Earth To Mars In 3hrs **no Joke** Options

[Marslauncher]

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.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

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.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

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...

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

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.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

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.

Heim theory is perhaps more difficult than relativity, and in more, Heim was severely impaired, forbidding him any social relation (A bit like Hawking, but worse, as he had no loving spouse to help him to communicate) and now he is dead.

So the problem of evaluating Heim and Einstein are comparable: only some high scientists are able to do so (to the contrary of, for instance, extracting energy from perpetual movement, or Roswell's affair, which could be dismissed by amateurs).

As you say, Einstein work was clear and rigorous, and the discussion with the science community allowed him to stay on an error-free trajectory. So his work was recognized, despites the fact he was not an establishment scientist, just a clerk.

For Heim, we just have to evaluate his complete work at a whole, and without the possibility of asking him for explanations. In the beginning of this thread, some said that there are high scientists who undertook this difficult task with some success, and now you come with your honest-to-god scientists saying that Heim work is just a tangle of random algebra. For this, I consider that the evaluation of Heim is not complete, but those who undertook it have to untangle it and make it understandable, if they want the other scientists to examine it.

This situation reminds me of Ramanujan, an Indian algebra genius, who left a dirty hand book full of hundreds of theorems, in a non-standard notation. When invited in the West, he died from health problems, and his supporters had to spend years to translate and re-demonstrate all his theorems, before Ramanujan was recognized by the mathematics community.

Was Heim some kind of Ramanujan of physics?

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Heim theory is perhaps more difficult than relativity, and in more, Heim was severely impaired, forbidding him any social relation (A bit like Hawking, but worse, as he had no loving spouse to help him to communicate) and now he is dead.

So the problem of evaluating Heim and Einstein are comparable: only some high scientists are able to do so (to the contrary of, for instance, extracting energy from perpetual movement, or Roswell's affair, which could be dismissed by amateurs).

As you say, Einstein work was clear and rigorous, and the discussion with the science community allowed him to stay on an error-free trajectory. So his work was recognized, despites the fact he was not an establishment scientist, just a clerk.

For Heim, we just have to evaluate his complete work at a whole, and without the possibility of asking him for explanations. In the beginning of this thread, some said that there are high scientists who undertook this difficult task with some success, and now you come with your honest-to-god scientists saying that Heim work is just a tangle of random algebra. For this, I consider that the evaluation of Heim is not complete, but those who undertook it have to untangle it and make it understandable, if they want the other scientists to examine it.

This situation reminds me of Ramanujan, an Indian algebra genius, who left a dirty hand book full of hundreds of theorems, in a non-standard notation. When invited in the West, he died from health problems, and his supporters had to spend years to translate and re-demonstrate all his theorems, before Ramanujan was recognized by the mathematics community.

Was Heim some kind of Ramanujan of physics?

More likely a Velikovsky of physics. He has his followers, even a few marginal academics.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

More likely a Velikovsky of physics. He has his followers, even a few marginal academics.

Perhaps. In their time, Velikovsky theories (Venus bumping into Earth to create the Pacific ocean, and the like) were not easy to dismiss, even by professionnal astronomers. But they are easy to prove false today (we know that such a collision would have melted both planets, to form one or more different bodies). The fact that they have still supporters is troubling. But there are other famous examples, such as Tesla (yes THE Tesla) who never accepted relativity. Until his death in the 1940', he was still reasoning into the frame of the aether theory, leading him to think that there would be two kinds of electromagnetic waves: the known Maxwell's "vectorial" waves, and other "scalar" waves (equivalent of the seismic shear and compression waves, but into aether). Of course his theory of "scalar" waves was never even studied, in front of the tremendous success of the relativity. But this refusal is today presented as a censorship by kooks who support the "scalar waves", who say there are numerous devices using them, but who never show these devices actually working.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Perhaps. In their time, Velikovsky theories (Venus bumping into Earth to create the Pacific ocean, and the like) were not easy to dismiss, even by professionnal astronomers. But they are easy to prove false today (we know that such a collision would have melted both planets, to form one or more different bodies). The fact that they have still supporters is troubling. But there are other famous examples, such as Tesla (yes THE Tesla) who never accepted relativity. Until his death in the 1940', he was still reasoning into the frame of the aether theory, leading him to think that there would be two kinds of electromagnetic waves: the known Maxwell's "vectorial" waves, and other "scalar" waves (equivalent of the seismic shear and compression waves, but into aether). Of course his theory of "scalar" waves was never even studied, in front of the tremendous success of the relativity. But this refusal is today presented as a censorship by kooks who support the "scalar waves", who say there are numerous devices using them, but who never show these devices actually working.

Astronomers have long been the leading experts in Newtonian mechanics. I don't think anyone who knew what conservation of angular momentum meant ever believed Velikovsky. He's popular in part because this theories support Young-Earth Creationism and tie astronomy to bible stories. For example, he said the plague of locust on Egypt were caused by the Venus comet, because, as we all know, "comets are infested by vermin". There's a time to be open minded, and there is a time to say, "Wait a minute, this is bullshit!".

I'm a fan of Tesla, but again, there is a huge amount of "new age" science woven around him. Tesla was smart, but he didn't really have a good knowledge of physics. For example, Tesla did not really understand the theory of radio waves, and claimed that radio communication was just induction with currents in the Earth. Even Maxwell and Hertz knew better than that.

Incidently, I have a page on Tesla: Nikola Tesla

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

... Velikovsky. He's popular in part because this theories support Young-Earth Creationism and tie astronomy to bible stories. For example, he said the plague of locust on Egypt were caused by the Venus comet, because, as we all know, "comets are infested by vermin". There's a time to be open minded, and there is a time to say, "Wait a minute, this is bullshit!".

I did not knew all this about Velikovsky. Of course it is utter rubbish, from a physics point of view, and even from a religious point of view. Pardon me if I didn't studied Velikovsky in depth!!

I'm a fan of Tesla, but again, there is a huge amount of "new age" science woven around him. Tesla was smart, but he didn't really have a good knowledge of physics. For example, Tesla did not really understand the theory of radio waves, and claimed that radio communication was just induction with currents in the Earth. Even Maxwell and Hertz knew better than that.

Of course Tesla was an inventor, not a physicist, so he can be excused of some mistakes. But all that was extrapolated about the censorship of "Tesla Waves" and the like is defintively not his feat. There are some interesting things in the New Age, such as beautiful musics and paintings (that are not the point here) but it is true that there are a lot of rubbish, especially in "alternative physics". For such reason I don't involve in anything which claims to be "new age" and refuse to bear this name. I am a fan of freedom too, but we cannot accept anything and the contrary simply in the name of freedom...