How to Travel at Warp Speed

Reprinted with permission from Freedom Times:
Freedom Times Projecting Forward on Appleby's "An Impossible World?", Another Submission, Another Rejection Letter From A Publisher:

How to Travel at Warp Speed


Appleby: Physicists Suggest Warp Speed May Be Theoretically Possible, but Unlikely ........

Publisher: We must reject your story outright. Strange, even bizarre works of fiction or highly imaginative sci-fi are very acceptable to our general clientele. However, outright implication of fourth grade, elementary school level science concepts not being taught (i.e., the simplified and expanded version of E=MC2), not grasped, or even considered by high school students, college students, the adult population at large, or the highest levels of academia, the masters of science, is far more nonsense then fiction or sci-fi. (StarSteps-The Radius of Curvature of Natural Law)

Publisher: Furthermore, concepts of warp bubbles, worm holes, shrink space, space-time fabrics are below the level of enjoyment our loony toon readership prefers. What civilizations in the universe that have developed science and technology to the degree in your story, would not comprehend the slightly advanced definitions of space and time, namely degrees of energy differentials? Once the equation E=MC2 is understood, and you write that it was brought to light over a 100 years ago, frames of reference, inertial frames, transformation of co-ordinates, translation relativity should have gone out the door, with the 3D flat space, flat time concepts joining the outdated flat earth concept, and substituted by their equivalent representations, degrees of energy differentials.

Publisher: And more to the furthermore, how could any intelligent species sit for 100 years upon such delusional concepts of: "as an object travels faster and faster, its mass increases," or "As an object approaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite." The obvious subsequent realization of such a short sighted error swiftly corrects to - the 'increasing mass' of the target is only the measure of the kinetic energy differential which exists between them (specified reference points between which measurements are made - else measurement is meaningless). The mass approaches infinity only as the energy level approaches that of the accelerating force. In the case of the quantity C, usually called the velocity of light (VC), the differential is equal to 3 x 10(10) centimeters per second, or if we convert this velocity to its equivalent energy we would have 9 x 10(20) ergs per gram of mass - further notating a most significant relationship property of light/energy and mass/matter: the VC energy differential is also exactly equal to the total energy inherent in any gram of matter, resulting in the natural outcome, that the quantity C is the radius of the curvature of natural law, simply meaning, that if a differential of energy equal to this quantity exists between the observer and the point which he is observing, the natural laws will be suspended. If the energy differential is in excess of the quantity C, the laws will appear to operate in reverse at that point. Since the velocity of light energy differential can also manifest as a frequency, polarizing gravity becomes possible at the local, here and now, level. (StarSteps)

Publisher: Furthermore, a concluding furthermore, how is it possible that any civilization which has scientifically defined light and its fundamental integrated properties, not understand, by definition, we cannot see faster than the speed of light. The whole ball game automatically evolves to varying (Not Absolute) Relationships of space, time, mass, matter, energy and gravity, where a change to one factor causes changes to the others; making possible faster than light, antigravity, movement from one point to another without going through all points in between, and so on. We must reject your story on the basis that it is not possible for any slightly advanced scientific civilization not to comprehend the basic fundamentals of evolutionary life and energy ....... regardless of one of your religious fables, “you shall have eyes, but not see; you shall have ears but will not hear” - a legendary, but true psychological motto, which does not pass muster, does not pass the reality test, to such a high level of blindness.

As for scientific suppression, conspiracy to prevent awesome weapons use and misuse, please note the critical wisdom tools are automatically comprehended in evolving societies, a natural occurrence in universal life, evolution and survival; wisdom tools which foster profound comprehension and actually become a self deterrent against misuse. Nature itself possesses inherent self preservation tendencies, built in Fail-safes. The understanding required for the development and application of evolutionary advanced energy stages are not possible without integration of the four sciences, Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual, making advanced energy systems beyond nuclear impossible to misuse with even the barest glimpse of wisdom sciences integrated with the extended principles of E=MC2. Such is the profound effect comprehension brings, as it totally and scientifically, connects all the sciences: Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual. (http://fadingillusionviarealitycurve.blogspot.com Sunday, December 12, 2004 Blog, "and yet, by secrecy and silence, the death sentence was also sealed")

Appleby's world, "a world where he never had to pay a power bill, where heating and cooling were free of energy costs, where his water was pure and veggies local and fresh, and where a four hour work day allowed him ample spare time to indulge in his writing fantasies. Outside, the air was fresh and the streets clean. Everyone had a job, and in this world-the real world-there were no clandestine powers holding back progress. All received a fair share for their efforts"
An Impossible World? Excerpt from The Energy Solution Revolution by Brian O'Leary http://freedomtimes.blogspot.com/2009/04/impossible-world.html

Credibility for Appleby's world provided by Freedom Times & StarSteps: The Radius of Curvature of all Natural Law principle buried within the equation E=MC2 unified Physics and Metaphysics. In short, the quantity C was the measure of the radius of curvature of natural law. It was the factor enabling us to determine precisely the degree of change in the curvature of one law which is brought about by a specified change in the application of the others (i.e., using the common denominator equivalents of space, time, mass, matter, energy, gravity). Stating that the quantity C is the radius of the curvature of natural law, simply means that if a differential of energy equal to this quantity exists between the observer and the point which he is observing, the natural laws will be suspended. If the energy differential is in excess of the quantity C, the laws will appear to operate in reverse at that point. In effect, an unlimited, multidimensional universe opened, dissolving the light barrier and single pole gravitational limitation, merging science and spiritual dimensions to a unified, as above so below, foundation of previously unimaginable prosperity, abundance, health and well being, opening the gateway, the steps to the stars.






















How to Travel at Warp Speed
Physicists Suggest it May Be Theoretically Possible, but Unlikely
OPINION By LEE DYE May 13, 2009 — ABC news

