Chinese think they can do EM-thrust

[Fat Tone]

Chinese researchers claim they've confirmed the theory behind an "impossible" space drive, and are proceeding to build a demonstration version. If they're right, this might transform the economics of satellites, open up new possibilities for space exploration –- and give the Chinese a decisive military advantage in space.

here

This has huge implications if it is real, but the vast majority of the scientific community have rubbished the idea.

[Marshmallowman]

all I can say

If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

still, it will be interesting to read some details, I am going to try and chase up the original article/paper

[Nowhere]

When reading about it I stumbled upon this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodward_effect

Seems to have more acceptance among scientific community...


oh, and...warp drive, finally!

[Gurm]

There's no reason it can't work. The problem is that people automatically get turned off when they think someone has invented a perpetual motion/energy machine.

[rylan]

I'm not sure where the idea of it being a perpetual motion/energy machine came from either... you put power in, and you get some small amount of force out with losses somewhere inbetween. Seems reasonable to me.

[Jammrock]

Perpetual motion is the idea that an enclosed system will "move forever" (i.e. perpetually be in motion), which in turn would mean it produces more energy than is put into the system since things like friction, heat would rob energy from the system. That pesky law of conservation energy at work again.

I don't see how this device is considered perpatual though. The guy says you have to consistently put electricty into the system to get thrust, you just don't have any traditional plasmatic propellent being ejected from the system to produce the thrust.

I suppose time will be the judge on this one, though I'm not holding my breath.

[Nowhere]

Well, from the description it does seem to be fairly close to perpetuum mobile of the second kind...

[Jammrock]

I suppose. Though it is a good sign that the inventor knows perpetual motion is impossible and claims his system isn't.

[Nowhere]

Though, still, perpetuum mobile of the second kind doesn't really fall into perpetual motion, strictly speaking, but into unrealistic/second law of thermodynamics breaking ways of energy convertion/extraction...and still, this device seems to fall somewhere in this area.

[Evildead666]

If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

Perfect

[Technoid]

What I find most annoying is the theoretical scientists knee jerk reaction against it.

The almost religious fervor in their damnation of the idea, not to mention the "if you cant mathematically prove it will work, we wont let things like an actual working prototype stop us from calling it bogus" mentality at work here.

It seems to have gone from "We use mathematics to describe why this mechanical/electric device actually works" to "we use this mechanical/electric device to prove that our mathematics was right"