Talk:Dean drive

Testing
It might be nice to add a few words saying that most alleged reactionless drives employing rotating unbalanced weights seem to work when placed on a surface, or hung on a rope, because they can scoot themselves along by "slip and stick friction," employing the fact that the coefficient of stationary friction is greater than the coefficient of sliding friction. When you hang such devices from a ballistic pendulum, where they can't get any traction, they show no net acceleration in any particular direction.

There is newfound interest in reactionless drives based on observations that either Mach's Principle or rotating superconductors may permit shielding of inertial mass, but I think everyone agrees that mechanical reactionless drives are a dead end, and as was observed in the article, if you build the device described in Dean's patent, it doesn't work. Hermitian 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, assuming the patent was based on what Dean considered to be a working drive, then it logically follows that at least ONE device, based on the patent, should be something that Dean, at least, would consider to be a working drive. The problem, of course, is, "How much of the working drive did Dean leave out of his patent?" V (talk) 04:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Not Everyone Agrees —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.103.199.34 (talk) 05:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

While mechanical reactionless drives are certainly out of favor, it is hyperbole to say that "everyone agrees that mechanical reactionless drives are a dead end". The U.S. Patent office continues to receive applications for new patents for mechanical reactionless drives and grants at least some of them. That alone demonstrates that there are at least some who don't agree that mechanical drives are a dead end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.103.199.34 (talk) 05:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Absolutely have people not yet given up. Here's a site where it is claimed that a Dean Drive has been succussfully reconstructed and tested.  http://www.inertialpropulsion.com/  Very likely the reconstruction differs from the original, but they are calling it a reconstruction because the Dean Drive patent was the starting point for their efforts.  And, yes, patents have been filed for this device. V (talk) 22:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

That is not hyperbole, as the people who disagree are not competent to comment. A few crackpots always exist who claim to have evidence against almost every scientific law. That may count in the non-scientific world, but is irrelevant to real physicists. The USPO is not qualified to judge the scientific validity of inventions, and has itself even employed crackpots such as 'Dr' (internet-bought) Thomas Valone. As for Provatidis, one can assume only that academic standards are much lower in Greece. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.251.10 (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, professor Provatidis has co-authored a paper on Dean drive in cooperation with one of the biggest aerospace industries (C. Provatidis and M. Gamble, Support forces in a synchronized rotating spring-mass system and its electromagnetic equivalent, International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 313–334, 2013). I found the Conclusion of this paper very interesting, but I am not allowed to continue this talk unless I violate the copyright (I fear because the paper includes two pages referring to company's IP rights; I have never met such an event). Thanks! CProvat (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Summary of Debate Needed
I was just rereading some of the debate that was generated by the disputed editing made by Gwernol and reverted article information on the "history" page. It occurs to me that the debate produced some good information about the Dean drive and the controversial subject of whether or not it really works. Maybe we ought to summarize the "best of" material on this page.

That would include a summary of quotes where applicable by Gwernol, juxtaposed with material taken directly from Wikipedia policy documents. It may be that we can get a reconsideration of certain changes in the article with regard to a more neutral presentation. There are clearly differences of opinion regarding what Wikipedia policy IS. I think a convincing case can be made that some of the material presented in the article that was subsequently reverted ought not to have been removed.

