[DustinTheWind]

Pyrotex said:

Nope. Still won't work.

Consider the Relativity Drive as a closed system. Say, it's built inside a spherical hull of your spaceship. The hull has no holes. Now turn your Drive on. Microwaves are generated and get reflected and absorbed and slapped around and bounced and jiggled and any thing else you care to do to them, inside the Drive chamber which can have any geometry that you can think of.

Now, let's go back outside the ship. Before Drive on, the ship is in free fall in deep space. No accelleration in any direction. Now turn Drive on. Nothing leaves the ship. Nothing gets through the hull. Therefore the total momentum of all radiation in the ship, stays in the ship. For every dF (tiny force) in one direction there is a -dF. Every photon is generated inside the Drive and is absorbed in the Drive. Net total momentum is zero.

The ship experiences no accelleration.

If it DID, say it experienced an accelleration up to a velocity V(d) in the d direction, and the ship has mass M(s) then it gains momentum equal to
V(d) * M(s) in the d direction.

Therefore, something ELSE, a particle let's say with mass M(p) must have been emitted in the -d direction so that
V(d) * M(s) + V(-d) * M(p) = 0

This is conservation of momentum, which is a Law in most civilized universes.
At least, those universes worth talking about.

But since nothing gets out of the Relativity Drive or the ship's hull, then there IS NO "particle".
Which is to say, M(p) = 0 and therefore the resulting velocity of the ship, V(d) must be zero.

You ignored my suggestion earlier about considering the passage of time. There is a shorter time for momentum on one side and a longer time for momentum to cancel on the other side. Your ignoring time is convenient for your argument. Imagine balls bouncing around inside in which one bounce carries momentum forward. While it takes twice the distance to cancel the forward momentum then repeat the process repeatedly. However now consider them photons. There would be a delta T in which there would be forward momentum for a short period of time for each cycle of bounces.

[Pyrotex]

DustinTheWind said:

You ignored my suggestion earlier about considering the passage of time. There is a shorter time for momentum on one side and a longer time for momentum to cancel on the other side. Your ignoring time is convenient for your argument. Imagine balls bouncing around inside in which one bounce carries momentum forward. While it takes twice the distance to cancel the forward momentum then repeat the process repeatedly. However now consider them photons. There would be a delta T in which there would be forward momentum for a short period of time for each cycle of bounces.

Sorry. I ignored your suggestion, because it holds no water at all.
I was hoping you would see that the Law of Conservation of Momentum trumps your argument.
Well, perhaps "trumps" is not the right word.
How about, "stomps it into the dirt"?

We can simplify your model thusly:

We have a spherical ship that emits no matte or radiation. We have a R-Drive inside and we turn it on. Over a short period of time (measured in nanoseconds) there is an excess of momentum in one direction. After that, equilibrium is established, as it must, because nothing leaves the ship.

The net effect of this excess of momentum is that some "mass" (M) was shifted a distance D within the ship. To conserve momentum, the ship itself (mass m) moved a distance d in the opposite direction. d = - M*D/m

So, you turn the R-Drive on. The ship moves a few nanometers and stops.

You turn the R-Drive off. The moves back to its original position and stops.

[Qfwfq]

Pyro, if one is convinced that some wierd mechanism could perhaps violate momentum conservation then it isn't conclusive to say: "That's impossible, due to momentum conservation." To him it's only begging the question, like saying there can't be one kind of fish that breaths air cuz fish don't breath air.

DustinTheWind said:

There is a shorter time for momentum on one side and a longer time for momentum to cancel on the other side. Your ignoring time is convenient for your argument. Imagine balls bouncing around inside in which one bounce carries momentum forward. While it takes twice the distance to cancel the forward momentum then repeat the process repeatedly.

Sorry but I can't discuss your argument because I don't get the semantics of it, I would need to understand exactly where you think the effect might arise. Lacking this, I presumptuously adhere to the holy dogma that momentum is conserved, no matter how wierd a contraption might be devised. As long as each of the elements in play complies, there appears to be scarce chance of the overall thing not being compliant.

If instead you are able to clearly explicate exactly what you believe could cause the effect, then I might participate in a critical discussion of it.

[Pyrotex]

Qfwfq said:

...If instead you are able to clearly explicate exactly what you believe could cause the effect, then I might participate in a critical discussion of it.

Me, too!!

[DustinTheWind]

I thought I had already quite clearly but from what I can see it was not absorbed. A hint would be to consider what I said and look at the shape of the cone then draw lines of impact. Then measure the lines length from equal angle reflections and consider the differences in length off the walls. Then consider the difference in time between momentum exchange.

[Qfwfq]

DustinTheWind said:

A hint would be to consider what I said and look at the shape of the cone then draw lines of impact. Then measure the lines length from equal angle reflections and consider the differences in length off the walls. Then consider the difference in time between momentum exchange.

I'm not sure exactly what you said that we should consider, this doesn't really make it clear.

Do you agree that, at each reflection, overall momentum is conserved? I still don't see how these differences in length and time will give a in the long run. The position and velocity of the box will jitter around a bit but, if you count the total of balls and box, and if you agree momentum is conserved at each impact, it doesn't really get anywhere.

[DustinTheWind]

Qfwfq said:

I'm not sure exactly what you said that we should consider, this doesn't really make it clear.

Do you agree that, at each reflection, overall momentum is conserved? I still don't see how these differences in length and time will give a in the long run. The position and velocity of the box will jitter around a bit but, if you count the total of balls and box, and if you agree momentum is conserved at each impact, it doesn't really get anywhere.

Well It was just a hypothesis really. But I was thinking if all the collisions happened primarily in the forward direction 1st there should be a constant forward momentum.

[Qfwfq]

DustinTheWind said:

I was thinking if all the collisions happened primarily in the forward direction 1st there should be a constant forward momentum.

Certainly!

If the thermal agitation of atoms and molecules in a brick went primarily in one way, the brick would definitely go shooting off from where it was.