I agree with the logic of your macro scale argument regarding the astronaut and would even add the hammers being thrown to the astronaut could be delivered from the future and the past - growing from point sources to full size hammers on either side of the astronaut similar to virtual particles winking into and out of existence. If he were to grab both hammers any inertia would cancel but he would gain disposable mass. The captured hammers could then provide reaction mass for any desired direction by throwing them in the opposite direction.
Yes, and if he caught the hammers with a spring-loading device, then he doesn't even need to use his own energy to expel them again! At the quantum scale an HUP trap or Maxwell̵ 7;s demon must – to maintain your analogy- first capture the energy or mass AND then must likewise provide a mechanism to rectify the energy or “throw” the captured mass in a specific direction. This is difficult to mechanize at the nano scale and most ZPE schemes rely on some form of natural assembly or bulk chemical reactions to form the needed geometries which break the isotropy. Without breaking the isotropy a scheme like Nichols radiometer could not utilize virtual particles. Too literal and mechanical! I am not proposing anything that atoms have not already been doing for eons! The Quantum Vacuum is widely regarded as the mechanism that stimulates the "Spontaneous" Emission known as Black Body Radiation. In other words, atoms absorb certain wavelengths of the Quantum Flux all of the time. Black Body Radiation is always re-emitted according to the temperatures of the emitting surfaces; it has nothing to do with which surface absorbs the most or reflects the most; therefore, both sides absorb the same amount of imparted momentum as photons are absorbed on one side--but these absorbed photons are re-emitted from both sides so that their momenta are equal, opposite and irrelevant. However! The extra reflection from the more reflective side imparts a net force as the reflecting photons rebound. The rebounding photons of the reflected em are the requisite hammers to accelerate our device. The recoil of the atoms in the material stores and releases the energy that repels the photons, just as the impact-loaded spring relaunched the stranded astronaut's newly acquired hammers. At the end of the day, virtual photons are little ripples of distorting electric- and magnetic-fields. Except for the brevity of their tenure in our space-time, there is no reason to suspect that they are any different than any other photon. Like any other photon, their probability-wave function collapses into a discrete event as soon as they interact with matter. Why do you insist that the magnetic fields that compose virtual photons are any different than those that compose "real" photons? The flux is the same on both sides, but the materials react differently. On the one hand, the electric and magnetic transverse waves of a given range of wavelengths of the "virtual" photons will absorb into one set of atoms, on an average, according to the critical angle of that material. The electric and magnetic transverse waves will bounce off another set of atoms with different properties, at a greater or shallower critical angle, on an average. One side of a radiometer plate will not react any different to virtual particles than the other side because everything physical is permeated by a full spectrum of these VP which forms the medium of Space and without concentrating on a specific section of the spectrum where Casimir discovered strong physical linkage to nano geometry or accelerating to near C the medium remains isotropic with only slow gradients proportional to nearby mass. Actually, I have derived the radiation pressure of space acting on an open (unbounded) surface: F(λ) = 4 * (10^-28) / λ^4 Pa This must be evaluated over a specific range F(λ1) - F(λ 2) These are the wavelengths that will react with the selected materials in the desired way. This must be calculated for opposite sides of the device which has different materials. Incidentally, this varies from the Casimir Equation for two plates by a factor of merely 3.26. This factor arises because the space between the plates is bounded, whereas our surfaces are unbounded by any other nearby surface. Incidentally, the c term in Casimir's equation arises from converting radian frequency to wavelength. Bottom line, this radiation pressure, like all macroscopic forces is seated in Quantum Mechanical Happening, but averages out to classical, macroscopic forces. From: Wm. Scott Smith [mailto:scott...@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 7:25 PM To: Roarty, Francis X; Fran Roarty; vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: EXTERNAL: Stranded Astronaut & Newtonian Loophole Hi Fran, Thank you for your many well-thought out responses. Recently, however, I think you have been making the underlying faulty assumption that equal and opposite forces cannot indirectly result in a continuous net force on an objects. Remember (Was it Huckleberry Finn?) "I reckon there's more than one way to skin a cat" ? Please, consider this point without worrying about anything but the mechanical logic of this analogy. Stranded Astronaut & Newtonian Loophole A first astronaut that has accidentally cut his tether and is drifting away from his vehicle; initially, he is stranded because has no reaction-mass to expel, so he cannot get back to the ship without help. Two of his friends, upon seeing his dilemma, throw identical hammers at him at the same instant, equally hard from opposite directions in an effort to directly push him either back to his vehicle or back to the Space Stat ion. Unfortunately, he catches both hammers, so no net force is imparted to him, and his friends don't have any thing else to throw at him; so is he still stranded? Of course not! He now has reaction mass. Furthermore, even though the hammers imparted equal and opposite forces, even though there truly is no net imparted-force, he is now free to expel them both in any direction he wants. Even though no net momentum is imparted by the equal and opposite forces of the hammers being stopped by the stranded astronaut, net energy is being imparted to the system, from outside of the system ; because, it turns out that our stranded astronaut is too lazy to expend his own energy; instead, he allowed the colliding hammers to compress a spring as they struck him; so now, he has a spring-loaded launch mechanism that he can release in any desired direction; therefore, he is not using internal energy or mass that he had to bring with him, yet he can accelerate in any direction. Furthermore, in principle, he can be continuously supplied with new reaction-mass to expel. Do you acknowledge that it doesn't necessarily matter if the Quantum Flux Hammers from all directions equally. What actually matters is whether the materials can respond asymmetrically to this non-net-momentum transfer of energy! If you accept that the electromagnetic Q Flux "hammers" away on all sides of all materials equally, then why are you so certain that the astronauts method, or something like it cannot be made to work. From: scott...@hotmail.com To: Subject: R decay rates changed by high voltage? Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:32:17 -0700What do you make of this? US patent number #5,076,971. Barker places radioactive elements inside the sphere of aVan de Graaff generator, runs it at a negative potential for severalminutes/hours/days -- and finds that the rate of radioactive decayis extremely enhanced -- with some relationship to the magnitude ofthe negative potential. The principal investigator undertook a series of experiments to testthe "Barker effect" and the "Keller Catalytic Process" in changing therate of radioactive decay of heavy elements (elements heavier thanlead, such as radium, thorium, or uranium, all of which areradioactive). Barker claims that subjecting radioactive materials tohigh electrostatic potentials (50,000 volts to 500,000 volts) canincrease or decrease the rate of radioactive decay, with shortexposures of the high voltage capable of inducing erratic decay rateswhich slowly return to normal over a period of weeks. Keller claimsthat subjecting radioactive materials to the high heat and fusingreaction of a chemical process (Keller Catalytic Process) caneliminate the radio activity completely.-- Michael Mandeville http://www.aa.net/~mwm/dexmrad1.html
