Talk:EmDrive/Archive 6

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Controversy section surely needs rewrite

I was alerted to this by a discussion on reddit where someone links to the article and treats it as the "truth" as so many people do treat wikipedia. But it says many controversial things. And it has no citations at all in the entire section, except to Roger Shawer's EMDrive FAQ (which given that he is about the only one in the field who supports his own theory of how it works is not much of a citation source) - so you can't go to the citation sources for more information.

The first paragraph says: "The design of such thrusters, whether they work as claimed, and theories attempting to explain how they might work, are all matters of controversy. Many theories of operation have been proposed, and all are criticized on the grounds they violate the conservation of momentum".

"Many theories of operation have been proposed, and all are criticized on the grounds they violate the conservation of momentum"

.

That's a bold claim. If it is true, needs to be more specific and give at least some examples of these "many theories of operation" and say for each one why it violates COM. Or - far better - give a citation to some source that goes through them all and explains why they all violate COM.

Many of the suggestions I've seen don't violate COM. Only problem is, finding suitable citation sources for wikipedia, e.g. you'd need to cite the Eagleworks video which I think might not be acceptable as it is too much of a "primary source". But they say "many theories of operation" so not just referring to the Shawyer explanation or the quantum vacuum thruster - so it would seem this is referring to some of those other ideas as well. And to take an example, the idea that it might be accelerating some weakly interacting particle doesn't violate COM.

"None of the experimental research showing positive thrust have been published in peer reviewed journals."

The Chinese experiment was published, in Chinese Physics B which is peer reviewed. Prediction and experimental measurement of the electromagnetic thrust generated by a microwave thruster system.

"There is concern that all results seen so far are simply misinterpretations of spurious effects mixed with experimental errors. And as negative results are almost never published, the existence of a few positive experiments may be due to publication bias"

No citation given. Who says this? Apart from news reports voicing the opinion of journalists or of a scientist not involved in the field? What does it mean by "spurious effects"? What "experimental errors"? Who specifically suggests that the positive experiments may be due to publication bias (if not cited, this is OR by whoever wrote this). If someone has said that and it is published, this is interesting but as reader I want to follow that up and have nowhere to go to find out more.

Maybe this was written before the Eagleworks investigation, where I think just about everyone agrees at least that they are careful experimenters, and should be able to help get to the bottom of it eventually, along with work of other experimenters such as the German researchers who recently published preliminary results of their investigations in a conference abstract.

Eagleworks investigations not yet published in a peer reviewed journal as far as I can see, but expect they will be when they finish the experiments.

We should have a controversy section for sure. But I think it needs to be accurate and well sourced, and with citations for a reader who wants to find out more about the controversy, and that this section needs a rewrite. Robert Walker (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Robert, please do edit and improve the article! More refs to Yang's 2013 paper are certainly appropriate. A careful single cite to the Eagleworks video also seems appropriate.

Most people who talk about any of this work discuss potential spurious effects and experimental errors. Including all of the serious test reports (see the German paper, Eagleworks notes, and casual reviewers).

Add sources where you can find them (a source that takes these models seriously enough to walk through each proposed mechanism would be nice, but may not exist yet). But note that there is source bias in that lots of people repeat and talk about the inflated claims of the inventors, while few scientists yet take these ideas seriously enough to comment. Most science articles about fringe topics veer too far in the other direction, making unlikely ideas seem plausible and 'just around the corner'.

For instance, I don't know that details of Shawyer's lofty predictions about how his invention will change everything and lead to flying cars, is particularly relevant, even though it is citable. Testable predictions with dates attached are pretty clearly not panning out. However it's easier to find sources quoting the self-promotion than it is to find scientists bothering to seriously debunk it. – SJ + 16:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, if it just means factors not yet taken account of then everyone is agreed on that I think, or almost everyone. But the thing is that in discussion people often say that the signal is buried in the noise and the experimenters are finding things in the noise, and especially when it talks about null results not being published, that seems to be more what this paragraph is talking about. Which is untrue from what I've read, at least not seen anyone suggest this for the Eagleworks experiments. So if it is not just a mistaken interpretation of noise and statistical variation, it needs to make it clear what is meant by "experimental error". If it means the experimenters making mistakes that a good experimenter should have noticed, then I haven't seen anyone suggesting this for the Eagleworks team (at least, reasonably knowledgeable people who have looked into it all in detail) who I gather are thought by most to be careful experimenters, though they are researching way-out hypotheses.

Yes I agree about the source bias. Makes it harder. It's easy enough in a science blog because you can filter the information yourself, based on your own understanding of science, read the discussions, make decisions about what to include and what not to include. Even include forum posts and discussions when you recognize the reasoning as good in those discussions. But there, basically you are acting as a secondary source yourself, and that's not permitted in wikipedia.

Okay I can have a go at editing it. But I've found this sort of editing for wikipedia is quite tricky to do in the past (far easier to write one of my articles elsewhere :) ). I'll give it a go though, at least can fix some minor issues with this section, not so sure about the bigger picture. Thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 01:50, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

With all positive respect Sir, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed by the way of thinking here. First, some very active editors will always say that all EmDrive theoretical explanations violate conservation of momentum (and they may be right!). But when you bring a possible explanation that does not violate conservation of momentum (a Mach effect, or a MiHsC effect for example) your edit is reverted as "fringe stuff" or "original research" with a claim that this is not peer-reviewed. Next, when you reference peer-reviewed explanations (Minotti 2013, McCulloch 2015…) your edit is also reverted because the academic journal "are not good enough" (!) and if you ask specifically why, some sort of judgement about the "impact factor" of those journals being too low is always hand waved (yes it appear there is a limit between acceptable and non-acceptable impact factor and good peer-review journals, but it depends on the article evidently). As a result, a true imbalance arises, with only explanations of the critics showcased (CoM and CoE broken) in the Theory section, even when they are discutable and coming from non-peer-reviewed personal blogs (as for Costella, he wrote personal attacks on Shawyer constituting an offense; and it has been showed that Egan only accounted for standing waves and disregarded travelling waves and the energy input by the antenna/waveguide). It is truly amazing that some people here managed to highlight those kind of blog explanations while at the same time preventing any peer-reviewed paper stating otherwise to appear in the article. As a consequence the neutrality of the Theory section has been compromised by this undermining. — Tokamac (talk) 09:40, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with what we think, we're just reflecting the scientific consensus view. The solution is for proponents to bring better science. Much, much better science. Guy (Help!) 07:39, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. KingKorean (talk) 06:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Just wish people would stop calling them "laws of physics". Laws are statutes passed by people. Physics has postulates that models (theories) are built on top of. Why call a postulate a law? Those are opposites. Some early scientists or their supporters believed that they were discovering the laws that God had decreed for the Universe. It is a theistic reference. It gives lay readers a misconception about both the Shawyer drive and of physics in general. Theories are mathematical and logical constructs that claim correspondences to real events. Some theories have been successful and displayed a great deal of predictive power. One might suppose there is an underlying reason that some theories are successful, but until a real system is discovered, that supposition belongs to philosophy or religion. You have to "believe" in it. 106.105.164.147 (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Theoretical work continuously suppressed

The theoretical work done about the EmDrive by physicists should not be removed in the Theory section, especially those which are peer-reviewed as primary sources and/or published by secondary sources. The EmDrive is an anomaly and if its thrust is genuine, it will help discover new parts of Physics. Giving overdue length to trending theories like the quantum vacuum plasma, just because the media like them providing a lot of secondary sources which often prove to be poor-written articles with a "Nasa" clic bait title, introduces a strong bias.

All published academic sources should be added to this article, emphasis this or that work is not the dominant theory. Besides spurious experimental errors, Shawyer's own theory and White's QVF theory, this covers the work published about dark matter axions, MiHsC, Polarizable vacuum, Scalar–tensor theories especially of the Brans–Dicke type, Mach effect relying on the Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity, etc. Most of them have even a Wikipedia page already. MiHsC had a wikipedia page that has been deleted, yet it is present on this page, but others like axions which have a dedicated wikipedia page must be removed from the EmDrive page? Common… This isn't fair at all. Al these works deserves to be presented here, each time in a concise manner (i.e. not like the "vacuum energy" logorrhoea that happened a few days ago) and with appropriate warning mentions about being challenging the standard accepted theories.

— Tokamac (talk) 15:34, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I voted for removal of dark matter hypothesis simply because it has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, while all the other hypotheses in this article have been published in such journals, so this entry about dark matter hypothesis is currently much less notable and credible than all the others hypotheses, that is why it should be removed until the author would publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, then it can be restored. Read, if you want, my input above about all that.
Regarding MiHsC it is in my opinion a gross mistake that its wikipedia page has been deleted. There are over a dozen of papers involving MiHsC published in good scientific peer-reviewed journals, and also it is mentioned in many secondary sources (popular press), so there is no reason whatsoever to delete it, because it is not up to Wikipedia users to decide which theory or hypothesis is correct one and which one is not. Wikipedia users have no qualifications to assess that (and even if someone had such qualifications then he/she should publish a rebuttal in a scientific peer-reviewed paper - but even then the hypothesis/theory should not be deleted, but merely an information about rebuttal paper added). We can only decide if a new theory can be included on its notability or weight. Thus, if there are so many scientific papers about it and also many articles in secondary sources (popular press), then it is good enough reason to include it in Wikipedia. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, and sorry for having missed your previous comment about that matter in this page. Your view seems reasonable, since no peer-review paper has been published about EmDrive & axions, only a journalist's article on a website, I agree that section could indeed be deleted. But Minotti's peer-reviewed paper should stay, with the appropriate warning about the challenging nature of scalar-tensor theories of gravity with respect to Einstein's relativity theory (although those alternate theories are not at all crackpot theories that would oppose plain vanilla GR with silly ideas, they rather use the same basis with add-ons like the scalar field for Brans-Dicke or Mach's principle for Hoyle-Narlikar, and have plenty of published peer-review literature and books by professional scientists in the field). About sclar-field theory and the EmDrive, there is only one published paper for now, but there are not a lot of scientists who study the theoretical aspects of the device and dare to try and manage to publish on the subject through peer review. — Tokamac (talk) 19:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, Minotti's paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal with decent IF, so it is good enough for me to stay, because there are so few hypotheses on this subject that publishing any in a peer-reviewed journal gives it enough notability and credibility, so that no secondary sources in popular press are needed for hypotheses in this wikipedia article, as long as the number of hypotheses is low.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

As I've said before and you resolutely ignored, in fringe articles secondary sources establish that the theory is not undue weight. Don't be surprised if theories based only on primary sources with no independent secondary sources get removed. Please see WP:FRIND as it makes this point explicitly: "Points that are not discussed in independent sources should not be given any space in [fringe] articles" Therefore it is very important to also establish independence of the sources.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

You ignore what I have already written in the discussion with you above, so I am not going to enter here into a new discussion with you about the same issues again, because we would be going in circles then. I concur with Tokamac 10:58, 7 December 2016 (UTC). His standpoint is logical and sensible and represents my point of view, as well. Well done Tokamac.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 22:13, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The whole negative energy section seems very confusing. The author of the first paper uses some math from a non mainstream thoery to make what he says in his own words are 'highly speculative' possible ways thrust could be produced in the math. The second paper that was cited made no reference to RF cavity thrusters etc, and seems to be WP:SYNTH. I also don't know where the whole idea of the theory being falsifiable through testing came from, as I could not find it in the original paper (please point me in that direction). I added some tags for citations that are needed ASAP.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  03:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

You are creating undue weight with the over-publicized vacuum plasma theory which had never been proven. Even peer-review papers prove the vacuum plasma does not exist. But general articles and popularization videos on YouTube are spreading all over the web on the basis of this wikipedia article, providing a circular reference to secondary sources, ignoring the peer-review work that has been suppressed here. See for example this video which is a collection of what is presented in this page. It served in turn for blogs, articles, and news. What you are doing is plain wrong. I agree secondary sources is a good thing, but you won't have them if you doesn't let a chance for a peer-review paper (not some crackpot idea on a personal blog, a PEER-REVIEWED work) which is well-written, to be presented as a HYPOTHESIS and carefully claim as so. I agree we must prevent unreliable ideas to be present on wikipedias as the truth, but this is not the case here.

As for Minotti's explanations that "you don't find in the paper", yet they are written in black and white in plain English, you only need to actually read the paper. Page 11:

• "As according to the model the force is proportional to the thickness of the wall."
• "Note that the lowest mode (ν = 1.05 GHz) leads to a force much larger in magnitude and of opposite direction to that of the next two modes. This and other dependencies of the predicted force, as the proportionality to the cavity wall thickness (within certain limits as ∇χ′0 decays rapidly outside the cavity), can be explored experimentally with relative ease to test the theory.'""

Finally, the Lobo & Visser paper about warp drive was there to illustrate the consequence of Minotti's paper. But you mistake it for being WP:SYNTH. Actually Lobo & Visser were the first to show the scalar tensor theory behaves as standard GR with a negative energy source, thus allowing a reactionless drive possible, as in the Alcubierre drive. Page 2:

• "It appears that General Relativity might allow for such kind of reactionless propulsion, as exemplified and noted for the first time in[3 (Lobo & Visser paper)], where the low velocity limit of some warp drive spacetimes was analyzed. As indicated there, negative energy densities are required to accomplish that and, notably, some scalar fields present this possibility."

What Minotti does in his paper is simply using the same scalar-tensor theory and the work by Lobo & Visser to calculate the consequences this time on the particular geometry of RF resonant cavity thrusters. Minotti's work directly follows on from Lobo & Visser's work. I agree this was not crystal clear. — Tokamac (talk) 10:58, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we can cite Lobo and Visser here aside from to say something along the lines of; "Minotti's work was based on prior work by Lobo and Visser[cite] who suggested that a reactionless drive might be possible using negative energy." I suggest it would be more worthwhile to look at who cited Minotti's paper. This can be done easily using google scholar: see here. However I will note that if you look through the page history, I was the one who argued strongly AGAINST a huge expansion of the vaccum plasma theory section (and removed a ton of material there). To accuse me of creating undue weight for an 'over publicized' vacuum plasma theory is laughable! And even if it wasn't, the guidelines are rather explicit in giving more weight to more widely publicized theories. Its not me who has a point of view to push here.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  11:22, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree on the formulation your propose about Visser's work, in this sense it is clear Minotti uses that prior work and not the opposite. Sorry for the "You" I used in a collective way and was not specifically directed towards you. I will think about a better wording explaining why the scalar-tensor theory implies negative energy for propellantless propulsion and how it is used to calculate RF resonant cavity thrust. — Tokamac (talk) 12:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd be wary about throwing words like "suppression" around....it is merely a refection of scientific ignorance and confirmation bias by other editors. In the words of Tolstoy:

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."

The article should strive to clarify that the familiar conservation laws (i.e conservation of momentum) as taught in school are simplified subset of equilibrium solutions to linear systems (The Noether's theorem being the broader more general theory applying to both linear and nonlinear systems. This is applied in quantum field theory via gauge symmetries). In familiar linear systems you can isolate variables that are independent of each other and find proportional relationships and measure error ect... i.e. they form analytic expressions. In general this cannot be done for nonlinear systems. This is variously termed as asymmetry, symmetry breaking or anisotropy. The more astute editors may point out that Newton’s third law holds for a the complete “particles-plus-environment” system (a closed system), and nonlinear symmetry breaking can only occur in open dissipative systems. This is correct. But a closed system does not describe the universe we live in. Energy is not conserved in our universe. The expansion of the universe guarantees it is a nonequilibrium system. The uncertainty principle gives rise to quantum fluctuations (note that quatum fluctuations are believed to be the cause of inflation in the universe and thus expansion), and by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, if something fluctuates it must dissipate energy, they are two sides of the same coin. Linear processes are the exception rather than the rule in nature. In the words of Stanislaw Ulam using the terms like "nonlinear science" is like "calling the bulk of zoology the study of non-elephants".

