I don’t know the precise form of Verlinde’s theory, but assuming it’s correct, would this be the right shape for it anyway? It sounds like you’re basically suggesting an air balloon of sorts, where the lower density of air is replaced by lower density of entropy. But with a balloon, the effect works because there is a pressure gradient in the atmosphere, and it produces an upward force. What would be the symmetry-breaking feature in this idea?
More interestingly though, if this was right, scoping it out might be a way to test Verlinde’s theory somehow, which would in itself be useful enough. But the fact that it hasn’t been done yet suggests that it’s not trivial (e.g. maybe you can’t achieve density differences able to produce a measurable effect with reasonable apparatus sizes).
Yes, the hot-air balloon and temperature/pressure gradients is a good analogy. The balloon floats through a fluid medium (air), the entropy propulsion craft floats through the entropy structure of space-time. Both are pulled into regions of lower potential, but in our case, the craft itself is creating the region of lower potential and it’s entropic—not thermal.
I’ve managed to find at least one person, Dr. Harold G. White, that is actually manufacturing Casimir “stacks” using semiconductor technology, but at the moment he’s concentrating on using the Casimir effect to produce power (batteries).
His laboratories would probably be in the best position to support experiments to detect changes in entropy that would likely manifest as tiny forces or weight changes in the sample. Sensitive torsion balances or laser interferometry would be needed to detect these changes.
The effect can be enhanced or controlled by exposing carefully chosen dielectric materials to magnetic fields. I have written to Dr. White, but have not heard back from him. I have also put this idea in the public domain by publishing a white paper to archive.org.
I am not smart enough to make this happen, but I know there are people out there who can. I am just anxious to get the idea out there where these physicist can take the ball and run with it, so to speak. I would love to see this happen in my lifetime.
So looking at the theory more in detail, I am not convinced this works very well. Generally speaking, Verlinde’s theory doesn’t seem very well accepted and is taken more as speculative (and Verlinde’s own paper from 2016 about emergent gravity seemed to shift the focus a bit away from just entropy), but also, as far as I can tell, the problem is what is the main entropy contribution from a given region of space. And in Verlinde’s derivation, he makes that to depend on all information that describes entirely that region. That’s what the holographic principle means after all. Really basically his idea seems to be that, given a certain amount of matter, the configuration where those bodies are closer is higher entropy than one where they aren’t; so the universe tends to bring them together.
The problem is that as far as I can tell there’s no clear idea of how that would work out in more complex configurations of matter, and in fact that seems to be one of the main criticisms of Verlinde’s theory; and if it’s just an explanation of gravity, it shouldn’t allow repulsive forces, which would instead be necessary for any kind of engine to work (otherwise you’re not flying… you’re just falling with style).
Also the scales involved will be dominated by Mc2 terms (all the energy of the rest mass of the configuration of matter which is distributed among the degrees of freedom encoding it on the holographic boundary), so honestly odds are anything you can do with the Casimir effect is trivial by comparison.
Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your honest assessment.
I know the forces produced by the Casimir effect are very, very tiny, but I’m not depending on a force like traditional propulsion systems that use a reaction mass. I’m relying on entropy gradients to provide the “push”.
I tend to compare emergent gravity to osmosis, where space-time is the “solution” and the vacuum fluctuations are the “solute”. In thermodynamics, systems tend to proceed from low entropy to high entropy. If we can create a low entropy zone, then higher entropy space-time should try to bend around it, and in doing so provide the “push” needed by our propulsion system.
I’ve been scouring the internet looking for other people exploring similar ideas and have found a couple different guys. Dr. Harold White (formerly of NASA) and Charles Chase (formerly of Lockheed-Martin Skunkworks) are both exploring propulsion systems that leverage the Casimir Effect. I’ve reached out to them and am waiting to hear back. Here are links to their website: https://casimirspace.com/ and https://unlab.us/
I don’t know the precise form of Verlinde’s theory, but assuming it’s correct, would this be the right shape for it anyway? It sounds like you’re basically suggesting an air balloon of sorts, where the lower density of air is replaced by lower density of entropy. But with a balloon, the effect works because there is a pressure gradient in the atmosphere, and it produces an upward force. What would be the symmetry-breaking feature in this idea?
More interestingly though, if this was right, scoping it out might be a way to test Verlinde’s theory somehow, which would in itself be useful enough. But the fact that it hasn’t been done yet suggests that it’s not trivial (e.g. maybe you can’t achieve density differences able to produce a measurable effect with reasonable apparatus sizes).
Thanks for your comment!
Yes, the hot-air balloon and temperature/pressure gradients is a good analogy. The balloon floats through a fluid medium (air), the entropy propulsion craft floats through the entropy structure of space-time. Both are pulled into regions of lower potential, but in our case, the craft itself is creating the region of lower potential and it’s entropic—not thermal.
I’ve managed to find at least one person, Dr. Harold G. White, that is actually manufacturing Casimir “stacks” using semiconductor technology, but at the moment he’s concentrating on using the Casimir effect to produce power (batteries).
His laboratories would probably be in the best position to support experiments to detect changes in entropy that would likely manifest as tiny forces or weight changes in the sample. Sensitive torsion balances or laser interferometry would be needed to detect these changes.
The effect can be enhanced or controlled by exposing carefully chosen dielectric materials to magnetic fields. I have written to Dr. White, but have not heard back from him. I have also put this idea in the public domain by publishing a white paper to archive.org.
I am not smart enough to make this happen, but I know there are people out there who can. I am just anxious to get the idea out there where these physicist can take the ball and run with it, so to speak. I would love to see this happen in my lifetime.
So looking at the theory more in detail, I am not convinced this works very well. Generally speaking, Verlinde’s theory doesn’t seem very well accepted and is taken more as speculative (and Verlinde’s own paper from 2016 about emergent gravity seemed to shift the focus a bit away from just entropy), but also, as far as I can tell, the problem is what is the main entropy contribution from a given region of space. And in Verlinde’s derivation, he makes that to depend on all information that describes entirely that region. That’s what the holographic principle means after all. Really basically his idea seems to be that, given a certain amount of matter, the configuration where those bodies are closer is higher entropy than one where they aren’t; so the universe tends to bring them together.
The problem is that as far as I can tell there’s no clear idea of how that would work out in more complex configurations of matter, and in fact that seems to be one of the main criticisms of Verlinde’s theory; and if it’s just an explanation of gravity, it shouldn’t allow repulsive forces, which would instead be necessary for any kind of engine to work (otherwise you’re not flying… you’re just falling with style).
Also the scales involved will be dominated by Mc2 terms (all the energy of the rest mass of the configuration of matter which is distributed among the degrees of freedom encoding it on the holographic boundary), so honestly odds are anything you can do with the Casimir effect is trivial by comparison.
Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate your honest assessment.
I know the forces produced by the Casimir effect are very, very tiny, but I’m not depending on a force like traditional propulsion systems that use a reaction mass. I’m relying on entropy gradients to provide the “push”.
I tend to compare emergent gravity to osmosis, where space-time is the “solution” and the vacuum fluctuations are the “solute”. In thermodynamics, systems tend to proceed from low entropy to high entropy. If we can create a low entropy zone, then higher entropy space-time should try to bend around it, and in doing so provide the “push” needed by our propulsion system.
Here is a link to a white paper I wrote with some minimal supporting math: https://archive.org/details/entropy-gradient-propulsion-system-whitepaper-rev-c
Here’s a link to a more simplistic overview of the concept (no math): https://archive.org/details/entropy-gradient-propulsion-overview
I’ve been scouring the internet looking for other people exploring similar ideas and have found a couple different guys. Dr. Harold White (formerly of NASA) and Charles Chase (formerly of Lockheed-Martin Skunkworks) are both exploring propulsion systems that leverage the Casimir Effect. I’ve reached out to them and am waiting to hear back. Here are links to their website: https://casimirspace.com/ and https://unlab.us/