Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

iannis

iannis

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I'm way out of my depth, but yeah I also think that's the claim granted a couple of initial assumptions prove true. About the phenomena itself rather than the specific device.

Of course they go on to say that you'd have to find room temperature superconductors. Which also exist.
 
Cad

Cad

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Kedwyn_sl said:
What do they mean then when they say this:



I'm familiar with super conducting magnets and how they work. Obviously those are super cooled which requires tons of energy. Would this potentially allow levitation without such cooling? Is that their claim? Seems like crazy talk to me.
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I wondered about that sentence too but wrote it off to journalism nonsense.
 
Mist

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Kedwyn_sl said:
What do they mean then when they say this:



I'm familiar with super conducting magnets and how they work. Obviously those are super cooled which requires tons of energy. Would this potentially allow levitation without such cooling? Is that their claim? Seems like crazy talk to me.
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Okay, so there's some kind of superconducting version of the resonant cavities that could produce static thrust.
 
iannis

iannis

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Wouldn't it be funny if you make a giant one of those things and all that space elevator nonsense is just regulated to "neat idea".

You make a giant pad, push a button, and launch shit directly into orbit. It would be hilarious to watch. Poof! Probably bad for the birds.
 
N

Northerner

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It is another ridiculous claim at this point.

Yeah, I say that every time but that's because it is true pretty much every time. Someone wants grant money or VC or whatever and amusingly, they'll probably get some.
 
iannis

iannis

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Well man, sure. But if NASA has gone down that route then Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.

Sometimes I'm ok with being a sucker.
 
Deathwing

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I would imagine the conversion of electricity to microwave requires energy, regardless of superconductors or not. A microwave IS essentially energy, tiny mass of a photon aside. Zero energy for levitation would violate conservation of momentum AND energy.
 
iannis

iannis

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They have nointelligiblerest mass, which is what everyone in the world thinks of as "mass" except for quantum einstein smart people sciencetists.

Edit: If you attribute mass to photons then everything devolves into nonsense. Which is different than saying they exert no forces... but since everyone (myself included) is locked into the idea that in order to exert force there must be SOME mass involved it becomes difficult to even pretend to understand. Light is just one of those things... if it doesn't make you what-the-fuck then you probably don't understand what is being examined. That shit is just confusing.
 
Tuco

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Mist_sl said:
EmDrive: Chinas radical new space drive (Wired UK)

This does a pretty good job of explaining the physics. It doesn't violate quantum mechanics. It doesn't violate conservation of energy.

So yeah, a hoverboard isn't really possible. But a spaceship drive is VERY possible.
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It's always disappointing when I read an article about a technology that just had something big happen, and the article tries to point out how the tech might just be around the corner! then I realize the article is a year+ old =\
 
R

Running Dog_sl

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Mist_sl said:
EmDrive: Chinas radical new space drive (Wired UK)

This does a pretty good job of explaining the physics. It doesn't violate quantum mechanics. It doesn't violate conservation of energy.

So yeah, a hoverboard isn't really possible. But a spaceship drive is VERY possible.
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Sadly the drive is basically BS:

I gave it a quick read through, as electro-magnetic theory is something I teach, and I can say it makes no sense.It has the feel of something that makes sense, but makes a series of basic technical errors. To list a few: it obsesses about group velocity in a context where this doesn't really apply (group velocity is an age old source of confusion), it worries about the force on the end caps but ignores the force on the waveguide walls (which makes up for the difference), it states that there is no force at a dielectric boundary with no reflection (just wrong).

From a professional physicist's point of view, it is not hard to confuse oneself and get answers which make no sense. I do it all the time. The trick, and what we try to teach students, is to realize when you have something that makes no sense and try to find a different way of doing the problem to check your answer. Here, everything is classical.The "easy" way to solve the problem is to use the momentum of the electromagnetic field (Poynting vector) and measure it's flux outside the chamber (strict test of momentum conservation). This gives identically zero, QED. They basically don't understand the reaction of the wave against the angled walls of the waveguide.

While I admit physics is a very specialized and technical subject, this paper is at a Junior level undergraduate level. In this paper they conspicuously ignore the relevant tool (momentum of a wave) that any good physics major would use. For those of you with the background, look at chapters 8 & 9 of Griffith's Electrodynamics
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Don??Tt buy stock in impossible space drives just yet | Ars Technica


... after reading the paper on the drive athttp://www.emdrive.com/theorypaper9-4.pdf
 
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Itzena_sl

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Um, this is the same drive that NASA tested and foundsomething. I'm not saying that it's everything the inventor claims (or, hell, that it evenworks) but there's definitely something weird going on which is worth investigating here.
Dismissing something measurable and repeatable because it doesn't fit what we know (now) is pretty much the opposite of science, anyway.
 
iannis

iannis

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That's really the thing. Every physics textbook in the world can say "this doesn't work and here's why". But if you cobble together an apparatus and it works... and it works for anyone who cobbles on together exactly the same way... well then. Textbooks are wonderful things to have. That's exactly the question.Doesit work? Nothowdoes it work?

That's a very healthy level of skepticism. I only doubt that the author has access to the data itself. Saying the theory is bullshit is one thing. Saying that they are falsifying data, either purposefully or accidentally, is entirely another thing.

And maybe I'm wrong but I don't think there is anyone in the world that predicts this effect. Except time cube quacks. No one can really say, "Oh yeah. Of course. That's just obvious. Duh."
 
T

Troll_sl

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Itzena_sl said:
Um, this is the same drive that NASA tested and foundsomething. I'm not saying that it's everything the inventor claims (or, hell, that it evenworks) but there's definitely something weird going on which is worth investigating here.
Dismissing something measurable and repeatable because it doesn't fit what we know (now) is pretty much the opposite of science, anyway.
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There was something going on with the FTL neutrinos, too. But it wasn't that they were going faster than light.
 
BrutulTM

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NASA isn't immune to announcing bullshit. They told the press that they found martian bacteria a few years ago when they didn't.
 
T

The Master

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This is the third time the same result has been reproduced by three different laboratories in three different countries. Granted one of those is the guy selling it and one if the Chinese who are not the most technically reliable people, but NASA (for all of its shitty PR department and lack of funding) has stellar technical expertise.
 
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