Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: cosmology – Page 449

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

Posted by Benjamin T. Solomon 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.

—————————————————————————————————

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 by Benjamin T. Solomon 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.

—————————————————————————————————

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.

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.

From Part 1 … “that mathematics has become so sophisticated and so very successful that it can now be used to prove anything and everything, and therefore, the loss of certainty that mathematics will provide reasonability in guidance and correctness in answers to our questions in the sciences”.

We need to note that there are several different relationships between the mathematics of physics and the physics of the real world.

The first relationship and most common type is that several different types of equations in physics describe the same physics of the world. Gravity is a great example. The three mathematical theories on gravity are relativity, quantum and string theories. All three model the same single physical phenomenon, gravitational fields. So if one is correct than the other two must be wrong. All three cannot be correct. So which is it?

Just for argument sake, there is another alternative — all three are wrong. But wait didn’t all those experiments and observations prove that General Relativity is correct? Remember for argument’s sake, that proving that something fits the experimental observation does not mean that is how Nature works. That is why theoretical physicists spend so much time, money and effort considering alternatives like quantum and string theories.

The second relationship is that different mathematical descriptions can be ascribed to different parts of a physical phenomenon. For example Einstein’s General Relativity describes spacetime as tensor calculus, a very complex mathematical model which he did not get right on his first attempt. General Relativity addresses the question of gravity’s source as an energy-momentum tensor. To put it simply, these equations are complex.

Whereas in my work I realized at some point during my investigation into gravity modification, that to develop technologies that could modify gravity we needed a mathematical equation (g=τc2) that would describe the phenomenon of gravitational acceleration without needing to include mass. I discovered this equation, g=τc2, after very extensive numerical modeling of gravitational accelerations in spacetime, where tau, τ is the change in time dilation divided by change in distance (for more look up my Physics Essays paper, “Gravitational Acceleration Without Mass And Noninertia Fields”). Consider how elegantly simple this equation is and without mass we can now replace the source with something more technology friendly.

And the third type of relationship is the mathematics of physics that cannot or cannot yet be verified with experimental evidence. String theories are great examples of this. From what I know, there is nothing in the string theories (which have not been borrowed for quantum mechanics) that is experimentally verifiable. And yet we go on. Why?

Consider this. The experimental evidence proves that nothing with mass can be accelerated past the velocity of light (aka Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations), and yet Dr. Eric Davis agrees with Dr. Richard Obousy that using string quantum theory that the maximum velocity one can reach is 1032 x c (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x velocity of light). Now what would you believe, experimental evidence or mathematical conjecture?

Now, do you agree that that mathematics has become so sophisticated and so very successful that it can be used to prove anything and everything, and therefore, the loss of certainty that mathematics can provide reasonability in guidance and correctness in answers to our questions in the sciences?

Don’t get me wrong. Mathematics is vital for the progress of the sciences, but it needs to be tempered with real world experimental evidence, otherwise it is just conjecture, and retards our search for interstellar travel technologies.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

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.

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 of this post I will explore Theoretical-Empirical Relationship. Not theoretical relationships, not empirical relationships but theoretical-empirical relationships. To do this let us remind ourselves what the late Prof. Morris Kline was getting at in his book Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, that mathematics has become so sophisticated and so very successful that it can now be used to prove anything and everything, and therefore, the loss of certainty that mathematics will provide reasonability in guidance and correctness in answers to our questions in the sciences.

History of science shows that all three giants of science of their times, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton & Christiaan Huygens believed that light traveled in aether medium, but by the end of the 19th century there was enough experimental evidence to show aether could not be a valid concept. The primary experiment that changed our understanding of aether was the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887, which once and for all proved that aether did not have the correct properties as the medium in which light travels.

Only after these experimental results were published did, a then unknown Albert Einstein, invent the Special Theory of Relativity (SRT) in 1905. The important fact to take note here is that Einstein did not invent SRT out of thin air, like many non-scientists and scientists, today believe. He invented SRT by examining the experimental data to put forward a hypothesis or concept described in mathematical form, why the velocity of light was constant in every direction independent of the direction of relative motion.

But he also had clues from others, namely George Francis FitzGerald (1889) and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1892) who postulated length contraction to explain negative outcome of the Michelson-Morley experiment and to rescue the ‘stationary aether’ hypothesis. Today their work is named the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation.

So Einstein did not invent the Special Theory of Relativity (SRT) out of thin air, there was a body of knowledge and hypotheses already in the literature. What Einstein did do was to pull all this together in a consistent and uniform manner that led to further correct predictions of how the physics of the Universe works.

(Note: I know my history of science in certain fields of endeavor, and therefore use Wikipedia a lot, not as a primary reference, but as a starting point for the reader to take off for his/her own research.)

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

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.

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 this post I will explore Safety Awareness.

In the heady rush to propose academically acceptable ideas about new propulsions systems or star drives it is very easy to overlook safety considerations. The eminent cosmologist Carl Sagan said it best “So the problem is not to shield the payload, the problem is to shield the earth” (Planet. Space Sci., pp. 485 – 498, 1963)

It is perfectly acceptable if not warranted to propose these technologically infeasible star drives based on antimatter and exotic matter, as academic exercises because we need to understand what is possible and why. However, we need to inform the public of the safety issues when doing so.

I do not understand how any physicist or propulsion engineer, in his/her right mind, not qualify their academic exercise in antimatter propulsion or star drive with a statement similar to Carl Saga’s. At the very least it gets someone else thinking about those safety problems, and we can arrive at a solution sooner, if one exists.

We note that the distinguished Carl Sagan did not shy away from safety issues. He was mindful of the consequences and is an example of someone pushing the limits of safety awareness in the spirit of the Kline Directive, to explore issues which others would (could?) not.

We have to ask ourselves, how did we regress? From Sagan’s let us consider all ancillary issues, to our current let us ignore all ancillary issues. The inference I am forced to come to is that Carl Sagan was a one-man team, while the rest of us lesser beings need to come together as multi-person teams to stay on track, to achieve interstellar travel.

In interstellar & interplanetary space there are two parts to safety, radiation shielding and projectile shielding. Radiation shielding is about shielding from x-ray and gamma rays. Projectile shielding is about protection from physical damage caused by small particle collisions.

I may be wrong but I haven’t come across anyone even attempting to address either problems. I’ve heard of strategies such as using very strong electric fields or even of using millions of tons of metal shielding but these are not realistic. I’ve even heard of the need to address these issues but nothing more.

Safety is a big issue that has not been addressed. So how are we going to solve this? What do we need to explore that others have not? What do we need to seek that others would not? What do we need to change, that others dare not?

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

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.


Technology is as Human Does
When one of the U.S. Air Force’s top future strategy guys starts dorking out on how we’ve gotta at least begin considering what to do when a progressively decaying yet apocalyptically belligerent sun begins BBQing the earth, attention is payed. See, none of the proposed solutions involve marinade or species-level acquiescence, they involve practical discussion on the necessity for super awesome technology on par with a Kardeshev Type II civilization (one that’s harnessed the energy of an entire solar system).

Because Not if, but WHEN the Earth Dies, What’s Next for Us?
Head over to Kurzweil AI and have a read of Lt. Col. Peter Garretson’s guest piece. There’s perpetuation of the species stuff, singularity stuff, transhumanism stuff, space stuff, Mind Children stuff, and plenty else to occupy those of us with borderline pathological tech obsessions.

[BILLION YEAR PLAN — KURZWEIL AI]
[U.S. AIR FORCE BLUE HORIZONS FUTURE STUFF PROJECT]

The Truth about Space Travel is Stranger than Fiction

Posted by Gary Michael Church in asteroid/comet impacts, biological, biotech/medical, business, chemistry, climatology, complex systems, cosmology, counterterrorism, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, events, evolution, existential risks, finance, futurism, geopolitics, habitats, homo sapiens, human trajectories, life extension, lifeboat, media & arts, military, neuroscience, nuclear weapons, physics, policy, space, sustainability, transparency, treatiesTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments on The Truth about Space Travel is Stranger than Fiction

I have been corresponding with John Hunt and have decided that perhaps it is time to start moving toward forming a group that can accomplish something.

The recent death of Neil Armstrong has people thinking about space. The explosion of a meteor over Britain and the curiosity rover on Mars are also in the news. But there is really nothing new under the sun. There is nothing that will hold people’s attention for very long outside of their own immediate comfort and basic needs. Money is the central idea of our civilization and everything else is soon forgotten. But this idea of money as the center of all activity is a death sentence. Human beings die and species eventually become extinct just as worlds and suns also are destroyed or burn out. Each of us is in the position of a circus freak on death row. Bizarre, self centered, doomed; a cosmic joke. Of all the creatures on this planet, we are the freaks the other creatures would come to mock- if they were like us. If they were supposedly intelligent like us. But are we actually the intelligent ones? The argument can be made that we lack a necessary characteristic to be considered truly intelligent life forms.

Truly intelligent creatures would be struggling with three problems if they found themselves in our situation as human beings on Earth in the first decades of this 21st century;

1. Mortality. With technology possible to delay death and eventually reverse the aging process, intelligent beings would be directing the balance of planetary resources towards conquering “natural” death.

2. Threats. With technology not just possible, but available, to defend the earth from extinction level events, the resources not being used to seek an answer to the first problem would necessarily be directed toward this second danger.

3. Progress. With science advancing and accelerating, the future prospects for engineering humans for greater intelligence and eventually building super intelligent machines are clear. Crystal clear. Not addressing these prospects is a clear warning that we are, as individuals, as a species, and as a living planet, headed not toward a bright future, but in the opposite direction toward a dead and final end.

One engineered pathogen will destroy us forever. One impact larger than average will destroy us forever. The reasoning that death is somehow “natural” which drives us to ignore the subject of destruction will destroy us forever. Earth changes are inevitable and taking place now- despite our faith in television and popular culture that everything is fun and games. Man is not the measure of all things. We think tomorrow will come just like yesterday- but it will not.

The Truth about Space Travel is that there are no stargates or warp drives that will take us across the galaxy like commecial airliners or cruise ships take us across oceans. If we do wake up and change our course, space voyages will take centuries and human expansion will be measured in millenia. We will be frozen when we travel to distant stars. And this survivable freezing will mark the beginning of a new age since being able to delay death by freezing will completely transform life. The first such successful procedure will mean the end of the world as we know it- and the beginning of a new civilization.

Though unknown to the public, the atomic bomb and then the hydrogen bomb marked the true beginning of the Space Age. Hydrogen bombs can push cities in space, hollow moons, to some percentage of the speed of light. These cities can travel to other stars, such as Epsilon Eridani with it’s massive asteroid belt. And there more artificial hollow moons can be mass produced to provide new worlds to live in. This is not fiction I am speaking of but something we could do right now- today. We only lack the procedure to freeze and successfully revive a human being. It is, indeed, stranger than fiction.

In Beam Propulsion we have the answer to bending the rocket equation to our will and allowing millions and eventually billions of human beings to migrate into space. Just as Verne and Wells made accurate predictions of the decades to come, we now are seeing the possible obvious future unfolding before our eyes.

But the most possible and probable obvious future at this moment is destruction. The end of days. Unless we do something.
You and I and everyone you know is involved in this. Let’s get started.

Recently Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, wrote an article in the Huffington Post How to Find Extraterrestrial Life. He had proposed that the search for extraterrestrial life was a three-way horse race. According to Shostak:

(1) Discover Life Nearby: This is the search for life in our solar system.

(2) Sniff It Out: Do the sort of spectral analysis that might detect atmospheric gases caused by biology.

