Scientists Just Killed the EmDrive

popular mechanics ^ | MAR 31, 2021 | BY CAROLINE DELBERT MAR 31, 2021

[Political Junkie Too]

It's the "Aunty Em" drive.

Just click your heels three times and say "There's no place like Mars... There's no place like Mars..."

-PJ

[dayglored]

> Sometimes, when I make popcorn in the microwave oven, the house travels to another galaxy.

Microwave popcorn packages are actually gateways to similar packages in other galaxies, that can be traversed via wormholes. When you place your popcorn package in the microwave and turn it on, the wormhole is established, and the unpopped kernels in your bag exchange places with the popped kernels in the package in the other galaxy.

The "popping" sound you hear is when a kernel breaches the gateway at your end and enters the local package.

Butter is used as the hyperspace lubricant. Be sure to use enough butter.

[higgmeister]

Haven't you seen huge microwave feedhorns and parabolic dishes flying off of the tops of large buildings all over the country?   No, well then, never mind.

[moovova]

I think they were barking up the wrong tree...

[Kommodor]

That’s okay, I prefer the infinite improbability drive anyway.

[The Duke]

When I was in college in the mid 70's, one of the engineering students brought a "perpetual motion" device into class. It consisted of an inverted cup that was slightly concave at the top, along with a tiny top that you would set spinning on the top of the inverted cup.

He started the top spinning, and i.t continued to spin there until the end of the semester (we left it, untouched, in the room throughout the semester)

On the last day of the semester he revealed an ingenious little battery and coil that would only energize when the top approached the center of the concave surface. The top itself also had internal wires that would use the magnetic field to increase the spin.

Pretty neat little party trick, and a perfect fit for first year engineering students taking physics.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Setting type? What was that? As in printing type?

[upchuck]

RATS!! I was planning to install one EmDrive in my computer and another in my truck.

[upchuck]

Clever graphic. :-)

[fruser1]

Actually, EM is a downgrade from FM, which works just fine, but not for propulsion.

[Conan the Librarian]

Mine just goes back to Roswell in June 1947.

[Psalm 73]

"Setting type?"

Yup. Moveable type, like in the old days.

This was the early 70's, so there was no digital.
You would have a type holder (a chase) in your hand and grab type and spaces (ens and ems) as you construct words and sentences.
Then you would load that onto a press, ink up the platen aaaand start printing.

So that was like only 50 years ago, but that's how it was done.

[Rockingham]

The EM Drive was first proposed by a British physicist, Robert Shawyer, in 2001, with his device designed to extract force from the quantum vacuum via a dynamic Casimir effect. Notwithstanding the current negative results, other researchers have claimed to detect a small net thrust. The allure of new physics and extraordinary potential of an EM Drive seem likely to assure continued research and experimentation, even if most of it will never be written up in the scientific literature.

[Telepathic Intruder]

hasn’t quantum physics “defied all the rules” of previously known physics?

Not quantum physics. And it hasn't broken any laws of classical physics either. Sure, in quantum physics energy can spontaneously appear out of nothing, but it always cancels itself out again so energy conservation in classical physics is maintained. Quantum entanglement, Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" seems to occur instantaneously, breaking the speed of light law, but no usable information can go faster than light just the same. No laws of physics are broken.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Yep, I remember the type equipment. I saw it done when I was a kid, but never did it myself. A friends dad worked in a printing facility before he opened a dry cleaner business.

It is amazing the work that was required just to print things.

[Deaf Smith]

"EM is a downgrade from FM, which works just fine"

The chicks thought so "No static at all"

[LS]

That’s certainly not what I hear from admittedly “pop” scientists.

How can an atom be both positive and negative at the same time? How can particles “know” they are being watched when they go through the “slit” experiment?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Superposition and particle/wave duality. Those are laws of quantum mechanics, and although weird they are consistent and predictable. Impossible for us to understand because we don't live in the quantum world, we live in the classical one; all our experience is in there. There's a famous quote by Richard Feynman:

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics".

But classical physics has its own mysteries. Why is the speed of light what it is? Why are all atoms the same size? Why does mass produce space/time curvature? When you get down to the details, everything is a question mark.

[Lazamataz]

How can particles “know” they are being watched when they go through the “slit” experiment?

It's crazy.

But it's true.