Shot in the blue
Traditional propulsion technologies do not launch space probes very quickly or very far into space. Some scientists are hoping for a revolution - and are pursuing exotic ideas at the limits of known physics.
In 2012, Heidi Fearn, a physics professor at California State University in Fullerton, USA, returned to work after a sabbatical. To her surprise, a man she already knew slightly had been accommodated in the neighboring laboratory: James F. Woodward, professor of the history of science and associate professor of physics. The university needed his previous office for a new department and moved him to this previously little-used location.
Initially, Fearn saw the old man as an intruder, but her attitude towards him soon changed. The theorist has specialized in quantum optics, i.e. how light interacts with matter. Woodward, on the other hand, is interested in an outsider topic, namely a hypothetical drive that could one day allow humanity to explore interstellar space and the nearest stars.
"I wasn't really convinced that his work was any good," recalls Fearn. Passing by Woodward's lab every day, the experiment installed there struck her as more like the demonstration experiment in a freshman class than a futuristic propulsion system. The setup contained a vibrating mass in a metal cage on one side, counterweights on the other, and a number of wires running back and forth. Woodward claimed he could affect the mass of an object just a tiny bit by bumping into it. As it changes, skillful tugging and shoving at just the right times would create bottom line thrust…
