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Space Earth NASA Science Technology

German Test Reveals That Magnetic Fields Are Pushing the EM Drive (arstechnica.com) 309

"Researchers in Germany have performed an independent, controlled test of the infamous EM Drive with an unprecedented level of precision," writes PvtVoid. "The result? The thrust is coming from interactions with the Earth's magnetic field." From the report: Instead of getting ahold of someone else's EM drive, or Mach-effect device, the researchers created their own, along with the driving electronics. The researchers used precision machining and polishing to obtain a microwave cavity that was much better than those previously published. If anything was going to work, this would be the one. The researchers built up a very nice driving circuit that was capable of supplying 50W of power to the cavity. However, the amplifier mountings still needed to be worked on. So, to keep thermal management problems under control, they limited themselves to a couple of Watts in the current tests. The researchers also inserted an enormous attenuator. This meant that they could, without physically changing the setup, switch on all the electronics and have the amplifiers working at full noise, and all the power would either go to the EM drive or be absorbed in the attenuator. That gives them much more freedom to determine if the thrust was coming from the drive or not.

Even with a power of just a couple of Watts, the EM-drive generates thrust in the expected direction (e.g., the torsion bar twists in the right direction). If you reverse the direction of the thruster, the balance swings back the other way: the thrust is reversed. Unfortunately, the EM drive also generates the thrust when the thruster is directed so that it cannot produce a torque on the balance (e.g., the null test also produces thrust). And likewise, that "thrust" reverses when you reverse the direction of the thruster. The best part is that the results are the same when the attenuator is put into the circuit. In this case, there is basically no radiation in the microwave cavity, yet the WTF-thruster thrusts on. So, where does the force come from? The Earth's magnetic field, most likely. The cables that carry the current to the microwave amplifier run along the arm of the torsion bar. Although the cable is shielded, it is not perfect (because the researchers did not have enough mu metal). The current in the cable experiences a force due to the Earth's magnetic field that is precisely perpendicular to the torsion bar. And, depending on the orientation of the thruster, the direction of the current will reverse and the force will reverse.
The researchers' conclude by saying: "At least, SpaceDrive [the name of the test setup] is an excellent educational project by developing highly demanding test setups, evaluating theoretical models and possible experimental errors. It's a great learning experience with the possibility to find something that can drive space exploration into its next generation."
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German Test Reveals That Magnetic Fields Are Pushing the EM Drive

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  • THIS is science (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 21, 2018 @10:36PM (#56651106)

    This is what we should be teaching in schools and promoting in daily life/culture.

  • No problem... we will just have to take the Earth with us.

    • by DrJimbo ( 594231 )

      No problem ... we can use a big EM-Drive to move the Earth along with us! We'll power the whole thing with safe, efficient cold-fusion.

      • No problem ... we can use a big EM-Drive to move the Earth along with us! We'll power the whole thing with safe, efficient cold-fusion.

        Cold fusion is so last century. Modern pseudoscientists all use vacuum-energy generators for their star drives.

        Get with the program!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
      Almost all of the energy used in space travel is used near Earth. So if we have something that could boost a spaceship from low Earth orbit to escape velocity, and it doesn't use any fuel, that's still incredibly useful.
      • by Ramze ( 640788 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @11:26PM (#56651260)

        The EM drive does use fuel - just not a propellant. It also gives such a small amount of thrust, one can only measure it with a carefully controlled setup. This experiment basically proves the thrust is created from the charged craft interacting with Earth's magnetic field.... and the thrust doesn't go up much if any as the power on the craft goes from 5 watts to 50 watts. So, we're basically looking at motion powered by Earth's EM, not the craft's EM.

        We have about as much of a chance of boosting a craft into low Earth orbit with this as we do using a compass.

        Perhaps it'll be useful for something one day, but all I can come up with right now would be Back to the Future II style hoverboards, but for dust mites instead of people given what little thrust it gives -- also it is hard to steer given it tends to only move in alignment with Earth's magnetic field.

        • So, we're basically looking at motion powered by Earth's EM, not the craft's EM.

          Well. scale it up to work on the suns EM and then you're laughing.

          • by fazig ( 2909523 )
            Possibly a waste of time, since the flux density of the field (electrostatic, magnetic, or electromagnetic) is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
            Remind yourself that the idea was to use these things for deep space missions, where low but consistent acceleration is needed. This is where a high specific impulse of your propulsion system becomes more important than absolute thrust. Not having to carry any propellant with you would have been a great bonus here.
            At this point we may as well u
        • .... and the thrust doesn't go up much if any as the power on the craft goes from 5 watts to 50 watts. .

          How do you know that?
          According to TFA, they only applied 5W to the craft as the thermal dissipation system was not optimized. The control amp was brought up to 50W to rule out the effect of noise generated by the control unit, however that power was dumped into an attenuation. 50W is not all that much if you are looking to do work. Compared to the 1-2W on your phone it is a lot, but compared to a cell tower of 100-500W, it's peanuts. Let alone the 1500W of microwave energy in your kitchen.

          Point is... how to

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Thrusters that work against the Earth's magnetic field are incredibly useful for station keeping and orbit adjustments on satellites. Many satellites end their lives not because they wear out but because they run out of station keeping propellant.

          It's also not a new idea.

        • If you had read the summary or the article, you would know: this EM drive does not work at all.
          The measurement of "thrust" comes from the power lines, their small magnetic field is twisting the measuring wire.

      • by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @11:27PM (#56651262) Journal

        Once you've taken an EM drive and removed the useless cavity and microwave emitter, what you are left with is an electrodynamic tether [wikipedia.org] which may indeed be useful, but doesn't owe anything to the EM drive.

      • And if this produced thrust in any great quantities that might be super useful...as it is, unless we can harness all of crazy uncle Kim's warheads and party like it's sometime prior to the test ban treaty of 1963 [wikipedia.org] we won't be exploring deep space anytime soon.
      • by Herve5 ( 879674 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @01:30AM (#56651488)

        Magnetotorquer bars have been used in space for dozens of years to desaturate the reaction wheels.
        These are perfectly adjusted to their function (no need for fancy EM things) and generate pure torques when interacting with the Earth magnetic field.
        Just, no forces, as, well, expected.

      • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @02:43AM (#56651660)
        For interplanetary space travel, yes. But that's not very exciting. Chemical rockets work fine for interplanetary travel on the order of years and decades at most with ion drives showing promise as a next step.

        The reason the EM drive was so exciting was because of the potential for interstellar travel in reasonable timeframes (sub-100 year) without having to lug around huge quantities of propellant (mass to throw out the back to accelerate you). If it actually worked, you could power it with a nuclear reactor and accelerate away without needing any propellant (violation of conservation of momentum).

        Traveling to Alpha Centauri (4.367 light years) in 100 years (assuming constant acceleration to the halfway point, decelerating the second half of the trip, and ignoring relativistic effects) would require reaching a peak speed of

        d = 0.5*vavg*t
        vavg = 2*d/t = 2*(4.367 c years)/(100 years) = 0.08734 c
        vmax = 2*vavg = 0.17468 c = 52,368 km/s

        To accelerate, you need to dump the energy you're producing into the propellant that you're ejecting in the direction opposite you're accelerating. The energy needed reach Earth's escape velocity (11.2 km/s) and to escape the solar system from Earth's orbit (16.6 km/s) are roundoff error compared to the energy needed to reach Alpha Centauri in 100 years.

        Energy for Earth escape velocity = 0.5*m*(11.2 km/s)^2
        Energy for solar system escape velocity = 0.5*m*(16.6 km/s)^2 = 2.2 times the energy to escape Earth
        Energy to reach Alpha Centauri in 100 years = 0.5*m*(52367 km/s)^2 = 21,861,469 times the energy to escape Earth

        So a trip to Alpha Centauri in 100 years would require nearly 22 million times more energy (and propellant to absorb that energy) than needed to escape Earth's gravity.
        • vavg = 2*d/t = 2*(4.367 c years)/(100 years) = 0.08734 c

          Might want to check your math there, Solandri. An average speed of 0.08734c gets you to Alphacent in about 50 years...

          • He did not mean "average" speed.
            He meant top speed at the point where he is reversing the thrust to decelerate to reach the destination.

