Literary advice requested regarding Cannae/EM Drive article

Howdy,

I have to write an article for a children's literature course I am taking. This is one of my last assignments and has to be publication ready. I am taking my time and holding myself to a pretty high standard (higher than some of the popular news sources at least). To this end, I wanted to write about the Cannae Drive, but not with all of the hyperbolic and misleading technobabble we have been seeing in related articles.

This is where I am running into a bit of a block. I want the end result of the article to be exciting and hopeful. Promise for the future and all that. But I also want to caution that this particular technology might not pan out. I remember as a child being excited about one article or another in Omni and then finding out later that it was mumbo jumbo crap science.

Here is what I have pieced together so far:

1. The EM Drive and the Cannae Drive have been tested in multiple labs by multiple teams and have produced thrust. The question is how is that thrust being produced. The jury is still out on this and more testing approaches are needed.
   
2. NASA Results being lauded as "verified" are not anything of the sort. It was best explained as a "WTF? HMO" type paper, not a scientific submission to the community.
   
3. There are lots of questionable physics being thrown around in trying to explain this technology.
   
4. There is some plausible physics albeit cutting edge being thrown around as well.
   

My gut is telling me that there is nothing involved in these drives that violates the laws of physics. The law of momentum is not being broken. They simply haven't tested the contraption fully or correctly as yet to identify where the loss is coming from to yield the thrust.

So now how do I simplify this to a teen audience without misleading scientific technobabble and without being a cynical sceptic who calls the whole thing sham/junk science?

Thanks in advance.

a reply to: rogerstigers

You just answered your own question.

a reply to: Astyanax

Are you implying that I am overthinking this, then? (wouldn't be the first time)

a reply to: rogerstigers

Hey! I've been interested in the EmDrive too.

I think a way you can't go wrong is to present accurate scientific information that may be relevant. For instance, I believe the conservation of momentum is implied by Newtonian physics... One thing to tell the kid is how people thought Newtonian physics were complete, then relativity and QM came along. You can talk about the actual law:
en.wikipedia.org...
In a closed system (one that does not exchange any matter with the outside and is not acted on by outside forces) the total momentum is constant.
Then, you can talk about Einstein revealing matter energy equivalency, in e = mc^2. Then you can ask the question about whether the EmDrive might be a valid idea in the new physics. (Note EmDrive is not valid in classic physics even if it follows the conservation of momentum via quantum foam, because quantum foam is not part of classic physics)

In fact, I think the best you can do to show kids how exciting science is, is to show them how little is really known, how many mysteries are actually out there. So don't be afraid to not know it all in presenting the facts to them. That's what excites them to discover things for themselves.

You can say that if Einstein were still alive... he would call it "Spooky" propulsion.

Trident and Larryman, those are both great suggestions. Thank you. You might have me on to something.. (which is why I came to ATS with this in the first place)

In your OP, you request literary criticism. In point one, get rid of "multiple," put in a number. Also describe the orientation of these teams. Are any of them propulsion scientists?

In points three and four you assume that there is real technology there. In point three, if I may expand it, you're saying "In trying to explain this technology, some are using questionable physics." In point four you say (Again, begging your indulgence), "In explaining this technology, some unusual, but plausible physics are being used."

So, in three and four combined, you are saying "We have this wonderful technology and we don't have a final explanation for it." I don't think that's the message you're trying to convey.

Now, if you're looking for scientific criticism, call any University physics lab.

originally posted by: rogerstigers
My gut is telling me that there is nothing involved in these drives that violates the laws of physics. The law of momentum is not being broken. They simply haven't tested the contraption fully or correctly as yet to identify where the loss is coming from to yield the thrust.

First, there are natural laws of physics that are never violated, so of course those aren't broken, ever, as far as we know.

However the human "guesses" at these natural laws may need some "tweaking" and the classical concept of conservation of momentum may indeed need some tweaking in light of quantum mechanics. I don't pretend to know the final outcome but consider these points which lead to my guess:

1. Nobody seems to be questioning the Solar Sail, which gains thrust from the momentum of photons:

The total force exerted on an 800 by 800 meter solar sail, for example, is about 5 newtons (1.1 lbf) at Earth's distance from Sol,[2] making it a low-thrust propulsion system,

So, there appears to be nobody questioning any laws of physics about this concept. Photons have momentum.

2. If you put a spherical light bulb in a spherical chamber, the photons emitted will exert this same type of pressure on the inside walls of the chamber, but since there are far less photons than coming from the sun the pressure will be far less.

