Inertial Drive Proven??

[JoeOh]

Check this video out on YouTube I just came across today. This looks real, but then again, I'm a "casual" physicist. Lets say this is legit, what would be the EM version of this device?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmtWcmm2Wgw&feature=related

 

As you can see in the video, the boat moves in the water with just the device that is enclosed in a box to prevent claims of it moving air. Either the device is working or someone is blowing really hard on the boat to make it move.

 

I tried to look up more information on the inventor, Roy Thornsen, to no avail. I tried to look on on Google or Wikipedia and still got squat. I'm gonna rip this video from YouTube just in case it gets yanked for whatever reason. I would hate to think that the inventor and invention are being "silenced" by whomever.

 

Thoughts?

[tvp45]

I think it's safe to say that no one would ever silence a motor which purports to violate conservation of momentum. There doesn't seem to be any way from the video to see the "trick", so consider it an interesting gag.

[JoeOh]

ok, I finnaly found A link on him, and the name in the original post was spelled wrong.

 

http://www.nottaughtinschools.com/Roy-Thornson%20/index.html

 

I could buy most of the parts from home depot to see if this can work on a smaller scale. Too bad I'm flat broke.

[swansont]

I can translate my desk chair (on casters) and rotate it, too, with no external input — I pump my arms. The key is having friction to impede your motion during part of the cycle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionless_drive#Oscillation_thruster

[DJBruce]

I am really thinking this is all a fraud. His website looks like a complete joke making claims of free energy and anti-gravity, both of which are against the laws of physics. In the description of his machine he says things like, "It changes rotational inertia into linear inertia very similar to the way UFO's achieve their anti-gravity lift from a rotational field." I really feel like this is complete pseudoscience. From how old the video looks if the device designed actually did what it claims to have done I would suspect that the mainstream would have accepted the device, and their would be more credible information on it.

 

Like always the law of conservation of energy means you cannot create energy from nothing, and anti-gravity machines have yet to be proved to exist.

[JoeOh]

So basically, this is more like a imbalance drive than inertial one??

 

If so, can this be done with electromagnets and some heavy permanent magnets?

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Ok, assuming those posted seen the video, how exactly is the boat moving if this device is a fraud?

[swansont]

Ok, assuming those posted seen the video, how exactly is the boat moving if this device is a fraud?

 

Mass moves one direction quickly. The boat recoils because momentum is conserved. The mass returns slowly. However, static friction is weaker than kinetic friction. IOW, you can move mass around and if you do it slowly, friction allows you to change the CoM.

[JoeOh]

Swansont, so this device can only work where there is friction? So using this as a space drive is out of the question? If so, Darn it!

 

Neat idea though-

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Here's my version of the EM equivalent of the inertial drive:

 

 

As you see it's not hard to build each unit. It consists of a clear plastic tube with closed off ends, copper coil, rare earth circular magnet (in light gray), a 250 gram weight (in dark gray), and a spring to provide tension as the EM coil slowly allows the magnet and weight back to initial position.

 

As you see with the signal patterns it's a DC biased smoothed sawtooth (i think). The full voltage is immediately applied and then gradually reduced to zero then the cycle repeats. In this image I have 5 driver units, but one can do the job.

 

As the power signal is applied to the EM coil to rapidly compress the weighted magnet against the tension spring. When this happens the driver unit lurches right. The weight then slowly returns to its starting position as the voltage slowly drops down to zero.

 

Having 5 of these units (or more) can smooth out the process instead of having a constant jerking of the vessel it is moving.

 

Whats great that I almost have the parts to build this thing. All I need is the signal/power supply and a spring to give this a go.

 

I hope you all don't beat me up too much for my purposed design as it only took me an hour or so to come up with.

[Zolar V]

it really is a scam. you can easily see it if you know what you are looking for. He HAS an input voltage from a wall socket, AND if it did produce 1.X energy then there would be a simple switch so that you could power the device AND a light bulb with the power output.

i don't see either in the video, I don't see where he gleans his machine off of the Input voltage and i don't see where it is powering anything. Nor do i see the machine using any of the juice it "makes" rather i just see nothing. just looks like a fancy electric motor imo.

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If anything i could see where it could get ACTUAL energy from, i would suggest making something that uses Gravitational energy. aka slowly absorb and expend energy created by having a GIANT weight suspended above the earth and slowly dropped. or something similar.

[swansont]

it really is a scam. you can easily see it if you know what you are looking for. He HAS an input voltage from a wall socket, AND if it did produce 1.X energy then there would be a simple switch so that you could power the device AND a light bulb with the power output.

i don't see either in the video, I don't see where he gleans his machine off of the Input voltage and i don't see where it is powering anything. Nor do i see the machine using any of the juice it "makes" rather i just see nothing. just looks like a fancy electric motor imo.

