[NewCandle] Chiral metamaterial for repulsive casimir force.

[Nick Reiter]

Thanks for sharing this Keith!

I'd have to experimentally agree with Horace.  This was a scheme I tried working with in about 2000 or 2001.  Scott Little tested some plates I made.  What I had was a thin glass substrate, where I deposited a layer of gold to make a planar conductive surface.  Then on top of that, I deposited about 400 angstroms of aluminum, which I then steamed to form the boehmite "needle forest" textured hydroxide layer (works great as an AR coating).  Then a couple hundred angstroms of gold to make a conductive overcoating on the needles.

I thought I had a weight anisotropy, but it ended up being an artifact of rubber glove charging on the glass side.

I never disproved the idea that such a textured "reverse radiometer" surface might not have some cool inertial properties, though.  You would have to do something like make a pendulum from it, or spin it with a motor in either direction, and compare torque / current.

In a passive mode, the "Vacuum Sail" idea might not work, but with a tip of the hat to Uncle Al Schwartz too, I wouldn't rule out the idea of a vacuum propeller.

nr

> From: Horace Heffner <hheffner at mtaonline.net>
> Subject: Re: [NewCandle] Chiral metamaterial for repulsive casimir force.
> To: "New energy for the new world." <newcandle at ipdiscover.com>
> Date: Monday, November 16, 2009, 5:53 PM
> 
> On Nov 16, 2009, at 1:15 PM, Keith Nagel wrote:
> 
> > For those interested in strange forces emanating from
> > chiral materials, check out this paper.
> > 
> > http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.2019
> > 
> > Not that this really explains a macro scale force as
> > has been claimed by Kozyrev etc but intriguing
> example
> > of casimir force engineering.
> > 
> > Insane idea: Would a plate consisting of a sandwich
> > of left and righthanded versions of such a material
> > be pushed along by the resulting force imbalance?
> (grin).
> > Casimir sails...
> 
> This work appears to be based on the idea the ZPF is
> comprised of real photons.  It is my understanding it
> is comprised of virtual photons, the mediator of the EM
> force. In other words the ZPF exerts brownian type
> push-pulls in isotropic directions on charged particles,
> with a cubic frequency distribution. If the ZPF were
> comprised of real photons then a sail clearly *would* be
> possible (though a bit weak) by merely absorbing photons on
> one side and reflecting on the other, in effect a radiometer
> in a total vacuum - one which turns the opposite direction
> from the normal Crookes radiometer.
> 
> I don't know if you have seen it or not, but I provided a
> proof that a net ZPF induced force in a vacuum is not
> feasible, but a Casimir motor is feasible, here, p 6 ff:
> 
> http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CasimirGenerator.pdf
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Horace Heffner
> http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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