Love how scientists say it’s “impossible” because it violates “laws.”
“Hey! You can’t do that, it’s against the law!
If it works, our understanding of Physics is WRONG. Everything newer than Newton is suspect...
It violates ‘laws’ as established by man. There are many more laws we have yet to identify, especially in space.
Sometimes great leaps are made by those who try the impossible.
Adeo pro sedatus scientia.
I taped our Dyson vacuum cleaner to an old microwave and fired them up. It’s a good thing I put that plastic bread bag around my head because we shot around Mars like Nancy Pelosi chasing Republicans.
I'll listen the next time they get a human up in low earth orbit.
The infinite improbability drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a mere nothingth of a second, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. It was discovered by lucky chance, and then developed into a governable form of propulsion by the Galactic Government’s research center on Damogran.
The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood — and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess’s undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance to the theory of indeterminacy.
Many respectable physicists said that they weren’t going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn’t get invited to those sorts of parties.
Another thing they couldn’t stand was the perpetual failure they encountered while trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind-paralyzing distances between the farthest stars, and at the end of the day they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.
Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning in this way: If, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual impossibility, it must have finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out how exactly improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!
He did this and was rather startled when he managed to create the long sought after golden Infinite Improbability generator. He was even more startled when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness he was lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had realized that one thing they couldn’t stand was a smart-ass.
Precursor warp drive?
That gives a lot of credence to Burt Rutan’s comment about NASA being pronounced “NaySay.” NASA dissed the technology but the Chinese didn’t...now we find out it’s real and we’ve lost 5 years of R&D time.
I want to know which Muslim discovered this so we can give appropriate credit...
Cool. Sounds like they have a device which is tapping into the quantum vacuum. You don’t need to bring your own reaction mass if you can do that.
Who is the idiot who wrote this article?
I doubt “every physicist” was laughing at Roger. Scientists are expected to be skeptical and demand proof. That is what the scientific method is all about.
Two experiments showed an extremely tiny amount of thrust. Not enough to be of any practical use but potentially a breakthrough. Physicists recognized the potential. More work needs to be done.
It may be it is a theoretical advance that if improved has the potential to change space travel or it may be just a very small error by the labs.
It is an interesting concept but get rid of the drama queen who wrote the article. He provided no scientific analysis. He just a made up story about scientists bullying this poor guy.
Had to re-read that. First glance had it ...
720 milliwonton. :)
Would someone please ping me when this engine can power a spaceship? Thanks in advance.
5.56mm
Given that this news is valid, what are students being indoctrinated with in “science” classes in USA schools?
Political hacks have already begun thinking of ways to tax it!
I wondered why my microwave was levitating.
Seriously, this is quite fascinating.