well, this could be huge...

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well, this could be huge...

Postby anotherdrew » Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:31 am

If this is real, and it seems more possible than any other such thing I've ever seen, this could be amazing, if some people have been keeping this sort of thing secret the cat is about to get out of the bag. This was covered in the last Fortean Times btw.<br><br>www.emdrive.com<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>A force for space with no reaction<br><br> Tom Shelley reports on an extraordinary concept which, if it turns out to be as good as it promises, could have a profound impact on engineering<br><br><br> A reactionless force motor, designed for space use, has the potential to drive objects on until they reach speeds close to that of light. Upon first inspection it looks as if it cannot possibly work, however one of the UK's leading engineers has developed a prototype which has been endorsed by academics and government alike. Defying conventional wisdom, it is low cost, is said to obey the laws of physics (as they are currently understood) and, in the longer term, could revolutionise transport and actuation. The Emdrive is the brainchild of Roger Shawyer who, in the past, has had charge of some of Britains most advanced aerospace projects. The germ of the present idea, he says, started when he worked at Sperry Gyroscope and was asked to look for a reactionless system for missile guidance. Many of you may, at this point, throw up your hands and say that a reactionless system is not possible while citing Newton's Third Law. However while photons obey Newton's Laws in some respects, the idea of the solar sail being a typical example, in other respects, light and objects travelling at or near light speed do not obey them. (Some people say that gyroscopes disobey the Third law - perhaps readers would like to comment). In essence, the Emdrive is a resonating bottle full of microwaves. Because microwaves are a low frequency form of light, their behaviour is governed by Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. And while microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation may be thought of as very fast moving particles, they also have to be thought of as waves. At the same time that the constituent particles are moving at light speed, or their phase velocity, energy is transferred by the wave aspect travelling at group velocity. Group velocity is the result of waves of different wavelengths interacting with each other. According to Einstein, the phase velocity of electromagnetic waves is the speed of light in the appropriate medium whatever happens and in whatever moving frame of reference the observer happens to be; group velocity, however, varies. Group velocity can be any speed from stationary to light speed (with a few physicists suggesting the additional possibility of faster than light). This varies the level of momentum imparted when striking an impenetrable barrier, and thus the force exerted on it. Hence, it is possible to have a bottle full of electromagnetic waves exerting more force on one end than the other, whereas this is not possible for anything else that an engineer would normally be expected to encounter. In the case of the prototype unit, the closed resonating cavity is wider at one end than the other. Mathematical analysis shows that group velocity is higher at the wide end than the narrow end and, as a consequence, there is a net force exerted on the wider end. Furthermore, the net force exerted is proportional to Q (Q being the effectiveness that the cavity shows as a resonator). Most academics have blanched at the very idea of getting involved in such a controversial idea. One, however, Dr Richard Paris, a reader in mathematics at the University of Abertay in Dundee, has endorsed the calculations. While the theoretical analyses may still be wrong, there is no denying that the prototype device appears to behave as predicted. A curiosity of the constructed prototype is that when switched on, it takes some seconds to build up to full thrust. At first Shawyer suspected that the apparent thrust might be due to some buoyancy effect arising from heat generated within the EMC enclosure. Careful modelling and analysis, however, shows that the effect arises purely from the time constants of the pulsed output of the microwave source and the way these interact with the time constant of the balance system used to measure the forces developed. The device uses a resonator made of copper, filled with microwaves from a commercial magnetron running at 2.5GHz, delivering 850W at an efficiency of around 70%. Enclosed in an EMC enclosure for safety reasons, the total weight of the box of apparatus is 15kg. When the box is placed upon a balance one way up and is switched on, it exerts a downward force of 15kgf + 2gf and, when placed the other way up, it exerts a force of 15kgf - 2gf (the force motor and microwave generator weigh only 9.4kg, the remaining weight is that of the EMC enclosure). A force of 2gf, or about 0.02N, may not sound much, but on a spacecraft, it is dramatic, because it can be constantly applied for hours, days, weeks, months or years. A three tonne satellite typically carries 1.7 tonnes of propellant. If it did not need to do this, its weight would be halved, and so would the launching cost of each satellite, currently a minimum of £80 million (Russian launcher). It would also greatly increase the working life of satellites, since this is presently ended when they run short of propellant, and are no longer able to keep themselves in their correct orbit. The end result would be the increased economic viability of satellite communication and navigation systems, especially those that presently have marginal economics, tipping the balance between fibre optic ground-based systems and space-based systems. Wrist-mounted communication systems and PDAs which would never lose signal, unless underground, would be the most immediate result noted by the 'man in the street'. Even on the basis of present satellite launch programmes, projected cost savings of £15.5 billion over the next 10 years earned the idea a DTI SMART Award in August 2001, and they are encouraging the raising of serious money for the next stage in development. Assuming that the measured effects are as real as they appear to be, and that the theoretical analyses are correct, it is possible to speculate where the technology might go after this. In space, it would reduce the journey time to Mars from nine months to three, rendering feasible the proposed NASA/ESA manned mission to Mars program, presently a pipe dream because of cost. On the ground, it may be possible to make the engine much more powerful, even powerful enough to provide lift against the force of gravity. We have been asked not to say how this might be done, but we can reveal that it involves a drastic improvement in the 'Q' factor, which can be made possible using present day technology, but one which would require a fair amount of expenditure to develop. Shawyer insists that such an engine would not be an anti gravity machine, which it may or may not be possible to construct, but would certainly behave like one. One of the curiosities of the idea is that as the size goes down, the working frequency goes up. Hence, it may one day be possible to make very small force motors working on the same principle, but powered by light. These would be more compatible with very small scale robotics than trying to build very small mechanical actuators.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: well, this could be huge...

Postby marykmusic » Wed Oct 26, 2005 11:14 am

Is it for real? Electromagnetic energy and how it works is not really well-understood.<br><br>Anything to stop depending on oil, at this point, is interesting. --MaryK <p></p><i></i>
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Re: well, this could be huge...

Postby anotherdrew » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:09 pm

well, this could help with getting us off fosil fuels to some extent, but it needs electricity to work. It sure would make space travel faster and simpler tho.<br><br>It's so easy to write this off as yet another flase hope, but aparently the Bristish government which has funded most of the research and the prototype's contruction think it's real.<br><br>"The team claims to have undergone seven independent reviews from experts at BAE Systems, EADS Astrium, Siemens and the IEE. The DTI has awarded the company £125,000 to develop a prototype engine as part of a three-year, £250,000 programme."<br><br>this bit: "...it may be possible to make the engine much more powerful, even powerful enough to provide lift against the force of gravity. We have been asked not to say how this might be done, but we can reveal that it involves a drastic improvement in the 'Q' factor, which can be made possible using present day technology..."<br><br>Basicly they're saying they've invented a UFO engine. Just keep electricity running to it, and you've got thrust. It's very scale-able too, so it can go from tiny little thrusters providing hundredths of a G accelerations to larger ones able to generate in excess of 1 G acceleration. This will mean very fast trip times to the moon for instance. This could be as or more significant an advance as going from the steam engine to the internal combustion engine.<br><br>Some people suspect we already have such technology and are keeping it secret. In fact that we have an off-planet navy already. There was a british hacker arrested recently who broke into lots of US military computers, doesn't remember much and didn't take notes, claims he was 'too stoned' (or he's being told to forget most of the details if he wants to live). He was specificly looking for UFO related info. One thing he found was a list of what were refered to as "non-terestrial" officer transfers involving ship names not known to be in the wet-navy. So who knows... <p></p><i></i>
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This WILL be huge...

Postby robertdreed » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:32 pm

if I don't miss my guess. It looks like a safe bet:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...In the last few years, LEDs (short for light emitting diodes) have begun replacing incandescent and fluorescent lights in a number of niche applications. Although these solid-state lights have been used for decades in consumer electronics, recent technological advances have allowed them to spread into areas like architectural lighting, traffic lights, flashlights and reading lights. Although they are considerably more expensive than ordinary lights, they are capable of producing about twice as much light per watt as incandescent bulbs; they last up to 50,000 hours or 50 times as long as a 60-watt bulb; and, they are very tough and hard to break. Because they are made in a fashion similar to computer chips, the cost of LEDs has been dropping steadily. The Department of Energy has estimated that LED lighting could reduce U.S. energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025, saving the nation’s households about $125 million in the process...</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=2477">nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=2477</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051021123902.htm">www.sciencedaily.com/rele...123902.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.physorg.com/news4538.html">www.physorg.com/news4538.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: This WILL be huge...

Postby anotherdrew » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:09 pm

yeah, LEDs are very cool. In the market already: 'tune-able' lights made from LEDs that can be made to glow in any color of the rainbow. Tired of white? Switch to a slightly blue light, etc. Very cool stuff. Still expensive but the price is dropping. one interesting feature of LEDs: they have two 'sides' one side emits light, the other side, get cooler. You can actually get CPU cooling systems based on LEDs, with the 'cold side' sitting on the heat sink.<br><br>Tech advances always cheer me up when all else is looking like shit.<br><br>Quantum dots, reactionless drives, electronic paper. The future is here at last, if and when industry actually starts rolling the stuff out to us. <p></p><i></i>
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Utopia or Oblivion!

Postby robertdreed » Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:57 am

"Ephemeralization of technology", Bucky Fuller called it. <br><br>Imagine if microchip ICs had never been invented, the sheet raw material needed to make a Pentium. As for cell-phones, maybe we'd have them, but we'd all be wearing 40 lb. backpacks.<br><br>Instead- why, they're givin' 'em away! It takes about as much raw natural resources to make a cell-phone as if does to make a carton of ball-point pens. <br><br>The nanotechnology thing is finally paying off. I think the LED advances are the first application I've seen that represents a quantum evolutionary leap for generally available consumer products. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Utopia or Oblivion!

Postby anotherdrew » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:31 am

yep. we are playing some high stakes poker here on earth these days, best game in the galaxie at the moment, maybe that's why so many visitors stop in for a look 'round, all kinds of visitors: from outside, inside and unside.<br><br>ah well, even if it's oblivion, we'll always get to play again (I think). <p></p><i></i>
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I'll make you a bet, drew:

Postby glubglubglub » Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:07 am

if this propulsion device works the Biefield-Brown effect is also legitimate, and functions off of a similar principle -- exploiting differences in phase velocity between two areas of a local em field. <p></p><i></i>
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Metal?

Postby Connut » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:07 am

And then there's this - <br><br>Metal: The fuel of the future<br>22 October 2005 <br>Kurt Kleiner <br>Magazine issue 2522 <br>The clean, green car of the future will cruise the highway on a tankful of powdered metal - welcome to the new Iron Age<br>IF smog-choked streets test our love for petrol and diesel engines, then rocketing fuel prices and global warming could end that relationship once and for all. But before you start saving for the fuel-cell-powered electric car that industry experts keep promising, there's something you should know. The car of the future will run on metal. <br><br>So reckons Dave Beach, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, who has come up with a plan to transform the way we fuel our engines. Chunks of metal such as iron, aluminium or boron are the thing, he believes. Turn them into powder with grains just nanometres across and the stuff becomes highly reactive. Ignite it, and it releases copious quantities of energy. With a modified engine and a tankful of metal, Beach calculates that an average saloon car could travel three times as far as the equivalent petrol-powered vehicle. Better still, ...<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18825221.100.html">www.newscientist.com/arti...1.100.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
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that metal engine is awful

Postby glubglubglub » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:34 am

the environmental costs of refining, say, 50-100 ls. of aluminum per 'tank' of water far outweighs the costs of just driving a regular gas-burning automobile. Sure the water/metal car produces less output at the driving stage, but the net environmental effect of fuel production is actually worse than that for conventional cars. <p></p><i></i>
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Biefeld-Brown effect

Postby anotherdrew » Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:49 pm

glubglubglub, <br>There may be a similar thing going on in the B-B effect. perhaps the ionic wind between the two electrodes can function as a weak (or low-Q) wave guide for some electromagnetic radiation emitted by the 'big electrode'. I don't think anyone's looked into that, plus it would seem to produce a much weaker thrust than the ionic wind effect.<br><br>I'm fairly convinced that B-B effect doesn't work in a vacuum and the "lifter" thrust only comes from the ionic 'wind'<br>There seems to be some holding onto the idea that there may be more going on in the B-B effect than (just) the ionic wind, but I'm not aware of anyone showing that it DOES work in a vacuum.<br><br>hmmm... is near vacuum a good insulator?<br><br>cheers <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :D --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biefeld-Brown_effect">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bie...own_effect</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHD_thruster">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EHD_thruster</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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yeah, I think Brown claimed his stuff worked in a vacuum

Postby glubglubglub » Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:25 pm

but I also have never seen any credible experiments demonstrating the point; the 'lifters' are only vaguely related, and not really operating on the same 'principle' as the B-B stuff -- asymmetric capacitor plates -- but the lifters clearly only work in a vacuum. That JN Audin fellow claims to have made a lifter work in a near vacuum, but I was extremely unimpressed with the experimental setup and his overall rigorousness. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: yeah, I think Brown claimed his stuff worked in a vacuum

Postby anotherdrew » Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:36 am

"but the lifters clearly only work in a vacuum"<br>I've seen video of lifters working in people's backyards, for sure they work in air. We may be talking about two different things tho... here's the site... <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm">jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Oddly enough, JL Naudin died in 2001, sortly after his lifter videos gained wide-spread attention on the net. Anyway, it says he's dead. Kinda like Eugene Mallove who was murdered in 2004. The coincidence theorists can have a field day with this I supose, but maybe... maybe "distruptive technologies" is still a dangerous business. (disruptive of the status quo that is). <p></p><i></i>
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whoa

Postby glubglubglub » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:41 am

that was my mistake -- I meant to say the lifters only work when NOT in a vacuum. I had no clue Naudin died. <p></p><i></i>
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