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#2260 by Rodal on 26 Jan, 2016 23:19
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I would like to pose this question to those more familiar with peer-reviewed journal publications...
It is my understanding that the best papers in the best journals always require an agreed upon THEORY before publishing occurs. IOW, do you think EW's paper in the works will have to nail down the theory BEFORE it goes to print? If so, the theory must be much further along than I assume. As of now, its all up in the air in my estimate.
Inquiring minds want to know...well, I do anyway.....
THE ACHILLES HEEL OF GETTING AN EM DRIVE PAPER THROUGH PEER-REVIEW
OK, this is a great summary with details...Propulsion and Power seems to be at the top of the list of possibilities. So, scientific methodology is key and new, speculative theories wouldn't necessarily auto-reject the paper if I understand correctly. Therefore, we'll have to wait and see if it gets past NASA's internal review perhaps. Good deal, we have a Journal webpage to watch titled Articles in Advance (of JPP publication):
http://arc.aiaa.org/toc/jpp/0/0
The Achilles heel of getting an EM Drive paper through peer-review is the energy conservation problem.
As pointed out by Frobnicat most proponents of propellant-less propulsion (unwillingly or willingly) hide the issue of free-energy and perpetual motion under the rug in their discussions. Which is perplexing, because if indeed one was able to get a force/input power > 1/c, then free energy could be made available from the EM Drive (*), and there is a much larger market for free energy than a need for space propulsion.
As first shown by Frobnicat in previous EM Drive threads, if the EM Drive works as proposed by several proponents, and you can really get force/input power > 1/c, then eventually one does NOT need any power, as free-energy can be produced by a couple of rotating EM Drives.
This issue of free-energy and perpetual motion is much more important for getting a paper published in the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power than any issues of the veracity of a theory like the Quantum Vacuum hypothesis of Dr. White, because the Journal of Propulsion and Power was originally the AIAA Journal of Energy (up to the year 1983) and many of the peer-review editors are well-versed in energy conservation principles.
Hence I would be willing to predict that if the EM Drive article successfully makes it through peer-review that the conservation of energy issue with the EM Drive will not be dealt with at all in the paper (and hence it would not have been dealt with by peer reviewers).
______________
(*) Interestingly and amusingly
, in the first episode of the new 6 episode X-Files 2016 series shown this Sunday Jan 24 '16 evening, an "alien-technology" spacecraft was shown that was said to fly because of the Quantum Vacuum, and the series presenters discussed the fact that free-energy could be obtained from this principle as well, but that this alien technology was being kept from the population (in the fictional series plot) because of a vast conspiracy . 
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#2261 by dustinthewind on 26 Jan, 2016 23:34
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I was thinking about the topic of the light being reflected in the cavity or Q. As light information doesn't angularly rotate when the frustum is rotated then any modes inside will have to be attenuated before a new mode in the new frustum angular orientation can form. There should be some resistance to angular rotation of a cavity. As a result rotating a resonating cavity should decrease the Q, I would imagine.
I was also thinking about the post shells linked earlier: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39004.msg1482880#msg1482880 message below the one linked by Shells.Quote"We think that is because that like any ac electric induction motor, this device has to load down its input energy/power source as it is generating thrusting work. Which brings up another point. That being all the calculated Q-Factors given in the Chinese papers, unless otherwise stated, is the very idealized unloaded Q-factors that implies that no energy is being extracted from the resonant cavity."
One thought was that a force induced on the cavity alone (if the cavity doesn't accelerate) might not reduce the Q of the light inside (absorption of energy) unless the cavity was some how exerting a force on some unknown propellant in which case we then have some force exerted over a distance on some hidden propellant, F.dx = Energy .
On the other hand if we assume propellant-less then maybe the Q won't dip unless "the cavity it self accelerates" (no propellant) in which case then we have F.dx = E being absorbed from energy in the cavity. It is hard for me to imagine there there isn't some form of hidden propellant, if it works.
Due to the nature of light attenuation from rotating a cavity (mentioned at the top) [beware rotational experiments] I would think the decreased Q might be confused with the cavity acting on a propellant or pushing it self. The rotational experiments may, or may not, have to take into account the resistance of the cavity to angular rotation, depending on its magnitude. (I would imagine rotating the cavity might increase the reflected power, where as energy absorption by a hidden propellant would not.)
