JSC Does Whatever Warp Drive Stuff It Wants to Because Why Not
Just heard Harold White talk @NASAAmes about his warp drive research. None of what he does @NASA JSC has any oversight or real "peer" review
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) August 12, 2014
Keith’s note: If Harold White’s warp drive research is so exciting why won’t NASA openly talk about it? Why aren’t REAL experts in the field raving about it? It would be entertaining (and no doubt embarrassing) to watch Harold White explain his warp drive technobabble to actual experts in the field. But we won’t see White and his warp drive research in a regular scientific forum any time soon. NASA JSC is afraid to let this happen – and NASA HQ is afraid to push JSC on this issue. When the movie “Interstellar” comes out NASA is going to have to say *something* about the warp drive research they have been funding with everyone’s tax dollars. If they don’t say something then people are going to ask why.
White spoke at NASA Ames today. A video of this presentation is supposed to be posted on YouTube “in a month” according to ARC. The sooner that White’s warp drive presentation is posted for all to hear, the sooner NASA can either endorse White’s research – or not endorse it.
– JSC’s Warp Drive: Fact or Fluff?, earlier post
– JSC’s Strange Thruster Violates The Laws of Physics, earlier post
– JSC is Still Silent When It Comes To Their Space Drive, earlier post
Because it inspires? Not joking.
What does it inspire? It inspires nothing in me given their lack of published results. The publicity, given their lack of results, does raise questions.
I know, but I meant “inspires children and young students.”
this inspires them to do what? ignore the fundamentals of scientific research and the process of peer-review?
Kids don’t know the fundamentals nor the peer review process. It’s simply ooh-ahh cool, and NASA doesn’t stand to gain anything by rushing to crush it. That can happen at its own pace. Let’s see what Lockheed says during their peer review.
All aboard the NASA hype drive! Per rules of “hype [insert vehicle here]” 90% of passengers will be disappointed.
Why is NASA giving him money?
It’s a small project off in a dusty corner. You can’t complain about lack of innovation on the one hand, and then hound the guy spending pennies. Give the project some air.
Sheesh.
I don’t mind him getting a little money. Compared to SLS the loss is trivial. I just wish someone could explain how we could get half as much money for our projects, which do not break the rules of physics, and which we do publish in peer-reviewed journals. Our NASA center rejects 90% of proposals for lack of funds (~<$150K each) and has no internal mechanism for funding beyond TRL 1 so new ideas that DO get funded and do work have to be abandoned after the first year. It’s enough to make me pull out my hair.
A fair and reasonable point.
No argument here. But a little bit of oversight and feedback from experimentalists or propulsion experts (or really anyone with some technical proficiency) from someone in the agency before making a big public splash would be nice. Makes the rest of us look better too (that is, keeps the rest of us in the agency from looking like gullible fools).
The way I see these efforts: even if they are obviously too “out there” to succeed as described, if experience and skills are gained along the way which benefit the team individually or as a whole, then spending those pennies is pretty well worth it. Again, only as long as the impact of the work isn’t misrepresented after the fact. Media impact value does not supersede scientific integrity.
Don’t totally disagree with Keith but how is this research different than the 10’s of billions if not hundreds of billions spent on fusion research that researchers keep telling us is only “20 years away” at any point in the last fifty years?
fusion is soundly rooted in long-established physics. the way it functions is very well understood.
Obviously, but to date we have no known way to create sustained fusion where the energy created, and captured, exceeds the energy input. So, the research isn’t being done to prove fusion is real, it’s being done in an attempt to harness it as a useful energy source. The fact is, we just don’t know how to do this yet.
quite right. sustaining and controlling fusion has proven to be far more difficult than anyone imagined decades ago.
Folks,
It is the “anomalies” where the real breakthroughs lie in physics and engineering. A real scientist does not taken any given “law” as proven. They are always skeptical and testing, even what most considered to be “scientific laws of nature”.
To do otherwise is to be non-scientific.
Therefore, it is appropriate for NASA (and I think it is part of their job) to spend at least 1% of its time and budget studying and conducting rigorous empirical-based experimental tests of gamechanging, technologies and ideas, even if they look potentially crazy. NASA has a unique role it can play here … it can be the trusted independent expert that brings real hard empirical testing to the question (rather than making judgements based solely on accepted theory.)
Of course there needs to be some “judgement” call in what they look at. That is where the art lies. There should be some minimal standards.
