Revisiting "Spin Drive to the Stars" -- Part I

"... as each struggled with the concept of a gyroscope space drive, all were forced sooner or later to realize that it would not work. They were beaten by nature's conservation laws."

-- Robert Forward, Introduction to "Spin Drive to the Stars."

The vision of a gyroscopic space drive is admittedly a powerful and fascinating one. And all manner of intelligent people have fallen for it. Variations of the "Dean Drive" (see any popular on-line encyclopedia) crop up all the time, as anyone who has ever attended a fringe "science" conference can attest. These are conferences usually associated with Tesla (a fine man and a great mind who in no ways warrants the sneers he gets), or books and websites with arcane references to UFOs (National Socialist or otherwise). I attended one of those conferences in the '90s and get programs and fliers associated with them to this day. Invariably there is at least one person attending (and hopefully no more lest things get ugly), or maybe just a poster session, devoted to the latest device that claims to transform rotary motion into linear momentum without an intervening medium (rockets of course do not use a medium but are an example of Newton's laws in action -- the business about for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.)

I even knew an individual at a place I used to work who threatened to kill me (jokingly, I'm sure) if I figured out the secret of his invention that did just that, i.e. transform angular to linear momentum without an intervening medium. From his description, it was clear this was one more device that relied on complicated motions of various masses (and some of these motions get very complicated indeed) to presumably steal rotary motion at one point of the cycle and transform it into linear motion, thereby permitting the thing to take off. Curiously, these devices never take off vertically, but only horizontally. Not a problem. In the new and improved version (we're working on it, coming very soon, please donate!), however, that problem will be solved. It was at that point, not too deep into the discussion with my former co-worker, that I had to ask him to say hello to the work of Emmy Noether.

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Now as everyone knows Emmy Noether was a brilliant mathematician and also one of the homeliest women who ever lived. She definitely encountered sexism in her life, but nobody ever viewed poor Emmy as a sex object. Every writer that touches upon her life mentions and comments upon that lamentable fact, so we might as well get it out of our system. You can look up her picture on one of the popular image search engines if you are curious. You will not be disappointed. What is important to know is that Emmy's genius was to take results implicit in the work of others (in this case Euler) and to greatly expand upon and deepen them. She was to do this feat again for the field of Algebraic Topology. This is not a minor talent. What she saw in the space-time symmetries of her theorem was extremely important: As explained by Victor Stenger in Quantum Gods, three kinds of symmetry (space translation, space rotation, and time translation) imply three conservations laws: linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy. Noether's Theorem shows that symmetry laws and conservation laws go hand in hand. The result is as solid as can be. Huge amounts of physics follows from her theorem. Because an awful lot of contemporary physics is based on identifying and understanding abstract symmetries, physicists then can state explicitly the conservation laws that are entailed. And knowing the conservation laws of a system tells you a great deal about it. Noether's Theorem was the beginning of this profound realization and every modern physicist owes her a lot.

Now the "inventors" would likely say at this point: "Well, that's all very nice, but really its so abstract that who can care? This Noether person could be wrong or missing something. Recall what they did to Galileo." True but irrelevant. To the extent we wish to formulate the laws or models of physics "... in a way that does not depend on the point of view of in space and time of the observer [Victor Stenger]" the burden of proof is on the inventor ("crank," if you are inclined to be impolite) to disprove/break these symmetries. And good luck on that. To date none of these "inventions" have lifted so much as a dust spec a micron off the earth, so we can comfortably say that Noether's theorem and all it implies holds and will continue to do so. There is no way to transform angular moment to linear momentum, unless through the use of an intervening medium, water, air, or the like.

The only way it could happen, of course, is that our knowledge of the underlying space and time of physics were to change . . .

One thought that occurred to me as I was researching this was that perhaps during the heyday of the luminiferous ether (the roughly two generations from the time of Maxwell writing his famous equation to Einstein's discovery of Special Relativity), perhaps some 19th century scientist thought of using the luminiferous ether (the presumption being that such existed) as the medium for transforming rotary to linear motion. Some of the pseudo-science literature I have encountered seems to hint in that direction, but it would have been fascinating if some scientist during the heyday of the ether had actually done some serious research in that direction and published his results. Of course, it would have all come to naught, but still.

A Note on Sources

This question before us is this: is it possible to affect angular momentum (or "spin" at the micro-physical, i.e. QM level) so that it can be transformed into the macro-physical linear momentum? To understand the problem and make suggestions and generate ideas regarding a research program, we need to have an understanding of what is meant by "spin" in QM (it's not what most people think) and QM processes in general. In short, we need to be able to think in QM terms. This is not an easy thing to do. It been some 85 years since the Quantum Revolution of the mid-1920's and I would say that even most working physicists have not managed the trick. Indeed, I would say that most working physicists actively discourage such attempts. Work with the mathematical formalism and go away is the attitude.

The same is true for General Relativity (which has been around about a decade longer, 95 years). Both QM and GR are vital to our story so I will say right off that we will most likely not have a definitive answer to the question until we have a theory of Quantum Gravity as powerful and as workable as QM and GR are in their respective and highly distinct domains. This may take a while. Given the current state of the world it may be a decade, a century, or never. And I do mean never, at least as far as the human race is concerned. Perhaps advanced AI entities will knock off such an ideal theory on a lazy afternoon . . .

In the meantime, I will do my best and hope some inspiration may result from my efforts.

Here were the books that guided me:

For clearing up conceptual issues regarding GR and QM, Quantum Gods (Victory J. Stenger), Quantum Gravity (Carlo Rovelli), and Particle or Wave (Charis Anastopoulos) were all helpful. The latter book in particular is just a marvel of depth and exposition, one of the few "popular" books on physics that does not hesitate to go in deep, guiding the reader carefully each step of the way from marvel to marvel. It is easily the best book on the physics of QM I have ever read and an unstoppable candidate for best science book of 2009.

Now this one may seem a bit odd but I urge you to give this a try, certainly before tackling Particle or Wave, which the course nicely complements: I'm speaking of the Teaching Company course Quantum Mechanics: the Physics of the Microscopic World. The teacher is Professor Benjamin Schumacher and he does an amazing job over 24 half-hour lectures in summarizing what we know about QM from both the standpoint of physics and information (Schumacher's specialty). Schumacher (of Kenyon college) is a wonderful teacher and like all great teachers is both comfortable with and in awe of his subject. I honestly believe everyone, of whatever degree of knowledge and interest, can learn from this course.

Finally, a caution. To come to a definitive answer to the question, as noted we need to have a theory of quantum gravity. A problem, likely the problem, is that there are huge conceptual difficulties in doing this. The world of QM is one of a static spacetime background (ok, with special relativity added but the addition of SR really doesn't change anything essential) while in the world of GR, spacetime is dynamic. Quoting Carlo Rovelli: "It is as if we have observed in the ocean many animals living on an island . . . Then we discover that the island itself is in fact a great whale. So the animals are no longer on the island, just animals on animals. Similarly, the Universe is not made up of fields on spacetime: it is made up of fields on fields."

This makes for grave conceptual difficulties, indeed. Just how do we think about such a thing, and how can we possibly merge it with QM with its static spacetime? My own hope is that loop quantum gravity (Rovelli's specialty) is the approach that will work, but it is impossible to say.

Robert Forward, An Appreciation

I only met Robert Forward once and the meeting (at Moscon) did not go well. This was in Moscow, Idaho, Summer of 1988. I had come there dizzy and high on Nanotechnology and was very curious about Forward's thoughts on the business. I figured he would have great insights and would be eager to make contributions. Now, what I may lack in brains I certainly make up for in enthusiasm, but Forward would have none of it. He was clearly bored by the nanotech stuff and bluntly told me he thought it was all hype and old news and of little interest. I was surprised at his attitude and thought at the time he was a little rude, if for now other reason because I couldn't think of anything that was more cutting edge and current, stuff that might not happen right this instant but pretty soon and way too cool to ignore. Besides, it seemed to me that nanotech was a very good way to achieve some of Forward's vision(s). But I made my points poorly and my career as a science journalist ended that day. We never spoke again.

[Note: Even more disappointing to me is that I have come to the conclusion a generation afterward that Forward was correct. Nanotechnology while not exactly bullshit is close. Half-bullshit let us say. And you know which flavor predominates when you mix half ice cream and half shit (h/t to Mark Steyn). In any event, I believe we are approaching the Bullshit Singularity (that's right the BS), only a few years hence now, when the crescendo of unstoppable mindless crap that has ruled humanity for millennia reaches its cosmic climax. The signs are everywhere. Have you seen the previews for the movie 2012? Think of the rising, out-of-control oceans engulfing the planet as symbolic of rising, out-of-control bullshit engulfing the planet and you have a very effective visual image of exactly where we are heading.

But it hardly matters. Let it be said that progress on the really cool stuff is of nanotechnology after nearly a quarter of a century is all but non-existent: "These (nano) machines could be production machinery for more machines, shortening capital formation times and increasing economic growth rates" (from the Foresight.org website). This aspect, autogenous systems, the Foresight people tell us has been "sorely neglected." Indeed. Complete bust is more like it, guys.

So in the manner of a belated apology, I confess to all who might care that Dr. Forward was right and deeply regret offending him, or at least annoying him. I should have given the thousands I gave to Foresight to him. I'm sure he would have agreed with that. Maybe something cool would have come of it by now. In any event, the vision of Engines of Creation which enthralled me for so many years never came close to coming to pass. Drexler himself hinted in the early 90's he thought the Singularity might happen in the timeframe 2011 - 2015 but he was wrong. Sorry Eric, but I want my money back.]

Forward was an idea man and he was a wonderful writer -- of everything except fiction. in truth, he would have been unpublishable as a novelist except for his technical acuman and even there he had his weaknesses. He was criticized for being on shaky mathematical ground on occasion and his understanding of physics seems at times superficial, but none of these failings mattered. Because he had ideas! He had brilliant, far-reaching, outlandish ideas and of how many scientists, who for all their knowledge are more often stiffs than anything else, can that be said? He was that most remarkable of combinations -- the entrepreneurial scientist. Do you know how rare that is? No one else, in science or science fiction, came close. His death in 2001 was a loss that can never be replaced.

In revisiting his wonderful little article "Spin Drive to the Stars" after 28 years, I hope to make up for my failings in our one an only meeting. I hope to spark interest in his ideas (at least in that piece) again and perhaps get some thoughtful discussion going. That's all I can do. I hope it will be enough.