Cannae/EmDrive

[skyace65]

It isn't science if you allow only solutions you accept

Yeah it's getting pretty annoying to see some of the reactions. It's almost like they don't want what we know to change, which seems to defy they point of being a scientist. Than again this isn't the first time scientists have said stupid stuff. I'm looking at you cell theory!

P.S Plot twist, they're all afraid of going back to university and retaking physics to keep their PhD's valid

[Kryten]

Tajmar's device heated up only to 35 degrees Celsius? Isn't that a bit too low to produce any noticeable outgassing?

Not when you're talking micronewtons of force, particularly in a vacuum.

[K^2]

Yeah it's getting pretty annoying to see some of the reactions. It's almost like they don't want what we know to change, which seems to defy they point of being a scientist.

See, I'd take this seriously from a scientist. But as it stands...

Science is about models and critical tests of these models. The evidence supporting gauge symmetries is enormous. We have hundreds of years worth of observations. We have the most precise measurements ever performed testing models based on gauge symmetries. If we were mapping Earth with resolution that we have on these measurements, we'd have it down to the size of a grain of sand. So think about it like that, say we've measured Earth down to a grain of sand, and we've reported that Earth is a spheroid. And your argument is, "Well, maybe you missed something." Not likely.

Nobody says that science is a dogma. But we can gauge likeliehood of something. What is being suggested by many in this thread is more improbable than unicorns and faeries. By orders of magnitude. There is a nearly infinite pool of things we should be looking for instead of trying to prove a conservation violation. Like magic healing potions that heal cancer. Because these are also more likely.

We have a disagreement between measurement and expected result. It is a curiosity. It should be studied. But it should be studied from perspective of what in the known science makes it tick. Not trying to invent completely new physics for it. Because that is an inexcusable waste of our resources. And people who suggest we should be doing this are not scientists. They are some share of naive bystanders, like yourself, and charlatans who are trying to get research grants for twidling their thumbs. And that later category needs to be stomped out without mercy. And if that sounds like dogma to you, then I'm sorry, but your opinion on it doesn't matter anyhow.

[Akronymus]

After looking at superfastjellyfishs post i am a bit confused. Why not just emmiting the radio waves into a straight line? Shouldnt that produce thrust too?

Sorry if im missing a basic concept, but im not good at science.

Oh: and sorry for my bad english

Edited July 28, 2015 by Akronymus

[SuperFastJellyfish]

See, I'd take this seriously from a scientist. But as it stands...

Science is about models and critical tests of these models. The evidence supporting gauge symmetries is enormous. We have hundreds of years worth of observations. We have the most precise measurements ever performed testing models based on gauge symmetries. If we were mapping Earth with resolution that we have on these measurements, we'd have it down to the size of a grain of sand. So think about it like that, say we've measured Earth down to a grain of sand, and we've reported that Earth is a spheroid. And your argument is, "Well, maybe you missed something." Not likely.

Nobody says that science is a dogma. But we can gauge likeliehood of something. What is being suggested by many in this thread is more improbable than unicorns and faeries. By orders of magnitude. There is a nearly infinite pool of things we should be looking for instead of trying to prove a conservation violation. Like magic healing potions that heal cancer. Because these are also more likely.

We have a disagreement between measurement and expected result. It is a curiosity. It should be studied. But it should be studied from perspective of what in the known science makes it tick. Not trying to invent completely new physics for it. Because that is an inexcusable waste of our resources. And people who suggest we should be doing this are not scientists. They are some share of naive bystanders, like yourself, and charlatans who are trying to get research grants for twidling their thumbs. And that later category needs to be stomped out without mercy. And if that sounds like dogma to you, then I'm sorry, but your opinion on it doesn't matter anyhow.

According to, at least, Dr. notsosureofit's and Warptech's hypotheses proposed here, CoE and CoM are conserved, AFAIK. It's hard to follow the nasaspaceflight.com thread as it grows immensely everyday.

Edit: @Akronymus - What you are suggesting is a photon rocket. The experimental results of the 'EM Drive' seem to imply orders of magnitude better thrust to power ratios(which should be impossible according to our known physics).

Edited July 29, 2015 by SuperFastJellyfish

[AngelLestat]

After looking at superfastjellyfishs post i am a bit confused. Why not just emmiting the radio waves into a straight line? Shouldnt that produce thrust too?

Sorry if im missing a basic concept, but im not good at science.

Oh: and sorry for my bad english

In space yeah.. but that thrust is almost nothing.

And instead emmit radio waves, is best to use a laser, which is more collimated.

The recoil force will be Force= Power / C

If you have a nuclear reactor that generates 1 MW, then 1000000/300000000= 0.003 Newton. To generate that power the reactor is kinda massive, the same for the laser and radiator, so that force is equal to nothing.. It will take you a lot of time to reach some respectable speed.

And it will reach the time that your nuclear fuel will be exhaust.

So is not a very efficient way to waste that energy, solar sails get the double of acceleration by the same power (because photons bounce, also solar sails can be super light)

[K^2]

According to, at least, Dr. notsosureofit's and Warptech's hypotheses proposed here, CoE and CoM are conserved, AFAIK. It's hard to follow the nasaspaceflight.com thread as it grows immensely everyday.

Both of which are in contradiction with GR, which is direct mathematical consequence of the gauge symmetries in question. In other terms, their violations are simply hidden under more math.

[Exclipse]

See, I'd take this seriously from a scientist. But as it stands...

Science is about models and critical tests of these models. The evidence supporting gauge symmetries is enormous. We have hundreds of years worth of observations. We have the most precise measurements ever performed testing models based on gauge symmetries. If we were mapping Earth with resolution that we have on these measurements, we'd have it down to the size of a grain of sand. So think about it like that, say we've measured Earth down to a grain of sand, and we've reported that Earth is a spheroid. And your argument is, "Well, maybe you missed something." Not likely.

Nobody says that science is a dogma. But we can gauge likeliehood of something. What is being suggested by many in this thread is more improbable than unicorns and faeries. By orders of magnitude. There is a nearly infinite pool of things we should be looking for instead of trying to prove a conservation violation. Like magic healing potions that heal cancer. Because these are also more likely.

We have a disagreement between measurement and expected result. It is a curiosity. It should be studied. But it should be studied from perspective of what in the known science makes it tick. Not trying to invent completely new physics for it. Because that is an inexcusable waste of our resources. And people who suggest we should be doing this are not scientists. They are some share of naive bystanders, like yourself, and charlatans who are trying to get research grants for twidling their thumbs. And that later category needs to be stomped out without mercy. And if that sounds like dogma to you, then I'm sorry, but your opinion on it doesn't matter anyhow.

So what you are saying is... Unicorns and fairies are real...

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Both of which are in contradiction with GR, which is direct mathematical consequence of the gauge symmetries in question. In other terms, their violations are simply hidden under more math.

Prove them wrong then. Here is where both lurk almost daily. Otherwise, you are just blowing smoke up the skirts of people that can't do the math.

[K^2]

Prove them wrong then.

The above is a proof. Given Poincare local symmetry, the stress-energy density is a conserved current. Which would not have to be violated if EMDrive merely accelerated in vacuum, in a manner similar to warp drive. Then we could not reject Dr. notsosureofit's hypothesis. But it applies a force. Which means that I can draw a boundary around the EMDrive, and there will be momentum flow through the boundary. And that violates conserved flow.

Warptech's hypothesis simply assumes vacuum with a broken symmetry. The only possible feature of Yang-Mills Theory on Poincare Group that isn't part of GR is torsion. Polarization is a feature of vacuum that is not locally symmetrical under Poincare group. QED.

Again, all we have to ask is whether Poincare local symmetry is preserved. If it's not, we're in unicorn land. We haven't gotten through a tiny fraction of immeasurably more likely scenarios.

Now, there are branches of theoretical physics that consider what happens if certain symmetries are broken. Like polarized vacuum. And sure, EMDrive would be one of the consequences. Among hundreds of others, which people have looked for in all manner of experiments. If there was a measurable asymmetry there, we would have found it by now.

[SuperFastJellyfish]

The above is a proof. Given Poincare local symmetry, the stress-energy density is a conserved current. Which would not have to be violated if EMDrive merely accelerated in vacuum, in a manner similar to warp drive. Then we could not reject Dr. notsosureofit's hypothesis. But it applies a force. Which means that I can draw a boundary around the EMDrive, and there will be momentum flow through the boundary. And that violates conserved flow.

Warptech's hypothesis simply assumes vacuum with a broken symmetry. The only possible feature of Yang-Mills Theory on Poincare Group that isn't part of GR is torsion. Polarization is a feature of vacuum that is not locally symmetrical under Poincare group. QED.

Again, all we have to ask is whether Poincare local symmetry is preserved. If it's not, we're in unicorn land. We haven't gotten through a tiny fraction of immeasurably more likely scenarios.

Now, there are branches of theoretical physics that consider what happens if certain symmetries are broken. Like polarized vacuum. And sure, EMDrive would be one of the consequences. Among hundreds of others, which people have looked for in all manner of experiments. If there was a measurable asymmetry there, we would have found it by now.

I am not the one you have to prove it to. They are their hypotheses. Show them their flaws so this whole thing can be put to rest. You are just wasting your breath here and you know it.

[K^2]

Why? The burden of proof is on them. They don't meet it. I'm more curious about your own behavior. If you have no understanding of field theory whatsoever, why do you keep insisting that their hypotheses have anything to do with reality?

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Why? The burden of proof is on them. They don't meet it. I'm more curious about your own behavior. If you have no understanding of field theory whatsoever, why do you keep insisting that their hypotheses have anything to do with reality?

Fine. You win, Big Fish.

[vger]

Why? The burden of proof is on them. They don't meet it. I'm more curious about your own behavior. If you have no understanding of field theory whatsoever, why do you keep insisting that their hypotheses have anything to do with reality?

Wouldn't...

And that later category needs to be stomped out without mercy.

...imply that going out of your way to debunk things is preferred over waiting for the claimants to provide evidence?

[Darnok]

We have hundreds of years worth of observations.

Hundreds of years of interpretations based on previous interpretations, don't forget that... and now what if someone in that chain made wrong interpretation?

It has happen few times Laws and theories based on fundamentally wrong interpretation and equations are going to be also fundamentally wrong.

If you are looking in very narrow way then of course science is going in good direction and everything is working, but if you change perspective and take a wider look you will notice how many theories should be still called hypothesis because they are working only in very very narrow range.

We have the most precise measurements ever performed testing models based on gauge symmetries. If we were mapping Earth with resolution that we have on these measurements, we'd have it down to the size of a grain of sand. So think about it like that, say we've measured Earth down to a grain of sand, and we've reported that Earth is a spheroid. And your argument is, "Well, maybe you missed something." Not likely.

And you missed something huge... the Moon and tides... your super precise measurements are incorrect!

That is my point we are going into small, tiny things and people rave about the precision while their narrow minded way of looking at things is leading them to very wrong interpretations.

Yet scientists are forcing others to continue their work in that direction, because it would be waste of resources, from my perspective it is more likely it would destroy their authority.

What if small change in interpretation can make things simpler and save lots of resources, why people are so afraid to change their mind set and take a little wider picture?

Are you afraid of loosing authority?

[SargeRho]

So you're saying that you're smarter than every scientist that has worked on those measurements?

[Darnok]

So you're saying that you're smarter than every scientist that has worked on those measurements?

My answer was for hypothetical measurement of Earth.

If scientist is narrow minded it doesn't really matter how many equations and books he memorized, he is as smart as average person.

Also I dislike your way of thinking, scientists are not some elite class super smart humans that are never wrong, they are not even smarter than every other "regular" person. Scientists are also humans like you and me... just spending lots of time on their studies and checking measurements and observations with work of other people (also called scientists).

[kiwi1960]

It seems to work, but no one knows why... Earth to Pluto in 18 months....

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/70648151/onceridiculed-emdrive-may-in-fact-be-the-future-of-space-travel

[K^2]

Also I dislike your way of thinking, scientists are not some elite class super smart humans that are never wrong, they are not even smarter than every other "regular" person. Scientists are also humans like you and me... just spending lots of time on their studies and checking measurements and observations with work of other people (also called scientists).

I hate to break it to you (not really), but scientists reliably score in top few percent in just about any cognitive tests you can imagine. And ones that actually make useful contributions are considerably higher up on that bell curve. Sure, a lot of it is purely through hard work and excercise, but it's sort of like saying that a weight lifter is no stronger than any other person, just because they've excercised their muscles. It's a stupid claim.

