EM Drive Developments Thread 1

[Mulletron]

and as they note it is a very very small acceleration. What was it like 50nanometers per second IIRC? Small.

No, that is not an acceleration.  That (50nanometers per second) is a velocity.  By itself it provides no information what is the acceleration unless one knows the time interval over which it takes place (strictly speaking one needs the velocity function as a function of time)

To know what is the acceleration we need to know what is the time interval over which the velocity gets changed.   

If the time interval over which the velocity gets changed is infinitesimally small, this acceleration can approach infinity (or if the time interval is large enough the acceleration can approach zero).  Have you seen an acceleration figure from van Tiggelen or the time interval over which this change in velocity takes place?

(Admittedly, the time interval would have to be very small: nanoseconds, for this velocity to entail a large acceleration. To justify the accelerations measured at NASA Eagleworks, the time interval would have to be milliseconds)

See:  http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.msg1294901#msg1294901

NASA Eagleworks measured acceleration =  6 * 10^(-6) m/sec^2

velocity change = 50* 10^(-9) m/sec

implied time interval = ( 50* 10^(-9) m/sec ) / ( 6 * 10^(-6) m/sec^2) = 8 milliseconds

Also, is the velocity change universal irrespective of the dielectric material, geometry, and mass of the spacecraft? What assumptions is this velocity figure (50nanometers per second) predicated on?

Stop picking a strawman off a pithy mistake in wording. I corrected it. Everyone here can see you're misbehaving. The comparison you're trying to make is a false comparison. If you read the Feigel paper http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0304100 it was about the  contribution of vacuum fluctuations to the motion of dielectric liquids in crossed electric and magnetic fields. Velocities about 50nm/s can be expected due to the contribution of high frequency vacuum modes. NOT WHOLE EMDRIVES.

[Rodal]

and as they note it is a very very small acceleration. What was it like 50nanometers per second IIRC? Small.

No, that is not an acceleration.  That (50nanometers per second) is a velocity.  By itself it provides no information what is the acceleration unless one knows the time interval over which it takes place (strictly speaking one needs the velocity function as a function of time)

To know what is the acceleration we need to know what is the time interval over which the velocity gets changed.   

If the time interval over which the velocity gets changed is infinitesimally small, this acceleration can approach infinity (or if the time interval is large enough the acceleration can approach zero).  Have you seen an acceleration figure from van Tiggelen or the time interval over which this change in velocity takes place?

(Admittedly, the time interval would have to be very small: nanoseconds, for this velocity to entail a large acceleration. To justify the accelerations measured at NASA Eagleworks, the time interval would have to be milliseconds)

See:  http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.msg1294901#msg1294901

NASA Eagleworks measured acceleration =  6 * 10^(-6) m/sec^2

velocity change = 50* 10^(-9) m/sec

implied time interval = ( 50* 10^(-9) m/sec ) / ( 6 * 10^(-6) m/sec^2) = 8 milliseconds

Also, is the velocity change universal irrespective of the dielectric material, geometry, and mass of the spacecraft? What assumptions is this velocity figure (50nanometers per second) predicated on?

Stop picking a strawman off a pithy mistake in wording. I corrected it. Everyone here can see you're misbehaving.

Mulletron, on one hand you post that you want everybody to work with you, and yet when trying to pursue technical issues that you brought up, you become very defensive and accuse one of misbehaving.

I am genuinely interested in pursuing:

1) What is the acceleration implied by the dielectric/Quantum Vacuum/momentum transfer you propose
2) What is the time interval over which this velocity change takes place

To make sense of any theories my approach is always to calculate, to get numbers to estimate whether the theory matches experimental results.

Apparently pursuing these technical issues with your postings with you is a waste of my time.

[D_Dom]

Was just reading about another advanced propulsion game on the SpaceX threads. Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances. No shortage of games to play...

[Ron Stahl]

I'm currently swapping my only pair of working AA's between my mouse and keyboard so please forgive that my answers here are short.  93143 seems to have answered most of your questions already.

. . .so there is change in chemical bonds energy, but that does not equate to change in energy density in the bulk, this is just a different form of energy (from chemical to kinetic and reverse, millions times a second).

Energy density is a measure of the material's properties.  We're actually most interested in the power density, since it is the change in internal energy over time.  This is why Woodward chose perovskite ceramics such as BaTiO3, PZT and most recently PMN, since these have huge power densities.  From the phenomenological standpoint however, we're really talking about internal energy of the material.  It is as the internal energy changes in these materials while they are being accelerated with respect to the distant stars, that a mass fluctuation of Mach Effect will occur.