3. Cut a hole in this chamber so that photons come out that hole, and why wouldn't you have an imbalance of photon pressure? The photons are pushing on all the inner surface of the chamber except where you cut the hole, so I see no reason why the photons coming out the hole can't provide some thrust, and if the classical law of conservation of momentum needs to be updated to reflect this, I wouldn't be surprised as it's a really old law and we've found exceptions on other old laws (like an exception to the second law of thermodynamics for example).

Now before you get excited and think I'm suggesting the EM drive will be useful, I'm not suggesting that. I'm only suggesting that I won't be at all surprised if old conservation of momentum concepts are updated to reflect experimental observations.

The bottom line however is that if you do calculations on how much thrust you can get from a photon, it turns out to not be very useful for a drive.

So my guess is that some itsy bitsy teeny tiny thrust will be confirmed, and some concepts may need to be updated to reflect this, but the itsy bitsy teeny tiny thrust won't be useful.

But you may ask, what about the 1.1 pounds of thrust from a 800 by 800 meter solar sail, couldn't that be useful? Of course, but keep in mind that the sun is producing power at the rate of 3.846×10^26 W. How much power can a spacecraft be reasonably expected to produce? When you scale down the power to what can fit on a reasonably sized spacecraft, well guess how many watts you will have available on the spacecraft, and see what kind of thrust you can get.

Some guys attempted to do those calculations here and after some corrections they all seemed to realize that even ignoring the conservation of momentum law issue, at any conceivable reasonable power level on the spacecraft, the calculated thrust doesn't seem to be useful:

Photon space drive

So I won't be surprised if some thrust is confirmed but I expect it won't be a useful amount of thrust. Tweaking an old human "law" to match observation and experiment is a non-issue for me.

a reply to: rogerstigers

No, no, just that you seemed to have explained what you wanted to explain quite well.

originally posted by: rogerstigers
Howdy,

I have to write an article for a children's literature course I am taking. This is one of my last assignments and has to be publication ready. I am taking my time and holding myself to a pretty high standard (higher than some of the popular news sources at least). To this end, I wanted to write about the Cannae Drive, but not with all of the hyperbolic and misleading technobabble we have been seeing in related articles.

This is where I am running into a bit of a block. I want the end result of the article to be exciting and hopeful. Promise for the future and all that. But I also want to caution that this particular technology might not pan out. I remember as a child being excited about one article or another in Omni and then finding out later that it was mumbo jumbo crap science.

Here is what I have pieced together so far:

1. The EM Drive and the Cannae Drive have been tested in multiple labs by multiple teams and have produced thrust. The question is how is that thrust being produced. The jury is still out on this and more testing approaches are needed.
   
2. NASA Results being lauded as "verified" are not anything of the sort. It was best explained as a "WTF? HMO" type paper, not a scientific submission to the community.
   
3. There are lots of questionable physics being thrown around in trying to explain this technology.
   
4. There is some plausible physics albeit cutting edge being thrown around as well.
   

My gut is telling me that there is nothing involved in these drives that violates the laws of physics. The law of momentum is not being broken. They simply haven't tested the contraption fully or correctly as yet to identify where the loss is coming from to yield the thrust.

So now how do I simplify this to a teen audience without misleading scientific technobabble and without being a cynical sceptic who calls the whole thing sham/junk science?

Thanks in advance.

tool on over to NASA advanced Concepts and look for the trio of threads on EM drives or that drive specifically. somewhere in that thread is a link to the full paper and not the abstract. there is also a link to the chinese paper (professionally translated to english) on the chinese version of Shayer's device. note that the chinese basically borrowed shayers device and research a few years ago because Shayer could not get any official interest here. The Chinese also vetted his device and in fact are talking of using it in space soon.

the links are in one of these three threads over at the NASA advanced concepts forum:

forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

bear in mind a lot of the guys in the threads are dedicated scpetics. but there are also people convinced it works. a lot of the scepticism is of the "OMG it somehow violated the laws of physics; it can't be real" knee jerk variety. however; there are both useful academic peer links in there and more magazine and web article links than gathered anywhere else.

and again gentle readers; don't go over there with your pet UFO propulsion theories. The moderators will kill your thread then you and then track me down and kill me. it you post something that has even a whiff of the odour of fringe in it they will lock it. maybe delete it; and ban you if you persist. They have to protect NASA's professional Rep. That's their job. and to them that is more important than discovering radical forms of space technology. and they have a different idea of what is reputable science than you do.

originally posted by: Larryman
You can say that if Einstein were still alive... he would call it "Spooky" propulsion.

Nah. Woodward's Mach Effect drive might be called that because it simultaneously touches the entire universe but the Shayer-Cannae device acts locally; specifically within the volume of the microwave cavity of the device. and while there are Quantum Vacuum explanation proposals for what is going on there are less exotic proposals for the physics of what is going on in the device.

originally posted by: rogerstigers how do I simplify this to a teen audience without misleading scientific technobabble and without being a cynical sceptic who calls the whole thing sham/junk science?)

'don't believe everything you read'

but keep an open mind....

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: Larryman
You can say that if Einstein were still alive... he would call it "Spooky" propulsion.

Nah. Woodward's Mach Effect drive might be called that because it simultaneously touches the entire universe but the Shayer-Cannae device acts locally; specifically within the volume of the microwave cavity of the device. and while there are Quantum Vacuum explanation proposals for what is going on there are less exotic proposals for the physics of what is going on in the device.

Now this is getting into fringe physics, but Woodward made an assertion that effectively these are two sides of the same effect. That through the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, you have an equivalence between the Mach-ian idea (dissipate/absorb through interactions on the end of the unviverse in space & time) and fluctuations (local quantum field theory fluctuations).

I don't know enough to tell if this is nonsense or not.

www.otherhand.org...

Woodward is very negative on any use of vacuum fluctuation for inertia modification and doesn't think the Haisch & Rueda scheme is plausible.

physics.fullerton.edu...

Trying to ascribe inertia to some origin other than gravity, we see, gets us into rather deep water. We are left with the fact that the least implausible explanation of the origin of inertia is gravitational disturbances that propagate to and from the distant future out there. Support for this view of reality can be found in Wheeler and Feynman's absorber theory that accounts for electromagnetic radiation reaction forces in essentially the same way. All this suggests that radiation reaction is likely to be an important aspect of gravity and inertia, and that it is worth exploring radiation reaction a bit.

originally posted by: mbkennel

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: Larryman
You can say that if Einstein were still alive... he would call it "Spooky" propulsion.

Nah. Woodward's Mach Effect drive might be called that because it simultaneously touches the entire universe but the Shayer-Cannae device acts locally; specifically within the volume of the microwave cavity of the device. and while there are Quantum Vacuum explanation proposals for what is going on there are less exotic proposals for the physics of what is going on in the device.

Now this is getting into fringe physics, but Woodward made an assertion that effectively these are two sides of the same effect. That through the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, you have an equivalence between the Mach-ian idea (dissipate/absorb through interactions on the end of the unviverse in space & time) and fluctuations (local quantum field theory fluctuations).

I don't know enough to tell if this is nonsense or not.

www.otherhand.org...

Woodward is very negative on any use of vacuum fluctuation for inertia modification and doesn't think the Haisch & Rueda scheme is plausible.

physics.fullerton.edu...

Trying to ascribe inertia to some origin other than gravity, we see, gets us into rather deep water. We are left with the fact that the least implausible explanation of the origin of inertia is gravitational disturbances that propagate to and from the distant future out there. Support for this view of reality can be found in Wheeler and Feynman's absorber theory that accounts for electromagnetic radiation reaction forces in essentially the same way. All this suggests that radiation reaction is likely to be an important aspect of gravity and inertia, and that it is worth exploring radiation reaction a bit.

i would not call Dr Woodward fringe. he may be wrong. but he is not fringe. Mach is one of the primary influences on Einstein's relativity. IOW Einstein respected him and his ideas a great deal and developed them into the relativity framework. Now Dr Woodward may be off the mark on what is going on in shayer's device. as I said, there may be a more mundane but still interesting thing going on. but he could well be right since there are many similarities between Shayer's device and his own and he is an expert on this sort of thing. If it turns out to be mach effect derived it will be the most wonderful thing ever invented. it will mean instant communications at any and i mean any range. and it will mean really fast space ships at the very least and potentially even FTL space ships when the technology is fully developed to the conclusions of the Mach equations.

EDIT: did i mention that even if the ME can be used for instant communication it will not violate relativity because of the way the communication works the signal itself can be said to never propagate faster than light but travels in time such that the transit time is excluded from any observer's reference frame and only the effect itself shows up for an observer. inertia is instant. gravity is instant. so if you can encode data into the field it should be instant too. especially in the feynman-wheeler mechanism explanation of the ME.

here is the full paper (not the abstract) :

www.libertariannews.org...