In reply to David Roberson's message of Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:44:46 -0500: Hi, [snip] >If the particles appear and then annihilate each other so that nothing is left >then they would not carry away any momentum or energy. Normal drives require >that an amount of momentum that equals that which is imparted into the ship be >ejected in an opposite direction.
If the particles are given kinetic energy, then annihilate, the annihilation energy will be larger than the energy required to create them (the excess being the kinetic energy they received). So what happens to the excess? Does it appear as EM radiation, or does it modify the zero point field (ZPF) locally? This may result in momentum being transferred to the ZPF i.e. the substratum of the universe, which being vastly more massive than the craft itself means that the craft itself effectively ends up with all of the energy. This is basically what I was trying to get at. The converted energy may end up as kinetic energy of the craft itself. As to a traveler not being able to tell that he is going faster, that is clearly not so. He can measure the change in red/blue shift of the stars. That will even tell him what direction he is traveling in. In simple terms he uses the same method we do when traveling in a car, he "looks out of the window". Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
