On 06/08/14 22:27, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
I will look into [off-angle physics], 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.
And when I got temporarily stuck/sidetracked there, I thought about action in the original Newtonian or Hamiltonian sense, units energy.time, (or where action S is the integral of (Ke-Pe) wrt time; and all of mechanics can be described in sum-of-paths and least action terms)
Anyway, for those who are not familiar with that sort of stuff (and action is kinda hairy), something simpler - a force which does not act through any distance does not involve any change in energy.
In the experiments I have seen, there is no real distance through which the parts of the experiment move.
Sure, the measuring thingy stays a teeny bit to the left (or else the force cannot be measured) - but I haven't seen any energy being developed, just a force.
Oh dear, this is doing me no good at all .. -- Peter Fairbrother
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