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No, NASA Did Not Accidentally Invent Warp Drive
StartsWithABang writes: As Slashdot has previously reported, NASA Spaceflight has claimed to have vetted the EM Drive in a vacuum, and found there is still an anomalous thrust/acceleration on the order of 50 microNewtons for the device. While some are claiming this means things like warp drive and 70-day-trips-to-Mars are right on the horizon, it's important to view this from a scientist's point of view. Here's what it will take to turn this from a speculative claim into a robust one.
Really why not just sample facebook find a post that says something crazy and then extrapolate to a large group of people.
You might as well complain about the new cult that thinks mankind was created by spaghetti.
The drive may or may not work, pretty hard to mismeasure a newton + of thrust, we will see. There is no doubt it's positively insane to go all guilt by association.
From the article [numbers added for clarity]:
So let me ask you this, aspiring (or armchair) scientists: what would be the criteria you'd demand as the extraordinary evidence necessary to convince you that this is real? For myself, here's what Iâ(TM)d demand at minimum:
* I would certainly demand #4 - this combined with #3 (or a substitute - see below) is the gold standard for "there is really something here even if we don't know what it is".
* I would demand #5 or a similar process of independent peer review
* I would allow "enough reproductions over enough diverse environments to rule out environmental factors" as a substitute for #3.
* As for #2, the less the measurement error could lead to misleading results, the better, but a result that is "at least many standard deviations above the measurement error" may not be necessary to declare that we have an interesting, publishable result worthy of further study.
I would let #1 go: If the phenomenon was caused by something that did NOT scale with input power, it could still be interesting. It might not get us to space, but it would be worth publishing and studying.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If I understood correctly,
You don't.
it allows you to pre-warp some space ahead in your journey
No-one - that is to say, no-one with an ounce of scientific credibility - is claiming it's a warp drive. There's no reason to even start to consider the idea that it might be a warp drive. The article linked to by the summary with the words "some are claiming this means things like warp drive..." doesn't even mention any claims that it's a warp drive.
The Forbes article links to another article with these words:
When you come across an announcement like the one made by NASA Spaceflight a week ago: that NASA has made a successful test of the EM Drive — a propulsion engine that uses no propellant, seemingly violating one of the most fundamental laws of physics, while warping space in the process — you’d better make sure you aren’t fooling yourself.
And that linked article also doesn't even mention warp drive. Seems to me like some journalists need to calm down a little. "ZOMG! It's not a warp drive!!!" - yes, thanks, but no-one seems to saying it is.
It's a thing that appears to produce thrust by unknown means. That's all. It's very interesting, but it has nothing to do with anything that anyone would call a warp drive.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm probably not alone in being sick and tired about hearing the endless back and forth on this.
On the one hand we have people calling this a Warp Drive and making fantastic flights of fancy and on the other side we have people who think the entire thing is rubbish and anyone even remotely involved deemed a crackpot.
Look -- we have had three different successful reproductions of predicted results. The tests have been done by respected members of respected agencies. And there will be many more tests on the way, I've even heard talk of actually conducting tests in outer space.
So why can't we just wait for more tests? Seems to me that that's the only think to do.
Either way, it will either succeed or it will fail. If anything we MUST conduct these tests to understand the anomalous effect we are seeing here.
Because even if it does fail further tests, it could lead to an understanding the documented and so far anomalous effect which could lead to further advances in science or, if just bad testing could help us understand how to better setup tests and instrumentation.
Above all, it's the complete lack of desire to understanding the cause of the documented effect while focusing on a shouting match that makes both sides look more like religious zealots better suited to jihads than any sort of educated members of the modern society.
The energy of the thrust effect is basically lost in the measurement error. Hell, the device measuring it could be affecting the measured thrust.
The problem is that there's a TINY, TINY effect and we're not sure of the origin. It's therefore useless for propulsion, for decades at least, and certainly until we know where it's coming from and why. Because it might not be something that can ever be scaled, and that amount of thrust is absolutely minuscule.
We're used to dealing with tiny thrusts - you can "push" a satellite with nothing more than light and we have measured that effect in some of our own objects in space. But we can explain that bit, because we know about the interaction that it undergoes.
However, this is barely out of the measurement error. It's nothing more than a blip at the moment. As such, it's infinitely more important to put this through the wringer of "what the hell is doing that" - which requires independent testing, and that's not being done.
Fact is, this may never be more powerful than it is, and we can barely know it IS there, even in a vacuum. Until we know more, any headline about its origin or potential usage is PR bollocks.
While some are claiming this means things like warp drive [...] are right on the horizon
Who are these "some"? The article linked to by the sentence makes no mention of any claims of it being a warp drive.
And then this from the Forbes article:
When you come across an announcement like the one made by NASA Spaceflight a week ago: that NASA has made a successful test of the EM Drive — a propulsion engine that uses no propellant, seemingly violating one of the most fundamental laws of physics, while warping space in the process — you’d better make sure you aren’t fooling yourself.
The linked announcement makes no mention of warping space, so the bolded section seems inaccurately disparaging.
It sounds to me like the guy who wrote the article has fooled himself into believing that someone has claimed it's a warp drive for the purpose of being able to find something to write indignantly about.
Come to think of it, the writer doesn't even seem to be sure of who's who in this scenario. "When you come across an announcement [...] you'd better make sure you aren't fooling yourself." Why would I be fooling myself by simply reading an announcement? Surely it's the people who make the announcement that should make sure they're not fooling themselves. Which I might think they were, if they'd said anything about warping space. Which they didn't.
So just who are these apparently imaginary people that the summary/article is railing against?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
No independent testing? This is one of three devices built by three separate groups that exhibit similar behavior. I do believe that is the definition of independent testing. Now, as to whether it every becomes useful, who knows.
It's premature to throw a Singularity party but it's definitely premature to declare the device to not be a warp drive.
I guess you're right in the sense that if we don't know what's generating the thrust, it's premature to declare it to be *not* much of anything. It's premature to declare it not-a-time-machine or not-a-perpetual-motion-machine. It might be premature to declare that it's not witchcraft. But on the other hand, it's a pretty safe bet that it's none of those things. If it really does work, it probably works via some very reasonable mechanism.
The author is right: we should reserve judgment until there's something more substantial. From what I've read so far, it sounds more like a couple of scientists played with it and said, "Huh, this is actually pretty cool. It does seem to generate thrust, and we're not sure how. Wouldn't it be cool if it was a primative warp drive? Yeah, that'd be cool. Oh well, we need to test it more before we're even sure that it's generating thrust." The whole warp-drive thing is wild speculation, picked up by fanboys who desperately want it to be true.
The scientists didn't say anything about a warp drive. They did say the other stuff, as did two other independent teams.
Honestly, it reminds me of fucking managers losing their shit when they inquire about the status of a large project and hear something they didn't expect to hear.
These guys simply reported what they observed and people are losing their shit over it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
50 micronewtons is not similar to 3 newtons.
If 3 different labs claim to have discovered a new element, one lab claims the halflife is 1 hour, and the other lab claims that the half life is 7 years. Are those results conclusive? At best you could guess one lab is correct and the others are mistaken. At worst you might conclude that they are all mistaken.
This is the position we are in right now. The measurements on this device vary so vastly that the concept of verification has all but broken down.
Actually this is the one criterion missing from the list of "what would it take to convince you that it is real": a viable theory as to how the drive works which makes a prediction that can be tested by another experiment. If this is a real effect then we need a theoretical framework which can be used to explain and predict the size of the effect under different conditions which can then be tested.
This is how the solar neutrino problem was solved. For decades experiments measuring the flux of solar neutrinos had come up short by a factor of 1/3 to 1/2 of the expected value. Initially people thought the experiments were somehow wrong, then focus switched to the solar models predicting the flux but these were confirmed as correct so ultimately nobody had a clue as to why there was discrepancy. People were split between inaccurate experiments, inaccurate prediction or new physics. The problem was solved only when the model which theorists had proposed as a possible solution - that neutrinos changed their flavour as they move through space - was tested by the SNO experiment which measured both the total neutrino flux and the electron neutrino flux separately.
You need both theory and experiment to agree to get understanding and without that clear understanding I would not expect the 'warp drive' effect to be resolved. No matter how much you repeat and verify the experiment there will always be questions raised about some effect which is not accounted for (assuming the effect remains so small). After a few decades you might get to the point where people will admit that the effect is not understood but even then many will ascribe it to some subtle experimental effect rather than new physics. The only way you will change minds is by having a new theory whose predictions are verified by further experiments.
No it isn't premature. That's the null hypothesis.
Your argument is like saying "it's definitely premature to declare the pen sitting on my desk to not be a warp drive."
It is premature to declare that this device does anything. Once some good science has been done and shown some relevant results, then we can start thinking about changing our opinion of this device. So far, no good science has been done.
Eagleworks is hardly the bastion of scientific accuracy and non-hypebole. Wake me up when JPL duplicates their results.
No, not really. If it works, it means they have found another edge case where things get a bit stranger. All of the rest of known physics will still be in place.
BTW - cold fusion turned out to be a fraud, despite people clinging to the hope even today.
If this device actually works, it means everything we think we know about physics is wrong.
No, just the non-scientific armchair claims of various things being "impossible," where actual physics doesn't even address what isn't possible, and can't claim anything to be impossible. Science is about what is known, not what isn't. Things are either know to be true in a certain set of conditions, known not to be true in a certain set of conditions, or not known. There is no way that science could, or would try to, claim what is or isn't possible in unknown conditions.
A new technology is just an example of a new context, a new set of conditions. There are basically no limits to what might be true under new conditions. Those are all unknowns.
Science is about what is known, not what isn't.
It wouldn't make much progress if that were the case!
things are either know to be true
Science, by necessity, does not deal in truth. It wouldn't work if it did.
You have a very odd understanding of science.
Required reading for internet skeptics
BTW - cold fusion turned out to be a fraud, despite people clinging to the hope even today.
It did not turn out to be a fraud. It turned out to be a 'mistake', and that is even not sure as plenty of physicians are still or again working in that field.
Fraud is a word used in criminal contexts, it means a person is deliberately misleading other people to gain a profit, usually by causing damage to those people.
E.g. if I sell you at a metro station a ticket for 80 cents, which would normally cost 1,30 Euro ... you use the ticket and surprisingly it works, but as soon as a controller checks you, it turns out it is a children's ticket ... that is fraud.
Setting up a weird experiment and finding a strange effect and publishing everything about it: that is science. Even if it get debunked later.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Must have been really annoying making sure you still had money identical to what was used several decades ago - down to the correct signatures, date-of-issue, stamping etc :)