Jim Woodward, experimental physicist and professor emeritus of history, has an out-of-this-world idea to allow spacecraft to travel to neighboring star systems: tiny crystals that vibrate tens of thousands of times per second when an electric current is applied.
His invention, dubbed the Mach-effect gravitational assist (MEGA) drive, makes the extraordinary promise of a propulsion system that relies on nothing but a source of electricity — no heavy combustion fuel necessary.
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