Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> At 11:53 AM 8/06/00 -0400, Mike Lorrey belatedly wrote:
>
> >> I'm prepared to take
> >> Eliezer's case far more seriously than, say, any of us (I assume) take the
> >> Lorrey Drive, because its goal does not fly in the face of what we know to
> >> be true
>
> >a) How many times in your life has 'what we know to be true' been tossed
> out the
> >window?
>
> As far as I can recall, never (at the level of fundamental conservation
> laws we're apparently talking here). Oh, maybe CP violation. Relativity and
> QT were already up and running when I was a kid, if only just. :)
Actually, Hawking showed that the event horizon of a black hole causes
conservation violation by separating zero point fluctuation particles
before they can recombine (which is why black holes eventually evaporate
away).
>
> >b) Considering that Prof. John Cramer of the U of W has stated that such a
> >device would work if the working mass were circulating at relativistic
> >velocities (an opinion that Sasha Chislenko also held)
>
> Hmm. Sorry, Mike, I don't know how to evaluate this statement, since I
> never learned in any detail, or even any generality, how your Drive is
> meant to function - aside from its apparent resemblance to a Dean Drive.
> (As I dimly recall, a request for details could not be met in the absence
> of complicated non-disclosure documentation sent by mail, which I declined
> to provide on the grounds that life is too short.) Could you post some more
> details now?
Essentially, Cramer has maintained that under Mach's Principle, a
asymmetric centrifuge such as mine would not cause a surplus bias in
centripetal force on a time averaged basis, EXCEPT in the even that the
masses withing the centrifuge changed mass through the cycle as they
sped up. I.E. if the masses are cycling in the 80-99% of light speed
range, their mass increases as they increase in speed, so there will be
a thrust produced in this case. Sasha felt the same way, so I accept
that the drive WILL work under those conditions. I am, however
interested in finding the lower boundaries of useful functionality, and
I also wonder about what exact speed of light is being referred to. If,
for example, your working mass in the centrifuge is a fluid that has an
internal speed of light of a very low rate, say, less than 100 meters
per second, could you move the fluid within your centrifuge at a speed
that is equal to 90-99% of what light speed is within the fluid to
attain this surplus thrust, or must you always measure this based on
speed of light in a vacuum?
Mike Lorrey
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