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No, it is different. Photon drives are like a reactionless drive in that you are not expelling matter, but photon drives are emitting mass/energy in one directi
by roywiggins 8y ago
No, it is different. Photon drives are like a reactionless drive in that you are not expelling matter, but photon drives are emitting mass/energy in one direction and moving in the other and conserve momentum.
Reactionless drives just produce force, pushing off "nothing." They violate conservation of momentum and break physics as we know it pretty conclusively.
- trhway 8y agoThey push off the whole Universe. They go in one direction, the Universe - much slower, in the opposite, and thus momentum is conserved :)
- danbruc 8y agoI am not sure if you are joking...but one should not imagine the situation like a tiny space ship inside an egg pushing against the egg shell from within.