Asymmetric capacitor in High Vacuum

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djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

hanelyp wrote:If you have a hyperdrive that "multiplies your starting velocity by X", in what reference frame is your starting velocity measured, and why is that frame special?
The 'boost' field is presented as a modification (technical simplification, actually) of the Alcubierre warp field, tho as GeeGee pointed out, Harold White's work also relies on string theory.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi. ... 016932.pdf

I've never looked into reference frame implications of the Alcubierre drive, but otoh I've never seen reference frame objections raised as significant challenges to the concept.
Vae Victis

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

"Multiplies your starting velocity by X" implies something along the lines of reducing inertial mass. I've heard this description applied to Heim drive, never to Alcubierre warp.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

hanelyp wrote:"Multiplies your starting velocity by X" implies something along the lines of reducing inertial mass. I've heard this description applied to Heim drive, never to Alcubierre warp.
Alcubierre warp explicitly invokes negative mass, which is a kissing cousin of "mass reduction." Harold White claims to have found a way to massively simplify the demands of the Alcubierre math while producing a 'boost field' effect which is aesthetically different from the standard Alcubierre effect, and aesthetically similar to the asserted Heim hyperdrive effect. Per GeeGee, that simplification hangs or triumphs on White's preferred String Theory approach. If White's modification were to be doable, I would hypothesize that the negative mass end of Woodward's mass fluctuations, which Woodward claims to be capable of producing wormholes, would also be able to create the White 'boost field.'

OTOH, I suspect the String Theory requirement undermines the boost field model.
Vae Victis

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

I read the referenced paper on warp drive. It has a casual disregard to conservation of mass/energy and momentum regarding where the negative mass comes from, and the momentum carried by the negative mass when it is dismissed. On that one point I have to consider the paper at best incomplete.

In my explorations of "what if you had inertial reduction tech", energy/momentum conservation became problematic if you assumed a relativistic universe. If you restricted operations to a preferred reference frame, energy/momentum conservation became very simple.

EmField57
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Post by EmField57 »

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Last edited by EmField57 on Fri Aug 10, 2012 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

EmField57
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Post by EmField57 »

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Danielone
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Location: Italy

Post by Danielone »

Hi, I discovered this forum only recently and I would
like to express my opinion and make some questions.

I personally believe that the ion wind is just a side
effect and the reason for asymmetric forces should be
investigated within the properties of dielectrics when
exposed to suitably strong electric fields. Air has
a too low dielectric constant to be distinguished by
vacuum. Moreover, being a fluid, it can generate currents
justifying the reasons of the ion-wind supporters.

When two or more dielectrics are sandwiched betwenn
charged metal plates, something happens at their
interfaces. The 2002 Serrano patent illustrates
a capacitor that, from the viewpoint of the electric
connections, has nothing that can be identified as
asymmetric. It is something different from the classical
lifters. The direction of movement is however uniquely
determined by the asymmetric displacement of the internal
dielectrics.

I have some theoretical considerations that may help
in understanding the phenomenon. Nevertheless it is hard for
me to follow a clear reasoning due to the lack of a methodic
analysis of the problem (so it seems to me, but probably
I am just not well documented).

Here the study looks flattened to the feasibility
of the project in vacuum. If we consider the ion wind
effect as secondary, the experiments should be addressed
instead to detect the real conditions that emphasize the
thrust.

For example. For a fixed "symmetric" conductive setting
(as in the preliminary Serrano version), what is the
influence of the dielectric constants involved, expecially
when they are particularly high?
Is the width or shape of the dielectrics crucial?
What happens if a wafer of dielectrics is embedded
in a simple asymmetric conductive environment, such as the
case of two parallel plates of different dimension? How the
global geometry may affect the outcome?

All these comparative tests can be tried without
very accurate or fancy instrumentation and not necessarily
in vacuum. I was not able however to find documented files
in this direction.

JoeP
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Post by JoeP »

I have never built a lifter, but my interest quickly waned when I read that these things are rather noisy due to the sound of the ion wind generation.

It seems incredibly unlikely that there is anything else to the Biefield-Brown effect. Unfortunately there is a lot of fringe and crank stuff out there on the net regarding these things which pushes away serious science.

The one experiment I was interested in came out of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Project back in the early 2000s. Supposedly they contracted with West Virginia University to perform "Asymmetrical Capacitor Thruster" tests under high vacuum to rule out any non-ion wind effects.

I think the experiment happened, but I was never able to find a report on the results.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

Hector Serrano has done some asymmetric capacitor studies at Marshall in high vacuum but I have never seen NASA's report on those studies. Obviously NASA was not interested in the result.

