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iPhone 5 Hyper-Anticipation: It Didn’t Mean What You Think it Meant (AGAIN)

iPhone 5 Hyper-Anticipation: It Didn’t Mean What You Think it Meant (AGAIN)

Okay, now — bear with me on this — and check it out:
For now and for better or worse, The United States is home to a plurality of the world’s techiest technology, investment capital, productive creativity, and cutting edge research. As such, hiccups in those technology-driven economies of real currency and ideas can ripple around the entire planet.

Amid considerable anti-intellectualism and various public & private R&D funding issues, American tech leadership and innovation is stuttering and sputtering and might be in danger of faltering. While we’re not at that point just yet, there is an interesting harbinger with a peculiar manifestation: New iPhone Anticipation Loopiness. As I said, bear with me.


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This is a repost & redux from an October 5, 2011 Anthrobotic.com piece — published a day before the suspected-to-be-iPhone 5 was released as the iPhone 4S. While the fanboy drool and mainstream gee-whiz was considerably dialed down this time around (in part due to lots of leaking), the sentiment of this piece remains relevant and largely unchanged. Now, we did have the Nuclear-Powered Science Robot Dune Buggy with Lasers (AKA the rover Curiosity) this year, and that was very big, but on a societal level we still have a sad hole in our technology heart.

Of course any hand-wringing about the underlying catalyst for weird iPhone fervor is a so-called first-world luxury, but to that I say “Shhhh, Trickle Down Technonomics©® is real.“
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The Great Want
I was half-seriously saying to my friend Jason last night that waiting for the iPhone 5’s release is like waiting for Christmas morning when we were 10. Except that the reveal of this present will be more like “Here’s what we got you, but you can’t actually have it for another two to four weeks.“ That part’s kinda cruel. He’s at 3G, I’m at 3GS — upgrade is ferociously justified (and cheap here in Japan). So, like lots and lots of Americans and other people around the world, we’ve been not so patiently waiting for Tuesday morning; we have also been part of this peculiar intensity.

Troubling Telecommunication Technolust
Now, is there any other product, across any and all areas of industry, for which a pending release has been the subject of such anticipation, such broad media coverage, and so much conjecture? And how is it that the key marketing strategy for a company’s flagship revenue source is their absolute refusal to talk about the product until after its launch? Do we consumers really want the new hotness that badly? How are all these strings being pulled? How can so many otherwise reasonable adults have so much longing for this device?

Even if one’s not an iPhone user and has no plans to convert, chances are one is at least curious about what Apple’s got. I mean, be honest, even if you’ve got only a very general interest in technology, you’re going to be paying attention to the announcement. And if you’re not actively following the story, you’ll hear about it passively — it will be everywhere for a few days or a week or so.

So… what’s this all about?
It’s just a pretty new phone, right?

No.
We know that a phone hasn’t been just a phone for several years now — a lot of us hardly use the telephone part of the device at all. And, they’ve become, well, you know — smart. This guy (Mike Elgan) and this woman (Amber Case) have developed theories suggesting that smartphones are actually highly personalized digital information prosthetics, and we users are already cybernetic organisms (Anthrobotic.com nods in agreement). Smartphones connect us as individuals to the vast stream of human communication; they non-invasively enable the RAM & ROM of all recorded human history into the palm of our hands, and devices’ elegantly rapid penetration into everyday life has been… (drama pause) profound. Ask organizers and participants in the Arab Spring. Ask villagers in developing countries who lack roads and electricity — but do have respectable data plans. And ask again, if you like.

Mobile phones have become much more than the name implies, and as a practical tool, the iPhone 5 in particular will be an exciting addition to comms and gaming and entertainment blah blah blah. As per usual, Apple will probably introduce hardware and software features that will shape mobile technology on a global scale — that’s what Apple does.

And all that’s awesome whoo-hoo way to go, but still, it’s #5, just the latest iteration.
Not really THAT big of a deal, so why the hell do we care so much?

Deep-Seated Social-Psychological Phenomena Available in Red, White, & Blue
It seems to me that shallow, mindless American consumerism, certainly a well-documented species, is not the primary force driving our overblown iPhone 5 excitement and anticipation and media coverage and hyperbole. You’d think so, but…

Listen for the thud — here drops a cheesy armchaired macro-diagnosis:
Subconsciously — in my country — the rabid anticipation for the iPhone 5 is actually about hope, inasmuch as it’s about the American Dream. In a way.
Or, more accurately, the corpsification thereof. In a way.

And that is because we the people have almost nothing else to be excited about.
(except: The Nuclear-Powered Science Robot Dune Buggy with Lasers)

We of the Uninspiring Slump
Over at Anthrobotic.com, fundamental to my silly-ass take on tech is the primary tenet of the 51%+ Positive Technological Utopianism Movement (that I totally just invented), which is:

Technology is the fundamental precursor to civilization and is therefore the most powerful social force in the universe, yo. Srsly.

Humanity is in the midst of a rapid upswing in almost all facets of human development. Things are just getting better, all across the board. BUT, there are still some crappy little downward notches in the larger upward curve. We’re in one of those — the American Dream has lost coherence - and we are desperate for something big, something to inspire and unite us, something more than, oh I don’t know, the impotent & mentally retarded discourse of America’s pathetic political charade, for example.

A leap too far? Overgeneralizing? Pandering to the Dumb? Just dumb?
Well, I suppose it’s possible that the population of the U.S. who find themselves anywhere on the mildly-curious-to-completely-rapt scale of interest in the iPhone 5’s pending release are a poor sample from which to gauge the attitude of a nation. But for that to be the case it would have to be in another universe with different rules. Because A: There are around 310 million people in the U.S., and about 100 million are smartphone users, and I’d guess (and read survey data reporting) that a strong percentage of them are pretty interested in learning about or buying the iPhone 5 — so if you think such a massive population block that is engaged and ready to take action on an issue provides a poor statistical sample, well then, you can’t count. And because B: those 100 million people have nothing else to give a shit about.

The iPhone 5, Insidiously Alluring in a Vacuum!
So what the hell am I saying here? Well, The iPhone is an incredible device that quite literally represents a truckload of previously impossible mobile functionality. Think about it — just 4.5 years ago it didn’t exist, and the App Store (which has been copied by, ummm… everyone) is barely over 3 years old. It’s a beautifully designed tool, elegantly powerful in so many ways. But, it’s no revelation, it’s just a very precedented technological creation of late 2011; it’s a consumer product — and in another year, we’ll want the next version, and the next, and so on.

Physical artifacts are usually outshined by big ideas, but the thing is this: while we’re lousy with the former, we’re fresh out of the latter.

Projecting
Now this isn’t about dorks like myself and those inhabiting this higher ranks of sciencyness and geekdom — we’ve got plenty to excite us. But everyday humans in the U.S., where traditional notions of culture are diffuse and diluted, tend to unite around ideas and ideals — and very often those drive and/or are a product of scientific or technological advancement of some kind — and sometimes, that can inspire others around the world. The mass-production of automobiles and human flight inspired notions of the freedom of movement, TV launched and inspired vast visual creativity, and following the Soviet advances, the Apollo missions united the nation, gave new appreciation for the Pale Blue Dot, ROI-ed ten$ of billion$, and inspired the rest of the world to continue pushing into the frontier of space. And, American computer technology, much of it pioneered by Apple, jumpstarted what will probably be the single largest paradigm shift in the history of our species. It’s become natural for us to see great positivity and opportunity in our technological achievements.

Americans fundamentally appreciate and embrace innovation, and we want look to the future with hope, longing for new ideas and new developments that create new economies and new possibilities. But for the time being now, our American Dream is stuck in neutral and we have no common rallying point. Our nation’s greatest point of unity and excitement and anticipation is for the release of another mobile telecommunications device — the best thing we have to look forward to is Tim Cook, 10:00am, PST.

Well That’s not so Uplifting Now, is it?
We desperately want good news, we desperately want a new great project stabbing toward some awesome goal — and there’s just… nothing there. The economy is crap, there is no great leader to inspire us, and there is no great undertaking for the betterment of all humankind. That’s where the iPhone 5 anticipation energy comes from. Americans want what is new, we want to push forward, we want profound ideas to inspire us now and for decades to come — it’s in the fabric of the nation. If we were about to launch a manned mission to Mars, or a Manhattan Project-style energy initiative, or building hotels on the moon, this announcement would be but a spark.

Myself and millions will soon have a state of the art, super cool new phone. And the Dream will stay on break. Such is life. But it’s not gone, and do check back later — we might have space tourism and near-infinite fusion energy pretty soon!

It’s Tuesday night here in Japan — going to sleep.
I’ll check the morning news straight away, and I’ll be excited about the phone I will own in a few short weeks. It’ll be awesome, I’m sure. And the world’s most valuable company will get more valuable, I’m sure.

Aside from the next-next iPhone and a new figurehead, will another year bring anything new? Not so sure.

(The Nuclear-Powered Science Robot Dune Buggy with Lasers came close, didn’t it?)

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Thanks for reading!

-Reno at Anthrobotic.com

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Complexity decomplexified: A List of 200 Results Encountered over 55 Years

Otto E. Rossler

Faculty of Science, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

Abstract

The present list was compiled by a “specialist for non-specialization” who owes this scientific identity to the masters of three disciplines: physicist Carl-Friedrich von Weizsacker, biologist Konrad Lorenz and mathematician Bob Rosen. With the best findings compressed into a line or two by heart, the synopsis brings hidden patterns to the fore. Simultaneously the individual results become maximally vulnerable – so as to facilitate improvement or falsification.

(August 28, revised September 16, 2012)

Philosophical Preface

Descartes re-invented the rational world of Heraclitus. Specifically, he asked the following question (paraphrased): “Do the ‘assignment conditions’ that we find ourselves glued to (the body, the now, the qualia including color and joy) represent an acceptable state of affairs?” The answer is “yes,“ Descartes proposed: if and only if the other two conditions that hold us in their grip (the “laws” and the “initial conditions”momentarily applicable within the laws, to use Newton’s later terms) are consistent. As long as this “machine conjecture” is empirically fulfilled, an infinite privilege separates the conscious observer from all other inhabitants of the world: The others become “mere machines” in the experience of the first (so that he may, for example, do a brain operation on one of them to save his life). Levinas called this state of one’s being totally outside the other’s interior side, “exteriority.” The subject has the option of not misusing the infinite power of exteriority by acting fairly towards the poor “machine” of the other so as if it possessed a subjective side of its own – even though this cannot be proven and indeed is absurd to assume (were there not the miracle of the consciousness of the first). A single act of not misusing the infinite power of exteriority, performed by the inmate of the dream of consciousness on a fellow machine, would then put the Dream-Giving Instance to shame – unless it is benevolent itself. The fact that this risk is being taken by the DGI is a living proof, according to Descartes, that the chain of colorful subjective nows imposed on the victim of consciousness is not a “bad dream.” But this applies only as long as the “steel fibers” of the Cartesian coordinates, proposed to mathematically fit the colorless sub-portion of experience (its “Hades part”), prove to be consistent. This empirical question endows the study of their properties with a maximal dignity. In the Greek Hades, all quantitative relations valid in our upper world were preserved – except for the “blood” that endows them with color and substance. Hence the merely relational (“shadow”) part becomes an instrument by which to do good to one’s fellow inhabitants of the dream who, by their being machines, are totally given into the dreamer’s hand as hostages. This “exteriority theory” (Levinas) endows science with an infinite dignity – as long as it is empirically consistent. The task to include quantum mechanics – with its indeterminism and nonlocality explained by micro assignment – was singlehandedly taken up by Everett in the footsteps of Einstein. (I thank Ali Sanayei and Ivan Zelinka for discussions and Stephen Wolfram for encouragement. For J.O.R.)

The List

• Energy-saving voice-signal proportional amplitude-modulation (made distortion-free by negative feedback between rectified high-frequency output and low-frequency input)

• Z-incision (a non-mutilating circumcision method)

• “Invisible machines”: virtually infinitely many non-negative chemical variables that are almost all zero for most of the time (with arbitrarily long delays incurred at very low concentrations)

• Chemical evolution as a special case: forms an Erdoes-type growing automaton (similarly Stu Kaufmann, Joel Cohen and Koichiro Matsuno)

• Far-from-equilibrium statistical mechanics and chemical kinetics jointly predict the emergence of life with C-C-C- backbones in liquid water on earth and Europa (and with B-N-B-N- backbones in liquid ammonia inside Jupiter)

• Teilhard’s “second arrow” in statistical thermodynamics is a valid description of the implied asymptotic approach towards “point Omega”

• “Recursive evolution”: evolution improves evolution in the first place (with Michael Conrad, in the footsteps of John Holland and John von Neumann)

• Unlike “metabolic adaptation” (Darwin) which is non-predictive in its history-dependent details, “positional adaptation” (discovered in a discussion with Konrad Lorenz as being of equal rank) is predictive

• “What are brains for?” is a well-posed scientific question (in the new science of deductive biology)

• “The Rossler task” (Michael Conrad) or the “decision-type traveling salesman problem” (as its re-discoverers, Garey and Johnson, called it in their book “Computers and Intractability”)

• Ric Charnov’s “optimal foraging theory” is closely related (finding things “just in time” is what brains are made for)

• Goedel’s incompleteness theorem can be seen as a limiting solution to the NP-complete traveling salesman problem (so incompleteness becomes intuitive)

• “The bacterial brain” (residing in the cell membrane with both sensors and motors) implements a local solution to the “smoothed-out” traveling-salesman problem (with Hans Bremermann)

• “The brain equation” yields a highly efficient local solution to the decision-type traveling-salesman problem

• The brain equation attaches a positive or negative weight to all neighboring sources of different types in a distance-, angle- and time-dependent fashion (so that an optimum “sum direction” results, with all directions attached an either finite or infinite, positive or negative weight)

• Nonexistence of an “eusocial brain equation” (with Thimo Böhl and Oswald Berthold)

• “A universal brain”: the brain equation combined with a powerful “universal simulator” (or synonymously “cognitive map system” or Virtual-Reality machine “VR”)

• The combined system (brain equation plus artificial cognitive map system with overlap buffer and long-term storage device) is what Bill Seaman calls a “Neosentient”

• The “sinc algorithm” (real-space equivalent to a Fourier window in frequency space) can be approximated by a multi-level, multi-resolution, both ascending and descending Reichardt-von-Foerster type neural net (with Bernhard Uehleke)

• “Tolerance attractors”: form under recurrence in such a neural net (implementing Poincaré-Zeeman-Poston-DalCin “tolerance theory” in their realizing von Foerster’s prediction of “Platonic ideation”)

• The technical problem of “fast picture-shifting” in such multi-resolution level neural nets or wavelets, while solved by nature, still eludes science (with Michael Klein)

• “Pandaka-pygmaea Institute“ proposed to solve the Platonic and other brain problems by investigating the smallest fish’s brain (along with that of its normal-sized close relative, Gobius niger)

• The positive sum potential in the brain equation – “happiness” – is displayed by the young of social animals

• One of the sub-potentials in the brain equation – “bonding” – is displayed by all social animals

• Two distinct displays (like happiness and bonding) can acquire a functional overlap through an evolutionary accident called “Huxley evolutionary ritualization”

• Huxley’s accident happened independently in the evolution of two mammalian species: tail-wagging signals both bonding and happiness in wolves, and the Smiley face signals both happiness and bonding in humans (similarly Jan van Hoof and Frans de Waal)

• “All Animals Are Autistic” (AAAA): because the brain equation, an autonomous optimizer, is autistic by definition

• Every brain-equation-carrier is “alive” independently of hardware because it solves the positional-adaptation problem which is no less vital than the metabolic-adaptation problem (“chemical life” and “brain life” have equal ranks)

• Universal brains are “mirror-competent” (owing to their high simulational capability)

• Unlike humans and some other species, wolves do not have a universal brain (their VR component is too weak for mirror-competence)

• Smile-laughter overlap + strong bonding + mirror-competence = sufficient condition for an “epigenetic function change” in the sense of Robert Rosen to occur: the “personogenetic function change” (PFC)

• The PFC consists in the invention of the “suspicion of benevolence shown by the other” (which then leads to a state of “being moved” in a positive feed-back comprising both sides in the elicited bonding bout)

• The PFC represents an example of “creation out of nothing” (the suspicion of, and then production of, benevolence)

• “Was Mom totally moved like scrambled eggs?” [the German word “geruehrt” means both being moved and being stirred], asked 3-year-old Jonas (in “Jonas’ World – The Thinking of a Child” edited by Reimara Rossler and the author)

• “Person attractor” (Detlev Linke): the new stable mode of functioning arising in the PFC

• The PFC can be seen to be nothing but a misunderstanding (a mistaken convergence concocted in the universal simulator): were it not interactively confirmed

• The fact that the PFC represents a joint functional trap allows one to speak of “Nature’s Shadchen trick” (with Roger Malina)

• The person attractor resembles a “folie à deux” (a form of “animal schizophrenia”) compared to the physiological autistic functioning of the two autonomous optimizers with cognition

• The PFC constitutes a miracle, worked by the toddler

• Watching this creation-out-of-nothing being achieved by the toddler is a maximally moving event (there appears to be no recorded documentation of this “holy of holies” of humankind)

• The mutually confirmed suspicion of benevolence acquires the character of an “objective truth” (there is no older objective truth)

• The “miracle” goes still further: a third fictitious person is involved in the personogenesis (called “god” or “Buddha” etc. in different cultures): the Dream-Giving Instance DGI or synonymously the “non-I” (or even the “palpable emptiness behind the dream”)

• The “non-I” arises concomitantly with the “I” and the “you” (the two other persons created in the PFC)

• Women are probably more religious (they statistically have more “heart” in the sense of bonding and in regard to the presence of the bonding hormone oxytocin, and moreover form in the majority of cases the partner in the PFC

• Friendly teasing jokes (“humor”) are implicit in the PFC

• Being able to ask a factual question is a new behavioral trait made possible by the PFC

• “Nonautistic languaging” automatically develops as a consequence of the PFC (similarly C. Andy Hilgartner)

• Human society in all its essential aspects is formed as a consequence of the PFC: society is based on asking questions and giving answers on the basis of the mutual trust between persons

• “Personology” – “Adam” means: person made out of soil (with Michael Langer)

• The “physiological autism” of every autonomous optimizer with cognition persists in human beings with an innate “smile blindness” (if the latter is strong enough to prevent the epigenetic PFC from occurring)

• Most alleged autism in humans is “pseudo-autism” (a lesser fluency in some social conventions)

• The causal explanation of autism enables a causal therapy: the caretaker can deliberately produce an “acoustic smile” whenever momentarily happy (the acoustic smile consists in a tender bonding noise made)

• The fact that the caretaker must be the essential bonding partner proves that modern child cribs are a collective tragedy (their uninformed use explains the global rise in autism)

• The “causal therapy of autism” has been shunned by the profession for 37 years (only Gregory Bateson approved of it)

• The reason for the silence seems to lie in the fact that the person attractor is “too easy to elicit”: young mirror-competent bonding animals can predictably be lured into the personogenetic function change, too

• “Galactic export” is the technical term for the export of the personogenetic bifurcation towards non-human mirror-competent bonding animals (since the “small step” of recruiting a second terrestrial life form is the “giant leap” involved)

• Evolutionarily speaking, the epigenetic PFC is a “lethal factor” (since it replaces natural selection by person-controlled caring)

• The PFC nevertheless is the opposite of being “evolutionarily lethal” since it represents a jump up into the heart of point Omega (which thereby ceases to be asymptotic in the sense of being unreachable in finite time)

• The planet-wide shying-away from galactic export is an example of a collective-subconscious “speciesism”

• The fear is palpable ever since Gregory Bateson and John C. Lilly’s joint student, Margaret Howe, tried to adopt a male dolphin 47 years ago; Koko (Francine Patterson’s gorilla life partner) and Kanzi (Susan Savage-Rumbaugh’s grown-up bonobo child) are both underrated

• Stephen Spielberg played on the same taboo in his movie “AI” – which brings-in the added feature that his non-biochemical person is potentially immortal (a fact he played down tactfully)

• Leo Szilard introduced non-human persons in his 1948 sci-fi story “The Voice of the Dolphins” (written in the aftermath of his failure to prevent his other brainchild, the bomb, from being dropped)

• The “Rosette phenomenon” of sperm whales (the carriers of the most sophisticated brains on earth) deserves to be taken seriously: what function has their daily meeting? (Cf. the unpublished sci-fi story “The Tale of the Whale” mentioned in the book “Neosentience” by Bill Seaman and the author)

• “Horizontal exteriority” in the sense of Emmanuel Lévinas is the omnipotence of the PFC, re-activated in an act of fairness

• “Vertical exteriority” is the matching term in the theological sense of Edmond Jabès (with Nils Roeller, Kai Grehn and and Klaus Sander)

• “A program can force the programmer to reply” (with Christa Sommerer and Adolf Muschg)

• “Simulacron Three” (by Daniel F. Galouye 1964) and “A Puppeteer’s World” (‘Welt am Draht’-movie by Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1973) are anticipations of the same insight, followed by the “Matrix” movie and Ray Kurzweil’s “Singularity Theory”

• The “Turing test” – a test for personhood – got first passed in ancient Rome by the Cretan slave and subsequent stoic philosopher Epictetus (as I learned from Bob Rosen)

• A mathematical proof that the orangutan brain is functionally superior to the human brain (with Michael Langer, homage to Willie Smits)

• An equation for a universal immune system (with Robert A. Lutz)

• A chemical universal circuit (with Dietrich Hoffmann)

• Differentiable automata exist mathematically (because certain ordinary differential equations can, approximately-if-consistently, be described by automata theory)

• Well-stirred automata exist physically

• Reaction scheme for a temperature-compensated chemical clock

• An “ultra long-term continuous-stirred-tank-reactor version” of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, proposed: to check for a “late explosion” in the number of variables produced (with Michael Conrad)

• “Traffic-light” version of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction (with Wolfgang Engelmann and Reimara Rossler)

• “Slinky attractor” (with Okan Gurel and Eberhard Hopf)

• “Reinjection principle”: is valid in more than two-dimensional phase spaces (independently Floris Takens and Christian Mira)

• A chaotic electronic multivibrator (built with Hartmut Waible)

• “The Rossler attractor” (Norman Packard and Ralph Abraham)

• “Spiral chaos”

• “Screw-type chaos”

• “The sound of chaos” known to everyone (idling motor, hoarse voice)

• Chaos (a stereoscopic sound movie made with Reimara Rossler and Thomas Wiehr 1976)

• “Chaos = disciplined tangle” (with Alfred Klemm who turns 100 this year)

• Hyperchaos (name courtesy Paul Rapp)

• “The sound of hyperchaos” (like raindrops falling on a car’s roof)

• “Running electric fan suspended from a long rope” (Olafur Eliasson’s experimental hyperchaos)

• X-attractor in 3 D (still unidentified)

• “Playdough task” (to be given to thousands of toddlers to find the hoped-for X-attractor)

• Atrio-ventricular heart chaos (with Reimara Rossler and Herbert D. Landahl)

• “Endocrinological chaos” (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Sadowski, independently Colin Sparrow)

• Chaos in the Zhabotinsky reaction (with Klaus Wegmann, in parallel to John L. Hudson)

• “Cloud attractor” (with James A. Yorke)

• “Folded-towel map” (in parallel with Masaya Yamaguti’s “folded handkerchief map”)

• “Punctured hyperchaos” as the source of any transfinitely exact 2-D self-similarity or self-affineness (with Michael Klein)

• “The chaotic hierarchy” (the simplest equation was subsequently found by Gerold Baier and Sven Sahle)

• Explicit differentiable Smale-Urysohn solenoid (with Pal Fischer and W.R. Smith)

• “Transfinitely invertible attractors” (almost everywhere so)

• An explicit Poincaré recurrence (with Georg C. Hartmann)

• A generic Milnor-like attractor (with Francisco Doria and Georg C. Hartmann)

• “Flare attractors” (with Georg C. Hartmann, and with Vela Vilupillai in late homage to Richard Goodwin)

• A “society of flare attractors” (with Georg C. Hartmann)

• “Hyperfat attractors” (with John L. Hudson)

• “The fat etc. hierarchy” (with Erik Mosekilde)

• Particle indistinguishability is transfinitely exact (with Hans Primas, Martin Hoffmann and Joe Ford)

• Deterministic entropy (with Hans Diebner)

• “Gibbs-Sackur cell” in phase space

• Classical unit action (the system-specific Sackur cell)

• Micro time reversals in the Sackur cell of the observer (with Richard Wages)

• An estimate of Planck‘s constant (based on Sackur cell)

• Causal (exo) explanation of quantum mechanics (with Peter Weibel)

• Endophysics (with David Finkelstein and John Casti)

• “Boscovich covariance” (with Edgar Heilbronner, Jens Meier and Matthias Schramm)

• Causal (exo) explanation of spin (with Michael Conrad and Debbie Conrad)

• “Single-spin chemistry” in ultra-strong magnetic fields (with Dieter Froehlich, Guenter Haefelinger and Frank Kuske)

• Second Periodic Table of Elements (single-spin chemistry)

• “Cession twin of action” with h/c as its quantum (with Claudia Giannetti)

• Everett’s global Psi-function is replaced by Boltzmann’s global H-function on the exo-level (with Siegfried Zielinski)

• Everett’s observer-centered explanation of nonlocality (1957, p. 149, left column), confirmed

• The momentarily consciousness-bearing Sackur cell in the brain determines both h and c - a conjecture (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Weibel)

• “VX-diagram” (correlated photons measured in two mutually receding spaceships): the completed Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (with John S. Bell, in parallelism to Susan Feingold and Roger Penrose)

• Partially satellite-based VX experiment: will prove that more than one quantum world exists (with Anton Zeilinger)

• Locally-counterfactual superluminal telegraph (with Uwe Niedersen and Jürgen Parisi)

• Everett immortality (with Markus Fix and Bryce DeWitt)

• Aging equation (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Kloeden)

• An evolutionary explanation of the higher female longevity (with Reimara Rossler, Peter Kloeden and Bob May)

• A constant-temperature physico-chemical time-of-life clock in the body, predicted (with Reimara Rossler)

• Melatonin as a likely “handle” of the time-of-life clock (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Kloeden)

• Lampsacus, hometown of all persons on the Internet (with Valentino Braitenberg and Gerhard J. Lischka)

• An attempt to found Lampsacus in homage to Anaxagoras (with Ezer Weizmann and Mohamed ElNaschie) [quote from Beer Sheva: “This is what Israel was meant for”]

• “Earth-Moon University” in Lampsacus (with Wilfried Kriese, Artur P. Schmidt and George E. Lasker)

• The 16-level “pyramid of knowledge” in Lampsacus

• “WM-diagram”: simultaneous signals sent up and down in time across different levels, in gravity (with Dieter Froehlich)

• A gravitational-redshift proportional size increase, implicit in the WM diagram (with Dieter Froehlich, Heinrich Kuypers and Jurgen Parisi)

• The most energetic photon possible (with Heinrich Kuypers)

• All black holes are “almost-black holes” since they are never finished in finite time (with Dieter Froehlich, Heinrich Kuypers, Hans Diebner and Mohamed ElNaschie)

• Non-uniqueness of simultaneity on the rotating cylinder (with Dieter Froehlich, Normann Kleiner and Francisco J. Muller)

• Correct proof of angular-momentum conservation in gravity (with Heinrich Kuypers and Martin Pfaff)

• Only apparent invariance of transverse size in the new locally isotropic gravitational size increase (in parallel to the only apparent invariance of the transverse size in the likewise locally isotropic Lorentz contraction)

• Einstein’s gravitational Time dilation possesses three new corollaries: Length, Mass and Charge suffer a proportional or antiproportional change (“TeLeMaCh” theorem)

• General relativity is in for a far-reaching mathematical and physical re-interpretation

• c is globally constant (Max Abraham rehabilitated)

• Nonexistence of gravitational waves (as a corollary)

• Nonexistence of gravitons (as a corollary)

• The famous “indirect evidence for gravitational waves” (Hulse-Taylor) explained instead by tidal friction (with Dieter Froehlich and René Stettler)

• A “Reeb foliation in spacetime” exists around every rotating black hole (with Dieter Froehlich following stimulation by Art Winfree)

• Kerr metric disproved (as a corollary)

• Ur-meter disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Ur-kilogram disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Charge conservation in physics disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Black holes are haved of one of their 3 hairs: charge (while mass and angular momentum remain)

• Reissner-Nordstrom metric disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Eddington-Finkelstein transformation disproved (with apology to my good friend David)

• Bekenstein theory disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Hawking radiation disproved (with apology to a world hero)

• “Coordinate singularity at the horizon”: rehabilitated as a physical singularity (via Telemach theorem)

• “Interior Schwarzschild solution” disproved

• “Singularity theorem” inside black hole horizon disproved (with apology to my friend Roger)

• “Wormholes” disproved

• Upper half of “Flamm’s paraboloid” replaced by a generic 3-pseudosphere (the lower half disappears)

• The Sackur-cell explanation of h entails non-existence on the exo level of all field particles

• The exo-nonexistence of the field particles implies that Supersymmetry is nonexistent

• The human Lorenz matrix of facial expressions: a universal natural facial-expressions simulator (with Wilfried Musterle)

• An equation for a one-dimensional – purely temporal – brain (with Michael Conrad, similarly Susie Vrobel)

• Evil is a contagious disease (unlike the good, evil cannot arise spontaneously)

• Children and adults form two different species, ethologically speaking (with Konrad Lorenz)

• “Pongo goneotrophicus” (meaning “the parent-feeding ape”) is a more appropriate biological name for Homo sapiens

• Biochemical life (including Robert Forward’s nuclear-chemical life) on the one hand, and “brain life” on the other, are functionally disjoint (Hanns Ruder introduced me to Forward’s book “The Dragon’s Egg”)

• Electrons have finite volume (owing to Telemach)

