Shawyer drive still looking promising..

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933

Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[JRStern]

On 1 May 2015 21:31:19 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

>http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933
>
> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.

How fast can it fly me to Narnia?

J.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1r18ka9nn9lp2itrq...@4ax.com>,

Sounds like the Dean drive, actually.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/1/15 7:27 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <1r18ka9nn9lp2itrq...@4ax.com>,
> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>> On 1 May 2015 21:31:19 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
>> wrote:
>>
>>> http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933
>>>
>>> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
>>> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
>>> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
>>> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
>>> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.
>>
>> How fast can it fly me to Narnia?
>
> Sounds like the Dean drive, actually.
>

No, rather not at all like the Dean drive. Dean never allowed anyone to
see how he built the thing, or work with his design; this one's being
worked on by multiple groups around the world.

I still suspect that the effects will turn out to be from some mundane
source, but this is real science they're trying to do.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-6, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

> I still suspect that the effects will turn out to be from some mundane
> source, but this is real science they're trying to do.

I'm somewhat amazed that they had the ability to use taxpayer dollars on
something so far out.

However, since existing accepted theory recognizes the quantum vacuum, thrust
by "pushing" on that, instead of some obvious physical thing, is at least a
legitimate idea in theory.

Actually, though, one might also wonder how Einstein's 1905 paper "On the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" ever got through peer review.

So this is a sign that the system is working correctly - the skepticism level
is not set so high that any novel, original, and revolutionary discoveries fail
to see the light of day.

Having Herbert Dingle's "refutations" of Special Relativity get into the
scientific literature is, I suppose, a small price to pay...

John Savard

[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 7:47:55 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> Having Herbert Dingle's "refutations" of Special Relativity get into the
> scientific literature is, I suppose, a small price to pay...

Is that who the Space Hippies in TOS _The Way To Eden_ had in mind when they chanted "Herbert" at anyone who disagreed with them?


Mark L. Fergerson

[David DeLaney]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> On 5/1/15 7:27 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>>> t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:
>>>> < http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-
1701188933 >
>>>>
>>>> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
>>>> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
>>>> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
>>>> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
>>>> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.
>>>
>>> How fast can it fly me to Narnia?
>>
>> Sounds like the Dean drive, actually.

A lot like it in some ways, but...

> No, rather not at all like the Dean drive. Dean never allowed anyone to
> see how he built the thing, or work with his design; this one's being
> worked on by multiple groups around the world.
>
> I still suspect that the effects will turn out to be from some mundane
> source, but this is real science they're trying to do.

So do I, and yes they are. (I think EVERYONE here can extrapolate the first-
and second-order effects of an _actual_ reactionless drive, even a weak one...)

This differs from the Dean Drive, at the moment, principally in that the
Chinese doctress who published the paper on it had a hopefully-working model
AND when others built an analogous one the effect didn't vanish; the newspaper
story I saw earlier to-day (it steam-rotary-wankel-engines when it's s-r-w-e
time in netwide acquaintance-based story distribution, it seems), to give it
credit, DID mention conservation of momentum in paragraph 1, and periodically
throughout noted what classical or current physics' opinions of such claims
invariably is.

I'd rate it higher than Dean Drive levels of pseudoscience at the moment; it
seems to currently be at cold-fusion level. (With, yes, almost certainly the
same sort of outcome eventually...)

Dave, hmm, should we put together a measurement scale?
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[David DeLaney]

On 2015-05-02, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-6, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>> I still suspect that the effects will turn out to be from some mundane
>> source, but this is real science they're trying to do.
>
> I'm somewhat amazed that they had the ability to use taxpayer dollars on
> something so far out.

Hey, it's not 'far out' if it's GOT a working model. Our issues at the moment
are more of a "let's make SURE we can't account for this effect among what we
know already and/or from inaccuracies/misdescriptions/mismeasurements" thing.
And to do THAT we have to do SCIENCE!!1! to it.

> However, since existing accepted theory recognizes the quantum vacuum, thrust
> by "pushing" on that, instead of some obvious physical thing, is at least a
> legitimate idea in theory.

Sort of. It would actually make more sense if it ended up being described as
'pushing' on everything else in the immediate cosmological vicinity, through
the medium of the Q.vacuum somehow.

(Especially since if it DOES turn out to be possible to extract energy or
momentum from said Q.vacuum, that's a Sign that said vacuum is NOT actually in
the lowest possible energy state... in which case we REALLY REALLY REALLY don't
want to be poking and prodding it.)

> So this is a sign that the system is working correctly - the skepticism level
> is not set so high that any novel, original, and revolutionary discoveries
> fail to see the light of day.

Yep.

> Having Herbert Dingle's "refutations" of Special Relativity get into the
> scientific literature is, I suppose, a small price to pay...

SPINDIZZY ENTHUSIASTS UNITE!
be sure to use the penetrator dingus of course

Dave

[William December Starr]

In article <cqi9l7...@mid.individual.net>,
t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) quoted:

> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.

Now I'm wondering: what would the properties of a time-like vaccuum be?

-- wds

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> (Especially since if it DOES turn out to be possible to extract energy or
> momentum from said Q.vacuum, that's a Sign that said vacuum is NOT actually in
> the lowest possible energy state... in which case we REALLY REALLY REALLY don't
> want to be poking and prodding it.)
>

"How can he possibly resist the maddening urge to erradicate history at the mere
push of a single button? The beautiful, shiny button? The jolly, candy-like button?
Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold out?" -- The Narrator from a Ren and Stimpy
episode.

--
Leif Roar Moldskred

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <cYOdnaDssMFKQNnI...@giganews.com>,

http://tinyurl.com/mensbtf

[A.G.McDowell]

That reminds me of a nice piece of dialog at the beginning of Zelazny's
"Doorways in the sand", when the perpetual student hero is having a
fraught conversation with his university Adviser

"I hate to tell you, but history is full of people like you. We tend to
judge them harshly."

