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DARPA Is Researching Quantized Inertia, a Theory Many Think Is Pseudoscience (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: DARPA just awarded a $1.3 million contract to an international team of researchers to study quantized inertia or QI. This is a controversial theory that many physicists think is pseudoscience, but according to the physicist that created it, QI may be the foundation for light-powered space travel that could open the door for interstellar travel. Motherboard looks at the fact and fiction of QI, its relationship to the 'impossible' EmDrive being developed by NASA and how these physicists are going to create experimental light-powered engines.
Quantized inertia (QI) is an alternative theory of inertia, a property of matter that describes an object's resistance to acceleration. QI was first proposed by University of Plymouth physicist Mike McCulloch in 2007, but it is still considered a fringe theory by many, if not most, physicists today. McCulloch has used the theory to explain galactic rotation speeds without the need for dark matter, but he believes it may one day provide the foundation for launching space vehicles without fuel. The DARPA grant will allow McCulloch and a team of collaborators from Germany and Spain to undertake a series of experiments that will apply QI in a laboratory setting for the first time.
Quantized inertia (QI) is an alternative theory of inertia, a property of matter that describes an object's resistance to acceleration. QI was first proposed by University of Plymouth physicist Mike McCulloch in 2007, but it is still considered a fringe theory by many, if not most, physicists today. McCulloch has used the theory to explain galactic rotation speeds without the need for dark matter, but he believes it may one day provide the foundation for launching space vehicles without fuel. The DARPA grant will allow McCulloch and a team of collaborators from Germany and Spain to undertake a series of experiments that will apply QI in a laboratory setting for the first time.
...not anymore. The problem with QI is that it is based on Unruh radiation. This Unruh radiation is supposed to replace dark matter and responsible for the peculiar velocities of stars in spiral galaxies.
Now, here's a problem:
A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity
http://science.sciencemag.org/...
According to this study the rotational velocities of the stars are consistent with the bending of light around the galaxy. That means space-time is curved with the right amount which causes the velocities of the stars.
So, Unruh radiation cannot be responsible for these velocities since Unruh radiation is light and light cannot "bend" light. Actually, our current understanding is that nothing can "bend" light this way, only space-time curvature. This means there is something there which causes this "extra" space-time curvature (eg. dark matter).
I do not believe dark matter exists, but it won't be QI which solves these kind of problems.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises