|
|
|
19 August 2000 Chris Duffield, Materials Science & Engineering Department [through March 2001], Stanford University My copy of the video of Vladimir Tolchin's experiments appears to be from a black and white film without sound, and with titles in Russian. The images are grainy and blurred, from age and multiple copying. The film shows two series of experiments, rotational and linear. Rotational experiments The devices for this set of experiments consist of two rotating offset weights mounted symmetrically on the ends of a frame. They rotate in the same direction and apparently in the same phase. The weights appear to rotate in a wobbling manner, moving faster in half of their circular path and slower in the other half. The exact kinematics of this motion need to be analyzed in detail from the film. The frame with rotating weights is either mounted on a shaft and pivot or suspended from a cable and bearing. The nature of the mechanism that drives the weights is not clear. In one setup, Tolchin is apparently able to turn the drive on and off at will. When weight rotation is turned on, the whole assembly starts to rotate. After a quick start-up, the assembly rotates at a nearly constant rate, in a stepping, jerking fashion. When it is turned off, there is no slow coasting. The assembly simply and quickly stops rotating. Actually, the assembly is not totally at rest when the weight rotation stops. There is a very slow backward rotation. (Is this perhaps a small artifact from air friction?) In another experiment, apparently the weights rotate at a constant rate through their circular path, rather than accelerating and decelerating. The whole assembly does not rotate. It just stays in one place and wobbles. Linear experiments The device for these experiments is a cart that has two spring-driven offset weights which counter rotate in coordination, nearly coaxially, around a vertical axis, accelerating and decelerating in each revolution. The cart moves forward in a series of jerks, maintaining an apparently constant average velocity. The cart generates this motion whether or not the weights are enclosed in a box, so the motion is apparently not a result of differential air friction. The cart, when placed on a wheeled platform on rails, generates this same motion and moves along and off the cart, apparently without reaction force on its wheels, since the platform stays still. A toy truck with spring-driven wheels moves off the platform, too, but kicks the platform backwards with standard reaction force. This appears to show that it is not wheel friction or ratcheting that drives the cart. A problem with this particular experiment is that the platform does not appear to kick back even a little bit when the cart rolls off its end. This could be due to the threshold of friction of the platform wheels not being overcome. But from the film alone we cannot rule out glue or some other barrier impeding platform movement. A similar demonstration is given when the cart moves jerkily off a platform that is suspended like a pendulum. In another experiment, Tolchin pours oil on a flat surface to make it slick. The spring-driven truck spins out on this surface. But the cart jerks across this surface in its usual way, without regard for the surface properties. Again, this appears to rule out wheel friction. In still another experiment, Tolchin shows that the cart can climb up onto a slightly higher platform. It hits the curb again and again at first, then finally pushes up and onto the higher platform, again resuming its jerky motion. Unlike the rotational experiments, I do not recall seeing any experiments where the drive motor of the cart is stopped. My presumption is that if it were to stop, the cart would also stop immediately. Interpretation I plan to analyze portions of this film frame by frame to make sure my preliminary observations are correct. In the mean time, I think these experiments demonstrate the following core phenomena, which I have also observed with a device built for Gennady Shipov based on the Tolchin cart: 1. Low friction symmetrical specially accelerated and decelerated counter-rotation of offset weights causes jerky linear or rotational system motion. This motion is reminiscent of the anterograde and retrograde apparent motion of planets as seen from Earth. 2. The motion begins immediately, continues as long as the rotation of weights continues, and stops immediately when weight rotation stops. The stopping is much faster than can be explained by the very low friction. This motion appears to be like walking. Each rotation of the weights results in another step, another translation, of approximately equal distance. When rotation stops, the walking stops. Each increment of energy expended in rotating the weights appears to result in an increment of change of location. In contrast, a frictionless reaction-driven system, for each increment of energy expended, would be expected to generate an increment of velocity. Energy is clearly spent in operating these devices. But unlike a reaction rocket, which creates a net change in velocity, inertia, and kinetic energy, Tolchin devices appear to create a change in location. This leads me to this remarkable conclusion: In the absence of friction, cyclic operation of the Tolchin inertioid appears to result in pure translation, relative to its original inertial frame, without net change in velocity, inertia, or kinetic energy. To test this observation, we need to build experimental Tolchin devices which sufficiently eliminate friction and other extraneous forces, and which allow for control and measurement of position, angle, mass, and energy expended. A further note: it is likely that there are other modes of operation for this and related machines which will allow for net acceleration and change of direction. More research and analysis will bring everything to clarity. Postscript 12-12-2000 -- I have not yet been able to set up a definitive experiment to verify this hypothesis. Nor have I yet seen such an experiment. The only definitive experiment I can think of would be to put such a device into a microgravity vacuum environment, i.e. in Earth orbit.
Thanks to Vladimir Poponin and Gennady Shipov for making the Tolchin video available.
|