IF the case can be made convincing enough, we COULD take the next step in the dispute resolution process for a more formal review of the dispute. This isn't going to be easy though and we will have to stick to the facts. (i.e., no personal attacks or emotional arguments. 71.35.28.231 (talk) 02:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC) [User I]
 * To some extent, dealing with the issue can be a matter of starting off with remarks to the effect that the Dean drive is controversial, as demonstrated by the various claims and counterclaims that have been made over the years. Some of the claims are factual --e.g., a device actually existed which Dean demonstrated to various people, some of whom were quite technically competent, and who became convinced that the device exhibited anomalous behavior-- and some counterclaims are certainly factual --e.g., devices that Dean described in patents cannot exhibit anomalous behavior-- and some counterclaims may be flawed --e.g. of those who flatly state the demonstrated device did not or could not work to exhibit anomalous behavior, none present any evidence they ever saw Dean demonstrate it, so how could they know?.  How is it "original research" to simply read the counterclaims and the articles they reference (when possible), and state such an obvious thing about the authors of those counterclaims?  Meanwhile, here's a [slightly edited] quote from William O. Davis' article in the May, 1962 Analog:  "Actually, the situation [with respect to theory and the Dean drive] is no worse than it once was in the field of electricity.  It was sincerely believed a century or so ago that it would be impossible to do work with alternating current without violating Conservation of Momentum, since the average current was zero.  Although the current in one direction is balanced by an equal flow in the opposite direction, the flows are not equal and opposite simultaneously and thus work can be done.  Furthermore, when all else failed, radiation was invoked to preserve the Conservation of Momentum.  We are going to try the same approach. ..."  That's how Davis starts leading up to the notion of "gravitational inertial radiation" as a means of Conserving Momentum and thus explaining how the demonstrated Dean drive could exhibit the anomalous behavior that he witnessed.  They actually published in the article a fairly complicated equation (with integrals) way "over the heads" of most readers of a science fiction magazine in 1962, and Davis basically wrote that the equation indicates that if a "changing acceleration" and the necessarily associated "critical action time" are added to Newtonian Mechanics, then some of the energy associated with an applied force does not become kinetic energy of the object to which that force was applied, and (since Energy must also be Conserved) could be expected so appear in some other form (such as a radiant form).  So far as I know, NOBODY making counterclaims about the Dean drive has ever challenged Davis' equations.  In G. Harry Stine's June 1976 article, he indicates that Davis' team "... wrote a scientific paper.  Entitled "Some Aspects of Certain Transient Mechanical Systems," Davis delivered it on April 23, 1962 at the Washington, DC meeting of the American Physical Society.  There were no comments."  Regarding Davis' 1962 Analog article ("The Fourth Law of Motion"), Stine wrote: "... the article didn't draw the sort of comment we had expected ..."  It's almost as if a lot of people found Davis' ideas too alien to be worth discussing or even remembering.  Even today people who say certain things (as on this very discussion page, see the first sentence in the "Dean Drive Impossible" section) are at the very least demonstrating considerable ignorance of the WHOLE story.  I really wish there was an easy way, besides waiting decades for copyrights to expire, to get that whole story onto the Web (the "rexresearch" links near the start of this page can't be expected to stay valid, but currently they do seem to lead to accurate copies of certain articles).  I know of only one other place on the Web, "halexandria.org" that contains a fair amount of analysis of Davis' work (and others); it MAY qualify as a suitable Wikipedia reference, if one can get past the mysticism while hunting down the hard-science "inertial propulsion" links, such as this one:  http://www.halexandria.org/dward133.htm  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.9.73.3 (talk) 08:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Two other pages at the "halexandria" site that may be useful are dward137.htm and dward138.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.54.28.10 (talk) 13:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Goolge Knol
I have recreated the article that I wrote here (that was promptly removed) on google's new site http://knol.google.com/k#. I am willing to have collaborators that are willing to add the the article without destroying it. If you wish to please contact me http://knol.google.com/k/norman-dean/the-dean-drive/7jcs3n6lqlbh/2#

Thank you

Norman M. Dean

Nurotoxin (talk) 04:32, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good for you! I was going to suggest something along those lines but didn't know to contact you outside of Wikipedia's public forum. Given the unfounded accusations of the use of proxies made by Gwernol (see:  request), it probabably wouldn't have been advisable anyway.


 * It is clear to me that Wikipedia has become a preserve for pseudoskeptic cranks who can't accept anything not already in the mainstream. Pseudoskepticism has been called "closemindedness with deception". The problem runs so deep that links to references on pseudoskepticism are BLACKLISTED from Wikipedia. (For further information about this term: www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Pseudoskeptic - which is a blacklisted page)


 * There needs to be some sort of vetting process for aspiring Wikipedia administrators to weed out the worst of the breed. It seems to me that some overly-skeptical individuals go out of their way to suppress knowledge and behave in ways that are unnecessarily antagonistic.


 * I've thought for a long time that somebody ought to put up a private Website devoted exclusively to the Dean drive and all its aspects and link it to this discussion page here. At least there you could freely present all the facts and let the readers decide for themselves without the distraction of arguments with forum trolls over the content.


 * I visited the Knol site but didn't see any unambiguous way to contact you. I've got some pretty good information I wouldn't even think of trying to post on Wikipedia, even on this discussion page.  I would be willing to upload it to a site that really was trying to get at the truth, however.
 * 01:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC) [User I]


 * Is there a better website than the Proto-science wiki http://protoscience.wikia.com/ for discussing such non-mainstream ideas and machines? --DavidCary (talk) 19:16, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Knol has been discontinued as of May 1, 2012 --Hugh7 (talk) 19:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a problem
I will admit I am not a "true" follower, but I can't see the fundamental difference between scooting a chair with casters across a hard floor by creating an difference in momentum by leaning into the chair and a dean drive. Isn't it the difference in momentum/force created by closing a frame that holds two concentric weights moving in counter circular motion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.115.121.23 (talk) 01:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The difference between the chair you mention and a Dean Drive is a change in the inertial reference frame caused by the action of the Dean Drive mechanism. One important thing to keep in mind - your chair casters have a property known as "stick-slip" friction.  When the casters first encounter a rolling force, they don't immediately roll because even the best bearings have some friction.  After the force rises above the break-away level, the casters roll and the friction level falls to a point less than what it was before the rolling started.


