but then could there be an infinite amount of energy in one point relative to more energy still being elsewhere…?
[size=150]James[/size] sorry about what i said in that other thread if it offended you deeply…
A while back I outlined my idea of a spacecraft which could reach great distances without tremendous energy consumption. Since i’d hate translating the whole thing, i’ll post the link so if you’re in the mood - check it out!
The sketches themselves should be clear enough, even without google-translating the page. If they’re not - i’m here to clarify…
Why, you’re missing some parts? Bummer…! 
Emm… I don’t know to what you are referring, but if you think you said something that offended me, SHAME on you. 
Good enough.
Now that i finally found time and actually remembered this topic, i shall try to clarify what my spacecraft would be like.
We can see in the figure above that the driving force is created via changing the radius of rotation of the flywheels’ barycenters (centers of mass) in relation to the center of the rotating discs. The area hatched in red represents the intensities (not vectors)of the redundant centrifugal force created on the 3pi/2 - pi/2 segment, which forces the entire assembly to move. This is still just an idea, but I’m over 99% sure that this vehicle could ascend from the surface of the earth, and after leaving the intense gravitational field continue to effectively accelerate without any restrictions.
Theoretically, if faster-than-light speeds are possible, it should, without major problems, after some time (eg one year of flight) reach and exceed the speed of light, but this is still in question. The problem is that, according to the original idea, the driving energy would be electric current and if it did reach the speed of light it is likely that the entire system would shut down, because the craft would try to exceed the speed of electrical charge propagation.
However, even with that, this type of propulsion has several indisputable advantages: doesn’t need large amounts of fuel, there is practically no interaction between the assembly and the environment, doesn’t pollute, and - it could fly over or even land in someone’s flower garden without disturbing the dust on the plants.
Details still to be worked out: characteristics and performance of transmission, friction minimalization, types of material used, material strains and vertical control. Regarding the stress of the materials, according to my preliminary calculations, it wouldn’t be too excessive, it should be far less than the stress produced by Petrus’ rotary ring, and immeasurably more energy-efficient. Carbon fiber technology, of course, is always welcome, but it might be sufficient and far more cost-effective to use a steel alloy, like tempered martensite or silicon-manganese steel. For successful transfer of energy from the engine (electromotor) to the flywheels all the rotations must be strictly controlled, otherwise energy will dissipate and the driving force will be either very low or non-existent. The trick is that all moving parts must have the same angular velocity and
This principle of operation is technically flexible, and there are many variations in utilizing the excess spin. The figure below shows a more advanced and simpler form of the same basic propulsion principle.
To drive the “rotating mass” we could use electromagnets, like in ultra-fast trains.
All in all, this is pretty much how the final product would look like:
This idea is about a year old now. In the meantime, I figured out the vertical control problem - instead of treating the whole contraption as a spacecraft, we could treat it as a “drive cell” - several devices like these spread throughout a much larger vessel of any shape could, if the force/mass ratio is adequate, provide a much better solution. Simply increasing the resulting force on a particular drive cell would act as a steering wheel, and it would make maneuvering simple and efficient.
The price of the prototype would be, by my guess, less than $ 1 million and a working model, if all goes as planned, about 10-15 thousand…
Consider me an investor.
Ok, although I have a good excuse for not knowing this (not having Internet connection until 3 months ago) I feel compelled to place this LINK here just so that nobody would accuse me of plagiarism. As it turns out, my idea of a centrifugal propulsion (also a new term for me) or intertial drive is actually not mine, but has been in development since the mid-20. century.
I cannot help but wonder why is this type of propulsion so “bellow the radar”. I mean, this is not magic, nobody is proposing a perpetual motion machine or anything, so why not considering this more seriously? It has everything going in it’s favour, cost, efficiency, potential speed and acceleration, flexibility and a number of other things. Yet, on every site, with a very small number of exceptions, there’s talk about warping space, jumping through wormholes and similar nonsensical stuff - not much talk about something that has an actual chance of working. I mean in our lifetime, I don’t care if we come up with the perfect space drive in 100 000 years or so. I’ll probably be dead by then…
It looks like everybody’s waiting for a breakthrough in spacial bending technology, waiting for Captain Kirk to show up and take us for a joy ride in his Enterprise… Its’ like an old maid and her waiting on Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet… Now, even a light breeze can do that. Rheumatism’s a bitch…
It seems that you are an advocate for creating momentum. Back in the early 70’s I took on that endeavor and concluded that by contemporary laws of physics it couldn’t be done. Of course since then I have found loopholes in contemporary physics, but not on the level of conservation of momentum. And at this point, I can’t say that it is impossible, but I’m still of the mind that it is highly unlikely.
I did, btw, manage to come up with a momentum translation device which will shift the momentum vector laterally such that one could build a plank, unfastened, sitting on a window sill and walk out to the end of the plank and back without being concerned that the floating plank would fall. I never came up with much application for the device so it just sits in my backlog of “kewl but pretty useless ideas”.
