maybe Elon Musk can test it out in space...

 

Never thought I'd agree with you on this... but sadly, you're right. Some of us have a hard time letting go of dreams, even on the face of conclusive evidence.

And btw, I think I'm beginning to understand your photon rocket explanation, and the violation of conservation of energy in this case.

My mind's been wondering lately if it would be possible to build a device that could somehow sync with the virtual particles on the vacuum and use them to produce thrust.

The Quantum vacuum thruster was one of the ideas of how a EMDrive and Cannae Drive could work.

Kinetic energy increases with the square of the speed. It's possible to apply the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation to see that thrust by expelling part of its mass (or momentum in the case of a photon rocket) is necessary for Conservation of momentum.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/o...date-imposible-space-drive-word/#.XUyWYHVKgnV

Did I say that was worst of all? I may have take that back. In the paper by White et al, they also write that the Cannae Drive “is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.” That last bit stopped me. What’s a quantum vacuum virtual plasma? I’d never heard the term, so I dropped a note to Sean Carroll, a Caltech physicist whose work dives deeply into speculative realms of cosmology and quantum theory.

Carroll wrote back immediately, with a pointed message: “There is no such thing as a ‘quantum vacuum virtual plasma,’ so that should be a tip-off right there. There is a quantum vacuum, but it is nothing like a plasma. In particular, it does not have a rest frame, so there is nothing to push against, so you can’t use it for propulsion. The whole thing is just nonsense. They claim to measure an incredibly tiny effect that could very easily be just noise.” There is no theory to support the result, and there is no verified result to begin with.

 

That's how we make scientific progress but

Hello,

That's still a lead in the wrong direction.
By claiming "You can not fool Mother Nature" you make the assumption that you already know *everything* about so called Mother Nature.
So you dont know if you are the fool or not because Mother Nature may still hold some surprises that you dont yet know about.
In other words, we need to look at this in a non biased way and that means leaving the door open for either "no it does not work" or "yes it does work" and there is absolutely NO WAY you can EVER predict this. The past shows that in abundance. We always seem to think we have the answer, but then the next scientist that steps up to the platform finds a different result that changes science in many ways.

 

I agree if scientists listened to everyone saying it won’t work we would have no discoveries.

 

Hello,

That's still a lead in the wrong direction.
By claiming "You can not fool Mother Nature" you make the assumption that you already know *everything* about so called Mother Nature.
So you dont know if you are the fool or not because Mother Nature may still hold some surprises that you dont yet know about.
In other words, we need to look at this in a non biased way and that means leaving the door open for either "no it does not work" or "yes it does work" and there is absolutely NO WAY you can EVER predict this. The past shows that in abundance. We always seem to think we have the answer, but then the next scientist that steps up to the platform finds a different result that changes science in many ways.

If boxes in space could move efficiently by shaking the inside I'm pretty sure Mother Nature would ready be using the process in the short time the universe has existed.

That's not usually the case that any one discovery changes science in many ways in today's age. We don't know everything but we know a hell of a lot and nothing will change the experiential results that validate CoE and CoM on every scale we have tested it from the observable universe to the smallest subatomic particle. IF there is every a result that changes our view on this them it MUST still be compatible with current experimental evidence too so not much will change in the physical world.

 

I agree if scientists listened to everyone saying it won’t work we would have no discoveries.

Most scientists don't listen to crackpots but they do listen to scientifically valid areas of study that are strange, exotic or weird. String Theory is a good example that has lead to important theoretical progress.

 

If boxes in space could move efficiently by shaking the inside I'm pretty sure Mother Nature would ready be using the process in the short time the universe has existed.

It is happening where you stand. The movement of the Earths core.

 

Hello,

That's still a lead in the wrong direction.
By claiming "You can not fool Mother Nature" you make the assumption that you already know *everything* about so called Mother Nature.
So you dont know if you are the fool or not because Mother Nature may still hold some surprises that you dont yet know about.
In other words, we need to look at this in a non biased way and that means leaving the door open for either "no it does not work" or "yes it does work" and there is absolutely NO WAY you can EVER predict this. The past shows that in abundance. We always seem to think we have the answer, but then the next scientist that steps up to the platform finds a different result that changes science in many ways.

