NASA designs a near-light-speed engine that breaks the laws of physics.

This story has created curiosity comparable to that seen in the early days of the EM Drive, which is understandable. Yes, there have been reports that the engine may 'defy physics.'

For some context, the EM Drive was NASA's first foray into the idea of actually trying to build an engine capable of travelling faster than light. So, what exactly is the EM Drive?

EM Drive is a radio frequency resonant cavity thruster concept that was first developed in 2001 by Roger Shawyer, a British Chartered Electrical Engineer with 48 years of experience in the Space and Defence industries.

Internally reflected microwaves are said to generate thrust, in violation of the law of conservation of momentum and other fundamental considerations. The device has been dubbed the "Impossible Drive" by the media.

Explanations for how the EmDrive might work go beyond what is known about physics. Perhaps it's interacting with the vacuum energy of space-quantum time, despite the fact that vacuum energy doesn't allow anything to push off of it.

Perhaps our sense of forward motion has been destroyed. Perhaps it's brand new physics, as the EmDrive tests have revealed.

There is no official design for this device, and none of the people who claim to have invented it have committed to detailing how it might work as a thruster or what components make it up, making it hard to tell whether a given thing is one.

In 2016, NASA's Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory reported seeing a modest apparent thrust from one of these tests, a finding that has yet to be confirmed. The thrust observed was later determined to be a measurement error due to interactions with the Earth's magnetic field or thermal gradients.

Scientists from the Technical University of Dresden issued three papers in March 2021 claiming that the thrust was a complete coincidence caused by external causes.

While the Helical Engine is intriguing, despite the claims, it is unlikely to defy the laws of physics anytime soon. Burns feels his proposal is worth pursuing, despite the fact that it has been regarded with suspicion in some quarters.

He says, "I'm comfortable with throwing anything out there." "I'll be the first to acknowledge, if it doesn't work, it was worth a try," he says. What did he say about it working?

Well, as a thinking experiment, Burns depicts a box with a weight inside, hung on a line, and springs at either end, bouncing the weight back and forth. This would shake the entire box in a vacuum, with the weight appearing to remain static, similar to a gif stabilised around the weight.

The box would squirm in the same place overall; however, if the weight's mass grew in only one direction, it would provide a stronger push in that direction, resulting in thrust. What are our thoughts?

According to the notion of momentum conservation, which asserts that a system's momentum remains constant in the absence of any external forces, we believe this is not totally conceivable.

According to Einstein's special relativity theory, objects gain mass as they approach the speed of light, an effect that must be taken into consideration in particle accelerators.

In actuality, a simple version of Burns' notion would be to replace the ring with a circular particle accelerator, where ions are rapidly accelerated to relativistic speed during one stroke and decelerated during the other.

However, Burns believes that instead of using the box and rod, the particle accelerator should be used for both lateral and circular movement, in which case the accelerator should be formed like a helix.

However, there is one relativity issue in particular. According to special relativity, objects gain mass as they approach the speed of light. If the weight is replaced with ions and the box is replaced with a loop, the ions may flow faster at one end and slower at the other.

On the other hand, Burns' drive isn't a single closed loop. It's termed a "helical engine" because it's helical, like a stretched-out spring. The engine accelerates ions trapped in a loop to relativistic speeds and then modifies their velocity to vary their mass slightly.

The engine then produces thrust by moving ions back and forth along the path of motion, "he stated. "The engine has no moving parts save for ions going in a vacuum line, locked between electric and magnetic fields," he continued.

According to New Scientist, the helical chamber would have to be quite large. It is 200 metres long (about 656 feet) and 12 metres wide (roughly 40 feet).

To produce one newton of thrust, 165 megawatts of energy would be required. That is the force required to accelerate a kilogramme of mass per second squared, which is roughly equivalent to a power plant. However, proposals for propulsion-free vehicles such as Helical are not entirely new.

In the late 1970s, a US inventor named Robert Cook invented an engine that reportedly converted centrifugal energy into linear motion. Then, in the early 2000s, a British inventor named Roger Shawyer proposed the EM drive, suggesting that trapped microwaves could be transformed into thrust.

Neither idea has been proven conclusively, and both are widely believed to be impossible due to a violation of a fundamental physical rule, the conservation of momentum.

Physicists at the Technical University of Dresden, who tested the EM Drive, believe the helical engine will most likely have the same issue. One of them claims that "To my knowledge, no inertial propulsion system has ever functioned in a friction-free environment."

Unlike the others, this machine uses special relativity, which confuses the image, he explains, but "unfortunately, there is always action-reaction." Burns developed his concept in secret, without NASA's approval, and he admits that it is inefficient.

He maintains, however, that the majority of the energy lost by the accelerator through heat and radiation can be captured. He also proposes momentum conservation measures, such as the spin of propelled ions.

"I know it has the potential to be right up there with EM drive and cold fusion," he admits. "However, you must expect to be ashamed." It's quite difficult to come up with something completely unique that also works. " As you can see, science is still in its early stages.

This is most likely where we inform you that your scepticism is well-founded, but don't be fooled. We shouldn't be surprised if a faster-than-light capable engine appears in the future, given the rate at which aeronautical technology advances. But once that happens, all of our science fiction fantasies will be on their way to becoming scientific truth.

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This Engine's Frequently Asked Questions

Is NASA working on a super-fast engine?

There is a lot of speculation about this engine; some official websites have even written stories about it, and NASA engineers claim that this new engine would defy physics.

What is the name of the new NASA engine that defies physics?

The engine's name is the "Hexagonal Engine."

What is the speed of NASA's helical engine?

According to NASA engineers, this engine can transport astronauts to Mars in less than 13 minutes.

What is the name of the scientist who proposed the "helical engine" concept?

Dr. David Burns is a NASA scientist.

Is this engine fuel-powered?

According to Dr. David Burns, this revolutionary rocket engine can achieve near-light speed without using any fuel, instead relying on high-tech particle accelerators.

What is NASA's new engine's precise speed?

This engine, according to Dr. Burns, has a top speed of 297 million kilometres per second.

How much push can it generate?

The engine, according to Dr. Burns, can produce a thrust of up to 99 percent of the speed of light without breaching Einstein's theory of relativity.

What will the engine's capacity be?

According to Dr. Burns, it would need to be 198 metres long and 12 metres wide to function effectively.

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