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From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.conspiracy,sci.energy,sci.electronics,sci.skeptic,misc.misc
Subject: Re: INFO: How To Build A UFO - T Pawlicki, Nikola Tesla
Message-ID: <11391@uwm.edu>
Date: 25 Apr 91 03:35:39 GMT
References: <1991Apr22.044153.23799@bilver.uucp>
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Followup-To: alt.alien.visitors
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Lines: 38

In article <1991Apr22.044153.23799@bilver.uucp> dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen) writes:
(Forwarded description of making a UFO that pulls itself up or forward by its
bootstraps):
> All we have managed  to do is make the whole ball of wire wobble around
> the common center of mass between  the  axle  and free end of the spoke.  To
> solve this problem, now that we have come  to it, we need merely to
> accelerate the spoke through a few degrees  of arc and  then  let  it
> complete  the cycle of revolution without power.

And the center of mass will still stay perfectly still.

That sucker's going nowhere, except by a fortuitous application of...
(drum roll)

>       The primary principle ... traction.

where

>       The traction engines  depend  upon  friction  against  a surrounding
>       medium to generate movement...

Why?  Conservation of momentum.  The change in momentum of any system varies
with the amount of *external* force applied to it.  The center of mass will
remain perfectly still, if it was originally still, regardless of what internal
forces the centrifuge creates.  If you're lucky, the friction of the surface
it's on will catch the action of the motor and drive it forward.

The only reason rockets even work in the first place, is because they expel
part of the system out the back door, so to say.  So while the expelled part
goes backwards, the rest of the rocket goes forward, and the REAL center of
mass (expelled fuel + rocket) is actually in free fall towards the ground(!)

And any mechanism that does violate this law of momentum conservation
(or what amounts to the same: action-reaction), IS by that very fact using
means unknown to humankind.

Hey, but the one about climbing up the Earth's electromagnetic field's has
a lot of potential (pun intended).