Re: [Vo]:Rife technology revisited?
Thanks for the references, all. Richard, enjoyed seeing the reporting on John's work. Zak On May 31, 2007, at 9:25 PM, Ron Wormus wrote: Jones, I still keep up with Vo though I don't post very often. I have spent quite a lot of time effort experimenting with the RIFE effect over the last few years come to the conclusion that there are real verifiable biological effects from RF modulated plasmas. However, like LENR, replication is difficult there is currently no good theory on how these low power long wave length (audio to ~100kHZ) modulated plasmas can selectively effect different organisms. The field is, pardon the pun, RIFE with lots of BS claptrap, which tends to obscure the good work that is being done by a few researchers. Ron --On Thursday, May 31, 2007 7:54 PM -0700 Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Zac might want write to former Vo - Ron Wormus - who may still be tuned-in on occassion. Ron is/was very knowledgeable on the electronic aspects of this technology - at least insofar as testing the tubes with various gas fills under RF stimulation - he was more into looking for hydrino effects, but is probably conversant with the medical aspects. R.C.Macaulay wrote: http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=35660bw Howdy Zac, Another link Richard
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
I wrote: It is an attracting force, thus the thrust obtained from the vacuum is in the form of an attraction of the ball. That was meant to say: It is an attracting force, thus the thrust obtained from the vacuum is in the form of an attraction of the tip. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
On May 31, 2007, at 6:37 PM, Ghost of Brorillium wrote: Can someone with more knoweldege of these effects look at this and give some opinions? Is this the real thing or is it something mundane? This may be the real thing, though there is no need for an ether explanation. The permittivity of the vacuum is due to virtual pairs of particles of opposite charge that pop into and out of existence in the vacuum, their energy and the time of their existence limited by the Heisenberg Principle. The pairs don't (need to) continue on beyond the ping pong ball surface as the author says of ether particles. The pairs quickly self-annihilate, either with each other, or in the case of a current, with particles from adjacent pairs. The source of the effect I think is a net space charge maintained in front of the tip by the field gradient near the fine tip and the virtual current through the vacuum near the tip. The field gradient concentrates (virtual current) charge near the fine point electrode tip, and that concentrated charge has the opposite polarity as the tip. This space charge maintained in the vacuum in front of the tip attracts the tip. The virtual charges in the vacuum move toward the tip but mostly annihilate before reaching it. That motion of charge in the vacuum is virtual current. The virtual current is necessary to establish and sustain the vacuum space charge upon which a momentum purchase can be gained. Though their existence is brief, the pair momentum is tapped on average by the field gradient. The repelled particle of the pair is (on average) further away from the tip for most of its lifetime. Due to the 1/r^2 force field near the tip, the force on the tip from the closer particle of the pair is larger. It is an attracting force, thus the thrust obtained from the vacuum is in the form of an attraction of the ball. I think the capacitance of the ping pong ball is important to creating a large effect with the device shown. The objective is to selectively increase the gradient in *front* of the tip and thus the virtual current in *front* of the tip. I suggest moving the ping pong ball closer to the tip, therefore moving the back side of the ball back away from the tip, so as to create a larger gradient in front of the tip. A custom designed envelope would be better, but not necessary. In the absence of a foil counter electrode on the outside of the front of the ball, I suggest increasing the thickness of the insulator in front of the tip to make available a larger quantity of charge to oscillate in front of the tip and thus to stimulate the motion of the vacuum pairs between the ball and the tip, i.e. to increase the virtual current. This might be quickly and easily be done by coating the outside of the front of the ping pong ball with an insulating material, like silicone caulk. Using AC should increase the virtual current through the vacuum, and thus the pair motion and thus the sustained vacuum space charge in front of the tip and thus the effect. A small tesla coil should work well. The pulsating nature of the DC supply you used may have been important to size of the effect you observed. The frequency of an AC supply can be matched to the ball capacitance (or the size of the ball and electrode matched to the supply frequency) so as to maximize the virtual current to the tip through resonance. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Wired: Pentagon may support cold fusion research
Excerpt from the original announcement at http://fs2.fbo.gov/EPSData/ODA/Synopses/7006/HDTRA1-07-BRCWMD-BAA/HDTRA_FY08_CWMD_BR_FINAL_13_APR_2007.doc : Research clearly linked to the following areas of interest may be considered: ... Determination of the basis for claimed energy production in applications of explosively driven plasmas, Z-pinch and explosively driven magnetic flux compression, low energy nuclear reactions, positron annihilation and spin or shape isomer energy storage, specifically claims of high level excess heat production, transmutation of elements, and emission of neutrons and soft x-rays. It seems to me they are looking to fund excess heat claim investigators (what I call COP cops) rather than CF researchers per se. Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Vortex vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 4:18 AM Subject: [Vo]:Wired: Pentagon may support cold fusion research See: Pentagon Agency Looks to Fund Cold Fusion, Isomers, Antimatter http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/05/pentagon_agency.html
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
I am not sure a virtual current needs to be invoked until a real one, which would point to a mundane ion wind effect, has been ruled out. Can you measure the current delivered by your flyback GOB? Michel - Original Message - From: Horace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:03 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster?? On May 31, 2007, at 6:37 PM, Ghost of Brorillium wrote: Can someone with more knoweldege of these effects look at this and give some opinions? Is this the real thing or is it something mundane? This may be the real thing, though there is no need for an ether explanation. The permittivity of the vacuum is due to virtual pairs of particles of opposite charge that pop into and out of existence in the vacuum, their energy and the time of their existence limited by the Heisenberg Principle. The pairs don't (need to) continue on beyond the ping pong ball surface as the author says of ether particles. The pairs quickly self-annihilate, either with each other, or in the case of a current, with particles from adjacent pairs. The source of the effect I think is a net space charge maintained in front of the tip by the field gradient near the fine tip and the virtual current through the vacuum near the tip. The field gradient concentrates (virtual current) charge near the fine point electrode tip, and that concentrated charge has the opposite polarity as the tip. This space charge maintained in the vacuum in front of the tip attracts the tip. The virtual charges in the vacuum move toward the tip but mostly annihilate before reaching it. That motion of charge in the vacuum is virtual current. The virtual current is necessary to establish and sustain the vacuum space charge upon which a momentum purchase can be gained. Though their existence is brief, the pair momentum is tapped on average by the field gradient. The repelled particle of the pair is (on average) further away from the tip for most of its lifetime. Due to the 1/r^2 force field near the tip, the force on the tip from the closer particle of the pair is larger. It is an attracting force, thus the thrust obtained from the vacuum is in the form of an attraction of the ball. I think the capacitance of the ping pong ball is important to creating a large effect with the device shown. The objective is to selectively increase the gradient in *front* of the tip and thus the virtual current in *front* of the tip. I suggest moving the ping pong ball closer to the tip, therefore moving the back side of the ball back away from the tip, so as to create a larger gradient in front of the tip. A custom designed envelope would be better, but not necessary. In the absence of a foil counter electrode on the outside of the front of the ball, I suggest increasing the thickness of the insulator in front of the tip to make available a larger quantity of charge to oscillate in front of the tip and thus to stimulate the motion of the vacuum pairs between the ball and the tip, i.e. to increase the virtual current. This might be quickly and easily be done by coating the outside of the front of the ping pong ball with an insulating material, like silicone caulk. Using AC should increase the virtual current through the vacuum, and thus the pair motion and thus the sustained vacuum space charge in front of the tip and thus the effect. A small tesla coil should work well. The pulsating nature of the DC supply you used may have been important to size of the effect you observed. The frequency of an AC supply can be matched to the ball capacitance (or the size of the ball and electrode matched to the supply frequency) so as to maximize the virtual current to the tip through resonance. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Rife technology revisited?
Esa, Yes, Bedini's work is very interesting. He claims that the operative mechanism is ultrasound, which may be plausible, but is at odds with successful the EMF studies. My main objection to Bedini is that he doesn't provide detailed enough information to allow others to replicate his work. Ron --On Friday, June 01, 2007 8:30 AM +0300 Esa Ruoho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what would you say to bedini's work on replicating rife's material? http://www.icehouse.net/john34/rife.html http://www.icehouse.net/john34/rife2.html On 01/06/07, Ron Wormus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jones, I still keep up with Vo though I don't post very often. I have spent quite a lot of time effort experimenting with the RIFE effect over the last few years come to the conclusion that there are real verifiable biological effects from RF modulated plasmas. However, like LENR, replication is difficult there is currently no good theory on how these low power long wave length (audio to ~100kHZ) modulated plasmas can selectively effect different organisms. The field is, pardon the pun, RIFE with lots of BS claptrap, which tends to obscure the good work that is being done by a few researchers. Ron --On Thursday, May 31, 2007 7:54 PM -0700 Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Zac might want write to former Vo - Ron Wormus - who may still be tuned-in on occassion. Ron is/was very knowledgeable on the electronic aspects of this technology - at least insofar as testing the tubes with various gas fills under RF stimulation - he was more into looking for hydrino effects, but is probably conversant with the medical aspects. R.C.Macaulay wrote: http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=35660bw Howdy Zac, Another link Richard -- ∞
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
On Jun 1, 2007, at 6:19 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: I am not sure a virtual current needs to be invoked until a real one, which would point to a mundane ion wind effect, has been ruled out. Can you measure the current delivered by your flyback GOB? Note that when the ping pong balls are added, suppressing external ion breeze, the direction of rotation changes from that when an ion breeze is made. A real current, consisting of only electrons, can not produce a net thrust in a vacuum. It is only the effect of a gradient on the virtual current that can produce true net thrust. BTW, I don't think that is a Biefeld Brown effect is it? Isn't his effect based on DC capacitors? I'm not up on his stuff. Some data from the web site regarding current follows. From the bottom of http://www.fw.hu/bmiklos2000/unipolar.htm: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thruster on the next two videos are measured out. Measured data: U=25kV DC, I=0.04mA, P=1W, F=3.77mN, electrodes are 13cm from centerline (arm=0.13m): full15.wmv (2.1 MB) full16.wmv (2.2 MB) full17.wmv (5.4 MB) full18.wmv (4.1 MB) halfclosed1.wmv (2,6 MB) The next thruster (presented in video `halfclosed1.wmv`) is put into a grounded Faraday cage, and still works! It works in Faraday cage as well as in insulated cage. This is the prove than it is no an electromagnetic effect: faraday1.wmv (1.8 MB) Data of this thruster: U=25kV, I=0.08mA, P=2W. Whitout hermeticall box, with ion-wind, it makes 55 rotations in 1 minute. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Regards, Horace Heffner
[Vo]:More on the dangers of centralization, and Wikipedia
Earlier, I wrote: What I meant to say here is that you should not concentrate decision-making power or wealth in the hands of any organization, government or private. A Manhattan Project unified effort to solve the energy crisis, or develop cold fusion, is bound to fail. We must have free market competition with many different independent groups. Here is an interesting and contradictory comment from an interview of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia: On other occasions, Wales has offered a more erudite account of the site's origins and purpose. In 1945, in his famous essay 'The Use of Knowledge in Society,' the libertarian economist F.A. Hayek argued that market mechanisms serve to share and synchronize local and personal knowledge, allowing society's members to achieve diverse, complicated ends through a principle of spontaneous self-organization. (These are the words not of the Nobel Prize winner himself but of Wikipedia's entry on him.) 