Given that we're discussing an effect that would overturn a great deal of established physics if substantiated, demonstration of effect at some margin beyond noise floor would be an appropriate criteria. The particular mechanism by which effect is generated should be irrelevant for the prize, beyond taking appropriate measure to eliminate a false signal. It should be possible to treat the complete test device inside isolation enclosure as a black box into which is fed measured DC power to produce thrust. Isolation and measurement method must rule out electromagnetic, convective, and stiction artifacts.Needless to say, if I were a judge of such a prize I would be very skeptical.
Based on test data and theoretical model development, the expected thrust to power for initial flight applications is expected to be in the 0.4 newton per kilowatt electric (N/kWe) range..
Cubesat.
It seems to me one problem with offering a prize for confirming an actual effect is that there will likely always be some environmental problem with any individual test that could cast doubt on the measurements. Confirmation will come from a preponderance of independent tests arriving at the same conclusions. In which case, there's no single person to award the prize to (except perhaps Roger Shawyer?)Personally I think if you're keen to fund Emdrive research, a better way would be to set up a gofundme for the replicators. Then all the people here and on reddit that are interested in funding research can do so. You can then have the replicators apply to have funds distributed to purchase equipment for them to use.
I propose two challenges that are easy enough to judge.Challenge #1: One million dollars is awarded to the first team that develops a mathematical proof of how and why the EM Drive operates. I want to see "Q.E.D." a the end of the proof, and not "and then a miracle happens..."Challenge #2: Ten million dollars is awarded to the first team that floats a working EM drive into an auditorium (without irradiating the audience).Bonus Milestone Challenge!: US$50,000 is awarded to the first team that demonstrates a working EMdrive with a measured thrust signal 3 standard deviations, screw it, 4 standard deviations, above the predicted noise levels.
BIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.
Quote from: TheTraveller on 05/13/2015 04:48 pmBIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.Yes, and if you approach this from another perspective, if it is already dark, this will force it back into the light. I commend you on your openness and altruism. Please help us design some top notch challenge criteria.This is an opportunity for skeptics to chime in with some seriously impressive "put up or shut up" challenges which would be worthy of recognition if successfully met. I know this site is home to the best of the best who know their stuff.
{snip}Is there a milestone here that is compelling? Our most powerful objective is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is something both real and novel here. Hanleyp identified what I think are the lower bound requirements: "Isolation and measurement method must rule out electromagnetic, convective, and stiction artifacts." It seems to me that while a vacuum would be interesting, this actually introduces unnecessary cost and complication. I could easily be wrong, but its my understanding that for thrust > X, *no* existing contributory cause (electromagnetic, convective, stiction, etc.) is an adequate explanation for the phenomenon. It is only because we are currently operating in a micro-power environment that we need to use a vacuum chamber (etc.) to isolate out various alternative explanations. {snip}
It seems that the available space for a challenge is between where we might expect the Eagleworks team to be by the end of the summer and the "practical edge" - the farthest that we could reasonably hope that someone could get with $1M - $2M in investment and 18 months of work. Is there a milestone here that is compelling? Our most powerful objective is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is something both real and novel here. {snip}
If we set up a gofundme to collect money to fund the replicators attempts, would you (@Mulletron and @TheTraveller) accept money from that? I don't want to beat a dead horse but it just seems like a gofundme campaign is the appropriate level of crowdfunding support at this time. Plus it gives us the added benefit of seeing immediate results. Then later, if we decide things have progressed to the point where an X-Prize would help spark the next level of research, the gofundme account could provide the seed money for that prize. It literally would just take a few clicks to get set up and we can go back to planning X-Prize criteria while we collect money to fund your current experiments. That is, if you're interested in that.Or as reddit would say: