Issue |
EPL
Volume 111, Number 6, September 2015
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 60005 | |
Number of page(s) | 4 | |
Section | General | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/111/60005 | |
Published online | 02 October 2015 |
Testing quantised inertia on the emdrive
SMSE, Plymouth University - Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK
(a) mike.mcculloch@plymouth.ac.uk
Received: 8 June 2015
Accepted: 14 September 2015
It has been shown that truncated cone-shaped cavities with microwaves resonating within them move slightly towards their narrow ends (the emdrive). Standard physics has no explanation for this and an error has not yet been found. It is shown here that this effect can be predicted by assuming that the inertial mass of the photons in the cavity is caused by Unruh radiation, whose wavelengths must fit exactly within the cavity, using a theory already applied successfully to astrophysical anomalies such as galaxy rotation where the Unruh waves have to fit within the Hubble scale. In the emdrive this means that more Unruh waves are allowed at the wide end, leading to a greater inertial mass for the photons there, and to conserve momentum the cavity must move towards its narrow end, as observed. The model predicts thrusts of 3.8, 149, 7.3, 0.23, 0.57, 0.11, 0.64 and 0.02 mN compared with the observed thrusts of 16, 147, 9, 0.09, 0.05, 0.06, 0.03 and 0.02 mN and predicts that if the axial length is equal to the diameter of the small end of the cavity, the thrust should be reversed.
PACS: 03.70.+k – Theory of quantized fields / 45.20.df – Momentum conservation
© EPLA, 2015
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