Pretty unbelieveable...

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kunkmiester
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Post by kunkmiester »

I just had a curious idea. The big limit for these thrusters is the capacitance of the materials used. I don't know enough to get all of the jargon, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, if it's not really the electrical stuff that's casuing the effect, but something else entirely, would it be possible to find a slight alteration of the device that would work much better?

Kind of like how hard fusion is, if you're using gravity(sun) or a Tokomak, but it seems so much simpler electrostatically.
Evil is evil, no matter how small

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

paulmarch wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:The Space Studies Institute used to support such things too. They are specifically an R&D support organization.
Good thought guys and I need to send each outfit in question a note and ask them what their current R&D grants requirements are these days. The last time I looked they were more interested in more near-term conventional ideas than the M-E or QVF work we are pursuing.

BTW, I had an idea yesterday that may allow integrating the Bussard Wiffle-Ball fusion reactor and a M-E drive into one working unit. This approach to high power M-E thrusters might be able to work, but there are some possible show stoppers such as the M-E field modulations disturbing the WB-XX's circulating electron loop currents between the virtual B-field grid cusps, but it needs to be kept in mind if both approaches work out as hoped.
these groups are more about advocacy and networking than doing grants, I don't know what their endowment levels are at, but I am sure they could help you network to the right people to talk to about funding.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

IntLibber wrote: these groups are more about advocacy and networking than doing grants, I don't know what their endowment levels are at, but I am sure they could help you network to the right people to talk to about funding.
SSI WAS at one time a research organization with the L5 Society as the advocacy group. SSI used to actually DO research and support students doing research. Things may have changed.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Paul,

A heads up for you:

http://www.ecnmag.com/blog-maching-einstein-102109.aspx

Hope you like it.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

paulmarch wrote:IMO we will have to end up merging the best of Woodward's M-E and the QVF folks ideas into a working "Quantum Gravity" theory before we will have the keys to interstellar flight.
The unification of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity?
Already done! (and Maxwell's equations and the weak and strong nuclear forces thrown in to boot!)

A book review for
http://www.amazon.com/General-Relativit ... t_ep_dpt_9

"Nobel prize winning material., June 19, 1997
By A Customer

This book represents a world change in Physics as fundamental as the works of Newton and Einstein. The theory is a remarkable extension of the work of Einstein in his later years. Professor Sachs is a master of clear and lucid writing. A true masterpiece !

Gravity and Electromagnetism are now naturally married in a brilliant re-derivation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Sachs uncovers a long forgotten paper by Einstein and Mayer that holds the secret. But Einstein missed its fundamental importance. The vector basis used by Einstein in deriving the General Theory is incomplete. Just as Maxwell (and Tait) used the more complete basis of quaternions in deriving Maxwell's equations, Sachs builds a complete theory of General Relativity but using a quaternionic basis. Hamilton and his quaternions are finally vindicated.

The "square root problem" of the fundamental metric defining space-time disappears with the natural factorization of the metric stated in a quaternionic basis. The true nature of spin that has eluded all the vendors of Quantum Mechanics comes simply from the correct application of relativistic covariance. It does NOT depend on the quantum mechanical nature of the description per se.

The additional key insight is that Sachs realises that Einstein needed to eliminate the discrete symmetries of reflections in space and time. Sachs points out that the theory of relativity compares laws of nature in reference frames that are distinguished from each other ONLY in terms of their relative motion - a continuous set of transformations.

Sachs can lay a strong claim to having merged all the known forces in this brilliant work. It is a fairly reasonable hypothesis that the ONLY forces in nature are NOW shown to be Gravity and Electromagnetism. The Strong and Weak forces are simply aspects of Gravity and Electromagnetism at an extremely short range. Sachs demonstrates in a mathematical tour de force that all of nature appears to be contained in his equations from nuclear dimensions all the way through to the properties of astronomical objects. An oscillating Universe cosmology naturally arises instead of the Big Bang discontinuity. All discontinuities fade away into the smooth continuous fabric of Sach's space-time continuum.

I suspect there will be many years before the true nature of this staggering leap of Sachs is recognized. Meanwhile Physics wanders in the wilderness of the string theory and other well meaning but misguided theories that come from academics wandering too far from the shirt-tails of geniuses like Einstein and Newton. "

http://mendelsachs.com [Edit - fixed dead link]

Sachs also co-edited this collection of papers, which includes one by Woodward:
http://www.amazon.com/Machs-Principle-O ... 150&sr=1-1
Last edited by DeltaV on Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Paul,

I just got this by e-mail. Give me a shout and I'll put you in contact with the author.
Fascinating. I can't comment on the physics, but I have a lot of experience using capacitors. That he used Hi k ceramic capacitors raises a lot of flags for me. Hi k capacitors are best described as "capacitive", not capacitors. Typically the capacitance is a strong function of applied voltage, frequency, temperature, acoustics and probably much else. For one example, putting a hi k ceramic capacitor in a discharge network with a simple resistor yields a waveform that bears only a nodding acquaintance with a decaying exponential. For another, having the capacitance vary along with the signal can produce copious amounts of distortion.

Walter Jung describes the same effects from the pov of an audio engineer. Here:
http://waltjung.org/PDFs/A_RealTime_Sig ... uality.pdf
and here:
http://www.reliablecapacitors.com/pickcap.htm

I've attached some data I took on a hi k ceramic in a similar test setup. Surprisingly, the capacitor produced significant amounts of second harmonic (-65dB, approx. 1 part in 2000). All the models of capacitor distortion I know suggest that it would be symmetrical about zero, and only produce odd harmonics. A lot of subtleties here.

Anyway, I wonder how well he controlled for this?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

krenshala
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Post by krenshala »

Interesting. I guess that leads to the question: Are the results teh same in both cases, and if so, is it different ways of seeing the M-E, or just 'noise'.

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

DeltaV wrote:...The vector basis used by Einstein in deriving the General Theory is incomplete. Just as Maxwell (and Tait) used the more complete basis of quaternions in deriving Maxwell's equations, Sachs builds a complete theory of General Relativity but using a quaternionic basis....
Anyone with a solid grasp on tensors want to take a shot at this? My BS alarm is going off reading it.

DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

Sachs is a peer-reviewed scholar.

University Education:

A.B., 1949; M.A.., 1950; Ph.D., 1954. All degrees in Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Post-Doctoral Employment:

Professor of Physics Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1997 – present.
Professor of Physics, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1966 – 1997.
Associate Professor of Physics, Boston University, 1962 – 1966.
Research Professor, McGill University, 1961 – 1962.
Assistant Professor of Physics, San Jose State College, 1957 – 1961.
Senior Scientist, Lockheed Missiles and Space Laboratory, 1956 – 1961.
Theoretical Physicist, University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, 1954 - 1956.

"On Unification of Gravity and Electromagnetism and the Absence of Magnetic Monopoles", Nuovo Cimento 114B, (1999).
"On the source of Anisotropy in Cosmic Radiation from General Relativity", Nuovo Cimento 110A, 611 (1997).
"Changes in Concepts of Time from Aristotle to Einstein", Astrophysics and Space Science 244, 269 (1996).
"An Interpretation of the Top Quark Mass in Terms of a Proton Mass Doublet in General Relativity", Nuovo Cimento 108A , 1445 (1995).
"On the Rotation of Galaxies in General Relativity", Physics Essays 7, 490 (1994).
"On the Problem of Cosmology", Physics Essays 6, 32 (1993).
"On the Possible Origin of CP Violation in Neutral Kaon Decay", Nuovo Cimento 72A, 361 (1982).
"A Pulsar Model from an Oscillating Black Hole", Foundations of Physics 12, 689 (1982).
"On Stellar Collapse and the Black Hole Limit from a Dynamical View", Annales Institut Henri Poincare 28 , 399 (1978).
"The Electron-Muon Mass Doublet from General Relativity", Nuovo Cimento 7B, 247 (1972).

DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

Hamilton made a few errors that unfortunately caused some lingering confusion, and general acceptance of quaternions as a tool for physics was delayed. A huge battle took place in the late 1800s literature. The anti-quaternionists eventually won the popularity contest around the turn of the century, to the detriment of physics, just as Einstein was gearing up.

Hamilton's errors explained:
http://www.helsinki.fi/kemia/fysikaalin ... rnions.pdf [Edit - fixed dead link]
See also the references therein.
Last edited by DeltaV on Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MirariNefas
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Post by MirariNefas »

BS or not BS? Let's inject some quantitative descriptions to Sach's performance as a peer-reviewed scholar to fuel completely unfair ad hominem attacks.


Sachs has an h-index of 12. He/she hasn't published more than once a year since 1982, and and never published more than 3 times a year. This person has an average of 9.39 citations per item.

This is not too bad, and there are many worthwhile scientists out there with worse. Many scientists take it a bit easier in their later years once they've gotten tenure. But personally, I'd expect the sort of scientist to redefine physics to be a heavy hitter, not a modest person in quiet academic decline. Still, there can be extenuating circumstances.

