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EM-drive: Busted

Well, damn.

Not that I'm surprised, but after the NASA researchers appeared to get positive results from their test setup, I had some small hope that there might have been some unknown but real quantum effect there, producing a reactionless drive.
 
So this drive has gone the way of those faster-than-light neutrinos.

This reminds me of how Isaac Asimov once introduced an essay on physical conservation laws. He described how his father spent a lot of time working out the numbers in his candy store's accounting. "The books gotta balance", he said about it.

So with this EM drive, the books got balanced by the discovery of that interaction.
 
lpetrich said:
So this drive has gone the way of those faster-than-light neutrinos.

This reminds me of how Isaac Asimov once introduced an essay on physical conservation laws. He described how his father spent a lot of time working out the numbers in his candy store's accounting. "The books gotta balance", he said about it.

So with this EM drive, the books got balanced by the discovery of that interaction.
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Thanks for bringing that up (the neutrino thing).

Scientists: Our results suggest that neutrinos go faster than light. We need help from other scientists to find where the error is in our experiment or calculations

Science journalists: FASTER THAN LIGHT NEUTRINOS DISCOVERED!

Scientists: Oh! Hey! There's the error!

Science journalists: (Quietly buries correction on page 6)
 
It's hard to shield magnetic field in large volume. Easiest thing would have been make a dry run (current flows but "thrust" is off ) to estimate the effect, also rotating the apparatus and see how "thrust" changes, but I am afraid I expect too much from NASA engineers who never heard of such thing as measurement uncertainties.

What annoys me about this and other similar cases is how quickly some "theorists" started building "theories" explaining it. There is no downside it seems in jumping the gun in theory.
 
Ok, I thought EM drives were ion drives that used solar power to accelerate ions, but instead they were "quantum wave cancellation" drives???

WTF?
 
In a way it's a shame, but it was too good to be true, and now it's in the Wooooo category. Talking of which, I haven't heard from Steorn in a few years - another perpetual motion fraud.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
steve_bank said:
Loren Pechtel said:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/nasas-em-drive-is-a-magnetic-wtf-thruster/

The "thrust" was inadequate shielding of the power leads. Current through a wire in a magnetic field (Earth's) = a motor.
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I thoght this was 5 or 6 years old.
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The idea has been around several years, it's much more recent that it was solidly busted as a shielding issue.
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Is this the one with a resonant microwave cavity? Debunked years back. There Should be an old thread on it.
 
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