 * Many would-be mechanical inertial drives will work on casters, rollers or sliders but not when suspended like a pendulum. When that is done, they turn into simple mechanical oscillators and just wiggle back and forth.  That is why the pendulum test is considered one primary hurdle for any inertial drive mechanism.


 * Your chair (with you in it) is essentially a mechanical oscillator. Another well-known mechanical oscillator is a mechanism called a Buehler Drive on which the Dean Drive is based. It was originally used as an industrial vibrator at the beginning of the industrial revolution and is still around in many applications today, wherever strong vibratory motion is needed.


 * The Buehler Drive has rotating off-center weights and oscillates back and forth - as would you and your chair - but does not physically move beyond the amplitude of the oscillation. The Dean Drive moves the axles of the rotating weights at the proper point in each oscillation cycle, thereby creating a second inertial frame of reference.  The weights do not return to the same point in the oscillatory cycle, leading to a (hypothetical) unbalanced impulse.


 * This explanation is very basic but nonetheless has been the focus of many heated discussions on this page (see archive). The subject is highly controversial and discussions tend to veer off the track into name-calling and hyperbole, generating far more heat than illumination.  There are many detailed explanations available on the Web that you might want to read.


 * Incidentally, the Buehler Drive should not be able to produce the motion it does, according to some experts. Since it obviously does, this mechanism presents us with an anomaly.


 * With the Dean Drive, we have a situation similar to the early days of AC electric current. Experts once maintained that AC could not be used as a power source since its oscillations exactly cancelled the electrical potential in each half of the cycle.  Today we know that this was an illogical argument but back then it was a subject of serious disputes.  Perhaps one day we will view the current debate on the Dean Drive in a very different light.


 * January 12, 2011 [User I] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.130.226 (talk) 05:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

needs someone smarter than I to edit
In the first section, "there is no known theoretical mechanism for a mass to be moved one way while nothing moves the other way, at least in a flat spacetime." is untrue. Objects move relative to one another all the time. Consider the planets in their orbits. Consider the expanding universe. Consider an object falling into a gravitational well. Consider Newton's First Law. Needs someone smarter than you to comment! There is no known exception to Newton's third law. Some textbooks still say that electrical charges do not obey it. That is untrue. Even over astronomical distances (with an obvious time-delay) it applies. Even at the quantum level, it applies. Please do not try to 'make your little education do the work of some', as De Morgan used to say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.251.10 (talk) 16:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Now, accelerating without a reaction mass, other than the case of something affected by gravity, well now, that's something altogether different. In my opinion the opening section needs to be rewritten to make this distinction more clear, by someone more skilled than I. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.24 (talk) 11:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Stochastic Electrodynamics
SED has been disproven? I've read about some null experiments but not actual disproof. Why isn't this mentioned in the main article and why aren't any sources cited? 98.154.22.134 (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Call for Deletion of Entire Article
It is a disgrace to Wikipedia, an insult to physicists as a profession, and a disservice to students, even to mention this ludicrous device. There is no doubt that it could never produce nett motion in outer space. There is no room for waffle. The fact that some 'academics' (such as Provatidis) defend it should serve as evidence that those academics are incompetent, and not as valid support for an untenable thesis. No reputable print encyclopedia would ever have included it, and Wikipedia's somewhat laissez-faire attitude smacks more of intellectual laziness than open-mindedness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.251.10 (talk) 16:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There are several good reasons to include this article even though the device itself has been effectively dismissed as an actual working device. First, the Dean drive was a frequent science fiction narrative vehicle and featured in popular science and science fiction magazine articles in the 1960s and so some interest in it still exists. Second, the history of the promotion and eventual discounting of this device now serves as a cautionary tale when considering similar claims for other reactionless drives. Third, proposals to NASA and modern reactionless drive research papers now include statements as to how spurious thrust effects due to friction and other ordinary environmental interactions (collectively referred to as "Dean drive" effects) are excluded from the experimental results. Aldebaran66 (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

tone of the article
Why is the tone so positive, and pretending that it might still work? It's been +50 year, and:


 * Dean didn't leave any working model
 * No independent test has ever been made by third parties
 * He refused independent tests while still alive
 * No one has made a working model from the patents
 * At least one physics textbook gives it as an example of drive that was not able of breaking Newton's motion laws
 * All positive coverage is decades old, except one theoretical paper by a mechanical engineer
 * It's given as an example of the dubious stuff that Campbell promoted in the 1950s-1960s, by three different books from reputable authors (and I found more mentions of this fact in other books, like, written by the guy who gives his name to the sci-fi award Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service)

Dean's grandson has edited the article to defend his grandfather. I am sorry for him, but wikipedia can't give the impression that the principles behind the Dean Drive are considered anything other than completely wrong by today's physicists. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I added the pseudoscience banner as Dean never provided any theoretical basis for operation and was evasive about demonstrating a working prototype, the usual tip-offs of a pseudo-scientific (and nonfunctional) device. I also increased the class to B as the article is fairly complete and pretty well-referenced now. Aldebaran66 (talk) 20:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in recent edits
A great many recent edits have been made by an editor whose WP username would appear to indicate that he is one of the authors of the papers he's citing. This appears to me to be a WP:COI violation. The same editor has made edits to several other articles, adding material (with refs to what may be his own paper) that seems to try to give credence to pseudoscience-y ideas. It is my opinion that all of this editor's work (or at least that which references what appears to be his own paper) is suspect. Jeh (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Summary of a Letter regarding the Dean Drive Evaluation by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
The Sept. 1976 issue of Analog SF, p. 171, published a letter from Joseph P. Martino regarding the evaluation of the Dean Drive by the AFOSR. In 1960. In 1960, Joseph P. Martino contacted Dean and was allowed to perform a series of experiments which are described in the letter. At first, the drive appeared to work as stated, and this was supported by the initial analysis. A check of the analysis by Martino showed it was in error, and after correction, showed no net thrust. An independent contractor examined the bathroom scale used and found that it worked as a "negative peak reading" device, in that "it gave a constant reading equal to the negative peaks of the vibration." Another independent contractor, Jacob Rabinow, was then asked to evaluate the drive. Rabinow performed a pendulum test, where the drive suspended on a pendulum pulled a load attached with a rigid rod. Rabinow found that Dean drive moved the load through sharp jerks, pushing back on the static friction of the floor. When the load it was pulling was on a lubricated sheet, it merely oscillated back and forth. The conclusion of these tests were that the drive did not work. Although the device did not work, Martino felt that "Dean was sincere in his belief . . . and was not a Con artist."--RKihara (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

It works because of the cam
Just like the website describes, it does work. The motors are being driven by electricity at a constant speed. If you have a firm grasp of the "fundamental anomaly" as described on the website,, then it's easy to see why the "rectifier" works.

The weights are moving at a constant speed, so the parent body does not oscillate when they "swing next to eachother", because they are not accelerating. instead, as the weight is forced to turn because it is attached to the rotor shaft, the weight pulls on the rotor shaft to result in this change in direction. The motor is not stressed at this time, and drives constantly.

when the cam freezes in place, it prevents the rotor mount from moving back in the other direction (of its oscillation). So, as the weights move along the opposite side of the rotation, they pull on the entire machine instead. When this happens, the motor will be stressed, and consume more energy than normal. The motor is moving at a constant speed (or trying to), but during this push will require more energy to do so. (so although the rotor is not accelerating, although it actually is because it slowed down at one part of the rotation, the motor is at a higher load).

basically the tuning of the system allows for more energy to be consumed during specific points of the rotation of the rotors.

if you placed the mechanism on a more frictionless surface, and the original builders managed to make it work on a surface with a certain amount of friction, you may need to increase the weight of the enclosure to result in an increased load on the motors. So, the way the air force tester simply placed the machine tuned for a frictioned surface on a frictionless surface, it's imaginable that the enclosure moved too easily, and the motors were not able to be loaded as much as they were using the small wheels, so the motors would not consume extra energy at the time that it would on the wheels. YOu can observe the loading in one of his videos, when he actually pushes the machine resulting in a change in motor speed. the motors are loaded so much they slow down. additionally, if the tester placed the machine in an oil, the oil viscosity would result in a "pocket" that would trap the machine if it were unable to overcome the pocket. So if the machine "barely worked" under the designers original conditions, it wouldn't take very much to throw the delicate tuning off. If the rotor were specifically accelerated more dramatically during the right moments of the rotation, this might allow for a broadening operating conditions, although it would result in other problems the engineers would need to overcome, to prevent saturating the rotor for example. 2603:800C:706:2000:2C73:9F54:C698:8F91 (talk) 04:28, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I get the impression that this is not about improving the article (the purpose of this page). See WP:NOTFORUM. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:41, 2 May 2021 (UTC)