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

After I completely my previous post, I realized there were some points that needed expansion and clarification. One of the analogies that Forward used was in reference to the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago (1941) -- under the football stadium to be precise. The idea being that just as this device showed that the conservation laws of matter and energy were one in the same, i.e. by transforming an isotope of uranium into energy, (a notion that has already been shown to have problems since there is no such law as the conservation of mass), so too Forward imagined it might be possible in the future to create a "momentum reactor" that allows the transformation of angular momentum to linear momentum. In fact, long before (1.7 billion years before for those who are curious) Fermi assembled the first "atomic pile," there had already been natural nuclear reactors in Oklo, Africa. The particular geological conditions at the site (there was plenty of water for example and that was crucial for slowing down the neutrons so the reaction could occur) allowed the uranium isotopes to interact in a true nuclear reaction. Even plutonium was generated at the site -- showing that nuclear reactors and plutonium despite what you may have heard are as natural as kittens and sunlight.

Now these natural reactors were discovered in 1972, but they might have been found decades earlier providing a remarkable proof of concept for a man-made reactor.

Historically, there have been other examples of natural nuclear reactors, e.g. the nearest star, our sun. In the late 19th century, it was realized that the sun and the earth were far older than had been realized, which raised all manner of difficult questions. The known energy reactions at the time would have left the sun a dead cinder after a few thousand years. Since the sun was a good million times older than that, obviously something radically different in the way of energy production/processes was going on, long before fusion reactions in the stars were understood. Once they were understood, of course, even more spectacular sources of stellar energy (e.g. supernovas) began to be understood as well.

The point of all this is that if the conversion of angular momentum <--> linear momentum does take place, it has to do so at the quantum level. Then, if this hypothetical conversion is to have any observable consequences, the stars are the place to look for it, the stars undergoing extreme changes of state shall we say. So far there are no observed exceptions to the conservation of energy with any of the extreme stellar events that have been observed. Despite the fact that short term, out of sight, violations of conservation of energy are permitted and do happen at the quantum level, they are not carried forward into the universe we are familiar with. Which is unfortunate, because as Anastopoulus [PoW, pg. 145] writes: "General Relativity is not characterized by the symmetry of time translation because the notion of time depends on the geometry, and the geometry changes dynamically. For this reason, the concept of energy is not defined in General Relativity." But for all known observations it might as well be.

The same follows for the concept of momentum (angular and linear).

So time translation symmetry holds as far as we can see even given the General Theory of Relativity, which as noted is not a friendly domain for the Poincare space-time symmetries we are familiar with. The geometry of space-time is "not predetermined and absolute like in Special Relativity."

But, and this cannot be emphasized enough, so far no observed deviations from the fundamental conservation laws have been found.

So what is a physicist to do? One approach to seeing if this conversion of angular to linear momentum takes place is to maintain and expand the neutron star research program to get to the bottom of the anomalous neutron star velocities. This is priority number one. A real physicist would say that because a supernova explosion in its early stages results in a number of asymmetrical jets, known physics can count for all unusual observations to date. Maybe so, but the evidence is insufficiently conclusive to me and on that basis I would like the observations and modeling to continue as far as possible for as long as possible. Theory both at the quantum and GR level says the conversion of angular <--> linear momentum, the breaking of the Poincare symmetries, cannot be ruled out. But if the symmetry breaking isn't observed at the most extreme conditions taking place in the universe, i.e. the core of a star going supernova, that would put some serious constraints on the theory of Quantum Gravity. The implications to science are too crucial to do anything less than carry forward on this program.

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

But, suppose that the conservation laws of linear and angular momentum were not true laws -- just approximations . . . -- Robert L. Forward

In this section of his essay, Forward suggests an analogy: just as the laws of conservation of mass and conservation of energy were shown to be aspects of a single law (conservation of mass-energy or conservation of energy) so too it seemed possible to him that the laws of linear and angular momentum might be shown to be aspects of a single law, the conservation of momentum. It would therefore follow that as mass can be converted to energy and energy to mass -- happens all the time in the quantum realm -- so too linear and angular momentum will be shown to be converted from one to the other in the quantum realm. The problem with this analogy is that the "law of the conservation of mass" was a misunderstanding brought about because the physicists and chemists of the day (19th century) did not have the measurements or theory to show there was only one law: the conservation of energy. Recall that everything is based on symmetry. Symmetries are how we "see" into the quantum realm. The symmetry associated with conservation of energy is time translation symmetry. It "refers to moving the point in time you define as the origin of your time axis, t = 0, from one moment to another." [QG] This rather unassuming symmetry implies conservation of energy as soon as you apply Noether's theorem. There is no corresponding symmetry for mass.