Funny you mention the X-Files show, as a friend was telling me about this. I haven't had a chance to see it, and not sure I will get to, but I found it interesting. It amazes me all the news media we have and how fast ideas circulate. With Google translate were not even limited to our own language anymore. -
#2262 by zen-in on 26 Jan, 2016 23:58
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b) the larger the EM Drive the more power one can input into it without running into electric breakdown of the air, multipaction in vacuum, etc.
In other words, as shown by Frobnicat, if the EM Drive works as proposed by Shawyer and others, and you can really get force proportional to power, then eventually one does NOT need any solar power, as free-energy can be produced by a couple of rotating EM Drives.
Boats larger than 36', except for sailboats, usually have 2 props, usually with identical but counter-rotating engines. Luxury motor yachts from the early part of the last century had 3 props. It improves maneuverability a lot since "prop walk" is cancelled and differential drive can be used. Sometimes they even have a bow thruster. Spacecraft have many thrusters so if the em-drive is ever deployed on ISS there would likely be at least 3. When one considers the difficulty in maintaining vectored thrust against the center of mass, maybe more would be required. I would suggest launching them separately and making them all "swim" to the ISS. -
#2263 by SteveD on 26 Jan, 2016 23:59
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In other words, as shown by Frobnicat, if the EM Drive works as proposed by Shawyer and others, and you can really get force proportional to power, then eventually one does NOT need any solar power, as free-energy can be produced by a couple of rotating EM Drives.
I suspect that the EMDrive, and various EM free energy devices that surprisingly seem to work, turn on some yet unknown method for pulling heat out of the environment. The electrical input might be constant but, perhaps, electricity + heat drawn from the environment is not. -
#2264 by A_M_Swallow on 27 Jan, 2016 00:01
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If the formula ΔE = ½ m (V22 - V12) still applies then all the stuff about free-energy turns out to have been a red herring.
The rotation test will show this. Given an input of constant energy per second the acceleration per second reduces; after friction and air resistance have been allowed for. -
#2265 by Rodal on 27 Jan, 2016 00:03
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...
The rotation test will show this. Given an input of constant energy per second the acceleration per second reduces; after friction and air resistance have been allowed for.
In other words, as shown by Frobnicat, if the EM Drive works as proposed by Shawyer and others, and you can really get force proportional to power, then eventually one does NOT need any solar power, as free-energy can be produced by a couple of rotating EM Drives.
I suspect that the EMDrive, and various EM free energy devices that surprisingly seem to work, turn on some yet unknown method for pulling heat out of the environment. The electrical input might be constant but, perhaps, electricity + heat drawn from the environment is not.
Then you are not going to get a constant force (constant acceleration) from a given power input, and with this goes all those rosy calculations of going to the Stars... (or even to Pluto in a relatively short time frame). All based on crude extrapolations of experiments that have been run for only a few seconds at a time... -
#2266 by space_britannia on 27 Jan, 2016 00:07
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nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets? -
#2267 by Rodal on 27 Jan, 2016 00:08
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No. Already dealt with in previous threads. That's why we compare in the wiki with Photon rockets and the puzzle is precisely that EM Drive proponents propose orders of magnitude greater efficiency than a photon rocket.nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets?
That's why when I was curating the EM Drive experimental results tables : http://emdrive.wiki/Experimental_Results
I endeavored to have a column comparing the EM Drive to a photon rocket.
Just imagine this: Prof. Yang's claimed EM Drive results claim an efficiency that is > 300,000 times the efficiency of a photon rocket
.
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#2268 by rfmwguy on 27 Jan, 2016 00:13
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NSF-1701A Update -
Here is the new solid frustum VNA. Sidewalls are aluminum. Q will not be as good as copper, using it for making a mold. Q numbers to follow shortly...
Pic of new frustum added. Brass rings to maintain shape. Conductive copper tape at seams.
Center at 2.452 Ghz. return loss at center 20.23dB. Q ref from peak return loss = about 2812. From O insertion = about 150.
EDIT 1/27/16 - The aluminum and the conductive copper tape are suitable for finding resonance, but mechanically, its unsuitable. By compressing the tape against the frustum and end plates, Return Loss jumped to over 40+dB. The center resonance did not change, the shape factor of the RL spike narrowed substantially, so these Q numbers should not be what I get out of a properly sealed copper frustum.
