Smarter people were making that decision.And did the LHC get vetoed? Spoiler: It did not.
I'm willing to bet it'll get vetoed because people who make the decision will jump to absurd conclusions about what's possible. Like I did. Just look at the LHC's controversies if you want an example of how far beyond reason people will jump.
Economics made that decision. Lot of construction work involved in building the thing as well as money going into the sponsoring Universities. Money still talks, even in science.
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Nah, you can rule that one out, no problem. There's still no such thing as a free lunch, and even if there is, that lunch is not going to weigh more than the sun.They won't do that until they figure out how it works. After all, the last thing you want is to find out too late that the engines you just sent up generate black holes in zero gravity. And when you can't explain the physics behind how something works, you can't rule that out.I'll take it seriously the day they actually stick it on a probe and try it out...
And then if it works, I'll start demanding a Pluto orbiter.
Actually, one of the early speculations about EM-drive was that the microwaves are actually interacting with virtual particles...
If it really does interact with virtual particles and would use high energy it might* clump them together. If it would clump them together with strong enough force** it could crush them under their Schwartzschild radius... *plomp* We have a new black hole***...
* Maybe, no idea if virtual particles could actually be clumped in this way.
** I don't think we have access to sufficient energy. And we would almost certainly vaporize the drive before we would close to required energy anyway. Or so I make an uneducated guess.
*** Assuming the virtual particles would, er, "exist" long enough to even to form one.
DISCLAIMER: This speculation is inspired by existence of hypotheses that suggest that virtual particles could, in specific circumstances interact with the rest of the universe and even become non-virtual particles (like in case of black hole evaporation).
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This is a drive that, by all evidence, manages to not have an equal and opposite reaction. That is the motion equivalent.
By all evidence, this is the free lunch drive. After all, it's already doing one thing that is flat-out absurd by our understanding of physics.
The motion equivalent of pulling a black hole out of nowhere? (I'm assuming you aren't just talking about tabletop black holes- if you are, fine, it'll be fun to watch them "boil" away.) It's not a free lunch because you still have to put energy in to accelerate. If we misunderstood "it's really expensive to make matter", it'd be the same sort of small error we're seeing here, rather than any sort of threat to the planet.
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The motion equivalent of pulling a black hole out of nowhere? (I'm assuming you aren't just talking about tabletop black holes- if you are, fine, it'll be fun to watch them "boil" away.) It's not a free lunch because you still have to put energy in to accelerate. If we misunderstood "it's really expensive to make matter", it'd be the same sort of small error we're seeing here, rather than any sort of threat to the planet.This is a drive that, by all evidence, manages to not have an equal and opposite reaction. That is the motion equivalent.
By all evidence, this is the free lunch drive. After all, it's already doing one thing that is flat-out absurd by our understanding of physics.
The motion equivalent of a free lunch.
You do realize you're arguing with someone who admitted in the same post you just replied to it's an absurd conclusion? And used my very reply to you as an example of the kind of logic that will likely prevent the drive from being tested in space?
Whoops, I did miss that. I should read more carefully next time.
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It also involves "stuff" that's not known to exist and is not compatible with quantum mechanics (it only uses general/special relativity). I'm not sure I'd rely on Alcubierre's [sic] work in a discussion of quantum effects.
The Acubierre effect does not rely on impulse either. It does have it's operational issues, mainly that you can't navigate, you can't steer, and that once it's invoked, there isn't a way to turn it off.
When you use [sic] you should replicate the error (and really, it should only be if you are directly quoting someone.) If you make the correction and still mark it with [sic] it just makes you look like an asshat.
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I must say I am pleased to hear about this, and curious about how and if it works. If we're talking predictions, let's just say the likely result is that NASA tries this in space and draws the conclusion that it doesn't work. The laws of motion are robust things.
But... what if it works? What if we are actually seeing a tiny aberration that becomes the first documented instance of new physical principles we can use? It is, after all, how every major breakthrough has come to us. Something doesn't quite add up, someone smart says "Hmmm, that's funny."
If we can get this thing working, just the increased understanding it could bring us is amazing. Even if it means scrapping our old understanding and rewriting the science books.
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In the past, we have repeatedly had to throw out what we thought was "true" because of new information. There is no particular reason to believe this isn't going to happen again. XD
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In the past, we have repeatedly had to throw out what we thought was "true" because of new information. There is no particular reason to believe this isn't going to happen again. XD
While that's technically true, violations of the conservation laws are on the level of "s&%%, you mean the rules of physics doesn't work the same in Houston as they do in Beijing, and they're completely different on the moon, and different again inside the sun? Oops, how did we miss that for 400 years?"
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If it "violates the known laws of physics" how did someone conceive this might work to begin with?
I'm not sure how the initial design was hit upon, but as far as I can tell, there have been some previous tests that had issues with their testing or findings and had to retract their claims, so the current work was probably trying to clear things up (likely by showing that the thing doesn't work once testing issues are corrected). The fact that they also came up with results indicating thrust was probably something of a surprise.
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If it "violates the known laws of physics" how did someone conceive this might work to begin with?
There are always tinkerers and nut cases. Sometime they turn out to be correct in their misapprehensions.
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"That’s why it’s always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it’s all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There’s No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they’re going to start dribbling one of ’em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy’s ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles." -Terry Prachett's Small Gods
But more seriously... Chemlak, in this case, I think it would be less likely "the rules are totally wrong", and more "the rules are right, but there's something else going on that we don't understand, and this makes them look wrong until we figure out what it is". Also, pretty much every expert on quantum stuff agrees it's really weird, and they don't understand it as well as they'd like. XD
There's always the more simple explanation that we don't know what the rules are and found something that demonstrates our ignorance.
There's been a few examples of that before. It usually precedes a massive advancement in human knowledge.
Yes.
The major "problem" with accepting this outright, though, is that the rules as we currently understand them really seem internally consistent and have seemingly proven themselves to the most rigorous of testing - by both math and practical, where possible - to the point that something this significant is akin to having to start over from the very beginning.
I want this to work. It would be amazing.
The most likely explanation is probably an error somewhere that no one is noticing somehow - one of the reasons NASA is testing it in space before accepting it is in order to show that there really is something happening and it's not just experimental error. If not an error, than we need to rethink everything and do so a lot. This only applies to a single well-established rule... but it's such a well-established rule that, if it's wrong, we no longer really understand how anything works, because it's part of the cornerstone of how we do stuff.
Just out of curiosity, and to start reveling in and revealing my own ignorance... Orfamay (or anyone with a greater education than I) two things I'd be curious about:
- has anyone looked into the possibility (doofy as this is) that it's merely geometry at work? I.e. that the shape is what creates the illusion of no pushback or somehow generates the thrust? I shouldn't ask, "has anyone considered..." I suppose and more, "would you mind explaining why this was rejected in plain English?" as, when I was trying to read it earlier, my large headache and ADD decided I should take a nap instead, and being with faily is a full day. :)
- ... I've forgotten the second thing. Go figure.
- wait, I just rememebered; do you think this may have anything to do with either weird quantum traits like how the quantum eraser seems to determine the path tiny things took after-the-fact; or how geometry/topography seems to determine if something is a superconductor at that level? Would it either synch with either of these or explain them in some manner?
Bear in mind, my education on quantum stuff is personal and not advanced (as should be obvious by my questions); it's the result of, "hey, that looks cool" and looking into it, rather than formal. Sorry if I mangled some part of my understanding there (and feel free to correct misconceptions of mine).
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I've got 20 bucks on experimental error.
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I posted before, then deleted it because it's too obvious, but since you're asking, I'm wondering whether they've taken into account that they're inducing a current (copper casing + bouncing photons in a shaped chamber) and that current will necessarily interact with Earth's magnetic field to produce a force. (Think of an electromagnetic compass.)
No physicist worth his or her salt would miss something this obvious, so I have to assume they just chose not to mention it in their paper (it's not listed as a possible source of error), but I'd still like to see the experiment repeated in a Faraday cage to see what happens.
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Supposedly, some of the tests were conducted in various physical orientation (and within Faraday cages) to exclude possibility you mention - if it was case of interaction with geomagnetic field, the strength of effect should vary depending upon its position in relation to the poles.
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Supposedly, some of the tests were conducted in various physical orientation (and within Faraday cages) to exclude possibility you mention - if it was case of interaction with geomagnetic field, the strength of effect should vary depending upon its position in relation to the poles.
It's a good question, though. Rather than just muttering "experimental error" like a charm to ward off thought-provoking results, tell us the errors you expect.
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There's always the more simple explanation that we don't know what the rules are and found something that demonstrates our ignorance.
There's been a few examples of that before. It usually precedes a massive advancement in human knowledge.
Yes.
The major "problem" with accepting this outright, though, is that the rules as we currently understand them really seem internally consistent and have seemingly proven themselves to the most rigorous of testing - by both math and practical, where possible - to the point that something this significant is akin to having to start over from the very beginning.
I want this to work. It would be amazing.
The most likely explanation is probably an error somewhere that no one is noticing somehow - one of the reasons NASA is testing it in space before accepting it is in order to show that there really is something happening and it's not just experimental error. If not an error, than we need to rethink everything and do so a lot. This only applies to a single well-established rule... but it's such a well-established rule that, if it's wrong, we no longer really understand how anything works, because it's part of the cornerstone of how we do stuff.
The problem with this is that the most rigorous of testing doesn't mean we're right. Even ignoring the problem of trying to figure out the laws of physics for the entire universe while being trapped on a single planet, we still have the fact that our own history of scientific advancement brings up multiple times where the most rigorous of testing provided conclusions that fit all evidence available but turned out to be laughably wrong later.
Like the Sun orbiting the Earth, or some of the early Greek ideas of what an atom is. Theories about Earth land formation before plate tectonics were discovered. Eugenics comes to mind. Turning lead into gold through chemicals. Some of the early theories about dinosaur physiology. That Columbus would die...
I can't recall any scientific literature from history claiming the sun orbited the earth. Plenty of religious propaganda. The early Greek conception of atoms was wrong but not laughably so. Eugenics has moral issues but not scientific ones. And gamma irradiation of Hg, and then beta decay will yield a radioactive form of gold. So not lead, but definitely a more-common metal can be converted to gold.
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I think I'll chalk this EM Drive up to insufficiently careful experimental design. Poking around on the Web tells me that for something like this to be true as advertised would require our understanding of physics to be rebuilt at the foundation.
That would scare me a lot more if we hadn't had to rebuild our understanding of physics at the foundation level three times since 1900.
Relativity theory taught us that the traditional division between space and time was nonsensical.
Quantum theory taught us that the traditional division between matter and energy was nonsensical.
The disproof of parity conservation taught us that the physical laws of the universe are not uniform and that the universe does have a preferred orientation.
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I think I'll chalk this EM Drive up to insufficiently careful experimental design. Poking around on the Web tells me that for something like this to be true as advertised would require our understanding of physics to be rebuilt at the foundation.That would scare me a lot more if we hadn't had to rebuild our understanding of physics at the foundation level three times since 1900.
Relativity theory taught us that the traditional division between space and time was nonsensical.
Quantum theory taught us that the traditional division between matter and energy was nonsensical.
The disproof of parity conservation taught us that the physical laws of the universe are not uniform and that the universe does have a preferred orientation.
The last one is new to me. Can you please give me a link to where I can read more about it? Thanks!
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It's just a bit weird to me; they've decided to run experiments in space and people are assuming NASA isn't smart enough to eliminate other possibilities before sending the thing up there. This actually is rocket science, and they're the rocket scientists, so I'm going to trust them.
Although, admittedly, I still don't like to drive faster than a horse can go, because I'm afraid the vehicle's high speed motion will create a wind vortex which will suck the air from my lungs and I'll suffocate.
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The last one is new to me. Can you please give me a link to where I can read more about it? Thanks!
The disproof of parity conservation taught us that the physical laws of the universe are not uniform and that the universe does have a preferred orientation.
Happy to. Is Wikipedia good enough for you? Because I can dig up primary sources if you like, but they are, of course, rather technical.
Basically, "parity conservation" says that if I build a mirror image of all my equipment, I should get exactly the same result irrespective of which set I'm using. This, in turn, is tied to another of Emmy Noether's theorems -- parity will be conserved if the laws of physics are invariant with respect to left/right. (God bless Emmy, who definitely has a place on my Smartest-Human-Being-in-History list.) Like conservation of energy and conservation of momentum (as well as conservation of weird stuff like charge, baryon number, and so forth) conservation of parity is one of those rock principles on which modern physics was based -- partly because the idea that the Universe gives a hamster turd whether or not the equipment is pointed towards Mecca seemed ludicrous.
... and then it went all went pear-shaped, when someone managed to demonstrate conclusively that, no, parity is not conserved (more specifically, the weak nuclear force, which largely controls atomic decay, does not conserve parity -- the other three appear to do so). Nobel prizes all around, boys!
(Isaac Asimov has speculated that this phenomenon may be related to the fact that all life on earth appears to use L-amino acids, which may be related to weak interactions that make D-amino acids less stable over evolutionary time scales. Most modern biologists consider this to be bunk, but it's an interesting theory, and it is a good example of how these apparently minor violations can end up having major consequences.)
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It feels like that every time it happens Quark, until you realize that what you though was the very foundation was just mere observation.
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It feels like that every time it happens Quark, until you realize that what you though was the very foundation was just mere observation.But if the EM Drive is as advertised, what it means is we don't even know how to do science.
I'm afraid this is just wrong.
If the EM-drive works as advertised, then it simply means a) that we have no explanation ready-made for something that we had never seen before, and b) that something that we developed to explain what we have seen (Noether's symmetries) hinge on a false assumption. Neither of those are unprecedented in science, and neither of them, frankly, are all that unexpected.
For example, we had no explanation of Roentgen rays when they were first observed; they were just some strange phenomenon; by the time we got an actual explanation, we had developed quantum mechanics and we had realized that, yes, energy and mass were actually the same thing (and that the law of conservation of energy was not true, and neither was the law of conservation of matter). Our current best understanding is that energy and mass are the same thing (hence the law of conservation of mass-energy, which we call the law of conservation of energy, although it's different from what a 19th century scientist meant by the term) and it may well be that mass, energy, and charisma are all the same thing, and we just haven't realized the procedure for converting the energy of a battery into charisma yet.
ETA: if the EM-drive actually works as advertised, then I suspect what it will end up meaning is either that the laws of physics are not only anisotropic (which we already knew), but location-dependent as well, or it will mean that our understanding of momentum will need to be merged with some other concept and we'll end up with the law of conservation of momentum/Wisdom.
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That Columbus would die before reaching land
-That one was pretty reasonable (if wrong) columbus messed up the circumference of the earth to make it too small and had a math error converting the miles on a map of the asian continent to make it too big. He just got really really lucky
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If the EmDrive works as advertised, it will just be another entry in that long line. Scientists will wonder for a bit how they missed it before remembering they had absolutely no reason to even suspect it, and science will adjust and go on.
Is there even an underlying mechanism for this working? Quantum physics is weird isn't much of an explanation.
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Is there even an underlying mechanism for this working? Quantum physics is weird isn't much of an explanation.
If the EmDrive works as advertised, it will just be another entry in that long line. Scientists will wonder for a bit how they missed it before remembering they had absolutely no reason to even suspect it, and science will adjust and go on.
Not according to standard theories. There are lots of non-standard theories out there.
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So... either it's a fictional radiation, or we're massively rewriting physics.
we forgot to carry the 2 is starting to look more and more likely
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atoms are not particles of fire connected to earth, wind, and water.
Eugenics has plenty of scientific issues; many of the criteria for the sterilizations tend to reduce genetic diversity, and in turn act as a countermeasure to evolution.
Sure, but that doesn't have anything to do with the scientific plausibility of accomplishing it.
And you don't need radiation to give the appearance of turning something to gold; it's an old chemistry trick.
Except that by the method I described, it actually becomes atomic gold.
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The last one is new to me. Can you please give me a link to where I can read more about it? Thanks!
The disproof of parity conservation taught us that the physical laws of the universe are not uniform and that the universe does have a preferred orientation.Happy to. Is Wikipedia good enough for you? Because I can dig up primary sources if you like, but they are, of course, rather technical.
Basically, "parity conservation" says that if I build a mirror image of all my equipment, I should get exactly the same result irrespective of which set I'm using. This, in turn, is tied to another of Emmy Noether's theorems -- parity will be conserved if the laws of physics are invariant with respect to left/right. (God bless Emmy, who definitely has a place on my Smartest-Human-Being-in-History list.) Like conservation of energy and conservation of momentum (as well as conservation of weird stuff like charge, baryon number, and so forth) conservation of parity is one of those rock principles on which modern physics was based -- partly because the idea that the Universe gives a hamster turd whether or not the equipment is pointed towards Mecca seemed ludicrous.
... and then it went all went pear-shaped, when someone managed to demonstrate conclusively that, no, parity is not conserved (more specifically, the weak nuclear force, which largely controls atomic decay, does not conserve parity -- the other three appear to do so). Nobel prizes all around, boys!
(Isaac Asimov has speculated that this phenomenon may be related to the fact that all life on earth appears to use L-amino acids, which may be related to weak interactions that make D-amino acids less stable over evolutionary time scales. Most modern biologists consider this to be bunk, but it's an interesting theory, and it...
Thanks! That will do!
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Nah. That's how you end up wondering how flightless waterfowl can exist while your penguin friend fades from the universe.
And I may have just dated myself with that reference.
carbon dated. :)
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The last one is new to me. Can you please give me a link to where I can read more about it? Thanks!
The disproof of parity conservation taught us that the physical laws of the universe are not uniform and that the universe does have a preferred orientation.Happy to. Is Wikipedia good enough for you? Because I can dig up primary sources if you like, but they are, of course, rather technical.
Basically, "parity conservation" says that if I build a mirror image of all my equipment, I should get exactly the same result irrespective of which set I'm using. This, in turn, is tied to another of Emmy Noether's theorems -- parity will be conserved if the laws of physics are invariant with respect to left/right. (God bless Emmy, who definitely has a place on my Smartest-Human-Being-in-History list.) Like conservation of energy and conservation of momentum (as well as conservation of weird stuff like charge, baryon number, and so forth) conservation of parity is one of those rock principles on which modern physics was based -- partly because the idea that the Universe gives a hamster turd whether or not the equipment is pointed towards Mecca seemed ludicrous.
... and then it went all went pear-shaped, when someone managed to demonstrate conclusively that, no, parity is not conserved (more specifically, the weak nuclear force, which largely controls atomic decay, does not conserve parity -- the other three appear to do so). Nobel prizes all around, boys!
(Isaac Asimov has speculated that this phenomenon may be related to the fact that all life on earth appears to use L-amino acids, which may be related to weak interactions that make D-amino acids less stable over evolutionary time scales. Most modern biologists consider this to be bunk, but it's an interesting theory, and it...
Could it be related to why there are many more right-handed humans than left-handed humans ?
I see zero reason why one would be so much more prevalent than the other
different parts of the brain controling different parts of the body and some of those things being more important than others.