On 06/08/14 20:33, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
On 8/6/2014 11:33 AM, Peter Fairbrother wrote:Purely from an informational point of view (ie, looking at how does the drive know what the velocity zero is, while ignoring how it interacts with it), as far as I can see there are at most two possibilities. The first and in my opinion by far the most likely (but only because the other is even less likely!) possibility is zero velocity relative to the big bang; which is also a zero relative to the mass in and/or of the universe; and for practical purposes is very close indeed to the rest frame relative to the cosmic microwave background. The last is something which we can actually measure; we are travelling at 369±0.9 km/s in the direction of galactic longitude l = 263.99±0.14°, b = 48.26±0.03 relative to that rest frame.The second possibility comes from General Relativity and is sort of similar in terms of being a summation of the effects of all the mass in the universe, but it takes local matter more into account. For various reasons I think it's very unlikely indeed but I thought I'd mention it as, like the rest of these speculations, it is not impossible, assuming the rest of physics is correct but incomplete.Underinformed speculation department: Stipulating for the moment something real happening, also stipulating either of these frames of reference prevailing, the wild variation in reported thrust-to-watts ratios might in some part be related to differences in which way the experimenters happened to have their devices pointing at the time. Can you give some idea of to what degree the local matter might prevail under the second possibility?
Ah, if only.I'm afraid I'm not good enough at the math for that, and there is also a problem there - there are at least a couple of possible results, and it may need a new physical constant.
Which is why I find it less likely. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, as William of Occam probably didn't say.
I will look into it, but at the moment I'm looking into what happens when the thrust is at right angles to the velocity. Which may actually be a lot more complicated that it at first appears.
If indeed anyone were to report verifiable results varying with direction that could help resolve what's actually going on. (Not to mention be fun to speculate about in the meantime.)
Oh yes :) -- Peter F Thanks!
Henry