A Real Warp Drive?

[willwallace]

It would appear that researchers in the US, UK, and China are all working on an electromagnetic propulsion system which apparently violates the laws of physics, as currently understood. An article here:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/
gives a good overview of the system. Not only does it describe an engine that carries no fuel, there is at the end of the article a description of a test result which could be indicative of a warping of space/time from time-varying EM fields. So possibly a Star Trek engine is not out of the question.
Another forum here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ has a ton of discussion on the subject by some very knowledgeable people.

 

[TØny Hine]

Reports in of a German team testing the em drive and indicating that it's viable.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-space-travel-slash-journey-moon-4-HOURS.html

 

[Ray McCarthy]

No, it's not a warp drive. Nor ever will be.

Not only does it describe an engine that carries no fuel

No "REACTION MASS", not no fuel. Solar panels stop being useful as an energy source as you get further away. This why all deep space probes use thermo-electric fission power (radioactive plutonium as fue)

The dailymail article is nonsense

There is no proof yet that it's viable, nor proof any more than a microwave version of laser propulsion. It won't be efficient either, due to losses in making the microwaves.
If it's not a photonic type drive then there is no theory yet at all, assuming it actually works and we are not looking at experimental error. Reminds me of the news reports of "cold fusion".

 

[J Riff]

Fascinating Spock... but, we are stuck in this sector. We are out of no fuel.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Anything that is propulsion uses energy, unless it's solar panel energy, it's using some sort of fuel to power it. A battery is a special way of storing fuel, a matter/antimatter power source is the ultimate battery (the antimatter has to be made in advance and stored). So even if you have a hypothetical EM drive, the microwave source MUST be powered by something that gets used up (Chemical fuel, battery, nuclear power, anti-matter storage etc). A solar panel as power source only works quite near a star. Useless as close as Neptune and not so good even at Jupiter. Solar panels are extremely large to get much power.

Laws of Thermodynamics. Perpetual motion machines are impossible.


Niven even had a story where a Sorcerer proved that "magic" was using up mana, which was gradually recharged from the sun

 

[Vertigo]

More experiments on the much-overhyped EMDrive continue to prove absolutely nothing except that it’s easy to create ambiguous results if you’re sufficiently sloppy with your experimental design.

Writing about the EMDrive makes me wonder if this is all an elaborate troll to irritate scientists. The latest research is published in a journal that yet again dodges peer review. The theory continues to be somewhere between nonsensical to non-existent, and the experimental results continue to include so many sources of error I don’t understand why people just don’t burst out in incredulous laughter when reading them. Yet here we are reporting on it again like anything at all has changed to make this catastrophe of nonsensical engineering more plausible.

http://io9.com/no-german-scientists-have-not-confirmed-the-impossibl-1720573809/1720737686

If somebody sometime performs a serious peer reviewed experiment then I might sit up and take notice otherwise this is just fantasy.

 

[Vertigo]

Niven even had a story where a Sorcerer proved that "magic" was using up mana, which was gradually recharged from the sun

Was that his Burning City and Burning Towers books? I always liked that he had Magic as deriving from a finite rather infinite resource in those books.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Burning City and Burning Towers

I don't know, I've only read about it. I've only got some of his SF titles (often co-author). I'd like to read them some day.

Rational Magic, there's a thought

 

[Vertigo]

Those two books are set in the past; sort of Aztec or even pre Aztec as I recall. They're really quite different, certainly not the usual Niven/Purnelle fare. But I do recall enjoying them (a long time ago). Definitely set in an era when the magic was running out, though I don't recall anything about it being recharged by the sun. I simply remember it as being like the end of the era of magic.

 

[TØny Hine]

More on the EMDrive:-

arstechnica.com/science/2015/08/heres-why-scientists-havent-invented-an-impossible-space-engine

 

[Ray McCarthy]

That article is basically saying what proper reporting has been saying for over a year. The experiment doesn't actually measure anything sensible.

Nonetheless, a few open-minded experimental groups have built prototype EMDrives and all seem to see it generate some form of thrust.

The results are within experimental error.

Taken together, these results strongly suggest that the measured signatures of thrust are subtle experimental errors. Possible sources include thermal effects, problems with magnetic shielding, or even a non-uniform gravitational field in the laboratory leading to erroneous force measurements. As a comparison, the force measured in this latest experiment is roughly comparable to the gravitational attraction between two average-sized people (100kg) standing about 15cm apart. It is an extremely small force.

 

[Nick B]

I still think reversing the polarity might work. Worked on Star Trek. For everything.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

reversing the polarity might work

In real life it usually lets the magic smoke out, often with smouldering plastic, blown fuses or even an explosion. Must be magic as it's needed for operation.
Try it with Jumpstart cables or charger.

Anyway, even if this did anything, which it probably doesn't, it's nothing to do with Warp Drives. Light can be regarded as wave or photons (particles). So can microwaves*, so if there is any effect it will prove to be "photonic" in nature, which is pretty feeble. You can use lasers as tweezers or propulsion, but any more powerful laser propulsion system uses a laser NOT on the craft to heat a surface that evaporates for drive.

If this does anything at all, rather than being a poor experiment, it will be pretty much a technological dead end compared to Ion Drive + Linear Accelerator as it would need a big Maser. The energy has to come from somewhere and it's doubtful that a Laser or Maser Generator can match efficiency of Ion Drive + Linear Accelerator, even though that does need some reaction mass.

[*LASER was inspired by MASER, Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, invented in 1953]

The laser works by the same principle as the maser, and the maser was the forerunner of the laser, inspiring theoretical work by Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow that led to its invention in 1960. When the coherent optical oscillator was first imagined in 1957, it was originally called the "optical maser." This was ultimately changed to laser for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Gordon Gould is credited with creating this acronym in 1957.