I think NASA should be doing more of this kind of stuff — but should also be upfront that it A) knows and understands that at least 99% of these experiments will fail, B) It is looking for that one experiment that does not (based hard empirical results, C) The wrong way to judge “hard empirical science” is in the court of public opinion.
If NASA did this rigorously, they could/should publish a database of all the “theories” they have looked at that they have “proven” — via hard empirical data and testing — are not supported. With a database of “failed theories”, folks can stop testing the same thing over and over again.
The difficult challenge for NASA public affairs is as follows — if 99% of these are likely to fail, then going public on these experiments before they are proven will get the public’s hopes up, after which they are almost certainly going to be dashed. While I think this can be framed effectively, if it is framed incorrectly, folks will start saying “You are wasting taxpayers money!”, even if it is far less than 1% of the NASA budget.
This conversation proves it.
– Charles Miller
the laws of nature are involiable (if they weren’t, they would not be called laws, nor would we be able to understand the universe around us in any meaningful way), for example, the conservation of energy and mass, etc. it is on the basis of such laws that science is built. to contravene them in one way or another would require the most extraordinary and convincing evidence – evidence this experiment lacks.
“studying and conducting rigorous empirical-based experimental tests of gamechanging, technologies and ideas”
I agree that the pursuit of interesting technological breakthroughs is part of what NASA is for, however…
the problem with these tests is that they weren’t rigorous… their lack of rigor is what makes everyone skeptical of their results.
i think the “minimal standard” you’re looking for are claims that don’t violate the laws of nature!
determining whether or not a theory has failed is what peer-review is for – that should not be NASA’s job.
Scientific laws/principles are not “involiable”. Scientific principles are only used to predict the future. If there are repetable experiment that says the law did not predict the future in this situation, then the law have to change, either by overturning it and install a new law that can predict both situations, or limit the scope of the law. Scientific laws are only “scientific” if they can be proven right or wrong.
we can only predict the future if the universe does indeed always adhere to the laws we have discovered. if the universe did not, it would be unpredictable.
“If there are repetable experiment that says the law did not predict the future in this situation, then the law have to change, either by overturning it and install a new law that can predict both situations, or limit the scope of the law.”
i said as much in my comment.
I am not contradicting you on White’s experiment. Every experiment bears repeating. That’s how the scientific methods work. However, the notion that scientific laws are absolute is incorrect. There are cases of changes on well-established laws. Take the famous double slit experiment. Newtonian laws dictate that those buckyballs only make two different marks behind the slits, but instead made multiple marks. Thus the Newtonian laws were scaled back and a new branch of physics created to explain why the buckyballs made many slits.
I think you mean “light” and not “buckyballs”
Yes, the double slit experiments showed that light behaves as both a particle and a wave, but this did not violate any laws of the universe. it simply changed our understanding of what light is.
I think you misunderstand the difference between a scientific “theory” and a scientific “law”
scientific laws are, for all intents and purposes, absolute. they are that which have always been found to be true. the conservation of energy and mass, the laws of motion, thermodynamics, gravity, etc. are fundamental parts of the universe. they are that which forms the foundation of all other theoretical frameworks. our understanding of these laws may change, but it is very unlikely that they themselves will change.
If someone claims something that sounds like it violates a universal law, you may rest assured that claim is false.
could a law be overturned? sure. but it would require an demonstration of the errors within the current framework of understanding and how the new paradigm is both more accurate and satisfies predictions better than the old way.
has this happened before? well, sort of. for example, Newtonian physics was known to be incomplete, and there were several specific areas where it fell short. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity both resolved those areas of weakness, accurately explained existing observations, and was found to be much more accurate in making predictions. Einstein rewrote how we understand light and gravity.
however, even then the underlying laws were not rewritten. an object in motion always remains in motion unless an external force acts upon it, etc.
Our physical laws are only our interpretation of how the universe works. Those are not inviolable, and history has shown as much. Moreover, it is the work for many physicists to try to prove wrong or incomplete our current “laws.” Already there is question about some laws.
such as?
There are questions about whether or not the the speed of light is a constant, and there are questions about whether or not Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle is true. Those are two examples, examples for which there is data that raises questions.
If physical laws were in inviolate, we wouldn’t keep testing them to see if they were true or always true. No physics PhD committee will give a PhD to any candidate who states that physical laws are inviolate. Remember, before DeBroglie, it was “law” that matter didn’t behave as a wave.
i still think this is a misunderstanding of what are “laws” and what are “theory”
i don’t think the speed of light is a law, nor is the Uncertainty principle.
In reality there are no physical laws. Even the conservation of energy and momentum are only valid until proven otherwise. That’s the point. “Laws” are only given according to our current understanding. There is nothing that says that physical laws are inviolate. Nothing in physics is inviolate.
There is however a huge burden of proof required if a law is to be overturned or modified.
Please reference an experiment which casts doubt on the uncertainty principle or the special theory of relativity.
Thank you.
I have to part company with you there, Doug. Even the Standard Model, one of the most rigorous and successful predictors of physical experiment in the history of science, is still regarded as a theory, and investigations are still conducted to find violations of its predictions.
the Standard Model isn’t a law.
It sure isn’t; it’s just a handy shorthand that has, in fact, made some pretty useful predictions.
More to the point: Physics hasn’t moved substantially forward for more than 25 years; we are in an historically low (well, by modern standards) point for advancement in particle physics, in our understanding of the big bang…the list goes on and on.
you have no idea what’s been going on in particle physics if you think it hasn’t gone anywhere in the past 25 years.
I suggest you look into a small thing called the Higgs Boson, for starters.
I should have re-phrased, Doug, because you are correct about that ‘little thing’; I was referring it to it as a useful prediction, and predicting the Higgs sure was useful!
Although the thread was discussing the Standard Model, I meant my comment more generally: there’s been no real movement towards an understanding of the nature of the universe– a big question, to be sure, but one that’s been cracked, slowly and surely, since Father Lemaître. More to the point, for the last 25 years physics (well, the part that interests me, at least), has been bogged down in string theory, which has so far produced a spectacular nothing,
to be fair, String theory is really interesting. they just need a way to show if it’s true or not lol.
there’s been a few other things in the past 25 years. the “missing” neutrinos which were predicted to be part of the sun’s fusion were detected, confirming a major portion of theoretical physics. we’re closing in on detecting gravitational waves, which would pretty much seal the deal on the validity of the Theory of Relativity.
may i ask what parts of physics interest you?
See vulture4 above for some context.
which comment? he has made several.
I think Doug’s meaning was clear, that physical laws don’t change. He didn’t say that our understanding of physical laws cannot change, so there’s no reason to set that up as a straw man argument to be knocked down.
I also get Doug’s point that our understanding of physical laws, although not inviolate, is based on a large amount of observations by a large amount of people over a large amount of time in most cases. Thus it warrants caution whenever someone pops up with an enticing new theory that seems to undermine our understanding of physical laws.
That type of caution should be regarding as simply that, caution, not closed-mindedness. However what we have seen in the past is when excitement over reported results leads to caution being thrown to the wind by some. No one here is doing that, but this is what we can see happening at times, resulting in time and money being thrown at things that probably should be backburnered for awhile to give the results some time to air out.
And your science background is … ?
Unfair. I suspect that while many of the denizens here are scientific types, Keith, your blog comments are also populated by interested citizens who have made it life’s work to keep up to date with the broader implications of scientific research. There are plenty of sources available.
I understand skepticism here, but your response “And your science background is … ?” comes off as an unwarranted personal attack. I know you run this site, but I’d like to see you keep your side of the discussion civil and fact based.
As an engineer, I expect skepticism about any theoretical research, because until a theory is proven, an engineer can’t *do* anything useful. So, getting excited about theories before they’re proven is putting the cart before the horse, which is what some online media is doing with headlines that have “warp drive” in them.
As an aerospace engineer, I’m skeptical. My bet is that there is nothing “groundbreaking” going on here and the hype by online media is premature. But, someone must continue to pursue this in order to figure out exactly what is happening. My guess is that the “thrust” will eventually be explained using conventional physics and thermodynamics. But, there is a very small chance that it can’t. If it can’t, then the results go back to the theoretical physicists to see if it helps prove, or disprove, any of their theories. Right now, theoretical physicists have a plethora of theories, but they lack a way to definitively prove them.
Sorry…. sounds like more corruption to me.
No corruption. Just powerpoint physics.
Keith, stop hating on NASA. You’re embarrassing yourself, really. I’m with what Michael Spencer said. In one breath you complain about lack of innovation and then hound them for spending any amount of money on this. Instead of trying to create drama about every little thing NASA does, find something that will change the CULTURE and make a difference! I work for NASA and while I see around me MANY holes in spending, management, and research, I see even more examples of where NASA is doing the right thing. Some things I agree with you on, others I see as you creating a problem from nothing.
Stop reading NASA Watch. You feel much better – promise!
Why would I do that? I like reading NASA Watch, I think a lot of what is said here has merit. But, there are some topics that just strike a chord in me and the way this was presented is one of them. I’m of a different generation that is adaptable to change and genuinely want some drastic changes here. The first step to change is questioning the current understanding and philosophies within an institution.
