EM Drive

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

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

Re: EM Drive

Post by birchoff »

JoeP wrote:
ScottL wrote:I think Paul is being open about it all, but I think others are jumping to conclusions. I believe he's saying the results look promising, but may not hold up. People jumped on that first part and well you know how the average person can be. I think I read that there would be a vacuum test in June possibly which would put all of this to bed so the end is near so to speak.
Myself, I'm pretty much taking none of this seriously without any rigorous vacuum testing.
My guess is ion wind or some issue with the materials transmitting force is otherwise the source of the thrust.
While I appreciate and share your reservations. I am not sure how ion winds would affect or generate path changes in light beam. Unless your referring to the EmDrive specific tests; In which case that criticism would be void I believe. Since they have tested their tapered frustum Emdrive in vacuum and still found a thrust signature.

as for the issue of claims without scientific controls. In the purest sense yes GiThruster you are correct. However, Paul seems to be releasing preliminary results on the NSF forum for the sake of being open not because he is looking to gin up excitement. Hell he actually came back to the forum and posted that he got a "talking to" from White about being much more guarded in his posts as a side effect I believe of that improper article that was done. Personally I would rather get a constant stream of updates about what EagleWorks or any "true" Advanced Propulsion research team is doing (I do not count YET ANOTHER ION THRUSTER DESIGN as Advanced propulsion, VASIMR included) instead of getting random drops of information everyonce in a while. The onus should be on the public to not be stupid not on the scientist.

GIThruster
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Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

birchoff wrote:The onus should be on the public to not be stupid not on the scientist.
The onus is on whomever is in charge of that lab, to release data very deliberately and only when the proper scientific controls have been applied. Eagle's history has always been to do the opposite--releasing unsubstantiated claims without the proper controls, through back door conference papers and online forums, in order to gin up funding. They have never had a proper release of data in all the years of operation. Not one.

You are seeing this now, because they are about out of funding. It means nothing.

As far as the responsibility of the public. . .the public can't even report back from one forum to the next whether this was a test of the interferometer or the Shawyer resonator. The convoluted story thus far implies it is a combination of the two, but how can that possibly be when there is no way to shine a laser inside the resonator?

And this is how Sonny gets his funding, by releasing these convoluted bullshit stories. I mean after all, what do you think happened when he reported online and to DARPA, the results of a 10 year old experiment done in Paul's spare bedroom without the proper controls, as if they had been done very recently at Eagle and that his model had predicted the results?

This is more of that. I'm sorry, but this is bullshit.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

AcesHigh
Posts: 655
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:59 am

Re: EM Drive

Post by AcesHigh »

GI, breath and count to 100 before talking about QVF and people who disregard Mach Effect...

kcdodd
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Location: Austin, TX

Re: EM Drive

Post by kcdodd »

It's been a while since I posted in this forum, and I really don't care to be involved in the arguments here. But I find the topic somewhat interesting. I originally completely dismissed the entire EM-drive stuff because it seems obviously wrong. And I still think most of the "explanations" for why it, or some variation, would work just don't add up. But, a couple thoughts...

Sometimes competing explanations for the same effect end up being analogous. GIThruster keeps mentioning that Van der Waals forces is an alternate explanation to the casimir effect. Van der Waals force is the result of random fluctuations of the charge distribution leading to coupled dipoles of otherwise non-polar matter. The only way there can be a force is if the the fluctuating field surrounds the plates creating an averaged non-zero stress in the field to push the plates toward each other. Does this picture not look a lot like the EM vacuum field proposed for the casimir effect? And, if both result in same order magnitude force, I am not really sure if they are separate effects. However, casimir effect really has nothing to do with the latest "explanation" for the EM drive, and seems tangential to the whole thing.

Now, about the explanation using the radiation field inside the cavity pushing on a virtual particle plasma...

GIThruster brings up the essential crux of the problem: what does it mean to push on a virtual particle? How can they possibly carry any momentum? I have no way of formalizing my thoughts on this, but my basic thinking has to do with some kind of equivalence principle. Suppose for the sake of argument that the gadget really can "push" on the virtual particles transferring momentum to/from them, and suppose again that this somehow results in space-time warping, then wouldn't that imply that space-time warps and "virtual momentum" are equivalent? That gravity itself is the result of momentum be transported around by the virtual plasma, and interacting with real matter?

Suppose on the quantum level all matter is pushing against the virtual plasma in a random process. On average the net force on real, isolated matter goes to zero. But the individual virtual particle interactions are still transporting momentum away in all directions, again averaging to zero so there is no net momentum flow. But if other matter then interacts with the virtual plasma that is carrying the momentum, it will then pick up on the an-isotropic flow due to the other distant matter. If the original random interactions are attractive in nature, then this seems like it would make something like gravity. And if matter is neutral on average, then we're back to some analog of Van der Whaals forces, which is attractive and would make sense.

Of course, none of this matters without experimental data to back it up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, that was my 2-cents.
Carter

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: EM Drive

Post by Giorgio »

kcdodd wrote:GIThruster brings up the essential crux of the problem: what does it mean to push on a virtual particle? How can they possibly carry any momentum? I have no way of formalizing my thoughts on this, but my basic thinking has to do with some kind of equivalence principle. Suppose for the sake of argument that the gadget really can "push" on the virtual particles transferring momentum to/from them, and suppose again that this somehow results in space-time warping, then wouldn't that imply that space-time warps and "virtual momentum" are equivalent? That gravity itself is the result of momentum be transported around by the virtual plasma, and interacting with real matter?
I have been thinking about the whole EM drive too in the past few years. I am not really convinced by the "virtual particle push argument".
There seems to be indeed an interaction with some kind of force (and/or particle) we still don't understand, and my first candidate has always been gravity and its related mediators (Higgs bosons or whatever the associated particle will be).
Imagine that this machine simply brings coherence to a stream of such particles in same way as a laser does to a photon stream and the whole picture start to make sense to me.
kcdodd wrote:Anyway, that was my 2-cents.
Add mine to yours and we are almost to a Nickel! Now, if we only could find someone to enrich it to Ni62.....
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

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

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

A resonant cavity will cause the EMF to be strongly amplified and to form a pattern of constructive interference producing increased vacuum energy and destructive interference producing negative vacuum energy. If the EMF is strong enough and the EMF frequency is just right in the areas of increased vacuum energy, a squeezed vacuum may result. This will generate a static interference pastern where the virtual particles in the constructive pattern are long lived and that are entangled

Image

Once you have an entangled and coherent soliton of virtual particles, how do we turn that into a force projector?

By the way, if you shine a laser down a line of negative vacuum energy, you might get faster than light results.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: EM Drive

Post by Giorgio »

Axil wrote:A resonant cavity will cause the EMF to be strongly amplified and to form a pattern of constructive interference producing increased vacuum energy and destructive interference producing negative vacuum energy.
Why?

Axil wrote:If the EMF is strong enough and the EMF frequency is just right in the areas of increased vacuum energy, a squeezed vacuum may result.
Again, Why?
Even supposed that you had such an unheard of energy setup, it will result in having a situation of "Potential vacuum energy" between two areas with different energy values.
How do you get a "squeezed vacuum"? How can you actually squeeze something that is "vacuum"?

Axil wrote: This will generate a static interference pastern where the virtual particles in the constructive pattern are long lived and that are entangled
Admitting that the EMF in a resonant cavity can create such a "Static interference pattern" (and this has never been proved to be true either experimentally nor theoretically as far as I know), why should the particle enter a state of "long lived entanglement"?

Axil wrote:Once you have an entangled and coherent soliton of virtual particles, how do we turn that into a force projector?
Once you have it (or better, IF we will ever have it) maybe we will discover that according its inherent characteristics it will be more easy to transform it in a banana milkshake than in a force projector.
This is really a pointless question so far.

Axil wrote: By the way, if you shine a laser down a line of negative vacuum energy, you might get faster than light results.
.......... I mean...... really.....
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

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

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

Giorgio wrote:
Axil wrote:A resonant cavity will cause the EMF to be strongly amplified and to form a pattern of constructive interference producing increased vacuum energy and destructive interference producing negative vacuum energy.
Why?

Axil wrote:If the EMF is strong enough and the EMF frequency is just right in the areas of increased vacuum energy, a squeezed vacuum may result.
Again, Why?
Even supposed that you had such an unheard of energy setup, it will result in having a situation of "Potential vacuum energy" between two areas with different energy values.
How do you get a "squeezed vacuum"? How can you actually squeeze something that is "vacuum"?

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezed_coherent_state
Axil wrote: This will generate a static interference pastern where the virtual particles in the constructive pattern are long lived and that are entangled
Admitting that the EMF in a resonant cavity can create such a "Static interference pattern" (and this has never been proved to be true either experimentally nor theoretically as far as I know), why should the particle enter a state of "long lived entanglement"?

Because of a squeezed vacuum will remove or damp random vacuum fluxuations

Axil wrote:Once you have an entangled and coherent soliton of virtual particles, how do we turn that into a force projector?
Once you have it (or better, IF we will ever have it) maybe we will discover that according its inherent characteristics it will be more easy to transform it in a banana milkshake than in a force projector.
This is really a pointless question so far.