In contrast, Dr. Nebel has an h-index of 17, and has an average of 22.44 citations per article. Dr. Carlson has an h-index of 14 and an average of 16.94 citations per item. It's important to keep in mind career timeframe; h-index does not go down with stagnation, but it does go up with achievement, so longer careers lead to higher scores. Dr. Carlson appears to have begun publishing in 1988, while Dr. Nebel appears to have begun in 1979, so a comparison isn't entirely fair. Dr. Sachs has been publishing since 1959.

On the other hand, to illustrate extenuating circumstances, I'll bring up Dr. Bussard. His h-index is 13 with an average of 27 citations per publication. This h-index doesn't seem so different from Dr. Sachs, yet he stopped publishing entirely in 1990 - because his work was classified. His overall academic career only lasted 14 years. If he'd spent another 10 years being as prolific as he'd been in the 80's, he'd have a very good score. The same thing happens for many people who start working in the private sector.

All results obtained with ISI Web of Knowledge using the "distinctive author sets" feature to the best of my ability; www.isiknowledge.com. If anyone finds some mistakes or has issue with the "distinctive author sets" feature, I'll be happy to remove the numbers I've posted here. I certainly wouldn't want to broadcast an unfair description of someone's academic performance.

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

I'm accused of an ad-hominem attack. My challenge was specifically to the quoted statement, characterizing GR as expressed in vectors, not far more capable tensors, and claiming that a quaternion based expression was more capable. While I accept quaternions as a valid mathematical tool, capable of expressing some relations far more concisely than vectors, my understanding is that they operate on a flat space, not the curves spaces used by GR expressed by tensors.

Citing the authors credentials does not answer my criticism of the statement.

DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

hanelyp wrote:I'm accused of an ad-hominem attack. My challenge was specifically to the quoted statement, characterizing GR as expressed in vectors, not far more capable tensors, and claiming that a quaternion based expression was more capable. While I accept quaternions as a valid mathematical tool, capable of expressing some relations far more concisely than vectors, my understanding is that they operate on a flat space, not the curves spaces used by GR expressed by tensors.

Citing the authors credentials does not answer my criticism of the statement.
Hanelyp, I think I see where your concern is. If you study the history of tensors, you'll run across the concept of "dyadics", two "juxtaposed" Gibbs-Heaviside ("traditional", polar) vectors, a type of vector product distinct from the well known dot ("inner") and cross products. These are sometimes referred to as "wedge" or "outer" or "exterior" products (although these terms may have deeper connotations that I'm not doing justice to here). See for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyadic_tensor

An example of a tensor that can be thought of as composed of dyadics is the inertia tensor of a 3D rigid body.

If you can accept that Gibbs-Heaviside vectors (those commonly taught in high school and undergraduate college courses) are (more or less) derived from the more general quaternions (which are actually a pairing of a scalar with an "axial" or "pseudo" vector, pseudovectors being able to stand in for an ordinary or "polar" vector with no loss of information, but definitely not being the same thing), and ignore Gibbs' and Heaviside's denials that this borderline thievery actually took place, then I hope you can see that if a "flat space" restriction applied to quaternions it would also apply to ordinary vectors, hence to tensors. This does not seem to be the case, since tensors (presumedly based on dyadics) are often applied to curved spacetimes in GR.

It's really a confused mess that should have been hammered out over a century ago.

DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

DeltaV wrote:...borderline thievery... It's really a confused mess that should have been hammered out over a century ago.
That sounds a little harsher than I'd intended. I don't want to imply that the prevailing mathematical methods are "wrong"... they obviously work well, otherwise there would be no radios, microwave ovens, jets, rockets, nuclear plants, particle colliders, etc. I've often used Gibbs-Heaviside vectors, linear vector spaces, etc., and enjoyed the insight those methods provide. But usefulness does not equal optimality for a particular application. Mathematical discoveries were coming fast and furious in the last half of the 19th century, and being applied to theoretical and practical problems as fast as they were printed. It's understandable that, in that mad rush of ideas (quaternions, Cayley algebra, vectors, matrices, tensors, Grassman algebra, Clifford algebra, topology, group theory, differential geometry, etc., etc.), some parts of the mathematical family tree might not have gotten the attention they deserved, and some conceptual and notational problems might have crept in to cause confusion later.

MirariNefas
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Post by MirariNefas »

hanelyp wrote:I'm accused of an ad-hominem attack. ....

Citing the authors credentials does not answer my criticism of the statement.
I apologize, that was not my intent. I personally have no problem with evaluating someone's ideas by evaluating the other work they do, which is why I made that post. I figured I should mention that it only had ad hominem value up front, and I in no way meant to imply that this had anything to do with your views.

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