Author Topic: Woodward's effect  (Read 803090 times)

Offline Monomorphic

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1120 on: 11/16/2017 12:58 pm »
@ Monomorphic

Does the "thrust" signal invert if the direction of the device is reversed, like with Woodward signal?

I will have to get back to you on that once I've better isolated the best frequency and have made more test runs. The shaker can be rotated 360 degrees so it will be a simple test, though my prediction is the "thrust" will reverse.

Offline Povel

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1121 on: 11/16/2017 01:23 pm »
Thank you Monomorphic.

I'd also like to point out that the mach signal you attached in the last post is the so called "chirped one", which according to Estes Park proceedings was obtained by using a specifically shaped signal to get the big transients at the beginning and at the end of a cycle to be asymmetric.
At pages 153-154 of the same document you can find "regular" mach signals, which at least to me look much less asymmetric.
I'm curious to know if the asymmetric shaker can reproduce signals that mimic these ones too.


By the way, averaging on a whole cycle should produce no "thrust" whatsoever in the case of the shaker.
Is this requisite respected? If not there might be unaccounted sources of interference. If the frequency is low there might be interactions with the torsional pendulum structure for example.

Woodward's device "shakings" happen at a much higher frequency, and he seems to have done all sort of analysis on the mechanical/thermal/electrical interactions between the device and the balance structure. He might have missed something though.

The problem of this sorts of tests performed with dummy devices is that they only show the quality of manifacture and the "weak spots" of the thrust balance/torsion pendulum used, since they should detect no thrust signal and if they do it means not all sources of noise have been compensated.

It would be interesting to see if the thrust balance used by Woodward can be fooled by using these.
It would also be interesting to do structural modeling not only of the device but also of the thrust balance itself, and run some simulation showing how it reacts to the MEGA drive shakes. That's quite a lot of work though.
« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 02:31 pm by Povel »

Offline tdperk

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1122 on: 11/16/2017 03:05 pm »


Because the MET trace returns to baseline, it is plainly not a Dean Drive effect.  Because yours does not, it clearly is.

If you dispute this interpretation, please label your traces clearly and include data showing your mechanism does return to baseline position when unpowered or when driven out of proper phase.

Offline Povel

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1123 on: 11/16/2017 03:08 pm »
@ WarpTech

Quote
In the video, Prof. Woodward shows a 1-Line diagram for the setup. The On/Off relay is ahead of the power amplifier, and a step-up transformer of all things is connected directly to the D.U.T.  A transformer has a very high leakage inductance and a high impedance compared to the D.U.T. I would not be surprised if the big Transients at Turn-on and Turn-off are simply the flyback energy from the leakage inductance dumping the energy into the D.U.T.

EDIT: The test setup I see shows that the equipment is on a table, approximately 2 meters from the D.U.T inside the vacuum chamber. The leads to the device look like about 20 AWG wire. That's fine for 0.5 Amps, but when I examine the voltage trace, it shows the voltage collapsing at the D.U.T. during turn on, and during resonance. So when the device hits resonance and is trying to draw more power, the in-line resistance is preventing it from doing so. I really think it is likely the transients are due to the XFMR and these long, thin wires

I'd like to know your thoughts on the following passage by Woodward about these transients, always from Estes Park proceedings ( look at pages 154-155 for figures)

Quote
What’s  especially  interesting  about  the  thrust  trace  in  Figure  19  is  the  large  switching  transients  that
occur  when  the  power  to  the  device  is  turned  on  and  off.   It  is  easy  to  believe  that  these  transients  are
just electrical artifacts having nothing to do with any long-range gravitational interaction.  However,  this
accounting  for  the  transients  is  wanting  for  a  couple  of  reasons.   First,  the  signal  that  drives  the  power
amplifier is switched at random phase of the AC signal.  So the voltage at switching is just as likely to be
negative as positive, and just as likely to be increasing as decreasing in magnitude.  These considerations
suggest  that  the  switching  transients  in  individual  runs,  if  present,  should  have  random  magnitudes  and
be equally likely positive and negative. When transients of this sort are averaged over several runs,  they
should average to zero.  The observed transients do NOT display this behavior.  They are always in the same
direction and do not average away.


