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Is the impossible drive possible? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, how do you feel about breaking the laws
0:11
Speaker 1: of physics? Boy? That needs some context. It really depends
0:15
Speaker 1: on whether you have a good physics lawyer to back
0:18
Speaker 1: you up. It really depends on which law you're gonna break.
0:21
Speaker 1: I mean, you might get a misdemeanor. In some cases,
0:24
Speaker 1: you might even end up with a felon. Really there's
0:26
Speaker 1: a range here, all right, So then what's the equivalent
0:29
Speaker 1: of getting life in prison for physics too? I think
0:32
Speaker 1: they put you in a room with a cartoonist and
0:35
Speaker 1: they're the worst defenders. Really. But really, but when you
0:40
Speaker 1: hear about an idea that breaks a law of physics,
0:43
Speaker 1: even if it's a big one, are you hoping it's
0:45
Speaker 1: true or you hoping it's wrong? Well, you know, anytime
0:48
Speaker 1: somebody claims to disprove Einstein, I get pretty skeptical because
0:53
Speaker 1: that's been tested a lot. But in my heart of hearts,
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping that someone disproves a big law physics,
1:00
Speaker 1: like relativity. I mean that that's how we learned something
1:03
Speaker 1: new about the universe. That's a good spin. I think
1:06
Speaker 1: I'll hire you as my physics lawyer. In that case,
1:08
Speaker 1: you're going to go to physics jail. Because I am
1:10
Speaker 1: not a good physics lawyer. Hi am r handa cartoonists
1:28
Speaker 1: and the creator of PhD comics. Hi I'm Daniel. I'm
1:32
Speaker 1: a particle physicist, and I once thought I wanted to
1:35
Speaker 1: be a lawyer, and then I got argued out of it.
1:36
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wow, history almost went a different way for you. Yeah.
1:41
Speaker 1: I was big into debate in high school and I
1:43
Speaker 1: liked arguing, or I thought I liked arguing. I did
1:46
Speaker 1: a lot of it, But then I discovered that, you know,
1:48
Speaker 1: in debate there's sort of never really any truth. You
1:51
Speaker 1: can just persuade people of anything. And in the end
1:54
Speaker 1: I liked physics because it had a hard negative objectivity
1:57
Speaker 1: at its core. Like I want certainty, just like in
2:00
Speaker 1: quantum physics where everything's for sure and there's no funny names. Well,
2:05
Speaker 1: I want objectivity. You know, the universe comes down on
2:07
Speaker 1: one side or the other. You try the experiment and
2:10
Speaker 1: it either works or it fails. You can't persuade somebody
2:13
Speaker 1: some things, right if the experiments say no, at least
2:17
Speaker 1: on a probabilistic kind of sense, Right, there's certainty. Yeah, alright, well,
2:21
Speaker 1: we are certainly starting our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain
2:24
Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in which
2:27
Speaker 1: we talk about all the amazing things certain and uncertain
2:30
Speaker 1: about the universe, the things that we know and the
2:32
Speaker 1: things that we do not yet know, the things that work,
2:36
Speaker 1: and the things that we are still working on. Our
2:39
Speaker 1: goal in this podcast is to educate you about everything
2:41
Speaker 1: that science understands, everything that science is still working on,
2:44
Speaker 1: and everything that human beings wonder about. All the things
2:47
Speaker 1: that are possible out there in this big, beautiful universe
2:50
Speaker 1: of ours, and also maybe all of the things that
2:53
Speaker 1: are impossible in this universe, things that cannot be or
2:58
Speaker 1: that we maybe wish they could be. And history is
3:00
Speaker 1: filled with examples of scientists saying something is impossible and
3:04
Speaker 1: then somebody coming along and proving them wrong. So one
3:07
Speaker 1: of the most fun experience in science is pushing that boundaries,
3:11
Speaker 1: developing something new, is understanding the universe at a deeper
3:15
Speaker 1: level and figuring out something that we thought was impossible,
3:19
Speaker 1: and maybe even giving us a tool to explore the
3:21
Speaker 1: universe right, because you know, sometimes some of the biggest
3:24
Speaker 1: ideas in physics have been that they thought they were
3:27
Speaker 1: they were impossible, you know, like when quantum physics first
3:29
Speaker 1: came out, people thought it were like, that's a crazy
3:31
Speaker 1: why would nature be like that? Right? Even Einstein thought
3:34
Speaker 1: it was kind of impossible. That's right. Sometimes you have
3:37
Speaker 1: to change your perspective and open your mind to something
3:41
Speaker 1: totally new. On the other hand, sometimes the universe is
3:44
Speaker 1: just hard and cold and it says no to your idea.
3:47
Speaker 1: It's impossible to deal with this universe. But yeah, so dude,
3:52
Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be talking about one such idea,
3:54
Speaker 1: which today sounds kind of impossible. In fact, it has
3:57
Speaker 1: impossible in its brand name. Are we talking about impossible burghers? Oh,
4:04
Speaker 1: that sounds delicious, That sounds as possible to resist. That's right,
4:07
Speaker 1: because one struggle plaguing humanity's desire to explore the universe
4:12
Speaker 1: is just physically getting out there into the universe. The
4:15
Speaker 1: universe is frustratingly, amazingly beautifying, le vast and enormous, which
4:21
Speaker 1: makes it difficult to explore. And so to get out there,
4:24
Speaker 1: to get to a neighboring star, to find those aliens,
4:26
Speaker 1: to visit black holes and unravel the secrets of general
4:29
Speaker 1: relativity and quantum mechanics, we need a device, a drive
4:32
Speaker 1: that could actually get us there. Yeah, maybe we need
4:35
Speaker 1: an impossible idea to solve a seemingly impossible problem. And
4:40
Speaker 1: so today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question,
4:47
Speaker 1: what is the impossible drive? And is it possible? Possibly
4:53
Speaker 1: in a possible kind of way. This is a this
4:56
Speaker 1: is a very certain podcast episode here today, Daniel, is
5:00
Speaker 1: it possible the impossible drive may possibly be possible? While
5:04
Speaker 1: eating an impossible burger and watching Mission Impossible with con Cruise.
5:11
Speaker 1: That does sound like an impossible combination of things to
5:13
Speaker 1: pull off all that one. But yeah, so this is
5:17
Speaker 1: kind of a crazy idea. I have to say, I
5:19
Speaker 1: had not heard of this before getting your notes this morning,
5:23
Speaker 1: and so this is all sort of an idea to
5:25
Speaker 1: solve the problem of how to get across base, like
5:28
Speaker 1: how to get two distant stars without having to bring
5:32
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of fuel with you. That's right, because
5:35
Speaker 1: there's just a basic problem in getting to those stars,
5:38
Speaker 1: Like you want to get to those stars, they're really
5:40
Speaker 1: far away, all right. So to get really far away
5:43
Speaker 1: you have to get going really really fast. And to
5:46
Speaker 1: get going really fast, you need an engine, something that's
5:49
Speaker 1: going to push you, and the current rockets that we
5:52
Speaker 1: have you require a lot of fuel. So you can
5:56
Speaker 1: do like a pretty simple calculation and ask like how
5:59
Speaker 1: much raw good fuel would it take to accelerate a
6:02
Speaker 1: very very small object, you know, something like a toothpick
6:05
Speaker 1: up two, I don't know five of the speed of
6:07
Speaker 1: light really the kind of the kind of speed that
6:10
Speaker 1: would make it take like only a hundred years to
6:12
Speaker 1: get to alpha centar. So my spacecraft was just a
6:16
Speaker 1: toothpick zero point one, Grahams, how much fuel would it
6:19
Speaker 1: take to get it to alpha centri within like a
6:21
Speaker 1: hundred years? Yeah, And the problem is that your spaceship
6:24
Speaker 1: is not just a toothpick. It's a toothpick plus all
6:27
Speaker 1: the fuel, right, Your fuel has to push the fuel
6:30
Speaker 1: you're going to need in the future. And so if
6:33
Speaker 1: the payload is just a toothpick, then most of your
6:37
Speaker 1: rocket ship is actually fuel, and that means you need
6:40
Speaker 1: more fuel. And the more fuel you have, the more
6:42
Speaker 1: fuel you need, and so it grows very very quickly.