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#2269 by A_M_Swallow on 27 Jan, 2016 00:17
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1) In this post ( https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39214.msg1474347#msg1474347 ), I formally prove that, according to all 3 theories (Shawyer's, McCulloch's and Notsosureofit's), the larger the EM Drive the more efficient it will be (the more force for a given amount of power). Hence, rather than use 128 EM Drives of the size used by DoItYourself and present experimenters on a small budget, it would make much more sense to make the EM Drive as large as physically possible (similarly it is much more efficient to have fewer large turbojet engines for aircraft than a lot of small turbojet engines, or large propellers for a ship than hundreds of small propellers). The reasons for this are:
a) the larger the EM Drive (everything else remaining the same), the larger the Q, because the larger the Volume/SurfaceArea ratio, the less energy is lost on the metal walls
b) the larger the EM Drive the more power one can input into it without running into electric breakdown of the air, multipaction in vacuum, etc.
{snip free-energy}
A single EM Drive thruster for the ISS would need to produce about 128 * 20 mN = 2.56 N (approx.)
I can imagine someone at NASA wanting to build one next year.
How mechanically large would it have to be?
And what radio frequency? -
#2270 by Rodal on 27 Jan, 2016 00:27
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1) In this post ( https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39214.msg1474347#msg1474347 ), I formally prove that, according to all 3 theories (Shawyer's, McCulloch's and Notsosureofit's), the larger the EM Drive the more efficient it will be (the more force for a given amount of power). Hence, rather than use 128 EM Drives of the size used by DoItYourself and present experimenters on a small budget, it would make much more sense to make the EM Drive as large as physically possible (similarly it is much more efficient to have fewer large turbojet engines for aircraft than a lot of small turbojet engines, or large propellers for a ship than hundreds of small propellers). The reasons for this are:
a) the larger the EM Drive (everything else remaining the same), the larger the Q, because the larger the Volume/SurfaceArea ratio, the less energy is lost on the metal walls
b) the larger the EM Drive the more power one can input into it without running into electric breakdown of the air, multipaction in vacuum, etc.
{snip free-energy}
A single EM Drive thruster for the ISS would need to produce about 128 * 20 mN = 2.56 N (approx.)
I can imagine someone at NASA wanting to build one next year.
How mechanically large would it have to be?
And what radio frequency?
No
Saying that the larger the more efficient, does not mean that one has to necessarily make it that large. The post stated as large as practically possible.
One has to understand that TheTraveller (used for the calculations in your post) was very limited on the size that he could make his EM Drive:
BigDiameter: 0.259 m = 10.20 in = 0.85 ft
SmallDiameter: 0.159 m = 6.26 in = 0.52 ft
Length : 0.288 m = 11.34 in = 0.945 ft
(And just a reminder for those that might not know: NASA Eagleworks has such a small budget that Paul March had to fabricate the NASA EM Drive in his "wife's dining-room")
Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez made his resonant cavity 40 ft long in the 1940's for his famous accelerator.
Frequency? Luis Alvarez resonant cavity was in the hundred MHz range as I recall (going by memory here)
Reason ? Luis Alvarez was seeking the largest Q possible at a time before superconductivity was a practical reality, and also a cavity that would allow the largest power input possible. Luis Alvarez also wrote on how he had to deal with multipactor problems.
Luis Alvarez had his 40 ft resonant cavity made by an Aircraft manufacturer and he used old abandoned radar equipment for most of his famous device. That is 40 ft/0.945 ft = 42 times longer than TheTraveller's EM Drive
And no, making an EM Drive larger than the size used by TheTraveller does not mean that you have to have only one EM Drive, it just means that having fewer than 128 EM Drives, of a larger size is much more efficient. For example, having 60 larger EM Drives is more efficient than having 128 smaller EM Drives, that's the point
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#2271 by Tellmeagain on 27 Jan, 2016 00:37
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No. Already dealt with in previous threads. That's why we compare in the wiki with Photon rockets and the puzzle is precisely that EM Drive proponents propose orders of magnitude greater efficiency than a photon rocket.nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets?
That's why when I was curating the EM Drive experimental results tables : http://emdrive.wiki/Experimental_Results
I endeavored to have a column comparing the EM Drive to a photon rocket.
Just imagine this: Prof. Yang's claimed EM Drive results claim an efficiency that is > 300,000 times the efficiency of a photon rocket .
This is exactly what Professor Higgins talked about (at http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.00494 ; pdf available there), that any EmDrive rocket generating more thrust than photon rocket is a perpetual motion machine. -
#2272 by Rodal on 27 Jan, 2016 00:58
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No. Already dealt with in previous threads. That's why we compare in the wiki with Photon rockets and the puzzle is precisely that EM Drive proponents propose orders of magnitude greater efficiency than a photon rocket.nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets?
