Physics Discussion Thread

[kasthuri]

Well I’m neither so willing to learn.
I did not understand that quote from Ramanujam, what does it mean.
My take away is that reality at the QM level is very mysterious.

AFAIK there is only one reality. Both QM & CM are part of that reality but not separate ‘aspects’.
There is only one reality, occasionally we get to see glimpses of it, even if we do not understand all of it yet.

The double slit experiment fascinates me like no other in physics.
The idea that the observer creates reality is impossible to comprehend for me. The implications boggle the mind.

I agree with you that QM is mysterious and fascinating. Ramanujan saw a profound beauty on the equations that he worked. Sophia Kovalevskaya, proclaimed "It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul." If one truly understands an equation and its ramifications, that throws up a spark which is impossible to describe. That fills up one's mind with a sense of immense joy - a sense of how things connect.

[SaiK]

why can't dark matter be matter.. in the sense of "information as a matter" of thought? is thought a matter? this is where sdre-ophiles associate "thought photons" leading to "dark matters". apologies for spoiling otherwise a nice thread. but, i want to learn real fizzicks. a line or two per day is a great achievement.

[Bade]

Theo, maybe the dissonance is in separating reality from understanding. There is only 'understanding' that we can rely on. In that sense understanding what QM tells us is the reality. Another more comprehensive theory might replace all this later which will be the better understanding of the reality.

We do not know what reality is before hand, no ?

[SaiK]

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kayvonf/
he moves to cmu from stan madrassa. fella exploring the use of large-scale cloud computing to accelerate real-time physics. what is rt-fizzics?

[kasthuri]

Theo, there is only so much time each one of has to indulge in chasing wild fantasies of others. That is what peer review does for science (filter out the nonsense), with all its shortcomings which practicing scientists often whine about too.

Most often than not, peer review ends up educating the reviewers if the science is cutting-edge. In good/top journals peer review enhances the manuscript than acting as a filter. In journals like Science/Nature, if one gets into the review stage, about 75% of the time they can get the manuscript in (sometimes it could take years with lot more work, as it happend in our case). Even, if they cannot get it in, they can easily get it into second-tier journals. Also, there are good journals specifically aimed at publishing articles that these top journals reject after a review. The problem with the top journals is that they'll likely reject the paper without even going in for a review.

[Vayutuvan]

I am a little jaded about Nature (and Science and even PRL). Lots of write only papers

[kasthuri]

I am a little jaded about Nature (and Science and even PRL). Lots of write only papers

The word "top/good" in my comment should be thought in terms of what is perceived as top/good by many scientists/public. Need not (always) produce excellent science. As I said, several good articles don't even make it to the review stage. The editor fires the first shot depending on the interest of the readers. Of course, contacts do play a role, if not on the levels of the role they play outside academics. Academic publishing especially, paid publishing may not be the best thing we have for the growth of science. The publishers end up gaining both from the journal as well as the authors and as you may know the reviewers are not paid. Good open source alternatives like the PLoS series are better.

[Bade]

There are some open source online ones like PRL-ST. One of the first results we published were in that format almost two decades back.

[gakakkad]

I don't know about other journals ,but in medicine ,top journals are more concerned with affiliations and "credentials" of the author rather than quality of research. While attempting to review literature for my papers , i found journals with a low impact factor (2nd tier ,third tier journals) to be gold mine of data and concepts while writing review articles that were sent to high impact factor journals..

All journals have "focus areas" ,which either depends upon the focus areas of the academic societies publishing the journal and their board of editors , or by the interest of the readership. Pharma companies and other commercial stake holder are essentially the most important controllers of the content.That is one problem which in my opinion would not be faced by pure science journals .

[kasthuri]

I don't know about other journals ,but in medicine ,top journals are more concerned with affiliations and "credentials" of the author rather than quality of research. While attempting to review literature for my papers , i found journals with a low impact factor (2nd tier ,third tier journals) to be gold mine of data and concepts while writing review articles that were sent to high impact factor journals..

All journals have "focus areas" ,which either depends upon the focus areas of the academic societies publishing the journal and their board of editors , or by the interest of the readership. Pharma companies and other commercial stake holder are essentially the most important controllers of the content.That is one problem which in my opinion would not be faced by pure science journals .

Do you mean journals like NEJM, Lancet, JAMA etc.? I think it is primarily because the focus of those journals - as you pointed out. These journals don't accept if the article doesn't have a clear clinical significance, even if the article has top notch science. I don't think they are even pro-translational as they are purely clinical and primarily restricted to physicians, clinical trials etc.

Nowadays, as matrimc and you point out, the quality of research in big journals gets a beating and affiliations and credentials are given more importance. This can be attributed to the advancement of technologies combined with the whole system of grants (R01 etc.). People with credentials tend to get more grants and that in turn is translated into huge data pileup (through technologies) and hence more publications. It is as simple as that.

Google Bert Vogelstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Vogelstein) and you'll see that several of his works are just because of amassing sequencing data. He made such an influence in the sequencing field which has now gone to the extent of bad taste. Nature/Science editors are no longer interested in the results of a sequencing study even if it is 50-60 exomes. The reviewers are demanding functional data. Such is the state of affairs - the rise in technology with the grants offered to big shots can be a deadly combination for against aspiring scientists and science, in general.

[gakakkad]

>>Do you mean journals like NEJM, Lancet, JAMA etc.? I think it is primarily because the focus of those journals - as you pointed out. These journals don't accept if the article doesn't have a clear clinical significance, even if the article has top notch science. I don't think they are even pro-translational as they are purely clinical and primarily restricted to physicians, clinical trials etc.

NEJM is really good. They have a clear focus area ,but are not discriminatory. I had my first publication in nejm at a time when I was an undergrad med student in India.

Lancet is a third rate journal with inflated impact factor. Most of the articles are pharma sponsored. A large number of articles published in lancet have later been discredited as bull crap. They only publish from ivory tower academics in england and north amreeka. They published an article claiming that mmr is associated with autism causing a dangerous decline in vaccine rates. This was the famous mmr vaccine controversy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

it frequently publishes anti india crap, like the superbug episode.


fraudulent research is quite common. It is caught sometime.

eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darsee

he published 50 articles. They were easily published because Eugene BraunwaldEugene Braunwald reviewed them.(he is a giant in the field of cardiology,extremely respected. He is my mentor too.He is an excellent clinician and a splendid scientist. the problem with the guy is that he can get a little too trusting.he helped Darsee because he trusted him,not because he had to gain anything from him.)

fraud that is caught is the tip of the iceberg.Because one would rarely expose ones colleagues. I myself know of fraudulent research. But those are people I have had bear with. Cant do them in.And most of all it is harmless.
If my close friend turns up something that can harm patients than i ll have no compunction in doing him in.

[SaiK]

Missed a topic on quantum mechanic/information model on NPR/sci fri today.. I could hear only the last two sentences, and their website not yet updated.. anyone heard?

Talking about quantum computing and information.. guru from neils bohr inst..talking with an italian/hispanic tinch.

So, heard, that all that needs to create say a physical model you or me say in Mars, is send the information required for that to be done. All over my head only listening partial info.

??

==
some google search results in interesting articles..

..still searching...

ps:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/playlist/# ... gment/9081
?

QM from 5th min onwards..

[SaiK]

well.. those links were wrong.

[Bade]

Not sure what you are referring to, is it this ?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 093552.htm

[SaiK]

may be.. but, i could not recollect exactly the topic.

btw, while at it, i got this one that is a google-nasa venture.

http://www.dwavesys.com/en/dw_homepage.html

[Amber G.]

FWIW, Quantum computing by David Mermin, is nice book for serious people..You need understanding of basic QM but with that the book is easy to read.

[johneeG]

Why Rocketry doesn't work in vaccum

My suspicion is that all rockets are ballistic, that is they go up and down based on Newtonian mechanics and that the idea that they can produce force outside of the atmosphere is a fantasy/dream.

A big problem with rockets in space continues to be
how does the gas expelled through the nozzle contribute any force to the system?
when:

1. Free Expansion says gas does no work entering the vacuum

2. The Laws of Gasses say gas can't exist in the vacuum

3. The Laws of Gasses say gas can't do any work in the vacuum

(note that 1., 2. and 3. above all agree with and support each other)

If the gas expelled from the ship in space produces no force how does the ship move?

1. In order for a rocket in space to move it must do work.

2. While a liquid fuel space rocket can generate energy there is no way for that energy to do work.

There are 4 major ideas on presented on the Internet, including NASA web sites, as to how rockets generate thrust in space
1. Newton’s 3rd Law : for every force there is an equal and opposite
2. Newtons’s 2nd Law : Force = Mass x Acceleration
3. Conservation of Momentum
4. The use of a specialized nozzle to accelerate the gas inside the ship, concentrate and aim the gas jet

1. Newton’s 3rd Law : for every force there is an equal and opposite

The problem with applying Newton’s 3rd is that the rocket’s propellant does not generate force in a vacuum according to the laws of physics and chemistry. If the force of the propellant is 0 then Newton’s 3rd states that
Force on Rocket=-Force of Gas.
If Force of Gas = 0 the rocket does not move.

Why doesn’t the propellant generate any force, it's expanding, right?
There is something known as “Free Expansion” or the “Joule-Thomson” effect, named after James Prescott Joule and J.J. Thompson two of the founders of the field of Physical Chemistry.
http://www.etomica.org/app/modules/site ... ound2.html
Free Expansion states that when a pressurized gas is exposed to a vacuum the gas expanding into the vacuum without any work being done. The gas is not “pulled” or “sucked” into the vacuum nor is it “pushed” out of the high-pressure container. In other words no work is done, no heat or energy is lost.
This result has been experimentally verified numerous times since its discovery in the 1850’s.
[for example a paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry from 1902: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/j150043a002

As if Free Expansion wasn’t enough to invalidate the theory of rockets producing a force in a vacuum there is also a result from thermodynamics:
Work = Pressure x Change_in_Volume
that is easily found searching for “W=PV”
http://lsc.ucdavis.edu/~ahart/Alicia2B/Thermo.pdf
If the pressure of a system is 0 then the work done by the expanding gas into that system is 0. Gas expanding in a vacuum doing no work agrees with Free Expansion. This can also be understood as the gas meets no resistance as it exits into the vacuum and thus transfers neither heat nor energy to its surroundings. If the gas loses neither heat nor energy then it has done no work.

At this point we have a rocket with high-pressure gas generated from liquid fuel that can release the gas into a vacuum but has no way to produce a force while doing so. As soon as the nozzle is opened the gasses escape without doing any work. Therefore the 3rd Law is rendered useless.

2. Newtons’s 2nd Law : Force = Mass x Acceleration

As it turns out NASA does not fall into the 3rd Law trap (nor does it go around correcting all the sites who do) instead claiming that thrust of a space rocket is generated using what I call The Wrong Formula, an egregious farce of Newton's 2nd law which I will address in a later next post.

NASA claims that by pressurizing gas and shooting really fast out of the back of a rocket they can create thrust in a vacuum.

Using only NASA web sites I can show that their equation for rocket thrust is bunkum.

First, the NASA rocket thrust equation (written in lay language)

Force = Mass x Velocity + (Pressure Difference between inside the rocket and the vacuum of space) x Nozzle Area

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/rockth.html

The first term says Force = Mass x Velocity whereas NASA web sites say that
Force = Mass x Acceleration (Newton’s 2nd law of motion)
NASA sites also say that Mass x Velocity = Momentum which is not a force. Momentum is potential energy. If you throw a rock it has momentum. If you throw it harder it has more momentum. No force is generated until the rock hits something. Gas shot out of the back of a rocket very fast does not create a force until it interacts with something, which it never does in the vacuum of space. It remains high momentum gas streaking endlessly through space looking to do work but never getting the chance.

The second term (Pressure Difference between inside the rocket and the vacuum of space) x Nozzle Area
violates the “free expansion” effect, part of the first law of thermodynamics by which pressurized gas moves into a vacuum without any work being done. It does not matter how highly pressured the gas is inside the rocket nor how fast it comes out. Because it is going into a vacuum the gas makes the trip “for free” and does not do any work, does not expend any energy and does not create any force or thrust.

The NASA space rocket equation has two terms the first of which is incorrect and so is the second. As Linus Pauling would say, “not even wrong”. How do rockets work in the vacuum space?

Free Expansion
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/f.html

Force = Mass x Acceleration
http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/educati ... wtona2.htm

Momentum = Mass x Velocity
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/momntm.html

In 1852 scientist James Prescott Joule, for whom the unit of energy Joule is named, discovered that gas does no work in a vacuum http://www.etomica.org/app/modules/site ... ound2.html

One of the unexpected things I found while doing research on space rockets was the effect called free expansion which states that a pressurized gas enters a vacuum without doing work. Rocket exhaust is pressurized gas therefore it does no work when it leaves the rocket.

That fact alone should be enough to stop people from considering liquid fuel space rockets.

Even if free expansion didn't exist, the exhausted gasses don't accelerate in the vacuum of space and if there is no acceleration there is no work. Force = Mass x Acceleration.

Moving gas into a vacuum, such as from inside a rocket in space to outside, is not a process that requires work. This is because free expansion allows enters a vacuum "for free", no work is needed or done. The gas does not push outward from inside the rocket and is not pulled in by the vacuum of space. Natures seeks to being the two sides, high pressure and zero pressure, into equilibrium and does so for "no charge". Although this is a well-known result in Physical Chemistry and Thermodynamics you almost never hear of it in the context of space rocketry because it wreaks havoc on the NASA-led theories of thrust.

The problems comes from NASA's equation for rocket thrust
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/rockth.html

Newton's 2nd Law states: Force = Mass x Acceleration

NASA's rocket formula states incorrectly that: Force = Mass x Velocity whereas in reality Momentum = Mass x Velocity

NASA cannot claim that momentum helps moves a rocket because momentum is not a force.

Momentum is a property, like mass.

Force is a push or a pull on an object.

They are different things.

While is seems like something moving very fast should push very hard it is only when the fast moving object meets another object that a force is generated (like a rock hitting a window generates force when the rock is slowed by the glass).

For those who say "the gas interacts with the ship, pushes on it", I say, no it does not via free expansion and in any case NASA does not even attempt to provide a term in their equation relating to the gas pushing against the ship.

Welcome to the world of scientific sleight of hand.

A ship that escapes into deep space, free of the earth's gravity, will not accelerate (change velocity) or change direction via rockets. Without a gravitational field accelerating the rocket its changing mass (due to lost fuel) will generate no force. Changing its mass would only change it's momentum.

3. Conservation of Momentum

Closed Systems
1. Even though the combustion chamber generates force there is no way for that force to be turned into useful work (e.g. moving the ship). This is because the ship is a closed system, like a battery or a thermos.

2. Every way we have of moving mass (objects) requires the object being moved to be connected to either gravity, an atmosphere or a solid at the initial point (when motion starts).

3. You can throw a ship into space, sure, but you can't change it's motion once it's up there using rockets because the ship isn't connected to anything and has no way to turn the force of combustion into motion.

2. Objects don't accelerate unless they exchange energy with some other object/field. There are no objects or fields in space (I regard them to be so small/weak as to be virtually non-existent)

[Space, for the purposes of this posting and all subsequent ones unless otherwise specified, is an environment without gravity or atmosphere. It is completely devoid of molecules or forces. Nothing acts on an object in space nor does any object act on space.]

If a space ship converts liquid fuel (potential energy) to accelerating gasses (kinetic energy) and then to a pressure imbalance against the combustion chamber (potential energy again) all it has done is moved energy around in a circle without doing any work.

In physics work is done only when energy leaves the boundary of a system. Since the rocket in this example has no place to deliver it's energy, (nothing borders the rocket: no atmosphere, no ground, no water, no gravitational field), then the energy stays within the rocker forever, doing no work and hence the rocket does not move.

So, looking at two models of rocket thrust
1. If we open the exhaust to let out gas free expansion takes over and no work is done. (NASA model)
2. If we create an imbalance inside the ship's combustion chamber we are in a closed system and no work is done.

Take a charged battery as an example. It is possible for the battery to exert a force without energy leaving the battery?
As per the equation Work = Force x Distance a battery does no work, generates no force until it's energy is passed to some object outside of the battery.

Perhaps it was unclear that I was referring to a closed system in my previous post. A closed system is one where no energy is exchanged with any object outside of itself. A ship in space represents a closed system as it does not interact with space and space does not interact with it nor does a ship in space interact with any field or force. If a ship cannot transfer energy to some object or entity outside of itself, how does it use its energy, potential or kinetic, to do work?

Here is what happens to a NASA style rocket powered by liquid propellant when it turns on it's engines in the vacuum of space:

1) The gasses inside the rocket do not to produce a force as they exit
In the vacuum of space the accelerated gasses inside the ship's nozzle are no longer pushed out of the ship. They enter the vacuum via the principle of free expansion (without performing work) and thus do work neither against the rocket itself nor the vacuum of space.
=>No work done by gasses inside of the ship

2) The gasses that leave the rocket do not produce a force once they have exited
In the vacuum of space the gasses that exit the rocket do not accelerate, they move at a constant velocity forever. If an object (including a molecule of gas) travels without accelerating it cannot produce a force. Hence the rocket produces no force.
=>No work done by gasses outside of the ship

I do not see where the force comes from that moves a NASA space rocket.

The issue is that the ship is a closed system much like a charged battery. There is nowhere for the energy to go, no way for it to do any work until it is connected to something external. The ship is perfectly insulated by space.

Yes, the ship can deform, bend, crinkle, etc... but this will not generate work. Much in the same way that while you cannot lift yourself off the floor by the scruff of your neck, because you and the floor are a closed system under influence of gravity and friction. Still, you can pull out your teeth, poke out your eyes, etc... (you can twist and deform your body but you cannot generate force enough to leave the floor).

Note that you can jump off the floor when you add potential energy by flexing your knees. This amounts to opening the system (interacting with gravity to create more force).

No amount of combustion or pressure inside the space ship can move the ship until that combustive force or pressure is exchanged with some object, entity, or field outside of the ship (a space ship is a closed system).

In every system that does work there is a transfer of energy from the object containing the engine/power to some other object/entity. In space there is no other object to receive the energy transfer energy. The vacuum of space neither receives nor delivers energy, it is an insulator.

Did you know that a thermos works because it contains a vacuum? The vacuum prevents heat transfer. It...insulates!

The only way heat can travel through a vacuum is via radiation. A vacuum is an insulator. Not a perfect insulator but, still an insulator, and one you use every day!

Does a NASA rocket produce/use radiation? Is a NASA rocket not insulated by space?

Free Expansion
1. is an effect that occurs when a high pressure gas enters a vacuum. It is not something to be concerned about inside a closed container like a combustion chamber.

2. operates at the nozzle and not in the combustion chamber. There has been confusion about where free expansion applies because some simplified models of a rocket engine have the combustion chamber venting directly into space whereas in reality the gas is released via a nozzle.

3. if it does not exist then the rocket exhaust will push against space. The high pressure gas, in this case, will do work against the vacuum when it exits the nozzle. This, in fact, is part of NASA's model. I disagree with the NASA model.

4. agrees with the equation for work done by a gas (Work = Pressure x Change_in_Volume). When pressure is 0 (space) gas does no work when it expands (enters the vacuum).

4. The use of a specialized nozzle to accelerate the gas inside the ship, concentrate and aim the gas jet

Also remember that the only work that can possibly be done on the ship is due to the expansion of the gasses as there is no gravity or other force available to accelerate it. If the gas in the ship is not allowed to do any work (prohibited by free expansion) the ship has no source of thrust.

From the experiments I have read about when gas exits via free expansion it does not generate heat, that is the gas molecules do not "fight to get out", they don't bump into each other or push each other out of the way. It is an orderly exit which makes sense if no work is done. Therefore the balloon should collapse without motion.

The gasses of a rocket are not propelled outwards into the vacuum of space. The enter space by means of free expansion, without doing any work without the application of any force. This is not some fantasy of mine. NASA admits free expansion exists although they keep it buried deep in the sand, as far away from their "rocket theory" as possible.

Solids do work in a vacuum, when they collide with other solids for example. Solids can have work done on them; you can throw a rock in space. Gas in a vacuum, on the other hand, seems to be incapable of either acting on an object or having an object act on it. For example, you can punch someone in a vacuum but can you "blow them over"?

"Nozzle Overexpansion & Underexpansion"
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/pr ... 0220.shtml

You may wish to read the above-linked article. Here's the basic problem illustrated by their 3-step diagram:


Now, wouldn't this be the logical progression of the above phenomena?


In other words, wouldn't the rocket plume eventually expand so much as to simply nebulize in all directions, thus ceasing to provide the necessary thrust/force to counter the pull of gravity? (This, of course, unless you believe that beyond a 'certain altitude', gravity ceases to be a force - and the spaceship gets 'flung' by its sheer momentum into 'free-fall' orbit...)

Lastly, you may ask, what type of rocket nozzle is used on modern spacecraft? Amazingly, it seems that the old De Laval design (1888 !) is still very much the (fixed)rocket nozzle widely used today... so much for technical innovation, NASA!
"Very nearly all modern rocket engines that employ hot gas combustion use de Laval nozzles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle


Links for reference:
"Rocket Nozzle Design: Optimizing Expansion for Maximum Thrust" http://www.braeunig.us/space/sup1.htm
"ROCKET PROPULSION": http://www.braeunig.us/space/propuls.htm
"Rocket engine nozzle" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine_nozzle
"Rocket engine" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine

When a rocket's combustion chamber is filled with accelerated gas opening the nozzle to expel the gasses into the vacuum of space does not generate a force against the ship. This is due to the principle of free expansion.

first of all it is my understanding that liquid can't exist inside a vacuum. Any liquid exposed to a vacuum is immediately converted to gas and any gas is immediately spread out into the void. So any combustion would have to take place in a sealed container and hence not in a vacuum in the strict sense.

