Sorry for the gap in blog entries, but I have been traveling a lot, explaining to groups in Germany, exotic Hampshire, and the US, how quantised inertia predicts thrust. As you may know, I now have significant funding to do tests, and will report on these as openly as I can - this is important to me since I value feedback and comments and they help to progress the work.
So how does quantised inertia predict thrust? My explanation of this is becoming more streamlined as time goes on, so here is the latest (see, for background, McCulloch, 2016). QI says that all masses move because of the quantum 'jitter' that can be made anisotropic by horizons (barriers to information). The bold assumption in QI is that horizons are real and are able to reduce the 'dx' in the uncertainty principle, so that dp increases in that direction and the quantum jitter moves the object horizon-ward (see here). These horizons can be either relativistic, or solid conductors (as in the Casimir effect). If the quantum vacuum is more intense, you get more push. The quantum vacuum becomes more intense for accelerated objects because of the enhancement due to Unruh radiation. So the QI recipe for launch, so far, looks like this:
Step 1: Make something that accelerates very fast so that the quantum (Unruh) waves intensify and also shorten so much that they are short enough to interact with a metal structure. For example, to interact with a structure of size 1m, the acceleration of the core has to be about 10^18 m/s^2. This accelerating core could be a spinning object, resonating microwaves (as for the emdrive, which QI predicts) or a hyper-vibrating piezoelectric (as in the Woodward devices, which QI also predicts).
Step 2: Damp the Unruh waves on one side of the core more than the other. If the acceleration of the core (circle) is big enough, this can be done by putting a thicker conductor, say, above it (see the left schematic), or having an asymmetric cavity (see middle) or a patterned structure whose mesh size is bigger in one direction than another (see the figure on the right). All these structures would damp Unruh radiation (orange) more above the core (darker shade) moving them up.
Step 3: Watch the core accelerate towards the more shielded side. Be patient because at the present level of technical development (thrusts of about 1 microN) it would take 11.6 days for it to accelerate to 1 m/s (for a 10 kg setup), but now QI gives us hopefully an understanding of what is going on, it suggests ways to boost this force, and launch should one day be possible. It costs $62M to launch a SpaceX Falcon 9. At the moment, given the funding budget I've just had to submit, I'd estimate a potential factor of 100 reduction in cost for the kind of thruster QI should allow.
References
McCulloch, M.E., 2016. Quantised inertia from relativity and the uncertainty principle. EPL, 115, 69001, https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.06787
5 comments:
Hi Mike,
I might like to mention here as I have done elsewhere, that ion engines that are being tested at the moment have accelerated ions and electrons and have the advantage of infrastructure in terms of the parts that they use to engineer test engines. This would make them ideal to test in different configurations that accelerate the ions back in a loop rather than exhaust them.
Also the Shawyer 2 resonant cavity EmDrive appears to have the highest tested thrust yet. Is it possible to repeat and build on that one?
Mike - in your travels you may not have had the time to study the paper I sent you, or you may have regarded it as too crazy (and not worth the time looking at) because of the UFO connections. However, the unified field theory also depends on the quantum jitter, but applies that also to the EM wave and thus the speed of light itself. Applying your Hubble limit to that would seem to produce the reasons that QI works, too, though I don't have the skill in this level maths to even attempt to show that. Still, having first seen that QI explained a lot, Alzofon's ideas made more sense whereas I probably wouldn't have seen the point without QI as a basis.
If you follow the logic of how Newton derived Conservation of Momentum, and then realise that for EM interactions the action and reaction are not necessarily equal because light has a limited velocity, then it follow that momentum is not actually a conserved quantity. This possible violation of Newton's 3rd Law has been known for a long time, but the unbalanced force/time practically available has been generally too small to be useful.
Though there are objections to the various reactionless drives because they violate CoM, the objections are invalid on theoretical grounds anyway - it's easy to violate CoM by a minute amount, but it's harder to get a decent amount of thrust.
Main problem seems to be achieving that 1E+18m/s² acceleration for solid bodies, so it seems you'll need to use plasma or other particles rather than solids.
Best of luck with the experiments! I hope you find the sneaky way to achieve the necessary conditions without needing too much power. As far as I can see, the force produced is independent of the energy expended, and in fact all the energy expended ends up as heat/losses and none goes into producing the force itself. That likely means you'll get maximum efficiency if you can get hold of superconductors.
I am wondering now if the EM Drive uses the Dirac Sea and the "mirror" is the Brewster angle.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111118133050.htm
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10561
"What happens during the experiment is that the "mirror" transfers some of its kinetic energy to virtual photons, which helps them to materialise. According to quantum mechanics, there are many different types of virtual particles in vacuum, as mentioned earlier. Göran Johansson, Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics, explains that the reason why photons appear in the experiment is that they lack mass."
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/scientists-receive-13-million-to-study-new-propulsion-idea-for-spacecraft
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Scientists receive $1.3 million to study new propulsion idea for spacecraft
Dr Mike McCulloch hopes the grant will enable him to convert his theory of quantised inertia (QI) into reality
Mr Alan Williams
Media & Communications Officer
17 September 2018
Spacecraft and satellites could in future be launched into space without the need for fuel, thanks to a revolutionary new theory.
Dr Mike McCulloch, from the University of Plymouth, first put forward the idea of quantised inertia (QI) – through which he believes light can be converted into thrust – in 2007.
He has now received $1.3million from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a four-year study which aims to make the concept a reality.
The QI theory predicts that objects can be pushed by differences in the intensity of so-called Unruh radiation in space, similar to the way in which a ship can be pushed towards a dock because there are more waves hitting it from the seaward side.
The theory has already predicted galaxy rotation without dark matter, and the fact that if a system is accelerated enough – such as a spinning disc or light bouncing between mirrors – the Unruh waves it sees can be influenced by a shield. Therefore, if a damper is placed above the object, it should produce a new kind of upwards thrust.
Chemical rockets are very expensive because of the explosive propellant they need, so this new kind of thruster would be much cheaper and safer as it would only need a source of electrical power to accelerate the core of a thruster.
Dr McCulloch, Lecturer in Geomatics at the University, believes the study could benefit all forms of propulsion and transport, with a potentially transformative impact on space launch systems, aircraft and cars. He said:
“I believe QI could be a real game changer for space science. I have always thought it could be used to convert light into thrust, but it also suggests ways to enhance that thrust. It is hugely exciting to now have the opportunity to test it.”
The research is being funded through DARPA’s Nascent Light-Matter Interactions (NLM) programme, which aims to improve the fundamental understanding of how to control the interaction of light and engineered materials.
It will see Dr McCulloch collaborating with experimental scientists from the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany, and the University of Alcala in Spain.
Over the first 18 months, the Plymouth team will seek to develop a fully predictive theoretical model of how matter interacts with light (Unruh radiation) using the quantised inertia model. This will provide a new predictive tool for light-matter interactions.
A series of experiments will then be conducted in Germany and Spain to test whether the thrust is specifically due to quantised inertia, and whether it can be enhanced significantly.
“Ultimately, what this could mean is you would need no propellant to launch a satellite,” Dr McCulloch added. “But it would also mean you only need a source of electrical power, for example solar power, to move any craft once it is in space. It has the potential to make interplanetary travel much easier, and interstellar travel possible.”
Hi Mike
The following paper by A. C. Melissinos shows how to scatter Unruh radiation onto the mass shell thus removing it from interaction with the accelerated mass thus producing field acceleration. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.02189 The paper uses and calculates real numbers making it useful from an engineering point of view.
Thank You
George Soli
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