One of the problems with such supposed thrusters is there is no theory of why they should work other than with ion wind. Generating ion wind is an extremely inefficient means of lift, and useless in space. What one therefore needs to show is there is another form of propulsion happening. There are two ways to do this. First is put the thruster in vacuum and see if there is any thrust left. the second is to put it in a box. If the thruster is isolated from the outside environment such that propellant can't leave the box, then only a propellantless thruster will lift the box.

Despite the vids online claiming Serrano's thrusters pass this test, and despite tests at NASA twice, several years apart, NASA is not pursuing the issue and this is likely because you have to be a bit crack-pot to build a thruster you have no reasons to believe should work. This is the same kind of foolishness that has been going on with Searl for decades. IMHO, if you have no theory about why you should get propellantless thrust, you're not getting propellantless thrust. No one is going to solve this riddle by accident.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

GIThruster wrote:you have to be a bit crack-pot to build a thruster you have no reasons to believe should work
:shock:

paperburn1
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Location: Third rock from the sun.

Post by paperburn1 »

chrismb wrote:
GIThruster wrote:you have to be a bit crack-pot to build a thruster you have no reasons to believe should work
:shock:
the ion wind was proven again and again. Even mythbusters showed one and showed it was air movement.

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

Post by GIThruster »

Mythbusters have been completely wrong more times than I can count. There is no doubt that there is ion wind involved. Serrano and that French investigator who's name currently escape's me have both been saying for years that they get thrust in a vacuum. That's the claim that needs to be investigated and was at Marshall not once but twice. After the first time through, some scumbag at Marshall patented his own design based on Serrano's work, but it didn't matter; because it doesn't produce thrust in vacuum.

BTW, it really is easier and cheaper to put the thruster in a box than provide hard vacuum. These things use high voltage so they need to be in a Faraday cage anyway. If the cage is sealed so no air can get out, that eliminates the ion wind issue completely. If the result produces thrust, then you have authentic propellantless thrust.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

paperburn1
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Location: Third rock from the sun.

Post by paperburn1 »

GIThruster wrote:Mythbusters have been completely wrong more times than I can count. There is no doubt that there is ion wind involved. Serrano and that French investigator who's name currently escape's me have both been saying for years that they get thrust in a vacuum. That's the claim that needs to be investigated and was at Marshall not once but twice. After the first time through, some scumbag at Marshall patented his own design based on Serrano's work, but it didn't matter; because it doesn't produce thrust in vacuum.

BTW, it really is easier and cheaper to put the thruster in a box than provide hard vacuum. These things use high voltage so they need to be in a Faraday cage anyway. If the cage is sealed so no air can get out, that eliminates the ion wind issue completely. If the result produces thrust, then you have authentic propellantless thrust.
so currently no reviews have shown thrust? Including designs that were stolen jk
:shock:

Danielone
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Location: Italy

Post by Danielone »

If there are hidden reasons besides the ion wind, the only way to develop a theory
is rely on benchmark experiments.

The Serrano device is claimed to run mainly because of other unknown effects.
To investigate on this it is necessary to have more simple tests that at present
seem unavailable. The role of the dieletric (solid or fluid) looks important.
There are separation surfaces dielectric-dielectric and dielectric-metal.
What happens when they are subject to high voltage? Note that the difference of
potential between nuclei and electrons is of the order of ten KVolts. The molecules
of the dielectrics are somehow stressed. Is there any piezoelectric type effect involved?
Trying methodically different materials and geometries one can get hints for an
alternative understanding of the phenomenon. Maybe some general rules come out.

Regarding the power achievable I think there is no much hope to improve the
performances. There is no energy injected in the system so that one cannot expect
miracles. I believe that the zero-point radiation may have a role in these
experiments, but the amount of energy coming from there could be almost negligible.

If one understands the mechanism (if there is any, other than the wind effect)
he should probably be able to pump energy in the system in alternative way or
amplify the one available for free in order to ameliorate the performances.

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

Post by GIThruster »

paperburn1 wrote:so currently no reviews have shown thrust?
IIRC, they showed thrust both times in Marshall's vacuum chamber (tests about 5 years apart?), but both times they did some tests and it stopped thrusting. I think the position was they believed the voltage was stripping the insolation off the wiring and using it as propellant. Again, it's very easy to test for this by putting it in a cage.
Danielone wrote:I believe that the zero-point radiation may have a role in these experiments
That is generally the magic wand that gets waved over anything people want to believe is working. I personally know of more than a dozen supposed ZPF thrusters that have no real explanation for why they might work. I am not referring to Sonny White's model, which although it falls short of a full scientific theory is certainly a reasonable model. I'm talking about stuff like the BB stuff, the Searl stuff, the Serrano stuff. . .all stuff no one should have built in the first place because they had no reason to suppose it would generate propellantless thrust. It's important to realize that this is not science. Science isn't involved in building stuff, and claiming it does something one can't observe nor explain.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

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