A few years ago, a few renegade inventors emerged with another incarnation of this idea, in the form of a device called an EmDrive. This electromagnetic cavity claimed to be an engine that required no fuel and emitted no exhaust. It simply required input power, and could convert that energy into thrust. This would violate the laws of physics, but the experiments seemed to indicate that it worked.

Until now, when a team led by Martin Tajmar has exposed what's really going on behind-the-scenes. This purported "impossible" space engine, as it turns out, really is too good to be true.

The mystery deepened, however, in 2016, when a NASA team led by wild-idea enthusiast Harold "Sonny" White built their own prototype, tested it, and found that there was, indeed, thrust that they couldn't explain. As they turned up the power on the device, they saw additional thrust, and no signature at all of any "reaction" to balance out this action. It would mean, if this were correct, a violent overthrow of the laws of physics as we understood them. When you look at the data the team collected and published, it seems like there's a pretty clear signature of, well, something.

But is that something evidence for new physics? Or were all the experimental teams fooling themselves, Sonny White's team included? According to a new paper out this week, by a team led by Martin Tajmar, there was one effect that none of the teams accounted for: the magnetic fields produced by the electrical wires feeding the alleged EmDrive.