Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Remember that weird electromagnetic drive?

Nobody could figure out how it got thrust?

It's still doing it.  And they still don't know how.
As efficient as this type of propulsion may sound, it defies one of the fundamental concepts of physics - the conservation of momentum, which states that for something to be propelled forward, some kind of propellant needs to be pushed out in the opposite direction.
...
The real excitement began when those Eagleworks researchers admitted back in March that, despite more than a year of trying to poke holes in the EM Drive, it just kept on working - even inside a vacuum. This debunked some of their most common theories about what might be causing the anomaly.

Now Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at Dresden University of Technology in Germany, has played around with his own EM Drive, and has once again shown that it produces thrust - albeit for reasons he can't explain.
And a(nother) kicker:
It might turn out that we need to rewrite some of our laws of physics in order to explain how the drive works.
Something I read a long time ago stuck with me, a scientist talking about those laws of physics(nature, etc.):
"The 'Laws of Nature' are no such thing; they're just how we understand things to work, based on our current understanding.  Therefore they're subject to change at any time should new information come up."
Exactly. 



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

not a totally enclosed chamber, it is described as a carefully shaped resonance chamber and an outlet drive on axis of chamber and outlet.energy is input the shape of chamber and outlet appear to use em waves to push the chamber. New physics coming up.

Arthur said...

Ok, I'm assuming when they talk about " in x number of days", they are talking about screaming past the planet at day number X, *not* parking in orbit.

I'd be great if I was wrong.

Firehand said...

Guess would depend on the amount of thrust; if you could constant-accelerate halfway, then brake the rest...