>Now its only fun to push your buttons only if you are not mentally ill. But from what I've been reading you seem to have some real issues. I think you probably want to see some real professional help.
Funny, I would say you come across the same way. You have all the earmarks of a completely delusional person who cannot see what's right before his eyes. Now I could understand you holding the views you did - if you only look at Trump this far, in isolation, without considering historical precedents and patterns. Which, if you were ignorant of them, would be understandable (if not praiseworthy). But you are not - because I have informed you of them. I have cited an abundance of easily verifiable precedents and examples. Had you bothered to read a single source I mentioned, considered a single example I have spoken off in detail - you would realize that Trump has all the potential of unleashing a world war.
Only you said "destroy the world". I said "cause a war" - and I still think a civil war is the more likely - and far better - way that could happen.
How is that paranoid ? World wars have happened twice in recent history ! Trump fits EVERY pattern that led to them perfectly, there is literally NOTHING in which he deviates from them AT ALL.
So I would suggest you seek professional help for your utter inability to confront an unpleasant reality.
>They stop at "expand its nuclear capability." Nobody mentions the rest of the tweet. "until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
We did read both parts. But only an idiot doesn't realize that these two sentence directly contradict each other. There is only ONE thing that meets teh definition of "coming to your senses" completely, absolutely and unconditional nuclear disarmament.
The republic of South Africa. A country with lots of significant problems to solve - but a totalitarian system of government is not one of them, as the government has learned on the many occasions it has lost in the constitutional court and been forced to change policies or laws.
I never said you were deliberately misrepresenting it - but you still did. Force from energy is not a controversial claim - literally ever engine in the world does that.
>You are absolutely making the error I claim. Your reasoning of nonspecific "losses" is precisely why a perpetual motion machine (And you need to stop spitting hairs over this--I'm quite clearly talking about a machine, i.e. Something that does work aka an over unity device---not merely something that runs for a long time in the absence of significant friction) cannot exist. So, you absolutely jumping to Y cannot exist, then working backwards in a logically flawed way.
No I'm not, I'm saying you're still wrong even if one ignores the issue of losses. It can only be a perpetual motion machine if the output energy is not less than the input energy. We can calculate the output energy from the thrust generated - and it's 6 orders of magnitude LESS than the input energy. The fundamental definition of a perpetual motion machine has not been met - in fact this is literally the FURTHEST from a perpetual motion machine any machine ever built has ever been.
>You haven't disproved my claims either. You've attempted and failed to hand wave them away by claiming "losses". Notice how in the last message I didn't mention that word at all ? I explained it - as in the previous paragraph by going back to basics: to what the definition of an impossible perpetual motion machine is - and how this doesn't meet that. If your numbers have output energy equalling or exceeding input energy - then they are not a fair representation of the claims. EVERY machine turns energy into force. As long as the kinetic energy in that force is LESS than the input energy required to produce it- you're safely in the realm of acceptable physics. There are things about this machine which, if it works, cannot be explained by current physics - but this is not one of them.
>You're also compounding your mistakes by confusing force with energy and power. I did nothing of the kind. I specifically said the opposite. The thrust generated moves the device - the amount of thrust determines how much it can be accelerated by - which is the work done, from which you can calculate the kinetic energy gained. That energy is 6 orders of magnitude less than the energy required to produce it.
>The EM drive keeps applying a force no matter the speed because it had no reaction mass So does EVERYTHING reaction mass has nothing to DO with that. If I have a rocket flying a 7Km/s in orbit, and I fire a lightweight ion engine, it will go faster. You apply a force, you get acceleration. Reaction mass has nothing to do with that and neither does the current velocity. The amount of acceleration is determined by the force applied and the mass of the object it is applied to. That's it. The velocity (speed) also has *nothing* to do with whether or not it is a a perpetual motion machine. The ONLY thing that matter is whether the output energy is less than the input energy or not. And when you use a force to accelerate a moving object the output energy of the motor is NOT calculated based on the new speed of the object - it's calculated from the difference between it's former speed and it's current speed. The amount of acceleration achieved = the work done = the energy gained.
>The fact you don't seem to understand the difference or relationship between force, speed and power and have no inclination to find out, makes me think that it's not worth pursuing this debate much further.
I do - but you've not, at any time, given me any reason to believe that the infinitissimally small thrust claimed, could produce an acceleration that somehow means it did so much work that the energy gained is larger than the energy spent gaining it.
Ironically - the lack of reaction mass makes this LESS of a perpetual motion machine than any current rocket ! Yes LESS. Because the rocket equation works both ways. When a rocket burns fuel - it gets lighter, the remaining fuel
It's more like: You: X implies Y. Y is impossible. Therefore X is impossible. Me: X does not imply Y, your attempt to show that X implies Y is fatally flawed - not least for utterly misrepresenting the claims about X. Here is why.
I didn't say CANNOT imply Y. I proved that X DOES NOT imply Y.
In order for a device to imply perpetual motion the energy produced must be GREATER than the energy put in. In the case of this device it's smaller - in fact it's extraordinarily smaller. Smaller by 6 orders of magnitude. As an energy convertor this may be the least efficient device in history ! The steam engines designed by Hero of Alexandria 2500 years ago were 4 orders of magnitude more efficient !
If it's goal was to produce energy it would be the worst design ever conceived. Luckily, that isn't what it's for - because it would be significantly lessuseful for the purpose than trying to heat an appartment building by standing outside it and repeatedly slapping the walls with your hand. More of the energy from your food would actually be increasing the ambient temperature of the building than the kinetic energy the EM drive gets out of the electrical energy it uses.
Note that nowhere is it claimed that any E.M. drive can produce more thrust than you could have gotten with the same energy using more conventional methods. It's just claimed to be using the energy directly instead of in a material fuel.
Consider this. Matter energy equivalence means it's possible to convert raw energy into matter.
If I could build a device that converts solar photons into hydrogen atoms (this is possible) - then I could build a rocket which fires hydrogen atoms out the back without putting any hydrogen on it, just my converter. The problem is that it takes a LOT of energy to do the conversion - the same reason nuclear power provides so much, but the other way around. So to make my hypothetical device work that way I would need to have a massive battery or capacitor to store that solar energy over a very long time until there is enough of it stored to produce convert some photons into hydrogen and pump it out the back. It's difficult - but not impossible. It's just that it would take years to produce enough to get a micronewton of thrust, then years for the next push... it's not very practical when a solar sail can also get thrust from photons without the insane delay. We know that's not how this device works - it doesn't use enough energy for it to be possible.
But it isn't doing anything the EM drive isn't claimed to be doing - getting thrust directly from energy without fuel. So that's what you need to compare it against. The best theories we have for the E.M. drive is 1) It's shape causes more photons to push out the back than push forward - and the thrust is from that, which makes it a less efficient reverse solar sail 2) It is creating one of those rare occasions where photons can interact with dark matter - and expelling the dark matter out the exhaust - in the latter case it is actually just a conventional rocket, the only difference is that it's fuel is something that is already abundant in orbit so we don't need to take it with us, we can just use it there. A bit like building a coal plant on top of a coal mine so you don't have to pay for transport of the coal.
The E.M. drive claims to convert energy to thrust. Lots of energy for very little thrust. Now thrust is work - of which energy is a component - but the energy in that small amount of thrust is FAR less than the energy that was used to produce it. It's only a perpetual motion machine if it claims to produce more energy (or at least as much energy) as it consumes. That's almost certainly impossible. But the E.M. drive makes no such claims - it converts electrical energy into kinetic energy - at MASSIVE losses. A huge amount of electrical energy produces only a tiny bit of kinetic energy.
That is NOT a perpetual motion device. That your maths suggest otherwise proves that your reductio et absurdium numbers are merely absurd and have no resemblance to the claims. There is less kinetic energy produced than electrical energy used. Millions of times less. Hence it is not claimed to be a perpetual motion machine.
No saying "80%" is not "accounting for losses. It doesn't matter WHAT number you choose.
The only number where ANYTHING is a perpetual motion machine is 0%.
If it's not 0% then the thing will eventually stop unless you keep adding energy from outside.
The E.M. drive requires a continous supply of energy to function - lots of it.
If your numbers show anything except a guaranteed stop after a while - then it's your numbers that are wrong.
I am not arguing that the EM drive works OR that it doesn't - I believe that answer is unknown. I am arguing that your REASONING for dismissing it is flawed.
>I take the EM drive as it is claimed to work and show that IF it is true, the consequences are absurd. But that's not TRUE. I proved that your claim of the consequences is false because it doesn't account for losses in the conversion process.
The category of "Non-Western governments" is not synonymous with (nor even significantly overlaps with) "Totalitarian government"
There are plenty of democratic republics outside the west - far more than any other kind of government in fact. The point that wasting money on expensive boondoggles is not a uniquely western phenomenon is true, but the suggestion that anything non-western cannot possibly be a free country with a democratically elected government restrained by a system of seperation of powers, constitutional limits and judicial oversight is simply racist. It's the kind of thing a white supremacist thinks - and it's as wrong as everything else they think.
*Waves* at you from a non-Western country where the highest power in the land is the constittution and the court that defends it - which has the power to force the legislative branch to alter or repeal laws, and even in extreme cases to proscribe or prescribe government policy in order to force compliance with said constitution.
Yesterday morning Trump tweeted the following: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"
Yeah... not dangerous at all. Because more nuclear weapons isn't the dumbest, most dangerous idea EVER ?
>No, No, No, No. You are doing it wrong. Now repeat after me. Trump is not Satan. Trump is not the boogie man. Trump isn't going to take away my birthday. Trump isn't going to rape my goat and steal my chickens.
I never suggested Trump would do any of those things. Musolini didn't do those things either. This is not irrational fear. Irrational fear was when the military did excercises in Texas and a bunch of idiot rednecks were convinced it was preparation for declaring Martial Law and becoming a tyrant. It was irrational fear because every president for decades have done the same and never gone there, and nothing Obama ever said suggested he wants to be a tyrant. On the other hand worrying about Trump is entirely RATIONAL, because it's based on what he ACTUALLY SAID HE WILL DO.
And the trouble for you is- SAYING that was already too much. Just running on that and winning - that made war inevitable. It doens't MATTER if he does any of it. He got elected by promising it. THAT ALREADY makes war inevitable.
I'm not afraid of what I imagine Trump might do. I'm aware of what he has ALREADY done and what hte ONLY POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCE OF DOING THAT is.
You know something- in the 1920s there were quite a lot of people who said "Musolini is evil and will do very evil things because everybody like him the past did". There were people who said "Hitler cannot be reasoned with, he cannot be placated - he will do all the worst things he said he will do and it will cause another war". In 1910 there were people who said "The world is on a knife-edge, the balance of power is too unstable -the slightest mistake could unleash the biggest war in history, we have to calm things down before that can happen". Do you know what all those people have in common ? People like you called them "paranoid".
It's not paranoid when there are billion examples of it happening and no example EVER of it NOT happening that way. By your logic if I throw an anvil straight up in the air I am paranoid for thinking it may fall on my head. Just because every anvil thrown straight up since the invention of the anvil has fallen straight down is no reason to assume THIS anvil won't keep going until it gets to orbit right ? But every, single time there are ignorant idiots like you who sincerely believes their hero can throw an anvil at escape velocity. Who do not realize what those policies always lead to. The last guy who wanted to put people of a certain religion on a registry ended up murdering 6 million of them. So did the one before him and everyone before him.
Trump is a textbook fascist. And you would know that, if you'd ever opened a fucking textbook.
Ask anybody who actually remembers the 1930s. Hell ask a German, Spaniard or Italian who knows their own history - they've been warning you for 2 years. "We know this man. Men EXACTLY LIKE him destroyed our countries not very long ago".
And what Trump has SAID he will do IS satanically evil. I don't need to make up reasons to be afraid - he TOLD me what he wants to do - and ALL OF IT is evil incarnate.
Never in the world has somebody like Trump come to power without leaving a wake of massive destruction behind him. You want me to assume that Trump will be the first person like Trump EVER to behave DIFFERENTLY from the thousands that came before him ? And you want me to believe that despite the fact that he has behaved EXACTLY like them every step of the way so far ?
Trump is such an ancient phenomenon you will find him described to the tee in Plato's "The Republic". The very first book of political philosophy ever written, first published circa 380BC already knew him - men like him have been around for as long as there have been people, and they are the reason we have the word "evil". Plato called him "the way democracy dies".
But perhaps in your ignorance you have never heard of Plato... perhaps I should use a more contemporary refference from pop-culture and you may get it.
In the early scenes of The Avengers, when Loki lands in Austria and stands before that crowd and demands they kneel the following exchange takes place: Old man: "I will not kneel before men like you" Loki: "There are no men like me" Old man: "There are always men like you".
In case you don't get it, in this analogy - Trump is Loki (except without the charm and good looks). And like Loki, he himself is almost certainly unaware how incredibly usual he is. There is nothing new about him, there is nothing surprising about him. There are ALWAYS men like him. And I for one will NOT kneel.
But what you need to realize is, all those people who are scared of him - they aren't going to stop. They will NEVER get over it. Because their fear is entirely justified. Trump is an existential threat to their very lives. And you know what they WILL do ? They will fight. Like the jews in the ghettoes of Germany who took up arms and fought back they may lose - but they will fight. And like the NAZIs they were fighting - you will think they are evil for fighting for their lives.
