Earth to Mars in 3 Hours **NO JOKE**

[rsp1202]

See:
http://www.nasawatch.com/
"Mike Griffin's Big Secret."

[Sergi Manstov]

Seems a crazy idea to me!

[simonbp]

Actually reading through the paper, and with my minimal knowledge of post-Classical physics (3rd year physics undergrad), it all seems self-consistant, as in the the basic assumptions of 8 dimensions and gravity being a combination of 3 different forces make a degree of sense. Beyond that point I start to loose comprehension, but if the theory can be verified by experiment, it's already more plausible than string theory...

If it's true, than this guy is next James Watt....

Simon

[Tap-Sa]

When I read the paper (didn't understand much, but the general appearance looked more convincing than, say, GCTspace.com style blatant scam) and description of the setup with superconducting magnetic coil and rotating torus I immediately remembered the controversial Podkletnov experiment. Perhaps Podkletnov was on the right track too?

[hyper_snyper]

Hi everyone, first post.

The link to the Podkletnov experiment on wikipedia said "Information on the exact whereabouts of Podkletnov or the progress of his work remains very scarce."

Is he missing or something?

[STS Tony]

Depends which dimension people are looking for him Welcome to the site!

[Marslauncher]

way more info...

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html


Awesome read

and excerpt.

"When he presented his idea in public in 1957, he became an instant celebrity. Wernher von Braun, the German engineer who at the time was leading the Saturn rocket programme that later launched astronauts to the moon, approached Heim about his work and asked whether the expensive Saturn rockets were worthwhile"

Very very interesting.

[Sergi Manstov]

Hmmm, I say give the opportunity. If for a reason it works, then everything changes!

[vt_hokie]

STS Tony - 6/1/2006  2:57 PM

Depends which dimension people are looking for him

LOL!

[SignalToNoise]

Beam me up, Scotty!

[Colby]

The most interesting part of his theory is how he created a theorem that could predict elementary particle masses so accurately. This more then anything else makes me feel as though he may have been heading in the right direction.  Of course, I don't know enough physics to know one way or the other!

[Bruce H]

If he was on to something, you all don't need a slide rule and calculator to work out where he might be right now. Give you all a clue.......gov-ern-ment ag-en-cy

[Davros]

Bruce H - 10/1/2006  10:35 PM

If he was on to something, you all don't need a slide rule and calculator to work out where he might be right now. Give you all a clue.......gov-ern-ment ag-en-cy

Has an important phyisist spoken about this guy's findings? Mr Steven Hawkings would be very interesting.

[simonbp]

One of the greatest things about science is what might be called Clarke's first law (after Arthur C. Clarke): "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Distingushed scientists have made their reputation on not being wrong, and so in old age tend to become very conservative about supporting new theories. The great thing is, though, it really doesn't matter because in science (unlike the arts or engineering) there actually is always a right answer (or no answer possible). Thus, if you are right, it doesn't matter if you are first-year undergraduate or Stephen Hawking, you are still just as correct. Scientists who forget this tend to be arrogant, self-important, and mostly useless...

Simon

[Dobbins]

I'm not as interested in hearing what someone says about the theory as much as I'm interested in someone actually demonstrating that it's possible, say by moving a single hydrogen atom or even just one electron through this proposed hyper-space. One experiment is worth more than a thousand theoretical papers. That would settle the matter if it's even possible in theory.

If it is, and that is a real big if, the next question is just what kind of technology are we talking about to get a spaceship into this hyper-space? The ancient Romans could break the sound barrier, the crack of a whip is a small sonic boom generated when the tip is accelerated past the speed of sound. The technology to get a manned aircraft to do the same thing as the tip of that whip didn't come about until the X-1. Are we looking at gap between getting a single atom into hyper-space and a manned spaceship that is even a tenth as big as the gap between the ancient Romans and the middle of the 20th century? That is still a very formidable gap.

[publiusr]

It sounds like another distraction. Maybe one day--but not soon.

Best to get back to advocating HLLVs.

[PlanetStorm]

Dobbins - 5/1/2006  1:43 PM

Calling Heim's theories controversial is a major understatement.

They weren't published as peer reviewed papers, most of what he did publish was in a Austrian magazine that also publishes a lot of New Age garbage. Heim was somewhat of a recluse, in part due to crippling injuries he suffered in the second world war, he had very little contact with scientific community at large.

Don't get me wrong, if someone did manage to create one of these warp drive engines I would shake his hand, buy him a beer, and kiss him. There are few things that I would like more than seeing this become a reality. However I learned a long time ago that it's easier to fool yourself than anyone else, very easy if you want something to be true. That is why I'm a skeptic about things that I want to be true.

I'll have to take this with a huge grain of salt for the present.

I agree. It is impossible to judge the quality of the physics because the papers and articles (that I have seen at least) all quote amazing results, but offer no derivations. It is as if the last page of a quantum-field theory text book has magically appeared (the one summarizing all the important formulas) but with no trace of where they came from.  There are a few other red flags too: (1) The theory seems to exactly fill the gaps left between quantum theory, the standard model of particle physcs and relativity - this surely is too good to be true, although I suppose that the "theory of everything" has to do pretty much exactly this, and so this just might be it; (2) The first application of this theory is not a minor modification to the currently understood laws of physics (e.g. that might explain the Pioneer anomoly, or dark-energy and cosmic expansion), but (and wouldn't you know it?) a full-blown application in the form of a warp-drive no-less! Newton and Einstein's theories offered far less until decades after their initial disvoery; (3) you have to wonder how likely it is that a crippled and blind chemist transformed himself into a paradigm-breaking theoretical physicist, apparently without interacting with other theoretical physicsts.

Having said all that, I really hope I am wrong!