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If anything i could see where it could get ACTUAL energy from, i would suggest making something that uses Gravitational energy. aka slowly absorb and expend energy created by having a GIANT weight suspended above the earth and slowly dropped. or something similar.

 

I don't think the claim is that it's overunity. The claim is that it is reactionless, i.e. it violates Newton's 3rd law. Action but no reaction. Momentum creation without an external force.

[JoeOh]

Overunity? That's not the claim here like swansont stated. The inventor does claim better efficiency, just not over 100%. He claimed it got 20x better efficiency than a jet engine. Gonna look up to see what that rate is for a jet engine, unless someone already knows it offhand.

 

The dispute is that this device (and my image design) says that if they work in a vacuum as claimed, they'll be raping (violating) newton in his grave. Which is not my intention at all.

[Oystla]

Hi!

 

I just wanted to inform you about a recent video on Youtube that replicates the Thornson principle.

 

A student have made a device in Lego and used a balance weight to prove the Thornson inertial drive force. He also explains the simple concept....

 

And wow, the thing moves....The only explanation would of course be movement of air by the rotor....But, but... the rotor moves the air equally in all directions, so I don't see that as the explanation...

 

I'll have to build one from my son's Lego and test this wrapped in plastic...

 

Here is the link;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-f6-6GSyZ4

[charles langley]

Hi!

 

I just wanted to inform you about a recent video on Youtube that replicates the Thornson principle.

 

A student have made a device in Lego and used a balance weight to prove the Thornson inertial drive force. He also explains the simple concept....

 

And wow, the thing moves....The only explanation would of course be movement of air by the rotor....But, but... the rotor moves the air equally in all directions, so I don't see that as the explanation...

 

I'll have to build one from my son's Lego and test this wrapped in plastic...

 

Here is the link;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-f6-6GSyZ4

 

hey , just get a large sphere and cut it in half.

 

put a battery driven toy car inside the sphere.

 

turn the toy on so that the wheels turn.

 

then seal up the two halves of the sphere.

 

its now a closed system.

 

place the sphere on your floor.

 

the toy pushes against the INSIDE on the sphere.

 

the sphere beging to roll on the floor , because the toy car is providing a INTERNAL FORCE...

[charles langley]

Hi!

 

I just wanted to inform you about a recent video on Youtube that replicates the Thornson principle.

 

A student have made a device in Lego and used a balance weight to prove the Thornson inertial drive force. He also explains the simple concept....

 

And wow, the thing moves....The only explanation would of course be movement of air by the rotor....But, but... the rotor moves the air equally in all directions, so I don't see that as the explanation...

 

I'll have to build one from my son's Lego and test this wrapped in plastic...

 

Here is the link;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-f6-6GSyZ4

 

hey , just get a large sphere and cut it in half.

 

put a battery driven toy car inside the sphere.

 

turn the toy on so that the wheels turn.

 

then seal up the two halves of the sphere.

 

its now a closed system.

 

place the sphere on your floor.

 

the toy pushes against the INSIDE of the sphere with a force from the INSIDE ( not external ).

 

you now have a reactionless propulsion device , post it on youtube.

 

any device that does not have a force applied to its outside for propulsion ( external force ) is considered a reactionless propulsion device , and its not supposed to work.

 

 

the sphere rolls on the floor , because the toy car is providing a INTERNAL FORCE...

 

or as Wikipedia describes it

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

 

A reactionless drive or inertial propulsion engine (also reactionless thruster, reactionless engine, bootstrap drive, and inertia drive) is any form of propulsion not based around expulsion of fuel or reaction mass.

 

The name comes from Newton's Third Law of Motion, usually expressed as: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Such a drive would use a hypothetical form of thrust that does not require any outside force or net momentum exchange to produce linear motion, and therefore necessarily violates the conservation of momentum, a fundamental principle of all current understandings of physics. In addition it can be shown that conservation of energy is violated.

Edited June 28, 2010 by charles langley

[AlphaSheeppig]

the toy pushes against the INSIDE of the sphere with a force from the INSIDE ( not external ).

 

you now have a reactionless propulsion device , post it on youtube.

But put it on ice and the sphere will roll on the spot and the truck will stay still inside. The ball rolls forward because friction between it and the ground (an EXTERNAL force) prevents it from just sliding on the spot.

 

 

But, that said, this inertial propulsion principle does work. I doubt that it's that efficient, but jet engines are extremely inefficient means of propulsion, so 20 times more efficient is not impossible...

 

And can someone please tell me which laws of physics it disobeys? Because as far as I can see, it uses a power supply and electric motor, so conservation of energy is obeyed, and the forward momentum it gets comes from the loss in momentum from the changing radius of rotation (and thus varying radial velocities) for the weights, so conservation of momentum is also obeyed.

 

Anyone who thinks inertial motion is impossible should go read up on why helicopters need rotors on their tails.