6:44
Speaker 1: You got to like fill up the tank and take
6:47
Speaker 1: it with you, exactly. You have to do. You have
6:48
Speaker 1: to bring an oil tanker, not just like a little
6:51
Speaker 1: prious exactly, and then you've got to accelerate that oil tanker.
6:53
Speaker 1: That oil tanker also needs a tank of gas, right,
6:56
Speaker 1: And so it very quickly grows to a huge number.
6:59
Speaker 1: And the number is actually ridiculous, Like, in order to
7:02
Speaker 1: have enough fuel to get your toothpick up to five
7:05
Speaker 1: of the speed of light takes more mass than exists
7:09
Speaker 1: in the observable universe by a huge by huge number.
7:13
Speaker 1: How much hen to the That's not a number, Daniel,
7:18
Speaker 1: you made that up. It's impossible. I didn't make that up.
7:22
Speaker 1: There's an impossible mathematics behind this. It's just it's frustratingly
7:26
Speaker 1: difficult one with two thousand zeros in front of Yeah,
7:28
Speaker 1: and it's not hard to imagine how the number gets
7:31
Speaker 1: so big. I mean, say your spaceship is the size
7:33
Speaker 1: of Jupiter. How much fuel you're gonna need. You're gonna
7:36
Speaker 1: need as much fuel as like the Sun. All right, Well,
7:38
Speaker 1: now your spaceship is Jupiter and the Sun. How much
7:41
Speaker 1: fuel a you're gonna need to push that? Well, you're
7:43
Speaker 1: gonna need like more suns. So it just grows just
7:47
Speaker 1: to push this toothpick. So the lesson is chemical rockets
7:51
Speaker 1: that require this kind of fuel are not going to
7:53
Speaker 1: get us across the stars. You need a better way, right,
7:56
Speaker 1: one where you don't have to bring your fuel with you.
7:59
Speaker 1: That's right, when where you don't have to bring the
8:01
Speaker 1: fuel with you, that's the idea, even if you use like,
8:04
Speaker 1: you know, is this the current fuel technology, you know,
8:06
Speaker 1: like you know, the current rocket fuel or is this
8:09
Speaker 1: like imagining like what if we invent fusion drives or
8:12
Speaker 1: you know, we managed to invent fission drives. Yeah, the
8:15
Speaker 1: basic limitation is that you need something to push off of,
8:18
Speaker 1: and so it's not so much limited by the technology
8:20
Speaker 1: of that push as to just having to carry the
8:23
Speaker 1: fuel along with you. I see, like how much mass
8:25
Speaker 1: you have to expel in order to be pushed to
8:28
Speaker 1: the speed of light? Yeah, precisely. So this this cool,
8:31
Speaker 1: crazy new idea out there, This e M drive sometimes
8:35
Speaker 1: called a impossible drive, that some people think may have
8:39
Speaker 1: the possibility to overcome this problem. And that's why they
8:43
Speaker 1: call it an impossible drive because it seems to violate
8:46
Speaker 1: some laws of physics. But some experimenters out there claimed
8:50
Speaker 1: to have built one and made it work. Wow. And
8:53
Speaker 1: this came to us from a question from one of
8:55
Speaker 1: our listeners, right Russell Alert. Yeah, he wrote to us
8:58
Speaker 1: about a year ago and said, hey, you could you
9:00
Speaker 1: guys explain this drive to me. Is it impossible? Doesn't work?
9:03
Speaker 1: Could it actually get us to the stars? And it's
9:06
Speaker 1: taken us a year to answer just to well, I
9:10
Speaker 1: built one of these things. I welcome to a centauri
9:13
Speaker 1: and I came back. I mean, I do some real
9:14
Speaker 1: field research. Did you think I was just googling? You know,
9:18
Speaker 1: we don't want to just give you an idea and
9:19
Speaker 1: say it's impossible or not possible. We have to see
9:22
Speaker 1: for ourselves. That's right. I'm an experimentalist. I backed my
9:24
Speaker 1: answers up with real research. Man, this is not just
9:26
Speaker 1: googling around. Okay, right, So we're actually recording this from
9:30
Speaker 1: a toothpick as we're as we're making our way to
9:34
Speaker 1: to pick podcast studios, inc well as usually what we
9:38
Speaker 1: were wondering how many people out there had heard of
9:40
Speaker 1: this impossible drive or e M drive? And so, as usual,
9:44
Speaker 1: Daniel went out there into the wilds of the internet
9:46
Speaker 1: to ask people what is an e M drive and
9:49
Speaker 1: could it ever work? So think about it for a second,
9:52
Speaker 1: if you had ever heard of it or not, and
9:55
Speaker 1: if physicist ask you, what would you say. Here's what
9:58
Speaker 1: people had to say, Honey, I'm trying if I haven't
10:00
Speaker 1: heard of. I'm going to presume that e M stands
10:02
Speaker 1: for electromagnetic and drive as some sort of propulsion systems.
10:06
Speaker 1: So maybe some sort of rocket buster or engine that
10:09
Speaker 1: doesn't require few but relies on electromagnetic waves to propel itself.
10:13
Speaker 1: I think theoretically it could work, but it's on the
10:18
Speaker 1: realm of theoretical really tbt. But nothing has been done,
10:25
Speaker 1: but it there. Supposedly you need a lot of energy
10:28
Speaker 1: to make it work. And E M drived I think, well,
10:32
Speaker 1: first of all, it sounds really familiar, like I like
10:35
Speaker 1: a lot of sci fi, so I it's a term
10:38
Speaker 1: that has come up a lot, and I think it
10:40
Speaker 1: doesn't exist yet. And I think it also has to
10:42
Speaker 1: do with time travel, but I'm not sure. I'm so
10:47
Speaker 1: excited to look at up later. And E M drive
10:50
Speaker 1: is an electromagnetic drive that functions by putting a lot
10:52
Speaker 1: of microwaves together. Currently Toshiba in general Electric have the
10:56
Speaker 1: best ratings by consumer reports. Anyways, a bunch of these
11:00
Speaker 1: together and shoot microwaves out one end to get the
11:02
Speaker 1: ship to go in the opposite direction. It definitely doesn't
11:06
Speaker 1: work and will kill the grass in your backyard if
11:08
Speaker 1: you attempt to achieve launch. I have no idea what
11:12
Speaker 1: an E M drive is. I'm assuming that means electromagnetic,
11:16
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure, so I have no idea to work.
11:20
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what this is. Some kind of propulsion,
11:25
Speaker 1: but I don't have any idea. I have never heard
11:28
Speaker 1: of an e M drive, so I'm going to get
11:32
Speaker 1: then E M stands for electromagnetic, and of course drive
11:36
Speaker 1: means it's some sort of a of an engine um
11:40
Speaker 1: with they can use electromagnetic pulses to create thrust. I
11:46
Speaker 1: guess I don't know what an e M drive is,
11:49
Speaker 1: but I do know another type of drive. It's called
11:51
Speaker 1: the infinite probability drive. It was installed on the starship
11:55
Speaker 1: part of Gold, and it was and it is still
11:58
Speaker 1: in use today. I can explained it properly, but I
12:02
Speaker 1: know it's more possible than a warp drive. Sorry, Daniel,
12:06
Speaker 1: no idea. Maybe a device for driving around the universe.
12:11
Speaker 1: I have not ideal EM drive. So the M drive
12:15
Speaker 1: I've heard, Uh it's not the Canay drive where it's
12:19
Speaker 1: uh slotted resonance space um. But the idea is that
12:26
Speaker 1: momentum is quantized, and so if you have a smaller
12:29
Speaker 1: space on one side and the larger space on the
12:30
Speaker 1: other side. It can bounce back some kind of microwave frequency,
12:35
Speaker 1: I think, and create propulsion lists thrust, but I don't
12:39
Speaker 1: think it's anything that actually works. I don't know what
12:43
Speaker 1: an e M drive is exactly. I think it would
12:46
Speaker 1: be electromagnetic, where you're using some kind of electromagnetic reaction
12:52
Speaker 1: to throw particles out of the back of a spaceship
12:56
Speaker 1: to accelerate it. I suppose that would work, but it's
12:59
Speaker 1: probably not what you mean, all right, not not a
13:02
Speaker 1: lot of recognition, but some people seem to know what
13:04
Speaker 1: it was, or maybe they just lashed onto the electromagnetic
13:08
Speaker 1: cart it. He asked some good guesses there, and some
13:10
Speaker 1: people had definitely heard about this, and this really made
13:13
Speaker 1: some waves. Pun intended about ten years ago. So there's
13:17
Speaker 1: a lot of splash in the media about this drive,
13:19
Speaker 1: and then recently there's been some more news and so
13:22
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that a few a few of our
13:24
Speaker 1: listeners have heard about this discussion. Oh nice, nice, I
13:28
Speaker 1: guess my first question is is it vegetarian? Does it
13:31
Speaker 1: come from plant based products like the Impossible Burger? No
13:34
Speaker 1: meat was harmed in the creation of this impossible only
13:38
Speaker 1: laws of physics were totally destroyed, and all life depends
13:43
Speaker 1: on the laws of physics. So I don't really know
13:46
Speaker 1: is it vegan to break the laws of physics or not.
13:48
Speaker 1: I need of ruling on that. We need a better
13:50
Speaker 1: physics lawyer or a physics judge. I guess we need
13:54
Speaker 1: to go to the International Court of Physics cosmological Court
13:59
Speaker 1: of Impossibility. I was let's step thraight here. Uh. First
14:04
Speaker 1: of all, well what is it and where did this
14:06
Speaker 1: idea come from? So the idea for the e M
14:08
Speaker 1: drive is to try to build a drive where you
14:11
Speaker 1: don't need to bring along with you something to push against.
14:14
Speaker 1: You don't need something to have a propellant. And remember
14:19
Speaker 1: that all rockets that we've ever invented so far have
14:21
Speaker 1: two basic elements. One is some source of energy, you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: like fuel or laser or something, and the other is
14:29
Speaker 1: something to push against. And this comes from the conservation
14:33
Speaker 1: of momentum. If you're gonna move left, the only way
14:37
Speaker 1: to do that is to push something else right. That's
14:39
Speaker 1: the only way really in the universe, the only way.
14:43
Speaker 1: There's no magic in the universe, not that we're aware of,
14:46
Speaker 1: and the law of conservation of momentum is very very
14:49
Speaker 1: deeply ingrained in physics and has been tested a zillion
14:52
Speaker 1: times that you know, the scales of galaxies and particles,
14:56
Speaker 1: so we're pretty confident it's true. And it just basically
15:00
Speaker 1: is that momentum is conserved, so momentum doesn't change. You
15:04
Speaker 1: can take a brick and split it in half and
15:07
Speaker 1: send one half to the left, but then you have
15:09
Speaker 1: to send the other half to the right so that
15:11
Speaker 1: their momentum balances. Like if your brick and initially has
15:14
Speaker 1: zero momentum, in the final state, it also has to
15:17
Speaker 1: have zero momentum. There can be motion, there can be
15:20
Speaker 1: kinetic energy, but there has to be zero net momentum.
15:23
Speaker 1: So it's almost like if you want to go to
15:25
Speaker 1: alpha centari, you have to push yourself there. Almost it's
15:30
Speaker 1: like you have to if you want to get your
15:31
Speaker 1: toothpick to alpha centor you have to push the equivalent
15:34
Speaker 1: of a toothpick and the opposite direction. Yeah, you have
15:37
Speaker 1: to sit in your ship and throw stuff out the back. Right.
15:40
Speaker 1: You know, some people out there wonder, like do rockets
15:43
Speaker 1: work in empty space? Because they imagine that rockets work
15:46
Speaker 1: by pushing on the air. They're not pushing on the air,
15:48
Speaker 1: they're just throwing stuff out the back, right, because if
15:52
Speaker 1: they want to move forward, something else has to move backwards.
15:55
Speaker 1: So the whole system, the combination of all the original stuff,
15:58
Speaker 1: has the same momentum is when it's starting. And this
16:01
Speaker 1: is pretty familiar. Like if you fire a gun, right,
16:04
Speaker 1: you're pushing a bullet and there's a recoil. So imagine,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, the rocket example is the bullet is the
16:09
Speaker 1: stuff you're pushing at the back, and the gun is
16:12
Speaker 1: your rocket. A one way to power a rocket ship
16:15
Speaker 1: is to stand in the back of it and shoot
16:16
Speaker 1: bullets out the back. Oh hey, that's an idea that
16:19
Speaker 1: you guys thought about, that one. That is basically the idea.
16:22
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what a chemical rocket is, right, You
16:24
Speaker 1: start a big explosion and focus all the stuff and
16:27
Speaker 1: shoot it out the back, and that's why it goes.
16:30
Speaker 1: You take the energy, and that energy is used to
16:33
Speaker 1: push stuff out the back. So that's what a rocket is.
16:36
Speaker 1: But it needs those two elements, one energy and to
16:38
Speaker 1: something to throw out the back. Because you can just
16:42
Speaker 1: stand there and throw things off the bag, you would
16:43
Speaker 1: get tired. You need you need some energy to do
16:46
Speaker 1: it right. Well, it's like you can't push yourself up
16:50
Speaker 1: by your bootstraps, right, You can't stand in your spaceship
16:52
Speaker 1: and like get it going by pushing on the inside
16:55
Speaker 1: of it. Okay, that's the basic idea of every rocket
16:58
Speaker 1: we've ever had. You need energy, and you need something
17:00
Speaker 1: to recoil against. You need propellant to throw at the back, right, right,
17:04
Speaker 1: And then the problem is that you need to bring
17:06
Speaker 1: that mess with you, the stuff you're gonna explode with
17:09
Speaker 1: you in order to keep going. Yes, and then you
17:11
Speaker 1: need to push that stuff. Right, So you need to
17:15
Speaker 1: today push all the stuff you're gonna need tomorrow, and
17:17
Speaker 1: the stuff you need in a week and in a year,
17:19
Speaker 1: and that stuff adds up, which means today you need
17:21
Speaker 1: even more stuff to push. And that's how you end
17:24
Speaker 1: up with, you know, spaceship Jupiter, just to go to
17:27
Speaker 1: Alpha Centauri, the paler of the size of the Sun. Yeah, exactly.
17:31
Speaker 1: And so the idea for the impossible drive is like, well,
17:34
Speaker 1: can we skip that step? Can we somehow have a
17:37
Speaker 1: drive that doesn't need any recoil, that doesn't throw anything
17:41
Speaker 1: out the back? Wow? Like um, something that somehow violates
17:45
Speaker 1: the laws of conservation of momentum. Yes, exactly, And that's
17:48
Speaker 1: why it's called the impossible drive because it would totally
17:51
Speaker 1: violate the laws of conservation of momentum. Or you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: maybe there's something else going on, like if you would
17:58
Speaker 1: build a device that seems to the laws of conservation momentum,
18:01
Speaker 1: that means that either one you screwed something up in
18:04
Speaker 1: your experiments to momentum isn't actually conserved, you know, which
18:08
Speaker 1: would be like a huge deal, or this momentum is conserved,
18:11
Speaker 1: but there's something else in your system you weren't to
18:13
Speaker 1: wear it. You've discovered some new force field or some
18:17
Speaker 1: thing in the quantum foam or something. Right, so you've
18:19
Speaker 1: learned something about the universe. And at that point, like
18:21
Speaker 1: why would you want to go to a centaur. Just
18:23
Speaker 1: stay here and monetize your amazing physics breaking idea. That's right,
18:28
Speaker 1: your impossible foam or whatever it is you've discovered. Yeah,
18:31
Speaker 1: and and you know, so this is a different class
18:34
Speaker 1: of ideas. This e M drive is a different class
18:35
Speaker 1: of ideas than ideas like a solar sales. Solar sales
18:38
Speaker 1: of another really cool way to get to high speeds.
18:42
Speaker 1: But the idea there is you sort of leave the
18:44
Speaker 1: engine at home and you push the photons and they
18:48
Speaker 1: get captured by your spaceship, which just gets pushed by
18:51
Speaker 1: those photons, and so the whole engine. You can think
18:54
Speaker 1: of it like as the laser that stays home, and
18:55
Speaker 1: the sale is the part of the ship. Right. It's
18:57
Speaker 1: like you you're that's that's different idea where you kind
18:59
Speaker 1: of catch things that are out there and use them
19:02
Speaker 1: to kind of hit your ride. Yeah, exactly, that's a
19:04
Speaker 1: different idea, but that requires some like huge laser focused
19:08
Speaker 1: on your ship from really, really really far away. This
19:11
Speaker 1: would be a drive you could take anywhere. You could
19:13
Speaker 1: use it to lift off the surface of the Earth
19:15
Speaker 1: and zoom around the whole galaxy and get up to
19:18
Speaker 1: really high speeds. I mean, it's sounds awesome. I want
19:20
Speaker 1: the impossible drive to be impossible. I want a car
19:23
Speaker 1: with the impossible drive. I do. Yeah, I want to
19:26
Speaker 1: take it to you know, the Burger Joint and by
19:29
Speaker 1: an impossible burger. All right, Well, it sounds too good
19:31
Speaker 1: to be true, almost kind of like a Tom Cruise
19:34
Speaker 1: movie almost. But let's get into how it actually works
19:36
Speaker 1: and whether or not it's possible or possible and what
19:40
Speaker 1: people have done about it. But first let's take a
19:42
Speaker 1: quick break, all right, Daniel, we're talking about the impossible drive,
19:58
Speaker 1: which is maybe a crazy easy idea that violates the
20:01
Speaker 1: laws of physics, but which could potentially get us to
20:05
Speaker 1: other star systems in other galaxies. Because it's a it's
20:08
Speaker 1: a tough problem. It's a tough problem, and we should
20:11
Speaker 1: keep an open mind. We should think, hey, some fresh
20:13
Speaker 1: ideas out there could crack an age old problem or
20:16
Speaker 1: reveal something new about physics and the universe. So we
20:19
Speaker 1: should definitely not just scoff and dismiss. We should analyze it, right,
20:22
Speaker 1: But then we also have to be skeptical. We can't
20:24
Speaker 1: just take every crazy ideas, right. You gotta eat that
20:27
Speaker 1: impossible burger just to see for yourself, because it maybe
20:31
Speaker 1: it can't take it's just like real or maybe the
20:33
Speaker 1: beyond burger is beyond the impossible burger. Who knows, right,
20:36
Speaker 1: data is the only is there beyond engine? Also not
20:41
Speaker 1: yet I'm working on I see. Oh sorry, sorry, that's
20:44
Speaker 1: beyond the scope of today's podcast, beyond my nda agreement
20:48
Speaker 1: I have with you. We'll have to edit that out,
20:50
Speaker 1: all right, Well, maybe i'd step us through. How does
20:53
Speaker 1: this impossible drive work, Like, what's the basic physics idea
20:56
Speaker 1: or not physics idea behind. It's kind of a crazy idea,
20:59
Speaker 1: and frankly, I don't really understand how it's even supposed
21:01
Speaker 1: to work, but if you look around online you discover
21:05
Speaker 1: some basic fact about it. So it's a copper cylinder, right,
21:09
Speaker 1: It's made out of metal, and the cylinders have two
21:12
Speaker 1: flat ends like a cylinder, but one side is bigger
21:15
Speaker 1: than the other. And the idea is that this kind
21:17
Speaker 1: of copper cylinder is a resonant chamber for microwaves. So
21:21
Speaker 1: microwaves are just a kind of light, they're kind of photon.
21:24
Speaker 1: You put them in there, and this chamber is the
21:27
Speaker 1: right size for them to bounce around and sort of
21:29
Speaker 1: add up and build on each other. So they can
21:31
Speaker 1: hang out inside, reflect back and reinforce themselves. So you
21:34
Speaker 1: put microwaves in there, they should just sort of bounce
21:37
Speaker 1: around forever. It's like a bottle that can capture microware.
21:39
Speaker 1: Really they don't get absorbed into the metal or anything.
21:42
Speaker 1: That's the idea. I mean, they do a little bit,
21:43
Speaker 1: but if it's the right shape and the right material,
21:46
Speaker 1: then they mostly just reflect. It's like fiber optics. You know,
21:49
Speaker 1: you have this reflection of light in the interior. If
21:52
Speaker 1: you have the right angle and the right materials and
21:54
Speaker 1: the right interface between the materials in the resident cavity
21:57
Speaker 1: and the thing that makes up the cavity, you can
21:59
Speaker 1: get almost told internal reflection all right. So it's kind
22:01
Speaker 1: of like a resonant cavity right where microwaves bound in
22:04
Speaker 1: side and somehow that gives you superpowers. Well, if you're
22:08
Speaker 1: bitten by that cavity right, then you get that cavity
22:10
Speaker 1: is proportionate starting that's right, you become the impossible man.
22:13
Speaker 1: Know the idea, So you have a bottle with Marco
22:16
Speaker 1: waves bouncing around inside of it. But then if you
22:18
Speaker 1: make your bottle bigger on one side, so it's a
22:20
Speaker 1: cylinder if one side is bigger on the other, and
22:23
Speaker 1: then it sort of tapers. The idea is that the
22:26
Speaker 1: radiation pressure on one side is bigger than on the
22:29
Speaker 1: other side, just because you get more microwaves hitting one
22:32
Speaker 1: wall of the cavity than the other. And so then
22:35
Speaker 1: they think, well, if you're pushing on the left side
22:38
Speaker 1: more than the right side, shouldn't that generate some thrust?
22:41
Speaker 1: Shouldn't that push this thing because it's more forced the
22:45
Speaker 1: left than there is on the right. That's the idea
22:47
Speaker 1: behind the e M draw by radiation pressure. You mean
22:50
Speaker 1: like the forest that the photons are making on the
22:54
Speaker 1: cavity wall. That's right, because what happens when a photon
22:57
Speaker 1: reflects off a wall is it pushes against it. Just
23:00
Speaker 1: like if you bounce a ball off of the wall.
23:02
Speaker 1: It's pushing on the wall, right. It applies a force
23:04
Speaker 1: on the wall, and the wall applies a force on
23:06
Speaker 1: the photon. And so the radiation pressure is just that
23:09
Speaker 1: when a photon gets bounced, it gets pushed, and it's
23:12
Speaker 1: also doing some pushing, right. And so we talked about
23:14
Speaker 1: it in a previous podcast, like if I take a
23:16
Speaker 1: flashlight and flash it at you, I'm actually kind of
23:18
Speaker 1: pushing you a little bit, and I'm being pushed back
23:20
Speaker 1: even though it's just a flashlight. And so imagine, you know,
23:23
Speaker 1: you have a gymnasium filled with students and each one
23:25
Speaker 1: has a bouncy ball and they're throwing the balls against
23:28
Speaker 1: the wall. If one wall is bigger and it's getting
23:30
Speaker 1: hit by more balls, the idea is there's more force
23:33
Speaker 1: on it, and so is the whole gymnasium then gonna
23:36
Speaker 1: like lift up off the ground and travel to Alpha Centauri.
23:41
Speaker 1: That's my that's my idea for Wow. Okay, this is
23:44
Speaker 1: sounding impossible already. But what's the history of this thing?
23:47
Speaker 1: Like who came up with it? And why's it so
23:49
Speaker 1: hard to find information about it on the internet. It
23:51
Speaker 1: has a pretty sketchy history. Um, it comes from a
23:54
Speaker 1: guy named Roger Shoyer in two thousand one. He designed
23:57
Speaker 1: this thing. He had this idea and he designed did it,
24:00
Speaker 1: and he built it, and he claimed that it worked.
24:02
Speaker 1: He said, I built it and it worked. But he
24:05
Speaker 1: didn't really share any evidence of it, just sort of
24:08
Speaker 1: claimed this was true. Didn't publish or anything, didn't let
24:11
Speaker 1: anyone see the device. No, he never published a paper.
24:14
Speaker 1: He could just it was sort of a you know,
24:16
Speaker 1: always promising something else. He's like, he's promising the next version,
24:19
Speaker 1: he's promising the new results, he's promising the next round,
24:22
Speaker 1: but never actually delivered. And this guy was just an inventor,
24:26
Speaker 1: a physicist or a lawyer. What Tom Cruise's brother. Yeah,
24:29
Speaker 1: you know, he's an inventor and so he has some
24:31
Speaker 1: technical background and you know, he was shooting meg. He
24:34
Speaker 1: was thinking, hey, could I solve a really big problem.
24:37
Speaker 1: And he had this idea and he claimed that it worked.
24:40
Speaker 1: But you know, in science, you can't just tell people
24:42
Speaker 1: that your idea worked. You have to prove it. You
24:45
Speaker 1: have to describe the details. People want to understand it.
24:47
Speaker 1: Other people will want to build it and test it
24:50
Speaker 1: for themselves. If this is something which is true and physical,
24:53
Speaker 1: it should be true in other people's labs also. And
24:56
Speaker 1: if we want to build the m jives, we can't
24:58
Speaker 1: just rely on one guy in basement. We need to
25:01
Speaker 1: actually understand the physical basic can actually be impossible. It
25:04
Speaker 1: has to be possible. It can't be some magical fairy
25:09
Speaker 1: dust that he sprinkled on it in his garage, right,
25:11
Speaker 1: And some scientists looked at it, I think, right in
25:13
Speaker 1: two thousand six. Yeah, well, in two thousand six there
25:16
Speaker 1: was a lot of coverage because Robert Joyer's also you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: he's good at the pr and so he managed to
25:22
Speaker 1: convince the New Scientist magazine, which is a magazine with
25:25
Speaker 1: very high readership in two thousand six, to write an
25:28
Speaker 1: article suggesting that this thing might really be true. And
25:31
Speaker 1: that article received a lot of criticism by science writers
25:36
Speaker 1: because it's sort of glossed over the fact that there's
25:39
Speaker 1: a basic problem with this drive, like it violates the
25:42
Speaker 1: law of conservation momentum, that it shouldn't work. So the
25:46
Speaker 1: fact that he claimed to have built it and made
25:48
Speaker 1: it work, you know, need to be reported with a big,
25:51
Speaker 1: big piece of So they didn't show enough skepticism. Yeah, exactly,
25:56
Speaker 1: and so this is roundly ridiculed. But other people were interested.
26:00
Speaker 1: And so then there was another guy, a guy named
26:02
Speaker 1: Guido Feda. He's just a marketing executive, but he got
26:05
Speaker 1: really interested in this and he built another version. He
26:08
Speaker 1: calls it the Canady Drive, like I can't, like can't
26:13
Speaker 1: Kennet like, like impossible was taken. So I'm gonna go
26:18
Speaker 1: with can't because that sounds like impossible. Yeah, it sounds
26:21
Speaker 1: to me like an Irish expression like you can they
26:23
Speaker 1: do that? But I'm not sure the linguistic origins of it.
26:29
Speaker 1: But he had some contacts at NASA, and he found
26:32
Speaker 1: some folks at the NASA Eagle Work Labs to try
26:34
Speaker 1: to test this. What yes, And he's like, all right,
26:38
Speaker 1: I built this, Please test this. Tell me if this
26:40
Speaker 1: thing can work. Oh wow, So they like big like
26:44
Speaker 1: actually NASA gut involved. Now yeah, there's a question about
26:47
Speaker 1: whether it's actually NASA or some people at NASA. Right.
26:51
Speaker 1: You know, like if I if I do an experiment
26:54
Speaker 1: in my lab and I say, oh my gosh, I've
26:56
Speaker 1: overthrown the laws of physics, can you say the University
26:59
Speaker 1: of California has a we're throwing the laws of physics? Right.
27:01
Speaker 1: I can't speak for the whole university, and these folks
27:04
Speaker 1: at NASA don't necessarily get to speak for NASA. Maybe
27:08
Speaker 1: it was the custodian or the cafeteria worker NASA who
27:12
Speaker 1: like pressed the button. And then it's like NASA did
27:14
Speaker 1: it well. It got a lot of attention because these
27:17
Speaker 1: folks that NASA Eagle Works labs, they tested it and
27:19
Speaker 1: they saw a little bit of thrust, Like they claim
27:22
Speaker 1: that it generates a very small amount of thrust. Now,
27:25
Speaker 1: the amount you're talking about are really really really tiny.
27:30
Speaker 1: Like we measure thrust, it's a force. We measured units
27:32
Speaker 1: of Newton's so like a one k object on the
27:35
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth feels ten Newton's right, So Newton
27:38
Speaker 1: is not a small unit. But these guys when they
27:41
Speaker 1: measured this thing, they measured like milan Newton's like one
27:45
Speaker 1: thousands of a Newton or even smaller like micro Newton's.
27:50
Speaker 1: So what they measured were really really small effects. Like
27:53
Speaker 1: they built this thing, they put it on the table
27:56
Speaker 1: and they felt a very small force when they turned it. Interesting,
27:59
Speaker 1: but it's not nothing. It's not nothing. I mean exactly.
28:02
Speaker 1: A Newton is like the weight of an apple almost.
28:05
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, it's like taina bite out
28:06
Speaker 1: of an apple. It's like taking a very small bite
28:09
Speaker 1: out of an apple. Yeah, exactly. And they put out
28:13
Speaker 1: a paper in two thousand and sixteen saying, well, you know,
28:15
Speaker 1: we tested this thing and it doesn't seem to be
28:17
Speaker 1: impossible because we're getting a small amount of thrust. What. Yeah,
28:22
Speaker 1: So that made a lot of explosions in minds and
28:25
Speaker 1: physics all across the world. Yeah, it was. And then
28:28
Speaker 1: it got a wider press coverage. Yes, it got a
28:31
Speaker 1: lot of press, and a lot of that press, you know,
28:33
Speaker 1: skimmed over some of the important details, you know, you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: they were headlines and wired for example saying NASA validates
28:40
Speaker 1: impossible space drive, which I'm sure people at NASA woke
28:45
Speaker 1: up in his sweat over when they read that. Unless
28:48
Speaker 1: unless it's true, then it's like, oh, we'll take the credit. Yeah, exactly,
28:53
Speaker 1: And Popular Mechanics wrote an article with the title was
28:56
Speaker 1: space engine breaks the laws of physics. You see clickbait?
29:01
Speaker 1: Do you see clickbait? And so it was very exciting. Right,
29:03
Speaker 1: people are like, maybe this is true, and maybe it
29:05
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that this drive only gives you a tiny
29:08
Speaker 1: little force because you can scale it up or we
29:10
Speaker 1: can improve whatever we can, you know, pass it onto
29:12
Speaker 1: the engineers and said, we've proved it possible. Make it work, right,
29:15
Speaker 1: make it better, more make it more efficient. Yeah. Also,
29:18
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're on a toothpick on your way
29:19
Speaker 1: to Alpha Centauri, you know you've got time. So even
29:23
Speaker 1: a little push with health, yeah, even a little push,
29:26
Speaker 1: a little constant push without the need for propellant to
29:29
Speaker 1: get you to very high speeds. That's the whole idea
29:31
Speaker 1: of a solar sale. Solar sales do not provide a
29:33
Speaker 1: lot of acceleration. It's just a long, constant acceleration without
29:37
Speaker 1: the need for a really heavy rocket can get you
29:40
Speaker 1: up to significant fractions of the speed of light. Right, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: all right, well this sounds maybe like it's not impossible. Daniel,
29:47
Speaker 1: Now I'm really intrigued here. I mean, are we going
29:50
Speaker 1: to be on our way to alphastri pretty soon or
29:54
Speaker 1: is that impossible? So let's get into whether it actually
29:57
Speaker 1: can work and what's going on with these impossible physics.
30:00
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, Daniel,
30:15
Speaker 1: it seems as we left at NASA, or at least
30:18
Speaker 1: some people who work at NASA validated this impossible space drive,
30:22
Speaker 1: this crazy idea that somehow seems to violate the laws
30:26
Speaker 1: of physics, but that could maybe get us to another
30:28
Speaker 1: galaxy or another star. So what's going on here, Daniel?
30:32
Speaker 1: Is this really possible or is there something here we're
30:35
Speaker 1: not seeing? Well, you have to sort of hold your
30:37
Speaker 1: your enthusiasm in check and apply your skeptical mind, like
30:41
Speaker 1: we'd love for this to work, and we wanted to work.
30:44
Speaker 1: In that sense, we have a bit of a conflict
30:45
Speaker 1: of interest. It's just like when you listen to a
30:47
Speaker 1: story about aliens. If you want it to be true,
30:50
Speaker 1: then you're gonna be less skeptical and you're gonna like
30:52
Speaker 1: gloss over problems in the story. So you gotta put
30:55
Speaker 1: aside your plans for Alpha Centauri and just ask yourself,
30:58
Speaker 1: like does this make sense? And the first thing to
31:01
Speaker 1: think about is whether the experimental results are done carefully
31:05
Speaker 1: enough right, because this is a very small effect. Like
31:07
Speaker 1: what they measure is, you know, the equivalent of like
31:10
Speaker 1: a fly landing on this thing. So you have to
31:13
Speaker 1: remove all other possible sources of experimental area. And when
31:17
Speaker 1: you dig into these experiments, they're not done with a
31:20
Speaker 1: kind of care that you need in order to really
31:23
Speaker 1: establish that this small thrust comes from radiation pressure inside
31:28
Speaker 1: the drive and not something else like the air conditioner
31:31
Speaker 1: maybe was hitting on your device and pushing it a
31:33
Speaker 1: little bit. You know that you're not far from the truth.
31:36
Speaker 1: Like when you turn this thing on, it heats up
31:39
Speaker 1: because you're pounding microwaves inside of it. And if it
31:42
Speaker 1: heats up, then it's going to cause air currents around it.
31:45
Speaker 1: And so those thermal currents, if it's not in a
31:47
Speaker 1: really really good vacuum, those thermal currents might be what
31:51
Speaker 1: providing this this micro thrust. Well, I'm trying to trying
31:54
Speaker 1: to get a picture here. So somebody actually built this.
31:57
Speaker 1: This marketing executive built this device, this machine, and it
32:02
Speaker 1: got tested by some people who work in nest, so
32:05
Speaker 1: like you know, like this actually happened. It is actually happening.
32:08
Speaker 1: There was a room with people from NASA there with
32:11
Speaker 1: clipboards and I'm sure they were wearing white lab coats
32:15
Speaker 1: and safety goggles and protective helmets, and like, I like,
32:18
Speaker 1: this thing is humming, it's like it's running, and they
32:21
Speaker 1: measured it a force, but you're saying, maybe it could
32:24
Speaker 1: have been something else. Yeah, it doesn't have to be
32:25
Speaker 1: a force from the drive. You have to remove all
32:28
Speaker 1: other sources of experimental error to convince yourself the force
32:31
Speaker 1: came from the drive. So the first test they did
32:33
Speaker 1: weren't even in a vacuum. So who even knows if
32:36
Speaker 1: those results are just due to the air getting warm
32:39
Speaker 1: around it and differentially pushing on it, because one side
32:42
Speaker 1: of it is all right, well, um, I mean it
32:45
Speaker 1: sounds like you just kind of need to replicate the experiment.
32:48
Speaker 1: Has anybody tried or nobody wants to touch this? Ye,
32:51
Speaker 1: Other labs have tried, Like there's a lab in Germany
32:53
Speaker 1: and a lab in China, and some of these labs
32:56
Speaker 1: can't reproduce the results, like they just don't see any thrust.
32:58
Speaker 1: Other labs have seen rust. But then they showed that
33:01
Speaker 1: this thrust was actually just an interaction between the wires
33:05
Speaker 1: that lead up to the e M drive and the
33:07
Speaker 1: Earth's magnetic few What yeah, oh, I see the wires
33:12
Speaker 1: that create the microwaves, not the wires like leading up
33:15
Speaker 1: to the device. So no, the wires leading up to
33:16
Speaker 1: the device, the ones that like, you know, power this stuff.
33:20
Speaker 1: And so we're talking about really small effects here. You know,
33:23
Speaker 1: it's like you breathe on this thing, and that's a
33:26
Speaker 1: bigger effect than the thrust that they're measuring. And so
33:29
Speaker 1: it's very easy to make a mistake. And you know,
33:31
Speaker 1: you read these papers, they don't seem very carefully done.
33:35
Speaker 1: And I said, they don't give you confidence in the
33:37
Speaker 1: experimental setup. It's it's sort of like remember the cold
33:39
Speaker 1: fusion thing, Like these guys measured some heat production, but
33:43
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of uncertainties and errors and other
33:46
Speaker 1: ways that could confuse the results that were potentially bigger
33:49
Speaker 1: than the signal they measured. So the signal these people
33:51
Speaker 1: are measuring is smaller than the noise in their system. Right,
33:56
Speaker 1: you have to be super extra careful. Right like when
33:58
Speaker 1: you guys built the I Go gravitational wave telescope, you know,
34:04
Speaker 1: you had to bury it on the ground, You had
34:05
Speaker 1: to put in the middle of nowhere. You had to
34:07
Speaker 1: track any truck passing by just to make sure that
34:10
Speaker 1: that wasn't causing the signal exactly. They can't just build
34:12
Speaker 1: advice and then it shakes and they say, hey, gravitational waves. Right.
34:16
Speaker 1: They need to show that they're not sensitive to all
34:18
Speaker 1: the sources of noise that are nearby. And that's what
34:21
Speaker 1: this these folks have not done. And there's some really
34:23
Speaker 1: concerning things about the results, like sometimes they get thrust
34:26
Speaker 1: even if the drive is backwards, and they get they
34:29
Speaker 1: get thrust the same direction. Yeah, at the level sort
34:34
Speaker 1: of experimental rigor that we're talking about, maybe it's mind control, Daniel.
34:38
Speaker 1: It operates on wishes and unicorns, like if you wanted
34:42
Speaker 1: to work, it works. Yeah, And so I would not
34:45
Speaker 1: say that the results are conclusive, you know, I would
34:48
Speaker 1: not say that this thing generates thrust. Well, I mean
34:50
Speaker 1: press the actually flipped it around, you know, like that
34:53
Speaker 1: shows a little bit of experimental worker. Yeah. I wonder
34:58
Speaker 1: if that was on purpose or they just sort of like,
35:00
Speaker 1: you know, put it in backwards. Oh man, we're throwing
35:05
Speaker 1: all kinds of shade at these NASA scientists, and these
35:08
Speaker 1: are not NASA scientists. These are people at NASA, right,
35:11
Speaker 1: NASA did not stand behind this results done in their
35:14
Speaker 1: spare time in their garage now with official white lap
35:19
Speaker 1: coats from NASA. They bought it off the internet. And
35:22
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to imagine how this thing could
35:24
Speaker 1: actually work. Right, just because you have photons bouncing around
35:27
Speaker 1: inside a bottle doesn't mean that it's going to get pushed, right.
35:31
Speaker 1: It violates the law of conservation momentum. You can't, right,
35:35
Speaker 1: you can't put yourselves up from your bootstraps. Right. If
35:38
Speaker 1: you stand inside a box in empty space, and you
35:41
Speaker 1: throw a ball against one wall of the box, Yeah,
35:43
Speaker 1: that ball applies a force to the wall, But to
35:46
Speaker 1: throw the ball you apply to force the other direction
35:49
Speaker 1: to the floor. Right, So you can't push a box
35:53
Speaker 1: from the inside, right, as far as we know, As
35:57
Speaker 1: far as we that's that's what we how, that's how
35:59
Speaker 1: we think the univerous works. But as you say, we
36:02
Speaker 1: kind of have to keep an open eye, which unfortunately
36:05
Speaker 1: kind of leaves you open to these crazy ideas. Ye.
36:07
Speaker 1: And so the guys who wrote this paper, they know this,
36:10
Speaker 1: and they understand that this thing shouldn't work, but they
36:14
Speaker 1: are really Yeah, but they are seeing a result. And
36:16
Speaker 1: so in the paper they put this really sort of
36:19
Speaker 1: amazing claim and I just have to read it to
36:21
Speaker 1: you verbabion because it's I don't want to paraphrase. They
36:25
Speaker 1: say that their drive quote is producing a force that
36:28
Speaker 1: is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomena, and therefore
36:35
Speaker 1: is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. Well,
36:43
Speaker 1: that makes sense now, I totally get it. I was
36:47
Speaker 1: totally waiting for somebody to bring up the quantum vacuum
36:49
Speaker 1: virtual plasma. Obviously everyone well, I mean, I guess the
36:54
Speaker 1: typical person like me wouldn't be able to tell the
36:56
Speaker 1: difference if that's something that's real or not. Well, you
36:59
Speaker 1: know there is a thing which is the quantum vacuum. Right.
37:02
Speaker 1: We know that empty space is not empty, that it
37:05
Speaker 1: is filled with energy, right, And we talked about virtual
37:07
Speaker 1: particles in a recent episode, right, Like virtual quantum particles exist. Yeah,
37:13
Speaker 1: because this energy that's in empty space can turn into particles,
37:16
Speaker 1: and these particles live for a very short amount of
37:19
Speaker 1: time and then they turn back into energy or another
37:21
Speaker 1: kind of particle or whatever. So there is this sort
37:23
Speaker 1: of energy available This is like frothing foam. But this
37:26
Speaker 1: is not a question of having a source of energy, right,
37:29
Speaker 1: There's already energy in this drive. This is a question
37:32
Speaker 1: of having something to push off, right, This is a
37:35
Speaker 1: question of momentum. Right, But energy, I mean energy is mass?
37:41
Speaker 1: Could I say that like energy is mass, like solar
37:44
Speaker 1: sales work on photons which have no mass. Yes, but
37:46
Speaker 1: this quantum vacuum doesn't have like a rest frame. You
37:49
Speaker 1: can't push against it. You can't like change the net
37:53
Speaker 1: momentum of the quantum vacuum. That doesn't make any sense.
37:57
Speaker 1: What could I maybe capture those energy of empty I'm
38:00
Speaker 1: rooting for these NASA scientists, so I'm playing devil's advocate.
38:05
Speaker 1: Could you like somehow capture the energy of empty space
38:08
Speaker 1: and like use it, you know, converted to mass and
38:10
Speaker 1: push it one way? Is that possible? Well? You know, Orry,
38:13
Speaker 1: I think you've thought about this more deeply than the
38:15
Speaker 1: guy who wrote that paper. But think about what you're suggesting.
38:18
Speaker 1: You say, capture the energy of empty space and then
38:21
Speaker 1: converted into mass and throw it in one direction? Right,
38:25
Speaker 1: That would mean it has now some sort of net momentum,
38:28
Speaker 1: whereas it didn't have that before, and that's the problem
38:30
Speaker 1: is that this quantum vacuum has no rest frame. It
38:33
Speaker 1: has no like net momentum which you can capture unless
38:36
Speaker 1: you're going to break the law of conservation of momentum.
38:39
Speaker 1: Then there's no way to gain momentum for this device.
38:42
Speaker 1: But I guess you know, is a law of conservation
38:44
Speaker 1: of momentum related to the law of conservation of energy.
38:48
Speaker 1: They're sort of related, right, They are sort of related.
38:50
Speaker 1: In particle physics, we think of energy momentum together. We
38:54
Speaker 1: put it together actually into like a four dimensional vector,
38:57
Speaker 1: the way that you have like a four dimensional space
38:59
Speaker 1: time three dimensions of space and one of time. We
39:02
Speaker 1: think of four momentum three dimensions of momentum from one
39:06
Speaker 1: of energy. And so these things are related certainly, so
39:09
Speaker 1: that the whole vector has to be conserved, but they're
39:11
Speaker 1: conserved independently, like momentum and x is conserved separately from
39:16
Speaker 1: momentum and wise conserved separately from momentum and z, and
39:19
Speaker 1: then energy conservation is also separate. So they can they're related,
39:23
Speaker 1: but they're independent. Makes are very powerful constraint, right all right, Well,
39:28
Speaker 1: their ideas and maybe it's tapping into this impossible drivers.
39:31
Speaker 1: Maybe tapping into this quantum vacuum, virtual plasma or energy.
39:36
Speaker 1: Is that possible or is that total bunk? I think
39:38
Speaker 1: it's total bunk. And you know, I did some reading
39:41
Speaker 1: about this, and Sean Carroll says, quote, there is no
39:44
Speaker 1: such thing as a quantum vacuum virtual plasma. So that
39:47
Speaker 1: should be a tip off right there. There is a
39:49
Speaker 1: quantum vacuum, but is nothing like a plasma, you know.
