James Woodward
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 5
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Woodward |
| On the Timeline | 1 event, 2001 |
James F. Woodward (1941 – 9 August 2025) was an American physicist and historian of science at California State University, Fullerton, known for proposing the "Mach effect", a controversial idea for propulsion without propellant that he hoped could lead to interstellar travel.[1][2]
Career
Woodward studied at Middlebury College and New York University and earned a doctorate in the history of science at the University of Denver in 1972. He became a professor of history at Cal State Fullerton, later emeritus, and also taught there as an adjunct professor of physics.[1]
Mach effect
In 1990 Woodward proposed that Mach's principle — the idea that inertia arises from the influence of distant matter in the universe — implies that an object whose mass-energy fluctuates while it is accelerated could produce a net thrust without expelling any propellant. Mainstream physicists regard the model as faulty, since it appears to conflict with conservation of energy and momentum. By 1995 he was building test thrusters from stacks of piezoelectric crystals, a design later called the MEGA drive.[1][3]
Tests and funding
Woodward and his colleagues reported measuring small forces, but no practical device has been demonstrated and other experiments, such as a 2010 torsion-pendulum study, have failed to confirm the effect. NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project listed the effect as unresolved, and in 2017 Woodward and his colleague Fearn received funding from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program. He set out his ideas in the book Making Starships and Stargates (2012). He died in August 2025, aged 84.[1][3][4]
On the UAP Timeline
- Mach effect experiments (June 2001) — Researchers publish an experiment on changing the mass of test samples.
References
- James Woodward (physicist) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Professor Emeritus James F. Woodward", Space Studies Institute · ssi.org · archived copy
- Daniel Oberhaus, "The Mach effect thruster and interstellar travel", Wired (2020) · wired.com · archived copy
- Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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