The Mach-effect Drive

[Boerseun]

The Mach-Effect (ME) drive is a proposed propellant-less spacecraft engine.

 

It is based on the Woodward effect, which hypothesizes that energy-storing ions experience transient mass fluctuations when accelerated. There's a whole lot of maths an' stuff involved, but it boils down to the engine pulling ions when their mass are low, and pushes them away when their mass is high. Thus, no propellant is required. Experiments have been done that supports it, but opposing views include for instance that the Woodward effect violates Conservation of Momentum, and would in effect be a perpetual motion machine. This, in turn, is countered by inertia resulting from the gravitational influence of the entire universe upon mass, creating resistance to acceleration, meaning that if the Mach Effect engine were to work, the entire universe would be the reaction mass. Momentum would thus be conserved. On another website I looked over for info regarding this engine, they propose that as the engine is in operation, the temperature of the universe will come down - albeit with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the thermal properties of a lady of the night's heart, but it will come down, nonetheless. But be that as it may, if it works, the entire universe will be the "local system", and this won't be a perpetual motion machine. See it as a "universe-powered" engine.

 

On yet another website, the force generated by such an engine is described as being only a matter of scale. Makes sense - the lab experiments with this generated a few micro Newtons of thrust, but scale it up and you could conceivably generate a constant 1g, permanently.

 

I confess, I know practically zilch about this engine or the physics and processes involved. But I have started this here thread so that you can share your ignorance regarding this machine with me. Because if there is anything to it, and such engines can be made, our Solar System will be completely and utterly open. You can go to the moon in two to three hours. Mars in a matter of days. Jupiter, a few days more. The closest stars will be reachable in a matter of years, not requiring massive multi-generational obese ark-ships like sci-fi of old will have you believe.

 

So - go and do a search for it, see what you can find. The info on the web is a bit sparse, but what I've seen paints a tantalizing picture of where humanity might be at the end of the 21st century.

 

Whaddaya think? Can we start packin' for Pluto yet, or is this just another pie-in-the-sky?

[Qfwfq]

As you are already aware, the claim gets around the objection of momentum conservation. However, a great whopping matter of plausibility remains about the non-local interaction between the object and the rest of the universe. I have a greater objection to what you cite here:

On another website I looked over for info regarding this engine, they propose that as the engine is in operation, the temperature of the universe will come down - albeit with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the thermal properties of a lady of the night's heart, but it will come down, nonetheless. But be that as it may, if it works, the entire universe will be the "local system", and this won't be a perpetual motion machine. See it as a "universe-powered" engine.

This would be a blatant contradiction of the 2nd principle of thermodynamics. It isn't necessary anyway toward the aim of generating a thrust, if the claim about interacting with the rest of the universe were to hold up, it would simply require a source of non thermal energy.

 

I have found other sites that make hashes too when refering to standard physics. Basically, the argument seems to be that gravitational radiation goes between the device and the rest of the universe without more loss of energy than needed for energy conservation. This is where I see a whopping matter of plausibilty. Now, if we don't assume this conjecture holds up, I can say OK, shine a collimated light beam (such as a laser) from the spacecraft and you get a thrust; for a given power you can even calculate the force and it isn't great unless the power is huge, the ratio isn't as good as using propellant.

 

Consider something less ambitious: you want to find a way of maintaining a repulsive force between your craft and the planet you have left and are travelling away from. Surely the mass of the planet is enough, to the purpose, without needing that of the entire universe. Momentum is perfectly conserved. You could have a perfectly collimated light beam going back and forth between two perfect catadioptric optical systems, pumping in more energy as your speed increases. When you like, you can switch from pumping in more light to absorbing what comes back to your craft and in the end your kinetic energy is what you had pumped in less what you then absorbed back. Nothing against any principle of physics. Only trouble is a feasible way to do it for arbitrarily large distance.

 

As for the guy's careful measurements of weight reduction, he needs to watch out for the pitfall in the experimental test of the Dean Drive back in 1960. IOW he needs to be sure that his piezo weighing device is giving a good time average. Alternatively he ought to perform a precise tower of Pisa type test. To see more detail, I found the following site quite reasonable:

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw83.html

Edited October 7, 2010 by Qfwfq
addendum

[TheBigDog]

This is a new one for me. I will have to give it some study... Thanks Boer!

 

Bill

[Moontanman]

Some great stuff is available on this effect, it is news to me, great post oh great universal cow....

