[AR] Re: NASA test of quantum vacuum plasma thruster (was "Anyone heard of this?")
- From: Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 10:54:45 +0100
On 05/08/14 06:58, Pierce Nichols wrote:
All of the defenses of this scheme boil down to claims that momentum
and/or energy is being smuggled in from somewhere outside the scope of
conventional physics.
Oh dear. The mechanism I have described requires neither of those -
though it is a bit out of the ordinary :)
That is a quite extraordinary claim, to put it
mildly. Anyone bringing evidence has better bring equally extraordinary
evidence.
Agreed. And I'd like to state here and now that I do not believe in the
drive.
However, there are mechanisms by which it might work which would not
violate the known laws of physics. Introduce some new ones, yes - but
not violate the old.
The one I have described, where the drive pushes against what is
effectively the mass of the rest of the universe, is one such - and it
does not violate conservation of energy or momentum.
Increase velocity relative to the universe, and it takes more energy to
produce the same thrust - it is _not_ a perpetual motion machine.
Momentum is conserved. The total momentum of the system {drive plus rest
of universe} remains constant.
As for Michaelson-Morley, well they proved the length of a piece of
string, but that's about all. Let me explain:
Their inferometer had what we will consider a standing wave of light of
a jillion wavelengths, and they measured it at various angles to the
rotation of the Earth, looking to see whether it shortened caused by an
"ether" wind.
Unfortunately their experimental apparatus was made of ordinary matter -
a zillion atomic nuclei held together by ... standing electromagnetic
waves.
If there was an ether wind, if the standing light wave had shortened due
to an ether wind, so would the standing waves between the atoms - the
light wave shortened, but so did the apparatus, and no result would *or
could* have been noticed.
Now special relativity was developed based on M-M and the idea that
there is no ether wind (~= no preferred frame of reference, of a
particular type of frame); and there is no preferred frame in SR.
However nothing in SR proves that no preferred frame (of any type)
exists; and similarly, a preferred frame need not disprove SR.
SR is obviously an incomplete description of reality, and even of those
portions of reality it is taken to describe: it does not explain several
observations, like cosmic microwave background isotropy, which strongly
suggest that at least some form of preferred frame actually exists.
As does logic - add up the effects of every particle in the universe,
and the total will have a momentum, and thus an effective velocity,
relative to you. If you can do that, the result is a preferred frame.
More, it contains/has a huge mass and momentum.
To get back to the drive, where the reaction mass is all the mass in the
universe. How might it happen that the drive can affect all that mass,
and all at once? Relativity does not allow influences which travel
faster than light.
But suppose the influence is already here, and that the mass of the
universe drags space itself around some how.
Well, in General Relativity, that's exactly what happens. I don't know
whether anyone has done the calculation, but it is not inappropriate to
suppose that the mass in the entire universe drags all of space around.
Certainly it happens on smaller scales.
Something very similar happens with magnetic fields - which also have a
momentum. Curiously, the effective momentum of the field is related to
the mass of the magnet .. both interact with each other. The magnet
affects the field, and the field affects the magnet.
Similarly, mass affects space, and space affects mass.
Now all we have to do is somehow couple the drive to space itself ...
hmm, interacting with the quantum vacuum might well describe such a
coupling ...
-- Peter Fairbrother
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