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EmDrive

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The EmDrive, also called Relativity Drive, is a proposed spacecraft propulsion system being developed by Roger Shawyer that uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave region of the spectrum. It has no moving parts and consists of little more than the Magnetron used to generate the microwaves and a specially shaped fully enclosed tapering resonator cavity whose area is greater at one end.

Mr. Shawyer, an aerospace engineer who lives in Havant, near Portsmouth, UK, initially conceived of the drive as a way to eliminate the weight of fuel carried by satellites for maintaining orbit. He anticipates that the "fuel" (electricity) needed to power the magnetron on a satellite using the EmDrive would be collected using conventional photoelectric cells.

No microwaves or anything else are allowed to leave the device. Since nothing leaves the drive for propulsive purposes an EmDrive can be classed as a reactionless drive. Thus the principle by which the EmDrive is supposed to operate violates conservation of momentum. It is known that the physics equations describing microwaves, Maxwell's equations, conserve momentum, and this would seem to cast doubt on the Shawyer's derivation of a thrust effect.

The EmDrive was the cover story for the September 8, 2006 issue of New Scientist.<ref name="newscientist">Justin Mullins. "Relativity drive: The end of wings and wheels?", New Scientist, 2006-09-08, pp. 30–34.</ref> After receiving criticism that no peer-reviewed publications on the subject had been made, Mr. Shawyer submitted a theory paper to New Scientist.<ref name="shawyertheory">Roger Shawyer (2006). A Theory of Microwave Propulsion for Spacecraft, v.9.3.</ref> Shawyer's paper was almost immediately challenged<ref name="costella">John P. Costella (2006). Why Shawyer's 'electromagnetic relativity drive' is a fraud.</ref> by Dr. John Costella, a theoretical physicist and electrical engineer who works for the Australian Department of Defence, whose Ph.D. is in relativistic electrodynamics, the field of physics that Mr. Shawyer relies on to support his theory.

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[edit] Principle of operation

The device exploits an idea first suggested by Allen Cullen in the 1950's, an electrical engineer then at University College London, that involves forces created by bouncing microwaves between opposite walls of a cavity. The "trick" is to try to design a cavity in such a manner that forces on one side are greater than the other.

The drive comprises a resonant cavity flooded with microwave radiation. The radiation exerts radiation pressure on the walls of the cavity, and normal Newtonian mechanics would indicate that, no matter what shape the cavity is, the forces exerted upon it from within must balance to zero. Shawyer claims that relativistic effects cause a cavity shaped like a truncated cone to experience a larger force against the large end than the small end, due to the group velocity of the wave changing as the local diameter of the cavity varies.

This effect is not dependent on special relativity, and is known as a result of Maxwell's equations alone. [citation needed]

In fact, the fundamental principle of special relativity states quite the opposite: that the speed of light is independent of reference frame. The increased confinement of the tapered end of the cone leads to a higher effective propagation constant (phase velocity). It also leads to local reflections which account for the apparent force imbalance when considering only the end walls.

[edit] Prototype tests

Shawyer claims<ref name="newscientist"/> to have constructed a prototype weighing 9 kilogrammes that consumes 700 watts of power and produces 88 millinewtons of force.

The limiting factor for performance is claimed to be the Q factor of the cavity, as microwave energy lost to heating the cavity reduces the field strength within, so Shawyer is experimenting with a cavity lined in a superconducting material that may produce Q factors sufficient to build a device capable of generating 30 newtons per watt.

These results have not been reproduced by other scientists, nor have they been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

[edit] New Scientist article

EmDrive was featured on the cover of issue 2568 of New Scientist, a weekly science magazine. The article portrayed the device as plausible, and emphasized the arguments of those who held that point of view, although it did quote one engineer as saying "it's a load of bloody rubbish." The article included the following arguments from proponents of the theory:

  • With a grant from the UK government's Department of Trade and Industry of £250,000, (actually two grants; one a feasability study of £45,000 and a second of £81,000 to build a demonstration engine - source SPR Ltd.) a commercial regulatory and support agency,<ref name="Eureka">Tom Shelley. "A force for space with no reaction", Eureka, 2002-12-12.</ref> Shawyer has built two prototypes that reportedly produce 16mN and 300mN of thrust respectively; each using 1kW of electrical power. A condition of the funding was independent analysis, which was recently completed by John Spiller who says "The thruster's design is practical and could be adapted fairly easily to work in outer space". Shawyer claims that he has been visited by representatives from China and the US Air Force, but ESA has not yet shown much interest. He estimates that his design could save the aerospace community $15 billion over the next ten years.
  • Engineers in Germany have created superconducting resonators (for use in particle accelerators) with Q values of several billion, which Shawyer claims would equate to a thrust of 30kN per kilowatt, "enough to lift a large car". Shawyer states that the thruster works best while stationary relative to their thrust. However, this statement appears to make little physical sense considering that the "thrust" is always in the same relative position as the engine because momentum is not conserved.

New Scientist has drawn great criticism from the scientific community due to the uncritical treatment of EmDrive in its article. Science fiction writer Greg Egan distributed a public letter stating that "a sensationalist bent and a lack of basic knowledge by its writers" was making the magazine's coverage sufficiently unreliable "to constitute a real threat to the public understanding of science". In particular, Egan found himself "gobsmacked by the level of scientific illiteracy" in the magazine's coverage of the EmDrive, where New Scientist allowed the publication of "meaningless double-talk" designed to bypass a fatal objection to Sawyer's proposed space drive, namely that it violates the conservation of momentum. Egan urged those reading his letter to write to New Scientist and pressure the magazine to raise its standards, instead of "squandering the opportunity that the magazine's circulation and prestige provides" for genuine science education. The letter was endorsed by mathematical physicist John C. Baez and posted on his blog.<ref name="egan">Greg Egan, A Plea to Save "New Scientist", the n-Category Cafe (a group blog on math, physics and philosophy ), September 19 2006.</ref> Egan has also recommended<ref name="egan"/> that New Scientist publish Costella's refutation<ref name="costella"/> of Shawyer's theory paper<ref name="shawyertheory"/>.

[edit] Analysis

Any claim of a reactionless drive is treated with skepticism by the physics community, since it violates well-established principles such as the conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, both of which have enormous experimental support.

Since all phenomena described by standard physical theory necessarily conserve energy, any calculation based on standard physical theory that predicts a violation of energy conservation must be in error. This is a noncontroversial and fundamental fact regarding the mathematical structure of the theories, regardless of whether the theories themselves are or are not correct descriptions of the physical world. Accordingly, the results reported regarding the EmDrive, if true, would demonstrate that existing physical theory is incorrect.

The EmDrive is somewhat similar to the previous Dean Drive, in that an oscillatory motion is set up so that it has a different effect in each direction of the stroke, in the hope that momentum transfer will differ in each direction, except in this case the oscillations are electromagnetic.

Conservation of momentum is also required and maintained in Maxwell's equations, Newtonian mechanics, Special relativity and quantum mechanics (and their combination, quantum electrodynamics), so this claim cannot be valid unless these well-established physical theories are false.

Shawyer's calculations<ref name="shawyertheory"/> are in error.<ref name="costella"/> He incorrectly identifies the forces on the conical side of the waveguide. When Shawyer's error is corrected, the 'thrust' is eliminated and the drive does not accelerate. Despite criticism Shawyer still claims his machines work.

In the end the only way the dispute will finally be put to rest will be when properly qualified scientists observe that the machines do work or do not work, and are not rigged.

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[edit] Notes

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[edit] External links

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