Questions about Nasa's space drive answered • Hacker News Board

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#61

Post by leni536 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:14 PM UTC

grondilu wrote: post #29

I liked the comparison with high-temperature superconductors. We don't exactly know how they work either. But they do work.

The analogy is not perfect though. High-temperature superconductors are not breaking well established principles in physics. We just can't describe these superconductors well now.

Most of the limitations describing solid state materials come from that we can't solve the Schrodinger-equation directly (even with simulation). So we have to make assumptions and reasonable approximations of the resulting wave functions of electrons. For many solid state materials there are standard approximations that are working really well but they are not working for all materials.

We simply didn't find any working approximation for high-temperature superconductors (but I think there are some not well tested theories out there).

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#62

Post by tobinfricke » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:14 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #55

readerrrr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He seems to be makings some mistakes as well. He says: This is baloney too - but now it's graduate-level baloney. "Quantum vacuum virtual plasma" is something you'd say if you failed a course in quantum field theory and then smoked too much weed. There's no such thing as "virtual plasma". If you want to report experimental results that seem to violate the known laws of physics, fine. But it doesn't help your credibil…

Baez is right, there's no such thing as "virtual plasma". Just Google the phrase.

To expand on that a little:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-v...

>>In the paper by White et al, they also write that the Cannae Drive “is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.” That last bit stopped me. What’s a quantum vacuum virtual plasma? I’d never heard the term, so I dropped a note to Sean Carroll, a Caltech physicist whose work dives deeply into speculative realms of cosmology and quantum theory.

Carroll wrote back immediately, with a pointed message: “There is no such thing as a ‘quantum vacuum virtual plasma,’ so that should be a tip-off right there. There is a quantum vacuum, but it is nothing like a plasma. In particular, it does not have a rest frame, so there is nothing to push against, so you can’t use it for propulsion. The whole thing is just nonsense. They claim to measure an incredibly tiny effect that could very easily be just noise.” There is no theory to support the result, and there is no verified result to begin with.<<

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#63

Post by servowire » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:14 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #43

thisjepisje wrote: post #4

Where can I find blueprints?

At the paper. And it's crazy simple.

I can't find prototype diagrams with dimensions or something, did you find any? Please link?

The paper is $25 .... mmm http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2014-4029

This post has some more info https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/WfFtJ8bY...

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#64

Post by readerrrr » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:16 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #55

readerrrr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He seems to be makings some mistakes as well. He says: This is baloney too - but now it's graduate-level baloney. "Quantum vacuum virtual plasma" is something you'd say if you failed a course in quantum field theory and then smoked too much weed. There's no such thing as "virtual plasma". If you want to report experimental results that seem to violate the known laws of physics, fine. But it doesn't help your credibil…

Baez is right, there's no such thing as "virtual plasma". Just Google the phrase.

You missed the point. Someone probably used a different phrase trying to describe a physical phenomena, which exists, under a different description.

You can take a look at some popular lectures of Dr.Krauss where he describes empty space in more detail, which is full of virtual particles.

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#65

Post by happyscrappy » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:17 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #23

madaxe_again wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. As to the whole "we don't actually understand how it works" - we still can't make up our minds as to how wings work, so this isn't overly novel. Sure, we can explain the outcome, but whether it's Navier-Stokes or Bernoulli or something else, we can't make up our minds. I suspect this will be similar for a long while - although puts physics hat on I think this is likely a relativistic temporal quantisation eff…

> ... we still can't make up our > minds as to how wings work, ... Interestingly, I recently spoke to an aerodynamicist and mentioned this, and I was severely lectured. In the follow-up he mellowed a little, but I suspect the "we" in your statement refers to laypersons who don't have advanced training in aeronautics, and yet claim to understand about flow pressure, Bernoulli, etc. I've been convinced that the people…

Does Feynman's "if you can't explain it to a laymen in a few paragraphs then you don't truly understand it" no longer hold?

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#66

Post by damoncali » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:18 PM UTC

runj__ wrote: post #19

madaxe_again wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle problem to be overcome with this tech is going to be cooling - both for the power source and for the drive. It's going to require radiators the with a stonkingly huge area and Peltier shunts, unless we come up with a cunning means of dumping excess heat - potentially turning it into more energy to drive with, even, using the seebeck effect.

Isn't space pretty cool?

As cool as space can be, it can also be incredibly hot. It's not uncommon to see huge temperature variations on the same object based on whether or not the surface in question is pointing toward or away from the sun. In any case, as others have said, there is no conduction or convection in space - only radiation, which needs a little help some times.

For an example, when I worked on the Hubble, a thermal short was discovered that would severely limit the life of one of the cameras, which have to be very cold to operate. In order to counteract that, a pretty complex cooling system was built to counteract the effect. It consisted of a couple of large metal boxes (a couple hundred pounds each, if I recall) attached to a couple of huge radiator panels. (About 3'x10' each, if memory serves). The whole thing took over a year to build and took a lot of care to launch and install.

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#67

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:23 PM UTC

tobinfricke wrote: post #62

cousin_it wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baez is right, there's no such thing as "virtual plasma". Just Google the phrase.

To expand on that a little: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-v... >>In the paper by White et al, they also write that the Cannae Drive “is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.” That last bit stopped me. What’s a quantum vacuum virtual plasma? I’d…

Huh. I thought the OP experiment WAS verification.

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#68

Post by baq » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

tobinfricke wrote: post #57

pantalaimon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out in 8., there have been previous, independent experiences that support the results.

These were other, earlier experiments, which the current experiment is attempting to duplicate. Importantly, while the new experiment has superficially "confirmed" the previous ones, it shows a much smaller effect. When the magnitude of the observed effect scales roughly with the margin of error of the experiment, one has very good reason to be skeptical ...

they found 91 mmN of thrust and they claim their detector is sensitive to about 10mmN. that's almost an order of magnitude.

this doesn't mean that it sounds too good to be true.

edit: fixed units - dont have easy access to micro, thanks for pointing that out.

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#69

Post by BugBrother » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #68

tobinfricke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were other, earlier experiments, which the current experiment is attempting to duplicate. Importantly, while the new experiment has superficially "confirmed" the previous ones, it shows a much smaller effect. When the magnitude of the observed effect scales roughly with the margin of error of the experiment, one has very good reason to be skeptical ...

they found 91 mmN of thrust and they claim their detector is sensitive to about 10mmN. that's almost an order of magnitude. this doesn't mean that it sounds too good to be true. edit: fixed units - dont have easy access to micro, thanks for pointing that out.

You shocked me so much that I read the article! :-)

(I follow the subject by browsing news now and then at http://talk-polywell.org/ which really is about the small fusion projects. That place should have more details then at Wired.)

Use 'μ' for micro, 'm' is for milli.

Re: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered

#70

Post by keeperofdakeys » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 1:36 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #3

didgeoridoo wrote: post #2

Deep breaths. Probably experimental error. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof... God DAMN this is exciting.

As the article points out in 8., there have been previous, independent experiences that support the results.

Just because something is able to be replicated multiple times, by different people, you still don't want to jump to conclusions. You just need to look back at polywater, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...