> Boyle's Laws and like that. When gas is heated in a closed container
> the pressure increases. Now why....fundamentally.....at the molecular
> level....is that? Well the way I understand it is that the velocity of
> the individual gas molecules increases....which thru a chain of events
> exerts more pressure on the containment walls.
> I may be missing something here....but where is the "for every action
> there is an equal and opposite reaction".
Don't forget that velocity, and therefore momentum, is a vector. As the heat input is converted to kinetic energy of the gas molecules, the overall effect looks like "pressure" because the vectors all point in random directions, so the overall velocity (and momentum) of the container as a whole is still zero. Momentum is preserved.
> Even if i'm not missing something......<great leap>....suppose that
> all of the gas molecules could be coaxed to go in the same direction?
> So if a gadget (with all kinds of neat magnetic fields and primary and
> seconday windings and multicolored flashing lights) could be developed
> that would convince all the gas in a container that they should go in
> ONE direction when heated......wouldn't that be a reactionless drive?
The only way to "convince" an atom to move in a certain direction is by giving it momentum stolen from something else. Magnetic fields aren't enough: a magnet might attract an ion, causing it to move toward the magnet, but it also move the magnet a tiny bit toward the ion in proportion to its relative mass. For one ion, you won't notice this, but if you try to move a significant mass, you're trying to pull a car with a magnet mounted on the car.
You can't get away from needing reaction mass if you really want to go from point A to point B. Something like Lorrey Drive will let you wiggle around point A for a while, but that's of limited use.
> So the point I'm speculating about....perhaps there will be some other
> effects of drextech ......really soon now.
I don't think tunneling violates conservation of momentum, but I may be mistaken about that. If it does, that very well might be used to get around some of the reaction mass problem--but a more likely way it will be done is with the big scoop to suck up stray hydrogen atoms along the way to push out the tailpipe.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC