Mach Effect progress

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GIThruster
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by GIThruster »

It makes me wonder too. I wish they had said what shape container they used and why they think they got the pattern they got.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

DeltaV
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by DeltaV »

They are using "gravity waves" in the fluid dynamics sense, not the General Relativity sense (more properly called gravitational waves).

DeltaV
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by DeltaV »

GIThruster wrote:It makes me wonder too. I wish they had said what shape container they used and why they think they got the pattern they got.
http://www.unice.fr/rajchenbach/starPRL.pdf
We report a new type of standing gravity waves of large amplitude, having alternatively the
shape of a star and of a polygon. This wave is observed by means of a laboratory experiment by
vibrating vertically a tank. The symmetry of the star (i.e. the number of branches) is independent
of the container form and size, and can be changed according to the amplitude and frequency of
the vibration
. We show that this wave geometry results from nonlinear resonant couplings between
three waves, although this possibility has been denied for pure gravity waves up to now.

GIThruster
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by GIThruster »

I stand corrected, but I am unaware of this distinction between gravity waves and gravitational waves. Sounds like you know more about it. Care to elaborate?
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

TallDave
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by TallDave »

GIThruster wrote:I don't think it requires any new theory. I haven't followed any of the latest discussion (due to time constraints) but I think the fact Jim has always said to do this math you need to use the tools or relativity is salient here. Way back in 2006, he told Paul and I "you can't do the math that way", yet all the troubles seem to come from people not using relativistic corrections.

I'm pretty sure no new physics is needed here.
Well, it's probably fair to say most people don't agree you can get transient mass fluctuations by moving charges around in capacitors :lol:

And wormholes are at the very least going to be ahem, a clarification of existing physics.

It will be interesting.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...

CaptainBeowulf
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by CaptainBeowulf »

I have read the book once now, I will need to let the information sit in the back of my mind for a couple of months and try reading it again. I may also have to review some textbooks and try reading it with them in order to follow some of the ideas better. However, based on the first read:

1. The basic mass fluctuations from Mach effect theory appears to be a reasonable interpretation of GRT and SRT. It could easily be correct, but it needs a mechanism to work.

2. Woodward has used Wheeler-Feynman radiation-reaction as the mechanism explaining why inertial reactions are instant relative to far off matter. W-F is also an accepted concept, and it's feasible that it also explains inertia and gravity accurately.

3. Woodward has used a modified interpretation of the ADM model of the electron in which the electron has a large bare negative mass. In Woodward's theory, using Mach effects to screen the electron from the gravitational pull of the rest of the universe exposes this mass. The rest follows established Kip Thorne wormhole/Alcubierre warp drive theory in which spacetime is bent - all of which does not technically violate any laws of physics, but appears to require at least a Jupiter amount of negative mass/energy under normal circumstances (but much less energy if Woodward was to be right). So, Woodward's electron model seems to fit the criteria of modification to existing physics, although it is not unprecedented modification, it is drawn together from existing interpretations.

4. The wormhole/warp drive/exposed negative energy function does appear to imply ways to violate conservation of energy/momentum, but of course wormholes imply time travel too, so we're in uncharted territory there. Either thermodynamics prohibit this stuff, or thermodynamics which apply most of the time can be broken under some conditions. For the sub-light "push heavy, pull light" Mach effect propellantless drive the argument is that it obeys thermodynamics if you do the relativistic corrections correctly.

My impression is that it's not only possible for him to be right or wrong, but also partially right and partially wrong... and of course more experiment is needed to find out. His history of the experimentation is quite interesting though, and reasonably detailed. I think 93143 will find the book interesting even if he doesn't agree with much of it, and I'm curious to see what he thinks of it.

kurt9
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by kurt9 »

Yes, and if Woodward is correct, Mach effect propulsion could be commercialized by the end of this decade. The wormhole stuff will take a bit longer. The wormhole thing requires not only that Mach theory be correct, but that the ADM model of the electron, including Woodward's version of it incorporating spin, be correct as well. The only way to know if this is true or not is to build an experimental wormhole generator and see if the bloody thing works.

I don't know what to make of the time travel possibilities inherent to wormholes. My instincts tell me that backward time travel is impossible. I don't agree with Woodward's casual dismissal of time travel tourists. If backward time travel were possible, I think people would travel back in time to see historically significant events, or even to see the gladiator games of Rome, just for pure pleasure.

I think the propulsion technology will be realized, but that wormholes (and warp drive) will prove impossible. At least the former gives us the solar system, Gerard O'neill style, for reasonable cost.

deane
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by deane »

GIThruster wrote:I stand corrected, but I am unaware of this distinction between gravity waves and gravitational waves. Sounds like you know more about it. Care to elaborate?
From the Wikipedia page on gravity waves:

In fluid dynamics, gravity waves are waves generated in a fluid medium or at the interface between two media (e.g., the atmosphere and the ocean) which has the restoring force of gravity or buoyancy.

kbaugh
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Location: Fairfax VA

Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by kbaugh »

CaptainBeowulf wrote:I have read the book once now, I will need to let the information sit in the back of my mind for a couple of months and try reading it again.
I read his book recently, too. It was quite interesting and a good read. I seem to recall that Woodward claims that gravitional potential falls off as 1/r^2 locally, but falls off as 1/r at cosmological scales. Isn't that consistent with recent observation?

TallDave
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by TallDave »

kurt9 -- My understanding of the generally accepted wormhole is that, assuming you could generate and sustain one, you would never be able to "travel back in time" except in a very limited sense. You could never travel to a time before the wormhole was created, and time would continue to pass on both sides. It would presumably take a very long time before exceeding the speed of light resulted in any practical time-travel-like effects.

Where it might get interesting is if you accelerate one end of the wormhole so it undergoes time dilation, or move one end of the wormhole billions of light years away (which, of course, takes billions of years, though at some point distance starts increasing faster than lightspeed due to intervening vacuum expansion) -- at that point relativity claims small changes in spatial movement on one side result in moving large distances in time on the other. I suspect these will turn out to be impossible though, QM seems to imply that shouldn't happen.

In the event you can do so, you're probably not actually traveling to the past or future, but a parallel universe, so you can feel free to kill your grandfather in his cradle if you like, when you return to the present you'll find history still records he died of natural causes (or however he died) after fathering your parent.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...

CaptainBeowulf
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by CaptainBeowulf »

It would appear that you can't travel back in time before the wormhole was created, unless it's possible to "punch" a wormhole through spacetime from your generator, with one mouth forming where your generator is and the other mouth forming somewhere distant in spacetime. There has been limited debate as to whether the "punch-through" mechanism is possible, but I don't understand the details of the discussion.

The other option is that if wormholes can be created by a civilization with the tech levels that we can foresee achieving this millenium, there might well be other wormholes around created by other civilizations, presuming that intelligent life has evolved more than once we might find wormholes that have been created elsewhere in the distant past, which we might be able to use to travel to our own past. (Seeing as we've found recently that the majority of star systems have planets, if we posit that 1 percent of planets are theoretically habitable, and that 1 percent of those planets develop life, and that one percent of the planets that develop life then develop intelligent life, and that 1 percent of planets that develop intelligent life then develop technologically advanced civilizations before the life goes extinct or moves on to some other type of existence, this is not an unreasonable guess.)

So, we could still face the question of whether wormholes allow time travel if wormholes were to exist. Something like Hawking's chronology protection conjecture might hold and prevent wormhole formation because of massive fields of recirculating virtual particles - but if no QM effects prevent it, then we would find out if the parallel universe thing follows.

Really, though, it's mostly speculation at this point still.

AcesHigh
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by AcesHigh »

the old generic Propellantless Propulsion topic on NASASpaceFlight forums is quite dead, and I stoped paying attention to it. But I just discovered there is a new Woodward Theory only thread, which is already on page 17. To anyone who likes to discuss it (and since this thread is also a bit slow on the last months):
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... =31037.210

GeeGee
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by GeeGee »

New Pop Sci article on Harold White's warp drive

http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl ... arp-factor

His evasiveness to questions on page 3 is very sketchy behavior. This compounded with the fact that he has no published papers in peer-reviewed physics journals (on the modifications made to the warp drive metric or his QVPT scheme) makes me question his credibility. I feel like if it weren't for his position at NASA, he would not be getting this kind of attention. IMO, Woodward has a lot more to show in regards to credibility, theory and experimental results than White does.

djolds1
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by djolds1 »

GeeGee wrote:New Pop Sci article on Harold White's warp drive

http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl ... arp-factor

His evasiveness to questions on page 3 is very sketchy behavior. This compounded with the fact that he has no published papers in peer-reviewed physics journals (on the modifications made to the warp drive metric or his QVPT scheme) makes me question his credibility. I feel like if it weren't for his position at NASA, he would not be getting this kind of attention.
Agreed. Pleading NDAs at a NASA primary science lab? Very dubious.
GeeGee wrote:IMO, Woodward has a lot more to show in regards to credibility, theory and experimental results than White does.
Concur.
Vae Victis

AcesHigh
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Re: Mach Effect progress

Post by AcesHigh »

well, MLorrey and Paul March have already replied to the article, and Paul March kinda of explains the ring stuff that Sonny White refused to explain. So I wonder if:

A) since it was Paul March that designed the ring, Sonny White had no good understanding of it and prefered not to explain it to the reporter
B) Sonny White signed the non-disclosure contract TO Paul March, so Paul can tell about it but Sonny can´t or
C) Paul March will be fired for breaching the non-disclosure contract.

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