DARPA Is Researching Quantized Inertia, a Theory Many Think Is Pseudoscience

[phands]

Thoughts?

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded a $1.3 million contract to an international team of researchers to study quantized inertia, a controversial theory that some physicists dismiss as pseudoscience.


Quantized inertia (QI) is an alternative theory of inertia, a property of matter that describes an object’s resistance to acceleration. QI was first proposed by University of Plymouth physicist Mike McCulloch in 2007, but it is still considered a fringe theory by many, if not most, physicists today. McCulloch has used the theory to explain galactic rotation speeds without the need for dark matter, but he believes it may one day provide the foundation for launching space vehicles without fuel.


The DARPA grant will allow McCulloch and a team of collaborators from Germany and Spain to undertake a series of experiments that will apply QI in a laboratory setting for the first time. This will involve creating experimental QI engines and using incredibly sensitive detectors to see if they can produce thrust—which would open the door for interstellar travel, satellites that never decay in orbit, and other “impossible” applications.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...theory-of-physics-many-think-is-pseudoscience

 

[bilby]

The military has a long history of investigating the apparently impossible, in a search for things that actually are possible but which have been overlooked. The VAST majority of this research ends with the discovery that the apparently impossible is, in fact, impossible. But it's well worth a look, even with a very low hit rate, particularly when you are spending other people's money.

I recall seeing a classified paper from REME that investigated the possibility of employing dowsers to find land mines. They comprehensively demonstrated that dowsers are not able to find land mines at rates greater than pure chance. But as far as the army were concerned, the benefits of the tiny handful of such research projects that discover an actually usable technique far outweigh the cost of checking out those bizarre claims.

On the other hand, in the Battle of Britain, the RAF had a significant edge over the Luftwaffe, because the latter had decided that the only way to do RADAR was at medium wavelengths, and that as they didn't detect any British signals on those wavelengths, it was impossible for the British to detect their aircraft other than with standing patrols and highly unreliable acoustic detectors. The German assumption that they knew the limits of the possible, led them to significantly underestimate their enemy.

In short, I strongly expect that they will discover that this idea is a load of bollocks. But it will be tremendously interesting and important if they don't, so why shouldn't they at least take a look?

 

[skepticalbip]

I recall seeing a classified paper from REME that investigated the possibility of employing dowsers to find land mines. They comprehensively demonstrated that dowsers are not able to find land mines at rates greater than pure chance.

They apparently used the dowsers wrong. Have a line a hundred dowsers shoulder to shoulder dowse their way across a mine field. They would be sure to find the mines. Of course a herd of cows would be as effective but with the added benefit that the soldiers following behind would have a dinner of ground beef that night.

 

[steve_bank]

I read a boo0k on the history of electronic warfare in WWII by the Old Crows Society, the electronic countermeasure society. It was an intense technology competition that is largely untold .MIT engineers were flying bomber missions to analyze German RADAR and make on the fly adjustments to equipment to compensate.

The Brits developed the magnetron which as the key for RADAR.

When chaff was first tested over Boston by MIT to spoof RADAR they discovered an unforeseen consequence, the metal strips screwed up power systems.

When the Brits discovered a direction finder hidden in a standard German radio from a crashed plane they placed electrically noisy machines in the anticipated bomber flight path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_electronic_warfare_equipment

I worked on a RADAR and did some work on ECM pod for the Navy.

 

[Worldtraveller]

I also suspect as with many 'quantum' related research, even if some of the principles turn out to be correct, the beneficial claims will turn out to be exaggerated, to say the least.

 

[J842P]

The military has a long history of investigating the apparently impossible, in a search for things that actually are possible but which have been overlooked. The VAST majority of this research ends with the discovery that the apparently impossible is, in fact, impossible. But it's well worth a look, even with a very low hit rate, particularly when you are spending other people's money.

I recall seeing a classified paper from REME that investigated the possibility of employing dowsers to find land mines. They comprehensively demonstrated that dowsers are not able to find land mines at rates greater than pure chance. But as far as the army were concerned, the benefits of the tiny handful of such research projects that discover an actually usable technique far outweigh the cost of checking out those bizarre claims.

On the other hand, in the Battle of Britain, the RAF had a significant edge over the Luftwaffe, because the latter had decided that the only way to do RADAR was at medium wavelengths, and that as they didn't detect any British signals on those wavelengths, it was impossible for the British to detect their aircraft other than with standing patrols and highly unreliable acoustic detectors. The German assumption that they knew the limits of the possible, led them to significantly underestimate their enemy.

In short, I strongly expect that they will discover that this idea is a load of bollocks. But it will be tremendously interesting and important if they don't, so why shouldn't they at least take a look?

I am of a like mind. DARPA pours money into a lot of fringe ideas, that often turn out to be boondoggles, but they also do some really cool shit.

Unfortunately, it is really only the military that does these sorts of things. And some academic science.

 

[steve_bank]

Packet switching and the net came out of DARPA.

The initial concept was a network between academia and the DOD, at least in part.

When I was with Lockheed in the 80s there were rumors of odd experiments.

I don't know if it is still running. There used to be a yearly publication of request for quotes on ideas for initial proof of concept funding. The space elevator was part of that. The main interest was developing carbon nano tube technology that would have been used for the cable.

Another project was was an autonomous vehicle following system for convoys.

Then there was the DARPA cross country autonomous vehicle competition.

 

[barbos]

There is a difference between Packet switching and fundamental physics.

 

[fromderinside]

I worked on a RADAR and did some work on ECM pod for the Navy.

Cool. I was part of an EA-6B SSSA in the early eighties down at PMTC.

Almost wound up working for DARPA on some sort of a statistical scaling effort.

I wonder if DARPA would be interested in determining whether male rats would barpress for sex.

 

[phands]

I read a boo0k on the history of electronic warfare in WWII by the Old Crows Society, the electronic countermeasure society. It was an intense technology competition that is largely untold .MIT engineers were flying bomber missions to analyze German RADAR and make on the fly adjustments to equipment to compensate.

The Brits developed the magnetron which as the key for RADAR.

When chaff was first tested over Boston by MIT to spoof RADAR they discovered an unforeseen consequence, the metal strips screwed up power systems.

When the Brits discovered a direction finder hidden in a standard German radio from a crashed plane they placed electrically noisy machines in the anticipated bomber flight path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_electronic_warfare_equipment

I worked on a RADAR and did some work on ECM pod for the Navy.

In the 1970s, I was a technician apprentice in electronics for the UK Naval Weapons Production Directorate. I got to work on Electronic Warfare as part of the training. We worked on Radar, encryption(Such as it was way back then!) and things called British Intelligence Devices. This was so sensitive back then that we worked 110 feet underground in a worked-out quarry. It's all closed and abandoned now, but it was the best education ever.

http://www.forever-changes.com/copernacre quarry/Copenacre Quarry.htm

We lived on a close by RAF base, Rudloe Manor, which was sometimes known as Britain's Area 51.

 

[Kharakov]

Pretty sure the Eot-Wash experiments, unless they used falsified data, indicated that inertial mass and gravitational mass were both non-quantized. I argued with them about it in the past, and then I saw that I had missed a decimal point (ok, maybe an order of magnitude or 2) in my calculations. Which made me a kook.

Someone has another satellite going to test inertial/gravitational mass equivalence at a Lagrangian point or something like that, if I recall correctly.

 

[steve_bank]

I read a boo0k on the history of electronic warfare in WWII by the Old Crows Society, the electronic countermeasure society. It was an intense technology competition that is largely untold .MIT engineers were flying bomber missions to analyze German RADAR and make on the fly adjustments to equipment to compensate.

The Brits developed the magnetron which as the key for RADAR.



When chaff was first tested over Boston by MIT to spoof RADAR they discovered an unforeseen consequence, the metal strips screwed up power systems.

When the Brits discovered a direction finder hidden in a standard German radio from a crashed plane they placed electrically noisy machines in the anticipated bomber flight path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_electronic_warfare_equipment

I worked on a RADAR and did some work on ECM pod for the Navy.

In the 1970s, I was a technician apprentice in electronics for the UK Naval Weapons Production Directorate. I got to work on Electronic Warfare as part of the training. We worked on Radar, encryption(Such as it was way back then!) and things called British Intelligence Devices. This was so sensitive back then that we worked 110 feet underground in a worked-out quarry. It's all closed and abandoned now, but it was the best education ever.

http://www.forever-changes.com/copernacre quarry/Copenacre Quarry.htm

We lived on a close by RAF base, Rudloe Manor, which was sometimes known as Britain's Area 51.