You are arguing with someone that believes the climate isn't changing and sea levels aren't rising.

 

My mind's been wondering lately if it would be possible to build a device that could somehow sync with the virtual particles on the vacuum and use them to produce thrust.

Google "solar sails".

 

If boxes in space could move efficiently by shaking the inside I'm pretty sure Mother Nature would ready be using the process in the short time the universe has existed.

That's not usually the case that any one discovery changes science in many ways in today's age. We don't know everything but we know a hell of a lot and nothing will change the experiential results that validate CoE and CoM on every scale we have tested it from the observable universe to the smallest subatomic particle. IF there is every a result that changes our view on this them it MUST still be compatible with current experimental evidence too so not much will change in the physical world.

It is good to talk about those two during discussions like this one, but i just feel that you are taking too strong of a stance on the ideas coming up. There are other ways to look at it too such as something new that may be discovered along the way even though its' not the original goal.
But also think back in Newton's time, if someone told him that you could convert 1 gram of matter into massive amounts of energy he would have died laughing.
Maybe if we knew everything about the universe that would be different, but we dont yet.

 

Maybe if we knew everything about the universe that would be different, but we dont yet.

And we really know nothing of the physics of deep space where this propulsion would be used. We don't even know, in the big picture of things the physics of what effects things on Earth.

 

Google "solar sails".

I was not talking about solar wind (which decreases as the distance from the sun increases), but rather vacuum's virtual particles.

According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space". According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence.

 

I like the solar sail idea and the ion propulsion idea where there's a collector in the front... out of all the ideas those made most sense to me.

 

Most scientists don't listen to crackpots but they do listen to scientifically valid areas of study that are strange, exotic or weird. String Theory is a good example that has lead to important theoretical progress.

Many scientists were considered "crackpots"... this is where we get our stereotype

including: Aristarchus, Gregor Mendel, Copernicus (and of course Galileo), Kepler, Doppler just to name a few... did you know the Wright Brothers were called the "Lying Brothers" in Scientific America...

 

Many scientists were considered "crackpots"... this is where we get our stereotype

including: Aristarchus, Gregor Mendel, Copernicus (and of course Galileo), Kepler, Doppler just to name a few... did you know the Wright Brothers were called the "Lying Brothers" in Scientific America...

View attachment 183558

Yeah we've seen this happen so much you would think it should be the rule not an exception.

 

I'm with NSA on one thing. He's mentioned many times before that whatever new discoveries we make, they will have to be compatible with what we already know. That is, new things should be built atop what has already been thoroughly proven and tested.

But on the other hand, there are things staring at us in the face that we cannot explain with our current theories. Dark matter for instance ... it's phenomena that relativity, quantum theory nor our working models of gravitation have been able to explain ... would the development of new physics be needed to describe and understand it?

 

I'm with NSA on one thing. He's mentioned many times before that whatever new discoveries we make, they will have to be compatible with what we already know. That is, new things should be built atop what has already been thoroughly proven and tested.

But on the other hand, there are things staring at us in the face that we cannot explain with our current theories. Dark matter for instance ... it's phenomena that relativity, quantum theory nor our working models of gravitation have been able to explain ... would the development of new physics be needed to describe and understand it?

Hi,

Yes if we overlooked something it could change a lot of things.
But you reminded me about something that i wondered about since the 1980's. That is inertia. We've all used it in equations several times, in it's linear and rotational forms, but we dont really know what causes that phenomenon. What causes something to keep moving. We cant even be sure about something that is taken for granted in many applications and has been used for years and years.

 

Many scientists were considered "crackpots"... this is where we get our stereotype

including: Aristarchus, Gregor Mendel, Copernicus (and of course Galileo), Kepler, Doppler just to name a few...

A crackpot isn't someone with controversial ideas; a crackpot is someone who claims that they've discovered some "truth" (or proven some well-established theory as wrong), without sufficient ability to do so. A crackpot is someone who insists that Einstein was wrong, yet doesn't actually understand general relativity well enough for their claim to be taken seriously.

The people you listed were all well-trained scientists (well, not Aristarchus, but that's not his fault as science was pretty dodgy back then); they were not considered crackpots in their own age (least of all Galileo).

BTW, your avatar is great but your signature sucks.

 

I've read some of this stuff when I was kid so here's what I've found on the subject: It's too long to write about all the "crackpots" as they were called in their days... "every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realised, it becomes commonplace."

to each his own.

This one is about Goddard, who was also in this camp:
If you have any interest at all in space exploration, you know the name Goddard. It appears in the name of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center research lab and Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The namesake of those institutions, Robert H. Goddard, is today hailed as a revolutionary who kickstarted the space race.

But during his time, he was the butt of mockery. Why? Because he thought he could get a rocket into space. In 1920, a New York Times editorial excoriated him.

"That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution," it read, "does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react - to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.''

Goddard was undeterred. Although he experienced failure after failure, he kept at it, and on 16 March 1926, he achieved the first successful flight with a liquid-propellant rocket. That historic flight achieved an altitude of 41 feet and only lasted 2 seconds - but he proved it could be done.

On 17 July 1969 - three days before the first humans landed on the Moon - the New York Times retracted its editorial.

As he once responded to a reporter, "every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realised, it becomes commonplace."

Further reading: Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age by David A. Clary

Heliocentricity:
Although the theory of heliocentrism, that Earth goes around the Sun, (rather than the Sun orbiting Earth, or geocentrism) had been variously proposed throughout ancient history, in the Middle Ages much knowledge was lost.

The concept reappeared with a bang when Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus put it forward in the first half of the 16th century. It was met with scholarly interest, but it wasn't long before religious leaders such as Martin Luther and the Catholic Sacred Congregation began criticising the work.

So it came to pass that most of the educated world continued to believe in geocentrism, until the cause was picked up by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century.

Using observational evidence, he presented his case for what was then known as Copernicanism, which brought him to the attention of the Inquisition for his heretical views - according to the Bible, the world could not be moved.

In February 1616, Copernicanism was banned, and Galileo was "to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it... to abandon completely... the opinion that the Sun stands still at the centre of the world and the Earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing."


Mendel:
You probably remember Gregor Mendel from your elementary school science class. Known as the father of modern genetics, Mendel was a Moravian Augustinian friar who dabbled in crossbreeding of pea plants during his spare time. Though he may not necessarily have been considered a complete lunatic during his time, he wasn’t exactly well-known or respected for his experiments, either.

Mendel’s garden pea plants, which helped him come up with the words “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to genes, were largely kept to himself and not fully accepted until after his death. In the past, scientists had believed that traits were passed down to next generations through blending inheritance, in which they’re averaged and mixed together. Mendel died in 1884, but it wasn’t until several decades later — at the beginning of the 20th century — that his ideas came to be known as modern genetics.

 

Dark matter for instance ... it's phenomena that relativity, quantum theory nor our working models of gravitation have been able to explain ... would the development of new physics be needed to describe and understand it?

As I understand it, dark matter is a theoretical stub, a placeholder for something missing from our gravitational balance sheet. We can see that *something* needs to account for the apparent extra mass in galaxies, and we think that this *something* doesn't interact with the electromagnetic field, but we don't know what it actually is. So we call it "dark matter" for now and agree to fill in the blanks later.

Note that relativity and quantum theory won't necessarily change if and when we find out what dark matter actually is. If it turns out that dark matter is some new subatomic particle, a new field theory will be added to the existing QFTs, but the existing field theories (and certainly quantum mechanics) will be just as applicable then as they are today. Likewise, general relativity -- being a theory of gravity -- doesn't need to "care" what dark matter is made of, just that it's there. Consider that when Einstein came up with GR, we hadn't yet realized that there were other galaxies in the universe! Once we realized how freaking vast and full of stuff the universe really is, we didn't need to amend GR in any way.