Mach effects follow up. I post on this thread (that I must admit haven't read quite yet) because seems more on topic than the other propellantless thread titled "EM drive".
Before the discussion on first thread "EM drive development" got interrupted I wondered what kind of proof of science (not proof of application) could be devised about reality of Mach effect and Ron Stahl told us about positive results with "rotator" experiments done by Woodward (but scientific community apparently ignored that...). No direct link were provided and it took me a bit of time to do a circle to
physics forums (with comments from AcesHigh linking back to NSF) and
Next Big Future where I learnt that the device was named "Mark-III rotary test rig" which sent me
right back to NSF where Star-Drive (Paul March) attached
an article (and a
revised edition a few posts after on the thread)
I don't know which version is referenced as :
Woodward, J.F., A Test for the Existence of Mach Effects With a Rotary Device, in the proceedings of Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences International Forum (SPESIF-10), edited by Glen A. Robertson, AIP CP1208, Melville, New York, 2010 p. 227-236.
It appears NSF forum, posted by Paul March, is the only place this important fundamental research work is available (freely, it is paywalled on AIP proceedings site). Searching for references shows only
a work (devising an alternative experiment, no actual results) by Buldrini also
hosted on NSF thread "Propellantless Field Propulsion and application"Looks like NSF is becoming the only arxiv of those works.
So it's not that this attempt by Woodward at an experiment specifically aimed at detectable Mach effect (not usable) did meet rejection or refutation or scientific community outrage : it was utterly ignored, as far as publications or public statements go. This was 4 years ago and comments dating of that time, on this very thread, are still relevant concerning the necessity of this work and its caveats (
starting about there...). This line of inquiry (concentrating on showing the reality of an effect) that in domains dealing with not obvious fundamental science would be the right way to proceed, seems to have been completely abandoned at an incomplete stage, but is still reffered by proponents as conclusive.
While I'm at it :
this post summarises well my impression on Mach effect and concludes by
... if there is any possibility of some propellantless drive, it cannot arise from combining existing physical effects in a new complicated way, as all of those physical effects are known to be subject to the local conservation rules. It can only arise from new physics.
Proponents keep on insisting that their Machian derivations are fully GR compatible. I don't see the necessity of adding anything to SR/GR to get a prediction of what will happen to the mass when having a varying power (second energy derivative) applied to a bulk accelerating material : nothing more than a small integrated E/c² term on the rest mass.
edit : "A Test for the Existence of Mach Effects With a Rotary Device" appears not to be mentioned in Woodward's book "Making Starships and Stargates"
