Is Net Inertial Propulsion Science or pseudo-science?

[Temporocitor]

http://www.kodasplace.com/more/anti.html

http://inertialpropulsion.com/the_dean_drive.htm

http://www.rexresearch.com/cookip/cookip.htm

http://magniwork-generators.net/electro ... on-system/

http://inertialpropulsion.com/

In the 60's and 70's these types of devices were exploited by Popular Science and other PopSci type publications. There have been quite a few devices that have simply been refuted as "not the way." There have still been those who keep trying these NIP methods and so-called "reactionless" drives.

I personally believe a warp drive is possible, but it will be a blend of electromagnetism and a much better defined theory of just what gravity is. I think it would be unfair to not bring this up without some discussion of just what causes gravity. There is the Newtonian mass attraction theory accepted by the mainstream and the Fatio-Le Sage concept of "pushing gravity." In that I open this up for discussion.

[flannel jesus]

http://trollphysics.tumblr.com/

[CanadysPeak]

Time for a visit with John Baez?

[Temporocitor]

Time for a visit with John Baez?

I've seen that before, but it never hurts to go over it again :D

I've never thought of, though, as being very characteristic of trolls.

Especially trolls in science forums.

I gave up on the NIPD idea long ago. I don't mind playing the advocate of Le Sage theory, though. Last time I checked a hanging basket type balance works the same as a platten type.

Discussing just what causes gravity is tough until we actually have some sort of device to interrupt it from reaching up and grabbiing us or from beating us into submission. f = ma works regardless of the direction of gravity, but Occam's Rzor prefers the path of least resistance, thus Le Sage's theory seems more aligned with the razor.

[flannel jesus]

I wasn't actually calling you a troll. Those sorts of machines, though, are exactly the sort of thing that belong in a "troll physics" cartoon. Troll Physics consists of a lot of ideas that may seem like good ideas at first glance, until you realize that, like these machines, certain laws of physics are necessarily being violated to produce the stated results.

There's probably a technology on its way that will make the production of energy much cheaper and much cleaner than it is now, but I don't think that technology will be one of these Net Inertial Propulsion machines. Thus far, they've all been failures and we have 0 evidence that they work.

[Temporocitor]

I wasn't actually calling you a troll. Those sorts of machines, though, are exactly the sort of thing that belong in a "troll physics" cartoon. Troll Physics consists of a lot of ideas that may seem like good ideas at first glance, until you realize that, like these machines, certain laws of physics are necessarily being violated to produce the stated results.

There's probably a technology on its way that will make the production of energy much cheaper and much cleaner than it is now, but I don't think that technology will be one of these Net Inertial Propulsion machines. Thus far, they've all been failures and we have 0 evidence that they work.

Some of them work... a bit. I haven't seen anything that qualifies as a "launch device."

I looked but couldn't find one citation I ran across back in 1998 that would likely work in free fall, using a repeating bombardment of ball bearings against the direction of travel, then the bearings were returned to the thrusting mechanism. NASA was looking at that one for deep space probes, but that's about it.

I don't completely call them pseudo science because they are novel, but I think they would be an incredibl;e waste of energy. A rocket is more efficient.

What do you think about gravity itself? One suggested process for mass attraction involves quantum loops of gravity. That would be much like magnetism, where lines of force reach up and pull matter inward.. Pushing gravity is the product of an inbound stream. As it stands, pushing gravity neglects to address what happens to these inbound particles. The answer to that starts looking, mathematically especially, like a pinball machine's trajectories within the 5th dimension.

Thus this subject proliferates.