"History?"

"Not the department. The phenomemon."

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/1/15 10:47 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 8:03:15 PM UTC-6, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>> I still suspect that the effects will turn out to be from some mundane
>> source, but this is real science they're trying to do.
>
> I'm somewhat amazed that they had the ability to use taxpayer dollars on
> something so far out.

Far out? This is hardly far out by cutting-edge research standards.
NASA routinely examines stuff like this, and farther out (warp drives,
etc.); they don't spend much on it, but if there's good results, they
can increase funding.

DARPA does plenty of blue-sky stuff, too. A lot of it goes nowhere, but
every once in a while something comes out of it that's really pretty
awesome.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

"NO I CAN'T!!!"

[JRStern]

On Sat, 02 May 2015 03:26:13 -0500, David DeLaney
<davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>I'd rate it higher than Dean Drive levels of pseudoscience at the moment; it
>seems to currently be at cold-fusion level. (With, yes, almost certainly the
>same sort of outcome eventually...)
>
>Dave, hmm, should we put together a measurement scale?

They went through a similar exercise in artificial intelligence some
years ago, and decided to measure the bogosity factor in "Lenats",
named after famous AI researcher Doug Lenat.

"Upon further consideration, we note that the most common usages will
be in micro-Lenats", the proposal concluded.*

*Lenat wasn't really that bad, this was meant to be humorous, more or
less.

J.

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 11:41:18 PM UTC-6, nu...@bid.nes wrote:

> Is that who the Space Hippies in TOS _The Way To Eden_ had in mind when they
> chanted "Herbert" at anyone who disagreed with them?

No, I'm pretty sure not. "Herbert" was apparently a slang term for people who
were dull creatures of routine and obedience.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 5:30:14 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> Sounds like the Dean drive, actually.

In one sense, it's very much like the Dean Drive - it's in effect a
reactionless drive.

But, as others have noted, the Dean Drive was bunk from the get-go; this both
seems to work, and is based on sound - if novel, and thus still uncertain -
physics.

It still seems _much_ too good to be true. Providing more thrust per unit of energy input than an ion drive? That is _not_ what all my instincts tell me to expect. Instead, if there _is_ a way to "push against" the quantum vacuum, one would expect that the thrust it produces, at least in the early days, would have to be measured with a sensitive torsion balance... like that used to measure the gravitational constant.

After it's been around for decades, proven solidly so that the scientific
community accepts it as old hat, and no longer is tempted to laugh at it as an
apparent violation of Newton's Third Law, *then* some genius inventor might
come along and ingeniously make use of the principle so that it's of some
practical use in spaceflight.

_That's_ how it's "supposed" to happen... and so things seem to have skipped a
step. Usually, that's a bad sign, and the thing turns out to be a fake after
all as everyone expected. But there can be exceptions to generalizations like
this, and the positive experimental results certainly make it seem like this is
one after all.

John Savard

[Shawn Wilson]

On Saturday, May 2, 2015 at 1:26:15 AM UTC-7, David DeLaney wrote:


> I'd rate it higher than Dean Drive levels of pseudoscience at the moment; it
> seems to currently be at cold-fusion level. (With, yes, almost certainly the
> same sort of outcome eventually...)

Yeah, my vote is for another cold fusion too.

[Don Bruder]

In article <mi39vk$gmb$2...@dont-email.me>,

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:


> DARPA does plenty of blue-sky stuff, too. A lot of it goes nowhere, but
> every once in a while something comes out of it that's really pretty
> awesome.

To mis-quote Madge The Manicurist: "You're typing on it" :)

(Oops, just dated myself, didn't I?)

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 5/2/2015 12:55 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 5/2/15 10:23 AM, Leif Roar Moldskred wrote:
>> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> (Especially since if it DOES turn out to be possible to extract
>>> energy or
>>> momentum from said Q.vacuum, that's a Sign that said vacuum is NOT
>>> actually in
>>> the lowest possible energy state... in which case we REALLY REALLY
>>> REALLY don't
>>> want to be poking and prodding it.)
>>>
>>
>> "How can he possibly resist the maddening urge to erradicate history
>> at the mere
>> push of a single button? The beautiful, shiny button? The jolly,
>> candy-like button?
>> Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold out?" -- The Narrator from a Ren
>> and Stimpy
>> episode.
>>
>
>
> "NO I CAN'T!!!"
>
>

So, what kind of sound _does_ a universe make as it ceases to exist?

--
Veni, vidi, snarki.

[Greg Goss]

Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:

>(Oops, just dated myself, didn't I?)

I never really understood women. I spent long years dating myself.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[David DeLaney]

Oh, it wouldn't make the universe _cease to exist_. No no no. It would just ...
UNRAVEL everything currently in it in a horrificially huge release of energy
expanding at lightspeed from wherever the thread actually got pulled, including
but not limited to stars, scientists, gold, atoms, and delicious chocolate.

Whatever coalesced out of that, inside the expanding sphere, would be something
totally different, compatible with the new lower-energy vacuum. It wouldn't be
us any more.

Dave, I am reliably informed that the sound of an atomic bomb exploding in
reverse is 'squilchgmp!', if that helps

ps: i see that one of the previous times i mentioned this sound-effect here
included the sentence "There's more, but that's all that would fit in the
summary.".

[David DeLaney]

Very strange.

And probably impossible to describe to people who don't at least know tensor
calculus...

Dave

[Ahasuerus]

On Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 12:07:16 AM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2015-05-03, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
> > On 5/2/2015 12:55 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >> On 5/2/15 10:23 AM, Leif Roar Moldskred wrote:
> >>> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >>>> (Especially since if it DOES turn out to be possible to extract
> >>>> energy or momentum from said Q.vacuum, that's a Sign that said
> >>>> vacuum is NOT actually in the lowest possible energy state...
> >>>> in which case we REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to be poking
> >>>> and prodding it.)
> >>>
> >>> "How can he possibly resist the maddening urge to erradicate history
> >>> at the mere push of a single button? The beautiful, shiny button?
> >>> The jolly, candy-like button? Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold
> >>> out?" -- The Narrator from a Ren and Stimpy episode.
> >>
> >> "NO I CAN'T!!!"
> >
> > So, what kind of sound _does_ a universe make as it ceases to exist?
>
> Oh, it wouldn't make the universe _cease to exist_. No no no. It
> would just ... UNRAVEL everything currently in it in a horrificially
> huge release of energy expanding at lightspeed from wherever the
> thread actually got pulled, including but not limited to stars,
> scientists, gold, atoms, and delicious chocolate.

Clearly unacceptable!

[pete...@gmail.com]

I suspect that's the case, but I hope its not.

There are lot of things life does, and in particular us bright ape-descendents
to, which on casual examination appear to violate various laws of conservation.

However, generating thrust with a purely electrical device does not, if the
"material" being accelerated to produce that thrust actually exists.

I hope it does.

pt

[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, May 2, 2015 at 9:07:16 PM UTC-7, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2015-05-03, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

> > So, what kind of sound _does_ a universe make as it ceases to exist?
>
> Oh, it wouldn't make the universe _cease to exist_. No no no. It would
> just ... UNRAVEL everything currently in it in a horrificially huge release
> of energy expanding at lightspeed from wherever the thread actually got
> pulled, including but not limited to stars, scientists, gold, atoms, and
> delicious chocolate.
>
> Whatever coalesced out of that, inside the expanding sphere, would be
> something totally different, compatible with the new lower-energy vacuum.
> It wouldn't be us any more.
>
> Dave, I am reliably informed that the sound of an atomic bomb exploding in
> reverse is 'squilchgmp!', if that helps
>
> ps: i see that one of the previous times i mentioned this sound-effect here
> included the sentence "There's more, but that's all that would fit in the
> summary.".

Since the Universe is expanding, the zone of fresh new "true" vacuum wouldn't be able to catch up with anything beyond what it sees as receding juuuuust below c.

For all we know it's already happened, way beyond our cosmological horizon.

I tend not to like the idea; it seems to me that if it can happen, then it should have already happened pretty much everywhere. Perhaps the vacuum state is superfluid and tunnels into the true ground state no matter what, without disturbing the little ripples that make up thee and me.

Now I'm wondering what the possible meaning is of the stuff that the potential wells are made of that the vacuum can have states in. Metavacuum?


Mark L. Fergerson

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Sort of a buzzing electrical sound followed by a POP!, according to the
end of that episode.

[JRStern]

Aren't there several scifi takes on this, from Asimov to Kilgore Trout
to Joe Haldeman, that said that certain very nice-seeming star drives
were actually causing pain and disaster in some hidden dimensions?

J.

[Jerry Brown]

On Sun, 03 May 2015 09:02:33 -0700, JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid>
wrote:

I think Bob Shaw did one as well.

>
>J.
>

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

[Martha Adams]

I'm watching this EMDrive news and it's really interesting. But
I'm not going to feel enthusiastic until I see some numbers of
general form, "x watts/pascal" along with a believable description
of the hardware that did it.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2015 May 03]

================================================================
On 05/01/2015 05:31 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933

[J. Clarke]

In article <96ydnY2O3JAE89vI...@giganews.com>,
mh...@verizon.net says...

>
> I'm watching this EMDrive news and it's really interesting. But
> I'm not going to feel enthusiastic until I see some numbers of
> general form, "x watts/pascal" along with a believable description
> of the hardware that did it.

I'm not gonna feel enthusiastic until they actually put it on a
spacecraft, turn it on, and the thing moves.

Difference between what we have and a _real_ space program, in a real
space program they'd just send a design up to the space station, the
techs on the space station would whip up a model, they'd stick it
outside the airlock and turn it on and if it went charging off into the
distance pronounce success.

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 12:57:23 PM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:

> Difference between what we have and a _real_ space program, in a real
> space program they'd just send a design up to the space station, the
> techs on the space station would whip up a model, they'd stick it
> outside the airlock and turn it on and if it went charging off into the
> distance pronounce success.

I would think that this is the *next* step, after the vacuum chamber
experiments.

Or it would be, if we still had the Shuttle. If it does work, who wants the
Russians to get their hands on it? But then, it isn't even being kept secret...
I mean really. Don't they realize what an advantage it would be to be the only
country that has flying saucers?

John Savard

[JRStern]

On Sun, 3 May 2015 14:58:19 -0400, "J. Clarke"
<j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:

>In article <96ydnY2O3JAE89vI...@giganews.com>,
>mh...@verizon.net says...
>>
>> I'm watching this EMDrive news and it's really interesting. But
>> I'm not going to feel enthusiastic until I see some numbers of
>> general form, "x watts/pascal" along with a believable description
>> of the hardware that did it.
>
>I'm not gonna feel enthusiastic until they actually put it on a
>spacecraft, turn it on, and the thing moves.

What he said.

There's really not a chance in hell that it's real, errors on the
microscopic scale can come from heat and magnetic fields of the power
connectors and measurement devices. It can even be reproducible and
still entirely bogus.

And the idea that even if the effect is real it doesn't even need a
power source, is just invisible icing on the non-existent cake.

I'l stick with my KK drives powered by a ZPG, thanks.

J.

[Greg Goss]

Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:

>I'm watching this EMDrive news and it's really interesting. But

I'm having trouble with the name. To my mind M-Drive was one of the
very early attempts to provide free cloud storage over the internet
(1999?) I forget where their money came from -- in a 1999 internet
business, maybe that didn't matter.

[Greg Goss]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 12:57:23 PM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> Difference between what we have and a _real_ space program, in a real
>> space program they'd just send a design up to the space station, the
>> techs on the space station would whip up a model, they'd stick it
>> outside the airlock and turn it on and if it went charging off into the
>> distance pronounce success.
>
>I would think that this is the *next* step, after the vacuum chamber
>experiments.
>
>Or it would be, if we still had the Shuttle. If it does work, who wants the
>Russians to get their hands on it? But then, it isn't even being kept secret...

Didn't it come out of China in the first place?

>I mean really. Don't they realize what an advantage it would be to be the only
>country that has flying saucers?

I'm wired for conspiracy theories. I half-believe that deliberately
BADLY-DONE coverups of UFO stuff in the fifties and sixties was a
deliberate attempt to convince the Russians that we might really have
this stuff.

[William December Starr]

In article <cYOdnaDssMFKQNnI...@giganews.com>,

Leif Roar Moldskred <le...@huldreskog.localdomain> said:

> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> (Especially since if it DOES turn out to be possible to extract
>> energy or momentum from said Q.vacuum, that's a Sign that said
>> vacuum is NOT actually in the lowest possible energy state... in
>> which case we REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to be poking and
>> prodding it.)
>
> "How can he possibly resist the maddening urge to erradicate
> history at the mere push of a single button? The beautiful, shiny
> button? The jolly, candy-like button? Will he hold out, folks?
> Can he hold out?" -- The Narrator from a Ren and Stimpy episode.

http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/57

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <55456b3f$0$36540$742e...@news.sonic.net>,

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> said:

> So, what kind of sound _does_ a universe make as it ceases to
> exist?

"gnab"?

-- wds

[Don Bruder]

In article <mi6krc$irp$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

Ain't you supposed to capitalize that - "gnaB"?

<Looks in Fonts folder for one with a backward cap-B glyph...>

[lal_truckee]

On 5/3/15 2:23 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
> Or it would be, if we still had the Shuttle. If it does work, who wants the
> Russians to get their hands on it? But then, it isn't even being kept secret...
> I mean really. Don't they realize what an advantage it would be to be the only
> country that has flying saucers?

We were safe as long as we ha Slim Whitman.
Now, not so much.

[Cryptoengineer]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:c49e51a6-df35-4016...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 5:30:14 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> Sounds like the Dean drive, actually.
>
> In one sense, it's very much like the Dean Drive - it's in effect a
> reactionless drive.
>
> But, as others have noted, the Dean Drive was bunk from the get-go;
> this both seems to work, and is based on sound - if novel, and thus
> still uncertain - physics.
>
> It still seems _much_ too good to be true. Providing more thrust per
> unit of energy input than an ion drive? That is _not_ what all my
> instincts tell me to expect. Instead, if there _is_ a way to "push
> against" the quantum vacuum, one would expect that the thrust it
> produces, at least in the early days, would have to be measured with a
> sensitive torsion balance... like that used to measure the
> gravitational constant.

Wikipedia on last February's tests:

"However, in early 2015, Paul March from Eagleworks made new results
public, claiming positive experimental force measurements with a
torsional pendulum in a hard vacuum: about 50 microNewtons with
50 W of input power at 5.0×10^-6 torr, and new null-thrust tests."

People are doing the right thing. This still looks to be at the
cold-fusion level of plausibility, but the work is being done to
better understand what may or may not be happening.

pt

[Joseph Nebus]

In <MPG.2fb039c42...@news.eternal-september.org> "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> writes:

>Difference between what we have and a _real_ space program, in a real
>space program they'd just send a design up to the space station, the
>techs on the space station would whip up a model, they'd stick it
>outside the airlock and turn it on and if it went charging off into the
>distance pronounce success.

Because it's totally plausible that it would ever be just about
as cheap to drive the thing that won't work down to the spaceport and
toss it on the next flight to the space station to test it out and find
out it doesn't work as it would be to drive it down to the university's
vacuum chamber and find out it doesn't work there.

--
Joseph Nebus
Math: More Talk About What We Talk About http://wp.me/p1RYhY-KP
Humor: Ridiculous Episodes of History http://wp.me/p37lb5-OE
--------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

[Martha Adams]

I'm afraid this EMDrive thing is a joint effect of wishful thinking
and trollage. These things come by from time to time. I recall the
first one I noticed, several years ago: the AD-X2 battery renewal
chemical. Which buzzed around for months til it finally died. This
looks to me like the same sort of thing.

Because, first, that unexplainable by laws of physics thing. Who
believes that makes a fundamental mistake. For one thing, every
year we get a new generation of physics, math and etc grad students
who practice and rehearse and study our body of knowledge in a more
critical way than JQ Public can imagine. If there were chinks in
the fundamentals, it just isn't believable they get missed.

And secondly, if the thing actually worked we'd have seen that now,
and *we haven't.* SF writers have been playing with this topic
for years. There was some good stuff in ASF in the late 1940's
and early 1950's just before Campbell went off the deep end, and
it's relevant here.

And finally, we *really need* something like Blish's spindizzy
or some subspace tunneling drive, so let's set aside this EMDrive
rubbish and somebody figure out how do we get past the reality
of force, distance, and work and *out to space.* How about that
space elevator idea that was around a few years ago. Yes, it's
hard to do. But once you get up to geosync it's not that hard
to go *much* farther.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Tues 2015 Apr 05]

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/3/15 8:15 PM, JRStern wrote:
> On Sun, 3 May 2015 14:58:19 -0400, "J. Clarke"
> <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <96ydnY2O3JAE89vI...@giganews.com>,
>> mh...@verizon.net says...
>>>
>>> I'm watching this EMDrive news and it's really interesting. But
>>> I'm not going to feel enthusiastic until I see some numbers of
>>> general form, "x watts/pascal" along with a believable description
>>> of the hardware that did it.
>>
>> I'm not gonna feel enthusiastic until they actually put it on a
>> spacecraft, turn it on, and the thing moves.
>
> What he said.
>
> There's really not a chance in hell that it's real, errors on the
> microscopic scale can come from heat and magnetic fields of the power
> connectors and measurement devices. It can even be reproducible and
> still entirely bogus.
>
> And the idea that even if the effect is real it doesn't even need a
> power source

Um... what? All versions that showed the effect were hooked to a power
source. You may be misreading; there was one device they intended to be
a control, but the "control" part involved a slightly different design,
not failing to connect it to power.

[Scott Lurndal]

It's still not clear to me how much NASA really has to do
with this. nasaspacedaily.com is not a NASA property;
there is no data on this available from the NASA website.

I did find an interesting document on in-space-propulsion
technlogies here:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/501329main_TA02-ID_rev3-NRC-wTASR.pdf

[JRStern]

Some of the writeups suggest no power, pretty sure I've seen it at
least twice.

That's the ZPG aspect.

All the nuts roll to the same corner.

J.

[William December Starr]

In article <7d473077-1078-4b72...@googlegroups.com>,

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> said:

> Or it would be, if we still had the Shuttle. If it does work, who
> wants the Russians to get their hands on it? But then, it isn't
> even being kept secret... I mean really. Don't they realize what
> an advantage it would be to be the only country that has flying
> saucers?

THE DALETH EFFECT, Harry Harrison, 1970.

-- wds

[pete...@gmail.com]

I don't recall a zero power aspect in any of the writeups I've seen.

> That's the ZPG aspect.
> All the nuts roll to the same corner.

Actually, its followers of standard physics who are all in the same
corner - that why its called "standard" physics. One of the distinguishing
marks of real sciences is that researchers tend to converge in their
views. The nutcases are all over the shop.

If we're going to dismiss this guy, lets at least have the integrity
to critique what he's actually claiming, not what some scientifically
ignorant journalist wrote. Youtube has a presentation he gave on the
device.

The current device appears to be about the size of a tower PC, and is
claimed to generate about 50 microNewtons - roughly the same as the
pressure exerted by a 5 mg weight - when running at 50W. He does not
describe it as a 'reactionless drive', but as a 'propellentless' one,
and claims it obeys conservation of momentum and energy. I find
what explanation he does give unconvincing, but possibly out of my
area of knowledge.

There's nothing bizarre about a propellentless drive - point a laser out
the back of your spaceship, turn it on, and it will create (a little)
thrust without your needing to supply a propellent - you're turning
electrical energy into photons and kicking them out the back. This
may be similar - you're actually turning your electricity into
'propellent'.

What *does* bother me is that Shawyer spends most of his presentation
discussing how easy and wonderful space flight will be when we start using
the second generation ('2G') supercooled EMDrive, which he claims will
generate a ton of thrust per kW. He has pretty pictures of a proposed
spaceplane.

This is way, Way, WAY premature. He should be concentrating on proving to
the world that the thing works at all; doing the tests, publishing the
plans, getting people to duplicate the work.

Some of that seems to be happening, but he talks as if its reality is
already well accepted. It is not. This raises red flags for me.

pt

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

pete...@gmail.com wrote in
news:6a560a75-f95b-4862...@googlegroups.com:

Is he looking for investors yet?

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 2:31:22 PM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933
>
> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.

Okay, so let's assume it's not experimental error or experimenters fooling themselves, and the proposed superconducting version will indeed produce tons of thrust per kilowatt.

Now we can have nuclear-powered spacecraft as large as we want, with as much deltavee as we want,

*with no exhaust plume*.

Granted such a ship will still have to dissipate (some of) the power used to generate that thrust as heat, how will this affect the usual arguments against any forms of stealth in space?

Off the top of my head, a ship can be given a few meters thick coat of ice (insulated from the interior of course) covered in nice dark dust, penetrated by an infrared (or visible FTM) radiator* that can be pointed in an arbitrary direction WRT the thrust vector. That at least allows you to hide your thermal emissions from known enemy ships and static installations.

* and the obligatory sensor and weapon ports.


Mark L. Fergerson

[JRStern]

On Tue, 5 May 2015 14:17:54 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>If we're going to dismiss this guy, lets at least have the integrity
>to critique what he's actually claiming, not what some scientifically
>ignorant journalist wrote. Youtube has a presentation he gave on the
>device.

I feel filthy even clicking on it, but for you anything:

part 1 (14 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGTjy6atKMs

part 2 (15 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmfPNuhy0mc

part 3 (23 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dwC5Am42Q

The first four minutes of part 1 already put me off, he's talking
about everything but how it could possibly work, or what it is he's
done that works. Eight minutes (and counting) looking at the same
cover slide.

"We discovered this space drive 20 years ago, and then it occurred to
me it might be a good idea, ..."

Ten minutes, and we see a 50 micro-newton thrust spinning a 100kg mass
on a turntable in normal air? Doubt it.

Now he's explaining the dynamics of a cone, which he feels he
discovered or invented or something.

Around 13:00
Now babbling about a "Q factor" that makes small things large, which
is not what I get off Google. "Stored energy inside ... obeys
conservation ...". Starting to babble bigtime, this "stored energy" I
suspect is his ZPG equivalent and the "no energy" people have a point.

Part 2, around 3:00
That "1 tonne/kilowatt" takes us right into prime crackpot territory,
I think I can stop wasting my time now. A reasonable tone and the
fine British accent does not preclude crackpotism, not in the least.

>What *does* bother me is that Shawyer spends most of his presentation
>discussing how easy and wonderful space flight will be when we start using
>the second generation ('2G') supercooled EMDrive, which he claims will
>generate a ton of thrust per kW.

Literally?

That would violate conventional physics pretty drastically.

>He has pretty pictures of a proposed spaceplane.
>
>This is way, Way, WAY premature. He should be concentrating on proving to
>the world that the thing works at all; doing the tests, publishing the
>plans, getting people to duplicate the work.
>
>Some of that seems to be happening, but he talks as if its reality is
>already well accepted. It is not. This raises red flags for me.

Oh yeah.

Pure nutball.

I've seen earnest, semi-educated nutballs in real life. Too many of
them. Shawyer may mean well and be entirely earnest, but really the
only remaining discussion is how someone who passed freshman physics
can go so far off the deep end.

J.

[J. Clarke]

In article <mi9fp2$lpg$1...@reader1.panix.com>, nebusj-@-rpi-.edu says...

>
> In <MPG.2fb039c42...@news.eternal-september.org> "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >Difference between what we have and a _real_ space program, in a real
> >space program they'd just send a design up to the space station, the
> >techs on the space station would whip up a model, they'd stick it
> >outside the airlock and turn it on and if it went charging off into the
> >distance pronounce success.
>
> Because it's totally plausible that it would ever be just about
> as cheap to drive the thing that won't work down to the spaceport and
> toss it on the next flight to the space station to test it out and find
> out it doesn't work as it would be to drive it down to the university's
> vacuum chamber and find out it doesn't work there.

You don't "drive it" _anywhere_. You have technicians permanently on
the space station with a well equipped model shop capable of producting
prototypes of just about everything.

[David Johnston]

And where does the space station get all the materials it needs for that
trick?

[JRStern]

On Tue, 05 May 2015 20:38:26 -0600, David Johnston <Da...@block.net>
wrote:

amazon.com

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/news/jeff-bezos-rocket-launch/

J.

[Cryptoengineer]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
news:85lika9jl686vbn7r...@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 5 May 2015 14:17:54 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>If we're going to dismiss this guy, lets at least have the integrity
>>to critique what he's actually claiming, not what some scientifically
>>ignorant journalist wrote. Youtube has a presentation he gave on the
>>device.

> I've seen earnest, semi-educated nutballs in real life. Too many of
> them. Shawyer may mean well and be entirely earnest, but really the
> only remaining discussion is how someone who passed freshman physics
> can go so far off the deep end.

Yeah. After watching his video, I'm leaning much more towards
crackpot/fraud than I was before.

pt

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:05:55 PM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:

> You don't "drive it" _anywhere_. You have technicians permanently on
> the space station with a well equipped model shop capable of producting
> prototypes of just about everything.

I think there he was thinking of the actual ISS, not a hypothetical space station
that would be part of a "real" space station... by certain SF standards.

While I'm sure they have some tools on the ISS, they don't have anything near a
full machine shop up there - which is just as well, given that the whole
station is in microgravity.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

LOL!

John Savard

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Well, since the device is being tested in multiple independent labs, it
doesn't really matter if he's a crackpot or not. His theory may be utter
bunk but if the device continues to show results, then someone ELSE will
come up with a theory that isn't to explain it.

[Scott Lurndal]

All the purported cold fusion devices hadbeen "tested in multiple independent
labs". Most of them neither independent, nor labs. Consider the griggs
device, for example. Got excess heat from a rotating cylinder full of
little holes (claimed to be from microfusion during the collapse of
ultrasonic bubbles). Nonsense, of course.

[pete...@gmail.com]

It certainly was wrong. But not wrong enough to dismiss without checking.
The checking was done, and this claim turned out not to hold water, heavy
or otherwise.

Collapsing bubbles can generate plasma. This is well known. See, for
example:
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v6/n8/abs/nphys1701.html

Doing this in deuterated and tritiated water could conceivably lead
to conditions in which fusion could occur.

Unfortunately, it didn't. But we couldn't know that till we tried.

There's a nice little writeup of the current status of EMDrive here:

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/nasa-warp-drive-yeah-still-poppycock/

Watching Shawyer's presentation did not give me the warm fuzzies; his
non-addressing of fundamental questions (like: Can you prove that this
works at all?), while talking about all the applications EMDrive will
make possible, and showing whizzy pictures of shiny EMDrive spaceships
made him come off sounding like other frauds and crackpots.

I don't recall him asking for funding outright, but the presentation
seemed to be designed as investor bait.

pt

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
news:micpqu$s0g$3...@dont-email.me:

Unless, of course, Big Oil (r or some other corporate consiracy) buys
it up and buries is. :)

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:f801bde6-2010-4645...@googlegroups.com:

> While I'm sure they have some tools on the ISS,

They have a 3D printer now, and according to what I read on the
interwebs, 3D printer can make *anything*, except maybe babies.

[JRStern]

On Wed, 06 May 2015 13:37:34 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

Yeah, I finally gave cold fusion some credence after an "independent
test" at my alma mater was reported positive, but ... no.

Good science is much harder than good crackpottery.

But here's the thing, this is a scifi group, and I find it intriguing
that this isn't a harder audience to convince under the "it takes one
to know one" rule.

There's a reek to crackpottery, though half the job of a good con
artist is finding the mark who is blind to the particulars. But the
other side is true too, there's a "reek" to good, solid science too,
which is utterly missing here.

A tonne of thrust per kilowatt, really?

Just the photo, of a pretty copper cone held in place by rods and wing
nuts, I mean, seriously folks? All he needed was a bicycle seat and a
spinning parasol.

J.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
news:hoekkapm65t4f7clt...@4ax.com:

The motto of Hollywood, I think.

[Scott Lurndal]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> writes:
>On Wed, 06 May 2015 13:37:34 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>wrote:

>>All the purported cold fusion devices hadbeen "tested in multiple independent
>>labs". Most of them neither independent, nor labs. Consider the griggs
>>device, for example. Got excess heat from a rotating cylinder full of
>>little holes (claimed to be from microfusion during the collapse of
>>ultrasonic bubbles). Nonsense, of course.
>
>Yeah, I finally gave cold fusion some credence after an "independent
>test" at my alma mater was reported positive, but ... no.
>
>Good science is much harder than good crackpottery.
>
>But here's the thing, this is a scifi group, and I find it intriguing
>that this isn't a harder audience to convince under the "it takes one
>to know one" rule.

I suspect it is because it's a scifi group, and wishful
thinking applies. Somewhere internally, we want it to be true.

[JRStern]

On Wed, 06 May 2015 17:24:51 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)

I suppose so. Excuse me, the heli-carrier is hovering outside and I
gotta go.