Now two strong caveats have to be mentioned here. First, outside of the limits of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Relationship (delta E X delta T > h-bar), it is possible to briefly borrow amounts in excess of what the law of conservation of energy would permit. In the quantum world, this sort of thing happens all the time. So in a sense brief (very brief) violations of the time translation symmetry are permitted. Second, mass can result from spontaneous symmetry breaking, such as what happens in the theory of "unified" electro-weak interactions. Because the electro-weak force is extremely short range, the carrier particles must have significant mass. The breaking of complex gauge transformation symmetries permits this to happen. Needless to say this is all very complicated and we won't be getting into it in any depth at all. The point of all of this is that there are symmetries beyond the ones that formed the basis of Noether's original work and that symmetry breaking is a crucial aspect to understanding contemporary physics. Thus while Forward's original analogy is flawed, it is by no means hopeless. We just have to tread carefully.

One of the things I like about Forward is that treading carefully was never his style.

So where are we? Are we any closer to our goal to showing that this conversion of angular to linear moment (or the reverse) is possible on the quantum scale? Or, is there any astronomical observations that would do the same? Recall, that the simple fact that the sun was giving out as much energy as it does for as long as it has been doing it was a solid clue that new forces and processes were taking place that were unknown to the 19th century scientists of earth.

Now in terms of astronomical observations, there are high-velocity neutron stars (i.e. moving in excess of 800 km/sec) relative to their lower velocity cousins (moving in the range of 100 to 200 km/sec).* What we would like to observe is if these high-velocity neutron stars (which make up about 50% of such stars) have anomolously lower angular momentum. If such a correlation could be observed, that would provide evidence for, that under extreme circumstances and a supernova explosion unifying General relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a particularly appalling fasion is about as extreme as you can get, the conversion of angular to linear momentum does take place.

The standard explanation for the observed high space velocities of pulsar is, "this is thought to be due to asymmetric SuperNova II explosions." Just how asymmetric? And why the discrepancy in the velocities? I am simply suggesting that the matter as far as I can see is probably covered by the standard theories and explanations but not yet completely. I highly doubt that any astronomer-physicist is looking for exceptions to the laws of conservation of angular and linear momentum. But now that the modeling of supernova explosions is starting to get much better, perhaps they should.

As for the breakdown of the conservation laws on the quantum scale, that is a good deal more dicier and I will turn to that in the next part.

[to be continued]

*This is the reference: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/papers/lamb/node3.html

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

" . . . there is another conservation law standing in the way of progress -- the law of conservation of angular momentum -- spin. "

-- Robert L. Forward

So what is spin, i.e. angular momentum in the quantum realm, as exhibited for example by an electron or proton? Well, the first image that comes to mind, as it did to the physicists investigating the phenomenon in the 1920's is that of a rapidly rotating electron or proton (the only particles known at the time.) This picture at least provides a simple mental image for those still nostalgic for the old Bohr solar-system model of the atom. There is this electron "planet" orbiting a "proton" sun (let's stick with the hydrogen atom, please) and both are "rotating" about their mutual axis just like the planet earth and the sun spin about theirs. It is a pleasing picture, cute in a way, but it is wrong. Worse, it is unhelpful. The fact that it is so wrong brings us to one of the immediate problems in thinking about the quantum world, the world of "micro-physics," and we might as well get it out of the way. As the great physicist Pauli noticed almost at once, if you calculate the "rotation" velocity of an electron, assuming it is behavior like a rotating planet, it turns out to be faster-than-light. This is presuming the electron is an extended body of some sort, not a point particle, which is in fact how most physicists think about it. Faster-than-light is a big no-no and as every physicist will tell you a calculation that yields such is giving a strong indication that the initial picture is wildly in error. No way to get around it. Moreover, if we think of an electron as a spinning ball, how the heck does it hold together given the enormous electrodynamic forces that must be coursing through it?

There are some things, given the current state of our knowledge, it is best not to go there -- at least so current wisdom tells us. Though some activity is taking place that can be measured in quantum terms that resembles what in the macro-world we would call "angular momentum" (it is a conserved something after all), try as best as you can to put the rotating mini-planet image out of your mind -- forever.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that pictures as such are a bad thing. That is the way we learn to interact with our environment and it is far from clear to me that a blind physicist or mathematician would be an any advantage in thinking about the quantum world as compared to his sighted compatriot. Moreover, using mental pictures to guide experiments, thought or otherwise, has been a key skill for physicists, e.g. Einstein, and you can't go wrong as a physicist when following Einstein. But the fact of the matter is that the quantum realm is best understood in terms of abstractions, symmetries in particular which have been all the rage since Noether's pioneering work. So if we think of "spin" in terms of a symmetry what do we learn?

". . . while spinning is mathematically similar to rotation, it is unlike any rotation that we can ever perceive with our senses." -- Charis Anastopoulos [PoW]

"Even if the symmetries of a physical system are the only thing we know about it, we can still understand many aspects of its structure." [PoW]. And that is the key to grasping the quantum world. The rotations and translations of [Minkowsky flat] spacetime together form what is called the Poincare symmetry. What this means is that once we have confirmed the presence of this symmetry, "we can decompose any system with a given symmetry into smaller systems that still possess the symmetry. We then decompose these smaller systems into yet smaller ones possessing the symmetry." [PoW, page 139.] And so on, until we arrive at the fundamental or irreducible systems. These components describe the motion of free (i.e. no external forces) particles.

In the end, the analysis reveals two numbers which describe these free particles. The first number describes the particles rest mass. The second describes something that resembles "intrinsic spinning. It is therefore called spin." [PoW, page 140].

This is a marvelous result and is as solid as you can get in the quantum realm. But unfortunately, and this point cannot be emphasized enough, it falls apart in General Relativity. As the great physicist John Wheeler (1911 -- 2008) was to discover, there is no way to incorporate "spin" into General Relativity except in very special circumstance. This was a big disappointment to him because he was hoping to develop a kind of ("already", as he referred to it) unified field theory just using topology in GR. but because the flat Minkowsky spacetime completely breaks down in GR (recall the "fields upon fields" description means good-bye to the spacetime backdrop), so does the beautiful Poincare symmetry. And that means notions of conservation of mass and angular momentum become much more dicey and difficult to deal with.

I'm not sure what Emmy Noether would have made of this but I suspect she would not have been altogether happy with this development. Nor would a classical physicist. But for those of us seeking the spin drive to the stars, this "unfortunate" development, offers hope towards that end.

[to be continued].

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.

* * *

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.

The Next Project

I've decided I like this new, lighter, if you will, blog format. The old AstralAviary.com was just getting to be too great a burden, one that I could not longer maintain, financially or otherwise. Having made the decision to abandon the old site, I am undecided whether to attempt to preserve the old posts, but I am now leaning against it. There is some good stuff there to be sure (if I may say so myself), but most of it were just writing exercises and I really think it is time to move on. I've written well over a million words since deciding to become a writer a couple of decades ago, a writer being someone who could at least communicate effectively. It would have been nice to have made money, of course, but it didn't happen. Obviously. I have no pretense of being or becoming a great writer but I was bad enough in the distant past that the effort was, despite everything, worth it. I do not know what will happen with the contents of the old site once I let them go -- perhaps to be preserved for a while on some server somewhere, perhaps to be lost forever -- unless I decide to run for office at which point they will be miraculously recovered in their embarrassing entirety. But it no longer matters. I certainly have no ego invested in the pieces I wrote and no fans to weep over their loss.

Anyway, my next project is what concerns me now. I was originally intending to do a series on quantum mechanics and life, researching what is happening out there in science land in that regard, to show how life, if not exactly intelligent life, follows from the laws of QM, so all the odd-against-it arguments are rendered mute. There is a surprising amount of material to be had, but researching QM and collecting and collating all the information was just too "daunting" a prospect. We're talking a book, and that is out of the question. Fascinating as the stuff is, writing about Life, QM, and Everything was just too much, especially given how unsettled my life is in terms of health, "career," and all that are and likely to remain. Time to greatly simplify and cut back. Fortunately, over the past few months, I stumbled across something that I think will be almost as fascinating and will be slightly more accessible and workable: a revisit to the late, great Dr. Robert L. Forward's wonderful little article published in Analog SF in April 1981: Spin Drive to the Stars.

What Forward attempted to do in this article (unfortunately, almost all of his science writings have yet to be put on-line) was to draw an analogy between the fall of the twin laws of conservation of matter and conservation of energy and subsequent fusion into a single law, the conservation of Mass-Energy. And we all know what happened next: in 1941 the first nuclear reactor (done under the direction of the great Enrico Fermi working under the University of Chicago stadium.) Forward suggested that something similar might be possible regarding the two very distinct laws of the conservation of angular and the conservation of linear momentum. That is, that a new law would emerge, called just the Conservation of Momentum perhaps, that would permit the conversion of micro angular momentum to macro linear momentum under certain circumstances. This might enable a future Fermi to construct a momentum "reactor" that would do just that and a true spin drive would be born with fascinating implications and consequences.

But let's not get too excited. There are a lot of problems with the idea and the whole business is subject to severe criticisms, but in the spirit of exploration (not to mention my overwhelming respect and admiration for Forward), I would like instead to work with and build upon his ideas and see where it all leads. No lame negativity here! In the meantime, I believe I have assembled sufficient resources to write intelligently on the subject so we will see what happens over the next weeks and months. I don't know if I will be able to do this in a single continuous series as I have done in the past (some of this stuff is quite complex and I am not a trained physicist!) or if it will have to be broken up into several parts with other stuff in between. Probably the latter, but I am confident that it will be at least be interesting. And that is all that matters.