I had a bit of an epiphany recently while explaining the weightlessness of free fall to my son - a way to see it using horizons. The insight that Einstein had in 1907 that a falling man would not feel his own weight was apparently the happiest thought of his life, and although I admire Einstein, I've always been wary about this evidence-less thought. It is almost as if Einstein was trying to convince himself. The insight proved to him that inertial mass (the resistance to acceleration) was equivalent to the gravitational mass (the attraction to other matter) and so they cancelled out. Lovely and symmetrical, but 100% true?
This is called the equivalence principle and it has been tested many times by experiments that are far more accurate versions of Galileo's dropping of two heavy balls from the tower of Pisa (I often had the amusing thought that he was aiming for one of his many critics). The balls hit the ground at the same time, thus proving the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass. Or does it?
There is a loop hole. The change of inertial mass in quantised inertia is such that the effect is independent of the mass. The acceleration changes to: a = GM/r^2 + 2c^2/Theta. This has a constant second term, which means that both balls would still fall together, but a little faster. This means the experiments done so far (based on the two balls) will be blind to QI. They need to look at speed of fall instead.
The epiphany I had was imagining the spacecraft we were watching on screen (in Independence Day), and getting rid of all fields and only thinking of horizons. As the craft accelerates towards Earth there is a single Rindler horizon above it which damps the Unruh radiation above it pulling it up (inertia), and many little horizons caused by atoms/matter in the Earth below it damping the fields there and pulling it down (gravity). Whereas in general relativity the path of the craft is along an abstract vector in space-time (a thing that can never be tested for directly), in QI the balance is caused by horizons and their damping of the Unruh field, something that can be tested for (Unruh radiation has now been detected, see reference).
Modern theoretical physics disdains the idea of testability, but I do not, and it has been found that the best theories are always the testable ones, almost as if the cosmos gives us a reward for sticking our necks out. "Well, the Lord hates a coward." - Jim Malone.
References
Lynch et al., 2021. Experimental Observation of Acceleration-Induced Thermality. Phys. Rev. D 104, 025015. https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.00043
16 comments:
So if you took 2 identical pendulums, and had them swing next to each other, like friends on a swing set, they would both swing slightly slower that each alone?
Interesting experiment.
Hi Mike: Nice to see you on your blog again. JWST data is nicely separating inertia-QI from momentum-(equivelance principle) inertia. Inertia is now free to be defined as (a local quantum field theory) that equals QI and has nothing to do with spacetime-curvature-gravity. But I still use flat space U(1)-gravity for QI with potential energy, SU(2)-pre-gravity with Lorentz bosons for laser experiments, and SU(3)-gravity for QI inside the atomic nucleus. In these cases inertia is a QI-gauge-field. George (half-Newton) Soli
Fascinating.
Hi Mike, I quote you: "many small horizons caused by atoms/matter in the earth below damping the fields there and pulling the spacecraft down". So it seems that you want to explain gravity by a mechanism involving Rindler horizons, similar to the one that accounts for inertia. But instead of pulling the spacecraft down, don't the Rindler horizons associated with each atom of matter on the Earth, seen as accelerating by an observer on board the spacecraft (I know the weakness of this analysis is that this observer is himself accelerating), rather have the effect of pushing the corresponding atoms towards the spacecraft?
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 9 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare which should logically include the IVO Quantized Inertia propulsion device)
Sat 11, Nov 2023 01:47:PM
Space Launch Complex 4E
Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
Mission Details
Transporter 9 mission is a dedicated rideshare flight to a sun-synchronous orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers.
But the strange thing is that there is no communication at all of IVO Ltd on this important event !! So for me, it is not at all evident that this is the launch we all wait for !!!
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 9 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare) : GO FOR LAUNCH IS GIVEN
Sat 11, Nov 2023 01:49:PM
Space Launch Complex 4E
Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
https://spacenews.com/startup-rogue-space-launches-its-first-demonstration-mission/
from the email today, the QI drive won't be turned on for a month while they do other experiments and carefully track the orbit, then they plan to turn it on for a month.
Hopefully it won't take long to show results (and hopefully the satellite is not tumbling, which would make results harder to identify)
David Lang
Mike - where are the Rindler horizons for a photon? In front of it, all information should arrive up to the Hubble horizon, but behind it no information can arrive because it is travelling at the speed of light. Does this produce a force on the photon that (because it can't slow down) takes energy out and thus redshifts it? Maybe a reason for the "tired light" idea, and removes the need for an expanding universe too. Yep, the Hubble horizon is expanding, but maybe into space that's already there and already maybe has galaxies in it.
Just an odd thought that might be interesting.
@Simon Derricutt
The idea of a Rindler horizon for a photon is somewhat paradoxical. A Rindler horizon is a concept that applies to accelerated observers, but a photon cannot be an accelerated observer in the same way as a massive object, because it always travels at a constant speed. Furthermore, in general relativity, a photon follows what is called a null geodesic, meaning that it moves along a path determined only by the curvature of space-time, without any real acceleration.
In summary, while the concept of a Rindler horizon is an important tool in the study of relativity and gravitation, it is not directly applicable to photons due to their unique properties and their constant adherence to the speed of light.
Alexandre - even an un-accelerated object will have a Rindler horizon, which will for mass be the Hubble horizon. Accelerate it, and you get an imbalance in the distance to the horizons, and though the Hubble horizon remains the same the distance to the horizon behind the object gets closer. The imbalance in the distance to the horizon is part of the reason for the inertial effect, with the temperature of the Unruh bath being the other.
Thus the reason for the question. A photon has momentum, thus presumably inertia, and thus will also have Rindler horizons. The lack of acceleration means that the distance to the Rindler horizons won't be changed, and the temperature of the Unruh radiation won't change, but where, exactly, are they, and what effect does this have? Also note that when encountering a different refractive index the velocity does indeed change.
When we use a laser (or maybe sunshine) to accelerate a light-sail, the reflected photons have a lower frequency. Some of the photon energy goes into accelerating the light-sail. Thus photons are different from normal mass in that we can take energy (and momentum) out and the photon still exists, but at a lower frequency.
Thus maybe not useful to dismiss the proposition that Rindler horizons may also exist for photons without going a bit deeper.
In the context of special relativity, the appearance of a Rindler horizon is indeed related to the presence of acceleration, not just the presence of momentum. A Rindler horizon is a feature of spacetime for an observer undergoing uniform acceleration. For such an observer, the Rindler horizon represents a boundary beyond which events cannot be observed or affect the observer due to its acceleration.
The cosmological horizon, also known as the cosmic event horizon, is the maximum limit of the universe that can be observed from a given point in space at a given time. It is determined by the distance that light has travelled from the Big Bang to the present day.
The presence of the observer's momentum would not significantly affect the cosmological horizon. This is because the cosmological horizon is determined by the overall structure of the universe and the speed of light, not by the local motion of an observer. Even an observer moving at relativistic speeds relative to other reference frames would not see his cosmological horizon change significantly, because the speed of light remains constant in all reference frames.
I've followed your blog for 6 years or so. I'm an engineer and manager, or rather I was before retiring. Although I can't follow the maths you use, I often get the general idea and I want to thank you for making your explanations so easy to follow (as opposed to pages of dense math some post on other blogs).
I was very excited a few days ago when I learned of the IVO group and how much success they've had in testing the Quantum Drive. I visited their site and found a Reddit conversation about all of it. Now I'm trying to wrap my head around a comment made by some of the people I've been reading about and conversing with. Specifically, there's an argument that such a drive would violate Newton's 2nd law of motion. This killjoy is from Universetoday.com:
“My take on the IVO Quantum Drive is the same as the EM drive, the Woodward Mach effect thruster, or any other device that claims to take a power input and generate thrust output, with no other interactions with a reaction mass or some other mass to push against. It is trivial to show such a device can be converted into a perpetual motion machine of the first kind. That is, a machine that just generates power from a black box, with no other interactions.”
"In response, Mansell has stated that the Quantum Drive is not a reactionless system and is not comparable to the EM Drive. “The Theory of Quantised Inertia provides for some unique ways to move spacecraft without fuel and without violating Newton’s laws of motion,” he said. “The Quantum Drive uses electricity and our patent pending configuration to move spacecraft. This configuration has been tested as much as it can on Earth’s surface. The next and definitive test will be in LEO.”
Ok, but that seems to contradict what you were saying, Mike, so I went back through your blog posts and see that, although you mention that you were working on an emdrive when "Engineer Bown" came to you after reading your work on QI. At that point the results became better and better, DARPA noticed and I gather, introduced you to Mansell at IVO. THen it seems that both groups - yours in Plymoth and IVO in the US - began rounds of innovation, improvements and testing.
What IVO sent to space was still based on your QI, but how can it be anything but "reactionless" as Mansell claims? My only guess is that it's somewhat similar to the gravity boosts that allow spacecraft to "interact with" planets (or our sun) to propel them to greater velocities. Thanks for any insights you can send my way.
Thanks again!
Jerry Shaw
Going back through it all again, I've come to a few conclusions that have helped me refute the "perpetual motion machine" charge. Please let me know if any are wrong:
1. The Universetoday.com article quotes: "Andrew Higgins, a professor of mechanical engineering at McGill University and the leader of the Interstellar Flight Experimental Research Group. In 2018, Higgins published a paper titled “Reconciling a Reactionless Propulsive Drive with the First Law of Thermodynamics,” where he demonstrated that an electromagnetic drive that does not use propellant was not physically sound."
