Nasa Finally Publishes Controversial Fuel Free 'impossible Drive' Paper - But Still Can't Explain How It Works

[Yrtik]

The radical concept of a fuel-free ‘impossible’ engine has now gained far more credibility.

In recent weeks, a leaked version of the paper stirred up controversy as it appeared to show that scientists had created a working EmDrive prototype.

Now, the findings have officially been peer-reviewed and published.

It’s said that the EmDrive could get humans to Mars in just 10 weeks, but experts have long argued that idea cannot be brought to life as the engine defies the fundamental laws of physics.

Source

Edited November 22, 2016 by Yrtik

[exchemist]

Violating the law of conservation of momentum is quite a stretch. What would Emmy Noether have to say? And Newton, of course. Perhaps, now that the paper is published, other minds can get to work on it and we will find out if there is anything there. 

[sanctus]

Yrtik, was also thinking about posting here to see whether it is a serious paper (not of type some1 said that some1 said that this paper was published by Nasa).
If it survives the above analysis and also reviews then it is gonna be interesting :-)

[CraigD]

Violating the law of conservation of momentum is quite a stretch. What would Emmy Noether have to say? And Newton, of course.

I expect to take a while to read and digest White, March, Lawrence, Vera, Sylvesterm Brady and Bailey's "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum", but a quick skim finds

If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum. It is proposed that the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction.

which shows they’re not suggesting a violation of conservation of momentum. They’re suggesting the quantum vacuum has mass and follows Newton’s laws in the classical approximation.

 

Interesting stuff. :thumbs_up I’ve followed the “EM Drive” for more than 10 years, and have a strong hunch White et al are just measuring an artifact of their experiment, but would be puzzled and delighted if my hunch is wrong.

 

I gotta take issue with the Brutalist Press writer calling it “fuel-free”. The EM Drive is reaction mass free. It still requires energy, so absent some sort of conservation of energy-violating magic, a self-contained spacecraft propelled by it would require fuel to produce that energy.

[exchemist]

I expect to take a while to read and digest White, March, Lawrence, Vera, Sylvesterm Brady and Bailey's "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum", but a quick skim finds

If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum. It is proposed that the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction.

which shows they’re not suggesting a violation of conservation of momentum. They’re suggesting the quantum vacuum has mass and follows Newton’s laws in the classical approximation.

 

Interesting stuff. :thumbs_up I’ve followed the “EM Drive” for more than 10 years, and have a strong hunch White et al are just measuring an artifact of their experiment, but would be puzzled and delighted if my hunch is wrong.

 

I gotta take issue with the Brutalist Press writer calling it “fuel-free”. The EM Drive is reaction mass free. It still requires energy, so absent some sort of conservation of energy-violating magic, a self-contained spacecraft propelled by it would require fuel to produce that energy.

 

Yes very good points. I have now read it too and see what you mean.

 

However the notion that the vacuum has mass takes some getting used to. But do they really say that? I thought they said the device may "push off" vacuum fluctuations, which seems to hedge a bit. I had taken it to mean that the device may transfer momentum to the vacuum, which is a bit different. Radiation, after all, can have momentum without mass, as Ocean Breeze has just been explaining on another thread. They speak of a "wake" in the vacuum, but do not say what form this wake would have.

 

All very speculative and sci-fi.    

[OceanBreeze]

I think this story will turn out the same way those “faster than light” neutrinos. As you may recall, in that case the fiber optic cable carrying the timing signals was poorly connected, and the reflection in the signal caused a 73 nanosecond delay in the timing. In other words, the timing started 73 nanoseconds after the neutrinos started their journey from CERN with the improbable result they were arriving in Italy before they left Switzerland!

 

Now, one would think the scientists involved would instantly know their test setup was bungled, but instead they announced they found evidence that physics as we know it is fatally flawed. What a howler that was!

 

This EmDrive sounds similar. Without any propellant leaving the closed chamber, conservation of energy says no thrust force can result from em waves bouncing around inside the chamber. So, the scientists have proposed that “the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction”.

 

I wonder how long they spent thinking that one up. Their time may well have been better spent looking for a loose cable!

[exchemist]

I think this story will turn out the same way those “faster than light” neutrinos. As you may recall, in that case the fiber optic cable carrying the timing signals was poorly connected, and the reflection in the signal caused a 73 nanosecond delay in the timing. In other words, the timing started 73 nanoseconds after the neutrinos started their journey from CERN with the improbable result they were arriving in Italy before they left Switzerland!

 

Now, one would think the scientists involved would instantly know their test setup was bungled, but instead they announced they found evidence that physics as we know it is fatally flawed. What a howler that was!

 

This EmDrive sounds similar. Without any propellant leaving the closed chamber, conservation of energy says no thrust force can result from em waves bouncing around inside the chamber. So, the scientists have proposed that “the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction”.

 

I wonder how long they spent thinking that one up. Their time may well have been better spent looking for a loose cable!

Yes, well, in an earlier publication there was even a suggestion that somehow this thing created paired out of phase photons that exported momentum while cancelling one another out - ignoring the objection that if you create pairs of out of phase photons that cancel one another, you, erm, haven't created any photons.

 

They have no idea  - and why should they? They are an engineering outfit that has observed, they think, an anomalous thrust. Which is fair enough. The thing to do is to write it up and publish, as they now have, and then other minds try to pull it apart, or suggest follow-up tests.

[OceanBreeze]

Hey, I just did one of those back-of-the envelope type calculations, to see if I could explain the thrust they are seeing for this so-called EmDrive.

I am using the fact that the Tesla has the dimensions N*s / C*m where N is Newton, s second,

C coulomb, m meter.

 

Force = I L T, where I is current in coulombs/second and L is length in meters. T is Tesla as defined above.

 

You can check to see that the result in Newtons is dimensionally correct as all units cancel except Newton.

 

For the value of I, I note that they are driving a loop antenna with 1 Kw of power ( maybe they use more Power than that ) but they are getting a resulting force of ~ 0.001 N / 1KW. So, I will use 1 KW going into a 50 Ohm loop antenna. So, I = ( P/R )^1/2 = ~ 5 Amps approximate value.

 

For L, I guesstimate the loop antenna and feed in as 2 meters. It could be more or less.

 

For T, I am going to use an upper value of the earth’s magnetic field B on the surface of ~ 65 uT.

 

So, Force in Newtons = 5 C/s * 2 m * 65 E-6 N*s / C*m = 0.00065 N

 

That is 65% of the thrust force they measured!

 

I think that is significant. What I think happens when they energize this thing it deflects like a compass needle. If it is capable of measuring forces on the order of 0.001 N, it must not take much too Force to make it deflect. The earths magnetic field is enough, with the power and current they are using.

 

What do you all think? Should we tell them? :nea: 

[exchemist]

Hey, I just did one of those back-of-the envelope type calculations, to see if I could explain the thrust they are seeing for this so-called EmDrive.

I am using the fact that the Tesla has the dimensions N*s / C*m where N is Newton, s second,

C coulomb, m meter.

 

Force = I L T, where I is current in coulombs/second and L is length in meters. T is Tesla as defined above.

 

You can check to see that the result in Newtons is dimensionally correct as all units cancel except Newton.

 

For the value of I, I note that they are driving a loop antenna with 1 Kw of power ( maybe they use more Power than that ) but they are getting a resulting force of ~ 0.001 N / 1KW. So, I will use 1 KW going into a 50 Ohm loop antenna. So, I = ( P/R )^1/2 = ~ 5 Amps approximate value.

 

For L, I guesstimate the loop antenna and feed in as 2 meters. It could be more or less.

 

For T, I am going to use an upper value of the earth’s magnetic field B on the surface of ~ 65 uT.

 

So, Force in Newtons = 5 C/s * 2 m * 65 E-6 N*s / C*m = 0.00065 N

 

That is 65% of the thrust force they measured!

 

I think that is significant. What I think happens when they energize this thing it deflects like a compass needle. If it is capable of measuring forces on the order of 0.001 N, it must not take much too Force to make it deflect. The earths magnetic field is enough, with the power and current they are using.

 

What do you all think? Should we tell them? :nea: 

I think first one should read very carefully through the paper, as I find it hard to imagine they had not thought of the Earth's field as a possible source of error.

 

But if it is not mentioned, then er, yes indeed! I suppose you write a letter to the journal in which they have been published.

[HydrogenBond]

I expect to take a while to read and digest White, March, Lawrence, Vera, Sylvesterm Brady and Bailey's "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum", but a quick skim finds

If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum. It is proposed that the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction.

which shows they’re not suggesting a violation of conservation of momentum. They’re suggesting the quantum vacuum has mass and follows Newton’s laws in the classical approximation.

 

Interesting stuff. :thumbs_up I’ve followed the “EM Drive” for more than 10 years, and have a strong hunch White et al are just measuring an artifact of their experiment, but would be puzzled and delighted if my hunch is wrong.

 

I gotta take issue with the Brutalist Press writer calling it “fuel-free”. The EM Drive is reaction mass free. It still requires energy, so absent some sort of conservation of energy-violating magic, a self-contained spacecraft propelled by it would require fuel to produce that energy.

 

There is a possible way to explain the EM drive, using the concept of hidden energy. Hidden energy is an artifact of wave addition. As an example of the affect, say we had a wave tank, where we have two wave generators, one at each end of the tank. They each generate waves, that are 180 degrees out of phase. Because of wave addition, the two opposing waves, cancel. 

 

Although we are adding energy, via each wave generator, the water is still in the middle of the tank, due to the wave cancelling. The energy is hidden in the stillness.   We can demonstrate there is hidden energy in the stillness, by placing a partition in the center of the tank, perpendicular to the waves. One wave will rise on one side of the partition and the wave on the opposite side will appear to sink. Now we a momentum vector.  

[HydrogenBond]

The idea of hidden energy came to me many years ago. It was based on pondering atoms. Say we have an atom with electrons in orbitals. Although all these electrons are in motion, and a moving charge will create a magnetic field, the question I asked myself is, how come larger and larger atoms don't give off larger and larger magnetic fields, due to more and more elections in continuous motion?

 

The answer has to due to magnetic wave addition; implicit of orbitals, where wave crests and wave throughs cancel. The magnetic energy is there, based on the conservation of energy potential within all the moving election charges. However, most of it is hidden in the orbital wave addition. 

 

Although waves can hide energy, particles cannot behave this way. Particles can only add. The total momentum of all the electrons gets larger and larger, with larger and larger atoms. The particle momentum is not hidden like the wave addition. 

 

If we combine the particle-wave duality, hidden wave energy, and particle addition, if a particle was to partition the stillness of the wave tank, it can get an energy bump from the hidden energy; quantum tunneling. 

 

An EM drive might work by inducing a partition in a hidden energy field; quantum momentum. 

[Vmedvil]

The radical concept of a fuel-free ‘impossible’ engine has now gained far more credibility.

 

In recent weeks, a leaked version of the paper stirred up controversy as it appeared to show that scientists had created a working EmDrive prototype.

 

Now, the findings have officially been peer-reviewed and published.

 

It’s said that the EmDrive could get humans to Mars in just 10 weeks, but experts have long argued that idea cannot be brought to life as the engine defies the fundamental laws of physics.

 

Source

 

EM drive doesn't work watch Thunderf00t's debunk on it, I tend to agree with him along with most people that understand what they are trying to do, doesn't work or does so so inefficiently that it may as well not work. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCAqDA8IfR4

Edited October 16, 2017 by Vmedvil

[learningscience]

Make a test at night.

 

End of the story.

[studentgary]

The radical concept of a fuel-free ‘impossible’ engine has now gained far more credibility.

 

In recent weeks, a leaked version of the paper stirred up controversy as it appeared to show that scientists had created a working EmDrive prototype.

 

Now, the findings have officially been peer-reviewed and published.

 

It’s said that the EmDrive could get humans to Mars in just 10 weeks, but experts have long argued that idea cannot be brought to life as the engine defies the fundamental laws of physics.

 

Source

Your 'answer' is in the cone and geometry. Leaving out reaction kinetics, from any direction a particle hits the cone wall, momentum will be transmitted to the cones apex.

[exchemist]

Your 'answer' is in the cone and geometry. Leaving out reaction kinetics, from any direction a particle hits the cone wall, momentum will be transmitted to the cones apex.

Except that there are no particles: the test was done in a vacuum. The claim is of thrust generated purely due to RF effects on the vacuum itself. 

 

There's a fairly detailed review of the physics, the experiments and their reception, on Wiki, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster 

 

This thread was triggered by a publication that came out over a year ago, but I can't see anything further on the subject since then. 

[Crasto]

This thread makes me think of compact electromagnetic chords (others than light spectrum). Could these be useful for propulsion?

[Crasto]

Example of frequencies for a compact electromagnetic chord equivalent to a

C D E F# G# A# B Db Eb F G A ( semitone up/down relation= 1.0594631) with base at 440 Hz:

 

440 Hz

494

554

622

698

784

831

932

1046

1175

1318

1480

 

Regards