How many times do these results need to be replicated before you'll believe them?
So far the thrust results have been replicated more than the majority of economics and social science research (i.e. more than zero times).
So far the thrust results have been replicated more than the majority of economics and social science research (i.e. more than zero times).
But there's such a mountain of evidence for it that we should have a very high bar for claims that it's violated. Thermal effects and measurement error are both likely sources of the discrepancy.
But another reason to be skeptical is that Noether's Theorem tells us that a violation of conservation of momentum is only possible if the laws of physics are not translation invariant, and we should be able to use the violation of conservation of momentum to illustrate a specific instance where physical laws are not translation invariant. That would be Earth-shattering. (But not, strictly speaking, impossible)
I don't know GR, but approximately the Earth would also accelerate faster.
Conservation laws in general are a quirky thing in GR, see: http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/ES_GG_Conservation_Laws.pdf
or http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-i... for a shorter read
>but approximately the Earth would also accelerate faster.
Well yes, Earth has a stronger gravitational pull because of rotation. On smaller distances rotation effects become even more interesting:
No, they haven't