Holy shit this still pisses me off.
The last half of the article is garbage. I don't care about your dreams for the future if you can't explain the physical mechanism behind the measured thrust. And sure, you can say "who cares how it works if it works?", but the answer is "am_Unition".
The only reason I'm posting this is because of the links within the article, specifically to the forum discussion.
Seems to me that there's an aspect of hopelash to this. ( _refugee_ ) There's a fear that failures on the part of overambitious or untested individuals/research groups will reflect poorly on the future of space exploration as a whole, which I'm assuming leads to fears about funding cuts. Anybody have an idea on how to better educate large groups of people on the scientific process? About how the whole thing is incremental, expected to have setbacks? Because I'm drawing a blank. (I'm also a poor teacher)
Nah, I don't feel particularly frustrated in that vein. I'm hoping that this trend continues. In addition to the "faster than light neutrinos" story, check out the recent BICEP2 fiasco. Contrast those with the success story of definitively finding the Higgs Boson. Those are some of the best examples I can think of in physics, and that's just one branch of science. It sounds like you've got the idea, but I'm not entirely sure how to effectively teach the scientific method. The keyword is "effectively", because at some point we're all exposed to it. Why some people can't comprehend it is beyond me.There's a fear that failures on the part of overambitious or untested individuals/research groups will reflect poorly on the future of space exploration as a whole, which I'm assuming leads to fears about funding cuts.
Anybody have an idea on how to better educate large groups of people on the scientific process? About how the whole thing is incremental, expected to have setbacks?
The IC engine would have frustrated my 19th century analog. You could say it... might've made my blood Boyle (WINKWINKWINK!!). Ugh, sorry, stress in my personal life manifests as shitty puns.
The baseless saga continues <- Link forward in time.
A couple things... In response to rob05c's statements: Photon momentum transfer is well defined and follows conservation of momentum laws. Photons hitting one side of a chamber have pushed exactly the same magnitude of force against the photon source, yielding a net momentum change of zero in the system. Two problems: cooling a material to a temperature low enough to achieve superconductivity (less of a problem in space), and more importantly, the seeming violation of Lenz's Law. In response to jaggs: Despite my comment that elicited the above response, I can't falsify the quoted text. A paradigm shift is exciting, no doubt. I really do want to believe we're onto something, but until we understand it, I'm going to write it off as experimental error. When I have a day off, say, two weeks from now, I will cruise the forums for more information. I intend to eventually come back here and treat this post as a diary of sorts. That may or may not play out. Sorry for this half-assed post, everyone.I was under the impression the thrust came from the microwaves losing energy as they disproportionately hit one side of the chamber.
This would also contradict wired's assertion that a superconducting version of the EmDrive, would...not require energy just to hold things up.
And I'm sorry I cannot agree with your assertion that this kind of research takes away from 'real' space exploration. This kind of thinking ditches the whole concept of 'blue sky' research and assumes that we know everything we are likely to know. Or even worse, that only 'large teams' can actually deliver advances. Which, of course, we know to be simply not true.
Do we have to understand it? What if we put one in space, and it propels a satellite? At that point it can't possibly be experimental error. I agree we should try to understand it. Understanding things advances science. But so does engineering things, and using things, even when we can't yet understand them.until we understand it
You're not wrong at all! I just... really wanna fuckin' know.