Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Proposal for an experiment to test "hyperdimensional physics"

Open letter to Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara, cc: Derek Eunson

Greetings...

        As I wrote to you on 13th March, the theory of what you have called "hyperdimensional physics" is now falsified because of the definitive failure of the WISE mission to find the large trans-Neptunian solar system bodies that you have writtennote 1 are an essential prediction of the theory.

        I commiserate. It must be hard to be so comprehensively proved wrong—especially in light of the fact that I have also falsified Von Braun's Secret and The Table of Coincidence. You boys don't really have a whole lot left to pontificate about, do you?

Proposal for an experiment
        Let us, however, be optimistic. It is still possible that some truth may be sifted from the ashes of your work over the years. I hereby propose a test of your (MB's) expository statementnote 2 about the theory:

"There is overwhelming proof of a new, little understood theory of physics, Hyperdimensional physics ... [I]f you take a sphere—like ... a planet—and you rotate it, then you will pull energy from the higher state of the planet (the hyper-sphere) and that energy will preferentially upwell from inside the planet according to the geometry of a tetrahedron encased in a sphere, and appear at or around 19.5 degrees."

Equipment:
Solid aluminum sphere, diameter 50cm. Mounted on robust bearings and capable of being rotated at up to 1,000 rpm about a vertical axis by a rheostat-controlled electric motor.

volume 4/3 π x 253 = 65,449 cm3
density of Al 2.70 g cm-3
mass 176.7 kg

NOTE: This equipment will need very careful balancing, lest it become a missile.

360 sensitive thermocouples are to be embedded in this sphere at intervals of 0.5° latitude between its poles, the signals from these to be led to a display/recording rack via a commutator. A tachometer continuously records the rotation rate.

Protocol:
Ambient temperature of the laboratory to be controlled at 20°C ± 1°.
Baseline recording to be obtained for a period of two hours without rotation.
Active recordings to be obtained as the equipment is spun up in steps of 200rpm, n minutes at each step.
Experiment to be repeated 24h later.

Prediction:
Per your written text, we expect to detect a significant rise in temperature over bands of latitude centered on 19.5° N and S, as the hyperdimensional energy dissipates as heat.

NOTE: In your other writings on this topic you have cited Olympus Mons (18.5°N) and the Giant Red Spot on Jupiter (22°S) as manifestations of hyperdimensional energy upwelling, therefore we should presumably anticipate bands of energy spreading over at least 3.5°.

Questions for you:
1] Is this a fair test of your theory?
2] What should the value of n be? How long do you estimate we need to wait for hyperdimensional energy to appear?
3] Please provide an equation, using Maxwell's quaternionsnote 3, describing the mathematical relationship between speed of rotation  and energy access from the "higher state".

Funding:
I will happily participate in such an experiment but I regret that I am unable to contribute to its (considerable) cost. Perhaps you might allocate some portion of the royalties from your published works promoting this idea to the public?

I have copied this to Dr Derek Eunson, a systems engineer in Scotland. Not only would his comments on the protocol be obviously welcome, but he is also in touch with Irene Gardner who may possibly agree to sponsor all or part of the cost. As you will recall, in May 2012 Ms. Gardner made a generous offer to sponsor Hoagland & Falkov's proposed expedition to Egypt for the Venus transit that year.note 4

Please respond.

=====================================
1] Dark Mission chapter 2
2] The Choice chapter 3
3] You have written (Dark Mission chapter 2) that Maxwell's quaternions are the basis of "hyperdimensional physics".
4] An offer you (RCH) surprisingly refused, on the grounds that it would require handing over  "totally unreasonable quantities of raw, propriority [sic] data to turned over to TOTAL styrangers [sic], and far ahead of its planned formal publication." By the way, when will that data be published?

14 comments:

Binaryspellbook said...

The above is a perfectly doable scenario. It is certainly a far more scientific approach to testing Hoagland's HD proposals than his current laptop and old watch set-up.

If cost was prohibitive, Hoagland could use less thermocouples, perhaps to begin with only three. One situated at his 19.5 degrees (N or S) and one either side offset by say 25 degrees. A position sensor could be used to measure the rotation rate and the data logged easily via a laptop and a data logger.

astroguy said...

The motors will produce heat which will be conducted through the apparatus and influence the results. If insulation is present, there will still be some heat conducted from the motors to the atmosphere which will still affect the temperature near the "base" of the sphere.

Additionally, there will likely be some frictional heating between the sphere at the atmosphere which will be most prevalent at the equator. Depending on how sensitive your temperature gauges are, though, that won't register. But the stuff from the motors will so some account for that needs to be taken.

expat said...

Very fair points. I was visualizing the drive motor above the test-sphere, but your point is still valid. How about adding a clutch, so that during the baseline run the motor can be running but disengaged?

The main bearing, at the base of the sphere, can be made with very little friction but nevertheless some heat generation is inevitable as rotation speed increases. We'll have to think about how to allow for that.

astroguy said...

I'm not the problem solver, I'm the problem identifier. ;-)

But seriously, I'll leave the HOW to solve or account for that problem to the actual engineers here, for I'm sure you're much more capable of it than I.

