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Fuel Free Spacecrafts Using Graphene
William Robinson writes: While using a laser to cut a sponge made of crumpled sheets of Graphene oxide, researchers accidentally discovered that it can turn light into motion. As the laser cut into the material, it mysteriously propelled forward. Baffled, researchers investigated further. The Graphene material was put in a vacuum and again shot with a laser. Incredibly, the laser still pushed the sponge forward, and by as much as 40 centimeters. Researchers even got the Graphene to move by focusing ordinary sunlight on it with a lens. Though scientists are not sure why this happens, they are excited with new possibilities such as light propelled spacecraft that does not need fuel.
Where the heck those extra electrons came from? Absorbing photon momentum (more efficient solar sail) sounds feasible, but "accumulating electrons" from nowhere and then emitting them in one direction (where light came from) ... less so.
Paul B.
In that it fails to mention the object was macro-scale, the resulting movement is greater than that would be expected from momentum of the photons, and was not due to ablation of the material. This is far more interesting that pushing tiny things around with a laser.
Furthermore, their ability to second-guess the credentialed experts is improved exponentially by posting AC.
The key point with ion drives is they don't eject charged particles. They strip the electrons from Xe, accelerate it towards a grid anode (essentially this is a lot like a CRT) and then the electrons hook back up with the Xe ions on the way out, neutralizing them. So you end up with a high speed stream of neutral atoms, not ions. The spacecraft never develops an overall charge.
And lest anyone be fooled, electric charges are VERY powerful, you would generate a negligible amount of delta V before your spacecraft's propulsion system completely stopped working. Nor does any fancy juggling act change that, if you lose negative charges you've got a huge problem.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
You don't really have to have much knowledge about anything to second guess experts in any field. Just hold to the rule that "all amazing results are caused by inaccurate measurement, poor sampling, cognitive leaps or coincidence" and you'll be right 70% of the time.
The actual breakthroughs will be so old hat by the time they have been tested properly that nobody will talk about them and you'll never eat crow.
Remember, cynicism and wisdom lead to the same result most of the time, only wisdom is so much harder to learn.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Welp, I've got a laser pointer and a table, you find us some graphene sponge and a vacuum chamber, and we'll test it. Which is the whole point of this. Its literally:
"Hey scientists of the world, we pointed a laser at some graphene, and something weird happened. Here's what we did, will you give it a go and see if we're tripping balls, or have discovered something awesome?"
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
No, it's not pseudoscience.
If a researcher perfoms an experiment and gets a very strange, unexpected result, what should he do? Say "that result is clearly impossible, so I shall just disregard it"?
No, he will try to repeat the experiment, gather data, and try to figure out what's going on. Maybe (most likely) there's a perfectly valid explanation within existing scientific frameworks, maybe it's a setup or measurement error, or maybe, just maybe, this is a new effect that hadn't been discovered yet. So the scientist tries to figure that out, and tells others about the experiments so they can try the same thing and see if they get similar results.
That's how science works.
I'm sure you would have called the theory of relativity "pseudoscience" back in the day of Newtonian physics. New things do get discovered sometimes. As long as it's being researched using scientific methods, that's science and not pseudoscience. Yes, they probably will be wrong. That doesn't mean it's not science.
If conservation of momentum were not true, it would break 99.999% of our understanding of physics.
FTFY.
If man's law defining conservation of momentum is found to have a loophole, then physics as defined by the universe will work the same way it always has. It's just our definition that's been broken, which would mean that every other theory we've created that's been supported by this law would have to be brought back to hypothesis and reworked into a new theory of how things work based on new evidence.
To think that it's unlikely that conservation of momentum will be discovered to have a loophole we didn't understand doesn't make you the 'religious shitreaded fanatic' [sic]. I also highly doubt that we'll find that loophole, even with this new discovery, and I feel that all the laws of physics have been fairly solidly proven thus far that they can be safely presumed to be a certainty. That said, I would not be so arrogant to say that if it were discovered that one of our laws was flawed that physics has been broken. I would only say that man's understanding of physics has been shown to be flawed and that we must come to understand that flaw so that we can rework a more complete understanding of the physics of our universe that correspond with this new information.