array9

More on the rocket with no propellant

There is a question about what happens to the borrowed particles that you have chucked out of the rocket. 

They should just disappear, but then you would have broken the conservation of momentum.

Presumably this means that you cannot chuck them out of the rocket.  That is, this constitutes an observation and the particles will disappear.

Is this more generally true?  That is the function U is precisely an event that changes momentum.  Other things are not observations.  Events that do not change momentum are not U?

Or events that alter any conservation law on a virtual particle?

So it's it the fizz of virtual particles that is keeping us in the UNIverse, and not zooming off into the multiverse.  Or is the fizz the splitting itself?

Or maybe when the pair disappear, they leave a real photon to make the conservation of momentum work.

Our even, is it impossible to push the pair in the same direction, or to change their momentum?

Need to think about this

Martin

# posted by martinW @ 9:06 am 0 comments

I just read about the failure of one idea to have propulsion without propellant.

Here is mine.

A vacuum is full of pairs of particles being created out of nothing for a very short time.  Basically uncertainty principle that lets you borrow some energy for a short period of time.

Well you just chuck these out the back of your space ship.

Of course it does not really help in that you are chucking energy out the back, which is reducing your remaining mass.

In fact you can just send the energy out directly as a beam of light for propulsion.

So the issue is not really about having no propellant, but one of what gives you the best efficiency.

Martin

# posted by martinW @ 9:57 pm 0 comments