In the model you are presenting, you focus on the moving masses and see a shift in the center of mass. I used to have a similar thought myself, as have probably many. But I couldn’t get around the fact that the only reason those masses shift is because they are being tethered by an opposing mass, resulting in an actual zero overall gain.
My brain isn’t what it used to be thus I am having a little trouble following exactly how your model is proposing to function. The first time, back in the 60’s when I mentioned understanding how a gyroscope works, after an extremely detailed explanation, I was commanded that such isn’t to be known (an old WW2 military issue). Assuming your model actually worked, you could bet on the same response yourself. But such commands don’t come until you actually demonstrate that you really do understand exactly what you have proposed. So, could you possibly go exactly step by step through the functioning? I am still strongly suspecting that you haven’t considered something, but maybe not.
If you take each portion proposed to move and explain by what means it is moving and against what mass it has been thrust, and in what direction, we can see if it really ends up ahead of where it started for any more than a few rotations. Making an object jerk forward and back is easy enough, but jerking forward only has never been demonstrated to my knowledge.
…and even if it does work, it still won’t exceed the speed of light. That one I can assure you.
If I understand your contraption, the red dashed line would represent a typical path of your red ball.
The pink arrows indicate the direction that the major mass would be pulled while trying to spin the red ball during its rotation.
I’m pretty sure the inertial contest in order to bring the red ball down would be exactly equal to the inertial contest to swing it back up. Thus I suspect what you would see is merely the entire object as a whole jerk forward/upward and then back/downward.
To me, it’s only too simple, but i have trouble accepting that it may not be simple to other people with other minds. Can be a little frustrating… 
The idea I proposed is not intended to break anything, especially not the laws of physics, but rather harnessing those laws. Imagine a rotating disc. This rotating disc produces a certain centrifugal force on the rim. Assuming it’s homogeneous structurewise, the centrifugal forces will be equal, spreading in all directions (the proverbial shit hitting the fan) along the plane of rotation. Now, let’s add a weight to the disc, and place it somewhere between the center and the perimeter of the disc. Weld it well so it doesn’t fly away and kill someone. What happens? Nothing particular, except it will increase vibrations. The the centrifugal forces will still cancel eachother, and the assembly will not travel anywhere, just shiver in one place.
The disc uses some kind of engine to keep it rotating. The trick that i proposed involves making that weight move center-to-perimeter and back as the disc continues to rotate at a constant angular velocity. The centrifugal forces of the disc alone (without the weight) cancel eachother, so that part remains the same. But, the weight does not circle around the center in a perfectly circular way, it has a certain eccentricity, it’s rotation is asymmetric. Under normal conditions, were there not for the engine to keep the disc rotating without changing it’s angular velocity, it would slow down as the weight reaches the perimeter and accelerate when it gets closer to the center. The engine that drives the disc prevents that, in a way, it absorbs the changes in momentum. What happens to the sum of centrifugal forces? It’s no longer zero. If we can time the rotation of the disc and the oscillation of the weight along the disc radius it will create thrust in one direction.
From this point we can play with it any way we can think of. We can add more weights, distribute them symmetrically across the disc, add a second disc with counter-rotation to equalize the torque, etc, etc. If the rotation is slow, it would be a very bumpy ride, but at higher rotational velocities we wouldn’t feel anything. The materials would, which is why i proposed materials with extremely high stress resistance.
That’s the core idea of it.
I think you got the concept, but have a feeling you’re not counting on all the moving parts having their own source of motion. I’ve seen similar illustrations in elementary and highschool physics books but that’s just to explain what normally happens, how the forces affect eachother without adding any power. Note that the law of conservation of momentum applies only on isolated systems. This isn’t it. It’s been fed with additional power, and that is basically the power we end up using. The contraption is simply a means to convert that energy (electricity) into a mechanical force.
I think you got the concept, but have a feeling you’re not counting on all the moving parts having their own source of motion. I’ve seen similar illustrations in elementary and highschool physics books but that’s just to explain what normally happens, how the forces affect eachother without adding any power. Note that the law of conservation of momentum applies only to isolated systems. This isn’t it. It’s been fed with additional power, and that is basically the power we end up using. The contraption is simply a means to convert that energy (electricity) into a mechanical force.
Of course, I can always be wrong about it, maybe i missed a force or two. It’s why I’m asking for other physicists to give their opinions. Well, that and - it took me four attempts to pass Mechanics (1st semester). I’d usually overlook some force that would stare me right in the nose… 
You were developing ideas in the 60’s and 70’s?! Jesus! 
The power or energy has nothing to do with it. Momentum is a more fundamental property than energy. The energy applied serves only to further separate two things or pull them together. Energy can only do those 2 things and in either case, the momentum is conserved because it is a measure of how much pulling was necessary to cause the motion.
I’m not stating it as a fact (yet), but it seems to me that the device presents no case for the energy having done anything but cause motion between two things, not cause motion between the whole thing and the outside universe. And in fact, I’m pretty sure that such would constitute a creation of energy even though it took some energy to accomplish it.
