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And it shouldn't die until the anomalous effect is adequately explained. That's how good experimental science works, regardless of current theories - if you se
by mdorazio 6y ago
And it shouldn't die until the anomalous effect is adequately explained. That's how good experimental science works, regardless of current theories - if you see an effect you can't explain, you test it until you can explain it. There's a very high chance the tiny force is attributable to something mundane, but it's still worth finding out what that thing is.
- trhway 6y agoi think we're wrong putting so much effort on understanding and proving it on Earth (where it can never practically be used anyway). Just put it into space and turn it on - whatever the nature of the effect if it is present - great, lets use it, and understand it with time, if there is no effect - well, we're done here.
- bjo590 6y agoMy understanding is running this experiment in space would cost >$10m, a very pricey experiment when the expected outcome is negative.
- feifan 6y ago$10m seems … relatively cheap for anything in space?
- gambiting 6y agoIt seems cheap relative to pretty much anything these days. People pay that much for rare cars, a rich person could snap their fingers and make it happen. I hate to tell people how to spend their money but I wish someone pitched it as an experiment to Elon Musk or Bezos. Just like you said - put it in space, switch it on. Either it works or it doesn't, should be obvious straight away, no?
- macintux 6y agoIt sure seems like collectively the world has wasted more than $10m of attention on this concept by now.
- bjo590 6y agoPutting another $10m to follow it would be chasing good money after bad, and fall into the sunk cost fallacy.
- Aeolun 6y agoSince nothing has been proven or disproven yet, we’re really in no different position that before all the experiments began. Might as well spend that money now to end it.
- bjo590 6y agoIt fits so far out of our theoretical models that it's unfair to say it isn't proven or disproven. There are virtually infinite hypothesis that are neither proven nor disproven experimentally, but because theory states it's impossible we don't consider them worth testing.
- ohyeshedid 6y agoUnrelated to the thread topic: We live in an attention economy. If you read a story, or watch a video, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the content; you're still traffic. Just viewing content on most of the internet boosts it's signal, and creates value for someone; much less engaging further by commenting, up/down voting, or sharing it. It's a pretty ugly system.
- dcolkitt 6y agoThe most surefire way to acquire massive wealth in the 21st century is to get convince people to pay as much attention to your app's notifications as they would an incoming phone call.
- 6y ago
- dmd 6y agoThat's about what Bezos makes in 60 seconds.
- christkv 6y agoWe could probable even go fund that
- gibolt 6y agoMake it happen!
- simonh 6y agoOrbit is actually a very dynamic and variable place. The Earth’s gravitational fields varies due to asymmetric mass distribution of the continental shelves, mountain ranges and features below the crust. Our atmosphere has an affect on satellites at even thousands of km altitude. The magnetic field is constantly shifting and can affect the orbits of metallic satellites. Then there’s the solar wind. This is why a lot of satellites need station keeping thrusters. Decent thrust would be observable, but very small rates of thrust that are hard to measure at all in the lab could be swamped by these effects and just as hard to measure in orbit, if not more so.
- mhh__ 6y agoExactly, rocket science is pretty easy to a physicist but rocket engineering is absolutely not.
- contravariant 6y agoTo some extent yes, but at some point the amount of effort might not outweigh the benefits. There are limits to how much time and effort it is worth to debunk a perpetual motion device (a term usually reserved for something that violates the conservation of energy but the conservation of momentum is close enough, or perhaps even equivalent under special relativity).
- colordrops 6y agoDoes it violate the conservation of energy though? I don't think that was proposed.
- contravariant 6y agoIt claims to provide thrust without propellant, which is a violation of the conservation of momentum. Since momentum and energy are conserved in much the same way this is already bad enough, however in special relativity the 4-momentum mixes momentum and energy (or rest-mass) and I believe that a well chosen Lorentz boost could turn a violation of the conservation of momentum into a violation of the conservation of energy.
- DennisP 6y agoSeems like it violates conservation of energy just because kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, and thrust has to be constant for a given input energy since there's no preferred reference frame. Thus the faster you go, the more kinetic energy you get for the same input energy.
- montjoy 6y agoRight. Just like the pioneer anomaly it warrants investigation just in case if there is something going on we haven’t predicted. Even if it is eventually explained by a mundane process it’s still probably worth the refinement of techniques used to detect why it’s happening. If for no other reason there’s the risk of more film flam technologies making similar claims with no way to disprove them.
- neurobashing 6y agoImagine 10k years in the future. 2 aliens arrive on earth, and examine the rubble. "Hey, check it out. They were right on the cusp of developing stardrive". "Weird, what happened? Nuclear war? Climate change?" "Nah, looks like they just couldn't work the math out, so they gave up."