8 ms·

There is a comment from Pubpeer [0] on this research [1] if anyone is curious: "This is not the first flight of an ion-drive aircraft. Seversky was patenting a

There is a comment from Pubpeer [0] on this research [1] if anyone is curious: "This is not the first flight of an ion-drive aircraft. Seversky was patenting and flying ionocraft in the 1960s [2], hobbyists have been building them for decades under the name "lifter", and a self-contained device that carries its own power supply was developed by Ethan Krauss in 2006. MIT's device may be the first ionocraft to use wings for lift, however. The previous devices behaved more like helicopters than airplanes, and did not need wings to stay aloft." [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9 [1] https://pubpeer.com/publications/020C19C112F2605CEC4B34CA320AAC https://pubpeer.com/publications/020C19C112F2605CEC4B34CA320... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U

belter 4y ago
"On the performance of electrohydrodynamic propulsion" [2013]: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2012.0623 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2012... A reference mentioned in the Nature article [0] above, has a good overview of the Mathematics. It also mentions a UK patent from 1928 I did not see mentioned from the MIT Nature article: "Brown TT. 1928 A method of and an apparatus or machine for producing force or motion. UK Patent no. GB300311 (A)." : https://patents.google.com/patent/GB300311A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/GB300311A/en
CSSer 4y ago
So is this just MIT being MIT (overhyping everything) or did this guy and his team somehow miss all of this? Is our scientific knowledge really that scattered?
- portyllo 4y ago
  This made it to the cover of Nature with a similar headline [0]. I guess that they are also "overhyping everything". [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsmahXYXoAAkaoI?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsmahXYXoAAkaoI?format=jpg&name=...
  - lupire 4y ago
    That same Nature cover has an overyhyped BS headline about quantum computers and cryptocurrency.
- lupire 4y ago
  The OP article explains. The new device flies with no moving parts and with onboard power.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I'm not sure that the guy who patented this is considered a "serious" scientist. After all, he did patent a technology from the 60's. Otherwise, this just seems to be MIT being MIT: creating a trivial improvement on an old technology (in this case, moving the boost converter onto the airplane to avoid a tether wire), and publicizing the hell out of it because it's cool.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > a trivial improvement on an old technology (in this case, moving the boost converter onto the airplane to avoid a tether wire) I wouldn’t call building an airplane that doesn’t need to be connected to the ground by wires a minor improvement. This makes a fun gimmick into something potentially useful.
  - tytso 4y ago
    Keep in mind that the MIT Press office != the professors at MIT. It's actually quite common for any University's press office to be clueless about the research being done at the university, and it is their job to make as big of a splash as possible. This is much like the oft-cited issue that the reporters aren't responsible for the headlines --- that is picked by the editors to make as big of a splash as possible. As far as "patenting a technology from the 60's", even an incremental improvement on an old idea is still patentable. The real test is whether the patent cited the prior art, and you can bet that MIT Press Office didn't read the patent application before breathlessly sending out the press release.
    - lupire 4y ago
      Where is the "breathless" part?
      - xattt 4y ago
        The part where the ozone that’s emitted from the high voltage field overwhelms you!
    - mannerheim 4y ago
- vilhelm_s 4y ago
  I'd absolutely expect the guy and his team to know about prior work, but the article comes from the university "news office". In my experience university PR releases are always extremely overhyped, particularly from the elite universities.
  - closetohome 4y ago
    Grad student: Look guys I built a little plane News office: MIT SUPER-SCIENTIST INVENTS AIR TRAVEL
- aj7 4y ago
  See this 2013 article. https://news.mit.edu/2013/ionic-thrusters-0403 https://news.mit.edu/2013/ionic-thrusters-0403 In the 2018 article this submission is based on, you’re seeing 5 years of progress.
- scarby2 4y ago
  Well the headline i believe is technically accurate. Given that lifter type devices are aircraft but not aeroplanes. It's certainly an iteration rather than a complete revolution but seems like an important step. Certainly something like this would have more practical application, a basically silent drone that could fly over a battlefield would be a huge win.
- vpribish 4y ago
  I'm baffled that MIT's PR is so cringeworthy. They had a priceless, universally recognized and irreplaceable brand and they are just trashing it with a sustained campaign of cheap clickbait seemingly aimed at a technologically ignorant audience. WTF? WHY? The Fools!
  - frognumber 4y ago
    University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. I don't think it will dig itself out again.
    - jakzurr 4y ago
      > University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. > I don't think it will dig itself out again. Don't know why, but makes me think of Google.
    - pen2l 4y ago
      Harvard and MIT have a lot of clout, and it's partly because of how incredibly massive they are. The Harvard network has more professors than some universities have pupils, (above two-thousand). Consequently just the amount of output due to a large number of people working there gets it placed high up in rating indices and such. It's tough to say if it can keep up with its reputation. In some ways this phenomenon is comparable to gentrification: the beauty and soul of a place sometimes dies when the people who made that place what it is are displaced, like how Somerville and Berlin changed/are changing. It makes no sense for someone to remain committed in an academic career track when they're paying the kind of rent they do when around MIT/Harvard area with the income they make, so I agree with you that it's no longer attracting the kind of people that made MIT what it once was. There are some institutions, that not many know about yet, that I'm confident in a couple of decades everyone will know about like U of Copenhagen and KIT & U of Stuttgart in Germany, and I think some in the midwest (Purdue, UMich, etc.) will one day have their day to shine too.
- Beldin 4y ago
  I dunno about the findings from the 60s, but non-moving rotors would not keep a helicopter in the air... so at least some progress. It's not clear whether this thing can steer (by changing ion balance?), if this prototype can't but the concept might, or if it's forward only. If they can steer (change direction at will) without moving parts, that definitely sounds innovative.
- goatcode 4y ago
  Or perhaps, as is becoming pretty ubiquitous in tech: the people who communicate things don't have nearly as much understanding as the people who do them. It was not always this way, but it seems the communication department in an organization is becoming the dumping ground for people who flunked out of doing the hands-on hard work but for one reason or another, have some support to retain them. Note: I'm not criticizing tech writing. Just what tech writing has become.
rcstank 4y ago
Did any of these have moving parts?
- jolmg 4y ago
  At least the one from 1964 in the linked YouTube video doesn't.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Lifters typically have a tether don’t they? So I think it depends on whether you consider the tether a moving part. It has to move for the craft to move… A self contained unit like the MIT one is an improvement on the lifter, because the ion drive is itself an improvement on the lifter. Or at least, a production version of one. What they’ve done is get the mass to thrust ratio below a threshold that allows for flight in atmosphere. That’s definitely worth some points, but not all the points.
    - nomel 4y ago
      The tether is there to supply power and hold it down. Lifters require a power to weight ratio greater than one, which probably isn't possible with an on-board power supply. This MIT plane integrates the power supply and uses wing lift to reduce the required power, just as all planes do, and as the ionic propulsion planes did before (as others have linked to). This is just the MIT press department embarrassing themselves again, or perhaps proving that sensationalism is a required part of science/funding these days.
      - hinkley 4y ago
        One is self propelled and the other is a toy that was abandoned 60 years ago as unworkable. That doesn’t sound the same to me.
        nomel 4y ago
        I think you misread. I wasn't comparing the lifter to a plane, I was comparing other ionic propulsion planes to their plane. > and as the ionic propulsion planes did before (as others have linked to).

belter 4y ago

"On the performance of electrohydrodynamic propulsion" [2013]: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2012.0623 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2012... A reference mentioned in the Nature article [0] above, has a good overview of the Mathematics. It also mentions a UK patent from 1928 I did not see mentioned from the MIT Nature article: "Brown TT. 1928 A method of and an apparatus or machine for producing force or motion. UK Patent no. GB300311 (A)." : https://patents.google.com/patent/GB300311A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/GB300311A/en

CSSer 4y ago

So is this just MIT being MIT (overhyping everything) or did this guy and his team somehow miss all of this? Is our scientific knowledge really that scattered?

portyllo 4y ago
This made it to the cover of Nature with a similar headline [0]. I guess that they are also "overhyping everything". [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsmahXYXoAAkaoI?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsmahXYXoAAkaoI?format=jpg&name=...
- lupire 4y ago
  That same Nature cover has an overyhyped BS headline about quantum computers and cryptocurrency.
lupire 4y ago
The OP article explains. The new device flies with no moving parts and with onboard power.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
I'm not sure that the guy who patented this is considered a "serious" scientist. After all, he did patent a technology from the 60's. Otherwise, this just seems to be MIT being MIT: creating a trivial improvement on an old technology (in this case, moving the boost converter onto the airplane to avoid a tether wire), and publicizing the hell out of it because it's cool.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > a trivial improvement on an old technology (in this case, moving the boost converter onto the airplane to avoid a tether wire) I wouldn’t call building an airplane that doesn’t need to be connected to the ground by wires a minor improvement. This makes a fun gimmick into something potentially useful.
- tytso 4y ago
  Keep in mind that the MIT Press office != the professors at MIT. It's actually quite common for any University's press office to be clueless about the research being done at the university, and it is their job to make as big of a splash as possible. This is much like the oft-cited issue that the reporters aren't responsible for the headlines --- that is picked by the editors to make as big of a splash as possible. As far as "patenting a technology from the 60's", even an incremental improvement on an old idea is still patentable. The real test is whether the patent cited the prior art, and you can bet that MIT Press Office didn't read the patent application before breathlessly sending out the press release.
  - lupire 4y ago
    Where is the "breathless" part?
    - xattt 4y ago
      The part where the ozone that’s emitted from the high voltage field overwhelms you!
  - mannerheim 4y ago
vilhelm_s 4y ago
I'd absolutely expect the guy and his team to know about prior work, but the article comes from the university "news office". In my experience university PR releases are always extremely overhyped, particularly from the elite universities.
- closetohome 4y ago
  Grad student: Look guys I built a little plane News office: MIT SUPER-SCIENTIST INVENTS AIR TRAVEL
aj7 4y ago
See this 2013 article. https://news.mit.edu/2013/ionic-thrusters-0403 https://news.mit.edu/2013/ionic-thrusters-0403 In the 2018 article this submission is based on, you’re seeing 5 years of progress.
scarby2 4y ago
Well the headline i believe is technically accurate. Given that lifter type devices are aircraft but not aeroplanes. It's certainly an iteration rather than a complete revolution but seems like an important step. Certainly something like this would have more practical application, a basically silent drone that could fly over a battlefield would be a huge win.
vpribish 4y ago
I'm baffled that MIT's PR is so cringeworthy. They had a priceless, universally recognized and irreplaceable brand and they are just trashing it with a sustained campaign of cheap clickbait seemingly aimed at a technologically ignorant audience. WTF? WHY? The Fools!
- frognumber 4y ago
  University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. I don't think it will dig itself out again.
  - jakzurr 4y ago
    > University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. > I don't think it will dig itself out again. Don't know why, but makes me think of Google.
  - pen2l 4y ago
    Harvard and MIT have a lot of clout, and it's partly because of how incredibly massive they are. The Harvard network has more professors than some universities have pupils, (above two-thousand). Consequently just the amount of output due to a large number of people working there gets it placed high up in rating indices and such. It's tough to say if it can keep up with its reputation. In some ways this phenomenon is comparable to gentrification: the beauty and soul of a place sometimes dies when the people who made that place what it is are displaced, like how Somerville and Berlin changed/are changing. It makes no sense for someone to remain committed in an academic career track when they're paying the kind of rent they do when around MIT/Harvard area with the income they make, so I agree with you that it's no longer attracting the kind of people that made MIT what it once was. There are some institutions, that not many know about yet, that I'm confident in a couple of decades everyone will know about like U of Copenhagen and KIT & U of Stuttgart in Germany, and I think some in the midwest (Purdue, UMich, etc.) will one day have their day to shine too.
Beldin 4y ago
I dunno about the findings from the 60s, but non-moving rotors would not keep a helicopter in the air... so at least some progress. It's not clear whether this thing can steer (by changing ion balance?), if this prototype can't but the concept might, or if it's forward only. If they can steer (change direction at will) without moving parts, that definitely sounds innovative.
goatcode 4y ago
Or perhaps, as is becoming pretty ubiquitous in tech: the people who communicate things don't have nearly as much understanding as the people who do them. It was not always this way, but it seems the communication department in an organization is becoming the dumping ground for people who flunked out of doing the hands-on hard work but for one reason or another, have some support to retain them. Note: I'm not criticizing tech writing. Just what tech writing has become.

rcstank 4y ago

Did any of these have moving parts?

jolmg 4y ago
At least the one from 1964 in the linked YouTube video doesn't.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Lifters typically have a tether don’t they? So I think it depends on whether you consider the tether a moving part. It has to move for the craft to move… A self contained unit like the MIT one is an improvement on the lifter, because the ion drive is itself an improvement on the lifter. Or at least, a production version of one. What they’ve done is get the mass to thrust ratio below a threshold that allows for flight in atmosphere. That’s definitely worth some points, but not all the points.
  - nomel 4y ago
    The tether is there to supply power and hold it down. Lifters require a power to weight ratio greater than one, which probably isn't possible with an on-board power supply. This MIT plane integrates the power supply and uses wing lift to reduce the required power, just as all planes do, and as the ionic propulsion planes did before (as others have linked to). This is just the MIT press department embarrassing themselves again, or perhaps proving that sensationalism is a required part of science/funding these days.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      One is self propelled and the other is a toy that was abandoned 60 years ago as unworkable. That doesn’t sound the same to me.
      - nomel 4y ago
        I think you misread. I wasn't comparing the lifter to a plane, I was comparing other ionic propulsion planes to their plane. > and as the ionic propulsion planes did before (as others have linked to).