Here's the good news for all those "Star Trek" enthusiasts out there -- a couple of physicists think they've figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light without breaking the laws of physics.
But here's the bad news -- we may have to sacrifice Jupiter to get there.
Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor University, and his post-doctoral researcher, Richard Obousy, have combined some of the most elusive fields in physics, including string theory and general relativity, to concoct a scheme to move "Star Trek's" warp speed a little closer to reality. Very little, that is.
The folks who produce the "Star Trek" flicks have never explained how the good ship Enterprise can speed through the universe faster than a beam of light. That minor achievement is necessary if humans are ever to explore the galaxy's back yard, not to mention the distant reaches of the universe.
The only problem is Albert Einstein said it couldn't be done.
"Objects that have mass cannot travel at the speed of light," Cleaver said in an interview. According to Einstein's famous equation, "as an object travels faster and faster, its mass increases," he added. "As an object approaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite."
'Warp Bubble' Needed for Interstellar Travel
In other words, a speck of dust traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass, and it would take an infinite amount of energy to get it moving anywhere near that fast. So that pretty well knocks humans off the passenger list on the Starship Enterprise.
Not so fast, say Cleaver and Obousy, who have expanded upon a theory first proposed in 1994 by Michael Alcubierre, a Mexican physicist. Never mind warp drive, Alcubierre declared, what we really need for interstellar travel is a warp bubble. Alcubierre theorized that mass may be limited by Einstein's calculations, but that doesn't necessarily apply to space.
It might be possible, the Baylor researchers contend, to expand space behind a vehicle, say the Enterprise, and shrink space in front of it, thereby creating a bubble that could move through Einstein's space-time fabric at speeds much greater than the speed of light.
Surfing a Wave, Space-Time Style
The craft would ride inside the bubble as the bubble moved through space, but the craft itself would remain stationary, thus avoiding that little problem suggested by Einstein. Cleaver, who earned his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, in the heart of surfing country, likens it to "surfing a wave."
But how does one create such a bubble? At this point, the story gets a little complicated.
The universe, which includes all sorts of stuff with mass, is itself expanding at speeds greater than the speed of light. We've known that since the 1970s, Cleaver said.
A fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the universe began expanding faster than the speed of light "in a very, very short time because if it had not we would not have seen the overall very, very uniform temperature cross the universe in all directions."
Throwing in a little string theory (the current rage among physicists who are searching for a reliable theory of everything) Cleaver said the universe "grew from something a billionth of a trillionth the size of the nucleus of an atom to about the size of a basketball," during its first second. "When it did that, space itself was expanding faster than the speed of light."
Replicating the Early Seconds of the Universe
Cleaver, who studied under the legendary John Schwartz at Caltech, a leader in string theory, postulated that it might be possible to partially replicate that early second by manipulating positive and negative dark energy, believed to be the driving forces behind the expansion of the universe.
Put positive energy behind the spacecraft, and negative energy in front of the spacecraft, and that should propel the craft along at warp speed.
"Space in front of the ship is shrinking faster than the speed of light, and behind it, space is expanding faster than the speed of light," and that should push the bubble along with the ship inside, "just like riding a wave."
But how do you do that? Not all the answers are in yet, but the Baylor pair theorizes that with enough energy, it might be possible to alter the 11th dimension, a key part of string theory, which maintains that there are far more than the three dimensions we common folk see on earth.
Converting Jupiter Into Energy?
With enough energy, the "space-time dimension" in front of and behind the Starship Enterprise could at least start the bubble on its way, Cleaver suggested.
"The initial energy required would be on a par with the total mass of Jupiter," he said. "If you could convert Jupiter into energy," the bubble could be launched.
But it would probably require much more energy to stabilize the system and keep the bubble moving toward an infinite number of other universes, according to string theory, that are so far away their light has not reached us yet, and thus cannot be seen.
Cleaver admits he doesn't expect to see that happen.
"This is purely a theoretical discussion of how the Alcubierre effect could theoretically be achieved through string theory," he said.
But there's a few more problems. Scientists are at odds with each other over whether string theory should even be considered science.
Many maintain that the theory cannot be proved, or disproved, as far as is known, so it isn't science. Others hold out hope that some very expensive machines in the future may verify, or debunk, the theory.
So the Starship Enterprise is coasting through very thin air, to say the least. Even if it could travel at near the speed of light, it would take more than four years to reach the nearest star beyond our solar system, and hundreds of years to reach very many stars that could have planets with life.
But "Star Trek" is a movie, after all. It doesn't have to be based on facts. Besides, how many Jupiters can we spare?
ABC News Internet Ventures

Deadly Energy Stagnation

Reprinted with permission from Freedom Times:
Deadly Energy Stagnation - suppresses evolution and continued, sustainable survival

An Impossible World? Excerpt from The Energy Solution Revolution by Brian O'Leary
http://freedomtimes.blogspot.com/2009/04/impossible-world.html

Appleby's world, "a world where he never had to pay a power bill, where heating and cooling were free of energy costs, where his water was pure and veggies local and fresh, and where a four hour work day allowed him ample spare time to indulge in his writing fantasies. Outside, the air was fresh and the streets clean. Everyone had a job, and in this world-the real world-there were no clandestine powers holding back progress. All received a fair share for their efforts" Credibility provided by Freedom Times & StarSteps The Radius of Curvature of all Natural Law principle buried within the equation E=MC2 unified Physics and Metaphysics. In short, the quantity C was the measure of the radius of curvature of natural law. It was the factor enabling us to determine precisely the degree of change in the curvature of one law which is brought about by a specified change in the application of the others (i.e., using the common denominator equivalents of space, time, mass, matter, energy, gravity). Stating that the quantity C is the radius of the curvature of natural law, simply means that if a differential of energy equal to this quantity exists between the observer and the point which he is observing, the natural laws will be suspended. If the energy differential is in excess of the quantity C, the laws will appear to operate in reverse at that point. In effect, an unlimited, multidimensional universe opened, dissolving the light barrier and single pole gravitational limitation, merging science and spiritual dimensions to a unified, as above so below, foundation of previously unimaginable prosperity, abundance, health and well being, opening the gateway, the steps to the stars.






















Projecting Forward on Appleby's "An Impossible World?", Another Submission, Another Rejection Letter From A Publisher: Unfortunately, we will have to pass on your story. Your energy plot is sooooo implausible that even our loony toons readership segment gave us a blank, confounded stare. Furthermore, the scenario that university PhD's planet wide, for 100 years, stayed uninformed of the fourth grade concept of the radius of curvature of all natural law, defined by the speed of light C in E=MC2, portrays psychological illusional magic of a planet population belief-behavior shaping beyond the scope of believable. More specifically unbelievable in lieu of your referencing the half understood zero point, Tesla, electrogravitics, cold fusion and countless other "over-unity" concepts, all which are far more easily defined, designed, and precisely engineered with the radius of curvature fundamental - light - which also is our ability to see and correctly interpret Reality. Your references that crystal properties, the transformation of one form of energy into another - crystal radios, microphones, ultrasonic drills - were in application without the comprehension that the basic factors of nature -space time mass matter energy gravity - were not absolute, but variable factors, each dependent upon the value of the others is NOT possible (Bermuda Triangle, "beam me aboard Scotty", the quantity C is the measure of the radius of curvature of natural law, the factor which enables us to determine precisely the degree of change in the curvature of one law which will be brought about by a specified change in the application of the others). To date, nowhere in the billions of galaxies, each with their billions of stars where we have explored intelligent life, has something like this in the energy arena been observed - and this is without consideration of the deadly effects 100 years of energy stagnation would have on a planet population causing starvation, poverty, disease, water crisis, resource wars, ecological damage, global warming to name a few.









Cold Fusion: Still Cold, or Is There New Promise?
Navy Researchers Report Tentative Clues; Others Doubtful
By NED POTTER
April 19, 2009 — Two decades ago, B. Stanley Pons left, and Martin Fleischmann, displayed a large-scale model of the...
Two decades ago, B. Stanley Pons left, and Martin Fleischmann, displayed a large-scale model of the flask in which they said they created sustained nuclear fusion reactions at room temperature. But their results later were dismissed by other scientists. Nuclear fusion normally takes place in extremely hot conditions and is the process that powers the sun, photographed, at right, on Monday, April 7, 1997 by the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on board the joint European Space Agency-NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Cold fusion? Limitless energy on a table top? Wait a minute. Wasn't that discredited 20 years ago?
It was, in fact, 20 years ago last month that two scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, announced they had created nuclear fusion at room temperature. They created the popular equivalent of an H-bomb explosion -- an explosion that quickly was snuffed out when other scientists said no fusion had taken place.
But a few researchers continue to work on it.
A team of researchers, led by Pamela Boss of the U.S. Navy and Lawrence Forsley of the technology firm JWK International, reported evidence that they have seen high-energy neutrons, a possible side effect of nuclear fusion, in a laboratory experiment.
'Low Energy Nuclear Reactions'
The team published its findings in a German physics journal, and presented them at a meeting of the American Chemical Society -- 20 years to the day after Fleischmann and Pons made their announcement.
"I am confident we are seeing nuclear reactions," said Forsley by telephone from San Diego, where he now does much of his work in collaboration with the Navy. "We're seeing conventional nuclear reactions in an unconventional place."
A small New Jersey firm, Energetics, also has been trying to make cold fusion reactions at its laboratory in Israel. A former surgeon, Irving Dardik, heads the effort, and has generated enough buzz (if not electricity) to be featured this weekend in a "60 Minutes" piece.
Nuclear fusion is a high-energy process -- it's the reaction that powers the sun. The sun is so hot, and there are such pressures beneath its roiling surface, that hydrogen atoms collide, or "fuse," to make helium atoms plus tremendous amounts of heat and light.
Fusion has been replicated on Earth, but only violently -- in the form of a hydrogen bomb. (It is the opposite, by the way, of the fission that happens in an atom bomb or nuclear power plant, where atoms are split to make energy.)
Cold Fusion: Getting Warmer?
If nuclear fusion could be harnessed for peaceful purposes, scientists believe, it would solve many of the world's energy problems.
They have worked at it for decades, without success. They have built large, complex, expensive devices in the laboratory to mimic the reactions that happen inside the sun. They did create tiny reactions for tiny fractions of a second, but nothing remotely practical.
Budget cuts brought much of the work to a stop, and the 1989 debacle scared many researchers away.
'It's Still Cold'
Bob Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland who has spent much of his career warning against junk science, said he was surprised cold fusion got a hearing at the American Chemical Society meeting.
"Twenty years later, it's still cold," he wrote.
But it is not the same as it was when the subject first exploded publicly in 1989.
"These people, at least some of them, look in ever greater detail where others have not bothered to look," wrote Park. "They say they find great mysteries, and perhaps they do. Is it important? I doubt it. But I think it's science."
Forsley, for one, said he's flattered that Park gave him and his colleagues as much credit as he did.
"We've got a mechanism here," he said. "Nobody's been busting us about it.
"The story is just beginning," he added. "Let's put it that way."
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Happy Birthday Darwin; Hello Homo Evolutis

Editorial: Butterfly's Evolutionary chances in a steel cocoon reprinted with permission from Lifestyles Unlimited 1990-2001 A 1990 article, updated
As I reflect back at my previous editorial (for the full version, see "Back Issues"), I come face to face with a term from Physics: Momentum. ".....................Observing world events that consistently touch the sensitive nerve of our outdated energy base, I get the uncanny, yet secure feeling that Nature (Gaia hypothesis) somehow has an inbuilt tendency which implores us to expand our limits. Whether this survival slant towards Evolution is attained by "conscious choice" or by vast and destructive default, each with their unique consequences, appears not to deter in the least, the Gaia "system's" undeviating parameters propelling life forward toward evolutionary (sustainable and balanced) growth.................."

A note on: Darwin, Homo Evolutis, Tabula Rasa (blank Slate) versus Innate, Unconscious Instinct versus Conscious Intent, the evolutionary feedback interplay has always been, and must be, between self and environment, external and internal, one and the many....... As I state on the sidebar, "Statistically, this period of evolutionary feedback interplay is now almost entirely under the control of conscious human intent and will, and far less influenced by unconscious instinct, genetic mutation and natural selection. Conscious intelligence through human intent usurped unconscious instinct, genetic mutation and natural selection as the evolutionary driver somewhere back in caveman days. Science and Technology, Humanity's extended senses, are at the Steering Wheel today. Blind Science and Technology with Corporate secrecy, power, greed and lies, and Humanity can kiss it's x#s goodbye.

Happy Birthday Darwin; Hello Homo Evolutis
Biotech Entrepreneur Says Human Self-Design May Replace Evolution
Commentary by LISE BUYER
Feb. 11, 2009 —
As we mark Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, a biotech entrepreneur has offered an eye-opening suggestion: that science is bringing us ever-closer to a time when natural selection may yield to human self-design.
In terms of conversation and controversy, we may not have seen anything yet.
The man making this proposal is Juan Enriquez, chairman and CEO of the research and investment firm Biotechonomy. He explained his provocative idea last week at the 2009 Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Long Beach, Calif.
To understand it, we begin with a definition. Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. As Darwin effectively demonstrated, this can happen as the genetic makeup of a single species evolves into two or more similar but structurally unique species. Over time, a new species develops attributes so differentiated from those of its ancestors that its genetic code no longer matches its parent. Speciation of this sort is complete when two critters, descended from a single parent, can no longer create offspring with each other. Stated differently, these two can no longer contribute and mix their genes to form a new sprout.
The origin of some speciation is clear in geographic instances, where species that have moved, or reside in regions that have undergone change, genetically adapt to the new terrain. In this case, species add characteristics that help with survival in their remodeled homes and lose those that are no longer useful.
A colorful, if annoying, example is the London Underground Mosquito, first discussed in the scientific literature in 1998. While these insects descended from surface mosquitoes, flying about overhead and sustaining themselves by biting birds, this particular pest has evolved to feed only on underground mammals, including mice, rats and, according to The Times of London, maintenance workers. Scientists have determined that these mosquitoes can no longer reproduce with their above-ground, bird-biting relatives, and thus are a truly new species.
Evolution of this sort, understandable when observing the creature's surroundings, is known as natural selection. However, other genetic changes occur for less observable reasons. These more random generational changes are described as genetic drift.
Multiple Species of Humans?
Now here is where it gets much more interesting. In his talk at TED, Enriquez said the fact that we are the only living species of humans is an anomaly -- or at least out of synch with history. Millions of years ago, there were as many as five different species of humans co-existing on the planet.
Well, hooray! Perhaps modern humans are the end-result of all evolution. Perhaps we have reached the very pinnacle of natural selection and genetic drift. On the other hand, Enriquez suggested, perhaps those are slightly arrogant conclusions.
Until now, scientists have demonstrated that genetic changes in a single species have occurred slowly, over relatively long periods of time. However, in his talk, Enriquez showed photos of human-engineered genetic experiments which have successfully "reprogrammed" one cell into becoming another, completely different cell, added extra wings to chickens, and perhaps most importantly, engineered medical replacements for defective knees, weak tendons and failing critical human organs. Enriquez suggested that these one-off experimental procedures are only the first rung on a most interesting ladder.
Once scientists and medical specialists get the hang of these procedures, which integrate cellular transformation, tissue generation, robotics and more, there's no scientific reason why the learning won't be applied on a greater scale.
Enriquez suggests that we are perhaps just around the corner from a "new and utterly unique species." This species, which he has christened Homo Evolutis, differs from any that preceded it in that it will take "direct and deliberate control over [its own] evolution."
Think about that for a minute: humans that can and will control the evolution of the species. Where is the late Michael Crichton when we need him?
These feats are not possible today -- and that's probably the good news, because there are myriad issues society needs to consider before Homo Evolutis arrives. But make no mistake, work in labs around the world guarantees that in some form or other, at some point in the perhaps-not-too-distant future, she is on her way.
Lise Buyer, a longtime Silicon Valley investor, is a principal at the Class V Group, www.classvgroup.com.
2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Breakthrough Power

The Shackles to Evolution deadly to Human Survival result from science suppression and deterioration of the foundations of Freedom and Democracy

Reprinted from Freedom Times http://freedomtimes.blogspot.com/

U.S. Oil Addiction Is Here To Stay Due To Lack Of Alternatives (lack of alternatives??????)


