OK Bob, I tend to think outside of the box quite often, but sometimes that does not get me to where I would like to go. I would love to find that a reactionless drive is possible, but so far the evidence is strongly against that concept.
You must become the spaceman inside his ship in order to see where the problem exists. If the mass and energy leaving the ship is not visible or measurable by the guy then he will become quite upset to see his ship vaporizing into nothing as the drive operates. As far as he can determine his ship is at rest in space once the drive is shut down. He can then take an inventory of the mass of his machine and wonders where most of it went, particularly if a large amount of it is converted into energy used to power the drive. With a normal drive every morsel of the original mass and energy can be located. Actually, I believe that the center of mass of the original ship remains in the same location and has the same magnitude after the normal drive is activated. The same is not true for a reactionless drive. Each external observer will determine that the center of mass of a normal ship remains at a constant location. This is true regardless of the final velocity of the ship relative to those guys. This is certainly true for very slow moving ships such as we would measure under non relativistic situations being presently discussed. The conservation of momentum ensures that this occurs. I encourage anyone out there with knowledge about how to overcome the obvious problems to offer their input. Start by explaining how the spaceman could accept the change in mass of his ship without any measurable emissions into space remembering that velocity is entirely relative. In this case I am playing the part of the skeptic but will make every effort to prove myself wrong. I honestly want to be wrong about this type of system. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Bob Cook <frobertc...@hotmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Nov 23, 2014 6:38 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:They call me a moron. A reply. Dave-- If the mass is converted into mass of virtual particles in the Dirac space, it is obvious that the man in the space ship would never see the results. The standard conversion of energy normally happens in a measurable 3-D space the space man knows. The other situation involves the Dirac space in addition to the standard 3-D space, but still conserves energy/mass, its just not observable yet. You must think outside the 3-D box. Engineers do this better than scientists. Note Bob Higgins recent comment attributed to a mentor of his. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: David Roberson To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2014 1:23 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:They call me a moron. A reply. That is the point Robin. In the case of a car you can find where all of the original mass is located after the car accelerates to a new velocity. It might not be easy, but it can be done. The reactionless drive spaceship can not find the lost mass that is assumed to be converted into energy to generate thrust. A person onboard the ship will only see that the mass of his ship is depleted since his velocity is constant after the drive is cut off as far as he knows. Of course he will feel the acceleration as the drive is powered, but he has no way to determine his velocity relative to the universe before or after that occurs. Velocity is relative to the observer. If we take this process to the extreme, lets assume that 90% of the mass of the original ship is consumed by the energy required to operate the reactionless drive. Once the drive is shut down the spaceman begins to drift in space. As far as he can observe, he is sitting still in space and has no kinetic energy. But where did all that original mass end up? It just vanished, which makes no sense. With a normal ship that relies upon the conservation of momentum all of the mass that has been ejected can be located. Whether in the form of electromagnetic waves or raw mass that was ejected, the total will be the same as before the drive is activated. This makes complete sense and is what has been demonstrated so far in real life. In the first case mass has been lost without anything to show for its existence. In the second one, nothing is missing and everything adds up as expected. I find it very difficult to believe that both situations are possible. How would you explain to the spaceman on the ship powered by a reactionless drive where most of the mass of his ship is now located? Have atoms of fuel actually disappeared? Even if some form of nuclear reaction is used to power the drive he can not locate the energy generated by the nuclear process. Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <mix...@bigpond.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Nov 23, 2014 3:26 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:They call me a moron. A reply. In reply to David Roberson's message of Fri, 21 Nov 2014 23:25:41 -0500: Hi, [snip] >My consideration of reactionless drives is based upon the observation that the mass of atoms, molecules, and all other forms of matter remain a constant to the local observer at least. I include the mass that can be attributed to energy which is either emitted by some action of the matter or absorbed in other ways. So far, every attempt that I have made to calculate or measure this combination yields the same result. As you know, the total mass-energy would have to change if the system were to be subject to a reactionless drive. > It's just the same as a car on a road. You know that some of the energy in the fuel ends up as kinetic energy of the car, and this doesn't surprise you at all. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
