On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:31 PM, Bob Cook <frobertc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
If its neutrinos, then they would seem to have some mass that is magnified > by their high velocity and special relativity. > I don't think it is necessary that the neutrinos be relativistic, although surely they will be. I do not know that a relativistic increase in mass will have any bearing on recoil. What is important in the present context is momentum. The momentum of the neutrino and the momentum of the recoil nucleus will be equal and opposite, dividing up several MeV in the case of electron capture. The neutrino will travel much faster, of course. But the momenta are equal (by Newton's third law). If neutrino travels at the speed of light, like many believe. they should > have no rest mass. > Perhaps. Wikipedia says the first generation of neutrinos has ~ 0.3 eV mass. I believe the suggestion that they have mass goes back to the observation of neutrino oscillation. Note that although 0.3 eV does not sound like much in the way of mass, it's a lot more than zero, which is what photons have, assuming the current understanding is correct. Eric, do you have any information regarding the momentum of neutrinos that > collide with targets and are stopped? > The neutrino wouldn't collide or stop in this case. It would be emitted during the electron capture, causing the daughter nucleus to recoil, and it would pass right through the apparatus, leading an apparent violation of conservation of momentum. We are trying to account for a thrust that is on the order of 100 uN. I do not have a clear understanding at this point of whether the implied intensity of MeV neutrino emission would be improbably high to explain this amount of thrust, or whether a plausible reaction rate could be obtained. The neutrino emission would also need to be directed. This might be a simple consequence of having an anisotropic pattern of RF stimulation within the cavity. Presumably the cavity material is what would undergo electron capture. Copper cannot do this, although aluminum, which has been used in the past, can [1]. In the case of copper, perhaps there would be an impurity or alloyed element that would be involved. Eric [1] https://hackaday.io/project/5596-em-drive