2. Higgins and his paper could be wrong or incomplete. Other sources that I've found state very clearly that the concept of "reactionless drives" is allowed by the currently accepted laws of physics although it remains unproven.
3. Mansell w
2. The recent innovations and improvements briefly mentioned in both your blog and a quote from Mansell in the Universe Today article, were significant and greatly improved its efficiency. This would explain Mansell's comment that their Quantum Drive"...is not comparable to the EM Drive."
3. Mansell may have gone a bit too far by saying that IVO's Quantum Quantum Drive "is not a reactionless system". Understandable, given the knee-jerk reaction nay-sayers seem to be applying when deciding not to publish your (Mike's) papers.
4. However, I can understand that the EM Drive concept and implementations might've been much, much less efficient than the "Quantum Drive".
If all of these points are correct, then I'm back to understanding - roughly - what's what and there's no need to respond.
Jerry Shaw
Going back through it all again, I've come to a few conclusions that have helped me refute the "perpetual motion machine" charge. Please let me know if any are wrong:
1. The Universetoday.com article quotes: "Andrew Higgins, a professor of mechanical engineering at McGill University and the leader of the Interstellar Flight Experimental Research Group. In 2018, Higgins published a paper titled “Reconciling a Reactionless Propulsive Drive with the First Law of Thermodynamics,” where he demonstrated that an electromagnetic drive that does not use propellant was not physically sound."
2. Higgins and his paper could be wrong or incomplete. Other sources that I've found state very clearly that the concept of "reactionless drives" is allowed by the currently accepted laws of physics although it remains unproven.
3. The recent innovations and improvements briefly mentioned in both your blog and a quote from Mansell in the Universe Today article, were significant and greatly improved its efficiency. This would explain Mansell's comment that their Quantum Drive"...is not comparable to the EM Drive."
3. Mansell may have gone a bit too far by saying that IVO's Quantum Quantum Drive "is not a reactionless system". Understandable, given the knee-jerk reaction nay-sayers seem to be applying when deciding not to publish your (Mike's) papers.
4. However, I can understand that the EM Drive concept and implementations might've been much, much less efficient than the "Quantum Drive".
If all of these points are correct, then I'm back to understanding - roughly - what's what and there's no need to respond.
Jerry Shaw
Jerry Shaw - warning of heresy following....
Newton saw that momentum was conserved in the collisions he measured, and generalised it to always being conserved. However, he didn't know that objects do not actually touch when they collide, but that the force is transmitted through a field (normally electromagnetic field). The propagation speed of that field is limited to the speed of light, and so there is a time-delay that depends on the distance between the two objects. This makes no practical difference if the field strength is constant, as it is when objects collide, but if the field is varying then the force times time put into field is different than the force times time you get out at the same time some distance away. Then we do have a difference, and in this case momentum is not conserved.
It is said that the EM field can carry momentum, and that this makes up for the "lost" momentum in the system. However, the dimensions of the field do not allow it to carry momentum (force times time) but only force. This assertion that fields carry momentum is in fact wrong, and a hand-wave to make the calculations work out and conserve momentum. You can point to a photon carrying momentum, but a photon has a measurable time dimension that is constant and thus the force it applies will naturally act for a set time and deliver a set momentum transfer.
Net here is that we have a situation in classical physics where momentum is not a fundamentally conserved quantity when you use a varying field to transmit it. Normally, of course, it is conserved, but not absolutely. As Mike has shown, QI gives a way to produce a force without a reaction, though it's actually debatable as to whether this is a real force or just that we measure it as one, and that in turn leads us to ask what a force actually is and what it does.
A thought-experiment, where you have a couple of current-loops driven by AC where they are spaced 1/4 wavelength apart and driven by waves with 90° phase difference gives you the situation where one sees an attraction towards the other, the other sees a repulsion from the first. Again, classical textbook physics, but the assembly of two coils will see a reactionless net force one way.
Given that, it is obviously possible to produce a reactionless force classically, and for this system to violate both Conservation of Momentum and Conservation of Energy. Using QI, however, you get a lot more thrust per watt, and it looks possible to increase that a lot over the IVO drive. Not only does this give a space drive that doesn't run out of reaction mass and can thus get to the stars, but it also means we can generate energy without needing fuel. However, so far no-one has run that energy-generation test - too heretical, I think. Still, it's obviously possible and even using IVO's drive you could easily generate 2W out per drive that only needs 1 watt to run it. Once it's been further developed, we can probably get into the kW region or higher power generated from *nothing*.
I've been pointing this out for a few years now, and just how big an effect Mike's theory will have. Of course, it's big leap to say that some of the fundamentals of physics are in fact wrong, but the experimental results should prove that to be so.
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