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[Sirus]

I second the name Impulse Power.

...if it work, at least.

[10ebbor10]

The primary problem with the NASA test is that their control engine produced the same amount of thrust as their actual engine.

[MonkeyHead]

The primary problem with the NASA test is that their control engine produced the same amount of thrust as their actual engine.

Which strongly suggests that no thrust at all was produced, and there is some kind of zero calibration error, or the whole thing was off balance in some way, giving a false reading.

[Solifuge]

The primary problem with the NASA test is that their control engine produced the same amount of thrust as their actual engine.

Which strongly suggests that no thrust at all was produced, and there is some kind of zero calibration error, or the whole thing was off balance in some way, giving a false reading.

Actually, this isn't correct. NASA's Control Group was a regular source of Radio-Frequency energy without one of the prototypes attached, which didn't register as providing force. The news article Alway linked seems to have confused their Control Group with one of the prototypes they called a "Null" test; it was designed in a way that they didn't expect to produce thrust, but it produced thrust anyway. This could be due to a lack of understanding behind what's going on in the device, faulty construction in the "Null" prototype that made it actually work, or some other property of the system we don't know yet. But the conclusion seems to be that 30-50 micronewtons of force was registered when the devices were there, and nothing registered when it was a plain RF load. Something happened, and it doesn't seem to have been a measurement error.

EDIT: We don't have access to the whole publication, the data, or the images yet, but this is according to the the abstract we can see so far. And note that NASA concluded that thrust was registered by the system. They have a good track record about accuracy, and I'd assume they wouldn't make a claim based on a completely rookie and unscientific error, which ignored their experimental results. That makes no sense.

Several different test configurations were used, including two different test articles as well as a reversal of the test article orientation. In addition, the test article was replaced by an RF load to verify that the force was not being generated by effects not associated with the test article.
...
Thrust was observed on both test articles, even though one of the test articles was designed with the expectation that it would not produce thrust. Specifically, one test article contained internal physical modifications that were designed to produce thrust, while the other did not (with the latter being referred to as the "null" test article).

[Descan]

that we are simply too skeptical to not try to discredit it by all means possible,

That's how science works, you know...

[LordSlowpoke]

can't we just use descan as the power source for our intergalactic freight

[Sergarr]

I think pushing virtual particles away may probably have some unintended consequences... Like maybe the space-place where the they were pushes starts itself pushing stuff the other way?

[Putnam]

can't we just use descan as the power source for our intergalactic freight

I have a heavy heart when I say that vibrating does not actually provide thrust. Unless we attach magnets to him and this drive does work, such a thing would not be feasible.

[GavJ]

that we are simply too skeptical to not try to discredit it by all means possible,

That's how science works, you know...

"By any means possible" implies you'd go murder somebody and pin it on the researcher to discredit him.  If you're skeptical you should only be willing to discredit within the boundaries of well applied logic and properly collected and analyzed data, etc.

[Descan]

Consider no one here was doing anything of the sort involving murder, and he was responding to the people in the thread who *were* using at least applied logic and were reading the released information, I think that's a bit of an absurd argument, isn't it?

[GavJ]

No, because the original quote was not anything to do with the scientific method:

like how we were skeptical of computers, aeroplanes, books, radio and other world-changing inventions back when they were made.

He was talking about ignorant historical, societal fear of things unfamiliar, without any implication of necessarily even attempting to learn more about such things, etc.

That is not how the scientific method works. In science, if you're skeptical, you replicate experiments and are expected to propose better theories etc. Not just "ooh that sounds scary. Yer must be wrong pardner. I'm gonna take a nap now. Sincerely, GavJ"

[Knit tie]

No, because the original quote was not anything to do with the scientific method:

like how we were skeptical of computers, aeroplanes, books, radio and other world-changing inventions back when they were made.

He was talking about ignorant historical, societal fear of things unfamiliar, without any implication of necessarily even attempting to learn more about such things, etc.

That is not how the scientific method works. In science, if you're skeptical, you replicate experiments and are expected to propose better theories etc. Not just "ooh that sounds scary. Yer must be wrong pardner. I'm gonna take a nap now. Sincerely, GavJ"

My point exactly. Instead of saying "this thing is impossible under current scientific theories, therefore it's obviously an error in the experiment that provided the positive result", we should be saying "this thing contradicts our understanding of the universe, but appears to function. We need to study it more thoroughly and possibly amend our theories in the end."

[10ebbor10]

No, the first thing you need to do is check for errors, then replicate, then rewrite physics as we know it.

[Knit tie]

No, the first thing you need to do is check for errors, then replicate, then rewrite physics as we know it.

Implied in "study it more thoroughly". Besides, I believe the article stated that the device was replicated no less than 3 times, although review of NASA's studies is still absolutely necessary.

[MonkeyHead]

... and we can be pretty sure that there is some kind of error going on, going on by the additional info provided by Solifuge.