There is no net output or input flow of energy in such harmonic motion (putting aside the decay to thermal agitation). SR is not saying that one form of energy is heavier than another form in such closed system, it does say that it is the same.

  As 93143 noted, the only closed system here necessarily includes the whole universe.  When we keep this in mind we hesitate to speak of closed systems.  The gravinertial flux that results from the gravitational interaction between all the universe's parts extends beyond any system we might describe that is short of the entire universe.

Visualizing a "gravinertial flux" won't help. I guess it is backed by equations of state in Woodward's book (?). "...that this flux can be made to flow in and out of matter under specific conditions" sounds to me like it would transfer all the "gains" that could be made in terms of "push heavy pull light" from one part of a closed system to another part of the same closed system, with no net thrust overall.

This is true, but what it means is there is no net thrust on the entire universe.  The universe does however experience an increase in entropy, and global conservation of momentum as result of the increase in momentum in the thruster as it produces thrust.

Time delays seem irrelevant for transformation from chemical bonds energy to kinetic energy back and forth in a bulk, again my battery example (please comment the battery thing : right ? wrong ? irrelevant ? Why irrelevant since it's about conversion from chemical bond energies to kinetic energies in a bulk ?)

It's important to be more specific and look at capacitors being used rather than chemical batteries, since bonds are not being created and destroyed in the materials, but rather the existing bonds are being stretched like rubber bands.  They're EM springs.  I think the rest of your question here is answered both just above and by 93143.

Er, mmm, it (SR+GR) might not explain the origin of mass as deriving from more fundamental "entities", but it does speak a little bit about inertia, if anything else, from an effective point of view, that is it allows a number of predictions about how something will accelerate or not (relative to inertial frame, say, in deep flat space) given what it does with its mass_energy content (throwing some of it or not). Bernoulli, with all due respect, was not working on a fundamental (effective) theory of dynamics, unlike GR or Newtonian dynamics.

SR and GR are theories of gravity.  Einstein deliberately chose to set inertia aside and not rely upon Mach's Principle.  Had he and Mach not had their falling out, I think Einstein would have eventually come to the understanding that Dennis Sciama did, that not only are the two intertwined (just as electricity and magnetism are) but that one is the result of the other.  It's unfortunate that Einstein was put off by Mach's refusal to accept SR, since had that not occurred we might have seen fantastically more productivity from the end of Einstein's career.

I'm not asking if such mainstream scientists could tell what it is supposed to do, I'm asking if they could give a prediction of what it will do from admitted frameworks. . .

There is no way to make sense of M-E theory without admitting Mach's Principle.  If you don't start with the notion that inertia is the result of gravity, you can't have a working theory of inertia and then expect to manipulate it.  Anytime anyone tries to make sense of Woodward's work without first accepting Mach's Principle, they will necessarily come up with gibberish.  This is in fact why Woodward named the mass fluctuation a "Mach Effect", because it relies upon Mach's Principle that inertia is the result of gravity.

If such Mach theory is compatible with SR, it will predict the same thing as SR in the same situation where SR does predict.

But SR doesn't make predictions about mass fluctuations, since it is not inherently a theory of inertia.  Bernoulli's Principle concerns inertia, but it is not a theory of inertia, so it does not make inertial predictions per se.

. . .for your average engineer knowing scientists, this is still beyond belief that a well put, reproducible proof of science, below 1000k$ could remain so widely ignored. . .

There are many reasons for this.  First off, it requires a great deal of time and effort to understand what Woodward is saying and most people won't invest that time.  Out of those who will, only some will ever obtain a decent level of understanding of it.  My understanding is not nearly as good as I'd like and I've been doing this for almost a decade now, but I am not an engineer and given the proper effort, most engineers can obtain a better understanding than I have.  Note though, they are never going to understand this like a physicist will, since they don't have the proper tools for this.  There are always exceptions but these are rare.  Dr. Rodal has made it his habit to regularly surprise me in his understandings.  He could likley understand much, much more than most engineers and perhaps even some PhD physicists who already have training in GR.  But the point remains that although one would expect interest to drive understanding, this is always limited by one's skill set and the investment they're willing to make.  Just the experimental setup takes many hours to understand.  Just availing oneself to how Woodward has isolated from all the various multitude of spurious sources that can and do occur, and see that they're dealt with appropriately, takes an enormous amount of time.  And what you're left with is not "proof" in the strictest sense.  Remember that although we speak of "proof of science", what we are really talking about is disproving the alternatives to the thing we seek.  Science never proves anything.  I say this all the time and people hear it and go right along pretending the opposite.  You need to keep this in mind: science never proves anything.  Never.  Not under a single condition does science ever prove anything.  All it can do is disprove alternatives.  This is a necessary limitation to all real science.

And finally the limitation here is that of the setup.  There is no way to do this with $100k.  Just paying the proper person to do this sort of investigation costs much more than this.  If we were to build a lab, and characterize a new balance, that would take about a year.  Someone with the proper skill set to act as Principle Investigator for such a thing, such as Dr. Rodal, makes about $200-250k/year.  How then are you going to have a professional replication for $100k?  You're not.  The only reason Woodward is able to get the work done at all, is he is retired and works for free.  That is not legal once there is funding of any type.  In fact the law here in the US REQUIRES that everyone involved gets paid.  It is not legal to work for free except on your hobbies.  I'm currently trying to start a startup to do this work in the lab and my best figure at this time is it will take $3M to build the lab, the thruster and the power system.  I am trying to bring the price down, since the more we need to do this the harder it will be to raise the funding, but for a professional test, one needs to start with the professionals and they are worth their wage.  You can't do this without a PhD leading the work and all of the people with these kinds of sheepskins are worth big money.  Guys like Bruce Long and Duncan Cummins make $250k/year and I can't ask them to wrk for less, unless of course they are willing to take an equity share in the startup.  That is certainly an option.   But really engineers don't want to carry so much risk.  They want to be paid and then gain an additional piece of the equity, which is more along the lines of what we're expecting.  Investors are those who manage the most risk and obtain the largest returns if they hit paydirt.

. . .one spectacular demo would lend less credibility to the tech than spreading a reproducible design of proof of science that barely moves a dust, but does so consistently and beyond doubt. But I'm not in this business, so maybe wrong.

No, you're right.  What one really wants is reproduction at several places but reproductions cost money and in science one does not have control over what others do.  That sort of control can only be had through funding the replications and when you do this they're no longer independent in the way necessary to meet the veracity test.  So what one is left with is at best trying to meet the validation criteria without reproduction, which means you need to design a kit you can take to various other labs and have tested cheaply, in order to get validation without replication costs.  This is what we intend to do, and hopefully NASA will let us stick our kit on the various balances at the various centers, but whether they do or not, if we have a commercial grade effect, we can press forward with commercial application.

[Mulletron]

I am genuinely interested in pursuing:

1) What is the acceleration implied by the dielectric/Quantum Vacuum/momentum transfer you propose
2) What is the time interval over which this velocity change takes place

To make sense of any theories my approach is always to calculate, to get numbers to estimate whether the theory matches experimental results.

Apparently pursuing these technical issues with your postings with you is a waste of my time.

Ok, well you have to realize that the Feigel paper, while it got the ball rolling, had some issues. We've discussed them. His work was furthered by Tiggelen, Shen and others I can't remember right now. His work was with liquids. So it is not a direct comparison. So that avenue is a no go. What is a go, is to build or simulate a model system where all the parameters are known. So answers 1) no clue. 2) no clue.

[frobnicat]

@93143 & Ron Stahl,

I read your replies with interest, points taken seriously, thank you. There are still things I would tend to say I disagree, but feel compelled first to clarify some concepts from primary sources (ahem, Woodward's book for instance). Hope you stick here for some time so we can pursue later (that might be a few weeks, sorry).

On the EM front, I also promised to follow on spurious "warm air jet" hypothesis as a possible explanation to some aspects of Eagleworks results. This is not forgotten but... delayed.

[Ron Stahl]

Ron, it is as simple as this, M-E isn't the only game in town.

Actually, it is..... 

With no end to upstart theories, not even Einstein's seminal works on relativity can say they're the only game in town. Woodward's work is nowhere near the prestige, acceptance, or levels of proof enjoyed by Einstein, and should not be treated as such without a lot of (as yet forthcoming) experimental proof.

Woodward's ideas are very interesting, and I would like to know more, but I'm looking for experimental proof (or refutation); reading the book can't give me that.

Lets be clear.  I didn't make any sweeping statements about Woodward's scheme working.  I said it is the only game in town and if your criteria for what is a working game is that of science, then it IS the only game in town.  I was paid to do this study in 2005 and the results of that survey were that only Woodward's scheme met the criteria of science, and only Woodward's work ought therefore find funding.  Lockheed Martin sent out a team of physicists from their Lightspeed facility to do the exact same study and came to exactly the same conclusion. 