Making clear that conservation laws are not fundamental, and are only generally emergent in linear systems, does not constitute WP:FRINGE as it is not an "alternative theoretical formulation". It is a matter of objective material reality, not a subjective idea or theory. There is no reason to suggest that a lack of familiarity or consensus by most people means it is WP:FRINGE. The subjective notion that this is "an idea" that "might not be true" simply does not apply to objective material facts. Now...while it may be factually correct in the broad sense, are nonlinear laws classified as WP:ROC with respect to RF cavities? The issue is two-fold: Firstly, Newton's third law and conservation of momentum are already mentioned on page, with a clear insinuation that in their respective areas they constitute the total sum of reality, that the laws are fundamental and that exceptions do not exist. Claims by journalists (rather then professional scientists) as currently cited in the article that Newton's laws have never been "broken" or that such a thing is "impossible" are deeply misleading. If broad claims like this about conservation laws are WP:ROC (independant of specific claims that they apply to RF cavities) then a broad counter-claim is equally relevant. It should either clarify the general case as to what conservation laws are (as this is WP:ROC and in scope) or remove the sources making broad claims about broken/impossible laws that can never happen as they are not relevant. Secondly, while nonlinear laws exist, is it the linear law of momentum that applies specifically to the RF cavity i.e. are RF cavities open or closed systems? Note that all serious proposed theories posit it an open system interacting with the quantum vacuum or space-time ect... no serious proponent claims it is a closed system... something which is surely more then a minor possibility given the fact electromagnetic field itself is anisotropic:

The vacuum "plasma" theory which you have decided "does not exist" is merely a description of the fact that the electromagnetic field is anisotropic and not homogeneous within the (rather special) frustum geometry which has non analytic solutions. Anisotropic vacuums cause momentum asymmetries (i.e Feigel, Shen ect...) which allows the possibility of longitudinal electromagnetic fields (classically not found in free space but in substances like plasmas) and emission between two conducting plates, which is a problem of great interest due to the Casimir effect.

Implicit in the linear law F=MA is that a force always acts locally, when in fact, in the more general nonlinear gauge theory case you have nonlocal forces (i.e. Aharonov–Bohm effect) Trying to apply the ideas of Newtonian local forces and conservation laws to situations where gauge theories are more important is doomed to failure. At the moment the current consensus on this page seems to be "these theories explaining how an effect might occur are too complicated for the average reader to understand so lets delete it" The onus is on us to make it as simple as possible to explain and to find good secondary references (eg. another peer-reviewed papaer can count as a secondary reference if the reference is in the introduction section and not part of the new primary source claim) ...lastly the positive RF cavity result could be wrong. It probably is! It is widely agreed that the most likely reason for a positive result is experimental/measurement error. Further tests are needed to verify the positive result. This should be emphasized again and again and again in the article. But saying it is impossible is downright deceptive. We should stop deleting other explanations just because they are complex.--Sparkyscience (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I gathered all sources pertaining to spacetime distortion (with negative energy or not) into the section "Warp field", including the work of Dr White at Eagleworks and the work of Dr Minotti at CONICET. Indeed the section should cover all valid theoretical viewpoints and not only one. — Tokamac (talk) 19:21, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I copy edited the section in an attempt to make it more understandable as it was pretty hard to grasp for someone who is not a theoretical physicist. Please look it over and correct any errors I may have inadvertently made when attempting to clarify the section (as this sort of theoretical work is not my own area of expertise). I think that the section now is satisfactory, though it could use some coments by others on Minotti's work. Could someone use this list of papers that have cited Minotti's paper to look for comments they have made about his work that we can use as a critique (if available)? Again, not my area of expertise, and I am also rather too busy at the moment to read through them right now.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Indeed the astrophysicist Jean-Paul Mbelek has recently published a paper ("Evidence for Torque Caused by a Magnetic Impulse on a Nonmagnetic Torsion Pendulum") on an experiment in which he tested his version of the Brans-Dicke theory, based on a proposal Fernando Minotti made in a paper "Transient force effects, as predicted by Mbelek and Lachièze-Rey scalar tensor theory of gravitation" following the one cited in the EmDrive page, with positive results. But while all these papers are related, I am afraid citing the later work (which involves a torsion pendulum and not an asymmetric resonant cavity) would dilute the discourse. — Tokamac (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

If it doesn't have anything to do with the RF resonant cavity thruster, or his model, it probably shouldn't be included. However, if it has a critique of his theoretical model, and testing, it should probably be briefly mentioned along the lines of "X later tested his model experimentally using Y, with positive/negative/unclear results". we can be brief but still make mention without diluting the discourse I think, however, conciseness is key here.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  00:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Those papers are all about proving the underlying model of Lachièze & Ray about the Brans-Dicke theory, and not the thrust of EmDrive. In fact it is Minotti in his paper who suggested a way to experimentally test the validity of that scalar-tensor theory, which Lachièze did and published. So those papers do not belong to this article. — Tokamac (talk) 11:03, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Clarifying how this differs from other EM thrusters

@Sbyrnes321: you wrote earlier,

shining a laser out the window of your spacecraft produces thrust without "expelling mass". But it does use up energy. Then again, so does EmDrive. So if you don't add that the EmDrive's electrical power requirements per unit of thrust are supposed to be orders of magnitude better than directional radiation, then you haven't really explained why it would be useful. You do, after all, need to lift batteries to run the EmDrive just as a normal rocket needs to lift propellant.

This is worth including somehow in the article. – SJ + 05:23, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

It uses a voltage standing wave resonance to produce thrust. The same effect can occur in a microwave waveguide except that in an em drive intentionally creates and captures the standing wave and uses the heat generated to produce thrust. Insulus (talk) 21:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

New Peer-reviewed paper in AIP Advances claims to explain the exhaust of the Emdrive

A new peer-reviewed paper in AIP Advances claims to explain how this device works, in particular, it claims that the Emdrive does have an exhaust, in the form of 'paired photons', whatever that means. This is a little over my head, and I'm not sure how to incorporate it into the article, so I thought a discussion on the matter was warranted.

Sources:

Primary:

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/adva/6/6/10.1063/1.4953807

Secondary:

http://www.sciencealert.com/new-paper-claims-that-the-em-drive-doesn-t-defy-newton-s-3rd-law-after-all

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/emdrive-finnish-physicist-says-controversial-space-propulsion-device-does-have-exhaust-1565673

 InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:44, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Uh yeah, well. (a) the explanation with the double-slit is just nonsense, (b) what they propose would mean the EM drive is just a photon rocket. In other words, even if the authors would understand quantum mechanics, just attaching a light bulb to the end of the spacecraft would have the same effect (a thrust of at most 3N/GW) - but this time for real without misunderstood physics. --mfb (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't sound right to me, but in any case we should probably follow the sources. I'm wondering how we can best summarise the journal article and the secondary sources into 2-3 sentences to be added to the hypothesis section.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  13:01, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we've reached the "cold fusion" category where we're going to see occasional articles in low-quality peer-reviewed journals reporting a new dubious mechanism or a new type of unreproducible positive result, until the end of time. I'm not familiar with sciencealert.com, but ibtimes historically has a reputation for clickbait such as [1]. Let's wait to see if at least something like Wired or Popular Science, or better yet the mainstream press, pick up the story. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 00:18, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

This hypothesis has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal with good IF, and published also by popular press, so I do not see any reason whatsoever why this hypothesis should be deleted and all others left. There is no difference between the position of this hypothesis and all others. All of them have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals and subsequently debated in popular press. This is not up to Wikipedia users to decide which one is correct one and which one is not. You have no qualification for that, unless you published a rebuttal in a scientific peer-reviewed paper - but even then the hypothesis should not be deleted, but merely an information about rebuttal paper added. However no such rebuttal paper has been published in this case. So the information about that hypothesis, which I recently provided should not be removed. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 16:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Lol I find this pretty funny, as I forgot that *I* added the secondary sources here ages ago when I was busy and then forgot about them to the point of thinking there weren't any, then reverted you. Well caught and I apologize (though to be fair on my revert you only added the secondary sources the second time). The reason for the revert was WP:PRIMARY, though there are secondary sources, so you are correct that the section belongs.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Not sure why JzG reverted you after you had added the secondary source, however he may have thought that you had simply undone my revert with no other changes (as I thought at first glance last night, then saw your source addition and realized you were correct). JzG is a bit of a crusty old admin though, and fights a lot of vandals, so sometimes forgets to assume good faith.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:46, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, funny. But even more funny for me was to find out from you that allegedly articles published by journalists are more important here than peer-reviewed scientific papers. That is illogical considering that quality of such popular science articles vary a lot comparing to the original scientific paper, and they are never as detailed as the original scientific papers. I believe that this is some local 'aberrance' in English language Wikipedia, because in many other languages Wikipedias scientific papers are perfectly acceptable as source for Wikipedia articles and they are often preferred over secondary popular science articles. If it is the other way around here then it is defying common sense. How come that an article written by a journalist can be more important than peer-reviewed scientific paper? That is absurd! When I look up something regarding science in Wikipedia I want to have a link not only to popular science articles, but also to original scientific paper, because that is the most important, most relevant, and most reliable source of scientific information. I still can't believe that in English language Wikipedia the best source of information regarding science is deliberately omitted and considered worse than secondary sources, which are often really worse than the scientific paper: https://d.justpo.st/media/images/2013/08/0c729810e4e921d67bf898e0069f88b8.jpg
Anyway, thanks for the updating and adding this information. Ideally I would prefer to have added there also a link to the original scientific paper, so that people would have a choice of what they want to read more on that subject (either popular science articles or the scientific paper).
I did not add any links to popular science articles during my first edit, because I considered that a link to scientific paper is the most important and the most reliable source. There was no room in the edit summary to explain in more details in my next edit that I added a link to the secondary source, I managed only to squeeze an information that there is a secondary source and also anyone could see that the length (in bytes) of the added text has changed comparing to the original edit, so all that was pointing out that the required new information was added. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 20:14, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Musashi miyamoto The entire point of WP:PRIMARY is not to exclude primary sources, but that they require secondary sources in order to verify that the claims were not bogus or that they were noteworthy. A lot of stuff passes peer review that is not suitable for an encyclopedia, and secondary sources generally give us a clue to whether primary sources should be included per WP:WEIGHT. I'll note that we should also have a link to the primary source as well, so perhaps I created a misunderstanding with regards to that. In essence, primary alone is sometimes good enough, but for fringe articles like this they are generally not accepted alone, instead primary+secondary is prefered, preferably with multiple secondary sources. I do apologize for my mixup, as it is entirely my fault. This section previously existed and was removed by Rolf h nelson with a comment that there were no secondary sources, I mistakenly believed that his comment meant that rolf had searched for secondary sources and found none, rather than that he had reverted because there weren't any on the wiki. So I reverted you for the same reason (I should have searched for them myself to be sure and have learned a lesson here). Sorry for the long reply, but wanted to make it clear what happened on my end and that I don't blame you for being frustrated with the process, in future, please try to assume good faith from other editors, and also feel free to message me privately if a policy issue or another editor confuses you, or really for any reason (EN.WP is a nightmare of a bureaucracy, you are correct on that count).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The secondary news sources that I can find are sciencealert.com (not familiar with it), ibtimes (as I said, IMHO clickbaity), and daily mail (notorious tabloid). Since it still hasn't yet been picked up by anyone that IMHO bears significant WP:WEIGHT on the topic, I'm personally still opposed to inclusion. AIP Advances seems like a "rapid-publications" journal, but even if it weren't, the publication of a hypothesis in a legitimate peer-reviewed journal doesn't usually merit inclusion in Wikipedia until and unless it's gotten sufficient citations or news coverage. WP:FRINGE states "Points that are not discussed in independent sources should not be given any space in articles"; I interpret this in context as "(Fringe) points that are not discussed in (WP:WEIGHTy) independent sources should not be given any space in articles", although we can raise the issue on the Fringe page if you think I'm misinterpreting it. The question of whether, say, ibtimes carries WP:WEIGHT is certainly something which we can discuss further; I'm open to evidence that ibtimes is widely considered respectable, or we could just ask the RS noticeboard if it hasn't come up already. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not believe that WP:PRIMARY is meant to be used for scientific peer-reviewed journals, because no matter how many popular science articles would be written by journalists, that would not validate or refute scientific claims made in scientific papers, so secondary sources are usually irrelevant for scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals, particularly in journals having IF. They may have some weight only if scientific journal is not peer-reviewed, but that rarely happens. If a paper has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, particularly with IF, this makes it automatically, by definition, not bogus and noteworthy, because that is what peer-reviewing is for, of course peer-reviewers cannot detect good falsifications, but neither can journalists, so that is another matter altogether. So if a scientific paper was published in peer-reviewed journal, particularly having IF, then in my opinion it does not need any secondary source. And particularly when there is a chapter called Hypotheses. This hypothesis was published in a peer-reviewed journal with good IF. If this is to be removed then also all other hypotheses would have to be removed. Somehow users reverting our edits seem to forget that.
And JzG still has not understood what has been going on. :( BTW, he wrote on his talk page: "Everything I do or say could be wrong. I try always to be open to that possibility." It is a shame that it seemed that he did not remember it when he was editing my entries here.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Well I didn't write WP:PRIMARY and it deffinitley does apply to peer-reviewed science journals. Note that it doesn't say that we can't it just says that we should do it with care, and normally in most science articles, this means you are good to go. However, with fringe articles and fringe opinions the issue is that a single peer-reviewed paper with no secondary sources often doesn't have enough weight to be included only on its own merits. That is why editors watching fringe articles tend to want to see secondary sources in addition to a reputably published primary source. I hope this provides some clarity. InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:05, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY says "Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense". And that common sense is what is lacking in people who have been reverting our entries. I disagree that an article in a popular science magazine would give more weight to a scientific paper, unless you mean that it would show that according to journalist it is a subject of interest to general public, but in wikipedia are all kind of articles with all kind of information, not only interesting to general public, so I still do not see why there should be a secondary source for peer-reviewed journals. Secondary sources in popular press do not validate scientific claims, so editors should not look for them in order to add an entry in an article - it is pointless. Considering non scientific sources to validate or refute scientific claim is not an objective method. Links to secondary sources in popular science magazines should be added only to allow wikipedia user to be able to read about scientific discovery, invention, hypothesis or theory in an article written in simpler layman language, which is usually used in popular science magazines. WP:PRIMARY does not say that there has to be a secondary source, and yet editors blindly revert edits, as if there was a rule saying that there has to be a secondary source - that is simply wrong and abusive, as no 'good editorial judgment and common sense' is used. If there is a chapter called hypotheses then all hypotheses should be included, if they were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, regardless of existence or not of secondary sources.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 02:29, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you have said, though I suggest that you read WP:UNDUE as it is largely the piece of the puzzle that you are missing when it comes to how this issue applies to fringe articles like this one. On the whole I would say that the ideal process you have described above *is* how peer-reviewed primary sources are treated outside of fringe articles. Fringe articles require that primary sources are not undue weight, which pretty much necessitates secondary sources to demonstrate this. This situation of treating fringe articles differently took me a while to understand as well, but it is very helpful for building balanced articles, especially in contentious topics.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  03:13, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

But then no hypotheses could be included in this article, because all of those hypotheses have been published only in one scientific journal or even if in two or more then by the same authors, so there are no scientific secondary sources for each of these hypotheses, thus if we wanted to follow your aforementioned rule then there would be no scientific hypotheses included in wikipedia in this article, and I believe that would be wrong, hence that requirement of secondary source for scientific papers is also wrong, no matter fringe or not. Fringe is rather a derogatory term, because many people consider it incorectly equal to pseudoscience. This is not an objective term, it can be applied arbitraly, therefore it should be avoided. There is nothing fringe/pseudoscientific in a new invention, which apparently works for many groups that replicated it - the only thing that is left to do is either to find errors, which make it seem that it works or if it really works explain using scientific methods why it works and then test a new theory by experiments. WP:Fringe_theories says "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available". Please note that this article in not about a new theory, but about a new invention, so all those scientific papers about hypotheses how it works should not be treated the same way as papers about a new fringe theory entered as a separate article in wikipedia. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 13:25, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know how you are deriving any of that from what I said. If you are not going to read and take in what I am saying, I am not going to try to convince you any more. You can continue to torture the argument till the cows come home but it wont stop this article from being a Fringe topic.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not know how much clearer I could be. My main points are: if we were to include only hypotheses, which have secondary scientific papers published about them then none of the hypotheses already published in this article could be included, because none of them have independent secondary papers. Apparently you all here try to circumvent this 'inconvenience' by considering popular press articles about the original scientific papers to be the secondary source. But as already discussed above this is not a scientific secondary source therefore it is irrellevant, as far as validity of scientific claim is concerned. So what you all here are doing in such cases is not sensible, because it is not compatible with the WP:PRIMARY rule saying "Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense".Musashi miyamoto (talk) 22:02, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

What we 'are all doing here' is totally sensible and I've explained it in great detail above. Secondary sources in 'popular press' don't need to be 'scientific sources', they are there to demonstrate that the material is not undue weight, not to add to the 'validity of the claim'. THIS is the point you are missing and the only one I have been arguing. Primary, reputable and peer-reviewed articles are of course reliable sources, no one is arguing to the contrary. However, sometimes even reliable sources like these can have insufficient weight for inclusion (generally in cases where no one anywhere has mentioned the sources in other reliable sources, in the popular press or in other peer-reviewed journal articles). If we do not follow WP:WEIGHT many wikipedia articles would simply become gigantic unwieldy lists of peer-reviewed articles, with the highest profile theories/sources lost amongst a bunch of chaff that no one ever cared enough about to report in a secondary source. THEREFORE, if there is significant secondary coverage of a source it indicates that that source has enough weight to be included, if it doesn't, it usually indicates that it does not have enough weight for inclusion, which would be up to editorial oversight. But EVERYTHING is up to editorial oversight, we don't just follow rules blindly. That being said, WP:PRIMARY and WP:WEIGHT are pretty solid policies. Remember that we are writing an encyclopedia, not a review article in a scientific journal. In any case there isn't any point in discussing this further as it does not apply to this particular source, nor does it apply in the way you have implied to the remainder of the article. If you have any suggested additions or changes, by all means, continue. This talk page is not really the place to argue the nuance of policy, however, if you like you may continue this conversation by starting a new section on my talk page.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  15:45, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT talks about views of minorities, but there are no minorities here, all hypotheses regarding this invention are equal, none dominates the other, so each and every one published about this invention in primary source being peer-reviewed scientific journal should be included here regardless of whether it was published also in popular press or not. In my opinion the rule of "good editorial judgment and common sense" from WP:PRIMARY supersedes WP:WEIGHT rules. Unlike paper encyclopedia Wikipedia is not limited by number of characters in each article, so I believe that there is a place even for several dozens of hypotheses that could be mentioned in this wikipedia article, particularly that they are divided by chapters, so they are nicely divided, and easy to follow. Only if there would be hundreds or thousands of hypotheses then it would be common sense to include only more popular ones and not all of them. However, I already said above that "in wikipedia are all kind of articles with all kind of information, not only interesting to general public", then such subjects would not be discussed in popular press, and then it would be common sense to include information from peer-reviewed journals regardless of lack of interest by journalists from popular press.
They did follow the rule blindly, because they did not stop to think according to the "good editorial judgment and common sense" rule, that there are only a few hypotheses regarding how this invention works, and all of them are equal, so there is no need for secondary source in popular press, primary source in peer-reviewed scientific journal is enough to include next hypothesis in case of this Wikipedia article, because there are just so few of them regarding this invention in peer-reviewed scientific journals (there are more hypotheses on various forums, but I do not want to include them, because they are not as good source as peer-reviewed scientific journals). They also did not check out themselves that there are actually secondary sources in popular press regarding this Finnish hypothesis (and also that funny case of yours when you yourself already had them before...). I on purpose did not add secondary sources from popular press when making my edit, because I noticed that editor in another language wikipedia removed in one case all of the secondary sources (links to popular press articles) and left only the primary source (peer-reviewed scientific journal) saying that that would be enough, that there is no need to junk wikipedia with too many links. So now go figure. It is weird that there are so different rules followed in different wikipedias. One can go crazy finding out that those rules can be so contadictory or upside down between wikipedias. It makes editing much harder if you have to follow different rules in different wikipedias.
I made this input here, and not on your talk page, because I have been talking more about this article now, than in general.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 23:17, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

The hypotheses are not equal though, as they have all seen different levels of scrutiny, coverage in the press etc. This is what WP:WEIGHT is all about. The different language wikipedias work completely independently from each other, and each has evolved different rules, policies and structures to fix issues as they have arisen. I think that en.wikipedia policy is the way it is because the onslaught of vandalism and POV-pushing that strikes the english wikipedia is much higher than other wikis and policy has evolved to be tough against POV pushers. I myself was topic-banned from cold fusion for a year soon after arriving here for bringing up similar issues to the ones you are discussing (as well as an ill-fated trip to ANI). It takes a while of watching others attempt to push POV before you realize that the WP:WEIGHT WP:FRINGE and WP:POV policies are designed to protect the sanity of wiki 'regulars'. Some articles get caught in a grey zone and end up with issues like the one above, but if everyone can keep a cool head it is easily dealt with using common sense. For what it is worth I agree that there was a lot of overreacting and hastiness in the reversions that happened regarding the photon section.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

They are equal enough in a sense that they all have been published in peer-reviewed journals with IF, and all have been discussed by popular science journalists. Except the recently added 'Dark matter' hypothesis, which seems to be invented by a journalist without any publication in a scientific peer-reviewed journal. So if anyone wants to challege inclusion of any of the hypotheses included in this article then it is this one, which should be challenged and probably removed. Where are those editors eagerly reversing inputs now? What did happen that they allow a hypothesis without a scientific paper to be included in a wikipedia article?
Nothing what you wrote further contradcits what I wrote earlied, so I end here.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 13:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll be honest and say that I didn't notice the dark matter section get added while all the other crazy stuff was happening with the NASA paper being published and the cavalcade of edits that hit the page. However, I'll note that Ethan Siegel is an astrlophysicist, and so is a reliable source for this sort of thing. Most interestingly about this article by him is that Seigel has been a very outspoken critic of the emdrive multiple times in the past, and is mentioned many times in our article due to his tendency to release critical analyses of other people's work. He seems to have published this in a few different places [2], and it has had a limited amount of coverage by secondary sources [3]. It does bear a striking similarity to the ADMX rf cavity experiments searching for axons [4]. This might just be the time to exercise that editorial oversight you were talking about. Still, coverage is limited, so it might be too soon for this theory. I'll leave it up to others to decide.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It has been added after I added my input about Finnish researchers, so the number of edits was quite low. It is certainly not equal to other hypotheses, because it did not pass peer-review in a scientific journal. If we were to include his hypothesis just because he is atrophysicist, then we should include also other hypotheses written by other physicists all over internet in popular press, magazines, blogs and forums. If however we were consequent and follow the rules you presented above earlier then this has to be deleted. If and when he publishes his hypothesis in a peer-reviewed journal then it will become notable enough and equal to other hypotheses to be included in wikipedia. You all thought that it was good enough reason to remove my entry about Finnish scientists hypothesis, because it was published allegedly only in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and now the same people think that it is OK to leave an entry, which was published only in popular press, and not a scientific peer-revied journal. That shows what I was talking about here from the begining, that you, as can be very clearly seen on this example, for some inexplicable reason consider articles in popular press more important than scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. Can't you see that this is nuts, because it should be the other way around, as in fact the WP:Fringe_theories rules confirm: "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources"?Musashi miyamoto (talk) 23:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I represented the facts and said that I would leave it up to others (which includes you). However, I have removed the section as you seem to object so much. Please mate, I think you need to go read WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH. I'm rather sick of your battleground attitude and won't be responding to further posts here.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I also represented the facts. Representing the facts and interpreting them is not battleground attitude.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 01:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

