The academic peer review papers say something a lot different than the catchy headlines. "The measured signatures of thrust are subtle experimental errors. Possible sources include thermal effects, problems with magnetic shielding, or even a non-uniform gravitational field."
Nothing new then, this was the conclusion several months ago; but it's good to see it accessibly written out on a popular news site. It is almost certainly a methodological error in the experiment; but that fact that so many groups are experiencing the same error (Even NASA's JPL, of all groups) implies that there's some thing unknown to science causing the error, even if it's a failure in the testing apparatus. Some of the best minds in their fields can't yet work out what's causing the effect, and that means we may well learn something new – all be it something that agrees with our current understanding of momentum conservation and thermodynamics.
Hurray for science! I'm actually wondering if the observed thrust might be a consistent error in something all the experiments failed to control, because then I imagine that could actually lead to some useful information in the future if people ever make similar observations in something else.
I'll say this about that: Either it is or it isn't.
unless one of those people was REALLY attractive (so bad... but it had to be said)As a comparison, the force measured in this latest experiment is roughly comparable to the gravitational attraction between two average-sized people (100kg) standing about 15cm apart. It is an extremely small force.