Author Topic: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application  (Read 1042134 times)

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #100 on: 10/08/2008 05:08 am »
I have some naive questions for you:

Looking at the Machian mass fluctuation equation,

dm0 = 1 / 4piG [1/p0c^2 dP/dt - (1/p0c^2)^2 P^2/V]

So you need to increase delivered power, reduce pulse time and decrease capacitor volume. What about p0? Is that rho, as in density?

Would low atomic weight ions be a better choice for the capacitor, instead of titanium ions like in the barium titanate? Titanium is also weakly paramagnetic... is this an issue with using magnetic fields to oscillate the capacitor?

Offline khallow

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #101 on: 10/08/2008 02:25 pm »
Paul, this sounds great! Do you issue preprints (say on Arxiv.org)?
Karl Hallowell

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #102 on: 10/14/2008 06:44 am »
Lampyridae:

p0 is the rest mass density of the dielectric in question.  The Mach-Effect mass fluctuations magnitude in an MLT are proportional to the applied voltage cubed, the operating frequency cubed, the dielectric constant squared, and inversely proportional with the MLT's cap dielectric's density.  The MLT's unidirectional force output is proportional to the magnitude of the mass fluctuations, the applied B-field, times the sine of the Cap's E-field vector relative to the applied B-field vector when the excitation signal is a sine wave.  In other words when the applied E-field and B-field are parallel to each other, you get zero thrust.  When they are 90 degrees out of phase you get maximum thrust.  And when you flip the B-field vector 180 degrees so it's -90 degrees relative to the E-field you get maximum thrust in the opposite direction.  Nothing like being able to back up a spaceship!

OK, thanks for that clarification. My maths is kinda rusty so it took a while! Look forward to hearing updates from you guys. Especially the 1kN test article (did I read that right?).

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #103 on: 10/23/2008 06:07 am »
This QVF / MHD plasma drive concept escapes me at the moment - I haven't seen any paperwork on it. I can see how e/p flux could be used as propellant, but how do phonons propagate this energy? What does Dark Energy have to do with everything?

Spent nearly an hour trying to find anything by or on Dr. Harold White and all I got was that paper on metric engineering.

Offline Sith

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #104 on: 10/23/2008 01:20 pm »
This QVF / MHD plasma drive concept escapes me at the moment - I haven't seen any paperwork on it. I can see how e/p flux could be used as propellant, but how do phonons propagate this energy? What does Dark Energy have to do with everything?

QVF ~ ZPE. And ZPE somehow interacts with Dark matter itself. The MHD drives the whole conversion process and turns it into propellantless thrust. In the end you've got an engine that is far superior to the impulse drive of Enterprise, because it uses a vast outer energy supply. Now you get the picture?  With a working QVF / MHD plasma drive we could explore and colonize Sol very fast.

Offline khallow

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #105 on: 10/23/2008 02:02 pm »
I can't find any online reference to a Dr. Harold (Sonny) White. Does anyone have a reference to him or a paper that I can look up?
Karl Hallowell

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #106 on: 10/24/2008 04:55 am »
This QVF / MHD plasma drive concept escapes me at the moment - I haven't seen any paperwork on it. I can see how e/p flux could be used as propellant, but how do phonons propagate this energy? What does Dark Energy have to do with everything?

QVF ~ ZPE. And ZPE somehow interacts with Dark matter itself. The MHD drives the whole conversion process and turns it into propellantless thrust. In the end you've got an engine that is far superior to the impulse drive of Enterprise, because it uses a vast outer energy supply. Now you get the picture?  With a working QVF / MHD plasma drive we could explore and colonize Sol very fast.

How does QVF interact with Dark Matter, Dark Energy or whatever? It sounds like there are electrons and positrons spinning around in a cycloid pattern inside an MHD nozzle. A 100MHz RF field pumps them, creating phonons in the plasma cycloid. These phonons are then somehow coupled to a thrust structure (MHD nozzle?). Somehow 1.4KW of input power are translated into 1000N of thrust. Which translates to a virtual Isp of about 28s. Which means, if I got my maths right, that there is a virtual mass flow rate of about 3kg/s. How is the virtual mass being created?

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #107 on: 10/24/2008 06:23 am »
Quote
With a working QVF/MHD drive you not only have an impulse drive that is better than the Star Trek Enterprise's propulsion system by the same name, you also have the heart of the warp drive that will open up the galaxy for all of us as well.  The ZPE AKA Dark Energy field energy balance required to perform this spacetime bending trick is nicely tucked away in White's published derivations and his unpublished presentations that Sonny has passed around to the NASA/JSC propulsion community willing to listen.  Alas, when Dr. Griffin at NASA Headquarters said "no new propulsion research will be tolerated at NASA while the Ares rockets are under development" back in 2005, he meant every word of it.  So we trudge on, on our own nickel, until we can float in the first MLT or QVF/MHD prototypes into Dr. Griffin's office. 