'Hayek's work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project,' Wales wrote on the blog of the Internet law guru Lawrence Lessig. One can't understand my ideas about Wikipedia without understanding Hayek. Long before socialism crumbled, Hayek saw the perils of centralization. When information is dispersed (as it always is), decisions are best left to those with the most local knowledge. This insight, which undergirds contemporary libertarianism, earned Hayek plaudits from fellow libertarian economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman as the most important social thinker of the 20th century. The question: Will traditional reference works like Encyclopedia Britannica, that great centralizer of knowledge, fall before Wikipedia the way the Soviet Union fell before the West? This is contradictory because Wales wants to decentralize knowledge and reduce the role of authorities, but the rules and structure of Wikipedia accomplish just the opposite. They drown out minority views. They enforce a single, unified mainstream point of view. Wikipedia could fix this problem by allowing articles on controversial subjects to be split in half, with the first part written by supporters, and the second part by opponents. This article repeats the notion that Wikipedia generally succeeds in maintaining a neutral point of view, which I think is absurd. Wales describes himself as a pathological optimist, and I agree. He is so blindly optimistic that he does not recognize there are people who will distort articles for their own nefarious ends, and there are serious controversies in the world. Controversial means there is no such thing as a neutral point of view. Both sides sincerely believe they are right, and you would have to be omniscient to be neutral. You cannot split the difference and find some compromise or neutral position between the supporters and opponents of cold fusion. We have no common ground. Huizenga believes that theory overrules replicated experiment. Schwinger stuck to the traditional views, which are diametrically opposite, and mutually incompatible. This difference cannot be smoothed over except by noting a trivial exception to Schwinger's view, which is that in the early stages of a discovery, when there have been only a few replications, there may still be room for doubt based on theory. Any treatise describing cold fusion must be sympathetic to either Huizenga or Schwinger; you cannot have it both ways. I suppose it might repeat every assertion, once positive and once again negative, or it might begin every sentence: Assuming the experiments are right . . . That is tantamount to writing the whole article twice, once for each point of view. It does not give the article one neutral point of view. Having said all that, I must admit that the Wikipedia cold fusion article is surprisingly good considering how many skeptics there are out there anxious to trash it. It is better than it used to be. The skeptics are largely absent these days. Perhaps this reflects growing public acceptance of the field, but I think it probably reflects vigilant editing by pro-cold fusion people. In other words, someone, probably Pierre Carbonnelle, is devoting a lot of time to policing the article. I think this is wasteful, and it should not be necessary. If the rules were tweaked a little, it would be easier for both supporters and opponents of cold fusion to see to it that their points of view were accurately expressed. - Jed
[Vo]:Glow discharge papers from Savvatimova et al.
I uploaded three papers by Irina Savvatimova et al. Another one is coming, after she sends me some changes. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Savvatimovinfluenceo.pdf Savvatimova, I. and D. Gavritenkov. Influence Of Parameters Of The Glow Discharge On Change Of Structure And The Isotope Composition Of The Cathode Materials. in The 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2005. Yokohama, Japan. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MuromtsevVneutrinodi.pdf Muromtsev, V., V. Platonov, and I. Savvatimova. Neutrino-Dineutron Reactions (Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Induced By D2 Gas Permeation Through Pd Complexes. Y. Iwamura Effect). in The 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2005. Yokohama, Japan. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RodionovBunusualstr.pdf Rodionov, B. and I. Savvatimova. Unusual Structures On The Material Surfaces Irradiated By Low Energy Ions. in The 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2005. Yokohama, Japan.