Secondly, you mention the possibility of opening one side of a container, exposing it to the vacuum, while combusting gasses inside the container. In this case we have to consider that combustion can't occur anywhere near the opening because any liquids in that area are being instantly converted to gas by the vacuum and spread out into the void via free expansion. When combustion occurs at the far side of the container the force is going to push the remaining liquid out before it can be combusted. This seems like a terribly inefficient use of fuel as the combustion itself is forcing unspent fuel into space.

Another problem is that gas enters a vacuum at an average speed of about 2,000 meters a second. A 25 meter long Saturn 5 stage 2 fuel tank with over 1,000,000 liters of fuel would have it's contents drained in about 1/100 of a second if exposed to the vacuum of space.

The problem with a rocket engine is the interface between the accelerated gasses in the nozzle and the vacuum of space. From what I can tell, as soon as we open the nozzle to space even if for a a little while, to let out some accelerated gasses, those gasses are captured by the vacuum of space via free expansion and leave without doing work. Thus, we have burned fuel yet done no work. Eventually the ship runs out of fuel without ever moving under its own power.

----

One issue is that there are no zero-gravity vacuums here on earth so it will be difficult to find an experiment that replicates the conditions in space. Also, you are not going to find scientists openly challenging NASA. Science, as you may have noticed, is a toe-the-line endeavor. Anyone who goes against accepted science is called a kook, denied funding and ostracized. The idea of a "maverick scientist challenging the status quo" is a fiction.

As such I have to build my case from scattered pieces of science and theory. This kind of investigation is always difficult for others to follow along.

I agree it's strange that they do these zero-gravity demos with water and other substances that you probably wouldn't want to expose to a billion dollars worth of equipment.

-----

Goddard's flawed test of the theory of rockets in a vacuum.

Physicist Robert Goddard (for whom the Goddard Space Center is named) was one of the first to claim that rockets would work in the vacuum of space.

The New York times mocked his ideas in a 1920 editorial.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Y ... rt_Goddard

In response Goddard set up the following experiment to prove the NYT wrong:

Inside a vacuum tube he attached a .22 caliber revolver, loaded with a blank cartridge, to a rod that turns .
There is no film of the experiment but first hand reports claim that when he fired the gun it spun around four times. Thus Goddard declared his theory experimentally proven.
http://www.clarku.edu/research/archives/goddard/faq.cfm

I claim that his experiment was not a test of rocket thrust in a vacuum for the following reasons:

1. A blank cartridge expels a plug of paper called a wad. The wad is expelled with enough force to kill a person. If a gun propels an object conservation of momentum applies and the gun will recoil. Rockets in space do not shoot bullets, wads or any such solids. They only expel gas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_%28cartridge%29
http://io9.com/5972313/why-a-gun-loaded ... l-kill-you

2. The gun was attached to a rod which was attached to the top (or side) of the vacuum tube. This is not state of a rocket in space which is totally insulated from any other object. Because the gun is attached to a rod it is not a closed system. The gun pushes against the rod (exchanges energy) when fired. In a proper setup the gun would be suspended in zero-gravity or some simulation thereof.

3. Even if he had arranged to fire a gun without expelling a wad, even if he had managed to simulate a gun in zero gravity and not used one attached to a rod, he still had the issue that gas fired from the gun was interacting with the sides of his vacuum tube. If gas fired from the gun pressed against the sides it would create turbulence which means that the gasses leaving to gun barrel wouldn't have a chance to experience free expansion. Space doesn't have "sides" that gas bounces off of. Every molecule goes flying off into the void without interacting with any other. Another way to think about this is that once the area in front of the gun muzzle is no longer a vacuum, free expansion stops.

(The loop at the bottom is so that it doesn't bounce off the bottom but what about preventing the gas from interacting with the sides?)

Goddard's experiment is critically flawed and cannot be used as evidence that a rocket will work in a vacuum yet it was used as the basis for continued funding, research and belief in space rockets.

Goddard's Vacuum Tube

(source http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 001338.jpg)

pushing apart the crimped metal is work (finally something we agree on). The work done to open the crimping is transferred to the gun, as energy. This work is then also transferred to the spindle and hence the gun revolves in Goddard's test.

Why does the gas do work in this case?

1. Because there is no vacuum inside of the ignited blank cartridge. The ignited blank cartridge is full of hot, expanding gasses. The vacuum is outside in the barrel of the gun and the chamber surrounding it. Therefore the gasses inside the cartridge can do work, such as blowing apart the crimped metal, without violating the principle of gas not doing work in a vacuum.

A rocket ship ignites fuel, filling a combustion chamber, and then releases that fuel into space. The combustion chamber does not explode while it is being filled. A blank cartridge is not a model of a rocket engine. Another failure on Goddard's part to simulate a space rocket in his laboratory.

I am 100% with you on your analysis of blank cartridges. I think Goddard's use of them was lazy and sloppy. Rather than design a system that isolated energies and forces he went with something cheap, fast and showy. The man had a PhD in physics and a gun on a spindle was the best he could do?


to clarify potential misunderstandings about my current beliefs:

1. when gas is contained it may do work. That includes in an atmosphere, like Earth, in a strong gravitational field, like the Sun, or in the combustion chamber of a space ship.

2. the movement of gas into a vacuum from a pressurized container does no work via the principle of free expansion. Being a principle, one must see whether it applies to a situation. I apply it to the rocket case because the pressurized gasses are first expanded in a combustion chamber and then released through a nozzle. This may not be the case for other examples we look at (such as the blank cartridge).

3. when gas is freely moving about the vacuum of space, outside of a container, atmosphere or gravitational field it does no work. This is important because when the gas leaves the nozzle of a rocket in the atmosphere it does work (the gas accelerates over a distance). In space this effect does not exist.

Solids are not subject to free expansion.

Free expansion only comes into play once you have gasses contained, under pressure, ready to be released. This condition is never satisfied by a blank cartridge and hence there is no free expansion.

he never measured the force generated nor compared it to the force of a gun under the same conditions in an atmosphere. Goddard was a sloppy scientist at best and a charlatan at worst.

Here's some more info on the pioneering experiments of the good Doctor Robert Goddard, one of the founders of rocketry:

March 16, 1926 Goddard conducts the first successful flight of a liquid fueled rocket. The only problem is that he didn't film it. Even though he brought along a film crew. The excuse is that they ran out of film before the rocket took off.

Goddard was head of the Clark University Physics Department, head of their Physics Laboratories and sponsored by the Smithsonian. And he didn't have enough film in the camera to film a 3 second flight? What were they there to film?

I went to youtube to see if I could find film of any of his flights and there is a 2 hour video of Goddard's greatest moments and as far as I can see in that incredibly boring 2+hour video that I haven't watched to the end none of his rockets ever flew.

No wonder he said rockets would work better in space. His rockets worked terribly on earth.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php ... ed-rocket/

[youtube]Pq7WmrTbi-Q&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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And I've learned that if we actually want a decent sized vacuum chamber, the greatest two publicly known are both owned by NASA. And the largest is only a couple hundred feet on a side. The second largest is half the volume.

So while these might be large enough to test a small model rocket, if they are real, how is anyone going to have NASA cooperate with an experiment that might disprove their videos? Actually, someone we know with the ability to set up such an experiment through University or other government connections just figuring out a way to propose the experiment would be an interesting test of NASA's confidence in their vacuum-traversing rockets.

I guess a number of scheduling and paperwork 'mishaps' might occur before the experiment could go through, if the rocket wouldn't work in their vacuum.

In 1963 the largest vacuum chamber was 25 feet.
In 1965 it was 90 feet.
In 1969 the record was set at 122 feet by NASA (the current largest in Europe is feet long)

Since 1969 there have been no attempts to build a larger vacuum chamber. Why? Why has so much of the technology of the Apollo missions been "lost" or abandoned?

http://awt.grc.nasa.gov/students_VacuumHistory.aspx
http://gizmodo.com/5912847/nasas-enviro ... e-on-earth
http://www.alta-space.com/index.php?pag ... facilities

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This is the absurd subversion of Newton's laws which NASA has sold to the public for decades:

"The rocket fuel (Force A) pushes against its own, vaporized self( Force B ). This force alone is what enables our rockets to attain the required 27.000km/h escape velocity which places them in orbit - and out of reach of Earth's gravity pull. Thereafter, no more fuel is needed and the rockets can be switched off - as the spacecraft is now safely free-falling, a bit like the moon orbiting our planet yet never falling down on us, you see?"

I'd say that burning that fuel will certainly expel it from its tank - but it wouldn't make any heavy rocket / spacecraft move upwards at any significant rate once the outside pressure reaches zero - or thereabouts.

THE MAGDEBURG HEMISPHERES experiment (1654)
Back in 1654, Otto Von Guericke, the inventor of the air pump (to simulate vacuum on Earth) performed a spectacular experiment. He had 16 horses trying to pull apart (in vain) two empty hemispheres held together only by the force of vacuum:

from a scientific CERN article:

"By this experiment he demonstrated that it is impossible to pull the two halves apart against the air pressure, even by using 2 X 8 horses (the counter-pressure by air in the interior of the sphere is missing). During this time, it became clear that we are living on the bottom of a huge ocean of air and that the mass of the atmosphere corresponds to a pressure of about 1kg per cm² or 10 tons on an area of 1m². The reason why we don’t feel anything of this tremendous pressure is simply that there is the same pressure inside our body."

http://www.cientificosaficionados.com/l ... 1-CERN.pdf

Indeed, folks: we are living on the bottom of a huge ocean of air - and that is something we all tend to forget. Imagine that: "10 tons on an area of 1m²". Pretty heavy stuff, huh?

fyi gas enters a vacuum at about 2,000 m/s (depends on the gas of course). So, as you point out, you're not going to get much thrust in space out of the 12 meter nozzle of an F1 engine in a Saturn 5 rocket. A molecule of gas that enters the nozzle is off into space in thousandths of a second.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1953ZA.....33..251K

I've been thinking about the pressure issue regarding space travel. As it turns out boats, planes and rockets (in the atmosphere), the 3 miracle machines of the modern age, all count on air pressure.

Metal boats float because of buoyancy, the pressure of the water below the hull is greater than the air pressure inside.

Planes fly because of lift, the pressure under the wing is greater than above.

All rockets equations have a thrust component which measures the pressure of the expelled gas.

Take away pressure (e.g. in the vacuum of space) and none of these three machines will work. Taking away pressure is like dividing by 0 in a math proof. Once you do it your answers are invalid even if you follow all the rules the rest of the way.

Rockets have to push against (or pull on) something. Just like everything else that moves.

A rocket pushing itself through the vacuum of space, totally isolated, touching nothing, being touched by nothing, is a fantasy born of hope and dreams, ignoring fundamental results in chemistry and physics.

Friction is the frenemy (friend + enemy). We need friction to start moving but then we want it to go away so we can keep moving. Space has no friction so we can't start moving in space (nor can we change direction, accelerate, etc...)

Well, with what I suppose would be somewhat basic physics, it would be possible to determine just how much air---intended to be blown into the vacuum---would be required to produce the distances and rates of travel proposed to us by NASA.

A chamber of gas relative to the size of say, Dublin, would fit the bill, no? On that note: bollocks.

Gas can't exist in a boundless, low-pressure, low-gravity vacuum like interstellar space. So it can't be used to move a rocket.

Gas only exists under pressure; in an atmosphere, in a container, in an extremely strong gravitational field, etc... Without pressure individual gas molecules fly away distancing themselves from each other at thousands of meters a second (depending on the specific heat) and no force is exerted in the process (no work done).

Using gas in space is like using ice cubes on the surface of the sun.

gas is only defined as existing within an area where it exerts pressure. Without pressure Boyle's law makes no sense: PV=k is an absurdity if pressure is 0. The Ideal gas law also makes no sense and so on. Gas not under pressure is like a solid without mass. It's nonsensical. You can't have one without the other.

There is no gas in outer space only scattered molecules without relation to one another. NASA and their aligned scientists group these molecules together as "gas" to make it seem like rocket gas can exist in the vacuum. Again, since these molecules do not exert any pressure they do not satisfy the condition of being a gas. But what does NASA care about science? They pick and choose the laws, theories and results to display to the public in order to make their picture of space travel seem plausible. It's starting to seem like there is barely any real science involved in space travel, the majority of the story being fantasy, imagination and trickery.

NB: Low gravity means that there is not much gravity, such as when you are far away from the nearest massive object. A vacuum is exactly what you think it is. Put those two together and you have the conditions of interstellar space through which a rocket must travel.

Space rockets are designed to work only in fantasies presented to us by production companies like NASA and Disney.

Science is against rockets working in space:
1. Gas can't push a rocket through space because:

i. Releasing gas into space does no work, creates no force.

ii. Gas ceases to exist once it enters the nozzle of a rocket in space and is exposed to the vacuum. Without pressure gas becomes only unrelated molecules swiftly dispersing into the void.

iii. A rocket can't push against something that doesn't exist nor can it use scattered, unrelated molecules as a propulsive force.


2. A rocket in space can only transfer energy from engine to hull and back again. No motion is generated. It is a giant battery connected to nothing.

3. Everything that moves must make an energy exchange with an object apart from itself (via a push or a pull). This is why a 90kg man can't pull himself off the floor and into the air but he can lift a 90kg weight off the same floor. A rocket cannot "push against itself" anymore than you can "lift yourself off the floor".


Rockets, like cars, boats and airplanes only function on the earth and in its atmosphere. Imaging them working anywhere else is science fiction.

As you well know, NASA's most extraordinary claim concerning propulsion physics is that their powerful rockets "do not push on air" when rising up to the skies. Air, they say, has absolutely nothing to do with propelling their spaceships - at all. We are told (again and again and ad nauseam) that it all has to do - exclusively - with Newton's laws, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - so just get used to it, folks!" Now, a favorite NASA analogy is that of the RECOIL of a shotgun when firing a bullet. They'll say that the flame shot out from the rocket nozzle is just like a bullet exiting a shotgun, causing an equal and opposite recoil reaction and so pushing the rocket forwards. Therefore, NASA claims, rockets work fine both in the atmosphere and in a vacuum - since ALL OF their propulsive power comes from this equal action/reaction physics rule.

Well, as it turns out, this action/reaction isn't equal at all :

Misconceptions about recoil
Although energy must be conserved, this does not mean that the kinetic energy of the bullet must be equal to the recoil energy of the gun: in fact, it is many times greater. For example, a bullet fired from an M16 rifle has approximately 1763 Joules of kinetic energy as it leaves the muzzle, but the recoil energy of the gun is less than 7 Joules.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoil

The reason for the recoil's kinetic energy being about 250 times weaker than the bullet's has to do with mass:

Physics of firearms - Kinetic Energy
However, the smaller mass of the bullet, compared to that of the gun-shooter system, allows significantly more kinetic energy to be imparted to the bullet than to the shooter. The ratio of the kinetic energies is the same as the ratio of the masses (and is independent of velocity). Since the mass of the bullet is much less than that of the shooter there is more kinetic energy transferred to the bullet than to the shooter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_firearms
[Physics buffs! Please go to the link and check out the relevant formulas and equations.]


So am I denying that rockets can fly? Not at all. Here's how I can see them working - in the atmosphere:


Simple, really: In order to vanquish force G - (Gravity and Drag) - the rocket causes an Action/Reaction (as of Newton's 3d law) between force A (rocket flame) and force R (the air/atmosphere). Force A will also add to the equation an extra recoil effect "r". The sum of R and "r" will provide (as of Newton's 2nd law)the needed acceleration to vanquish force G.

(Note that the kinetic energy of the recoil is but a marginal force here, given Mass M(rocket) and Mass m(rocket flame).

Now, here's what NASA claims:


To be sure, what NASA will tell you is that there simply is NO force "R"! "Air? Hohoho - no way, we need no air to push our rockets against! All we need is Newton's third law! Have you ever fired a gun in your life, sonny? Ever heard of recoil? "

In any case, here's the stuff they'll keep repeating - until your ears fall off:

"Goddard proved that a rocket will work in a vacuum, that it needs no air to push against"

"The truth is that the rocket does have something to push against: namely, its own fuel".

1. If the recoil of a gun absorbed as much energy as the bullet, it would be pretty lethal to fire a gun, and the bullet would lose the momentum required to fulfill its purpose.

2. The continuous stream of gas expelled through a rocket nozzle is not like a bullet fired from a gun. If it were, rockets would launch from the ground in awkward jerks, not smoothly, and would topple over in a matter of seconds. Imagine the destructive effect of a violent recoil on a 100-ton rocket standing upright on a launch pad! It would take more than one "wonderbolt" to keep the pieces together!

100,000 miles away from the earth the influence of it's gravity is .4% of what it is on the surface and that's not even halfway to the moon. Remember gravity is affected by the masses of the two objects involved. If one is tiny like a spaceship it's got to be close to the large object (e.g. planet) to feel a pull. Two really big objects can be farther apart and still pull on each other because of their combined masses are so great.

NASA is science education for a large segment of the population. Even though many people are aware of Newton and his laws they only know them in practice via NASA's explanations/demonstrations. They don't realize that Newton was working with solid bodies and not gasses. The folks working with gasses like Boyle and Joule are ignored by NASA because their results disagree with the official story.

Many people want to be a part of the exciting world of scientific discovery, the development of new technologies, the opening of new frontiers. The vast majority don't have the tools or the training to participate at a meaningful level so they just follow along looking at the pretty pictures, gasping at the bold exploits of space travelers and sitting at the feet of the wise scientists while pearls of wisdom drop from their lips.

See, NASA says that, in order to reach Earth Orbit their rockets need to accelerate to approx 8km/s. That's pretty damn fast, if you ask me - it's about 28.800km/h :

Rocketing into Orbit
"To reach Earth orbit, a rocket must accelerate to about 8 kilometers per second
—about 25 times faster than the cruising speed of a passenger jet."

http://howthingsfly.si.edu/propulsion/rocket-propulsion

I'm afraid I'll have to cite Newton's Third Law once again. Sorry, folks - I know... you've heard this one before!
"When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body."

Perhaps Newton's third law should have specified (and highlighted the importance of) the relative masses of the two bodies involved. The bodies need to be of equal mass in order for the "equal in magnitude" part of this law to be true. Or perhaps Newton DID specify that - but NASA has simply decided to ignore this crucial part and are happy to use the above, less-than-accurate phrase in the hope of getting away with their stratospheric lies. But let's get on.

Now, NASA denies that their rockets' propulsion has anything to do with any sort of interaction between their rockets' exhaust-thrust and air/atmosphere. Instead, they appeal to Newton's third law, saying that the exhausts of their rockets push on their own fuel/tank itself - and THAT is where and how the action/reaction occurs. They often compare this with the recoil of a bullet being fired by a shotgun. Of course, this is nonsense. A bullet has very little mass in comparison to a rifle and the man holding the rifle. For example, a bullet fired from an M16 rifle has approx 1763 Joules of kinetic energy as it leaves the muzzle, but the recoil energy exerted on the gun is less than 7 Joules. We may intuitively - and without resorting to complex equations - imagine that "recoil power" alone would not allow a given mass of rocket exhaust to lift a 100.000kg vessel from the ground - let alone propel it at supersonic speeds.

To attain the so-called escape velocity of 8km/s with "recoil power" only, this is what NASA's rockets would have to do: they'd have to shoot out from behind their rockets, all at once (like a bullet from a gun) a mass equal to the mass of the vessel itself - at a velocity of 8km/s. This means that, if this were to be the case (that rockets move due to "recoil action/reaction")- more than half of any rocket's fuel mass would have to be ejected at that speed - as illustrated in this gif diagram:


Of course, this is not the case - and would be quite impossible to do. Yet, this is basically how NASA 'explains' how their spacecrafts are propelled through air and vacuum. Please note that I have respectfully observed Newton's Third Law in my above diagram. I think our poor friend Isaac is rolling and howling in his grave - seeing how NASA is abusing / distorting his laws in order to fool the world. Sadly, most people seem to keep buying into their shameless skullduggery.

Sometimes I look around the web to see how people are defusing the "do rockets really work in space?" question. It's generally pretty easy to debunk examples of how rockets work in space, that is after I filter out the ad hominem attacks.

Take this example from The Straight Dope

The Straight Dope wrote:Wearing ice skates on a slippery ice rink would be good, or maybe your office has a chair that rolls really well on a hard surface. Next, you'll need a medicine ball. You are the rocket and the medicine ball is your fuel. Toss the medicine ball. You'll notice that as you shove the medicine ball forwards, you yourself lurch backwards. Ta-da, the miracle of physics!

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... m-of-space

A test you can do at home to check their results:
Grab the medicine ball and jump into the air. Right when you hit the apex of your jump push the medicine ball away, just like you did when sitting on the chair. How far backwards do you lurch?

When you're sitting, it's the wheels, which do an excellent/efficient job of translating energy (from your push) into work, that cause you to roll across the floor. Rockets don't have wheels. Rockets don't roll across space.

If you jump into the air you lose this efficiency and basically you go nowhere. When you throw the ball you absorb most of the force inside your body and you just shake a little bit. So much for being able to say the magic word Newton and rockets suddenly work in space.

The Straight Dope example is debunked without even mentioning that gas (rocket exhaust) is not a solid (medicine ball).

below Lee De Forest interview. It is interesting to note that De Forest, inventor of the Audion (a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them) was a space travel skeptic while, on the other hand, firmly believed that transoceanic television would be possible with "the skillful location of relay stations" and by taking advantage of the waves reflected by the ionosphere. In other words - without the need for launching costly telecommunication satellites into orbit...


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KX ... %2C6595098

(Perhaps unsurprisingly, for all his achievements and in spite of being considered in his time as "the father of radio and television", De Forest never rose to international fame and died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account. Here's just how important his vacuum tube invention was: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?c ... &id=&page=

Cold-Welding: a phenomenon relating to metals when they are in vacuum:

Vacuum Welds

Drawing Bead On Space Peril
Boston Globe (1960-1979) - Boston, Mass.
Author: DONALD WHITE
Date: Sep 12, 1965
Start Page: A_44
Pages: 1
Text Word Count: 264

One of the hazards of space travel is a phenomenon known as cold welding. The vacuum of space causes metal to stick together, a tendency that could be catastrophic in a space craft.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/acce ... atl=google

How do you lubricate anything supposed to work in the void, empty universe or on a moon?

2. Newton's 3rd Law only applies if an external force is present because

A system cannot "bootstrap" itself into motion with purely internal forces - to achieve a net force and an acceleration, it must interact with an object external to itself.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/newt.html

A rocket in space is a single system without an external force.

A rocket in space cannot interact with the vacuum.

I say gas ceases to exist because just about every formula, property and function of gas requires you to know the pressure it is under. When that pressure is 0, all those laws, formulas and properties are invalid.

The mechanics of the process is that without pressure every molecule in the gas sprints off into infinity in it's own, unique direction without anything to stop it or slow it down. Gas molecules have a lot of energy, are always moving around, which is why gas expands, etc...

Shooting gas into the vacuum of space is like shooting ice cubes into the sun.

Newton's 3rd Law: action/reaction only works if you have two separate objects. More specifically these two objects have to be external to each other.

The reason you can't pull yourself off of the floor by your belt is that you are one object even though you are made of many parts: internal organs, muscles, arms, legs, clothes, etc...

You can pull a weight off the floor that weighs as much as you because it is external to you.

The combustion chamber of a rocket in space is internal to the ship. They are one object just like your arms are internal to your body and are one object when it comes to Newton's 3rd Law.

If you want to lift yourself by your arms you have to pull or push on something external to your body, like the floor or a rope, etc...

The rocket has to do the same thing if it wants to move. It has to push or to pull on something external to the ship. There is nothing in space to push against or to pull on.

You can exert as much energy as you want trying to lift yourself off the floor but if you don't connect to an external system you're not going to move. You may shake but you won't rise off the floor.

Same goes for a ship in space. You can combust all the gasses you want. If you don't generate an external force you're not going anywhere. People say "the ship is pressing on the gasses" but the gasses don't exist outside the ship. Gas doesn't exist in the vacuum. So the ship is left pressing against itself. A space ship is like a car with an engine but no wheels.

Every machine that moves is mechanical: relies on friction, pressure, exchanging energy with objects external to it. Everything except space rockets, that is. NASA might as well scrap rockets and go straight to saying we can teleport to the moon and other planets.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/newt.html

As far as I can see nobody, not even NASA, has ever run a serious space rocket experiment. Where are the zero-gravity vacuum chambers big enough to fly rockets? There's a 17-mile long supercollider but the largest vacuum chamber is 120 feet.

Space science is like a cult run by ancient priests who speak to the Gods in private. We're not supposed to think for ourselves. We only wait until the NASA oracle tells us the great truths divulged only to them. This is not how science, nor modern, information-based, educated society is supposed to function. The goal of education is for us to learn how to figure things out for ourselves; to examine, to evaluate and to reason with the facts and data. What good is that training if, in the end, we can only shut up and believe what we are told with no proof, no solid theory behind it and no way to check the results or repeat their experiments ourselves?

Rocketry is not unique in this regard. Pretty much all the big results in science follow this pattern. Anyone who challenges the status quo is labeled an "idiot" or a "religious nut" which is ironic because science is behaving more and more like a religion based on faith and less and less of a method based on observation.

[johneeG]

IF no Rockets in space means
a) no satellites in space
b) no moon landings or mars landings in space
c) no space walking or other such things.

IF no satellites then
How does GPS, weather-forecasting, satellite-TV, ...etc work?

Plausible answer: Good old Radio Signals(invented by J C Bose), strategically located transmitters(idea of Lee De Forest), ionosphere, and triangulation.

GPS could be similar to Sonar such that Sonar uses sound waves in water while GPS uses radio signal in air.

Weather-forecasting and 'pictures from satellites' could be taken from high-flying planes(similar to drones).

----
Tesla's works seem to be playing vital role in our modern world.

BTW, wiki article on Tesla carefully avoids any mention of Vivekananda.

Tesla used ancient Sanskrit terminology in his descriptions of natural phenomena. As early as 1891 Tesla described the universe as a kinetic system filled with energy which could be harnessed at any location. His concepts during the following years were greatly influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda.

http://www.vivekananda.net/pplheknew/fr ... Tesla.html

Tesla remained a bachelor. He was also mostly secluded.

Nikola Tesla
He invented at least 700 devices, and was both an engineer and visionary. The form of electricity you are using right now to power your computer (alternating current) resulted from the work of Nikola Tesla. Most accounts say Tesla moved gradually towards a vegetarian diet, first by eliminating meat but still eating fish, and then by quitting that also. He wasn’t vegan though, as he used dairy milk as his main protein source, after abandoning meat.

“It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit. That we can subsist on plant food and perform our work even to advantage is not a theory, but a well-demonstrated fact.”

http://minesgreencircle.wordpress.com/2 ... getarians/

Peerless men in their respective fields, Swami Vivekananda and Nikola Tesla frequented the same social circles while the Swami was in America from 1893 on and had several opportunities to discuss science and religion at length. It is not certain when these two great minds first met, but Tesla probably met Swami Vivekananda in 1893 at the Chicago World Fair held in connection with the World's Parliament of Religions. He could have also first met him in 1896, after Tesla attended the swami's lectures in New York. Tesla was moved by these lectures and saw in Vedanta the future of science. About a year after their meeting, Vivekananda was undoubtedly referring to Tesla when he told an audience in India:"I have myself been told by some of the best scientific minds of the day how wonderfully rational the conclusions of Vedanta are. I know one of them personally, who scarcely has time to eat his meal or go out of his laboratory, but who yet would stand by the hour to attend my lectures on the Vedanta; for, as he expresses it, they are so scientific, they so exactly harmonize with the aspirations of the age and with the conclusions to which modern science is coming at the present time."

Now fascinated with the Vedic cosmology, Tesla began using the Sanskrit words akasha (all-pervading material of the universe) and prana (energy) to describe mass and energy in his work. The swami, seeking a unified primal energy beyond akasha and prana, went to see the scientist at his laboratory in February of 1896, hoping that he would be able to demonstrate that matter is simply potential energy."In that case," Vivekananda wrote,"the Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations. I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology of Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect unison with modern science." Both men must have been disappointed, however, since the results of Tesla's demonstrations are unknown. In fact, more than a year later Swami Vivekananda said,"There is the unity of force, prana; there is the unity of matter, called akasha. Is there any unity to be found among them again? Can they be melded into one? Our modern science is mute here; it has not yet found its way out."

Though Tesla clearly saw beyond the constraints of purely scientific thought, he tried to find nonspiritual explanations for the various"flashes of light" and psychic events he encountered throughout his life. He had a vivid premonition of his mother's death at the moment she died. He also experienced several visions that saved his own life. In his autobiography, Tesla describes that, at age 14, he was swimming with friends when he found himself trapped beneath a wooden structure."At that moment," he writes,"when my situation seemed absolutely hopeless, I experienced one of those flashes of light and the structure above me appeared before my vision. I either discerned or guessed that there was a little space between the surface of the water and the boards resting on the beams and, with consciousness nearly gone, I floated up, pressed my mouth close to the planks and managed to inhale a little air." Fortified with oxygen, Tesla was able to find his way out as his friends were fishing for his body.

Although he was a scientific visionary, Tesla was never able to prove empirically what Swami Vivekananda could clearly see as the perfect unison of Vedanta and modern science. In an article called"Man's Greatest Achievement," Tesla wrote:"What has the future in store for this strange being [man], born of breath, of perishable tissue, yet mortal, with his powers fearful and divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement? Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. Can Man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? To do so would place him beside his Creator, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny."

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/sm ... temid=4045

It seems HAARP also uses radio signals and works on ionosphere. And perhaps, HAARP is related to the work of Tesla.

Pak engineer hints at CIA, RAW, Mossad conspiracy in Siachen Avalanche

This is an era of undeclared warfare through unconventional weaponry including laser beams that is ever-improving with the help of computer-aided technologies. To be on the safer side, it will not be unwise to presume the under-cover use of such special techniques. Working of HAARP is documented; triggering of earth quakes through resonance-creating equipment is well-known. Above all, it must be remembered that the area is critically sensitive for the two countries.

It has been claimed that HAARP is capable of causing big changes; it can even give a significant tilt to the Earth’s axis. While its use directly through ionosphere is not feasible for this specific area, its special localised version generating controlled beams at specific locations from nearby vantage points cannot be ruled out. How to see to that is an exercise which requires serious thinking. Furthermore, eroding mechanically through secret missions the control points of glaciers (mainly close to edges) to result in well-defined covert outcomes has to be guarded against. Even if these plans appear too risky or somewhat prohibitive due to budgetary constraints (for both sides), yet, we cannot remain oblivious to such eventualities and need to have sufficient funds diverted for on-site studies and preparation of contingency plans on modern lines.

It is also possible that the recent Uttarakhand cloud burst is related to this tech.

[johneeG]

The problems comes from NASA's equation for rocket thrust

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/rockth.html

Newton's 2nd Law states: Force = Mass x Acceleration

NASA's rocket formula states incorrectly that: Force = Mass x Velocity whereas in reality Momentum = Mass x Velocity

NASA cannot claim that momentum helps moves a rocket because momentum is not a force.

Momentum is a property, like mass.

Force is a push or a pull on an object.

They are different things.

While is seems like something moving very fast should push very hard it is only when the fast moving object meets another object that a force is generated (like a rock hitting a window generates force when the rock is slowed by the glass).

For those who say "the gas interacts with the ship, pushes on it", I say, no it does not via free expansion and in any case NASA does not even attempt to provide a term in their equation relating to the gas pushing against the ship.

NASA claims that by pressurizing gas and shooting really fast out of the back of a rocket they can create thrust in a vacuum.

Using only NASA web sites I can show that their equation for rocket thrust is bunkum.

First, the NASA rocket thrust equation (written in lay language)

Force = Mass x Velocity + (Pressure Difference between inside the rocket and the vacuum of space) x Nozzle Area

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/rockth.html

The first term says Force = Mass x Velocity whereas NASA web sites say that
Force = Mass x Acceleration (Newton’s 2nd law of motion)
NASA sites also say that Mass x Velocity = Momentum which is not a force. Momentum is potential energy. If you throw a rock it has momentum. If you throw it harder it has more momentum. No force is generated until the rock hits something. Gas shot out of the back of a rocket very fast does not create a force until it interacts with something, which it never does in the vacuum of space. It remains high momentum gas streaking endlessly through space looking to do work but never getting the chance.

The second term (Pressure Difference between inside the rocket and the vacuum of space) x Nozzle Area
violates the “free expansion” effect, part of the first law of thermodynamics by which pressurized gas moves into a vacuum without any work being done. It does not matter how highly pressured the gas is inside the rocket nor how fast it comes out. Because it is going into a vacuum the gas makes the trip “for free” and does not do any work, does not expend any energy and does not create any force or thrust.

The NASA space rocket equation has two terms the first of which is incorrect and so is the second. As Linus Pauling would say, “not even wrong”. How do rockets work in the vacuum space?

I just checked and I think the first part of the NASA's rocket formula is not wrong. But, it seems the second part of the formula contradicts the first law of thermodynamics.

The first term says Force = Mass x Velocity whereas NASA web sites say that
Force = Mass x Acceleration (Newton’s 2nd law of motion)
NASA sites also say that Mass x Velocity = Momentum which is not a force. Momentum is potential energy. If you throw a rock it has momentum. If you throw it harder it has more momentum. No force is generated until the rock hits something. Gas shot out of the back of a rocket very fast does not create a force until it interacts with something, which it never does in the vacuum of space. It remains high momentum gas streaking endlessly through space looking to do work but never getting the chance.

The above seems wrong. The NASA's formula is not using m(mass). It is using m-dot(rate of flow of mass).
The formula for rate of flow of mass is:

In physics and engineering, mass flow rate is the mass of a substance which passes through a given surface per unit of time. Its unit is kilogram per second in SI units, and slug per second or pound per second in US customary units. The common symbol is \dot{m} (pronounced "m-dot"), although sometimes μ (Greek lowercase mu) is used.

Sometimes, mass flow rate is termed mass flux or mass current, see for example Fluid Mechanics, Schaum's et al.[1] In this article, the (more intuitive) definition is used.

Mass flow rate is defined by the limit:[2][3]


i.e. the flow of mass m through a surface per unit time t.

The overdot on the m is Newton's notation for a time derivative. Since mass is a scalar quantity, the mass flow rate (the time derivative of mass) is also a scalar quantity. The change in mass is the amount that flows after crossing the boundary for some time duration, not simply the initial amount of mass at the boundary minus the final amount at the boundary, since the change in mass flowing through the area would be zero for steady flow.

So, m-dot(mass flow rate) == dm/dt.
acceleration == dv/dt.
Force == mass * acceleration.

As I understand:
dm/dt * dv(first part of NASA's rocket formula) == dv/dt* dm == Force.
m-dot * v == mass * acceleration == Force.

So, the first part of the NASA rocket formula seems alright.

But, it seems the second part is in contradiction to Joule's First Law of Thermodynamics.

The second term (Pressure Difference between inside the rocket and the vacuum of space) x Nozzle Area
violates the “free expansion” effect, part of the first law of thermodynamics by which pressurized gas moves into a vacuum without any work being done. It does not matter how highly pressured the gas is inside the rocket nor how fast it comes out. Because it is going into a vacuum the gas makes the trip “for free” and does not do any work, does not expend any energy and does not create any force or thrust.

-----

Maybe you can post in the physics thread - http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... =24&t=4377

I will reply there.

Yep, that would have been proper. But, posting such things evokes adverse reaction and generally, these posts are simply deleted or not discussed or the poster gets attacked. This thread seemed like a safe place to post. But, you are right, this should be posted in the physics thread and it should be discussed.

I think regardless of the validity or invalidity of a theory, at least, it should be discussed. If for nothing else, then at least to show why a theory is invalid. I think that is the spirit of science. Unquestioning blind adherence to the words of high priests may be demanded in religion, but I don't think that is scientific temper.
----

Nikola Tesla-WardenClyffe Tower-harnessing electricity from ionosphere-J P Morgan-Tesla's research seized by US Govt and not released.

On January 7th 2012, the Anniversary of the death of one of history's most brilliant scientists, Nikola Tesla, we will stand together and demand his research into harnessing electricity from the ionosphere, at a facility called Wardenclyffe, be released to the public.

The Energy Crisis is a lie, the problem was solved 100 years ago by a scientist named Nikola Tesla.

He had discovered a way to harness the naturally occurring electricity from the ionosphere, and then in turn rebroadcast it to individual relay stations that could be placed anywhere and were no larger then your average car antenna.

Each primary tower could produce renewable, safe, clean electricity, and would then broadcast it wirelessly to points as far (as his experiments in Colorado springs showed) as 30 miles away from the primary tower.

Nikola Tesla's primary investor, J.P. Morgan, thought he was investing in the world's first radio tower, but unknown to him, that was only one of its purposes and capabilities.

The project was known as Wardenclyffe.

When JP. Morgan learned of the true capabilities of Wardenclyffe, the ability to harness an almost infinite amount of power and freely broadcast it wirelessly to anyone who had the proper antenna (with no way to monitor energy consumption) he immediately canceled all of Tesla's funding.

The pursuit of profit swept one of the worlds most revolutionary inventions ever conceived under the carpet, and away from the eyes of history.

Upon Nikola Tesla's death on January 7th, 1943, the U.S. Government immediately moved into his lab and apartment and confiscated all of his scientific research - including his work on Wardenclyffe and research on the ionosphere.

To this day, none of this research has been made public.
This is a clear example of how corporate greed has bought our government, instead of providing this information for the benefit of ALL mankind.
They have deliberately hidden it from public view in order to prop up corporations such as the oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power industries.

Picture
In 1891, Nikola Tesla gave a lecture for the members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City, where he made a striking demonstration. In each hand he held a gas discharge tube, an early version of the modern fluorescent bulb. The tubes were not connected to any wires, but nonetheless they glowed brightly during his demonstration. Tesla explained to the awestruck attendees that the electricity was being transmitted through the air by the pair of metal sheets which sandwiched the stage. He went on to speculate how one might increase the scale of this effect to transmit wireless power and information over a broad area, perhaps even the entire Earth. As was often the case, Tesla’s audience was engrossed but bewildered.

In essence, Tesla’s global power grid was designed to “pump” the planet with electricity which would intermingle with the natural electric currents that move throughout the Earth’s crust and oceans. At the same time, towers like the one at Wardenclyffe would fling columns of raw energy skyward into the electricity-friendly ionosphere fifty miles up. To tap into this energy conduit, customers’ homes would be equipped with a buried ground connection and a relatively small spherical antenna on the roof, thereby creating a low-resistance path to close the giant Earth-ionosphere circuit. Oceangoing ships could use a similar antenna to draw power from the network while at sea. In addition to electricity, these currents could carry information over great distances by bundling radio-frequency energy along with the power, much like the modern technology to send high-speed Internet data over power lines.

his supporting experimental data and previous engineering accomplishments, there was little reason to doubt the veracity of Tesla’s claims. But building the power station, the huge wooden tower, and the fifty-five ton conductive dome depleted the original investment money relatively quickly, leading to chronic funding shortages. The complications were further compounded by a stock market crash in 1901 which doubled the cost of building materials and sent investors scurrying for financial cover.

The Wardenclyffe team tested their tower a handful of times during construction, and the results were very encouraging; but the project soon devoured Tesla’s personal savings, and it became increasingly clear that no new investments were forthcoming. In 1905, having exhausted all practical financial options, the construction efforts were abandoned. Regarding the project’s demise, Tesla stated:

“It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-heated, doubting world! Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer’s keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”
-Nikola Tesla

If Tesla’s plans had come to fruition, the pilot plant would have been merely the first of many. Such “magnifying transmitter” towers would have peppered the globe, saturating the planet with free electricity and wireless communication as early as the 1920s. Instead, the futuristic facility’s potential went untapped for over a decade, until the tower was finally demolished for salvage in 1917.

The following is written by Tesla(notice the use of Sanskrit Terms):

Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the Akasa or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena.The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can Man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding, more still - can he so refine his means of control as to put them in operation simply by the force of his will? If he could do this he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being.He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams.
He could express all the creations of his mind, on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could make planets collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms.To create and annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man's mind, his most complete triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement which would place him beside his Creator and fulfill his ultimate destiny.

Link

In his masterful article The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, first published in Century Illustrated Magazine in June 1900, Tesla discusses the "energy situation" like never before. After discussing every known method of gathering energy from the Natural World, Tesla departs into the unknown. His first discussion is about a machine that can gather heat from the ambient air. He calls it a "Self-acting Engine" since it could run indefinitely from the solar energy stored in the air. He called it "the ideal way of obtaining motive power".

Tesla worked for years trying to solve all of the technical issues presented by the idea. His work with liquified air, his discovery of super-conductivity at ultra-low temperatures, his bladeless turbine and mechanical oscillator were all spin-offs from his work on the ambient air engine. He was convinced the system could work and that it was absolutely the best way to harness solar energy.

On a world that is warming up, tapping ambient sources of heat in the air, water and ground are the most important technologies to develop at this time.


But Nikola Tesla's most famous attempt to provide everyone in the world with free energy was his World Power System, a method of broadcasting electrical energy without wires, through the ground. His Wardenclyffe Tower, pictured above, was never finished, but his dream of providing energy to all points on the globe is still alive today.

Link

For a brief article on Tesla's amazing "Self-acting Engine", click here.

[johneeG]

I accidentally modified my earlier post thinking that I was posting a new post. So, my earlier post is lost.

What I was saying in that earlier post(which is now modified) was:
There seems to be a trend from 90s onwards to portray the ancient Gods of various cultures as aliens. Indian, American, Egyptian, ...etc Gods are being portrayed as aliens. There are some hollywood movies which touch upon this theme. In history channel, there is a program called 'ancient aliens' on the same theme. There are even books written on this theme or similar theme.

The theory is that aliens landed on earth in the past and interacted with the people. And those people started worshiping these aliens as Gods. So, the ancient Gods are nothing more than aliens. This is the theory that is being pushed.

Then, there is another theory that life came to earth from Mars or Moon. It seems to me that NASA's 'explorations' of space will end up 'confirming' that life came to earth from Mars. This is already a semi-official theory. There are movies on this theme also.

