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German Scientists Confirm NASA's Controversial EM Drive
MarkWhittington writes: Hacked Magazine reported that a group of German scientists believe that they have confirmed that the EM Drive, the propulsion device that uses microwaves rather than rocket fuel, provides thrust. The experimental results are being presented at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando by Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology. Tajmar has an interest in exotic propulsion methods, including one concept using "negative matter."
Maybe this will be one that turns out not to be a scam...
This is the type of news I want to see more of. Between all of the pointless social narcissism platforms and SJW Bs this is enlightening news. I am excited to see what discoveries will be made. And if it turns out to be bunk, well who cares that's science!
I don't understand how carrying and burning all of those microwaves would be better than rocket fuel, especially with the production cost of making the microwaves.
What more do I need to say?
A propulsion device that provides thrust without using reaction mass would be an earth-shattering advance, assuming the amount of thrust is non-negligible. I hope you do get that.
MythBuster's is so full of junk science that I feel dumber after watching an episode and find myself wondering things like the will the great ball of fire in the sky rise tomorrow and is the earth flat.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I'm very hopeful this works. It's easy to be cynical, so I won't say "meh it's all bullshit!" Still, I won't be convinced until I see it provide thrust in a vacuum, away from Earth's magnetic field. It's still far, far too likely it's pushing off something terrestrial. So I'll give them a healthy "go, team, go!"
That said, quoth the article:
"This is the first time that someone with a well-equipped lab and a strong background in tracking experimental error has been involved, rather than engineers who may be unconsciously influenced by a desire to see it work," notes Wired referring to Tajmar's work.
I don't know about that. He is a real professor at a real university, but he also has filed for a patent on a gravity generator, using a process no one has duplicated. Somebody who thinks they've got a gravity generator, but gosh just can't prove it to everybody else, is definitely somebody who may be "unconsciously influenced by a desire to see it work."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
In the conclusion section:
The nature of the thrusts observed is still unclear. Additional tests need to be carried out to study the magnetic
interaction of the power feeding lines used for the liquid metal contacts. Our test campaign can not confirm or refute
the claims of the EMDrive but intends to independently assess possible side-effects in the measurements methods
used so far. Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the magnitude of the actual predictions after eliminating
many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena. Next steps include better
magnetic shielding, further vacuum tests and improved EMDrive models with higher Q factors and electronics that
allow tuning for optimal operation. As a worst case we may find how to effectively shield thrust balances from
magnetic fields.
Ahem ... that would be an _ostensible_ propulsion device, the working principle for which is (according to mainstream physicists) poorly described and violates commonly accepted physical principles. OTOH, I hope it works. I'll believe it when they cram a couple of megawatts in, and get it to lift its own weight - or better, 100 times its own weight.
I note that the Dr. Tajmar, the researcher whose name is on the paper, is still using terms like "... if true ...". This is not yet a tried-and-true propulsion device. The articles I saw just now did not show actual numbers, but the NASA experiment used such low power that the apparent thrust was well below several of the potentially confounding effects; i.e. the noise was much higher than the signal. It may still turn out to be the result of some experimental error, an unexpected issue with the apparatus, etc. Again though, one hopes. :)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
something with a very long, low-thrust burn such as DS1's ion propulsion* and enough fuel to run for half a century maybe, Voyager 1 left the Sun's influence last year - nothing launched from Earth will ever catch it using gravity assists. New Horizons might be travelling at twice the speed of Voyager right now but it's not even 40AU out, by the time it gets to apoapse it'll be travelling slow enough to drop back - it's in a 100AU heliocentric orbit.
*the Dawn spacecraft, currently in orbit around Ceres, also uses ion propulsion - the same NSTAR 2100W engine as DS1, in fact.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Mythbusters' pop skepticism is the very definition of junk science.
If you're waiting for confirmation from Penn Jillette or some other aging magician or Skeptical Inquirer, you missed out on a successful career as an economist.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Tajmar made a lot of hoopla over ten years ago about making gravitomagnetic waves orders of magnitude more powerful than GR predicted; some were claiming we were on our way to artificial gravity or a warp drive by his bold claims. Of course, his experiments could never be duplicated. Since then, he's been trying to make waves (ha!) with other dubious claims of making gravity effects by electromagnetic means and such.
Take anything he claims "confirmed" with a one hundred pound bag pinch of salt.
This could provide a basis for a 'constant acceleration drive', that could travel interstellar distances without requiring a reaction mass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Ion thrusters still consume raw materials, so there's a finite fuel supply. If this does literally turn electricity into thrust without consuming anything then running out of reaction-mass is no longer an issue, and some probes could even be entirely solar powered.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're confused, an ion engine is a type of rocket. The problem with this type of drive is too much thrust is claimed for the amount of energy expended. You really can propel something with photons, whether microwave or light, since photons have momentum. But it's to the tune of a newton per 300 megawatts; in other words a fiendish amount of power to get a very small amount of thrust. Our universe is perverse like that.
This "physicist" Tajmar has made all kinds of absurd unreproducible claims and experiments of making gravity wave effects with superconductors and similar. In short, a self-deluded person trying to be the next Einstein when really he's more snake-oil purveyor.
Just thinking about this, how expensive would it be to create a small, simple satellite, with solar cells, some large LiPoly batteries, a transponder and an EM drive that fires up every time there is enough juice in the batteries to run it for a few minutes?
Sticking with the 50nN thrust level for 50W of input and assuming that a 1kg LiPol battery has 260Whr available (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery), that is approximately 5hr of running time and assuming that the satellite is 5kg, there will be a 10nm/s^2 acceleration.
5 hours is 18,000s so there should be a delta-V imparted on the satellite of 1.8(10^-4)m/s which is tiny (I did say this is a pretty useless drive at the current time right now) but should be measurable or at least noticeable to its relative position to a control satellite that was launched along with it.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Note, for the record, that an ion thruster IS a rocket - it shoots mass out the back (ions, in this case, accelerated electricly) just like any other rocket.
Note that if this EM drive pushes photons out the back, it is also a rocket. However, what I've read on the subject says it doesn't push photons out the back (not even microwave photons), so it's either something unexpected, or a huge steaming pile.
I'll be interested in the first deep-space probe built to test this thing. Should be simple enough - solar panels for power, EM-Drive for push, a comm-channel or six, and something to announce its presence, so we can determine its velocity relative to Earth at all times. If it accelerates, we win. If not, we wasted the cost of a (small) satellite....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Of course they do. Ions are simply an atom that has either gained or lost electrons and now has a net electric charge, either (+) or (-). As such, they are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons, all of which have mass.
Bad example. Light does exert radiation pressure, yes - but it is far, far too weak to drive a radiometer. The spinning radiometer isn't due to radiation pressure. It's a more mundane effect: Imperfect vacuum. The black side is warmed more than the white, which heats up adjacent air, which exerts higher pressure, causing the spin. It's just a plain old heat engine.
Existing electric propulsion devices (like ion thrusters) still use propellant, they're just really efficient.
The EM drive would appear to use no propellant, meaning the limitations would only be the amount of electricity that could be produced, along with how long the EM drive could operate before it degrades.
Until you travel at 0.7c and you discover the batteries are dead because solar isn't working at this speed so you cannot slow down.
Lifting its own weight is irrelevant. Existing electric propulsion thrusters couldn't come remotely close to lifting their own weight, and yet are still in active use in space.
It appears to impart momentum to something without an opposite momentum imparted to anything else... you know, the basic concept of how every other propulsion system in the world works?
When you walk, your feet push against the ground, imparting a (tiny, relative to the mass of the Earth) amount of momentum to it at the same time that your feet impart momentum to your body.
When you sail a boat, the sails alter the momentum of the wind, and an opposite alteration is imparted to the momentum of the boat.
When a rocket engine fires, it releases exhaust with a lot of momentum going one way, and the rocket receives the momentum going the other way.
This model holds for any kind of propelling of anything. Even a flashlight projecting photons imparts a tiny, tiny bit of momentum to your hand, to your body, to the earth. Magnetic propulsion, chemical propulsion, ion propulsion... all of them operate on the principle of "we go this way, by making something else go that way".
The EM Drive appears to go one way without making anything else go the other way. It releases no exhaust, pushes against no solid or fluid, emits no photons, and interacts with no external magnetic fields. We don't know how it works (there are a number of theories, none of which are that widely accepted), and we still aren't 100% sure it does work (maybe it's still all experimental error... that becomes less likely with each independent verification, but extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence), but if it does work it does so in a way that is outside our current understanding of physics. That is a Really Big Deal.
One way or another, this is exciting!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
An ion thruster is a very efficient reaction mass based thruster,
It still has to drag all that reaction mass along, despite it's only real purpose being that it's thrown out like garbage just to provide thrust.
It takes thrust to push that reaction mass around the place, up until you actually throw it out the window, which is actually out the directed nozzle or whatever.
And what happens when you run out of reaction mass? You have no more thrust.
On the other hand, if you have a reactionless thruster, as long as you provide it with power, it will give you thrust. Slap on solar panels, or if it's a deep space mission, nuclear batteries or the like, and you are set.
As an added bonus, you can use that constant acceleration trick to really build up some speed. Something you can't do with reaction mass because you don't ever have enough, even for a tiny trip like to the moon.
Scientists Confirm 'Impossible' EM Drive Propulsion
Science News, Space / July 27, 2015 / by Giulio Prisco/
Later today, July 27, German scientists will present new experimental results on the controversial, "impossible" EM Drive, at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando. The presentation is titled "Direct Thrust Measurements of an EmDrive and Evaluation of Possible Side-Effects."
Presenter Martin Tajmar is a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, interested in space propulsion systems and breakthrough propulsion physics.
A Revolutionary Development for Space Travel
The EM Drive (Electro Magnetic Drive) uses electromagnetic microwave cavities to directly convert electrical energy to thrust without the need to expel any propellant. First proposed by Satellite Propulsion Research, a research company based in the UK founded by aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer, the EM Drive concept was predictably scorned by much of the mainstream research community for allegedly violating the laws of physics, including the conservation of momentum.
However, NASA Eagleworks – an advanced propulsion research group led by Dr. Harold G. “Sonny” White at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) – investigated the EM Drive and presented encouraging test results in 2014 at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference.
White proposes that the EM Drive’s thrust is due to virtual particles in the quantum vacuum that behave like propellant ions in magneto-hydrodynamical propulsion systems, extracting "fuel" from the very fabric of space-time and eliminating the need to carry propellant. While a number of scientists criticize White's theoretical model, others feel that he is at least pointing to the right direction. The NASASpaceFlight website and forums have emerged as unofficial news source and discussion space for all things related to the EM Drive and related breakthrough space propulsion proposals such as the Cannae Drive.
Shawyer has often been dismissed by the research establishment for not having peer-reviewed scientific publications, but White and Tajmar have impeccable credentials that put them beyond cheap dismissal and scorn. Physics is an experimental science, and the fact that the EM Drive works is confirmed in the lab. "This is the first time that someone with a well-equipped lab and a strong background in tracking experimental error has been involved, rather than engineers who may be unconsciously influenced by a desire to see it work," notes Wired referring to Tajmar's work.
Hacked has obtained a copy of Tajmar's Propulsion and Energy Forum paper, co-authored by G. Fiedler.
"Our measurements reveal thrusts as expected from previous claims after carefully studying thermal and electromagnetic interferences," note the researchers. "If true, this could certainly revolutionize space travel."
"Additional tests need to be carried out to study the magnetic interaction of the power feeding lines used for the liquid metal contacts," conclude the researchers. "Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the magnitude of the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena. Next steps include better magnetic shielding, further vacuum tests and improved EMDrive models with higher Q factors and electronics that allow tuning for optimal operation."
Contrary to sensationalist reports published by the sensationalist press, the EM Drive is not a "warp drive" for faster than
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Thank you for enlightening me. I read the wikipedia page on radiometers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I learned that radiometers do NOT work by "light pressure" which was Crooke's, the inventor's, hypothesis. Radiometers do NOT spin in a perfect vacuum. The two mechanisms that explain why they spin were proposed by the likes of Einstein (relativity guy), Maxwell (equations guy), and Reynolds (number, not aluminum, guy).
they're just really efficient in a vacuum.
Fixed that for you. Well, for your reader anyway - you probably understand it. Because of the way these things work, they are just about useless anywhere other than a vacuum. The only way you can spend a tiny tiny amount of energy accelerating particles to massive speeds is when there's nothing else in their way for them to bounce off of. But if you are not in any kind of rush for your delta v and are in near total vacuum this is almost a perfect engine.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As an added added bonus, such a drive would accelerate faster at a given thrust, because of the absence of reaction mass. Conventionally, acceleration steadily increases at a given thrust as reaction mass is ejected, with maximum acceleration being reached just before reaction mass is exhausted.
We can dream, can't we?
I wrote a comment on this up above, but just to help you understand...
1) No, the ion drive does not use electricity to produce thrust. Ion drives, as their name suggests, use ions to produce thrust. The ions are accelerated using fields generated via electric power, but that's no more a case of using electricity to (directly) produce thrust than an electric car is (the car pushes against the road, imparting momentum to the earth which balances the momentum imparted to the car).
2) Yes, it sounds like a free energy machine. If a given amount of electrical power produces a given thrust, constantly, without consuming any fuel, then you can generate unlimited energy by attaching this thing to a flywheel or rotor arm that drives a generator and it will produce more energy than it requires to drive the thruster. Some of the current theories about this thing claim that it won't do that, that its efficiency will go down the faster it's moving (relative to a given frame of reference).
3) No, electricity is not fuel. Electricity is not a thing. It is a process. Electricity is the motion of electrons. It is a form of energy. Fuel is a way to store energy, but it is not energy itself. You can generate electricity from many things, including fuel, and there are many forms of chemical devices with electrical potential energy - we usually call them batteries - but electricity is not, itself, fuel. Now, the energy still needs to come from somewhere (unless this drive does turn out to be usable to get more energy out than is put in, which would turn *all* of physics on its head) and that "somewhere" is usually fuel of some kind... but it can be things like uranium in a nuclear reactor that is usable for decades from a tiny amount of mass, or hydrogen in the sun producing photons as it fuses and those photons being captured and used to move electrons via the photoelectric effect (in layman's terms, solar panels).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Here is the first page of the actual paper, including the abstract which says:
Our test campaign can not confirm or refute the claims of the EMDrive but intends to independently assess possible side-effects in the measurement methods used so far.
So the /. title says pretty much the exact opposite of what the actual
paper says.
I am still extremely skeptical that there is any actual effect. They powered their device with a 700 watt magnatron and measured plus or minus 20 micro-newtons of thrust. To put this in perspective, one Newton is roughly the weight of an apple near the surface of the Earth. If the thrust scales linearally with input power then you would need 50,000 x 700 Watts = 35 Megawatts to levitate a single apple. Of course the inventor claims that the thrust to power ratio is highly non-linear so at these higher power levels you would get a lot more thrust. I have not seen any sensible theoretical model that explains why this would be so.
If you are using hundreds of watts to produce a handful of micro-newtons then it is extremely likely there is no actual effect and what is being measured is just some form of noise. This is especially true when the so-called effect violates a primary law of physics.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I know this is Slashdot, but the abstracter of the paper is pretty clear:
"Our test campaign can not confirm or refute the claims of the EMDrive"
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.251...
How did we get from that to the summary posted here? Why does the happen every single time an article about this appears on Slashdot?
Because that's what clickbait is all about!
Enigma
Someone needs a visit from Zombie Feynman!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You aren't following what he is saying--the research is saying is that THERE IS NO REACTION MASS. Per current physics, this device can't exist. That is why this is so big. No current physics explains it. It is not the opposite of a solar said, since the microwaves don't actual exit the device. If this device works, it does change everything, if only to point to new physics.
I thought that was the Q thruster, it's this the one that bounces photons around in an asymmetric cavity?
The Q's thruster got Janeway all excited...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Oh sure! And 100,000 years later when a cubesat travelling .9999 the speed of light plows into the Dynarri ambassador's starship, guess who they'll be coming for!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
True, but this means your source of energy can be very compact and efficient.
For instance, you can employ a nuclear reactor. Still somewhat heavy and complex, but a lot lighter, and much more efficient than having to carry your reaction mass with you just so you can shoot it out the back. If we got reactor design compact and advanced enough, it could actually be fairly simple to operate.
Previously, the only way to make use of nuclear power was to basically accelerate the ship by throwing nuclear bombs out the back. A reactor isn't as dramatic, and doesn't accelerate as drastically, but is significantly more efficient, and reusable (not to mention it isn't a proliferation risk).
That would make it possible for the ship to reach higher velocities as well, since the ship would have less mass, or alternately, be able to have more non-propulsion mass which would be handy in dealing with the other issues with long range spaceflight.
A ion drive requires reactionary mass to work.
I've been quoting Evola and Metternich to this bowl of water for hours now, how much longer until it turns reactionary?
Which is exactly why this should be presented as a breakthrough in physics with the standards of verification and publication used in physics rather than announced as a way to propel rockets. Using the standards of a breakthrough in physics, they have an anomalous experiment. Now they need to replicate it under more idealized conditions and then we'll evaluate whether to give them a Nobel Prize. Almost certainly this anomalous experiment will turn out to be an experimental error or misinterpretation since the theory of conservation of momentum they are claiming to violate is so extremely well corroborated.
The problem is that the explanations that we can get our hands on are so obviously problematic. Take the simple Newtonian mechanics diagram in the original post. They seem to be implying that the radiation pressure on the front of the cavity is larger than the radiation pressure on the back. That is fine. If that is the case, then there is a transfer of momentum to the radiation field. Where does this momentum go? If it goes out the back, then this is a simple and well understood phenomena that isn't powerful enough to propel a rocket. Any flashlight is a EM drive...photons out the back, momentum away from the light beam. It is just not an efficient way to turn energy into momentum. But they are claiming that some net momentum is produced without any photons out the back. And that is simply impossible without overturning Noether's theorem or establishing a way for space-time to be inhomogeneous on the scale of the spacecraft. It is really easy to get stray and reproducible momentum sources (see the Pioneer anomaly). It is much much harder to replace well established fundamental physics that is derived from principles as simple as the homogeneity of space.
Looking at this another way:
When LHC were looking for the Higgs boson - a particle entirely expected by modern physics - they required a five sigma signal before they were satisfied that they had really found something.
This is a result not only entirely unexpected, but contradictory to almost all known physics. A two sigma (NASA) and three sigma (Germany) signal is not remotely enough to be convincing. At best it is convincing enough for someone to spend the money to further and better test it.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
There was a similar set of claims roughly 60 years ago for the "Dean Drive" a "reactionless drive" that did not seem to use propellant. To casual review, and letting it push your hand, it seemed to work, and a great campaign for research and to ignore the sceptics of the time was headed by John W. Campbell, the editor of Analog magazine. Analog was, and remains, a science fiction magazine specializing in hard science and science fiction based on it, and it had many real scientists as readers and contributors, so the Dean Drive received quite a lot of attention.
The Dean Drive has since been pretty thoroughly debunked as an "oscillation thruster", a device that relies on tuned "slipping" on the floor it rests on to creep forward and even to provide a modest thrust, _pushing against the floor_. The designer was never willing to allow a full "pendulum" test, or careful testing outside of his own workshop, and there seem to be dozens more of similarly patented "reactonless drives". The ones that work at all also seem to be "isicllation thrusters", pushing against the floor or the mehanism in which they are mounted.
I've been following this invention for years; since the first announcements from Shawyer through his being trashed by various physicists and wanna-bees, through his redemption through work in China and NASA. It used to be very difficult to get information, but since the burst of activity on the NASA Space flight forums, there's now too much information to digest, especially for someone like me who only has an undergrad level of schooling in it. If you want lots of details and discussion, check it out - but please don't post unless you really know what you're talking about, as there's already been a hell of a lot of noise. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37642.0
Conservation of momentum is more than "new physics". It's quite fundamental, thanks to Noether's Theorem: conservation of momentum is mathematically equivalent to "the laws of physics don't vary with spatial coordinates", that is, the X, Y, and Z axes can be "zeroed" anywhere, the choice of coordinates are arbitrary as long as their consistent. The universe would be a very strange place indeed if this weren't true, and furthermore we'd have noticed by now.
So, whatever's going on here, momentum is being conserved. Just how that's happening is the curious bit. It wasn't obvious until the early 1900s that light had momentum - maybe there's something else we're missing, or maybe this really is an actual "warp" drive that locally changes the metric of space (in a way different from GR) and momentum really isn't conserved. Somehow I doubt the latter is true.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's one thing to question the very preliminary theory of operation for the thing, it's quite another to demand that it is doing nothing just because it would be inconvenient.
My gut feeling is that whatever it is, it won't violate conservation of momentum.
You just need to route it through the rear deflector dish. Everybody knows that deflector dishes provide limitless levels of amplification under all circumstances.
"Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime....That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space."
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
For outer system stuff you'd use a nuke.
"Fuel" in terms of energy isn't the problem in a rocket. The problem is the requirement to haul around reaction mass: stuff to throw out the back. If you don't need to do that, the tyranny of the rocket equation goes away and space travel suddenly becomes a much different proposition.
Photons have no rest mass. Their mass is entirely their energy. They do have mass.
This isn't new. They had to correct for Pioneers microwave thrust. Heat thrust is the accepted explanation for the Pioneer anomaly.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Every post here are ignoring that there's THREE types of engines they are talking about. An ion thruster has reaction mass and expels atoms rearwards, i.e. solid fuel. It may be able to scoop this fuel up, but yeah, it's a standard engine.
A photonic rocket does not use reaction mass, and expels massless photons, i.e. radiation. You simply heat something, and the heat emissions generate opposite thrust. This generates thrust as photons lack mass but do have momentum, relating to the Planck length. The problem with photonic rockets is that this is REALLY REALLY LOW. Quoting Wikipedia: "If a photon rocket begins its journey in low earth orbit, then one year of thrusting may be required to achieve an earth escape velocity of 11.2 km/s if the vehicle is already in orbit at a velocity of 9,100 m/s"
The EMdrive does not require reaction mass, and simply expels microwaves which are kept in a resonant mode inside a chamber made of copper. The theory is that they basically push against _something_ like irregularities in space, or a virtual quantum plasma, or whatever. Remember that the casimir effect is already mainstream science - pairs of virtual particles appear and disappear - so there's at least something weird with space itiself. But anyway, it's similar to a photonic rocket in that it doesn't use reaction mass, but far, far more efficient and thrust-generative based on early signs.
Even if it's negligible, if it's greater then zero then sone very fundamental things we thought we knew about the world are wrong.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
I'm with you man, but this was exactly the same thing that people said when NASA confirmed the results. I was with you then too. Skeptisisism and all that.
The fact that the Germans now have also confirmed this is pretty huge. I'd say this moves out of the 'anomalous experiment' territory and more into the 'can we devise more and newer experiments to understand what the flaven is happening here' zone.
It was created by an independent inventor in the UK. It is insulting to all of science to act as though a large organization like NASA is capable of breakthrough physics when literally all breakthrough physics has come from individuals.
ANY non-zero amount of thrust requires reaction mass, even if the amount of thrust is 'negligible'. Sometimes the reaction mass is stored externally (e.g. light sails), sometimes it's a planet (orbital magnetic thrusters) but it's always there.
Either no thrust is being produced or there is reaction mass. You just have to find out what it is. If the reaction mass is not sufficient to explain the thrust, then it's bunk. Plain and simple.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
s/the Germans/one German on the record as having an interest in discovering exotic physics/
MythBuster's is so full of junk science that I feel dumber after watching an episode and find myself wondering things like the will the great ball of fire in the sky rise tomorrow and is the earth flat.
Or did you stop liking it when non-nerds started watching it, forcing you to find other ways to express your nerd-hipsterism.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
History is replete with examples of commonly accepted physical principles undergoing revision in response to unexpected discoveries. I expect, along with nearly everyone else, this is the result of bad experimentation. But you never know.
There is a place for scientific skepticism, and what you are saying is all well and good. And pretty well articulated too-- that's unusual among the pure science worshippers.
But scientists do not advance our technologies. That is done by engineers. And engineers are grubby guys who don't care much about how a thing works, so long as it does work in a reliable way. That pragmatism is why we've got bicycles even though the physicists are still scratching their heads over the self-correcting stability of these elegantly simple machines. (Hint: it has very little to do with "gyroscopic forces", and seems to have a lot to do with the "trail" that has been engineered into the steering geometry).
If we attain a working deep space drive before we understand exactly how it works, then most of us will applaud. We need the Edisons as well as the Einsteins. Even though as Tesla said, "If he had thought smarter, he would not have had to sweat so much."
Will