• IBT is not a reliable source for scientific claims. This is rather obvious. There are no corroborating scientific sources for this claim. Guy (Help!) 22:57, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

JzG This is true, luckily they ARE NOT the source for the scientific claims here, they are rather reporting the scientific claims of a peer reviewed paper, they merely back up that the subject is weighty enough. Moreover, IBT is a reliable source, and has editorial oversight, and there is also a link to sciencealert.com (though this one was not there when you made your reverts). However I would be remiss not to remind you to please not bite the newbies.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Note I will expand the references to include authors dates etc when I get a chance, a bit busy just now.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:25, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I just did it, but I admit I didn't see the whole talk here before, because quickly searching for the paper title "On the exhaust of electromagnetic drive" returned nothin, so the paper reference was not even mentioned in the discussion… BTW there are more websites reporting the paper now but I don't see the point of adding more references over and over for such a "classical" hypothesis just because one person doesn't like this or that website. — Tokamac (talk) 21:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Why we bother citing the popular press

"Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources". Correct! The many textbooks and high-profile papers stating or implying that momentum is conserved are indeed quite reliable. That said, the purposes here of citing the popular press can include:

1. To allay any WP:SYNTH concerns: The popular press can provide evidence that conservation of momentum applies in an important way to the emdrive, since obviously the textbooks don't bother to say "when we say always, this obviously even includes the emdrive".

2. Many wild theories are proposed in low-visibility peer-reviewed journals; if they do not become a significant part of mainstream scientific discourse, they do not merit inclusion on a scientific basis. However, Wikipedia is not only about science; it can also report on scientifically dubious views that are prominent, as long as it does not incorrectly assign them undue scientific merit. Popular press articles can provide evidence that a view is prominent, or is part of wide non-scientific discourse. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

As an aside, some people may disagree with the current content of the WP:FRINGE guidelines. That's understandable! But if so, the proper way to resolve that would be to propose changes to WP:FRINGE in the appropriate venue, rather than try to bend the rules on the page. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Still, none of this explains why you unilaterally removed the section under discussion here, citing the need to get consensus before inclusion. A huge discussion has been undertaken here regarding that section, and consensus seems to have formed that the material merits inclusion. I really don't understand why you decided that removal and more talk was the right option here. If you believe the material does not merit inclusion, perhaps you should say so here, as the points you have raised above don't really apply as we DO have reliable secondary sources reporting on this.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:00, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

You posted on 17 June that you wanted to include it; I've been stating since 19 June that the secondary sources aren't strong enough to merit inclusion. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 23:47, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Have you noticed what Tokamac wrote above: "BTW there are more websites reporting the paper now but I don't see the point of adding more references over and over for such a "classical" hypothesis just because one person doesn't like this or that website". Besides I do not think that anyone here disagrees with the current content of the WP:FRINGE guidelines, but some people interpret those and some other rules incorrectly. Tokamac rightly said in another thread, that "I agree secondary sources is a good thing, but you won't have them if you doesn't let a chance for a peer-review paper (not some crackpot idea on a personal blog, a PEER-REVIEWED work) which is well-written, to be presented as a HYPOTHESIS and carefully claim as so. I agree we must prevent unreliable ideas to be present on wikipedias as the truth, but this is not the case here."Musashi miyamoto (talk) 00:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Please provide evidence that the given secondary sources carry WP:WEIGHT, or we can ask the WP:RS noticeboard if you prefer. If another website is reporting on it that carries WP:WEIGHT, feel free to provide it, or provide a policy reason why WP:WEIGHT is suddenly not required for inclusion. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 00:31, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Please provide evidence that they don't carry weight. Pretty much impossible to prove a positive but pretty easy to prove a negative if its true. These sources seem to be reliable sources with editorial oversight, why would you not think they have weight? If you are insisting it be taken to RS noticeboard, I'd suggest that you take it there yourself, as everyone else agrees that they are fine (with the exception of JzG who also objected to Ibtimes, but did not respond to my critique of his opinion). Tokamac says there are others reporting this, include them in this discussion please so we can put this to rest (not that they are necessary).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  00:41, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Huh? You have it backwards; how can I show that an obscure website doesn't carry weight? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

You can find more secondary sources easily on google, you have several significant ones to choose from. They are the same secondary sources as per other hypotheses. Why secondary sources are not required for inclusion in this case I have already explained extensively several days ago above, so it would be pointless if I repeated myself here again. I only note shortly that it is not that easy to find papers on this subject, because different authors/editors use different keywords. For example I did not know about Minotti's paper published already in 2013 until Tokamac added it here. So it would be helpful not only to general public, but also to research scientists, to include in this Wikipedia article all hypotheses (which are just a few, as of now) published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, so that they could find them easily and work on them (either disproving hypothesis and publishing a rebuttal paper or continuing the work on hypothesis to prove hypothesis to be valid and also to publish a paper about that). That is what Wikipedia is for to help people find reliable information, and the most reliable source as per WP:FRINGE guidelines are peer-reviewed scientific papers and not journalists articles.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 01:05, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

WP is not a list of research topics. Any scientist seriously interested in this will find the papers. WP is an encyclopedia, therefore is written for everyone, not just research scientists. Only if the primary and secondary sources line up should we include a hypothesis, this is fringe and WP:WEIGHT is required, policy is clear and I am still in disagreement with you here. I dissagree with Rolf as I think it is clear that these sources (and other easily findable ones) clearly demonstrate weight.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

As an additional reason for why Wikipedia policy is what it is: I've read the paper just now, and it sounds to me like utter nonsense. "We infer that the EM drive expels photons in pairs where the two co-propagate with 180 degree phase difference. These composite bosons have no net electromagnetic field, and hence they do not reflect back from the resonator’s metal walls, but escape to surroundings." Um, no, for many many reasons. If the cited sources had bothered to talk to an independent physicist (like a real journalist would've), I think the physicist would've said "reading this paper was a waste of my precious time on Earth". That's probably the reason why you can't find any good secondary sources on this. Thus, this is why we have the policies we do. Of course maybe I'm wrong; . Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

The peer-reviewers (presumably physicists) who reviewed the article obviously didn't think it was 'utter nonsense', or else they would not have approved it. Your personal opinion of the validity of the paper's theoretical musings is very unimportant to establishing WP:WEIGHT and WP:RS. Rather this seems to be a case of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT, which is not a reason for the deletion of the section. Specifically why, what policies, is the section in clear violation of?  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:51, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

It can be said about all or most of the hypotheses presented here (except perhaps measurements errors). So why would you challenge this one and not the other ones? I have to repeat myself again: "There is no difference between the position of this hypothesis and all the others. All of them have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals and subsequently debated in popular press. This is not up to Wikipedia users to decide which one is correct one and which one is not. You have no qualification for that, unless you published a rebuttal in a scientific peer-reviewed paper - but even then the hypothesis should not be deleted, but merely an information about rebuttal paper added. However, no such rebuttal paper has been published in this case." So there are no reasons to remove this hypothesis - if you remove this hypothesis then all the others would have to be removed as well. They are all equal in a sense that they all have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals with decent IFs, and all have been published in secondary sources.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I added more secondary sources to the section and a comparison with the maximum thrust efficiency of a photon rocket. — Tokamac (talk) 13:36, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I also added one. I believe the consensus has been reached again that it stays as it is.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 13:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! I also expanded the section with another very critic source which nevertheless rightly raises the problem of the extremely low thrust efficiency of photon rockets, and the Finnish scientists alternate view about the variable photon energy and the associated thrust-to-power ratio it could achieve, as well as why the cavity walls are transparent for photon pairs. Their model is in fact very similar to White's QVF conjecture, and not at all "classical physics" as previously advertised in the title! As the presentation is now more balanced, the warning banner can be removed. — Tokamac (talk) 16:37, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Thank you. Well done.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 20:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Scientific consensus is against EmDrive

This edit [5] IMHO puts the tone of the article over the line toward being problematic, so I added an NPOV tag pending resolution. What further evidence is Sparkyscience looking for that the emdrive is believed to violate our current understanding of fundamental and well-established physical laws? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 23:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Additional sources:

• "most scientists were, and still are, extremely skeptical. There's no theoretical explanation for how such an engine might work, and not all the possible sources of experimental error have been eliminated." [6]
• experiments that seem to violate fundamental physics "are almost always wrong in the end," astrophysicist Brian Koberlein writes [7]

I also solicited the noticeboard [8] for additional eyes. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 00:19, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Why did you say that it is a perpetual motion machine on the Fringe noticeboard? It is a propellentless drive, claimed by some to be reactionless, which in no way implies perpetual motion. I suggest you fix that ASAP, as it seems to be a POV fueled attempt at forum-shopping.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  00:51, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Reactionless drive is thermodynamically equivalent to perpetual motion, but I changed it to reactionless. Propellentless drives are noncontroversial. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:15, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

May I add that the only hypothesis which makes the EmDrive a "closed system" is Shawyer's radiation pressure theory (I just re-added a warning notice about this fact in the dedicated section, but without Greg Egan's reference that has been claimed to be refuted*). ALL other hypotheses rely on the EmDrive being an open system. The definition is fairly simple: if the EmDrive thrust is due to an interaction with something outside of the cavity, it is an open system, and momentum can be conserved. Period. So in every case but Shawyer's, the EmDrive is indeed propellantless, but not reactionless, as there is a reaction with something. Finally, a note about a true reactionless drive that would be based on an artificially generated gravitational potential: it would not "break the laws of physics", yet it would move. Think about that.

In this regard, the section "True reactionless drive" is very weak. Even the dedicated article Reactionless drive is very poor: "quasi-reactionless methods", really? It exchanges the equivalent momentum, or it does not. There are no in-between. The examples of "quasi-reactionless methods" are cheap ones, they are simply examples of action-reaction at a larger scale, with massive bodies. Actually, there is no reactionless drive at all, except the Alcubierre drive, which does not "break the laws of physics".

* See this revision: can Sparkyscience point to the peer-reviewed explanation? — Tokamac (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

On topic: be more clear about the 'edit war' I think you are correct, that most scientists are extremely skeptical. I also don't see recent edits where anyone is trying to change this view. Sparkyscience recently suggested a change from 'violating the laws of physics' to a more specific version like 'violating the laws of classical mechanics', 'violating newtons third law', or 'violating conservation of momentum'. I think that this is also correct, as it is much more specific and leads to inter-article links that will help readers find more information on the specific laws violated. I would not agree with removing the statement from the lede entirely. He also pointed out that most serious scientific explanations that have been put forward posit that the drive is not a closed system (therefore don't claim violation of said law), this is also true, but these explanations are generally dependent upon non-mainstream physics theories to explain why it is an open system. We should probably say something about this in the lede, but it doesn't really change the tilt of the article.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:03, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

The edit I linked to at the top changes the well-sourced and accurate "most/many" to "many/some" for "think it's impossible/classify it as pseudoscience". Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:14, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay let me elaborate my position a little bit here: I am in favour that this article should stress, in the lede, that it is widely regarded that the most likely cause of a positive result is experimental error. I am also in favour of stating that many scientists believe such a device is impossible, and devices have been associated with pseudoscience. I am not in favour of stating most scientists believe such a device is impossible, for several reasons:

• the claim in the Washington Post that "most" scientists believe it to be impossible is subjective and unsubstantiated, no survey of scientists has been conducted (to my knowledge) and probably never will be...I'm pretty sure most scientists have never even heard of the EMDrive nor care about it... I've no doubt that many scientists feel it is impossible - so on the whole this phrasing is more accurate and would have the consensus of more editors.

Washington Post and others provide sufficient WP:RS for this unremarkable claim. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• it implies that consensus is key to the way science works; it is not. Consensus does not give weight to an argument in science - only experimental evidence does that. Experimental results trump any belief a scientist may hold, in fact experimental evidence that passes peer review, with low experimental error and is replicated independently several times, trumps the belief of all scientists, whatever these views may be. If the results do not fit the consensus theory or idea, the ideas need to change. . Not changing your ideas on the basis of experiment is called ideology not science. The lede must assign more weight to experimental evidence then subjective theory. But it should highlight that currently experimental evidence has not been able to eliminate all sources of error...

Doesn't matter what it implies to you. The scientific consensus is an important thing to report on. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• When people say "impossible" what they really mean is that is being prohibited by a mathematical model which may or may not reflect reality. We do not know if the model reflects reality until we test it.

It has been tested many many many many many times. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• As I have stressed before, conservation laws are not fundamental, they are emergent laws that give equilibrium solutions to linear systems (The Noether's theorem being the broader more general theory applying to both linear and nonlinear systems. This is applied in quantum field theory via gauge symmetries). Broken symmetries can occur in open systems. The reason that people believe the EMDrive to be impossible in theory is because of the assumption that the EMDrive is a closed system. Yet all theories that argue in favour of a propellantless propulsion say that it is in fact an open system, none argue that it is a closed system AND breaks the conservation law. Whether the EMDrive is an open or closed system is an open debate - this should be the heart of the article! I would highlight that if the Abraham–Minkowski controversy shows anything, it is that a sharp distinction or definition between physical fields and matter cannot be made in principle, they interact with each other constantly (i.e you cannot have a closed system isolated from the surrounding field even in principle). Momentum transfer from the fields to matter does exist i.e Casimir effect, and the very expansion of the universe violates the conservation of energy. It's very very misleading to claim that conservation laws are fundamental laws that reflect the whole of realty, and that exceptions are impossible. Exceptions happen all the time.--Sparkyscience (talk) 01:20, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

No, fringe theories include that It Just Works Somehow, that it transfers to the quantum vacuum, or that inertia is quantized so momentum isn't conserved, even in asymptotically flat spacetime. None of these are consistent with experiment or theory, and none of these use an explicit Open System argument. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this just isn't true. NASA are not saying "it just works" The electromagnetic field in a conical cavity is unusual - the geometry prevents the EM fields from relaxing homogeneously, The EM field is anisotropic. Note that usually EM fields are regarded as homogenous in free space, but anisotropic vacuums can give rise to Casimir-like effects. Casimir effects are associated with momentum transfer from the vacuum. NASA's White has mentioned the Casimir effect in numerous papers in seeking to justify a theoretical basis for the device's purported thrust Is the Casimir effect and related vacuum energy effects subject conservation "laws"? And then, of course, there is all the latest scientific evidence showing that you can "break" the classical laws of thermodynamics using the energy of the vacuum (not the nonlinear laws though) the underlying idea is of using vacuum energy to produce momentum is sound, and that is exactly what NASA are trying to do. Whether they have succeeded or not is open to debate...they probably haven't... Sparkyscience (talk) 13:06, 11 December 2016

I would agree that we should follow the sources rather than try to interpret it ourselves, but two of the most high profile sources (Washington Post and National Geographic) use different wording, so that leads us to an open debate. WP uses 'most' while Nat Geo uses 'many'. As a scientific publication, I would lean more toward Nat Geo as a more reliable source in this case. However, I think that 'many' is a better word than 'most' for another reason: it is less loaded and more vague. Most implies 'more than 50%' which is not established anywhere (though is probably true), many can include more than 50% or be any significantly large number up to or over this number. Seems better to be vague where emotions are running high when we don't have any hard data on the issue.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

