Mach Effect progress

[93143]

I can tell you though, Jim was very adamant that to do the calculation, you have to use a particular kind of math that is used in GR, and I believe this is because you're working in an accelerating, non-inertial frame. That may be why you can't do the math as you're proposing.

But you can. I have two degrees in mechanical engineering and am working on a third in aerospace; trust me on this one.

There need be no nonconservation issue, because when you push on the distant reaction mass, you are also exchanging kinetic energy with it. How much and in which direction depends, of course, on the inertial frame from which the transaction is observed, but you cannot have a finite momentum exchange without any work being done.

This is why I proposed that if M-E is real, there would be something hidden in the mechanism that acted preferentially on matter close to the velocity of the thruster - otherwise the thrust efficiency would not be high enough to be interesting. The details of this problem (how exactly the interaction with the rest of the universe occurs) definitely require fluency in GR and M-E theory, but I think it's a plausible conjecture as far as it goes...

[GIThruster]

So if the total momentum out (and hence, energy, since a moving M-E thruster has more energy than the same one at rest) is greater than the total energy that went in, doesn't that violate conservation of momentum?

Eric, you've put your finger on an issue we've discussed in this thread several times over the last couple years, so if you want to read back you may get some answers. To answer your question in short:

M-E thrusters like the MLT and UFG are not energy transducers, that convert electrical energy into kinetic, but rather they're gravinertial transistors, that control the flow of gravinertial flux, in and out of the active mass of the device. They are handling much larger forces than the EMF provided in the electical power feed, so you can't simply look at electrical power in, and kinetic power out and think about conservation.

A gravinertial transistor is much more like a sail. It takes relatively little energy to move the sail than as compared to the energy on the sail. This analogy breaks down when you look at what's called the "power gradient". Sails use gradients caused by moving mass (the wind). In the case of the M-E thrusters, both MLT and UFG; the thruster creates the gradient. This gets one into some pretty complex physics, so just saying--treat the analogy of the sail with kit gloves.

To sum up, M-E thrusters can easily appear to violate conservation, if you neglect to consider the fact you're actually fluctuating mass. You have to start with an appreciation of this. If you don't understand the fantastic consequence of what a mass fluctuation is, you'll start thinking an M-E thruster is a Dean Drive, and certainly IT IS NOT! Dean Drives are most certainly violations of conservation and they never work at all.

[EricF]

The sail analogy actually makes sense to me, thanks for breaking it down.
Are power gradients and mass fluctuations covered in freshman and sophomore physics?

[GIThruster]

I can tell you though, Jim was very adamant that to do the calculation, you have to use a particular kind of math that is used in GR, and I believe this is because you're working in an accelerating, non-inertial frame. That may be why you can't do the math as you're proposing.

But you can. . .trust me on this one.

Seriously, you can't. I know this sounds crazy, but in accelerating frames F does not equal ma.

We had this discussion 6 months ago in one of the tech distribution lists, and a fantastically smart friend of mine--PhD's in both EE and physics, works at NASA JSC--made this mistake. He started by acknowledging that you can't do standard calculations in accelerated frames and went on to do just that, and was wrong. Same with the physicist at NBF--he was just so sure his calculation would work! But after about 100 emails, it turned out both physicists were wrong and Jim was right.

You can't treat accelerated frames as if they were inertial frames. That always comes out in error. If you do this calculation with the tools provided by GR, you get perfectly acceptable answers that don't violate conservation. If you try to use these newtonian tools inside accelerated frames, you always get a wrong answer.

Check for yourself! there are lots of examples you might choose. I know it sounds crazy, but you absolutely cannot do the math the way you say in an accelerated frame. This is why you're in good company--several PhD physicists I know, the guy from NASA, the guy from NBF, the guy from Woodward's tech distribution list--have all made this mistake.

BTW, I hope I'm not sounding pedantic. I can't do the math, and let me take this opportunity to say that in the years we have corresponded in the blogs at NSF and T-P, I have always found your posts to be insightful, illuminating and your demeanor to be that of a thoughtful, patient, together kinda guy. We need guys like you doing the M-E work, but that doesn't mean you can do conservation calculations in accelerating frames without the tools of GR.

