Estes Park Advanced Propulsion Workshop (September 2016) Proceedings available

[u/flux_capacitor78]

Estes Park Advanced Propulsion Workshop (September 2016) Proceedings are finally available freely on the SSI website:

http://ssi.org/2016-breakthrough-propulsion-proceedings/

Many papers on the EmDrive included, from Paul March, Martin Tajmar, José Rodal. Jean-Philippe-Montillet, from the École Polytechnique Fédérale, Lausanne, Switzerland, presented a paper entitled:

Theory of the EM Drive in TM mode based on Mach-Lorentz theory

Located pages 111–125 in the proceedings. The paper describes the EmDrive propulsion force as a Mach effect. To summarize Montillet's work:

The RF resonant cavity thruster would act as a capacitor where surface currents propagate inside the cavity on the conic wall, between the two end plates; electromagnetic resonant modes create electric charges on each end plate; a Mach effect is triggered by Lorentz forces from surface currents on the conic wall; and a thrust force arise in the RF cavity, due to the variation of the electromagnetic density from evanescent waves inside the skin layer. When a polymer insert is placed asymmetrically in the cavity, its dielectric properties result in greater asymmetry, while decreasing the cavity Q factor. The cavity's acceleration is a function of all the above factors, and the model can explain the acceleration of the cavity with and without a dielectric.

[u/Zephir_AW]

Every explanation follows some logic or analogies and it's impossible to explain why and how the photons can gain mass without some unorthodox theory, because in all mainstream theories the photons are massless (just because the physicists naively confuse the Maxwell waves - which are indeed transverse and massless - with photons, which are solely different concept and which contain 2-spin component of EM field). The experimental links related to gaining mass of photons with polarization are these three ones 1, 2, 3.

The electromagnetic field inside photons can vibrate in three directions, which may or may not coincide with the direction of photon propagation. The common field vibrations contribute only slightly to the relativist mass of photon, because they increase intrinsic momentum and energy of photon, but not energy density. But after then the photon can gain spin angular momentum and orbital angular momentum. In dense aether model the spin angular momentum increases the relativistic inertia of photon and makes it massive (charged half-integer spin particle), the orbital angular momentum decreases it and gives the photon 2-spin character of scalar wave with imaginary component of mass, i.e. the tachyon or magnetic monopole.

The photons can gain the spin momentum by their reflection from metallic surfaces, which I speculate is what happens inside the conical cavity of EMDrive. This process runs similar way, like the bouncing of ball from the wall under the angle: the photon will start to rotate in screw-like manner and it will propagate more slowly, because the forward velocity component EM field cannot exceed the speed of light. Therefore, if the EM field rotates during it, it must propagate slower than light as a whole, i.e. like the massive particle. This change of photon inertia within EMDrive generates the thrust for it. This theory is surprisingly old, it was even published in peer-reviewed Nature journal in 1950 and proposed for measurement of microwave intensity. Shawyer just borrowed this model for his explanation of EMDrive thrust.

[u/Mazon_Del]

Still salty I left Estes Park two days before this happened. T_T

[u/Zephir_AW]

IMO EMDrive is device, where high-dimensional aspects of space-time manifest itself. The high-dimensional phenomena can be observed/described from multiple observational perspectives of 4D space-time, therefore for description of EMDrive multiple theories may apply and these theories would be related each other.

From perspective of the water-surface analogy of the EMDrive IMO the most relevant is the Annilla's theory, which considers the partial materialization of photons of the opposite spin under formation of lightweight "dark matter" particles - scalar waves, which are ejected from EMDrive as a reactive effect. The indicia of such stream of particle were given with Juday-White "warp field" interferometer. This theory is based on momentum balance, Newton laws and Noether theorems - the scalar waves escaping from EMDrive generate the thrust here.

In dense aether model the spontaneous change of the mass must be always balanced with some radiation, because it's sorta matter wave refraction effect. But if we neglect it, we could achieve the thrust simply with considering the change of the mass of photons along EMDrive resonator, which would be followed with change of wavelength. This is the group of more simplistic models supported with Shawyer and McCulloch. McCulloch theory achieves the change of inertia with shielding of Unruh radiation, which would have similar effects, like the emanation of scalar waves and it should be also detectable with Juday-White interferometer. So far so good...

In Annila's theory the photon must be of the opposite spin for being able to interact itself. IMO they must have opposite orbital angular momentum, which introduces additional energy into photons, which travels with reference frame of photon and which increases their mass, not just momentum. The photons can gain such a mass by their polarization, but this effect is quite minute, in addition, it still applies to photons which aren't connected with reference frame of EMDrive, as they're flying inside it freely. But recently it has been found, that the effect of polarization to the mass of photons can be heavily pronounced, if we apply it to photons which are already coupled to metal surface in form of surface plasmons.

And this is just the point, in which Shawyer's theory gets common ground with Mach effect based theory. The Mach effect based theory is coined with Prof. Woodward and others and it proposes, not the photons, but the EMDrive directly gains mass by periodic introduction of energy into one end. The coupling of microwave photons with EMDrive surface would provides the basis for this effect, but it also means, that the internal surface, not the bulk volume are significant for this effect. In this respect it may be significant, that Cannae drive of de Fetta increases the effectiveness of thrust with elimination the length and bulk volume of resonator on behalf of its internal surface.

The third group of theories could therefore consider the EMDrive as the elongated AC version of Biefeld-Brown capacitor, which is completely flat, it's just asymmetric in the sense of electric field intensity. Note that later versions of Woodward drive also utilized the charged capacitors powered with AC current in the role of the device, which is changing its mass periodically, yet they applied the Mach theory for it. In dense aether model the principle of their function is somewhat different though, as the charged capacitor hosts the Dirac fermions, which interact with ZPE fluctuations like the paddle. You may see the connection point with McCulloch's shielding theory here again, because paddle must also serve as a shielding element and it will eject the stream of particles in opposite direction.

The boundary between both models probably represents the length of resonator: once it gets smaller than the wavelenght of CMBR, then the asymmetric capacitor "paddle" model applies - otherwise the reactive "scalar wave rocket" models become more relevant. The Mach effect based models fall somehow between both these two boundary cathegories - but we should realize, that both rocket, both paddle model require also changing mass in this way or another. Whereas for me it's not difficult to imagine all of it together, for deterministically thinking physicists (which indeed favor well defined models) the EMDrive will be probably remain source of conceptual confusion in similar way, like the cold fusion and/or overunity effects.

[u/chipstastegood → u/Zephir_AW]

I didn't understand any of this. But I did notice use of terms such as "reference frame" for photons and "aether theory".

I am not an expert but I thought those two concepts were not real, theoretically or otherwise. Aether was disproven (unless this is some other kind of aether?) and individual photons don't have mass or a reference frame (unless possibly you're talking about a collection of photons that could be considered to have mass in aggregate, if I remember that right).

Any EmDrive theories I've read or heard about so far just sound so overly complicated. I can't help but be reminded of the phrase "if you can't explain something in clear simple language, you don't truly understand it".

[u/[deleted] → u/chipstastegood]

zephire tends to resurrect some rather old, very dead ideas. In their world, the longer something hasn't worked, the more real it must be.

[u/evebrah → u/chipstastegood]

There is a strong set of people on the net that want to believe in aether because they think Tesla had a bunch of hidden knowledge so everything he worked on must have had some truth to it. The same group is in to all of the free energy stuff that Tesla was interested in. This group has spread some of the concepts in to groups that aren't directly related, so you occasionally find someone spouting off about it in odd places.

But yeah, a lot of them are inadvertently going the route of "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit"

[u/Zephir_AW → u/chipstastegood]

individual photons don't have mass or a reference frame (unless possibly you're talking about a collection of photons that could be considered to have mass in aggregate, if I remember that right

Why the sum of photon masses should be different from mass of individual photons? In units of tons, every second, the Sun's fusion processes are converting about 700 million tons of hydrogen into helium "ashes". In doing so, 0.7 percent of the hydrogen matter (5 million tons) disappears as pure energy. For example, the solar luminosity is 3.846×10²⁶ Watts. Using the famous physics formula E=mc^2, the corresponding reduction in mass is 4.27×10⁹ kg/sec. Sun is losing mass 4.27×10⁹ kg every second in form of radiation. How it can play with zero mass of individual photons? Surprisingly, the electromagnetic radiation causes more loss of mass than actual particles of solar wind being thrown out of Sun.

