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A comment on How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works. Parent comment

Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by madaxe_again on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:11PM (#13024469)
See the NASA paper - they have a hypothesis, which is that they're essentially pushing against the quantum background with pilot waves - which doesn't really violate anything but does mean we took a wrong turn on QM 80 years back.
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Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by api on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:50PM (#13024794)
Where does the momentum go when the virtual particles re-annihilate?

Even if it is pushing against QM background I suspect that could only be part of the story. There has to be an "and then" unless we want to toss a conservation law.

Many physicists think there is likely dark matter and that it is actual matter with mass, so I've repeatedly seen that thrown out as a potential answer for where momentum might be going eventually. Maybe messing with the QM background is how that happens... somehow. Maybe weakly interacting dark matter particles interact with the microwave background or something.

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Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by madaxe_again on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @02:41PM (#13025228)
Maybe the quantum background ends up with the momentum. Honestly, don't have a better hypothesis, but if we're to accept pilot waves we end up back at luminiferous aether, so it's anyone's guess.

I still reckon there's an experimental error somewhere - but if there isn't, it's undeniably a big deal.

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Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by Can_Not on Thursday November 24, 2016 @07:54PM (#13033763)
I doubt anyone is suggesting the momentum is actually gone (in terms of violating laws). But indeed, where is it going? Perhaps in less than 100 years we discover that is the cause of a new type of pollution.
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Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by kordless on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:31PM (#13024654)
Here's a detailed hypothesis by a team out of Finland: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/adva/6/6/10.106...
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Re:How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works by beevai142 on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @02:27PM (#13025078)
... and both of them are pretty much word salad rather than serious attempts.
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