Cannae/EmDrive

[Rakaydos]

On a macroscopic level this wouldn't look like the box having momentum for a short time, then stopping, then having momentum, then stopping. The box isn't one big rigid object. It would look like the opposite walls imparting a force on each other, like a pressure inside the cavity. The force on the opposite walls would be exactly identical.

I would think it would be comparable to floating a curved dish on water, then blowing (straight down, no momentum bias- this represents the particles spawning with no momentum) on one rim in such a way that the air returned straight up at the opposite rim(vanishing once momentum is spent)- the fact that it traveled from one rim to the opposite one conveys momentum even though the pressure on each rim is equal. Can you explain why that doesnt happen in a microscopic scale?

[N_las]

I would think it would be comparable to floating a curved dish on water, then blowing (straight down, no momentum bias- this represents the particles spawning with no momentum) on one rim in such a way that the air returned straight up at the opposite rim(vanishing once momentum is spent)- the fact that it traveled from one rim to the opposite one conveys momentum even though the pressure on each rim is equal. Can you explain why that doesnt happen in a microscopic scale?

The vanishing air on the other side of the dish isn't going straigt up, but slightly horizontal. The dish will move. But if you would change your experiment, so that the air has to go exactly upwards after leaving the dish, and you would but a lid on the dish so no air can "secretly" leave the dish in a horizontal direction, then the dish won't move.

[Rakaydos]

The vanishing air on the other side of the dish isn't going straigt up, but slightly horizontal. The dish will move. But if you would change your experiment, so that the air has to go exactly upwards after leaving the dish, and you would but a lid on the dish so no air can "secretly" leave the dish in a horizontal direction, then the dish won't move.

So, to revise the thought expiriment, floating a U-shaped pipe with a tiny fan on each end, blowing down one end/up the other, would not move, despite air moving horizontally in the bend of the pipe.

This seems like an expiriment doable at home, with the hypothosized result different from the "common sence" result of the pipe moving.

[N_las]

So, to revise the thought expiriment, floating a U-shaped pipe with a tiny fan on each end, blowing down one end/up the other, would not move, despite air moving horizontally in the bend of the pipe.

This seems like an expiriment doable at home, with the hypothosized result different from the "common sence" result of the pipe moving.

Yes exactly. I even made a diagramm: http://imgur.com/uSw6cUM

But we are only talking about left/right movement here. In that experiment, upward/downward movement or rotations are possible.

Edited February 18, 2015 by N_las

[ZetaX]

Well, lets try this one: the virtual particles are created (virtual) on one end of the cavity. (because of the energy gradient, this is more likely to happen on one end of the cavity than the other) They interact with that end of the cavity, picking up a momentum debt as it pushes the craft foreward. It then travels to the other end of the cavity, interacts and pays off it's momentum debt, stopping the craft and becoming fully virtual again, vanishing in a puff of not-real. But because the particle had momentum energy as it traveled the length of the cavity (again, this is normally an omidirectional effect and thus self-canceling- only the energy gradient of the asymmetic resonator creates a directional bias) the cavity itself gaines an opposite momentum until the second interaction stopped it. Repeated for every virtual particle to spawn in the high energy end (minus the virtual particles that spawn in the low energy end, that convey reverse momentum) this becomes a measurable effect, despite relying on virtual intereactions.

Before thinking about if this is correct (or actually, leaving it to N_las for now), I wanted to gratulate/thank you for actually stating an elaborate version. Nobody did so far (in 300 posts!). Because that's the scientific way to do it: first state your claim as accurately as possible, then check it (is it reasonable¿ does it contradict anything I know¿ can I test it somehow¿). Without doing this, debating it seriously would be impossible. So we can now do that (and you and N_las already seem to be).

Even if you turn out to be wrong, you probably learned something new on the way. Even better if you turn out to be right; just don't insist on it unless you have very good evidence.

[Rakaydos]

I would think that, at least, you would get an effect as you start the device (as the flow, virtual or air, hits one side first) and a canceling effect as you stop the device.

In operation, however, continius flow would cancel out the effect. in both directions.

Edit: Hmm... but what would the forces look like, hypothetically, if you turned it on, then swung it around 180. (then presumably shut it off) Common sence suggests resisting torque- would that cancel the momentum change?

Edited February 18, 2015 by Rakaydos

[Rakaydos]

Well, lets try this one: the virtual particles are created (virtual) on one end of the cavity. (because of the energy gradient, this is more likely to happen on one end of the cavity than the other) They interact with that end of the cavity, picking up a momentum debt as it pushes the craft foreward. It then travels to the other end of the cavity, interacts and pays off it's momentum debt, stopping the craft and becoming fully virtual again, vanishing in a puff of not-real. But because the particle had momentum energy as it traveled the length of the cavity (again, this is normally an omidirectional effect and thus self-canceling- only the energy gradient of the asymmetic resonator creates a directional bias) the cavity itself gaines an opposite momentum until the second interaction stopped it. Repeated for every virtual particle to spawn in the high energy end (minus the virtual particles that spawn in the low energy end, that convey reverse momentum) this becomes a measurable effect, despite relying on virtual intereactions.

Revising this thought expiriment: weakly interacting particles.

Of the virtual particals created by the energy gradient, an unknown percentage pass through the front of the device without interacting. These are ignored. Of the ones that do interact, an unknown percentage stop at the back wall of the device, canceling out the momentum as per the earlier expiriment. These are also ignored.

What about the rest? Is the experiment modified by having a lead (or neutronium, or black hole) wall behind the device to absorb the momentum? Does it matter how far the wall is away from the device, or can you fire it up and hope there's enough interstellar hydrogen between here and Andromeda to absorb your momentum?

[N_las]

Revising this thought expiriment: weakly interacting particles.

Of the virtual particals created by the energy gradient, an unknown percentage pass through the front of the device without interacting. These are ignored. Of the ones that do interact, an unknown percentage stop at the back wall of the device, canceling out the momentum as per the earlier expiriment. These are also ignored.

What about the rest? Is the experiment modified by having a lead (or neutronium, or black hole) wall behind the device to absorb the momentum? Does it matter how far the wall is away from the device, or can you fire it up and hope there's enough interstellar hydrogen between here and Andromeda to absorb your momentum?

So essentially you are sending out virtual particles in a certain direction, hoping that they will hit something to impart momentum on that object. This is just how the electromagnetic force is working. (with photons as virtual particles). If that's how the drive works, it would be just a complicated perspectiv to describe simple magnetic or electric interaction with the surrounding objects. They virtual photons in that case will only carry actual momentum if they will actually hit a surrounding object.

You can't do the same with virtual particles that wouldn't be massless like the photon. The range of "massiv" virtual particles is incredibly small (in the range of the nucleus of an atom). That is why the strong and weak nuclear force have such a small range, they use "massive" virtual particles in their interaction.

Another way to hit the andromeda galaxy with your virtual particles is making them real. That is essentially the photon drive.

Edited February 18, 2015 by N_las

[Rakaydos]

I'm pretty sure we've both established about a bazillion times that making them real defeats the purpose of the excercice, as it becomes just a photon drive/less efficent photon drive. Thank you for the new information about the range limit of massive virtual particles. And the lack of unicorns in your explanantion. :/

Since massive virtual particles are the only ones with the potential for theoretical higher-than-photon efficiencies, if I understand Northstar right, then even my earlier thought expiriment doesnt have the range to complete a momentum transfer from one end of the device to the other. On the other hand, it makes the tiny red and blue circles shown on Dr. White's diagramms make more sence.

How long can a massive virtual particle remain "around" without becoming real? is it on the same order as the resonant cavity's oscillation? (wiki suggests 2.45 gigahertz as a common microwave frequency)

[PB666]

Revising this thought expiriment: weakly interacting particles.

Of the virtual particals created by the energy gradient, an unknown percentage pass through the front of the device without interacting. These are ignored. Of the ones that do interact, an unknown percentage stop at the back wall of the device, canceling out the momentum as per the earlier expiriment. These are also ignored.

What about the rest? Is the experiment modified by having a lead (or neutronium, or black hole) wall behind the device to absorb the momentum? Does it matter how far the wall is away from the device, or can you fire it up and hope there's enough interstellar hydrogen between here and Andromeda to absorb your momentum?

They will not travel that far because they do not exist that long.

[PB666]

The thing is, there is absolutely no reason to assume that the measured thrust has anything to do with virtual particles.

There is no reason to believe they are anything else either, so virtual particles are no better or worse than the nearest competitor theory.

[orbital mechanic]

How long can a massive virtual particle remain "around" without becoming real?

I think it is of the order of h/(mc^2), where h is the planck constant and m is the mass.

is it on the same order as the resonant cavity's oscillation? (wiki suggests 2.45 gigahertz as a common microwave frequency)

Quite a few orders of magnitude smaller than that.

[cpast]

There is no reason to believe they are anything else either, so virtual particles are no better or worse than the nearest competitor theory.

So there's absolutely no reason to be talking about them as "the explanation," and it's actively misleading to refer to it as a preferred explanation. "We don't know what causes this" is better than "Eh, we don't know, so we'll make something up." If the virtual particle theory relies on vague claims that completely misstate the nature of virtual particles (which have very specific properties, and aren't some vague ill-defined concept), then it is not a theory until it gets more precise about what it's talking about (the proper term is "random guess"). Unless it's specific about what is happening with virtual particles and how that interacts with the rest of physics, it is not an explanation (because it's not falsifiable). You don't get to say "virtual particles" if it violates what we know about virtual particles unless you have solid reasons for thinking it's that ("we have nothing better" is not a reason at all), or unless you explain what you're saying is different about virtual particles compared to the way they're treated in physics today.

On the other hand, if we don't know what's causing it and our one guess is nowhere near specific enough to be used to explain anything (which it seems like that explanation is), then pushing that as the reason is *worse* than not knowing. You don't have to try to explain everything even if you really don't know. If you have no idea what causes some effect, then admitting that is better than throwing out terms and calling it "better than the alternative." This is not a business. Theories are not competing to be accepted by the general public, and there is no first-mover advantage. Theories stand or fall based on how well they predict experiments and interact with the rest of physics. The rest of physics is pretty well-tested, so any change you propose there has to also explain why we haven't noticed it yet -- note that QM and GR didn't invalidate Newtonian physics at human scales, and you can actually show exactly how the effects are miniscule at human scales and why we hadn't noticed the issues before. Whatever you propose has to do something similar - it needs to show why this happens here, but is negligible in all other situations we've ever tested.

[PB666]

Because until somebody finds out what is actually making it work, conventional science is floundering in the dark and all bets are off? The virtual particle explanation gained momentum because it was the first and most realistic-sounding - if that gets proven wrong but no fault with the measurements in the experiments surfaces, I'm sure more exotic theories will start popping up like mushrooms.

Local gravity anomaly would probably be my pick because it's probably the most awesome one, in effect and implications, but it's sort of easy to test for. Then again, I doubt that with all the sensitive equipment and hard vacuum anyone thought to do something as stupidly simple as setting up some bendy hairs around the device, to monitor if there is any effect on the surroundings in general.

I think the reason there is such opposition is the opponents have no clue how long virtual particles exist. If they realized they pop in an out of existence so quickly and are really moving nowhere.

"any object or process that exists for a limited time or in a limited volume cannot have a precisely defined energy or momentum". The longer a virtual particle exist, the more it needs to conserve momentum. Therefore if the virtual particle exists on the order of Planck's time and moves with planck's space (Pl^3) it does not have to obey the laws that apply to existing particles.

This is something too complicated for them to understand. Maybe it the Heisenberg uncertainty that they do not get. The laws of Mass Action gets around heisenberg uncertainty by averaging across large number of particles, our vision of an electron or proton is the average, not the mass of each particle because each particle differs slightly at any given instance.

Heisenberg argument is if you are measuring quanta and not doing so overtime, for 1, position and momentum cannot be comeasured. That has alot of downstream connotations.

In addition the comptom wavelength defines the minimum time and wavelengths were measurements will make sense, we currently work magnitudes above this as minimum time and resolution.

Basically before you reach Planck's scale you will never be able to measure momentum or make arguments over conservation. It makes no sense at these scales.

The particles that pop into existence are relativistic particles, the are not hydrogen atoms or uranium 235, the have energies a tiny, tiny fraction, they are very easy to accelerate (since their enertia is extremely low) they live short lives and they do not travel very far.

[PB666]

So there's absolutely no reason to be talking about them as "the explanation," and it's actively misleading to refer to it as a preferred explanation. "We don't know what causes this" is better than "Eh, we don't know, so we'll make something up." If the virtual particle theory relies on vague claims that completely misstate the nature of virtual particles (which have very specific properties, and aren't some vague ill-defined concept), then it is not a theory until it gets more precise about what it's talking about (the proper term is "random guess"). Unless it's specific about what is happening with virtual particles and how that interacts with the rest of physics, it is not an explanation (because it's not falsifiable). You don't get to say "virtual particles" if it violates what we know about virtual particles unless you have solid reasons for thinking it's that ("we have nothing better" is not a reason at all), or unless you explain what you're saying is different about virtual particles compared to the way they're treated in physics today.

On the other hand, if we don't know what's causing it and our one guess is nowhere near specific enough to be used to explain anything (which it seems like that explanation is), then pushing that as the reason is *worse* than not knowing. You don't have to try to explain everything even if you really don't know. If you have no idea what causes some effect, then admitting that is better than throwing out terms and calling it "better than the alternative." This is not a business. Theories are not competing to be accepted by the general public, and there is no first-mover advantage. Theories stand or fall based on how well they predict experiments and interact with the rest of physics. The rest of physics is pretty well-tested, so any change you propose there has to also explain why we haven't noticed it yet -- note that QM and GR didn't invalidate Newtonian physics at human scales, and you can actually show exactly how the effects are miniscule at human scales and why we hadn't noticed the issues before. Whatever you propose has to do something similar - it needs to show why this happens here, but is negligible in all other situations we've ever tested.

I responded to this thread because several individuals said that it was impossible, however I have trying to point out that on Planck's scale, what they claim to be impossibilities are not, they are consistent with uncertainty theory as long as they remain virtual (very short lived), the momentum does not have to be perfectly conserved.

[orbital mechanic]

I responded to this thread because several individuals said that it was impossible, however I have trying to point out that on Planck's scale, what they claim to be impossibilities are not, they are consistent with uncertainty theory as long as they remain virtual (very short lived), the momentum does not have to be perfectly conserved.

Are you trying to claim that using virtual particles in this manner is consistent with quantum mechanics as it is currently understood? Because it seems that the people NASA hired to investigate the theoretical validity of the work done by Eagelworks reached the opposite conclusion:

In fact it was one of the requests made by the blue ribbon panel of PhDs that NASA/EP hired to review the Eagleworks Lab's theoretical and experimental work last summer. Even if will take a new mounting arrangement to get it accomplished.

Overall though the blue ribbon panel's experimentalists appeared to be pleased with our previous and upcoming lab work. However they ripped into Sonny's QVF/MHD conjecture because it relies on the quantum vacuum being mutable and engineer-able whereas the current physics mainstream thinks that the quantum vacuum is an immutable ground energy state of the universe that can-NOT be used to convey energy or momentum as proposed by Dr. White.

White and his lab believe current QM to be wrong about how the quantum vacuum works but even they are not claiming that their work is supported by current quantum mechanics.

Edited February 19, 2015 by orbital mechanic

[K^2]

I responded to this thread because several individuals said that it was impossible, however I have trying to point out that on Planck's scale, what they claim to be impossibilities are not, they are consistent with uncertainty theory as long as they remain virtual (very short lived), the momentum does not have to be perfectly conserved.

Regardless of what can be happening bellow Plank's Scale, the Poincare Symmetry absolutely holds above Plank's Scale. That means that on the scale of the ship moving through space, stress-energy is a conserved current. And so momentum cannot be generated or lost. Any recoil picked up by Quantum Vacuum must become excitations in a field with infinite range. That means, electromagnetic radiation or gravitational waves. Either one would require an energy input equivalent to a photon drive. We are back to 300MW per 1N of thrust.

It's a very fundamental limitation, which is rooted into all of Quantum Field Theory and all of General Relativity. Both of these theories have to be completely wrong and work as well as they do by total chance to allow for this sort of violation.

[ZetaX]

I think the reason there is such opposition is the opponents have no clue how long virtual particles exist. [...]

This is something too complicated for them to understand. Maybe it the Heisenberg uncertainty that they do not get.

You are aware that "the opposition" contains actual theoretical physicsts¿ I am not one of them, but it may sound pretty insulting for the actual physicist to tell them they have no clue about virtual particles and Heisenberg uncertainty or that one of these is too complicated for them to understand. They probably know this much better you and I do. So instead of promoting technobabble as science, maybe it is a good idea to listen to them, because it might well be that it is you who lacks understanding of the machanisms involved.

[PB666]

Regardless of what can be happening bellow Plank's Scale, the Poincare Symmetry absolutely holds above Plank's Scale. That means that on the scale of the ship moving through space, stress-energy is a conserved current. And so momentum cannot be generated or lost. Any recoil picked up by Quantum Vacuum must become excitations in a field with infinite range. That means, electromagnetic radiation or gravitational waves. Either one would require an energy input equivalent to a photon drive. We are back to 300MW per 1N of thrust.

It's a very fundamental limitation, which is rooted into all of Quantum Field Theory and all of General Relativity. Both of these theories have to be completely wrong and work as well as they do by total chance to allow for this sort of violation.

Now that we have actually moved on to what the real problem of the theory we can discuss the issue. The question in quantum mechanics is how close you can get to Planck's scale and begin seeing non-conservations. I don't think Comptoms wavelength is a perfect lower limit to space time considerations in fact physicist cannot even get close enough to Comptoms length to measure whether this may be true or not. It is not a proof that there is variance, BUT for Cannae to be exploiting such variance........

-the type of energy they are using in the device is nowhere near this, and therefore the energy deviations from Planck scale must be significant.

-these virtual particles come and go fleetingly, there are no many in space at any one moment, and as I have said I do not believe the device produces enough high energy to alter their existence

-they would need to be acting on many of these at once otherwise as NorthStar commented acting on 'empty' space would produce light thrust and trivially more.

-and at the E=hv they are using these particles would have to forming a virtual cluster which requires both multiples and virtual particle stability (IOW the field is stabilizing particles that come into existence long enough for them to form some sort of array) but they still cannot be long-lived so must be sped up.

-it could not be scaled up infinitely in power except through making much more volumetric (and massive) devices.

-The reason their electronics keep failing . . . . . . . . . . . .

This all could be true since virtual particles have near infinite degrees of freedom (statistically also meaning that very few are going to interact with any specific hv). In addition if they are accelerating particles to near speed of light, then they would increase mass and live longer which might change their behavior, but you have to get them to the speed of light first and I don't see their MW interacting with virtual particles because, frankly, they are too short lived. Virtual particles that live much longer are no longer virtual and we would see their footprint. BUT if they are generating matter anti-matter pairs and if a particular frequency is good at keeping them apart for whatever reason . . . . . .

I would point out the quantum vacuum perturbations is one of the explanations in multiverse theory. This piece of equipment may have found a tweak zone in which, conservation holds most of the time because of the laws of mass action and random moment directions, but the directions and frequencies are able to make them less random. I don't think this is a violation of uncertainty principle. The analogy I would make here is NMR and its ability to capture information that is otherwise random. For the devise to work there has to be spin asymmetry, you have to have giant magnetic field and then apply radio frequency across it. Not all particles will generate a coherent signal and particles that do will only do so in the presence of a giant magnetic field otherwise the spins randomize in space. Other particles can be coerced to talk by doping them with neutrons or taking a isotopic variant.

I do happen to agree, theoretically the momentum should go somewhere but if the particles travel not much farther than Planck's length, in theory they and their momentums can go back into local space and perhaps send a wave through that space. The problem is that one of the unknown areas of the standard model is what exactly the Higgs field and how many types of sub-fields comprise the field, are there particles that handle different aspects of fields in empty space. Some of the momentum may be transferred back to the device and thus lost as inefficiency and some may be lost to other masses in vacuum chamber (i.e the chamber itself - thats why it needs to be tested in space it may become much less efficient when there is no surrounding mass). There are still questions remaining in the Standard model about the 'background configuration of empty space' so I would contest that quantum mechanics is in complete defiance. If it is then I think they are also arguing from assumption. The problem is that the Cannae explanation is a proof from negative information. Too fuzzy heads arguing each other means that some clear-head needs to do an experiment. Launch that sucker into space and lets see if its efficiency changes. More ground experimentation is needed:

-scalability limits

-force changes on devices and surrounding masses

-unmeasured effects on electronics.

The ship may be on common scale, but the virtual particles are not, they have much greater degrees of freedom.

[perk]

This reads like cargo cult science.

[CptRichardson]

This reads like cargo cult science.

We're using what appears to be quantum mechanics to create a micro-scale effect that imparts a result in the macro scale. Things went to mad science the second 'quantum' got involved.

[PB666]

Are you trying to claim that using virtual particles in this manner is consistent with quantum mechanics as it is currently understood? Because it seems that the people NASA hired to investigate the theoretical validity of the work done by Eagelworks reached the opposite conclusion:

White and his lab believe current QM to be wrong about how the quantum vacuum works but even they are not claiming that their work is supported by current quantum mechanics.

