Imagine a rocket that works without fuel. You pump energy into it and away you go, but there’s no thrust coming out the other side, no exhaust, no waste product and no consumable fuel. It’s the ultimate defiance of Isaac Newton: claiming to have an action without an equal and opposite reaction. And yet, inventor of the EMdrive, Roger Shawyer, claims to do exactly that. Not only does he say that his device works, he claims that anyone can build one and verify it for themselves. At Eagleworks laboratory, NASA scientists attempted to do exactly that, and just published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal. The results? They verify that the EMdrive works as advertised.
If the EMdrive truly is a space engine that has an action with no reaction – you pump power into it and get thrust with no discernible exhaust — then this is the largest revolution in physics since Isaac Newton. Newton’s three laws of motion have stood for hundreds of years:
1. An object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion unless there’s an outside force acting upon it.
2. The force on an object equals the rate of change in its momentum over time. (F = ma for non-relativistic systems.)
3. And for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.