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Engine (EM radiation) problems
- To: T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)
- Subject: Engine (EM radiation) problems
- From: Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>
- Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 22:16:04 -0700
- Cc: KellySt@aol.com, kgstar@most.fw.hac.com, stevev@efn.org, jim@bogie2.bio.purdue.edu, zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl, hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu, rddesign@wolfenet.com, David@InterWorld.com, lparker@destin.gulfnet.com, DotarSojat@aol.com, neill@foda.math.usu.edu, 101765.2200@compuserve.com, MLEN3097@Mercury.GC.PeachNet.EDU
- In-Reply-To: <199606051619.AA20270@student.utwente.nl>
- References: <199606051619.AA20270@student.utwente.nl>
Timothy van der Linden writes:
> Yes, I believe this pressure thing was something I imagined, and later it
> seemed that the Bussard engine did not work that way.
> The main reason for that pressure thing was to even out the velocities, this
> way we would not get very fast and very slow particles all together.
> Particles with high velocity have a worse momentum:energy ratio (a new
> term?). This means that if you have some energy and want to make the most
> velocity (momentum) from it, you get the most of it if you use low exhaust
> velocities. Unfortunately this also means that more mass is needed, which is
> not preferrable.
This statement bugs me because it is completely contradictory to
something I worked out a while ago and that you seemed to agree with,
which is that higher exhaust velocities are best, and the ideal case is
turning all your fuel into zero-mass photons moving at the speed of
light.
You do want to get all your exhaust products moving backwards, which
implies confining the fuel reaction and reflecting any forward-moving
products backwards. You're absolutely going to lose energy to heat if
you try to equalize the exhaust velocity. In any case a gas at a
particular temperature doesn't have a uniform set of particle
velocities; it's still a statistical distribution about a mean that is
characteristic of the gas temperature.