Re: [Vo]:More on the dangers of centralization, and Wikipedia
Pierre Carbonnelle [EMAIL PROTECTED] told me: The time needed to police the article is very low now. I think that this is because the case was made properly to the skeptics, with the support of 2004 DOE. I told him I am glad he does not have waste his time, but the skeptics I hear from are as vociferous as ever. Maybe they are getting tired of arguing. Who knows? By the way, I posted a follow up message with the URL of the article on Wales, which did not come back to me. Here it is again: http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
--- Michel Jullian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not sure a virtual current needs to be invoked until a real one, which would point to a mundane ion wind effect, has been ruled out. Can you measure the current delivered by your flyback GOB? Michel Cant meausre it very easily but it isnt very much maybe 1 ma at most, but probably more like 100 ua I think maybe the spray from the needlepoints is charging the ends of the pingpong balls (or in mine the piece of maskingtape) and this is attracted to stuff around the thing because the charged part of the balls makes a stronger e field. The versions that Borbas made arent hermeticaly sealed at all anyways so there can be air leaking I think plus his faraday cage is not really that great of one. If you look at the vids the faraday cage is open in a bunch of places. but I dont know the Ghost of Brorillium Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396545433
[Vo]:Cosmoplant Corp. files for bankrupcy
in chapter 16 of my book I enthusiastically described a Japanese company called Cosmoplant that runs indoor food factories. Regrettably, on April 4, 2007 the company filed for bankruptcy. I suppose it was ahead of its time. The bankruptcy was caused by a cash flow crunch because they needed large sums to continue developing the technology. It does not mention anything about this, but perhaps they were also hurt by the high cost of energy, in which case it would work better with cold fusion. The report is in Japanese: http://nvc.nikkeibp.co.jp/free/RASHINBAN/20070410/107931/ I have translated the gist of it below. - Jed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Second item on page] Cosmoplant (Inc.) Agriculture, horticultural facilities construction [Shizuoka Pref.] Cosmoplant (Inc.) (Fukuroi city, founded 1990, Pres. K. Uchiyama, 12 employees) On April 2 reports of a credit shortage emerged. On April 4, the company began voluntarily filing for bankruptcy. Liabilities (debt) is estimated at $16.4 million, based on the financial statement filed in September 2006. The company was founded October 1990. It designed, constructed and operated greenhouses, food factories, horticultural facilities. Targeting mainly the agricultural producers (wholesale) market, its sales peaked in 2001 at $32.2 million. Also, it was noted for pioneered the use of red LEDs in (indoor) food-production systems that grow food year-round without being affected by weather. However, by 2006, sluggish demand in the agricultural building market reduced sales to $5.4 million, and because the company needed additional funding to continue developing the technology, debt grew to $14 million and the company was caught in a cash-flow crunch.
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
On Jun 1, 2007, at 1:42 PM, Ghost of Brorillium wrote: I think maybe the spray from the needlepoints is charging the ends of the pingpong balls (or in mine the piece of maskingtape) and this is attracted to stuff around the thing because the charged part of the balls makes a stronger e field. I fixed charge can not cause the 360 degree sustained rotation. The rotor should cog and eventually stop at the point of greatest attraction if the cause of motion is the charge on the ping pong ball. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
I wrote: I fixed charge can not cause the 360 degree sustained rotation. The rotor should cog and eventually stop at the point of greatest attraction if the cause of motion is the charge on the ping pong ball. That should say: A fixed charge can not cause the 360 degree sustained rotation. The rotor should cog and eventually stop at the point of greatest attraction of the ball to neighboring material if the cause of the motion is the charge on the ping pong ball. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
- Original Message - From: Horace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 6:09 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster?? On Jun 1, 2007, at 6:19 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: I am not sure a virtual current needs to be invoked until a real one, which would point to a mundane ion wind effect, has been ruled out. Can you measure the current delivered by your flyback GOB? Note that when the ping pong balls are added, suppressing external ion breeze, the direction of rotation changes from that when an ion breeze is made. This may simply mean that the few ions that still leak out of the high voltage rotating arm (the few tens of microamps you quote below, or those estimated by GOB in his own device) leak backwards since they can't leak forwards anymore. Since the rotating arm is frictionless, it requires very little thrust to rotate. A real current, consisting of only electrons, well, an ion current is quite real too can not produce a net thrust in a vacuum. Now you mention it, why couldn't you get a net thrust in a vacuum if the rotating arm was emitting electrons to ground? It is