raelik wrote:I've been wondering if Mach effects could be exploited using something like a linear accelerator design, similar to a rail gun, albeit at much lower velocities. The general idea would be that of two accelerators, one above the other running parallel, connected at both ends by a curved track. The top rail accelerates the "projectile", which contains a high-K ceramic or possibly graphene multi layer capacitor, with very low piezoelectric response and electrostrictive coefficient. This capacitor is charged before being accelerated down the top rail. The curved transfer rail at the end is where the capacitor is discharged. The bottom rail decelerates the projectile, and the capacitor is recharged when it reaches the other curved transfer rail. The idea is to achieve a much longer period of acceleration, at the expense of decreased cycles, and to decouple the accelerating mechanism from the capacitor itself. Of course, this design would have many engineering concerns of its own, but they would be separate from the capacitor material.
I'm not intimately familiar with the accelerations generated in rail guns, but my guess is they're thousands or tens of thousands of gees. A UHF MET should generate millions of gees acceleration, so the railgun is not an advantage in this. So far as the lengthy fluctuation, the fluctuation is generated as a product of dE. It is while the internal energy is changing that the Mach Effect occurs, so there's no benefit to trying to extend the fluctuation duration as you'll just get much lower percent fluctuations.
Is an interesting idea, though; and similar in some ways to the gaseous MLT concept.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
GIThruster wrote:I'm not intimately familiar with the accelerations generated in rail guns, but my guess is they're thousands or tens of thousands of gees. A UHF MET should generate millions of gees acceleration, so the railgun is not an advantage in this. So far as the lengthy fluctuation, the fluctuation is generated as a product of dE. It is while the internal energy is changing that the Mach Effect occurs, so there's no benefit to trying to extend the fluctuation duration as you'll just get much lower percent fluctuations.
Is an interesting idea, though; and similar in some ways to the gaseous MLT concept.
Oh, right, that does change the scenario fairly dramatically. Considering that the acceleration of a rail gun is driven by an incredibly large current, instead of the capacitor charging before the acceleration occurs, it could happen concurrently with the acceleration, with part of the current driving the projectile forward diverted into the capacitor, which would ensure that dE and dV occur simultaneously. However, in order to generate enough of an effect for it to be worthwhile, it would most likely require a capacitor of extraordinary energy density, and would be catastrophically dangerous should the dielectric break down and dump the energy instantaneously. Considering that the projectile/capacitor would have to travel around a relatively short curve to be decelerated in the opposite direction, the physical stress on it would be incredible, even with a scaled down rail gun, and such a scenario would probably be an engineering nightmare. Plus, the conversion of linear velocity into angular velocity around that curve would transfer a considerable amount of force into the frame of the entire device. So, it's interesting as a thought experiment, but almost certainly very unwise as an actual experiment.
All that being said, a rail gun experiment like that in a single direction might be a way to demonstrate a very measurable, albeit destructive, Mach effect.
GIThruster wrote:That is all news to me. I thought they had funding until July. Makes one wonder what is up at JSC.
posted on February 22th
"Treat this thing as a large collection of Casimir Cavities, might work if I can convince Dr. White to do so, and only after we both read through your referenced papers on the topic. And oh yes, get to Glenn Research Center for a successful replication of what we've seen to date before the end of March, or I may find myself in retirement before I was ready..."
to go to Glenn Research Center they need replicable 100 micronewtons if I am not mistaken.
starting at around page 19 or 20 of EM Drive Thread 2, Paul has posted tons of info and details about the Em Drive experiments. The thread has 72 pages already of good science, where they are trying to falsify the results.
Star-Drive wrote:BTW, IMO Jim Woodward's Mach-Effect (M-E) conjecture that is based primarily on SRT and GRT, is still in the running for a way to explain his and our test results to date. However the M-E also has its detractors since it requires that instantaneous Wheeler/Feynman radiation reaction forces being required between a local time varying mass and all the other mass/energy in the casually connected universe, since this mechanism is used to balance the M-E's energy & momentum conservation books. In the end analysis though I think that the ME will rest on the quantum nature of space-time, since in Woodward's eyes the gravitational field IS space-time, and in our eyes GRT's space-time is in reality the quantum vacuum that probably has at least 4 spatial dimensions and one time dimension!
I passed notes with Ruth Kastner the other day and read the first chapter of her new book. Looks really great. For anyone interested, she is working on the whole Transactional Interpretation of QM and her work is completely consistent with Woodward's, with Einstein, with Sciama, with Cramer's Trasactional QM, with Wheeler-Feynman Absorber theory, etc. What she is saying is that rather than reality being less real than we think --the interpretation Einstein objected to with QM--that it is more real than we think. Here's a link; the book will not be available in the US for another couple months:
You can actually buy access to the e-book from them already, and there's a 50% discount code (WSEBOOK50) that's good until 3/31. It gives you access to each individual chapter (you have to put them into one PDF yourself), I imagine they'll release a full PDF once the book is actually out.
Just finished the book (http://www.worldscientific.com/worldsci ... .1142/p993) and I have to say it's fascinating, and quite approachable for an educated non-mathematician, more so than Woodward's book, which is admittedly targeted at engineers. Much in the way that Woodward follows Mach's principle all the way down the rabbit hole of relativity to fully explain the gravitational origin of inertia, Kastner follows the transactional interpretation to the logical conclusion that it is the real underpinning of what we perceive as spacetime. The book really helped me better understand how absorber theory can be used to explain what is really happening at the quantum level. One thing Kastner's book doesn't touch at all is how this all relates to gravitation and inertia, but that's to be expected, considering that the field of quantum gravity theory is a very wooly one currently.
I just might do that! This morning, I had something of an epiphany regarding TI and gravity. Not sure if this is really a revolutionary idea, but I don't recall reading it anywhere specifically, though it's definitely influenced by Woodward's interpretation of Mach's principle.
The idea is that what we experience as gravitational forces are a consequence of the effect of mass on the reality that TI offer and confirmation waves exist in. In this case, particles on the mass shell give rise to gravitational mass, which creates coupling between confirmation waves. This is analogous to how electric charges create coupling between offer waves by way of virtual photon exchange. However, since confirmation waves travel backward in time, the coupling is inverted compared to the coupling created by electric charge: positive masses attract positive masses, negative masses (if they can be exposed) repel positive masses. The mathematical ramifications of this aren't completely clear to me, but it seems logical that gravitational force is determined by the inverse square rule, where as the Born rule that dominates quantum probability is the amplitude squared. This would also explain why the effect of gravity is basically non-present for interactions at the quantum scale. It is completely drowned out by the effect of the coupling of offer waves to the extent that the effect of coupling on the confirmation waves is statistical noise. That coupling is simple unable to alter the outcome of the wave function collapse in a meaningful way.
Wow! Em, I don't have any idea what that means, but I suggest you shoot a note to Ruth. If you're interested to converse on these points with her, let me know and I'll ask her if I can forward her email to you confidentially.
You do make me want to read the book, but I just can't squeeze it into my schedule right now. Glad to hear it furnishes so much for thought on these issues. Ruth is very sharp and a pleasure to correspond with. Let me know if you want me to writer her on your behalf. I told her about the review you posted here and she is most grateful.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
Looks like I'll have to wait until the book is actually available on Amazon before I can post a review. I'll put a note in my calendar to do that so I won't forget.