• As a corollary, string theory is qualitatively (but not quantitatively) confirmed

• The empirical confirmation of string theory implies that a successful generation of black holes at particle colliders has become much more likely

• Freshly generated black holes are undetectable by the detectors of particle colliders

• The empirical ten-orders-of-magnitude “quasar scaling law” extends downwards by some 50 orders of magnitude (owing to the new properties of black holes)

• There exist no more unstoppable and voracious parasites in the universe than black holes

• Miniature black holes grow exponentially inside solid matter (once they get stuck)

• “Clifford conjecture”: finite-universe solutions to the Einstein equation are unphysical (with Walter Ratjen); if so, there exists no “Gödel solution” and no time travel

• Fractal dimensionality of the cosmos is close to unity, not only empirically but also theoretically (“Fournier-Mandelbrot solution” to the Einstein equation)

• A first consistent history of galaxy formation is taking shape

• The newly discovered very far-away mature old galaxy BX442 (more than ten billion light years) is only the first – optically little-distorted – example of its kind (besides the many still older quasars)

• Low-surface-brightness galaxies (“black galaxies”) are about 50 billion years old (with Henry Gebhardt)

• Giacconi’s ultra-faint equidistributed X-ray sources most likely are ultra-distant ultra-high-redshift quasars – so that redshift measurements are highly desirable (with Dieter Froehlich)

• The microwave background radiation is predicted to merge smoothly with equal-temperature galactic-halo objects (hence the raw data of the Planck mission deserve to be published)

• There exist differentiable dynamical systems that are made up, not of 1-D locally parallel threads as customary, but of 2-D locally parallel surfaces (Bouligand-Winfree theory)

• Inadvertent re-discovery of Zwicky-Chandrasekhar “dynamical friction” (with Dieter Froehlich and Normann Kleiner, in contact with Ilya Prigogine, Alfred Klemm, Joachim Peinke and Jurgen Parisi)

• The not quite straight Hubble-Perlmutter line holds true in a non-expanding Fournier-Mandelbrot cosmos (with Dieter Froehlich, Ramis Movassagh and Anthony Moore)

• Dynamical friction numerically confirmed (with Klaus Sonnleitner)

• “Deterministic statistical thermodynamics” (with Hans Diebner)

• “Deterministic statistical cryodynamics”: exists as a new fundamental science side by side with deterministic statistical thermodynamics (with Klaus Sonnleitner, Frank Kuske and Christophe Letellier)

• “Deterministic ectropy” in statistical cryodynamics (with Ali Sanayei)

• The smaller (almost) black hole in a pair-collision predictably gets re-circulated with all the still in-falling particles which jointly make it up (with Dieter Froehlich)

• Black hole mergers are a source of both charged and uncharged cosmic rays of moderate energies

• Conjecture: 50 percent of all matter in the cosmos is (almost) black holes (with Dieter Froehlich)

• “Metabállon anapaúetai” (metabolizing it remains at rest): Heraclitus’ transfinitely recycling cosmology, proven valid after 2 ½ millennia

• Abramowicz’s “topology inversion” near a black-hole’s horizon, confirmed (with Dieter Froehlich)

• “Identity jumps” between 3 indistinguishable classical particles on a ring (with Peter Weibel and Richard Wages)

• In a classical radiationless atom containing two indistinguishable electrons, two spherical shells are formed (with Dietrich Hoffmann and George Kampis)

• Is the “flotor” (Ralph Hollis) a transluminally fast measuring device? (with Peter Plath)

• The counterfactual superluminal telegraph is “subluminally confirmable (with Uwe Niedersen)

• A counterfactual world-change machine (with Jürgen Parisi and Koichiro Matsuno)

• History of the transfinitely exact indistinguishability (Anaxagoras, Gregorius of Naziance, the Mutakallimún, Bruno, Spinoza, Leibniz, Gibbs, Pauli), in exchanges with Martin Hoffmann, Joe Ford, Hans Primas, Peter Weibel, Alexandre Ganoczy, Richard Wages, Rudolf Matzka Elisabeth von Samsonow, Jurgen Heiter, Anna-Sophie Mahler)

• “Everett-Schrödinger Russian Roulette” (with Markus Fix)

• Unit “el-action” is a new universal conserved quantity (like the unit action)

• Unit “el-cession” is a new universal conserved quantity (like the unit cession)

• “G-zero” is a new fundamental constant replacing the universal gravitational constant G and the universal vacuum permeability constant mu-zero, which both remain unchanged locally (similarly Richard J. Cook and György Darvas)

• The nonlinear simultaneity generator in the brain forms a qualitative analog of general relativity (with Eva Ruhnau)

• Cryodynamics and thermodynamics, combined, allow for an eternal cosmology in the footsteps of Heraclitus

• No WIMPs since cold dark matter was disproved

• No dark energy, in the absence of accelerated expansion

• No Big Bang and no space expansion since cryodynamics explains the Hubble-Perlmutter law in a stationary fractal cosmos

• “No Big Bang” also follows directly from the global constancy of c

• No inflation, in the absence of space expansion

• No “primordial” nucleosynthesis, in the absence of space expansion

• No Sunyaev-Zel’dovich cutoff, in the absence of a distant origin of the background radiation

• The decades-old problem of the “survival conditions of the scientific-technological world” (C.F. von Weizsäcker) remains a pressing problem of humankind

• The new results on black holes (facilitated production, non-evaporation, unchargedness, exponential growth inside matter) change the safety equation of any attempt at producing them on earth

• The LHC experiment, designed for producing black holes (amongst other courageous aims like finding the Higgs field), is being run at history-making energies and luminosities for almost two years

• Simultaneously CERN refuses to update its 4-years old LHC safety report – even though a stop may soon come too late

• An attempt to convene an “LHC safety conference” (with Markus Goritschnig and many other scientists) fizzled, although a court would humbly suggest it and a whole country had briefly left CERN out of concern (and the United Nations’ Security Council is concerned with the matter for more than a year – which fact explains the media curfew)

• Leo Szilard’s 1948 proposal to slow-down scientific progress by introducing the modern peer review system (which admits only differentiable increments in the fractal landscape of truth) is co-responsible for the current “Sleeping Beauty” period in science which may prove suicidal

• Proposal to employ the new science of cryodynamics to stabilize Tokamak-type fusion reactors so as to generate unlimited free energy for humankind just got published (I thank Eric Klien for encouragement)

(Friedrich Valjavek kindly compiled an annotated bibliography in 2002: http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/RosslerBibliography.pdf )

There four camps that comprise the present day interstellar travel community and only one camp will succeed.

The first camp, the conventional rocket camp, believes it is possible using conventional rockets (chemical, ion, nuclear or antimatter) to realize interstellar travel to our nearest star Alpha Centauri. One of the problems is the costs, estimated at an unthinkably large $238,596 billion and upwards. It is several thousand times greater if we choose to use antimatter.

Further, John Eades, a former senior scientist with CERN, in his March/April 2012 Skeptical Inquirer article “Antimatter Pseudoscience”, lays down the reasons why antimatter based propulsion will never be technologically feasible.

Black Hole of wealth. One down three to go.

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The second, the hypothesis camp, believes that there is some equation that will allow us to reach 1,000 x velocity of light and upwards based on quantum foam. Nonsense. Be very clear, the experimental evidence proves that anything with mass cannot be accelerated to exceed the velocity of light. Sure, we have hypotheses (i.e. mathematical guesses without experimental proof) that point every which way, but at best these are guesses and they have not or cannot be proven experimentally. In addition, Robert Nemiroff’s three photon discovery suggests that both quantum foam and quantum gravity may in part or whole invalidated while upholding relativity.

