51–60 of 71 posts
What ever happened with the German result that showed no thrust when the device was hooked up to an on-board battery?
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1. studies consistently are showing that this seems to produce thrust without expelling any matter 2. we know that can't be possible I think most people are excited about this not because they think we just proved 2 to be wrong, but instead because we know 2 must be true, so what the hell is going on with 1??? Most likely we will find out that we are NOT violating the known laws of the universe, but we're "not violat…
>studies consistently are showing that this seems to produce thrust without expelling any matter Nope, others have been unable to reproduce their results. As for Eagle Works ... their data is crap. The paper consists of 18 data points and large amounts of variance. The largest thrust measurement comes from the middle power setting. Furthermore, they are measuring (at most!) 120 micro-newtons of thrust. Someone correc…
The only way it could be Perpetual motion I can see is if I could somehow generate 1KW with that 1.2milinewtons which would be science fiction.
NASA has published this paper. These guys presumably know what they're talking about. Moon landing, space shuttle, Voyager, etc. They ran actual experiments on this drive. Why are half the comments here saying 'They must be wrong' - seemingly based on nothing more than a strong belief that NASA must be wrong.
Because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not extraordinary credentials. I'm sure even NASA has there fair share of cranks.
Chances are that this is just experimental error. But part of me really wants this to be true. That it's possible some crack pot shoved some microwaves in a tin can and created a device that may reveal a new phenomenon.
As always, the relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/955/ While I don't really believe it, I am intrigued by the possibility. It has been a long time since we learned anything truly new in physics. The recent breakthroughs (Higgs boson, gravitational waves, for example) were satisfying, but not surprising. I would desperately like to be surprised.
In case you missed it, the theory behind the EM Drive is also being used to explain galaxy rotation: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313580454_Low-accel...
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That's such a tiny thrust it might be quite difficult to measure in space. Orbits are complicated, what with complex gravitational variability of the Earth (mountain ranges, continental shelves, the fact it's not a sphere), the influence of the moon and sun, interaction with the magnetic field, solar winds, and down in low earth orbit even the last vestiges of the atmosphere.
Couldn't many of those effects be accounted for by having a non-operating unit in the same orbit as the test unit, and looking for differences in the motion of the two?
NASA has published this paper. These guys presumably know what they're talking about. Moon landing, space shuttle, Voyager, etc. They ran actual experiments on this drive. Why are half the comments here saying 'They must be wrong' - seemingly based on nothing more than a strong belief that NASA must be wrong.
This is the worst part of the internet. Amateurs and 2nd year college students dismissing months/years of hard work by actual professionals. They take all this work and "hand wave" it away in less time than it takes to make coffee. The internet is full of amateurs and they are very very confident about their abilities.
Maybe the paper's conclusion is accurate! Maybe this physical "can't happen" actually can, and the model needs extending to account for that. It wouldn't be the first time. But it also wouldn't be the first time that a "can't happen" really can't happen, and the result suggesting otherwise is an artifact of the way an experiment was run, rather than an accurate description of a previously unsuspected physical phenomenon. Going by past examples, the latter is much more likely than the former. So there's nothing unreasonable, even for people like myself who aren't knowledgeable enough to evaluate the paper on its own merits, in reserving credulity until the result is shown by other experimenters to be reproducible.
NASA has published this paper. These guys presumably know what they're talking about. Moon landing, space shuttle, Voyager, etc. They ran actual experiments on this drive. Why are half the comments here saying 'They must be wrong' - seemingly based on nothing more than a strong belief that NASA must be wrong.
This is the worst part of the internet. Amateurs and 2nd year college students dismissing months/years of hard work by actual professionals. They take all this work and "hand wave" it away in less time than it takes to make coffee. The internet is full of amateurs and they are very very confident about their abilities.
The internet is full of amateurs and they are very very eager to point out when they are not fully grasping something, in one way or another.
This was published November 17, 2016. It's been officially published for several months.
There has been some good discussion on Reddit about how the thrust results shown in the paper are still most likely measurement errors due to thermal effects. It is a shame that they haven't released their actual data for independent analysis. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/5ewj86/so_nasas_em...
I've been following along on reddit on several subs, including the EMDrive sub. This is a fascinating study about the politics and social aspect of science -- i.e., how it's actually done. I'm just a layman, but so far it looks like this is experimental error. I never knew there were so many ways to screw something like this up! Having said that, this is a win either way. It teaches all of us about rigorous science,…
If you're curious, you can find an easy to understand theory about why breaking the conservation of momentum lets you build a perpetual-motion machine, creating infinite energy.
Then, you can find a paper from the inventor of the EM drive explaining why it won't allow that to happen. His explanation spectacularly violates special relatively in a way we could easily detect.
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Because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not extraordinary credentials. I'm sure even NASA has there fair share of cranks.
This is true, but don't you also think that once extraordinary claims have this much publicity they warrant extraordinary investigation? If for no other purpose than to prove it wrong? Chances are that this is just experimental error. But part of me really wants this to be true. That it's possible some crack pot shoved some microwaves in a tin can and created a device that may reveal a new phenomenon.
Absolutely, I'd be surprised if it wasn't happening already, within nasa and around the world. I'm guessing they're being a lot more thorough though, controlling for more variables and trying more permutations (different engine sizes, different materials, etc) to try to either isolate the cause or to rule some out. I'd suspect anything less would risk the experimenters being labeled as cranks, that's why we're not seeing direct replication efforts.