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Vaniver comments on Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: MrMind 27 July 2015 07:16AM

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Comment author: James_Miller 27 July 2015 05:17:55PM 7 points [-]

Apparently, NASA is testing an EM Drive, a reactionless drive which to work would have to falsify the law of conservation of momentum. As good Bayesians I know that we should have a strong prior belief that the law of conservation of momentum is correct so that even if EM Drive supporters get substantial evidence we should still think that they are almost certainly wrong, especially given how common errors and fraud are in science. But, my question is how confident should we be that the law of conservation of momentum is correct? Is it, say, closer to .9999 or 1-1/10^20?

Comment author: Vaniver 27 July 2015 05:36:53PM 7 points [-]

This seems much more like a "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, some type of charge will be filed" situation. The person who invented it doesn't think it's reactionless, if thrust is generated it's almost certainly not reactionless, but what's going on is unclear.