Electromagnetic Drive Produces Thrust in Vacuum: NASA:

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by paddoboy, May 5, 2015.

  1. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    Tashja, it continues to impress and amaze me, how well you do in obtaining comments from professionals in the fields we discuss.

    In this last post the following is perhaps the most telling, where this discussion is concerned. Or where this discussion should be concerned...

    About the discussion generally...

    The NASA Egaleworks group is not a theoretical research group and as far as I can tell they do not submit papers for publication and peer review. Likely because their employer NASA, wishes to retain complete control over any successful propulsion design they might confirm as potentially practical. They are set up to test designs and concepts for any pratical propulsion potential.

    The 2014 conference paper, Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum, which was initially available on the higgs.rghost.ru server (now the paper has been deleted), was probably never intended as more than a conference handout, IOW not for public consumption. Once popular criticism pointed out the paper's lack of theoretical and even design detail, it seems clear that the intent really was a progress report, on where the group was in design and construction/assembly of hard vacuum test equipement.

    As far as the EM Drive is concerned, Shawyer had been making noise since 2001?.., and there was a Chinese researcher that had published that several variations had been tested producing thrust. At least one paper by the Chinese researcher, Applying Method of Reference 2 to Effectively Calculating Performanceof Microwave Radiation Thruster is available at, http://www.emdrive.com/NWPU2010translation.pdf.

    Forget what either said about the underlying theory, or for that matter what anyone else might think or believe, given the fact that the Eagleworks group was already developing the ability to test just this sort of device and any additional cost was minimal (information that came out during the 2014 discussion), testing the EM Drive seems just what the group was and is paid for.

    The 2014 conference paper ended with the next step being testing at least one of the three, EM Drive designs in hard vacuum. From the current information that is exactly what they have done.., and they have at least initially confirmed useable thrust!

    Do they need further testing and development? Yes!

    Will we ever see a peer reviewed paper on their work? Probably not until what ever they come up with in the end is already in use.., if in the end it proves itself useful.

    In the meantime, assuming their hard vacuum results are bogus is a knee jerk reaction, based on the assumption that it somehow violates theory and conservation of momentum. If it winds up not working, we will probably hear about it, as soon as that has been proven true. If it does work, the fact that it is being done behind the mask of NASA funding, we will not probably even hear anything but rumor about the theoretical work that follows attempting to explain it.

    Maybe it will wind up with a perfectly reasonable explanation within our current understanding of physics.

    Maybe, if tests continue to produce useable thrust, it will lead to some new or better understanding of the underlying physics.

    One thing seems fairly certain, little or nothing will come from knee jerk reactions.., when the details remain hidden behind a NASA firewall of classified reports.
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed (apart from last para on which I recuse myself from expressing any opinion). The problem, surely, is that it would have to be pair production, as so-called "virtual particles" are - at least from what I understand - no more than massless disturbances of the EM field. And as you say the energies and field strengths for pair production are far beyond what this gizmo can do.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2015
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Actually I don't agree that the question is about the quantum vacuum. I do not think the experimenters have made any case for invoking the quantum vacuum in any way at all. All they have is an engineering experiment that has resulted in an apparent measurement of thrust. There is no physics dimension to the experiment at all, so far as I can see. It's just an empirical engineering finding. Because it seems to defy physics, someone has suggested, in a handwaving sort of way, that maybe the quantum vacuum is somehow involved - which serves the purpose of kicking the can down the road a bit, as few people know enough about QED to challenge such a suggestion, but that's about it.

    Like you I'm prepared to let them have a go for while longer, but I have to say that I am almost as sceptical of this being real as I am about cold fusion.
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly exochemist...The potential game changing benefits are far too great for space exploration to ignore just yet.
     
  8. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Worth repeating I think.
     
  9. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. What they invoke is a word salad which convinces them that the propellant will be replaced by virtual particles from the quantum vacuum. I don't see a paper on the experiment. I like to see details and what other folks think of the details so if anybody has read a paper on this experiment could you link it if a link exists? At this point it looks like crank 'free energy' bullshit.
     
  10. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    Bruce, the NASA Eagleworks conference paper from 2014 has been taken down I don't know if it is available anywhere else but the title was, Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum. But it did not give any real detail about the EM Drives or theoretical basis. It was really intended as a handout for a conference report on where the group was in putting together the necessary equipment to test thrust in a hard vacuum... The torsion pendulum, vacuum chamber, etc.

    As I mentioned above no one should hold their breath for any details coming out of the NASA group.

    But in the end all that group is set up for is to test. They are not a theoretical development group from what I could gather. If you want a link to one of the Chinese papers, in English.., I posted that a few posts back. It did give a summary of a couple of proposed theories of operation.
     
  11. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Only Me, a 21-page .pdf titled "Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum" is available and can be viewed at : http://www.libertariannews.org/wp-c...ustProductionFromanRFTestDevice-BradyEtAl.pdf

    Like you said, though, it was just a handout for the AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference...

    The preface :
    " This paper describes the test campaigns designed to investigate and demonstrate viability of using classical magnetoplasmadynamics to obtain a propulsive momentum transfer via the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster (QVPT), but instead will describe the recent test campaign. In addition, it contains a brief description of the supporting radio frequency (RF) field analysis, lessons learned, and potential applications of the technology to space exploration missions. During the first (Cannae) portion of the campaign, approximately 40 micronewtons of thrust were observed in an RF resonant cavity test article excited at approximately 935 megahertz and 28 watts. During the subsequent (tapered cavity) portion of the campaign, approximately 91 micronewtons of thrust were observed in an RF resonant cavity test article excited at approximately 1933 megahertz and 17 watts. Testing was performed on a low-thrust torsion pendulum that is capable of detecting force at a single-digit micronewton level. Test campaign results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma."

    again, the 21-page .pdf is available at : http://www.libertariannews.org/wp-c...ustProductionFromanRFTestDevice-BradyEtAl.pdf
     
  12. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    That's it. I downloaded the paper and related docs back in 2014. But the link you found will give Bruce and anyone else, the chance to check it out for theirselves.
     
  13. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks, I remember that now.
     
  14. Q-reeus Banned Valued Senior Member

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    After reading through the paper linked to in #68, time for me to come clean. A cut'n'paste from #12:
    Now is the time. Despite the deliberately intentioned impression I have been giving of pooh poohing any notion of cavity thrust, anyone running a fine tooth-comb over my previous posts here will find at no time did I say it was impossible. My intention has been two-fold. Firstly to show up the hypocrisy of one individual who consistently raged against anyone questioning 'the laws of physics'. That has been accomplished. Secondly, to point out the total inconsistency of the BS 'theories' offered by the players in this game - Shawyer, Fetta, Chinese, Eagleworks team, etc. That also accomplished imo.

    Yes, there really is an anomalous thrust present. It really does violate 'fundamental laws'. It has absolutely nothing to do with BS 'virtual vacuum plasma', and everything to do with a proper interpretation of just what the momentum analog to Poynting theorem is actually saying and allowing for! Which in no way conflicts with the totally null findings of Egan's field analysis for tapered cavities! It does however conflict with the assumption - a very reasonable and till now universally held assumption - made in evaluating the general analysis he presented at the end of his article I linked to in #12.

    Back in the 1980's I came across a field analysis for a certain EM configuration, from memory by Shelkunoff done ca 1940, that clearly showed a net force, purely of magnetic origin, will exist. At the time I was looking for other things and it never tweaked until sometime in the 1990's, while checking out certain well established waveguide solutions, that asymmetric forces are a definite prediction of perfectly legitimate solutions to the Maxwell Equations. At first I tried hard to find an 'obvious' error, but eventually had to accept it was real and there was no subtle cancellation hiding somewhere. A few back-of-envelope calculations and I decided the typical dissipative losses were unacceptably high for practical use. It never occurred to me that the piddling thrusts that so excite Shawyer et. al. might actually have competitive value in e.g. satellite correction thrusters. His wet dream of enormous boosting via superconducting cavities is just that - for a number of reasons.

    Given the piss-farting around for one or more decades by these rival teams is likely to converge sooner or later to the real picture, I may have to make a move myself. Fact is there is a far more effective (read - potentially dangerous and destabilizing) way of doing things and for obvious reasons I'm not about to blab that out here. If anyone that I might respect wants a few more clues, feel free to PM.
     