only the effect of a gradient on the virtual current that can produce true net thrust. BTW, I don't think that is a Biefeld Brown effect is it? Isn't his effect based on DC capacitors? I'm not up on his stuff. Those things are DC capacitors indeed, albeit leaky ones. If they didn't leak there would be no thrust most probably. Michel Some data from the web site regarding current follows. From the bottom of http://www.fw.hu/bmiklos2000/unipolar.htm: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thruster on the next two videos are measured out. Measured data: U=25kV DC, I=0.04mA, P=1W, F=3.77mN, electrodes are 13cm from centerline (arm=0.13m): full15.wmv (2.1 MB) full16.wmv (2.2 MB) full17.wmv (5.4 MB) full18.wmv (4.1 MB) halfclosed1.wmv (2,6 MB) The next thruster (presented in video `halfclosed1.wmv`) is put into a grounded Faraday cage, and still works! It works in Faraday cage as well as in insulated cage. This is the prove than it is no an electromagnetic effect: faraday1.wmv (1.8 MB) Data of this thruster: U=25kV, I=0.08mA, P=2W. Whitout hermeticall box, with ion-wind, it makes 55 rotations in 1 minute. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Regards, Horace Heffner
[Vo]:[OT] Funstuff
http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/09/12/lego-rubberband-chaingun -mm Get the Yahoo! toolbar and be alerted to new email wherever you're surfing. http://new.toolbar.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/index.php
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
On Jun 1, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Michel Jullian wrote: - Original Message - From: Horace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 6:09 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster?? On Jun 1, 2007, at 6:19 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: I am not sure a virtual current needs to be invoked until a real one, which would point to a mundane ion wind effect, has been ruled out. Can you measure the current delivered by your flyback GOB? Note that when the ping pong balls are added, suppressing external ion breeze, the direction of rotation changes from that when an ion breeze is made. This may simply mean that the few ions that still leak out of the high voltage rotating arm (the few tens of microamps you quote below, or those estimated by GOB in his own device) leak backwards since they can't leak forwards anymore. Since the rotating arm is frictionless, it requires very little thrust to rotate. The objective of the balls was to prevent just that. It would be experimental incompetence if ions could leak directionally in that quantity. I doubt the experiment would be replicated in that case. A real current, consisting of only electrons, well, an ion current is quite real too can not produce a net thrust in a vacuum. Now you mention it, why couldn't you get a net thrust in a vacuum if the rotating arm was emitting electrons to ground? To obtain significant torque from a radial flow of microamps of electrons would take a colossal magnetic field, and there is no evidence for that field being present in the experiments. Electron inertia alone will not do it - I've been down that route, but feel free to slog through the calcs if you feel the need. Here I was mostly talking in the larger sense of a propulsion device in a ship, along the lines shown in the first drawing of the web site. The electrons in a circuit merely make for closed circuits, which are well known to produce no net thrust except that corresponding to any radiation. Also, I've done experiments with electrolytes that show ordinary magnetic field generation and forces from ion flow as well. I think plasma models have been throughly verified as well. The key to net thrust for ship propulsion is operating on the vacuum. Many unsuccessful attempts have been made at the ExB or ExBxS stuff. What I have suggested here, if I have the formulation correct, is maximizing the integral of E (dE/dt) grad E through the vacuum gap volume as the key ingredient, which I think is different. If my contention is correct, then AC should work much better. I think the asymmetric plate capacitor stuff, (Beifeld Brown, the Alcuberrie drive, etc.?) is based on DC concepts, true? If so then that is different from the above. The issue I am focusing on here is one of AC vs DC. I think an AC component is essential to gain a purchase on the vacuum and further that one is present in the experiments as described. It is only the effect of a gradient on the virtual current that can produce true net thrust. BTW, I don't think that is a Biefeld Brown effect is it? Isn't his effect based on DC capacitors? I'm not up on his stuff. Those things are DC capacitors indeed, albeit leaky ones. If they didn't leak there would be no thrust most probably. I expect the DC leakage through plastic would be in nano-amps, clearly not enough to power the rotation. However, the load on the flyback just from supply wire leakage (including inductive, capacitive, and corona) is probably enough that the voltage is very spiky, so the balls can directly conduct AC power through them to the surface. There is no reason that significant ion thrust should develop from such leakage though, because the surface area is large enough to prevent an ion wind due to the low surface field. Further, it takes a conductor to generate a substantial ion wind. It seems to me a good place to start is probably multiple independent replications. Then all the baloney can be sorted through in short order. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster??
Howdy folks, Well, I bit (past tense of I'll bite) so I made one of these things and tested it. It does work, as Miklos Borbas says, but some things need to be addressed here. 1. The power supply I used outputs 10 - 30kVDC at around 5mA. Higher current is available, but I limit it to this to be safe, and besides, this device does not need even 5mA. Frequency and duty cycle are variable. (pulsating DC, please note) It was set at 1.7kcps at the time, so I used that. Using 60cps didn't make much of a difference in performance, what little decrease there was I would attribute to the fact that I used a 1000pF filtering capacitor in all the tests, and obviously, it is going to like higher frequencies better. 8kcps didn't make a difference either. 2. With no plastic covers (Miklos' ping pong balls), it works like an electric pinwheel, just like we used to run from a Wimshurst machine, at which point everyone was amused. 3. Cover the ends of the wires on the pinwheel with plastic spheres (or cubes, in my case) and thrust is zero, or bloody near. 4. Put corona wires fanning out from the axis of rotation of the pinwheel, about 3 inches below it, and pointed so that they emit radially, and not tangentially (so they contribute little to any wind-caused thrust) and the thing begins spinning in the opposite direction as before, towards the charged face of the plastic covers. 5. Aim the corona wires toward the faces of the plastic covers on the pinwheel, and the thing spins faster. You can hear the corona at this point, and things around the device readily pick up a charge. 6. Put a plastic bag around the thing, one HV wire going into the top from straight above, opposite HV supply wire going into the bottom of the bag from straight below, and the device still rotates, but reduced somewhat. Move your hand within 12-18 inches of the bag, and the device will turn to chase your hand. It will also chase metal placed near it, plastic, styrofoam, just about anything. 7. Smoke isn't moved around very much by this device. It is reasonably clear that most of the thrust is a field interaction with the surroundings, air and what have you. 8. If you look at this thing linearly, it is basically a fancy lifter. You have a covered, non-emitting electrode (the pinwheel with the ping pong balls/cubes) that serves only to establish a field around itself, and you have a sharp wire that ionizes the surrounding air/medium, and it is then pulled towards the covered electrode. I'll bet this would even work in oil, as the lifters do, but I have no desire to dunk it in a bucket of SAE 30. 9. If anyone would like me to try a few other simple things, time permitting, I probably can, but I don't plan to spend much more time on this. I looked at it hoping maybe something oddball was going on, it doesn't look like there is, so I'm going to go back to other things that do act oddball. 10. This is a very good example of why I quit doing much with any form of propulsion research that involved these kinds of voltagesthe field effects and ion effects make trying to separate a possible genuine thing from all the artifacts a horrible nightmare. Some more below, replying to Michel: Michel Jullian wrote: Now you mention it, why couldn't you get a net thrust in a vacuum if the rotating arm was emitting electrons to ground? You can, but it's quite weak. Crooke used this in his (once) famous railway tubes. Measurements reveal that it is still action-reaction compliant. (damn it.) It is only the effect of a gradient on the virtual current that can produce true net thrust. BTW, I don't think that is a Biefeld Brown effect is it? Isn't his effect based on DC capacitors? I'm not up on his stuff. Those things are DC capacitors indeed, albeit leaky ones. If they didn't leak there would be no thrust most probably. Leaky doesn't even begin to describe these things. :) It's less a capacitor than an electronic faucet. In any case, I got my daily dose of ozone. Smells like a thunderstorm cruised through the lab. P.S., the power supply I am using is not flyback based, as the good flybacks are scarcer than hen's teeth these days, and not very powerful in any event. The heart of my supply is basically an induction coil with a ferrous core that can be moved in and out and separated to give a variable air gap to the magnetic circuit. I'm reluctant to explain exactly how to make it, given the standards some of the lifter guys use when experimenting. In other words, I don't want to give instructions to the uninitiated on how to flame broil themselves. --Kyle