J.

[J. Clarke]

In article <f801bde6-2010-4645...@googlegroups.com>,
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

Yep, because the ISS is part of space theater, not space exploration.

[David DeLaney]

On 2015-05-06, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in

>> While I'm sure they have some tools on the ISS,
>
> They have a 3D printer now, and according to what I read on the
> interwebs, 3D printer can make *anything*, except maybe babies.

But can it shot web?

Dave, shamelessly
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Don Kuenz]

William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <cqi9l7...@mid.individual.net>,
> t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) quoted:

>
>> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
>> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
>> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
>> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
>> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.
>

> Now I'm wondering: what would the properties of a time-like vaccuum be?

The girl wriggled desperately in the straps, relaxed again
with rasping breath. Her eyes fixed themselves on Bryce Field's
merciless visage.

"You, Lucy, shall be the victim of entropy!" he said softly.
"Naturally, you don't know what entropy is, do you?"

"You know I don't!" she shrieked. "Bryce, stop torturing me
like this. Let me go!"

"Entropy," he stated calmly, as though delivering a lecture,
"is the increasing disorder of the universe, the process by
which the universe gradually moves towards thermodynamic
equilibrium. It can be likened to a perpetual shuffling, the
disorder getting worse with every shuffle. Just like disordering
a deck of cards when playing bridge with Reggie and your thin-
brained friends."

"Bryce, Bryce, in God's name-"

"If only you had read Eddington while at school you might
know something about entropy," Bryce Field said. "However, I
have made it as clear as I can. Recently-" His tone changed to
grim menace- "I fell to wondering what would happen if I created
a non-entropy state, wherein nothing ever happened! So I decided
to create a specific area - in this cavern to be exact - wherein
molecular shuffling would achieve sudden and absolute
equilibrium, a space wherein the ultimate of entropy would be
reached instantly, instead of in a thousand, a million, ten
million years' time. Do you understand me?"

Lucy was beyond answering.

"Yes," he said, his voice harsh with grim triumph, "I
discovered how to create an entropy globe - a globe of force
whose walls have attained absolute equilibrium, whose vibrations
extend inwards to everything inside the globe. Therefore, what-
ever is in the globe will by plunged into a state of non-time.
Entropy will be halted. Progress will stop!

"You," he said slowly, "are going to be in that globe, Lucy!
At your feet is one magnet, at your head another. Between them
they will build up the hemisphere of the entropy globe, and
within it time for you will cease to be. You will be plunged
into an eternal 'now' from which release may never come - or,
if it does, it will be at a far distant time when scientists
as clever as I find the way to unlock your prison."

"Prisoner of Time"

--
,-. Give More expect less Love More
\_/ argue less Listen More talk less
{|||)< Don Kuenz Laugh More complain less Dream More
/ \ doubt less Hope More fear less
`-' Breathe More whine less

[Kevrob]

Polton Cross (John Russell Fearn)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Russell_Fearn

That's some mad science!

Kevin R

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:SO6dnUwXVKvgbtfI...@earthlink.com:

> On 2015-05-06, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
> <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
>>> While I'm sure they have some tools on the ISS,
>>
>> They have a 3D printer now, and according to what I read on the
>> interwebs, 3D printer can make *anything*, except maybe babies.
>
> But can it shot web?
>
> Dave, shamelessly

Whiskey shot, maybe.

[Tim McCaffrey]

This drive (and other reactionless drives) was covered by John G. Cramer
in Analog's Alternate View column:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw173.html

- Tim

[Stumpy]

On 05/06/2015 10:59 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:

...

Man, that is some writing.

I wonder why he used "hemisphere" instead of sphere?

[Don Kuenz]

Yes, Fearn's the author. It took me by surprise to discover that more
than one author uses that very title. Perry Rhodan #56 for example. The
setup for the Perry Rhodan story is two time planes in the process of
colliding. It's a collision in time similar to the Arisian/Eddorian
galactic collision in space of Smith's _Triplanetary_.

It turns out that my travel guide to these adventures in time, Nahin's
_Time Machines_, grows more abridged by the day. Many of Fearn's other
time stories are absent from the Nahin bibliography as is "Bob Dylan,
Troy Jonson, and the Speed Queen" by Wilson.

[Don Kuenz]

Only a hemisphere is needed because Bryce straps Lucy to a steel table.
Here's the pertinent preface to that excerpt:

"Who are you to decide my life?" Lucy asked frantically.
Flinging herself forward, she drove her puny fists into his
granite like face. He did not budge an inch, but finally
threw her away from him.

"Mad," she whispered. "Always an egomaniac, and now it
has completely gotten to you! You're insane, Bryce! Insane!"

He was motionless for a moment; then, suddenly putting
aside his weapon, he strode forward, gripped the girl in his
powerful arms and dumped her on the long steel table against
which she had fallen. Before she realized what was happening,
the straps upon it were being buckled into place, across her
throat, her waist, her knees.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, May 9, 2015 at 12:06:02 AM UTC-6, Don Kuenz wrote:

> Only a hemisphere is needed because Bryce straps Lucy to a steel table.

From many pulp SF covers, that was just what I was going to guess.

John Savard

[Stumpy]

On 05/08/2015 11:04 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
> Stumpy <peri...@spamnet.con> wrote:
>> On 05/06/2015 10:59 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
>
>>> "Prisoner of Time"
>>>
>>
>> Man, that is some writing.
>>
>> I wonder why he used "hemisphere" instead of sphere?
>
> Only a hemisphere is needed because Bryce straps Lucy to a steel table.
> Here's the pertinent preface to that excerpt:
>
> "Who are you to decide my life?" Lucy asked frantically.
> Flinging herself forward, she drove her puny fists into his
> granite like face. He did not budge an inch, but finally
> threw her away from him.
>
> "Mad," she whispered. "Always an egomaniac, and now it
> has completely gotten to you! You're insane, Bryce! Insane!"
>
> He was motionless for a moment; then, suddenly putting
> aside his weapon, he strode forward, gripped the girl in his
> powerful arms and dumped her on the long steel table against
> which she had fallen. Before she realized what was happening,
> the straps upon it were being buckled into place, across her
> throat, her waist, her knees.
>

Ha! I guess the stasis field won't go through the steel plate.

[Dimensional Traveler]

But Entropy will.

--
Veni, vidi, snarki.

[Don Kuenz]

Well done Stumpy. That's a brilliant observation.

Let's think this through DT. The first "Prisoner of Time" excerpt
mentions a magnet at Lucy's head and another magnet at her feet. We can
replace time with entropy in Maxwell's Equation because entropy
increases proportionally with time. The steel table shorts
electromagnetic waves, which creates a hemisphere of entropy as Stumpy
said.

###

Nahin's _Time Machines_ continues to grow more abridged with each
passing day. Nahin also neglects to mention Carrington's earlier
timedipper stories.

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 4:31:22 PM UTC-5, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> http://io9.com/new-test-suggests-nasas-impossible-em-drive-will-work-1701188933

>
> Last year, NASA's advanced propulsion research wing made
> headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying
> electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic
> engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic
> speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.

> -

In _The Skylark of Space_, Edward E. Smith's pioneering story of interstellar travel, while chemist Richard Seaton is isolating some rare metal residues, a copper steam bath (a piece of laboratory apparatus) suddenly flies across the room and out the window at tremendous acceleration. Seaton deduces that the kinetic energy involved must have come from the conversion of the mass of the steam bath into pure energy, and he sees the possibility of propelling a space craft by the same effect. This is NOT said to involve any violation of conservation of momentum. Instead, as further research into the phenomenon reveals, quoting from the original magazine version, available from the Gutenberg Project:

Late in the afternoon, upon the day of the explosion, Seaton stepped into Crane's shop with a mass of notes in his hand.

"Well, Mart, I've got it--some of it, at least. The power is just what we figured it, so immensely large as to be beyond belief. I have found:

"First: That it is a practically irresistible pull along the axis of the treated wire or bar. It is apparently focused at infinity, as near-by objects are not affected.

"Second: I have studied two of the border-line regions of current we discussed. I have found that in one the power is liberated as a similar attractive force but is focused upon the first object in line with the axis of the bar. As long as the current is applied it remains focused upon that object, no matter what comes between. In the second border-line condition the power is liberated as a terrific repulsion.

"Third: That the copper is completely transformed into available energy, there being no heat whatever liberated.

I.e., the force is exerted between the mass-energy conversion device and astronomically large amounts of mass, including entire star systems, within range of the force involved, which propagates far faster than the speed of light. This is reaffirmed in the sequel _Skylark Three_, in which it is found that the space drive is unable to function when it is enclosed within the newly invented "zone of force", which is completely impervious to all such "fourth order" forces. This suggests that, following the dictates of Occam's Razor, Edward Smith may have considered that mass-energy conversion and and novel long-range forces were possible in a way that violations of conservation of momentum were not.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[William December Starr]

In article <abfc7caa-512d-44c3...@googlegroups.com>,

peterw...@hotmail.com said:

> In _The Skylark of Space_, Edward E. Smith's pioneering story of
> interstellar travel, while chemist Richard Seaton is isolating
> some rare metal residues, a copper steam bath (a piece of
> laboratory apparatus) suddenly flies across the room and out the
> window at tremendous acceleration. Seaton deduces that

"Holy fuck, if that hits anything I'm going to get my ass sued off."

-- wds

[Greg Goss]

Madcap inventors never seem to get sued. Sliders picked up a random
passer-by with his transdimensional beam. One of Asimov's novels
sends a forties guy to the deep far future with a random beam.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[William December Starr]

In article <ctbjfa...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> said:

> Madcap inventors never seem to get sued. Sliders picked up a
> random passer-by with his transdimensional beam.

Well let's face it, where was he going to find a court with
jurisdiction?

> One of Asimov's novels sends a forties guy to the deep far future
> with a random beam.

PEBBLE IN THE SKY, published in 1950. Whoever wrote the Wikipedia
article on it says that it was Asimov's first novel (as opposed to
fix-ups like FOUNDATION).

-- wds

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

Richard Seaton was a federal employee, working for the U. S. government Rare Metals Laboratory.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Shawn Wilson]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 6:31:50 PM UTC-7, peterw...@hotmail.com wrote:


> > > In _The Skylark of Space_, Edward E. Smith's pioneering story of
> > > interstellar travel, while chemist Richard Seaton is isolating
> > > some rare metal residues, a copper steam bath (a piece of
> > > laboratory apparatus) suddenly flies across the room and out the
> > > window at tremendous acceleration. Seaton deduces that
> >
> > "Holy fuck, if that hits anything I'm going to get my ass sued off."
> >
>
> Richard Seaton was a federal employee, working for the U. S. government Rare Metals Laboratory.

It always bothered me that he flatly embezzled from the government. His JOB was to tell the government what he had found. Not keep it a secret from them so they would condemn as worthless and sell off the X Metal.

[William December Starr]

In article <f9cd522d-35c6-4d28...@googlegroups.com>,
peterw...@hotmail.com said:

> William December Starr wrote:
> peterw...@hotmail.com said:
>
>>> In _The Skylark of Space_, Edward E. Smith's pioneering story of
>>> interstellar travel, while chemist Richard Seaton is isolating
>>> some rare metal residues, a copper steam bath (a piece of
>>> laboratory apparatus) suddenly flies across the room and out the
>>> window at tremendous acceleration. Seaton deduces that
>>
>> "Holy fuck, if that hits anything I'm going to get my ass sued off."
>
> Richard Seaton was a federal employee, working for the
> U. S. government Rare Metals Laboratory.

Wouldn't that mean then that the government owned anything he invented
or discovered there?

-- wds