Heim Theory Falsified...this is depressing

[CaptainBeowulf]

djolds - found the time to go and look at the physorg thread last night and I concur with your summary. However, what you find in some of the posts on there is similar to the reply Giorgio just posted - Droscher and Hauser are using eight dimensions rather than six, and have pretty much rewritten all the math of the theory (or at least started to) in order to pursue their approach. So, in that sense Heim may have provided inspiration even though he just produced a tuned theory instead of something capable of making accurate predictions.

So, to my mind the real question is now: is there anything to Droscher and Hauser's theory, which is really only inspired by Heim theory rather than actually being Heim theory? I suppose time will tell. It would still be nice if they can propose experiments that can be repeated and either falsified or not.

I feel sorry for Dr. Reed for putting all this time into something that really went nowhere... but at least he did provide a contribution to knowledge for all of us in showing exactly what Heim did, where he went wrong, and why we can now put the original Heim theory away as a historical curiosity.

That said, I think it's still worthwhile for people to keep going through the rest of his writings in their spare time, in case any other interesting approaches turn up that could be reused in other new theories.

[Giorgio]

I have placed to Dr. Hauser few other questions.
If he replies with something new or interesting I'll share it here.

[GeeGee]

My problem with Dr. Hauser is he seems to be piggy-backing on Tajmar's results, which have not been successfully replicated. If I am not mistaken, Tajmar attributed his results to the liquid helium in his experiment.

When will they start doing experiments of their own? In 2006, Droscher & Hauser stated they would be able to test their hypothesis within five years. It's been five years.

[Giorgio]

When will they start doing experiments of their own? In 2006, Droscher & Hauser stated they would be able to test their hypothesis within five years. It's been five years.

This is one of the questions I asked.

[djolds1]

When will they start doing experiments of their own? In 2006, Droscher & Hauser stated they would be able to test their hypothesis within five years. It's been five years.

This is one of the questions I asked.

The light math on how the Tajmer inspired "bosonic mechanism" works (in comparison to the plentiful math of 2005 and before for the "fermionic mechanism"), the over-reliance on Tajmer (even after Tajmer has backed off his own claims), and the lack of dedicated EHT experimentation in the five years since "the bosonic mechanism" purportedly massively dropped the difficulty of EHT devices were the primary problems with the credibility of EHT. Dr. Reed's recent announcement is just the latest (and I think final) nail in the coffin. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but doubt I am. Personally, I have generally dropped my interest in EHT and have moved onto other topics. I hope your correspondence opens things back up, but remain doubtful.

[Giorgio]

The light math on how the Tajmer inspired "bosonic mechanism" works (in comparison to the plentiful math of 2005 and before for the "fermionic mechanism"),

True, this has been the biggest turn down for many of the people I know.

the over-reliance on Tajmer (even after Tajmer has backed off his own claims)

I didn't see that as over-reliance, just as a quick (and dirty) way to prove their theoretical framework without having to run a dedicated experiment.

I hope your correspondence opens things back up, but remain doubtful.

I hope also, but, as you said, a proper set of experiments is needed to give back some freshness to this theory.

[Giorgio]

Here is the latest in my e-mail exchange with Dr. Hauser, I think this can be quite of interest to anyone following the Heim Theory.
I bolded the most significant passages.

---------------------------

Dear Dr. ,

thank you for your reply.
One more remark to Heim theory: the statements by Heim should not be
taken literally. Instead, some of his ideas can be used as a basis for
one's own development. There is also the problem of proper definitions
in Heim's special terminology, which I also pointed out to the Heim
research group some time ago. This means that people are using words and
concepts, whose physical meaning they cannot explain, e.g. condensor flux.

Our results are quite different from Heim's predictions, but we are
using his idea of a poly-metric tensor. Hence, to recognize Heim, we
termed our approach Extended Heim Theory. However, our work has not
reached the status of theory, at best it is an (incomplete) physical model.

But it seems to answer the fundamental question about the number and
type of physical interactions possible. It also seems to give an answer
about symmetry groups (we found two O(8,q) groups, q field of quaternions).

There is a forthcoming book and also a review article, which, however,
is being under review, i.e. it has not been accepted so far. These
articles should clarify the situation somewhat more, but many open
questions remain, in particular with regard to recent contradictory
experimental results. We will also present at JPC 2011 in San Diego in
August.

So far, we did not do any work in elementary particle physics.
However, the so called Hermetry forms lead to a classification scheme of
matter (particles) and their mediator bosons.

The Russians (I cannot give the name of the instituion) would be willing
to carry out the necessary experimental work, if co-founded by the EU.
Maybe, a sponsored co-operation can be started.

Best regards,

Jochem Hauser.
-----------------------------------

The more I exchange e-mail with him the more I like his open attitude. It reminds me Eric Lerner under many aspects.
I really hope they will find a way to finance this research.

[DeltaV]

Mendel Sachs ( http://mendelsachs.com ) has spent decades developing a peer-reviewed, continuous-field Unified Field Theory (fermis to light years), based on the elimination of an unnecessary constraint (spacetime reflection symmetry) from Einstein's GRT equations.

Doing this yields 16 equations at each point in spacetime instead of the usual 10. The theory involves a quaternion-valued four vector (four values corresponding to relativistic time as well as four for each space coordinate).

Several predictions of his theory are in agreement with experimental data. The neutron is no longer considered an elementary particle, unlike the electron and proton. Quantum Mechanics is shown to be a linear approximation to this extension of GRT.

Why is the physics community seemingly ignoring this profound work?

The Higgs Particle the Standard Model and the Emperor’s New Clothes
http://mendelsachs.com/the-higgs-partic ... w-clothes/

What I have found, technically, was that by dropping the (unnecessary) space and time reflection symmetry elements from Einstein's field equations, they factorize from 10 independent relations to 16 independent relations. This generalization then yielded a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism. This factorization is entirely analogous to Dirac's factorization of the Klein Gordon equation to yield the special relativitic spinor form of Schrodinger's wave mechanics.

This analysis showed that the formal expression of the quantum theory is a linear approximation for a nonlinear, covariant field theory of the inertia of matter, in general relativity. This led to a derivation of the inertial mass of matter. One of the predictions was that of mass doublets of all fermions (spin one-half particles of matter). The heavier electron, in this analysis, had all of the physical characteristics of the muon - its correct mass and lifetime. It followed further that the higher mass of the proton mass doublet has a mass that is the order of 190 Gev - a value close to that of the (yet undiscovered) Higgs particle.

PHYSICS IN THE 21st CENTURY
http://mendelsachs.com/wp-content/uploa ... entury.pdf

With the quaternion-spinor formalism in the curved spacetime, it is found that the ten relations of Einstein’s field equations, that have already provided an explanation for gravity, and superseded Newton’s theory of universal gravitation, factorize to sixteen field relations whose solutions are the quaternion variables q superscript_μ (x). These are the four quaternion components of a four vector. Thus this variable has 4 x 4 = 16 independent components. The new factorized field equations then replace Einstein’s 10 tensor field equations, as the fundamental representation of general relativity. The factorization occurs essentially because of the elimination of the reflection symmetry in space and time in Einstein’s field equations, which was not required in the first place, since the covariance is defined in terms of a continuous group alone (the “Einstein group”).

It was then shown that the 16 field equations could be separated, by iteration, into 10 equations that are in one-to-one correspondence with the form of Einstein’s tensor equations, to explain gravity, and 6 equations that are in one-to-one correspondence with the form of Maxwell’s equations, to explain electromagnetism. Thus, this quaternion factorization of Einstein’s field equations yields a formalism that unifies gravity and electromagnetism, in terms of the single 16-component quaternion field q superscript_μ (x) – this is the unified field theory sought by Einstein.

The Einstein symmetry group, when taken to its logical extreme, predicts that there are no fundamental ‘spin one’ particles. Thus, the ‘photon’ of the electromagnetic theory is not an elementary particle. Rather, it is a mode of the continuum that carries the electromagnetic interaction, at the speed of light c, from one (spinor) component of charged matter to another. This is the long range electromagnetic (scalar) interaction, as shown in the binding of the electron and proton to form the hydrogen atom. The predicted (short range) pseudoscalar electromagnetic interaction (that must accompany the scalar interaction because of the lack of reflection symmetry in the underlying field) entails the spinor form of the electromagnetic field, as a neutrino field that carries the binding of the electron and proton to form the neutron. Thus, the neutron is not an elementary particle. It is a composite of electron, proton and the spin one half electromagnetic field of coupling between them that we associate with the neutrino field.

[TDPerk]

So what does that mean for Mach's Conjecture or the consequently posited Woodward Effect?

[GeeGee]

So what does that mean for Mach's Conjecture or the consequently posited Woodward Effect?

Someone over at Centauri dreams actually asked how all of these advanced propulsion schemes and the physical models which they're based on related to the M-E conjecture. Paul Gilster e-mailed Woodward this question and he responded:

“Heim theory: I’ve seen several presentations on this and read several papers, but I have never seen the field equation referred to written down with a following explicit derivation of the alleged predicted effects. When people do not spell out the physics in such a way that a capable professional can follow the details of the argument, I suspect that the argument in detail doesn’t exist. This is especially true when the “theory” being used is not widely accepted in the mainstream community. If you find a detailed derivation of the alleged predictions of thrust, let me know. I’d like to see it.