 

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1324

[Boerseun]

Here's a great page: http://www.woodwardeffect.org/

 

Saying that this concept is dubious, using "tomorrow's momentum today", is to belabor the obvious - to use a phrase from Moontan's link. But what the hell - these guys doing the research on this effect is doing everything in the open, following the Scientific method to the "T". Nothing fishy about how they're going about, at least. You gotta respect that.

 

...but imagine the possibilities. If this method works, and it brings us a cheap propellant-less drive that open up our solar system for quick human travel and eventual settlement, it would be awesome beyond description. If it doesn't work, however, we have learnt something. Either ways, bonus.

 

I just hope for something like this to come to the fore and turn the world as we know it upside down. Because ever since the invention of the steam engine, we've basically stagnated. Every new invention or concept is merely a fine-tuning of what came before. There is currently nothing fundamentally new. This technological stagnation is suffocating humanity. We need the Mach Effect drive or something similar, if only to save humanity from self-induced death from boredom. With a drive like this, Mars will become the new "Wild West". Humanity will have a new frontier. It will be awesome beyond words. Even for the stay-at-homes who have to read of all the new findings and discoveries in the newspapers. All in all, it will inject humanity with a new spirit, one that we desperately need.

 

And even if it is proved to be a complete failure, at least Sci-Fi writers have something new to write about.

[Moontanman]

Have you ever read much Heinlein? In his book "The Rolling Stones" he writes about a family that lives on board an interplanetary space ship. Easy access to space and the solar system would change humanity as profoundly as machines changed us.

[Tormod]

Just tagging along. Sounds like pie-in-the-sky, but I like pies. And skies.

[Little Bang]

Wow, I hope someone can figure it out. The principle seems sort of reminiscent of my explanation of gravity.

[CraigD]

Having been a reaction mass-less (or, more poetically, propellantless) propulsion fan since childhood (blame my brutally honest physics undergrad degreed dad, who disabused me of the fantasy that my childhood sketches of interstellar rockets could work), I’m a connoisseur of stuff like the Dean drive (almost certainly a crass scam) and the Woodward effect (by most accounts I trust, including those in this thread, a credible, thought very speculative, work of physics).

 

As I see it, in applied physics/mechanics/engineering, there are 2 fundamental approaches: theoretical, in which one finds an explanation of an effect, informing you of an engineering approach to exploit it; and empirical, in which one experimentally detects the effect without knowing with much or any certainty a theoretical explanation of it. Some proponents of Woodward’s hypothesis, such as Woodward himself, focus on the theoretical, others on the empirical/experimental (eg: Thomas Mahood’s 1999 PhD thesis, which describes experiments to detect the effect with a torsion balance).

 

Though the theoretical stuff I’ve read is (at least to me) dauntingly complicated, usually involving greatly different velocities of individual atoms within crystals, it seems to me to simplify to a pair of ideal bodies interacting via a force that can be varied in any way. If the model can be made to change the combined momentum of the 2 bodies – violate conservation of momentum, in classical terms – the WE is demonstrated. Various computational tools are available to try and solve the puzzle: at least relativity, likely needed something that include a real Mach effect (in which case the model really has 3 bodies, the 2 original, and the rest of the universe). The rest is simple mechanical “accounting”. Assuming that no quantum-scale time is involved (uncertainty, etc.)– which I think is accurate – there should be distinct durations in the motor’s cycle where “out of balance” mass/force/accelerations occur.

 

Though I’m instinctively skeptical that the Woodward effect is physically real – experiments tentatively confirming it are, I suspect, due to unidentified measurement relics – strange as the universe is, it doesn’t seem to me entirely impossible that it is. However, even if it is, and an optimally efficient propellantless propulsion motor can be built based on it, it solves only the reaction-mass problem, not the energy problem, inherent to spaceflight propulsion. Because of this, I continue to put most of my hope into propulsion systems were energy is produced and delivered other than on the spacecraft – beam-powered systems such as the Forward's Light-Sail Propulsion System.

[Qfwfq]

What I've been thinking about Woodward's idea is: He proposes to accelerate something one way while it is being accelerated the most, and then accelerate it the opposite way while it is being accelerated the least...

 

Uhm, I mean... wait a minute... :confused: :doh: :lol:

 

I’m a connoisseur of stuff like the Dean drive (almost certainly a crass scam) and the Woodward effect (by most accounts I trust, including those in this thread, a credible, thought very speculative, work of physics).

Craig I must say you're quite an optimist!!!!!

 

Because ever since the invention of the steam engine, we've basically stagnated. Every new invention or concept is merely a fine-tuning of what came before. There is currently nothing fundamentally new.

Hmmm, nice, so I guess Hiroshima was a very, very, very, very, very, very fine-tuning of the concept of TNT. :D