.  Chiefly what one needs is a load cell that can take the precise measurement of dm during the fluctuation event.

There may be other natural instances one could look at.  Certainly, there are plenty of examples of aberrations in GR but I have never heard of any of these being linked to M-E theory.  It's possible these aberrations are best described by M-E theory but that will have to wait on the physicists I'm afraid.  They would not be willing to even contemplate GR needs adjustments until they are overwhelmed with aberrations and that's a long time coming yet.

The effect would never happen in a particle accelerator because you need the "squishy bonds" present in larger bits of matter to store the effect.  Single particles do not experience M-E.

And yes, I understand how this still seems to you a violation of conservation.  Until you invest the time to understand how mass can fluctuate at all, this will probably continue to plague you, so I do suggest you take a look at the literature when you can.  Just remember, ALL physicists have this same concern you're sharing as do I, that nothing should violate conservation.  That's why unless you can do the field theory yourself, it's very important to have peer review on any subject like this.  If Jim's theory violated conservation, it would certainly never have passed peer review more than a decade ago.
« Last Edit: 06/30/2009 11:02 pm by GI-Thruster »

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #441 on: 06/30/2009 11:46 pm »
"This doesn't make any sense.  Why would "tension in every direction" care about acceleration but be fine with velocity?  If you actually think about something tied to a bunch of rubber bands from every direction, if that something is in motion, the rubber bands have to change length, causing the tensions to change.  I don't see how it makes any sense to say that uniform motion makes sense with that metaphor.  Likewise an instantaneous acceleration does not change the band lengths (it changes the rate of change of band lengths), so the bands shouldn't even know it happens until delta t has ellapsed to allow position change."

It's just an analogy and all analogies break down at some point.  If they don't break down they're "examples" instead.  :-)

In this case, the rubber bands provide more tension the further they're stretched and gravity provides less tension the further it's acting.  Analogy breakdown.  But it's still a decent image of tension at a distance and it does manage to evoke the oddness of Mach's Principle that it is matter's gravitic connection with chieflly the farthest matter in the universe that causes inertia.

Offline cgrunska

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #442 on: 06/30/2009 11:53 pm »
I keep reading this thread, and my head keeps exploding

neat stuff

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #443 on: 07/01/2009 02:39 am »
Your head keeps exploding,  Gees, is that what all this gray goo is all over me?

Please, keep your brains to yourself.

Offline 93143

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #444 on: 07/01/2009 02:49 am »
For two particles in inertial frames (assuming they have not been accelerated recently)

Considering what you're attacking, that might not be a fair assumption...  but leave that for now...

Quote
Apart from the already dangerous practice of trying to determine what happens first at relativistic velocities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity) let's examine a frame that follows the center of mass of the particles.

That's cheating.  Why don't you take the frame of reference of the heavy ion, as implied by the language of the example?  I think you'll find that the "relativity of simultaneity" gives you a slightly different answer...

Quote
Even if momentum is conserved at a distance as you suggest, nothing else has ever done that.

Object falling in gravity field.  It accelerates.  Without expending propellant.  Where is the momentum coming from?  The gravitating body it's falling towards, naturally - which it hasn't touched yet.

Field theory.

I'm not 100% convinced it's real either, but I think you're being needlessly dismissive of this stuff.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #445 on: 07/01/2009 03:25 am »
I'm still working on the math, but I want to add an observation. 

Part of the problem with M-E as reported here in this thread are the fairly small forces compared to the power required to activate them.  Presumably this can be remedied by better understanding from further experimentation, which is fine, for the moment.  Now I expect criticism for not metioning thrust efficiency in the proper units, but such a rocket, as currently envisioned, will require a reactor to generate the electicity to realize this effect.  Paul March is claiming to be able to convert electricity directly into forward momentum with the use of the M-E driver.  The main benefit is that this reactor will weigh substantially less (x orders of magnitude?) than a chemical rocket of the same thrust.  And that would be a wonderful improvement, if it can be achieved.  And converting energy into momentum is one way of conserving momentum, right?

However, if I understand them correctly, they (Woodward, March, et al) are also claiming that there is a different term in the equation they use called the wormhole term, or something similar.  If they can use this term, they can "extract" energy from the universe to power their device in excess of the power they provide, unless I'm mistaken.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #446 on: 07/01/2009 03:31 am »
"Object falling in gravity field.  It accelerates.  Without expending propellant.  Where is the momentum coming from?  The gravitating body it's falling towards, naturally - which it hasn't touched yet.

Field theory.

I'm not 100% convinced it's real either, but I think you're being needlessly dismissive of this stuff.Object falling in gravity field.  It accelerates.  Without expending propellant.  Where is the momentum coming from?  The gravitating body it's falling towards, naturally - which it hasn't touched yet."

Yeah.  You're right on top of the issue.  I wish I could give an answer here but we need a real physicist.  Lacking one, we need to rely upon the peer review process and it certainly finds Jim Woodward's physics work.

John, stop kidding.  You're not "working on the math" at all.  Like me, you don't have the skills and you're not fooling anyone.  You're a pretender. You're not working out the math for anything.  You're posting nonsense because it suits your delusions.
« Last Edit: 07/01/2009 03:49 am by GI-Thruster »

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #447 on: 07/01/2009 04:40 am »
"permittivity" and "permeability" are both used to describe the vacuum WRT magnetic fields.

One of the objections against rocket motors in space was that they "don't have anything to push against." Picture a charged particle (a proton), rushing through space. It encounters a big positively charge particle (Fe3+?) directly in its path.

What happens is that the proton is nudged aside *before* the Fe3+ ion feels the effects. If you think of the ions as being nuts embedded in balls of (weightless) jelly you get the idea. The momentum is stored in the jelly before the nuts (and the rest of the jelly) feel it. Exactly the same thing happens with the G/I field except on a much longer time scale.

This just isn't true.  For two particles in inertial frames (assuming they have not been accelerated recently), their fields extend infinitely far from the particles themselves.  Because relatively shows us that any two inertial frames are equivalent, we can choose a frame that follows the proton or the ion.  There is nothing special about the frame of the proton.  In either case, the field of the particle we are approaching imparts force on us, but the field of the particle we are traveling with travels with the particle, and imparts force on the other particle.  Apart from the already dangerous practice of trying to determine what happens first at relativistic velocities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity) let's examine a frame that follows the center of mass of the particles.  In this frame, the proton travels in from the left, and the ion in from the right.  Both of them slow down at the same time (although not the same rate as the velocity of the heavier particle is already slower than that of the proton so that they have equal momentums) as momentum is transferred through the fields of the two particles to the other.  Once again, there is nothing delayed about it.

Geez, sacrifice me at the altar of physics for attempting to describe lightspeed propagation to someone. Yes, I am familiar with the inverse square law - which in this case we are only using in the classical sense. You just can't choose an inertial frame for a proton and measure its velocity change at the same time. But I'm overly complicating things here.

Let me make this very very simple and clear. If I wave a magic wand at 12:00 GMT (in Greenwich) and make the sun disappear, at what time (in Greenwich) will the Earth go spinning off into the void? Let's treat the sun as a point source too.
« Last Edit: 07/01/2009 05:26 am by Lampyridae »

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #448 on: 07/01/2009 05:18 am »
However, if I understand them correctly, they (Woodward, March, et al) are also claiming that there is a different term in the equation they use called the wormhole term, or something similar.  If they can use this term, they can "extract" energy from the universe to power their device in excess of the power they provide, unless I'm mistaken.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Probes extract energy from the Earth and other planets all the time in slingshot manoeuvres.

>EDIT< Removed OT rant about information loss in black holes
« Last Edit: 07/01/2009 05:42 am by Lampyridae »

Offline Star-Drive

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #449 on: 07/01/2009 11:33 am »
Lampy:

The delayed conservation of momentum in the cosmological gravinertial field problem is very much akin to the case of the submarine's propeller back-reacting off the expelled water.  If the sub is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, how long does the expelled water from the prop take to interact with the crust of the Earth if the water flux is directed horizontally to the surface of the ocean where the nearest land could be thousands of miles away?  And how washed out will that water flux become before it gets there??  The time lags, velocity magnitudes and amount of water participating in the propeller's conservation dance with the Earth will be very much different than when this water flux started at the prop.

BTW, I like your Jesus Lizard example, for it makes for a great visual example of describing this "by your bootstraps" propulsion system.  The devil IS in the details!  And just for fun find below a U-Tube URL to the Lizard in question:




There is nothing whatsoever delayed about submarine propulsion.  Momentum is immediately conserved as the water expelled has the same momentum as that imparted to the sub.  As the wake moves downstream away from the sub, it entrains more water, lowering velocity, but the momentum is still there.  Eventually the momentum is transferred to the Earth as viscous shear forces or stagnation at the landmass.  Throughout this entire process momentum is always locally conserved. 

Momentum is always locally conserved with the lizard as well.  The lizard is in effect a pulsejet pointed slightly down and to the rear.  The momentum imparted by the foot impact travels down and back in a wake that eventually imparts its momentum to the earth, just like the sub wake.  There is nothing astonishing or "by your bootstraps" about it.