Another  way  to  address  the  switching  transients  is  to  ask  if  they  are  produced  when  a  DC  voltage  is
switched.  In this case, one is no longer bothered by pesky random phase AC effects.  But the DC voltage
does produce a displacement of the center of mass of the device, and that should produce a displacement
of  the  balance  beam  as  the  new  center  of  mass  moves  to  the  equilibrium  position  of  the  old  center  of
mass.  Since the voltage polarities produce displacements in opposite directions, one might expect any such
effect to be polarity dependent.  Actually, this test was first carried out several years ago at the behest of
evaluators from Aerospace Corp.  The results are contained in Figure 20.  Run averages for both positive and
negative polarities and forward and reversed device orientation were obtained.  When the negative polarity
averages were subtracted from the positive polarity averages for the two orientations, and then the reversed
polarity difference was subtracted from the forward polarity difference,  the resulting net thrust showed a
small transient (a few tenths of a uN) at switch-on, as is evident in the left panel of Figure 20.  This is to be
compared with the transients in Figures 19
« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 03:26 pm by Povel »

Offline PotomacNeuron

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1124 on: 11/16/2017 03:49 pm »
It's not like a Mach Effect device trace.  The baseline does not return to the same level after the drive period.  I believe you are seeing stiction or play in your bearings or another part of the assembly.

I've pulled out just 5 pulses and compared it to the mach effect trace. Looks very similar to me. The torsional pendulum is suspended by wire so there are no bearings.

This was the very first run with the new 3W amplifier. I am pretty confident that with a little work honing in on the right frequency, I will be able to produce traces identical to the mach effect. I suppose I will have then invented a ~1uN space engine with a 3W bass shaker.   ;)

Because the hanging wire is less likely to show stiction problem than the bearing Dr. Woodward used, I'd guess your results may be caused in asymmetric stiction response of air. So it might go away in vacuum. To show that Woodward's experiment is caused by stiction, you might need to use their bearing to show the "thrust" in vacuum, or to show that their system can not show thrust in a sealed box hanging in your torsion balance. The later is a much easier experiment than the former. But you need to obtain a thruster they have. Just my two cents.
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Offline Monomorphic

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1125 on: 11/16/2017 04:48 pm »
Because the hanging wire is less likely to show stiction problem than the bearing Dr. Woodward used, I'd guess your results may be caused in asymmetric stiction response of air. So it might go away in vacuum. To show that Woodward's experiment is caused by stiction, you might need to use their bearing to show the "thrust" in vacuum, or to show that their system can not show thrust in a sealed box hanging in your torsion balance. The later is a much easier experiment than the former. But you need to obtain a thruster they have. Just my two cents.

In torsional pendulums, the "stiction" is the torsional spring rate. The spring rate is what prevents the pendulum arm from being set in motion, with air coming in second.  The shakers I designed were meant to test the following statement: "Due to the asymmetric motion inside the box, the center of mass of the box and its contents shifts relative to the box. But the center of mass must still remain where it was before (relative to the laboratory). So the box moves aside, while its center of mass stays put. Newton's laws were working properly, as they always do." 

I don't think it's any more complicated than that. Testing vibrating devices for thrust on a torsional pendulum is a fundamentally flawed experiment. I would recommend switching to a linear track where acceleration over a distance can be shown. That the device can cause a box attached to an arm to jiggle one way or the other is not very convincing in my opinion.

I will build version 4 of the shaker with 20W. These things are not very expensive to test. I think 20W will be enough to get a more detailed trace.

« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 04:52 pm by Monomorphic »

Offline Bob012345

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1126 on: 11/16/2017 05:53 pm »
@ Monomorphic

Does the "thrust" signal invert if the direction of the device is reversed, like with Woodward signal?

I will have to get back to you on that once I've better isolated the best frequency and have made more test runs. The shaker can be rotated 360 degrees so it will be a simple test, though my prediction is the "thrust" will reverse.

Don't forget that Woodward's device has theoretical support, the effect is derived from physics and the data reasonably matches so it's highly unlikely it's all a mistake due to imagination plus Dean Drive effects. It's also been seen on multiple kinds of setups over two decades as well as by other experimenters. Are they all making the same simple mistake? What are the odds?
« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 05:56 pm by Bob012345 »

Offline PotomacNeuron

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1127 on: 11/16/2017 06:14 pm »
@ Monomorphic

Does the "thrust" signal invert if the direction of the device is reversed, like with Woodward signal?

I will have to get back to you on that once I've better isolated the best frequency and have made more test runs. The shaker can be rotated 360 degrees so it will be a simple test, though my prediction is the "thrust" will reverse.

Don't forget that Woodward's device has theoretical support, the effect is derived from physics and the data reasonably matches so it's highly unlikely it's all a mistake due to imagination plus Dean Drive effects. It's also been seen on multiple kinds of setups over two decades as well as by other experimenters. Are they all making the same simple mistake? What are the odds?

I doubt the quality of their theories. How many different theories are there so far for Em Drive? Only 0 or a few of those can be correct. I do not understand his high level theories, but I do know that he makes  elementary mistakes in college level physics, such as pointed out here (By my other ID)

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40959.msg1589319#msg1589319
I am working on the ultimate mission human beings are made for.

Offline Bob012345

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1128 on: 11/16/2017 06:37 pm »
@ Monomorphic

Does the "thrust" signal invert if the direction of the device is reversed, like with Woodward signal?

I will have to get back to you on that once I've better isolated the best frequency and have made more test runs. The shaker can be rotated 360 degrees so it will be a simple test, though my prediction is the "thrust" will reverse.

Don't forget that Woodward's device has theoretical support, the effect is derived from physics and the data reasonably matches so it's highly unlikely it's all a mistake due to imagination plus Dean Drive effects. It's also been seen on multiple kinds of setups over two decades as well as by other experimenters. Are they all making the same simple mistake? What are the odds?

I doubt the quality of their theories. How many different theories are there so far for Em Drive? Only 0 or a few of those can be correct. I do not understand his high level theories, but I do know that he makes  elementary mistakes in college level physics, such as pointed out here (By my other ID)

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40959.msg1589319#msg1589319

Woodward appears to have changed his arguments on the "over unity" issue but I don't agree with your analysis. The power you discuss is the mechanical power the moving device has with respect to some observer and is dependent on that observer. In Woodward's paper, the power is applied wrt the instantaneous rest frame co-moving with the device. That's makes a huge difference. It's just like the rocket you describe. The rocket does a burn of the same power irregardless of its current velocity wrt some observer. Yet the rocket's mechanical power as measured by some observer may be a lot higher or lower depending on the relative speed. So, no, I don't accept your statement that Woodward makes elementary mistakes.
« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 06:39 pm by Bob012345 »

Offline WarpTech

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1129 on: 11/16/2017 07:10 pm »
Thank you Monomorphic.

I'd also like to point out that the mach signal you attached in the last post is the so called "chirped one", which according to Estes Park proceedings was obtained by using a specifically shaped signal to get the big transients at the beginning and at the end of a cycle to be asymmetric.
At pages 153-154 of the same document you can find "regular" mach signals, which at least to me look much less asymmetric.
I'm curious to know if the asymmetric shaker can reproduce signals that mimic these ones too.


By the way, averaging on a whole cycle should produce no "thrust" whatsoever in the case of the shaker.
Is this requisite respected? If not there might be unaccounted sources of interference. If the frequency is low there might be interactions with the torsional pendulum structure for example.

Woodward's device "shakings" happen at a much higher frequency, and he seems to have done all sort of analysis on the mechanical/thermal/electrical interactions between the device and the balance structure. He might have missed something though.

The problem of this sorts of tests performed with dummy devices is that they only show the quality of manifacture and the "weak spots" of the thrust balance/torsion pendulum used, since they should detect no thrust signal and if they do it means not all sources of noise have been compensated.

It would be interesting to see if the thrust balance used by Woodward can be fooled by using these.
It would also be interesting to do structural modeling not only of the device but also of the thrust balance itself, and run some simulation showing how it reacts to the MEGA drive shakes. That's quite a lot of work though.

They have done experiments where the mass on both ends was the same, and there was no thrust detected. That would appear to negate this whole argument, IMO. At such low frequency, what I suspect Jamie is detecting is a resonance in his balance, which could be a multiple harmonic of the suspension strings or balance arm and/or damper.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1130 on: 11/16/2017 07:14 pm »
Woodward appears to have changed his arguments on the "over unity" issue but I don't agree with your analysis. The power you discuss is the mechanical power the moving device has with respect to some observer and is dependent on that observer. In Woodward's paper, the power is applied wrt the instantaneous rest frame co-moving with the device. That's makes a huge difference. It's just like the rocket you describe. The rocket does a burn of the same power irregardless of its current velocity wrt some observer. Yet the rocket's mechanical power as measured by some observer may be a lot higher or lower depending on the relative speed. So, no, I don't accept your statement that Woodward makes elementary mistakes.
In a rocket, you have to account for the loss (or gain in some frames) of mechanical energy by the exhaust. The chemical energy released is the same between frames, but not the energy imparted to the rocket. (You keep using the word power, but the energy is more relevant to this discussion. Power depends on whether the burn lasts 5 seconds or 5 minutes which is irrelevant to this discussion.)

