4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
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- It/She/They
Ah, but see, everyone online is an armchair general. I just have a nice piece of paper giving me credit for armchair generalling
EM Drive System No Longer Further Confirmed
- Thread starter Richardson
- Start date
-
- Tags
- errors abound rocket fuel
Radek
Promethean
- Location
- A Cryptum, somewhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
An incovient thruth indeed. Then again, are not all leaders of men armchair generals in the absense of practical experience?Ah, but see, everyone online is an armchair general. I just have a nice piece of paper giving me credit for armchair generalling
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
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- It/She/They
I suppose so. And something like that does make me feel awful important
Vorpal
Neither a dandy nor a clown
- Location
- 76 Totter's Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC1 5EG
Buddhist magical ponies. The meson/baryon Eightfold Way pointing toward enlightenment—definitely not a coincidence!
macintyre, n. An inflated wheel with a slick, impervious coating; hence, derivatively, an all-terrain vehicle equipped with macintyres. "If you want to cover that much territory that fast, you'd best use the macintyre."
Though I have actually read a bit of MacIntyre, I'm afraid that I can't even tell whether the former involves things that exist/have existed. 
Arania
Concentric Circles
Of course it's not a coincidence! Though the model extends further than you think.
Finally, vacuum power has been harnessed!
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
Does that mean he is the witch lady from bedknobs and broomsticks?
Amorous Intent
Love the future
- Location
- Octavia, Venus
- Pronouns
- She/her
I'd like to go ahead and point out there are some models that elevate virtual particles to real phenomenon. White's attempt at a theory falls into this category, though I'm far more inclined to pay attention to the two theories I linked than White's. They may be far-out, but at least they have a semblance of coherence.
Vorpal
Neither a dandy nor a clown
- Location
- 76 Totter's Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC1 5EG
According to General Relativity, the analogy between spacetime and a supercooled fluid is either meaningless or false.
The wiki correctly says that "the basic ideas have been around for a long time," but it's interesting to get a perspective of just how long. The zeropoint electromagnetic field was invented by Planck as an alternative to Einstein's notion of light quanta (photons), which he deeply opposed, and was discussed in the first Solvay conference in 1911 and developed further in the next few years. It is therefore older than proper quantum theory. Notably, Marshall acknowledges Planck's priority by nearly fifty years and Planck's ZPF as the basis for SED.
Like Planck, SED is both anti-quantum and anti-photon. Therefore, although it is the case that SED treats the vacuum energy as a stochastic classical electromagnetic field, I think its proponents would object to the 'virtual particles are real' description because they believe that the particle description of the electromagnetic field is wrong. The primary motivation of the theory is to kill the photon, and Marshall still writes about how much he hates both photons and entanglement. Or at least as recently as 1997-2007.
I was not aware of the more recent SEDS mentioned in the wiki page, but its description SED plus spin is extremely bizarre. SED is unapologetically anti-quantum, and what makes quantum entanglement 'weird' is the existence of non-commuting observables, e.g., spin along different axes. (Otherwise, quantum entanglement would be exactly the same thing as classical correlation.) If you capitulate to quantum mechanics by admitting spin as fundamental, then naturally you admit the existence of non-commuting observables. But in that case, the QED vacuum is completely trivial: the vacuum is an eigenstate of lowest energy, but the energy operator doesn't commute with the particle number operator, i.e. you have some probability of measuring particles in a zero energy state.
(Also, while it's good that the authors of SEDS believe they've figures out the reason for the cutoff, in mainstream physics has known the moral reason since the 40s and the specific reason since the 70s: it's because QED is wrong above a certain scale as electromagnetism is unified with the weak force. This explanation has the important bonus of being experimentally confirmed, in addition to not being a frankensteinian hybrid of the classical and the quantum.)
I'm honestly unsure of what SVT is talking about, but on its face it's not completely crazy. The physics of a superfluid (or at least some superfluids) can be described as spontaneous symmetry breaking of some gauge group. As this is also what happens in electroweak unification (&c.), with spontaneous symmetry breaking separating electromagnetism from the weak force, in a sense the electroweak vacuum is 'like' a superfluid already. Though an analogy to a superconductor would be more clean, as the standard BCS theory of superconductivity can be described as the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the U(1) electromagnetic gauge group by a condensate of Cooper pairs.
I was wondering whether to mention SED because one of SED papers on the ground-state of the hydrogen atom was referenced by Sonny (Puthoff, H. E., Phys. Rev. D 35, 3266 (1987)), but since SED denies the existence of virtual particles and Sonny does not actually do anything at all with paper's point anyway (it's basically pure citation-padding), it wasn't relevant at the time.
The wiki correctly says that "the basic ideas have been around for a long time," but it's interesting to get a perspective of just how long. The zeropoint electromagnetic field was invented by Planck as an alternative to Einstein's notion of light quanta (photons), which he deeply opposed, and was discussed in the first Solvay conference in 1911 and developed further in the next few years. It is therefore older than proper quantum theory. Notably, Marshall acknowledges Planck's priority by nearly fifty years and Planck's ZPF as the basis for SED.
Like Planck, SED is both anti-quantum and anti-photon. Therefore, although it is the case that SED treats the vacuum energy as a stochastic classical electromagnetic field, I think its proponents would object to the 'virtual particles are real' description because they believe that the particle description of the electromagnetic field is wrong. The primary motivation of the theory is to kill the photon, and Marshall still writes about how much he hates both photons and entanglement. Or at least as recently as 1997-2007.
I was not aware of the more recent SEDS mentioned in the wiki page, but its description SED plus spin is extremely bizarre. SED is unapologetically anti-quantum, and what makes quantum entanglement 'weird' is the existence of non-commuting observables, e.g., spin along different axes. (Otherwise, quantum entanglement would be exactly the same thing as classical correlation.) If you capitulate to quantum mechanics by admitting spin as fundamental, then naturally you admit the existence of non-commuting observables. But in that case, the QED vacuum is completely trivial: the vacuum is an eigenstate of lowest energy, but the energy operator doesn't commute with the particle number operator, i.e. you have some probability of measuring particles in a zero energy state.
(Also, while it's good that the authors of SEDS believe they've figures out the reason for the cutoff, in mainstream physics has known the moral reason since the 40s and the specific reason since the 70s: it's because QED is wrong above a certain scale as electromagnetism is unified with the weak force. This explanation has the important bonus of being experimentally confirmed, in addition to not being a frankensteinian hybrid of the classical and the quantum.)
SED is dead. It's a misguided attempt to wind back the clock to the nineteenth century. The only good thing about it is that people like Marshall seem to be basically honest in their anti-quantum nuttiness.
I'm honestly unsure of what SVT is talking about, but on its face it's not completely crazy. The physics of a superfluid (or at least some superfluids) can be described as spontaneous symmetry breaking of some gauge group. As this is also what happens in electroweak unification (&c.), with spontaneous symmetry breaking separating electromagnetism from the weak force, in a sense the electroweak vacuum is 'like' a superfluid already. Though an analogy to a superconductor would be more clean, as the standard BCS theory of superconductivity can be described as the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the U(1) electromagnetic gauge group by a condensate of Cooper pairs.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Read the thread. No, seriously, read the thread. This has been explained, refuted, theorised and rejected a couple times in the last seven pages. Oh, and hoped for, musn't forget hoped for.
No, I get what this is, I'm just asking for a brief summary of the impact it will have if it proves true. Not scientific, but more of a social one.
How will this affect immediate future? What is going to change? Things like that.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Oh right. Uh... Cheap, easy space travel once in space. Satellites wont need to carry reaction mass for station keeping any more, which is cool. Long range probes will be able to hit absurd speeds. Human space travel, well... a long shot would be saying that you could do a direct Mars transfer rather than a Hohmann transfer, reaching Mars in under a month rather than seven. Which would be awesome.
Launching things would still be expensive, but once up there, it's all gravy.
EDIT: This is if it works exactly as projected plus a little extra. But hey, it'd be cool.
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Thanks for the info.
So... one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind type of thing I guess? A small thought, will this make mining in space viable? I get that there will still need more things to be done and invented before its actually possible but just a thought.
I guess the only thing left to make space travel actually affordable is to invent a new way to take off. Any ideas?
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
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- It/She/They
You know I'd not thought about it, but... plausibly? At least, much cheaper. Launch system is the issue.
Be SpaceX?
They're hella cheap for the stuff they lift.As for actually getting off the surface without expensive chemical rockets... fuck knows. Good luck.
The thought I had was that with space mining, the launching could simply pay for itself. While in the beginning it will be slow, I can actually see this happening. Also, this might lead to actual expansion of spare programs in a long time.You know I'd not thought about it, but... plausibly? At least, much cheaper. Launch system is the issue.
Be SpaceX?
As for actually getting off the surface without expensive chemical rockets... fuck knows. Good luck.
Now we just need to invent a viable way to colonize other space bodies and I will be able to have my own kingdom!
Also, just a thought, if a vertical take off doesn't work, is it possible to make it somehow horizontal? I'm just taking a guess and a shot in the dark here, so please inform me where my point is wrong without making me feel too bad.You know I'd not thought about it, but... plausibly? At least, much cheaper. Launch system is the issue.
Be SpaceX?
As for actually getting off the surface without expensive chemical rockets... fuck knows. Good luck.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
As in with a rail based gun launcher? The concept works. The problem is atmospheric friction. Going straight up gets you out of the thicker lower atmosphere ASAP. Also, the gun itself is stupid expensive.
But a lot more viable than a space elevator right?
Honestly, I'm not seeing a lot of options unless we create some new type of fuel from what we have or will mine in space.
I mean the only other way I'm seeing this happening is someone invents something that will allow atmospheric friction to not be an issue.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Oh god yeah. There are serious proposals for space guns (and one test project), elevators are really pie in the sky type stuff.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
.....
If you guys want to discuss serious technology that will actually make a big difference to space flight you could at least talk about the projects which are both viable, coming soon and highly transformative.
You know things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine)
A hybrid Jet/Rocket engine that will make single stage to orbit a thing.
If you guys want to discuss serious technology that will actually make a big difference to space flight you could at least talk about the projects which are both viable, coming soon and highly transformative.
You know things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine)
A hybrid Jet/Rocket engine that will make single stage to orbit a thing.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
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- It/She/They
I completely forgot about skylon. How the hell did I completely forget about skylon.Just read the summery, sounds really cool if it becomes actually viable in the future.
Also, I'm not really up to date with all the technologies and science, so thanks for informing me about this.
Still not a big level I was hoping for, but still a big step for space travel if it proves viable. With the 3D printing now becoming a thing, I'm hoping this technology improves fast and will make it possible to jump from blueprint to actual prototype a reality.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Skylon is expected to fly sometime between 2018 and 2022. It's actually a really great idea, and given enough funding, very much likely to work. Which is cool, because returnable SSTO's will make space flight cheap-ish.
I like the VASIMR more. But I'm not a scientist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket