We should have a sidebar discussion about the transient changes in mass suggested by Mr. Woodward's interpretation of Mach and Sciama's theories. Maybe in it's own thread, IDK.
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 09/18/2014 01:39 pmQuote from: Rodal on 09/17/2014 05:54 pm...6) Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested. "Conventional experience" has not shown A) translational momentum transfer imparted from .. virtual particles from the quantum vacuum, B) transient changes in mass resulting from EM, [M-E, Mach Effect, I think, is what you meant] Well, I meant that conventional experience has not shown that ElectroMagnetic (EM) fields produce transient changes in mass (as posited by Woodward's interpretation of the Mach Effect), but however we word this you fully understood what I meant, and I agree with what you state in your latest post. Woodward could answer that his effects are not meant to be conventionally experienced, but that's precisely what Langmuir was pointing out as one of the characteristics with which Langmuir identifies what he defines as Pathologic Science. So, if Woodward would answer that his effects were never meant to be conventionally experienced, it would still meet that particular Langmuir characteristic with a "Yes". By the way, Langmuir did not mean that something that meets his definitions of Pathological Science is necessarily bunk, or wrong, Langmuir just says "watch out," that if one is interested in the phenomena, further, more precise experiments need to be conducted by independent peers, before accepting the results.
Quote from: Rodal on 09/17/2014 05:54 pm...6) Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested. "Conventional experience" has not shown A) translational momentum transfer imparted from .. virtual particles from the quantum vacuum, B) transient changes in mass resulting from EM, [M-E, Mach Effect, I think, is what you meant]
...6) Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested. "Conventional experience" has not shown A) translational momentum transfer imparted from .. virtual particles from the quantum vacuum, B) transient changes in mass resulting from EM, [M-E, Mach Effect, I think, is what you meant]
Again, the forces current devices exhibit is far less than small satellites see from solar pressure, drag, etc. So any effect would be hard to pull out, especially when you factor in the mass required to power it. Add in the complication that those forces are constant and these devices have only been tested for seconds at a time, it's a recipe for wasted money.
Quote from: cuddihy on 09/18/2014 10:29 amAgain, the forces current devices exhibit is far less than small satellites see from solar pressure, drag, etc. So any effect would be hard to pull out, especially when you factor in the mass required to power it. Add in the complication that those forces are constant and these devices have only been tested for seconds at a time, it's a recipe for wasted money.Rather than test at ISS or as a cubesat up front, a device could be tested on a stable high altitude balloon platform of the sort JP Aerospace makes. The test device at high altitude (not perfect vacuum of course), measure all outside movements, replicate at sea level. Compensate for variance. It would not be that expensive, certainly less than a 100k cube sat where all the variances could not be taken into account easily. This looks like a job for near-space.
Quote from: aceshigh on 09/17/2014 10:57 pmit's somewhat of a catch 21 22. My work here is never done.
it's somewhat of a catch 21
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 09/18/2014 01:41 pmQuote from: aceshigh on 09/17/2014 10:57 pmit's somewhat of a catch 21 22. My work here is never done.well, considering it's an expression that makes no sense at all in other languages, I never used it before (in my natural language)
Are you going to serve Scotch in this sidebar?
The part of Woodward's derivations that I have followed...
And izzat really true about Heller? My vin du table is the Mouton Cadet Bordeaux. Wonder if there's a bottle of the '53 kicking about?
I have seen people in blogs (not in this thread) bringing up the dynamic Casimir effect as perhaps being responsible for the EM drive thrust. One problem with the dynamic Casimir effect is that the moving mirrors responsible for the effect need to move at relativistic speeds. If the moving mirrors move at a speed that doesn't approach the speed of light, the virtual particle pairs will easily adapt to the mirror’s movement and continue to come in and out of existence without any dynamic Casimir effect. The speed of the mirror needs to match the speed of the photons to experience the dynamic Casimir effect, and since the photons move at relativistic speeds, this means that the mirror needs to move at relativistic speeds. If the mirrors move at speeds approaching the speed of light, then yes, the virtual photons then become "real" (in the sense that they will interact with the mirrors) and the mirror begins to produce light. The problem is that it’s impossible to get an ordinary mirror made of solid matter moving at anything approaching relativistic speeds. The walls of the Shawyer, Cannae and Dr. White Frustum microwave devices are certainly not moving at relativistic speeds.
Wilson et. al. (arxiv.org/abs/1105.4714) used, instead of a conventional mirror made of solid matter, a transmission line connected to a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). The SQUID changes the effective electrical length of the line and this is equivalent to the movement of an electromagnetic mirror. When modulating the SQUID at GHz rates, the "mirror" moves back and forth. The transmission line is only 100 micrometres long and the mirror moves over a distance of about a nanometre. It achieves speeds approaching 5 per cent of light speed. Then Wilson cooled the medium (to 50mK), so that the photons would travel slower and match the "mirror" speed. This worked: it was the first experimental confirmation of the dynamic Casimir effect, they spotted microwave photons emerging from the moving mirror, as predicted some time ago to occur.But I don't see how this can relate to what Shawyer, Cannae and Dr. White did with the Frustum device: Wilson had to use a superconducting quantum interference device (which Shawyer, Cannae and Dr.White did not), modulated at GHz rates, and the transmission line was only 100 micrometres long, and everything had to be cooled down. The walls of the EM drives are not moving at relativistic speeds, and they are several inches apart instead of a nanometer apart. There are no "mirrors" moving at relativistic speeds, about a nanometre apart. And the EM drives experiments are not conducted in a medium at very low temperatures (50mK) to slow down the photons to match the "mirror's" speed.
And since we were discussing Heller, we might as well quote ... Niccolò Machiavelli
The Casimir effect has become an extremely active area of research from both theoretical and experimental points of view and its importance lies far beyond the context of QED. This is due to its interdisciplinary character, which makes this effect find applications in quantum field theory (bag model, for instance), cavity QED, atomic and molecular physics, mathematical methods in QFT (development of new regularization and renormalization schemes), fixing new constraints in hypothetical forces, nanotechnology (nanomachines operated by Casimir forces), condensed matter physics, gravitation and cosmology, models with compactified extra-dimensions, etc.
And since we were discussing Heller, we might as well quote this famous Italian, that could equally apply to the experiments at Eagleworks ("the opponents, who have the laws on their side" means in this case the Physical Laws as presently understood by the Physics community at large):<<It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.>>The PrinceNiccolò Machiavelli
It's a lot of fun to imagine what might be done with the technology, and I very much want it to be real, but we should all be operating under the assumption that EM drives appear to work because one thing or another about the experiments are wrong.
Quote from: GoatGuy on 09/18/2014 02:36 pmThe part of Woodward's derivations that I have followed...Uhhh... which derivations, there, kemosabe?Also, I'm working in the privacy of my own office to follow your v=2k argument. Just wanted to note that regarding that argument, silence is golden, and we're all getting rich. Apparently.
if one were to just assume without justification that the RF signal within the thruster behaves as a non-physical second metallic plate close to the base plate then the claimed thrusts agree closely with the 2 parallel plate Casimir force. (Plate separation about 0.917 micrometers, thrust error 0.005%) I wish I could justify that assumption of the resonating RF energy acting as a virtual plate. The best I can do at the moment is to use the analogy of signal jamming. Suppose the applied RF signal jams the quantum electromagnetic field signal within the cavity. That, it seems to me would leave an unbalanced Casimir force on the plates and give rise to thrust from the device. Oh by the way, If I could justify that assumption, it immediately points to a better design with thrust values a lot higher. For example, shortening the length of the cavity to suppress resonates lengthwise and at the small end, leaving only one resonance mode at the large end. This would eliminate the negative Casimir force on the small end and on the sides of the cone leaving the force on the base plate as thrust.And note how strongly Casimir force increases with smaller values of separation, a. If this were truly the cause of the measured thrust, then electronically moving the RF energy closer to the base plate causes thrust force to increase by four orders of magnitude for each lowering of the separation by one order of magnitude. That would be a payoff worth pursuing.