That's why war is inevitable. I wish I could say it wasn't. I'm a pacifist, I believe nobody has a right to declare war until AFTER they've been attacked and even THEN they should only USE that right if there isn't a better way to resolve things. I despise war.
But I can also see when there is no other outcome possible. I may hate the idea of war, I may believe that every other option should be pursued first. But I also know world history. I know the circumstances where there are no options. Where a war is not avoidable. Nobody can avoid it. It WILL happen.
It doesn't matter what you think Trump will or will not do. He's ALREADY started the war. He's already made a world where it CANNOT fail to happen. It doesn't matter what he does now. It matters what he has already done.
So as somebody who knows history - I know that, at this point in time, there is only two choices. Will I be like Chamberlain and try to appease the tyrant in the hope of avoiding the inevitable war - or will I see the writing on the wall like Churchill and go to fight no matter how hopeless my chances look ? I choose not to be Chamberlain.
Oh I know, but you're explaining cause while I was examining the severity of the effect.
The *real* story of the McDonald's coffee cup is the story of a little old lady who ended up with third degree burns over half her body, very nearly died and was permanently disabled by a company's decision to serve their coffee at far above boiling point (effectively as a superheated and therefore explosive liquid). It's also the story of a lady who never asked to profit - she just asked McDonalds to help pay the 20-thousand dollar copay for her medical bills.
Mcdonalds - after months of stalling... sent her 700 dollars. Only then did she sue - for 20-thousand. It was the jury who decided to punish the hell out of McDonalds by giving her a million in punitive damages on top. And that got McDonalds to stop selling cups of explosive liquid that could seriously injure people (she was not the first person who ended up in hospital with life-threatening injuries from that practise).
They also embarked of a massive propaganda campaign to discredit her (by any reasonable measure she's a hero whose actions have saved lives) as a greedy symbol of a (non-existent) culture of frivolous lawsuits. We're still living with the results of how sadly successful that campaign was. It's much the same as the Trump phenomenon. If you make a lie sound juicy enough - nobody will bother to find out the truth, and even if they do, they would still rather believe the lie.
Dark matter was a hypotheses (what you call a "fudge factor") to explain the discrepancy between observations and gravity. There are several other hypotheses to explain this.
But each of these hypotheses then lead to OTHER predictions. You can look to see if those predictions are true or not. Only dark matter's predictions are observed. That makes it the hypotheses most likely to actually be true.
In case you were wondering modified Newtonian mecanics is an even BIGGER "fudge" factor. It claims gravity changes behaviour at very large distances (to literally the opposite of what it always does all the other times) - and offers absolutely no explanation for how this could happen.
For example any theory to explain the motion of galaxies leads to predictions about the amount of redshift in the universe. The observed redshift in the universe match that predicted by Dark Matter but NOT that predicted by MOND.
No theory is locked to a single observation. A theory explains an observation - but *always* leads to OTHER predictions: if the theory is true, then we would also see x and y and z. So we can go look to see if x and y and z are the way they would be if the theory was true.
We have strong evidence for dark matter because everything predicted BY dark matter theory (not the prediction of dark matter, the predictions BY dark matter) are matching observations.
If you're going to send me something - a gun and a bullet proof vest would be nicer. A war is coming. It's unavoidable at this stage - and the BEST outcome we can hope for is that it's a civil war rather than a world war.
And that's when the rednecks will find out that just because liberals don't *like* guns - doesn't mean we don't know how to use them.
There's no reason to believe this drive could work in atmosphere - certainly not the way you are suggesting.
You power it up, get the wheel spinning. Immediately losses begin to appear. From friction in the bearings to the magnetic pulls in the generator to air resistence - all this slows it down again. So to keep it turning you must power the drive continuously. I assume you're thinking of - get it to a high speed, then let the momentum generate power for the next burst, to get it back up to speed. But that is impossible. There is no way the momentum can ever generate enough power for the next burst to have as much energy as the last one had- because of those losses, sooner or later, the machine will just stop.
Even with your device- it's not a perpetual motion machine - you're making the same mistake *every* perpetual motion machine makes: you're forgetting about the losses during operation.
I'm not convinced it works. But I am sure that YOUR reason why it can't is bullshit - because you are wrong to claim what you proposed is possible if the device works, it's not. Because of losses.
Assuming you're right... you have a free energy device that almost certainly only works in orbit... it would be less trouble to generate energy with solar panels, wind-turbines or tidal generators then. We already have all three and they are all powered by things in outer space with the bonus that we don't need to build a way to get that energy down here in a useable form, it arrives all by itself. Any by any human measure - those *are* free energy since they require no fuel source we have to supply. Solar and wind are powered by the nuclear fuel in the sun - but we'll be extinct before *that* ever runs out.
Why would anybody care about the "free energy" dreams that violate the known laws of physics when we already have technology for free energy that doesn't ? The moment your energy production device does not require fuel - you've got it as close to free as it can get. And, as we learned, those still cost money - to build, to maintain, to build and maintain the grid. But even if you could build a perpetual-motion generator those costs wouldn't go away - so... same problem.
Anyway, building a perpetual motion machine within the current laws of physics is entirely allowed - just very, very difficult. Couple a black hole to a white hole to make a wormhole (relativity allows this - though we may be centuries from the technology to actually keep wormholes open, and before then we may discover that we were wrong and they aren't actually possible). Put the white hole above the black hole, put a water-wheel like generator between them and drop a lead ball into the black hole. It goes through the wormhole, comes out, turns the generator - falls back into the black hole.
There's nothing in physics that prevents that - since it needs no energy to get from the black hole to the white hole. This is one reason why black holes are considered singularities -the known laws of physics break down when you encounter one. This exact design has been proposed by serious physicists as a way to build time machines. Compared to that, running a generator is nothing.
But frankly - a solar panel does the same job by any practical measure and is a *lot* simpler and doesn't require any materials we don't already have.
>Except the stored energy in an EM drive is negligible, and we have to put it there. Hundreds of kilowats to produce micronewtons of thrust is decidedly not something I would call "negligible". It needs MASSIVE amounts of energy.
>If it can act as a perpetual motion machine, Nobody has proven that it can and you alone has suggested it, while providing no conceivable mechanism for doing so. The device as described CANNOT generate electricity, it's physically impossible. So you've gone from "this may mean there is an exception to one of the laws of physics" to insisting that it's free energy device because you seem to think it can just ignore ALL the laws of physics. I already, in my previous post, pointed out why your "wheel generator" is a fantasy and this thing cannot possibly drive one.
>then it can almost certainly be optimized a little further and made into a free energy device. Well you still haven't given us any reason to believe it IS a perpetual motion machine. At least, not in the sense you're suggesting. In the sense that, on human timescales, the solar system is a perpetual motion machine - maybe and that's by no means guaranteed considering the huge powersource it needs. The only viable sources of that power STILL need fuel. Nuclear, the fuel is on-board. Solar - the fuel is IN the sun and it WILL stop working when that fuel runs out. All any scientists looking at this thing have suggested is that it might, possibly, be a very CHEAP energy device. Free energy ? That's something you made up - with nothing to support your claims, which are easily shown not to be possible - as a way to dismiss that possibility.
How about you let the scientists do science - test the thing, keep testing it. If it really violates the laws of physics the tests will eventually show that conclusively - and we get to answer the interesting question of *why* the previous tests seemed to show otherwise, and make better tests. Or it will keep working - and we get the fun of figuring out what is wrong in our understanding of the laws of physics and make a breakthrough.
Perhaps that breakthrough could even mean that free energy goes from proven impossible to "oh you can do it in certain conditions". I highly doubt that, it's definitely not a LIKELY scenario - but it's not impossible either. Human knowledge is not absolute - and when it comes to physics, there is no way to know what we don't know.
Except that the thing you described very well may not work at all. If, indeed, the EM drive produces thrust without expelling matter - there is nothing to drive your generator - the thrust won't drive it because it's only acting on the machine itself and in the wrong direction.
You've got absolutely no proof that the thing could spin a wheel - indeed if it works the way it is said to work then the wheel will not spin. So your problem goes away. The trouble is -that violates conservation of momentum, so you're assuming there is actually something being expelled.
The only theory we have where something gets expelled though - that something is dark matter, which will pass right through your wheel and not spin it. So it's still not a perpetual motion machine as there is absolutely no way to power a generator using that thrust. Everything we know says dark matter cannot hold electrical charge or interact with normal matter - there is thus, absolutely no way, with the current laws of physics be used to produce electrical power in normal matter.
The only energy produced is kinetic and that exists ONLY on the drive. There is no evidence of any energy going the other way. Indeed the very reason we have doubts about the EM drive is because there is nothing leaving it, no energy being sent the other way. Nothing that can drive your generator.
When another poster said that was the impossible bit - he was telling you the bit you missed, you can't drive a wheel without something hitting it.
So all that OVERWHELMING evidence from literally hundreds of unrelated scientific disciplines which all support the theory - THAT doesn't satisfy a burden of proof for you ?
The 97% matters because it means that everybody with the skills to accurately assess the evidence and the observations find it compelling. It matters because it is proof that the burden of proof HAS BEEN MET.
And your second sentence is nothing but flagrant lies.
>No, the parent said perpeatual motion mechanism. There's a small but subtle difference there. With something like the Earth, it will keep rotating for a very long time, because the stored energy is vast and the rate of loss is very small. But eventually it will stop.
Yes, I said later in the same post. But it won't happen in any timeframe that matters. So for all matters of practicality - if you can use that to power a machine that machine has achieved the goal for which perpetual motion machines are designed -the only difference is you haven't violated conservation of energy, you're just using a very large supply.
But you can't use that energy to power the thrust producer - so that does not make it a perpetual motion device. That energy has already been used (since the device is moving) there is no potential energy there.
Just because perpetual motion can't exist, doesn't mean there can't be, and aren't, things that come so close as makes no difference to humans. You're standing on one right now.
Sure the earth can't spin forever. But it will be spinning long after we're extinct. It's a perpetual motion machine for all practical concerns.
The universe is literally filled with those.
And we can and have built machines to harness some of the energy from those things movements.
A tidal-wave power-generator is actually pretty close to a perpetual motion machine - since it generates power based on the gravitational pull of the moon. The moon is not going to run out of momentum and stop rotating around the earth in any time soon enough to matter to humans. It's as close to a perpetual motion machine as makes no difference. And we've harvested it's power - already. There's your gravity powered machine - that will run until it breaks down.
It may not be "perpetual motion" as we normally think of it, but it's as close as makes absolutely no difference. And we've just scratched the surface of what we can do when we harvest gravitational motion to power machines (partly because it's very hard - it's probably impossible to do a cyclic machine using earth gravity, but as the tidal wave generator shows - it can be done using the moon's gravity - which already varies cyclicly). Whose to say we won't find a way to have The motion of Jupiter provide the energy to get our next probe too Jupiter ? It would be very hard and I have no idea how it could work - but there is nothing in the laws of physics that says it can't be done. It's not creating energy. It's not failing to conserve momentum. It's not lacking an existing energy source - it's just using one that is very hard to use and which we've only just started figuring out how to use (sufficiently so that I'm pretty sure the tidal wave generator is the ONLY example of a genuine gravity powered machine - but it's early days).
For all we know that's what the EM-drive is doing, it may be pushing against gravitons and propelled by "gravity" itself.
How exactly do you intend to use the thrust to produce energy ?
The thing almost certainly only works if that thrust is used to move it - if you try and capture any of it to drive a turbine, the space-craft will stand still.
Because there is a lot more to cosmology than gravity and movement. There are several theories to explain the movement of the galaxies - some of which do essentially come down to gravity behaving differently in some situations (like over very long distances).
So when you have more than one explanation for an observation - how do you choose one ? Well you do some more maths - and figure out what ELSE would be observable if the theories are true - and then see if any of those things can be observed. All of the theories make a number of these "predictions" and they all turn out false. Dark Matter's predictions have all turned out to be true. Predictions way beyond the speed at which galaxies rotate. The presence of that mass, and where it is concentrated, would affect other things - and those things we can look for, and we've found them. And gravity bends light, so if there's a huge clump of unobservable matter somewhere, it would bend light -and we should be able to see that the light was bent (we've known how to observe graviational lensing since Einstein's days). Again we can see distinct patterns of graviational lensing that fit the predictions of dark matter theory and goes against what is predicted by every competing theory.
Now it's possible that along the way we'll come up with a different theory that explains observations better - but some of the smartest people in the world are trying and of all the ideas they've had none has matched the observations better, none have made predictions that better fit the other things we can observe. Right now, dark matter is by far the single strongest theory we have for explaining the way galaxies move - and the only one where the other things you can predict would be true is ALSO being observed. It's an extremely strong theory backed up by a lot of solid observations.
There are also active experiments to try and find a way to detect dark matter - partly this is made difficult since we're not sure what to look for, some people think it's made of very large, heavy particles and others that it is made up of tiny particles (but lots more of them) called "Axions". The idea that the EM drive may be using dark matter for fuel is based on the Axion idea. But since we don't know - and have no real way of theoretically saying one is more likely than the other - we are looking for both. Doing all sorts of complex experiments to try and create conditions where - if dark matter is present we can force it to interact with something else and reveal itself. We haven't succeeded yet, but considering how difficult it is to look - we aren't giving up yet either.
Slashdot Mirror
>Now its only fun to push your buttons only if you are not mentally ill. But from what I've been reading you seem to have some real issues. I think you probably want to see some real professional help.
Funny, I would say you come across the same way. You have all the earmarks of a completely delusional person who cannot see what's right before his eyes. Now I could understand you holding the views you did - if you only look at Trump this far, in isolation, without considering historical precedents and patterns. Which, if you were ignorant of them, would be understandable (if not praiseworthy).
But you are not - because I have informed you of them. I have cited an abundance of easily verifiable precedents and examples. Had you bothered to read a single source I mentioned, considered a single example I have spoken off in detail - you would realize that Trump has all the potential of unleashing a world war.
Only you said "destroy the world". I said "cause a war" - and I still think a civil war is the more likely - and far better - way that could happen.
How is that paranoid ? World wars have happened twice in recent history ! Trump fits EVERY pattern that led to them perfectly, there is literally NOTHING in which he deviates from them AT ALL.
So I would suggest you seek professional help for your utter inability to confront an unpleasant reality.
>They stop at "expand its nuclear capability." Nobody mentions the rest of the tweet. "until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
We did read both parts. But only an idiot doesn't realize that these two sentence directly contradict each other. There is only ONE thing that meets teh definition of "coming to your senses" completely, absolutely and unconditional nuclear disarmament.
The republic of South Africa.
A country with lots of significant problems to solve - but a totalitarian system of government is not one of them, as the government has learned on the many occasions it has lost in the constitutional court and been forced to change policies or laws.
I never said you were deliberately misrepresenting it - but you still did. Force from energy is not a controversial claim - literally ever engine in the world does that.
>You are absolutely making the error I claim. Your reasoning of nonspecific "losses" is precisely why a perpetual motion machine (And you need to stop spitting hairs over this--I'm quite clearly talking about a machine, i.e. Something that does work aka an over unity device---not merely something that runs for a long time in the absence of significant friction) cannot exist. So, you absolutely jumping to Y cannot exist, then working backwards in a logically flawed way.
No I'm not, I'm saying you're still wrong even if one ignores the issue of losses. It can only be a perpetual motion machine if the output energy is not less than the input energy. We can calculate the output energy from the thrust generated - and it's 6 orders of magnitude LESS than the input energy. The fundamental definition of a perpetual motion machine has not been met - in fact this is literally the FURTHEST from a perpetual motion machine any machine ever built has ever been.
>You haven't disproved my claims either. You've attempted and failed to hand wave them away by claiming "losses".
Notice how in the last message I didn't mention that word at all ? I explained it - as in the previous paragraph by going back to basics: to what the definition of an impossible perpetual motion machine is - and how this doesn't meet that. If your numbers have output energy equalling or exceeding input energy - then they are not a fair representation of the claims. EVERY machine turns energy into force. As long as the kinetic energy in that force is LESS than the input energy required to produce it- you're safely in the realm of acceptable physics. There are things about this machine which, if it works, cannot be explained by current physics - but this is not one of them.
>You're also compounding your mistakes by confusing force with energy and power.
I did nothing of the kind. I specifically said the opposite. The thrust generated moves the device - the amount of thrust determines how much it can be accelerated by - which is the work done, from which you can calculate the kinetic energy gained. That energy is 6 orders of magnitude less than the energy required to produce it.
>The EM drive keeps applying a force no matter the speed because it had no reaction mass
So does EVERYTHING reaction mass has nothing to DO with that. If I have a rocket flying a 7Km/s in orbit, and I fire a lightweight ion engine, it will go faster. You apply a force, you get acceleration. Reaction mass has nothing to do with that and neither does the current velocity. The amount of acceleration is determined by the force applied and the mass of the object it is applied to. That's it.
The velocity (speed) also has *nothing* to do with whether or not it is a a perpetual motion machine. The ONLY thing that matter is whether the output energy is less than the input energy or not. And when you use a force to accelerate a moving object the output energy of the motor is NOT calculated based on the new speed of the object - it's calculated from the difference between it's former speed and it's current speed. The amount of acceleration achieved = the work done = the energy gained.
>The fact you don't seem to understand the difference or relationship between force, speed and power and have no inclination to find out, makes me think that it's not worth pursuing this debate much further.
I do - but you've not, at any time, given me any reason to believe that the infinitissimally small thrust claimed, could produce an acceleration that somehow means it did so much work that the energy gained is larger than the energy spent gaining it.
Ironically - the lack of reaction mass makes this LESS of a perpetual motion machine than any current rocket ! Yes LESS. Because the rocket equation works both ways. When a rocket burns fuel - it gets lighter, the remaining fuel
Not quite.
It's more like:
You: X implies Y. Y is impossible. Therefore X is impossible.
Me: X does not imply Y, your attempt to show that X implies Y is fatally flawed - not least for utterly misrepresenting the claims about X. Here is why.
I didn't say CANNOT imply Y. I proved that X DOES NOT imply Y.
In order for a device to imply perpetual motion the energy produced must be GREATER than the energy put in. In the case of this device it's smaller - in fact it's extraordinarily smaller. Smaller by 6 orders of magnitude. As an energy convertor this may be the least efficient device in history ! The steam engines designed by Hero of Alexandria 2500 years ago were 4 orders of magnitude more efficient !
If it's goal was to produce energy it would be the worst design ever conceived. Luckily, that isn't what it's for - because it would be significantly lessuseful for the purpose than trying to heat an appartment building by standing outside it and repeatedly slapping the walls with your hand. More of the energy from your food would actually be increasing the ambient temperature of the building than the kinetic energy the EM drive gets out of the electrical energy it uses.
Note that nowhere is it claimed that any E.M. drive can produce more thrust than you could have gotten with the same energy using more conventional methods. It's just claimed to be using the energy directly instead of in a material fuel.
Consider this. Matter energy equivalence means it's possible to convert raw energy into matter.
If I could build a device that converts solar photons into hydrogen atoms (this is possible) - then I could build a rocket which fires hydrogen atoms out the back without putting any hydrogen on it, just my converter.
The problem is that it takes a LOT of energy to do the conversion - the same reason nuclear power provides so much, but the other way around. So to make my hypothetical device work that way I would need to have a massive battery or capacitor to store that solar energy over a very long time until there is enough of it stored to produce convert some photons into hydrogen and pump it out the back.
It's difficult - but not impossible. It's just that it would take years to produce enough to get a micronewton of thrust, then years for the next push... it's not very practical when a solar sail can also get thrust from photons without the insane delay. We know that's not how this device works - it doesn't use enough energy for it to be possible.
But it isn't doing anything the EM drive isn't claimed to be doing - getting thrust directly from energy without fuel. So that's what you need to compare it against. The best theories we have for the E.M. drive is
1) It's shape causes more photons to push out the back than push forward - and the thrust is from that, which makes it a less efficient reverse solar sail
2) It is creating one of those rare occasions where photons can interact with dark matter - and expelling the dark matter out the exhaust - in the latter case it is actually just a conventional rocket, the only difference is that it's fuel is something that is already abundant in orbit so we don't need to take it with us, we can just use it there. A bit like building a coal plant on top of a coal mine so you don't have to pay for transport of the coal.
The E.M. drive claims to convert energy to thrust. Lots of energy for very little thrust. Now thrust is work - of which energy is a component - but the energy in that small amount of thrust is FAR less than the energy that was used to produce it.
It's only a perpetual motion machine if it claims to produce more energy (or at least as much energy) as it consumes. That's almost certainly impossible. But the E.M. drive makes no such claims - it converts electrical energy into kinetic energy - at MASSIVE losses. A huge amount of electrical energy produces only a tiny bit of kinetic energy.
That is NOT a perpetual motion device. That your maths suggest otherwise proves that your reductio et absurdium numbers are merely absurd and have no resemblance to the claims. There is less kinetic energy produced than electrical energy used. Millions of times less. Hence it is not claimed to be a perpetual motion machine.
No saying "80%" is not "accounting for losses. It doesn't matter WHAT number you choose.
The only number where ANYTHING is a perpetual motion machine is 0%.
If it's not 0% then the thing will eventually stop unless you keep adding energy from outside.
The E.M. drive requires a continous supply of energy to function - lots of it.
If your numbers show anything except a guaranteed stop after a while - then it's your numbers that are wrong.
I am not arguing that the EM drive works OR that it doesn't - I believe that answer is unknown. I am arguing that your REASONING for dismissing it is flawed.
>I take the EM drive as it is claimed to work and show that IF it is true, the consequences are absurd.
But that's not TRUE. I proved that your claim of the consequences is false because it doesn't account for losses in the conversion process.
The category of "Non-Western governments" is not synonymous with (nor even significantly overlaps with) "Totalitarian government"
There are plenty of democratic republics outside the west - far more than any other kind of government in fact. The point that wasting money on expensive boondoggles is not a uniquely western phenomenon is true, but the suggestion that anything non-western cannot possibly be a free country with a democratically elected government restrained by a system of seperation of powers, constitutional limits and judicial oversight is simply racist.
It's the kind of thing a white supremacist thinks - and it's as wrong as everything else they think.
*Waves* at you from a non-Western country where the highest power in the land is the constittution and the court that defends it - which has the power to force the legislative branch to alter or repeal laws, and even in extreme cases to proscribe or prescribe government policy in order to force compliance with said constitution.
Yesterday morning Trump tweeted the following:
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"
Yeah... not dangerous at all. Because more nuclear weapons isn't the dumbest, most dangerous idea EVER ?
>No, No, No, No. You are doing it wrong. Now repeat after me. Trump is not Satan. Trump is not the boogie man. Trump isn't going to take away my birthday. Trump isn't going to rape my goat and steal my chickens.
I never suggested Trump would do any of those things. Musolini didn't do those things either. This is not irrational fear. Irrational fear was when the military did excercises in Texas and a bunch of idiot rednecks were convinced it was preparation for declaring Martial Law and becoming a tyrant. It was irrational fear because every president for decades have done the same and never gone there, and nothing Obama ever said suggested he wants to be a tyrant. On the other hand worrying about Trump is entirely RATIONAL, because it's based on what he ACTUALLY SAID HE WILL DO.
And the trouble for you is- SAYING that was already too much. Just running on that and winning - that made war inevitable. It doens't MATTER if he does any of it. He got elected by promising it. THAT ALREADY makes war inevitable.
I'm not afraid of what I imagine Trump might do. I'm aware of what he has ALREADY done and what hte ONLY POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCE OF DOING THAT is.
You know something- in the 1920s there were quite a lot of people who said "Musolini is evil and will do very evil things because everybody like him the past did". There were people who said "Hitler cannot be reasoned with, he cannot be placated - he will do all the worst things he said he will do and it will cause another war". In 1910 there were people who said "The world is on a knife-edge, the balance of power is too unstable -the slightest mistake could unleash the biggest war in history, we have to calm things down before that can happen".
Do you know what all those people have in common ? People like you called them "paranoid".
It's not paranoid when there are billion examples of it happening and no example EVER of it NOT happening that way. By your logic if I throw an anvil straight up in the air I am paranoid for thinking it may fall on my head. Just because every anvil thrown straight up since the invention of the anvil has fallen straight down is no reason to assume THIS anvil won't keep going until it gets to orbit right ?
But every, single time there are ignorant idiots like you who sincerely believes their hero can throw an anvil at escape velocity. Who do not realize what those policies always lead to.
The last guy who wanted to put people of a certain religion on a registry ended up murdering 6 million of them.
So did the one before him and everyone before him.
It can NEVER END ANOTHER WAY.
Oh you ignorant fuck.
Trump is a textbook fascist. And you would know that, if you'd ever opened a fucking textbook.
Ask anybody who actually remembers the 1930s. Hell ask a German, Spaniard or Italian who knows their own history - they've been warning you for 2 years. "We know this man. Men EXACTLY LIKE him destroyed our countries not very long ago".
And what Trump has SAID he will do IS satanically evil. I don't need to make up reasons to be afraid - he TOLD me what he wants to do - and ALL OF IT is evil incarnate.
Never in the world has somebody like Trump come to power without leaving a wake of massive destruction behind him. You want me to assume that Trump will be the first person like Trump EVER to behave DIFFERENTLY from the thousands that came before him ? And you want me to believe that despite the fact that he has behaved EXACTLY like them every step of the way so far ?
Trump is such an ancient phenomenon you will find him described to the tee in Plato's "The Republic". The very first book of political philosophy ever written, first published circa 380BC already knew him - men like him have been around for as long as there have been people, and they are the reason we have the word "evil". Plato called him "the way democracy dies".
But perhaps in your ignorance you have never heard of Plato... perhaps I should use a more contemporary refference from pop-culture and you may get it.
In the early scenes of The Avengers, when Loki lands in Austria and stands before that crowd and demands they kneel the following exchange takes place:
Old man: "I will not kneel before men like you"
Loki: "There are no men like me"
Old man: "There are always men like you".
In case you don't get it, in this analogy - Trump is Loki (except without the charm and good looks). And like Loki, he himself is almost certainly unaware how incredibly usual he is. There is nothing new about him, there is nothing surprising about him. There are ALWAYS men like him. And I for one will NOT kneel.
But what you need to realize is, all those people who are scared of him - they aren't going to stop. They will NEVER get over it. Because their fear is entirely justified. Trump is an existential threat to their very lives. And you know what they WILL do ? They will fight. Like the jews in the ghettoes of Germany who took up arms and fought back they may lose - but they will fight.
And like the NAZIs they were fighting - you will think they are evil for fighting for their lives.
