Empirical Pantheo-Animism

"Money for Nothing and your Chicks for free..." A new Energy Era?

2012-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

Chances are really good that you've never heard of Andrea Rossi or Defkalion. However, IF what they have to sell turns out to be the real goods, you certainly will get to know who they are. In fact, by the time the dust settles, (and it won't be long) there will not be a child over six who will not be familiar with what will become household names.

So for the duration of this article, I ask you to suspend your sense of disbelief, because the content is so outlandishly ludicrous that it borders on the absurd. Nor would I be writing this, were it not for a persistent spike in my techno web tendrils that seems to demand attention. So. Here we go:

An Italian inventor called Andrea Rossi claims to have created a generator that produces six units of energy for every one unit expended. What's more, only 48 hours ago, Defkalion, the company that Andrea Rossi was formerly cooperating with - has announced it is ready to allow independent sources to test their generator, purportedly able to produce twenty units of energy for every one you put in.
These are claims that - if verified - would make nuclear fusion researchers drool uncontrollably, after which they would discover pink slips on their desks. A sad end after having ridden the cash cow for over forty years with little to show for it.

To date poorly controlled demonstrations have been performed before a reasonable amount of scientists. Some walk away convinced, others cry foul, claiming it to be a hoax or the feverish imaginings of the delusional. Obviously both can't be right, so what is the problem? Why can't the inventors/discoverers just hand over the device and let the scientists of reputable universities test these generators independently?

This is why: We are NOT talking science here. From all I have managed to read and piece together, these enterprises can best be described as modern alchemy. I'm not saying the generators do not work, no - what we may be seeing here is an individual that has stumbled upon something that does not fit within the parameters of known science. Sure, Andrea Rossi and his physicist supporter Sergio Focardi have an explanation but it holds no water with the international patent community.

Respectable scientists have been down this road before and have burned their fingers on the Pons and Fleischman Cold Fusion Affair of twenty years ago, which produced mixed to negative results. Simply put, they really don't want to go there again. Even at this juncture, respectable physics forums such as physicsforums.com refuse to even allow the subject to be discussed.

In a very real sense, one could accuse the science community of cowardice, in that they would rather stick with what they know than delve into the messy unknown, which - after all - is what science is really about.

In consequence, little to no research has been funded in this quarter and has therefore been relegated to the realm of garage tinkerers for the past two decades. Is it any wonder then, that if any progress has been made it must invariably hearken from this realm?

The Rossi/Defkalion competitors are in a quandary: If they don't have a patent and scientists nose around in their secretive generator, the cat will out of the box and they won't hold legal rights to their discovery/invention.
From the observations one can make based on videos available from the demonstrations, we are not talking rocket science here. Rossi and Focardi say the device works by infusing heated hydrogen into nickel and transmuting it into copper and producing heat. Hints of sonic oscillation circulate on various websites.
Fusion with no lingering dangerous radiation. If it melts down, you are left with a pool of hot lead. Hardly white overcoat and clip-board kinda stuff.

It is a guess, but my hunch is that a dedicated hobbyist could probably hobble something like this generator together if they knew how. - And if it is that easy, it would not take long before everyone and his monkey's uncle would be churning out energy devices similar to these and patents be damned. For this reason - if the principals for constructing such generators turn out to be sound - I would be very circumspect about investing in any company with a claim. Here today gone tomorrow.

Implications: Should these energy generators turn out to be the real thing, I cannot even begin to stress the mind-boggling impact this will have on the early part of the 21st Century. If the energy output at this early stage of research has increased from 1-6 output to 1-20 energy output in less than a year, well - you can see where I'm going with this. Residences, Industries, vacuum cleaners, computers, autos, aircraft, space ships - all running on clean, decentralized, non-polluting sustainable free energy. In mere years, the world society we knew will be utterly transformed. I don't want to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but once this stuff hits the main media, you can be sure the bad boys of our energy-starved world will not be sitting idle, twiddling their thumbs. Frankly, I'm surprised various elements of society let it get this far. There are fortunes to be lost, powerful who will become powerless.
However, if the principal for making these generators is as easy as it seems, chances are good the cat is already too far out of the bag for these vested interests to do any long-term harm.

Bottom line, the jury's out. The truth of it all can only be a matter of months away. Rossi/Defkalion are in fierce competition. Both have to put out or close shop. There is no Pons and Fleischman dawdling here, either it works or it doesn't. Exciting times.

Social revolutions need Software Solutions

2011-11-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

A fine time to address the issue of social revolutions, lot's of them going on right now. The Middle East is aflame with them; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen - all in the throws of social upheaval.

Even in the Western World deep murmurings are to be heard, the political ground is beginning a tremble that may lead to social change that is right off the Richter Scale. The 99% are beginning to occupy the mind of the 1%, there is a strong difference of opinion in the air. I'll call anyone a fool who claims to know where all this will lead, but we all know it is leading somewhere.

When the Forces of Evil are overthrown, what then? Typically, revolutions are followed by stumbling attempts of a citizenry to come to grips with some sort of equitable social change, usually ending badly after which the power vacuum is filled by yet another strong man or absolutist institution. Some decades must now pass before the cycle repeats itself.

Already, the citizenry of Libya are thrashing about with no sense of how to go about setting up a means for the equitable distribution of resources, and the eventual outcome is more than likely fo be less than wholesome.
Egypt has always been dogged by dictatorship, backed up by an institutionalized army who's generals are for all intents and purposes, the reigning oligarchy. Behind them, the Muslim Brotherhood eagerly await their turn to wield their religious cudgel to bludgeon the population.

Over the past Century and on a grander scale, we observed Russia convulse with the overthrow of a Tsarist regime, only to be convulsed by the cult of personality in the guise of pseudo Communism. When the USSR nightmare dissolved, it almost immediately morphed into an oligarchy, and from there into a autocracy of ex-KGB cronyists.

In all these instances, what we see are a peoples momentarily casting aside their chains of oppression, but with no means of effecting an immediate legitimate procedure of public debate that may set in motion the proper institutions to secure their hard won freedoms.

Indeed, it is this floundering that attracts and brings forth the opportunists who are ready to fling themselves upon their vulnerable prey.

The main obstacle we need to overcome is our mindset. We have always thought of politicians as a necessary profession, and of course that was very true until the revolution in communication. Even in a republic democracy, politicians played a vital role. We elected them to represent us in the corridors of power, and a central location of rule was vital because of the limitations of distance and time.
What do you need a representative for, when you can do it yourself? The disadvantages of an elected representative are many:
The representative can never fully represent the myriad views of any individual citizen. Furthermore, a representative is prone to corruption, financial gain or blackmail, and finally there is always the lure of absolute power.

However, with this new age of rapid communication technology, distance and time have been swept aside. The only inhibitor that prevents every individual from representing their unique wishes as the sole sun of the representative body, is a means of organizational communication which would allow for such a system to function.

Is there a solution to this endless cycle of repression? Ironically, the solution to untying of this Gordian Knot, is the technology that allowed the Middle Eastern revolutions to succeed in the first place, namely the cell phone and the internet. What us urgently needed for the human race is a scalable 'Roberts Rules of Order' software so that large bodies of people can rapidly come together and make decisions that have the authority of a mandate.

This would make it hard for political predators to insert themselves into the process during this vulnerable window where a power vacuum exists.

In more benign situations where the governed have a stable government and the luxury of time, the citizenry can run a system like this as a 'shadow government', in parallel with the existing government. As it becomes apparent that the electronic system better represents the people, the transfer can take place in gradual stages.

Scalable online debate/discussion software

2011-10-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

The World is on the cusp of change.

We have witnessed the revolutions in the Middle East and now, with the Wall Street Protests, there are murmurings for fundamental change in the US. Much of these sweeping changes can be directly attributable to technological advances in communications: The cell phone, the computer and the Web.

What we have now are huge groups of peoples who have effected an overthrow of an old system, but are unable to gather en masse to hammer out important decisions, such as the distribution of resources, human rights, etc. In short a a striving for a government of equals. What has typically happened in the past is that post revolution vacuums allow for strongmen and despots to fill the void. After that, it's the same old song.

The solution is, there needs to be an effective scalable software for very large groups of online people to get together, voice their opinions, discuss, debate - and most important - formulate solutions and agreements. Think of it as an online "Robert's Rules of Order" process. Imagine it working something like Wikipedia, being self-correcting, where the no group with an agenda can wrest control.

If successfully formulated, one possibility is that it could initially be an effective shadow government, paralleling problems governmental institutions face and proposing possible alternative solutions. I imagine folks involved in Occupy Wall Street would love to get their hands on something like that. The media would start paying close attention to the such an online process, because the results would be propagated by a mass of individuals, rather than talking heads and politicians.

Rough outline:

OK, imagine this decision making software is up and running and you want to participate in a particular issue. Let's say it is a new issue and people are just starting to log in to debate. First, the issue needs to be defined, and that is the first page you come to. The issue page is dynamic and subject to change, much like a Wikipedia entry.

Next, you go into discussion. This works very much on the lines of Google Circles: Let's say each circle consists of thirteen individuals, no tie vote, who are randomly thrown together. The volume of circles is scalable, so you may have thousands of individuals discussing the same issue, although each circle contains the same amount of individuals. The Circles have a 'circulating chairman' built in, so no individual, or group of individuals can dominate the direction of the circle discussion/debate.

If an individual simply has to leave feels alienated, they can opt out and return, joining into a new circle. When that happens, a joining member has the option of dropping in, thus retaining the quorum. The text of the discussion can be reviewed by the newcomer, bringing them up to date. Trolls and flamers can be bounced by 3/4 majority vote. That account will be penalized in some form or other, at least removing them from the subject of discussion as a whole.

The end result is a specific proposition or a set of propositions that is hammered out and voted on, the results appearing much like that of an online poll. If you are the first circle to make the proposal(s) and decision(s), the wording and polling results become available for all the proceeding circles to see, plus the procedure of the debate/discussion. They can also see how many circles there are at any given moment. This allows for continuity, in that successive circles can use the same polling wording if they choose, so as the circles report in, their polls are combined together, producing the final result.

Finally, a participant coming into the server can at any time skip to the chase: They can observe the debates, the polls, and vote without going through the debate and discussion.

I realize that this sketch may not look anything like a finalized end-result, I just wanted to whet everyone's imaginations.

Neutrinos preceding radiation and the promise of exact measurement

2011-09-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Of course, the tantalizing evidence that the velocity of light is preceded by the greater speed of neutrinos is all over the news at the moment.

It would seem that we stand on the cusp of being able to precisely measure the distance of powerful bursts of energy, such as a nova.

I recall a few years ago that a burst of radiation from supernova SN1987A was preceded by a burst of neutrinos three hours before the radiation.

It follows that if we can produce a source of radiation emission such as that created by the OPERA international experiment, then we can calibrate the exact amount of time it takes light and neutrinos to get from point A to point B,

By calculating the time delay between light and neutrinos, we would know with considerable exactness the distance if a given emission.

Addendum:

I went to Bautforum.com and one of the brighter members had this to say, "If the 20ppm difference detected by CERN is true, then SN1987a was ~18ly away by this method.

First thing I did when I saw the first thread here was actually run the numbers. At 160000ly, the neutrino burst should have arrived 3 years beforehand..."

There are few easy answers in science, and this ain't one of 'em.

Dark matter Illusion - Hey! Where is MY validation?

2011-08-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

Dark Matter Is an Illusion, New Antigravity Theory Says
National Geographic News

Is there some reason the scientific community doesn't review the web before they publish?

Splashed all over national Geographic News, this guy Dragan Hajdukovic essentially publishes the tenants of my paper, "Can Gravity be Induced? without so much as a nod of recognition, yet such concepts would not even be considered today were it not for my thirty years of work I have dedicated the subject.

Simply put, my concept of the induction of gravity is being railroaded.

I admit it is easy to do. I am not affiliated with the science community, my training is in fine Art. My idea, "Can Gravity be Induced?" (1979) was distributed to friends and colleges in the science community 1979. It was considered so absurd that it was deemed "fringe science" by the science community.

Nonetheless, if you type "Can Gravity be Induced?" and "Stephen Goodfellow" into a Google search engine, you will find about 3,160 results. Is my work really that hard to find? I have been active, interacting with plasma physicists for thirty years. Just because my concept was not deemed worthy of publication in a scientific journal does not mean that it is not valid. Thanks to the web, I was able to place my paper very early on, for all who wished to see.

If you need a specific entry that addresses this specific issue, you will find my comments on the Dark Matter illusion here on my blog May 6th, 2010, "Further thoughts on the Induction of Gravity" which states,

Dark energy: Particles in intergalactic space reach exceedingly high speeds and on those rare occasions when they collide, these produce temperatures of millions of degrees. At the moment of collision, a tiny amount of gravity/non-space is momentarily produced but collapses immediately, lacking any means of sustaining itself. However, by virtue of the volume of colliding particles over vast regions of space, a 'field' of gravity is maintained. Might this not explain the phenomenon that we call 'dark energy'?

Looking through the notes of his paper, I see no references to my work. You might say it is just sour grapes on my behalf, and you'd be correct. I have been espousing the induction of gravity over span of three decades and delineating how it comes about, together with suggested empirical, repeatable laboratory experiment.

I have already had to deal with a previous episode in which a Russian scientist actually accused me of stealing his work. Turns out he published in 1995, sixteen years after my paper and eight years after I had placed it on the CompuServe system, which ultimately was placed on the web. Easy to find, just didn't bother looking.

When it comes to a modern interpretation of the Induction of gravity, at least have the courtesy to give a nod to the grandfather.

Somewhat pissed off,
Stephen Goodfellow

Stephen Goodfellow's off-the-cuff 13 steps to Happiness

2011-07-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

1. Try not to damage your health having a good time.

2. Try not to let other people damage your health.

3. Try to not be afraid of death.

4. Walk, picknic and converse with friends as often as you can.

5. Be honerable.

6. Frequently reflect upon life, the Universe and everything.

7. When confronted with a revelation, try to let go of preconceived ideas.

8. Stay away from organized religion.

9. Uncompromisingly love those you surround yourself with.

10. Go to extreme measures to avoid people you find unpleasent.

11. Try to avoid being ensnared by the dreamscape of others.

12. Do what you want to do.

13. Try to avoid twelve step programs.

Nature and Sentience - Why is SETI not receiving signals?

2011-01-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

My latest recreation. I had made a previous cruder version, this one is a little more fleshed out. the intro:

For years, SETI - The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - has scoured the heavens for signals to no avail. Surprising, because by all accounts they ought to be abundant in our galaxy. The author, looking to the Force of Nature as his guide, suggests a chilling alternative.

A Culpable Universe?

2011-01-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

A thought occurred to me.
Imagine if the concept of future and past is an illusion, that life is a parallel event.
By this means, in our cycle of life and death we are reincarnated at the beginning of our time-cycle; you become everyone you have ever touched deeply and must feel the interaction upon those lives upon which you left an impression, for better or worse.
Thus, you are born to become your best friend, or lover. The torturer becomes there tortured. Whatever the actions, we must live the lives of those we have interacted with.

Space colonization - what we can and can't do

2010-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Is space colonization possible?

Let us set aside opinions as to the usefulness of such a venture for a for a brief spell, and ponder as to whether it is even an endeavor our stage of civilization is capable of.
Sometimes it is instructive to delve into our historical past and see if one can draw parallels with deeds performed by our ancestors, comparing them to our own experiences with the caveat that there may be similarities, but also strong differences.

There they stand, constructed some 4800 years ago. The Great Pyramid complex on the Giza plateau is truly a breath-taking monolithic, remarkable structure. It is hard to comprehend that the individuals who created this did so at the very dawn of their civilization, during the First Dynasty. To be sure, there were pyramids constructed in the Middle Kingdom and during the Late Period, but we only know where these stood. They are gone because, compared to the earlier structures, these did not stand up to the test of time.

For emphasis, it is worth mentioning again that these structures are truly breath-taking and if you have not had the privilege of seeing them, the repetition of emphasis is not a waste. One can stand in gob-smacked awe staring at these over-sized monoliths, trying to wrap one's mind around the notion that the early Egyptians overcome the organizational, technological and architectural hurdles necessary for these structures to come into being.
Carving limestone with bronze age technology, dressing red granite on an elaborate scale. Persuading and organizing the construction could only have been have been a political and logistical masterpiece.
Most archeologists agree that the early pyramids were not the result of slave labor, the quality of the construction alone suggests otherwise. The exactitude of measurements of these grand-scale Giza structures is such that the error could be covered up with a thumb, well beyond any specifications expected of 21st Century construction.
The Great Pyramid incorporates Pi and a unit of measurement based of the circumference of the Earth, discoveries what were until relatively recently, attributed to the classical Greeks some 2,300 years later.
Although there is disagreement amongst archaeologists, this structure seems to have served no overt practical purpose. The funerary monument concept is in dispute because no trace of bodies were ever found inside them, apart from an intrusion burial from a later age in the smallest one. *

Now, consider the overall resources available to these ancient Egyptians at the dawn of their civilization, to the immense technological, scientific and logistical capabilities we can marshal today.

...Can you really tell me, in all sincerity, that we can't colonize space?

* "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" by Peter Tompkins.

WikiWar: Why Governments and Corporations will lose

2010-12-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

Since WikiLeaks proprietor Julian Assange was arrested in Britain on the thinnest pretext, the Wikileaks battle, has started to rage. By Wednesday evening Mastercard.com was brought down, then Visa.com. "Operation Payback" - a loose affiliation of cyber revolutionaries - had already crashed the Swedish prosecutors website and the Swiss bank that had kicked Wikileaks off its account. PayPal, Amazon and a host of other clueless corporations and politicians have found their websites either under siege or brought down.

US State Department, Swedish judicial system, British judicial system. All swayed by a cadre of heavy-handed back-door diplomats. It is amazing to see the arrogance - and ignorance - of these powers-that-be. With no attempt at due process of law, these institutions sucked up to their puppeteers and did their dark bidding - and the indicted corporations that assisted in this travesty are now paying the bitter price by losing what they crave the most: money, profits.

Incredible as it may seem, the nature of the internet befuddles them, they have demonstrated to all that they have no clue of the consequences that will inevitably follow in the path of their ill thought out and shameful actions.

And this is amazing, because for most of us, there could never be a more clear-cut, black & white separation of sides: The hidden lies, the money, the power aligned against revelations of truth. It is simply a war between subterfuge and transparency.

Never before has the beast been so blatantly forced to show its ugly head, and this time - this time, the good guys are going to win.

Compounding their mistakes, The US State Department will probably attempt to have Wikileaks branded as a terrorist organization, which will only pour oil on an already furious fire that will ultimately consume the individuals involved in this shameful cover-up.

Why will the forces of of evil fail?

Because many of the techies and code monkeys who are (under)paid by these corporations and institutions have no loyalty, a behavior weaned out of them by lower wages, fewer benefits. Or they are simply contract laborers not beholden to their masters. Can you can guess what a LOT of these good folks do when they get home and switch on their PC's? That's right - they bite the hand that feeds (bleeds) them. They fly to aid Operation Payback, they help Wilileaks. And they do this because they know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. If you have seen "Fight Club", you know what I mean. There is simply NO WAY the corporations can insulatee themselves from a determined attack by the athackers, none.

The scales of battle are already tipping in the favor of the rebels, even the old-fashioned media machine is starting to realize this too. And beginning to smell blood.

Consequently, the ONLY way the secretive governments and their lackey cooperations could win at this point, is to close down the internet, NOW - and they can't do that because it is the corporatist life blood - the corporations are addicted to the torrents of MONEY the internet procures for them.

Eventually, they will get fed up with and lose tolerance for these government officials who are ruining their profit margins and there will be a little quiet power struggle. The corporations will order the statesmen to back off.

Almost overnight, the new World Order has become the Old World order, and it is happening almost as fast as I can write this.
The end result is inevitable. Meet the new boss - as if we didn't know it all along. A subtle change of scene - you won't find it announced in the news (well, perhaps Wikileaks.) The the corporations will be the masters, and the nation-states do their bidding. Some would say this has already happed, but after this debacle there can be no doubt. And I suppose we should feel good about that, because after all, according to the US Supreme Court, corporations are people too.
In the aftermath of this stream of lies and subterfuge there will be endless boards of inquiry in a plethora of varied nations. They will all want to know what diplomats pulled which switches, and when they did it. There will be scapegoats, there will be a reckoning of sorts.

- And then the corporations are going to have to figure out how to cut the balls off the hatackers who can be at their throats at ANY time.

So - what comes next is anybody's guess.

2010-12-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Retardation of Space Travel

...and its Consequences

In the light of mankind’s seemingly natural escalation of exploration and technological progress, the last forty years marks the non-appearance of giant white elephant which few seem to acknowledge or comment on much: How has it come about that Mankind’s thirst for new frontiers has come to a screeching halt?

Consider the time-line comparison below:

1909 - 1949

Forty years of accelerated expansion

In 1909, Luis Bleriot crosses the English Channel in his monoplane.
1919, manned non-stop flight from New York to California
1929, first round the World flight is achieved.
1939, first successful manned flight of a jet plane.
1949, first manned non-stop flight around the World.

Summary: From the ground hopping to non-stop circumnavigation of our planet in 40 years.

1969 - 2009

Forty years with no significant expansion

In 1969, manned space craft lands on the moon.
1979 the manned Space Shuttle nears completion.
1989, unmanned launch of the Galileo spacecraft.
1999, Manned Space Station, 200 miles above the Earth.
2009 sees the beginning phase-out of the Space Shuttle. There is no replacement.

Summary: Regressing from the Moon to orbiting a scant 200 miles above the Earth.

In the first seven decades of the last century, our ability to rapidly cover large distances went from barely getting off the ground to flying non-stop around the World. This breath-taking pace of technological advancement culminated in placing a man on the Moon, 76 years after the first tenuous leaps into the air at Kitty Hawk.
The next forty years, from 1969 to 2009 one could best describe manned expansion into space as exceedingly retarded. Forty years after Mankind landed on the moon, all we have achieved is a tenuous foothold in space, the barely funded Space Station, orbiting a scant 200 miles above the Earth. Even more disturbing, the Space Shuttle, which was America’s only versatile space-going vehicle, is about to be scrapped, with no foreseeable replacement.
In 1967, the imagery in Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001 Space Odyssey” movie did not seem far-fetched. Man was due to land on the moon in a couple of years, and extrapolating from the past meteoric rise of aeronautics, moon bases 30 years hence seemed so predictable that the concept was almost humdrum.

The real surprise was that this amazing technological expansion and advancement has come to a screeching halt.
It is an ominous sign, for it suggests that a major shift in our species modern social behaviour has occurred.
Apologists will state several reasons for this shift away from manned spaced exploration, chiefly amongst the arguments is that long-term resource output does not justify short-term gains, visualized as a profit incentive. The essence of other objections can be boiled down to the gradual stripping away of financial resources, these being increasingly reallocated towards the escalating proxy wars in Third World countries as competing nation-states bicker over diminishing global resources.
The less than enthusiastic move to send men to Mars is a concept visualized to happen so far into the future that it allows politicians to complete their tenure with no real commitment, passing the project along to the next generation who would be likely to inherit the unsubstantial drive of their predecessors. The whole affair is reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch in which a chartered accountant wishing to become a lion-tamer, advised by his job guidance councilor to approach his job-change by gradual degrees “via, banking.”

The retarding trend is disturbing, because manned expansion and settlement of the solar system would alleviate dangerous nation-state competition brought about by expanding populations and an increasing need for diminishing energy and raw materials.
Expansion into space is also the ultimate species insurance, in that we are less likely to be wiped out by any number of conceivable planetary catastrophes.

It may be quite possible that the only real hope for a future in which Mankind emigrates into space will once again to boil down to the military might of nation-states jostling for tactical high ground. After all, a strong argument could be made that the only reason Man made it to the Moon was due to the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is perhaps no coincidence that the decline of outward expansion is directly related to the lack of competition. One can draw a direct parallel between the collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s flagging interest in manned space projects, in which case the emergence of new, powerful nation-states will topple the placid World Order of the last twenty years, in which the US was indisputably dominant.
Sad indeed, having to entertain the notion that, in order to accelerate space exploration we must tolerate the military competition of nation-states as they vie for high ground. This is a dangerous path, fraught with the possible seeds of our own self-destruction.
Sadder still would be the continuing strangulation of space expansion which will ultimately herald an inevitable self-destruction as diminishing nation-states, trapped like competing molds in a petri dish, slowly strangle each other for lack of resources.

If this ‘cold war aggression’ is what it takes to re-awaken the expansion outwards, then it is with some trepidation that I welcome the coming competition between the USA and the emerging super-states, whilst praying that we succeed in gaining a foothold in space before we run out of resources and self-destruct.
Our insatiably increasing need for ever more resources is rapidly driving us down a one-way corridor towards an inescapable dead end. From this corridor there is but one avenue of escape: We must continue to expand outward into the Solar System if for no other reason that to feed the material appetite of our voracious species.
To this end, we desperately need to develop our technologies in order to build space elevators so that inexpensive payloads can be brought out of Earth’s gravity well, and do the research necessary to understand how sealed biospheres can function.

Mankind is rapidly out-growing Mother Earth and the bio-mass of our species is becoming too large for her insular womb. The time is rapidly approaching when we have to emerge from the planet Earth and cut the umbilical cord - or perish.

Dark Matter & Absolute Vacuums

2010-11-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

Dark Matter and Absolute Vacuums have similarities - and differences.

Dark Matter was hypothesized to account for discrepancies between measurements of the mass of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the entire universe made through dynamical and general relativistic means, and measurements based on the mass of the visible "luminous" matter these objects contain: stars and the gas and dust of the interstellar and intergalactic media. In October 2010, llídio Lopes and Joseph Silk published an article in the journal Science, proposing that Neutrino Spectroscopy Can Probe the Matter Content in the Sun.

Absolute Vacuum theory (“Can Gravity be Induced?”, Stephen Goodfellow, 1979), suggests that under specific physical conditions, absolute vacuums are maintainable and that these ‘reverse singularities’ induce gravity, a production of gravity without a corresponding mass. Goodfellow’s theory proposes that the Sun’s interior is a gravity inducing absolute vacuum, sheathed in a magnetically sustaining super-hot plasma shell, the absolute vacuum interior impervious to mass/energy/space - including neutrinos.

Both models claim to block neutrinos.

The main differences between the Dark Matter and Absolute Vacuum models, is that the dark matter proponents visualize these mysterious particles being pulled into the Sun’s gravitational core over time, blocking neutrino activity in the core.

The Absolute Vacuum hypothesis maintains that the Sun's ‘non-space’ interior blocks neutrinos from the opposite side of the solar shell so that they are unobservable.

Which hypothesis best fits the observational data?

The answer is to be found in the neutrino record, as this data accumulates.

According to dark matter proponents, solar neutrinos must come from deep inside the Sun, in a hypothesized massive core.
Neutrinos in the absolute vacuum solar model propagate near the visible surface of the Sun, the Sun's actual mass being distributed in an exterior shell, the internal absolute vacuum generating induced gravity, responsible for the majority of the Sun's gravity.

To summarize, the dark matter hypothesis should exhibit a central cluster of neutrinos whereas the absolute vacuum model would exhibit a halo of neutrinos. It will be interesting to see which proposal corresponds with future observational data.

Eyes on a Century by Doris Meadows

2010-10-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

My Grandmother, Doris Meadows (1901-1995), was born while Queen Victoria was still alive. She saw the great Zeppelins of W.W.I plummet to destruction. She watched helplessly as close family members fell prey to TB and the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1919. Her eyes beheld the dueling fighter planes over the City of London in the summer of 1940 during the Battle of Britain.

Accounts of her past life enthralled me; I never tired of hearing her stories. Always something new, an aspect of her life's experiences I had never heard of before or, an entirely original account of the past carelessly drawn out of her ever sharp memory and told with a crystal clarity that brought the story to life for me. Her account is a look back through my family's history, and has made me cognizant of the privileged and peaceful life that I have been allowed to live.

However, this story is best told by Doris herself. During 1981 she turned her insomnia to use by quietly penning in the memories of her past, which I then typed out from her written hand and promptly forgot about. It was not until 2001 when my late father came across the transcript. And gave me a copy. I have now placed it here for your edification.

Doris Meadows, Memoir - 1981

Having emerged from my usual two or three hours of nightly fitful sleep, and knowing that the prospect of further sleep is remote, I have decided to devote the remaining nocturnal hours to some practical purpose.
My family, especially my grandchildren, have often asked me about the outstanding events of my long life. l am now in my eightieth year and during my lifetime have experienced the trauma and horrors of two major wars.
I was born during the turn of the century in a rather dreary suburb of east London, September 1901. The Boer War was still in progress, and I remember my mother telling me I was born during the night of the Relief of Mafeking. My parents had a small newsagents shop. The business could not have been very flourishing and my mother went back to teaching school, and I spent the best part of my very early years in the care of my maternal grandmother who lived in the same district and I loved her very dearly. Incidentally, my father was Irish, and I believe my mother had some Scottish blood. At the age of three I followed some neighboring children to the local elementary school and was allowed to sit in during lessons. Consequently, I could read when I was very young, and indeed have been an omnivorous reader all my life. Sometime during this period, I remember my father taking me for a ride on one of the newly installed trolley cars. The motion of the tram did not' agree with me, and I disgraced myself by vomiting over the satin ribbons of my bonnet and white fur coat. I was taken home in a very sorry and soggy state, my father vowing never to take me on a moving vehicle again.
The business must have failed, and my next recollection is of living in a larger house in the same district, East Ham, also occupied by my various Irish aunts and uncles. I went to a local elementary school together with my sister, Mabel, who was born about thirteen months after me. My Irish relations were quite colourful and sometimes disconcerted my mother, who was of a more sober and practical turn of mind. My only brother was born in this house during the next few years.
Subsequently, my father decided to try his luck with a small pig-breeding and vegetable farm on a plot of land in an adjoining district (Barking). It was a chore for him to travel to Barking several times a day to feed the pigs, etc. We were then transported to a small house which he found and rented nearby. My mother was dismayed when she saw the house. It consisted of four small rooms with an outdoor toilet and no bathroom, and the neighborhood d was a bit o f a comedown after East Ham. However, she made the best of it and my other two sisters, Vera and Constance, were born there. The school we attended was a very good one with some very dedicated teachers, one of whom left a life-time impression on me. My father during this period started a stevedoring business in the East London docks and employed my Irish grandfather to help him out.

Then came along the 1914-18 war, with all its attendant horrors. The fate of the soldiers in the trenches in France was absolutely appalling; they were bogged down in mud for days on end and suffered terrible casualties. Practically every day a neighbor would come into my mother bearing the dreaded official telegram "Husband or son missing or killed in action". On the home front food was becoming very scarce, so many ships being sunk by enemy submarines every week. There was no real form of rationing and people stood in queues for hours to obtain the necessities of life. Municipal soup kitchens were set up where food of a somewhat dubious nature could sometimes be obtained. Refugees same flooding in from Belgium and France. The children were put into our schools and housing of some sort was found for their families.
My father would have been conscripted for the army, but he contracted a very virulent form of Tuberculosis (Galloping Consumption) and was a sick man. In spite of my mother's care and devotion, he died at the early age of 41, and she became a widow, herself on 36, with five children to care for, and very little in the way of financial resources. By arrangement with the Shipping Company for whom my father had worked, my mother was able to carry on the clerical side of the business, and my grandfather took over the hiring of labour, etc. For a time this did bring in some income, but my grandfather being an alcoholic, was unreliable and difficulties arose. However it did help over the first few years of my father's death, and my mother carried her side of the transaction very efficiently.
The German Zeppelin raids on London were now becoming very frequent, and every night we had to seek shelter in cellars, etc., our own gun fire was very heavy. I can vividly remember a Zeppelin directly overhead being hit and brought down in flames. It was an awesome sight, although very exciting. We were to witness several more being destroyed, although none so near home. There were also sporadic air raids during daylight but compared to the raids during the second world war, the damage was comparatively slight.
At the age of thirteen, having been in the top class for the prescribed period, I was allowed to leave the elementary school. Owing to financial difficulties at home, I was unable to take advantage of a scholarship to a more advanced technical school. My mother, however, was adamant that I should have some further training and managed to send me to a small Commercial College, where I learnt shorthand and typing for about nine months. At the tender age of fourteen, I was out in the world as a shorthand typist. The wage I earned wasn't very high, but still a welcome addition to the family financial resources.

Doris & Mabel 1920'

My sister, Mabel, followed in my footsteps and also became a shorthand typist. Unfortunately, she developed a very bad cough which didn't respond to treatment. In desperation my mother took her to a Harley Street Doctor in the prestigious west end of London. To her horror, he diagnosed advanced T.B. one lung already destroyed and the other affected. She was sent to various sanatoriums in an effort to halt the disease, sometimes making progress and then regressions. She eventually came home and lived in an open-air hut in the garden. She lived with this disease from the age of 14 to 21. During her good periods and being a person with great spirit, she started a small dressmaking business at home, making blouses, etc., for friends and neighbors. The business was very successful and enabled her to be practically independent. She was a very brave and beautiful girl, had a great zest for life and was adored by all who knew her, including her doctors. She died just after reaching the age of 21. The doctors attributed the fact that. she lived for seven years, to the care and devotion she received from my mother, and to a lesser degree the whole family and friends; also to her marvelous courage. I was particularly close to her, and her death to me was devastating.
My sisters, Constance and Vera, also began to exhibit Signs of the disease, but fortunately it was halted in time, and they have led healthy and productive lives. My only brother, Fred, went to California after the second world war, to work in the Drawing Office at Chryslers, and as he is living in the same continent, we are able to keep in touch.
Ironically, TB. has now been practically wiped out. Had the present day drugs been available, the tragic deaths of my father and sister may have been averted; also the untimely deaths of my Irish uncles. I never knew my Irish grandmother. She died an early death, leaving thirteen children, the last one a baby in arms.
At the age of sixteen, I went to a party given by a neighbor in honor of her nephew, who was on sick leave from the Merchant Navy. His ship had been torpedoed in the English Channel and he was convalescing from an illness caused by shock and exposure, having spent many hours clinging to a raft before being rescued. He had an unhappy home life, and had run away to sea after his father had been killed in the Battle of Jutland. He served as a cabin boy on an oil tanker. I suppose I was at an impressionable age and was thrilled when he appeared at our home the day after the party, and asked my mother's permission to take me to a cinema. I was very willing, he cut quite a figure in Merchant Navy uniform and was very personable. This wasn't altogether to my mother's liking in view of my age and his uncertain prospects. We did go out that night but had to take my younger sister along as a chaperon. We continued to see each other until he was called back to duty, corresponded and met whenever he had leave. All this was very exciting. -
After the 1918 Armistice, and as a reaction to the drabness of the war years, dancing and the theatres became very popular, and people in general were out for a good time. However, unemployment was very acute and it was heartrending to see our former heroes abandoned. Many ex-servicemen took to the streets as itinerant musicians, etc; in order to get a few shillings together for a nights lodging. To add to our troubles, the Spanish flu reached England and decimated the population. My own maternal grandfather was a victim of this plague and dropped dead on the street on his way home from work. This was particularly sad as he was reaching retirement age and had planned to realize his life dream and buy a farm in the country, using his hard earned savings. My grandmother lived for a few more years, but never really recovered from the shock.

My Merchant Navy boy friend left the sea, hoping to obtain work on shore, but he had no real profession and times were very hard. After many vicissitudes he was forced to go back to sea and sailed on oil tankers to Mexico and back for some few years. We were finally married in 1925 after he got work in a London hotel. He was, however, unable to settle down, took to drinking heavily, thereby losing jobs and many opportunities and generally behaving in an irresponsible manner. We had two lovely healthy children and parenthood did stabilize him for a time. He worked during this period in Scotland, the Midlands and Wales, and we made some sort of a home in these places. However, the jobs all ended in disaster, and I was sick of being in a constant state of apprehension, especially as the children were at the school age and needed a permanent home. We returned to London, our circumstances didn't improve, but we managed to rub along in a very unsatisfactory manner. In those days it was a case of having made your bed you had lie on it. Divorce was practically impossible without the necessary means. There was no way I could go back to work, the job market during these years wasn't open to women, especially married women. Even if I could get work, there were no child nurseries and day care centers, and I couldn't leave the children.
Than came to Second World War, and my husband went back into the Merchant Navy. At the outbreak of war, most of the London children, including my own two, were evacuated to supposedly safe areas. It was a poignant sight to see them being marched off to an unknown destination, complete with gas masks, and it was not until two or three days after that parents were informed of their whereabouts. Manon and Jim were in Bath, and I went there and worked as a waitress in the famous Pump Room hotel which had been taken over by the Admiralty after their evacuation from Whitehall. It was poorly paid and I wasn't a very good waitress, but it was something to do, and it enabled me to be near the children. They were homesick and as nothing much was happening with the war we went back to London. The lull didn't last long and the air blitz of London began. We were under constant air attack both by day and night. The children had very sporadic schooling, most of their school hours being spent in air raid shelters. During the Battle of Britain we saw many dog fights in the air, our little Spitfires bravely engaging the heavy German bombers, bringing many down in flames, not without heavy losses to themselves. It was again necessary to send the children out of London, and they went to a camp in Surrey, where at least they had some uninterrupted schooling, and I was able to see them at weekends. During the latter part of the war when the air raids on London had calmed down they came home again. I had obtained work as a secretary and worked in London during the rest of the Then to add to our troubles, the Vl rockets and then the V2 made their appearance. The Vl rockets did give some small hope of survival as when their engines stopped you knew they were overhead and ducked for shelter if possible. The V2's were a different kettle of fish. They were quite silent until descending with a horrible crump on their hapless victims, causing great devastation to property and loss of life. It was impossible to tell where and when the next incident would be. Our anti-aircraft guns on the coast did stop many of them from reaching London, but enough of them got through the barrage and achieved their objectives, causing feelings of frustration and helplessness.
The second front, long awaited, opened up in Europe and the end of the war began to be in sight. My husband came home from sea and I realized the marriage wasn't going to work. I asked for a legal separation to which he was strongly opposed. However, I was adamant as I thought the break would eventually be in our best interests, including the children. After a period of trials and tribulations I got a Court hearing and obtained legal custody of Manon and Jim, and was able to maintain a modest home. After a year or two my husband asked me to agree to a divorce on the grounds of my technical desertion, as he wanted to be free. I thought this was the best way out, was duly served with a divorce petition and the marriage was over. I had a good job and stayed in this until retirement age. I was very lucky in my children and I like to think we had a happy home during their adolescent years. Divorce between parents is inevitably a traumatic time for children but they did maintain contact with their father and were friends until his death a few years ago. As time went on they chose their own careers and life styles and are both responsible citizens with happy homes and children, and they have been a source of pride and great comfort to me. Manon continued her education and graduated from Oakland University in 1980, with honors, Magna Cum Laude.
After retiring, I went to live with Manon and her Danish husband in Copenhagen, and when they went to live in Mexico and then the U.S.A., I was lucky enough to be able to go with them. They have given me a very happy home. Morten has always been a good friend as well as a marvelous son-in-law. After being chained to an office desk for so many years, it was wonderful to travel and see and live in different countries, at the same time maintaining contact with Jim and Ann and their family. I am always excited to see Jim and his wife and children, also my two sisters who have been most supportive. I hope I can continue to travel to England once a year a stay with them all. My various grandchildren mean a lot to me and I am very happy to be a grandmother.
In the latter years of my life I have found a safe haven, and I hope have come to terms with old age. The good times much outweigh the inevitable consequences of the aging process, and I take life as it comes from day to day.
When the time comes, I have few worldly possessions to leave to my family, so I hope this rather rambling saga will in some small way compensate and let them know how proud I am of them all, and how bereft I would have been without their help and support throughout the years.

Doris Meadows 1901-1995

Gravitational Induction update Sept 20th, 2010

2010-09-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Gravitational Induction update Sept 20th, 2010

Over the past month I have managed to obtain access to online scientific journals. How ironic that scientific research - the cult of objectivity and progress - is still steeped in medieval guild-culture. In an age where the diffusion of knowledge is becoming wide-spread, these important papers of research are not made available to the unwashed public; only universities and research establishments have the luxury to be able to afford full access. It ain’t right.

With a few hours of poking around, I found the closest match to a researcher capable of determining if a high-energy plasma can induce gravity.
Of course, Dr. Niansheng Qi* who works for the L-3 Company is concentrating on plasma densities and not actually looking for a gravitational induction effect, but I wondered if his tools might be capable of discerning it.

Emailing him, I asked if the data revealed any laser disturbance outside the plasma sheath, to which he replied in the negative, which of course was a great disappointment for me.

I can only console myself with the hope that a gravitationally induced ‘tug’ or shift towards the plasma implosion would be very weak and would not register on anything but the most sensitive laser-optical interferometer. I am to understand that the most precise lasers can measure a disturbance at 1 x 10 to the -15m.
A lesser magnification reveals a flat-line, but higher magnification?

I will keep looking and asking around - perhaps there are other researchers out there with more precise instruments who are willing to look a little closer at their data.

*Magnetic Field Diffusion and Enhanced Resistivity in 12-cm-Diameter 200-ns 3.5-MA Z-Pinch Implosions

Can Gravity be Induced by an Electrical Discharge?

2010-07-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

As I reflect over the past thirty-odd years data-gathering and contemplating the possibilities of inducing gravity, I find that the process realizing gravitational induction has been as much alchemic as empirical.
And there lies the rub.
Being on the cusp of attempting to convince and organize the necessary individuals and institutions in an attempt to realize the electrical discharge/laser experiment, I find that the observational evidence I have at hand is so absurdly fantastic as to be scarcely creditable to the uninitiated mind. Three hundred years believing gravity is in direct proportion to mass is a very tough mindset to overcome.
Empiricism, all-be it crude, is presently the only tool of objectivity that reasonable individuals can mutually agree to, and only a direct, repeatable laboratory experiment will suffice.
The evidence at hand, demonstrating that an electrical discharge contains the elements that allow for the induction of gravity (producing gravity without a corresponding quantity of mass,) simply lacks credibility. It is in effect a closed loop: the circumstantial evidence is unbelievable, thus, the experiment cannot be performed by responsible scientists without their committing professional suicide.

Consequently, instead of relying on thirty years of information gathering, I intend to embark on a simple line of reasoning, essentially cloaking a wolf in sheeps' clothing. It is in this manner that the finished paper appear for publication.

The proposal for the experiment proceeds upon two lines of argument:
A. Discussing the brute nature of an absolute vacuum, where one might seek out the phenomenon, then illustrating this in a practical means by pointing out the unusual behavior of dissociated electrons and protons imbued with a dynamo effect, how during the moment of electrical discharge, electrons and protons separate into like camps of same polarity, electrons with electrons, protons to protons. That these two repelling camps then interact with one another, the force being sufficient to create disturbances in the space fabric, creating momentary absolute vacuums. The force of the inward collapse of these absolute vacuums being indistinguishable from the force of gravity, de-coupled from a corresponding quantity of mass.
Admittedly the argument stretches credibility. It is not unlike the Montgolfier brothers attempting to increase buoyancy of their balloons, mistakenly believing lift was due to the quality of smoke, when in actuality is was merely the heat achieved by combustion. Keep in mind however that despite this mistake, their balloons nonetheless rose from the ground.

B. If, as the reasoning for (A.) points out, the implosion of absolute vacuums is indistinguishable from gravity and that implosion is a result of a phenomenal amount of energy release, then it seems reasonable to ask, can this phenomenon be observed in nature? In other words, does an electrical discharge contain gravitational properties?

Fortunately, it is a question that can be resolved by a constructing a fairly unsophisticated laboratory experiment.

Simply put, the experiment consists of a laser passing close to a large electrical discharge, terminating at a target sensor. At the moment of discharge, the beam will gravitationally bend towards the electrical discharge. Three results are predicted to be present at the laser target:

1. Conventional reasoning would state that a beam of photons are not effected by electromagnetism and must proceed unhindered towards the target, which should register no movement or qualitative change during the electrical discharge. However, I predict the laser will exhibit a gravitational shift towards the discharge, and will register this movement at the target sensor.

2. The 'bend' in the laser beam at the moment of discharge ought to exhibit a small redshift, as its path between the laser and the target has been extended.

3. As the vacuum collapses it may produce additional repeatedly diminishing electrical discharges, the energy dispersing much like that of a bouncing ball. This 'echo', illustrated by a series of diminishing redshifts ought to be present at the target, if the sensor is sufficiently sensitive enough.

I believe this approach gives a line of reasoning that responsible individuals may commit to. The conceptual simplicity of the experiment combined with a realistic chance for a successful result, may tempt the more adventurous individual.

To demonstrate that light can be gravitationally distorted without the corresponding quantity of mass would be nothing less than sensational news to the science community, and should it turn out to be a null result, it would confirm the present paradigm. To the professional researcher contemplating this experiment, a null result would pass with little comment by the science community.

Gravitational Induction Experiment

2010-06-15T16:11:00.001-07:00

The diagram above describes (figure 1) the standard electromagnetic model, as conceived of since 1820 when Hans Christian Ørsted discovered the relationship between the electric and magnetic. Since photons have no charge there is no electromagnetic imposition by the discharge; the beam of photons proceed undisturbed towards the target.

(Figure 2) is a challenge to the figure 1 proposition; it supposes a gravitational relationship between the light beam and the electromagnetic discharge, in that the author argues that the nature of the discharge also includes an induced gravitational element. This scenario suggests that the beam will bend towards the electrical discharge and the attraction will be indistinguishable from gravity, demonstrating that gravity can be induced without a corresponding quantity of mass.

If figure 2 proves correct, it suggests that gravity can be manipulated on an atomic, rather than a subatomic level, which is much easier to achieve. Should figure two give a positive result, it implies that gravitational applications may be rapidly achievable. The author argues that the experiment demonstrates that non-space, or absolute vacuums play a dominant role in everyday physics.

To the best of my knowledge, the experiment has as yet not been performed but ought to be relatively easy to construct, combining a plasma discharge (perhaps a z-pinch?) with laser optics which have recently seen great improvement in measurement accuracy.

Sincerely,

Stephen Goodfellow

Further thoughts on the Induction of Gravity

2010-05-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Hans Christian Ørsted with assistant. Notice compass on the table

It is often said that if one is determined to find truth, then go back to the source. In this case, the source is an accidental experiment performed by a Danish scientist called Hans Christian Ørsted.
On 21 April 1820, during a lecture, Ørsted noticed a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when electric current from a battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.
This experiment became the bulwark, the foundation of our theories and concepts of electromagnetism, the underpinnings of our theoretical and applied sciences.

What was NOT discovered at that time nor since, is whether there was a simultaneous induction of gravity. This is not as amazing an idea as it sounds. Scientists have believed since the age of empiricism that all the forces of the Universe are in some way inextricably linked, yet to this day no one has demonstrated a direct relationship between gravity and the electromagnetic.
It is not is surprising that gravitational induction may have passed unnoticed for so long. The force of gravity is 1 x 10 to the 39 times weaker than magnetism, so that if the forces are proportionate, the induction of gravity of Ørsted's experiment would be very hard to measure indeed.

With the advances in our ability to produce large electrical discharges, such as a z-pinch, combined with a laser optical precision capable of monitoring the slightest gravitational disturbance of a beam, would it not be possible to repeat the experiment and confirm one way or the other if there is a gravitational induction? To my knowledge this has not yet been attempted, which is surprising considering what is at stake.

Since I have offered a means to make my proposal falsifiable, I will briefly explain the rudiments of gravitational induction:
Gravitational induction may be brought about by the temporary 'tearing' of the space-fabric. These momentary 'rips' may be considered absolute vacuums, or non-space. Put simply, non-space can be considered the opposite end of the black hole singularity concept, in that the absolute vacuum is an absence of mass/energy rather than a concentration thereof. The only way we can determine the existence of an absolute vacuum is by the behavior of the space-fabric surrounding it. If you have difficulty understanding the concept, think of it like this; 'hollow' is a space with nothing in it. 'Empty' is a volume with no space in it. The space-fabric attempts to annihilate the absolute vacuum, and the nature of this implosion is gravitational. Hence, we have an instances in nature where mass/energy/space may be gravitationally attracted without a corresponding quantity of mass.

If gravity is being induced, then several pieces of natures puzzle fall together without calling upon extraordinary additional particles or other intangible subatomic forces:

Dark energy: Particles in intergalactic space reach exceedingly high speeds and on those rare occasions when they collide, these produce temperatures of millions of degrees. At the moment of collision, a tiny amount of gravity/non-space is momentarily produced but collapses immediately, lacking any means of sustaining itself. However, by virtue of the volume of colliding particles over vast regions of space, a 'field' of gravity is maintained. Might this not explain the phenomenon that we call 'dark energy'?

Red Shift: Entertaining the above-mentioned, that it is the collision of particles that are inducing gravity, could it be that as one looks towards the event horizon, the 'weight' of so-called empty space begins to accumulate, causing the spectral redshift?

I have also spent considerable time wondering why our Sun behaves as it does, but that is the topic of another article on another forum

Curiously, looking back on my thirty years of speculation I appear to have begun my journey, throwing myself into the complex realm of solar observations, only to find the possible falsifiable answer in Ørsted's accidental experiment, performed 190 years ago. Is life not wonderful?

Your thoughts and comments will be appreciated,

Stephen Goodfellow

Hunting for the induction of Gravity

2010-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hans Christian Ørsted

It is often said that if you are looking for truth, you must go back to the source. In this case, the source is an experiment performed by a Dane called Hans Christian Ørsted.
On 21 April 1820, during a lecture, Ørsted noticed a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when electric current from a battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.

This experiment became the bulwark, the foundation of our theories and concepts of electromagnetism, the interplay between magnetism and electricity.

What was NOT discovered at that time nor since, is whether there was a simultaneous induction of gravity whenever the current was switched on and off. This is not as amazing an idea as it sounds. Scientists have believed since the age of empiricism that all the forces of the Universe are in some way inextricably linked, yet to this day no one has demonstrated the link between gravity and the electromagnetic.
It is not is surprising that gravitational induction may have passed unnoticed. The force of gravity is 1 x 10 to the 39th times weaker than magnetism, so that if the forces are proportionate, the induction of gravity of his experiment would be very hard to measure indeed.

The question is, with the advances in power and precision that we have in our possession today, could we repeat the experiment to confirm one way or the other if there is a gravitational induction?

Space Elevator - The Strategic Argument

2010-03-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

"General Sickles, this is in some respects higher ground than that to the rear, but there is still higher in front of you, and if you keep on advancing you will find constantly higher ground all the way to the mountains."
-Major General George Meade, Commanding the Army of the Potomac, July 2, 1863

"Space elevator" ...since Google Alert became available, I have been informed whenever someone comments on this topic, providing they publish it on the web. In all that time I have never come across the obvious, darker side as to why the space elevator will be an imperative to powerful nations that are continually seeking a strategic advantage over their perceived adversaries.

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in the late 50's, the the United States was aghast, realizing only then that a perceived enemy was on their way to taking the strategic and military high ground.
Although it seems obvious to many individuals, perhaps I ought to elucidate: "High ground" in a military sense in very advantageous, because your opponent has to climb out of the gravity well in order to engage you, whereas you have the advantage of utilizing the gravity well against your opponent. In other words, it's easier to chuck a spear down hill, rather than uphill. The more resources you have available on the high ground, the greater are your chances of success.

Of course, the outcome of the Sputnik story is history. The US was galvanized out of its strategic torpor and beat the Soviets by putting a man on the moon before they did. As the space age progressed, both sides realized something significant: It would take a ruinous amount of resources to place and maintain orbital nuclear weapons outside Earth's gravity well. Both sides resolved the issue by banning weapons in space, included in the Partial Test Ban Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Besides, ballistic missiles lobbed in sub-orbital fashion was - and remains - an effective nuclear deterrent, minimizing the need for 'higher ground'.

Welcome to the dawning age of the space elevator.
Conceived in 1895, a Russian scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider a tower that reached all the way into space. He noted that a mass significant enough in size orbiting Earth in a geostationary manner, attached to the Earth at the equator in some fashion would make it possible to literally hoist people and material up and down, out of Earth's gravity well and into space - a modern-day Jacob's Ladder.

Fast-forward to present day, and we find ourselves on the cusp of realizing the space elevator may soon be a reality. Technological advances in carbon fiber research allow for strands as hard as diamond, making possible the magic 'rope' needed to affix satellite to Earth.

Since I started monitoring "space elevator" comments on the web, there has been marked increase in the chatter on the subject. The topic is slowly becoming part of common shared consciousness, making it ever more probable that it is an issue that will come to the forefront in the foreseeable future.

Were a single nation-state to take upon itself the task of building a space elevator, competing states ought to sit up and pay close attention: The 'higher ground' paradigm will be reborn, because it takes significantly less resources to hoist men and materials out of the gravity well than the present practice of putting objects and men aloft in chemical rockets. The implications ought to be obvious. Unlimited quantities of resources placed outside the Earth's gravity will afford a huge strategic and military advantage to the nation-state that builds the space elevator.

Perhaps the only sane approach would be an international effort, securing the means of lift out of Earth's gravity well for all nations. It ought to be easy to place under monitoring restraint, affording everyone access to space.

Of course there is the caveat that, once a given nation state has enough resources in space, who knows what they'll do with it?

Dark Energy - Non-space induced Gravity?

2010-03-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

Dark energy: Particles in intergalactic space reach exceedingly high speeds and on those rare occasions when they collide, these produce temperatures of millions of degrees.
At the moment of collision a tiny amount of gravity/non-space is momentarily produced but collapses immediately, lacking any means of sustaining itself. However, by virtue of the volume of colliding particles over a vast region, a 'field' of gravity is maintained. Might this explain dark energy?

Vacuum, mass/energy & gravity

2010-03-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

It struck me this morning. The simplest concept I have ever thought of, so simple I had to write it down in case I forget it:

The foci of an absolute vacuum gravitationally draws in space and converts it into mass.

Energy is an observational byproduct, with the caveat that if the absolute vacuum becomes large and powerful enough to become a closed loop, it will trap all energy, making the phenomenon unobservable by direct means.

This is in accordance with the absolute vacuum, as described in "A Vacuum Sun"
A proto-star, a concentration of mass inaugurating nuclear fusion, or it's equivalent. In the core of the proto-star, electrons and protons are disassociated and organize within their like camps, electrons with electrons, protons with protons.
It is the nature of these like particles to repel one another, leaving an absolute vacuum in their wake.
The attractive force of absolute vacuum is indistinguishable from gravity.
The new star expands, leaving this absolute vacuum in its wake.
The repelling camps of electrons and protons create a magnetic bottle, maintaining the absolute vacuum within as long there is energy to sustain it.
The magnetic bottle surrounding the absolute vacuum interior is sustained by the gravitationally imploding mass/energy/space which continually implodes upon the interior absolute vacuum.
The exterior boundary of the absolute vacuum is a factory, fusing space into electrons and protons - basic elements of matter. If able to escape the boundary, they may associate, creating hydrogen atoms.

