Mach Effect progress

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

paulmarch wrote:I don’t remember Woodward doing this in a convincing way yet, or did I miss another meeting?
This last experiment was the first I've seen that he never got 'round to these sorts of controls, also including reversibility but that's because he ran out of time. There are plenty of simple ways to make certain the thrusts are real and remember, rail gun back reaction is an expected force that comes at an unexpected place. A decent dummy load ought not produce force at all, and certainly would not reverse.

One of the problems with self contained, so others here know, is they're usually just remote on/off. There's generally no variability included. You can't for example sweep the thruster to look for resonance and there's no data out like with Jim's accelerometers. Both approaches have significant pro's and con's. Best of both worlds is to be self-contained but still have all these added controls and data gathering, but that's not something easy to put together in your spare time.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

93143
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Post by 93143 »

TallDave wrote:BTW, would you agree with the statement that a hypothetical M-E flywheel generator is 2L compliant because it increases the entropy of the causally connected universe by lowering its temp?
No. Entropy is a property of energy. Decrease the temperature, and you increase the entropy of each unit of remaining heat - but you still decrease the total entropy, since the total amount of heat is less.

The energy that you pull out with your device brings the energy total back to the original level, but it's low-entropy, concentrated energy. (In theory (very simple, idealized theory), if it isn't heat, its entropy is lower than that of thermal energy at any temperature - electrical energy can theoretically be used at 100%.) So the total entropy is still lower in the ideal case.

(Think about it in reverse. Heating up a uniform mess of particles by letting energy flow out of an electrical device is dead simple and results in an increase in entropy. Why would the opposite also result in an increase in entropy?)

This is one reason why I think the 'lowering the ambient temperature' idea is wrong. The others are that it doesn't seem to account for conservation of momentum, and thus also seems to break conservation of energy in most (not all) inertial frames. Fortunately it's not a cornerstone of M-E physics...

...

Of course, if we've really discovered Maxwell's Demon here (and I won't rule it out a priori), I'll be delighted...

I may have just tripped over an unstated caveat. This really needs more time than I have. I've got to get to work...
chrismb wrote:A hypothesis has been posited, based on Mach's principle, that thrust can be induced by reactionless means in an isolated system.
Actually, in contradiction to GIThruster, I think this is very simply wrong. Specifically in its reference to an isolated system. The G-I flux enters and/or leaves your box, according to the theory; it is therefore not an isolated system.

You may say that since the theory is unproven, it is not known if this G-I flux exists. True. However, if we are to argue about whether or not an M-E thruster violates thermodynamic laws in principle, we have to assume (for the sake of argument) that its operating principles are valid. Claiming that a working M-E drive would violate thermodynamic laws if M-E theory weren't valid is not an internally consistent statement.
chrismb wrote:There is nothing in need of 'explanation' by it.
Inertia doesn't have a widely-accepted 'explanation' right now, so far as I am aware. According to J. Woodward et al., M-E explains it in the framework of GRT. It also predicts a space drive as a side bonus, which also happens to be a decent way to test the theory as an explanation of inertia.

AcesHigh
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Post by AcesHigh »

TallDave wrote: So, can anyone get on this mailing list, or only PhDs? Alas, I only have a Master's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-c4iS454WA

:lol: :lol:

AcesHigh
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Post by AcesHigh »

NextBigFuture posted a new article on ME Effect.

It seems he took the quotes from here (or were they posted on NASA Spaceflight?)
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/06/discus ... qus_thread


anyone understands what the hell is GoatGuy talking about? Is that just techno-babble to make fun of Paul?

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

"Is that just techno-babble to make fun of Paul?"

No, Goatguy is sincerely certain he's defending an obvious and correct interpretation of what is known, one which preclude the possibility of the Woodward Effect and precludes the relevance of Mach's Conjecture to physics.

He's being a pigheaded blithering idiot, though. There are no valid boundaries to draw around the process which are smaller than the entirety of the universe.

The reversed thrust signature of the changing phase relationship shows that clearly, to me.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
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cuddihy
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Post by cuddihy »

TDPerk wrote:"Is that just techno-babble to make fun of Paul?"

