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Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:39 pm
by TallDave
Heh, this is all so Baroque Cycle. I suggest the matter be settled by duel to the death, M-E cannon vs QVF cannon.

Best of luck with experiments, Paul.

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:08 am
by WizWom
So, no matter how he makes it move, its still a spindizzy dean drive.

And the only reason any "effect" is seen is because his instruments are not up to dealing with the fluctuations. The Woodward "results" i have seen are all in the range of instrument error.

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:22 am
by DeltaV
No flying car for you, buddy.

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:09 am
by TDPerk
Woodward's effect's were larger than instrument error by a factor of ten, they agreed with theory in every respect except magnitude.

If I recall correctly.

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:38 am
by 93143
And the magnitude wasn't from the original theory; it was from a simplified, linearized version of it. So the disagreement with experiment on that point doesn't mean anything is wrong with the theory.

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:06 am
by GIThruster
WizWom wrote:So, no matter how he makes it move, its still a spindizzy dean drive.

And the only reason any "effect" is seen is because his instruments are not up to dealing with the fluctuations. The Woodward "results" i have seen are all in the range of instrument error.
I'm not sure if you don't understand what a Dean Drive is, or if you don't understand what M-E theory is all about, but I can assure you an M-E device is not a Dean Drive. Likewise, it doesn't sound as if you understand what the general term "instrument error" relates to, but the forces measured on the ARC Lite are 2+ orders magnitude greater than the balance can resolve-more than a factor of 100.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:35 pm
by WizWom
I know of no sensitive balance designed for a jiggling load.
There are mass flow meters designed for a fast changes in mass flow of a stream, but Woodward's device is not that.

Woodward's result is most likely a harmonic effect with the spring constants in the mechanism of the balance.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:17 pm
by GIThruster
Seriously, you don't know what you're talking about at all and sharing your ignorance isn't worth anyone's time. The notion that a world-class physicist working with dozens of people looking over his shoulder, PhD's in various engineering disciplines, have all been fooled while you in your ignorance have guessed what probably is, especially when you're completely ignorant of the various tests done to show what you're saying cannot be happening, makes you out to be arrogant beyond measure.

There are half a dozen reasons what you're saying cannot be true.

Lets face it, you don't know what a Dean Drive is, you don't know what an M-E device is, you don't understand M-E theory, you don't understand how the measurement apparatus works, the methods, protocols nor controls.

Basically you're a self-stroking heckler. How can sharing such ignorance even be worth the time to type?

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:51 pm
by WizWom
Your appeal to authority is pointless.
Woodward isn't a "world renowned physicist" - he's a kook physicist who most physicists ignore, working on an obscure and silly thing.
I assume most physicists haven't bothered with checking his results because they haven't seen anything worth double-checking. No one else has gotten any corroboration of his claimed observation, and he keeps changing critical parameters of the system in multiple combinations. His protocol for exploring his experiment space is sloppy as hell. Especially for someone with a VERY outrageous claim.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:59 pm
by GIThruster
WizWom wrote:. No one else has gotten any corroboration of his claimed observation
That's ridiculous. Dozens of people have seen the results in his lab.
he keeps changing critical parameters of the system in multiple combinations. His protocol for exploring his experiment space is sloppy as hell.
Nonsense. In what way is any of what he's doing sloppy, and how would you know? Altering critical parameters is part of providing standard scientific controls. You're talking out of ignorance. If you're going to make these outlandish accusations, you need to have examples. Lets see them.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 6:07 pm
by ScottL
WizWom wrote:Your appeal to authority is pointless.
Woodward isn't a "world renowned physicist" - he's a kook physicist who most physicists ignore, working on an obscure and silly thing.
I assume most physicists haven't bothered with checking his results because they haven't seen anything worth double-checking. No one else has gotten any corroboration of his claimed observation, and he keeps changing critical parameters of the system in multiple combinations. His protocol for exploring his experiment space is sloppy as hell. Especially for someone with a VERY outrageous claim.
While I'm hesitant on the theory and results, Dr. Woodward has been a patient and understanding person who has extended his experimentation to encompass testing to alleviate criticisms time and again. To call the man a kook or deride him of his expertise in the field of physics is a very low blow. Agree or disagree, that's fine, but you're kind of a gibbering imbecile with posts like the above.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 7:15 pm
by kurt9
I've seen Woodward's experimental results. His work is very careful and is first rate. Even though I remain unconvinced his theory is correct, he has eliminated spurulous effects as sources (i.e. dean drive effect, etc.) for his experimental results. I think it way off base to describe him as flaky or fringe. Although I am not yet convinced the effect is real, I think it a legitimate theory.