        • Your numbers are off. The solar system escape velocity at the Earth's location is 42 km/s, not 16.6 km/s which is a good thing because the Earth's orbital velocity is 30 km/s! Of course, this still does not alter the conclusion which is that even the nearest star requires an unfeasibly large amount of energy to reach within a period approaching a human lifetime. Indeed if you try to go even faster the numbers get even more depressing because above ~0.1c you will have to account for relativistic effects.
    • Yep. In 5 billions years, give or take, our sun will become a liability. We will *have* to move our planet if we want to keep it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yep. In 5 billions years, give or take, our sun will become a liability.

        In less than 1 billion years earth will go into "moist earth" runaway with surface temperatures hot enough to melt iron.

        We will *have* to move our planet if we want to keep it.

        This is possible with current level of technology. You need only nudge a few asteroids close to earth to selectively transfer kinetic energy a few times per century to keep up with increasing output from the sun while still on the main sequence.

        • Or you could mount rockets on the moon and use it as a gravitational tugboat - no messy impacts threatening to wipe out most life on the planet that way, much finer control, and assuming you're planning on taking the moon with anyway, there's no difference in impulse needed to modify the Earth's orbit.

          Neither is particularly feasible with today's technology though - unless you simply mean "no fundamentally new technology would have to be discovered"

          • by slew ( 2918 )

            Or you could mount rockets on the moon and use it as a gravitational tugboat - no messy impacts threatening to wipe out most life on the planet that way, much finer control, and assuming you're planning on taking the moon with anyway, there's no difference in impulse needed to modify the Earth's orbit.

            Neither is particularly feasible with today's technology though - unless you simply mean "no fundamentally new technology would have to be discovered"

            Small matter of conservation of momentum.

            Basically you'd have to get some momentum coming from somewhere else to add to the moon-earth system to reach solar escape velocity. Developing a rocket that first generates that amount of momentum (using action/reaction) would take lots of mass or a more limited mass would have to be accelerated to quite a velocity quickly. A rocket engine that could generate high thrust at high specific impulse would qualify as fundamentally new technology as rocket concepts toda

            • If you're moving asteroids, you still need a source of momentum (rockets) for that as well, though you'll be able to get a momentum-amplification effect with regards to accelerating the Earth, provided you're not using near-Earth asteroids, which already have roughly the same orbital momentum.

              Of course that means bring in things from the asteroid belt or further, which are then going to be moving FAST, and do a LOT of damage when they hit (though perhaps they could be vaporized just before impact - momentum

    • No problem... we will just have to take the Earth with us.

      or some big magnets.

      One thing this explanation hasn't explained clearlyis if the EM drive would still be useful in orbit for thrust maneuvers even if it won't work in deep space. I think that from this explanation it only can create torque relative to an anchored pivot point. It probably can not create momentum in orbital space even if there is a magnetic field there. But I can't quite tell from the explanation if I'm right on that.

      if it can still be used for reactionless drives in orbit it's a huge gain

      • The torque came from the cables providing the power, not from the "EM drive".
        Using an electro magnet to push against the earth magnetic field is not as efficient as using an ion or hall drive (a hall drive is a glorified ion drive):

  • by macraig ( 621737 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [giarc.a.kram]> on Monday May 21, 2018 @10:49PM (#56651152)

    ... it's the field being created by the planetary body we call Earth. Surprise! No one has ever tested an EM Drive beyond the influence of Earth. If they had, its efficacy would have quickly been dis-proven.

    • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @01:04AM (#56651436) Journal

      It's the field being created by the planetary body we call Earth. Surprise! No one has ever tested an EM Drive beyond the influence of Earth. If they had, its efficacy would have quickly been dis-proven.

      Good grief.

      If it's the Earth's field, put the device inside a pair of helmholtz coils (or the slightly more complex coil systems that can smooth out the residual ripples further). Give them enough current to cancel the Earth's field and, if the gadget is getting its thrust from this interaction, the thrust will stop. Give them twice that, reversing the field, and the thrust will be in the opposite direction.

      I thought this test had already been done, by pretty much everybody including NASA.

      • Also: Twisted pair (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @01:39AM (#56651504) Journal

        So, where does the force come from? The Earthâ(TM)s magnetic field, most likely. The cables that carry the current to the microwave amplifier run along the arm of the torsion bar. Although the cable is shielded, it is not perfect (because the researchers did not have enough mu metal).

