From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Jun 11 2000 - 17:07:11 MDT
Mike writes:
> 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.
Actually, modern interpretations of special relativity don't accept the
notion that mass increases with velocity. Rather, relativistic momentum
increases nonlinearly with velocity. If you define a "relativistic
mass" as momentum / velocity, you do get the result that this "mass"
increases with speed. But it is generally considered simpler to say
that momentum is not proportional to velocity and mass is constant.
Whichever formulation is used, conservation of momentum is the relevant
law. Your device is claimed to violate conservation of momentum, even
though each individual part observes this conservation law. This is
plainly impossible based on current physics.
Hal
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