1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: xkcd: Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma
Well, paywalled writeup prevents me from making any conclusions about their experiment. But to me it looks like they did the experiments over two days last August plus 6 days of setup. It wasn't in vacuum as their RF amplifier used electrolytic capacitors that wouldn't work in vacuum (according to wikipedia).
But the major reason I'm skeptical is there seems to be no explanation for how it jives with conservation of linear momentum (or why the laws of physics no longer have the symmetry of spatial translations). Sure laws of physics can and will change in the presence of overwhelming evidence and/or beautifully compelling theory, but neither seem to be present in this case. The theory "paper" is shockingly vague[1], appears to be riddled with mistakes (using group velocity of the photons in the Lorentz equation????) and unconvincing.
1: http://emdrive.com/theory.html
Again, if the experiments are repeated in vacuum with more data convincing that its not due to photons carrying momentum leaking out, or heating with the outside edge, or the device screwing with the readings of the torsion pendulum somehow.
Comment by altrocks at 07/08/2014 at 06:35 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
But the major reason I'm skeptical is there seems to be no explanation for how it jives with conservation of linear momentum (or why the laws of physics no longer have the symmetry of spatial translations).
This isn't top-down science that flows from the theoretical and mathematical models. It's bottom-up science that starts with an observable effect and builds from there to a working theory. Like I said, this needs to be reproduced, modified, tested, scaled up, etc. That's the only way we're going to find out what actually went on with this thing.