EM Drive Developments Thread 1

[Stormbringer]

Well it's appeared again.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

This is the main link.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

Anyone notice Harold 'warp drive' White is one of the authors on this?

and Paul March. of Woodward Mach principle fame.

woohoo!

[Elmar Moelzer]

It is at rest compared to the test device.

Exactly, it is NOT being accelerated with the thruster.

[JohnFornaro]

I wouldn't dream of posting here....

[IslandPlaya]

I wouldn't dream of posting here....

I can understand the skepticism...
However the experimenters are all NASA scientists.
What is the problem? are you a better scientist John F? Or do you think the authors should be stripped of their NASA posts?
Maybe we should calm down and investigate further?
Heavens!

[QuantumG]

Well, clearly, if they're NASA scientists they couldn't possibly be wrong. 

[Robotbeat]

I happen to be a "NASA scientist" and a physicist, and I think it's (unprintable). I'm not saying that in any sort of official capacity. But really, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard P. Feynman

Also, just because someone is skeptical of someone's results (or that they prove out to be wrong) doesn't mean you think they should be fired! If that was the standard, we'd all be fired at some point.

[Robotbeat]

It's important to realize this is a technical report, NOT a published journal article. If they got this published in, say, Physical Review Letters, then we've got something potentially interesting.

[ncb1397]

Every generation has thought to themselves that they have figured out most everything there is to know or discover and each successive generation has been proven wrong. We must admit to ourselves that the unknown unknowns could be a vast expanse and relatively speaking, we are simply a couple short millenia and a very short distance past smashing rocks together to get fire.

[QuantumG]

Every generation has thought to themselves that the previous generation is a bunch of stick-in-the-muds who should have a more open mind, waxing philosophical about what might be, and then failed to produce anything new until they adopted a skeptical mindset.. thus becoming the next generation of stick-in-the-muds.

We're not skeptical because we think we know it all.. we're skeptical because it works.

[Robotbeat]

Sure. But Occam's Razor and Bayesian statistics (there's a strong prior, here) suggests the most likely explanation is some sort of screw up. Same deal with that ostensibly faster than light neutrino thing of yesteryear.

[sanman]

Is NASA the only one who can test things? Surely this is a matter for major laboratories and university research teams to take a look at - even if only to issue a definitive disproof.

[CriX]

I know very little about this, but it doesn't seem to claim free energy.  Sonny describes the "q thruster" as being essentially like a water propeller, except pushing against vacuum virtual particles.... which sounds plausible... to these foolish ears.  It's definitely disconcerting that even their null device produced "thrust" though. 

[Robotbeat]

I know very little about this, but it doesn't seem to claim free energy.  Sonny describes the "q thruster" as being essentially like a water propeller, except pushing against vacuum virtual particles.... which sounds plausible... to these foolish ears.  It's definitely disconcerting that even their null device produced "thrust" though.

The end result for these propellantless propulsion devices is free energy, though.

[MP99]

Manual frequency control was required throughout the test. Thrust was observed on both test
articles, even though one of the test articles was designed with the expectation that it would not produce
thrust. Specifically, one test article contained internal physical modifications that were designed to produce
thrust, while the other did not (with the latter being referred to as the “null” test article).

This looks like an issue to me that indicates a problem with their setup. Also, if I interpret their video on vimeo correctly, then their test setup has the problem that their power supply is in a different reference frame. From what I remember from previous discussions on the topic, that may distort the results:

Can you explain more about the power supply being in a different reference frame?
Surely it is not. It is at rest compared to the test device.

If the PSU experiences an equal but opposite thrust while bolted down to the desk, then no one would notice, but it would invalidate it as a thruster.

Cheers, Martin

[Star One]

Is NASA the only one who can test things? Surely this is a matter for major laboratories and university research teams to take a look at - even if only to issue a definitive disproof.

I assume because the scientific establishment don't want to know for whatever reason, which too me knowing the history of how things can come from left field is perhaps not so good? From a theoretical viewpoint it would be quite interesting if there did turn out to be something in it because by the looks of it would require some re-thinking of certain areas of theory.

[kerlc]

Could it be possible that this is merely another open system, like solar sails?

[Lee Jay]

Since this was done in air, could it be this effect, which is real but unremarkable?

[ChrisWilson68]

Is NASA the only one who can test things? Surely this is a matter for major laboratories and university research teams to take a look at - even if only to issue a definitive disproof.

I assume because the scientific establishment don't want to know for whatever reason, which too me knowing the history of how things can come from left field is perhaps not so good? From a theoretical viewpoint it would be quite interesting if there did turn out to be something in it because by the looks of it would require some re-thinking of certain areas of theory.

Right, the "scientific establishment" don't want to know.  Because we all know the "scientific establishment" is a hive mind that makes collective decisions.  It's definitely not hundreds of thousands of individuals who have a love of knowledge and desire to find out about the world we live in.  It can't possibly be that those hundreds of thousands of individuals in dozens of countries are free to do whatever research they want to.

And it's just not possible that reputable scientists aren't spending their time on this because they honestly believe that it would be a waste of their time, and that they have the education, experience, and intelligence to tell science from pseudo-science.

[Star One]

Is NASA the only one who can test things? Surely this is a matter for major laboratories and university research teams to take a look at - even if only to issue a definitive disproof.

I assume because the scientific establishment don't want to know for whatever reason, which too me knowing the history of how things can come from left field is perhaps not so good? From a theoretical viewpoint it would be quite interesting if there did turn out to be something in it because by the looks of it would require some re-thinking of certain areas of theory.

Right, the "scientific establishment" don't want to know.  Because we all know the "scientific establishment" is a hive mind that makes collective decisions.  It's definitely not hundreds of thousands of individuals who have a love of knowledge and desire to find out about the world we live in.  It can't possibly be that those hundreds of thousands of individuals in dozens of countries are free to do whatever research they want to.

And it's just not possible that reputable scientists aren't spending their time on this because they honestly believe that it would be a waste of their time, and that they have the education, experience, and intelligence to tell science from pseudo-science.

Yeah the same scientific establishment that spent so long saying oh no there is nothing like plate tectonics, the Big Bang or lead in fuel actually causing health effects. I bet you could come up with plenty of examples usually ending with whoops we were wrong & in fact the mavericks were right.

[ChrisWilson68]

Is NASA the only one who can test things? Surely this is a matter for major laboratories and university research teams to take a look at - even if only to issue a definitive disproof.

I assume because the scientific establishment don't want to know for whatever reason, which too me knowing the history of how things can come from left field is perhaps not so good? From a theoretical viewpoint it would be quite interesting if there did turn out to be something in it because by the looks of it would require some re-thinking of certain areas of theory.

Right, the "scientific establishment" don't want to know.  Because we all know the "scientific establishment" is a hive mind that makes collective decisions.  It's definitely not hundreds of thousands of individuals who have a love of knowledge and desire to find out about the world we live in.  It can't possibly be that those hundreds of thousands of individuals in dozens of countries are free to do whatever research they want to.

And it's just not possible that reputable scientists aren't spending their time on this because they honestly believe that it would be a waste of their time, and that they have the education, experience, and intelligence to tell science from pseudo-science.

Yeah the same scientific establishment that spent so long saying oh no there is nothing like plate tectonics, the Big Bang or lead in fuel actually causing health effects. I bet you could come up with plenty of examples usually ending with whoops we were wrong & in fact the mavericks were right.

Those examples you gave are all cases where there was inconclusive evidence at the time and robust scientific debate.  None of it was considered pseudo-science.  It wasn't remotely like the scientific attitude toward the EmDrive and Sonny White's theories.

Plate tectonics, the Big Bang theory, and health effects of lead were all cases of scientific theory evolving to encompass new evidence.  The EmDrive and White's theories are the opposite -- they put the theory first and then go looking for evidence afterwards.  In both cases, the theories claim to be consequences of existing theories in physics, but reputable physicists say that in fact they come from misunderstandings of current theories.