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This story from a Wired article: NASA is a major player in space science, so when a team from the agency this week presents evidence that "impossible" microwave thrusters seem to work, something strange is definitely going on. Either the results are completely wrong, or Nasa has confirmed a major breakthrough in space propulsion.
British scientist Roger Shawyer has been trying to interest people in his EmDrive for some years through his company SPR Ltd. Shawyer claims the EmDrive converts electric power into thrust, without the need for any propellant by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. He has built a number of demonstration systems, but critics reject his relativity-based theory and insist that, according to the law of conservation of momentum, it cannot work.
NASA states... "Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, 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"
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @08:24AM
EM radiation has an interesting characteristic in that there is a point in the wave propagation where all the energy hits zero potential before swinging back on the other side of the axis.
This sentence is enough to tell us you know nothing about EM radiation or Maxwell's Equations. This is on the same level as the Dilbert strip where Dilbert told his PHB because the lan cable got loose, the token had fell out of the Token Ring network, and it can't be fixed until the PHB finds the token in his office. i.e. total bullshit.
Just because you have heard stuff about science that you don't understand, doesn't mean any BS is valid science. And sadly, your post got modded up to +5 told us most Soylentils knew nothing about Maxwell's Equations either.
tuned so at one end the microwaves reflect off it when the wave is at the zero potential state and is at full energy when it reflects off the other end of the cavity
Classically (i.e. within non-quantum theory), EM radiation is a wave little different from water wave on any water surface, if the above is possible, then you can do the exact same setup with a tank of water on wheels, so the wave is flat on one side and peaked on the other side, and drive the tank to move without any other mechanism (i.e. no drive to the wheels, no material ejection, doesn't push on anything outside the tank). Obviously, you are not going see that demonstrated any time soon.
And now for all the rebuttals by people who "know better" because modern physics is perfect and already explains everything.
Yeah, what a great way to stop intelligent debate by first deriding anyone who possibly know more than you as people who "know better".
But don't worry, I am sure my explanation above would be beyond you ability to comprehend, so you can simply dismiss that as something from someone who "know better" and thought modern physics already explains everything, and happily go back to your ignorant demon-haunted world.