h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

Recently there has been some fuss regarding some obscure physical theories developed by one Burkhard Heim.

Several claims are made of them; for example, it is claimed that they can be used to calculate the masses of fundamental particles to within the limits of experimental error, which no other theory can. And, even more astonishingly, that they might be used to develop propulsion systems for spaceships which use almost no fuel, and may even travel faster than light.

When I first read about it, I dismissed it immediately because I didn't consider the source trustworthy. Some googling returned New-Age garbage (the results have since changed a little); nevertheless, I checked out Wikipedia, where there is a decent controversy going on.

On discovering that a paper based on an extended version of this theory was awarded 'best paper' in its category by the American Institute of Aeronautics—as reported in New Scientist—I went ahead and had a look for the paper itself. Some links:

New Scientist article [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200.html]
The paper referred to in the article [http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/cb/cb26/heim/theorie_raumfahrt/hqtforspacepropphysicsaip2005.pdf]

While I can grasp bits and pieces of the paper, I'm far from understanding it completely, and even further from putting it into context. So, I was hoping that you lovely SExperts might be able to tell me:

How accurate are the claims made concerning Heim Theory? Is there dispute about, say, the accuracy of his mass formula, or specific disagreement on the particulars?
If not, does this paper hold water?

Thanks guys.

—Jordan

1) I have no idea about Heim theory, but reading the 1st page of the paper convinced me it was junk. They claim to be able to break conservation of energy, right off the bat. Then they go on to use creationist type arguments about entropy to explain why all of modern science is wrong

2) The paper about space flight doesn't hold water, and the new scientist one is pretty weak. Seems like it's manufacturing a "controversy" out of nothing. Very similar tactics to creationist/intelligent design.

I'm sure I saw a discussion (here or on the science message boards) where someone wondered if the wonderful space drive could ever work without carrying several GW of generation capacity with it, and whether cancelling gravity would cancel *inertia* as well.
A high-G trip to Mars might be *fast*, but could range from a very long blackout to instant puree-ing, depending on how fast the ship was.

I agree with arnie in as much as this Heim theory is rubbish- it is primarily low-quality science fiction.

As far as the comment about entropy- (I assume you mean the second law of thermodynamics)- that really is only a model for the behaviour of gas particles, so to "disprove" it with reference to anything else is meaningless. It doesn't apply to anything else, at least not with any accuracy, so I don't understand why people try (the second law becomes more inaccurate the more mass something has, because it only works where there is little or no effect of gravity).

errr, no the 2nd law of thermo applies to much more than just gas particles...

Aaahh, I would beg to differ. It has been APPLIED to a lot more than gas particles, but that is all it seeks to explain. It also relies on coarse-graining (it's effects are only true on average) and it relies on short-range elastic collisions being a much greater force than anything else, which is not always true. Besides which, it is a MODEL that shows the end result of a system, not an accurate account of what actually happens. Don't get me wrong, I'm not seeking to disprove it (quite the opposite), I just think it's ridiculous to try to apply it to the entire universe.

Dismissing Heim theories (which seem to successfully predict certain things) on the basis of Droscher's work on "hyperdrive"? Isn't that a bit like dismissing Hawking's work (e.g. on Wormholes) on the basis of a Star Trek episode which uses a Wormhole to travel backwards in time?

Now I DON'T claim to understand Heim's theories (I mean eminent physicisists have problems understanding them), but, although I doubt the validity of Droscher's work (although he has similar background to Einstein), I think Heim's theories should be investigated further.

beg to differ all you want, but you're wrong. I know several eminent phsyical chemists who've based their life's work on using thermodynamic principles applied to biological molecules - highly complicated systems with multiple, non-gaseous phases.

That's just wrong about gas molecules and elastic collisions. Perhaps that's the way you were taught to *understand* entropy, but that doesn't limit the defintion or scope of entropy. A defintion of the entropy is:

S = k*ln(q) + k*T*(d(ln(q))/dT)

k is Boltzmann's constant
ln is the natural log
q is the partition function of the system
T is the temperature
d(ln(q))/dT is the derivative of the partition function with respect to temperature

All you need is the partition function, and its derivative with respect to temperature to calculate the entropy. There is no requirement for the system to be composed of gas molecules, or elastic collisions to dominate. In fact, there are plenty of non-gaseous (solid & liquid) systems for which it is *easier* to calculate the partition function (and it's derivative wrt T) and hence entropy, than it is for gas molecules which undergo hard sphere collisions.

<>

s at dawn indeed

Ok, re-reading that I did overstate my point- a consequence of only getting on this site in the middle of the night I guess- and implied that entropy only applies to gas particles or only in terms of elastic collisions (actually I said exactly that, but it wasn't what I meant). Not my intention, I fell prey to the evil over-simplification.

My point was, while for gas particles the second law holds true virtually in all cases (ie I've never seen a case where it doesn't), in terms of solids and liquids it is not *always* true; I have seen situations where almost exactly the opposite occurs (rare, sure, but they happen- or at least appear to). That doesn't "disprove" entropy of course, any more than the contradictions between newtonian kinematics and quantum theory disprove one or the other. My original point was that even assuming something contradicts a scientific law in a specific case, it doesn't make the law invalid.

On another note, just because you can do the sums, it doesn't mean the answers are "true". (Sorry, I couldn't resist that).

My apologies for assuming I would need to explain a very simplistic form of entropy, but at least people who DON'T understand it will get a good idea of the concept if they read these posts. Consider me suitably chastised

"...the spontaneous order that has been observed in the universe is opposite to the laws of thermodynamics, predicting the increase of disorder or greater entropy (Strogatz 2003)."

Good gravy, how the hell did I miss that one?

On a tangentially related note, the only papers I can find regading Strogatz on citeseer are to do with some 'Small World' theory. God knows what that is, haven't the time to google for it, but it sounds like it might have something to do with linguistics??


As far as conservation of energy goes, they propose a technique which /seems/ similar to those proposed for extracting vacuum energy. Is vacuum energy an established phenomenon, or is it generally disregarded for similar reasons? Or am I completely wrong, and there's no parallel?

—Jordan

Forgive a brief digression into something basic, but this "even assuming something contradicts a scientific law in a specific case, it doesn't make the law invalid." has me confused.

Does that mean laws are only supposed to apply to very specific things, or that they're still considered valid (and complete?) even though there are contradictions to them? I'd been under the impression that the *point* of laws was that they hold true consistently, and when they don't it's a sign they need further refinement.

Ah, but what about the old idiom...


"The exception which proves the rule"!

Jordan, you're initial thought was right. You can't extract energy from the vacuum. Particles and anti-particles can be simultaneously created from the vacuum but it takes energy.


2 short plancks, I'd love to hear about the violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics you'd observed. The only ones I know about are statistical fluctuations which occur when a sample size is small enough (e.g. *Very* small) that random motion can cause a temporary deviation...

MoG, scientific laws are fairly robust, but it is true that they do have limits to their scope. As 2 short plancks pointed out, Newton's laws apply very well to regular sized objects (much bigger than an atoms, smaller than a planet) that aren't moving near the speed of light. However, I've never heard of the violation of mass/charge conservation, and violations of entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics) are the same.

In that vein...given the above equations, let's calculate a partition function.

q = sum over i=0 to infinity (g(i) * exp(-E(i)/(k*T)))

sum over i means take the sum of the following terms for the values of i specified (0 to infinity)

g(i) is the degeneracy of the i-th level of the system (how many states are present at energy E(i)

E(i) is the energy of the i-th level

k is Boltzmann's constant
T is the temperature
-------------------------------

Now going back to the original equation, for a change in entropy to be positive, the partition function for the final state of the system is larger than the initial. Also, the final state partition function must take into accountThis occurs if in the final state partition function the function g(i) is larger and/or if the function E(i) increases more slowly. What this actually means is that in the final state of the system, more levels are likely to be occupied. Furthermore, since the levels of the initial state of the system are a subset of the levels of the final state of the system, the increase in entropy means that the system has merely moved towards a state which is statistically the most likely.

Is that idiom part of a scientific approach, or is it about other aspects of life?

I should have put a after that last post....

Life...

I read somewhere that certain of the weirder quantum effects appear to temporarily violate energy conservation, although I have not the maths to back it up. I also read in the same place that conservation of momentum appears to be just about the only universally applicable law so far.

Anyone got any juice on this?

>> Ah, but what about the old idiom...
>> "The exception which proves the rule"!

Wasn't one of the original meanings of "to prove" the same as "to test" so the exception couldn't have validated the rule but could have been used to invalidate it.

The general principle being that we think we have the right answer but we're going to destruction test it just in case!

That's almost EXACTLY what I was thinking when I posted it in the first place - wondered how it would be "read"...