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from the that-still-doesn't-mean-it-will-work dept.
After months of speculation and leaked documents, NASA's long-awaited EM Drive paper has finally been peer-reviewed and published [open, DOI: 10.2514/1.B36120] [DX]. And it shows that the 'impossible' propulsion system really does appear to work. The NASA Eagleworks Laboratory team even put forward a hypothesis for how the EM Drive could produce thrust – something that seems impossible according to our current understanding of the laws of physics.
In case you've missed the hype, the EM Drive, or Electromagnetic Drive, is a propulsion system first proposed by British inventor Roger Shawyer back in 1999. Instead of using heavy, inefficient rocket fuel, it bounces microwaves back and forth inside a cone-shaped metal cavity to generate thrust. According to Shawyer's calculations, the EM Drive could be so efficient that it could power us to Mars in just 70 days.
takyon: Some have previously dismissed EmDrive as a photon rocket. This is addressed in the paper along with other possible sources of error:
The eighth [error:] photon rocket force, RF leakage from test article generating a net force due to photon emission. The performance of a photon rocket is several orders of magnitude lower than the observed thrust. Further, as noted in the above discussion on RF interaction, all leaking fields are managed closely to result in a high quality RF resonance system. This is not a viable source of the observed thrust.
[...] The 1.2 mN/kW performance parameter is over two orders of magnitude higher than other forms of "zero-propellant" propulsion, such as light sails, laser propulsion, and photon rockets having thrust-to-power levels in the 3.33–6.67 μN/kW (or 0.0033–0.0067 mN/kW) range.
Previously: NASA Validates "Impossible" Space Drive's Thrust
"Reactionless" Thruster Tested Again, This Time in a Vacuum
Explanation may be on the way for the "Impossible" EmDrive
Finnish Physicist Says EmDrive Device Does Have an Exhaust
EmDrive Peer-Reviewed Paper Coming in December; Theseus Planning a Cannae Thruster Cubesat
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @10:12PM
You just plain and simple miss my point. I was never accusing you since this is the first time I've discussed the EM drive with you. I was an optimistic skeptic, based on what I read I thought there was potential for this to be real (yay confirmed, now for useful versions...) My commentary is aimed at all the people that dismissed it because they did little research and couldn't get past the no propellant issue. Besides, there actually is propellant, pure energy!
There is no free energy (barring spiritual "let there be light" type stuff) and even the quacks that think they're getting free energy from magnets could be on to something. Not free energy, but quenching a magnet over a long period of time could be a decent type of "battery", haven't done any calculations about energy density so don't know if that would be useful but whatever. You never know where something interesting might pop up, it could be surrounded by lots of quackery but that doesn't mean there isn't SOMETHING there.
Put in whatever effort you'd like, but dismissing something without actually engaging the topic and teasing out the bullshit from the facts is just intellectual masturbation to make yourself feel good. Also, we can miss major scientific breakthroughs with such thinking. For another good example: Snowden and his revelations about mass surveillance. Ten years ago you were a crackpot for saying all the governments were spying on literally everybody. Now it is just accepted as fact. Again, I'm not saying you should believe every crackpot theory, just don't approach things with a closed mind (meaning you already know the "answer"). I was educated in physics, I read the early reports years ago, and the idea was that the reflected photons lose momentum in one direction only. I saw no inherent reason why this couldn't work so I gave it cautious optimism. Everyone else stopped at "no propellant, no easily understood momentum transfer, QUACKER!" Height of hubris.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @06:10PM
Unless you are actually working in a related field, or are responsible for funding decisions that may affect research on it, your thinking about it has exactly zero effect on the progress of science.
What I think about entanglement-related stuff does have an effect on the progress in the field (at least I hope so), because that's the field I work in. What I think about EmDrive or the theory behind it is completely irrelevant to the progress of science, as I'm not working in that field.
What matters is not what I, or probably anybody on Soylent News thinks. What matters is what NASA did: Actually test the thing. If the tests continue to be positive, you can expect the theory to gain traction. That's how science works.
Scepticism is at the heart of science. Don't believe it, test it. The day when people no longer distrust new theories is the day that science has died.