Our second segment had me return to the physics lab of Dr. Jim Woodward and Dr. Heidi Fearn at Cal State Fullerton. Space Show listener and frequent caller John Hunt was with me so that this time our discussion would be more focused on physics and technical questions. This was the first time I had the opportunity to meet Jim as last year Heidi was the only one present in the lab with Robert Jacobson and myself. John and I took several pictures of the lab equipment, the test screen showing the results Jim talked about and a group photo of the four of us. I hope to be able to upload most of these photos later in the week to this blog post. Look for my announcement when the photos are uploaded. This segment is about 1 hour 40 minutes in length. Again, there was lab equipment running the background so the interview is noisy. In addition, both Heidi and Jim were very soft spoken.
We started our discussion with Heidi going over some of the lab equipment and showing us what was inside the lab boxes that Jim had made to do his Mach analysis. John asked Jim multiple questions about the formulas and the results showing "thrust" and how Jim knew or at least why he thought the thrust was real and not an artifact of the experiment. We talked about this for a big part of the discussion. Also discussed was the next step Dr. Woodward needed to take to validate the experiment, having others replicate his work, challenges ahead, funding issues, and the underlying physics of Mach's Principle. I believe this was a comprehensive interview covering multiple topics related to Jim work regarding Mach's thrusters. From finance to physics and science, it was a thorough discussion.
The third and final segment of this archived show is the discussion John Hunt and I had after the Woodward interview. We discussed what Jim and Heidi told us, the need for them to go to the next step and to do that, the need for there to be additional funding. We both thought that the effect was likely real but the experiment needed to be ramped up with more power for a bigger effect yet so far the money for the equipment and the experiment is not there. John and I were positive but wanting more verification. We were both extremely impressed with Dr. Woodward. He was an exceptional friendly, softs spoken person who was as sharp as a person could be and a true expert in experimental physics. You will hear us explain why we both came to the conclusion that Dr. Woodward and Dr. Fearn are very much real scientists doing real physics and not fringe or out of the box work. Heidi's work is the work of a theoretical physicist. When you go to her CV, you can see a list of her published papers.