Every movement can only be caused (in your device) by pushing or pulling against something else. By definition, the amount of force needed is applied to both objects in opposite directions. So just from the overall perspective, I can’t see how anything moves within such as to not merely move its counter balance in the opposite direction, regardless of any complexity involved. The time and distance effect due to the motion have always worked out to net a zero change in momentum, but I don’t really have a proof on hand that such must always be the case.
Yeah, I do that alot… 
It’s past my bedtime, but tomorrow I’ll try to put some graphic on how I think the forces are distributed so we can go through it…
K
Ok, here it goes:
I changed the original idea a little, in hopes of making it more clear. This time there are no counterforces caused by the flywheels’ inability to reach the very center - which affects the overall effect.
Fe stands for “engine force”. Between 0 and pi/2 there is NO thrust, because the engine does not pull the “ball of mass” toward the center but allows it to reach the perimeter. When it does, the ball will try to stay there due to centrifuge, and the engine opposes it by pulling it toward the center. This creates a counter-reaction in the opposite direction (action-reaction) and produces another force, this time, the one that matters. As the ball gets closer and closer to the center, Fcf, Fcp and Fe begin to fall and finally become 0 and remain 0 until the next cycle…
You need to mark the center of whatever motor is causing the ball to rotate and/or whatever motor is causing the entire shell (housing the motors) to rotate. Note that in every case, the only reason the ball is turning rather than moving linearly, is because it is pulling against the center of its associated motor and not able to overcome the inertial contest, thus the ball can’t maintain it linear vector. The linear momentum of the ball is overcome by its bind to the inertia/momentum of the motor. The amount of momentum taken from the ball such as to cause it to turn, is given to the motor. As the ball increases its downward vector, the motor center increases its upward vector.
Up to that point, the goal is being achieved. The motor and its housing are gaining momentum in the upward direction. When the ball reached its lowest point, the center of the housing/motor will have shifted upward. The vibrating motor in your cell phone functions that same way as it jerks the entire housing one direction and then back again with a lopsided motor.
The catch comes in when it attempts to get back into the same condition in which it started. The ball must return to being on top, but without pulling the motor/housing downward.
IF the ball is free from affecting the motor then the ball will not be affected by the motor either, in which case, the ball will take a linear course off to the right side and leave the system. The momentum gained by the initial half cycle rotation will independently continue for both the ball and the motor, as the motor/housing continues to move upward and to the left. But such is not the desired result in that the ball gets lost and doesn’t cycle back to where it started relative to the housing. Most men are aware that they really don’t want their balls to leave their housing.
In order to get the ball back up to the top position, another contest of inertia must be imposed on the ball’s linear traveling to the right. The motor must pull the ball upward. The motor need not apply energy, but merely restrain the ball’s inclination to leave the system entirely. But of course in the process of pulling the ball upward, the motor gets pulled downward. This is not due to any energy being applied, but merely due to the attachment between the ball and the motor center or housing. This yields an effect counter to the goal.
The rub comes in when you realize that it is the exact same amount of inertial trade initially exchanged to get the ball to its lowest position that now must be applied to get that same ball to back to its original position. Thus the exact same amount of momentum that had been given to the motor, must be used up by the motor so as to return the ball back to the original position.
The energy being applied during the first half-cycle is for the purpose of causing the momentum exchange. During the second half-cycle, that energy is already in the balls momentum and thus need not come from the motor. But don’t confuse the energy cycle with the momentum cycle. The energy cycle between the motor and the moving parts is entirely different than the momentum cycle between the housing and the ball. In the second half-cycle, the energy that is in the ball, rather than from the motor, is used to cause another momentum exchange, but this time, it is reverse of the desired goal as the ball insists on moving out of the system, and the motor or housing insist that it turn upward - the exact same amount of inertial contest that started the turning in the first place.
In short;
The ball turned downward due to the inertial contest between it and the motor/housing, inspired by the motor.
The ball returned to the top due to the inertial contest between it and the motor/housing, inspired by the ball.
From where the energy came and where it is located within the system at any one time is irrelevant to the issue of total momentum.
Rather than work with the force and energy equations, look merely at the momentum equations for the ball and the housing/motor.
momentum = mass x velocity.
You can ignore the angular confusions if you want (I think) and look merely at the vertical vector components. Quickly it should be apparent that the only time the housing can gain any momentum is by taking it from the ball and vsvrsa. But during the first half the vector will always be positive and during the second half, it will always be equally negative.
THE obstacle to high speed is friction…interstellar space isnt empty,
doubling the speed gives eight times higher friction!
Suppose we concentrate lots of sunshine into a death ray and orient it in the direction we want to travel,
then the ray will acelerate away all matter in the path … creating a friction less path to accelerate in!
There will be no shortage of energy while travelling in the ray, the problem is the opposite:
We must be able to cool our accelerating space city…if we can survive then we could even travel without engines
since the ray will eventually accelerate us up close to the speed of light making Intergalactic Travel possible 