Aucbvax.5801 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!Onyx:jeffc Fri Jan 15 00:54:39 1982 Harry Stine and the Dean Drive Perhaps the most convincing argument I've ever seen that proves that the Dean Drive is IMPOSSIBLE is the one offered by Isaac Asimov in his autobiography, when he was discussing John Campell's eccentricities (to put it nicely). While I don't remember the exact wording, it went something like this (after explaining how it was supposed to work): That's just fine. Except that it violates the law of conservation of momentum, and the law of conservation of angular momentum, and if it actually worked I don't believe that the physicists would ever be able to put back together again the laws of physics after the shambles that would result. Sigh. You'd never know that Stine was into such mysticism from reading that excellent book, the Third Industrial Revolution. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.