RE: starship-design: scoops and sails and something to push against.

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: "L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>
> 
> > Statically probably yes.
> > Hence Kevin wrote about pulsing the fields in some way.
> > That might work, like the similar trick with pulsing
> > magnetic fields in electric motors.
> 
> I read somewhere once about a stardrive that relied upon pulsed magnetic
> fields created by air-core magnets. The idea was to switch them on and off
> in such a way that the fields were not conserved locally, but were conserved
> globally so there was no violation of physics involved...I also seem to
> remember a column by John Cramer explaining why it wouldn't work.
> 
> I'm no physicist, but I don't think it will work. This is an excellent
> example of why they want to create or find a magnetic monopole. Steve or
> David can probably give you a better explanation than I can.
> 
You probably misunderstood my post.
I did NOT propose to propel the ship with pulsing MAGNETIC fields -
I know the "stardrive" scheme would not work (we discussed it
some time ago here).
I wrote that Kevins electrostatic scheme may work with
pulsing ELECTRIC fields, making a rather loose analogy with 
pulsing magnetic fields that do work in electric motors.
I am not sure it will work, anyway - the main objection is that
the ship floats within a cloud of charged particles
of BOTH polarities. But maybe due to different masses of
the particles with opposite charges (protons vs. electrons)
some thrust can be generated in some way...

-- Zenon