All the latest statements by Chinese scientists about the successful creation and testing of the EmDrive microwave rocket engine are most likely based on erroneous data, but the device itself does not violate the laws of physics in any case, says physicist Brice Cassenti from the University of Connecticut (USA) …
“The work of EmDrive violates Newton's third law, which says that force cannot arise by itself without the interaction of physical bodies. Both action and reaction are a direct result of the law of conservation of momentum. If this law is violated, then all modern physics built on its basis will be wrong. Therefore, many of us believe that all claims about the operation of EmDrive are the product of erroneous measurements, "- said Kassenti, commenting on the statements of Chinese scientists about the creation of a" working "version of EmDrive.
In 2001, the American aircraft engineer Roger Shoer announced the creation of an engine, which, as his opponents said then and continue to believe today, violates all known laws of physics.
This device, which operates on the basis of microwave radiation, is a special conical resonator chamber, to which a powerful magnetron is connected - a source of microwave radiation. With a certain geometry of this cone, this device will mysteriously move towards its narrow part with extremely small, but force, if microwaves “walk” inside the cone.
Such behavior of EmDrive, as physicists immediately stated then, is impossible from the point of view of the laws of physics - such a manner of movement, in which neither fuel is spent nor a directed beam of radiation is generated, contradicts the law of conservation of momentum. This problem can simply be imagined in this way - if a person sits in a box and starts pushing its opposite walls, then he will not move forward, but will stagger in place.
Nevertheless, Schoer did not abandon his idea, and after a few years it was tested by a number of professional physicists, including one of the NASA laboratories. These tests, as one of the original skeptics wrote, led to unexpected results for scientists - it turned out that Schoer's invention really works. In December last year, scientists from China announced the successful completion of such tests, having created a copy of EmDrive and preparing to launch it into space for a final test of its functionality.
As emphasized by Cassenti, whose words are reported by the press service of the University of Connecticut, both the experiments of Chinese scientists and the results of measurements by physicists from the Eagleworks laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center are not fake or basic lies. They did see real changes in the position of the EmDrive, but these shifts may not have been due to the "impossible" thrust generated by the Schoer engine, but due to various side effects that were not taken into account in the measurements.
For example, the scientist continues, some parts of the EmDrive could have expanded under the influence of electric currents arising inside the device, and this expansion could be taken by instruments and experimenters as evidence that the engine is actually producing thrust. On the other hand, he admits that NASA physicists and perhaps their Chinese counterparts have tried to eliminate all side effects and take into account their existence.
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In general, as he notes, all experiments with EmDrive indicate the existence of some curious physical effects that are unlikely to go beyond the Standard Model of physics, but which would be interesting to study and explain. For this reason, according to Kassenti, both China and NASA are conducting experiments with EmDrive, and the results of these experiments are published in peer-reviewed journals.
Even if EmDrive works, according to Cassenti, it is unlikely to violate the existing laws of physics - most likely, its work will be explained by some kind of effects that fit both Newton's calculations and the general theory of relativity, which we do not yet know about.
The final check of its performance, as the scientist emphasizes, will be possible only in space, where other forces will not affect the operation of the engine. That way, engineers can accurately measure the real thrust and see if the EmDrive can really open the way for deep space travel.