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"Impossible" EmDrive still not officially disproven after further tests

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M

Machina

Banned
Kelsdesu said:
Then what are we even doing here?
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They probably have conservative levels of funding, and they might only get one shot at nailing this thing in order to win over the politicians. In order to best utilize whatever this is, we have to actually know what it is we're dealing with.

This is literally a newly discovered form of propulsion that has the potential to take us to space. You really want us rushing into that? We're talking about a new Frontier age here, depending on how quickly it is developed.
 
N

Nowy

Member
I have a feeling once scientists are able to control all the potential variables in their experiments, they'll see that no thrust is being generated. I would love for this to be true but I'm not getting my hopes us. This reminds me of when a team recorded neutrinos traveling faster than light. It was eventually determined to be incorrect, but the time between announcement and correction was full of pseudo science and misreporting. I think this will follow a similar path.

It doesn't help that the recorded thrust is in micro newtons. There have been free energy machine before that have been recorded to produce micro amount of energy. We can't pinpoint where the energy is coming from, but that doesn't mean the free energy machine is real.
 
M

Makai

Member
Nowy said:
It doesn't help that the recorded thrust is in micro newtons. There have been free energy machine before that have been recorded to produce micro amount of energy. We can't pinpoint where the energy is coming from, but that doesn't mean the free energy machine is real.
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I like this quote from the NASA thread:

To this forum, that is an important question. However, thinking broadly, even such low thrust levels, once they are unquestionable, might lead to a physics revolution, and who knows where that might lead us? Since we still do not have for a fact HOW it works, who can really tell these geometries or methods are the ideal?

IF the effect proves to be real beyond any doubt, my two cents are on an analogy of we discovering electricity by rubbing a comb on a piece of wool, and trying to use that for propulsion. Once we fully understand the mechanism, THEN we will be able REALLY create machines to use it.

First, let's prove that rubbing the comb on the wool makes the comb attract light objects, that it is not glue on the comb, wind on the light object our anything similar.
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M

Machina

Banned
Maintain calm in the face of this, folks. We're straying dangerously close to a whole new world here. Let them do their work before we get too excited.
 
F

Fishlake

Member
Makai said:
I like this quote from the NASA thread:
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That quote is amazing and hype inducing. I got to keep it in check thought as to not be too disappointed if it turns out to be false.

I like the analogy it since electricity today is very different from when we started learning about it. I hope the findings on this will be published soothers can try things out of it.
 
N

Nowy

Member
Veritigo_X said:
How does us getting excited over the potential of this affect the work they are doing?
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It doesn't but people shouldn't be over hyping this and talking about how revolutionary it is. This technology violates conservation of momentum, and so far all the experiments have left room for other explanations that don't violate the known laws of the universe. This is most likely just another perpetual motion machine that the internet has latched onto and are falling for poor science reporting.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
Nowy said:
It doesn't but people shouldn't be over hyping this and talking about how revolutionary it is. This technology violates conservation of momentum, and so far all the experiments have left room for other explanations that don't violate the known laws of the universe. This is most likely just another perpetual motion machine that the internet has latched onto and are falling for poor science reporting.
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Watch the interview posted above :)
 
S

SRG01

Member
Nowy said:
It doesn't but people shouldn't be over hyping this and talking about how revolutionary it is. This technology violates conservation of momentum, and so far all the experiments have left room for other explanations that don't violate the known laws of the universe. This is most likely just another perpetual motion machine that the internet has latched onto and are falling for poor science reporting.
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The last explanation I read was that it involves virtual particles -- which isn't new in physics by any means. Semiconductors needed virtual particles in order to explain current flow, and even then these virtual particles exhibited real properties that were not the exact opposite of an election.

The real question is if these are indeed virtual particles, then where could the opposing (and presumably real) particle be?
 
M

Makai

Member
curls said:
Watch the interview posted above :)
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He just says it doesn't violate Newton when it clearly does. He needs to explain how.

Imagine you're standing in a large box on wheels. No matter how many baseballs you throw at the wall, the box will remain still.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
Makai said:
He just says it doesn't violate Newton when it clearly does. He needs to explain how.
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Its interesting isn't it. One could speculate that Shawyer is covering his arse.
 
S

SRG01

Member
Makai said:
He just says it doesn't violate Newton when it clearly does. He needs to explain how.

