Mach Effect progress

[chrismb]

Folks:

An M-E drive is NOT a perpetual motion machine. It takes local and continuous input energy to set up the conditions required to extract momentum from the universe’s ambient gravity/inertial or gravinertial (G/I) field. How much energy and momentum may be locally extracted from the G/I field depends on how deep or large a pressure differential can be created by the M-E device in question.

Actually, Paul, I am not sure you have drawn a sufficient distinction here. I understand that you do not view it as such, but thermodynamically you are running into the same claim as perpetual motion, because if you remove momentum from one place to the other, by whatever means, then you are reducing entropy.

Your claim is therefore that you *are* increasing entropy because you are powering the system (total energy expended is greater than reduction of entropy due to momentum transfer). The problem is that by any known physics you should be able to draw a boundary around a given volume of space and show entropy increasing, but this [or any] spooky-at-distance effect unpicks that essential notion of thermodynamics.

To avoid to be seen to run counter to thermodynamics, you would have to have an explanation for how entropy of one bounded system can be transferred to another bounded, yet discontiguous, system.

[GIThruster]

The problem is that by any known physics you should be able to draw a boundary around a given volume of space and show entropy increasing, but this [or any] spooky-at-distance effect unpicks that essential notion of thermodynamics.

There is no "essential notion of thermodynamics" that says any system you can conceive of, must have increasing entropy. That's just absurd.

For any conservation calculation, you need to choose a closed system, that energy is neither entering nor leaving--otherwise you will seem to have a conservation violation. Since all Mach Effects necessarily involve all the universe's parts, the only way to do such a calculation would be to choose the entire universe as the system.

[TDPerk]

How could we know, given that the notion of backwards and forward propagating waves is in many candidate TOEs, that the current state of the universe does not already show all effects which would depend from ME propulsion being harnessed?

[GIThruster]

This above is a really intriguing question!

If the universe's expansion is a measure of its increasing entropy (as in "arrow of time"), and use of M-E increases universal entropy, then huge amounts of M-E use could be observed as the accelerating expansion of the universe.

What if the observed universal expansion acceleration is evidence of M-E technology at use in our past, present or future?

[Giorgio]

How could we know, given that the notion of backwards and forward propagating waves is in many candidate TOEs, that the current state of the universe does not already show all effects which would depend from ME propulsion being harnessed?

We cannot.
According the way Paulmarch expressed the theory we can't see it from within our universe.
We should be on an external (or higher) dimension to see the effects.

[chrismb]

There is no "essential notion of thermodynamics" that says any system you can conceive of, must have increasing entropy. That's just absurd..

eh!?

You should be able to draw an arbitrary boundary and the net entropy change associated with the internal entropy of the boundary and the net energy across the boundary cannot go up. This is the 'equivalence' to the perpetual motion machine because in such a machine you would draw a boundary around it and show that net energy flow through the boundary and resultant entropy within, is not balanced - as appears to be the case with ME.

ME does not infringe this principle if you take the boundary as about the whole universe, but you should also be able to define it arbitrarily around any other space.

[paulmarch]

There is no "essential notion of thermodynamics" that says any system you can conceive of, must have increasing entropy. That's just absurd..

eh!?

You should be able to draw an arbitrary boundary and the net entropy change associated with the internal entropy of the boundary and the net energy across the boundary cannot go up. This is the 'equivalence' to the perpetual motion machine because in such a machine you would draw a boundary around it and show that net energy flow through the boundary and resultant entropy within, is not balanced - as appears to be the case with ME.

ME does not infringe this principle if you take the boundary as about the whole universe, but you should also be able to define it arbitrarily around any other space.

