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by Terr_ 216 days ago
My money's on fake woo-woo.

At first—like many others here—I thought it might just be a terribly-written explanation for a device that uses Earth's magnetic field, so that the planet itself is the "reaction mass" being pushed around... but I'm not seeing that in a quick patent search for the company.

Instead, there's a bunch of stuff that seems like perpetual-motion-machine crankery, where their "motor" depends on a oscillating some mass back and forth inside a chamber using special frequencies and "waveforms", which somehow imparts some acceleration which they explain as "generating mass."

Perhaps did use Earth's magnetic field through pure experimental error, and they either haven't realized it or think they can bilk investors by presenting it as something new.

_________

https://patents.google.com/patent/US11462985B2/en :

> The inertial mass of an object varies with the variation of its magnetic field and therefore a variation of inertia can be created which leads to the generation of mass by varying the magnetization of the motor and its constituent elements (at given times, as explained above).

> [...] the variation of “mass” is generated by the overmagnetization or undermagnetization of the motor itself in conjunction with given “shocks” or interactions between the magnetic piston and the two buffer magnets [...]

https://patents.justia.com/patent/11462985 :

> [In] general the motor or the moving system according to the present invention consists of an electromagnetically charged body which moves within a delimited volume of space being accelerated and decelerated electromagnetically in controlled manner during its movement within said volume of space.

> Such accelerations/decelerations generate a force on the volume inside which the mass moves and allow the volume of space to move.

1 comments

I think you are right. Either they have accidentally used the Earth's field somehow, or they are mistaking other effects (drag, perturbations...) for a thrust.
I would tend to think it uses Earth's magnetic field. Magnetizing or demagnetizing a moving mass would make its potential energy vary inside Earth's magnetic field. This may occur without reaction (I am not sure about this, my physics courses are far away and magnetic material physics is not that easy). Once they varied the potential energy of the moving mass, they would actually move it inside Earth's magnetic field, leading to a reaction force. The reaction force would be greater in one direction because of the cyclic magnetization/demagnetization.
And if the satellite's orbit is not perfectly circular, you may even be able to gain altitude by moving a mass at specifics times, like a kid on a swing or a skater in a ramp.