EM Drive

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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Carl White
Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by Carl White »

I've been reading here:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... =36313.400
Lastly, like any busy lab, Eagleworks could always use extra funding to deal with its daily heart burns and required salaries to keep it going. However we are currently a NASA sponsored facility, which sadly precludes being able to accept crowd sourcing or any other outside source of funding, unless it's through a commercial NASA Space Act Agreement that has to be approved up through NASA headquarters in Washington DC.
They can't accept dollars, but can they still accept donations of equipment? What about equipment "sold" to them for $1? Could provide some RF amplifiers for example.

tokamac
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:50 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by tokamac »

Carl White wrote: They can't accept dollars, but can they still accept donations of equipment? What about equipment "sold" to them for $1? Could provide some RF amplifiers for example.
I'll ask Paul March on NSF forums. BTW he just gave very good news there:
We are now seeing why we need the PTFE or HDPE dielectrics in the frustum while using near pure sine wave power levels below ~100W in the ~2.0 GHz frequency range to generate detectable thrust, and why Shawyer and the Chinese didn't while pumping 80W to 2,500W using magnetron RF sources. We think the reasons are two fold.

The first is that Shawyer and the Chinese both used magnetron RF sources for their experiments. An RF source that generates large AM, FM and PM modulation of the carrier wave with typical FM modulation bandwidth on the order of at least +/-20 MHz. (These time rate to change of energy modulations increase the Q-V density in our model.)

The second reason we found running these 3D Q-V plasma simulations for the EMPTY copper frustum, was that increasing the input power tends to focus the Q-V plasma flow from near omnidirectional from the frustum at low powers, to a much more jet like beam at higher powers measured in kW to tens of kW-rf. In fact the simulation for the 100W run predicted only ~50uN for our pure RF system with dielectric, while the 10kW run predicted a thrust level of ~6.0 Newton without a dielectric in the cavity. And at 100kW-rf it was now up to ~1300 Newton, but the input power to thrust production nonlinearity was starting to taper off around 50kW. Of course these Q-V plasma thrust predictions are based on the Q-V not being immutable and non-degradable, a feature we admit is not widely accepted by the mainstream physics community, at least at the moment. :)

Lastly, due to the above non-linear thrust scaling with input power predictions, we have started the build up of a 100W-to-1,200W waveguide magnetron RF power system that will drive one of our aluminum RF frustum cavities. Initially the test rig will follow Shawyer's first generation test rig that used a tetter-totter balance system in air only to see if we can generate similar thrust levels that Shawyer reported using a hermetic sealed box, which were in the ~16 to 300 milli-Newton range dependent on the Q-Factor of the frustum.

BTW, the reason we included the "what-if" Eagleworks can make this thing work solar system trajectory section on our 2014 JPC paper was that we have to continually tell management the value proposition for why they should fund our research, much in the same way we have to convince Chris Bergin here at NSF we really will be talking about space applications for these Q-Thruster like devices, once we get our hands around the physics they are using. However when we do, the solar system and beyond will be ours for the picking...

Best, Paul M.
Also, another contributor named Mulletron is currently privately building his own EmDrive in order to prove/disprove the anomalous thrust in a low-power but very sensitive Cavendish experiment: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... Td5ZDN2WnM
Attachments
Copper Frustum with TM212 Resonant Mode Thrusting Simulated in Custom QVF-MHD C-Plasma Code.jpg
Copper Frustum with TM212 Resonant Mode Thrusting Simulated in Custom QVF-MHD C-Plasma Code.jpg (184.3 KiB) Viewed 9012 times

JoeP
Posts: 523
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:10 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by JoeP »

Have all the tests of this device and the variants occurred in air so far?

Carl White
Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by Carl White »

JoeP wrote:Have all the tests of this device and the variants occurred in air so far?
Here is a quote from a post made by Paul March to the NASA spaceflight forum on Feb. 6th:
Star-Drive wrote:The Eagleworks Lab is still working on the copper frustum thruster that was reported on last summer at the AIAA/JPC. We have now confirmed that there is a thrust signature in a hard vacuum (~5.0x10^-6 Torr) in both the forward direction, (approx. +50 micro-Newton (uN) with 50W at 1,937.115 MHz), and the reversed direction, (up to -16uN with a failing RF amp), when the thruster is rotated 180 degrees on the torque pendulum. However we continue to fight through RF amplifier failures brought on by having to operate them in a hard vacuum with few $$$ resources to fix them when they break, so the desired data is coming along very slowly. We are still working on obtaining enough data though that will allow us to go to Glenn Research Center (GRC) for a replication effort in the next few months. However that will only happen if we can make the thrust signature large enough since the GRC thrust stand can only measure down to ~50uN, so we have to get the thrust signature up to at least 100uN before we can go to GRC.
So they are testing in a vacuum now.

JoeP
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Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:10 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by JoeP »

Thanks Carl.

GIThruster
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

birchoff
Posts: 200
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:11 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by birchoff »

So I know better than to ask this. But I will anyway. whats your take on the EmDrive research to date being done at EagleWorks. Both from an experimental perspective and theoretical perspective. I would appreciate it if you seperated your view of their experimental work from the theoretical.

GIThruster
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

Theoretically, I do not believe in Dr. White's model because to do that you need to deny Einstein's Equivalence Principle, General Relativity and the Principle of Conservation. In particular, were the Principle of Conservation not to hold, the entire enterprise of science would be at risk, since it is one of the foundations of modern science. It is because we believe so many different kinds of things are conserved, that we can make sense of the world and do science, and I don't think people who doubt Conservation truly understand what science is all about.

On the experimental issues, I want to cut Paul a break since he was my mentor, and I still consider him a friend, but I think that given Sonny's determination to find what he's after, the entire atmosphere of discovery at Eagleworks is badly mangled by what C. S. Lewis calls a "perverting influence". There is way too much pressure to find what Sonny has been trying to find for 15 years--since before he went back to school to get his PhD and had no tools to justify his position--and when you push hard enough, and allow yourself and others a little slop, you can deceive yourself quite easily. I think this is what is happening and it's happening because of Sonny's delusions of grandeur. The problem is made far worse in that Sonny hasn't ever put together something complete enough to be called a scientific theory, the fact he constantly modifies his theory to fit it to the supposed data, makes false claims about "predictions", and has never published in real peer review. Despite this last, real phsicists deride the model as untenable and are quite direct in saying how and why it cannot possibly be correct, and yet Sonny never answers those critics. This is a pathological response. Real science answers its critics.

And as I've said before, this has gone on and on to the point that it truly qualifies as pathological science. Eagleworks is not conforming to scientific method when they do things like release test results without applying the proper scientific controls, the way they did for the conference some months ago. This was an attempt to get funding, and this is not how real science is done. This qualities as both pseudoscience, because of the lack of scientific controls, and as pathological science.

According to the guy who originally coined the term, Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir; pathological science happens when a disproven model or paradigm just will not go away, no matter the evidence against it. ZPF and QVF are both instances of this. The models make no sense, and violate the basics of modern physics, yet they are being pandered to by the majority of those advanced propulsion advocates who are looking for real answers. This coddling has resulted in a great deal of animosity from those quarters toward the real physics we ought to be looking into--Mach-Effect physics--which is in perfect accord with all the modern physical paradigms we're currently using.

Yes, M-E physics does rely upon things like Wheeler-Feynman Absorber theory, and yes in particular engineers shy away from time-symmetric solutions, but the fact is Woodward's work is coherent with what we have the best reasons to believe, such as EEP, GR and Conservation, and the QVF model is not. IMHO, if the scientists who do this kind of work were better scientists, no one would be looking at ZPF and QVF and those resources would be bent toward getting answers about M-E physics and gravinertial technology.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Axil
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:34 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

GIThruster wrote:Theoretically, I do not believe in Dr. White's model because to do that you need to deny Einstein's Equivalence Principle, General Relativity and the Principle of Conservation. In particular, were the Principle of Conservation not to hold, the entire enterprise of science would be at risk, since it is one of the foundations of modern science. It is because we believe so many different kinds of things are conserved, that we can make sense of the world and do science, and I don't think people who doubt Conservation truly understand what science is all about...

Did you see this...

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-photon-aft ... nergy.html

Photon 'afterglow' could transmit information without transmitting energy

Does this idea put the foundations of YOUR science at risk???

You just might be 100 years behind the times. :D

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

I only just glanced at this and it is interesting. I'll look again at it when I have more time. I would just note to you, that information is not one of the quantities that are conserved. Until just recently, it was almost universally believed that any information passing into a black hole was lost forever, and thus not conserved, and as information is teleological as opposed to existential, that kind of loss was considered acceptable since what is lost is different in kind. It's not a physical entity like charge, momentum, energy, matter, etc.

As to the general principle of conservation, let me just note to you, that if conservation does not hold it is pointless for us to try to understand the universe around us. It is only because the universe appears real, and appears to obey certain rules, that science can hope to understand it. If you throw conservation under the bus, you can no longer do science. That's a dictate of reason, and generally considered metaphysics as opposed to physics. And I would just note to you, it is this commitment we have to reason and these kinds of principles that has raised the West to its place of prominence. It has not been until the Mid East and East have adopted Western principles like conservation that they have emerged as scientific societies. Conservation is that important.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Axil
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:34 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

@GIThruster

" I would just note to you, that information is not one of the quantities that are conserved."

The conservation of information is the most important conservation principle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no ... ng_theorem

Physicists have been perplexed about this for the last half century. In your quest to upgrade your understanding of modern physics, Google "conservation of information" and start reading. Such a study will get your understanding of physics to about 1950. :D

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

You have captured my interest. I'll try to make time for it later today.

My understanding was that information has not generally been believed to be conserved for two reasons. First, that was the dictate of what happens whenever something falls into a black hole. Second, if you believe all information is conserved, you have a very difficult time explaining evolution. Literally every teleological structure then needs to be explained as something other than the results of chaos. Everything from a protein, to the structure in an eye. Seems to me you'll have all manner of verbal gymnastics to explain that, or you can say that since information is not existential but merely has being (the same distinction we use in metaphysics, epistemology, neo-platonism, etc.) that it is not conserved but rather is spontaneously generated not only by life, but even by crystals as they grow. It's a very complex issue and I'll be happy to do as you suggest as soon as I have a free hour.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Axil
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:34 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

The information paradox forced the development of the holographic theory

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

From this theory, quantum mechanics is derived and also the uncertainty principle comes from the fuzziness of the N-1 dimensional hologram. This should get your physics up to about the year 2000 :D

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

Well QM was not derived from the theory. The theory came as consequence to a developing understanding of QM. Suskind's Holographic theory came as result of this trouble, but you should easily note Hawking did not agree and believed for many years that information is not conserved.

Should I write my old prof at PSU who gave me the A in "20th Century Physics: Einstein to Buddha" and tell him you think he did a poor job? You've mentioned it three times now.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Axil
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:34 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

Matt Strassler theoretical physicist at Harvard University states that the entire theoretical physics community is still working on these problems that you were making judgements on a few posts ago. Hawking has changed his turn a few time now and in his latest paper Hawking suggesting physicists need to rethink the event horizon of black holes. His latest proposal suggests that there is in fact no event horizon represents merely one proposal among dozens.

“There’s all sorts of cacophony in the field … The problem is no one can come up, so far, with something you can actually calculate. So it’s ideas and proposals and approximations and guesses,” Matt Strassler said.

Your (GIThruster) statements about what you state is pseudo science are keeping the top minds in physics up at nights. You are so confident of your position but physics' top men are not even sure what is real. Let people follow there our beliefs and follow what they understand is truth without being judgmental.

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