Chris:

As you note above, the M-E by definition includes the entire causally connected 4-Dimensional (4-D) universe that is within the SRT lightcone from the moment of the big-bang start up of our universe to our present cosmological epoch, i.e., the last ~13.7 billion years. If we scale down this 4-D thermodynamic boundary box from this initial boundary condition to an arbitrarily small 3-D, X-Y-Z axis volume and time axis span, which yields a new interactive 4-D volume around an M-E device, the maximum M-E delta mass effect expressible by such a constrained M-E thermodynamic boundary situation should just be proportional to the amount of mass/energy still available for G/I interactions with the local M-E device within this the new and smaller 4-D boundary volume. This should keep the entropy accounting books balanced for any given new 4-D volume you care to name.

Best,

[paulmarch]

This above is a really intriguing question!

If the universe's expansion is a measure of its increasing entropy (as in "arrow of time"), and use of M-E increases universal entropy, then huge amounts of M-E use could be observed as the accelerating expansion of the universe.

What if the observed universal expansion acceleration is evidence of M-E technology at use in our past, present or future?

Ron:

What a cool thought! However why would energy extraction in the "now" speed up the expansion of the universe in the future instead of slowing it down? Oh I see, they would if the M-E devices are inherently "negative" (time reversed) energy generators that just add this negative energy production to the cosmological background radiation field. Hmmm, if true, that indicates that the first M-E like devices were first developed almost 5-billions years ago when the cosmological expansion stopped slowing and started to speed up. Again if true that means humanity is really late to the M-E party...

Best,

Best,

[GIThruster]

There is no "essential notion of thermodynamics" that says any system you can conceive of, must have increasing entropy. That's just absurd..

eh!?

You should be able to draw an arbitrary boundary and the net entropy change associated with the internal entropy of the boundary and the net energy across the boundary cannot go up. This is the 'equivalence' to the perpetual motion machine because in such a machine you would draw a boundary around it and show that net energy flow through the boundary and resultant entropy within, is not balanced - as appears to be the case with ME.

ME does not infringe this principle if you take the boundary as about the whole universe, but you should also be able to define it arbitrarily around any other space.

Chris, I'm sure I don't understand your statements here. From what it appears you're saying (or at least appears to me) there can never be any reductions in entropy of any sort, anywhere at anytime. Now I'm sure that's not what you mean to say.

I'm no specialist in thermo, but I do understand that in order to use the second law you can't have organized energy flowing into your box. This is like saying you can draw an arbitrary boundary around a sailboat, admit the wind in and you'll still balance the conservation books. I'm sure we both know that's not so.

If there's a question about M-E and the second law, then surely it regards the fact the M-E device generates the gradient it then uses. This is the issue the physicist over at NBF, sebtal; is most concerned with. Sailboats don't generate wind, they merely harvest energy from it. This is a serious concern that relates to the second law.

In response, I would point to solutions of like kind, such as are found in the writings of Hermann Bondi, Robert Forward, John Wheeler, Michael Alcuberre, Gerald Clever, etc. who are all talking about this sort of techinque. All proposed propellantless space propulsion I'm aware of, has this in common, that it generates the gradient it then makes use of.

The question then becomes, "does it take more energy to create the gradient, than can be harvested once you have it?" The solution seems simple to me. This depends if you're actually "harvesting" some sort of energy. According to M-E theory, M-E devices are all "harvesters" in the literal sense, and are stealing tomorrow's momentum from the rest of the universe, so the natural result is that very efficient iterations ought to appear to be acting in "overunity". They will necessarily be confused with perpetual motion machines, but they are not, and they do not violate conservation.

[chrismb]

As you note above, the M-E by definition includes the entire causally connected 4-Dimensional (4-D) universe that is within the SRT lightcone from the moment of the big-bang start up of our universe to our present cosmological epoch, i.e., the last ~13.7 billion years. If we scale down this 4-D thermodynamic boundary box from this initial boundary condition to an arbitrarily small 3-D, X-Y-Z axis volume and time axis span, which yields a new interactive 4-D volume around an M-E device, the maximum M-E delta mass effect expressible by such a constrained M-E thermodynamic boundary situation should just be proportional to the amount of mass/energy still available for G/I interactions with the local M-E device within this the new and smaller 4-D boundary volume. This should keep the entropy accounting books balanced for any given new 4-D volume you care to name.

Paul, if you are claiming that the explanation of the energy-entropy balance lies in an extention into a 4th dimension, then it sounds like you are saying such a device could [just as] likely take momentum from the same space, but in a different time (rather than the same time, but a different space).

Is this what you are implying? If not, I'd like to ask for a further explanation of what you are practially meaning by describing an arbitrary 4D volume.

[chrismb]

Chris, I'm sure I don't understand your statements here. From what it appears you're saying (or at least appears to me) there can never be any reductions in entropy of any sort, anywhere at anytime. Now I'm sure that's not what you mean to say.

That's right. I didn't say that.

I'm no specialist in thermo, but I do understand that in order to use the second law you can't have organized energy flowing into your box. This is like saying you can draw an arbitrary boundary around a sailboat, admit the wind in and you'll still balance the conservation books. I'm sure we both know that's not so.

It is so, but you have to be rigorous about it.

The energy coming in will change the state of the system. System 'state' [i.e. its entropy] can only change with a change of energy. Entropy is not exactly energy, it is more a measure of free energy that can do work. However, that also requires some rigorous definitions because the activation energy for some processes can be extremely high but there still might be enough free energy to activate them - fusion being just about the process with the highest activation energies.

Anyhow, if you take a boundary around your yacht and calculate the total free energy flux passing into that boundary, then the total free energy that was within that boundary, E, added to the net energy flux that passed through that boundary, W, over a given time should, according to thermodynamics, amount to a total loss of free energy of the system, i.e. the free energy is always less than W+E at any time after 'E' was measured. That free energy is, to all intent and purpose, 'soaked up' by the volume within the boundary as 'increased entropy', and you can never pull it back again.

In the [3-dimensional!!] ME description, you can start with energy within a boundary, E, cause a net work flux, W, and it looks to me that you can end up with greater than E+W free energy (that is, energy that can do work).

[GIThruster]

Maybe the problem is in our feeble attempts at description. Does it appear this way to you from having read the papers or just from the notes here about them? I find it hard to believe that in over a decade of peer review, there are no physicists who've made this complaint (which is the same point I made to the physicist at NBF, whom had never read any of the papers.)

"In the [3-dimensional!!] ME description, you can start with energy within a boundary, E, cause a net work flux, W, and it looks to me that you can end up with greater than E+W free energy (that is, energy that can do work)."

Would you mind sharing why "it looks to you" this is so? Did you do some sort of calculation?

[Betruger]

Do you mean Sebtal or Goatguy? IIRC Goatguy had admitted (last round of articles.. A few months ago) he'd read all or almost all the literature.

[chrismb]

"In the [3-dimensional!!] ME description, you can start with energy within a boundary, E, cause a net work flux, W, and it looks to me that you can end up with greater than E+W free energy (that is, energy that can do work)."

Would you mind sharing why "it looks to you" this is so? Did you do some sort of calculation?

Sure...

Imagine you are an observer in the same inertial frame as an ME device-equipped spacecraft. You picture a boundary around yourself AND the spacecraft as your 'arbitrary' boundary.

You observe no net energy flow in or out of this boundary yet once the ME device is switched on, the ship starts moving within the arbitrary envelope you defined. This kinetic energy is free energy in that envelope that can do work. Entropy within the envelope has gone down, yet no net energy flow through the boundary has occurred.

[GIThruster]

Do you mean Sebtal or Goatguy? IIRC Goatguy had admitted (last round of articles.. A few months ago) he'd read all or almost all the literature.

sebtal is a physicist. GoatGuy is certainly not. To the best of my knowledge, neither of them have ever read any of Woodward's work. GoatGuy is clearly not skilled enough to understand the field theory in Woodward's papers, nor even come close. Nothing meant in offense, but IIRC GoatGuy is a high school physics teacher.