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ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

They say electrons flow in a wire like water flows in a garden hose. If this is so then electrons can provide a reaction force within the wire just as water does within a garden hose but this force would be much smaller. It can be proven in an experiment.

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

Electrons do not move "just like water in a hose," that is simply an analogy that is used to help teach electricians how to calculate current and resistance, and has little to do with the actual physics.

The problem still remains with any charged beam engine, that your reaction mass (electrons) must actually be seperated from the ship and pushed in the opposit direciton of the desired thrust.

If you are in a space ship's nose, and throw a baseball at the back hatch of the ship to a fellow catcher astronaut, you will generate no net thrust since the ball doesn't leave the ship. You would have to open the hatch and throw the ball free of the ship to give you any net momentum change. Same thing with electrons, if you "squirt" them from one end of the ship to the other, recovering them at the end, then you have no net thrust.

Since the electrons are actually leaving the vehicle, then the vehicle therefore takes on a positive electrical charge, which if left unchecked would destroy the ship's electronics.

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[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

If you wrap a waterhose around a rotating shaft many times and turn the water on the shaft will start rotating. The same thing will happen with a insulated wire wrapped around a central well balanced rotating shaft if you turn up the amps.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

Yup and what you have described is a DC current motor, also another popular belief is in hole flow or positive charged particle movement. But from either stand point the net result is the device still works for either theory.

ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

It would not need a rotor to move since the stator is now the rotating element.

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

None of which will push your spacecraft.

All rockets that use reaction mass rely on Newton's laws of motion, specifically, the equal reaction law and the inertia law.

Unless you throw something away from your ship, which actually leaves it, then there is no momentum change for your ship. It still weighs exactly the same and all its mass is still in the ship.

Rockets propel themselves by throwing tons of hot gasses out the back, and it is the motion of these gasses and their momentum that pushes the rocket forward.

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[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

On the note of need for some sort of shield and for the need to create artificial gravity. I think making a craft something like a motor fits both items.

dicktice

Member

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Registered: 2002-11-01

Posts: 1,764

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

I object to your cavalier use of "create artificial gravity" which is an oxymoron expression inappropriate to serious discussion. I admit, people still refer to electrical current as "juice flowing from plus to minus" and get away with developing "dynamos" that work just fine. I don't know a single jouneyman electrician who has a clue what electrical current really is, or engineers for that matter. Solid-state physicists, I bet have a hard time explaining the dynamics of electron-flow fron negative to positive along a wire, although electron ballistics in a vacuum has been well understood since around 1900. So, what's your point re. artificial gravity?

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Electron flow within a wire.

Yes I may be a little off topic..
Note artificial gravity is created by spinning and a motor turns as well by spinning. Create a large scale motor for occupants to be within the field area and you get artificial gravity and a magnetic shield at the same time.