The EM Drive Engine is referred to as “the impossible engine” because it defies the very core of the laws of physics as we know them. However after years of speculation and skepticism from scientific community, it has been validated by NASA scientists that the engine is indeed a working RF resonant cavity thruster i.e  an electromagnetic propulsion system that could power a spacecraft in the void of space without any propellant.

For those who didn’t  catch the last line , in simpler language,it was just a fancy way to state that the engine can move the spacecraft (i.e can produce thrust) without any fuel.The NASA team formally published a paper on this last week in a peer-reviewed journal.

1. How does an EM drive work?

An EM drive engine is said to produce thrust by bouncing of electromagnetic energy i.e microwave photons in a closed conical cavity chamber.As those photons collide with the chamber’s walls, they somehow manage to propel the device forward in desired direction, despite the fact that nothing is released from the chamber.It can be also said that it is a type of reactionless drive, providing thrust from electricity without consuming a propellant.

Dr White,who was the Advanced Propulsion Team Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate has proposed that EM Drive’s thrust was due to the Quantum Vacuum (the quantum state with the lowest possible energy) behaving like propellant ions behave in a MagnetoHydroDynamics drive.

In simpler language, it can be imagined as a big microwave oven, with a opening at one end. Also, the fact that this engine works properly is as weird as saying that you can move a car by sitting inside and hitting it in all directions.

2.  How does it defy laws of physics?

Although it proposes many technical controversies, it fore-mostly is in violation of a law which is so very at core of classical physics, that any tom dick or harry who ever went to school will know of it!

Yes, I am talking about the three fundamental laws of motion proposed by Sir Isaac Newton!

The third law  states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposing reaction.”This is the same law which explains how a  bird can fly  or how a classical jet engine works or how a boat glides forward by stating that when we dispel some water backwards with paddle of a boat by applying force, a opposite force applied by water propels it forward. However, no such force applied by the engine is identified as on date, which can result in a opposite force pushing it forward!

It additionally also violates principle of conservation of momentum.. If we are to go forward in the technical aspects,the engine creates numerous other controversies.

3. Resemblance with Ancient Aircrafts

When I first read about this miraculous engine, I couldn’t help but think of another branch of aerospace which has also been always criticized as “impossible” flight of fancy. Yes, I am referring to the knowledge of and procedures of building aircrafts stated in Vedas and Vaimanik Shastra!

Although I am no expert on vedic knowledge, when I compared the pictures of EM drive with ancient aircraft structures available on google, I was completely awestruck!

Some of those pictures are

The EM DRive

Ancient Aircrafts

One cannot help but see the uncanny resemblance in the structure of Em drive and structure of ancient aircrafts!

This brings us to a proposition that NASA scientists may not have been the first humans who used this method for propelling aircrafts. Maybe this method was in use in ancient India, thousands of years before the advent of  western aerospace science!

Maybe we would never know for sure because although there are many mentions of use of aircrafts in our ancient texts and epics, the exact techniques used and facts are forever lost to the strands of time or are they really lost? In 1800 Shivkar Bapuji Talpade used the knowledge of Vamanik Shastra and Vedic concepts of release of energy from mercury and sunlight to achieve the feat of “first unmanned flight” which was far before the first flight built by Wright Brothers.

Till date there has been no known successful attempt of replication of technique used by Shivkar Bapuji Talpade but the fact that he was able to achieve the feat leaves us a strand of hope that the ancient knowledge is not forever lost.I am staunchly positive that if we study the ancient sources available to us  closely enough we may one day be able to build an aircraft that would dramatically outsmart our current technologies!

Helpful sources:

1.http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36120

2.http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/emdrive-news-rumors/

3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Conservation

4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster#Controversy

5.http://www.sciencealert.com/the-em-drive-still-producing-mysterious-thrust-after-another-round-of-nasa-tests

6.https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/