Mach Effect Propulsion Research Update

[Betruger]

Now that that's outta the way, we can get back on topic...

[TDPerk]

It acts by virtue of the mobile mass seeing a harder acceleration in one direction than in the return direction, ...

That much sounds like stiction drive, which can easily sneak in with poor experimental design. One way to avoid the problem is to hang the experimental drive on a pendulum and measure offset with the drive active.

That's what they did. It is not a case of assymetrical stiction.

[TDPerk]

And before you get all huffy, chrismb, try to remember that spooky action at a distance has already been well demonstrated...

You are merely cementing my contempt for this.

Quantum entanglement is the preservation of spin momentum in the event of an "observation". This is not a "force at a distance" but merely "information at a distance". There is no "force" involved and is still entirely consistent with Newtonian mechanics (as far as Newtonian mechanics goes - Newton would have had no reason for presuming such mechanics work at this level of atomic particles, if he had know of them).

A) "You are merely cementing my contempt for this." So you admit to an emotionally motivated antipathy for the concept on the basis of no attempt to understand the physics of it. Check.

B) I didn't say "spooky action at a distance" involves a force, did I? Reading comprehension, Chrismb, you either don't have it or aren't using it.

Either the Mach-Lorentz conjecture is wrong, or this will work as described. Take it up with the two dead guys, their math is out there where you can regard it.

[chrismb]

A) "You are merely cementing my contempt for this." So you admit to an emotionally motivated antipathy for the concept on the basis of no attempt to understand the physics of it. Check.

On the contrary. To have contempt required one to have had some previous experience of the subject, or similar to the said subject. One cannot have contempt for what one has no familiarity with. Do I have a "motivated antipathy" towards it? You betcha! and your point is.....?

B) I didn't say "spooky action at a distance" involves a force, did I?

How can you have "action" without "force"? "Action" totally and essentially implies a change of poistions of things, implies change of entropy, implies a rate of change of entropy with respect to those things moving (the "action"), which is the very definition of force. You have to have a force to have an action.

Reading comprehension, Chrismb, you either don't have it or aren't using it.

It also helps for the "writer" to understand the words they are using before they say something, else the "reader" may fail to comprehend what the "writer" was trying to say. Do you know what "action" means now?

Either the Mach-Lorentz conjecture is wrong, or this will work as described.

Clearly the Mach-Lorentz conjecture is wrong.

I wonder what Ernest Mach and Hendrik Lorentz would make of this abuse of their names. Who actually came up with whatever conjecture it is supposed to be? Why didn't that person, or persons, use their own name(s)? I sure-as-heck don't believe it was those two. May be it was another "Mach" and "Lorentz" and they just happened to have the same names?

sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probat

[Betruger]

When you guys are done taking potshots at each other, maybe Chrismb can actually clearly and specifically debunk the math. I'm pretty sure the meat of it's in the published resources. I can send a copy of "Mass fluctuations, stationary forces, and propellantless propulsion" by Woodward, or probably any other paper, if necessary.

In the end only thorough experimental results have the last word, but so far there hasn't been anything but misunderstandings over what the theory really is (e.g. here and at NSF) and philosophical disagreements over what the theory should be. The NASA study was inconclusive. Everyone I've seen speak up against some problem in the theory at NSF seem to be mistaken in their interpretation.. Then someone e.g. Paul March comes along and sets them straight, and you never hear from that someone again.

[chrismb]

When you guys are done taking potshots at each other, maybe Chrismb can actually clearly and specifically debunk the math.

Spoilsport!

I only come here for a good argument...

Anyhow, to the point, what have Mach and Lorentz got to do with it? I reckon they'd be turning in, err.., their inertial frames if they were alive to see their names used for this. Am I mistaken? Did they actually buy into this stuff?

[Betruger]

I think you're mistaken in just picking out the first apparent inconsistency, any inconsistency, and calling it a day right then and there. It's not comprehensive. It doesn't matter what something's called, so much as what "it" really is and what it does. Why don't you look at all of the actual meat of the theory and experimentation, and then straighten it out into what you think it ought to be?

The main NSF thread on the topic, lots of input and feedback from P.March as user Star-Drive, who's one of the main investigators.
Another thread with some overlap at least in P.March's posts.
NASA reproduction attempt
Lots of other papers in those two NSF threads, mostly attached to P.March's posts.

[chrismb]

I think you're mistaken in just picking out the first inconsistency, any inconsistency, and calling it a day right then and there.

I hardly think that describes my approach to anything I say on this forum.

What I find frustrating is the usual way these vociferious conversations go in which someone says "I choose to pluck theory A out of the air and declare that it is so and is great because I met some guy on a train that said his friend had read this in a paper that someone got an experiment to work with the theory", and then I come along and go "blahh....blah..blah..cobblers" to which I am told that if I don't believe it then *I* should offer some proof that it won't work. It's not for me to disprove what I have not proposed! It is for the other party to prove what they propose or believe in if it is contrary to commonly held scientific principles (which I'll choose to define here as "what you're taught in school" to avoid a silly debate on that).

The point about trying to disprove something is that the disprover merely has to pick on one single inconsistency. That is how you dispove something!!!! It is for the postualtor to have to prove every possible aspect of their postulation, it is for the discreditor to merely disprove one single consequent fact. This is how science works.

[Betruger]

Ok, Im wrong on that first point, on your actual approach. But it's how you come off in my POV (yourself excessively vociferous), although I have no problem with and would be glad to be wrong.

It is for the postualtor to have to prove every possible aspect of their postulation, it is for the discreditor to merely disprove one single consequent fact. This is how science works.

Consequent being a key word; consequent of the actual premises. Not incorrectly perceived premises. IOW the full context. I doubt you've not run into cases (even outside scientific work) where someone managed to do something right, but is wrong somewhere in his report terminology or in his interpretation of what's truly going on. It's no good in these cases to dismiss the whole over some superficial issue like grammar. Plenty of such serendipitous instances in history.

So... Back to our sheep. The ME conjecture is right there explained in painfully comprehensive replies to everyone that points out what they think are holes in the theory and experimentation. Unless you integrally assess the context of Woodward, March, & co's assertions, you can't say they're right or wrong.

btw I saw a post dated 2 years ago (tops) that says 10k$ to reproduce the (then) latest experiements from scratch. Hardly major funding. IMO (dispassionate observer hat off), low enough that someone ought to just BUILD the darn thing and work from there.

[chrismb]

btw I saw a post dated 2 years ago (tops) that says 10k$ to reproduce the (then) latest experiements from scratch. Hardly major funding. IMO (dispassionate observer hat off), low enough that someone ought to just BUILD the darn thing and work from there.

Exactly a point I would raise to demonstrate the contrary - are you telling me that whosoever has come up with this theory is a scientist ("institutionalised", or otherwise) of such substantial cleverness to be able to develop this theory where no-one else can, yet they can't hold down a job that pays enough to be able to fund a 10k project?!?

[CaptainBeowulf]

As far as I can see the crux of the argument is that under certain conditions the rest of the universe functions as reaction mass. Mach's and Einstein's equations leave open this possibility, no matter how counter-intuitive it is. Under most conditions, Chrismb is right: bouncing electrons (or whatever else) back and forth within an object will just make it vibrate back and forth on its center of gravity.

Woodward, March and others don't seem to have experimentally proven the effect beyond what could be accounted for as "noise". However, I think it's an interesting study that they should pursue. If it were to work, it would tell us a heck of a lot about the physics of this universe. I would see a couple of million dollars spent on more detailed experiments as money well spent. Even if the experiments ruled this out as an explanation for the origin of inertia, we'd then know to look elsewhere in order to understand inertia. IF it worked, then it would point the way towards the propellantless drives they talk about...

[Betruger]

No one else can or no one else wants to? Plenty of dogmatic inertia possible there.
The ME stuff by PMarch is done on his spare time and dime. I have no comments and frankly I don't care what the deal is, or how ridiculous it seems. There's plenty of good "excuses" for such a situtation.

Maybe it's some knuckleheaded elbow grease character flaw of mine, but I see all this (this specific case - undebunked physics based on GRT and cheap experimentation) and the motivation I get is to just BUILD IT and see what happens. It's cheap and simple enough that the results should visibly enough support or contradict the theory. Or failing that, poke and prod and shake the theory to see if it's sound. Or both.
Not spend time debating what ifs and what not. Just build the thing and let the setup and results speak for themselves. Alexander > knot. A much more efficient resolution of uncertainties.

So... Once again. The abstract theoretical basis, the math, and the experimental specs are right there, in the open. You could do something with it, or insist on extraneous political and philosophical debate. It's going to be a while before I can really get a handle on it myself, so I can't contribute, much as I'd like to. What I see is that no one, yet, has successfully pointed out show stoppers in the theory or experimental falsifiability. Which is what you'd expect ought to have happened in all this time, if Woodward and March & co really were such non-clever guys as you and others fall back to resuming them to.

[TDPerk]

I think you're mistaken in just picking out the first inconsistency, any inconsistency, and calling it a day right then and there.
I hardly think that describes my approach to anything I say on this forum.

Yes chrismb actually imagines inconsistencies that aren't there.

I only come here for a good argument...

Thanks for admitting you are a troll so openly. From time to time, you'll be treated as a troll.

"Did they actually buy into this stuff?"

They originated* the Mach-Lorentz conjecture, so sorry you don't have the reading comprehension to have intuited that one. *(Not jointly, a Lorentz transformation is done on the math relating to the position of the "fixed stars" as those positions are altered by the frame dragging done by time variant accelerating masses. I presume you'll step out of troll mode long enough to honestly and straight forwardly say whether you think frame dragging happens, and whether you think it happens only for rotational motion or any motion.)

It is called the Mach-Lorentz conjecture because it is the result of a Lorentz transformation done on what is implied by Mach's principle.

"On the contrary. To have contempt required one to have had some previous experience of the subject, "

So then you're admitting you don't have any idea what you're talking about? It does explain a lot.

But hey, you said you had contempt for the concept. You said "You are merely cementing my contempt for this." Go figure where I got the idea you have contempt for the concept.

It's a puzzler, oh it is.

Oh wait...what it is is an inconsistency in what you've said!

"How can you have "action" without "force"? "

Take it up with the entangled photons. You're argument is with them...or with one Albert Einstein, "spooky action at a distance" is his phrase, after all.

"Do you know what "action" means now? "

I knew what it means usually, and then and now, in the phrase as Einstein used it. It does not mean what you need it to mean for your words not to be the blitherings of a well practiced idiot.

"Clearly the Mach-Lorentz conjecture is wrong. "

Really? Then develop a better explanation for mechanism by which inertia operates. Explain how frame dragging doesn't really happen.

Tell us how Albert got it all wrong.

[TDPerk]

Woodward, March and others don't seem to have experimentally proven the effect beyond what could be accounted for as "noise".

The graph clearly eliminates the possibility of noise being the source of the signal, it might be experimental error--they may not be measuring what they think they are measuring. The description of the signal being dependent on the time use history of the capacitors argues for it being the effect they intend to measure, if their conception of the degradation of the capacitors is correct. The system is operating in a vacuum, and if I recall it is built to operate against a torsion pendulum.

The opportunities for the mirror on the outside of the case to be moved by other than the effect they are trying to measure are slight.

[TallDave]

"Spooky action at a distance" just means nonlocality. Einstein didn't like it, but Bell's inequality had held up so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_ ... _(physics)

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