That's why when I was curating the EM Drive experimental results tables : http://emdrive.wiki/Experimental_Results
I endeavored to have a column comparing the EM Drive to a photon rocket.
Just imagine this: Prof. Yang's claimed EM Drive results claim an efficiency that is > 300,000 times the efficiency of a photon rocket .
This is exactly what Professor Higgins talked about (at http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.00494 ; pdf available there), that any EmDrive rocket generating more thrust than photon rocket is a perpetual motion machine.
That's what I mean by the "Achilles heel of getting an EM Drive paper through peer review": imagine if Professor Higgins happens by chance to be a peer-review editor for a Journal and gets to blind-review an article on the EM Drive, I bet that Professor Higgins would be raising this free-energy issue as a problem that has to be satisfactorily dealt with by anybody publishing a proposed theoretical equation, or claiming an experimental measurement for an EM Drive giving force proportional to power Input, such that force/power > 1/c
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#2273 by zen-in on 27 Jan, 2016 01:22
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It is difficult for some to understand the Conservation of Energy issue that looms over em-drive and it seems some believe there is a free pass to avoid this problem. One way to visualize is to watch rowers (as in Winklevoss twins). When they first start off the oars make a long sweep in the water, accelerating the boat. But once the boat gets up to speed the oars seem to just make a brief dip in the water. Anything that causes something to accelerate does this. The wheels of your car have less torque at higher RPM, when you pedal a bike it takes more effort to maintain a fast speed than to accelerate from a slow speed. The acceleration of something with respect to some fixed frame of reference will always drop off as the speed increases, if the applied power is constant. Others have done the math and shown how this is an unchangeable law of physics. It is something we experience every day
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#2274 by SeeShells on 27 Jan, 2016 01:39
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It is difficult for some to understand the Conservation of Energy issue that looms over em-drive and it seems some believe there is a free pass to avoid this problem. One way to visualize is to watch rowers (as in Winklevoss twins). When they first start off the oars make a long sweep in the water, accelerating the boat. But once the boat gets up to speed the oars seem to just make a brief dip in the water. Anything that causes something to accelerate does this. The wheels of your car have less torque at higher RPM, when you pedal a bike it takes more effort to maintain a fast speed than to accelerate from a slow speed. The acceleration of something with respect to some fixed frame of reference will always drop off as the speed increases, if the applied power is constant. Others have done the math and shown how this is an unchangeable law of physics. It is something we experience every day
Many question are still needing to be addressed. One is that there is a difference between force and acceleration. TT is addressing this with his rotary tests as am I with the limited short acceleration of the fulcrum beam monitored by the laser. That question is one to be answered as the testing evolves to answer it.
It could be that the drive sustains a acceleration for a given amount of time during the build up of the Q and forces and then the drive switches direction and the drive reverses thrust direction. Just like a pendulum storing energy. We've not tested this in a simulation or in a real test yet.
Shell -
#2275 by SteveD on 27 Jan, 2016 01:40
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No. Already dealt with in previous threads. That's why we compare in the wiki with Photon rockets and the puzzle is precisely that EM Drive proponents propose orders of magnitude greater efficiency than a photon rocket.nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets?
That's why when I was curating the EM Drive experimental results tables : http://emdrive.wiki/Experimental_Results
I endeavored to have a column comparing the EM Drive to a photon rocket.
Just imagine this: Prof. Yang's claimed EM Drive results claim an efficiency that is > 300,000 times the efficiency of a photon rocket .
This is exactly what Professor Higgins talked about (at http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.00494 ; pdf available there), that any EmDrive rocket generating more thrust than photon rocket is a perpetual motion machine.
That's what I mean by the "Achilles heel of getting an EM Drive paper through peer review": imagine if Professor Higgins happens by chance to be a peer-review editor for a Journal and gets to blind-review an article on the EM Drive, I bet that Professor Higgins would be raising this free-energy issue as a problem that has to be satisfactorily dealt with by anybody publishing a proposed theoretical equation, or claiming an experimental measurement for an EM Drive giving force proportional to power Input, such that force/power > 1/c
Again, how does this not apply to a Photonic Laser Thruster? -
#2276 by Rodal on 27 Jan, 2016 01:46
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...
Again, because a Photonic Laser Thruster, (unlike what is proposed by EM Drive proponents) implies not one spaceship but two (or more than two), and the other spaceship(s) (the "resource vehicle(s)") have to move in the opposite direction to the "mission vehicle" as the result of the photonic momentum.
Again, how does this not apply to a Photonic Laser Thruster?
