Lifeboat Foundation

OK, why do we need a different technology to achieve commercial viability (as in mass space tourism) for either interplanetary or interstellar travel?

In many of my previous posts I had shown that all the currently proposed technologies or technologies to be, are either phenomenally expensive (on the order of several multiples of World GDP), bordering on the impossible or just plain conjecture. This is very unfortunate, as I was hoping that some of the proposals would at least appear realistic, but no joy. I feel very sorry for those who are funding these projects. For a refresher I have posted an updated version of the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) here which documents 5 of the 11 inconsistencies in modern physics. I give permission to my readers to use this material for non-commercial or academic uses.

I recently completed the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravity modification published under the title An Introduction to Gravity Modification, 2^nd Edition. For the very first time we now have a scientific definition for gravity modification:

Gravity modification is defined as the modification of the strength and/or direction of the gravitational acceleration without the use of mass as the primary source of this modification, in local space time. It consists of field modulation and field vectoring. Field modulation is the ability to attenuate or amplify a force field. Field vectoring is the ability to change the direction of this force field.

Continue reading “Gravity Modification – What is it?” »

“Metaballon anapaúetai” was the original 2-word phrase. Since the physical science of thermodynamics knows only one time’s arrow, Heraclitus appeared outdated for 1 ½ centuries.

Recently though, a second fundamental time’s arrow was found in nature. It defines cyodynamics, a full-fledged sister discipline to thermodynamics (cryós = cold, thermós = hot). Both jointly form the subject matter of statistical mechanics. The new subfield of cryodynamics applies whenever the forces acting between the particles in question are attractive. Thermodynamics applies when they are predominantly repulsive. Hot plasmas, for example, are governed by both disciplines – which fact puts fusion technology on a new promising basis.

The new combined discipline re-enables an eternally recycling perpetual-motion cosmos. The implied chaos-theoretic combined mixing and unmixing process, found by Anaxagoras to be implicit in Heraclitus‘ work, is thereby confirmed.

A third name needs to be added though, Einstein’s. The giant perpetual-motion machine would not work in the absence of general relativity forming the third element.

Continue reading “OPEN DIALOG WITH STEPHEN HAWKING --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Metabolizing it is at Rest’: Heraclitus’ Eternally Recycling Cosmos Recovered” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In a previous post on Technological Feasibility I had stated that a quick and dirty model shows that we could achieve velocity of light c by 2151 or the late 2150s. See table below.

That is, at the current rate of technological innovation we could as a civilization reach light speed in about 140 years. More importantly we could not even reach anywhere near that within the next 100 years. Our capability would be 6.3% of c.

The Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation informs us light speed would require an infinite amount of energy (i.e. more than there is in the Universe!), thereby highlighting the weaknesses in these types of technological forecasting methods. But these models still serve a purpose. They provide some guidance as to what is possible and when. The operative word is guidance.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (3b)” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

My apologies to my readers for this long break since my last post of Nov 19, 2012. I write the quarterly economic report for a Colorado bank’s Board of Directors. Based on my quarterly reports to the Board, I gave a talk Are We Good Stewards? on the US Economy to about 35 business executives at a TiE Rockies’ Business for Breakfast event. This talk was originally scheduled for Dec 14, but had moved forward to Nov 30 because the original speaker could not make the time commitment for that day. There was a lot to prepare, and I am very glad to say that it was very well received. For my readers who are interested here is the link to a pdf copy of my slides to Are We Good Stewards?

Now back to interstellar physics and the Kline Directive. Let’s recap.

In my last four posts (2c), (2d), (2e) & (2f) I had identified four major errors taught in contemporary physics. First, to be consistent (2c) with Lorentz-Fitzgerald and Special Theory of Relativity, elementary particles contract as their energy increases. This is antithetical to string theories and explains why string theories are becoming more and more complex without discovering new empirically verifiable fundamental laws of Nature.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (3a)” »

The 100,000 Stars Google Chrome Galactic Visualization Experiment Thingy
So, Google has these things called Chrome Experiments, and they like, you know, do that. 100,000 Stars, their latest, simulates our immediate galactic zip code and provides detailed information on many of the massive nuclear fireballs nearby.

Zoom in & out of interactive galaxy, state, city, neighborhood, so to speak.

It’s humbling, beautiful, and awesome. Now, is 100, 000 Stars perfectly accurate and practical for anything other than having something pretty to look at and explore and educate and remind us of the enormity of our quaint little galaxy among the likely 170 billion others? Well, no — not really. But if you really feel the need to evaluate it that way, you are a unimaginative jerk and your life is without joy and awe and hope and wonder and you probably have irritable bowel syndrome. Deservedly.

The New Innovation Paradigm Kinda Revisited
Just about exactly one year ago technosnark cudgel Anthrobotic.com was rapping about the changing innovation paradigm in large-scale technological development. There’s chastisement for Neil deGrasse Tyson and others who, paraphrasically (totally a word), have declared that private companies won’t take big risks, won’t do bold stuff, won’t push the boundaries of scientific exploration because of bottom lines and restrictive boards and such. But new business entities like Google, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, & Planetary Resources are kind of steadily proving this wrong.

Continue reading “Google's 100,000 Stars & the Paradigmatic Disruption of Large-Scale Innovation Revisited” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

There is one last mistake in physics that needs to be addressed. This is the baking bread model. To quote from the NASA page,

“The expanding raisin bread model at left illustrates why this proportion law is important. If every portion of the bread expands by the same amount in a given interval of time, then the raisins would recede from each other with exactly a Hubble type expansion law. In a given time interval, a nearby raisin would move relatively little, but a distant raisin would move relatively farther — and the same behavior would be seen from any raisin in the loaf. In other words, the Hubble law is just what one would expect for a homogeneous expanding universe, as predicted by the Big Bang theory. Moreover no raisin, or galaxy, occupies a special place in this universe — unless you get too close to the edge of the loaf where the analogy breaks down.”

Notice the two qualifications the obvious one is “unless you get too close to the edge of the loaf where the analogy breaks down”. The second is that this description is only correct from the perspective of velocity. But there is a problem with this.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2f)” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post I explain two more mistakes in physics. The first is 55 years old, and should have been caught long ago.

Bondi, in his 1957 paper “Negative mass in General Relativity”, had suggested that mass could be negative and there are surprising results from this possibility. I quote,

“… the positive body will attract the negative one (since all bodies are attracted by it), while the negative body will repel the positive body (since all bodies are repelled by it). If the motion is confined to the line of centers, then one would expect the pair to move off with uniform acceleration …”

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2e)” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post on technological feasibility, I point to some more mistakes in physics, so that we are aware of the type of mistakes we are making. This I hope will facilitate the changes required of our understanding of the physics of the Universe and thereby speed up the discovery of new physics required for interstellar travel.

The scientific community recognizes two alternative models for force. Note I use the term recognizes because that is how science progresses. This is necessarily different from the concept how Nature operates or Nature’s method of operation. Nature has a method of operating that is consistent with all Nature’s phenomena, known and unknown.

If we are willing to admit, that we don’t know all of Nature’s phenomena — our knowledge is incomplete — then it is only logical that our recognition of Nature’s method of operation is always incomplete. Therefore, scientists propose theories on Nature’s methods, and as science progresses we revise our theories. This leads to the inference that our theories can never be the exact presentation of Nature’s methods, because our knowledge is incomplete. However, we can come close but we can never be sure ‘we got it’.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2d)” »

I was about to discuss the third of three concepts, but thought a look back would be appropriate at this time. In my earlier post I had shown that the photon/particle wave function could not be part of the photon/particle as this would violate the empirical Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations and therefore, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. The wave function is only the photon/particle’s disturbance of the spacetime it is in, and therefore explains why photons/particles have wave properties. They don’t. They disturb spacetime like a pebble dropped into a pond. The pond’s ripples are not the pebble.

In the recent findings, Dr. Alberto Peruzzo, University of Bristol (UK) the lead author of the paper and quoting “The measurement apparatus detected strong nonlocality, which certified that the photon behaved simultaneously as a wave and a particle in our experiment, … This represents a strong refutation of models in which the photon is either a wave or a particle.” This is a very important finding and another step in the progress of science towards a better understanding of our Universe.

Those of you who have been following my blog posts will recognize that this is empirical validation using single structure test that shows that both wave and particle properties occur together. What is required next, to be empirically rigorous, is to either confirm or deny that this wave function is a spacetime disturbance. For that we require a dual structure test.

If this wave function is a spacetime disturbance, then Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is upheld, and we would require a major rethink of quantum physics or the physics of elementary particles. If this wave function is a not spacetime disturbance but part of the particle structure, then there is an empirical exception to the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation and we would require a rethink of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2c) . . . continued” »