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Category: cosmology

(Excerpt)

Beyond the managerial challenges (downside risks) presented by the exponential technologies as it is understood in the Technological Singularity and its inherent futuristic forces impacting the present and the future now, there are also some grave global risks that many forms of management have to tackle with immediately.

These grave global risks have nothing to do with advanced science or technology. Many of these hazards stem from nature and some are, as well, man made.

For instance, these grave global risks ─ embodying the Disruptional Singularity ─ are geological, climatological, political, geopolitical, demographic, social, economic, financial, legal and environmental, among others. The Disruptional Singularity’s major risks are gravely threatening us right now, not later.

Read the full document at http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Giulio Prisco
Giulio Prisco

I recently interviewed KurzweilAI’s Giulio Prisco for my podcast The Eternities. The below is a short piece I posted on Disinfo.com about the interview, which has stimulated some debate there. Listen to the interview.

From Disinfo.com:

Pascal’s Wager demonstrated a certain rationality to a belief in god. The seventeenth century philosopher, Pascal, argued that if one believes, yet god does not exist, nothing is lost in death. But, if god exists, the reward is eternal happiness.

For the transhumanist thinker, Giulio Prisco, if god doesn’t exist, he believes we will create him. Or her. Or, more accurately, perhaps – them. Prisco’s reasoning results not so much in a wager as an expectation.

Speaking to The Eternities podcast, he said, “Richard Dawkins … the atheist mastermind … writes in The God Delusion [that he] finds it very plausible in the universe that there may be very powerful beings like gods. He thinks these beings are a product of natural evolution like ourselves. That’s exactly what I think myself. I don’t place any artificial limits on the achievements that will be possible to intelligent life in the future. And I do think that some of our descendants, perhaps in a few thousand years, will be so advanced … that we could only call them gods.”

Prisco is no mere kook or sci-fi fantasist but a physicist, computer scientist and ex-senior manager at the European Space Agency. Currently he is the Transhumanism Editor for KurzweilAI.net and is a director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His uncompromising and ultra-optimistic “third way” philosophy combines the traditional aims of religion – existential meaning, eternal life, transcendence – with the ever-advancing means of science.

While the field of archaeology may figuratively bring the past to life for its exponents, the predicted future discipline of quantum archaeology, Prisco believes, may literally do so, and for all lifeforms that have ever lived. Though, he also acknowledges, we may already be living in a simulated reality, run by advanced god-like beings, our immortality already guaranteed.

He said, “There are people who think of … some information store which is already being filled by the natural physical processes that happen in space-time. There are some people who base the reincarnation idea on that. It’s not something that I can rule entirely out. If that does not happen spontaneously … let’s engineer resurrection and the afterlife. If there is no god, let’s build a god, or let’s become gods. And let’s make the universe a better place.”

My paper “New Evidence, Conditions, Instruments & Experiments for Gravitational Theories” was finally published by the Journal of Modern Physics, Vol. 8A, 2013. That is today Aug 26, 2013.

Over the last several years I had been compiling a list of inconsistencies in modern contemporary physics. This paper documents 12 inconsistencies. If I’m correct there will sooner or later, be a massive rewrite of modern physical theories, because I do not just criticize contemporary theories but critique them, i.e. provide positive suggestions based on empirical data, on how our theories need to be modified.

The upshot of all this is that I was able to propose two original, new experiments, never before contemplated in physics journals. Both involve new experimental devices, and one is so radically new that it is unthinkable. This is the gravity wave *telescope*.

The new physics lends itself to a new and different forms of weaponizations achievable within the next few decades, with technologies *not* predicted in science fiction. How about that?

I have deliberately left this weaponization part vague because I want to focus on the propulsion technologies. Definitely not something string or quantum-gravity theories can even broach.

We will achieve interstellar travel in my lifetime, and my paper points to where to research this new physics and new technologies.

Paper Details:

Title: New Evidence, Conditions, Instruments & Experiments for Gravitational Theories

Author: Benjamin T Solomon

Journal: Journal of Modern Physics, 2013, Vol 8A

Journal Link (2013, Vol 8A): http://www.scirp.org/journal/JMP/

Paper Links: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?paperID=36276

Notes: Down load count is displayed at the paper link on the journal web page, so you can see how many people are interested in this topic.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification

Congratulations Drs. Musha, Pinheiro & Valone on their soon to be published new book.

For those who are interested T. Musha, M.J. Pinheiro and T. Valone (Advanced Science Technology Research Organization, Yokohama, Japan, and others) have a new book that will be published soon:

Book Description: The purpose in writing this book is to give an historical overview of a new challenging field of research, and equip the readers with the mathematical basis of gravitoelectromagnetic theories and their applications to advanced science and technology.
The first chapter introduces the historical background of electrogravity, especially on the Biefeld-Brown effect. The second chapter gives several explanations on the Biefeld-Brown effect and other related phenomena, with a concern on the Einstein’s Unified Field Theory of Gravitation and electromagnetism and gravitational anomaly induced by the massive electrostatic charges of planets. The third chapter is concerned with the electrogravitic effect related to the zero point energy fluctuation in the vacuum, introduced from the standpoint of quantum electrodynamics.
The fourth chapter discusses other electromagnetic gravity control devices including the Heim theory and their applications for space flight. The fifth chapter has shown that the Abraham force is the analogue of the Magnus force, and it thus represents the formation of vortex structures, of electromagnetic nature, in the physical vacuum: the electromagnetotoroid which can generate gravitational field. The sixth chapter deals with the plasma theory of the Universe and the role played by the gravitoelectromagnetic forces generated by the plasma permeating the space between planets. And the last chapter shows the application on advanced aviation systems and future prospects of these technologies.
This is a textbook written for both researchers and professional scientists, which provides the mathematical basis for readers to introduce the basic concept of gravitoelectromagnetic theories and also discusses their application to advanced science and technologies. (Imprint: Novinka)
Publisher’s link:
——————————————Benjamin T Solomon is the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification

The APS April Meeting 2013, Vol. 58 #4 will be held Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado.

I am very pleased to announce that my abstract was accepted and I will be presenting “Empirical Evidence Suggest A Need For A Different Gravitational Theory” at this prestigious conference.

For those of you who can make it to Denver, April 13–16, and are interested in alternative gravitational theories, lets meet up.

I am especially interested in physicists and engineers who have the funding to test gravity modification technologies, proposed in my book An Introduction to Gravity Modification.

** Note, APS is the publisher of the most prestigious physics journal in the world, Physical Review Letters. If you remember Robert Nemiroff published his ground breaking findings that quantum foam cannot exists, 3 photons and 7-billion year old gamma ray burst in the Physical Review Letters.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification

1. Thou shalt first guard the Earth and preserve humanity.

Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.

2. Thou shalt go into space with heavy lift rockets with hydrogen upper stages and not go extinct.

The human race can only go in one of two directions; space or extinction- right now we are an endangered species.

3. Thou shalt use the power of the atom to live on other worlds.

Nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the industrial revolution; chemical propulsion is useless for interplanetary travel and there is no solar energy in the outer solar system.

4. Thou shalt use nuclear weapons to travel through space.

Physical matter can barely contain chemical reactions; the only way to effectively harness nuclear energy to propel spaceships is to avoid containment problems completely- with bombs.

5. Thou shalt gather ice on the Moon as a shield and travel outbound.

The Moon has water for the minimum 14 foot thick radiation shield and is a safe place to light off a bomb propulsion system; it is the starting gate.

6. Thou shalt spin thy spaceships and rings and hollow spheres to create gravity and thrive.

Humankind requires Earth gravity and radiation to travel for years through space; anything less is a guarantee of failure.

7. Thou shalt harvest the Sun on the Moon and use the energy to power the Earth and propel spaceships with mighty beams.

8. Thou shalt freeze without damage the old and sick and revive them when a cure is found; only an indefinite lifespan will allow humankind to combine and survive. Only with this reprieve can we sleep and reach the stars.

9. Thou shalt build solar power stations in space hundreds of miles in diameter and with this power manufacture small black holes for starship engines.

10. Thou shalt build artificial intellects and with these beings escape the death of the universe and resurrect all who have died, joining all minds on a new plane.

Gravity Modification – New Tools

Posted by Benjamin T. Solomon in business, cosmology, defense, education, engineering, general relativity, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, spaceTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment on Gravity Modification – New Tools

To understand why gravity modification is not yet a reality, let’s analyze other fundamental discoveries/inventions that changed our civilization or at least the substantially changed the process of discovery. There are several that come to mind, the atomic bomb, heavier than air manned flight, the light bulb, personal computers, and protein folding. There are many other examples but these are sufficient to illustrate what it takes. Before we start, we have to understand four important and related concepts.

(1) Clusters or business clusters, first proposed by Harvard prof. Michael Porter, “a business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally”. Toyota City which predates Porter’s proposal, comes to mind. China’s 12 new cities come to mind, and yes there are pro and cons.

(2) Hot housing, a place offering ideal conditions for the growth of an idea, activity, etc. (3) Crowdsourcing, is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. This process can occur both online and offline. Crowdsourcing is different from an ordinary outsourcing since it is a task or problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body. (4) Groundswell, a strong public feeling or opinion that is detectable even though not openly expressed.

I first read about the fascinating story of the making of the atom bomb from Stephane Groueff’s The Manhattan Project-the Making of the Atomic Bomb, in the 1970s. We get a clear idea why this worked. Under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves, and J. Robert Oppenheimer the US, UK & Canada hot housed scientist, engineers, and staff to invent and produce the atomic bomb physics, engineering and manufacturing capabilities. Today we term this key driver of success ‘hot housing’, the bringing together a group of experts to identify avenues for further research, to brainstorm potential solutions, and to test, falsify and validate research paths, focused on a specific desired outcome. The threat of losing out to the Axis powers helped increase this hot housing effect. This is much like what the Aspen Center for Physics is doing (video here).

In the case of the invention of the light bulb, the airplane, and the personal computer, there was a groundswell of public opinion that these inventions could be possible. This led potential inventors with the necessary basic skills to attempt to solve these problems. In the case of the incandescent light bulb, this process took about 70 years from Humphrey Davy in 1809, to Thomas A. Edison and Joseph Wilson Swan in 1879. The groundswell started with Humphrey and had included many by the time of Edison in 1879.

In the case of the airplane the Wright brothers reviewed other researchers’ findings (the groundswell had begun much earlier), and then invented several new tools & skills, flight control, model testing techniques, test pilot skills, light weight motors and new propeller designs.

The invention of the personal computer had the same groundswell effect (see Homebrew Computer Club & PBS TV transcripts). Ed Roberts, Gordon French, Fred Moore, Bob Harsh, George Morrow, Adam Osborne, Lee Felsenstein, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, John Draper, Jerry Lawson, Ron Jones and Bill Gates all knew each other before many of them became wealthy and famous. Bill Gates wrote the first personal computer language, while the others invented various versions of the microcomputer, later to be known as the personal computer, and peripherals required. They invented the products and the tools necessary for the PC industry to take off.

With protein folding, Seth Cooper, game designer, developed Fold It, the tool that would make the investigation into protein folding accessible to an undefined public. Today we describe this ‘crowdsourcing’. Notice that here it wasn’t a specialized set of team that was hot housed, but the reverse, the general public, were given the tools to make crowdsourcing a viable means to solving a problem.

Thus four key elements are required to foster innovation, basic skills, groundswell, hothouse or crowdsourcing, and new tools.

So why hasn’t this happened with gravity modification? Some form of the groundswell is there. In his book The Hunt for Zero Point, Nick Cook (an editor of the esteemed Jane’s Defense Weekly) describes a history that goes back to World War II, and Nazi Germany. It is fund reading but Kurt Kleiner of Salon provides a sober review of The Hunt for Zero Point.

There are three primary reasons for this not having happened with gravity modification. First, over the last 50 years or so, there have only been about 50 to 100 people (outside of black projects) who have investigated this in a scientific manner. That is, the groundswell of researchers with the necessary basic skills has not reached a critical mass to take off. For example, protein folding needed at least 40,000 participants, today Fold It has 280,000 registered participants.

Second, pseudoscience has crept into the field previously known as ‘antigravity’. In respectable scientific circles the term used is gravity modification. Pseudoscience, has clouded the field, confused the public’s perception and chased away the talent – the 3 C’s of pseudoscience. Take for example, plutonium bomb propulsion (written by a non-scientist/non-engineer), basic investigation shows that this is neither feasible nor legal, but it still keeps being written up as a ‘real’ proposition. The correct term for plutonium bomb propulsion is pseudoscience.

Third reason. Per the definition of gravity modification, we cannot use existing theories to propose new tools because all our current status quo theories require mass. Therefore, short of my 12-year study, no new tools are forth coming.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

OK, why do we need a different technology to achieve commercial viability (as in mass space tourism) for either interplanetary or interstellar travel?

In many of my previous posts I had shown that all the currently proposed technologies or technologies to be, are either phenomenally expensive (on the order of several multiples of World GDP), bordering on the impossible or just plain conjecture. This is very unfortunate, as I was hoping that some of the proposals would at least appear realistic, but no joy. I feel very sorry for those who are funding these projects. For a refresher I have posted an updated version of the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) here which documents 5 of the 11 inconsistencies in modern physics. I give permission to my readers to use this material for non-commercial or academic uses.

I recently completed the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravity modification published under the title An Introduction to Gravity Modification, 2nd Edition. For the very first time we now have a scientific definition for gravity modification:

Gravity modification is defined as the modification of the strength and/or direction of the gravitational acceleration without the use of mass as the primary source of this modification, in local space time. It consists of field modulation and field vectoring. Field modulation is the ability to attenuate or amplify a force field. Field vectoring is the ability to change the direction of this force field.

Note that this definition specifically states “without the use of mass”, for obvious reasons – for example it does not make sense to carry around the mass of a planet to propel 7 astronauts, does it?

By this definition alone, we have eliminated all three status quo theories – general relativity, quantum gravity and string theories. Therefore, the urgent need to construct a new theory that will facilitate the development of gravity modification technologies.

And further, by this definition we know the additional requirements of such a new theory. The theory should show us, firstly, how to attenuate or amplify the gravitational field strength, and secondly, how to change the direction of this force field – all without using mass.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

The spirituality of space exploration as self-exploration.

Since the dawn of recorded history, humanity has been mesmerized by Earth’s place in the cosmos. Overview is a fascinating short film by Planetary Collective, written by Frank White, exploring the “overview effect” — the profound, shocking feeling that grips astronauts as they see our planet hang in space and the strange new self-awareness it precipitates. The film is based on Frank White’s 1987 book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution and celebrates the 40th anniversary of NASA’s iconic Blue Marble photograph…

Read more/video here

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In a previous post on Technological Feasibility I had stated that a quick and dirty model shows that we could achieve velocity of light c by 2151 or the late 2150s. See table below.

Year Velocity (m/s) % of c
2200 8,419,759,324 2808.5%
2152 314,296,410 104.8%
2150 274,057,112 91.4%
2125 49,443,793 16.5%
2118 30,610,299 10.2%
2111 18,950,618 6.3%
2100 8,920,362 3.0%
2075 1,609,360 0.5%
2050 290,351 0.1%
2025 52,384 0.0%

That is, at the current rate of technological innovation we could as a civilization reach light speed in about 140 years. More importantly we could not even reach anywhere near that within the next 100 years. Our capability would be 6.3% of c.

The Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation informs us light speed would require an infinite amount of energy (i.e. more than there is in the Universe!), thereby highlighting the weaknesses in these types of technological forecasting methods. But these models still serve a purpose. They provide some guidance as to what is possible and when. The operative word is guidance.

Rephrasing is required. Is the technological light speed horizon of the 2150s too far out? If you are as impatient as I am the answer is ‘yes’. It would not be in the spirit of the Kline Directive to accept a 2150s horizon. 2150s is for people with no imagination, people who have resigned to the inevitable snail’s progress of physics. Further, we now know the inevitable impossibility using our contemporary physics because of the 5 major errors.

Completing the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICH) gives:

PDF version available here.

What are we left with? We have to find new directions, new models, new mathematical constructions, that address all 5 errors. And in the spirit of the Kline Directive, there needs to be a better method of sifting through academic papers “ … to provide reasonability in guidance and correctness in answers to our questions in the sciences …”

What do we do for starters? Here are my initial recommendations are:

1. The physics community has to refocus on mathematical construction hypotheses.

2. More experimental physicist leading combined teams of experimental and theoretical physicist.

3. Prioritize research funding by Engineering Feasible Theories, 100-Year Theories, and only then Millennium Theories.

I started this series of blog posts in order to achieve interstellar travel sooner rather than later, but we as a community are heading in the wrong direction. It won’t work to build bigger carriages. It won’t work add more horses, as some would suggest. That would be like flogging a dead horse. We have to do something radically different. That is why the Kline Directive matters.

I have made the assumption that technological feasibility is a necessary step. Yes it is, given our lack of technological capability to reach the stars in a realistic and finite time frame. Technology feasibility very quickly leads back to the next question of commercial viability, the second step.

Future feasible technologies will iterate between technological feasibility and commercial viability until we can reach the stars in a manner we don’t have to ask the question, whom do we select to leave Earth?

Until then we are not ready!

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.