No, Goatguy is sincerely certain he's defending an obvious and correct interpretation of what is known, one which preclude the possibility of the Woodward Effect and precludes the relevance of Mach's Conjecture. . ..
So, yes, he is attempting to make fun of Paul March in iowahawk-style tongue and cheek satire of the technobabble. The funny thing is, Paul makes complete sense, he just talks like an engineer in jargonese because it's more consise. If you dip your toe in the literature a bit it's enitirely clear. This just comes across as Goat Guy being either too lazy to read the (repeatedly) posted refs or perhaps being out of his depth and too proud to admit it.
Tom.Cuddihy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Faith is the foundation of reason.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

AcesHigh wrote:anyone understands what the hell is GoatGuy talking about? Is that just techno-babble to make fun of Paul?
I think GoatGuy is responding to Paul's reference to the possibility that force could be transmitted through the liquid metal pots in Jim's ARC Lite setup (which I can see no possible mechanism for. This bears very little resemblance to a rail gun.) The reference is the virtually frictionless power feeds in the ARC Lite, the point Paul is making is about the utility of a battery-operated setup like what he intends and the self-agrandizing spin-off of the conversation is GG's nostalgic explanation of an experiment done with 250kg of superfluid. Unfortunately, GG has left out so many details, his description suffers what's called "critical reference failure", and one can't tell what the hell he's talking about. One minute it's superfluid, the next it's an air hockey table. He's apparently also talking about his prior suggestion of a magnetic bearing. Looks like he's trying and failing to describe an experimental setup for testing a thruster.

And in general, this is what's wrong with blogging like this. Opinions are like assholes--everyone has one. People pushing their opinions about very complex experimental setups who don't understand those setups, why they were chosen, how they were constructed, how long they've been in use, what the limits of their measurement are, how useful they are, etc., are pretty much just wasting people's time.

The ARC Lite is a truly world-class measurement apparatus with a precision a couple orders magnitude below the uN forces being measured. There is no problem with friction in the liquid metal bearings, nor force being exerted across them. What we have here, is Paul making a minor point that such a thing is possible, then Brian over at NBF quoting Paul out of context, then GoatGuy running with the quote in order to make comments that have nothing to do with the quote.

What's much worse, is sebtal saying Woodward has "taken GR, scrunched it up and thrown it out the window" with no reference nor explanation, when in fact Woodward's theory is in complete accord with GR and relies upon it. Again, opinions are like assholes, and why someone would offer one like this without having read Woodward's work is beyond me.

But you can see why I no longer spend time over at NBF. . .
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Barry Kirk
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Post by Barry Kirk »

Regarding the discussion about entropy.

I've heard it said many times that entropy can only increase... it can never decrease for a system.

I also, seem to remember reading somewhere that there is a theoretical maximum amount of entropy that can be contained inside of a volume.

So, assuming the universe started with a very low entropy which has been increasing since the big bang, what decreased the entropy to the low value it had at the moment of the big bang?

Is it possible that buried in the ME, is a means of decreasing entropy?

paulmarch
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Post by paulmarch »

93143 wrote:
TallDave wrote:BTW, would you agree with the statement that a hypothetical M-E flywheel generator is 2L compliant because it increases the entropy of the causally connected universe by lowering its temp?
No. Entropy is a property of energy. Decrease the temperature, and you increase the entropy of each unit of remaining heat - but you still decrease the total entropy, since the total amount of heat is less.

The energy that you pull out with your device brings the energy total back to the original level, but it's low-entropy, concentrated energy. (In theory (very simple, idealized theory), if it isn't heat, its entropy is lower than that of thermal energy at any temperature - electrical energy can theoretically be used at 100%.) So the total entropy is still lower in the ideal case.

(Think about it in reverse. Heating up a uniform mess of particles by letting energy flow out of an electrical device is dead simple and results in an increase in entropy. Why would the opposite also result in an increase in entropy?)

This is one reason why I think the 'lowering the ambient temperature' idea is wrong. The others are that it doesn't seem to account for conservation of momentum, and thus also seems to break conservation of energy in most (not all) inertial frames. Fortunately it's not a cornerstone of M-E physics...

...

Of course, if we've really discovered Maxwell's Demon here (and I won't rule it out a priori), I'll be delighted...

I may have just tripped over an unstated caveat. This really needs more time than I have. I've got to get to work...
chrismb wrote:A hypothesis has been posited, based on Mach's principle, that thrust can be induced by reactionless means in an isolated system.
Actually, in contradiction to GIThruster, I think this is very simply wrong. Specifically in its reference to an isolated system. The G-I flux enters and/or leaves your box, according to the theory; it is therefore not an isolated system.

You may say that since the theory is unproven, it is not known if this G-I flux exists. True. However, if we are to argue about whether or not an M-E thruster violates thermodynamic laws in principle, we have to assume (for the sake of argument) that its operating principles are valid. Claiming that a working M-E drive would violate thermodynamic laws if M-E theory weren't valid is not an internally consistent statement.
chrismb wrote:There is nothing in need of 'explanation' by it.
Inertia doesn't have a widely-accepted 'explanation' right now, so far as I am aware. According to J. Woodward et al., M-E explains it in the framework of GRT. It also predicts a space drive as a side bonus, which also happens to be a decent way to test the theory as an explanation of inertia.
93143:

Thanks much for the thermo refresher. It’s been a long time since my last college thermodynamics class back in 1970, so the details of thermo are rather fuzzy for me, except for those blasted triple point pressure and temperature steam tables. For an EE, that was a challenge…

Ok, so you reminded me that I need to go back and reacquaint myself with entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, and Maxwell’s demon, check. A start along this path can be found here:

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_devil

After skimming through this thermo material it became evident to me that the second law of thermodynamics is solidly fixed to the idea that the arrow of time can only go in one direction at 1.0 second per second. Conventional thermodynamics has no-clue what to do if we can manipulate time as easily as we can manipulate things in 3D space, unless some enterprising souls have developed a 4-D general relativistic invariant version of thermodynamics since I left college all these many years ago when I graduated in 1972.

I just did a Google search for this topic and, Oh dear they have come close, see:

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/arti ... ary5-2.pdf
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=194227

However this is only for thermodynamics as applied to special relativity, NOT for general relativity where traversable wormholes and time travel is permitted. Any theoretical system that allows for time travel is going to play havoc with conventional Newtonian Mechanics systems such as Newtonian based thermodynamics, and until we have a thermodynamics that has been successfully married with General Relativity Theory (GRT) and its odd spacetime antics, trying to predict GRT effects like those brought to the table by the Mach Effect (M-E) per conventional thermodynamics is a fool’s errand, IMO of course.

Best,
Paul March
Friendswood, TX

paulmarch
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Post by paulmarch »

GIThruster wrote:
AcesHigh wrote:anyone understands what the hell is GoatGuy talking about? Is that just techno-babble to make fun of Paul?
I think GoatGuy is responding to Paul's reference to the possibility that force could be transmitted through the liquid metal pots in Jim's ARC Lite setup (which I can see no possible mechanism for. This bears very little resemblance to a rail gun.) The reference is the virtually frictionless power feeds in the ARC Lite, the point Paul is making is about the utility of a battery-operated setup like what he intends and the self-agrandizing spin-off of the conversation is GG's nostalgic explanation of an experiment done with 250kg of superfluid. Unfortunately, GG has left out so many details, his description suffers what's called "critical reference failure", and one can't tell what the hell he's talking about. One minute it's superfluid, the next it's an air hockey table. He's apparently also talking about his prior suggestion of a magnetic bearing. Looks like he's trying and failing to describe an experimental setup for testing a thruster.

And in general, this is what's wrong with blogging like this. Opinions are like assholes--everyone has one. People pushing their opinions about very complex experimental setups who don't understand those setups, why they were chosen, how they were constructed, how long they've been in use, what the limits of their measurement are, how useful they are, etc., are pretty much just wasting people's time.

The ARC Lite is a truly world-class measurement apparatus with a precision a couple orders magnitude below the uN forces being measured. There is no problem with friction in the liquid metal bearings, nor force being exerted across them. What we have here, is Paul making a minor point that such a thing is possible, then Brian over at NBF quoting Paul out of context, then GoatGuy running with the quote in order to make comments that have nothing to do with the quote.

What's much worse, is sebtal saying Woodward has "taken GR, scrunched it up and thrown it out the window" with no reference nor explanation, when in fact Woodward's theory is in complete accord with GR and relies upon it. Again, opinions are like assholes, and why someone would offer one like this without having read Woodward's work is beyond me.

But you can see why I no longer spend time over at NBF. . .
Ron:

"I think GoatGuy is responding to Paul's reference to the possibility that force could be transmitted through the liquid metal pots in Jim's ARC Lite setup (which I can see no possible mechanism for."

Try Amperian tension, but it's only supposed to be significant at high current levels measured in hundreds if not thousands of amperes, which hardly matches Woodward’s testing regime where his test article is pulling an amp or two at most. This effect is also not completely accepted by mainstream physics, but the presented data seems to support its existence.

See: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp. ... r=01063069
"Ampere Tension in Electric Conductors" by PETER GRANEAU

BTW, concur on your summary about folks not taking the time and effort required to really understand a given test setup, yet thinking they know why it should or shouldn't work. Best to be humble in most things.

Best,
Paul March
Friendswood, TX

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

I think you are talking about longitudinal forces.

There is a superb MSc thesis I found some time back that someone has looked into this. Very interesting read, very comprehensive:

http://www.df.lth.se/~snorkelf/Longitud ... utdok.html

paulmarch
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Post by paulmarch »

Barry Kirk wrote:Regarding the discussion about entropy.

I've heard it said many times that entropy can only increase... it can never decrease for a system.

I also, seem to remember reading somewhere that there is a theoretical maximum amount of entropy that can be contained inside of a volume.

So, assuming the universe started with a very low entropy which has been increasing since the big bang, what decreased the entropy to the low value it had at the moment of the big bang?

Is it possible that buried in the ME, is a means of decreasing entropy?
Barry:

"Is it possible that buried in the ME, is a means of decreasing entropy?"

Yes, but only if we can create an M-E created traversable wormhole to another universe where we can mine its energy for our universe. If one buys 11 dimensional string theory that feat might be doable, but that's a BIG IF. In the meantime we just have to deal with the energy and momentum cards dealt us by this universe, which is so large in its own right that it is near beyond our capabilities of comprehension as it is.

Best,
Paul March
Friendswood, TX

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

93143 wrote:The energy that you pull out with your device brings the energy total back to the original level, but it's low-entropy, concentrated energy. (In theory (very simple, idealized theory), if it isn't heat, its entropy is lower than that of thermal energy at any temperature - electrical energy can theoretically be used at 100%.) So the total entropy is still lower in the ideal case.
Cogent as always.

Yes, I agree if the total energy was the same and the overall temp had not changed the overall entropy of the system would have decreased in violation of 2L -- but the general temp decrease doesn't have to be the same as the local energy increase. The Universe's temp has been decreasing since the Big Bang...

But can you use the expansion of space that way? It seems like in an expanding universe there ought to be some enthalpy in a nonzero-temp space even if it has uniform temp. Hmm.
Last edited by TallDave on Fri Jun 10, 2011 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

paulmarch wrote:BTW, concur on your summary about folks not taking the time and effort required to really understand a given test setup, yet thinking they know why it should or shouldn't work. Best to be humble in most things.
But there again, Paul, some might have a specialism, and/or specific interest and/or experience of a given issue. Then they will look to see if you have accommodated that given issue.

Unfortunately, to disprove a thing you only have to disprove one aspect of it, whereas the person proving has a whole lot more to do! That's just the game, I'm afraid, and you know it which is why you express the word 'humble', I guess.

I will freely confess I have not looked into every detail of your work (and some here tell me that that means I should not engage in asking challenging questions until I know 'everything'!). But if you nail the power-within-inertial-frame then, for me at least, I have little more to question wrt what I know for myself (as you say, mine is an opinion based on rail-gun type applications). But *I* would want to look into the finest detail of that aspect, whereas someone else might want to look into, e.g., other mechanical forces on the kit.

In actual fact, I consider this the best way to do engineering. No-one should expect someone else to know everything - and nor should they expect that of themselves. The more heads look at something, the more questions and issues get drawn out. A two edged sword, for sure, but it's the only way to get to a concrete outcome.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

GIThruster wrote:But you can see why I no longer spend time over at NBF. . .
Brian Wang has a first-class SciTech News aggregation Metasite going at NBF. The forums are another issue.
Vae Victis

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