The Impossible Is Still Impossible

I saw this article in Wired referenced on a couple of science pages on FaceBook. 

NASA validates 'impossible' space drive

Let me give you the short version of how this engine is supposed to work. Microwaves are beamed into a cone-shaped cavity. They bounce around the cavity and produce a force on the cavity in a direction perpendicular to the direction they were beamed in. Imagine  turning on the microwave oven and watching it push itself off the kitchen counter.

Why is it impossible? This violates one of the basic laws of physics. 

The Conservation of Momentum

The conservation of momentum isn’t your ordinary law of physics. It is one of the most fundamental principles in science. It is intimately related to spatial symmetry. Roughly speaking, the laws of physics here are the same there. You may know this as Newton’s third law of motion or for every action, there’s an equal but opposite reaction.

To obey the conservation of momentum, propellent is pushed out by the rocket and the rocket is pushed by the propellent. This engine is said to produce thrust without any propellent. 

So I was immediately skeptical. So I dug around a little bit. I found a short description of the experiment. One thing I found interesting is that the authors did not lecture on “”physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster.” All right, that’s fine; if the results were groundbreaking, the explanation might come later. Something similar happened in 1986. Researchers at IBM discovered ceramic materials that lost all electrical resistance (superconductivity) at surprisingly high temperatures. There is still no complete explanation for why this happens. What is different about these two cases is that the superconductivity ceramics didn’t violate any basic principles of physics.

What made me laugh however is the authors claim that their device may be “demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.” I have no idea what they mean by a quantum vacuum virtual plasma. 

I also found their paper. This made me giggle, too. They built two devices: one was designed to work, the other was designed not to work. Both versions produced the same amounts of thrust.

Phil Plait in his Bad Astronomy blog at Slate says this episode is reminiscent of the faster than light neutrinos and the mysterious force slowing down the Pioneer spacecrafts.

It reminded me of an article that caught my attention while I was in grad school. I remember getting all excited about this revolutionary paper published in one of the premier physics journals. The authors had data that showed that a gyroscope rotating in one direction weighed less than if it were rotating in the opposite direction. Finally, an anti-gravity device!

My research advisor wasn’t nearly as excited. His comment was something along the lines of “systematic error.” But still I held out hope.

Then four months later, my anti-gravity hope were dashed. Others trying to replicate the results found there is no anti-gravity.

The End of an Era?

Talk about mixed emotions.  Atlantis blasted off at 8:29 PDT this morning - perhaps the last manned mission ever.  And this is why I am both sad and happy.

I came of age during the Cold War's race to the moon.  I remember watching the Apollo astronauts launch from Cape Canaveral, land on the moon, and splash down in the ocean.  The reason I'm a physicist can probably be traced to the space program.  That's why I'm sad.

So why would I be happy?  I can't think of a single scientific accomplishment of the Shuttle program. One could point to the mission that put the Hubble Telescope into orbit. Plus the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Magellan Venus, the Galileo Jupiter, and the Ulysses solar probes, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.  Great science.  Let's not forget the shuttle was used to repair the Hubble, too.  But those probes all could have been launched with conventional rockets, and it would have been less expensive to build a new Hubble Telescope than to fix it with the Shuttle.  Don't even get me started on the International Space Station.

I love NASA, I love space exploration, and I love all the technology that has flowed from the space program.  I want NASA to get as much federal funding as possible, but I want good science.