In an article as contentious as this, It is essential that the WP:LEAD is WP:NPOV. I think this is best done by merely stating objective facts that are independent of any subjective opinion. Any source that offers a subjective opinion doesn't belong here - it belongs in the body of the text. The statement "most scientists were, and still are, extremely skeptical." when you look at it objectively, is a primary source of original research reflecting the journalists opinion. It attempts to quantify scientific opinion - but lets face it - she's only quantified it with her own opinion or guess. She's offered no evidence otherwise that she is reflecting some survey or she's phoned a bunch of scientists (looks like she hasn't contacted anyone for the piece - just regurgitating comments made in other news articles). It may well be correct. But we just can't verify it. --Sparkyscience (talk) 02:47, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

A journalist's job is to collect available information and regurgitate it in a form that is understandable. Any attempt to remove any source that has a particular point of view is doomed to failure, and is not representative of WP policy. Rather, we strive to represent each side of any debate fairly, distributing talk time based on WP:WEIGHT. Its not perfect, but no solution is. In this case I think that 'many' is a better choice as it is not POV one way or the other.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  02:52, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

The arguments of Insertcleverphrasehere are convincing here. 'Many' is a better choice than 'most'.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 14:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Is the Washington Post really a reliable source in any way compared to National Geographic? Most of this discussion seems to be WP:FORUM debate about the topic. I can understand why there is a reaction against this article, but in this case it seems to be POV-pushing. —DIY Editor (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Both are reliable; they don't contradict each other. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

As I said previously, Nat Geo is the better source IMO. I changed the sentence in question in the lede to remove 'some' as this is not supported by the Nat Geo source. Hopefully this fully resolves this issue (I removed the NPOV tag as it seems there is consensus that 'many' is the correct wording, there was no consensus for 'some' nor any backing in sources).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:26, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm putting the tag back in until we reach consensus on the lede. I think it's being too polite, but the NatGeo article is OK to use as a guide for tone: "Scientists just published a paper saying that the controversial EmDrive produces thrust, even though that defies known laws of physics." "Previous reports about the engine have been met with heaping doses of skepticism, with many physicists relegating the EmDrive to the world of pseudoscience." If the intro calls out that it defines known laws of physics, that the engine has been met with great skepticism from the scientific community, and that many physicists consider in pseudoscience, that would sound like a reasonable compromise to me. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

The lede now mentions the device is controversial in the first sentence. Specific criticism of it breaking the conservation laws and newtons third law are already addressed, there is no need to broaden this to a more general statement about the "laws of physics" given the numerous well documented "violations" I have already mentioned in this talk page - e.g. can you explain if you think the Casimir effect violates conservation laws? Pseudoscience is also already mentioned (personally if its in a reasonable peer reviewed journal this most definitely is not pseudoscience as science is a method of testing not a set of facts... I already think this is pushing it a bit too far already) Subjectively stating the scientific "community" are skeptical, an unverifiable statement, should be given less weight then objective facts. i.e. a NASA experiment has peer review and the Chinese space agency held a press conference saying they have verified the technology in space. I do think the theory section needs more debate, and that the NPOV tag is best placed there--Sparkyscience (talk) 17:16, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not believe any NPOV tag is needed. Rolf H Nelson mostly ignores what has been said here in the last two weeks, therefore I do not think we should start again the same discussion, because we will be going in circles wasting our time. We have to be objective. Single mistakes of whatever journal cannot disqualify them, as all journals make them from time to time. We have already established that all those journals (scientific and popular) cited in this article are usually reliable, so can we please already stop discussing this issue over and over again? And again it is not our job here to assess scientific validity of the hypotheses. We cannot and should not do that, as already explained in more details elsewhere here.Musashi miyamoto (talk) 04:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@Sparkyscience "Subjectively stating the scientific "community" are skeptical, an unverifiable statement, should be given less weight then objective facts." OK, "the emdrive doesn't work" is an objective fact, but you don't accept that, so to be polite on WP:FRINGE topics we often go with the more subjective statement that the scientific community is skeptical. Your stance seems incompatible with WP:FRINGELEVEL guildlines, which states that "Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community." Feel free to lobby the WP:FRINGE page to change its policy with your idiosyncratic arguments. As for this page, let me propose a different compromise to maybe satisfy any subjectivity concern: what if we say, unattributed, the more objective fact that "experiments that seem to violate fundamental physics are almost always wrong in the end" and cite [9]. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 19:35, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't seem appropriate for the voice of the editor to state that something is "almost always wrong in the end" but that might work as a quote. I think the lede already reads the way it should: that this is a controversial topic, that it appears to violate the known laws of physics, that many scientists believe it impossible, and that they label it pseudoscience. —DIY Editor (talk) 19:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the "voice of the editor" is a concern, but just having it as an attributed quote might be too weak. The current lede doesn't get that across that the scientific community is skeptical; the "many physicists believe such thrusters to be impossible" part is weaker than saying the general community is skeptical. I could accept an unattributed quote, since the lack of attribution would communicate that it's representative of mainstream thought; something like: 'Many physicists believe such thrusters to be impossible, labeling them as "pseudoscience": "Experiments that seem to violate fundamental physics are almost always wrong in the end". Rolf H Nelson (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

If the scientific community as a whole is skeptical it should be trivial to find citations for such a statement and to write something without plagia... using text verbatim. —DIY Editor (talk) 01:18, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"most scientists were, and still are, extremely skeptical." --Washington Post ([10]) There you go. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:06, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Rolf H Nelson Sure... and National Geographic says 'many' are skeptical. Nat Geo is a better source for a science article. We have been through this to death above haven't we? Know when to give up, the majority won't always agree with you, even if you argue ad nauseam. You clearly have a POV to push here, try to exercise some self control. I realise that you don't like that the mainstream media keeps being overly positive about these tests, but thats what the sources are, for better or worse.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm still baffled what point you're making wrt NatGeo vs WP. Both are WP:RS, both are in this case accurate, and neither contradicts the other. It's like if you saw a article that the Earth were at least four billion years old, and another that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and concluded that the former statement makes the latter incorrect. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Rolf H Nelson That statement could fill in a role in the wizard of OZ. I clearly stated above that there is a major difference between the two sources (many vs most) which is the exact point you are arguing. Your statement here is so ludicrously disingenuous that I don't think I can take you seriously any more. Take it to DR, but if you continue to edit war I will report you to the edit warring noticeboard.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Rolf H Nelson "the emdrive doesn't work" is a testable objective statement (not fact) that is at odds with NASA's peer reviewed paper and the Chinese space agency announcement. While it may be correct, it is clearly not objective fact, it is an opinion. "Most scientists" is an untestable, unverifiable statement other editors disagree with. The lede already includes words like "purported" in clear violation of MOS:ACCUSED and WP:LEADPARAGRAPH in order to try and appease your viewpoint. It goes far enough in balancing the arguments. It should be self evident looking at the talk page that not everybody agrees with your POV, but nonetheless your view has already been taken into consideration with the correct moderation, by clearly stating that many scientists believe it to be impossible and classify it as pseudoscience. Attributed quotes stating that the majority of the scientific community believe such devices as impossible belong in the body not the lede. The lede should be objective and not portray opinions as facts. The other editors are under no obligation to accept your demands for a false compromise that you offer on your own terms to remove the NPOV tag. Continuing to hold the page hostage until you "win" just betrays the fact you are wedded to own ideas. Accusing the other editors of being disruptive while deleting whole sections indiscriminately is clearly hypocritical and unhelpful. You also consistently seem uninterested in addressing or giving specific criticism to the proposed underlying scientific theory by which the device works: Let me ask again - where does the energy of the Casimir effect come from? and is it possible in principle to transfer momentum from the electromagnetic field to matter and under what constraints?--Sparkyscience (talk) 15:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)