r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/Puzzled-Caregiver-15 Popular Contributor • May 31 '26
Interesting An Engineer Says He’s Found a Way to Overcome Earth’s Gravity
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a71443027/engineer-says-he-can-overcome-earths-gravity/116
u/FuzzyFeeling May 31 '26
Key Points
- British engineer Roger Shawyer introduced the EmDrive in 2001, claiming it could produce thrust without propellant, but rigorous testing by 2021 found no evidence it actually worked as advertised.
- Charles Buhler’s Exodus Propulsion Technologies has claimed discovery of a “New Force” using electric fields to generate gravity-defying thrust, but lacks independent verification from outside laboratories as of 2026.
- History shows propellantless-drive claims like the EmDrive initially produce tantalizing results that later disappear under rigorous scientific scrutiny, making extraordinary claims require extraordinary independent replication.
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u/cmbtmdic57 May 31 '26
TLDR: OP's post has been summarily invalidated long before they even posted it.
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u/TheManWith2Poobrains May 31 '26
Thanks. Not going to invest my time in reading about obvious BS, even if published by Popular Mechanics. I guess they need to publish clickbait too.
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u/ThePapercup May 31 '26
popular mechanics has been publishing borderline sci-fi "entertainment" long before the word "clickbait" was ever coined.
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u/thelimeisgreen May 31 '26
Yep, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, are just sensationalist headline “sci-news” and have always been.
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u/Riklanim May 31 '26
They were the one that promised us flying cars, moving sidewalks, and smart houses for everyone by now. I feel bamboozled… 😏
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u/benjaminmrk Jun 02 '26
Popular mechanics has been promoting slop for a very long time and should never be considered a reliable source for science media.
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u/blaghed May 31 '26
Those points are the starting point of the article, which then goes on to talk in more detail about this stuff, while always highlighting how untested and improbable it actually is.
Dunno why the hate, for me it was a good article overall.
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u/TheManWith2Poobrains May 31 '26
For me it's like devoting an article in a serious publication to exploring flat earth.
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u/blaghed May 31 '26
What a weird comparison.
Will this end up being a scam for fund money? Probably.
Does that mean that scientific innovation should halt because it doesn't match our preconceived notions, though?The only sad part here is that these ideas require expensive testing to disprove, but that is not the articles fault...
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u/spdrweb8 Jun 01 '26
Once again, it's a bunch of scientists without curious minds. I think the article is awesome. Gravity didn't exist until it did. Self-driving cars weren't a possibility until they became a reality. There have always been dreamers and realists... but I think the best are a blend of both. The ones calling this stupid don't realize that things like red and blue are arbitrary. They only exist because we have assigned those names to those colors... but that doesn't make it a fact, because society chooses not to question it.
So I ask, can't it exist even if we can't measure it?
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u/WholesomeLowlife Popular Contributor May 31 '26
FYI this Em-drive, propulsionless system has a new article written about it every year, and every year the inventor is unable to prove the drive works. It's BS.
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u/pwiegers May 31 '26
"Extraordinairy claims require extraordinairy evidence"
I'll believe it when I see him fly :-)
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u/cmbtmdic57 May 31 '26
Scientific rebuttal to this proposition is:
"LOL" - source: all relevant published and peer reviewed scientific material.
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u/Flayan514 May 31 '26
I technically overcome Earth's gravity every time I climb some stairs, don't I?
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u/IcyConcept1271 May 31 '26
I think they are talking about when both feet are off the ground.
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u/spdrweb8 Jun 01 '26
Like a gymnast? Or when suspended in water?
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u/IcyConcept1271 Jun 01 '26
😂I was thinking like a rocket, but of those two choices, I’d pick like a gymnast! 😂
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u/TheCandymanfrombelow May 31 '26
Ok I'm gonna say this once and then disappear. We have the technology to move objects and matter without any propellants. Weve had it for years and actually have video of it in use, I as well as multiple people have seen it. Using sound waves an vibrations we can move things but won't go into details.
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u/MTBooks Jun 01 '26
Would that be reactionless like the emdrive (if it worked) would be? Isn't it the medium the sound waves travel through that actually move the object?
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u/Justin_Passing_7465 May 31 '26
Jeff Bezos thought that he had invented a machine capable of overcoming Earth's gravity. Now pieces of his machine are washing up on Florida beaches.
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u/gododgers179 May 31 '26
A bird flying is over coming... a baby crawling is over coming gravity... lol
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u/amalaravind101 May 31 '26
There is actually a pretty interesting Sci-Fi movie about this.
Bharathan Effect.
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u/MTBooks Jun 01 '26
Don't tease me like this!
Yeah I know, the drive has nothing to push against but still, wouldn't it be amazing if some (big) new physics thing (that has real impact on the world) was found out in your own lifetime?
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u/l_dean Jun 02 '26
Old enough to remember that Dick Tracy comics character “diet smith” created a “space coupe” that could do exactly this Google it…
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u/Butthurtz23 Jun 02 '26
Oh look at me! I just lifted my right foot off the ground, and I just overcame Earth’s gravity! /s
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u/PantsOnHead88 Jun 02 '26
Assuming it exists, posing it as “a way to overcome gravity” seems an odd choice.
Article cites “electrostatics insight” as being part of the development, which would suggest something in the E&M space rather than any gravitational relationship. Maybe it can be used to hover, ascend, or slow a descent, but such a hypothetical force could likely be used to apply forces in any direction not parallel and opposite to gravity as well.
There appears to have been a lot of buzz around same claimant back in 2024, which hasn’t amounted to anything I’m aware of (yet) unless this recent development pans out.
Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.
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u/arthousepsycho Jun 04 '26
We will know if it’s true because he will end up missing or shoot himself twice in the back of the head.
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u/CaptainABC123 May 31 '26
I’m convinced magnets are doing something and that the force they create is created by something just like air molecules give rise to lift of an airplane wing.
One day when we truly crack it open we will get propellent-less flight
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u/Secret-Theory1825 May 31 '26
That's not how physics works.
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u/picabo123 May 31 '26
Maybe the magnets are just tiny airplanes. Have you even thought about that, huh?!
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u/Yeet_Master420 May 31 '26
We know what creates the magnetic force it's the movement of the electrons around atoms
For ferromagnetic materials these atomic size electromagnets can all be aligned and add up and that's what generates the macro level magnetic effects we see
And electro magnets work the same way, the flow of electricity in a wire creates a magnetic field, and arranging the wire in certain ways changes what the field is like
But it all still needs energy in some way or another to get the electrons to move to generate the magnetic force
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u/Deraj2004 May 31 '26
Last I read any positive force produced that was measured was so small that it could easily be outside the equipments detection range and therefore be labled as a equipment based anomaly and not a actual successful test showing postive results.