“Martin Tajmar’s work: When he first went public with his experimental work, he justified it on the basis of something called the “Tate anomaly”, claiming that in superconductors this suggested that “gravitomagnetic” effects might be many orders of magnitude larger than anyone in the gravitational physics community would believe. It wasn’t long, however, before he found that the effect he claimed to have observed did not depend on the superconducting state — eliminating the justificatory physics he had invoked as grounds for others to take his work seriously. Absent any physics justification for a gravitomagnetic field more than a decade of orders of magnitude larger than that predicted by established theory, I suspect that most people do not believe that Tajmar has actually discovered a new gravitational effect. In any event, without justificatory theory, he will have a very much harder time convincing anyone that he really is looking at a new gravity effect that has practical value.

“Producing experimental anomalies turns out in practice to be much easier than non-professionals expect. And getting rid of spurious signals turns out to be much harder than most would imagine. That is why professionals do not take seriously anomalies unless there is some attendant theoretical reason to do so.

“Strictly speaking, Ray Chiao isn’t doing “antigravity”. What he is looking for is anomalous coupling of gravity and electromagnetism in superconductors. He is a world-class physicist who knows what he is doing and has developed theory that suggests that the coupling he seeks might actually occur. Last I heard, though, was that he had not yet succeeded.

“Now to your main question: does any of this relate to Mach effects? The simple answer is no. Mach effects are Newtonian order relativistic effects that arise because of the details of how systems behave when they can change their internal energies during accelerations. They have nothing to do with anomalous coupling between gravity and electromagnetism, superconductors, or off-beat unified field theories. This means that they aren’t very trendy or romantic. But with a little luck, we can hope that they will work.”

[Giorgio]

It followed further that the higher mass of the proton mass doublet has a mass that is the order of 190 Gev - a value close to that of the (yet undiscovered) Higgs particle

The idea of matter as a spherical wave is interesting indeed, and the existence of any particle at 190 GeV will immediately clarify if this theory has some base to stand over or not.
Unfortunately the range were the Higgs can be found is getting smaller and smaller, and the 190 GeV seems to have been already excluded:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/

For me I personally hope that we do not find anything in the 120-250 GeV range, nor the Higgs nor any other particle.
That would deal quite a nice blow to our actual idea of how the universe works, opening the ground for new theories and (possibly) new experimental devices.

[Betruger]

In any case it's exciting to hear (from sciencemag IIRC) that they expect to have answers by year's end.

[djolds1]

Why is the physics community seemingly ignoring this profound work?

Hard-sell triumphalism of this type is precisely the style of approach I don't like.

[DeltaV]

Why is the physics community seemingly ignoring this profound work?

Hard-sell triumphalism of this type is precisely the style of approach I don't like.

Maybe I was a little over the top (I'm only an engineer, after all), but if Sachs is just 50% or 20% right, I'd say "profound" still applies.

In any event, what you or I like or dislike has no bearing on what is.

Then, there are the questions of how exactly the Higgs mass exclusions were determined (would proton "mass doublets" be properly detected?) and how exactly did Sachs determine his 190 GeV value. I'm not qualified to answer.

I do perceive an unwarranted psychological bias among some scientists/mathematicians, giving preference to "translation" over "rotation" and to "center" over "circumference" or "surface" (echoes of the Great Quaternionic War of the 1890s).

An apparently deep-rooted, zero-centric, Cartesian bias (the "Origin", sort of like Sun worship), exemplified by the surface area of a sphere typically being presented in texts as 4*pi*R^2 instead of the simpler pi*D^2, or the even simpler (pi*D)*D = C*D, which leads directly to the area equivalence between same-height/diameter spheres and cylinders discovered by Archimedes, and to the so-called equal area zones property.

Anything involving quaternions is rotation-related in some sense, and everbody knows that you can't get pure "translation" from "rotation"... unless the radius of curvature is infinite... or a variable... or you let an axial (pseudo) vector be a substitute for a (polar) displacement vector.

Energy and torque having the same physical dimensions (force*distance) must just be a random accident. The same must be true in regard to things like MacCullagh's 1839 roto-elastic aether model (embodying rotational but not translational resistance to motion) yielding Maxwell's equations and the laws of Snell and Fresnel.

Could this be why physics has stagnated and turned to things like String Theory, and why engineers are forced to prowl internet forums looking for new paths forward?

[DeltaV]

So what does that mean for Mach's Conjecture or the consequently posited Woodward Effect?

Sachs and Woodward are aware of each others work and both contributed sections to this book co-edited by Sachs:

Mach's Principle and the Origin of Inertia
http://redshift.vif.com/BookBlurbs/khar ... htm#Author

-- Mendel Sachs: The Mach Principle and the Origin of Inertia from General Relativity
-- James F. Woodward: The Technical End of Mach’s Principle

Woodward's and Sachs' theories do not exclude each other in any way, based on what little I know.