James F. Woodward (born 1941) is a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of history and an adjunct professor of physics at

California State University, Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...

. He is best known for a

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

hypothesis A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...

that he proposed in 1990, later expanded, that predicts several physical effects that he refers to as ' Mach effects'. Woodward claims the effect could be used as a

reactionless drive A reactionless drive is a hypothetical device producing motion without the exhaust of a propellant. A propellantless drive is not necessarily reactionless when it constitutes an open system interacting with external fields; but a reactionless ...

for space travel.

Education and professorships

* A.B., Middlebury College, 1964, Physics * M.S.,

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, 1969, Physics * Ph.D.,

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...

, 1972, History of science Woodward is a professor emeritus of history and an adjunct professor of physics at

Mach effects

Woodward claims that his hypothesis predicts physical forces that he calls ''Mach effects'' but are also referred to as the ''Woodward effect''. He says that his hypothesis is based on

Mach's principle In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle (or Mach's conjecture) is the name given by Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. The hypothe ...

that posits

inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law ...

, the resistance of

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

acceleration In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by t ...

, is a result of the mutual gravitational attraction of all

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic part ...

in the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...

. Thus, if the mass of a given object can be varied while being oscillated in a linear or orbital path, such that the mass is high while the mass is moving in one direction and low while moving back, then the net effect should be acceleration in one direction as the inertial drag of the universe upon the object varies as its mass varies. If a spacecraft engine could be designed to exploit it then acceleration could be produced without using rocket propellants. The effect is controversial because within mainstream physics the underlying model proposed for it appears to be faulty, resulting in violations of energy conservation as well as momentum conservation. Woodward and his associates have claimed since the 1990s to have successfully measured forces at levels great enough for practical use and also claim to be working on the development of a practical prototype thruster. No practical working devices have been publicly demonstrated, and other experiments have failed to corroborate these claims.

Speculation on space travel

He frequently contributes to articles on speculative space travel subjects, especially

wormhole A wormhole ( Einstein-Rosen bridge) is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate p ...

s. In 2012 he published a book on the application of the physical effects predicted by his hypothesis to space travel.

References

External links

James Woodward page at Cal State Fullerton
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodward, James F. Living people California State University, Fullerton faculty Middlebury College alumni New York University alumni University of Denver alumni 1941 births