Hmm -- Horace, I had a question about a somewhat different proposal. You have proposed that if we let two plates come together, pushed by the Casimir force, then slide them apart sideways, and then repeat, we can get energy out of the cycle.
Now, I don't pretend to understand the Casimir effect at any but the most superficial level. However, it *seems*, on the surface, a lot like a "push gravity" theory, in which we're being constantly bombarded by some kind of radiation which "pushes" on all sides equally, and the apparent gravitational field of an object is due to its shading us from the "global G-particle field". The chief difference I see here is that, AFAIK, a "push gravity" field is conservative. In fact, as I understand it, the only detectable difference between "push gravity" and Newtonian gravity is in very intense fields, where the "push gravity" field may "hit the rails" and start "clipping". As I understand it, the reason the sliding-plate thing doesn't work to produce energy with push gravity is that the "push" comes from impact by particles coming from *all* *directions* over an entire hemisphere. When we're sliding the plates apart, there is a "push" force acting on both *edges* of the sliding plate, but the trailing edge is "partly shaded" by the other plate. (See attachment.) Consequently the "push" on the leading edge is slightly larger than the "push" on the trailing edge, and the work done sliding the plates apart ends up the same as if they were just pulled apart directly. The question this brings up is, does something similar happen with the Casimir force? Does the adjacent conductive plate reduce the possibilities for virtual particles appearing at the trailing edge of the plate, and hence reduce the "push" on that end, and so result in the need to "do work" to slide the plates apart sideways? It may be that the fact that you can make a conductive plate arbitrarily thin would imply that this mechanism doesn't happen or at least doesn't exactly cancel the energy gained. But I don't understand the Casimir effect, which is why I'm asking. Horace Heffner wrote: > The difference between concepts is I proposed extracting momentum from > the energy/(inertial mass) change, dp/dt change, instead of the energy > difference. Both concepts have the difficulty that the energy/mass > change is not experimentally verified, and thus not quantifiable for > engineering purposes. By converting mass/energy changes in cavity > traverses to momentum gain, however, energy is then made available by > converting the thrust into device momentum, especially for space > propulsion. Also, if sufficient momentum is gained with respect to > drive energy input, then such a thruster drive can be mounted on a large > armature of an electric generator in order to produce electrical energy > directly. > > Best regards, > > Horace Heffner > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ > > > >
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