Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

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Tuco

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If it's Tajmar that got leaked this week, he got values in line with others. But he had pretty low Q factors so it wasn't that impressive. From what (little) I understand, the Q factor is the amount of shenanigans going on in the drive, and folks are trying to figure out how to maximize them with different configurations and materials.

People still don't really know how it works, but his results being in line with the predictions makes things easier.

Personally I feel like it's long passed the "Is this all bullshit or error?" phase and into the, "Is whatever this is actually useful?" phase.
 
Palum

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Kind of, which is actually more exciting likely than what the engine in its current form can do.
 
K

Kedwyn

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It's pretty amazing that they have no clue how it works or how it's not breaking the laws of physics. Hopefully it is as it appears and can actually be used / scaled up.
 
Furry

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I love em drive. For it to function, it MUST completely invalidate one or two fundamental laws of physics. These laws are so highly written into every theory that it will basically collapse some major theories of science in upon itself.

My guess is that this experiment will become indisputable and undeniable proof that electromagnetism itself has mass. A few experiments that pointed to the possibility existed in the past that got waved away with some mathematical hand waving, but this will end up being too practical to ignore.
 
iannis

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Yeah, I'm only a layman.. but i'm also starting to feel like it's passed the bullshit test. There would be a lot of nerd cred to be gained inprovingit's bullshit.

It still faces the "mathematical curiosity or practical?" test.
 
hodj

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I'm still in wait and see mode on this. Anything that might defy well understood laws has a much higher bar to pass than other, more normal and consistent findings.

My understanding is that right now the amount of propulsion being generated really isn't enough to be practically useful, but I haven't been keeping up with it that much, tbh.
 
iannis

iannis

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Yeah, but anything more than nothing should be unpossible.

This one isn't cold fusion. Which might have happened once on accident in the mid 80's and never since again (but probably didn't even that one time). This one has actually got some (highly erratic) reproducibility behind it. It's not the italian guy hawking his bullshit.

There's something there. It's going to be a while, is my guess, before anybody knows what. It may not be biblical einstein toppling. It might turn out to be something like "we really need to re-evaluate how we formally define systems".

Round trip to mars in 30 days? No, probably not. Hoverboards and rocket cars?!?! Yeah, I dismiss that as well. Just as soon as anyone gets a good idea the entire thing is going to go dark behind patents, politics, and proprietary obfustication. Which is too bad. But the good news is that this right here is the exciting part, and exactly how the method is supposed to work.
 
hodj

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I dunno, my skepticism sense keeps atinglin'.

I HOPE it turns out to be something real, though, for sure.
 
Cad

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hodj_sl said:
I'm still in wait and see mode on this. Anything that might defy well understood laws has a much higher bar to pass than other, more normal and consistent findings.

My understanding is that right now the amount of propulsion being generated really isn't enough to be practically useful, but I haven't been keeping up with it that much, tbh.
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The guy is saying that with higher Q enclosures, much more thrust per power input could be generated. Dunno why they wouldn't just test with higher Q enclosures in the first place but I read numbers as high as 30N/watt which would make flying cars trivial. These static test boxes are producing something like 3KW/N.
 
hodj

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No, The EM Drive Will Not Lead To Warp Travel Any Time Soon | IFLScience

The EM Drive (Electromagnetic Drive) is probably one of the more annoying "breakthroughs" to be made in the last few years. Although it is potentially exciting, it cannot do half the things that some people have claimed it can.

It has not been confirmed to "actually work". It cannot get us to Mars in 10 weeks. And it does not break the laws of physics as we know them.

Now that that's out of the way, let's recap. The EM Drive is a hypothetical form of propulsion that uses microwaves in an enclosed chamber to create forward thrust. First proposed at the turn of the 21st Century, it received a huge amount of media attention earlier this year when some claimed that it could lead to propellant-less space travel.

Some erroneously claimed that it would also lead to "warp travel," which resulted in NASA having to come out and say that they weren't working on a warp drive.

What it actually does is produce a tiny, tiny amount of thrust via a method that's not entirely understood. Now, in new research presented at the Propulsion and Energy Forum and Exposition held by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics yesterday, a team from the University of Dresden in Germany has explained its latest findings on the drive. They have not confirmed that it works, but rather, ruled out some factors that could be at play.

As Katie Palmer for Wired explains: "[They] don't say that they've validated the drive - just that they can't explain where their teeny tiny thrust signatures are coming from."

One of the outlandish claims for the EM Drive is that it provides propellant-less propulsion but, again, this has never been proven. As the researchers explained in their paper: "Our test campaign can not confirm or refute the claims of the EM Drive but intends to independently assess possible side-effects in the measurements [sic] methods used so far."

They add: "Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena."

So, what does it all mean? It means that the EM Drive remains nothing more than a form of propulsion with a really low amount of thrust that scientists can't completely explain. That won't stop a host of places from telling you otherwise, though.

Just remember, if there's no peer-reviewed research saying how it works (there isn't) or experimental evidence of it producing high thrust (again, nope), then take everything with a hefty pinch of salt.
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Like I said, I definitely hope this turns into something significant, but thus far, I must keep my skepticism goggles on.
 
iannis

iannis

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A deep skepticism is also part of how it's supposed to work.

But... microwaves in an enclosed chamber to create thrust...

That right there, that, it shouldn't work. It shouldn't even produce LOW thrust. All it should do is cook your hotdog in 10 microseconds.

So yeah, take everything with a grain of salt when someone starts with, "This will lead to...". But the fact that it works at all when it shouldn't, that part is getting closer to being an inconvenient truth.
 
iannis

iannis

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Cosmological implications more than rocket cars. "Oooooh. So that's where -some- of the dark matter is."
 
hodj

hodj

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Right, it is intriguing. I'm certainly not saying it isn't possible, or that its a waste of time to investigate it. In fact I am saying the opposite, I want it to be more fully examined, experimented with, and hopefully better understood as a result.

But until it has been, I'm going to remain skeptical.

Which is a good thing. We should all be hopeful this turns into something big, for sure.
 
khorum

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HA. The EM Drive is gonna drag Alfven and his Plasma Cosmologists out of the wilderness.
 
Kuro

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See, it's all very easy to explain. A mighty Wizard in a neighboring galaxy is trying to summon a Microwave, resulting in a very slight pull on Earth's microwaves, most of which are firmly ensconced in wall units and thus the pull isn't noticeable.

Easy shit.
 
Tuco

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Cad_sl said:
The guy is saying that with higher Q enclosures, much more thrust per power input could be generated. Dunno why they wouldn't just test with higher Q enclosures in the first place but I read numbers as high as 30N/watt which would make flying cars trivial. These static test boxes are producing something like 3KW/N.
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30N a watt is ludicrous, it woupd make it a perpetual motion machine i think.

There have been a few weird results where the thrust has increased exponentiallly with the power and some people have extrapolated that out to hoverboard levels. Itd be great, but silly to consider at this point when they are generating micronewtons.
 
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