Journal of Modern Physics, 2015, 6, 1868-1880
Published Online October 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jmp
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2015.613192
How to cite this paper: Fearn, H., van Rossum, N., Wanser, K. and Woodward, J.F. (2015) Theory of a Mach Effect Thruster
II. Journal of Modern Physics, 6, 1868-1880. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jmp.2015.613192
Theory of a Mach Effect Thruster II
Heidi Fearn
1
, Nolan van Rossum
2
, Keith Wanser
1
, James F. Woodward
1
1
Department of Physics, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, USA
2
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
Email: hfearn@fullerton.edu , jwoodward@fullerton.edu , kwanser@fullerton.edu , nolanv@iastate.edu
Received 18 August 2015; accepted 24 October 2015; published 29 October 2015
Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract
According to Einstein, General Relativity contains the essence of Mach’s ideas. Mach’s principle can
be summarized by stating that the inertia of a body is determined by the rest of the mass-energy
content of the universe. Inertia here arises from mass-energy there. The latter, was a statement
made by John Wheeler in his 1995 book, Gravitation and Inertia, coauthored by Ciufolini. Einstein
believed that to be fully Machian, gravity would need a radiative component, an action-at-a-dis-
tance character, so that gravitational influences on a body from far away could be felt immediately.
In 1960’s, Hoyle and Narlikar (HN) developed such a theory which was a gravitational version of
the Absorber theory derived by Wheeler-Feynman for classical electrodynamics and later ex-
panded upon by Davies and Narlikar for quantum electrodynamics. The HN-field equation has the
same type of mass fluctuation terms as in the Woodward Mach effect thruster theory. The force
equation, used to predict the thrust in our device, can be derived from the mass fluctuation. We
outline a new method for deriving the force equation. We present new experimental tests of the
thruster to show that the thrust seen in our device is not due to either heating or Dean Drive ef-
fects. Successful replications have been performed by groups in Austria and Canada, but their
work is still pending in the peer review literature.
Keywords
Mach Effect Drive, Transient Mass Fluctuations, Mach’s Principle, Action at a Distance, Advanced
Waves, Event Horizon
1. Introduction: Einstein & Mach’s Principle
Mach’s principle was the name Einstein gave, in 1918, to the proposition that the inertia of a body is the result
of the gravitational interaction between the body and the rest of the mass-energy in the universe. In 1912,
Einstein considered the gravitational interaction of a spherical shell of material and a point mass located at the