What the Tech?!? is a new post series along the same lines as my series about Super Cool Science S#!t, except this will cover some of the most mind bending and radical technologies I can find, and this first installment will set the bar. A little less hard science talk, and a little more WOW! So strap in, and get ready to ask; "What the Tech?!?"
Less than 250 years ago, in 1783, people were amazed to learn that if you fill a giant balloon with hot air, it will rise into the cooler air around the balloon. It would be more than 100 years before the Wright brothers conducted the first successful flight of a self-propelled craft that was heavier than air. Pretty soon, we started figuring out ways to use explosive chemicals to produce the amounts of energy we would need to propel us all the way to the cosmos. Even newer and better propulsion systems have been created since, including the PPT, Ion Drive, and MDPT, but all of these still have the same problem that is holding us back from exploring the cosmos in all their splendor; fuel. One propulsion system is designed to fix that problem, and it's got the science community up in arms...
An RF Resonate Cavity Thruster, often called an EmDrive, is a propulsion system that some say violates the laws of physics... You see, instead of a heavy liquid fuel, this thruster produces microwaves that then bounce around in a chamber, creating thrust. Scientists are still stumped as to how this device can produce thrust at all, but even NASA did peer-reviewed tests showing that it does in fact produce a small amount of thrust, but how?
Scientists have yet to come to consensus on how this thruster could work the way it appears to. One plausibility states that due to Einstein's theory of relativity, the plates in the resonance chamber and the electromagnetic waves within have separate frames of reference. This would give the whole device a small shove as the waves bounce off the plates within. I promised not too get too sciencey with this, so if you want to know more about the in depth science, check out EmDrive.com
How would you feel if you never had to fill your car up again? If your plane never had to stop mid-flight just to refuel? The EmDrive has the potential to greatly help our current struggle to produce clean, efficient propulsion, and one day, it may just take us to the sky without having to carry tons of liquid propellant with us.