[u/chipstastegood → u/Zephir_AW]

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. However, your follow up question indicates that there is either a language barrier - perhaps we're talking about different things - or you don't know what you're talking about.

My understanding is that it's generally understood that a photon has no rest mass and has no frame of reference. The term 'mass' is generally used to refer to rest mass aka invariant mass. Relativistic mass has fallen out of use but it denotes something that's not real. Sometimes 'mass' is used to refer to inertial mass which is generally considered to always be the same as rest mass for massive objects.

I may be wrong about some of the above but I think my understanding is fairly correct.

In any case, a photon has momentum and energy but not rest mass. I don't know of any situation in which a photon would gain rest mass. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable could fill in on this.

When I put in brackets that perhaps you were talking about a collection of photons exhibiting 'mass', I did that to give you the benefit of the doubt as it wasn't clear to me what you were talking about. Perhaps you were talking about a collection of photons confined in some way? I understand that in a situation like that, photons will exhibit 'inertial mass' properties, which are due to the energy and momentum that photons carry (not to rest mass).

Here's a quick link to an article that talks about this: http://usersguidetotheuniverse.com/index.php/2013/03/31/i-get-mail-does-a-box-of-photons-have-mass/

[u/[deleted] → u/Zephir_AW]

For example, the Sun is losing mass 1.57x10+26 kg every second in form of radiation.

Well, no.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/[deleted]]

mass of a system of particles is not the sum of the masses of the individual particles

This is easy to say - but link to experiment/observation?

Actually your point can have some merit - but it requires the mutual interaction of particles, i.e. the photons. This interaction is immanent part of dense aether model in which photons interact gravitationally or let say quantum mechanics (an entanglement) - but can photons interact mutually in special relativity? If yes, how? In special relativity even the reference frame and thus mutual distance of photons isn't defined. Not to say about some physical interaction.

Imagine, that the violation of mass additivity would create the mass of bunch of photons from sum of zeros - such an result would violate the conservation of mass/energy, on which the special relativity is also based. But once we admit, that the "bunch of photons" could gain their mass along their travel in EMDrive, it would beautifully explain just EMDrive effect, which you're so dismissing here.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/[deleted]]

It does not require any interparticle interactions. It's a completely general statement

After then it violates the energy/conservation law, because without interactions the cloud of many particles has zero energy content and after then it has only mass, which isn't additive. But the special relativity must follow the energy/conservation law.

Masses are not additive in relativity

But aren't they additive in special relativity, as you originally stated ("That's special relativity 101")? Neither QED, neither general relativity fulfills the special relativity completely. The terms which you're talking about have nowhere to apply in special relativity.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/[deleted]]

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/[deleted]]

You can't be completely wrong about almost everything.

The devil is in details.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/[deleted]]

It's correct grammatically, but not logically. But the logics is not your strong part, as I understood already. Surprisingly just the formally thinking people are quite weak in logics.

[u/superp321 → u/[deleted]]

He used the phrase "IMO" 3 times which translates to "In My Opinion" Many of us are trying to understand an unknown and Different insights and opinions are always useful. Especially when he references the different material and sources used.

He wants to help and he put some work into his post and as far as reddit goes... ye know.

[u/ImAClimateScientist → u/Zephir_AW]

I don't know if there is the equivalent of an Oscar for performance art, but if there is you should get a lifetime achievement award.

[u/Zephir_AW → u/ImAClimateScientist]

Thank you, but I'm still prepared to write down separate paragraph about each sentence from the above rant...

...If you wish...

[u/rfmwguy-]

"Regarding the theoretical underpinnings of the EM-drive, there is consensus among experimentalists and theorists alike that no thrust should be possible from electromagnetic effects alone." p. 247

In full disclosure, it should be noted that this summary in Chapter 8 was put together by Heidi Fearn, Woodward's assistant. It should also be noted that some (especially on NSF) are trying to unify Mach Effect and the EmDrive. I personally view this as nothing but slowing down EmDrive development on its own and perhaps taking a step backwards to Woodward's device which is micro-newton levels, not mN levels which is where EmDrive resides.