[GIThruster]

The sail analogy actually makes sense to me, thanks for breaking it down.
Are power gradients and mass fluctuations covered in freshman and sophomore physics?

No. There are no classes in gravinertial engineering yet. If that's what you want, I'd suggest hoping to do your graduate study at CSU Fullerton. You might see real M-E physics taught there in the next few years.

[93143]

I can tell you though, Jim was very adamant that to do the calculation, you have to use a particular kind of math that is used in GR, and I believe this is because you're working in an accelerating, non-inertial frame. That may be why you can't do the math as you're proposing.

But you can. . .trust me on this one.

Seriously, you can't. I know this sounds crazy, but in accelerating frames F does not equal ma.

I know that. Old news for me; I studied this stuff several years ago during undergrad. We had to use centrifugal and Coriolis forces in assignments and exams.

But I'm not using an accelerating frame. I'm sitting here observing the flywheel (or thruster accelerating in free space) from an inertial frame, which I'm doing all my math in.

If you assume the thruster is an isolated system, you get a necessary conservation violation.

If you allow for the possibility of interaction with the rest of the causally-connected universe via Mach effects, you don't.

[GIThruster]

You're doing just what the guy at NBF was doing. In the case of both the flywheel, and the rocket in space, the thruster is in an accelerating frame. When you try to choose a frame that removes this trouble, you cause a different trouble.

I'm just reporting to you what I witnessed when we went through this with the guy at NBF. This approach you're taking is the same approach he took, and my friend Paul Bailey at NASA JSC took, and they both crashed and burned. (Paul is the guy with PhD's in EE and physics, but he studied the Standard Model. He's not a field theorist and he didn't use the tools Jim does.)

When you do the calc with the tools of GR, there's no trouble. It just vanishes. . .such is the wild world of relativity.

[93143]

You must have misunderstood what I'm saying, then. You must be responding to something else that you thought I said.

I don't see where you got the idea that I thought there was a problem. There would be, if the thruster were an isolated system, but it's not, so there isn't.

This is very basic mechanics. If what I'm saying isn't true, then the principles on which our industrial civilization (and indeed, the entire edifice of physics) is based are invalid. And not just slightly, either; Newton would have had to be catastrophically wrong, as wrong as Aristotle or more so. Relativity doesn't enter into it. You can treat the thruster as a black box.

...

Have you ever attempted an energy balance for a rocket burn? It's a very similar deal, and it does confuse people...

[GIThruster]

Have you ever attempted an energy balance for a rocket burn? It's a very similar deal, and it does confuse people...

I haven't. And truly, it is very possible I misunderstand you. I'm not above noting the conversation is usually over my head. I'm just trying to relate what I remember from the last time through.

[Carl White]

A flywheel with radius R, with Mach-effect thrusters of thrust efficiency E positioned tangentially on the edge. Power (P) is torque (T) times angular velocity (w), so given a thruster power p, the output power of an ideal generator hooked to the flywheel is P = Tw = (pE)Rw, and if ERw > 1, well...

I don't really understand this argument. If you use the motion of the flywheel to generate power, the wheel has to decelerate. You can't take any more power out of the apparatus than the thruster is putting in, except transiently (e.g. as it slows down until a balance is reached, after a period of acceleration during which power wasn't generated). So what you really seem to be saying is that if the thruster is producing more power than it is using, it's overunity. Which is true by definition, but I don't see why you need to bring a flywheel into it.

[93143]

A flywheel with radius R, with Mach-effect thrusters of thrust efficiency E positioned tangentially on the edge. Power (P) is torque (T) times angular velocity (w), so given a thruster power p, the output power of an ideal generator hooked to the flywheel is P = Tw = (pE)Rw, and if ERw > 1, well...

I don't really understand this argument. If you use the motion of the flywheel to generate power, the wheel has to decelerate. You can't take any more power out of the apparatus than the thruster is putting in, except transiently (e.g. as it slows down until a balance is reached, after a period of acceleration during which power wasn't generated). So what you really seem to be saying is that if the thruster is producing more power than it is using, it's overunity. Which is true by definition, but I don't see why you need to bring a flywheel into it.