Actually, to go far, the proponents of the photonic laser thruster are proposing a very costly and complicated infrastructure of "resource vehicles" that are stationed, ahead of time, at different future positions in the path of the photonic laser thruster "mission vehicle", in order for the photonic laser thruster "mission vehicle" to be able to go far...
To correctly apply conservation of energy and conservation of momentum, to the photonic laser thruster you have to consider all the vehicles (at least two vehicles) involved in the photonic laser thruster concept (*).
________
(*) Similarly Prof. Woodward in his Mach Effect principle claims that in effect all masses in the Universe are responsible for the Woodward effect, so all masses involved are affected (to a larger or smaller effect)
"the local inertia frame is completely determined by the dynamic fields in the whole Universe."
In stark contrast, Shawyer claims that the EM Drive "propulsion" can be completely explained by a completely closed cavity by itself, without recurring to any external field, just based on Maxwell's equations and Special Relativity, as a completely closed system. (Of course such a theory as Shaywer's runs contrary to conservation of energy/momentum).
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#2277 by RFPlumber on 27 Jan, 2016 02:23
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...
(And just a reminder for those that might not know: NASA Eagleworks has such a small budget that Paul March had to fabricate the NASA EM Drive in his "wife's dining-room")
Unbelievable... And very sad.
From the other hand, no surprise. I once worked on some (now well known to everyone) consumer electronics product where during testing we had to maintain the length of a particular optical path to sub-mm precision in order for the calibration algorithm to work correctly. During the initial rounds of testing this path was measured with a HomeDepot tape measure... During the later rounds of testing and close to product launch the same path was then measured with a fully automatic Leica range finder costing like $250,000. -
#2278 by Tellmeagain on 27 Jan, 2016 02:40
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No. Already dealt with in previous threads. That's why we compare in the wiki with Photon rockets and the puzzle is precisely that EM Drive proponents propose orders of magnitude greater efficiency than a photon rocket.nobody has yet resolved the energy puzzle: the fact that (as brilliantly shown by Frobnicat and DeltaMass) if the EM Drive can produce constant acceleration for constant power,it is a free-energy machine, and that doesn't make sense. All tests have been run for an insignificant amount of time (seconds) so this important issue has not yet been dealt with theoretically or experimentally.
Doesn't the same apply to photon rockets?
That's why when I was curating the EM Drive experimental results tables : http://emdrive.wiki/Experimental_Results
I endeavored to have a column comparing the EM Drive to a photon rocket.
Just imagine this: Prof. Yang's claimed EM Drive results claim an efficiency that is > 300,000 times the efficiency of a photon rocket .
This is exactly what Professor Higgins talked about (at http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.00494 ; pdf available there), that any EmDrive rocket generating more thrust than photon rocket is a perpetual motion machine.
That's what I mean by the "Achilles heel of getting an EM Drive paper through peer review": imagine if Professor Higgins happens by chance to be a peer-review editor for a Journal and gets to blind-review an article on the EM Drive, I bet that Professor Higgins would be raising this free-energy issue as a problem that has to be satisfactorily dealt with by anybody publishing a proposed theoretical equation, or claiming an experimental measurement for an EM Drive giving force proportional to power Input, such that force/power > 1/c
Again, how does this not apply to a Photonic Laser Thruster?
In a photonic laser thruster, each time the laser is reflected its frequency (Energy) drops. Call it red shift, or Doppler effect. So the photon can't keep its energy forever; finally all its energy are transferred to the two spaceship and that's the end of it. -
#2279 by ThinkerX on 27 Jan, 2016 03:00
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Quote
I suspect that the EMDrive, and various EM free energy devices that surprisingly seem to work, turn on some yet unknown method for pulling heat out of the environment. The electrical input might be constant but, perhaps, electricity + heat drawn from the environment is not.
QuoteThen you are not going to get a constant force (constant acceleration) from a given power input, and with this goes all those rosy calculations of going to the Stars... (or even to Pluto in a relatively short time frame). All based on crude extrapolations of experiments that have been run for only a few seconds at a time...
Something I have wondered about as well.
But if so, perhaps multiple EM Drive units in some sort of timed sequence would grant constant acceleration? Or would that require an unrealistically high number of units?
, in the first episode of the new 6 episode X-Files 2016 series shown this Sunday Jan 24 '16 evening, an "alien-technology" spacecraft was shown that was said to fly because of the Quantum Vacuum, and the series presenters discussed the fact that free-energy could be obtained from this principle as well, but that this alien technology was being kept from the population (in the fictional series plot) because of a vast conspiracy 
.