BREAKTHROUGH! (late 1940's)
Distance-Time Barrier Dissolving http://fuel2000.net/starsteps.htm

Self-evident, it is a smaller world today because physical size has been substituted by speed. The obstacles of great distances and vast time appear to diminish before our very eyes. More precisely, space-time and position are increasingly being substituted by greater energy differentials of velocity and acceleration. The multidimensional question surfaces, can this same effect be created by factors other than velocity? What role may varying degrees of frequencies and fields play in transmuting space, time? In providing access to available energy capacities through gravitational mass differentials?


Breakthrough Power
Sterling Allan
Pres., New Energy Congress
- November 18, 2008
The Clock is ticking. We need new, clean, safe energy sources NOW!
What can you do? Real Solutions do exist today. Will the People demand their development and release?
http://breakthroughpower.net/Home.html


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For instance, when the human family realizes that oil wars and polluting nuclear power plants are unnecessary, tremendous financial resources can be freed for planetary cleanup, social justice and local prosperity.

Just in time for gift-giving, this long-awaited book provides hope for the future -- along with realistic reasons why we, the people, must help "free the energy revolution."

With compelling stories of brave innovators and their various breakthroughs that can replace coal and other polluting fuels, it makes the case for open-sourcing clean-energy inventions. The book explains how even "non-techies" can envision and therefore help manifest a higher civilization assisted by energy abundance. It's an easy-to-read wealth of information and illustrative stories.

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"Turning the Corner: Energy Solutions for the 21st Century"

Editorial Reviews
Product Description Alternative Energy Institute, Inc, (AEI) is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to informing the public about the upcoming non-renewable fuel crisis. AEI's revolutionary new book, "Turning the Corner: Energy Solutions for the 21st Century" presents the latest information about new energy research, both conventional and exotic, written in clear, straight-forward and compelling text. The energy field changes quickly, and, in order to keep pace with it, AEI has coupled this book with a portion of its website in order to provide the reader with the latest developments. The book covers the possibilities of energy conservation and efficiency, as well as renewable energy resources, but is also focused on potential emerging energy and propulsion technologies that may be developed in the 21st Century. This 385-page book is completely footnoted with Internet links and print media sources for the reader interested in delving deeper into the new energy field or relevant topics. Chapters include: "Cold Fusion: Fact or Fiction?", "Zero-Point Energy: Sailing the Sea of Energy," and "Universal Forces: Blackholes, Electrogravitics, & Deep Space Propulsion." This is a very exciting and well-researched book, one that AEI believes is long overdue. About the AuthorDohn Riley graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in Earth Sciences. In 1976 he received a Masters from Stanford University in Geophysics. Dohn has worked as a geophysical consultant in a variety of fields and taught college classes in Physical Sciences for 22 years for Sierra College in California. He has been Executive Director of Alternative Energy Institute, Inc. since its inception in 1997. Dohn also currently owns and manages a graphic design business, Riley Works, located in Tahoe City, California.
Mark McLaughlin, a professional researcher and writer with more than 200 published articles, trained as a historian and cultural geographer at the University of Nevada, Reno. McLaughlin's work appears regularly in California and Nevada newspapers; he was awarded the Nevada State Press writing award five times. Author of three books, McLaughlin frequently writes historical articles for such magazines as Sierra Heritage, Nevada, Weatherwise, and his work appears in the Grolier Educational 2002 Science Annual. McLaughlin, is a professional lecture, a frequent guest on regional television and radio programs, and a consultant for The History Channel. Mark owns Mic Mac Publishing, located at Lake Tahoe, California.

Evolutionary Alternatives to Self Imposed Limits

reprinted with permission from Lifestyles Unlimited 1990-2001 A 1990 newsletter, updated in 2001 with the forecasted events in the process of full blown expression - eerily uncanny
About multideminsional thinking: "........ If more people knew that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have a chance. "

Lifestyles Unlimited Sustainable? Why, pray tell, not?

The State of the World today certainly camouflages the existence of this expanding spiral of Life and Intelligence. However, we may well assume as established fact that in proportion as intelligence (including wisdom and understanding) advances, the individual ceases to be subject to a mere law of averages and has a continually increasing power of controlling the conditions of his own survival. The more we replace our mindless, unconscious choices, or lack of choices, with expanding conscious choices, the less likely are we to evidence the misery, suffering, limitations, and destruction around the globe.

Conscious Choice, in this context, is characterized by a very distinct and special flavor. It asks us how far can we see, how far are we willing to see?

It inquires of us an accounting of the dimensions and clarity of our window to reality. It is the gestalt factor which sanctions the evolutionary apex of intelligent life on this planet to rise by its own volition, replacing the default mode and its attendant drag on the time line. In fact, conscious choice and expanding viewing point are inseparable. Together they transform our choices into self-evident recognition.

Local/Global 'KISS' explanation: Beach and Grains of Sand - our actions occur at the local level, in the grains of sand; to SEE our objectives, where to go, we require an expanded Global viewpoint, the Beach Scene.

I recall an old parable about a stampeding herd of cattle heading toward a cliff. The cattle are blindfolded. It would be extremely difficult to stop them from running right off the cliff. However, if their blindfolds were removed, they would turn on their own accord.

What are our blindfolds?

1. aside from breaching the paramount magnitude of balanced contemporary education attainability & availability to all
2. besides laxity in promoting awareness of adaptive behavior criteria, as revealed by our psychological disciplines
3. aside from the low priority yielded to the social importance of self-esteem as published in the final report of John Vasconcellos's California Task Force Commission
4. aside from remiss, disdain, and scorn toward the roles power, politics, accountability and freedom play in our continued health and survival
5. aside from ignorance of sustainable survival patterns found in the fragile balance between self interest and community interest, "institutionalized" behavior and "empowerment" of the individual - as disclosed by organization dynamics and organization psychology
6. aside from remiss, disdain, and scorn toward the fragile balance between humanity and the environment, humanity and earth ...our home

Evolutionary Alternatives to Self Imposed Limits
LIGHT BARRIER GRAVITATIONAL DISABILITY
ONE POLE, (ATTRACTION), ONE LEG
Linear or multidimensional thinking?

To what degree do our thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions shape the world we live in?

To what degree are our limits governed by our capacity to see and understand increasingly larger segments of reality?

What cognitive processes influence the intuitive leaps, the "ah ha" experiences which accompany understanding and creativity? Are we aware of what or how we think? How do we form the attitudes that lie behind our decision making?

Theories in behavioral science predicate the mindlessness and scripted processing of much of our implied "thoughtful" action. Buddhist inner science calls for mindfulness, awareness, meditation, control and discipline of thought and action. New Thought religions point to an exact scientific relationship between individual consciousness, Universal Consciousness, and physical reality.

The foregoing previews an imposing spectrum on the nature of consciousness. On a practical level, what may these different points of view be suggesting?

Is there a simple guideline that can connect mindlessness to mindfulness? Could there exist a continuum of thought and awareness, paralleling single linear dimensions to the multidimensions of physical space (geometry, fractals, relativity, and quantum mechanics…)?

Theories in behavioral science predicate the mindlessness and scripted processing of much of our implied "thoughtful" action.

As we observe the differences in the thought processes and awareness of a child of three and a nuclear physicist (or primitive man to modern man), we readily note that there is an attribute of expansion involved, quite like the move from a point of view to a viewing point. A case in point: the thirteenth century belief of a flat earth has been replaced and refined over the centuries. The sound barrier was another frontier. Yet the familiar phrase "you cannot see the trees because of the forest" and vice versa, continues to haunt us.

What parameters of a multidimensional quality constitute the difference between the idea of "trees" and the idea of "forest"? A point of view and a viewing point? Do we think in 3-dimensional thought at all times?

What is a fourth dimension and how may it relate to a larger viewing point? Does it implicate faster than light velocity, negative gravitation? Does it involve the religious paradox how the one becomes the many, or the origin of matter, the force behind the manifestation of every material nucleus?

Is the light barrier a mathematical reality, or a misconstrued interpretation of mathematics derived from limited points of view? Can a limited point of view close the doors to an abundant, endless and healthy future?

Taboos are primitive. However, the dialogue between science and religion, required for multidimensional thinking to take place, to break out of our own self-imposed physical limits, seems to be a modern day taboo.

Somewhere between science and religion, the point of view and the viewing point, the East and the West, the child and the adult, lie answers to our conflicting and limiting theories, beliefs, and perceptions of the world and universe around us. And somewhere between the New Testament and the Old, the story is told metaphysically, about the point of view and the viewing point, cause and effect, chaos and pattern, the timeless beginning and the end, the one and the many, and multi-dimensionally, how the one is the many.

This similar story may be deciphered from almost every religion and myth around the globe. The myth of creation buried in the sands of time that crossed distances and cultures. Are these coincidental dreams and imagination, or is there a connection, a scientific relationship window, to a greater reality?

Can a bigger picture provide an improved road map, a compass, for both individual effort and the creation of a healthy, sustainable, survival pattern or order, out of chaos? Can informed choice and viewing point be Humanity’s attractor’s in chaos?

Are there any bridges that may be conceived to escape the isolated drudgery, limitations, and singularity that linear (or at best 3-D) thought alone achieves?

Contemporary psychology embraces the view that our window to reality that forms and guides our behavior and actions, is comprised of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, aims, and experiences that each of us cruise through. A major portion of our perception of reality is, to the extend that we are informed and exposed, derived from our sciences to our religious institutions, from philosophy and ethics to medicine and healing, from power and politics to our ideas of freedom, democracy and economics.

Yet, as we look at the state of the world today, it becomes apparent there is little consensus, enormous disparity and colossal constraints. Macro theories outside of their own disciplines in the hard sciences have not yet come of age. Beyond the hard sciences there exists only varied opinion and points of experience (individual and group).

The nature of Man (neutral gender), his/her purpose or evolutionary trend, even emerging global survival demands, rarely manifest beyond the institutionalized and rudimentary sustenance needs motivated by pleasure and profit, an end in itself.

Today, evidence abounds of emerging viewing points, paradigm changes within multiple disciplines, around the globe. Their direct effect on world behavior standards is clearly being seen. However a modern Myth, the design across disciplines necessary to sustain global survival, still eludes us, remaining isolated and segmented.

What is the nature of this pattern that runs across disciplines, submerged in fractals, awaiting the appropriate attractors which link chaos to order?

Let us browse through a few of the possible parameters or attractors in perception that may be implicated. We will use the flat earth example. A linear view from a single point, located near the surface of a level plain or desert, provides us, for all practical purposes, with the perception of a relatively flat terrain. Today, we can easily surmise the factors involved which created Humanity’s historical perception of a flat earth and the process by which that perception moved to a round world.

Obviously, at an elementary level, as the number, direction, position, speed, and comprehension of various points of view are extended and experienced, our window to reality becomes clearer.

Statistical numbers, expanded dimensions, velocity rates, and usable energy capacity appear to play a major role in our understanding of reality and its space-time relationships. Comunication, mobility, becomes the cohesive network that shortens space-time relations by substitution of accelerated vocal, visual and physical transmission (or transportation).

Self-evident, it is a smaller world today because physical size has been substituted by speed. The obstacles of great distances and vast time appear to diminish before our very eyes. More precisely, space-time and position are increasingly being substituted by greater energy differentials of velocity and acceleration.

The multidimensional question surfaces, can this same effect be created by factors other than velocity? What role may varying degrees of frequencies and fields play in transmuting space, time? In providing access to available energy capacities through gravitational mass differentials?

It will be noted at this point that the thought process is no longer linear. It has achieved a multidimensional status. More importantly, nothing was lost through this insight, this mode of thinking. Vast distances and eons of time may still be conceived, as well as the means by which to traverse and subdue their effect. Both multi-level views remain. Nor is individuality or identity lost as the ‘One’ begins to sense its’ simultaneous unity with the ‘many’ through a larger grasp of gravity, space, time and energy relationships to consciousness.

Here lie the hazards of linear or limited level thinking alone. Conflict, duality and separation reign absolute and depend solely upon single points of view, real only under special conditions. The case of the concave/convex curve becomes identified by one’s position, by which side of the curve the viewing is taking place. This interplay of duality, the ability to see, multidimensionally, the simultaneous unity of the local and the global, the one and the many, is incomprehensible in single and limited dimensions. Science and religion, physics and metaphysics are not seen to reside at opposite ends of the same continuum.

The question that each may contain irreplaceable components of the fundamental laws of existence, a radius of curvature of reality, of how the one becomes the many, or how time and distance may be interchanged thorough gravitational mass differentials, has not even been raised in mainstream thought.

The preceding multidimensional patterns may be further grasped through Einstenian relativity. The relative position and energy level of one reference point may now be seen to assume critical significance with respect to its relationship to any other reference point. This positional potential can reach and represent an astronomical and possible negative differential between a reference point in the micro world (nuclear) with a reference point in the macro world (between galaxies).

That this differential is explicitly tied to the formula E=MC2 and exclusively bond to the sine-wave characteristics, a radius of curvature of natural law, remains to be demonstrated.

It is time we looked into and deciphered the age-old symbol, the Tai’Chi symbol of the circle with the sine wave passing through its center. Through the use of the discoveries of modern science, the scientific method, and multidimensional thinking, we may reveal and begin to apply the resulting concept of the radius of curvature of natural law for the benefit and survival of complex civilizations.

The East has now met the West. The time is ripe for putting all the pieces of the puzzle together for a wider view, even those that previously did not conform to our comfortable, isolated niches.

But let us begin with the Western World’s concept "look deep into nature and discover the self" rather than the Eastern view "look deep into the self, and discover nature". Something tangible we of Western background can grapple with, as we unfold the viewing point, bringing Eastern and Western thought together, and expand our window to Reality.