Wrong turn. Two down and two to go.

.

The third, the impossible camp, believes that interstellar travel is impossible. As Prof. Adam Franks stated in his July 24, 2012 New York Times Op-Ed, Alone in the Void, “Short of a scientific miracle of the kind that has never occurred, our future history for millenniums will be played out on Earth”. Obviously the impossible camp disagrees with the hypothesis camp on the basis of the physics.

Don’t argue. Three down one more to go.

.

I belong to the fourth, the new physics camp, that there is a new physics that the other three camps do not subscribe to. There are 57 of us physicist-engineers from 16 countries, US, Russia, UK, China, Japan, Romania, Austria, India and more, who have researched or are researching new propulsion technologies that are not based on chemical, ion, nuclear or antimatter engines or untested hypotheses. We search out and investigate anomalies.

Change is coming. We will be successful.

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Based on my work as evidence, several important phenomena have been discovered

1. A new formula for gravitational acceleration that does not require us to know the mass of the planet or star. This is an immense discovery, never before accomplished in the 346-year history, since Newton, of the physics of gravitational fields, as all theories on gravity require us to know the mass of the planet or star.

2. Solved Laithwaite’s Big Wheel experiment, which nobody else could in the last 35 years.

3. Asked questions that neither relativity nor quantum theory has. For example, how is probability implemented in Nature?

Because we have learned to ask questions that the other three camps have not, we the new physics camp will find different answers and reach the stars before anyone else.

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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.

Whilst I was checking up on C.O.R.E. (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) this weekend, I read of latest plans to ship plutonium MOX fuel assemblies from Sellafield to the small German port of Nordenham near Bremerhaven on the NDA’s (Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) ageing ship Atlantic Osprey.

The Atlantic Osprey, built in 1986, is a roll-on roll-off ferry purchased third hand by British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) in 2001 and converted to carry radioactive materials. It is the only ship not to be custom-built of the UK’s designated nuclear cargo ships, and so is not double-hulled, and has only a single engine, among other short-comings.

According to CORE it has a chequered history as a nuclear carrier that includes an engine-room fire and breakdowns at sea, and equivalent sister ships have historically been retired at or before a standard 25 years of service. Whilst the ship is soon to finally brought to the scrapyard, it is due to be replaced by a 25-year old ship Oceanic Pintail recently saved from the scrap yard itself — and one would get the impression that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are cutting corners on safety to save on expenditure.

CORE spokesman Martin Forwood has pointed out that INS (International Nuclear Services — a subsidiary of the NDA) appears hell-bent on shipping this MOX fuel to Germany on a third-hand ship with second class safety and kept afloat on first class INS PR alone” and on learning about the current state of affairs, one would be inclined to agree.

“The shipment of such highly dangerous nuclear material should never be entrusted to a ship not only past its sell-by date but also described recently in the press as a rust-bucket. Given its known safety and security weaknesses which now include the apparent lack of the vital sonardyne sunken vessel location system, using the Atlantic Osprey for the German MOX is a prime example of the nuclear industry putting business before safety. Common sense dictates that these plans should be abandoned immediately”.

Although the CORE concern is quite specific in this case, it raises the broader question — on what are acceptable safety standards for the nuclear industry as a whole — and to what extent such businesses cut corners for financial reasons — at the expense of public safety.

Learn about C.O.R.E: http://corecumbria.co.uk/

Dear CERN:

I love you as only a scientist can love the biggest scientific institution on earth. My proposal how to stabilize the ITER (a still larger big-science experiment than your LHC) so it can produce unlimited usable energy for the planet, just got published. I very much cherish high tech whenever it serves humankind.

This attitude of mine notwithstanding, I have been asking you in public for 4 ½ years to, please, falsify some other results which prove that your LHC experiment is jeopardizing the planet on a maximally short term basis. Specifically, I showed in mounting detail that the black holes that you are trying to produce in the LHC, (i) arise much more readily than hoped for, (ii) are invisible to your superb detectors, and (iii) are going to grow exponentially once gotten stuck inside matter (so as to shrink the earth to two centimeters in perhaps ten years’ time).

As you know, I dearly hope that the result can be shown to be false at a critical junction. Anyone who succeeds in doing so is your closest ally. However, as long as this aim is waiting to be achieved, I continue being your only ally. All other apparent allies who support your strategy of non-updating your 4 ½ years old safety report are your worst enemies. They have good reason never to show their face in public. Anyone who is opposed to the danger being disproved is obviously not your friend.

Forgive me, dear CERN, that I am so much on your side as to give you the “order” to immediately halt the LHC experiment until the proof of danger has been dismantled.

I know I have no right to give you any orders. I am not the police nor the CERN Council nor the Security Council of your sister organization, the United Nations. As long as these institutions all violate their duty of requesting an update on your 4 ½ years old safety report before letting you continue, I have the right and the duty to speak in their name to you.

The planet will never forget it to you if you heed the friendly order given to you by someone who deeply admires all your great achievements but, at the same time, insists on the worst safely gap of history to be plugged immediately.

Take care,
Sincerely yours,

Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher

Greetings to the Lifeboat Foundation community and blog readers! I’m Reno J. Tibke, creator of Anthrobotic.com and new advisory board member. This is my inaugural post, and I’m honored to be here and grateful for the opportunity to contribute a somewhat… different voice to technology coverage and commentary. Thanks for reading.

This Here Battle Droid’s Gone Haywire
There’s a new semi-indy sci-fi web series up: DR0NE. After one episode, it’s looking pretty clear that the series is most likely going to explore shenanigans that invariably crop up when we start using semi-autonomous drones/robots to do some serious destruction & murdering. Episode 1 is pretty and well made, and stars 237, the android pictured above looking a lot like Abe Sapien’s battle exoskeleton. Active duty drones here in realityland are not yet humanoid, but now that militaries, law enforcement, the USDA, private companies, and even citizens are seriously ramping up drone usage by land, air, and sea, the subject is timely and watching this fiction is totally recommended.

(Update: DR0NE, Episode 2 now available)

It would be nice to hope for some originality, and while DR0NE is visually and means-of-productionally and distributionally novel, it’s looking like yet another angle on a psychology & set of issues that fiction has thoroughly drilled — like, for centuries.

Higher-Def Old Hat?
Okay, so the modern versions go like this: one day an android or otherwise humanlike machine is damaged or reprogrammed or traumatized or touched by Jesus or whatever, and it miraculously “wakes up,” or its neural network remembers a previous life, or what have you. Generally the machine becomes severely bi-polar about its place in the universe; while it often struggles with the guilt of all the murderdeathkilling it did at others’ behest, it simultaneously develops some serious self-preservation instinct and has little compunction about laying waste to its pursuers, i.e., former teammates & commanders who’d done the behesting.

Admittedly, DR0NE’s episode 2 has yet to be released, but it’s not too hard to see where this is going; the trailer shows 237 delivering some vegetablizing kung-fu to it’s human pursuers, and dude, come on — if a human is punched in the head hard enough to throw them across a room and into a wall or is uppercut into a spasticating backflip, they’re probably just going to embolize and die where they land. Clearly 237 already has the stereotypical post-revelatory per-the-plot justifiable body count.

Where have we seen this pattern before? Without Googling, from the top of one robot dork’s head, we’ve got: Archetype, Robocop, iRobot (film), Iron Giant, Short Circuit, Blade Runner, Rossum’s Universal Robots, and going way, way, way back, the golem.

Show Me More Me
Seems we really, really dig on this kind of story. Continue reading “The Recurring Parable of the AWOL Android” | >

I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.……I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated public discourse with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path.

It is a path to nowhere.

