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Archive for the ‘existential risks’ category: Page 113

Jan 21, 2012

My Story Aimed to Make a Planet Happy

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

I am a “specialist in non-specialization”, in the words of my late Austrian mentor Konrad Lorenz, and an “interdisciplinary hybrid” in those of my late American mentor Bob Rosen. IMy work in chaos theory is a little bit well known, in that I discovered a so-called “attractor” or “reproducible dynamic phenomenon” familiar in everyday experience (a hoarse voice and an idling motorcycle’s noise being examples). My subsequent discovery of “hyperchaos” was soon used as a diagnostic tool in wards for the newborn whose cries turn from chaos to hyperchaos in case of a crisis, as H. Herzel found out. My “brain equation” is also getting some recognition lately. My “smile theory” is my oldest but hardest to understand theory (though children typically have no difficulty with it!).

My recent “Telemach theorem” – named after Ulysses’ son Telemachus – is a much more frightening conceptual structure, however. It suggests that continuing escalation of the energy of operation of the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, Switzerland, indeed has the potential of forming dangerous mini Black Holes which could consume the Earth.

A proven implication of known physical laws – a theorem – is true until a counterargument is found that topples it. The name Telemach has to do with the youth of an ancient Greek myth who recognized a beggar as the long lost father he had believed was dead. In my title the acronym stands for Time, Length, Mass and Charge (T, L, M, Ch), four entities that can be measured in everyday life by means of simple devices — clocks, meter sticks, scales and volt meters.

You probably already know that there exists no “Ur-Second” in physics (because of Einstein’s work); but an “Ur-Meter” and an “Ur-Kilogram” and a “Universal Unit Charge” are believed to exist and are well known. The Ur-meter and the Ur-kilogram were actually quite costly and difficult to arrive at. The struggle took scientists and engineers many decades in furthering the science of measurement (Metrology) in this regard.

Continue reading “My Story Aimed to Make a Planet Happy” »

Jan 20, 2012

Old UNIX/IBM control systems: Potential time bombs in Industry

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, defense, events, existential risks, military, nuclear energy

It may be a point of little attention, as the millennium bug came with a lot of hoo-ha and went out with a whimper, but the impact it had on business was small because of all the hoo-ha, not in spite of it. And so it is with some concern that I consider operating system rollover dates as a potential hazard by software malfunction at major industrial operations such as nuclear power stations and warhead controls, which in worst case scenario, could of course have disastrous implications due to out-dated control systems.

The main dates of interest are 19 January 2038 by when all 32-bit Unix operating systems need to have been replaced by at least their 64-bit equivalents, and 17 Sept 2042 when IBM mainframes that use a 64-bit count need to be phased out.

Scare mongering? Perhaps not. While all modern facilities will have the superior time representation, I question if facilities built in the 70s and 80s, in particular those behind the old iron curtain were or ever will be upgraded. This raises a concern that for example the old soviet nuclear arsenal could become a major global threat within a few decades by malfunction if not decommissioned or control systems upgraded. It is one thing for a bank statement to print the date wrong on your latest bill due to millennium bug type issues, but if automated fault tolerance procedures have coding such as ‘if(time1 > time2+N) then initiate counter-measures’ then that is quite a different matter entirely.

I believe this is a topic which warrants higher profile lest it be forgot. Fortunately the global community has a few decades on its hands to handle this particular issue, though all it takes is just one un-cooperative facility to take such a risk rather than perform the upgrades necessary to ensure no such ‘meltdowns’ occur. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

Jan 18, 2012

Attempto: Let Me Give It a Try

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

I was asked by a journalist friend to present my “revolutionary” results in a way that every lay person can understand to thereby enable the world’s media – if they so wish – to distribute this information in simpler form.

I first have to say who I am, background-wise. I am a “specialist for non-specialization” in the words of my late Austrian friend Konrad Lorenz, and an “interdisciplinary hybrid” in those of my late American friend Bob Rosen. In other words: I have “no character” (only a nose). A little bit known is my work in chaos theory where I discovered a so-called attractor or “reproducible dynamic phenomenon” which everyone knows from experience (a hoarse voice and an idling motorcycle’s noise being examples). Crying babies can produce “hyperchaos” which got turned into a diagnostic tool in wards for the newborn (by H. Herzel). My “brain equation” is getting some recognition lately. A “smile theory” is my oldest but hardest to understand theory (only children have no difficulty). And my recent “Telemach theorem” – named after Ulysses’ son Telemachus – forms the connection to our frightening topic.

A proven finding – a theorem – is true until a counterargument is found that topples it. The mentioned name has to do with an ancient youth who recognized his long believed-dead father cloaked in a beggar’s garment. At the same time the acronym stands for Time, Length, Mass and Charge (T, L, M, Ch) – four entities that can be measured in everyday life by means of simple devices called clocks and meter sticks and scales and volt meters. You probably already know that there exists no “Ur-Second” in physics (because of Einstein’s work); but an “Ur-Meter” and an “Ur-Kilogram” and a “Universal Unit Charge” are believed to exist and well known to date. The Ur-meter and the Ur-kilogram are actually quite expensive and were hard to arrive at in empirical struggles that took scientists and engineers many decades in a science of its own called Metrology (the science of measurement). Therefore it is of some interest perhaps that young Telemach summarily says that three “Urs” do not exist. The Ur-meter, the Ur-kilogram, the Ur-charge all three are as non-existent as the Ur-Second, dethroned 105 years ago, and the “Ur-Pound,” dethroned almost 350 years ago. The latter was proven to be nonexistent by Isaac Newton, the Ur-Second by Albert Einstein as mentioned.

There must be a cry of excitement owing to the newly eliminated three “Urs” – you might expect. The reality is silence. This is surprising since popular opinion holds that new findings are automatically embraced because new machinery can be built and new money be made. But there are always the old manufacturers as it were. Something radically unexpected is never accepted without delay.

Continue reading “Attempto: Let Me Give It a Try” »

Jan 16, 2012

Electro-magnetic Vortex phenomena & Industrial Implications…

Posted by in categories: engineering, existential risks, fun, humor, physics

I wouldn’t have paid much attention to the following topic except for the article appearing in an otherwise credible international news agency (MINA).

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/17115/56/
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_gulf_of_aden_vortex

Whilst electro-magnetic disturbances occur naturally — all the time, the suggestion that one in particular has allegedly arose through industrial practices (ionospheric research, wormhole research(??)) lends to curiosity. If anyone on one of the advisory boards for the various science disciplines has a strong knowledge of electro-magnetic vortex type features that can occur in nature, please explain the phenomena, whether there are any implications of these and whether industry of any sort (in particular directed ionospheric heating) can cause such anomalies to appear from time to time.

I understand that there can be certain fluctuations and weakening in build up to magnetic pole reversals, for example (though please correct me if I’m wrong here). That besides one may enjoy the alleged reaction of certain defense forces (surely spoof) which is at least good satire on how leaders of men can often fear the unknown.

Jan 15, 2012

Can Anyone Explain Why CERN Fears Nothing more than a Scientific Safety Conference?

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

The conference was first publicly requested on April 18, 2008 and first endorsed by a court on January 27, 2011.

Had CERN who stood before that court not said “no” almost a year ago, the danger to the planet consciously incurred during 2011 could not be planned to be quintupled this year.

The only task of the conference is to find a counterproof against a single element of the 5-element chain proof of danger which looks as if nature had posed humanity a trap. The topic is the micro black holes planned to be produced by CERN as a self-declared “black hole factory.” They have 5 new properties:

– they arise much more easily
– they are undetectable by CERN’s sensors
– they at first pass friction-free through earth’s matter
– they if slow enough to circulate inside earth get stuck after a while to grow exponentially as a mini-mini-quasar that, after some years, will make for a beautiful sight from the moon
– they are not exculpated by their ultrafast natural analogues getting stuck inside neutron stars because the latter are protected by their quantum superfluidity.

Continue reading “Can Anyone Explain Why CERN Fears Nothing more than a Scientific Safety Conference?” »

Jan 13, 2012

Verne, Wells, and the Obvious Future Part 2

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, biotech/medical, business, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, events, evolution, existential risks, futurism, life extension, lifeboat, media & arts, military, nuclear weapons, philosophy, physics, policy, space

I am taking the advice of a reader of this blog and devoting part 2 to examples of old school and modern movies and the visionary science they portray.

Things to Come 1936 — Event Horizon 1997
Things to Come was a disappointment to Wells and Event Horizon was no less a disappointment to audiences. I found them both very interesting as a showcase for some technology and social challenges.… to come- but a little off the mark in regards to the exact technology and explicit social issues. In the final scene of Things to Come, Raymond Massey asks if mankind will choose the stars. What will we choose? I find this moment very powerful- perhaps the example; the most eloguent expression of the whole genre of science fiction. Event Horizon was a complete counterpoint; a horror movie set in space with a starship modeled after a gothic cathedral. Event Horizon had a rescue crew put in stasis for a high G several month journey to Neptune on a fusion powered spaceship. High accelleration and fusion brings H-bombs to mind, and though not portrayed, this propulsion system is in fact a most probable future. Fusion “engines” are old hat in sci-fi despite the near certainty the only places fusion will ever work as advertised are in a bomb or a star. The Event Horizon, haunted and consigned to hell, used a “gravity drive” to achieve star travel by “folding space.” Interestingly, a recent concept for a black hole powered starship is probably the most accurate forecast of the technology that will be used for interstellar travel in the next century. While ripping a hole in the fabric of space time may be strictly science fantasy, for the next thousand years at least, small singularity propulsion using Hawking radiation to achieve a high fraction of the speed of light is mathematically sound and the most obvious future.

https://russian.lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/only-one-star-drive-can-work-so-far

That is, if humanity avoids an outbreak of engineered pathogens or any one of several other threats to our existence in that time frame.

Continue reading “Verne, Wells, and the Obvious Future Part 2” »

Jan 13, 2012

Africa Stands behind the Planet

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

The “African Journal of Mathematics” has accepted to publish the “Telemach” paper this month. This is a world-historical event. For the paper proves on the basis of Einstein’s “happiest thought” as he always called it that black holes have radically new properties which make their production at CERN much more likely, but at the same time un-detectable by its instruments and maximally dangerous. If a single one gets stuck inside earth, the latter will be shrunk in a few years’ time into a 2 cm miniquasar – a beautiful chaotic attractor in real space.

The danger level already reached last year is planned to be quintupled during 2012. But CERN does not admit the “safety conference” requested by a Cologne court on January 27, 2011. Nor does it allow the media to report.

So Africa did something forbidden for once by its hopefully saving the world at the last minute, since now the media can no longer be told that the result were false because unpublished.

Europe’s keeping the world media silent will probably continue. But the world’s citizens have a chance now to look for themselves. Every person’s life is now not only coming from Africa but perhaps also saved by Africa.

Jan 11, 2012

Where Does the TV Screen Come from?

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

We all are given one, totally private, at this very moment. This kind of thinking – causal thinking – got almost lost.

Inside the screen, everybody is active, forgetting the screen. This insight is more important than what I have to say inside our screens.

Nevertheless I feel like mentioning that I attended a beautiful talk today by a charming lady scientist who is a high-ranking member of CERN. I loved every word. In the public discussion afterwards, she was asked by a Tübingen citizen unknown to me about the black-hole danger. She expressed in two sentences that they are possible but would have been detected. She did not know about the 4 years old proof that the detectors cannot detect them and that Hawking radiation – which she mentioned as the reason for their detectability — does not exist according to the un-disproved Telemach theorem (now in print in an international math journal).

The most beautiful science, with a loving heart, can if consciously endowed with a blind spot – refused scientific dialog – not flourish. You cannot believe how beautiful the cathedral of the LHC is. Is a beggar allowed entry into one corner?

The TV screen is the real cathedral. Forgive me that I talked about less important things.

Jan 10, 2012

Verne, Wells, and the Obvious Future Part 1

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, business, education, engineering, ethics, events, existential risks, finance, fun, futurism, media & arts, military, nuclear weapons, philosophy, physics, policy, robotics/AI, space, transparency

Steamships, locomotives, electricity; these marvels of the industrial age sparked the imagination of futurists such as Jules Verne. Perhaps no other writer or work inspired so many to reach the stars as did this Frenchman’s famous tale of space travel. Later developments in microbiology, chemistry, and astronomy would inspire H.G. Wells and the notable science fiction authors of the early 20th century.

The submarine, aircraft, the spaceship, time travel, nuclear weapons, and even stealth technology were all predicted in some form by science fiction writers many decades before they were realized. The writers were not simply making up such wonders from fanciful thought or childrens ryhmes. As science advanced in the mid 19th and early 20th century, the probable future developments this new knowledge would bring about were in some cases quite obvious. Though powered flight seems a recent miracle, it was long expected as hydrogen balloons and parachutes had been around for over a century and steam propulsion went through a long gestation before ships and trains were driven by the new engines. Solid rockets were ancient and even multiple stages to increase altitude had been in use by fireworks makers for a very long time before the space age.

Some predictions were seen to come about in ways far removed yet still connected to their fictional counterparts. The U.S. Navy flagged steam driven Nautilus swam the ocean blue under nuclear power not long before rockets took men to the moon. While Verne predicted an electric submarine, his notional Florida space gun never did take three men into space. However there was a Canadian weapons designer named Gerald Bull who met his end while trying to build such a gun for Saddam Hussien. The insane Invisible Man of Wells took the form of invisible aircraft playing a less than human role in the insane game of mutually assured destruction. And a true time machine was found easily enough in the mathematics of Einstein. Simply going fast enough through space will take a human being millions of years into the future. However, traveling back in time is still as much an impossibillity as the anti-gravity Cavorite from the First Men in the Moon. Wells missed on occasion but was not far off with his story of alien invaders defeated by germs- except we are the aliens invading the natural world’s ecosystem with our genetically modified creations and could very well soon meet our end as a result.

While Verne’s Captain Nemo made war on the death merchants of his world with a submarine ram, our own more modern anti-war device was found in the hydrogen bomb. So destructive an agent that no new world war has been possible since nuclear weapons were stockpiled in the second half of the last century. Neither Verne or Wells imagined the destructive power of a single missile submarine able to incinerate all the major cities of earth. The dozens of such superdreadnoughts even now cruising in the icy darkness of the deep ocean proves that truth is more often stranger than fiction. It may seem the golden age of predictive fiction has passed as exceptions to the laws of physics prove impossible despite advertisments to the contrary. Science fiction has given way to science fantasy and the suspension of disbelief possible in the last century has turned to disappointment and the distractions of whimsical technological fairy tales. “Beam me up” was simply a way to cut production costs for special effects and warp drive the only trick that would make a one hour episode work. Unobtainium and wishalloy, handwavium and technobabble- it has watered down what our future could be into childish wish fulfillment and escapism.

Continue reading “Verne, Wells, and the Obvious Future Part 1” »

Jan 9, 2012

LHC Safety Conference Requests / Cologne Administrative Court

Posted by in categories: environmental, events, existential risks, lifeboat, particle physics

If I can intervene on the polarized opinions posted by some individuals on Lifeboat regarding CERN and particle physics safety debate, wherein I was name dropped recently — the person in question, Mr Church, may find my email address on page one of the dissertation linked in my bio. Regarding the safety conference asked for by the Cologne Administrative Court cited by Prof Rossler, I would suggest that with its ample funds, The Lifeboat Foundation should host a public conference on the subject and invite CERN delegates, critics and journalists alike to attend. In the spirit of the Lifeboat Foundation, however, I would suggest that the focus of such conference should be on discussion of how particle physics can be used to solve problems in the future — and the matter of fringe concerns on MBH accretion rates and so on could be dealt with as a subtext. I think it would be a good opportunity to ‘clear the air’ and could be good for the profile not just of the Lifeboat Foundation, but for particle physics research in general. I would like to hear others thoughts on this, and how Lifeboat manages its funds for such events and conferences…