A polariton soliton will project a monopole magnetic beam. Polaritons could well be a product of a amplified vacuum energy. Such a process could be reacting a dark matter since vortexes of polaritons have been found to have mass.

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

Axil wrote: By the way, if you shine a laser down a line of negative vacuum energy, you might get faster than light results.
.......... I mean...... really.....

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

Re: EM Drive

Post by Axil »

Giorgio wrote:
Axil wrote: By the way, if you shine a laser down a line of negative vacuum energy, you might get faster than light results.


.......... I mean...... really.....
Here is a paper that explains how negative vacuum energy results in faster than light speeds.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9805003v2.pdf

Superluminal travel requires negative energies
Ken D. Olum

Institute of Cosmology
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
(August 1998)

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

Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

kcdodd wrote:Sometimes competing explanations for the same effect end up being analogous. GIThruster keeps mentioning that Van der Waals forces is an alternate explanation to the casimir effect. Van der Waals force is the result of random fluctuations of the charge distribution leading to coupled dipoles of otherwise non-polar matter. The only way there can be a force is if the the fluctuating field surrounds the plates creating an averaged non-zero stress in the field to push the plates toward each other. Does this picture not look a lot like the EM vacuum field proposed for the casimir effect?
The essential difference is in the van der Waals explanation, we are talking about real forces between real particles. In the QVF explanation, we are not. The QVF conjecture concerns virtual particles popping into existence and being used as propellant.
GIThruster brings up the essential crux of the problem: what does it mean to push on a virtual particle? How can they possibly carry any momentum? I have no way of formalizing my thoughts on this, but my basic thinking has to do with some kind of equivalence principle.
That is an impressive intuitive leap, and essentially correct. The primary issue for me is, that for Dr. White's conjecture to obtain, he needs to stipulate a distinction between the gravitational mass of the spontaneously generated virtual particles, and their inertial mass. If these particles had gravitational mass, they would collapse the universe, which we know is not true. If they don't have inertial mass they are useless. For them to be useful they therefore have to have inertial mass and not gravitational mass, which is a flat denial of Einstein's Equivalence Principle (EEP), upon which is based all of General Relativity (GR). If you grant White's premise, you have to throw out the best gravity physics to date and we have a LOT of evidence that EEP and GR are correct. That's my issue with this in a nutshell. So yes, it is an equivalence issue which you stepped into quite intuitively.

Additional to this issue is that White's conjecture also proposes to violate the Principle of Conservation, and specifically the Conservation of Momentum. I am completely opposed to anything that proposes to violate conservation as I consider conservation an a priori bedrock basis for all science. If you throw conservation under the bus, you are no longer doing science.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

GIThruster
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Re: EM Drive

Post by GIThruster »

Giorgio wrote:I am not really convinced by the "virtual particle push argument".
There seems to be indeed an interaction with some kind of force (and/or particle) we still don't understand. . .
It's noteworthy that the resonator apparently does not produce any thrust when there is no dielectric in it. This violates White's conjecture. It is however in perfect accord with Woodward's theory. If indeed there is thrust there at all, it could be explained by M-E theory, and Paul not only knows this but has admitted as much in several public statements he's made.

IMHO, if there is thrust there, it is an example of M-E. Otherwise why wouldn't the resonator work without the dielectric?
But honestly, I just cannot place any stock in the claims they have thrust until I see great detail of how they did the experiment. Over at NSF, Dr. Rodal did a pretty thorough debunking of their results published in the conference paper a few months ago, and showed the effect seen was probably a thermal artifact--meaning no thrust at all. And this is why you don't release results without supplying the proper scientific controls. What White is doing is not science. It's fundraising, otherwise variously known as a confidence game, or snake oil sales, or "bullshit".
"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 »

A particle with mass can jump into existence for a short time so that it can be pushed against without collapsing the universe.


Question

Is the law of conservation of energy violated for a short or long period of time and can it be experimentally observed?



Answer

In classical mechanics (in the sense of non-quantum) physics, there is no mechanism to allow for non-conservation for energy. Since classical mechanics is pretty exact for macroscopic objects, there is never any macroscopic violation of conservation of energy.
However, for small enough (quantum) systems, we have the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. The relation states:

DeltaE x DeltaT >= h/(4 )

Which means that the uncertainty in energy times the uncertainty in time is greater than some very small number. Interpreted correctly, this means that it is possible to violate conservation of energy given you do it for a very short time, in other words, it is possible to "borrow" energy E from "nowhere", given you return it in a time period t, where t is given by

t ~ h/E

This "borrowing" of energy is so small that again by the uncertainty principle, it can never be directly observed. In other words, violation of conservation of energy can occur if and only if the violation can not be observed due to the uncertainty principle.

