[james412]

> McCulloch says that the thrust appears to be between one and four micronewtons—exactly the amount his theory predicts

Somehow I thought physics was meant to be a little more precise than this

[spacedcowboy]

Physics is precise. The uncertainty is due to error-bars in measurements. Any measurement has error bars for systematic, random and absolute errors, then there is the combinative error as multiple types of measurement are combined together.

It’s more of a worry, tbh, if you don’t see an error estimate in a result...

[matthewdgreen]

I think the objection is that those are large error bars compared to the force measured. And that even a modest source of experimental error could put this at zero real output.

ETA: and since “non-zero real output” implies that virtually all of our physics is incorrect, and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, the bar for measurement error needs to be exceptionally small.