You've confused momentum and energy again. Force and power are two different things. A Mach-effect thruster uses power. It outputs force. Therefore it is not sensible to say that an M-E thruster puts power into a flywheel; what it is doing is applying a torque. And the power input to the flywheel by that torque (which is equivalent to the power output of the generator, if inefficiencies are ignored) is proportional not only to the torque, but also to the rotational speed.

...

In more detail:

A Mach-effect thruster is supposed to be able to generate thrust when power is supplied. The amount of thrust generated is related solely to the power input and the thrust efficiency of the thruster in newtons per watt. If it doesn't work this way, then either it will be extremely finicky or even downright unusable as a space drive, or Lorentz invariance is wrong. Frankly I don't see why the former case should be true, given the extremely high operating frequencies of these devices - even spinning around on a big flywheel at 3600 rpm or something shouldn't be substantially different from stationary operation.

Thus, a Mach-effect thruster can be used to generate a certain level of torque on a flywheel for a given input power, completely independent of the rotational speed of the flywheel.

It is possible in principle to apply a counter-torque to the flywheel in such a way as to harvest energy while maintaining a steady-state rotational speed against the torque supplied by the thruster - a generator is a good example. And there is no real reason this has to happen at any specific rotational speed.

It can be shown (in fact I did in the quoted post) that in the steady-state case, if the product of the flywheel's radius and angular velocity is high enough, the output power is sufficient to power the Mach-effect thruster and then some.

As for why I used a flywheel - basically it's because, given working Mach-effect technology at a good thrust efficiency, this setup is an eminently practical steady-state power generation scheme, and it is thus very easy to understand the energy balance. Linear acceleration can illustrate the point too, but it tends to cause people to confuse themselves...

...

Numbers: A common ballpark figure for thrust efficiency used by M-E proponents, as an example of a well-engineered future space drive they believe is possible, is 1 N/W. Slap that on a flywheel with a 1 m radius, and stabilize it at 1 rad/s. The (ideal) output power is P = p(1)(1)(1), exactly equal to the input power.

Now let it spin at 2 rad/s. The torque is the same, but the speed is doubled; the output power from the (ideal) generator is now twice what the M-E thruster consumes.

...

This is not a violation of conservation if the Mach-effect thruster is allowed to interact with distant matter, since momentum and energy exchange can then occur with reaction mass that is not immediately apparent to an observer of the assembly. The assembly is then essentially harvesting energy from the rest of the causally-connected universe. It is not a perpetual motion machine of the first kind, but it is doing a d@mn good imitation of one...

[tomclarke]

Actually, both the extremes--thinking it "trivial" to extract energy from the thruster and thinking it cannot operate in an over-unity condition--are probably wrong. M-E thrusters operate from harvesting momentum. When they are operating in an over-unity condition, meaning the mass fluctuation is greater than 100%, then the contribution of the negative mass' negative inertia, ought to make it possible to harvest more energy than it takes to drive the thruster. Jim Woodward has never designed a thruster intended to operate in this "wormhole territory", where dm/m>1, but Paul March has and it is possible this is the reason Paul's thruster created the large forces reported. (I say "possible" because Paul's tests did not include important controls like vacuum, so it is best to reserve judgement here.)

Tom, to answer your question about the ARC Lite, the specs are fairly complex. To be sure, a single kind of control like the one I mentioned is not enough to ensure veracity. There are many controls used. When the latest paper is released I'll see about posting it here so you have better answers, but in short, the force was generated as a pulse because it occurred when the device was swept through the thruster's mechanical resonance. Jim isn't rushing to publish the results because he's not finished with them--he ran out of time this last season and will pick up where he left off in September for a few weeks. After that he hasn't quite committed but we're all hoping to see higher frequency/higher force designs on the balance. It is possible Jim will be working in wormhole territory for the first time in October or so.

