The Dean drive was a device intended to be a reactionless thruster or "oscillation thruster," invented by Norman L. Dean. Dean claimed that it was able to generate a uni-directional force, in violation of Newton's Third Law of Motion. Such a violation is impossible according to known physics. While it is theoretically possible for a mass that moves in one direction to have its momentum balanced by something other than a reaction mass (e.g. see Nuclear photonic rocket), there is no known theoretical mechanism for a mass to be accelerated one way while nothing accelerates the other way, at least in flat spacetime.
An actual functioning "reactionless thruster" would have had enormous applications, completely changing human transport, engineering, space travel and more. While Dean made several demonstrations of his drive, no working model was ever verified by independent third parties.[1]
According to Dean, his drive is a reactionless thruster, and his models were able to demonstrate this effect. He received two patents for related devices that are known to be unable to generate a uni-directional force, but he occasionally demonstrated devices that were different.[2][3] Dean's claims of reactionless thrust generation have subsequently been shown to be in error; the thrust generated is understood to be reliant on friction with the surface on which the device is resting.[4][5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_drive
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