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> NASA engineer's 'helical engine' may violate the laws of physics So it's magic? Except as the article says there absolutely nothing that violates the laws o

> NASA engineer's 'helical engine' may violate the laws of physics So it's magic? Except as the article says there absolutely nothing that violates the laws of physics. Especially given it's theoretical so I'm not sure how using a simulation it may violate even the current laws of physics. Why is a magazine like New Scientist pushing magic?

xamuel 7y ago
Things absolutely can violate the laws of physics, in which case the laws of physics have to be rewritten. In fact, that's the holy grail in physics, is to find an experiment which reliably breaks the currently existing laws of physics. That is how progress is made. If it were like you say, then there would be no need for physics research, everything would already be known.
- zucker42 7y ago
  Considering that "the laws of physics" means by definition "the things that are observed to happen in the natural world" I don't think observable phenomenon can break the laws of physics. They can change our understanding of the laws of physics, but the laws themselves remain the same. It's a bit of a definitional issue though.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    I think that they actually mean "our description of how reality works". As in, the laws are part of the map, not the territory. "Breaking" those laws just means finding out they're an inaccurate description.
    - zucker42 7y ago
      Considering I believe that we discover physical laws, rather than invent them, that definition makes less sense to me.
      - jamesrcole 7y ago
        We make maps of new lands that we discover. And, those maps may be inaccurate. They often are.
    - DoctorOetker 7y ago
      what you say is true, but in this case there is no voyaging the territory going on at all. what the engineer proposes is like looking at a map and correcting the map without exploring the real world. it is possible to guess corrections to the map without actually exploring the world, but it means detecting inconsistencies. Correcting the map without travelling or referencing neglected observations would entail a realization. For example suppose our map of the world looked like 3 copies of the world, and we somehow believed there are 3 New Yorks, 3 Paris'es etc, that seem to develop in parallel, ... then the person proposing that the first repetition is actually a return to the same point would be making a point to the rest of the world using the triple copy earth. Here there is no pointing out a misconception of the laws of physics, and there is no referencing of anomalous observations, so you can not fix the map using nothing but the old map unless you also point out what is wrong with the map.
  - drinfinity 7y ago
    Where can I observe these magical laws you speak of?
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  Errors in the laws of physics can be found in two ways: 1) new experimental data which conflicts with the currently accepted laws of physics 2) inconsistencies within the current laws of physics or 3) The "error" in physics is not there and there is an error in the derivation of the inconsistency. What happens here is that an engineer attempts to use the accepted laws of physics without measuring new experimental data in hopes of violating the accepted laws of physics, but without formulating an explicit contradiction. This is why gus_massa's BS alarm got triggered: using only accepted laws in physics it should be impossible to derive a contradiction, and any seeming contradiction is either a complicated form of already understood propulsion mechanisms (photon rockets) which consume rocket rest mass, or else the seeming contradiction is an actual contradiction, in which case the derivation should be simplified to the extreme to point out the inconsistency in physics. The latter was not illustrated so it entails either an error in derivation, or an inefficient photon rocket.
Jaruzel 7y ago
> Why is a magazine like New Scientist pushing magic? New Scientist is not a high brow journal despite it's name. It's sold in supermarkets and newsagents (corner shops). I used to subscribe to it for a very long time, until they started dumbing-down the articles and also pre-selling the main story to other online news sites who published them online, BEFORE my subscriber issue hit my doormat.
throwaway744678 7y ago
I was annoyed as this title as well; it is as clickbaity as it can get. Obviously nothing can break the law of physics, by definition! It can certainly break our current knowledge of them (we were mistaken). The charitable interpretation of the title is that it would be "breaking" the law of newtonian mechanics - which we know are a good approximation only in certain conditions, ie. when the speed of the body is not approaching the speed of light, that are not met there (that's the whole point of this design!)

xamuel 7y ago

Things absolutely can violate the laws of physics, in which case the laws of physics have to be rewritten. In fact, that's the holy grail in physics, is to find an experiment which reliably breaks the currently existing laws of physics. That is how progress is made. If it were like you say, then there would be no need for physics research, everything would already be known.

zucker42 7y ago
Considering that "the laws of physics" means by definition "the things that are observed to happen in the natural world" I don't think observable phenomenon can break the laws of physics. They can change our understanding of the laws of physics, but the laws themselves remain the same. It's a bit of a definitional issue though.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  I think that they actually mean "our description of how reality works". As in, the laws are part of the map, not the territory. "Breaking" those laws just means finding out they're an inaccurate description.
  - zucker42 7y ago
    Considering I believe that we discover physical laws, rather than invent them, that definition makes less sense to me.
    - jamesrcole 7y ago
      We make maps of new lands that we discover. And, those maps may be inaccurate. They often are.
  - DoctorOetker 7y ago
    what you say is true, but in this case there is no voyaging the territory going on at all. what the engineer proposes is like looking at a map and correcting the map without exploring the real world. it is possible to guess corrections to the map without actually exploring the world, but it means detecting inconsistencies. Correcting the map without travelling or referencing neglected observations would entail a realization. For example suppose our map of the world looked like 3 copies of the world, and we somehow believed there are 3 New Yorks, 3 Paris'es etc, that seem to develop in parallel, ... then the person proposing that the first repetition is actually a return to the same point would be making a point to the rest of the world using the triple copy earth. Here there is no pointing out a misconception of the laws of physics, and there is no referencing of anomalous observations, so you can not fix the map using nothing but the old map unless you also point out what is wrong with the map.
- drinfinity 7y ago
  Where can I observe these magical laws you speak of?
DoctorOetker 7y ago
Errors in the laws of physics can be found in two ways: 1) new experimental data which conflicts with the currently accepted laws of physics 2) inconsistencies within the current laws of physics or 3) The "error" in physics is not there and there is an error in the derivation of the inconsistency. What happens here is that an engineer attempts to use the accepted laws of physics without measuring new experimental data in hopes of violating the accepted laws of physics, but without formulating an explicit contradiction. This is why gus_massa's BS alarm got triggered: using only accepted laws in physics it should be impossible to derive a contradiction, and any seeming contradiction is either a complicated form of already understood propulsion mechanisms (photon rockets) which consume rocket rest mass, or else the seeming contradiction is an actual contradiction, in which case the derivation should be simplified to the extreme to point out the inconsistency in physics. The latter was not illustrated so it entails either an error in derivation, or an inefficient photon rocket.

Jaruzel 7y ago

> Why is a magazine like New Scientist pushing magic? New Scientist is not a high brow journal despite it's name. It's sold in supermarkets and newsagents (corner shops). I used to subscribe to it for a very long time, until they started dumbing-down the articles and also pre-selling the main story to other online news sites who published them online, BEFORE my subscriber issue hit my doormat.

throwaway744678 7y ago

I was annoyed as this title as well; it is as clickbaity as it can get. Obviously nothing can break the law of physics, by definition! It can certainly break our current knowledge of them (we were mistaken). The charitable interpretation of the title is that it would be "breaking" the law of newtonian mechanics - which we know are a good approximation only in certain conditions, ie. when the speed of the body is not approaching the speed of light, that are not met there (that's the whole point of this design!)