The Impossible Engine

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2016/11/httpswwwwashingtonpostcomnewsspeaking-of-sciencewp20161122this-rocket-engine-breaks-a-law-of-physics-but-a-nasa-t.html

Please post any comments on The Athenaeum.  pl

Comments

[kooshy]

Colonel Lang happy Thanksgiving to you. Iranian Americans do the turkey with herb rice (sabzee poloo)

[FourthAndLong]

Brings to mind the Casimir effect, another highly non-intuitive electromagnetic effect of the quantum realm.

[LeaNder]

Joining Kooshy, Happy Thanksgiving, Pat and everyone else.

Interesting story. I was attracted to Degringolade's coinage: "Luminiferous Aether Wind", I wasn't aware of that term, or for that matter "luminiferous aether". But that's actually pretty close to what first came to mind: mundanely Planck's "lightbulb" ... Einstein ... Heisenberg. The vaccuum versus, well what's it? And obviously light.

[charly]

Vacuum isn't empty but is empty on average

[James Loughton]

Probably completely unrelated, but here is an article which points in the direction of an alternate view of quantum mechanics.

Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140624-fluid-tests-hint-at-concrete-quantum-reality/

[LeaNder]

thanks, Charly, in the larger post 9/11 universe I stumbled across someone that familiarized me with the "Whatzit". ;)

But yes, these things keep triggering some type of early whatzit questions. No matter how long the equations were, apart from the fact they were obviously hard to wrap your head around. Applying them you could get the wished for result: something spiraling upwards. ;)

At those times, don't ask me for the reason, I found the less abstract wisdom of my grandfather about trees and plants much more attractive...