Thrust from Microwaves - The Relativity Drive

dfenstrate writes "The latest New Scientist has an article about an engine that exploits relativity and microwaves to generate thrust. There is a working prototype." From the article: "Roger Shawyer has developed an engine with no moving parts that he believes can replace rockets and make trains, planes and automobiles obsolete ... The device that has sparked their interest is an engine that generates thrust purely from electromagnetic radiation — microwaves to be precise — by exploiting the strange properties of relativity. It has no moving parts, and releases no exhaust or noxious emissions. Potentially, it could pack the punch of a rocket in a box the size of a suitcase. It could one day replace the engines on almost any spacecraft. More advanced versions might allow cars to lift from the ground and hover."

Comments

Easy to test, no satellite needed

[sehlat]

Easy to test: no satellite needeed. From Jerry Pournelle's web site:

TESTS If anyone does have a candidate device for producing reactionless acceleration -- that is, linear acceleration without throwing mass overboard and without reacting with a medium such as air or water -- the first test is to suspend it on two wires attached so that the plane of the two wires is normal to the direction of thrust-- that is, make a swing and put your gadget on it facing in the normal direction of travel of the swing. Now turn it on. If it will hang non-vertically, get interested. Now cover it with a plastic garbage bag and see if it will still hang non-vertically. If it will still do so, turn it off, and if it settles to a vertical angle, and you can do this repeatedly, and it hasn't lost any mass during the experiments, call your local physics professor. Or call me. I'll take care of notifying the Swedish Academy. But until it will do that, I don't need to look at it...

Re:complete and utter nonsense

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I'm starting to dispair over the state of science in this so called modern world when I see articles like this

It could be a lot worse. People could start claiming completely insane things like that we should replace scientific research in fields like biology and cosmology with the contents of ancient Middle Eastern scrolls. Then we'd really be in trouble.