  15. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Gosh, now I am really intrigued. But I'll need to look up Poynting's theorem before I can ask you anything more: it is out of my league.
     
  16. Q-reeus Banned Valued Senior Member

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    I'm sure you can handle it quite well exchemist. Any good textbook on EM will have a derivation, and here's an online one: http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/em/lectures/node91.html
    Sure seems bulletproof. A roundabout hint. Many folks including some authorities consider the Maxwell-Faraday law a statement that a time-changing B field 'causes' a solenoidal E field. Others including me say no there is simply an association between the two. Consider the possibility something like this is at play in that EM momentum expression. In the vast majority of cases there is no conflict in reading it the usual way. It's only by working backwards, from seeing a glaring example where it obviously fails, one is forced to reevaluate things. 'Anomalous' field solutions have been there in the literature at least since the early 1940's and quite possibly considerably earlier. It's testament to the power of certain 'proofs' drilled into students early on, that what might have been bleeding obvious was never seen. Or so I say!

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  17. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    So my question now is... what, exactly, are we seeing with this that is generating that thrust? Logic would indicate that if it is something that would supposedly violate the laws of physics... then it is either A) something we don't know exists B) something we know exists interacting in a way we did not know was possible C) A change is required to the laws of Physics or D) Some combination of the previous
     
  18. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    Shawyer's EM based theory of operation seems flawed as has been pointed out repeatedly over the years.

    TOTAL SPECULATION FOLLOWS....

    Given that, if thrust.., useable or not, is confirmed going forward, without being the result of systemic error etc., it would seem there is one of two probable explanations; 1) a new or at least better understanding of the vacuum, including some kind of exchange of momentum, between the drive and the vacuum, which would address the conservation of momentum issue, seems necessary.., or 2) there is no transfer of momentum or thrust produced in the conventional sense.., and the mechanics of the drive creates an inertial bias in the drive as a whole, which would be measured as thrust.

    Since the drive is essentially a closed box, either case would involve new physics or at least a new understanding of the physics involved. I don't personally believe that thrust based on virtual particles is likely, though if the vacuum can be electromagnetically polarized...? but even that, to the avoid conservation of momentum issue, would seem to require the effect or thrust, be the result of how the exterior surface of the drive were to interact with the surrounding vacuum.

    I would be crossing my fingers in the hope that the device alters its inertial profile, only because it seems that this would have the greatest long game potential for completely new practical uses and physics... Inertia is still fundamentally a mystery.
     
  19. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    All I see is [1] a cowardly awkward backdown, [2] a reflection from your own previously anti GR rant, and [3] the absolute need for you to undertake an anger management course.
     
  20. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I see something a little different, viz. a suspicion that the theory of EM fields may just possibly allow for some hitherto forbidden momentum processes.

    I know you two don't get on, but I think there is actually a scientific point being made here.
     
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  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure at all as to what is going on as yet, other then as I said before, something to do with the quantum vacuum.
    As I said, the potential of what is entailed would be a game changer, so I believe further research is necessary, and as you said yourself, "Like you I'm prepared to let them have a go for while longer".
    I don't believe any laws have been broken.

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    And I'm really such a lovable sort of bloke..fair dinkum.
    It seems my friend queerie has some sort of bee in his bonnet about me railing against the likes of Rajesh, constant theorist, Farsight, undefined, chinglu and other religious extremists. What is weird of course is that so does most other self respecting science buffs on this forum. :shrug:
    Or this is "payback" time according to his way of thinking for the opposition I contributed to a past thread of his that criticised GR....again what can I say but : shrug:
    Either way, this silly little "payback" or whatever his reasons are, are rather childish.
    Otherwise my thoughts on the rest of his relevant post is the same as yours.
     
  22. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah I don't think it's the vacuum, it's something to do with how momentum and energy are handled in EM theory, which is something else. I don't understand it as yet. I've taken a quick look at Poynting's Theorem on Wiki but the light has not yet dawned. At present I still struggle to see how momentum has any meaning in the absence of mass, but I admit I was never trained on Maxwell's equations etc so maybe it is just me.
     
  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    You forgot me.

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