Compared to the accomplishments of NASA’s glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.

The latest craze is the Falcon “heavy.” The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.

Long, long posts, doubling as SpaceX advertisements, swamp any forum where the deception is exposed. The most popular and endlessly repeated dogma concerns fuel depots. Refueling in space is hyped as the answer to all problems. Unfortunately the chances of making it work with the selected propellant- liquid hydrogen- are not good. This kind of blasphemy is sure to bring howls of protest on any forum where it appears. The sad truth is the American people are being conned into throwing away the Heavy Lift Infrastructure that is the only path to Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight. SpaceX is more of an exploitation company to charge the taxpayer twice than aerospace company. Everything they are pushing- from the engine design to friction stir welded stages, to the heat shield on the capsule has all been developed by NASA on the taxpayers dime. They use NASA labs and engineers for token payment and then advertise low prices. It is a scam. Worse than a scam, it is a distraction from and drain on funds from the only real possibility for space travel on the horizon; the Space Launch System (SLS).

LEO is not space exploration. It is not space travel. It may have qualified as space flight at one time but not anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. If any achievement deserves the “been there” scoff it is Low Earth Orbit.

Human beings left Earth at 24,200 mph (38,938 km/hr) in December of 1968. In December of 1972 we returned and have not gone back. We did continue Heavy Lift launches after Apollo with the Space Shuttle- but the STS did not launch humans beyond earth orbit. Due to lack of funding the Shuttle regrettably launched a hundred tons of wings, landing gear, and never full cargo bay over one hundred times so they could come right back. What little stayed up there at very high altitude going in circles is that higher price tag people cry about.

To expand the human race into the solar system requires nuclear energy. We will not be assembling, testing, and lighting off any nuclear systems in LEO. We do however have a human rated capsule with a powerful escape system almost ready that is suitable for transporting fissionables directly to the Moon- where we can assemble, test, and light off nukes. To send that capsule directly to the moon, and the human beings to construct a base that can support a nuclear mission, we need an HLV with hydrogen upper stages. The hydrogen upper stages are what made Apollo successful by making a heavy payload go fast. That vehicle is a few years away and sooner with more money. The DOD has vast resources it expends on weapons that do not protect us from two clear and present dangers; impacts and plagues. I often give examples on this site of “cold war toys” that are “hideously expensive” and do not seem to work right or do anything magical. That big rocket is the magic that will open the solar system to human colonization. Private space efforts are not capable of making any of it happen. This is why I consider the whole “new space” movement as being essentially rich hobbyists selling tourist trips. My thoughts on this “narrow and inflexible path” are based largely on the work of Freeman Dyson and Eugene Parker- and the discovery of millions of tons of water on the Moon.

Despite having “been there,” the Moon is the next step in opening up the solar system to human exploration and colonization. Low Earth Orbit is being sold as space travel even though to travel, you have to go somewhere. The battle cry of “cheap lift” is promoting the equivalent of the “liar loans” that wrecked the housing market. Falling for this something for nothing too good to be true rip-off will leave the U.S. trapped. Decades more of nothing but more endless circles at very high altitude. Mars is used as a marketing gimmick but is really just a rock with a deep gravity well. Everyone seems to think it is “just close enough” for chemical propulsion. It is not. If you are going to build the necessary Atomic Spaceship (and we would have to have a moonbase to launch a nuclear mission) you might as well go someplace really interesting.

All those places are in the outer solar system.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628190006.htm
To establish a moonbase requires the Space Launch System to be put into service. There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.

The 130 ton lift of the proposed SLS is also at this time slated to be used as a crew vehicle. This was one of the worst mistakes of the shuttle program. The crew capsules being tested and built by SpaceX and Boeing pack seven astronauts into a vehicle without a proper escape system and, in the case of SpaceX, doubling as a cargo vehicle. Both of these vehicles have an escape-system-that-is-not-an-escape-system. These underpowered hypergolic systems are not very good at saving a crew but will work great raising the orbit of tourist space stations. This is another one of those worst mistakes being repeated.

Infomercial hype aside, the falcon “heavy” and Delta IV are not HLV’s. This misinformation deceives the public and makes the average citizen think the SpaceX hobby rocket is a Saturn V. At a thrust of around 100,000 pounds each it would take 72 merlins to equal the thrust of the SRB’s on SLS, not counting what the 4 liquid hydrogen engines also produce- with much greater efficiency than Kerosene.

The real problem with the U.S. space program is obvious to anyone looking at how much money is spent by the DOD. It is always interesting to hear sermons about how critical surveillance satellites are to fighting illiterate mountain tribesman. Any DOD contractor hearing complaints about NASA wasting money breaks down in maniacal laughter. One of my favorite talking points is that we can train our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons or we can train them to build spaceships; either way the money will get spent.

Take a look at military spending increases and it is obvious funding for spaceflight can go up. And there IS a valid DOD mission BEO and BELO (Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit). The valid military mission is impact defense and establishing outposts in the outer system- but this is hard money the aerospace industry wants nothing to do with. Unlike so many easy money weapon systems, spaceships have to actually work.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134912.htm

It is a race against time- will this knowledge save us or destroy us? Genetic modification may eventually reverse aging and bring about a new age but it is more likely the end of the world is coming.

The Fermi Paradox informs us that intelligent life may not be intelligent enough to keep from destroying itself. Nothing will destroy us faster or more certainly than an engineered pathogen (except possibly an asteroid or comet impact). The only answer to this threat is an off world survival colony. Ceres would be perfect.

Part 2 Here

Need For New Experiments To Test Quantum Mechanics & Relativity
We now have a new physics, without adding additional dimensions, that challenge the foundations of contemporary theories. Note very carefully, this is not about the ability of quantum mechanics or relativity to provide exact answers. That they do extremely well. With Ni fields, can we test for which is better or best?

A better nomenclature is a ‘single-structure test’, a test to validate the structure proposed by a hypothesis or theory. For example, Mercury’s precession is an excellent single-structure test for relativity, but it does not say how this compares to say, quantum gravity. On the other hand, a ‘dual-structure’ test would compare any two different competing theories. The recent three photon observation would be an example of a dual-structure test. Relativity requires that spacetime is smooth and continuous but quantum gravity requires spacetime to be “comprised of discrete, invisibly small building blocks”. This three photon observation showed that spacetime was smooth and continuous down to distances smaller than predicted by quantum gravity. Therefore, suggesting that both quantum foam and quantum gravity maybe in part or whole invalidated, while upholding relativity.

Therefore, the new tests would authenticate or invalidate Ni fields as opposed to quantum mechanics or relativity. That is, it is about testing for structure or principles not for exactness. Of course both competing theories must first pass the single-structure test for exactness, before they can be considered for a dual-structure test.

Is it possible to design a single-structure test that will either prove or disprove that virtual particles are the carrier of force? Up to today that I know of, this test has not been done. Maybe this is not possible. Things are different now. We have an alternate hypothesis, Ni fields, that force is expressed by the spatial gradient of time dilation. These are two very different principles. A dual-structure test could be developed that considers these differences.

Except for the three photon observation, it does not make sense to conduct a dual-structure test on relativity versus quantum mechanics as alternate hypotheses, because they operate in different domains, galactic versus Planck distances. Inserting a third alternative, Ni fields, could provide a means of developing more dual-structure tests for relativity and quantum mechanics with the Ni field as an alternate hypothesis.

Could we conduct a single-structure test on Ni fields? On a problem where all other physicist-engineers (i.e. quantum mechanics, relativity or classical) have failed to solve? Prof. Eric Laithwaite’s Big Wheel experiment would be such a problem. Until now no one has solved it. Not with classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, relativity or string theories. The Big Wheel experiment is basically this. Pivot a wheel to the end of a 3-ft (1 m) rod. Spin this wheel to 3,000 rpm or more. Then rotate this rod with the spinning wheel at the other end. The technical description is, rotate the spin vector.

It turns out that the solution to the Big Wheel experiment is that acceleration a=ωrωs√h is governed by the rotation ωr, spin ωs, and the physical structure √h, and produces weight loss and gain. This is the second big win for Ni fields. The first is the unification of gravitational, electromagnetic and mechanical forces.

How interesting. We have a mechanical construction that does not change its mass, but is able to produce force. If the spin and rotation are of like sense to the observer, the force is toward the observer. If unlike then the force is away from the observer. Going back to the Ω function, we note that in the Ω function, mass has been replaced by spin and rotation, and more importantly the change in the rotation and spin appears to be equivalent to a change in mass. Further work is required to develop an Ω function into a theoretical model.

The next step in challenging the foundations of physics is to replace the mass based Ω function with an electromagnetic function. The contemporary work to unify electromagnetism with gravity is focused on the tensor side. This essay, however, suggests that this may not be the case. If we can do this – which we should be able to do, as Ni fields explain electron motion in a magnetic field — the new physics will enable us to use electrical circuits to create force, and will one day replace all combustion engines.

Imagine getting to Mars in 2 hours.

The How Of Interstellar Travel
But gravity modification is not the means for interstellar travel because mass cannot be accelerated past the velocity of light. To develop interstellar propulsion technology requires thinking outside the box. One possibility is, how do we ‘arrive’ without ‘travelling’. Surprisingly, Nature shows us that this is possible. Both photons and particles with mass (electrons, protons & neutrons) have probabilistic natures. If these particles pass through a slit they ‘arrive’ at either sides of the slit, not just straight ahead! This ‘arrival’ is governed by probabilities. Therefore, interstellar travel technology requires an understanding of how probability is implemented in Nature, and we need to figure out how to control the ‘arrival’ event, somewhat like the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s ‘infinite improbability drive’.

Neither relativity nor quantum mechanics can or has attempted to explain probabilities. So what is probability? And, in the single slit experiment why does it decrease as one moves orthogonally away from the slit? I proposed that probabilities are a property of subspace and the way to interstellar travel. Subspace co-exists with spacetime but does not have the time dimension. So how do we test for subspace? If it is associated with probability, then can we determine tests that can confirm subspace? I have suggested one in my book. More interestingly, for starters, can we alter the probability of arrivals in the single slit experiments?

To challenge the foundations of pshyics, there are other questions we can ask. Why is the Doppler Effect not a special case of Gravitational Red/Blue shift? Why is the Hubble parameter not a constant? Can we find the answers? Will seeking these answers keep us awake at night at the possibility of new unthinkable inventions that will take man where no man has gone before?

References
R.L. Amoroso, G. Hunter, M. Kafatos, and Vigier, Gravitation and Cosmology: From the Hubble Radius to the Plank Scale, Proceedings of a Symposium in Honour of the 80th Birthday of Jean-Pierre Vigier, Edited by Amoroso, R.L., Hunter, G., Kafatos, M., and Vigier, J-P., (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, USA, 2002).

H. Bondi, Reviews of Modern Physics, 29–3, 423 (1957). G. Hooft, Found Phys 38, 733 (2008).

B.T. Solomon, “An Approach to Gravity Modification as a Propulsion Technology”, Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences International Forum (SPESIF 2009), edited by Glen Robertson, AIP Conference Proceedings, 1103, 317 (2009).

B.T. Solomon, Phys. Essays 24, 327 (2011)

R. V. Wagoner, 26th SLAC Summer Institute on Particle Physics, SSI 98, 1 (1998).

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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.

Part 1 of this Essay is here

The Missing Link, The Ω Function
General Relativity is based on separation vectors. Splitting this separation vector into two equations, gives one part a function of mass and the other a vector-tensor function. This gives rise to the question, can the mass part be replaced by something else say an Ω function, where Ω is as yet undefined but not a function of mass? Maybe the Ω function should be a description of quark interaction, and not mass?

Now it becomes obvious that the theoretical physics community has focused on the vector-tensor part to the complete omission of the Ω function. That is, there is definitely the opportunity to question the foundations of physics.

Looking at the massless equation for gravitational acceleration g = τc2, change in time dilation divided by the change in distance is what describes a gravitational field. A small body orbiting the Earth has a certain velocity which can be converted to time dilation. Change the orbital radius of the small body by a small amount, less or more, gives a new orbital velocity and a new time dilation. Therefore, divide this change in time dilation by the change in height and multiply by the velocity of light squared, gives the gravitational acceleration present. The same is with a centripetal motion. Use the velocity along the radius at any two points. Determine the change in time dilation then divide this change in time dilation by the change in radius, the distance between the two points. Then multiply by the velocity of light squared, gives the acceleration present.

The same is true for an electron traveling in a magnetic field, but this cannot be explained without the use of equations. See Solomon 2011 for a detailed explanation. Further, this approach now explains why force is orthogonal to both electron motion and magnetic field. Contemporary electromagnetism cannot explain why other than stating it has to be a vector cross product. Which raises the question, what is the electron doing in the magnetic field? In addition to the arched motion of the electron, does the electron experience rotation? That is, is it rotating with respect to the magnetic field i.e. is the electron orientation locked with respect to the radius of the arch? Or is the electron orientation rotating with respect to the radius of the arch i.e. is the electron orientation locked with respect to the magnetic field? Or is some other orientation function present?

It is important to note that time dilation as a spatial gradient is the key to acceleration and is termed Non Inertia or Ni Field. The Ni field concept is the first major challenge to quantum mechanics in a hundred years. Quantum mechanics states that force is transmitted by the exchange of virtual particles, whereas the Ni field states that it is the spatial gradient of time dilation. Unlike quantum mechanics, the Ni field is able to unify gravity, electromagnetism and mechanical forces.

My Philosophy Behind the New Propulsion Physics
How did I arrive at these discoveries? Let us back up a little. If a 100,000 of the brightest scientist & engineers, over the last 100 years could not solve the gravity modification problem, then the problem is not with the tool users but with the tools. Along this note Space.com has an article Have Three Little Photons Broken Theoretical Physics?, that suggests that some if not all of quantum gravity may be invalidated.

Niels Bohr (I could not find the reference) is reputed to have said that the mathematical equation is all we need to describe the Universe, and explains why theoretical physics has become very abstract (not a judgement). Einstein on the other hand said use your imagination. Both had different approaches to discovery. Both used mathematics as a tool to describe the Universe. But as Prof. Morris Kline describes in his book “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty”, mathematics has become so sophisticated that it can now be used to prove anything, and therefore the loss of certainty. Ironically it was Einstein who started the search for a unified theory of everything.

How did I avoid trying to prove ‘anything’? By staying close to the experimental data.

One arrives at new hypotheses by breaking old axioms. Some of the axioms are explicit and some are implicit. Two explicit axioms are, a charged particle moving in a magnetic field is equivalent to a point, and all the laws of physics in this Universe are consistent with each other. An implicit axiom would be that the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation somehow does not operate on a particle falling in a gravitational field. I show that this is incorrect in my Physics Essays paper.

In my research I chose to explore physical properties that contemporary physics had not, that particles are real physical three dimensional objects. Therefore to answer questions like what would happen to the shape of a particle falling in a gravitational field? Or how would the shape of an electron affect its motion in a magnetic field, if at all? Or how would the distribution of mass within an elementary particle affect its motion in a gravitational field?

To be continued … Part 3 Here

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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.