The Standard Model, while claimed to be complete has deficiencies in the scalar field identified as the Higgs field. There are those who believe it composed of several fields. In addition almost all of the purely physical creation models hold some violation or perturbation of quantum vacuum as preconditions. As I stated in the other post however.....yes....it may be possible that they found a way to tweak virtual particles....I don't see how but then again I would have to know the candidate particle MeVs how their EM radiation interacts...what is the spacing of matter-antimatter virtuals. .....etc. Too much work.

Having been in science for decades, having seen all kinds of old dogma fall and new fluff (e.g. cold-fusion) fall I am not going to stick my neck out either direction. I will make a point though about science and its sometimes blindspots. There is a disease it was identified over 2500 years ago, it was studied from 1850 to WWII by several research centers in England, Continent and US. In 1948 the cause was identified by something that was so ubiquitous in the environment that no trained professional could see it, it was not scientist that actually uncovered the thing. It was warriors that actually pealed back the veil. It goes to show the futility of ego and preconception. And you think that science is now educated and we don't make the same mistake, but alas there is an current 85% misdiagnosis rate and 99% of cases co undiagnosed of the same damn disease. So if you are thinking these are all brilliant Ph.Ds and they don't make mistakes, where I come from Ph.D.s and MDs are a dime a dozen and have I seen some mistakes.

[PB666]

We're using what appears to be quantum mechanics to create a micro-scale effect that imparts a result in the macro scale. Things went to mad science the second 'quantum' got involved.

The moment that virtual particles were mentioned as they are a consequence of heisenberg uncertainty in which Planks and gravitational constant place a scale, you are by definition talking about quantum mechanics. The whole idea that you can somehow separate virtual particles from Planck's scale and quantum mechanics is a fallacious argument.

[ZetaX]

Having been in science for decades, having seen all kinds of old dogma fall and new fluff (e.g. cold-fusion) fall I am not going to stick my neck out either direction. I will make a point though about science and its sometimes blindspots. There is a disease it was identified over 2500 years ago, it was studied from 1850 to WWII by several research centers in England, Continent and US. In 1948 the cause was identified by something that was so ubiquitous in the environment that no trained professional could see it, it was not scientist that actually uncovered the thing. It was warriors that actually pealed back the veil. It goes to show the futility of ego and preconception. And you think that science is now educated and we don't make the same mistake, but alas there is an current 85% misdiagnosis rate and 99% of cases co undiagnosed of the same damn disease. So if you are thinking these are all brilliant Ph.Ds and they don't make mistakes, where I come from Ph.D.s and MDs are a dime a dozen and have I seen some mistakes.

There is a huge difference between medicine and physics, both in theory and praxis. Medicin is essentially a mess because it talks about these pesky little humans; particles are much more orderly. Anyway, what is that desease you talk about¿

- - - Updated - - -

The moment that virtual particles were mentioned as they are a consequence of heisenberg uncertainty in which Planks and gravitational constant place a scale, you are by definition talking about quantum mechanics. The whole idea that you can somehow separate virtual particles from Planck's scale and quantum mechanics is a fallacious argument.

And yet you seem to agree with an "explanation" of the EM-Drive that does exactly that: treating virtual particles with classical mechanics, thereby ignoring everything quantum.

[PB666]

There is a huge difference between medicine and physics, both in theory and praxis. Medicin is essentially a mess because it talks about these pesky little humans; particles are much more orderly. Anyway, what is that desease you talk about¿

You mean like pesky little dark matters and energies or pesky little neutrinos that have mass, those kind of pesky problems. Or the pesky little variants of Higgs fields with unknown properties that the SCSC is going to explore. Ah but my house is clean everyone elses is a mess. They are all a mess, the scientific credo is that the more you know the more you know that you don't know. The more questions that are answered the more questions there are to be asked.

And yet you seem to agree with an "explanation" of the EM-Drive that does exactly that: treating virtual particles with classical mechanics, thereby ignoring everything quantum.

Virtual particles theoretically can exist on a gradient from unmanipulated transients to manipulated particles that exist for short times. Everything on Planck's scale obeys QM but it remains to be shown whether VP diced into other 'states' transcend these limitations. I was only stipulating a universe were this might happen with 16w of >um hv, whether it does happen is something that must otherwise be proven.