(3) Eavesdrop On ET: Otherwise known as SETI, is the effort to detect radio signals or laser flashes from technically savvy extraterrestrials.

Neat, Shostak has set the frame work for further dscussions. Note that the (1) is the search for the existance of life based molecules. That (2) is the search for life forms, whether past or present. And (3) is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

He says that a priori all are equally likely to be successful. Lets think again.

With respect to (1) Discover Life Nearby, lets look at the record. Using the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit & Opportunity, as examples, Spirit which was 2.3m wide, covered 8.81 km over 581 sols (a Martian day that is approximately an Earth day), that is approximately 19 m2 per day. Given that the surface of Mars is 144,798,500 km2 it will take Spirit about 7.6 × 1012 days or 208,340,844 centuries, to examine the total surface of Mars. That is, assuming randomness, and that life did exist on Mars in the past, the quick & dirty probability of finding life on Mars on any day with current technology is 1.3 × 10-13. We have a better idea of Mars. It is mostly barren. However, not a clue about the Europa the moon of Jupiter, that is believed to have oceans beneath its ice.

With current projections it likely that NASA will have a satellite at Europa in the 2020–2030 time frame.

So, we can make 2 types of guesses. Assuming that life started on Europa some millions ago, then the probability (from a detection perspective) of finding life on Europa is good, close to 1. However, if Europa is a liquid version of Mars, then the probability is on the order of 1 × 10-13.

Therefore, the time frame for discovery of extraterrestrial life by (1) Discover Life Nearby, is about 2025 assuming no budgets cuts or other re-prioritizations.

With respect to (2) Sniff It Out, scientists estimate that there are about 1 x 1010 Earth like planets in our Milky Way. Lets assume that the Goldilocks Zone is a necessity. Using Pluto as the outer extreme of planets in a Star Local system, and Mars and Venus as boundaries of our Goldilocks Zone, then the approximate probability of finding one of these Earth-like planets in the Goldilocks Zone is 2.89 × 10-2. This reduces the number of Earth-like planets capable of supporting life to 289,340,102. Or the probability of finding life on at least one of these planets (assuming life is present) is at least 3.45 × 10-9.

I would estimate that the time frame for detecting extraterrestrial life is between today, and 35 years from now to 2047.

It could be any day now as the Dutch using the Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Andes have detected carbon monoxide on a planet hugging the star Tau Bootis that is 51 light-years away. The other end of my estimate is 2047. This is because developing a technology like the James Webb telescope was 30 years in the making.

So (2) Sniff It Out, has a better chance of finding evidence of life than (1) Discover Life Nearby.

Now how about (3) Eavesdrop On ET? As the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification, it is slim. Sorry, Tarter, Shostak and all of you at the SETI Institute. But wait, I haven’t finished.

Look at our civilization. In 1895 Guglielmo Marconi proved that long distance radio transmission was possible. In 117 years we have exponentially evolved our technological sophistication to what it is today, 2012.

As the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification I have proposed (see page 195) the existence of subspace, where everything is probabilistic, and light speed is not a restriction. Therefore, if confirmed, there is the strong possibility that by 2025/2035 this planet will go radio silent, because all our transmissions will be through subspace.

That is, the window to observe a radio intelligent extraterrestrial civilization is about 100 to 150 years, then they go silent. 100–150 years is an immensely thin slice or duration compared to the distances of stars even within our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Or the probability of detecting extraterrestrial radio transmissions within our own galaxy is approximately 1.25 × 10-6. It is actually a little better than this but I am using quick & dirty for this blog posting, and this will do. This is much better than a posteriori 1 × 10-13 for (1) Discover Life Nearby and 3.45 x 10-9 for (2) Sniff It Out.

So SETI, keep eavesdropping, and we can expect confirmation of Extraterrestrial Life by 2047 latest.