Blaz:

While you are thinking about Lamy's Sun-Earth gravitational transit time question and G/I Thruster's observations on pushing analogies too far before they break, you might also try reading Dr. Woodward's Origin's of Inertia work located at Woodward's CSUF R&D Interest web site.  And I'll even make it easy for you by appending some excerpts from same in a doc file.  When dealing with inertia from the Machian perspective of GRT, Sciama's 1953 paper (see this thread), and Woodward's mass fluctuation conjecture, it’s all about gravitational radiation reaction forces...
« Last Edit: 07/01/2009 11:36 am by Star-Drive »
Star-Drive

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #450 on: 07/01/2009 12:53 pm »
When I say I'm working on the math, in regard to the M-E effect, it doesn't mean I'm working on the math to prove it wrong, or to advance the subject.  It means that I'm trying to understand it.  One could say I'm "pretending" in my intent, but that would be a ludicrous extrapolation implying some sort of telepathic theory.   This stuff is way over my head, and I don't get it.  My ego tells me: "Keep studying, you can get it!"  If ever I do get it, I'll modify my Segway with a M-E driver and....

However, the analogy about an object falling and not expelling propellant is not the definition of "useful"  (aded the word "useful" on 07-01-09 to clear up any misunderstandings) work.  What we all want to understand is how an object rises and does not expel propellant.  Same with the slingshot manuever, which can only happen after the object is made to rise out of a gravity well.  As to the extraction of energy, the planetary body slows its rate of revolution and momentum is conserved.

We understand that magnetism and gravity "act at a distance".  The new GRT tweak here is that inertia also acts at a distance.  So I ask blazotron:  "Is that what you're asking as well?"  The submarine and the lizard use local inertia, whose center of gravity is very close to the sub and lizard.  The M-E effect purports to use the center of gravity of the universe to perform the same action of pushing.

So here's another question for Star-Drive:  Blazotron says that "momentum is immediately conserved", which was my understanding.  Are you also saying that momentum has a speed of propagation, and it is the speed of light?
« Last Edit: 07/01/2009 03:46 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #451 on: 07/01/2009 02:58 pm »
When I say I'm working on the math, in regard to the M-E effect, it doesn't mean I'm working on the math to prove it wrong, or to advance the subject.  It means that I'm trying to understand it.  One could say I'm "pretending" in my intent, but that would be a ludicrous extrapolation implying some sort of telepathic theory.   This stuff is way over my head, and I don't get it.  My ego tells me: "Keep studying, you can get it!"  If ever I do get it, I'll modify my Segway with a M-E driver and....

However, the analogy about an object falling and not expelling propellant is not the definition of work.  What we all want to understand is how an object rises and does not expel propellant.  Same with the slingshot manuever, which can only happen after the object is made to rise out of a gravity well.  As to the extraction of energy, the planetary body slows its rate of revolution and momentum is conserved.

We understand that magnetism and gravity "act at a distance".  The new GRT tweak here is that inertia also acts at a distance.  So I ask blazotron:  "Is that what you're asking as well?"  The submarine and the lizard use local inertia, whose center of gravity is very close to the sub and lizard.  The M-E effect purports to use the center of gravity of the universe to perform the same action of pushing.

So here's another question for Star-Drive:  Blazotron says that "momentum is immediately conserved", which was my understanding.  Are you also saying that momentum has a speed of propagation, and it is the speed of light?

"However, the analogy about an object falling and not expelling propellant is not the definition of work."

Actually, it is.  When something falls through any sort of field potential, it converts potential to kinetic.  If it's a gravity potential, it converts gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy and "the ability to do work" is the definition of energy.

You're not even getting the first week of first year high-school physics right.  You see why its annoying when you pretend you're working on field theory?

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #452 on: 07/01/2009 03:00 pm »
What about the object rising without expelling propellant?  I prefer to focus on this type of work.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #453 on: 07/01/2009 03:39 pm »
I'm still working on the math, but I want to add an observation. 

Part of the problem with M-E as reported here in this thread are the fairly small forces compared to the power required to activate them.  Presumably this can be remedied by better understanding from further experimentation, which is fine, for the moment.  Now I expect criticism for not metioning thrust efficiency in the proper units, but such a rocket, as currently envisioned, will require a reactor to generate the electicity to realize this effect.  Paul March is claiming to be able to convert electricity directly into forward momentum with the use of the M-E driver.  The main benefit is that this reactor will weigh substantially less (x orders of magnitude?) than a chemical rocket of the same thrust.  And that would be a wonderful improvement, if it can be achieved.  And converting energy into momentum is one way of conserving momentum, right?

However, if I understand them correctly, they (Woodward, March, et al) are also claiming that there is a different term in the equation they use called the wormhole term, or something similar.  If they can use this term, they can "extract" energy from the universe to power their device in excess of the power they provide, unless I'm mistaken.
John, I'm all about trying to explain this simpler stuff but I have explained this before. 

There are several benefits to propellantless propulsion.  Regardless of the thrust efficiency, if one can have truly propellantless propulsion, one no longer needs to carry propellant.  That's a  big deal all on its own.  Even very low thrust efficiencies can be used for tasks like satellite station keeping and would provide a huge breakthrough in sat design offering more capability than we have seen in the past.

Second issue is if you can build a thruster with an efficiency high enough to do startling things.  If you can get for example a full Newton thrust from a single watt of power, then you can build spacecraft with the kinds of qualities that amaze, like Paul's WarpStar design; and have for example a "1 gee solution" meaning you can accelerate constantly in space travel at about 1 gee, and get around the solar system very quickly and cheaply.  Huge benefit and the entire system is opened up for human exploitation because the transport is just so cheap.

If it turns out that we can evoke the wormhole term and run these thrusters in a delta mass greater than mass condition (dm>m), then we can rip gravinertial energy right out of the gravitic field that connects all mass in the universe and harvest it.  We will have unlimited, cheap, clean energy.  All our power needs will be cared for and all our spacecraft will be essentially rangeless.  Also, if we can master the physics of "wormhole territory", we can use it to generate the Jupiter sized masses of exotic matter required to build a traversable wormhole, which means not only instantaneous transport through space, but possibly even transport thought time.  And of course as I've mentioned, if we can generate even temporarily this exotic matter with negative inertia, we can also use it to build warp drives.  All this stuff follows as a natural result of Mach, Einstein, Sciama and Woodward's physics.

No, we're not there and won't be for a very long time unless we first have compelling evidence--evidence that compels the physics community to jump all over what is essentially an entirely new field--gravinertial engineering.  But this is not so strange.  Think what others before Maxwell and Lorentz would have thought of the electro-magnetic engineering we have in the smallest, simplest induction motors.  This stuff always seems like magic to the generations that precede the technology.  That's the way all technology is.  It astonishes.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #454 on: 07/01/2009 04:03 pm »
The above post is a good explanation of the benefits of M-E drive, but it is not a good explanation of how the M-E drive works.

What interests me at the moment, more so than the energy that could be tapped from the inertial field, is understanding how an object can rise without expelling propellant, or being flung by a mass driver, climbing a tether, or some other commonly available device.

Again blazotron suggests that momentum is conserved "immediately"  Is it thought that there is a finite speed, say c, that governs the speed of propagation of conserved momentum?  Is this the area of GRT which needs modification?
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #455 on: 07/01/2009 04:29 pm »
Okay.  Simple explanation: "push heavy, pull light."

Given you can temporarily fluctuate mass, if you push it in one direction when it is heavy, and pull it in the opposite direction when it is light, you generate thrust.  It's that simple.  This process, that turns mere M-E into authentic thrust is what is commonly referred to in our context as "rectification" and it is this rectification that would not normally occur in nature.  M-E should.  Thrust should not because it requires some intelligence added to the naturally occurring phenomena of M-E.

Now if you don't get the "push heavy, pull light" description, you need to go back to Newton's laws and do what it takes to understand things like reaction motors.  Reaction motors throw things overboard.  When after you push heavy, the mass fluctuates light, it is as if you had thrown the heavy mass overboard.  I don't know a way to explain any simpler.  If you don't get it, you need to go back to very basic physics.  You do understand how reaction motors work?

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #456 on: 07/01/2009 06:23 pm »
Are there links regarding mass fluctuations?
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #457 on: 07/01/2009 06:35 pm »
Sorry, I don't understand the question.  You're asking for a hyper-link to a paper on fluctuations?  There's been dozens posted in this thread including the one by StarDrive just above.  You said you read these papers months ago.

Mach Effects (M-E) are mass fluctuations.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #458 on: 07/01/2009 06:46 pm »
World Wide Web links regarding mass fluctuation from other people than Star-Drive.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #459 on: 07/01/2009 06:55 pm »
I think Paul has posted up all the links I know of.  He's much more versed in the literature than I am and knows the history better than I do.  He also understands the physics much better and has been involved more than 3X longer than I have.  I think he's posted up just about everything on the subject.

Why, did you read all those papers?  The one by Andrew Palfreyman and Paul March delivered at STAIF '06 goes into great detail concerning the "push heavy, pull light" explanation.  I can't imagine how you could read that and still ask the questions you do.

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