That's why war is inevitable. I wish I could say it wasn't. I'm a pacifist, I believe nobody has a right to declare war until AFTER they've been attacked and even THEN they should only USE that right if there isn't a better way to resolve things. I despise war.
But I can also see when there is no other outcome possible. I may hate the idea of war, I may believe that every other option should be pursued first. But I also know world history. I know the circumstances where there are no options. Where a war is not avoidable. Nobody can avoid it. It WILL happen.
It doesn't matter what you think Trump will or will not do. He's ALREADY started the war. He's already made a world where it CANNOT fail to happen. It doesn't matter what he does now. It matters what he has already done.
So as somebody who knows history - I know that, at this point in time, there is only two choices. Will I be like Chamberlain and try to appease the tyrant in the hope of avoiding the inevitable war - or will I see the writing on the wall like Churchill and go to fight no matter how hopeless my chances look ?
I choose not to be Chamberlain.
Oh I know, but you're explaining cause while I was examining the severity of the effect.
The *real* story of the McDonald's coffee cup is the story of a little old lady who ended up with third degree burns over half her body, very nearly died and was permanently disabled by a company's decision to serve their coffee at far above boiling point (effectively as a superheated and therefore explosive liquid). It's also the story of a lady who never asked to profit - she just asked McDonalds to help pay the 20-thousand dollar copay for her medical bills.
Mcdonalds - after months of stalling... sent her 700 dollars. Only then did she sue - for 20-thousand. It was the jury who decided to punish the hell out of McDonalds by giving her a million in punitive damages on top. And that got McDonalds to stop selling cups of explosive liquid that could seriously injure people (she was not the first person who ended up in hospital with life-threatening injuries from that practise).
They also embarked of a massive propaganda campaign to discredit her (by any reasonable measure she's a hero whose actions have saved lives) as a greedy symbol of a (non-existent) culture of frivolous lawsuits. We're still living with the results of how sadly successful that campaign was. It's much the same as the Trump phenomenon. If you make a lie sound juicy enough - nobody will bother to find out the truth, and even if they do, they would still rather believe the lie.
Except that you clearly didn't read what I wrote.
Dark matter was a hypotheses (what you call a "fudge factor") to explain the discrepancy between observations and gravity. There are several other hypotheses to explain this.
But each of these hypotheses then lead to OTHER predictions. You can look to see if those predictions are true or not. Only dark matter's predictions are observed. That makes it the hypotheses most likely to actually be true.
In case you were wondering modified Newtonian mecanics is an even BIGGER "fudge" factor. It claims gravity changes behaviour at very large distances (to literally the opposite of what it always does all the other times) - and offers absolutely no explanation for how this could happen.
For example any theory to explain the motion of galaxies leads to predictions about the amount of redshift in the universe. The observed redshift in the universe match that predicted by Dark Matter but NOT that predicted by MOND.
No theory is locked to a single observation. A theory explains an observation - but *always* leads to OTHER predictions: if the theory is true, then we would also see x and y and z. So we can go look to see if x and y and z are the way they would be if the theory was true.
We have strong evidence for dark matter because everything predicted BY dark matter theory (not the prediction of dark matter, the predictions BY dark matter) are matching observations.
http://scienceblogs.com/starts...
If you're going to send me something - a gun and a bullet proof vest would be nicer.
A war is coming. It's unavoidable at this stage - and the BEST outcome we can hope for is that it's a civil war rather than a world war.
And that's when the rednecks will find out that just because liberals don't *like* guns - doesn't mean we don't know how to use them.
There's no reason to believe this drive could work in atmosphere - certainly not the way you are suggesting.
You power it up, get the wheel spinning. Immediately losses begin to appear. From friction in the bearings to the magnetic pulls in the generator to air resistence - all this slows it down again. So to keep it turning you must power the drive continuously. I assume you're thinking of - get it to a high speed, then let the momentum generate power for the next burst, to get it back up to speed.
But that is impossible. There is no way the momentum can ever generate enough power for the next burst to have as much energy as the last one had- because of those losses, sooner or later, the machine will just stop.
Even with your device- it's not a perpetual motion machine - you're making the same mistake *every* perpetual motion machine makes: you're forgetting about the losses during operation.
I'm not convinced it works. But I am sure that YOUR reason why it can't is bullshit - because you are wrong to claim what you proposed is possible if the device works, it's not. Because of losses.
Assuming you're right... you have a free energy device that almost certainly only works in orbit... it would be less trouble to generate energy with solar panels, wind-turbines or tidal generators then. We already have all three and they are all powered by things in outer space with the bonus that we don't need to build a way to get that energy down here in a useable form, it arrives all by itself.
Any by any human measure - those *are* free energy since they require no fuel source we have to supply. Solar and wind are powered by the nuclear fuel in the sun - but we'll be extinct before *that* ever runs out.
Why would anybody care about the "free energy" dreams that violate the known laws of physics when we already have technology for free energy that doesn't ? The moment your energy production device does not require fuel - you've got it as close to free as it can get. And, as we learned, those still cost money - to build, to maintain, to build and maintain the grid. But even if you could build a perpetual-motion generator those costs wouldn't go away - so... same problem.
Anyway, building a perpetual motion machine within the current laws of physics is entirely allowed - just very, very difficult. Couple a black hole to a white hole to make a wormhole (relativity allows this - though we may be centuries from the technology to actually keep wormholes open, and before then we may discover that we were wrong and they aren't actually possible). Put the white hole above the black hole, put a water-wheel like generator between them and drop a lead ball into the black hole.
It goes through the wormhole, comes out, turns the generator - falls back into the black hole.
There's nothing in physics that prevents that - since it needs no energy to get from the black hole to the white hole. This is one reason why black holes are considered singularities -the known laws of physics break down when you encounter one.
This exact design has been proposed by serious physicists as a way to build time machines. Compared to that, running a generator is nothing.
But frankly - a solar panel does the same job by any practical measure and is a *lot* simpler and doesn't require any materials we don't already have.
>Except the stored energy in an EM drive is negligible, and we have to put it there.
Hundreds of kilowats to produce micronewtons of thrust is decidedly not something I would call "negligible". It needs MASSIVE amounts of energy.
>If it can act as a perpetual motion machine,
Nobody has proven that it can and you alone has suggested it, while providing no conceivable mechanism for doing so. The device as described CANNOT generate electricity, it's physically impossible. So you've gone from "this may mean there is an exception to one of the laws of physics" to insisting that it's free energy device because you seem to think it can just ignore ALL the laws of physics. I already, in my previous post, pointed out why your "wheel generator" is a fantasy and this thing cannot possibly drive one.
>then it can almost certainly be optimized a little further and made into a free energy device.
