For The Last Time, No, A NASA Engineer Has Not Broken Physics With An Impossible Engine
“The problem isn't that these laws couldn't be overturned by experiment; of course they could. The problem is that physicists have performed so many experiments in so many different ways, so carefully and with such precision verifying them. These conservation laws have been confirmed for every gravitational, mechanical, electromagnetic and quantum interaction ever observed, and they always hold. In every scenario ever examined, momentum, Lorentz invariance, and Newton's 3rd law are always conserved.
And now, it's claimed that an engine, one that relies on nothing more than a simple electromagnetic or mechanical power source, overthrows all of physics. Like cold fusion. Like the EM drive. Like any perpetual motion machine. Or, like the latest absurdity, David Burns' helical engine.”
Every time a new story comes out about some idea or discovery that clearly violates a well-established law of physics, I’m quick to point out the flaws with it and to assert that this doesn’t and cannot work. I’m then quickly met with an army of non-physicists who claim that I’m too close-minded; that I’m not even open to the possibility of new technology; and that I’m not even giving it a fair shake.
On the contrary, explaining what we know about physics and how we know it, in the context of what’s been robustly established, is the fairest shake something can get. Physics is not broken, and the latest bad idea really is bad. Here’s why.