If you do, please film it so we can see the reaction on his face!

Quote
The reason we have to evoke phonons in the Dirac e/p sea of transient QM e/p pairs is their very short (Plank time scales) life times that they are present in our universe, since they are semi-virtual particles by their definition in QM.  However, just like the lack of electrons in a p-type semiconductor otherwise known as P-type charge "holes", they can transmit energy through the p-type semiconductor.   These transient e/p pairs can also set up momentum waves in the Dirac e/p sea that can and do transmit momentum from the local disturbance to the distance matter in the universe that set up this transient e/p sea to begin with in zero time since they are all thought to be QM entangled.

Ahhh, now I see why you have phonons. Wow, that is really out of the box thinking to invoke it in QVF. I wonder if this... semiconductor-like property could be used in other ways? Vacuum circuitry? Star-Trek "plasma conduits?" (LOL!) FTL communication? The mind boggles.

So... in rough layman terms... the drive expels a virtual QVF plasma causally connected to a sphere 13 billion lightyears in radius? But that's not how I understand entanglement to work. Err, no, wait... it's just a vacuum fluctuation and you can't tell it's been altered until you have some signal to compare it to.

Sheesh, I need to do some more homework. But thanks for the explanation, Star-Drive. Are any of you guys getting donations for these projects? Seems downright expensive to be doing it on your own.

*EDIT* You mention space-time bending. Could this produce an artificial gravity well? So we could enjoy Star Trek accelerations without becoming meat jam on the aft bulkhead?
« Last Edit: 10/24/2008 06:26 am by Lampyridae »

Offline Sith

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #108 on: 10/24/2008 11:17 am »
How does QVF interact with Dark Matter, Dark Energy or whatever?
ZPE/QVF are the basics of Dark Energy and it's behaviour. Because we use all this terms (ZPE/QVF, Dark Matter, Dark Energy) to describe the same thing - another fundamental force that is yet to be discovered. Haven't you asked yourself how many fundamental forces do exist?
We know about four of them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction
but they are not enough to explain why astronomers have found galaxies that are moving away from each other and away from us rather than moving close and collide. So, there is another force that acts oposite of gravity and causes this expansion. During Big Bang the universe has expanded faster than c, the spacetime itself has expanded faster than the speed of light.


Offline khallow

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #109 on: 10/24/2008 03:13 pm »
The effect described by "dark energy" is not a distinct force. It is a property of the shape of the universe (which in turn is dictated by physical law and mass-energy flow through that space). We can incorporate it into the force of gravity by a nonzero cosmological constant. What is speculated to be going on is that the interaction between gravity and the other three forces results in this very small expansion of the universe.

The "inflation phase" of the Big Bang can be approximated as I understand it by a larger cosmological constant. My guess is that that part was due to heavy repulsion of the dense early universe due to the strong force. But the expansion was not locally faster than the speed of light. Distant parts of the universe (under this model) would slide off our horizon, but that doesn't mean that they are moving away from us faster than light. It means that the space in between is expanding sufficiently fast that light from that point can no longer reach us here. The length of the path grows faster in time than the speed of light.
Karl Hallowell

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #110 on: 10/24/2008 05:45 pm »
"The reason we have to evoke phonons in the Dirac e/p sea of transient QM e/p pairs is their very short (Plank time scales) life times that they are present in our universe, since they are semi-virtual particles by their definition in QM.  However, just like the lack of electrons in a p-type semiconductor otherwise known as P-type charge "holes", they can transmit energy through the p-type semiconductor.   These transient e/p pairs can also set up momentum waves in the Dirac e/p sea that can and do transmit momentum from the local disturbance to the distance matter in the universe that set up this transient e/p sea to begin with in zero time since they are all thought to be QM entangled."

StarDrive, just to be clear with everyone, this is really the question your work should answer.  We don't yet know these virtual particles can transfer momentum.  There are some who presume they can and others that they cannot.  Certainly the best way to answer the question is design, build and run a thruster and see if indeed it creates thrust!

Godspeed.

Offline marsavian

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #111 on: 10/25/2008 04:47 am »
Awesome thread. Leading Edge Theoretical Physics Hypothesizing without any kookery. NASA should be funding these attempts, they may not pan out, but they should be trying at least. Hopefully the next President will appoint an Administrator who is less of a Philistine.

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #112 on: 10/30/2008 05:05 am »
Well, with the rumblings in the beltway, I think that may be the case. Fingers crossed. I'm sure the DoD is quietly conducting its own experiments on this, but you can rest assured they won't be for public consumption. :P

Star-Drive, is there a diagram available illustrating how the QVF thruster works, or a design?

At the moment, I'm just guessing at how this all fits together. I'm just digesting stuff on vacuum energy and pair production (oh how shallow my physics knowledge is...). But the e/p pairs do have an influence thanks to vacuum polarisation. What purpose does the 100 MHz RF generator therefore have? How does it set up phonons in the e/p plasma? I gather it would pull them apart and make them dipoles for a little bit longer before they annihilate.

Offline khallow

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #113 on: 10/30/2008 01:46 pm »

You have to view the universe as a 13.7 x 2 = 27.4 billion light year diameter spherical gravinertial resonant cavity that expanded from the big bang nexus where all spacetime, energy and the nuclear particles to come were all in the same quantum state at the starting gate, think super cooled helium-II, and therefore entangled QM wise.  Can we still claim this entangled state still exists for the ZPE Dirac-Sea of semi-virtual e/p pairs?  This question can only be determined by experimental data that tells us WHY inertial effects are instantaneous in nature.

As I (or for that matter, any classical observer) see it, the answer is  "no". However it happened, the above entangled system of the universe has collapsed, if only due to our classical observations. Further, if general relativity is accurate, inertial effects are not instantaneous. And if the universe is open (which is the current opinion of cosmology), then there is no resonance. Keep in mind further, that we only see part of the universe, just what is in the past of our light cone. The universe could well be infinite in spatial extent as well as time.

I find the explanations given above for quantum vacuum fluctuation (QVF) based propulsion to be rather dubious. Here's my take. The Woodward drive (the one with the vibrating charging/discharging capacitors seems to have some potential (assuming my concern is unfounded and it can generate thrust not just torque). There is a measurable effect there and can be explained reasonably as radiating either EM or gravity waves, both which can transfer momentum. The Casimir effect is the only known way to extract energy from vacuum (by letting a series of sheets "stick" to each other). I don't know of any way currently to use the Casimir effect to directly generate thrust, but there's probably a weak effect somewhere.

But finding some sort of oscillation of the universe (which we haven't seen yet!) and exploiting that seems a higher level problem. One which may not be solvable merely because no such oscillation exists.
« Last Edit: 11/01/2008 01:36 am by khallow »
Karl Hallowell

Offline GI-Thruster

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #114 on: 11/01/2008 06:25 pm »
Karl,

>The Woodward drive (the one with the vibrating charging/discharging capacitors seems to have some potential (assuming my concern is unfounded and it can generate thrust not just torque). There is a measurable effect there and can be explained reasonably as radiating either EM or gravity waves, both which can transfer momentum.

All of Woodward's experiments over the years have demonstrated linear force.  The fact that a torque pendulum turns linear force into torque doesn't negate the observation that the thrusters generate thrust.  I can see your point of concern that especially Tom Mahood's early wire pendulum experiments a decade ago are demonstrating torque but remember, it is the measurement apparatus, not the thruster; that is converting force into torque through use of a moment arm.  The arm is on the measurement apparatus, not the thruster.

Jim did however avoid use of a moment arm in test apparatus for some years when he was doing his tests with the U-80 load cell.  The troubles with the load cell were however, that it is not spec 'd for very short duration thrust impulses and it is an electromechanical device that one needs to demonstrate conclusively is not picking up any electrostatic or magnetic coupling.  Going to the ARC Lite balance really is a step up in measurement.  Additionally, Jim has been very careful to show he is not getting ion wind and thermal by running in E-6T vacuum.  He's also made judicious use of things like Mu metal to show there is no b field coupling etc. 

All in all, though the work goes slowly; it's been very thorough.  If there's a single questionable issue with the apparatus and protocols, it is that he is measuring exceedingly small forces and as StarDrive has said, there are many who find this an issue all alone.  But the ability to derive useful data from these systems is entirely dependent upon apparatus and protocol so I for one don't have issues with Jim's work.  So long as he stays above the noise floor by at least and order of magnitude, I can't see anything wrong with his work.

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #115 on: 11/02/2008 10:03 pm »
khallow: "As I (or for that matter, any classical observer) see it, the answer is  "no". However it happened, the above entangled system of the universe has collapsed, if only due to our classical observations. Further, if general relativity is accurate, inertial effects are not instantaneous. And if the universe is open (which is the current opinion of cosmology), then there is no resonance. Keep in mind further, that we only see part of the universe, just what is in the past of our light cone. The universe could well be infinite in spatial extent as well as time."

Well, the actual QVF would still be entangled because the particle/antiparticle production happens all in the Heisenberg uncertainty scale. Thus, having not been "observed" the entanglement might still be valid.

I believe the Casimir effect was used to generate thrust by NASA's APL, although it was miniscule (a vibrating plate...) I can see how this thruster concept would work in either a classical plasma exhaust situation, using QVF as reaction mass, or by using e/p pairs as the reaction mass for a Mach-Lorentz thruster. However in either case the thrust would be negligible. I think this thruster somehow relies on entanglement and Dark Matter to achieve the thrust we're looking at - or rather, generating a negative QVF gradient. This QVF seems less a thruster then the QVF gravitational equivalent of a balloon. Having not seen the paper and not having the physics background to judge it, one really has to adopt a "wait and see" attitude for this one. There are plenty of theories out there predicting gravity drives... Heim theory for one, which is still debatable.

Anyway, if the test article floats into the conference hall then we can discuss theory all we want while NASA rips out the orbiter SSMEs and stuffs these babies inside.

Offline khallow

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #116 on: 11/03/2008 05:40 am »
While I'm still concerned about whether the Mach-Lorentz thruster (MLT as usual) produces linear thrust or not, I do find myself warming up to it. If it works as advertised, not only do we have a potential propellantless thruster and emitter of gravity waves, but with slight modification (continue to charge/discharge the capacitor at the desired frequency, but let the capacitor float free), it should be able to serve as a detector of gravity waves in the appropriate frequencies. That means that among other things, you should be able to build sensors and communication devices (eg, phased arrays) using this idea. A gravity wave based communication system ought to be able to work under some unusual circumstances, like communicating directly through Earth.

In any case, multiple uses for the technology means it's more likely that one of them is sufficient to spur development of the technology in the near future.
« Last Edit: 11/03/2008 05:41 am by khallow »
Karl Hallowell

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #117 on: 11/04/2008 06:06 am »
Folks:

In regards to how the QVF drives actually may work, you might find it of interest to read thru the following paper by Dr. Paul Stevenson from Rice University, noting the unusual characteristics of a "Higgs vacuum".

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0409292v2

Hydrodynamics of the Vacuum
P. M. Stevenson
T. W. Bonner Laboratory, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Rice University, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA

Abstract:
Hydrodynamics is the appropriate “effective theory” for describing any fluid medium at sufficiently long length scales. This paper treats the vacuum as such a medium and derives the corresponding hydrodynamic equations.  Unlike a normal medium the vacuum has no linear sound-wave regime; disturbances always “propagate” nonlinearly.  For an “empty vacuum” the hydrodynamic equations are familiar ones (shallow water-wave equations) and they describe an experimentally observed phenomenon — the spreading of a clump of zero-temperature atoms into empty space.  The “Higgs vacuum” case is much stranger; pressure and energy density, and hence time and space, exchange roles.  The speed of sound is formally infinite, rather than zero as in the empty vacuum.  Higher-derivative corrections to the vacuum hydrodynamic equations are also considered. In the empty-vacuum case the corrections are of quantum origin and the post-hydrodynamic description corresponds to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. I conjecture the form of the post-hydrodynamic corrections in the Higgs case.  In the 1+1-dimensional case the equations possess remarkable ‘soliton’ solutions and appear to constitute a new exactly integrable system.


That makes me think of the inside of a black hole, where time and space swap places. I doubt if I could gain access to that journal, and the maths wouldn't mean much to me because I couldn't nitpick it. However, I can see how this theory would make sense in the context of negative energy.

Do you have a diagram of the QVF thruster?

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #118 on: 11/04/2008 06:10 am »
While I'm still concerned about whether the Mach-Lorentz thruster (MLT as usual) produces linear thrust or not, I do find myself warming up to it. If it works as advertised, not only do we have a potential propellantless thruster and emitter of gravity waves, but with slight modification (continue to charge/discharge the capacitor at the desired frequency, but let the capacitor float free), it should be able to serve as a detector of gravity waves in the appropriate frequencies. That means that among other things, you should be able to build sensors and communication devices (eg, phased arrays) using this idea. A gravity wave based communication system ought to be able to work under some unusual circumstances, like communicating directly through Earth.

In any case, multiple uses for the technology means it's more likely that one of them is sufficient to spur development of the technology in the near future.


Maybe capacitors in spacecraft circuitry, interacting with fluctuations in the ambient gravity field as they pass over an uneven Earth, have been responsible for their uncorrected-for orbit perturbations?

Offline Lampyridae

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Re: Propellantless Field Propulsion and application
« Reply #119 on: 11/10/2008 05:44 am »
Star-Drive,

Thanks for straightening things out. It's a plain ole JxB thruster but with dielectric instead of the... "combustion chamber" (don't know what to call it in a non-chemical rocket). Injection cavity?

I wonder what else comes popping out of the QVF? I suppose in addition to the zoo of subatomic particles you might have gravitons, too. Wonder if someone's written a paper on it - more likely I'm talking rubbish.
« Last Edit: 11/10/2008 06:00 am by Lampyridae »

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