Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum For Interstellar Flight
H. E. Puthoff · S. R. Little · M. Ibison
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source
In one page
Hal Puthoff, Scott Little and Michael Ibison, at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, set out the whole vacuum-engineering programme in one paper. They begin with the constraint rather than the promise: conservation of momentum means a craft cannot move itself without coupling to something outside it, and the hidden-momentum literature closes the obvious loophole, because any stationary arrangement of charges, currents and their static fields carries zero net linear momentum and so cannot push. Three doors stay open. Sakharov’s induced gravity and the Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff model of inertia make both of those forces effects of the zero-point field, so controlling the field would control them; the measured Casimir force is the standing proof that vacuum fluctuations can be altered by hardware; and the reservoir is dense enough, they argue, to be worth mining. Then they write the metric itself as engineering. Their polarizable-vacuum representation replaces curved spacetime with a single vacuum dielectric constant, and their appendix shows where that constant can fall below its empty-space value — light faster, effective mass lower, clocks running quick.
Why it matters hereThis is the primary statement chapters 3, 4 and 8 are built on: one paper in which gravity decoupling, inertia reduction and metric engineering are treated as three settings of the same dial, written by the author of the polarizable-vacuum formalism the site uses throughout.
What it claims
01Whatever form propellantless or field propulsion takes, it is bound by the law of conservation of momentum: the centre of mass-energy of an initially stationary isolated system cannot move unless the craft couples to the external universe and the displacement is matched by a counteracting effect out there. The authors apply this first, as an overall filter on any proposed mechanism.Section 2.1, Global Constraint
Settled physics02Static crossed electric and magnetic fields do carry angular momentum — cut the coil current on a charged Feynman disk and the disk spins, as Graham and Lahoz measured in vacuo in 1980 — but they cannot give linear thrust. The hidden-momentum result is that the total linear momentum of any stationary distribution of matter, charge, currents and their fields must vanish, a canceling mechanical momentum sitting inside the structure itself.Section 2.2 and Appendix A, Hidden Momentum
Settled physics03Gravity and inertia are both candidates for vacuum effects rather than fundamental ones: Sakharov’s 1967 proposal makes gravitation an induced effect of the change in vacuum fluctuation energy when matter is present, more like the van der Waals and Casimir forces than like the Coulomb force, and the Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff model makes inertia the resistive force an accelerated body meets in the Lorentz-invariant vacuum. On either reading, the route to gravity decoupling and to reduced inertial mass runs through control of vacuum fluctuations.Sections 3.2 Gravity and 3.3 Inertia
Published and peer-reviewed04The Casimir force is the existence proof that vacuum fluctuations can be altered by technological means: closely spaced plates partially shield the interior from the background zero-point field, and Lamoreaux in 1997 and Mohideen and Roy in 1998 measured the resulting attraction to high accuracy. Cavity structures already control vacuum fluctuations in practice in cavity quantum electrodynamics, where the spontaneous emission rates of atoms are manipulated.Section 3.3, following the Forward mass modification study
Settled physics05Nothing in thermodynamics forbids releasing energy from the vacuum fluctuation reservoir under certain conditions, and with the zero-point energy density conservatively of the order of nuclear energy densities or greater it would be a ubiquitous supply. The practical yields are the problem: a pair of one-centimetre-square Casimir plates collapsing from two micrometres to one in a microsecond gives about a tenth of a microwatt, and the conservative nature of the Casimir force appears to prevent recycling. The authors name their own bench route — perturbing atomic ground states inside a zero-point-limiting cavity and looking for the shifted spectroscopic signature at a synchrotron — and report that it has so far not succeeded.Section 3.4, Energy Extraction
What to watch06The polarizable vacuum representation of general relativity treats the vacuum as a medium of variable dielectric constant, so that metric effects become permittivity and permeability effects an engineer can read off a table. Near ordinary matter the constant exceeds its empty-space value and the standard results follow — light slowed, clocks slowed, rulers shrunk, effective mass increased. Appendix B derives the charged case, where charge outweighs mass, the hyperbolic solutions turn trigonometric and the constant can fall below its empty-space value; every entry in the table then reverses, giving decreased effective mass, higher binding energies and a light speed above the usual one as judged from infinity. The obstacle the authors state is energy: a hundred-metre Alcubierre bubble as first written needs a negative energy some ten orders of magnitude beyond the mass of the universe, reduced by later work to somewhat below a solar mass.Section 4, Tables 1 and 2, and Appendix B, Metric Engineering Solutions
What to watch
Read it · abstract
Abstract
A theme that has come to the fore in advanced planning for long-range space exploration is the concept of "propellantless propulsion" or "field propulsion." One version of this concept involves the projected possibility that empty space itself (the quantum vacuum, or space-time metric) might be manipulated so as to provide energy/thrust for future space vehicles. Although far reaching, such a proposal is solidly grounded in modern theory that describes the vacuum as a polarizable medium that sustains energetic quantum fluctuations. Thus the possibility that matter/vacuum interactions might be engineered for space-flight applications is not a priori ruled out, although certain constraints need to be acknowledged. The structure and implications of such a far-reaching hypothesis are considered herein.
The way in
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0107316Written at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin and published as ‘Engineering the zero-point field and polarizable vacuum for interstellar flight’, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 55, 137 (2002). The preprint is arXiv:astro-ph/0107316, posted 17 July 2001 and revised on 28 November 2001; the arXiv record carries arXiv’s assumed licence for legacy submissions from 1991 to 2003 rather than a Creative Commons licence, so this page carries the summary, the claims and the authors’ own abstract and sends the reader to the source, where the November 2001 full text is free to read. The abstract below is that revision’s wording, which matches the published paper; arXiv’s listing page shows the earlier July 2001 wording. A third arXiv version posted on 26 October 2010 withdraws the preprint, with the comment that the author Ibison does not subscribe to some of the speculations in the document; the JBIS paper stands as published and is what this page describes.
How to cite it
H. E. Puthoff, S. R. Little, M. Ibison (2002) Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum For Interstellar Flight. arXiv:astro-ph/0107316
Where it sits in the curriculum
What the vacuum isInertia and gravity from the vacuumThe metric, warp drives and wormholesEnergy from the vacuumInertial mass reduction and transmedium craft