Inertia Drive

[currenthopper]

Am I to understand that there is currently no working model of a inertia drive. What I mean is there is no model that when activated shows any kind of decrease in weight, when placed on a scale. And when suspended by a rope it shows no signs of pulling one way or the other from top dead center. And when placed in a large still body of water it propels itself along. I say large body of water because if placed in a bathtub the waves bouncing off the wall creates the movement. I'm I correct in the assumption that there is no such device?

Thank you for your time,
C

[TinselKoala]

What an interesting question.
You are really asking several questions, that may not be equivalent.

The first question: Is there a working model of an inertial drive?
As the question is commonly understood, the answer is no.

Let's take the other, not exactly equivalent questions.
"shows decrease in weight when placed upon a scale"
Yes, there are many of these, and they are easy to build. Depending on the scale, they show more or less reduction in weight. Some of them even hop up off the ground (during which time the scale would of course read zero, or even negative), or climb inclined planes.

"suspended from a rope"
This is the dreaded "pendulum test" and has been extensively analyzed. Some devices will couple rocking (caused by CG shift) with pendulum swinging, like a child pumping a swing, and may exhibit momentary sideways displacement of the center of mass. But this cannot be sustained. A proper time-averaged observation will show that the center of mass of the system cannot sustain a horizontal displacement.

"large body of water"
This is the "canoe" test, and yes, there are several devices that will make progress under these conditions. They work by exactly the same principle that ice skaters use to accelerate across the "frictionless" surface of the ice. That is, momentary thrust vectors occur that are NOT in the direction of least friction, and the skater (or the "inertial drive" in the canoe) is pushing against this sideways resistance to accelerate along the line of lesser resistance. Strictly in accord with Newton. The water is displaced in the opposite direction and momentum is conserved.

You are welcome.

(You forgot to ask about "torsion" drives a la Tolchin and Shipov, or centrifugal weight-swinging drives, or the latest Tong device from the LTLOT loonies, or ...
They don't work as advertised either.)

[currenthopper]

Tinsel,
Thank you for your response. In your opinion what test or tests would prove beyond any doubt that a ID is working. Sustained levitation? Constant forward movement? or The pendulum test?



C

[TinselKoala]

Sustained levitation would (probably) convince even me.

I think it might be possible to fool a pendulum test in certain circumstances. So the length of the pendulum arm should be varied, without changing the parameters of the d.u.t. A true inertial drive won't care about the length of the pendulum.

Constant forward movement is trickier. Many of these devices move quite well, even on _apparently_ frictionless surfaces like air tracks or tables. However, for any particular device, there will be a way to test it that prevents it from reacting against a substrate, or at least allows accounting for the momentum exchanged with a substrate or some part of the environment.

[FredWalter]

Get yourself a copy of US Patent Application 20080168862 "Inertial Propulsion Device" by Michael K. Walden.

I've exchanged email with him on a mailing list that I moderate, and he claims that his prototype passes the pendulum test.

You can read more about his device in the archives at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Centrifugal_Inertial_Propulsion/messages