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It's official: NASA's peer-reviewed EM Drive paper has finally been published

danarhea

danarhea

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danarhea said:
This drive, which could take humans to Mars in only 70 days, actually works, according to a paper which passed peer review, and has now been published. There is just one problem. The drive violates Newton's Third Law of Motion.

It's official: NASA's peer-reviewed EM Drive paper has finally been published - ScienceAlert

And here is the actual scientific article.
Click to expand...



MIGHT take humans to Mars in 70 days, and SEEMS to violate Newton's third law.... nothing is certain really, yet.
 
Existing chemical drives can take humans to Mars in 60 days using Hohmann transfer points. NERVA rockets would be even faster.

I'd like to see them create a working prototype for the EM drive first, then I'll get my hopes up.
 
danarhea said:
This drive, which could take humans to Mars in only 70 days, actually works, according to a paper which passed peer review, and has now been published. There is just one problem. The drive violates Newton's Third Law of Motion.

It's official: NASA's peer-reviewed EM Drive paper has finally been published - ScienceAlert

And here is the actual scientific article.
Click to expand...
Wow!

Thanks very much, for this.

I spent quite a bit of time working in engineering. One of my early-on project engineers would admonish new engineers:

"Don't bring me any designs that break the laws of physics"

This was a joke of course, because what he really meant was:

"Don't bring me designs that can't possibly work"

Well, it seems this changes *everything*! :2razz:
 
Bob N said:
Cool. Good news for exploring out further. I hope that they will be able to prove it physically.
Click to expand...
Unless I misunderstood the article, they have.

The got it to produce thrust in the lab in a vacuum.

That's pretty much proof-of-concept, in my book.

But yeah, they've still gotta' send it into space.
 
Chomsky said:
Unless I misunderstood the article, they have.

The got it to produce thrust in the lab in a vacuum.

That's pretty much proof-of-concept, in my book.

But yeah, they've still gotta' send it into space.
Click to expand...

Funny thing about space....Despite a lot of peoples misconceptions, its actually not a vacuum. Or should I say not the type of vacuum that we make down here. Space is actually full of particles and space dust and solar winds etc etc etc. Down here a vacuum environment is fairly sterile compared to space. So it working in one of our labs doesn't necessarily mean it will work in space. Odds are that it will judging by what I'm able to understand of this. But you're right, still gotta send it into space for the real tests.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Funny thing about space....Despite a lot of peoples misconceptions, its actually not a vacuum. Or should I say not the type of vacuum that we make down here. Space is actually full of particles and space dust and solar winds etc etc etc. Down here a vacuum environment is fairly sterile compared to space. So it working in one of our labs doesn't necessarily mean it will work in space. Odds are that it will judging by what I'm able to understand of this. But you're right, still gotta send it into space for the real tests.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

But I think the implication was that by working in a vacuum they proved proof of concept, since there was no atmosphere to leverage the thrust.
 
danarhea said:
This drive, which could take humans to Mars in only 70 days, actually works, according to a paper which passed peer review, and has now been published. There is just one problem. The drive violates Newton's Third Law of Motion.

It's official: NASA's peer-reviewed EM Drive paper has finally been published - ScienceAlert

And here is the actual scientific article.
Click to expand...

So I'm as much of a space enthusiast as anyone, probably moreso, but this paper doesn't 'prove' anything. What it shows is that a scientific team repeated the experiment, had that experiment yield some results, and wasn't yet able to explain it or rule out external factors. Since the proposed mechanism by which the EM Drive works, and what it professes to accomplish, violates basic laws of physics it requires extraordinary evidence and proof before we can really take it seriously on its face. Right now this is one small step thats been crossed, now more teams and more groups will investigate and produce their own reports. If we keep getting confirmations of some unexpected activity its a sign that this probably requires greater research.

Generally the media isn't very good at reporting scientific stories because it substitutes lower levels of scientific confidence for headlines. Remember the 'faster than light' neutrino story? It was the same thing, and after length investigation it turned out to be an error.

The moral of the story is be cautious. Always be open minded to possibilities, but be cautious.
 
Sounds cool but I am a bit skeptical about it. Before we start talking about travelling to Mars, other teams need to repeat this experiment and if they will get similar results this phenomenon will have to to get a proper explanation.


Fallen.
 
Chomsky said:
Unless I misunderstood the article, they have.

The got it to produce thrust in the lab in a vacuum.

That's pretty much proof-of-concept, in my book.

But yeah, they've still gotta' send it into space.
Click to expand...
Indeed, Sir. The one that goes to space is the big physical test. ;)
 
Much more interesting about this, in my view, is figuring out why it works. The experiment produced thrust, so whether it works as a space-drive or not, while an interesting question, doesn't answer everything. The authors of the paper (as I understand what they said) suggest that one explanation is that the DeBroglie/Bohn interpretation is correct. If so, that'll be huge. I suspect, however, that someone will figure out an account based on the Copenhagen interpretation. I guess we'll see.

If the DeBroglie/Bohm interpretation is correct, then that will have some far-reaching implications. For one thing, it would mean that the universe is radically non-local. Bell's inequality rules out local hidden variables, which in turn is usually taken to imply the Copenhagen interpretation. Radical non-local variables are often considered anathema by physicists, because they sound very much like we may as well be saying "God." Not in a traditional way--think the Force from Star Wars--which sounds loony, and that's why the DeBroglie/Bohm interpretation is considered suspect. But this experiment suggests that it's correct, to the authors of the paper, anyway.
 
This device is claiming to work on fundamental new physics. While NASA is a brain trust for astronomical sciences and engineering, it does not specialize in fundamental physics research, and so it's not the best outfit to be evaluating this so-called EMdrive.

The best thing to do is to tap the major National Laboratories in evaluating the EM-drive thing (provided they don't crack up laughing), and to at least give a de-bunking or disproof. They've done this in the past, like with the Hafnium isomer controversy. (Some guy claimed to have used an old dental X-ray machine to charge up some Hafnium isomer material with X-ray energy to make a "nuclear battery" out of it. Scientists at Argonne and Los Alamos national laboratories were able to prove the claim couldn't work.)

Likewise, given all the claims that are being made around this EMdrive, for which there is no solid theoretical foundation, it would be useful for one or more of the various national laboratories to investigate and give their report on it. Those people are amont the best in their fields in fundamental research, and they'd be the best to get to the bottom of what's going on.
 
Renae said:
Good, can't wait for the Kerbal mod for this so I can get to Duna quicker!
Click to expand...

Quicker in Kerbal time. Unfortunately, physics warp only allows for x4 speed while thrusting. Have fun with month-long burns!
 
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