NASA veteran's propellantless propulsion drive that physics says shouldn't work just produced enough thrust to overcome earth's gravity.

[ElectricKaibutsu]

I don't think this is real but I don't understand the posts in this thread that if it were real it would equal infinite energy. Since it requires energy input to work, and I'm assuming less energy would be coming out than going in, how could it equal infinite energy?

 

[Version 3.0]

No it wasn't.

It is not.

There's a common meme (in the original meaning of the word) that goes:
"Physics keeps getting rewritten all the time! Newton was wrong, which means so will Einstein be in the future! Here come flying cars!"

Newton was not wrong about gravity. For the limits of his experiments, he was completely correct. Inside the same limits, he still is.
Einstein did not wipe the slate clean, he offered merely (merely!) a refinement of Newton. For slow objects in flat spacetime, a bunch of the terms in general relativity go to zero and out pop Newton's laws.

The gaps in our knowledge of physics only ever shrink, and those gaps are never crowbarred open, merely filled in. It's getting harder and harder to do, but a reactionless drive will not be found in any of those gaps for the fundamental reason that any such thing would automatically be a perpetual motion / infinite energy machine, and there is nothing we are more certain of than the impossibility of that.

Click to shrink...

I was about to type out a bit of a rant, but now that I see your post, there's no need. Well said.

The pervasive idea of inevitable, infinite progress is as unfortunate as it is incorrect.

 

[Mukrab]

No it wasn't.

It is not.

There's a common meme (in the original meaning of the word) that goes:
"Physics keeps getting rewritten all the time! Newton was wrong, which means so will Einstein be in the future! Here come flying cars!"

Newton was not wrong about gravity. For the limits of his experiments, he was completely correct. Inside the same limits, he still is.
Einstein did not wipe the slate clean, he offered merely (merely!) a refinement of Newton. For slow objects in flat spacetime, a bunch of the terms in general relativity go to zero and out pop Newton's laws.

The gaps in our knowledge of physics only ever shrink, and those gaps are never crowbarred open, merely filled in. It's getting harder and harder to do, but a reactionless drive will not be found in any of those gaps for the fundamental reason that any such thing would automatically be a perpetual motion / infinite energy machine, and there is nothing we are more certain of than the impossibility of that.

Click to shrink...

As much as i respect newton, he was wrong. he was wrong about thinking that when his calculations didnt work that it was god adjusting things

 

[Nooblet]

As much as i respect newton, he was wrong. he was wrong about thinking that when his calculations didnt work that it was god adjusting things

Click to shrink...

Give the poor man a break, he didn't have internet to google things he didn't know about.

 

[Crispy75]

I don't think this is real but I don't understand the posts in this thread that if it were real it would equal infinite energy. Since it requires energy input to work, and I'm assuming less energy would be coming out than going in, how could it equal infinite energy?

Click to shrink...

The claim is that for some energy input in a certain time, you get a proportional force. This is a linear relationship.

because Newton's 2nd law: F=ma, the relationship to velocity is also linear. Add one Joule of energy, go 1m/s faster. Or 0.000001m/s faster, it doesn't matter.

Now, kinetic energy is given by

E=½mv²

The important bit is the v². The relationship is not linear but quadratic. Something moving twice as fast has four times as much kinetic energy.

So here's how to make an infinite energy machine with one of these drives:

Take a regular electric generator.
Mount a cross-bar on the axle.
Put the magic drive on one end of the bar.
Turn it on. The axle starts turning.

When the kinetic energy of the spinning axle is greater than the energy input of the drive, connect the two together. Now it will get faster forever and you can attach a second generator and extract as much energy as you like so long as you don't slow it down below the breakeven point.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

The claim is that for some energy input in a certain time, you get a proportional force. This is a linear relationship.

because Newton's 2nd law: F=ma, the relationship to velocity is also linear. Add one Joule of energy, go 1m/s faster. Or 0.000001m/s faster, it doesn't matter.

Now, kinetic energy is given by

E=½mv²

The important bit is the v². The relationship is not linear but quadratic. Something moving twice as fast has four times as much kinetic energy.

So here's how to make an infinite energy machine with one of these drives:

Take a regular electric generator.
Mount a cross-bar on the axle.
Put the magic drive on one end of the bar.
Turn it on. The axle starts turning.

When the kinetic energy of the spinning axle is greater than the energy input of the drive, connect the two together. Now it will get faster forever and you can attach a second generator and extract as much energy as you like so long as you don't slow it down below the breakeven point.

Click to shrink...

How am I supposed to boil water with that?

 

[jman2050]

The claim is that for some energy input in a certain time, you get a proportional force. This is a linear relationship.

because Newton's 2nd law: F=ma, the relationship to velocity is also linear. Add one Joule of energy, go 1m/s faster. Or 0.000001m/s faster, it doesn't matter.

Now, kinetic energy is given by

E=½mv²

The important bit is the v². The relationship is not linear but quadratic. Something moving twice as fast has four times as much kinetic energy.

So here's how to make an infinite energy machine with one of these drives:

Take a regular electric generator.
Mount a cross-bar on the axle.
Put the magic drive on one end of the bar.
Turn it on. The axle starts turning.

When the kinetic energy of the spinning axle is greater than the energy input of the drive, connect the two together. Now it will get faster forever and you can attach a second generator and extract as much energy as you like so long as you don't slow it down below the breakeven point.

Click to shrink...

Oh I see now, it was so simple all this time. These guys invented Gregtech in real life!

 

[ElectricKaibutsu]

The claim is that for some energy input in a certain time, you get a proportional force. This is a linear relationship.

because Newton's 2nd law: F=ma, the relationship to velocity is also linear. Add one Joule of energy, go 1m/s faster. Or 0.000001m/s faster, it doesn't matter.

Now, kinetic energy is given by

E=½mv²

The important bit is the v². The relationship is not linear but quadratic. Something moving twice as fast has four times as much kinetic energy.

So here's how to make an infinite energy machine with one of these drives:

Take a regular electric generator.
Mount a cross-bar on the axle.
Put the magic drive on one end of the bar.
Turn it on. The axle starts turning.

When the kinetic energy of the spinning axle is greater than the energy input of the drive, connect the two together. Now it will get faster forever and you can attach a second generator and extract as much energy as you like so long as you don't slow it down below the breakeven point.

Click to shrink...

Thank you for your detailed explanation.