I also think White's concept also worth pursuing. March is likely correct that they are flip-sides of the same phenomenon. If so, white's apparatus may will produce positive results, but not necessarily of the magnitude his theory predicts. I suspect both theories are incomplete and that something else will be necessary to realize a propellant-less space drive.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 8:33 pm
by Diogenes
WizWom wrote:I know of no sensitive balance designed for a jiggling load.
There are mass flow meters designed for a fast changes in mass flow of a stream, but Woodward's device is not that.

Woodward's result is most likely a harmonic effect with the spring constants in the mechanism of the balance.
You are aware that varying the phase of the electrical signal by 180 degrees reverses the direction of the resulting force?

I find it hard to believe that any dean drive effect would work just as well backwards as forwards, varying in proportion to the applied signal.

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 8:59 pm
by GIThruster
Reversing the thrust through phase is an important control, but so is the physical reorientation of the thruster on the balance arm. The ARC Lite was designed specifically so that any test items mounted can not only have their orientation switched left or right, but also up and down.

There is some very small horizontal to vertical coupling in the ARC Lite design, but it is so small it cannot be measured. When you have what appears a thrust signature and then rotate the test item so the supposed thrust is vertical (up or down makes no difference) any legitimate thrust signal should go to zero. This is just what happens. This protocol makes the test article itself a perfect "dummy load" to test for all sorts of spurious signals. If a signal were being generated through any sort of coupling, one would expect it to continue when the thruster is in a vertical position.

Just explaining one of the many protocols Jim uses because mischaracterizing him as a "kook" is really a fool's errand participated in only by those who are ignorant.

Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:45 am
by paulmarch
GIThruster wrote:Reversing the thrust through phase is an important control, but so is the physical reorientation of the thruster on the balance arm. The ARC Lite was designed specifically so that any test items mounted can not only have their orientation switched left or right, but also up and down.

There is some very small horizontal to vertical coupling in the ARC Lite design, but it is so small it cannot be measured. When you have what appears a thrust signature and then rotate the test item so the supposed thrust is vertical (up or down makes no difference) any legitimate thrust signal should go to zero. This is just what happens. This protocol makes the test article itself a perfect "dummy load" to test for all sorts of spurious signals. If a signal were being generated through any sort of coupling, one would expect it to continue when the thruster is in a vertical position.

Just explaining one of the many protocols Jim uses because mischaracterizing him as a "kook" is really a fool's errand participated in only by those who are ignorant.
Folks:

Just to let everyone on this list know the latest, Dr. Woodward is now claiming that he and his associate, a Dr. Heidi Fearn at CSUF, have performed an updated analysis of the M-E derivation for the upcomming JPC conference that has a much better handle on the M-E bulk acceleration issue per his following comments posted to his e-mail distribution over this last weekend.

"There is a clean signal (SNR >= 10) in the 2 to 3 uN range. And in the data with the frequency sweeps, there's a power spike at the beginning of the sweep that really heats the device up -- but off resonance, so there is no prompt thrust response (as one would expect were the signal a thermal effect). It's the real deal folks.

Why would I say that it's the real deal when this signal is orders of magnitude smaller than the predictions suggest it should be? Because we've found these past two weeks that those predictions are wrong. Heidi and I have been working now for a while on the JPC paper that will go with the presentation I'll do at that conference in about a month. While working on the theory section of that paper, I decided to include a section on explicit acceleration dependence of Mach effects. While writing that out, I decided to derive the prediction based on full acceleration dependence -- rather than doing the prediction the way it's been done for years. It turns out that this calculation is not difficult at all. A bit tedious for an old duffer like me; but not difficult.

SI units are really scary. Completely unintuitive for me. So catching some arithmetic errors took longer than it should have. But the end result is a prediction of 10 uN for the present system -- whereas observation is ~ 3 uN. And that with the assumption that the electrostrictive constant is the same as the piezoelectric constant. It is surely smaller. But without allowance for mechanical resonance amplification -- which is surely present. These two considerations will be largely offsetting I expect. And the resulting prediction will likely be in the uN range."

To clarify, the electrostrictive coefficient for the PZT ceramic used in Woodward's shuttler experiments is about three orders of magnitude down from the d33 piezoelectric coefficient of PZT, so his above conclusions hold up in my eyes. So what Jim needs to do next IMO is to prove to the world of physics that the Wheeler/Feynman radiation reaction force IS the mechanism that really conveys gravitational forces around the cosmos and he will have completed his M-E mission.

Best,