        Also: What's wrong with using twisted pair? The individual half-twists may interact with a DC magnetic field, but on the average across a twist they cancel out.

        This has been used since at least the early days of telephony (where they used twisted pair - with the wires occasionally swapped as they go from pole to pole - not just to cancel out coupling to electrical noise from lots of sources (including power lines) but also - with different rates of twist on different pair and phantom-group - to cancel it out between different lines running along the same poles.

        Just like the four pair in your cat-N Ethernet cable each have a different rate of twist, so their signals stay separate.

        - - - -

        (I DO like the idea of swapping in the dummy load and seeing whether the thrust disappears. B-) )

        • I didn't read this article, but the one I did read noted that they are using twisted pair wires. The twist method is not perfect and, at the Lilliputian scale the thrust is measured on, those imperfections are enough to produce the resulting torque.

      • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @01:50AM (#56651530) Journal

        The researchers used precision machining and polishing to obtain a microwave cavity that was much better than those previously published. If anything was going to work, this would be the one.

        Now that reminds me of a story, back in my programming-for-the-auto-industry days.

        Seems that Rolls Royce, after sticking with manual transmissions for a long time, decided to consider manufacturing a car with an automatic transmission. So they got hold of the best on the hoi polloi market - the GM 350 turbo-hydramatic - to use as a reference.

        First they tested the heck out of it - and found it did exactly what an auto-tranny should. So how could they make something better? So they tore it down to see if there was anything they could improve. But everything was beautifully designed and machined. Except for one surface on one part, which was a little rough.

        So they machined it smooth and reassembled the transmission. And it didn't work at all. That surface was SUPPOSED to be a little rough. B-)

        - - - -

        Now personally, as much as I'd like to see a working reactionless electronic thruster, I'm not holding my breath waiting for a violation of the law of conservation of momentum. But it would be nice if something DID show up that worked.

    • "If they had, its efficacy would have quickly been dis-proven."

      Maybe - maybe not; but why conjecture?

      How hard can it be to just build a box and take up the the ISS?
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        There's a wee bit of magnetic field up there too. It's far easier to cancel out the field down here where you've got lots of space, power, and engineers.

  • If interaction is how it works, then you merely need to strap two of them together and the interactions between them will provide driving force.

    But I have to say the article did not sound wholly definitive:

    So, where does the force come from? The Earth's magnetic field, most likely.

    AhhhHA!

    • Most likely you don't know that this is a pretty strong statement in research.
  • Their first few albums were really good.

    https://youtu.be/xNEsesfBwRg [youtu.be]

  • Satellites (Score:4, Interesting)

    by willy_me ( 212994 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @10:56PM (#56651178)
    Could it at least be used to reposition satellites? It appears to be an energy hog but if one first accumulates sufficient solar power then it might work.
    • Re:Satellites (Score:5, Informative)

      by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @11:30PM (#56651270) Journal

      Yes, it can be, and that system is called an electrodynamic tether [wikipedia.org], and it doesn't make use of the microwave cavity which is at the heart of the EM drive (which, according to this latest experiment, wasn't doing anything in the first place.)

      • Yes there is an electodynamic tether. But I think it may work differently than this case. I'm not an expert but the tether's work by using a DC current travelling in one direction but not returning along the same path. To complete the circuit the two sattelites have to eject or abosrb electrons from free space.
        here I think they are using wires in both directions. SO it's different, and not working on the same principle as the tethers do.

        I don't fully understant it yet so If I'm wrong please do correct m

        • To complete the circuit the two sattelites have to eject or abosrb electrons from free space. here I think they are using wires in both directions. SO it's different, and not working on the same principle as the tethers do.

          It's all just moving electrons: electrons moving in a magnet field experience force. It doesn't matter whether they're free or in a wire.

  • by careysub ( 976506 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @11:05PM (#56651212)

    It was presented at the Space Propulsion 2018 [researchgate.net] conference.

  • No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Monday May 21, 2018 @11:17PM (#56651232) Journal

    The EM drive, if it works, violates conservation of momentum, which can easily be used to also violate conservation of energy. (/. commenters on previous EM drive stories have gone into this at some length.)