One of the biggest problems with people of average intelligence, or bellow it, is that they think that everyone is of the same inteligence as they are. Part of the problem is that when people don't understand something, they can't gauge just how incompetent they are at the subject. When you see a weight someone else can lift and you can't, it's impossible to deny that they are stronger. Yet, when someone else solves a problem one cannot, few people seem to think that it's because that someone else is smarter.

So when you say that scientists aren't smarter than anyone else, I have bad news for you.

[Darnok]

So when you say that scientists aren't smarter than anyone else, I have bad news for you.

I know my English is bad, but...

every other "regular" person isn't same as "anyone else"?

If it is then I am sorry I mistranslated that one. My point was that some non-scientists, "regular" people, are as smart of even smarter than some (doesn't mean all) scientists.

[K^2]

There are some non-scientists that are smarter than some scientists. True. Also, a pretty useless statement. Overwhelming majority of scientists are far above average, however, which is the important part. A random person, even an ehtusiast, who is listening in on a conversation between two scientists is very unlikely to have capacity to fully grasp the conversation. That's not to say that they can't understand some of it, which is why we have popularized presentations of scientific discoveries in the first place. But jargon and experience aren't the only barrier in most cases.

This is a boundary we are running into here. A bunch of people here keep asking, "But what if... You can't possibly know!" No, you can't possibly know. Somebody who has spent years, or even decades of their life studying the subjects can know far, far more than you give them credit for.

Science is specifically designed to filter out dumb hypotheses. To replace beliefs and prejudices with precise models with concrete support. This is one thing science is specifically designed to handle. When scientists tell you that something is so improbable that it's simply not worth considering, and you think otherwise, I can guarantee that you are the one in the wrong.

[Stargate525]

Science is specifically designed to filter out dumb hypotheses. To replace beliefs and prejudices with precise models with concrete support. This is one thing science is specifically designed to handle. When scientists tell you that something is so improbable that it's simply not worth considering, and you think otherwise, I can guarantee that you are the one in the wrong.

Except... I think you're the only one saying that.

[Kryten]

Because you get your news from bloody IGN. Look at similar quality news sources 20 years ago, and you'd be convinced cold fusion was entirely legit.

[KSK]

This is a boundary we are running into here. A bunch of people here keep asking, "But what if... You can't possibly know!" No, you can't possibly know. Somebody who has spent years, or even decades of their life studying the subjects can know far, far more than you give them credit for.

It's not a boundary that's limited to this thread either but to be fair that's because a lot of the threads on this forum are due to curious people asking Big Questions. The problem is that the answer (or partial answer) to those Big Questions generally depends on complicated maths which I'm guessing most folks here - myself included by the way - just don't understand. At which point, the conversation drifts into arguments over more-or-less incorrect analogies and usually culminates in the scenario that K^2 outlines above.

[Darnok]

Science is specifically designed to filter out dumb hypotheses. To replace beliefs and prejudices with precise models with concrete support. This is one thing science is specifically designed to handle.

So I was not misunderstood... I am fully agree with what you wrote, I think science should work like you said, but from my observations it does not work in that way.

That is why you can see from me, so many negative comments to some of the methods and ways of thinking.

How patent office worker is more qualified in science than actual inventors and scientists from his time?

beliefs - How Higgs boson was found?

prejudices - some people in here got problems with that, just because I write things that disagree with them and their beliefs

When scientists tell you that something is so improbable that it's simply not worth considering, and you think otherwise, I can guarantee that you are the one in the wrong.

Einstein - Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

I would like science to be consistent in first place, then all other rules you accept can be added.

I like how EmDrive is going, because first someone made observation and invention, then he is trying to use science to explain that.

I dislike how some people are trying to make science in opposite direction... they first write something on paper and then trying to convince others they are right, without single evidence!

Also is there any summary about all hypothesis about EmDrive? I wouldn't want to read all 80+ pages to find few links

EDIT:

Overwhelming majority of scientists are far above average, however, which is the important part.

True, but what if EmDrive inventor is that above average smart guy and those who are saying "it is not working" are only those average smart scientists?

Not every experiment, observation and hypothesis is studied by super intelligent beings and I am sure that those super smart people is much fewer than those average, so if you have to convince majority of scientific community to push your claims from hypothesis to theory... then we are not going into good direction

Edited July 29, 2015 by Darnok