4 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: xkcd: Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma
So the point is that the technology is overblown and in actuality not as impressive as implied? That's disappointing. What's redeemable about it?
Comment by abrahamsen at 06/08/2014 at 12:32 UTC
14 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The point is that the effect may have a mundane explanation. It is too early to get excited.
I'm pretty sure Randell is enough of a scientist to find a quantum vacuum drive exciting, even if it is impractical. And certain he wouldn't dismiss it as impractical from a simple proof of concept experiment.
Comment by djimbob at 06/08/2014 at 14:48 UTC
6 upvotes, 3 direct replies
No. The technology likely doesn't exist -- the anomalous test results likely arose from an unconsidered systematic bias.
The physicist quoted in this article does it more justice:
Also see the wikipedia article:
1: http://jalopnik.com/why-nasas-impossible-engine-is-likely-just-that-1616224512
To summarize, physicists use words like quantum vacuum, virtual particles, and plasma. The words don't seem to have an accepted meaning together.
But basically there was a test of a simple prototype (and a control for the prototype) both saw a small thrust on extremely sensitive equipment that seems to be anomalous. Note the tests were done in a vacuum chamber *at ambient pressure* (that is vacuum turned off) and the equipment is extremely sensitive (e.g., waves from bodies of water 25 miles away can affect measurements). And the type of thrust seen was on the order of the gravitational force of a single grain of sand. Finally, there were two drives tested -- one was configured in a way that it shouldn't have created any thrust by the framework that motivated someone to design these drives -- and both saw propulsion.
Science journalism trumps up the story, because the headline "scientist proves the impossible" is more attention grabbing then "Unknown systematic error in experiment -- researchers hard at work to pin it down". Sort of like the superliminal neutrinos detected at OPERA that turned out to be a systematic. Every scientist knew it didn't make sense due to special relativity, being a measurement of a few nanosecond delay (near the limits of sensitivity), and prior experimental results (SN1987a was 168,000 light years away and neutrino detectors on earth saw neutrinos consistent with the time of seeing the visible supernova if both neutrinos and light travel at c, but entirely inconsistent with them travelling faster than c). Later it was found out to be a cabling issue.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2014 at 11:40 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm blown away by this new technology. And we're literally in the birthing stages of it. Not having to carry reaction mass into space is huge. This could be game-changing. Not to mention the fact that it violates conventional physics as we understand it, so there's going to be some new science generated (or further explored) as a result.
It may be that nothing comes of it all, but it's pretty exciting nonetheless.
Comment by hdooster at 06/08/2014 at 12:16 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Think about long-time space missions. Getting solar energy is not *that* big of an issue, but now we can use it to move a sattelite or ship around! And if you've played Kerbal Space Program, you know a small change in the right place can get you a lot of options.
But in numbers, yeah it's not that spectacular yet. Ofcourse a conventional motor still works best for all intents and purposes, but human telephone line operators did it better at first as well.