39:52
Speaker 1: So he's pointing out there the use of the word
39:54
Speaker 1: plasma means that there may be not even really understanding
39:57
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. And I think of the way
40:00
Speaker 1: you're imagining it is like, can you push off against
40:03
Speaker 1: this plasma? Can you like impart some momentum on it
40:06
Speaker 1: the way you can like with a rowboat, Right, you're
40:08
Speaker 1: like rowing against the water, and you're pushing against the water,
40:12
Speaker 1: so the water gets momentum one way, you get momentum
40:15
Speaker 1: the other way. I guess maybe it is a good analogy.
40:17
Speaker 1: Like if you're on in the middle of the ocean,
40:19
Speaker 1: you can't just like with a bucket pick up some water.
40:22
Speaker 1: Well maybe you could. Yeah, So you can't treat the
40:25
Speaker 1: quantum foam like you can the ocean. You can't row
40:28
Speaker 1: your way through the quantum foam, because all the energy
40:31
Speaker 1: there is virtual. It's like borrowed momentarily and it needs
40:34
Speaker 1: to return. It's not real energy in that way, it's
40:37
Speaker 1: a it's quantum fluctuations. There's a difference between these virtual
40:41
Speaker 1: energy particles and the real particles, and so there's no
40:45
Speaker 1: like the way you're imagining it, Like the ocean has
40:48
Speaker 1: a rest frame, right, It's like there is an ocean.
40:51
Speaker 1: It's a zero velocity in some frame. That's not true
40:54
Speaker 1: for this quantum vacuum. Right, It's an inherent property of space.
40:59
Speaker 1: It has no rest frame, the way that space itself
41:02
Speaker 1: has no absolute zero. For you to be able to
41:05
Speaker 1: row your way through space would mean that space had
41:07
Speaker 1: like some rest frame that we've never discovered before and
41:11
Speaker 1: would violate special relativity. All right, well worth a shot, Daniel,
41:16
Speaker 1: Totally worth a shot. I mean, I only get to
41:18
Speaker 1: do physics two hours a week, so I'm shooting for
41:20
Speaker 1: the moon here with the impossible growing through space. That
41:23
Speaker 1: they'll be the name of my engine. That would be
41:26
Speaker 1: the name of your memoirs. Right, the space or space
41:29
Speaker 1: or or maybe it's just nonsense, um, but it's totally
41:34
Speaker 1: worth a shot. And it's worth these guys thinking about it,
41:37
Speaker 1: and I love the ambition, you know. They say, all right,
41:39
Speaker 1: we built this drive. We agree it shouldn't work, but
41:42
Speaker 1: it kind of does. So maybe we discovered something new
41:44
Speaker 1: and crazy about the units. Like that's cool, but it
41:48
Speaker 1: has to also actually kind of make sense right well,
41:50
Speaker 1: you know, but like you said, you have to be
41:52
Speaker 1: skeptical but also keep an open mind, like maybe that
41:55
Speaker 1: it is kind of you have to admit a little
41:57
Speaker 1: bit possible for you know, our ID is about conservation
42:01
Speaker 1: momentum and the vacuum to maybe be a little off
42:04
Speaker 1: of maybe there is a little bit of a room
42:06
Speaker 1: there to maybe do something that seems impossible certainly, And
42:09
Speaker 1: we don't understand empty space, and we don't understand this
42:12
Speaker 1: quantum vacuum, and there may be a way to interact
42:15
Speaker 1: with it that allows you to capture momentum in a
42:18
Speaker 1: way that we can't imagine right now. That's true. I
42:21
Speaker 1: don't think this e M drive is doing that. I
42:24
Speaker 1: think this AM drive is just a fun device in
42:26
Speaker 1: a lab somewhere. I see. It seems unlikely that a
42:29
Speaker 1: little copper cone will somehow here's the reality of the
42:33
Speaker 1: laws of physics. Yeah, because they've made no connection between
42:36
Speaker 1: how they've built this thing and this quantum vactual virtual plasma.
42:40
Speaker 1: It's like saying, hey, who ate my chocolate chip cookies?
42:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it was the quantum vacuum virtual plasma, right,
42:46
Speaker 1: Like why not? You can't just That's what my kids
42:48
Speaker 1: say all the time. It's not just an escape clause
42:51
Speaker 1: for everything, right, It's not that some of your physics lawyer,
42:53
Speaker 1: can you get you at of jail? No matter what
42:55
Speaker 1: you need like an actual mechanism of real explanation for
42:59
Speaker 1: how this plasma uh, which you know people think doesn't
43:01
Speaker 1: even exist, how this virtual vacuum is somehow giving you momentum? Right?
43:06
Speaker 1: Why was I late to this podcast recording because you know,
43:09
Speaker 1: the quantum plasma was pushing against me and I lost
43:12
Speaker 1: my space or and that's why. Also I had to
43:16
Speaker 1: finish the Mission Impossible five on TV. So all right,
43:20
Speaker 1: So I'd say, overall, this thing is most likely hype
43:23
Speaker 1: and not going to lead to anything. But I encourage
43:26
Speaker 1: people out there experiment in your garage trying to make
43:28
Speaker 1: up a new drive, because you know, I want us
43:30
Speaker 1: to get to Alpha Centauri. I don't want to go myself,
43:33
Speaker 1: but I want humans to get to explore. You don't
43:35
Speaker 1: want to ride that toothpick. You want somebody else, probably
43:38
Speaker 1: smaller than you, not a lot of lakes. You know,
43:43
Speaker 1: until we figure something out, it's gonna be it is
43:46
Speaker 1: gonna be impossible to make it to Alpha Centauri within
43:49
Speaker 1: a lifetime or a few lifetimes, right, I mean we
43:52
Speaker 1: need we need an idea like this, like a crazy idea,
43:54
Speaker 1: otherwise we'll never get there. Well, I'm banking on solar sales.
43:57
Speaker 1: I think we build a big laser and a really
43:59
Speaker 1: big sale and you can take a really light craft
44:02
Speaker 1: and accelerated to a high speed. So if I was
44:04
Speaker 1: investing money in interstellar transport, I think solar sales are
44:08
Speaker 1: currently the best end. Okay, how about a quantum plasma sale?
44:12
Speaker 1: That sounds impossible? All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed
44:15
Speaker 1: this little trip down impossible lane. And two, it's it's
44:18
Speaker 1: kind of amazing to think that maybe there could be
44:21
Speaker 1: devices out there that break the laws of physics. This
44:23
Speaker 1: one seems like a little bit impossible, but you know,
44:26
Speaker 1: it is sort of still out there that we don't
44:29
Speaker 1: understand the laws of physics enough to know whether these
44:31
Speaker 1: things are really conclusive or not right. That's right. We
44:34
Speaker 1: don't know, and we should always keep an open mind
44:37
Speaker 1: to what might be out there. Sometimes people discover crazy
44:40
Speaker 1: stuff when they're trying to do something else. There's lots
44:42
Speaker 1: of times in the history physics when things have been
44:45
Speaker 1: discovered by accident. And so while I don't think that
44:48
Speaker 1: this drive has cracked open the secrets of the quantum
44:51
Speaker 1: virtual plasma, keep experimenting, folks, keep thinking up ideas. You
44:55
Speaker 1: may stumble across something amazing. It could be one of
44:57
Speaker 1: our listeners who breaks the laws of and we get
44:59
Speaker 1: one that's right, and then you can represent them in
45:02
Speaker 1: the cosmological court of impossibility. That sounds great. My fees
45:05
Speaker 1: one percent of your Nobel prize. Is that like a
45:08
Speaker 1: nibble of an apple, that's just the core? Yeah, all right, Well,
45:12
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that, and keep thinking of the impossible.
45:15
Speaker 1: See you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that.
45:26
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of
45:29
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. More podcast from my Heart Radio visit
45:32
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
45:36
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. Yeah,