    The EM drive was originally designed using standard physics (I think electromagnetism and possibly special relativity) and the inventor's calculations showed it would produce thrust. They did not realize that as the input physics conserved momentum but their calculation result violated it, this guaranteed their calculation was in error.

    The chances of this result being real were always really tiny. I'm happy there is now a good explanation for the anomalous experimental results.

    • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      This is most unfortunate. It would have been nice if we had a "magic" reacitonless drive. I guess when Mother Nature means no free lunch, she means, No Free Lunch.

      But now that I think about it. If it works with the Earth's magnetic field, that would explain a test I read where they said the trust doesn't change with the direction the drive is pointing.

      • she means, No Free Lunch

        Here's one fantasy alternative: The Free Lunch [wikipedia.org], although the summary here doesn't provide the necessary details. In a nutshell a dying future sends it's tech and personnel back into the past.

        If it were real I'm sure that Disney would already have a 28, 42, 55, 75, 95, 105, 170, unlimited copyright [wikimedia.org] on it. Heck, maybe that was the original CAUSE of their problem to start with.

      • One day... energy exists, therefore some condition can cause it to come into existence. We might be thousands, if not millions of years away from such feats, but I have hope.
    • The EM drive, if it works, violates conservation of momentum, which can easily be used to also violate conservation of energy. (/. commenters on previous EM drive stories have gone into this at some length.)

      It was hilarious watching the responses to that too. The argument went something like:

      1. The device violates conservation of momentum
      2. If you arrange it as X and the device works it makes a perpetual motion machine
      3. Sice perpetual motion machines are impossible, the device doesn't work.

      The response was

    • Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @07:14AM (#56652274)

      The EM drive, if it works, violates conservation of momentum, which can easily be used to also violate conservation of energy. (/. commenters on previous EM drive stories have gone into this at some length.)

      Moreover, if you violate the conservation of momentum then Noether's theorem [wikipedia.org] tells you that you've violated the principle of invariance under translation. If that were true, no two observers in different locations could ever agree on the laws of physics because the outcome of identical systems would be different if they were in different places.

      The correspondence between conservation laws and physical symmetries is immensely useful when reasoning about systems like these. Noether's theorem doesn't require conservation of momentum to be true, but it explains the consequences if it is/isn't.

    • I think this is well put: if your input for the model is electromagnetism then there will necessarily be conservation of energy and momentum and their calculations had to be wrong.
      How you can say 'possibly special relativity' I don't understand. The model was tested statically in a room. Are you thinking of applications in space?

      Special relativity is included in electromagnetism. If you take Coulomb force and special relativity, put it in a box and shake, out comes electromagnetism. If you take a wire and p

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      The EM drive, if it works, violates conservation of momentum, which can easily be used to also violate conservation of energy.

      1) Momentum is not conserved in our universe.
      2) Conservation of momentum is not required for conservation of energy
      3) Energy is not conserved in our universe

      Your argument is so over-simplifying physics that it's nonsense. Conservation of energy and of momentum are mathematical consequences of Euclidean space and time, by Noether's theorem. [wikipedia.org] We don't, of course, live in Euclidean space or time. Note that the two conservation principles are unrelated - conservation of momentum comes from spatial symmetry, w

    • First of all: if an EM drive would work, it would not violate the laws of conservation of momentum. Otherwise: it would not work, plain and simple.
      And if one here can give an example why "violation of conversation of momentum" automatically implies violation of "conversation of energy" I would be surprised.

  • ...but conservation of momentum beats the whole universe.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @12:42AM (#56651412)

    ..If the folks over at nasaspaceflight [nasaspaceflight.com] are to be believed

    Looks like the setup was very sloppy indeed.. with the wattage too low making any signal disappear into noise..

    Quoting:

    Looking at the pictures of Tajmar's experiment, no wonder they are seeing nothing but Lorentz. First of all their twisted pairs do not appear to be twisted enough. There should be at least two twists per inch. In the image below it appears that there is maybe one twist per two inches or so. And then look at the location of the main amplifier and the length of the main leads! :o

    At only 2W of RF power, no wonder they are only seeing Lorentz. It's almost like they designed their experiment to be susceptible to this form of error.

    • Looking at the pictures of Tajmar's experiment, no wonder they are seeing nothing but Lorentz. First of all their twisted pairs do not appear to be twisted enough. There should be at least two twists per inch. In the image below it appears that there is maybe one twist per two inches or so. And then look at the location of the main amplifier and the length of the main leads! :o

      At only 2W of RF power, no wonder they are only seeing Lorentz. It's almost like they designed their experiment to be susceptible to

      • A sure sign of pseudoscience is the post hoc explanation

        Sometimes a sure sign of pseudoscience is the experiment which is designed in such a way specifically to prompt post hoc explanation. Quite often you see this in perpetual motion machines, but completely the other way around. "Oh you forgot to unplug your perpetual motion machine from the wall".

        The only thing that is "sure" is that existing theoretical physics doesn't account for something which ultimately biases everyone's thinking against it, which is why we will justify something as obvious through any a

    • I was thinking the same thing. I remember well that the idea was to put kilowatts of power on the device for it to work, not mere 5 watts (if that were so even I could do this experience at home). And there are ways to deny interference from the Earth's magnetic field to see if it's the reason for torque, I suppose these scientists are (or should be) testing this now.
    • Well, we can be fairly certain the EM drive does not work. The only question is why does it appear to work. Just like the 'faster than the speed of light neutrinos" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] we KNOW that the result is impossible, the question is WHY are we seeing what we are seeing. The Germans may have been too sloppy (Germans? Sloppy?) to find the exact cause. Their use of the word "may" really concerns me. Regardless, the German explanation is far more likely to be true than a reversal of the "la

  • Can't we hop through the solar system, using the magnetic fields of various bodies to speed up, and then do the reverse at a target star? Cruising in interplanetary space might be fine.
    • by ledow ( 319597 )

      The effect is tiny.

      They were hoping to use it for long-range drives (e.g. Voyager etc.) to get a "cheap" push to allow them to reach ludicrous-speed.

      But it likely won't work in space, or near most planets at all. And likely won't be strong enough to accelerate or stop ANYTHING on its own.

      Sure, once in orbit, you MAY be able to push yourself out... and then you're stuffed. But the weight of the engine + the power required to do that wouldn't be worth it if it has to be launched normally anyway, and has to

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      Not really. One of the reasons this is such a nail in the coffin of the emdrive is it dashes their assumptions that ways will be found to scale up the effect. Proponents have been hoping that if they find the right material, right geometry, right frequency, they will hit on an effect that can produce lots of thrust for little power. If it is just the rig interacting with the earth's magnetic field, that puts very well understood limits on how much movement you will be able to get out of it.
    • by Virtex ( 2914 )
      Magnetic fields can be useful for spacecraft propulsion, but we'll likely get better results using a magnetic sail [wikipedia.org].
  • Finally we can lay this idiocy, nonsense and stupidity to rest. For years it was clear to anyone with a grain of understanding that the discrepancies were due to artefacts, measure-errors or influences they didn't account for. Instead, pipe-dream-believers - or rather fanatics - kept insisting the hype was real.

    Now that it's been shown it is, indeed, the latter - as a rational person would expect - no doubt the die-hards EM-fanfappers will claim some conspiracy theory, but ultimately, the case has been sett

    • I wish. There will be someone talking about how "the experiment was flawed" because they didn't "twist the wires enough" or compensate for something, etc, etc, etc.
  • Mike McCulloch has been awarded ~$1m UKP for experimentally testing his theory of QI.

    http://physicsfromtheedge.blog... [blogspot.ca]

    This theory has done a very good job of explaining several physics anomalies, and in particular, makes some interesting predictions for anomalous thrusters.

    Something to watch, a good read, and he's a pretty accessible and nice guy too.

  • by PortHaven ( 242123 ) on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @09:50AM (#56653128) Homepage

    Okay, so the propulsion is likely coming from Earth's magnetic field. Still good news. Imagine how much longer satellites could stay in orbit if they could utilize Earth's own magnetic field to propel themselves outward from Earth. That is still very useful.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      I think this has been studied. A conductive tether attached to a satellite that produces a force when interacting with the Earth's magnetic field.

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