Creating a Better Earth: Share Your Vision

What Would REAL FREEDOM be like? Read All About It!

ABOVE - PRIMITIVE USE OF THE AWESOME POWER OF E=MC2

BELOW - SAME POWER, SAME EQUATION, USED WITH INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM - IN THE FIELD/FREQUENCY (ENERGY) DIFFERENTIAL UNITS (denomenator) DEFINITION (of space time mass matter energy gravity)

Imagine you are living on planet Earth in the year 2100. What will it look like?

Prominent scientists caution that if we continue on our current course, we will certainly see a devastated landscape. Recent reports from groups, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, depict a future that is bleak at best, terror-inducing at worst.But not everyone is resigned to a disastrous fate."It's a fascinating time to be alive," marveled Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. "We have a chance to move from a disconnected, inefficient, badly designed world of fighting populations, to a sustainable planet."

(Quoted from Freedom Times blogspot) Today, with the science of energy stagnated and petrified, stunting education and wisdom, it is no wonder the masses are 'flag freaking' toward their own self destruction, rather than flag waving toward an unlimited, unbounded, prosperous future for all.

Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ If more people knew that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have a chance.

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension would eliminate the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity.

"In a primitive tooth and claw society you have survival of the fittest. But as technology progresses it makes the Power, Greed, Controller, Killer, instincts so destructive that you eventually have survival of nobody at all, except maybe a few cave men. Either evolution weeds out the Power, Greed, Controller, Killer instincts or everybody ends up dead. Either moral evolution goes hand in hand with technological evolution and connects with scientific survival requirements for evolving, living systems, or we're doomed."

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when devoid of a Bill of Rights for Human Life, devoid of scientific parameters necessary for Life's evolution, sustainability, and survival. ......................................................................................................................

Creating a Better Earth: Share Your Vision
Despite Damage, Our Planet Can Still Have a Hopeful Future
By LYNN LEVY
Nov. 20, 2008—
Imagine you are living on planet Earth in the year 2100. What will it look like?
Prominent scientists caution that if we continue on our current course, we will certainly see a devastated landscape. Recent reports from groups, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, depict a future that is bleak at best, terror-inducing at worst.
But not everyone is resigned to a disastrous fate.
"It's a fascinating time to be alive," marveled Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. "We have a chance to move from a disconnected, inefficient, badly designed world of fighting populations, to a sustainable planet."
If we take immediate global action to shift our patterns of emission and consumption, Gleick said, we could be looking at a future full of possibilities.
Optimistic experts agree, seeing our current crisis as a pivotal moment in the human narrative.
"It's really hard for us to re-imagine the world," said Heidi Cullen, a senior research scientist with Climate Central. "But by virtue of tackling the climate change problem, you can actually create a world that looks so much better."
"Imagine a city," she added, "where there's no traffic, because the transportation infrastructure is perfect. It's quiet, the air is clean. We can build all of this."
And more.
In order to solve the problems facing our species, we will have to re-imagine the ways we construct our homes, grow our food, use our water. International relations, family structures and our core values all have the potential to shift during the coming century.
There is a new path to imagine -- one to a cleaner, more equitable, more interesting world. That's a future few people have examined in detail.
"Even in the best case, if we make all the right choices, we're still going to be living through difficult times," author Richard Heinberg said. "They will be exciting times because they will be times of enormous change and challenge."
"We have a chance to move in the right direction now," Gleick said, "and I don't think that window of opportunity's going to be open very long."
Earlier this year, using the predictions of climate change experts as background, ABC News viewers submitted videos detailing what it might look like and feel like to live in a society destabilized by global warming, resource shortages and overpopulation.
View the results and submit your own video HERE.
Now, ABC News is calling on you to give us something to look forward to.
Until Dec. 8, 2008, you can upload a short video telling us what changes you think would lead to a better future for our planet.
Will people move to urban centers to live in buildings covered in paper-thin solar cells, topped with green roofs and sporting individual wind turbines? Or will they move to rural areas to explore new, sustainable methods of food production?
How will they move around -- on foot, high-speed train, a method we haven't even imagined yet? Will cars communicate with the road, or will appliances communicate with each other to increase efficiency -- and if so, how? How will people communicate?
If you live in the sustainable future, how did you get there? What sacrifices did you make? What kept you moving in the right direction? What spurred the global community to action?
You can also show us what you are doing right now to make a positive change. You might be growing a vegetable garden, biking around town, using collected rainwater. Your house might get its energy from solar panels or wind turbines. Or maybe you're even in the process of inventing a revolutionary new device.
The videos can be as simple as sitting in front of a camera and explaining what is happening in the world outside your window, or as elaborate as you care to make them. The most compelling videos will be featured alongside expert predictions in an upcoming two-hour ABC News primetime special, "Earth 2100," airing in early 2009.
2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Is Dark Matter and Dark Energy the Result of Incorrect Gravitational Theory?

Is Dark Matter and Dark Energy the Result of Incorrect Gravitational Theory?
Immersed in preposterous theories, PHD's could never admit to the simplicity of the Universe's Grand Design and Unified Field Theory encompassing the radius of curvature of all natural law

StarSteps: Excerpt from the chapter on Gravity
http://www.fuel2000.net/starsteps.htm

"Through the concept of the curvature of physical law, however, we see that the addition of mass to an existing body does not, necessarily, increase the force of attraction between its parts, but may, under certain conditions, cause the field to become negative, and the attraction to become a repulsion. We can explain the observed actions of the present universe by postulating that an attraction exists between the individual bodies within a galaxy, because their total mass and distance is such that they are within the positive portion of the
gravitation curve with respect to each other. In the vast spaces between the galaxies however, the curve dips below the zero line with the result that a repulsion exists between the galaxies themselves. This also explains why matter, although rather evenly distributed
throughout the known universe, is not distributed uniformly, but found in quite similar concentrations at comparatively regular distances."

Is Dark Matter And Dark Energy The Result Of Incorrect Gravitational Theory?

Is Dark Matter and Dark Energy the Result of Incorrect Gravitational Theory?
Posted Sep 12, 2006 at 07:14AM by Mabie A. Listed in: Astrophysics Tags: Dark Matter


Dark matter is believed to be matter which does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be detected directly, but whose presence may be inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter. Its composition being unknown, it is speculated to include new elementary particles such as WIMPS and axions, dwarf stars and planets collectively called MACHOs, and clouds of nonluminous gas.Dark energy, on the other hand, is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and has strong negative pressure. The effect of the said negative pressure is invoked as the most popular method for explaining recent observations on the expansion of the universe at an accelerating rate.These scientific concepts are but two of the most controversial and mysterious of them all. Said to make up as much as 95% of all the energy and matter in the universe, it is no wonder why scientists struggle to find out more about these concepts. And yet, here comes three Italian physicists who are attempting to break the glass ceiling with the challenge that scientists were merely forced to propose the existence of dark energy and dark matter because they were, and still are, working with incorrect gravitational theory. Do they mean to say that because scientists didn't have the proper answer to all those queries before, they had to come up with an alternative explanation that would, for the meantime, put a halt to the assault?Perhaps it's something like that. What is clear is that they are suggesting an alternative theory of gravity in which dark energy and dark matter are effects - illusions in a sense - that are created by the curvature of space time. This theory disposes of the need for the actual existence of dark energy and matter.Says lead author Salvatore Capozziello, "Our proposal implies that the 'correct' theory of gravity may be based solely on directly observed astronomical data." Interesting. But what's more interesting is how this theory abolishes the foundation of the said concepts. Let's just hope that it's not another ploy to divert the attention of the people just because they can't determine the composition of dark matter and energy, because otherwise, it will only become a repeat of the mistakes involving gravitational theory... that is, if we are to believe that the original theory was actually wrong.The paper is published online in the August 3 edition of the Institute of Physics' peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Dark, Perhaps Forever

Is Dark Matter and Dark Energy the Result of Incorrect Gravitational Theory?
Immersed in preposterous theories, PHD's could never admit to the simplicity of the Universe's Grand Design and Unified Field Theory encompassing the radius of curvature of all natural law

StarSteps: Excerpt from the chapter on Gravity
http://www.fuel2000.net/starsteps.htm

"Through the concept of the curvature of physical law, however, we see that the addition of mass to an existing body does not, necessarily, increase the force of attraction between its parts, but may, under certain conditions, cause the field to become negative, and the attraction to become a repulsion. We can explain the observed actions of the present universe by postulating that an attraction exists between the individual bodies within a galaxy, because their total mass and distance is such that they are within the positive portion of the
gravitation curve with respect to each other. In the vast spaces between the galaxies however, the curve dips below the zero line with the result that a repulsion exists between the galaxies themselves. This also explains why matter, although rather evenly distributed
throughout the known universe, is not distributed uniformly, but found in quite similar concentrations at comparatively regular distances."

June 3, 2008
Dark, Perhaps Forever
By DENNIS OVERBYE
BALTIMORE — Mario Livio tossed his car keys in the air.
They rose ever more slowly, paused, shining, at the top of their arc, and then in accordance with everything our Galilean ape brains have ever learned to expect, crashed back down into his hand.
That was the whole problem, explained Dr. Livio, a theorist at the Space Telescope Science Institute here on the Johns Hopkins campus.
A decade ago, astronomers discovered that what is true for your car keys is not true for the galaxies. Having been impelled apart by the force of the Big Bang, the galaxies, in defiance of cosmic gravity, are picking up speed on a dash toward eternity. If they were keys, they would be shooting for the ceiling.
“That is how shocking this was,” Dr. Livio said.
It is still shocking. Although cosmologists have adopted a cute name, dark energy, for whatever is driving this apparently antigravitational behavior on the part of the universe, nobody claims to understand why it is happening, or its implications for the future of the universe and of the life within it, despite thousands of learned papers, scores of conferences and millions of dollars’ worth of telescope time. It has led some cosmologists to the verge of abandoning their fondest dream: a theory that can account for the universe and everything about it in a single breath.
“The discovery of dark energy has greatly changed how we think about the laws of nature,” said Edward Witten, a theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
This fall, NASA and the Department of Energy plan to invite proposals for a $600 million satellite mission devoted to dark energy. But some scientists fear that might not be enough. When astronomers and physicists gathered at the Space Telescope Science Institute recently to take stock of the revolution, their despair of getting to the bottom of the dark energy mystery anytime soon, if ever, was palpable, even as they anticipate a flood of new data from the sky in coming years. When it came time for one physicist to discuss new ideas about dark energy, he showed a blank screen.
The institute’s director, Matt Mountain, said that dark energy had given this generation of astronomers a rare opportunity, and he admonished them to use it wisely.
“We are placing a large bet,” Dr. Mountain said, “using our credibility as collateral, that we as a community know what we are doing.”
But many stressed that it was going to be a long march with no clear end in sight. Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University told them, “In spite of the fact that you are liable to spend the rest of your lives measuring stuff that won’t tell us what we want to know, you should keep doing it.”
Scuffling in the Dark
Through myriad techniques and observations, cosmologists have recently arrived, after decades of strife, at a robust but dark consensus regarding a cosmos in which stars and galaxies, as well as the humans who gawk at them, amount to barely more than a disputatious froth. It was born 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang. By weight it is 4 percent atoms and 22 percent so-called dark matter of unknown identity — perhaps elementary particles that will be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider starting up outside Geneva this year. That leaves 74 percent for the weight of whatever began causing the cosmos to accelerate about five billion years ago.
As far as astronomers can tell, there is no relation between dark matter, the particles, and dark energy other than the name, but you never know. Some physicists are even willing to burn down their old sainted Einstein and revise his theory of gravity, general relativity, to make the cosmic discrepancies go away. There is in fact a simple explanation for the dark energy, Dr. Witten pointed out, one whose tangled history goes all the way back to Einstein, but it is also the most troubling.
“Dark energy has the somewhat unusual property that it was embarrassing before it was discovered,” he said.
In 1917, Einstein invented a fudge factor known as the cosmological constant, a sort of cosmic repulsion to balance gravity and keep the universe in balance. He abandoned his constant when the universe was discovered to be expanding, but quantum physics resurrected it by showing that empty space should be foaming with energy that had the properties of Einstein’s constant.
Alas, all attempts to calculate the amount of this energy come up with an unrealistically huge number, enough energy to blow away the contents of the cosmos like leaves in a storm before stars or galaxies could form. Nothing could live there.
Dr. Witten and other physicists used to think this conundrum “would somehow go away.” Something was missing in physicists’ understanding of physics, the logic went. The constant was really zero for deep reasons that, when revealed, would lead physicists closer to an understanding of what they call “the vacuum,” that is to say, the structure of reality.
“It seems now that the answer is not really zero,” Dr. Witten said.
Requiem for a Dream
Einstein’s constant is the most economical explanation for dark energy, Dr. Witten said. The others, involving new force fields or tinkering with Einstein’s gravity, are hard to make work and raise more questions than they answer. But if dark energy is the cosmological constant, it is smaller than predicted by a shocking factor of 1060. No fundamental principles can explain why Einstein’s constant, or any physical parameter, could be so small without being zero, Dr. Witten said. Zero can be a fundamental number, he said, but not a 1 with 59 zeroes between it and the decimal point.
As a result, he said, maybe physicists should give up trying to explain that number and look instead for a theory that generates all kinds of universes, a so-called multiverse.
That idea has been given mathematical form by string theory, which portrays the constituents of nature as tiny wriggling strings, an elegant idea that in principle explains all the forces of nature but in practice leads to at least 10500 potential universes.
This maze was an embarrassment for string theory. As Dr. Witten, one of the leaders of the field, said, “I am tempted to say this was an embarrassment of my youth.”
“Who needs that mess?” he recalled thinking. “There is just one world we live in.”
Now, Dr. Witten allowed, dark energy might have transformed this fecundity from a vice into a virtue, a way to generate universes where you can find any cosmological constant you want. We just live in one where life is possible, just as fish only live in water.
“This interpretation of string theory might be close to the truth,” Dr. Witten said. But that truth comes at a cost.
“Before the discovery of the dark energy, quantum physicists tended to assume that the ‘vacuum’ we live in has some deep meaning that reflects nature’s deepest secrets,” Dr. Witten said. But if ours is only one of a zillion in a haystack, there is nothing special about it, no secret to be found.
It could still turn out that dark energy is some as-yet-undiscovered “fifth force,” say, or the result of not understanding gravity. In that case, Dr. Witten said, “All the old viewpoints would be correct,” and physicists could go back to dreaming of a final theory.
“I’d be happy if that happened,” he said. “Our reward would be to go back to where we were, not understanding the cosmological constant.”
