Author Topic: EM Drive Developments - related to space flight applications - Thread 5  (Read 1316002 times)

Offline Tetrakis

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I'm not an expert on this subject. However, since I have worked with high vacuum systems, I do know that there are still many avenues for tests (even in vacuum) to fail. High heat flux on surfaces (such as dielectrics) will inevitably liberate gases in a very high vacuum, which should be considered as ballistic mass emissions. Besides this in the image you link I don't see an error analysis.

I think that the consensus in your thread is that the eagleworks data is exciting but insufficient for publication or recognition by the scientific community, and I would agree. That's why you haven't seen a Nature or Science paper yet, which you surely would have by now if these results were ironclad. The response seems to have been that tests should be run by enthusiasts in less well-controlled conditions, which will do nothing to help determine whether or not an EMdrive effect exists at all. My point is that if you want to really know the answer to that question, you should at the very least perform your experiments to the same level as Eagleworks or better. How is that considered controversial?

I'll also point out that I'm quite a patient person. As an example I worked for three years on a chemical problem before obtaining publishable results. Science should be done right, rather than be done now, if you hope to get anything tractable or credible out of your experiments.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2015 03:08 am by Tetrakis »

Offline TheTraveller

I'm not an expert on this subject. However, since I have worked with high vacuum systems, I do know that there are still many avenues for tests (even in vacuum) to fail. High heat flux on surfaces (such as dielectrics) will inevitably liberate gases in a very high vacuum, which should be considered as ballistic mass emissions. Besides this in the image you link I don't see an error analysis.

I think that the consensus in your thread is that the eagleworks data is exciting but insufficient for publication or recognition by the scientific community, and I would agree. That's why you haven't seen a Nature or Science paper yet, which you surely would have by now if these results were ironclad. The response seems to have been that tests should be run by enthusiasts in less well-controlled conditions, which will do nothing to help determine whether or not an EMdrive effect exists at all. My point is that if you want to really know the answer to that question, you should at the very least perform your experiments to the same level as Eagleworks or better. How is that considered controversial?

I'll also point out that I'm quite a patient person. As an example I worked for three years on a chemical problem before obtaining publishable results. Science should be done right, rather than be done now, if you hope to get anything tractable or credible out of your experiments.

So you have no explaination of how slow thermal effects could generate rapid horizontal rise and fall time Force signals?

And yes we need more experimental data and more experimental data in vac, which I believe Paul said Eagleworks are working on.

My work is to show the relationship between power supply delivered energy and the increasing kinetic energy of my rotary test setup during sustained periods of continuous EMDrive acceleration. Here I mean for periods of around 10 minutes, acceletating my test rig from stop to around 120 rpm and being totally cordless and on board battery powered.
It Is Time For The EmDrive To Come Out Of The Shadows

Offline Tetrakis

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Not just more, but better data is needed. And that means data collected only in very high vacuum, under highly controlled conditions, equal or better to the NASA setup. Unless the effect (IMO not currently supported by the evidence) is very large, no data collected in the air is worth any serious consideration due to intractable thermal effects (there are too many to list here). Any test done in the air will need to be done in vacuum later anyway, so experimenters should just bite the bullet and do everything in vacuum from the beginning.

Thermal emission of gases from polymers and other materials can likely produce asymettric forces in any direction, since the hot spots generated by the microwaves won't be symmetrically distributed in a dielectric material. The reason I bring this up is that in the best eagleworks run, a dielectric material was used and this effect was likely not accounted for. Ultra-high vacuum systems use a minimum of "soft" parts and those that are used are not normally put under high thermal loads. There are many pitfalls when making these kinds of measurements and to my knowledge the available data from NASA doesn't exactly come with a detailed "supporting information" section including complete descriptions of how the runs were performed and how all gas effects were eliminated (were the test rigs baked under vacuum prior to experimental runs? How were the parts handled, with gloves or without? etc.).

Offline Unentitled

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Ideals surely have their place when considering experimental verification and your input is also sure to shape future considerations. Acknowledging the patience aspect it would be prudent to acknowledge that such experiments will follow?

Within a limited testing environment is an environment still worth testing and all that jazz.

I thank you for sharing your thoughts and do not find them unwelcoming.

These tests are meant to eliminate doubts whether data shows true/false/null. I am interested in any specific criticisms of the current data you would care to elaborate on, including an expansion on the levels of asymmetrical horizontal forces may be expected for thermal involvement (materials, machines, environment: air, other elements?)

Thanks for sharing all.

Offline Mezzenile

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After five threads there is no statistically significant data set supporting the "EMDrive" hypothesis. More than 50% of posts in this thread now come from three members, all conducting their own amateur experiments. Interest has plummeted exponentially in this thread and on Reddit. How does any of this relate to spaceflight?
Hopefully you did not live at the time of Newton ! ;) He would never have been allowed to share the conclusions of his experiments. You imagine  : a totally uncontrolled apple falling from a tree, without any knowledge from the weather conditions, with the speed and direction of the wind totally unknown, and with a total ignorance of the possible actions of flying insects or birds ...  :)

You are certainly more a quality control integrist than somebody animated by a true scientific spirit.

Offline SeeShells

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I'm not an expert on this subject. However, since I have worked with high vacuum systems, I do know that there are still many avenues for tests (even in vacuum) to fail. High heat flux on surfaces (such as dielectrics) will inevitably liberate gases in a very high vacuum, which should be considered as ballistic mass emissions. Besides this in the image you link I don't see an error analysis.

I think that the consensus in your thread is that the eagleworks data is exciting but insufficient for publication or recognition by the scientific community, and I would agree. That's why you haven't seen a Nature or Science paper yet, which you surely would have by now if these results were ironclad. The response seems to have been that tests should be run by enthusiasts in less well-controlled conditions, which will do nothing to help determine whether or not an EMdrive effect exists at all. My point is that if you want to really know the answer to that question, you should at the very least perform your experiments to the same level as Eagleworks or better. How is that considered controversial?

I'll also point out that I'm quite a patient person. As an example I worked for three years on a chemical problem before obtaining publishable results. Science should be done right, rather than be done now, if you hope to get anything tractable or credible out of your experiments.
It simply cannot be done at the level your asking for with the budgets the DYI Builders have to work with and even if we could do a build with the proper facilities the data would still come under fire.  Just like the tests NASA EagleWorks did last year and they did test in vacuum under very controlled conditions. It's a very controversial effect that seems to defy laws of physics as we know them and if it didn't come under fire I'd be very surprised.

I need to point out the testing you are suggesting in high vacuum will bring its own set of issues, amplifying some thermal effects 3-4 times versus testing in ambient air conditions. It's not a slam dunk solution. It is a wiser route for DYIers to go by testing in ambient air and account for the thermal issues as best we can and hopefully when data sets come from EagleWorks or another lab or university be dovetailed together to produce a clearer picture of what is happening.

I appreciate your candor and your willingness to help point out what is lacking in the DYI tests, we are very aware of it. My company built and designed equipment that  went into Clean Room Fabs for producing not only semiconductors and optics but medical equipment, some of our machines are used in shaping the titanium wires that go into making heart stents. The rigorous requirements for our equipment we provided could be considered on a par with the testing facilities you are describing.

Funding is sorely needed to do this right and it's not a great deal to invest in testing this abnormality. First steps are needed to gain data that is useful, data the can be pulled from the noise of the testing environment regardless if it's in a vacuum or in ambient air. Then maybe funding can happen for some real world class testing. This is my hope.

Shell

Offline SeeShells

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A question - I'm sure that it has been answered here somewhere but I don't remember the details.

In which direction does the speed of light accelerate in the EM drive cavity? That is, are the EM waves moving faster as they approach the large end, or the small end of the frustum?  I think it must be the large end because that fits with the idea that the waves interact with the QV and drag the virtual particles (EM disturbances in the vacuum) along with them, accelerating them toward the large end. And of course, just as in Paul March's square dance analogy, the virtual particles disappear into the QV before they do anything more than suck momentum from the EM waves of the frustum. On the other hand, I could be confused about the reaction-action-reaction phenomenon. Maybe its a triple dance step.

This is really a pretty simple answer to the question of "What is the cause of the thrust?"
Which Simulation would you think is causing thrust?

Added:

It's not that simple because both actions of this simulation can seemingly lead to thrust, it depends what theory you adhere to as to what causes thrust.
This is the same simulation run, but reversed. You can see why I decided to do two different frustum excitements in my experiment.

Busy day today.

Shell

Added. I believe this last is EW's design but with the antennas in the small end. I don't have the loop in the big end simulation.

Shell - We have ran enough simulations and members of this forum have evaluated enough EM wave propagation theory to understand that a very tiny antenna source down in the corner of the big end can not cause a symmetrically propagating resonant wave to appear within the limited start-up time available for meep computation/simulation.

I haven't made that run but I will do so now that you bring it up. I expect to see a very skewed wave pattern, what do you expect?

Oh, and a simulation problem. Paul reported that he rotated the loop antenna to maximize the S11 return loss. Is that to be simulated by rotating the antenna to maximize Q?
I think you're quite correct, in we will see a rotating Betty Crocker blender of wave actions, very similar to the simulation of the Poynting vectors in the Yang-Shell that Dr. Rodal provided.  I suspect even after rotating the loop antenna the rotational effect will still be there.  Even now it makes little sense to me how thrust was gained from this configuration.

Shell

Offline glennfish

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Tetrakis does raise an interesting question about vacuum systems albeit his "cheap" solution is about $7k.

SeaShells notes the high cost of running in a vacuum.  In a previous life I was a member of AVS and also lived the life of making vacuum systems.  In fact, my first college part time job was in the chemistry department repairing mechanical pumps.  Quite oily as I recall.

To the Point:

This community shares a lot of technical and engineering ideas.  Perhaps a subtopic could be how to create an appropriate sized vacuum chamber very inexpensively.

For example, jb industries makes a nice line of inexpensive pumps starting in the $250 range.  The one I have, bottom of the line, easily pulls a .1 torr vacuum. 

A 3 gal degassing chamber on ebay starts around $100. 

What issues would we have to resolve to provide VAS (Vacuum As a Service) to this community? 

possible issues to resolve:

How big a chamber is required for the DIY community?  How many and what type of electrical feeds are required into the chamber?    The costs in my mind's eye are in the chamber requirements.

Even if the costs were too high for a single DIY project, could this community build a chamber that would support multiple projects that could be shipped as needed to support testing?

Would having a VAS available change DIY project designs?
« Last Edit: 10/11/2015 12:28 pm by glennfish »

Offline Tellmeagain

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...Just like the tests NASA EagleWorks did last year and they did test in vacuum under very controlled conditions. It's a very controversial effect that seems to defy laws of physics as we know them and if it didn't come under fire I'd be very surprised.
...
Shell

No, in their published paper (July 2014) the experiment was not in vacuum. They probably did the vacuum experiment in April 2015, but we have never seen publications about it.

Offline Tetrakis

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To eliminate gas effects it seems a pressure lower than one microtorr is needed. Such pressures are routinely obtained in large vessels in industry, but need both a roughing pump and a turbomolecular pump/oil diffusion pump (with at least a dry ice/acetone trap) in series and, importantly, a lack of exposed soft parts. UHV metal-metal gaskets would probably be the best and cheapest join type, but cajon or swagelok fittings / welded glass would also work.


I need to point out the testing you are suggesting in high vacuum will bring its own set of issues, amplifying some thermal effects 3-4 times versus testing in ambient air conditions. It's not a slam dunk solution. It is a wiser route for DYIers to go by testing in ambient air and account for the thermal issues as best we can and hopefully when data sets come from EagleWorks or another lab or university be dovetailed together to produce a clearer picture of what is happening.

I strongly disagree. The key to a good experimental design is that it should always provide a firm yes/no answer to a hypothesis. A good experiment should be thought of as a well phrased question posed to Nature. So far no experiments have really met this criteria because in every case, spurious effects like outgassing, convection, ambient air currents, EM interference with measuring devices, electrical arcing/discharge interfere with the yes/no answer and render it a maybe/maybe answer. This kind of design is good for maintaining hope that the effect might be real but bad for actually getting an answer to the question.

When you do experiments, the null hypothesis has to be given a fighting chance. I just haven't seen it yet in any of these threads, which is why in my first post on this thread I pointed out that there are no "significant results" yet. Do science like you mean for it to pass the standard of peer-review. Anything less just gives more maybe/maybe answers that only serve to spread confusion. Anything less than "my EMDrive is jumping off the table" should be considered support of the null hypothesis if the experiment is conducted in air.


After five threads there is no statistically significant data set supporting the "EMDrive" hypothesis. More than 50% of posts in this thread now come from three members, all conducting their own amateur experiments. Interest has plummeted exponentially in this thread and on Reddit. How does any of this relate to spaceflight?
Hopefully you did not live at the time of Newton ! ;) He would never have been allowed to share the conclusions of his experiments. You imagine  : a totally uncontrolled apple falling from a tree, without any knowledge from the weather conditions, with the speed and direction of the wind totally unknown, and with a total ignorance of the possible actions of flying insects or birds ...  :)

You are certainly more a quality control integrist than somebody animated by a true scientific spirit.

Not to speak badly of quality control integrists, but I am a scientist "animated by a true scientific spirit". High-quality science is the only good science.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2015 04:18 pm by Tetrakis »

Offline SeeShells

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...Just like the tests NASA EagleWorks did last year and they did test in vacuum under very controlled conditions. It's a very controversial effect that seems to defy laws of physics as we know them and if it didn't come under fire I'd be very surprised.
...
Shell

No, in their published paper (July 2014) the experiment was not in vacuum. They probably did the vacuum experiment in April 2015, but we have never seen publications about it.
In this report they talk about a vacuum chamber.


Offline Tetrakis

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In that document, the following statement is made:

Quote
There appears to be a clear dependency between thrust magnitude and the presence of some sort of dielectric RF resonator in the thrust chamber. The geometry, location, and material properties of this resonator must be  valuated using numerous COMSOLŪ iterations to arrive at a viable thruster solution. We performed some very early evaluations without the dielectric resonator (TE012 mode at 2168 MHz, with power levels up to ~30 watts) and measured no significant net thrust.

Where do they account for outgassing from a big block of plastic under high thermal load?

Offline Tellmeagain

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...Just like the tests NASA EagleWorks did last year and they did test in vacuum under very controlled conditions. It's a very controversial effect that seems to defy laws of physics as we know them and if it didn't come under fire I'd be very surprised.
...
Shell

No, in their published paper (July 2014) the experiment was not in vacuum. They probably did the vacuum experiment in April 2015, but we have never seen publications about it.
In this report they talk about a vacuum chamber.

Yes, this is the July 2014 paper, published on AIAA conference in Ohio. They talked about vacuum chamber but the experiment was done with air, not in vacuum. Read it carefully and you will find out.

Offline Blaine

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So, something just occurred to me.  Now, keep in mind, I don't have a degree, yet.  So, I was just thinking about some mechanisms that may be involved.  I wasn't thinking what happens when gamma radiation interacts with matter like copper, with photons like microwaves, and with air molecules.  I'd like to think about each kind of interaction separately.  Then, maybe something will allow for a combination of interactions of these types to produce thrust; by acting together in some way.  I don't know, I'm just thinking some kind of electro-static ionization due to bombardment might be why we get thrust.  I could just be imagining things because I just watched a sci-fi show.  Who knows.
Weird Science!

Offline Mezzenile

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Tetrakis does raise an interesting question about vacuum systems albeit his "cheap" solution is about $7k.

SeaShells notes the high cost of running in a vacuum.  In a previous life I was a member of AVS and also lived the life of making vacuum systems.  In fact, my first college part time job was in the chemistry department repairing mechanical pumps.  Quite oily as I recall.

To the Point:

This community shares a lot of technical and engineering ideas.  Perhaps a subtopic could be how to create an appropriate sized vacuum chamber very inexpensively.

For example, jb industries makes a nice line of inexpensive pumps starting in the $250 range.  The one I have, bottom of the line, easily pulls a .1 torr vacuum. 

A 3 gal degassing chamber on ebay starts around $100. 

What issues would we have to resolve to provide VAS (Vacuum As a Service) to this community? 

possible issues to resolve:

How big a chamber is required for the DIY community?  How many and what type of electrical feeds are required into the chamber?    The costs in my mind's eye are in the chamber requirements.

Even if the costs were too high for a single DIY project, could this community build a chamber that would support multiple projects that could be shipped as needed to support testing?

Would having a VAS available change DIY project designs?
James Woodward who investigates both theoretically and experimentally a mass variation based  exotic propulsion system, has its own little vaccum chamber apparently made of transparent plexiglass : http://boingboing.net/2014/11/24/the-quest-for-a-reactionless-s.html.
Why not to ask him manufacturing/operation details of his small chamber ?   

Offline rfmwguy

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In that document, the following statement is made:

Quote
There appears to be a clear dependency between thrust magnitude and the presence of some sort of dielectric RF resonator in the thrust chamber. The geometry, location, and material properties of this resonator must be  valuated using numerous COMSOLŪ iterations to arrive at a viable thruster solution. We performed some very early evaluations without the dielectric resonator (TE012 mode at 2168 MHz, with power levels up to ~30 watts) and measured no significant net thrust.

Where do they account for outgassing from a big block of plastic under high thermal load?
I asked the same question early on. If you do your homework, you'll find outgassing to be relatively uniform around a material, thus not contributing to any vector significantly.

The perfect experiment does not exist. It is folly to assume you or anyone else can design one. The ultimate proof will not be ground-based, but space based. While your patience is lacking, many of us realize this is the very early stages of development, so none of us are expecting perfect results with our modest resources.

I am surprised you do not understand development timelines and appear to be willing to discount results without further research or effort. No matter, research will go on without you and our hope is we can clear the rocket engine brick wall.

If we cannot, mankind is destined to live and die on this planet when an entire universe awaits. What a sad resignation that would be.

Offline Tetrakis

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In that document, the following statement is made:

Quote
There appears to be a clear dependency between thrust magnitude and the presence of some sort of dielectric RF resonator in the thrust chamber. The geometry, location, and material properties of this resonator must be  valuated using numerous COMSOLŪ iterations to arrive at a viable thruster solution. We performed some very early evaluations without the dielectric resonator (TE012 mode at 2168 MHz, with power levels up to ~30 watts) and measured no significant net thrust.

Where do they account for outgassing from a big block of plastic under high thermal load?
I asked the same question early on. If you do your homework, you'll find outgassing to be relatively uniform around a material, thus not contributing to any vector significantly.

The perfect experiment does not exist. It is folly to assume you or anyone else can design one. The ultimate proof will not be ground-based, but space based. While your patience is lacking, many of us realize this is the very early stages of development, so none of us are expecting perfect results with our modest resources.

I am surprised you do not understand development timelines and appear to be willing to discount results without further research or effort. No matter, research will go on without you and our hope is we can clear the rocket engine brick wall.

If we cannot, mankind is destined to live and die on this planet when an entire universe awaits. What a sad resignation that would be.

I'm not trying to advocate for the perfect at the expense of the good. Tests in the air are pointless and serve only to perpetuate hope in experimental artifacts. And as I keep saying, I'm not impatient, I just have high standards.

I also did a BOTE calculation and the measured force is equivalent to about 0.7 microtorr of surface pressure in the NASA tests, which is lower than the 1 microtorr they say they achieve in their vacuum chamber. They gently warm their entire vacuum chamber from the outside, which provides no guarantee that a big piece of plastic in their UHV chamber even approaches its operating temperature during tests. Furthermore the dielectric heating will not be perfectly even but will be asymmetrically localized on the surface. My point is that only a truly tiny amount of outgassing is needed for the very best NASA data to be worthless. That the presence of a gas-sponge in the middle of the device is required for any measured force is very suspicious.

I'm describing, of course, the gold standard of EMDrive data.


For what its worth, I don't think anyone should build their own high vacuum chamber/setup. These things are expensive when done properly and would likely not be used enough to justify the cost. Look into renting time on an institutional chamber.

Offline Paul451

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The perfect experiment does not exist. It is folly to assume you or anyone else can design one.

It's not about the "perfect experiment". It's that there are so many confounding factors that are in the same micro-newton range as the expected positive results.

If you were building a device that could lift itself and 5kg to the ceiling of your workshop, you'd only need a spring scale from your local bait'n'tackle to measure the force being produced at the accuracy required at this level. You wouldn't need a "perfect experiment" that measures every breath of air down to the micro-newton. The only confounding factors (unless there's a tornado in your lab) is whether you are cheating and using magicians' tricks - and that is easily solved by independent replication.

But when the heating of the air around the device can produce uplift larger than the desired effect, when visually undetectable thermal warping of the mechanism (or of the balance) may be sufficient to swamp the readings, when even current running through the power cables produces forces on the same order as those you're measuring, you are playing a vastly different game.

Unless you are capable of going beyond the level of isolation of the Eagleworks tests, you can't really add anything to the field. I mean, it sounds like ridiculous fun and I wish all of you success, but you aren't doing "research".

No matter, research will go on without you and our hope is we can clear the rocket engine brick wall.
If we cannot, mankind is destined to live and die on this planet when an entire universe awaits. What a sad resignation that would be.

And this attitude is concerning too. You are significantly committed to finding the effect. Not just through your time and financial commitment to building a rig, but because you need it to be real.

With a big effect, a bit of psychological bias doesn't matter. It either flies or it doesn't. But with an effect as tiny and easily confused as the EMDrive, even an experimenter who is honest and genuine can subconsciously bias the results (even if just by dismissing the importance of a confounding factor; as you have with outgassing. Maybe you're right or maybe it's just wishful thinking because you know it's too hard to correct for it if it is an issue, and you already have so many things you need to keep track of.)

Put it another way: What will you do if you didn't get a positive result? Will you believe that you've successfully refuted the original claims? Or will you assume that you've made a mistake (because the effect must be real) and start fiddling with the set-up until you do get a positive response? Note that I'm not calling you a liar, or incompetent, or ungenuine, or too amateurish to be trusted. What I'm saying applies to any professional as much as it does to you, Michelle and others. Commitment-blinkers are really dangerous when playing with effects at the lowest edge of detectability.

Offline rfmwguy

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In that document, the following statement is made:

Quote
There appears to be a clear dependency between thrust magnitude and the presence of some sort of dielectric RF resonator in the thrust chamber. The geometry, location, and material properties of this resonator must be  valuated using numerous COMSOLŪ iterations to arrive at a viable thruster solution. We performed some very early evaluations without the dielectric resonator (TE012 mode at 2168 MHz, with power levels up to ~30 watts) and measured no significant net thrust.

Where do they account for outgassing from a big block of plastic under high thermal load?
I asked the same question early on. If you do your homework, you'll find outgassing to be relatively uniform around a material, thus not contributing to any vector significantly.

The perfect experiment does not exist. It is folly to assume you or anyone else can design one. The ultimate proof will not be ground-based, but space based. While your patience is lacking, many of us realize this is the very early stages of development, so none of us are expecting perfect results with our modest resources.

I am surprised you do not understand development timelines and appear to be willing to discount results without further research or effort. No matter, research will go on without you and our hope is we can clear the rocket engine brick wall.

If we cannot, mankind is destined to live and die on this planet when an entire universe awaits. What a sad resignation that would be.

I'm not trying to advocate for the perfect at the expense of the good. Tests in the air are pointless and serve only to perpetuate hope in experimental artifacts. And as I keep saying, I'm not impatient, I just have high standards.

I also did a BOTE calculation and the measured force is equivalent to about 0.7 microtorr of surface pressure in the NASA tests, which is lower than the 1 microtorr they say they achieve in their vacuum chamber. They gently warm their entire vacuum chamber from the outside, which provides no guarantee that a big piece of plastic in their UHV chamber even approaches its operating temperature during tests. Furthermore the dielectric heating will not be perfectly even but will be asymmetrically localized on the surface. My point is that only a truly tiny amount of outgassing is needed for the very best NASA data to be worthless. That the presence of a gas-sponge in the middle of the device is required for any measured force is very suspicious.

I'm describing, of course, the gold standard of EMDrive data.


For what its worth, I don't think anyone should build their own high vacuum chamber/setup. These things are expensive when done properly and would likely not be used enough to justify the cost. Look into renting time on an institutional chamber.
I disagree that ambient tests are worthless. Tracking thermal lift, tho variable, is rather linear from cold start to about 100°C in my setup. Extracting variance from linear was done. There was no dielectric and sidewalls were mesh. It was a closed system at mw freqs but open otherwise.

Like it or not, anomylous kinetic forces were detected that could not be attributed to outgassing, system noise or any other common error factors.

A true skeptic should prove claims of errors, otherwise it is a simple opinion.

Offline Prunesquallor

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And this attitude is concerning too. You are significantly committed to finding the effect. Not just through your time and financial commitment to building a rig, but because you need it to be real.


I'm not concerned that the Wright Brothers "wanted" heavier-than-air flight to be real, and therefore geared their research and development in that direction. I expect the physicists that constructed the Chicago Pile were significantly committed to proving self-sustaining nuclear fission was "real".

I would guess that experimenters are more often motivated by demonstrating something is possible, rather than it is impossible. That is human nature, and I don't see why it is so concerning to you. If the experimental apparatus and results are public and replicatable, and if publications are peer reviewed, let the dreamers to their thing.
« Last Edit: 10/11/2015 07:16 pm by Prunesquallor »
Retired, yet... not

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