Things that are not useful skepticism:1. Saying that the EMDrive does not work because there is not yet a generally accepted theory of how it works. Yes, we know this. This is why builders are making the thing and trying to figure out how to poke it with the correct stick to get data. There are other odds and ends of physics that do not have a generally accepted explanation yet, they just are not as high profile and intuitively useful as the EMDrive.2. Suggesting that all the experimental results to date are null because they did not produce pounds of thrust. While not conclusive, the reported results to date do seem to exist that something - might - be going on. Don't try to redefine everything as a null result unless you have a detailed understanding of the tests and can point clearly at quantifiable issues with them. By the criteria used by many of the trolls utilizing this strategy Ion engines don't work either.3. Claiming the EMDrive is a free energy device. Before you do this, go look at the monograph on Dr. Woodward's website explaining why the most common (and incorrect) version of this claim would render any simple machine a free energy device.
dustinthewind,What do you mean it "...doesn't appear to use reaction mass to speed up."?The guy obviously grabs it and twists it with his hand. That means that as the device spins up it changes the rotation of the earth. Action/reaction and conservation of momentum is preserved. This would be made obvious if he were to do this while standing on a table that was free to rotate. Then you could see the table start to rotate in one direction as the device rotates in the other. The whole system is just storing energy in counter rotating flywheels that accelerate by reacting against each other.
All scepticism is useful. If you claim to have "new physics", don't be angry when it is held to the standards of y'know, PHYSICS.The EMDrive is a free energy device. And almost certainly a phoney-baloney one.
The EMDrive is a free energy device.
I mean that thee is no propellant expelled.
It doesn't lose mass to increase its velocity. (like other propellant-less systems) It could use a motor instead of a hand and a force sensitive computer to do the torquing and the power could come from solar panels.
A similar idea was proposed with the EM drive and it was stated that if the EM drive could increase the spin that at a particular velocity it would become over unity I think either because it wasn't expelling mass or it was claimed a constant force of thrust.
There were arguments against there being a constant force for thrust.
Such an old post on the EM drive thread I am not sure where to find it again. Later arguments more recent were that for a photon drive (laser) that it becomes over unity at the speed of light. This device would obviously provide more torque than a laser. I would agree it is just a power storage device and doubt that it would become over-unity. Obviously it should take 4 times the energy to double the velocity at lower velocities. 1/2m(2*v)^2=4*E. So why not the same for a rotating EM drive if it works?
Quote from: simonbp on 11/29/2015 04:43 amThe EMDrive is a free energy device. No it isn't. It may tap into a new as yet unused energy reservoir. A valve that opens the waterflow from a dam into a turbine/generator set is not a free energy device if it takes less energy to operate than the generator produces.
3. Is perfectly valid. If we're going to start developing new physics (which EM Drive clearly relies on), there's no particular reason why it couldn't produce "free" energy (even if that energy comes from pushing/pulling from distant starfield or some other handwavy justification). I and others who actually know some freshman undergraduate physics don't buy Woodward's handwaving away of this.If EM Drive works, then it is possible to extract energy from it. A direct consequence of physics....Woodward doesn't go far enough. Embrace the ability to extract energy from it!...but I know why he tries to avoid that consequence of EM Drive. It's a sociological/psychological reason: It's because "free energy" and "perpetual motion machine" will immediately turn off a lot of people to the idea.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 11/24/2015 11:48 pm3. Is perfectly valid. If we're going to start developing new physics (which EM Drive clearly relies on), there's no particular reason why it couldn't produce "free" energy (even if that energy comes from pushing/pulling from distant starfield or some other handwavy justification). I and others who actually know some freshman undergraduate physics don't buy Woodward's handwaving away of this.If EM Drive works, then it is possible to extract energy from it. A direct consequence of physics....Woodward doesn't go far enough. Embrace the ability to extract energy from it!...but I know why he tries to avoid that consequence of EM Drive. It's a sociological/psychological reason: It's because "free energy" and "perpetual motion machine" will immediately turn off a lot of people to the idea.I'm not really sure that I can agree with your statement about having to invent new physics. This could be a result of know quantum physics interacting on the general physics scale.
How it works is like a swing.
Quote from: dustinthewind on 11/26/2015 08:05 pmHow it works is like a swing.It may be that the analogy of the swing is appropriate for some sense of understanding, within a great many limitations. The tire swing on a tree works because there is "action at a distance"; the rope connects the swing to a tree. The Woodward drive may also depend on "action at a distance" in that it purports to connect to the rest of the universe via inertia.Carry on.
We would have to know what it does before we can decide what is needed to explain it.1) If it has thrust without propellant then it violates COM and needs new physics.
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 12/05/2015 01:08 pmQuote from: dustinthewind on 11/26/2015 08:05 pmHow it works is like a swing.It may be that the analogy of the swing is appropriate for some sense of understanding, within a great many limitations. The tire swing on a tree works because there is "action at a distance"; the rope connects the swing to a tree. The Woodward drive may also depend on "action at a distance" in that it purports to connect to the rest of the universe via inertia.Carry on.Yes, some new effect that directly connects to distant objects would preserve conservation of momentum, but it definitely WOULD count as new physics.
3. Claiming the EMDrive is a free energy device. Before you do this, go look at the monograph on Dr. Woodward's website explaining why the most common (and incorrect) version of this claim would render any simple machine a free energy device.