Imagine you're standing in a large box on wheels. No matter how many baseballs you throw at the wall, the box will remain still.
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Well... and this is total speculation, but there's always the possibility that the microwaves are creating virtual pairs, in which the momentum of one is reabsorbed as a phonon (giving propulsion) while the other one is emitted.
 
N

Nowy

Member
curls said:
Watch the interview posted above :)
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His explanation is waving a wand around and saying that it doesn't violate known laws. He needs to provide an actual science based explanation other than saying that it doesn't violate laws.

People read a blog about an experiment that produced 'anomalous thrust' of 50 millionths of one newton and freak out. Scientists say they can't conclude the nature of the thrust and websites report it as 'NASA confirms EM drive thrust'. What is more likely: Our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong, or this anomalous thrust is something completely explainable once we have more rigorous experiments?

And when I say our understanding is wrong, I don't mean incomplete. We definitely don't have the full picture, but for this to be true, it would have to smash our understanding of the laws of physics. And so far, no other free energy machine has been able to do that, so why is this one any different?

edit: And these reports come from nasaspaceflight.com, a website that is not an official NASA outlet. The Eaglesworks experiments have not been peer reviewed and the official NASA statement about the Eaglesworks experiments is "This is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results" http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-validate-imposible-space-drive-word/#.VCYphStdU3c
 
E

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
scientists need to get over 'law of physics' governing all and start thinking outside the box like with this engine if we hope to do some serious space travel in the future. Space is so vast and enormous that the only way to become a space faring species is to hack life basically otherwise the most we will acomplish will be moon travel.

Good thing this is getting tested, and it's still not disproven.
 
D

Disxo

Member
Fishlake said:
I hope this is real and I live to see one built that can quickly be sent to the nearest star before I die.


I want to be around for the beginning of the age of exploring the rest of the galaxy.
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Lol no, we still need to see if we can use this technology for our military.

/s
 
N

Nafai1123

Banned
Nowy said:
His explanation is waving a wand around and saying that it doesn't violate known laws. He needs to provide an actual science based explanation other than saying that it doesn't violate laws.

People read a blog about an experiment that produced 'anomalous thrust' of 50 millionths of one newton and freak out. Scientists say they can't conclude the nature of the thrust and websites report it as 'NASA confirms EM drive thrust'. What is more likely: Our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong, or this anomalous thrust is something completely explainable once we have more rigorous experiments?

And when I say our understanding is wrong, I don't mean incomplete. We definitely don't have the full picture, but for this to be true, it would have to smash our understanding of the laws of physics. And so far, no other free energy machine has been able to do that, so why is this one any different?

edit: And these reports come from nasaspaceflight.com, a website that is not an official NASA outlet. The Eaglesworks experiments have not been peer reviewed and the official NASA statement about the Eaglesworks experiments is "This is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results" http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-validate-imposible-space-drive-word/#.VCYphStdU3c
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This isn't a "free energy" machine. Energy is put into the system in the form of microwaves. The question is, how is that energy exerting force in the form of thrust? At this point the leading theory is that it exerts force on the quantum vacuum, which up to this point we believed was impossible because we thought the quantum vacuum is immutable.

If this works it won't disprove our laws of physics, but would change our understanding of quantum mechanics, which is ever evolving anyways.
 
Nikodemos

Nikodemos

Member
Nowy said:
Our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong, or this anomalous thrust is something completely explainable once we have more rigorous experiments?
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Meh, people have been understanding the laws of physics wrong since Imhotep, the guy who invented science.
 
F

fallout

Member
Error said:
scientists need to get over 'law of physics' governing all and start thinking outside the box like with this engine if we hope to do some serious space travel in the future. Space is so vast and enormous that the only way to become a space faring species is to hack life basically otherwise the most we will acomplish will be moon travel.

Good thing this is getting tested, and it's still not disproven.
Click to expand...
We'd have really gotten nowhere without our laws of physics. The onus is on those testing this thing to show that it works, not the other way around.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
Nowy said:
His explanation is waving a wand around and saying that it doesn't violate known laws. He needs to provide an actual science based explanation other than saying that it doesn't violate laws.

