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The Kline Directive: Theoretical-Empirical Relationship (Part 4)

Posted in business, cosmology, defense, economics, education, engineering, nuclear weapons, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, scientific freedom, spaceTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments on The Kline Directive: Theoretical-Empirical Relationship (Part 4)

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 Relationship, & Technological Feasibility.

In this post I have updated the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) to guide us through the issues so that we can arrive at interstellar travel sooner, rather than later:

Interstellar Challenge Matrix (Partial Matrix)

Propulsion Mechanism Relatively Safe? Theoretical-Empirical Relationship?
Conventional Fuel Rockets: Yes, but susceptible to human error. Known. Theoretical foundations are based on Engineering Feasible Theories, and have been evolving since Robert Goddard invented the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926.
Antimatter Propulsion: No. Extensive gamma ray production (Carl Sagan). Issue is how does one protect the Earth? Capable of an End of Humanity (EOH) event. Dependent on Millennium Theories. John Eades states in no uncertain terms that antimatter is impossible to handle and create.
Atomic Bomb Pulse Detonation: No, because (Project Orion) one needs to be able to manage between 300,000 and 30,000,000 atomic bombs per trip. Known and based on Engineering Feasible Theories.
Time Travel: Do Not Know. Depends on how safely exotic matter can be contained. Dependent on a Millennium Theory. Exotic matter hypotheses are untested. No experimental evidence to show that Nature allows for a breakdown in causality.
String / Quantum Foam Based Propulsion: Do Not Know. Depends on how safely exotic matter can be contained. Dependent on a Millennium Theory. String theories have not been experimentally verified. Exotic matter hypotheses are untested. Existence of Quantum Foam now suspect (Robert Nemiroff).
Small Black Hole Propulsion: No. Capable of an End Of Humanity (EOH) event Don’t know if small black holes really do exist in Nature. Their theoretical basis should be considered a Millennium Theory.

It is quite obvious that the major impediments to interstellar travel are the Millennium Theories. Let us review. Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize 1965) & Sheldon Lee Glashow (Nobel Prize 1979) have criticized string theory for not providing novel experimental predictions at accessible energy scales, but other theoretical physicists (Stephen Hawking, Edward Witten, Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind) believe that string theory is a step towards the correct fundamental description of nature. The Wikipedia article String Theory gives a good overview, and notes other critics and criticisms of string theories. In What is String Theory? Alberto Güijosa explains why string theories have come to dominate theoretical physics. It is about forces, and especially about unifying gravity with the other three forces.

Note, strings expand when their energy increases but the experimental evidence aka Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations tell us that everything contracts with velocity i.e. as energy is increased.

In my opinion, the heady rush to a theory of everything is misguided, because there is at least one question that physics has not answered that is more fundamental than strings and particles. What is probability and how is it implemented in Nature?

Probabilities are more fundamental than particles as particles exhibit non-linear spatial probabilistic behavior. So how can one build a theory of everything on a complex structure (particles), if it cannot explain something substantially more fundamental (probabilities) than this complex structure? The logic defies me.

We can ask more fundamental questions. Is this probability really a Gaussian function? Experimental data suggests otherwise, a Var-Gamma distribution. Why is the force experienced by an electron moving in a magnetic field, orthogonal to both the electron velocity and the magnetic field? Contemporary electromagnetism just says it is vector cross product, i.e. it is just that way. The cross product is a variation of saying it has to be a Left Hand Rule or a Right Hand Rule. But why?

Is mass really the source of a gravitational field? Could it not be due to quark interaction? Can we device experiments that can distinguish between the two? Why do photons exhibit both wave and particle behavior? What is momentum, and why is it conserved? Why is mass and energy equivalent?

Can theoretical physicists construct theories without using the laws of conservation of mass-energy and momentum? That would be a real test for a theory of everything!

In my research into gravity modification I found that the massless formula for gravitational acceleration, g=τc2, works for gravity, electromagnetism and mechanical forces. Yes, a unification of gravity and electromagnetism. And this formula has been tested and verified with experimental data. Further that a force field is a Non Inertia (Ni) field, and is present where ever there is a spatial gradient in time dilations or velocities. This is very different from the Standard Model which requires that forces are transmitted by the exchange of virtual particles.

So if there is an alternative model that has united gravity and electromagnetism, what does that say for both string theories and the Standard Model? I raise these questions because they are opportunities to kick start research in a different direction. I answered two of these questions in my book. In the spirit of the Kline Directive can we use these questions to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not?

That is why I’m confident that we will have real working gravity modification technologies by 2020.

In concluding this section we need to figure out funding rules to ensure that Engineering Feasible and 100-Year Theories get first priority. That is the only way we are going to be able to refocus our physics community to achieve interstellar travel sooner rather than later.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next 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.

The Kline Directive: Theoretical-Empirical Relationship (Part 3)

Posted in cosmology, defense, education, engineering, particle physics, philosophy, physics, policy, spaceTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments on The Kline Directive: Theoretical-Empirical Relationship (Part 3)

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:

1. Legal Standing. 2. Safety Awareness. 3. Economic Viability. 4. Theoretical-Empirical Relationship. 5. Technological Feasibility.

In Part 1, we learned that Einstein was phenomenally successful because his work was deeply meshed with the experimental evidence of the day. In Part 2, we learned that to be successful at developing new useful theories and discovering new fundamental properties of Nature that will bring forth new interstellar travel technologies, we need to avoid hypotheses that are not grounded in experimental data, as these are purely mathematical conjectures.

In my book on gravity modification I classified physics hypotheses and theories into 3 categories, as follows:

A. Type 1: The Millennium Theories
These are theories that would require more than a 100 years and up to 1,000 years to prove or disprove. Mathematically correct but inscrutable with physical verifiable experiments, even in the distant future.

String and quantum gravity theories fall into this category. Why? If we cannot even figure out how to engineer-modify 4-dimensional spacetime, how are we going to engineer-modify a 5-, 6-, 9-, 11- or 23-dimensional universe?

How long would it take using string theories to modify gravity? Prof. Michio Kaku in his April 2008 Space Show interview had suggested several hundred years. Dr. Eric Davis in his G4TV interview had suggested more than 100 years maybe 200 years. So rightly, by their own admission these are Millennium Theories. It should be noted that Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize 1965) & Sheldon Lee Glashow (Nobel Prize 1979) were against string theory, but their opinions did not prevail.

Even hypotheses that conjecture time travel should be classified as Millennium Theories because they require ‘exotic’ matter. John Eades, a retired CERN senior scientist, in his article Antimatter Pseudoscience, states in no uncertain terms that antimatter is impossible to handle and create in real quantities. Then what about exotic matter?

For that matter any hypothesis that requires antimatter or exotic matter should be classified a Millennium Theory.

B. Type 2: The 100-Year Theories
These are theories that show promise of being verified with technologies that would require several decades to engineer, test and prove.

These types of theories do not lend themselves to an immediate engineering solution. The engineering solution is theoretically feasible but a working experiment or technology is some decades away, because the experimental or physical implementation is not fully understood.

Note there is this gap. We do not have 100-Year Theories in our repertoire of physical theories to keep the pipeline supplied with new and different ways to test the physical Universe.

C. Type 3: The Engineering Feasible Theories
These are theories that lend themselves to an engineering solution, today. They are falsifiable today, with our current engineering technologies. They can be tested and verified in the laboratory if one knows what to test for and how to test for these experimental observations.

Today Relativity falls into this category because we have the engineering sophistication to test Einstein’s theory, and it has been vindicated time and time again. But, there is a very big ‘but’. But Relativity cannot give us gravity modification or new propulsion theories, because it requires mass. We need to stand on Einstein’s shoulders to take the next step forward.

Therefore, if we are to become an interstellar civilization, in the spirit of the Kline Directive, we need to actively seek out and explore physics in such a manner as to bring forth Engineering Feasible and 100-Year Theories.

We need to ask ourselves, what can we do, to migrate the theoretical physics research away from Theory of Everything research to the new field of propulsion physics? Gravity modification is an example of propulsion physics. Here is the definition of gravity modification, from my book:

“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 by this definition requiring no mass, relativity, quantum mechanics and string theories cannot be used to theorize propulsion physics. Therefore, the urgent need to find genuinely new ways in physics, to achieve interstellar travel.

Can we get there? The new physics? To answer this question let me quote Dr. Andrew Beckwith, Astrophysicist, Ph.D.(Condensed Matter Theory) who wrote the Foreword to my book:

“I believe that Quantum Mechanics is an embedded artifact of a higher level deterministic theory, i.e. much in the same vein as G. t’Hooft, the Nobel prize winner. In this sense, what Benjamin has done is to give a first order approximation as to what Quantum Mechanics is actually a part of which may in its own way shed much needed understanding of the foundations of Quantum Mechanics well beyond the ‘Pilot model’ of DICE 2010 fame (this is a conference on the foundations of Quantum Mechanics and its extension given once every two years in Pisa , Italy, organized by Thomas Elze).”

Why does Dr. Andrew Beckwith reference quantum mechanics in a book on gravity modification?

Because my investigation into gravity modification led me to the conclusion that gravitation acceleration is independent of the internal structure of the particle. It does not matter if the particle consists of other particles, strings, pebbles or rocks. This led me to ask the question, so what is the internal structure of a photon? I found out that the photon probability is not Gaussian but a new distribution, Var-Gamma. Therefore I believe Robert Nemiroff’s three photon observation will be vindicated by other physicist-researchers sifting through NASA’s archives for gamma-ray burst.

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.