[tempsolution]

Even if it violates conservation of momentum, that doesn't really mean anything, since this is all happening on a quantum scale. It would definitely violate physics if you didn't need to apply a constant energy source for this to work, i.e. just one laser beam that spins in there virtually indefinitely while providing thrust. However, that is not the case.

This device presumably requires a reasonable amount of energy comparable to other existing drives. So what might happen here is a potentially unexplained quantum effect. Quantized Inertia seems like a really reasonable idea. Why wouldn't it be quantized? It doesn't even make sense for it not to be quantized.

Anyway, I hope this thing works.

[spxtr]

Momentum is still conserved in quantum mechanics. This breaks the laws of physics regardless of whether or not it needs a constant energy source.

[eloff]

It breaks the laws of physics as we know them. But we don't know everything, there is still a remote chance.

Conservation of momentum is so well established by this point, that's it's a very remote chance, and I'd expect it to still be conserved in that case, just through a mechanism we did not anticipate.

I'm just really rooting for new physics here, because I think is been about 70 years since we've had that.

[antonvs]

Conservation of momentum is, via Noether's theorem, a mathematically proven consequence of translational symmetry in uniform space, i.e. that physics is not affected by linear movement through uniform space.

The bar for violating that is super high, unless you don't believe in mathematical proof.

Of course the space we occupy is not entirely uniform, due to general relativity, but GR addresses that, and the results are not consistent with em drive results, i.e. momentum is still conserved.