The notion that there are a zillion universes, whose individual properties are just a cosmic dice throw, is a story that has been told before and “raises the blood pressure of many physicists seriously,” as Dr. Livio put it. But the idea has rarely been mentioned by Dr. Witten, who is seen in the community as a symbol of the old Einsteinian ideal.
Dr. Witten said he was just doing his duty to explain what dark energy meant to physics.
“As for how I feel personally, I am not sure what to say,” he said in an e-mail message. “I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic the first, or even second, time I heard the proposal of a multiverse. But none of us were consulted when the universe was created.”
Astronomy of the Invisible
The trouble started in 1998 when two competing teams of astronomers, one led by Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and the other by Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University, discovered that the expansion of the universe was inexplicably accelerating.
Both teams were using a kind of exploding star known as a Type 1a supernova as standard candles — objects whose distance can be inferred from their apparent brightness and a few other tricks of the trade — to investigate the history and fate of the universe. They found, on the basis of a few dozen of these stars, that the more distant ones were dimmer than expected, meaning that they had been carried farther away by the cosmic expansion than expected, meaning that the universe was speeding up. The car keys were streaking for the ceiling.
The groups quibble about who saw and said what first, but they have shared in a cavalcade of awards and prizes, among them the $1 million Shaw Prize in 2006 and the $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize, awarded last fall at Cambridge University in England, where Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Schmidt lectured jointly, trading sentences.
Since then myriad collaborations have joined in the hunt for these exploding stars. In Baltimore, Dr. Perlmutter reported on a new analysis of “the world’s data set,” more than 300 supernovas observed by various groups, which he said would provide the tightest constraints on the nature of dark energy “for at least the next 15 minutes.”
Dr. Perlmutter’s results, along with all the others that were presented over the next four days, were consistent with Einstein’s cosmological constant, plus or minus 10 percent, but with just about everything else the theorists can throw into the pot, as well.
Nor is there any solid evidence yet that dark energy is or is not varying with time — if it is not constant, it cannot be Einstein’s constant. Adam Riess of the Johns Hopkins space telescope institute, a key member of Dr. Schmidt’s team, said, “The biggest thing we could learn is by ruling that out.”
He added, “We have a suspect, but we’re not ready to convict anyone yet.”
Dr. Perlmutter said, “The challenge is to make dramatic improvements in the quality of the data,” adding, “The next decade should be a very fertile time.”
Astronomers have developed a smorgasbord of other ways of tracking the effect of dark energy. They have learned how to map the growth of clusters of galaxies, by analyzing how their gravity distorts the light from galaxies far behind them. Gravity makes the clusters grow; dark energy holds them back.
“We can see dark matter, and in principle even invisible clusters,” said Henk Hoekstra of the University of Victoria in Canada.
Another technique is to simply count the clusters at different times in the cosmic past, the way one might count trees to gauge the growth of a forest. Yet another method is to use sound waves from the hot, early days of the universe, which have left an imprint on the distribution of galaxies today — a 500-million-light-year “bump” — as a cosmic yardstick for measuring the universe as it grew.
Each of these methods has its own strengths and weaknesses, and experts agree that it will be necessary to marry the results from many methods to zoom in on the properties of dark energy. They also agree that the best place to do that is in space.
The Big Bake-Off
Last year a committee from the National Academy of Sciences recommended that a dark energy observatory be the next mission in an astrophysics program called Beyond Einstein.
There are now three competitors angling for the job: Dr. Perlmutter’s SNAP, for Supernova Acceleration Probe; Adept, or Advanced Dark Energy Telescope, led by Charles Bennett of Johns Hopkins; and Destiny, for Dark Energy Space Telescope, led by Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson.
Also in the works, just to add spice, is a European mission known as Euclid, which could fly in 2017, if it is approved by the European Space Agency. NASA and the Department of Energy, working together, expect to make a final selection for the dark energy mission — known colloquially as J-dem for Joint Dark Energy Mission — next spring and launch it in the middle of the next decade.
That sounds like progress, but some astronomers, including the former members of the academy committee itself, have complained that $600 million is less than half of the $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion the academy committee estimated was necessary to do the job. In a recent letter to Michael Salamon, NASA scientist in charge of the project, 11 of the committee members, including both of its chairmen, urged NASA to raise the cost cap on the mission, writing, “Cutting the budget in half would probably make the attainment of these goals impossible.”
NASA’s $600 million does not include the cost of launching the satellite, so the discrepancy is not as big as it looks. But in Baltimore, Jon Morse, director of astrophysics at NASA headquarters, warned that if the astronomers wanted to spend a billion dollars, some other astronomy mission would have to come off the table.
NASA has to live within its means, Dr. Morse said in an interview.
“Otherwise,” he said, “Beyond Einstein becomes beyond reality.”
A Hole in the Future?
Whatever proposal is eventually selected, the dark energy satellite will return a tidal wave of data about the universe and its weird denizens, both visible and invisible. This data is likely to transform astronomy in unpredictable ways, but there is no guarantee that it will nail the mystery of dark energy.
Both alternatives to the constant — some weird energy field in space, or a modification to Einstein’s theory of gravity — could vary wildly over the course of history. But Paul Steinhardt, a theorist from Princeton University, argued that they would tend to mimic the cosmological constant so closely that the different models cannot be distinguished within the projected error limits, of a few percent.. He called this blur of ignorance “the J-dem hole.” The specter of the J-dem hole dominated a panel discussion later in the week devoted to the question, “How well do we have to do?”
The answer, said Dr. Krauss of Case Western, was “better than you will be able to do.”
The only real job, he said, is to distinguish dark energy from the cosmological constant. “If we don’t answer that question, we won’t have learned a thing,” Dr. Krauss said.
He compared the present situation with the development of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical sounding rules that govern inside the atom, which overturned science in the 1920s.
That revolution, he pointed out, stemmed from theorists’ inability to explain the so-called black body radiation emitted from a hot glowing object. The solution did not come from more and more precise measurements of the black body spectrum, but rather from the heads of people like Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, who envisioned new ways that atoms could work and weird new laws of nature.
“We really need new theory, and we have none,” Dr. Krauss said.
In the meantime, astronomers could get lucky. Despite Dr. Steinhardt’s analysis, measurements of dark energy’s strength could converge on a value not quite the same as Einstein’s constant. Or it could turn out that it has changed over cosmic time and is not constant. Einstein and Dr. Witten would be off the hook.
Michael Turner, a University of Chicago cosmologist who coined the term “dark energy,” said you could measure the health of a field by the big questions it takes on, and addressing Dr. Morse of NASA, who was moderating the discussion, as well as his colleagues, he said, “You have a job, to go knock on everyone’s door and say this is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Dr. Krauss said, “It would be crazy to talk ourselves out of this.”
He added: “You have to do what you can. You would be crazy not to look.”