Paul will also be back to work on his MLT in September so we may hear from him in the Fall. He'll have access to a new lab at JSC so he doesn't need to work on the lab setup--just the thruster and power system , which is a battery operated, "self-contained" design. (I know engineers like this more, but the fact is one gets far less data from such designs. They're pretty much on/off with no ability to sweep, etc., unless you do this on the bench before putting it on the balance.) There is also one other accomplished PhD experimenter who is doing his own replication. He'll have to remain nameless until he decides he wants to show his work--that's not up to me. I think it's fair to guess though he decided to jump into the fray because of the limited results Jim shared a couple weeks ago.

Well we will all be interested in any positive and definitive Mach results.

Re free energy. Of course M-E need not disobey global conservation of energy, but in principle it allows free energy for the following reasons:

(1) whatever value K in principle creating M-E does not require energy. The losses are incidental to the process and can be made arbitrarily small in theory.

(2) adding momentum to a moving object clearly adds energy:

deltaE = deltap*v

Note that even if M-E efficiency is low that can be overcome by high v at least until relativistic effects predominate.

[Carl White]

You've confused momentum and energy again. Force and power are two different things. A Mach-effect thruster uses power. It outputs force. Therefore it is not sensible to say that an M-E thruster puts power into a flywheel; what it is doing is applying a torque. And the power input to the flywheel by that torque (which is equivalent to the power output of the generator, if inefficiencies are ignored) is proportional not only to the torque, but also to the rotational speed.

Ok, for the record, I do understand the difference between momentum, power and force. Although I did use the terms in a sloppy manner in an attempt to stay brief.

A Mach-effect thruster is supposed to be able to generate thrust when power is supplied. The amount of thrust generated is related solely to the power input and the thrust efficiency of the thruster in newtons per watt.

Ok.

Thus, a Mach-effect thruster can be used to generate a certain level of torque on a flywheel for a given input power, completely independent of the rotational speed of the flywheel.

Ok.

It is possible in principle to apply a counter-torque to the flywheel in such a way as to harvest energy while maintaining a steady-state rotational speed against the torque supplied by the thruster - a generator is a good example. And there is no real reason this has to happen at any specific rotational speed.

Still with you.

It can be shown (in fact I did in the quoted post) that in the steady-state case, if the product of the flywheel's radius and angular velocity is high enough, the output power is sufficient to power the Mach-effect thruster and then some.

This is where I get lost. It seems to me that the rotational speed of the flywheel is irrelevant, really. It's the rate at which power is being drawn from the system; that will be directly proportional to the decelerative force on the wheel. Apply enough decelerative force to generate more power than the thruster is using to generate accelerative force and the wheel will have to slow down. Not stay at a steady state.

What is magical about the Mach-effect thruster in this instance, by the way? Why wouldn't a little rocket attached to the wheel provide the same effect?

[CaptainBeowulf]

I get lost at the same point as Carl.

[GeeGee]

The work by Dr. Cummins was years ago. Dr. Fuerst just recently joined Jim's reading list and isn't up to date on either Jim's theory nor the experimental work over the years.

I am actually the one who referred Dr. Fuerst to NSF (Paul gave him Woodward's e-mail). There was a thread on reddit about the M-E, and Dr. Fuerst claimed the M-E wouldn't work because the math was wrong. I admit I don't really understand his argument, but it sounds like a misunderstanding to me, as he seems to think the M-E requires a violation of the conservation of momentum to work. This was his latest criticism of the M-E:

"The issues with M-E propulsion have nothing to do with the theory of inertia! Any theory at all will do, so long as it couples to the gravitational mass/energy distribution.

The issue is one of engineering. You simply cannot construct a gravitational mass/energy distribution that will have a time-varying monopole or dipole moment. To do so requires you to be able to create negative gravitational mass/energy.

The current propulsion model tries to use a matter dipole... but it has a mistake where important terms are left out. Add those terms, and the purported dipole disappears.

Physically, the lowest multipole order that is possible is the quadrapole. This unfortunately lowers the magnitude of any effect enormously. The need for a varying quadrapole moment is a very well known result. Trying to ignore it doesn't do the M-E folks any favours."