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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- I don't hear anyone claiming otherwise. Woodward publishes all his work an has invited others to attem

by api 12y ago

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- I don't hear anyone claiming otherwise. Woodward publishes all his work an has invited others to attempt to replicate it or tell him where he's wrong. "such as the fact that their paper is published in a philosophy journal, and the guy having a history degree instead of a physics degree." -- argument from authority, very unscientific. If an unemployed poodle shaver publishes a replicable experiment, it is science. "naive rebellious spirit of HN that dictates that anybody can overthrow fundamental physics with an experimental setup in his basement" -- if the experiment works and can be replicated, they certainly can. There's also a misunderstanding of scientific epistemology in your last statement. Theories are seldom overthrown, but they are often extended. Einstein didn't overthrow Newton -- he provided an extension. Newton's equations still work, but with a very tiny error that only becomes visible at high velocities or with unbelievably precise measurements unavailable in Newton's day. A theory is not an absolute dogma, but a model that is deemed correct within its context -- namely all data and experiments available at a given time. New data or new experiments can extend the context, requiring an extension of theory. If this effect is real, it would not "demolish" or "overthrow" relativity, but would likely require some sort of extension to the theoretical framework. Who knows? Perhaps such a thing could point in the direction of the elusive quantum / relativity synthesis? I am skeptical (lower-case S) of this, in that I wouldn't really believe it unless the effect could be reliably amplified. So far that hasn't been the case. But I don't consider it at all psuedoscientific to try it out. Even if the effect is a result of something else, doing so will refine your skill at measuring tiny forces and possibly advance the field of experimental technique. The character assassination and arguments from authority are completely unwarranted, and is a major reason I am not a Skeptic (upper-case S). P.S. a tangent: Part of why I think CS advances so fast is that the unambiguous nature of computer "experiments" leaves little room for arguments from authority or character either pro or con. Either something works or it does not. Politics -- that age-old enemy of truth -- are clearly irrelevant.

jules 12y ago
> argument from authority, very unscientific. If an unemployed poodle shaver publishes a replicable experiment, it is science. Except for the fact that he says: "The theory has been sitting in peer-reviewed literature for more than fifteen years, so if there was something obviously wrong with it, the odds are, more than one person would have said that it's not right.". I'm just counting that claim. > if the experiment works and can be replicated, they certainly can. And guess what, it wasn't replicated! > There's also a misunderstanding of scientific epistemology in your last statement. I understand that, but conservation of momentum is one of the most fundamental facts of physics, maybe even THE most fundamental fact of physics, certainly as fundamental as conservation of energy (in relativity it's basically the same thing -- both are components of the energy-momentum 4 vector). It holds in Newtonian mechanics, general relativity, and in quantum mechanics. It is at the very basis of those theories. Finding something that contradicts that would completely destroy that foundation. It would be the single biggest discovery in the history of science. To present that with such confidence as the article does is just ludicrous. If the article was about creating energy from nothing, should that be taken seriously too, with similarly weak evidence?
- api 12y ago
  "It would be the single biggest discovery in the history of science." Yeah, it'd be pretty huge, but it wouldn't "overturn" anything. All the science we've done to date remains quite valid. Our current theories all state that momentum is conserved. That's because all our current experimental data shows that momentum is conserved. Now let's say we had a new experiment that showed what appeared to be a violation of conservation of momentum? This would mean we'd need a new theory explaining how this experiment worked. But this new theory would also have to explain all our previous experimental results -- in precisely the same way that Einsteinian mechanics encompasses, explains, and agrees with all of Newton's results. In other words you'd have to answer the question of "if momentum isn't always conserved, why does it almost always look like it's conserved?" There's another possibility too. What if this thing works and momentum is still being conserved? What if it's pushing against something, such as some kind of dark matter field, WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), neutrinos, virtual particles, ...??? I'd start by asking questions like that before I'd toss conservation of momentum. Even the hardest vacuum is full of particles ejected from stars and other things flying all over the place and even "popping into and out of existence" (in quotes because that's only an analogy) as shown by things like the Casimir effect. What if it's a "WIMP thruster" or something weird like that? An interesting experiment would be to send one flying on a one way trip to nowhere out of the solar system and see if it works as well in interstellar space as near the sun. The sun's throwing out a lot of particles, could it be pushing against those? Has he ever tried running it at night (far side of Earth) vs. during the day (sunward side of Earth)? Of course it'd still be really useful as a space drive if it could be scaled up, regardless of the mechanism.
  - VLM 12y ago
    "I'd start by asking left-field questions like" I'd build two and have them push against or toward each other. Must be something funky in there. I wonder if the thing, or a part of the thing, changes thermal energy more/faster than it changes kinetic energy? That would be an interesting conservation solution. If it would be energetically cheaper to just heat something up that has differential IR emission on each side...
  - jules 12y ago
jdpage 12y ago
"such as the fact that their paper is published in a philosophy journal, and the guy having a history degree instead of a physics degree." "-- argument from authority, very unscientific. If an unemployed poodle shaver publishes a replicable experiment, it is science." Not only is it an unscientific argument, it's just wrong. The guy did his undergraduate and masters in physics, then switched to history of science for his doctorate because he realized that nobody was going to fund what he wanted to work on and he needed a job. He also works with other physicists who do have doctorates in physics.
- api 12y ago
  "nobody was going to fund what he wanted to work on and he needed a job." That's very logical -- it's incredibly hard to fund anything speculative. My underlying point is that being honestly wrong doesn't make you a pseudoscientist, and should not result in character assassination or claims of being a fraud or a quack. That sort of thing contributes to a climate of dogmatism and extreme risk aversion in science that more or less guarantees that nothing new will ever be discovered.

by api 12y ago

jules 12y ago

> argument from authority, very unscientific. If an unemployed poodle shaver publishes a replicable experiment, it is science. Except for the fact that he says: "The theory has been sitting in peer-reviewed literature for more than fifteen years, so if there was something obviously wrong with it, the odds are, more than one person would have said that it's not right.". I'm just counting that claim. > if the experiment works and can be replicated, they certainly can. And guess what, it wasn't replicated! > There's also a misunderstanding of scientific epistemology in your last statement. I understand that, but conservation of momentum is one of the most fundamental facts of physics, maybe even THE most fundamental fact of physics, certainly as fundamental as conservation of energy (in relativity it's basically the same thing -- both are components of the energy-momentum 4 vector). It holds in Newtonian mechanics, general relativity, and in quantum mechanics. It is at the very basis of those theories. Finding something that contradicts that would completely destroy that foundation. It would be the single biggest discovery in the history of science. To present that with such confidence as the article does is just ludicrous. If the article was about creating energy from nothing, should that be taken seriously too, with similarly weak evidence?

api 12y ago
"It would be the single biggest discovery in the history of science." Yeah, it'd be pretty huge, but it wouldn't "overturn" anything. All the science we've done to date remains quite valid. Our current theories all state that momentum is conserved. That's because all our current experimental data shows that momentum is conserved. Now let's say we had a new experiment that showed what appeared to be a violation of conservation of momentum? This would mean we'd need a new theory explaining how this experiment worked. But this new theory would also have to explain all our previous experimental results -- in precisely the same way that Einsteinian mechanics encompasses, explains, and agrees with all of Newton's results. In other words you'd have to answer the question of "if momentum isn't always conserved, why does it almost always look like it's conserved?" There's another possibility too. What if this thing works and momentum is still being conserved? What if it's pushing against something, such as some kind of dark matter field, WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), neutrinos, virtual particles, ...??? I'd start by asking questions like that before I'd toss conservation of momentum. Even the hardest vacuum is full of particles ejected from stars and other things flying all over the place and even "popping into and out of existence" (in quotes because that's only an analogy) as shown by things like the Casimir effect. What if it's a "WIMP thruster" or something weird like that? An interesting experiment would be to send one flying on a one way trip to nowhere out of the solar system and see if it works as well in interstellar space as near the sun. The sun's throwing out a lot of particles, could it be pushing against those? Has he ever tried running it at night (far side of Earth) vs. during the day (sunward side of Earth)? Of course it'd still be really useful as a space drive if it could be scaled up, regardless of the mechanism.
- VLM 12y ago
  "I'd start by asking left-field questions like" I'd build two and have them push against or toward each other. Must be something funky in there. I wonder if the thing, or a part of the thing, changes thermal energy more/faster than it changes kinetic energy? That would be an interesting conservation solution. If it would be energetically cheaper to just heat something up that has differential IR emission on each side...
- jules 12y ago

jdpage 12y ago

"such as the fact that their paper is published in a philosophy journal, and the guy having a history degree instead of a physics degree." "-- argument from authority, very unscientific. If an unemployed poodle shaver publishes a replicable experiment, it is science." Not only is it an unscientific argument, it's just wrong. The guy did his undergraduate and masters in physics, then switched to history of science for his doctorate because he realized that nobody was going to fund what he wanted to work on and he needed a job. He also works with other physicists who do have doctorates in physics.

api 12y ago
"nobody was going to fund what he wanted to work on and he needed a job." That's very logical -- it's incredibly hard to fund anything speculative. My underlying point is that being honestly wrong doesn't make you a pseudoscientist, and should not result in character assassination or claims of being a fraud or a quack. That sort of thing contributes to a climate of dogmatism and extreme risk aversion in science that more or less guarantees that nothing new will ever be discovered.