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How To Build a Quantum Propulsion Machine
KentuckyFC writes "According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence. It turns out that these waves can have various measurable effects, such as the Casimir-Polder force, which was first measured accurately in 1997. Just how to exploit this force is still not clear. Now, however, a researcher at an Israeli government lab suggests how it could be possible to generate propulsion using the quantum vacuum. The basic idea is that pushing on the electromagnetic fields in the vacuum should generate an equal and opposite force. The suggestion is that this can be done using nanoparticles that interact with the vacuum's electric and magnetic fields, generating the well-known Lorentz force. In most cases, the sum of Lorentz forces adds up to zero. But today's breakthrough is the discovery of various ways to break this symmetry and so use the quantum vacuum to generate a force. The simplest of these is simply to rotate the particles. So the blueprint for a quantum propulsion machine described in the paper is an array of addressable nanoparticles that can be rotated in the required way. Although such a machine will need a source of energy, it generates propulsion without any change in mass. As the research puts it with magesterial understatement, this might have practical implications."
I bet this could be done even easier with cats, but the ASPCA people won't like it.
Vacuum doesn't suck, it pushes?
You don't need to vacuum if there are no particles.
ZPM's! We'll be able to retire the aging buttered cat array fleet!
How To Build a Quantum Propulsion Machine
At first glance I thought it said How To Build a Quantum Popsicle Machine. Then I thought Quantum Popsicle would have been a great name for a hair band in the 80's.
You could have flavors like Lime Quark and Strange Berry, put the stand up outside the Hadron Collider.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Until we find out that if you leave it on for a million years, it might just accelerate a space ship of one cubic centimetre up to a few millimetres per hour.
With due apologies to the authors if this estimate turns out to be a gross underestimate.
worthless idiotic mods have no clue what troll actually means. being 12 year olds raging cause wow is patching on their snow day they thought maybe the post was from a low iq green skin.
a few millimetres per hour
This is still orders of magnitude better than the Northern Line, however...
THIS SOUNDS LIKE A REACTIONLESS DRIVE. NOW THAT I HAVE PROPERLY CATEGORIZED IT FOR YOU, YOU CAN JUST GO STRAIGHT ON TO BEING SKEPTICAL, SINCE EVERYONE KNOWS REACTIONLESS DRIVES ARE BALONY. THIS HAS BEEN A SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE STATUS QUO IN ENGINEERING. THANK YOU.
(We had to bribe Slashdot editors to let us write the above in all caps. They are total suckers for lower-case letters. It's a fetish of theirs, probably. Poor little letters. Cut to CmdrTaco doing a lower-case 'a' in the butt. Oh, ffs, will this filter ever let me through? rthwerg erg qergqegqerg qerg qegqegqreghqer gqer gq erg qer gqe gqergqergeqrgerg)
This isn't the future. There are no aircars.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Isn't Maxwell saying that you can use quantum mechanics to violate thermodynamics a bit like Charlie Daniels saying you can produce gold by being a sufficiently good fiddle player?
I hope this is as funny on paper as it is in my head...
No, on a rock 'n roll vacuum you can turn it up to a net force of 11!
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
So... you're saying that nothing's impossible? Or just that we ain't seen nothing yet?
Nothing is sacred! Bow down before it!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
"worthless idiotic mods have no clue what troll actually means."
For once I have to agree. He's been modded "Troll", but reading a bit between the lines
"...was from a low iq green skin".
It is clear this guy should have been modded "Orc".