If your working criteria for investment is that of what makes good science, ONLY Woodward's work meets that criteria.  Certainly QVF does not meet the criteria of science.  It is a scam based on delusions of grandeur and a willingness to contradict EEP, GR and conservation.

[Stormbringer]

i just brought Woodward's book and thus contributed a tiny amount of money to continuing research.

[Rodal]

I am here.  Besides those points, don't forget about this interesting one

Also if phi/c^2 = 1 that contradicts the MET equation where phi is a variable.

phi = scalar potential of the gravitational field
c = speed of light in vacuum

This should be easy to address by the Woodward theory devotees here

If  phi/c^2 = 1 then

phi = c^2

which is a constant, therefore

If  phi=c^2, phi is a constant and  then all the derivatives of phi should be zero.

Woodward answers

You may be wondering, especially after all of the fuss about phi and c being “locally measured
invariants” in the previous chapter, how the derivatives of phi in these wave equations
can have any meaning. After all, if phi has the same value everywhere and at all times, how
can it be changing in either space or time?
The thing to keep in mind is “locally measured.” As measured by a particular observer,
c and phi have their invariant values wherever he or she is located. But everywhere else, the
values measured may be quite different from the local invariant values. And if there is any
variation, the derivatives do not vanish.

Now, does everybody understand the above paragraph?

Well, then Woodward gives an example:

Let’s look at a concrete example. Back around 1960, a few years after the discovery
of the Mossbauer effect (recoilless emission and absorption of gamma rays by radioactive
iron and cobalt), Pound and Rebka used the effect – which permits timing to an
accuracy of a part in 1017 s – to measure the gravitational redshift in a “tower” about
22.5 m high on Harvard’s campus. The gravitational redshift results because time runs
slower in a stronger gravitational field, so an emitter at the bottom of the tower produces
gamma rays that have a different frequency from those emitted and absorbed at the top
of the tower. Pound and Rebka measured this shift for a source at the top of the tower by
using a moving iron absorber at the bottom of the tower. The motion of the absorber
produces a Doppler frequency shift that compensates for the higher frequency of the
source at the top of the tower. From the speed of the absorber, the value of the frequency
shift can be calculated.
Since time runs slower at the bottom of the tower, the speed of light there, measured
by someone at the top of the tower, is also smaller. And since phi=c^2, the value of phi at
the bottom of the tower measured by the person at the top is also different from the local
invariant value. Obviously, the derivative of phi in the direction of the vertical in the
tower does not vanish. But if you measure the value of c, a proxy for phi, with, for
example, a cavity resonator, you will get exactly the local invariant value everywhere in
the tower. From all this you can infer that the locally measured value of phi is the same
everywhere in the tower, notwithstanding that it has a non-vanishing derivative everywhere
in the tower.

Here again the great Poincare had a general lemma

http://www.mathphysicsbook.com/mathematics/manifolds/homology-on-manifolds/the-poincare-lemma/

[IslandPlaya]

BTW, you can look at the nite sky and see that it is anisotropic.

That's because the naked eye can't see very far... a few thousand light-years at most (yes, I know you can glimpse the Andromeda galaxy if you are lucky.)
On bigger scales (Billions of light-years) the Universe is remarkably isotropic. I can't cite any papers, but I believe this to be the case.

[Mulletron]

Second that emotion.  Still, even I know the difference between velocity and acceleration, so the request for your viewpoints is still to be answered:

a) how do you address re-normalization: the issue of infinite vacuum energy

b) how do you address the issue that the vacuum energy does not gravitate

c) how do you address the issue of "breaking of symmetry" (no directional momentum of the vacuum) to result in useful propellant-less propulsion of the EM Drive by the vacuum

I don't care if you're wrong in an answer, that's the only way I appear to learn, BTW.  But I think they're fair questions.

Sure thing: I answered them here near the bottom (under the video):
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.msg1300279#msg1300279

Next subject:

Quoting @Rodal:
The proponents of the quantum vacuum producing propulsion of the EM Drive as a sail should also try to falsify their theory.

Also, just to make sure it wasn't lost on the intellectual battlefield of yesterday(somewhere amongst the carnage of M-E theory and elementary school science class);  I provided my answer to the "it's a sail!" falsification challenge here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.msg1300239#msg1300239

[Mulletron]

Was just reading about another advanced propulsion game on the SpaceX threads. Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances. No shortage of games to play...

