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Dear Dr. Hawking:

Excuse the public letter.

Europe does not object that it is betting the planet on the existence of Hawking radiation.

Hawking radiation got disproved implicitly by Kuypers in 2005 and explicitly in my “gothic-R theorem” of 2007 and my “Telemach theorem” of 2010. The pertinent paper which is on www.lifeboat.com goes un-rejected for months by the Albert-Einstein Institute to which it was submitted.

The impression is building up on the planet that CERN – that is, the European Nuclear Research Organization – is continuing its dangerous experiment only because they have passed a point of no return. Note that if CERN at last allowed for the scientific safety conference called for 3 years ago and officially requested by a court 5 months ago, CERN would implicitly concede having consciously risked the planet for many months in a row. Hence CERN is in a trap: No matter how high the risk, they feel they have to go on because otherwise the act of their having gone as far as they did would become known to every individual on the planet so that both science and Europe might end up being excluded from the still to be hoped for planetary future.

Please, dear Dr. Hawking: be so kind as to help CERN out of its “double bind” in the sense of Gregory Bateson. The planet justly admires you. If you declare that you take the sole responsibility on your shoulders for having made the mistake of refusing to discuss Hawking radiation with a concerned colleague, the world public will forgive CERN.

Even better: If you talk to me there is a remaining chance that we jointly find the flaw in my disproof of Hawking radiation which eluded everyone else so far. In that case the black-hole danger will be over. The world is waiting for your answer.

In deep respect,

Sincerely yours,

Otto E. Rossler, University of Tubingen (For J.O.R.)

I just posted this story on Universe Today — which is a science-based moderated blog (i.e. any pet theories and psuedoscience nonsense are cut out).

The story offers a quick precise of why there is zero danger of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) destroying the Earth, but also a (hopefully) interesting discourse on cosmic rays.

This is the kind of interesting science we might see on this blog if it was moderated Eric!

Steve Nerlich (Member of the Board)

CERN does not object that all 4 pillars of its safety reports (Hawking evaporation, chargedness of black holes, neutron stars as guinea pigs, long duration of earth being eaten inside out) have been disproved scientifically.

Nevertheless it continues in full view of the eyes of the world. No one can understand this – and that it should have eluded all media.

I have got to explain.

I am a stupid scientist who found a new result in general relativity. When I showed it to a specialist 4 years ago, he said it has repercussions on the LHC. I did not know what LHC means (the large proton – a form of hadron — collisions experiment at CERN). In trying to defuse his apparent joke, I found that all other safety arguments fizzle, each for an independent reason. In this way the merely hypothesized danger proved real. However, with no specialist working in all pertinent subfields, it is hard to convince a CERN scientist that the colleague working in the next field lacks the liberating information that he himself admits not to have. The independent new Tubingen results are: in general relativity — that there is no Hawking radiation and there are no charged black holes; in quantum mechanics — that neutron stars are immune to invading black holes; in chaos theory — that ultraslow black holes grow exponentially inside earth. The uncanny coincidence amounts to a trap posed by nature to humankind with its on-going attempt to create miniature black holes at CERN.

My central theorem, Telemach, complements Einstein’s time-slowing effect of gravity (T) by an equally strong length-increasing (L), mass decreasing (M) and charge-decreasing (Ch) effect. Telemach meets with no public resistance from the part of the specialists who had criticized my previous more sophisticated gothic-R theorem (Hermann Nicolai, Gerhard Huisken, Gerard ‘t Hooft and Rolf Heuer). The planet’s public media do not dare interview the mentioned colleagues. And the recent official request made by a Cologne court to convoke a scientific safety conference goes unreported.

The persecution of my family by the state which culminated in the expulsion from our inherited house ten years ago may contribute to the planet-wide shrugging-off of what I say.

I learned that I am Jewish only after my young son had been killed at age 7, from my Semitist father who told me that this religion does not hold the sins of the fathers against the sons. He died soon thereafter 20 years ago. I know I am not worthy to solicit the support of Israel. But I feel a duty to make good on the sin of my father who participated translating newspapers as a less courageous dissident colleague of Kurt Gerstein’s in Tubingen. It is a strange twist of fate that I am forced by a chain of independent scientific results, which if broken at one point ceases to hold water, to act as a warner of Israel. I ask Jacob’s forgiveness for my being given the role of speaking up on his behalf by a streak of non-coincidental looking twists in the laws of nature. (For J.O.R.)

Abstract

American history teachers praise the educational value of Billy Joel’s 1980s song ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. His song is a homage to the 40 years of historical headlines since his birth in 1949.

Which of Joel’s headlines will be considered the most important a millennium from now?

This column discusses five of the most important, and tries to make the case that three of them will become irrelevant, while one will be remembered for as long as the human race exists (one is uncertain). The five contenders are:

The Bomb
The Pill
African Colonies
Television
Moonshot


Article

My previous column concentrated on the Hall Weather Machine[1], with a fairly technocentric focus. In contrast, this column is not technical at all, but considers the premise that if we don’t know our past, then we don’t know what our future will be.

American history teachers praise Billy Joel’s 1980s song ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ for its educational value. His song is a homage to the 40-years of historical headlines since his birth in 1949. Before reading further, go to http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html to hear it and to see the photographs that go with each phrase of the song.

Which of Joel’s headlines do you think will be most important, when considered by people a millennium from now? A thousand years is a long time.

Many of the popular figures Joel mentions from politics, entertainment, and sports have already begun to fade from living memory, so they are easy to dismiss. Similarly, which nation won which war will be remembered only by historians, though the genetic components of descendants affected by those wars will reverberate through the centuries. An interesting exercise would consider the most significant events of the eleventh century. English-speaking historians might mention the Battle of Hastings, but is Britain even a world power any longer? Where are the Byzantine, Ottoman, Toltec, and Holy Roman empires of a thousand years ago?

Note that there may be a difference between what most people 1,000 years from now will consider to be the most important and what may actually be the most important. In this case, just because the empires mentioned above are gone doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t have a significant role in creating our present and our future — we may simply be unconscious of their effect.

I will consider a few possibilities before arguing for one headline that is certain to be remembered, rightfully so, ten thousand years from now — if not longer.


The Bomb

First, most thoughtful people would include the hydrogen-bomb. A few decades ago, almost everyone would have agreed wholeheartedly. At that time, the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction hung heavily over every life in the USSR and the United States (if not the world). With the USSR now gone, and Russia and USA not quite at each others throats, the danger from extinction via a full-out nuclear exchange may be lower. However, the danger of a nuclear attack that kills a few million people is actually more likely.

Up till now, for a nation to become a great power and thereby wield great influence, it needed the level of organization that depended on civilization. No matter how brutal their government or culture — such as Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union, or Ancient Rome — their organization depended on efficient education, competent administration, large-scale engineering, and the finer things in life — to motivate at least the elite. Even then, some of the benefit would trickle down as “a rising tide raises all boats”. Competent and educated slaves were a key to Roman Civilization, just as educated bureaucrats were essential to the Nazi and Soviet systems.

Now, however, we are getting into a situation in which atomic weapons give the edge to the stark-raving mad — anyone who is willing to use them. This situation could be most destructive to prosperous, open, humanistic, and civilized nations, because they may be less willing to give up their comfort and freedom to defend against this threat. It appears very likely that within a decade or less, any ragtag collection of pip-squeak lunatics will be able to level the greatest city on Earth, even if it is defended by the world’s strongest army. This is because the advances in nuclear enrichment technology (along with all technology) will make it easier for pip-squeak lunatics to acquire or manufacture nuclear bombs.

That being said, however, it is also true that really advanced technology — specifically privacy-invasive information technology, perhaps in the form of throwaway supercomputers in a massive network of dustcams — might stop the pip-squeak lunatics before they can build and deploy their nuclear bombs.

In addition, another decade of technological development will result in nanobots. By the way, this isn’t just my prediction (the defense of which is a subject of a future column), but also the opinion of inventive dreamers such as Raymond Kurzweil, and of conservative achievers such as Lockheed executives. The development of nanobots means that cellular repair of radiation damage may also become possible (though the problems of controlling trillions of nanobots and of how to detect and repair radiation damage are additional separate and very difficult engineering and biological issues). Michael Flynn examined some of the nuclear strategic issues of this nanotech application in his short story “Washer at the Ford”.[2]

The problem is that there may be a five year window during which our only defense against nuclear-bomb-wielding pip-squeak lunatics will be privacy-invasive information technology, run by the FBI, NSA, and CIA, and their counterparts around the world. Yes, you should be worried, but probably not for the reasons you may think. The danger is not as much that these government agencies may infringe on your rights, but that the very nature of their jobs means that they won’t be able to apply Kranstowitz’s weapon of openness[3] against those who want us dead. To make matters worse, the U.S. intelligence agencies will likely follow the complex laws[3] that protect the privacy of U.S. persons[4] — to the exclusion of catching the nuclear lunatics. This is one reason that FBI, NSA, and CIA directors get new gray hairs every night.

Another problem is that the pip-squeak lunatics will also be able to buy cheap, privacy-invasive information (and other) technologies. Petro-dollars, peasant-made knickknacks, and mining rights have given ethically-challenged individuals in third-world countries astonishing wealth. Many of the world’s richest men live in the world’s poorer countries.[5] They have also learned cruel and clever means by which to keep their peasants down. The question is whether or not they can run the expensive technology they bought with their wealth and power. Buying cheap technology is one thing, but controlling it requires skilled people, and skilled people are more difficult to control. Can the dictators keep a small cadre of trusty elites to run the technology? North Korea and Iran are interesting (and rather scary) test cases at the moment.

Another wild card is that while some dictatorships have become more totalitarian, there comes a point at which the downtrodden peasants (and students, and factory workers, and shopkeepers) don’t have anything to lose but their miserable lives. Meanwhile, totalitarian governments can’t keep up with technology as quickly as free ones can. This is when the system collapses of its own weight, and that is what happened to the USSR. The cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter-fed revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere also seem to prove this point. Thus far, the Chinese leaders have been smart enough to adapt their economy without adapting their government. The jury is still out as to what will happen to them next (it may not be pretty for us if it ends badly, and there are many ways it can end badly).

Another wild card to consider is that most of the existing nuclear warheads are in the United States, Russia, and China. Americans conveniently forget, but non-Americans are very aware that the United States is (thus far) the only nation that has actually used an atomic bomb to kill people. On the other hand, America doesn’t have highly corrupt officials in charge of our nuclear arsenal (Pakistan), nor is it controlled by a near-dictator (Russia), nor by a totalitarian crazed nut-job (North Korea). In addition, a number of important Japanese leaders have publicly said that that controversial decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the correct one–“It could not be helped.“[6] A similar case might be made for Israel, which is surrounded by overwhelming numbers of Arab nations. Given the tensions in the area, a preemptive strike by Israel seems possible, if not likely. The important question then becomes: Under what grounds, if any, could such usage be justified? Of course, Iranian and other Arab leaders have often called for the total destruction of Israel, and eventually one of them may be willing to try it. On what grounds could they be justified?

Another issue is that once we lose New York or some other major city, Americans will accept any solution — including a totalitarian police state. So will the people of other democratic republics if they lose a major city to nuclear terrorists. But the solution is not necessarily a police state. David Brin has answered the “who guards the guardians” question with a clever answer: “We all do.” Over-simplified, his solution is to kiss most of your privacy goodbye. Either that or kiss your life, your liberty, and property, and your privacy all goodbye. Brin proposes that we should all submit to being on camera most of the time — as long as the camera essentially points both ways so we know who is watching us — i.e. the police, our neighbors, the pervert three blocks away, and our governments will know that we are watching them too. We must all shoulder the responsibility of policing our neighborhoods and our governments. The world will be like big village in which everyone knows everyone else’s business, but it’s OK because we are all accountable for our actions. Given the fact that human beings only behave when held accountable, it is the only real solution.[7]

Some may think it naive to expect that governments would ever allow their citizens to observe them in return for their observing us. On the other hand, between the increasing calls for government transparency, and the fact that even the chief of the IMF can be taken down by an lowly maid (with the help of the rule of law), there is hope. Not only that, but many of us have already given away much of our privacy on Facebook and YouTube. Don’t worry about it. Maybe I’m still a wide-eyed optimist, but look at the fall of the USSR empire. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together could have possibly predicted that it could have been so bloodless.

DARPA will certainly look for technological answers for nuclear bomb-related problems such as the nightmare of screening shipping containers. They will probably find some solutions, but during the critical transition phase towards productive nanosystems, will they be able to make those solutions affordable?

One nanotech solution to stopping nuclear bombs that are hidden in shipping containers is to stop all physical shipping altogether and just trade files over the internet, printing whatever you want on our desktops (BTW, you can build a very large printer in two steps). Our only problem then would be keeping our computer virus detectors up to date so that we don’t print something nasty.

To summarize, if anybody is around 1,000 years from now, then the nuclear bomb will not be considered an important issue.


The Pill

The second historically consequential development in the past 50 years that many people will propose as significant is the contraceptive pill.

Some claim that the Pill is necessary because we have a population problem. When I was in college in the 1970’s, it was “proven” to me, with the aid of computer models, that overpopulation was going to be the reason we were going to have food riots in the United States by 1985. So naturally, I’m as skeptical about overpopulation as I am about the imminent rapture. Everyone probably agrees that overpopulation results when the population exceeds the sustainable carrying capacity of the environment. But what determines that capacity? Technology multiplies it while ignorance, injustice, and war decrease it. On Earth today, there is currently no correlation between standard of living and population density.[8]

That being said, in a closed system, unlimited human population growth could result in a situation worse than simple human extinction. Natural ecosystems have population boom/crash cycles all the time, but other species don’t have access to nuclear bombs and other devices that can obliterate habitats. The overpopulation disaster on Easter Island occurred with a primitive culture. It still has grass, but not much of an ecosystem. Imagine what could have happened with modern technology.

