• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

FTL Cable

Kess

Thinker
K
Joined
Aug 23, 2002
Messages
193
I'm in the wrong business, with that site selling faster-than-light cable for up to $325 per meter. However, I've repeated their tests (described towards the bottom of http://www.ultra-faster-than-light.com/hwodoesitwork.htm) myself with electronic simulation software and, sure enough, I get exactly the same results using "ordinary" cable - the signal appears to reach the end of the cable faster than it should, but it's all just an illusion created by signal reflections along the cable.

I may write up the analysis and send it in to Randi, but surely the US patent office wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for it...
 
but surely the US patent office wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for it...
Click to expand...
Actually, the U.S. Patent Office doesn't care whether your widget actually works or not. They don't require a working prototype--just drawings, an abstract, and the filing fee.

Seriously.

How patents work.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/patent6.htm
Once the draft of your application is complete, Suzy shows it to you and you work together to correct any errors. Next, you send the application on to the U.S. Patent Office, along with several hundred dollars in submission fees. After submitting the application, the only thing left to do is wait for it to work its way through a government patent examiner's stack of work. In this period, you may begin marketing the teleporter, and you may legally label it "patent pending." When the examiner finally reviews the application, he or she may "allow" (approve) the application as it is submitted or reject the application on the grounds that it is too close to an earlier invention or that the wording is problematic.
Click to expand...
See? The only reasons for rejection are because it's too similar to an already existing patent, or because your abstract is unclear.

Here's a guy who patented his nuclear propulsion system for spaceships. Apparently nobody else had patented one, so if we ever go to the stars, he's in like Flynn...

http://www.androidpubs.com/prod02.htm
United States Patent
Patent number: 5,305,974
Date of patent: Apr. 26, 1994
Spaceship Propulsion by Momentum Transfer
Click to expand...
 
Kess said:
I may write up the analysis and send it in to Randi, but surely the US patent office wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for it...
Click to expand...

Please tell me you're joking...
 
Goshawk said:
Actually, the U.S. Patent Office doesn't care whether your widget actually works or not. They don't require a working prototype--just drawings, an abstract, and the filing fee.[/B]
Click to expand...
But in this case it's not a case of the invention not working. It's a case of it appearing to work, but that appearance being an illusion, the result of a misunderstanding of signal behaviour on an unterminated cable. The problem is that the illusion of FTL signal propagation could be quite convincing to a layman, and perhaps even to a patent inspector... Under these circumstances I doubt whether a patent would be valid.
 
Kess, you're still missing the point. The U.S. Patent Office guy doesn't care whether a gadget works, or whether it only appears to work. He doesn't give a rat's derriere either way. What he cares about is three things:

1. Is it similar to anybody else's patent?
2. Does the abstract make it clear exactly what the inventor has in mind?
3. Did the inventor pay his fee?

And that's it. It doesn't matter whether a FTL cable worked, or only appeared to work--the U.S. Patent Office guy would still shrug and grant the patent as long as those three conditions were met.

The EMPL spaceship referenced above wouldn't work, either, but he got his patent. It's designed to shoot fast-moving projectiles ahead of the spaceship, and then they move out into space, and hang there, with their momentum, and the spaceship rendezvous with them and--in his design--the spaceship grabs onto the projectile and supposedly transfers the projectile's momentum to the spaceship, thus speeding up the spaceship. However, I don't have to be a physicist to know that when a large slow-moving object grabs a small fast-moving object, the large object wins, because its inertia outweighs any momentum the small object may have. When the third baseman intercepts a line drive, the baseball doesn't pick him up and carry him along.

So, see? The Patent Office doesn't care.
 
Actually, if the thirdbaseman were in space, it WOULD carry him along. The problem is that Newton's Third Law still prevails - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The mass and velocity (in this case, let's assume v=0) of the thirdbaseman would combine with the mass and velocity of the ball, once they unite and become one moving system, so that the velocity would change (decrease) due to the larger inertial mass. Minus any other forces acting on the thirdbaseman-ball system, they would continue moving at the reduced velocity indefinitely. In reality, due to extraneous forces (such as gravity from large spacial objects), they would more than likely change course and speed (velocity) according to vector summation of forces.

I'm not defending the ridiculousness of the patent, though. The mass-mass and velocity-velocity ratios between the ship and "projectiles" would need to be such that the projectiles would need to have a mass greater than the ship or a velocity much greater than the ship (much, much greater) - both would require large amounts of energy while being dangerous - have you ever tried to catch a bullet?

All in all, a not-very well thought out propulsion system.

Kuroyume
 
Goshawk said:
Here's a guy who patented his nuclear propulsion system for spaceships. Apparently nobody else had patented one, so if we ever go to the stars, he's in like Flynn...
Click to expand...
Only if we go to the stars before his patent runs out. If his idea actually works, but takes too long to develop, he has essentially given posterity a gift. It's better to keep your idea secret until such time that owning the patent might be profitable (if it's profit, and not public good you're after). Once the patent has expired, anyone is free to use the idea, and applying for the patent puts the idea into the public record.

The patent office, as has been said, doesn't care if it works. Why should they? Their job is to protect inventors’ ideas, not to validate them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom