There certainly seems to be a confluence of both new and...uh..."fringe" work concerning gravitation and the (in)famous vacuum zero-point field during the last fifteen years or so. Overall, this seems to be a healthy thing; I only hope that some really valuable nuggets of signal can be separated from the noise!

Other than this latest Heim work, have there been any at least semi-credible advances to report? I am aware of some of the NASA research concerning the Casimir Effect, but that's about it...surely some of the more physically inclined (ta-da, da! ) members of UMSF are aware of such, if anyone is.

One thing I would personally very much like to see is a definitive empirical derivation of the Newtonian gravitational constant to settle the uncertainty issue once and for all, and also firm up predictive theories. Earth-based experimental measurements are clearly too vulnerable to systemic interference for any hope of repeatable accuracy. I don't suppose that the results from Gravity Probe B will have any applicability to this...?

So you were all choked up about it?

cough cough

Yeah, that pun kinda stuck in my craw as well...

What disturbs me the most in this theory is not the bad pun (translate please I did not understood) but the four extra dimentions introduced without explanations. Of course this is legitimate if it makes a whole solid and complete theory, but at a moment we shall have to demonstrate the real existence of these dimentions.


(In the case of the Heim theory, they are not space dimentions as we understand it, but something else, eventually similar to the "imaginary" dimention in the vector describing an alternative current).


On the other hand, we have a vacuum which has in fact many properties, such as to contain various fields, having physical constants, creating virtual particules, etc. This is much for something which is just vacuum!
And when we see the gravitationnal field explained as a curvature of space, it is intuitive and tempting to explain each field as a curvature in a different way (in other dimentions, says Heim).

Such theories, even if one day they prove false, are anyway useful. It is the process of science to test many theories, and not a mistake to keep at theories which later prove false. (The theories of Newton, of the aether, were first useful steps). Even in the field of physics, there are many competing theories, and tests currently compare experimental results with several competing theories. Some of these theories also involve other spatial dimentions, but "packed" in such a way that they don't appear at human scale.

Heim also makes me think of Hawking: they are both severely communication disabled, both with an intense inner life and high theoretical level, and all producing though provoking theories.

The Heimlich Maneuver, used to remove objects blocking people's throats if they are choking on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimlich_maneuver

George R.R. Martin, "FTA", Analog, 1974.

Exactly, and Einstein was also socially inept and for the most part was forgetful and often lived in his own world.

I really think that Heim's work should be previewed and his theories tested before being discounted. The ones that have been tested regarding (quantam spin rates) have been accurate to 7 decimal points.

The problems is - there are few physicists who understand Heim's mathematical equations.

Thanks ljk4-1, for this important clarification. I was afraid of something more obscene, but it is still very efficient to make puke anyway.

Not so fast: Einstein was an interesting person, but there is a tendency nowaday to re-interpret great characters as being somewhat ill, so that it "reassures" certain persons who don't like to see others better than them. So I saw Mozart in a clown, Alexandre the Great as an homosexual, Leonardo da Vinci as an anti-church conspireer, etc. Einstein was good at school, he had to bear maccarthysm after fleeing the nazis, and he was interested in peace and spirituality. One who was really ill was Gödel, who was certainly a genius but unable to take care of himself to the point of letting himself die from hunger. Einstein was not really like that...






True. There was also his prediction of the mass of particules (without Higgs boson) very accurate too, even much more accurate than allowed by the uncertainty on the gravitationnal constant G, nobody understand why.






Ah, you reassure me, I am not alone!

What I understand anyway is that his hermetries are mathematical descriptions of the way each subset of the 8 dimentions can play and interact to cause particules and fields to appear. Namely there are four subsets:
-R3 space (3 dimentions)
-T1 time (1 dimention)
-S2 structure (2 dimentions)
-I2 Information (2 dimentions)
about each combinaison of these (containing either S2 ot I2 or both) makes an hermetry, and each hermetry is a particule and its corresponding force (for more exact info see here

Two Internet sources on Heim:

http://www.heim-theory.com/Contents/contents.html

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/01/05/spacedrive/

No matter what Heim's has published, I do believe his theory since I have seen the strange movement of U-F-O (local TV and newspapers pictures) which traveled as it has no mass over Chilca desert, 50 kilometers south of Lima, Peru around 10 years ago. That news was worlwide published with pictures. I do believe that and we must pursue the investigation on the Heim's theory since the new dimensions must exist.

Rodolfo

The Centauri Dreams Web site has an article and links on the alleged hyperdrive,
including a chance for discussion here:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=501

To be noted in this:

Heim work may be false, we cannot know right now. But it is worth to note that it is the first time we see a theory which speaks of antigravitation, superluminic travel and hyperspace which don't look completelly cook at first glance.
Still more curious: Heim theories may enable us to build:

-repulsors, to float above the ground of a planet
-engines to accelerate at high speed
-hyperdrives, which would allow us to pass into an "hyperespace" an back to normal space.

This is exactly the STAR WARS flight techniques!!!

Hope this will not lead us into the cruel world of Star wars...

Marc Millis on Hyperspace Propulsion

Centauri Dreams asked Marc Millis, former head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, for his thoughts on so-called hyperspace propulsion, as recently published in an article called “Take a Leap into Hyperspace” (New Scientist, 5 January 2006). The article has received wide coverage because of its sensational implication that we may be much closer to a breakthrough in interstellar propulsion than anyone realized. And as discussed here in the last few days, it draws on the work of the German theoretician Burkhard Heim and the later refinements of Walter Dröscher and Jochem Häuser.

Millis’ response follows. But he leads it off with this qualification: “My assessments below are only a cursory response rather than the result of a full technical review. If I had done a full technical review, I would have submitted it to a journal. Given the level of interest, however, and the habit that many of us have to jump to conclusions (pro or con), I thought I should comment.”

With that necessary provisio, the podium belongs to Marc Millis:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=504

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, abstract
gr-qc/0511086

From: Mohammad Mansouryar [view email]

Date (v1): Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:31:52 GMT (873kb)
Date (revised v2): Mon, 2 Jan 2006 16:50:09 GMT (2740kb)

On a macroscopic traversable spacewarp in practice

Authors: Mohammad Mansouryar

Comments: 44 pages, 8 Boxes of Figs, typos and one box corrected, one formula and some links along with some new notes added, some references changed

A design of a configuration for violation of the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) and consequently other classic energy conditions (CECs), is presented. The methods of producing effective exotic matter (EM) for a traversable wormhole (TW) are discussed. Also, the approaches of less necessity of TWs to EM are considered. The result is, TW and similar structures; i.e., warp drive (WD) and Krasnikov tube are not just theoretical subjects for teaching general relativity (GR) or objects only an advanced civilization would be able to manufacture anymore, but a quite reachable challenge for current technology. Besides, a new compound metric is introduced as a choice for testing in the lab.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0511086