---
Another point I was talking about on in that earlier post was: HAARP.
HAARP seems to use radio waves.
I think there needs to be some serious discussion on HAARP.
Is it possible to create earth-quakes or land slides by creating resonance by bombarding a place with concentrated/focused radio waves of a particular frequency?

n physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate with greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. Frequencies at which the response amplitude is a relative maximum are known as the system's resonant frequencies, or resonance frequencies. At these frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations, because the system stores vibrational energy.

Resonance occurs when a system is able to store and easily transfer energy between two or more different storage modes (such as kinetic energy and potential energy in the case of a pendulum). However, there are some losses from cycle to cycle, called damping. When damping is small, the resonant frequency is approximately equal to the natural frequency of the system, which is a frequency of unforced vibrations. Some systems have multiple, distinct, resonant frequencies.

Resonance phenomena occur with all types of vibrations or waves: there is mechanical resonance, acoustic resonance, electromagnetic resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electron spin resonance (ESR) and resonance of quantum wave functions. Resonant systems can be used to generate vibrations of a specific frequency (e.g. musical instruments), or pick out specific frequencies from a complex vibration containing many frequencies (e.g. filters).

Is it possible to create weather imbalances or floods/excessive raining/cloud bursts by disturbing ionosphere using radio waves or electromagnetic waves?

Weather warfare
Worldwide concern about using the weather as a tool for warfare has created a public outcry, demanding transparency regarding HAARP technology. A Canadian CBC documentary about HAARP asserts:

"It isn't just conspiracy theorists who are concerned about HAARP. The European Union called the project a global concern and passed a resolution calling for more information on its health and environmental risks. Despite those concerns, officials at HAARP insist the project is nothing more sinister than a radio science research facility."

The European Union requested an investigation of HAARP to establish "its legal, ecological and ethical implications before any further research and testing." The United States has repeatedly refused such an investigation on the grounds of 'national security.'

Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, a professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, believes that both the Americans and Russians have developed the capacity to manipulate climate with a new generation of "non-lethal weapons." According to Chossudovsky, scientific evidence suggests that "HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions." Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a respected physician and epidemiologist known for her work in the field of ionizing radiation, suspects that HAARP will be combined with space labs as a military operation, capable of delivering a beam of energy (comparable to a nuclear bomb) anywhere on earth.

The History Channel documentary "Weather Warfare" also comments on HAARP:

"Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification as a concept for battle environments."

Information about the HAARP program is intentionally limited. Even though scientists and researchers have formulated a sound theory about the power of this technology, further investigation is needed.

Link

Link

----

JohneeG, Why are you posting rocket theory in this thread? Shouldnt it be in the physics thread? And a link here.

Ramana garu,
I thought that topic would be treated as CT and would not be welcome there. So, I posted it here. But, if it is okay to post there, then I'll cross-post it there.
-----
There is a manthra in Vedhas(I think Rig Vedha, I'll try to find the exact verse) which says:
Indhra hit the mountain with a 'go'.
Now, the word 'go' has different meanings in Sanskrith. Some people translate it as "Indhra hit the mountain with a cow", then they try to use it to allege that Vedhas themselves talk about killing of cows.

Traditional scholars say that the word 'go' refers to rays. The word 'go' applies to any entity that has the property of travelling. Since the rays/waves travel, they are called 'go'.

Now, this manthra is peculiar because the Indhra hitting the mountain with rays can be a scientific process of some kind. Indhra is generally a symbol for rain and His vehicle(white elephant) is a symbol for cloud, while His weapon is a symbol for thunder. So, the rays that Indhra uses could be electro-magnetic rays(or even radio waves). What happens if a concentrated beam of electro-magnetic rays or radio waves are made to hit a mountain?
Land slides?
Similarly, is it possible to generate clouds by disturbing ionosphere?
The lifting of Govardhan mountain and creation of incessant rain in Bhagavatham is also very interesting and seems to be related to this topic.
It seems HAARP is working on this subject.

[Pranav]

Johnee ji,

If rocketry supposedly does not work in vacuum, then how do you suppose probes are sent to the Moon and Mars?

And what is wrong with using conservation of momentum, given that exhaust molecules are thrown out at high relative speeds?

[Bade]

The more obvious question to ask what indic technology or variant of paki djinn technology does ISRO use. Or are they frauds too.

[SaiK]

all it needs is to ensure a burn happens, and the force expends in the right direction.

[johneeG]

Johnee ji,

If rocketry supposedly does not work in vacuum, then how do you suppose probes are sent to the Moon and Mars?

I don't know, saar. It seems to me that if rocketry doesn't work in vacuum, then

IF no Rockets in space means
a) no satellites in space
b) no moon landings or mars landings in space
c) no space walking or other such things.

The obvious follow up question would be:
most of the modern communication network(like GPS, cell-phones, satellite-TV, weather-reports,...etc) depends on Satellites. So, if there are no satellites, then how do all these work?

It seems some claim that it is possible to have all these without the need for a satellite in space.
Weather-reports -> doppler-radar.
GPS -> radiowave(microwave or shortwave) with triangulation and strategically located towers.
Cell-phones -> radio waves and towers.
Satellite TV -> radio waves and towers.

Before GPS came into effect, LORAN was used.
Wiki Link on LORAN

GPS may work on same principle as LORAN with some changes. The point is that a navigational tech is possible without the need for a satellite.

Ionosphere refracts the radio waves. NASA says that very high frequencies(above 300 MHz) are not bounced off by the ionosphere and that these frequencies simply escape into space. NASA says that the frequencies higher than 300 MHz are used for satellite TV, sat-phone, GPS, ...etc.

But, if these frequencies are bounced off and instead they also get refracted, then there is no need for a satellite. There may be a necessity of drones(or some flights).

The larger point is that it is possible to envision an alternative to the supposed functions of a satellite.

And what is wrong with using conservation of momentum, given that exhaust molecules are thrown out at high relative speeds?

According to 'Free expansion' based on First Law of Thermodynamics, exhaust molecules(or any gas molecules) are not thrown out into vacuum. They simply escape. While escaping into vacuum, they do not perform any work. Since, no work is performed by them, they cannot pull or push or create any force. Force == work/distance. If no work is done, it means no force is applied. No force by the gases means, no action-reaction(Newton's third law) on rocket. So, the rocket cannot move.

Rocket in vacuum is a closed system. There is only one object: rocket. There is nothing else with which the rocket can interact to move.

Momentum does not move objects. Force moves the objects. Momentum is like inertia. Force changes the momentum of an object. Unless a force acts on an object, the object persists with the same momentum. (First law of Newton). For a rocket to escape the earth's gravitational pull, it needs to keep accelerating. For acceleration(that is change in momentum), it needs force. If there is no force, then it cannot move forward and will fall back on earth due to gravity.

Suppose the rocket has already escaped into the vacuum, then the rocket will continue to move in that direction with same velocity. That means the rocket will persist with its momentum until an external force acts on it. In vacuum, rocket is a closed system and there is no force on it. So, the rocket, if it succeeds in escaping out of the gravity of earth, will keep going until it meets another force. So, using rockets in vacuum(to put satellites, ...etc) becomes impossible. Basically, rockets cannot be maneuvered in vacuum even if somehow they are put there in the first place.

all it needs is to ensure a burn happens, and the force expends in the right direction.

For the burn to happen, 2 things are required:
a) combustible substance (fuel)
b) oxygen.

NASA says that it uses liquid fuel(as a combustible substance). Then, NASA says that it uses an oxidizer(to allow combustion).

The first problem is that liquid becomes a gas when it is exposed to vacuum. And gas escapes into vacuum(without doing any work) due to the open nozzle of the rocket in vacuum. Because of 'Free Expansion'. 'Free Expansion' is proposed in First Law of Thermodynamics. According to it, gases escape into vacuum without performing any work. They simply escape with great velocity but without performing any work. So, its impossible to start the combustion with the nozzle open.

What happens to the molecules of the gas once it escapes into the vacuum?
Each molecule keeps going till it meets another force(that means they keep up their momentum). The momentum of the molecule will become a force, when it comes in contact with another force. Then, equal and opposite(third law of Newton) will take place. In vacuum, that too in space, each molecule will keep going for a long a time before they meet another force. So, basically, all the fuel in the rocket is emptied into vacuum as soon as the nozzle is opened and no work is done in this process. And the combustion didn't even happen.

Lets say the nozzle is closed(which it is not, nozzle of the rocket is always open as far as I understand), then the combustion(the blast) happens inside the rocket. This blast inside the rocket cannot move the rocket because rocket in a vacuum is a close system. Closed system means no force is acting on rocket from outside. The forces inside the rocket cannot move it, just as you cannot pull yourself up. Of course, you can push the ground and jump. That is different. Rocket does not have anything to push against in vacuum.

The more obvious question to ask what indic technology or variant of paki djinn technology does ISRO use. Or are they frauds too.

Saar,
you are trying to get me banned by inducing me to call ISRO as frauds.
But, my answer to your question is, "I don't know."

All I am saying is that rocketry does not seem to work in vacuum due to certain constraints. And there seem to be alternate methods to create all the functions that supposedly require a satellite.

You see, I would not have posted this on BR if it were just another article/video speculating based on photographic evidence. There are several such videos on Youtube about NASA's moon landings. I don't post them here.

But, since this particular discussion is based on science and since I can't see any fault with what they are saying, I posted it here. I hope that either this theory would be supported(i.e. confirmed) or rejected(i.e. refuted) by the experts on this dhaga.

----
BTW, there seems to be an earth quake in Himachal Pradesh.
So, there was floods and cloud burst in Uttaranchal and Himachal. Then, there were floods in Brahmaputhra. Now, its earth quake in Himachal. The whole Himalayan range seems to be in some disturbance.

[Pranav]

And what is wrong with using conservation of momentum, given that exhaust molecules are thrown out at high relative speeds?

According to 'Free expansion' based on First Law of Thermodynamics, exhaust molecules(or any gas molecules) are not thrown out into vacuum. They simply escape. While escaping into vacuum, they do not perform any work. Since, no work is performed by them, they cannot pull or push or create any force. Force == work/distance. If no work is done, it means no force is applied. No force by the gases means, no action-reaction(Newton's third law) on rocket. So, the rocket cannot move.

Rocket in vacuum is a closed system. There is only one object: rocket. There is nothing else with which the rocket can interact to move.

Well, it is not free expansion ... the energetic gases cannot expand freely ... they are forced through a narrow nozzle pointing in a specific direction.

The total system of rocket + gases will indeed preserve its momentum.

[SriKumar]

There is something known as “Free Expansion” or the “Joule-Thomson” effect, named after James Prescott Joule and J.J. Thompson two of the founders of the field of Physical Chemistry.
http://www.etomica.org/app/modules/site ... ound2.html
Free Expansion states that when a pressurized gas is exposed to a vacuum the gas expanding into the vacuum without any work being done. The gas is not “pulled” or “sucked” into the vacuum nor is it “pushed” out of the high-pressure container. In other words no work is done, no heat or energy is lost.

