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> the EmDrive has created a very interesting mystery. Microwave cavities have been a workhorse technology in many fields for many decades, and everyone has fou
by gaur 10y ago
> the EmDrive has created a very interesting mystery.
Microwave cavities have been a workhorse technology in many fields for many decades, and everyone has found that existing physics (classical electrodynamics, superconductivity, and a few other things) is entirely sufficient to explain how they work.
There's a very simple explanation for why a small group of people would report an unphysical, novel effect in a well-studied physical system: sloppy experimentation.
- luhn 10y agoThat was the initial response, but the results have since been replicated several times by several organizations, including NASA. "Sloppy experimentation" seems unlikely at this point.
- gaur 10y ago> the results have since been replicated several times by several organizations The results are random. Sometimes nonzero thrust is observed in a direction opposite to what was expected [0]. Know what that sounds like? A null measurement dominated by statistical and systematic uncertainties. > including NASA I'll repeat what I said elsewhere: NASA is so big that that doesn't mean anything. Not everyone affiliated with NASA is a top-notch researcher. The word "NASA" is not automatic proof of good research. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster#Testing_and_replication_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster#Te...
- noir_lord 10y ago> Microwave cavities have been a workhorse technology in many fields for many decades, and everyone has found that existing physics (classical electrodynamics, superconductivity, and a few other things) is entirely sufficient to explain how they work. Not that I'm disagreeing but you could have said "Newton mechanics has been the workhorse method for centuries and everyone has found that they work" then Einstein came along and dumped the apple cart. Not saying there is anything to the EmDrive (personally I'm on the side of experimental error) but the correct way to do science imo when you have something you can't explain is to keep at it until you can.
- gaur 10y ago> Not that I'm disagreeing but you could have said "Newton mechanics has been the workhorse method for centuries and everyone has found that they work" then Einstein came along and dumped the apple cart. That's specious. I am talking about a well-studied physical system, not a theoretical framework. The correct analogy in this case is that someone picked a system that is well-described by Newtonian mechanics—e.g., a pendulum—and then built a small, crappy pendulum, made a crappy measurement on said crappy pendulum, and then claimed the existence of new physics despite the fact that no new physics is required to explain the behavior of much bigger and better pendula that other people already built.
- marcosdumay 10y agoI don't really believe this is real. But I really doubt many of those experiments tested for the presence of uN thrust on those cavities.
- Trombone12 10y agoWhat Einstein did with special relativity was solving well known problems with Newtonian mechanics, which is the exact reason it was a big deal at the time. The big shock was of course the way he solved it, not that there was a problem to be solved.
- baq 10y ago
- api 10y agoThe effect is so tiny it could easily go un-noticed. How many people are trying to do ultra-sensitive acceleration measurements on microwave cavities?
- taneq 10y agoBeing cynical, the sort of people who give enough credence to claims of a non-Newtonian 'space drive' that they rush to test it may not be the sort of people who are also likely to practice a high level of scientific rigor.