The Pill fundamentally changed the relationship of men and women, the place of children in a family and, on the macro level, population dynamics. The family is the basic building block of society and civilization, not only because it is an economic unit (you don’t pay your spouse to wash the dishes or take out the garbage), but more importantly, because the family critically shapes the next generation. Therefore, a large change in family structures will have far-reaching effects, at least in the “short run” of five to ten generations. However, to steal from Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven: “Think of it as evolution in action.“[9] The people who embrace contraception as a path to “the good life” will (evolutionarily speaking) remove their vote for influencing their future within a few generations. It is true that for humans, memes may carry as much weight as genes, but the same process applies — as long as meme propagation is kept below a critical level, perhaps by co-traveling xenophobic memes. On the other hand, people who don’t have much of their material resources tied up in children may have more time to devote to meme propagation. However, many studies have shown than the people who have the greatest impact on teens and pre-teens are their parents.[10]

One possible result is that a millennium from now, the Pill will be a small blip, as inconsequential as the Shakers, and for essentially similar reasons. Nanotechnology-enabled life extension techniques will extend that blip for a while, but because the prolific pro-natalists will continue having even more children for their longer lives, more pro-natalists will be born to outvote the anti-natalists. This is why the Jewish Knesset now has a significantly higher percentage of Ultra-Orthodox than when it began,[11] why Utah’s government is almost 100% Mormon,[12] and why the Amish are one of the fastest growing minority in the world, with an average of 6.8 children per family.[13]

The opposing trend is controlled by a number of factors. First, the birth rate goes down as women’s educations go up. This occurs partially because practically speaking, it is more difficult to go to school while being married and raising children. More subtly, however, it is because school is an investment in learning a professional trade — it is a different investment than children. In addition, women and men are implicitly and explicitly taught that a better career is more important than raising more children.

The problem isn’t that women are being educated. The problem is that if they are taught something that results in the extinction of our egalitarian, humanistic, and liberal society by one that is misogynistic, xenophobic, and unjust, then something is wrong.

One weapon of the contraceptive culture is the reeducation of the pro-natalist’s children. Proponents of secularization would call this “giving people free access to all information” not “reeducation”. But when Bibles are banned from the classroom, and students are taught in many ways that they are just animals, it seems like imposition of a secular viewpoint. At least they could teach the debate — and at the end of the semester, the students could try to guess the teacher’s bias (if they can’t, then the teacher presented both views with equal force).

There are more than a million home-schooled children in the U.S., up to two-thirds of whom are there primarily because their parents fear the imposition of our government’s ideas on their children.[14] This quiet protest is so feared by governments that parents are prosecuted for doing this, not only in all totalitarian countries but even in some democratic nations.[15] The alternative is that the governments of open, liberal, and secularized nations (that accept contraception) will decide that the vote of the increasing minority is wrong. Could their right to vote be taken away? Of course it can; it has happened before.

A pessimistic view of this possibility of disenfranchisement is also supported by the prevalence of abortion in liberal democracies. Given the accuracy of ultrasound imagery, if we can ignore the right to life for our most innocent and helpless, then how safe is something as meager as the right to vote? Niemöller’s poem about trade unionists, Communists, and Catholics comes to mind.[16] So do the events in ancient Egypt, during the three or four hundred years between the famines that Joseph ameliorated (Genesis 50:22). The Egyptian upper class used contraception[17], and they felt threatened by the increasing numerical growth of the Jews, who had strict injunctions against it.

Is it good for our country that more than a million children are being taught by their parents? What if rebellious parents are teaching strange and dangerous ideas? How do we decide which ideas are dangerous? Do we censor and suppress them? After all, ideas have consequences.

The answer is that there are limits to what parents can do, but very few — if any — on what they teach. The whole point about freedom of religion is that we can believe what we want, as long as we do not destroy society or individuals with our actions. Our constitution was written not to limit individuals, but to put strict limits on government, since it is inherently more powerful.

The temptation to avoid having children is not limited to any particular culture. The reason is simple: raising children is an expensive, risky, and difficult investment. Parents must be willing to give up fancy vacations, luxury cars, time to themselves, a good night’s sleep, stress on their marriage, and many other things, thus weighing against the pro-natalist agenda. However, the culture that teaches that children are a blessing and a worthwhile investment instead of a cost will overcome those that do not — even if it tends to encourage people to be ignorant, misogynist, racist, and illogical (like two polygamist religions that start with the letter “M“[18]).

Cyril M. Kornbluth’s 1951 short story “The Marching Morons” illustrates another potential downside to the anti/pro-natalist issue by portraying a scenario in which selective pressure resulted in smart people breeding themselves out of existence. It also, despite the derogatory title, provides a warning: the originator of the “Final Solution” (placing all the fertile morons onto one-way rockets to nowhere) ends up screaming futilely as he himself is loaded on one of the last rockets. Kornbluth’s main premise seems logical. People are often willing to trade children for the better material things and higher standard of living, and those with more education are more willing to do so. But is the resulting cost to society worth it?

What will happen when productive nanosystems and advanced software lowers the price of goods and services to very low levels? Many other things will happen at the same time, but in a society of economic abundance, the expense of children will drop significantly — and will be limited only by attention span and desire (and possibly expanded by reproductive-enhancing technologies including parthenogenesis and male pregnancy). Is there a gene for liking children? Or is it a meme that is culturally transmitted? Evolution favors both. Of course, evolution may also favor a “Boys from Brazil“[19] scenario (in which numerous clones of a dictator are grown to reinstate his rule). This strategy may be successful as long as the clones survive to adulthood and can reproduce.

While a contraceptive culture is non-sustainable, especially in the face of a competing culture whose population is growing, it must be noted that a pro-natalist culture is also non-sustainable. Isaac Asimov pointed out that even if we could overcome all technological obstacles, any growth rate will eventually result in humanity becoming a big ball of flesh, expanding at the speed of light (BOFESOL, or BOF for short). At a modest 3% rate, we will reach the initial BOF in only 3,584 years. After that, the speed of light will limit growth.

However, the fact that a contraceptive culture is non-sustainable in a significantly shorter term than the pro-natalist one is why it makes sense for governments to support traditional religions in their efforts to maintain traditional morality and fertility. The difficult problem is finding ways to ensure the survival of a culture without it becoming xenophobic. This is difficult to do when we think that we have Absolute Truth and the One True Religion on our side. But then exactly how do we know that our particular set and ordering of values is the objectively correct one? Note that the denial of the existence of any objectively maximum set of values exists is itself a particular set of values. And note also that sustainability and tolerance are also values that, like all values, must be assumed because they cannot be proven.

Given the contradictory evidence and shifting values, it is likely that equilibrium between pro-natalist and contraceptive meme sets can never be reached. Instead, humanity will likely experience benign (and sometimes not-so benign) boom and crash cycles similar to those that natural ecosystems suffer from. Only for us, our cycles will be constrained by opinions and technological capabilities, not by predators.


African Colonies

A third historical event that may be of consequence a thousand years from now is “Belgians in the Congo”. The Belgian regime in the Congo was about as brutal and inhuman as any the Europeans imposed on its colonies. However, the European Empires spread Christianity in Africa — where it remains a fast-growing religion. This African event may be as significant as when the Spanish and Portuguese spread Christianity in Latin America, and will bring about a fundamentally different world than if Africa had gone Islamic, Hindu, or Confucian. Think of Latin American worshiping the Aztec gods with human sacrifice, or the impact on us if it were an Islamic Civilization. We would live in a very different world.

Then again, Africa may still turn Islamic. After all, Islam generally values large families, just like the fast-growing Mormon and Amish religions do. On the other hand, when Muslims become secularized, they reduce the number of their offspring, just like secularized Christians do — hence their accompanying philosophies will suffer the same fate. The result will be that in order to survive in the long term, future generations must be hostile to secularization, and probably hostile to each other’s religious views also (not a pleasant thought, even if they do share many of the same values). Over the next thousand years, in view of the exponential increase in technological power, which viewpoint will win? The answer depends on science, theology, and demographics.

A handful of nominal Christians destroyed the Aztec civilization, not because of their technology (though that helped), but because the Aztec civilization was based on a great and powerful falsehood — that in order for the sun to rise every morning, human blood needed to be shed — thereby earning the hatred of the neighboring tribes whose blood it was that was usually shed. Islam is not as false as the Aztec religion — otherwise it would not have lasted this long. But the jury is still out on whether it can survive the extreme technological advancement that productive nanosystems will bring. Will fanatical Muslims be able to design and build the nanotech equivalent of 747 jets that they can fly into the skyscrapers of their enemies? Or will they just learn how to use it in unexpected and terrorizing ways? Given the high level of technological advancement in the Muslim empire a thousand years ago, the answer seems to be “yes” to both questions. However, Islam’s ultimate rejection of reason is its Achilles heel, and in the past it helped lead to the decline of the Ottoman Empire after its peak in the 1300s. This is because Islam’s idea of Allah’s absolute transcendence is incompatible with the idea that the universe is ordered and knowable. Psychologically, the problem is that if the universe is not ordered and knowable, then why bother learning and doing science? Meanwhile, Hinduism has many competing gods, and this leads (like in ordinary paganism) to its rejection of the logical principle of contradiction — without which science is impossible. Confucianism seems to be more a moral code than a religious one, so it seems that it could be accommodating to technology — but that didn’t seem to help its practitioners develop it before they collided with the West. Similarly with Buddhism. Meanwhile, the decadent West’s deconstructionism and nihilism is gnawing at its parent’s roots, rejecting reason and science as merely tools of power.

It can be claimed that religious views will keep changing and splitting into new orthodoxies. In that case, the result will be an ever-shifting field of populations and sub-populations with none winning out completely over the others. But as far as I can tell, neither Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, nor Islam have changed any of their core beliefs in the past few millennia. In contrast, the Mormons have changed a number of their major doctrines, and so have the Protestants. This does not bode well for their long-term survival as a coherent organization, though the Mormons do have their high fertility on their side.

At the moment, the whole world is copying the Christian-rooted West, as many of their scientific elite are educated in Europe and the United States. It is difficult to say to what extent they understand the philosophical underpinnings of science. When their own universities start to educate their elite, their cultural assumptions will probably displace the Judeo-Christian/Greek philosophy of the West. Then what? It depends if science, which is the foundation of technological superiority, is simply a cargo cult that works. My claim is that science will only continue working for more than a generation or two if its underlying assumptions come with it — that the universe is both ordered and knowable.

These Judeo-Christian assumptions are huge — though atheists, agnostics, and (maybe) Muslims and Buddhists should also be able to accept them. However, every scientist still faces the question of why the universe is ordered and knowable (and if you’re not constantly asking the next question, especially the “why” question, then you’re not a very good scientist). The theistic answer of design by creator[20] is not too far away from the assumption of an ordered and knowable universe, and from there, one begins skating very close to the concept that we are made “Imago Dei”–in God’s image. Some people think that there is too much hubris and ego to that belief, but you don’t see dolphins landing on the Moon, or chimpanzees creating great symphonies (or even bad rap).

“Imago Dei” is the most logical conclusion once we can explain why the universe is predictable and knowable. And being made in God’s image has other implications, especially in terms of our role in this universe. Most notably, it promotes the idea of human beings as powerful stewards of creation, as opposed to subservient subjects of Mother Nature, and it will pit Nietzschean Transhumanists and Traditional Catholics against Gaian environmentalists and National Park Rangers.


Television

Writing has been around for thousands of years, while the printing press has been around for almost 600. It would seem that the printing press was the one invention that, more than anything else, enabled the development of all subsequent inventions. Television could be considered an improvement over writing, and given that large amounts of video can be subject to slightly less interpretation than an equal amount of effort writing text, our descendants might get a better, more complete depiction of history than they could get from just text or physical artifacts. However, the television that Joel mentioned was controlled by the big three television networks. This was because the cost to entry was so high (currently from $200,000 to $13 million per episode). So the role of television of the 1960s was similar to the role of books in Medieval Europe, where the cost of a book was equivalent to the yearly salary of a well-educated person). For this reason, Joel’s headline will not be considered significant, though he was close.

He was close because television’s electronic video display offspring, the computer — especially when connected to form the Internet — will certainly be significant. It will be as significant as the nuclear bomb and the Pill combined, if and when Moore’s Law ushers in the Singularity. But Joel was writing a song, not engaging in future studies. We might as well criticize him for not mentioning the coining of the word “nanotechnology”.


Moonshot

A few of Billy Joel’s headlines may be remembered 1,000 years from now, but none mentioned so far will really be significant.

I would go out on a limb and say that other than the scientific and industrial revolutions, the American Constitution, and the virtual abolishment of slavery, little of consequence has happened in the last thousand years. There is, however, one significant event that happened in the 1400s. No, it’s not Spain kicking out the Muslims. It’s not even Admiral Zheng He, Admiral of China’s famed Dragon Fleet, sailing to Africa in the 1420s, though we’re getting warmer. As impressive as they were, Zheng’s voyages did not change the world. What did change the world was the tiny fleet of three ships that returned from the New World to Spain in 1492.

Apollo and Star Trek both pointed to the next and final frontier. It is true that little has happened in the American space program since Apollo, and with the retirement of the 1960s-designed Space Shuttle, even less is expected. This poor showing has occurred because the moon shot, as awe-inspiring as it was, was a political stunt funded for political reasons. The problem is that it didn’t pay for itself, and we therefore have a dismal space program. However, with communication, weather, and GPS satellites, we have a huge space industry. It’s all about the value added.

On the other hand, it’s the governmental space programs that seem to make the initial (and necessary) investments in the basic technology. More importantly, these programs give voice to that which makes us human — “to look at the stars and wonder”.[21]

Realistically, looking at the historical records of Jamestown and Salt Lake City, space development will occur when prosperous upper class families can sell their homes and businesses to buy a one-way ticket and homesteading tools. In today’s money, that would be about one or two million dollars. We have a long way to go to achieve that price break, though it helps that Moore’s Law is exponential.

There have only been a dozen men on the Moon so far, but Neil Armstrong will be remembered far longer than anyone else in this millennium. After the human race has spread throughout the solar system, and after it starts heading for the stars, everyone will remember who took the first small step. The importance of this step will become obvious after the Google Moon prize is won, and after Elon Musk and his imitators demonstrate conclusively that we are no longer in a zero sum game.

That is something to look forward to.

Tihamer Toth-Fejel is Research Engineer at Novii Systems.


Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Andrew Balet, Bill Bogen, Tim Wright, and Ted Reynolds for their significant contributions to this column.

Footnotes

1. Tihamer Toth-Fejel, The Politics and Ethics of the Hall Weather Machine, https://lifeboat.com/blog/2010/09/the-politics-and-ethics-of-the-hall-weather-machine and http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=486
2. Michael Flynn, Washer at the Ford, Analog, v109 #6 & 7, June & July 1989.
3. Arthur Kantrowitz, The Weapon of Openness, http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Background4.html
4. United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, 27 July 1993, http://cryptome.org/nsa-ussid18.htm
5. e.g. Mexico, India, Saudia Arabia, and Russia http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html Also, the petro-dollar millionaires in the Mideast http://www.aneki.com/millionaire_density.html
6. There is an interesting discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
7. David Brin,The Transparent Society, Basic Books (1999). For a quick introduction, see The Transparent Society and Other Articles about Transparency and Privacy, http://www.davidbrin.com/transparent.htm.
8. Tihamer Toth-Fejel, Population Control, Molecular Nanotechnology, and the High Frontier, The Assembler, Volume 5, Number 1 & 2, 1997 http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/9701_05.html#_Toc394339700
9. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Oath of Fealty. New York : Pocket Books, 1982
10. KIDS COUNT Indicator Brief, Reducing the Teen Birth Rate, July 2009. http://www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/KIDS%20COUNT/K/KIDSCOUNTIndicatorBriefReducingtheTeenBirthRa/Corrected%20teen%20birth%20brief.pdf
11. From a small group of just four members in the 1977 Knesset, they gradually increased their representation to 22 (out of 120) in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi_Judaism). The fertility rate for ultra-Orthodox mothers greatly exceeds that of the Israeli Jewish population at large, averaging 6.5 children per mother in the ultra-Orthodox community compared to 2.6 among Israeli Jews overall (http://www.forward.com/articles/7641/ ).
12. As of mid-2001, the Governor of Utah, and all of its Federal senators, representatives and members of the Supreme Court are all Mormon. http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_hist1.htm
13. Julia A. Ericksen; Eugene P. Ericksen, John A. Hostetler, Gertrude E. Huntington. “Fertility Patterns and Trends among the Old Order Amish”. Population Studies (33): 255–76 (July 1979).
14. 1.1 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2003. http://nces.ed.gov/nhes/homeschool/
15. HOMESCHOOLING: Prosecution is waged abroad; troubling trends abound in US http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=34699
16. http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/quote-of-the-moment-martin-niemoller-i-did-not-speak-out/
17. http://www.patentex.com/about_contraception/journey.php
18. I should note that almost all of the people I have personally known from these two religions are trustworthy, intelligent, and a pleasure to meet. Despite what they are taught in their sacred texts.
19. Ira Levin, Boys from Brazil, Dell (1977)
20. There are many question to follow. How did He do it? Why is He masculine? Why did He do it? How do we know? That last question is especially relevant.
21. Guy J. Consolmagno, Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist, McGraw-Hill (2001)

“Who can prove that my Telemach theorem is false?” (See https://lifeboat.com/blog/2011/05/osama-bin-cern .)

The paper shows that masses, meter sticks and charges suffer a change by Einstein’s gravitational clock-slowdown factor.

The charge non-conservation is the most baffling. It was found independently by György Darvas of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (See http://www.springerlink.com/content/0020-7748/?k=Darvas.)

Black holes suddenly have new properties (no Hawking radiation, no charge) and urmeter and urkilogram disappear. The theoretical foundations of the currently running LHC experiment are gone. The request for a scientific safety conference made by the Cologne Administrative Court can no longer be ignored.

Three further Tubingen results (in chaos theory, quantum mechanics and cosmology) conspire pushing up the risk: 8 percent probability of earth evaporation in a few years’ time if the experiment is continued.

I am being accused of degrading the memory of the victims of the holocaust if continuing to warn of planetocaust. No one who is Jewish like me thinks so – it is the murdered children whose voice is the strongest on my side.

But my father was a colleague of Kurt Gerstein’s at Tubingen? Yes, a dissident colleague. And I was declared crazy by the state? Yes, for revealing a new university law in the lecture hall. And my wife was dishonorably discharged and our house taken away by the state? Yes because medical professors must not be forced to lie to their patients. And my student was denied his PhD? Yes for having found the first evidence against Hawking radiation.

But then it may be worth trying to disprove the result from Tubingen? This is what I am asking the world for 3 years.

For J.O.R.

All secret services of the planet know about my warnings against CERN.

Prof. Otto E. Rossler, University of Tubingen, Germany (For J.O.R., 052811)

P.S. The following paper submitted to CERN and the Albert-Einstein-Institut got removed from the Internet:
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Einstein’s Equivalence Principle Has Three Further Implications Besides Affecting Time: T-L-M-Ch Theorem (“Telemach”)

Otto E. Rossler

Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle A, 72076 Tubingen, F.R.G.

Abstract

General relativity is notoriously difficult to interpret. A “return to the mothers” is proposed to better understand the gothic-R theorem of the Schwarzschild metric of general relativity. It is shown that the new finding is already implicit in Einstein’s equivalence principle of 1907 and hence in special relativity (with acceleration included). The TeLeMaCh theorem, named onomatopoetically after Telemachus, is bound to transform metrology if correct.

(March 31, 2011)

1. Introduction

Recently it was shown that the Schwarzschild metric of general relativity admits at least one further canonical observable, the so-called gothic-R distance [1]. In terms of this distance, the speed of light c is globally constant. Is this result only a new mathematically allowed physical interpretation, or does it have deeper “ontological” significance?

A convenient way to find out is to pass over to an even more fundamental level of description. The “equivalence principle” between kinematic and gravitational acceleration, which still belongs to special relativity, is the oldest and in a sense most powerful element of general relativity since everything grew out of this “happiest thought of my life” as Einstein used to call it.

A famous “ontological” implication of the equivalence principle is the slower ticking rate of clocks at the rear end of a long constantly accelerating train or rocketship. It was deduced by Einstein in a chain of heuristic mental steps. The latter involved light-pulse emitting clocks and light-pulse detecting devices in a mentally pictured scenario comprising long hollow cylinders releasable into free fall sporting hooks and vertical slits in their sides to allow one to put in clocks and sensors at different height levels before or after release into free fall, cf. [2].

More than a half-century later, Wolfgang Rindler [3] succeeded in graphically retrieving all pertinent results of Einstein’s in the famous Rindler metric. The latter describes a long collection of simultaneously ignited infinitesimally short rocketships, or rather hollow rocket-rings, that stay together spontaneously owing to a careful choice of their systematically differing constant accelerations. The most concise description of the resulting 2-D space-time diagram, with its “scrollable” simultaneity axes that all pass through one point, can be found in Wald’s 1984 otherwise algebra-oriented book “General Relativity” [4, p. 151]. For an independent re-discovery, see John S. Bell’s intriguing paper [5].

2. The Secret Power of the Equivalence Principle

Clocks at the end of a long constantly accelerating rocketship in outer space have elongated ticking intervals when their light pulses arrive at the rocket’s tip, because the latter has in the meantime acquired a well-defined positive velocity compared to the point of origin of the light pulses, as Einstein found out in 1907. The resulting special-relativistic redshift at first sight appears to be a mere observational effect: “in reality” the clocks in question ought to tick at their normal rate (but they don’t).

We know how it is with Einstein’s deceptively simple gedanken experiments: He has a knack for following them up to a breaking point where something “impossible” occurs. Remember his previous observation of an apparent clock slowdown of a constant-speed departing twin clock which, while with constant speed returning, has an equally accelerated pulse rate, considered in his seminal founding paper of special relativity of two years before: When the twin clock with its elongated-appearing ticking intervals is turned around and comes back with its equally reduced-appearing ticking intervals, everyone would have bet that the net effect must be zero once the two clocks are re-united as physical twins. But to everyone’s surprise, a net effect (a manifest age difference) remains: the “ontological mehrwert” of Einstein’s.

Here with the constantly accelerating rocketship, the same thing occurs: A clock that is carefully lowered from the tip to the slower-appearing rear-end of the accelerating long rocketship will, after having been hauled back up, again fail to be as old as its stationary twin at the tip [6, p.18]. This proves that the clocks “downstairs” indeed are ontologically slower-ticking there. Note that the philosophical term “ontological” is utterly unfamiliar outside Einsteinian physics.

3. Three Added Implications of the Equivalence Principle

Everything that has been said so far is well known. If the clocks are genuinely slower-ticking downstairs rather than just looking slower from above: how about the existence of further ontological implications at the rear end of the rocketship? This suspicion is justified as it turns out. Einstein first found out — as described — that

T_tail = T_tip *(1+z), (1)

where z+1 is the local gravitational redshift factor that applies in the Rindler metric (Einstein called it 1+Phi/c^2, Phi being the gravitational potential [7]).

With Einstein’s result put into this simple form, one is immediately led to expect a spatial corollary: If all temporal wavelengths T are increased, the very same thing is bound to hold true for the spatial wavelengths L of the same light waves:

L_tail = L_tip *(1+z), (2)

and so by implication for all local lengths since everything appears normal locally as mentioned. Formally this conclusion follows from the constancy of the speed of light c (since L/T = c implies L = cT for light waves). If T is locally counterfactually increased by Eq.(1) as we saw, L must be equally increased in Eq.(2) if c is constant.

Although this is correct and we are here still in the realm of special relativity with its absolutely constant c despite the presence of acceleration, the conclusion just drawn is possibly premature since c is believed to be non-constant in general relativity (only “locally constant”). Therefore it is “safer” to first proceed to M and then from there back to L.

M, the mass of a particle that is locally at rest, is necessarily reduced by the very factor by which T is increased,

M_tail = M_tip /(1+z). (3)

This follows from the fact that all locally normal-appearing photons by Eq.(1) have a proportionally decreased frequency f, and hence have a proportionally reduced energy (by Planck’s law E = h f). They have so much less mass-energy by Einstein’s E = mc^2. If all locally generated photons have so much less mass at the rocketship’s tail in a counterfactual manner, necessarily all other masses — by virtue of their being locally inter-transformable into photons (like positronium)in principle — are reduced by the same factor. Hence Eq.(3) is valid.

From the M of Eq.(3), the L of Eq.(2) can now be retrieved as announced via the Bohr radius formula of quantum mechanics: a_0 = h/(m_e*c*2pi*alpha), where m_e is the mass of the electron and alpha the dimensionless fine structure constant. But if the radius of the hydrogen atom is increased in proportion to 1/m_e, wirh m_e varying in accord with Eq.(3), then the size of all objects scales linearly with (1+z) and so does space itself. This was the content of Eq.(2) above.

With Eqs.(1−3) we have arrived at the following abbreviated new law valid in the equivalence principle: “T-L-M.” Einstein’s old finding of T thus has acquired two corollaries of equal standing, L and M for short. What about the third candidate, Ch for charge?

If mass is counterfactually reduced locally and if charge stands in a fixed ratio to mass locally, then charge is bound to be counterfactually reduced in proportion for every class of charged particles. This follows — to give only one example — from the fact that locally, two “511 keV” photons still suffice to produce a positronium atom, consisting of a locally normal-appearing electron and a locally normal-appearing positron. Since both these particles have a reduced mass content by Eq.(3) as we saw, they must also have a proportionally reduced charge content, if all laws of nature are to remain intact locally. This latter condition is guaranteed by Einstein’s principle of “general covariance” which states that the laws of nature are the same in every locally free-falling inertial system. Note that a freshly released free-falling particle (like our positronium atom) is still locally at rest. Therefore, charge is reduced in proportion to the stationary mass,

Ch_tail = Ch_tip /(1+z). (4)

The herewith obtained “completed gravitational redshift law of Einstein” comprises 4 individual equations of equal importance. The new law can be condensed into four letters, T,L,M,Ch. Since the very same consonants pertain to a famous personality of mythological history, Ulysses’s son Telemach (or Telemachus), the 4-letter result can be called the “Telemach theorem.”

To witness, the gravitational redshift (1+z) on the surface of a neutron star is of order of magnitude 2. And the gravitational redshift on the surface (“horizon” in Rindler’s terminology) of a black hole is infinite. By virtue of Telemach, objects on the surface of a neutron star must be visibly enlarged in the vertical direction by a factor of about two [8], which may be measurable. At the same time, the distance toward and from the horizon of a black hole has become infinite (as the corresponding light travel time is already well-known to be [6, p. 20]). Obviously, no known physical phenomenon contradicts the new result which can be tested further empirically.

4. Discussion

Two points need to be discussed. First: Is the Telemach result derived in the equivalence principle robust enough to carry over to the Schwarzschild metric and from there on to all of general relativity? Second: Is the result acceptable in principle from the point of view of modern physics and especially the science of metrology?

The first point is easy to answer. All arguments used above carry over to the Schwarzschild metric. The L of Eq.(2) is nothing but the “poor man’s version” of the gothic-R theorem of the Schwarzschild metric [1]. Conversely, the Schwarzschild metric would have a hard time if the “gothic-R” did not fit the “L” of the more basic theory of the equivalence principle.

Before we come to the testable second point announced, a brief digression into the literature is on line. As noted in ref. [1], similar propositions (sub-vectors of T,L,M,Ch as it were) are not unfamiliar. An analog of L was quite often conjectured to hold true in general relativity. For example, an engineer of the Global Positioning System who — in distrust of Einstein — had built-in a special switch in case Einstein’s predictions were to prove true, later wrote a paper [9] to come to grips with his own surprise; in one formula (his Eq.9 for the “local rest mass energy”), he comes close to Eq.(3) above. More recently, George W. Cox wrote an autodidactic paper arriving, in the present terminology, at T, L and M [10]; he also is the first scientist to explicitly support Ch (personal communication 2010). And professor Richard J. Cook arrived very elegantly at T,L,M (including these symbols) in general relativity [11], correctly invoking a variation in the gravitational constant G by (z+1)^2, but leaving Ch unscathed. Ch proves to be the real crux of the present return to the roots of Einstein’s theory. A discussion with members of the Albert-Einstein Institute in early 2009 made it clear that validity of the Gausss-Stokes theorem of electrostatics [4, p. 432] is put at stake by any change in Ch. So is the Reissner-Nordström metric which no general relativist would easily sacrifice. But this is not all. A change in L alone is bad enough already; for it apparently implies invalidity of the famous Kerr metric and certain cosmological solutions of the Einstein equation. Thus the above theory — while implicit in the equivalence principle and the Schwarzschild metric as the heart of general relativity — is by no means an easy-to-absorb implication of general relativity. This fact can explain some of the resistance the gothic-R theorem encountered when first proposed.

The announced second point is even more important because it makes the connection to measurement. Just as Newton’s universal second (the ” Ur-second” so to speak) was toppled by Einstein’s revolutionary finding of the gravity-dependent “local second” T of Eq.(1), so the famous “Ur-meter” adhered-to up until now is toppled by the gravity-dependent “local meter” L of Eq.(2). The same holds true for the “Ur-kilogram” which with the M of Eq.(3) has now has become different on the moon (much as its once taken-for-granted universal weight had been dethroned by Newton’s law). And the “Ur-charge” Ch (of an electron) now ceases to be universally valid by Eq.(4). The whole to be measured-out cosmos thus acquires a new face if Einstein’s happiest thought (Eq.1) has been correctly elaborated in Eqs.(2−4) above.

In return for this drawback (if it is one), four quantized physical variables arise, three of them new: Besides (i) “Kilogram times Second,” Leibniz’s later famous “action,” there are now:

(ii) “Kilogram times Meter” (“cession” [12]),

(iii) “Coulomb times Second,” and

(iv) “Coulomb times Meter” [13].

The explanation of (ii) is that time and space (Second and Meter) scale in strict parallelism (by Eqs.1,2). The explanation of (iii) and (iv) is that rest mass and charge (Kilogram and Coulomb) scale in strict parallelism (by Eqs.3,4). The quantization laws (iii) and (iv) have no names as of yet (“pulsion”?, “gression”?); they come in several particle-type specific varieties each [12]. Note also that while both G and epsilon_o (and with it mu_o) cease to be fundamental constants as a consequence of L,M,Ch, their ratio (more specifically, the square root of the product of G and epsilon_o) becomes a new fundamental constant of nature which may be named “G_o,”

(v) G_o = 2.4308 *10^(−11) C/kg,

as is straightforward to check by inserting the currently accepted values for G and epsilon_o. A particle-class specific splitting of (v) may or may not have to be reckoned with. Many experiments testing the derived results (ii-v) can be devised. Foreign new technological applications come into sight.

To conclude, a minor revolution in physics was tentatively proposed. The skepticism shown by some members of the experimental profession up until now can be hoped to be overcome with Eqs.(2−4) above. The gothic-R theorem may cease to be controversial. The author would be grateful if a currently running prestigious experiment the fundamentals of which are affected by the above results could be interrupted until the above findings have either been falsified or taken into regard. For it appears that dangers — even apocalyptic ones — cannot be excluded in the wake of the Telemach theorem. Owing to Telemach’s youthful and exotic character, it still appears possible that all of the above is “absolute nonsense” as a colleague who has since changed his mind once publicly called the gothic-R theorem. Einstein in the dusk of his life came to doubt everything he had done, the atomic bomb being the obvious reason. Now his results could for once have an opposite (globe-saving) effect. Timely criticism by the community is invited.

I thank Eric Penrose for discussions and Peter Plath for stimulation. For J.O.R.

References

[1] O.E. Rossler, Abraham-like return to constant c in general relativity: gothic-R theorem demonstrated in Schwarzschild metric (2007; 2009). On:
http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/Chaos.pdf
(Remark: Bernhard Umlauf kindly showed that Eq.9 of ref. [1] contains a calculation error, with the following phrase: “the numerator of the fraction under the natural logarithm must read r_0^(1/2)+(r_0-2m)^(1÷2) and the denominator analogously must read r_i^(1/2)+(r_i-2m)^(1÷2).” Note that this correction leaves the text of ref. [1] unchanged.)

[2] A. Pais, “Subtle is the Lord …,” Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982, pp. 180–181.

[3] W. Rindler, Counterexample to the Lenz-Schiff argument, Am. J. Phys. 36, 540–544 (1968).

[4] R.M. Wald, “General Relativity,” Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1984.

[5] J.S. Bell, How to teach special relativity, Progress in Scientific Culture 1, (2) 1976. Reprinted in: J.S. Bell, “Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics,” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1984), pp. 67–80.

[6] V.P. Frolov and I.D. Novikov, “Black Hole Physics: Basic Concepts and New Developments,” Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998.

[7] A. Einstein, On the relativity principle and the conclusions drawn from it (in German), in: “Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik,” Vol. 4, pp. 411–484 (1907), Eq.(30a), p. 479; English translation in: The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2, The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900–1909, pp. 252–311, p. 306. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

[8] H. Kuypers, Atoms in the gravitational field: Hints at a change of mass and size (in German). PhD dissertation, submitted September 2005 to the university of Tubingen, faculty for chemistry and pharmacy.

[9] R.R. Hatch, Modified Lorentz ether theory, Infinite Energy 39, 14–23 (2001).

[10] G.W. Cox, The complete theory of quantum gravity (2009). On:
http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/quantumfieldtheory31.pdf

[11] R.J. Cook, Gravitational space dilation (2009). On: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0902/0902.2811v1.pdf

[12] O.E. Rossler and C. Giannetti, Cession, twin of action (La cesión: hermana gemela de la acción). In: “Arte en la era electronica” (ed. by C. Giannetti), Barcelona: Associación de Cultura Temporánia L’Angelot, and Goethe-Institut Barcelona 1997, p.124.

[13] O.E. Rossler and D. Fröhlich, The weight of the Ur-Kilogram (2010). On:http://www.achtphasen.net/index.php/plasmaether/2010/12/11/p1890

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Added May 28, 2011: Charge nonconservation – my main result – was described independently in 2009 by György Darvas of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

——————————

Moderate climate critic Richard A. Muller emphasized before the American Congress that a fair presentation of any warning-type scientific results presupposes a fair treatment of the stance of the skeptical majority. I therefore herewith present my Armageddon scenario (of 8 percent within perhaps 5 years) to the American Congress in the requisite, maximally vulnerable manner; in 4 points.

Point # 1 – lack of publication in refereed journals –

Correct. My seminal paper of 2007 remains unprinted – even though it was accepted for publication by a refereed journal. The reason: the journal got closed down. Although it was re-opened recently under its old name, its scope was reduced so as to no longer cover theoretical physics. The journal’s name: “Chaos, Solitons and Fractals.”

Point # 2 – alleged falsity of my first major result –

The result (a “gravitational space dilation” paralleling gravitational time dilation) was independently described in 2009 by Professor Richard J. Cook of the American Air Force Academy.

This result is not really contentious since the traditional interpretation of general relativity and the Einstein equivalence principle makes the same quantitative predictions about measurable data. Only that the traditional interpretation (a locally undetectable reduction of the speed of light in proportion to the gravitational redshift) is replaced by a simpler one (global constancy of the speed of light) which would have greatly pleased Einstein.

Point # 3 – alleged falsity of my second major result –

The result (“gravitational mass-energy reduction”) is well-known to hold true for locally emitted photons. The implied proportional mass-energy reduction of any locally at rest particle and body was independently described by Cook. It to my knowledge stays uncontested. The traditional notion of the “Komar mass” has essentially the same meaning.

Point # 4 – alleged falsity of my third major result –

The result (“gravitational charge reduction”) is revolutionary. It was confirmed by Cook (personal communication 2011). It is a new implication of Einstein’s equivalence principle and the general theory of relativity. It follows from point 3 via general covariance.

—–

Rather than go on with implications, I stop with this third result because it is a scandal. It contradicts 95 years of post-general-relativity physics (“Reissner-Nordström metric”) and 150 years of electromagnetism (“Gauss-Stokes theorem”). Such a revolution is maximally rare. It is bound to have major implications.

There is no response from the part of the profession. The LHC experiment — which is made maximally unsafe by the new results — is being quietly continued. Hate blogs (“relativ-kritisch” and “ElNaschiewatch”) are needed to keep the media quiet.

I would like to ask the American Congress to launch an investigation into lack of circumspectness of the American physical organizations and science media, in the face of revolutionary new results suppressing which endangers the American people.

Professor Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher, University of Tubingen, Germany (For J.O.R., May 23, 2011)

A scientist finds a new result – black holes are uncharged – and the best defense of CERN’s against the allegation that its currently running black-hole factory endangers the planet is gone. But CERN continues in plain sunlight while pretending the result is non-existent.

This would make for a grandiose Hollywood script. It could be pepped up with the side ingredient that the planet’s International Court of Crimes Against Humanity shies away from even replying, and that in contrast a Cologne court requests a scientific safety conference before the experiment can be continued: each fact a non-topic for the media of the planet in question. Sociologists will be eager to explain how such strange global behavior could arise. Or is it because CERN has the rank of a military organization given the fact that its status of absolute immunity is only matched by that of the United Nations themselves?

Much more likely, of course, is it that the unchargedness theorem is false. This is what the Albert-Einstein Institute maintains unofficially while refusing to acknowledge the problem in public. Thus, most probably, everything is fine?

This would be the case if life-saving new results either could not exist or could be made disappear by decree. “A Nobel candidate’s results published three years ago being treated as nonexistent by the planet’s establishment” has only one possible explanation: the person in question has been declared crazy by the state.

As long as this diagnosis has not been medically demonstrated, however, the prospect of danger to the planet stands undiminished. Note that the currently un-disproved probability of the world going under in about 5 years’ time if the experiment is continued, will only be reduced from 8 to 4 percent if the originator is crazy with a probability of 50 percent. And even if he could be shown to be actually crazy, his formally flawless theorem would still deserve the benefit of the doubt.

In our strange movie script, the originator then points away from his own person asking the question of why no one listens to world-famous philosopher Paul Virilio who is on his side. Or to the outstanding people who had accepted the main paper? And if no scientist stands up and says “I take the responsibility that this is false”: Why then not try and put a body of unbiased scholars together to find out if the danger is real or not? Prince Charles was asked to head the panel 3 years ago.

You see I am being impossible with this movie script: To pretend that a single scientist had the right to insist on being proved wrong after finding evidence for a serious assault on the planet! When every reasonable person today agrees that only the highest world leader in terms of political power has the right to utter such a global warning. A scientist would never have this right, and no astronomer would ever be allowed to warn the planet in case he finds a big asteroid bent on a collision course. Yet if this indeed is the modern consensus — also with respect to the current new outbreak of Ebola? -, the whole planet has forgotten what science and rationality means. Is our planet caught in the midst of a dark age?

It would be sufficient if if Stephen Hawking or Hermann Nicolai responded, or if another big name did. For it cannot possibly be that big names have evaporated after my late friend Johnny Wheeler and his Eastern match, Jacob Zel’dovich, passed away. A fatherless planet?

Life would be easier if gravity did not reduce (and in the limit extinguish) charge. And if rationality were no longer needed for survival. However, the time when it was possible to express such claims publicly had seemed by-gone for centuries. Which scientist on the planet has the courage to prove that the “unchargedness theorem for black holes” is false? If no one is capable of doing so, why not report this fact, dear planetary media? And why not address this fact, dear wordless politicians?

I thank my large students’ audience of this morning in the town of Villingen: It was a privilege to be allowed to try and make transparent Einstein’s thinking to you. Take good care, young people of the planet.

Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher (For J.O.R., May 18, 2011)

800 out of 12.000 boat people have drowned in 2 months time in unappreciated heroism. One billion out of 7 billion people go hungry every day. Science no longer yearns for the unknown. Seen against this backdrop, CERN’s refusal for 3 years to allow for a scientific safety conference in the face of a comparable risk to the whole planet (to be shrunk to 2 cm in a few years’ time with a probability of about ten percent) fits in perfectly.

Are human beings the “ten percent killers” by nature? I doubt it. A corrupt system is almost everywhere active in society, or so it appears. The past fate of Lampsacus hometown could be taken for a sign. The hometown of all persons on the Internet is an option for 17 years but remains a non-topic. This even though it is quite affordable and would boost the nation or continent or institution that installs it. And in addition would do a lot for a healthy global economy.

What has all of this to do with CERN? I do not know — except that CERN invented the Internet. But there is the more recent fact that they are hostile to new scientific results and more specifically are unwilling to admit a discussion of the safety of their – by now for more than a year running at increasing luminosity — mega-experiment. I admit that I still hope that my results as to an apocalyptic danger residing in the latter can be relativized. But so far, no one tried to achieve this goal. And no one on the planet dares take up the issue.

In ordinary life one calls such behavior cowardice: Disappearing from sight when asked to respond. A very human attitude. Especially so when a monolithic giant like one of the few legally immune world institutions is involved.

Forgive me that I am still hopeful that this issue is going to be taken up by the world’s media such that either the planet is saved or – if it turns out that it was never in jeopardy – rationality is re-established. For human beings are the only animals capable of rationality – of seeing with the eyes of the other and doing so with their hearts involved. For as a young child, they invented the idea of benevolence – the suspicion that mom wants them to be happy so they turned the table and wanted mom to be happy. The inexplicable light of the day and the gift of the present now are part of this human discovery of mutual gratefulness.

Take care, everyone, and thanks for the fish. The fish of rationality. That CERN is allowed to interrupt operation until the safety issue is clarified. I wish them all the good luck of the world.

Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher, University of Tubingen (For J.O.R., May 11, 2011)