Interesting stuff. I did some work in a group that reversed engineer Soviet IR missiles and figured out how to spoof them.

 

[steve_bank]

There is a difference between Packet switching and fundamental physics.

You may be confusing QM 'wave packets' with digital communications 'packet switching'. Do you know the Internet stack and how a large documents is transmitted?

 

[barbos]

There is a difference between Packet switching and fundamental physics.

You may be confusing QM 'wave packets' with digital communications 'packet switching'.

That's cute, but no, I don't confuse anything.

Do you know the Internet stack and how a large documents is transmitted?

I rememer writing packet sniffer and listening to telnet sessions (during days of coaxial ethernet). So I guess the answer to your question is yes.

 

[steve_bank]

That's cute, but no, I don't confuse anything.

Do you know the Internet stack and how a large documents is transmitted?

I rememer writing packet sniffer and listening to telnet sessions (during days of coaxial ethernet). So I guess the answer to your question is yes.

Then how is packet switching and physics contradictory?

You wrote a packet sniffer? How does that work? Enquiring minds want to know. Anybody who knows Linux can use telnet and ftp without understanding it.

 

[barbos]

That's cute, but no, I don't confuse anything.

Do you know the Internet stack and how a large documents is transmitted?

I rememer writing packet sniffer and listening to telnet sessions (during days of coaxial ethernet). So I guess the answer to your question is yes.

Then how is packet switching and physics contradictory?

I said packet switching and fundamental physics are different in fact very different things.

You wrote a packet sniffer? How does that work? Enquiring minds want to know. Anybody who knows Linux can use telnet and ftp without understanding it.

Are you pretending to be dumber than you actually are?

 

[steve_bank]

Then how is packet switching and physics contradictory?

I said packet switching and fundamental physics are different in fact very different things.

You wrote a packet sniffer? How does that work? Enquiring minds want to know. Anybody who knows Linux can use telnet and ftp without understanding it.

Are you pretending to be dumber than you actually are?

As I thought no answer. FSB hacking school must not be very good. On a PC how would you assess an individual packet? How would you grab an individual packet off the net? Never did it, but I know how I would approach it.

There are common tools to track IP addresses and communications. Business uses them to track employee emails.

Packet switching is physics. Transmission lines, transmitters, receivers, processors.

 

[barbos]

I said packet switching and fundamental physics are different in fact very different things.

Are you pretending to be dumber than you actually are?

As I thought no answer.

You are full of yourself.

FSB hacking school must not be very good.

FSB did not exist back then.

On a PC how would you assess an individual packet? How would you grab an individual packet off the net? Never did it, but I know how I would approach it.

I actually told you how

There are common tools to track IP addresses and communications. Business uses them to track employee emails.

OK, I think you have no clue about topic.

Packet switching is physics. Transmission lines, transmitters, receivers, processors.

No, it's not really physics, certainly not fundamental physics. DARPA has done great things but none of them were related to fundamental physics, just none.

 

[steve_bank]

You are full of yourself.

FSB hacking school must not be very good.

FSB did not exist back then.

On a PC how would you assess an individual packet? How would you grab an individual packet off the net? Never did it, but I know how I would approach it.

I actually told you how

There are common tools to track IP addresses and communications. Business uses them to track employee emails.

OK, I think you have no clue about topic.

Packet switching is physics. Transmission lines, transmitters, receivers, processors.

No, it's not really physics, certainly not fundamental physics. DARPA has done great things but none of them were related to fundamental physics, just none.

All technology is physics. Electromagnetics is the basis for all electronics.

 

[barbos]

You are full of yourself.

FSB did not exist back then.

I actually told you how

There are common tools to track IP addresses and communications. Business uses them to track employee emails.

OK, I think you have no clue about topic.

Packet switching is physics. Transmission lines, transmitters, receivers, processors.

No, it's not really physics, certainly not fundamental physics. DARPA has done great things but none of them were related to fundamental physics, just none.

All technology is physics. Electromagnetics is the basis for all electronics.

There is no such thing as Electromagnetics.