Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA
From: MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Dean Drive Possible?
Message-ID: <12309@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 10:38:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12309
Posted: Fri Apr 13 10:38:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Apr-84 01:32:16 EST
Lines: 15

The Dean Drive is well-known to be bogus.  It is a simple nonlinear,
nonsymmetric oscillator (the internal mass is pushed gently one way for
a long time and strongly the other way for a short time).  It slides
along the floor just as you could slide a chair in "jerks" without
touching the floor.  The apparent effects depend on the existence of
friction to negate the effect of the gentle forces, so that the strong
forces dominate the average.  If you suspended it from the ceiling it
would hang straight down; if you put it in free space it would stay
there.

A non-zero coefficient for the third derivative would imply that
momentum is not conserved.  Conservation of momentum is pretty well
established.

Mark