Solid-State Marine Propulsion via Resonant Ionic Momentum Transfer (RIMT): Proposal and Analytical Falsification

The complete life cycle of a marine-propulsion hypothesis: proposal, open adversarial red-teaming, and analytical falsification — by the project that proposed it. RIMT proposed converting the wetted hull of a vessel into a distributed electrokinetic engine by applying a MHz-frequency asymmetric travelling-wave potential through a sub-surface micro-electrode lattice to manipulate the Electrical Double Layer of seawater. Version 2.0 establishes from first principles that the concept cannot propel a surface vessel at design speeds: seawater conduction screening pins the electrokinetic coupling at its two-capacitor divider value (the liquid is a conductor at the 2 MHz carrier), and a control-volume momentum balance shows deliverable thrust equals only the wake momentum export, with a "conveyor-belt" speed ceiling of roughly twice the slip velocity — centimetres per second, corroborated by the only electro-osmotically propelled vehicle in the literature. The bundle comprises the falsification whitepaper, the vindicated companion adversarial critique (its two Fatal-risk objections were confirmed), a reproducible simulation suite with machine-checked falsification helpers, an interactive infographic, an anti-biofouling concept note (the surviving application of the hardware stack), and the frozen pre-falsification comparison document retained as historical record. No laboratory prototype was built; the falsification is analytical, with a proposed bench experiment retained as its null-confirmation. Released as a defensive publication; negative results published openly.