Talk-Polywell.org :: View topic – Mach Effect progress.
The Mach Effect is a propellantless propulsion concept developed from the physics of gravity by Prof. James Woodward, now being investigated experimentally by him and Paul March, an experimental physicist.
Paul is very open and very active about the difficulties and challenges of getting a clear, unambiguous experimental signature of the Mach Effect. To achieve thrust a potential ME thruster has to shuttle back and forth energy very quickly and in Paul’s case he’s using capacitors to do so. Problem is that all the voltage involved means other processes can produce a measurable effect too – disentangling the data into its sources is very tricky.
Let’s step into the “Twilight Zone” of speculation and ask what an ME thruster can do. According to Prof. Woodward and Paul, the thruster generates a reaction force against the gravitational mass of the whole Universe via ‘advanced’ propagation of changes in the gravitation of mass-energy. This means a moving system gains its energy from the Universe as a whole and essentially “for free” – the energy cost comes from shifting around mass-energy sufficiently quickly to produce the Effect.
If an ME Thruster could produce 1 N/kW what could that do? Presently in-space power sources are pushing towards power-densities of ~5kg/kW – suppose the ship+thruster+power plant gets ~1 kW/10 kg and the MET needs 1 kW/N. Thus a 200 ton vehicle with 200 MW power produces 20 kN thrust and will accelerate at 0.1 m/s2. How quickly does that get to the stars?
For constant acceleration the equation, in Earth’s reference frame, is…
t2 = (4.s/a) + (s/c)2 ,where s is the displacement, a acceleration, c lightspeed. If we make c = 1, t in years and s in light-years then this simplifies to…
t2 = (4.k.s/a) + (s)2
…where k is 9.5 m/ly (i.e. light-year/year2 = 299,792,458 (m.s/ly)/(31,557,600s))
Simple! Ok sort of. In hard numbers, for 0.1 m/s2, that’s Alpha Centauri in 40.8 years and 24.7 ly in the 100 year maximum timeframe of “Project Icarus”. A real star-drive.
As Paul March & Jim Woodward are first to remind us, as yet an unproven method of propulsion, but with a lot of potential if they can demonstrate it.
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