Hit us with a link please!

[Mulletron]

Guys, as far as the "sail idea" goes, it is a rough idea. It is my Quantum thruster idea v3. I've provided a lot of references and commentary about what I think might be going on, but I don't have all the answers. This idea isn't even close to being fully developed or formalized. I don't have the skills required to make the math work. It isn't simple algebra. See all the references I've provided that are the key enablers to what I think is happening and you'll see, this is ground breaking stuff. None of the answers are contained in any one reference. I can't provide anything more than approximate solutions, with huge error bars because I don't have any idea what the value of vacuum energy is, or how to deal with calculating the Casimir energy of a conical frustum. I'm am aware of my limitations. I know that I have reached the limit of what I can further contribute, for now. I am not the guy who is going to make this happen. But other people out there have skills that I don't have and there are folks out there that are way smarter than me.

I approached this idea cold on or around the first week of August. There is a lot more work to do. While I'm not asserting that I am exactly right; I do think I have a more salient model than the existing "QVPT" idea out there. More importantly, my model isn't supported by any original research. Every step is cited by other people's work, and the discourse of this thread.

If you go back to page one and read forward, you'll see that this is an NSF driven effort. Many minds working together; shaping and molding ideas into a framework that actually works.

This could be what frees the lot of humanity from the confines of Mother Earth, by enabling cheap and easy spaceflight. No man is an island. We all sink or swim together.

[Notsosureofit]

Exactly !  Ps: the doppler frame seems to hint at a Casmir cavity type effect, but so far I can't match the frequency response w/ simple algebra.

[Rodal]

Exactly !  Ps: the doppler frame seems to hint at a Casmir cavity type effect, but so far I can't match the frequency response w/ simple algebra.

Aren't the NASA truncated cone and the Shawyer EM Drive dimensions too large to function as such?

[Rodal]

Ok...so if I am following Rodal's analysis correctly, Jack Sarfatti's counter to Woodward's  argument is...overly broad?  Flawed?

No, not at all.  Jack's review is not overly broad.  On the contrary, it is very specific and well defined: with equations precisely showing what he means.

I only addressed a few words, less than 1%, of his review: the following few words

Also if phi/c^2 = 1 that contradicts the MET equation where phi is a variable.

[Notsosureofit]

BTW, you can look at the nite sky and see that it is anisotropic.

That's because the naked eye can't see very far... a few thousand light-years at most (yes, I know you can glimpse the Andromeda galaxy if you are lucky.)
On bigger scales (Billions of light-years) the Universe is remarkably isotropic. I can't cite any papers, but I believe this to be the case.

Remarkably isotropic turns out to be the same thing as anisotropic.  Here's a bit more beyond the nekkid eyeball...

Are'nt you supposed to calculate some Mandlebrotian dimensionality from that

[aceshigh]

@Mulletron: your posts making fun of Woodward Theory as something nonsensical just because he used the name Flux Capacitor to a part of his test device, are not much above the level of Ron Stahls posts


@Ron Stahl: you should breath and count to 100 before answering some stuff. While it would be wrong of us to dismiss Woodward Theory because of the way you (or even if it was Woodward himself) bashes as wackos anyone with different opinions from you, because we should pay attention to the science, not to your expletives and ad hominens, you should also focus on science and avoid all those ad hominens and attacks on other people. There are nicer ways to say you disagree with someone than to say the person is a wacko, or that they are all wrong, etc.

[aceshigh]

Ok...so if I am following Rodal's analysis correctly, Jack Sarfatti's counter to Woodward's  argument is...overly broad?  Flawed?

No, not at all.  Jack's review is not overly broad.  On the contrary, it is very specific and well defined: with equations precisely showing what he means.

I only addressed a few words, less than 1%, of his review: the following few words

what about the other 99%? Is Jack correct?

[Notsosureofit]

Exactly !  Ps: the doppler frame seems to hint at a Casmir cavity type effect, but so far I can't match the frequency response w/ simple algebra.

Aren't the NASA truncated cone and the Shawyer EM Drive dimensions too large to function as such?

Maybe, but I don't see why.  The doppler response (two photon) seems to be the key characteristic.  (although I have to look in a different, ie doppler, AFR to "see" it.  I'm still missing something, before I can make a complete thought on this .  I was surprised to see the numbers come out even close for such a simple argument.