"Ghost" wrote in message
news:5DSVb.455664$ts4.303276@pd7tw3no...
Perhaps this reference will add clarity.. I became quite intrigued
many
decades ago when John Campbell and Jerry Pournelle wrote about it..

http://www.deanspacedrive.org/HomePage.html

http://www.space-drives.org/wwdeannl.html

I'm a long-time reader of Analog. The "Dean Drive" hung its hat on
two assertions: 1) That a suspended pendulum would "lean", if that's
the correct term, when the DD was powered on, and 2) that when the DD
was placed on an ordinary mechanical bathroom scale, the scale
indicated a lower weight when the DD was switched on.

1) was never demonstrated in public.

2) this was demonstrated in public. A little investigation proved
that the ordinary mechanical bathroom scale is a negative-peak-reading
device. Jiggle it and it reads the lowest peak value (while it is
being continuously jiggled, which is what the DD did).

I still like Analog. Very entertaining. The late John Campbell was
into lotsa "ghosts and goblins" (ie psi phenomena) stuff, not just the
DD. Complete nonsense, of course. ;-)