Binaryspellbook said...

I gave Hoagland a design to rotate a steel ball bearing using just a few components. I also recommended his spinning ball experiment be done in a vacuum

Arm microprocessor
coils
FET's to drive the coil switching
various; decoupling caps, resistors etc

He wasn't interested. He would rather show screenshots of De Palma's graphs from nineteen canteen in free air demonstrating his HD physics. Or as we would say, demonstrate the Magnus effect.

He's probably not capable of writing a little piece of code to drive the electronics and get the timings correct.

Binaryspellbook said...

I gave Hoagland a design to rotate a steel ball bearing using just a few components. I also recommended his spinning ball experiment be done in a vacuum

Arm microprocessor
coils
FET's to drive the coil switching
various; decoupling caps, resistors etc

He wasn't interested. He would rather show screenshots of De Palma's graphs from nineteen canteen in free air demonstrating his HD physics. Or as we would say, demonstrate the Magnus effect.

He's probably not capable of writing a little piece of code to drive the electronics and get the timings correct.

Chris Lopes said...

Even with the added heat, HD physics predicts a significant increase (greater than any where else on the sphere) at 2 very specific latitudes. So you are really looking for a temperature pattern that should be able to be detected through the heat added by the motor. For instance, if there is no HD effect, you would see an increase in temperature at the base that dissipates as you reach the other pole. I there is such an effect, that pattern would hold until you got to 19.5 N where you would see a sudden increase in temperature again only to have it fall back down. In any case, this is a nice exercise in experiment design.

astroguy said...

Vacuum would definitely help. And be a better model for a planet in space.

expat said...

I believe the motor could be kept thermally isolated from the rest of the apparatus. The bearing, no.

Anyway, pity this will never happen because Hoagland & Bara are not interested in having their crackpot idea tested.

Dee said...

My interest lies in RCH's statement that DePalma's balls "flew higher ... and fell faster" (source: Von Braun's Secret II).

This acceleration downwards, could it be just gravity (9.8 m/s/s) working on higher curve? Otherwise we could just as well use known base ball experiments like The effect of spin on the flight of a baseball (2007) where figure 7 shows similar graphics as DePalma's balls.

It's perhaps interesting to mention from that article: "More interesting is that a reverse Magnus effect ... was observed for a smooth ball with the dimensions of a baseball". In my estimate this reverse effect would disappear with sufficient spin rates. Balls with surface features might increase the Magnus effect at lower spin rates but not ultimately cause it, as other sport-related articles on the subject seems to indicate.

All the answers will be in Von Braun's Secret Part III, which according to Part II (2008), is to be released "soon"...

Dee

expat said...

That's excellent, Dee. Thanks much.

Dee said...

You're welcome Expat.

Upon further thought, one could assume Bruce DePalma's one inch steel balls would have been re-used enough times to gain enough minor "surface features" to explain an increase of the Magnus effect as opposed to smooth balls. One might even expect such effect to increase upon repeated use when smashing into some hard surface each and every time.

It would be necessary to know if these balls were made of hardened high carbon steel or if they were replaced with new ones after each experiment. This information I haven't been able to find although a reference to "like those in pinball machines" was made somewhere. But even with those machines one has to replace regularly the pitted ones otherwise the game becomes "rigged" or too unpredictable to play with skill.

Dee

Raymond-Maurice, Freiherr van Pottelbergh said...

My problem is with the original premise ... If you rotate a sphere "like a planet." What does "like a planet" mean? Like which planet? Obviously our own solar system presents a variety of models of planets. Super massive and made of gas? Small and rocky? With or without a magnetic field? Fluid core? Solid core? And doesn't "like a planet" indicate an object not just in a vacuum but a very cold vacuum, too? And what must the external gravitational forces be?
When the small metal ball experiment fails to prove the theory (as it almost certainly shall), no doubt the supporters of the theory will point to one or more of these variables as the cause. In the realm of mechanics, are there not millions of spheroids rotating at high speeds every day that show no sign of the predicted effect? Wouldn't another and perhaps simpler proof be to make a typical coil and magnet generator of predictable output in its normal configuration but then offset the magnet to the equivalent of the magic latitude and measure the output? Or is the expected effect only thermal and not electrical? I would have thought an advanced culture would be more interested in electrical effects than something as crude as increased thermal effects. Unless of course they discovered hyper-dimensions early in their steam-era, and began exploring space in steam locomotives.

expat said...

Well, it will certainly help if I fill in my ellipses. The full original phrase was as follows:

"If you take a sphere--like oh, I don't know, a planet, say--and you rotate it...etc."
--"The Choice" p.48

It's very plain that he means any planet, since he cites (spurious) examples on Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Hoagland has even claimed that sunspots preferentially arise at 19.5° latitude, which is a lie of course.

Ambient conditions don't seem to matter very much -- DePalma's spinning ball "experiment" was conducted in a garage, I believe, and is claimed to have demonstrated hyperdimensional energy.

I'm not sure if electrical energy would count as demonstrating this crackpot idea. The planetary examples are mostly thermal.

Thanks for your contribution.