Your generation is no different than mine. Its not like you invented the art of questioning the status quo. Funny how its OK for you and others to question things – but I can’t.
Haha, never said you couldn’t.
Read your initial post. You’ve made your point now get back to work.
Is this talk available as a video stream? While I don’t believe the em-drive or any Woodward effect device produce a net force it is good practice. Propellantless propulsion, aside from the gravity assist maneuvers and solar sails that have been used, is needed. The laws of physics don’t have to be violated.
The Casimir effect is real and can be used to produce thrust, but that thrust is no greater than that produced by simply emmitting the same amount of energy as a stream of photons. The em-drive paper does not appear to be based on the Casimir effect. It appears to me to have an error in that it makes the assertion that radiation pressure is proportional to group velocity rather than phase velocity. The trapezoidal resonator causes an asymmetry in group velocity, but phase velocity is unchanged, and it appears to me that radiation pressure is dependent on the latter rather than the former. I could be wrong, and would be happy to listen to any other explanation.
I don’t see what the big deal is they are saying they will send models of it to a couple other NASA centers and also Johns Hopkins for independent tests. As long as the funding is small, which it sounds like it is, why not check it out. I can’t imagine that it received zero internal review in JSC engineering before being ok’d so there was probably enough there to warrant a look.
There’s a lengthy presentation by white on YouTube from earlier in the year. He very honest about what he’s doing and felt r admits our may all be pointless.
Google it. And stop sounding so bitter and butthurt.
I do not need to Google it since I have heard it before. Its all science babble. Oh yes, if you don’t like what I say on NASAWatch then stop reading NASAWatch. Have a nice day.
Tried to google. Only got interview with White on advantages of space warp. Where is actual discussion of theory?
“An electron is a particle it cannot have a wavelength!”
“A rocket engine cannot work in a vacuum, it has nothing to push against”
“It is impossible for a gymnast to do a triple flip while performing a full twist on only the middle flip”
All statements made by real “physicists” right before they were proven wrong. Many things seem preposterous right up until they are demonstrated.
The statement about rockets was made by an editor in an editorial in the New York Times. Whether it was ever made by a physicist I have been unable to determine. http://www.straightdope.com…
I cannot find the sources of the other quotes. If you know which physicists actually made these statements I would be interested. I am not just picking nits. A central element of the scientific method is that all quotes must be referenced.
the first “quote” is probably referring to the wave-particle duality of photons (radiation), not electrons.
the second is an assertion based on an incomplete understanding of the forces involved.
the third is oddly specific. source?
are the experiments in question working based on physics that are poorly understood? it’s possible.
however, there are several possible sources of “noise” and error in the experimental setup – they could easily account for the anomalous forces detected.
An electron has a DeBroglie wavelength, and DeBroglie’s Nobel Prize winning PhD dissertation and its formulation of matter waves was one of the new theories that brought on quantum physics.
Physics laws can be rewritten, modified, and thrown out when it’s shown they need to be, but that is not what Eagleworks and White are doing as yet. With no publications, no review by the physics community, they’ve essentially got nothing going on.
Sorry, but White isn’t rewriting physics. He’s as yet to provide any results, any refereed papers on his Alcubierre drive work or the new magical EM drive, so comparing him to great, new physics discoveries and insights of the past is far too premature.
White sure does know how to publicize his work, though, and that could bear some scrutiny given the paucity of papers presented on his work. Publicity is not the same as ground breaking physics, and White and Eagleworks have yet to do any ground breaking physics.
I’m just a layperson, but have been doing some reading around the net on these projects lately. From what I can tell from people who know Sonny White personally and have a little acquaintance with what’s going on, he seems to be genuinely investigating some curious phenomena, and doing so without seeking a lot of either money or publicity. Now, it may well turn out that Alcubierre was wrong, and warp drive will always belong only to Captain Kirk, and it may well turn out that you can’t put microwaves in a tin cup and lift your boots off the ground. But from what I gather, at the present the warp drive math has some interesting possibilities to be looked at, and four or five different groups of people keep putting microwaves in a chamber and *something* moves when they turn the gadgets on.