However, there are "indirect" effects. One simple example could be the nuclear force. The longest range part of the nuclear force is mediated by exchange of pions (similar to the electromagnetic force being mediated by photons). However, these pions are "virtual", meaning that they can not be detected. They are just produced out of nowhere just like energy. The amount of energy you need to create a virtual pion is:

E = mc2

where m is the mass of the pion, and c is the speed of light. Now, how long can we "borrow" this much energy? By our previous argument, the time will be:

t ~ h/mc2

If this virtual pion moves as fast as possible, it will move at the speed of light. Then the distance it can travel is:

d = ct ~ h/mc

Of course, after traveling that distance, it would have to be absorbed by another particle (and thus mediate the force). Therefore d is the approximate range of the force. The amazing thing is, this gives a pretty good value for the range of the nuclear force!

To sum it up, yes, conservation of energy can be violated, but nature makes sure it is always within the limits of uncertainty. In other words, the energy must be returned, and the books set straight pretty quickly. But, the fact that it can be violated is important, and although it can never be observed directly, it does have important consequences.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: EM Drive

Post by Giorgio »

Axil wrote:A resonant cavity will cause the EMF to be strongly amplified and to form a pattern of constructive interference producing increased vacuum energy and destructive interference producing negative vacuum energy.
You didn't point to any explanation to this assumption.
As this is the main assumption of your hypothesis you should justify it if you want all the other following consequences to be viable.

Axil wrote:
Giorgio wrote:
Axil wrote:If the EMF is strong enough and the EMF frequency is just right in the areas of increased vacuum energy, a squeezed vacuum may result.
Again, Why?
Even supposed that you had such an unheard of energy setup, it will result in having a situation of "Potential vacuum energy" between two areas with different energy values.
How do you get a "squeezed vacuum"? How can you actually squeeze something that is "vacuum"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezed_coherent_state
I think you are making a terrible confusion.
The wikipedia article refers to a particular case of the reduction of the Glauber's coherent states uncertainty regions where the average amplitude becomes the origin of the coordinate system, meaning that the average amplitude is zero.
They named this condition "squeezed vacuum", but this has nothing to do with vacuum energies.

Couldn't you just explain the logic process that brings you to make such a conclusions instead of simply posting links that don't add much to the doubt I expressed?

Axil wrote:
Giorgio wrote:
Axil wrote: This will generate a static interference pastern where the virtual particles in the constructive pattern are long lived and that are entangled
Admitting that the EMF in a resonant cavity can create such a "Static interference pattern" (and this has never been proved to be true either experimentally nor theoretically as far as I know), why should the particle enter a state of "long lived entanglement"?
Because of a squeezed vacuum will remove or damp random vacuum fluxuations
Again, you are mistaking what a "Squeezed Vacuum" really is. As i explained above and from your own Wikipedia link it should be clear that it has nothing to do with the "Vacuum Energy" you are using as a base of your assumptions.


Axil wrote:A polariton soliton will project a monopole magnetic beam.
How can you be sure? Let's have one before and than we will see what it really does.

Axil wrote: Polaritons could well be a product of a amplified vacuum energy.
The could well NOT be. Unless supported by a logic base this is again wild speculations.
Axil wrote:Such a process could be reacting a dark matter since vortexes of polaritons have been found to have mass.
Same as above.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: EM Drive

Post by Giorgio »

GIThruster wrote:
Giorgio wrote:I am not really convinced by the "virtual particle push argument".
There seems to be indeed an interaction with some kind of force (and/or particle) we still don't understand. . .
It's noteworthy that the resonator apparently does not produce any thrust when there is no dielectric in it. This violates White's conjecture. It is however in perfect accord with Woodward's theory.
True.
GIThruster wrote:IMHO, if there is thrust there, it is an example of M-E. Otherwise why wouldn't the resonator work without the dielectric?
I am asking myself the opposite question. Why it works with the dielectric.
A PE/PP or PTFE immersed in an RF medium might become the fuel that generates the thrust.

GIThruster wrote: What White is doing is not science. It's fundraising, otherwise variously known as a confidence game, or snake oil sales, or "bullshit".
I am not marrying one theory or the other here, but I agree with you that he should have handled it in a different way.
As you I am anyhow more interested in the experimental data and experimental protocol more than anything else. These last experiments really stimulated my curiosity quite a lot.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: EM Drive

Post by Diogenes »

Has this been posted yet?



NASA May Have Invented a Warp Drive


By Matt Porter-The EmDrive, an experimental propulsion device, may be producing a warp field.

According to posts on the NASA Space Flight forum, when lasers were fired into the EmDrive resonance chamber, it was found that some of the beams were travelling faster than the speed of light.



http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/28/ ... warp-drive
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

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