Propulsion From Nothing Probably Nothing

You may have heard recently about how researchers have found a way to move an object without exerting any actual force on it.  The experiment was simple.  Place a radio transmitter inside a specially designed container, play the radio, and the container moves, breaking some very important laws of nature.  Why is this such a big deal?  You might think it's because photons have no mass, but that's not it.  If that was the case, solar sails wouldn't work, but they do.  The problem is that the radio waves are not reacting against anything.  The transmitter is inside the container, and the waves are pushing against all sides.  There is no reaction.  Newton's third law is not being satisfied.  The container is moving forward, but nothing is moving backwards.

This all sounds like fantastic news.  But science, especially science at the cutting edge, can be thrown by the simplest things.  A couple years back, people were going crazy about neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light.  It was even discussed in one of my English classes back in college, and not the science fiction one either.  People were talking about how it changed everything, but I was never convinced.  I knew there was no way that research was correct, I knew that they had made some error in calculation, or their observation was off slightly, I knew that the physics just weren't there.  And guess what?  They weren't.  I don't remember what it was exactly that they did wrong, but a few months later the scientists retracted their claim, and everything was right with the world.

Obviously, I'm not a physicist, I'm not even a scientist.  But I will say this with certainty.  There is no way the experiment is correct.  Something went wrong somewhere.  Just like last time, I wish they would be true.  I wished neutrinos moved faster than light, I wish radio waves propelled in all directions inside a fancy can could move the can, but it just won't happen.  A claim like this requires some impressive evidence to back it up, and so far, it just isn't there.  It may take months, maybe even years, but there will be another explanation.  Just watch.

Not Going Away and Random Thoughts

Well, posting every day hasn't happened so far.  Still, I'm settling into the work routine, so hopefully I can find some time to post more often.  Definitely don't want this blog to disappear, so I will definitely still be updating it.  Now, the title promised some random thoughts...

Maybe it's because I just started working at a medical newspaper, but why isn't the Ebola thing a bigger deal?  How many times have we gotten all worked up about some sort of silly flu epidemic that turns out to be nothing, but this has been going under the radar?  Sure, it's getting some attention now that Americans have it, but I just don't know.  Swine flu was a joke, bird flu was a joke.  Ebola is no joke.

People driving in urban areas have the worst planning ability.  They pass people in the wrong lane, try to get back over when they run out of space, and they probably all wonder why there's so much traffic.  Hmmm...

I've been having trouble with hooks out on the golf course, so this past weekend at the driving range, my younger brother (who is very good at golf) and I tried to fix it.  Everything we tried made the ball go further left.  It was aggravating.

Work has forced me to rediscover something that I have not known in a very long time: sunrise.  I would say it's nice, but I'm still getting up before 6 AM, and nothing about that is nice.