At this point it seems perfectly reasonable to me to allow NASA to devote a little bit of time and money to investigating these things and proving or disproving them one way or the other. White is a NASA researcher, not an entrepreneur. If he finds something to be reviewed, I feel sure we’ll see something published for review. If there’s nothing to all this, then we can say it wasn’t “ignored by the scientific establishment” as so many conspiracy theorists love to claim; it was duly investigated and discredited. If on the other hand, by some chance they do find that lo and behold you can put microwaves in a cup and lift your boots off the ground, then the results are out in the scientific community and not contained in some huckster’s book and blog full of gibberish, never to be taken seriously.
Let’s give Eagleworks some time to see what they find. Either way I’m sure we’ll eventually know more than we do now, and for not a lot of money in the bigger scheme of things. Also it’s silly to say “Why are they funding his Project X instead of *my* Project Y?” Funding is always competitive and there is never enough money to go around. Every research project out there is using money that could have funded a different research project, and every scientist’s life dream is another one’s waste of time.
Why should Harold White get preferential treatment? Any other NASA funded researcher would never get away with refusing to release results, talk to the media, etc.
I’m with the rest of the people here. This project might be totally off the rails, but from what I’ve heard about it, White has reached out to other scientists and is conducting experiments (not just power point). If anything NASA needs 10 to 100 more Sonny White’s working on the next big thing. Given the amount of money consumed here (very small) it is a worthwhile investment.
maybe go DARPA route, away from public view so new ideas don’t get flamed in the forums.
I still cannot find a complete discussion of how Dr. White’s proposal differs from the original Alcubierre proposal. The youtube discussions are superficial. If anyone has a link please share it.
Keith,
Earlier you posted a paper written by White (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv… that describes his ideas. I don’t pretend to understand the paper, but before I would call it science babble I would seek the opinion of an eminent theoretical physicist such as a Steven Weinberg. Do you not have any contacts that you can send White’s paper to for review?
NASA refuses to say who reviewed White’s research prior to funding nor how the final results of his research are to be published. PAO actually refuses all comment on his research – yet they are more than willing to talk about the remaining 99.999% of the research NASA funds. Why is that?
Keith,
I worked with Sonny White on some Space Shuttle program activities and I know he was and is very highly respected. I think that NASA is probably nervous about how to present his work since it is bound to be very controversial (obviously it already is) and very few people in NASA (if any) really understand it. So, maybe they are waiting for a well respected physicist to at least endorse the concept before saying anything about it. I mean, in order for PAO to make a statement someone knowledgeable about Sonny’s research would have to write it for them. At this point the only person qualified to write such a statement would probably be Sonny himself so they really need to get someone outside NASA to lend credibility to the work before they go out on the limb with this. Maybe you can help them by suggesting an expert qualified to review the research?
NASA should never have funded the research in the first place without seeking the inout of experts in the field. That is how science works.
You are very closed minded. There was an extensive amount of evaluation of Sonny’s hypothesis on his q-thruster back in 2012. He showed a mathematically link between the gravitational constant and the zero state of the hydrogen atom. If true, this may allow an electro-magnetic field at the right conditions to be able to push off of quantum space the way a row boat pushes off of water. A different understanding on how gravity works. Why not invest the small amount of funding required to see if there is something there? Prior to me leaving NASA, Sonny was able to produce a very small force using a thruster of his own design. Not enough to be compelling, but enough to say there might be something there with respect to his hypothesis. In addition, Sonny was doing a peer review but with a very small group of fellow physicist. Maybe not to your liking, but there is independent review. This EMDrive thruster in the press just may have happen upon this phenomenon. It is not the only device that has been tested. If I was Sonny, I would not share any of this testing with you or the public until I had some compelling test data to prove his hypothesis. The other big unknown is whether it can be engineering to get enough force efficiency out to make a profound impact on space travel. You seem to be advocating central control of research testing at NASA and government. If anything there was too much of this at NASA. There was not enough bottoms up initiating of test research/programs at NASA. Too many innovative ideas never got started because the bureaucracy of NASA. And if they did get started, they were marginalize by the bureaucracy, such propellant depots. If Sonny’s hypothesis is proven, it will open a field of engineering that will have dramatic changes to our technology, way beyond just the solar system. Yes the q-thruster would allow us to travel around the solar system routinely. It also may enable hypersonic travel around the globe and much more. Well worth the small dollars needed to do the exploratory research that Sonny is doing. The pass example of the fuss over cold fusion shows that research such as the q-thruster needs to stay under the radar until proven.
I don’t know about that, Keith. There are plenty of historical examples of lone wolf researchers that would never have been funded by ‘experts in the field’. This research is conducted by a man deeply respected in the community (which I conclude from comments here, and other sources) involving minuscule amounts of money; I’m having trouble understanding the objection.