People read a blog about an experiment that produced 'anomalous thrust' of 50 millionths of one newton and freak out. Scientists say they can't conclude the nature of the thrust and websites report it as 'NASA confirms EM drive thrust'. What is more likely: Our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong, or this anomalous thrust is something completely explainable once we have more rigorous experiments?

And when I say our understanding is wrong, I don't mean incomplete. We definitely don't have the full picture, but for this to be true, it would have to smash our understanding of the laws of physics. And so far, no other free energy machine has been able to do that, so why is this one any different?

edit: And these reports come from nasaspaceflight.com, a website that is not an official NASA outlet. The Eaglesworks experiments have not been peer reviewed and the official NASA statement about the Eaglesworks experiments is "This is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results" http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-validate-imposible-space-drive-word/#.VCYphStdU3c
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I agree with you on the points you make but

And so far, no other free energy machine has been able to do that, so why is this one any different?
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This is not a free energy machine. It obeys the conservation of energy. The energy input is lost in the cavity in relation to the 'reaction less thrust' (or more accurately movement). The use of energy is more efficient than that of an ion thruster. For example the Chinese data observes 720mN (75g) of thrust with a power input of 2kW.

To compare Boeing's XIPS ion thruster requires twice as much power to produce 1/4 of the trust of the latest Chinese em drive. Plus more in weight and thats not including the fuel.

What is more likely: Our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong, or this anomalous thrust is something completely explainable once we have more rigorous experiments?
Click to expand...

But why be so quick to leap for an explanation? Sometimes when faced with situations like this, the right approach to take is to just push forward and develop the devices. Yes you are taking a risk with no adequate scientific framework to work from. But sometimes you have to make that leap in the dark.
 
V

Vagabundo

Member
I wonder how many private companies are investigating the EM drive on the QT. If I was a billionaire I'd have a big one in the works.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
Boeing's Phantom Works acquired and tested the EM drive years ago.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
What I hope everyone realizes is that the vast majority of scientific breakthroughs in human history -- prior to our ability to predict them with particle physics -- looked exactly like this. Fucking nuts, that's what.
 
A

Alcoremortis

Member
I think these guys should stop messing about with the engine and instead work on designing a device that can detect force without the microwave background interference. If they could do that, it would be far more conclusive in determining if this thing works and useful for testing any future microwave-type engines.

That way, even if the whole thing turns out to be a hoax, they'll have developed something useful.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
phinious said:
Is there any practical application for this on earth?
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Published on Aug 2, 2014
Electromagnetic Thrust technology designed by Roger Shaywer.

EmDrive is the design of an electric machine that uses microwave energy to create thrust. In this presentation he goes through in detail the background and potential of a technology that if / when the potential is realised will mean the end of the motorcar, the end of the jet engine, the deeper exploration of space, faster and cleaner travel with no carbon pollution.

Electromagnetic thrust is being developed independently in China, the USA and other countries. Roger Shawyer is currently developing the second generation EmDrive.
 
O

Omegasquash

Member
Error said:
scientists need to get over 'law of physics' governing all and start thinking outside the box like with this engine if we hope to do some serious space travel in the future. Space is so vast and enormous that the only way to become a space faring species is to hack life basically otherwise the most we will acomplish will be moon travel.

Good thing this is getting tested, and it's still not disproven.
Click to expand...

10/10. The subtlety is there and it's just enough.
 
O

Orbis Tabula

Member
PantherLotus said:
What I hope everyone realizes is that the vast majority of scientific breakthroughs in human history -- prior to our ability to predict them with particle physics -- looked exactly like this. Fucking nuts, that's what.
Click to expand...

While this might be true, it's also true that the vast majority of quacky, insane scientific let-downs also looked fucking nuts. There are far more outlandish failures than there are outlandish successes. So what we're interested isn't P(fucking nuts|successful breakthrough) but rather P(successful breakthrough|fucking nuts)
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
EskimoJoe said:
While this might be true, it's also true that the vast majority of quacky, insane scientific let-downs also looked fucking nuts. There are far more outlandish failures than there are outlandish successes. So what we're interested isn't P(fucking nuts|successful breakthrough) but rather P(successful breakthrough|fucking nuts)
Click to expand...

You make a good point.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
Every time this thread is bumped I prepare myself for a letdown. Each time it's bumped it's for further confirmation. Fucking hype.
 
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