On 9/15/06, John Berry
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
No, Wesely is correct, it is an inertial anchor. (it could be used to push off or it could be used by moving it in the direction of travel and turning it on then bringing it to rest relative to the ship, or both)
The reason acceleration is tricky is not because the energy is converted into motion but because the motion effects the distance the light must travel in effect making it go out of resonance so the Q drops and the energy bouncing around drops sharply as with the force.
I believe that this can be corrected with a constant velocity which is fast enough to have the it reach resonance one wavelength above and below the stationary resonance depending on the direction of the photons. (you'd need to have higher frequency photons, more distant walls and decent acceleration, otherwise a far lower frequency would be effected less by acceleration)
However I very much like the rowing idea, the down side is that every stroke the energy will be dissipated so you will need to wait till it charges up again.
What you should note is that this device if it works at all MUST violate the conservation of energy, there is no way round it, if you use it to accelerate or row for 10 seconds and it accelerated it to 1 meter a second using .5KWh say, then if you run it for 20 seconds you'd have used 1KWh, have 2 meters a second velocity but the energy contained in forward movement of your ship is 4 times that of running the engines for the 10 seconds.On 9/15/06, Robin van Spaandonk < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:In reply to Wesley Bruce's message of Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:41:50
+1000:
Hi,
[snip]
>A stationary emdrive can still push a ship in a given direction. It
>becomes an inertial anchor. An inertial anchor resists being moved but
>does not move itself. You can push down or back on it and it wont move
>but pulling upon it and it moves freely. A craft with an inertial anchor
>on it can jack forward against the mass and drive force of the anchor.
>It can then pull the anchor forward pulling against only the mass of the
>drive. The result is a dynamic mechanical asymmetry. The emdrive would
>probably be jacked back and forth by a linear motor or a crank driving a
>rod. For smooth operation you need several Inertial Anchors cycling out
>of phase to produce uniform forward momentum. Interestingly you could
>put emdrive inertial anchors on the ends of a set of oars and simply
>"row" through outer space. A vac-suit would be advisable.
[snip]
As I understand it however, the actual drive in question is not an
inertial anchor. It's just that the force drops off as it starts
to accelerate. This is because the force depends upon a huge
microwave density in the cavity, and as energy is consumed in
accelerating the device, it is drawn from this microwave energy.
However there is no reason why it shouldn't provide a continuous
acceleration force if the energy in the cavity is replaced as fast
as it is used.
It's like pouring water into a leaky bucket. If your pour water in
as fast as it leaks out, then the bucket stays full.
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk
http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/
Competition provides the motivation,
Cooperation provides the means.