—————————————————————————————————

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

High energy experiments like the LHC at the nuclear research centre CERN are extreme energy consumers (needing the power of a nuclear plant). Their construction is extremely costly (presently 7 Billion Euros) and practical benefits are not in sight. The experiments eventually pose existential risks and these risks have not been properly investigated.

It is not the first time that CERN announces record energies and news around April 1 – apparently hoping that some critique and concerns about the risks could be misinterpreted as an April joke. Additionally CERN regularly starts up the LHC at Easter celebrations and just before week ends, when news offices are empty and people prefer to have peaceful days with their friends and families.

CERN has just announced new records in collision energies at the LHC. And instead of conducting a neutral risk assessment, the nuclear research centre plans costly upgrades of its Big Bang machine. Facing an LHC upgrade in 2013 for up to CHF 1 Billion and the perspective of a Mega-LHC in 2022: How long will it take until risk researchers are finally integrated in a neutral safety assessment?

There are countless evidences for the necessity of an external and multidisciplinary safety assessment of the LHC. According to a pre-study in risk research, CERN fits less than a fifth of the criteria for a modern risk assessment (see the press release below). It is not acceptable that the clueless member states point at the operator CERN itself, while this regards its self-set security measures as sufficient, in spite of critique from risk researchers, continuous debates and the publication of further papers pointing at concrete dangers and even existential risks (black holes, strangelets) eventually arising from the experiments sooner or later. Presently science has to admit that the risk is disputed and basically unknown.

It will not be possible to keep up this ostrich policy much longer. Especially facing the planned upgrades of the LHC, CERN will be confronted with increasing critique from scientific and civil side that the most powerful particle collider has yet not been challenged in a neutral and multidisciplinary safety assessment. CERN has yet not answered to pragmatic proposals for such a process that also should constructively involve critics and CERN. Also further legal steps from different sides are possible.

The member states that are financing the CERN budget, the UN or private funds are addressed to provide resources to finally initiate a neutral and multidisciplinary risk assessment.

German version of this article published in Oekonews: http://www.oekonews.at/index.php?mdoc_id=1069458

Related LHC-Critique press release and open letter to CERN:

https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/02/lhc-critique-press-release…hc-upgrade

Typical physicist’s April joke on stable black holes at the LHC (April 1 2012, German): http://www.scienceblogs.de/hier-wohnen-drachen/2012/04/stabi…rzeugt.php

Latest publications of studies demonstrating risks arising from the LHC experiment:

Prof Otto E. Rössler: http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMCSR/PDF/pdf2012/Feb/9%20Feb/Rossler.pdf

Thomas Kerwick B.Tech. M.Eng. Ph.D.: http://www.vixra.org/abs/1203.0055

Brief summary of the basic problem by LHC-Kritik (still valid since Sep. 2008): http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lhc-kriti…ry-908.pdf

Detailed summary of the scientific LHC risk discussion by LHC-Kritik and ConCERNed International: http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/critical-…ed-int.pdf

We wish you happy Easter and hope for your support of our pragmatic proposals to urgently increase safety in these new fields of nuclear physics.

LHC Critique / LHC Kritik — Network for Safety at nuclear and sub-nuclear high energy Experiments.

www.LHC-concern.info

[email protected]

Tel.: +43 650 629 627 5

New Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/LHC.Critique/

- CERN’s annual meeting to fix LHC schedules in Chamonix: Increasing energies. No external and multi-disciplinary risk assessment so far. Future plans targeting at costly LHC upgrade in 2013 and Mega-LHC in 2022.

- COMMUNICATION to CERN – For a neutral and multi-disciplinary risk assessment before any LHC upgrade

According to CERN’s Chamonix workshop (Feb. 6–10 2012) and a press release from today: In 2012 the collision energies of the world’s biggest particle collider LHC should be increased from 3.5 to 4 TeV per beam and the luminosity is planned to be increased by a factor of 3. This means much more particle collisions at higher energies.

CERN plans to shut down the LHC in 2013 for about 20 months to do a very costly upgrade (for CHF 1 Billion?) to run the LHC at double the present energies (7 TeV per beam) afterwards.

Future plans: A High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is planned, “tentatively scheduled to start operating around 2022” — with a beam energy increased from 7 to 16.5 TeV(!):
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2012/06/News%20Articles/1423292?ln=en

One might really ask where this should lead to – sooner or later – without the risks being properly investigated. Many critics from different fields are severely alarmed.

For comparison: The AMS 2 experiment for directly measuring cosmic rays in the atmosphere operates on a scale around 1.5 TeV. Very high energetic cosmic rays have only been measured indirectly (their impulse). Sort, velocity, mass and origin of these particles are unknown. In any way, the number of collisions under the extreme and unprecedented artificial conditions at the LHC is of astronomical magnitudes higher than anywhere else in the nearer cosmos.

There were many talks on machine safety at the Chamonix meeting. The safety of humans and environment obviously were not an official topic. That’s why critics turned to CERN in an open letter:

———————————————————–
Communication on LHC Safety directed to CERN

For a neutral and multidisciplinary risk assessment to be done before any LHC upgrade

—————————-
Communiqué to CERN
—————————-

Dear management and scientists at CERN,

Astronomer and Leonardo-publisher Roger Malina recently emphasized that the main problem in research is that “curiosity is not neutral”. And he concluded: “There are certain problems where we cannot cloister the scientific activity in the scientific world, and I think we really need to break the model. I wish CERN, when they had been discussing the risks, had done that in an open societal context, and not just within the CERN context.”

Video of Roger Malina’s presentation at Ars Electronica, following prominent philosopher and leading constructivist Humberto Maturana’s remarkable lecture on science and “certainy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOZS2qJrVkU

In the eyes of many critics a number of questions related to LHC safety are not ruled out and some of them have concrete and severe concerns. Also the comparability of the cosmic ray argument is challenged.

Australian risk researcher and ethicist Mark Leggett concludes in a paper that CERN meets less than a fifth of the criteria of a modern risk assessment:
http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/leggett_r…_1__09.pdf

Without getting into details of the LHC safety discussion – this article in the well-recognized Physics arXiv Blog (MIT’s Technology Review) states: “Black Holes, Safety, and the LHC Upgrade — If the LHC is to be upgraded, safety should be a central part of the plans.”

Similar to pragmatic critics, the author claims in his closing remarks: “What’s needed, of course, is for the safety of the LHC to be investigated by an independent team of scientists with a strong background in risk analysis but with no professional or financial links to CERN.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27319/

The renowned Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) in Karlsruhe and other risk researchers have already signalized interest in cooperation. We think, in such a process, naturally also CERN and critics should be constructively involved.

Please act in favour of such a neutral and multi-disciplinary assessment, maybe already following the present Chamonix meeting. Even if you feel sure that there are no reasons for any concerns, this must be in your interest, while also being of scientific and public concern.

In the name of many others:
[…]
————————–
LHC-Kritik / LHC-Critique
www.LHC-concern.info

Direct link to this Communication to CERN:
http://lhc-concern.info/?page_id=139
Also published in “oekonews”: http://www.oekonews.at/index.php?mdoc_id=1067776

CERN press release from Feb 13 2012:
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR01.12E.html

“Badly designed to understand the Universe — CERN’s LHC in critical Reflection by great Philosopher H. Maturana and Astrophysicist R. Malina”:
https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/02/badly-designed-to-understa…t-r-malina

“LHC-Kritik/LHC-Critique – Network for Safety at experimental sub-nuclear Reactors”, is a platform articulating the risks related to particle colliders and experimental high energy physics. LHC-Critique has conducted a number of detailed papers demonstrating the insufficiency of the present safety measures under well understandable perspectives and has still got a law suit pending at the European Court of Human Rights.

More info at LHC-Kritik / LHC-Critique:
www.LHC-concern.info
[email protected]
+43 650 629 627 5