I looked at the weblink posted above. The reason the above theory does not fully apply is that the above example is that of a closed system.

If you look at the diagram, the gas is clearly expanding into a vacuum; but it is expanding into the _same_ container in which the gas is originally stored. There are indeed 2 compartments in the container, but it is one single overall container. Imagine what will happen to a molecule of gas that rushes out from one chamber into another...you had described it in nice detail earlier. It will move forward and then hit the wall of the second chamber ....which is clearly connected to the first chamber. The fact that it is connected to the first chamber makes all the difference. Imagine you are standing in a bus. It is similar to running and slamming into a wall inside a bus to make the bus move; or if you are sitting inside a bus and pushing on the seat in front to make it move. It is still Newtonian physics.

[Vayutuvan]

By the way, that etomica sight is very nice. Lots of modules for Chemistry. I quickly ran the ensemble MD simulation in an applet. Quite nice for explaining concepts to (advanced?) high school kids (or even younger).

[SaiK]

why is fizzic dhaaga in stealth mode while math is enjoying a public access? there must be something about this secrecy.

btw, can someone explain this in moorkh lingua?
http://io9.com/scientists-freeze-light- ... -912634479

[Sushupti]

Quantum Indians

[Vayutuvan]

Most precise clock to watch tiniest ever time dilations

Time can now be divided into slivers hundreds of trillions of times smaller than a second, thanks to a pair of atomic clocks made from ytterbium that have just set a new record for precision.

This could allow us to detect how an object just 1 centimetre above another might age differently, as prescribed by Einstein's theory of general relativity. It could also set a new standard definition for the second.
...
Relativity, although hugely successful, doesn't sit well with quantum mechanics, so physicists expect it to break down at some point, revealing a new, more fundamental theory.

"We know that general relativity is not the ultimate theory," Salomon says. "People are searching for violations of general relativity that would indicate new forces or new particles or new physics, and that would be really exciting. These [atomic clocks] are exquisite tools for doing that work."

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1240420

[devesh]

http://electroiq.com/2013/09/stanford-s ... 1967643174

Stanford Scientists Use DNA to Assemble a Transistor From Graphene

DNA is the blueprint for life. Could it also become the template for making a new generation of computer chips based not on silicon, but on an experimental material known as graphene? That's the theory behind a process that Stanford chemical engineering professor Zhenan Bao reveals in Nature Communications.

Bao and her co-authors, former post-doctoral fellows Anatoliy Sokolov and Fung Ling Yap, hope to solve a problem clouding the future of electronics: consumers expect silicon chips to continue getting smaller, faster and cheaper, but engineers fear that this virtuous cycle could grind to a halt.

Why has to do with how silicon chips work.

Everything starts with the notion of the semiconductor, a type of material that can be induced to either conduct or stop the flow of electricity. Silicon has long been the most popular semiconductor material used to make chips.

The basic working unit on a chip is the transistor. Transistors are tiny gates that switch electricity on or off, creating the zeroes and ones that run software.

To build more powerful chips, designers have done two things at the same time: they've shrunk transistors in size and also swung those gates open and shut faster and faster.

The net result of these actions has been to concentrate more electricity in a diminishing space. So far that has produced small, faster, cheaper chips. But at a certain point, heat and other forms of interference could disrupt the inner workings of silicon chips.

"We need a material that will let us build smaller transistors that operate faster using less power," Bao said.

Graphene has the physical and electrical properties to become a next-generation semiconductor material - if researchers can figure out how to mass-produce it.

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Visually it resembles chicken wire. Electrically this lattice of carbon atoms is an extremely efficient conductor.

Bao and other researchers believe that ribbons of graphene, laid side-by-side, could create semiconductor circuits. Given the material's tiny dimensions and favorable electrical properties, graphene nano ribbons could create very fast chips that run on very low power, she said.

"However, as one might imagine, making something that is only one atom thick and 20 to 50 atoms wide is a significant challenge," said co-author Sokolov.

To handle this challenge, the Stanford team came up with the idea of using DNA as an assembly mechanism.

Physically, DNA strands are long and thin, and exist in roughly the same dimensions as the graphene ribbons that researchers wanted to assemble.

Chemically, DNA molecules contain carbon atoms, the material that forms graphene.

The real trick is how Bao and her team put DNA's physical and chemical properties to work.

The researchers started with a tiny platter of silicon to provide a support (substrate) for their experimental transistor. They dipped the silicon platter into a solution of DNA derived from bacteria and used a known technique to comb the DNA strands into relatively straight lines.

Next, the DNA on the platter was exposed to a copper salt solution. The chemical properties of the solution allowed the copper ions to be absorbed into the DNA.

Next the platter was heated and bathed in methane gas, which contains carbon atoms. Once again chemical forces came into play to aid in the assembly process. The heat sparked a chemical reaction that freed some of the carbon atoms in the DNA and methane. These free carbon atoms quickly joined together to form stable honeycombs of graphene.

"The loose carbon atoms stayed close to where they broke free from the DNA strands, and so they formed ribbons that followed the structure of the DNA," Yap said.

So part one of the invention involved using DNA to assemble ribbons of carbon. But the researchers also wanted to show that these carbon ribbons could perform electronic tasks. So they made transistors on the ribbons.

"We demonstrated for the first time that you can use DNA to grow narrow ribbons and then make working transistors," Sokolov said.

The paper drew praise from UC Berkeley associate professor Ali Javey, an expert in the use of advanced materials and next-generation electronics.

"This technique is very unique and takes advantage of the use of DNA as an effective template for controlled growth of electronic materials," Javey said. "In this regard the project addresses an important research need for the field."

Bao said the assembly process needs a lot of refinement. For instance, not all of the carbon atoms formed honeycombed ribbons a single atom thick. In some places they bunched up in irregular patterns, leading the researchers to label the material graphitic instead of graphene.

Even so, the process, about two years in the making, points toward a strategy for turning this carbon-based material from a curiosity into a serious contender to succeed silicon.

"Our DNA-based fabrication method is highly scalable, offers high resolution and low manufacturing cost," said co-author Yap. "All these advantages make the method very attractive for industrial adoption."

The experiment was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Program.

[member_27444]

Bio semi conductors experiments are at least three decades old.

Regarding the rocket efficiency why can't the divergent nozzle be with variable geometry like those of thrust vectoring like flexible to increase the divergent are to maximize the efficiency ?

[Vayutuvan]

I posted this in book review in Math thread - but mostly about returning to physics roots - empiricism.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 9#p1519699

[Bade]

^^^ Part of the problem as defined is due to certain expectations on part of the lay public, whose viewpoints the authors project as their thesis. This viewpoint is that all "understanding" has to have only a small set of origin pointing to a creator/controller/god whatever you want to call. Hence, proliferation is seen as a bad sign of understanding. There is a merit to this view but also pitfalls. As nature does not have to adhere to ones aesthetics.

OTOH, granted that theorists are dime a dozen (what with so many PhDs being created) and all have to occupy themselves with creative thoughts...resulting in a proliferation of theories. Higgs boson is now an experimentally verified measured particle within the standard model paradigm. But to search for any new physics, one has to design experiments and to design them one needs the crutches of new theories.

[Amber G.]

Perhaps the most popular and important learning material of my generation ...
Feynman lectures now online

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website are pleased to present this online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Now, anyone with internet access and a web browser can enjoy reading a high-quality up-to-date copy of Feynman's legendary lectures. This edition has been designed for ease of reading on devices of any size or shape; text, figures and equations can all be zoomed without degradation.

I have attended many of his lectures and I think he was one of the greatest teacher. He knew his audience well and whether it was an undergraduate class or a hall full of professional physicists (not to mention an audience listening to his drums, or mardi gra crowd watching his band), he made everything look so easy.

I still remember when I first time visited Caltech (late sixties) and saw the parking space reserved for "Prof. Feynman" (Only one or two spaces available right near the docking lot of Physics building), it hit me that Feynman was actually a real human being and not just some super hero who produced those lectures.

[chaanakya]

Thanks, Its really wonderful that Lectures are available online. I really thank you for posting the link.

[Bade]

amberG, can you tell us who that Indian fella (teaching assistant) is in that picture with Feynman. Since it is from 1963, thought you may know.

[Bade]

Hardly any news of SS Bhatnagar awardees for this year in the media, and came to know of it belatedly. One of them was a fellow student from another department in grad school. So far know 3 of SS Bhatnagar fellows who were contemporaries. Good for all of them talented ones who deserve the recognition.

[Theo_Fidel]

^^^ Part of the problem as defined is due to certain expectations on part of the lay public, whose viewpoints the authors project as their thesis. This viewpoint is that all "understanding" has to have only a small set of origin pointing to a creator/controller/god whatever you want to call. Hence, proliferation is seen as a bad sign of understanding. There is a merit to this view but also pitfalls. As nature does not have to adhere to ones aesthetics.

OTOH, granted that theorists are dime a dozen (what with so many PhDs being created) and all have to occupy themselves with creative thoughts...resulting in a proliferation of theories. Higgs boson is now an experimentally verified measured particle within the standard model paradigm. But to search for any new physics, one has to design experiments and to design them one needs the crutches of new theories.

Bade,

Lee Smolin too makes the exact same argument in his series of books. So does Peter Woit, though in a less rigorous way. I have read several of Smolins books and they are all enjoyable. The new theories do not predict anything that can be tested. For instance the failure to find proton decay so far has resulted in the death of an entire series of theories. Leaving the only theories that don’t predict anything at all. Smolin is a little self-serving but he does have a point. A theory without testable proof is indistinguishable from faith right.

AFAIK Relativity, both special/general have not been falsified in a single experiment. The AGASA may have found some inconsistency but Smolin thinks the error bars are too high. Smolin also does not think the Standard Model with its manually entered parameters is the final story. The nature of reality continues to elude us.

If the Higgs Boson pans out it too is a dead end, the universe essentially shutting out the last possible area of clues about reality. The public thinks it is a great achievement, but it could actually end up being a millstone. The Higgs field theory works within the existing models and does not reveal anything new about the universe to us. As such another dead end. Another manually entered parameter.

[Bade]

No surprises there at all. This is the way it is intended to be as far as discoveries go. It is credit to science that theories can be tested and let to die if they do not stand the experimental tests. The only issue with the new constructs like String theory and others is that the energy scale to test them is not at present achievable so not testable. But in principle they too can be put to stringent tests.

I would not take the viewpoint that you have of another dead end or manually entered parameter etc. Lot of things which we think we completely understand are just that. Sometimes, the popularizers of science in their haste use language which ends up undermining the complexity and beauty of the measurements and successful representations of the same via mathematical theories.