Well you still haven't given us any reason to believe it IS a perpetual motion machine. At least, not in the sense you're suggesting. In the sense that, on human timescales, the solar system is a perpetual motion machine - maybe and that's by no means guaranteed considering the huge powersource it needs. The only viable sources of that power STILL need fuel. Nuclear, the fuel is on-board. Solar - the fuel is IN the sun and it WILL stop working when that fuel runs out. All any scientists looking at this thing have suggested is that it might, possibly, be a very CHEAP energy device. Free energy ? That's something you made up - with nothing to support your claims, which are easily shown not to be possible - as a way to dismiss that possibility.
How about you let the scientists do science - test the thing, keep testing it. If it really violates the laws of physics the tests will eventually show that conclusively - and we get to answer the interesting question of *why* the previous tests seemed to show otherwise, and make better tests. Or it will keep working - and we get the fun of figuring out what is wrong in our understanding of the laws of physics and make a breakthrough.
Perhaps that breakthrough could even mean that free energy goes from proven impossible to "oh you can do it in certain conditions". I highly doubt that, it's definitely not a LIKELY scenario - but it's not impossible either. Human knowledge is not absolute - and when it comes to physics, there is no way to know what we don't know.
Except that the thing you described very well may not work at all.
If, indeed, the EM drive produces thrust without expelling matter - there is nothing to drive your generator - the thrust won't drive it because it's only acting on the machine itself and in the wrong direction.
You've got absolutely no proof that the thing could spin a wheel - indeed if it works the way it is said to work then the wheel will not spin. So your problem goes away. The trouble is -that violates conservation of momentum, so you're assuming there is actually something being expelled.
The only theory we have where something gets expelled though - that something is dark matter, which will pass right through your wheel and not spin it. So it's still not a perpetual motion machine as there is absolutely no way to power a generator using that thrust. Everything we know says dark matter cannot hold electrical charge or interact with normal matter - there is thus, absolutely no way, with the current laws of physics be used to produce electrical power in normal matter.
The only energy produced is kinetic and that exists ONLY on the drive. There is no evidence of any energy going the other way. Indeed the very reason we have doubts about the EM drive is because there is nothing leaving it, no energy being sent the other way. Nothing that can drive your generator.
When another poster said that was the impossible bit - he was telling you the bit you missed, you can't drive a wheel without something hitting it.
So all that OVERWHELMING evidence from literally hundreds of unrelated scientific disciplines which all support the theory - THAT doesn't satisfy a burden of proof for you ?
The 97% matters because it means that everybody with the skills to accurately assess the evidence and the observations find it compelling. It matters because it is proof that the burden of proof HAS BEEN MET.
And your second sentence is nothing but flagrant lies.
>No, the parent said perpeatual motion mechanism. There's a small but subtle difference there. With something like the Earth, it will keep rotating for a very long time, because the stored energy is vast and the rate of loss is very small. But eventually it will stop.
Yes, I said later in the same post. But it won't happen in any timeframe that matters. So for all matters of practicality - if you can use that to power a machine that machine has achieved the goal for which perpetual motion machines are designed -the only difference is you haven't violated conservation of energy, you're just using a very large supply.
But you can't use that energy to power the thrust producer - so that does not make it a perpetual motion device. That energy has already been used (since the device is moving) there is no potential energy there.
Just because perpetual motion can't exist, doesn't mean there can't be, and aren't, things that come so close as makes no difference to humans.
You're standing on one right now.
Sure the earth can't spin forever. But it will be spinning long after we're extinct. It's a perpetual motion machine for all practical concerns.
The universe is literally filled with those.
And we can and have built machines to harness some of the energy from those things movements.
A tidal-wave power-generator is actually pretty close to a perpetual motion machine - since it generates power based on the gravitational pull of the moon. The moon is not going to run out of momentum and stop rotating around the earth in any time soon enough to matter to humans. It's as close to a perpetual motion machine as makes no difference. And we've harvested it's power - already. There's your gravity powered machine - that will run until it breaks down.
It may not be "perpetual motion" as we normally think of it, but it's as close as makes absolutely no difference. And we've just scratched the surface of what we can do when we harvest gravitational motion to power machines (partly because it's very hard - it's probably impossible to do a cyclic machine using earth gravity, but as the tidal wave generator shows - it can be done using the moon's gravity - which already varies cyclicly). Whose to say we won't find a way to have The motion of Jupiter provide the energy to get our next probe too Jupiter ?
It would be very hard and I have no idea how it could work - but there is nothing in the laws of physics that says it can't be done. It's not creating energy. It's not failing to conserve momentum. It's not lacking an existing energy source - it's just using one that is very hard to use and which we've only just started figuring out how to use (sufficiently so that I'm pretty sure the tidal wave generator is the ONLY example of a genuine gravity powered machine - but it's early days).
For all we know that's what the EM-drive is doing, it may be pushing against gravitons and propelled by "gravity" itself.
How exactly do you intend to use the thrust to produce energy ?
The thing almost certainly only works if that thrust is used to move it - if you try and capture any of it to drive a turbine, the space-craft will stand still.
Because there is a lot more to cosmology than gravity and movement. There are several theories to explain the movement of the galaxies - some of which do essentially come down to gravity behaving differently in some situations (like over very long distances).
So when you have more than one explanation for an observation - how do you choose one ? Well you do some more maths - and figure out what ELSE would be observable if the theories are true - and then see if any of those things can be observed. All of the theories make a number of these "predictions" and they all turn out false.
Dark Matter's predictions have all turned out to be true. Predictions way beyond the speed at which galaxies rotate. The presence of that mass, and where it is concentrated, would affect other things - and those things we can look for, and we've found them. And gravity bends light, so if there's a huge clump of unobservable matter somewhere, it would bend light -and we should be able to see that the light was bent (we've known how to observe graviational lensing since Einstein's days). Again we can see distinct patterns of graviational lensing that fit the predictions of dark matter theory and goes against what is predicted by every competing theory.
Now it's possible that along the way we'll come up with a different theory that explains observations better - but some of the smartest people in the world are trying and of all the ideas they've had none has matched the observations better, none have made predictions that better fit the other things we can observe. Right now, dark matter is by far the single strongest theory we have for explaining the way galaxies move - and the only one where the other things you can predict would be true is ALSO being observed. It's an extremely strong theory backed up by a lot of solid observations.
There are also active experiments to try and find a way to detect dark matter - partly this is made difficult since we're not sure what to look for, some people think it's made of very large, heavy particles and others that it is made up of tiny particles (but lots more of them) called "Axions". The idea that the EM drive may be using dark matter for fuel is based on the Axion idea.
But since we don't know - and have no real way of theoretically saying one is more likely than the other - we are looking for both. Doing all sorts of complex experiments to try and create conditions where - if dark matter is present we can force it to interact with something else and reveal itself. We haven't succeeded yet, but considering how difficult it is to look - we aren't giving up yet either.