The 'Impossible' EM Drive Being Tested By NASA May Finally Be Explained (technologyreview.com)

MarkWhittington writes: The EmDrive, the so-called "impossible" space drive that uses no propellant, has roiled the aerospace world for the past several years ever since it was proposed by British aerospace engineer Robert Shawyer. In essence, the claim advanced by Shawyer and others is that if you bounced microwaves in a truncated cone, thrust would be produced out the open end. Most scientists have snorted at the idea, noting correctly that such a thing would violate physical laws. However, organizations as prestigious as NASA have replicated the same results, that prototypes of the EmDrive produces thrust. How does one reconcile the experimental results with the apparent scientific impossibility? MIT Technology Review suggested a reason why.

Comments

Thanks, Summary

[ScentCone]

Really appreciate the complete lack of even a whiff of the explanation in the summary.

Re:never was complicated

[Sique]

Actually, that's all what a theory is about: Declare some events to be impossible. And a theory is better, if it correctly declares more events to be impossible. Imagine how many events are declared impossible just by the theory that brought us the first calendar (way back at least 7000 years, if we interpret the Goseck circle correctly).It declared it impossible for the sun to rise in the West. It declared it impossible to have less than 182 or more than 183 days between two equinoxes. It even declared it impossible to have days shorter than 24 hours.

A theoretical physicist should go around all the time and say: According to Theory T, this should be impossible!