SamSilver

Oh, one more thing. Northstar wrote: Yes, I have read the full paper multiple times, and found the evidence to be lacking. As a "fellow scientist", you should also know that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Conversely, ordinary claims only demand ordinary evidence. Against their extraordinary claim of reactionless force, I propose a completely ordinary explanation (thermal interaction with ambient atmosphere), which is completely in line with what was reported in the paper. (In case this was a question about my scientific qualifications, I have 25 years of experience working in experimental particle physics and helped design and build part of one of the Large Hadron Collider experiments. My main area of expertise is detector instrumentation and data acquisition.)

Northstar, I read both the OP and the report in detail. The main section of the paper describes the procedure for evacuating the chamber, meaning that they certainly did test that the chamber could be brought down to 5 millionths of a Torr. But they never state explicitly in that section that they actually ran these tests in vacuum. And there are TWO places where they state that they didn't. Once in the original abstract, as you pointed out in the OP, and a second time in the conclusions. Here is the second mention once more: They had to run the experiments at ambient pressure because their RF amplifiers could not be run in vacuum! Their amplifiers were built with electrolytic capacitors, which tend to go "boom" in vacuum (both destroying the amplifier and releasing chemicals that go on to contaminate your instruments and the vacuum system itself). I'm sorry, but as an experimental physicist it is clear to me that this work was not (and could not) be run in vacuum. The fact that a crucial point like this was obfuscated just goes to show how poorly written a paper this is. I hate to be "that guy" who gets drawn into an online debate with a Believer, and I am pretty sure that nothing I write here will sway you. But as a member of the physics community, I feel obligated to answer extraordinary claims that I see voiced in a public forum. And now that I have done so, I feel that my duty is done.

Sigh...I dislike having to be that guy in threads like these. But there are some extraordinary claims being accepted at face value here, and as an experimental physicist I have a hard time letting them just slide. When I first read this report in August, the fact that the "null" device produced a comparable force to the "test" device was already a red flag. But if you want to claim that both devices are somehow equally-effective reactionless drives, a careful reading of the paper reveals a gaping hole in their experimental procedure. A good deal of Section II discusses the vacuum chamber designed to house the experiment, and how it can achieve a vacuum down to 5 microTorr. This is crucial, because a reactionless drive must be demonstrated in a vacuum! Otherwise you are vulnerable to all kinds of unwanted effects. For instance, if you run the experiment in atmosphere and there are parts of the device that are warmer than others, the interaction with the air can produce a net force. But...there is a crucial sentence buried in Section VI (summary and forward work): So at the end of the paper, the authors let slip that they did not do the tests in vacuum conditions! This renders the entire paper meaningless, since without a vacuum you can't credibly claim that torques this small are actually evidence of a working reactionless drive. If these results can be convincingly reproduced in vacuum, I would change my mind. But we haven't heard anything new since August, and I would bet we won't see any such evidence anytime soon.

I posted about this yesterday on the Suggestions and Development Discussion board: http://http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96804-Outsourced-R-D-balance-issue I love the idea of squeezing the cost of my ships a bit in exchange for extra science, but I didn't like the fact that accepting a bunch of mission advances at once would instantly give me hundreds of science points. It's a great concept, but I guess that some tuning may be in order

Hi, long-time lurker here. Not sure if this counts as a discussion or suggestion, but here goes... I just got started with 0.25, and started by checking out the new Administration building. I decided to try using Outsourced R&D, because the idea of squeezing the cost of my missions a bit in order to boost science gains sounds like fun. Unfortunately, it seems to cause a serious game play imbalance. Here's what happened to me: It took three missions (one suborbital, one orbital and one on the launch pad) to get enough science for solar panels, and on my fourth mission I managed to complete the "Explore the Mun" contract with a ~20k unmanned spacecraft. So far, so good. When I returned to mission control, I found a large number of long-term or "never expire" missions: Science data around Kerbin Science data around the Mun Plant flag on the Mun Explore Minmus Explore Duna Explore Ike Naturally I accepted them, and got a hefty chunk of advance money. But what I hadn't expected is that by receiving the advance I also got an instant 274 science points! This seems like too much, and that one should struggle more to get to Minmus. I'm not a game designer, but I wonder whether it makes sense to limit science "advances"? One possibility could be to restrict science points funded by mission advances. Or allow it, but only after a mission is completed? What do people think?