Doing calculations in the "instantaneous rest frame" is one of the elementary mistakes. Since the frame is constantly changing, you are not using an inertial reference frame. There are ways to correctly do calculations in a non-inertial frame, but Woodward does not do these, and there is no point, since you can get the answer much more easily by just using an inertial frame.

Offline WarpTech

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1131 on: 11/16/2017 07:39 pm »
@ WarpTech

Quote
In the video, Prof. Woodward shows a 1-Line diagram for the setup. The On/Off relay is ahead of the power amplifier, and a step-up transformer of all things is connected directly to the D.U.T.  A transformer has a very high leakage inductance and a high impedance compared to the D.U.T. I would not be surprised if the big Transients at Turn-on and Turn-off are simply the flyback energy from the leakage inductance dumping the energy into the D.U.T.

EDIT: The test setup I see shows that the equipment is on a table, approximately 2 meters from the D.U.T inside the vacuum chamber. The leads to the device look like about 20 AWG wire. That's fine for 0.5 Amps, but when I examine the voltage trace, it shows the voltage collapsing at the D.U.T. during turn on, and during resonance. So when the device hits resonance and is trying to draw more power, the in-line resistance is preventing it from doing so. I really think it is likely the transients are due to the XFMR and these long, thin wires

I'd like to know your thoughts on the following passage by Woodward about these transients, always from Estes Park proceedings ( look at pages 154-155 for figures)

Quote
What’s  especially  interesting  about  the  thrust  trace  in  Figure  19  is  the  large  switching  transients  that
occur  when  the  power  to  the  device  is  turned  on  and  off.   It  is  easy  to  believe  that  these  transients  are
just electrical artifacts having nothing to do with any long-range gravitational interaction.  However,  this
accounting  for  the  transients  is  wanting  for  a  couple  of  reasons.   First,  the  signal  that  drives  the  power
amplifier is switched at random phase of the AC signal.  So the voltage at switching is just as likely to be
negative as positive, and just as likely to be increasing as decreasing in magnitude.  These considerations
suggest  that  the  switching  transients  in  individual  runs,  if  present,  should  have  random  magnitudes  and
be equally likely positive and negative. When transients of this sort are averaged over several runs,  they
should average to zero.  The observed transients do NOT display this behavior.  They are always in the same
direction and do not average away.


Another  way  to  address  the  switching  transients  is  to  ask  if  they  are  produced  when  a  DC  voltage  is
switched.  In this case, one is no longer bothered by pesky random phase AC effects.  But the DC voltage
does produce a displacement of the center of mass of the device, and that should produce a displacement
of  the  balance  beam  as  the  new  center  of  mass  moves  to  the  equilibrium  position  of  the  old  center  of
mass.  Since the voltage polarities produce displacements in opposite directions, one might expect any such
effect to be polarity dependent.  Actually, this test was first carried out several years ago at the behest of
evaluators from Aerospace Corp.  The results are contained in Figure 20.  Run averages for both positive and
negative polarities and forward and reversed device orientation were obtained.  When the negative polarity
averages were subtracted from the positive polarity averages for the two orientations, and then the reversed
polarity difference was subtracted from the forward polarity difference,  the resulting net thrust showed a
small transient (a few tenths of a uN) at switch-on, as is evident in the left panel of Figure 20.  This is to be
compared with the transients in Figures 19

Honestly, it's difficult to make any conclusions based on the images provided here and in other papers. The blue trace is said to be the Voltage. The 1-Line diagram shows the voltage measurement directly at the device. If you look at the scale on the charts, the voltage pulse never goes negative. I assume the amplitude of the sine wave fits inside this pulse. This would imply that the signal at the device has a DC offset, which I could assume is confirmed by the transient directions. The Carvin amplifiers are capable of outputting a DC offset and the transformer will not correct it unless the core goes into saturation, or there is some circuit to cause it to balance.

Also, you can see that when the device turns on, the voltage (blue) drops quickly, the same thing happens as it approaches resonance. This is due to the voltage drop across either the thin wires, the transformer, the amplifier output impedance or all of the above. On some charts, the voltage does not even rise for several seconds after the signal is sent to turn on (green). This could be due to transformer saturation and a lack of available power to reset  the core.

When I get my MEGA-D built, I will be able to characterize it myself, without all these ambiguities.

Offline Monomorphic

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1132 on: 11/16/2017 07:58 pm »
They have done experiments where the mass on both ends was the same, and there was no thrust detected. That would appear to negate this whole argument, IMO.

One would expect there to be no "thrust" if the masses on both ends are the same. What I have built is analogous to the mach effect thruster because I have a large mass on one side of the shaker - just like Woodward has a larger brass mass on one side of the PZT stack.   

Offline WarpTech

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1133 on: 11/16/2017 09:41 pm »
They have done experiments where the mass on both ends was the same, and there was no thrust detected. That would appear to negate this whole argument, IMO.

One would expect there to be no "thrust" if the masses on both ends are the same. What I have built is analogous to the mach effect thruster because I have a large mass on one side of the shaker - just like Woodward has a larger brass mass on one side of the PZT stack.   

Okay, sorry I will need more data to be able to discuss this intelligently. Such as the masses at each end and the frequency of oscillation. Plots of voltage and current, etc...

However, I would say to make sure the frequency is not a resonance of your balance. The thrust depends on the frequency squared, so as you go up in frequency, the thrust should be more pronounced. If it disappears, it is more likely a resonance in your setup that is causing the apparent thrust.

Offline Povel

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1134 on: 11/16/2017 10:30 pm »
Quote
I doubt the quality of their theories. How many different theories are there so far for Em Drive? Only 0 or a few of those can be correct. I do not understand his high level theories, but I do know that he makes  elementary mistakes in college level physics, such as pointed out here (By my other ID)

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40959.msg1589319#msg1589319

That "overunity" paper is a mistery to me. Woodward seems to perfectly understand the issue and he even re-derives the argument, but at some points he gets basic physics completely wrong.
Even more strange, he actually acknowledged the energy production implications of his device many years ago, as is showed on this page (dated 1997!)

https://physics.fullerton.edu/~jimw/nasa-pap/

Quote
....

The appearance of momentum conservation violation in our impulse engine doesn't mean that momentum isn't conserved. It means that we can't treat the impulse engine as an isolated system. Since the effect responsible for the apparent violation of the conservation principle is inertial/gravitational, this should come as no surprise at all. As Mach's principle makes plain, anytime a process involves gravity/inertia, the only meaningful isolated system is the entire universe. Since inertial reaction forces appear instantaneous [see Woodward, 1996a and Cramer, 1997 in this connection], evidently our impulse engine is engaging in some "non-local" momentum transfer with the distant matter in the universe. With suitable choice of gauge, this momentum transfer can be envisaged as transpiring via retarded and advanced disturbances in the gravitational field that propagate with speed c.

Gauge freedom muddies up discussions of inertial reaction effects [Woodward, 1996a]. Choosing a gauge where all physical influences propagate at speeds figure has the advantage that lightcones in space-time have an invariant meaning, whereas the surfaces of simultaneity that appear in other gauges (e.g., the Coulomb gauge) do not. As just mentioned, in the Lorentz [or Einstein-Hilbert] gauge the inertial reaction effect, and thus our impulse engine, consists of a retarded/advanced coupling between the engine and the distant matter in the universe that lies along the future light cone. The introduction of the force transducer in the engine allows us to extract a net momentum flux here and now from the potentially largely thermalized matter in the far future. The net momentum flux is accompanied by a net energy flux, so although our impulse engine, considered locally, appears to violate energy conservation, that need not necessarily be the case. The extraction of useful work from matter that may be completely thermalized raises interesting questions. Boosting, rather than borrowing, from the future, however, seems to be the nature of the process involved.

...
« Last Edit: 11/16/2017 10:31 pm by Povel »

Offline tdperk

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1135 on: 11/17/2017 11:03 am »
That "overunity" paper is a mistery to me. Woodward seems to perfectly understand the issue and he even re-derives the argument, but at some points he gets basic physics completely wrong.
Even more strange, he actually acknowledged the energy production implications of his device many years ago, as is showed on this page (dated 1997!)

https://physics.fullerton.edu/~jimw/nasa-pap/

The inflation event produced momentum.  Even thermalized matter is moving and experiences gravity.  Therefore even in the heat death future, there is a gravinertial field from which Feynman's backwards and forwards waves will originate and land--and that GI field can be exploited by a gravinertial drive.

Whatever error may have crept into his thinking at some point, Woodward currently acknowledges that seen as a closed system of only the vessel, a GI drive equipped ship will appear to violate CoE.  Since it is exploiting the GI field it is in, which encompasses at least the light cone of the observable universe, it is not such a closed system and is not violating CoE.

Offline mubahni

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1136 on: 11/17/2017 03:31 pm »


Because the MET trace returns to baseline, it is plainly not a Dean Drive effect.  Because yours does not, it clearly is.

If you dispute this interpretation, please label your traces clearly and include data showing your mechanism does return to baseline position when unpowered or when driven out of proper phase.

So what is then the explanation for the sudden change in direction of the force in the attached presentation page 33 at about 42s. Was the change in direction not predicted by Dr. Rodal? See the proceedings of the Estes Park workshop.

Offline Bob012345

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1137 on: 11/17/2017 04:29 pm »
Woodward appears to have changed his arguments on the "over unity" issue but I don't agree with your analysis. The power you discuss is the mechanical power the moving device has with respect to some observer and is dependent on that observer. In Woodward's paper, the power is applied wrt the instantaneous rest frame co-moving with the device. That's makes a huge difference. It's just like the rocket you describe. The rocket does a burn of the same power irregardless of its current velocity wrt some observer. Yet the rocket's mechanical power as measured by some observer may be a lot higher or lower depending on the relative speed. So, no, I don't accept your statement that Woodward makes elementary mistakes.
In a rocket, you have to account for the loss (or gain in some frames) of mechanical energy by the exhaust. The chemical energy released is the same between frames, but not the energy imparted to the rocket. (You keep using the word power, but the energy is more relevant to this discussion. Power depends on whether the burn lasts 5 seconds or 5 minutes which is irrelevant to this discussion.)

Doing calculations in the "instantaneous rest frame" is one of the elementary mistakes. Since the frame is constantly changing, you are not using an inertial reference frame. There are ways to correctly do calculations in a non-inertial frame, but Woodward does not do these, and there is no point, since you can get the answer much more easily by just using an inertial frame.


I used power because that was the point about which I was responding. I agree with your point about accounting but it's different from the point I was making which was that in Woodward's paper in question, like the rocket, the energy coming from the device only has to support acceleration wrt the co-moving inertial frame at that instant, not the mechanical power wrt each observer which was a mistake in the critique I was commenting on. I believe Woodward's current position is that they are completely independent and the device only sets up the conditions that allow the Mach effect to work and not the energy to accelerate the device which comes from the gravitational potential of the universe. Still, I think the critique of his old paper was flawed.

Also, I am not "doing calculations" in a non-inertial constantly changing frame. I pick an inertial frame co-moving with the device at some instant and watch the evolution from that vantage point. I believe that's what Woodward did also in that paper.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1138 on: 11/17/2017 07:35 pm »
Also, I am not "doing calculations" in a non-inertial constantly changing frame. I pick an inertial frame co-moving with the device at some instant and watch the evolution from that vantage point. I believe that's what Woodward did also in that paper.
No by definition, the "instantaneous reference frame" is constantly changing and is therefore a non-inertial reference frame. If you were just picking a single frame to work with, then you could just pick the "initial rest frame" or define some other specific frame. Without changing the reference frame it is simple to show that any constant force/power relationship results in energy generation.

... It's just like the rocket you describe. The rocket does a burn of the same power...
...
I used power because that was the point about which I was responding.
No, you explicitly were referring to the other poster's paper and not Woodward's. Go read the paper again and you will see he use delta-energy (dE) not power.

I agree with your point about accounting but it's different from the point I was making which was that in Woodward's paper in question, like the rocket, the energy coming from the device only has to support acceleration wrt the co-moving inertial frame at that instant, not the mechanical power wrt each observer which was a mistake in the critique I was commenting on.
Completely false. When you say it only has to support the power in the co-moving frame, you are talking about a non-inertial reference frame. One second later, the object is moving at a different speed, so either your argument breaks down because you are no longer in a co-moving frame, you have made a mistake by changing reference frames while pretending you haven't, or you are using a non-inertial frame and leaving out all of the non-inertial effects. There is no mistake in the critique of Woodward's paper, and your attempt at claiming a mistake appears to be a complete strawman, because you are still using the term power while referring to a section of the critique that specifically calculated change in energy, not power. If you have any further complaints about that paper please reference the exact equation or statement that you have an issue with.

Maybe it would help you see the problem if you tried actually calculating the instantaneous rate of change of kinetic energy of an accelerating object that is currently at rest. This minimum power obviously cannot be the actual minimum for an object accelerating for a finite amount of time.

I believe Woodward's current position is that they are completely independent and the device only sets up the conditions that allow the Mach effect to work and not the energy to accelerate the device which comes from the gravitational potential of the universe. Still, I think the critique of his old paper was flawed.
Woodward's current position is not relevant to the question of whether he (and now you) made mistakes in entry level physics.

Offline Bob012345

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Re: Woodward's effect
« Reply #1139 on: 11/17/2017 07:52 pm »
Also, I am not "doing calculations" in a non-inertial constantly changing frame. I pick an inertial frame co-moving with the device at some instant and watch the evolution from that vantage point. I believe that's what Woodward did also in that paper.
No by definition, the "instantaneous reference frame" is constantly changing and is therefore a non-inertial reference frame. If you were just picking a single frame to work with, then you could just pick the "initial rest frame" or define some other specific frame. Without changing the reference frame it is simple to show that any constant force/power relationship results in energy generation.

... It's just like the rocket you describe. The rocket does a burn of the same power...
...
I used power because that was the point about which I was responding.
No, you explicitly were referring to the other poster's paper and not Woodward's. Go read the paper again and you will see he use delta-energy (dE) not power.

I agree with your point about accounting but it's different from the point I was making which was that in Woodward's paper in question, like the rocket, the energy coming from the device only has to support acceleration wrt the co-moving inertial frame at that instant, not the mechanical power wrt each observer which was a mistake in the critique I was commenting on.
Completely false. When you say it only has to support the power in the co-moving frame, you are talking about a non-inertial reference frame. One second later, the object is moving at a different speed, so either your argument breaks down because you are no longer in a co-moving frame, you have made a mistake by changing reference frames while pretending you haven't, or you are using a non-inertial frame and leaving out all of the non-inertial effects. There is no mistake in the critique of Woodward's paper, and your attempt at claiming a mistake appears to be a complete strawman, because you are still using the term power while referring to a section of the critique that specifically calculated change in energy, not power. If you have any further complaints about that paper please reference the exact equation or statement that you have an issue with.

Maybe it would help you see the problem if you tried actually calculating the instantaneous rate of change of kinetic energy of an accelerating object that is currently at rest. This minimum power obviously cannot be the actual minimum for an object accelerating for a finite amount of time.

I believe Woodward's current position is that they are completely independent and the device only sets up the conditions that allow the Mach effect to work and not the energy to accelerate the device which comes from the gravitational potential of the universe. Still, I think the critique of his old paper was flawed.
Woodward's current position is not relevant to the question of whether he (and now you) made mistakes in entry level physics.


Here is Tellmeagain's statements I'm responding to; it's all about power. And it's fundamentally flawed because he fundamentally misunderstands Woodward's paper in the first place. He claims Woodward is defining the figure of merit when in fact, Woodward is criticizing his critics for defining a figure of merit.

The power of F, denoted as P, can be obtained too,
P =d(Ef−Ei)/dt=Fat
It is obvious that P is not fixed, but increases with t because M moves faster and faster with t.
Now take a look of his equation (10). By defining a con- stant figure of merit, he explicitly made P = FmF con- stant. This directly contradicts to the fact P = F at. No wonder he reached contradiction as shown by his equa- tion (15).


Your comment;

Quote
Completely false. When you say it only has to support the power in the co-moving frame, you are talking about a non-inertial reference frame. One second later, the object is moving at a different speed, so either your argument breaks down because you are no longer in a co-moving frame, you have made a mistake by changing reference frames while pretending you haven't, or you are using a non-inertial frame and leaving out all of the non-inertial effects. There is no mistake in the critique of Woodward's paper, and your attempt at claiming a mistake appears to be a complete strawman, because you are still using the term power while referring to a section of the critique that specifically calculated change in energy, not power. If you have any further complaints about that paper please reference the exact equation or statement that you have an issue with.

My co-moving frame is as valid a frame as staying in the initial rest frame. I'm watching the acceleration now from a frame in constant velocity which is just as valid. The reference is above. Thanks.
« Last Edit: 11/17/2017 08:06 pm by Bob012345 »

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