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from the er-that-can't-be-right-can-it? dept.
For many decades, a fantasy among space enthusiasts has been to invent a device that produces a net thrust in one direction, without any need for reaction mass. Of course, a reaction-less space drive of this type is impossible. Or is it ? By Charles Platt
In October of this year, at the laboratory of Dr. James Woodward in California State University at Fullerton (above), I watched a very small-scale experiment that was surprisingly persuasive. Unlike all the "free energy" scams that you see online, Woodward's device does not violate basic physical laws (it does not produce more energy than it consumes, and does not violate Newton's third law). Nor is Woodward withholding any information about his methods. He has written a book, published by Springer, that explains in relentless detail exactly how his equipment works--assuming that it does, indeed, work. He published his theory in Foundations of Physics Letters, vol. 3, no. 5, 1990, and he even managed to get a US patent -- number 5,280,864, issued January 25, 1994.
http://boingboing.net/2014/11/24/the-quest-for-a-reactionless-s.html
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday November 28 2014, @09:36AM
Re-read the example, I'm pretty sure they are cycling the mass of A. A gets pushed away, then becomes lighter, then gets pulled close, then becomes heavier, then gets pushed away, then becomes lighter...
Oh, wait, no, they didn't explicitly list the "becomes heavier" stage. But I think that's implied by the return to the initial mechanical configuration and the fact that they're explicitly discussing oscillating systems. And once you're back to the initial conditions (slightly shifted) you can repeat the cycle for as long as you can power it, and those two little cars will go cruising down the tracks in jerky little inchworm motions.
And no, in that example they didn't mention any implementation details at all - it's an introductory conceptual model, and only focused on the mechanism by which "magic" mass changes could allow you to move without reaction forces. The rest of the article discussed the implementation details.
And yes, I then hybridized the conceptual model with the article details as to how mass changes are accomplished by moving stored energy with the conceptual model, but I did so in what I would consider a perfectly legitimate manner: if the theory is sound and the cars don't move when you're just transferring energy between them then the machine I described should in fact work. And if you weld one car to the tracks they'll drag the tracks, and the rest of the planet, along with them. Or a space-ship, if you want more readily measurable degree of motion.
As for shunting the energy back and forth between cars, that might be my own addition. It makes sense though - if you want to do this on a large scale you need a lot of mass variation, which means a *LOT* of energy, and you don't want to have to generate all that energy with every cycle. Especially not in space with limited energy reserves. So instead you shunt it back and forth between cars, and as a side effect amplify the effect by having B's mass oscillate in counterpoint to A.
And on a crude level that describes how this engine would work in practice: the piezoelectric resonator plays the part of the mechanical crank, the vibrating capacitor plays the part of car A, and the rest of the ship plays the part of car B.