Earth To Mars In 3hrs **no Joke** |
Earth To Mars In 3hrs **no Joke** |
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![]() Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 60 Joined: 22-October 04 Member No.: 102 ![]() |
Just got tipped off to this story
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006 Here is the paper http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/cb/cb26/heim/theor...sicsaip2005.pdf They could feasibly have a prototype within 5 years!!! Happy New Year indeed everyone. |
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Guest_DonPMitchell_* |
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#2
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I looked at some of Heim's work, and I believe he was a crank. His papers are a schizophrenic word salad of algebra, where he derives "fundamental constants" by feeding in mysterious parameters and massaging them into values close to the mass of the neutron or electron. Of course, today we know that most of the particles he talked about are not actually fundamental, but are constructs of quarks. The mass of a proton is the result of a very complex set of factors, and not what you would expect to pop out of some kind of new fundamental theory.
I also asked two honest-to-god physicists about Heim (including Stephen Wolfram), and they concurred. Wolfram pointed out that the observation of neutron stars, which have been carried out with almost unbelievable accuracy over long periods of time, do not indicate anything that deviates from general relativity and electromagnetism. There are also people who believe that the US is hiding secret anti-gravity technology -- either secret Nazi experiments or found in the Roswell flying saucer, depending on which nut you listen to. Believe it or not, I got into an argument about this with Andrew Walker at the BBC, who believed and reported this (the Nazi version, not the UFO version). Let's not waste time with hoaxes when there is so much exciting real science to do. |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
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#3
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I looked at some of Heim's work, and I believe he was a crank. His papers are a schizophrenic word salad of algebra, where he derives "fundamental constants" by feeding in mysterious parameters and massaging them into values close to the mass of the neutron or electron. Of course, today we know that most of the particles he talked about are not actually fundamental, but are constructs of quarks. The mass of a proton is the result of a very complex set of factors, and not what you would expect to pop out of some kind of new fundamental theory. I also asked two honest-to-god physicists about Heim (including Stephen Wolfram), and they concurred. Wolfram pointed out that the observation of neutron stars, which have been carried out with almost unbelievable accuracy over long periods of time, do not indicate anything that deviates from general relativity and electromagnetism. There are also people who believe that the US is hiding secret anti-gravity technology -- either secret Nazi experiments or found in the Roswell flying saucer, depending on which nut you listen to. Believe it or not, I got into an argument about this with Andrew Walker at the BBC, who believed and reported this (the Nazi version, not the UFO version). Let's not waste time with hoaxes when there is so much exciting real science to do. hmmm... Heim theory was a bit too beautiful to be true. The problem with Heim is that it cannot simply be proven/dismissed. The stories of conspiracy/roswell can easily be proved false (it fall under common sense). But Heim mathematics are complicated, so only high scientist can judge them. After Heim theory, quick rotation and strong electromagnetic fields should result into gravitationnal fields. Such fields should be easily observable into neutron stars, from where the pertinence of their observation (as I noted higher in this thread). Too bad if nothing was found. I am still cautious though, because it would not be the first time that high establishment scientists dismiss a new theory or discovery which afterwards turns to be true (like Lord Kelvin with the X rays). But It would not be the first time too that "new revolutionary theories" turns to be false... |
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Guest_DonPMitchell_* |
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#4
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I am still cautious though, because it would not be the first time that high establishment scientists dismiss a new theory or discovery which afterwards turns to be true (like Lord Kelvin with the X rays). But It would not be the first time too that "new revolutionary theories" turns to be false... Heim's theory is not really beautiful, it is a tangle of random algebra. My own education in Physics was up to graduate level (at Caltech), but I do not practice physics as a profession, which is why I asked two real physicists for their opinions. Real scientists of merit do not take Heim seriously. There have been a number of these attempts to unify gravity and E&M, and Einstein himself looked at some of them to see if they could be fixed up, or if they had some intersting clue within them. So have quantum field theoriests, since there is sometimes what is called a "correspondance" between a classical field theory and a quantum theory. Wrong theories are a dime a dozen. There is always the possibility that a lone revolutionary scientist can be right. But if you take Einstein for example, his papers are clear and rigorous, and he engaged in a public discussion with the community of scientists. He was just a patent clerk, but the scientific community recognized his work quickly. On the other hand, crank scientists are often seriously NPD. They are so confident and in love with their own ideas, that they don't bother to learn real science to an advanced degree, and they quickly resort to the tired claims of conspiracy, when their ideas are not hailed by others. That's bogus. Scientists are always clamoring for new ideas and solutions. You couldn't create a conspiracy of egotistical academics to supress something interesting, it would be like trying to herd cats. If something was really interesting, if it solved a real problem and made sense, some budding ambitious young scientist would look into it. I think from an education statepoint, there needs to be a better job of presenting to the public what real scientists do. 1) it is hard work to become an expert in a modern field, and 2) it is extremely rewarding work. Cranks and pundits try to take a shortcut, to elevate themselves to the status of "expert", which really annoys me. |
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