Consequently, space is not only being gravitationally 'bent' towards a given star, it is also being consumed with mass as a byproduct.
See also "Non-Space, Is Gravity being Induced? A Challenge to Plasma & Neutrino Physicists"

The Limitations of Quantum Mechanics

2009-12-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

Imagine for a moment, god-like creatures looking down upon the Earth, creatures who's time consciousness is accelerated, so that to them our 24 hour day was no longer than that of a heart beat. They might view these glowing cities that spread over our planet as mere crystals, and could justifiably make quanta predictions on the sustainability their growth, based on the lub-dub of their pulsations: five beats caused by our 9-5 traffic, with the two pulse pause created by our weekend.
To these gods, the business of individuals could only be resolved by their mass movement along roads and freeways and the gods might - correctly so - speculate that this flow could be considered as discrete packets of mass/energy.
As with quanta mechanics, the model is limited by the belief that the only important factor is what the bulk of the packets are doing at any given moment...but you and I know that other factors are in play. Between the 9 to 5 lub-dub of our traffic flow, during the dead of night sanitation workers and vital resources that make a city run are on the move. These are errant particles that quantum mechanics do not account for and consequently these gods only have a stilted picture of the actual reality.

In my opinion, this is a problem that 21Century physics has to come to terms with. Quantum mechanics is an artificial overlay of reality, and it may well be that vital forces of nature are being overlooked because of the faith we have placed in our statistical calculations.

Wikipedia's Child

2009-12-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

Hmmm! I've got an idea that was inspired by my WayBack Machine rant.
A WIkipedia without organizing and censoring administrators, because - as I was writing about the WayBack machine - I came to realize that ALL human generated data is useful. With the exception of a small administration that essentially controls repetitive spamming, Aidepikiw.com - or EvertbodysGotSomethingToHideExceptForMeAndMyMonkey.com or whateveryouwanncallit - is intended as a topic based free-for-all battle of opinions and statements, no matter how accurate or outrageous. If managed properly, I bet it would become more popular than Wikipedia- nay - more popular than the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - and all within a few years, too!
The key is a search capacity that reaches down through successive layers of editings (nothing is ever really overwritten) so that you can reach down deep and pull the information you are looking for. For example, under a controversial topic, say, UFO's you could gather info on how many entries were pro and anti, what facts and arguments are presented.
This is the problem - and the Achilles Heel of the present Wikipedia - It is defined through the eyes and sensibilities of its administrators, a filter of contemporary - and thus temporary - standards that claim to be empirical and thus in error, but even more damning - such an approach is censoring and even more heinous, it's boring!

Death of the Wayback Machine - a fond farewell

2009-12-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

Web archaeology will be a major profession some decades down the road. This is what I predict their synopsis of the WayBack Machine will be:

"...The WayBack Machine is the foremost resource for early web research by web archaeologists. This rich database stretches from 1996 until 2008, at which time the organization reverted to the pre-web concept of categorization.
This was a mindset failure which left the years from 2008-XXXX a corrupted record. We now understand that the whole concept of raw data classification is counter-productive for two fatal reasons:

1. The scope of the Human experience is so vast that it defies classification.

2. The individual volunteers invited to administer the categorization of the database were creatures of their own time, complete with their own unique preferences and biases.

Perhaps the change was influenced by the Wikipedia method of knowledge storage which they mistakenly thought applied to their own dicipline.
In their defense, the progenitors of the change were dealing with an inordinate quantity of data which grew at an exponential rate each year, and the demise of the WayBack Machine may have been thought up as an act of necessity.
Be that as it may, the decision to revert back to a pre-web method of knowledge storage, rendered their data from that point on a severely damaged and unreliable resource, except in the field of web psychology, who have inadvertently been offered a vast resource and have gained remarkable insights into the psyche of those administering the database..."

A few months go, I was accused of plagiarism. With a few deft keystrokes, I was able to PROVE that my work preceded my accusers by many years.
This was all done with the help of the WayBack Machine. Alas, no longer can we rely on such a a simple, yet ingenious method of data discovery - it is being done for us by our contemporary 'experts'.

If I had submitted my data in the present context, it would most likely have been dismissed by those administrating for lack of proper classification - and my accuser would stand unchallenged.

-So goodbye WayBack Machine, and thank you so much for being there. I - and I suspect future generations of web researchers - will miss you.

What a great database...it was?

2009-12-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

Please understand, I'm just a casual user and I only have the vaguest knowledge of recent evolution of the Wayback Machine.

But I have this to say. I'm disappointed.
Perhaps it is due to the sheer burden of archiving such voluminous material that the method for collecting data has been forced to change, I don't know. It would appear that, like empirical scientists you now break down everything into distinctive topic matters, just like Yahoo. (Is that why I use Google now?)
Please follow my string - I'll get back on topic shortly - I loved it when these carpetbaggers came into my local community in Highland Park (one of the poorest neighborhoods in Michigan) in an attempt to literally steal the city's water utility (designed by Henry Ford in 1915)
These business thieves had hidden their tracks well, removing their previous 'business venture' websites in an attempt at a clean slate. Fortunately, with a quick check on the Wayback machine I was able to find their past dealings and bring it to the attention of the Highland Park Council before it was too late.
It would not be an exaggeration when I say that were it not for the Wayback Machine, Highland Park would have found itself in a heap of trouble.

I also liked the fact that it was general: On the Wayback Machine you could just submit your site and that was it. It was perfect for someone such as myself to whom the term 'generalist' could be applied. Some folks have even jokingly called me a renaissance man because of my wide scope of interest upon which in which I like to create or comment.

So where do I fit in this new defined scheme of things?

I've made my living as a full time fine artist, but my medium is unique and does not fit your categories. My interest in the sciences - thirty years worth - is for the most part completely heretical, yet my ideas are followed by some of the World's most knowledgeable plasma physicists. My website contains my animations, lyrics, music, movies, community sites. My webserver is a veritable feast of disparate delights, a confusion of disciplines that is subtly connected. My website IS my art.

Is there room for me in this New Order?

Couldn't but help notice that the Wayback Machine discontinued tracking me after 2008. Perhaps one of you 'experts' saw me for what I was - a messy unclassifiable conglomeration that does not fit the new matrix - DELETE!

Why nuking the Sun is a very bad idea

2009-12-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

Letter to the future,

"The Sun is NOT s bowling ball. It's a balloon"

Stephen Goodfellow 2009

Please note that this document - written in December of 2009 - was created before anyone came up with the stupid idea of nuking the Sun.
If you need proof of this, please go to archive.org and check on the voracity of this statement. Consequently, this is plainly a proactive document, not a sensationalist reactive attempt to play upon peoples fears.
The preemptive date should give you pause for thought, and let it be noted that the author wrote the following because it is the nature of Mankind to try everything that has never been tried and while usually comfortable with this philosophy, this is the one case where it is a very, very bad idea.

Please note that you are reading this precisely because no one has ever launched a nuclear warhead at the Sun, and should some government or institution ever take it upon themselves to enable such an insane project, then

You have no choice other than to stop them!

Should you fail to do so, then you and everybody you know, and the whole Human Race, and all the animals and plants that dwell upon the surface of planet -

Are all going to die!

The government or institution that dreams this insane project up will consist of learned scientists who will claim they know how the Sun functions.
They do not.
If they did, they would never dream of performing such a foolishly irresponsible act. Unfortunately, complacent arrogance is the lot of institutionalized scientific endeavor and it is this which makes it so dangerous. They will smirk at any arguments associated with the danger involved in what they wish to attempt and will claim that these arguments are not on a sound scientific footing.
For this reason, I will make a running start at the observational contradictions that pertain to the solar hydrogen fusion core theory.

Put simply, if you prod a bowling ball with a needle, no harm comes to the bowling ball...

...but it you prod a balloon with a needle, the balloon will burst.

The danger lies in the fact that the vast majority of solar physicists are convinced that the Sun is a large gas ball, getting ever denser towards its center. Upon such an object, little or no effect would be discerned were one to trigger a nuclear blast.
But what if the Sun's mass is distributed in a thin shell? Upon such a body, a pin-point nuclear blast could have disastrous effects.

The scientists who will forward a project as dangerous as this, will have learned their trade by rote and will be little more than glorified priests, smug in their myopic knowledge, a circular reasoning founded on shaky assumptions. Their air of authority will impress those who are able to secure the resources necessary to make their deadly project a reality, and it will be your duty to convince these people of power that the so-called scientists should not be allowed to proceed with their hair-brained venture.

Let us say for the sake of argument that their assumptions about the nature of the Sun have a 90% chance of accuracy. 10% error? Would YOU take such a gamble with your life? Would you allow everyone on Earth to take that chance?

The horrible reality is that the chance of their assumptions being correct are zero.

Here then, are some basic contradictions in the hydrogen fusion core theory that make it so patently absurd:

The Sun's atmosphere is hotter in its exterior layers than its lower ones.
This contradicts the law of thermodynamics. Would you not be surprised If you were in a room with a pot-bellied stove which you discover when brushing up against the cast iron appears to be cooler than the surrounding air?
Sunspots
Sunspots are depressions on the Sun's photosphere are cooler and darker than the surrounding shell. If the sun's energy were emanating from the interior, ought sunspots not be brighter and hotter?
The solar rotation
According to the accretion theory of the solar system, like a spinning ice skater drawing in their arms, the Sun ought to have the lion's share of angular momentum, yet the outer gaseous giants hold the majority of spin. The Sun's rotation is way too slow. It has been argued that the Sun's rotation has been slowed down by 'magnetic braking', yet Jupiter with its intense magnetic fields rotates at a healthy clip.
Solar magnetic loops
Despite the Sun's intense gravitational field, magnetic loops consisting of high energy plasmas show no distortion due to the Sun's strong gravitational pull. The potential force of high energy plasma is 1 x 10 39th power stronger than the gravitational potential, a fact completely ignored by proponents of the hydrogen fusion core theorists.
Controlled nuclear fusion - the lack of it
Despite over fifty years of concerted effort, fusion researchers have not succeeded in creating sustained nuclear fusion. The chief reason for this is the inability to contain the magnetic instabilities that appear in the trapped super-hot plasma.

If any of these items give you the slightest pause for thought, that PERHAPS these scientists don't know quite as much about what's going on with the Sun as they think they do,

Then they have no business putting our planet at risk
by launching a nuclear warhead at the Sun!

Consequently,

You MUST do everything in your power to STOP THEM!
- Or you will DIE! -

The movie - "I learned it on YouTube!"

2009-12-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

I learned it on YouTube

I can drive a freight train
Operate on your brain
Grease a pig with Jiffy-Lube
- I learned it on YouTube

I can build an H-Bomb
Stretch the head on a tom-tom
Distilate jet-fuel from crude
- I learned it on YouTube

Ask me how - to fire up a light house
Ask me how - to steal cheese from a door mouse
Ask he how - My hands are clasped in Crazy-glue
- I learned it on YouTube

I can truss and roast a duck
Commander a dump truck
Dress a cat up as a shrew
- I learned it on YouTube

Ask me how - I open a banana
Ask me how - I tranquilize a llama
Ask me how - Turn the llama into tasty stew
- I learned it on YouTube

I'm a disciple I've discerned from this Bible that God is a UFO
Those creatures'll seize ya, they'll prod and they'll squeeze ya
They don't care if you have to go

I've learned there's no hope
I've learned to smoke dope
I've learned.........I've learned to Twitter!

It explains why I'm a couch potato
A cave slave bound up all in chains by Plato
My life is just a shadow - one big screw
- I learned this on YouTube

Show me how - steal Photoshop with peer to peer
Show me how - Lifting MP3's while drinking beer
Show me how - Learn to live if you don't have a clue
- I learned it on YouTube

Tells me why - Forty-two and I still live at home
Tells me why - Girls don't like me and I live alone
Tells me why - I'm feeling like a worn-out shoe
- I learned it on YouTube
- I learned it on YouTube

Accused of plagiarism and Piracy!

2009-10-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

I am not accustomed to peppering my writings with exclamation marks, but in this case dear reader, I have made an exception - and you shall see why.
Last month my Google Alert popped up with my "Absolute Vacuum" search - and there, in one of my favorite science forums was a posting by a Russian, a Mr. Constantine Leshan, who was accusing me of stealing his ideas about absolute vacuums in my paper, "Can Gravity be Induced?". I noticed as well that my posts on absolute vacuums had been removed by the moderators of no less than two science forums.
It took only moments to realize that not only was Mr. Leshan shooting from the hip - he was also shooting himself in the foot, because his claim of 'his idea' was published sixteen years after my paper had been written. Once this was realized by the forum moderators, my postings were rehabilitated and on one of them Mr. Leshan was kicked off.
My ideas on absolute vacuums have circulated within the science community for close to two decades and although there is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Leshan developed his ideas on absolute vacuums separate from mine and in good faith, there is no telling what currents and eddies might have influenced him. Although annoyed by the accusation, I was intrigued that there was someone else who had come to similar conclusions about the nature of absolute vacuums and the induction of gravity, and thought it might be worthwhile to engage in discourse, once this misunderstanding had been cleared up. With a little web sleuthing I found one of Mr. Leshans many email accounts and wrote to him, asking if there was a chance of rapprochement.
No such thing.
To my utter amazement, he accused me of - get this - hacking into various servers and placing my paper on them and forging the date! And this, after various moderators had done their own searches and pronounced me bona fide. Over several emails I attempted to assuage him by offering many direct proofs for the authenticity of my paper, but he would have none of it. Towards the end of our discourse I believe he was somewhat convinced that my paper was published in 1979, but unfortunately this realization of his was manifest by a whole new tack, in that he now attacked me with the wacky accusation that I was plagiarizing René Descartes instead!
Finally taking the council of friends, I broke off communication with Mr. Leshan. I can only conclude that this individual is unbalanced and suffering from paranoid delusions of persecution.

Personally, I don't care who thought of this idea first.
If there is someone else out there who came up with the notion before me that super-hot plasmas within a dynamo effect are capable of creating absolute vacuums that can induce gravity and that the Sun is an example of this phenomenon - well, I'm perfectly comfortable with that. But I sure as hell am not going to put up with being accused of plagiarism and piracy by someone who published their paper after mine was written and circulated. The whole episode has been a frustrating waste of my time and energy.
To avoid any such nonsense in the future, I have created this video in which a sealed, post-dated letter from 1981 with my paper enclosed, was opened before a notary public, a stamp and paper expert and two sworn witnesses. To reach the largest audience possible I have also had it translated into Russian. Complementing the video, I have also made public further evidence which I have placed on my server, surely enough to convince any reasonable individual of the facts.
You can find the email correspondence with Mr. Leshans accusations here.
So let that be the end to it.

Is the Gravitational Constant linked to the Sunspot Cycle?

2009-09-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Why is the Gravitational Constant so sloppy? Is it merely measureing error, or is there room to argue that the constant may fluctuate between the 2nd and 4th decimal?

Before posting these questions on the baut forum, I checked the Bautforum for previous posts, the most relevant one seems to be this query in aid of a seemingly dead-end contentious debate, which was of little help.

Following a reference link from Wikipidia's page on "Gravitational Constant", note this excerpt from the abstract:
"...G stands mysteriously alone, its history being that of a quantity which is extremely difficult to measure and which remains virtually isolated from the theoretical structure of the rest of physics. Several attempts aimed at changing this situation are now underway, but the most recent experimental results have once again produced conflicting values of G and, in spite of some progress and much interest, there remains to date no universally accepted way of predicting its absolute value..."

The measurements seem surprisingly sketchy when considering that most Universal Constants can be measured to the 8th to 10th decimal.

For reasons out of the blue, I took it into my head to place the year that Gravitational Constant measurements were taken in relation to the sunspot cycle. Needless to say, this data is thin to the point of being laughable, but still - an amusing thought:

Gravitational Constant measurements on the Solar Cycle, coinciding with the dates of the measurements:
Luther 1982 Torsion pendulum 6:6726 § 0:0005 75
Fitzgerald 1995 Torsion balance 6:6656 § 0:0006 90
Schwarz 1998 Free fall 6:6873 § 0:0094 1400
K¨undig 2002 Beam balance 6:67407 § 0:00022 200

Notice the smaller result during low sunspot activity.

Plasma physicists gate-crash the Cosmologist party...

2009-08-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Cosmologists who imagine the Universe solely from a gravitational consideration are in for a rude awakening...

Cosmville...

2009-08-31T07:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture I created depicting the absurdity of Cosmologists who are either unaware or ignore the science of plasma physics:

Interview with a learned solar neutrino physicist

2009-08-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Summary of visit with an eminent solar neutrino physicist at the University of Michigan:
My first and immediate impression of this learned man is an individual in the last days of his professional glory, finishing up his life's work. However, I find it intriguing that he believes neutrinos can be manipulated by microwave radiation - he is proposing that this is the reason there is a drop in neutrinos arriving from the Sun during sunspot activity. In this sense, he has faith in the Lead Dakota results, put forth by the late Raymond Davis. He exhibits daring and imagination, hardly the product of an ailing mind.
What I find problematic with his idea is that it lends itself to an ever-increasing complexity which becomes necessary to explain the observed phenomenon. Instead of considering the simple notion of a solar shell producing less neutrinos during high sunspot activity, we are expected to accept even more exotic behavior exhibited by elementary particles, new-found behaviors that need necessarily be discovered to explain events that may have their roots in an inability to re-check the basic precepts.

He writes,
"The angular size of the sun is 0.53 degree, so one needs the accuracy of 1 in 10^5 for cos(angle), in order to detect the variation of your effect. (The x axis of Fig. 11 that is mentioned in my previous communication is cos( angle).) It is impossible for some time. It would be another story if one improves the method of neutrino detection significantly. I believe that that may be possible in the near future, but I can’t tell you now."

And so I wait.

He seems to have little awareness of plasma physics, but it is not entirely his fault. In this sense he has dwelled his whole life in the cosmological cocoon concocted by an entire discipline locked in the mindset that plasma science is of little note and more importantly, gravity and mass are inviolate.
Consequently, it was a little like having a discussion with a Ptolemaic astrologer from a bygone age. He was very kind to see me, and had the consideration to follow up on my questions. A lesser man would have dismissed any thought of me once I left the room.

Here are the questions I took along with me:

The solar neutrino angle of incidence. I am presuming the collision between the neutrino and nucleus in the detector is traced backwards by a program in order to find the source of origin. Is this so?
How accurate is it? With better understanding, more data and better programming can one expect a smaller margin of error? (Not accurate enough for my needs, but this could change with time.)
Roughly, how many solar neutrino strikes have been detected to date? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? (Answer: Average, 20 per day.)
I have read that sunspot activity might be lowering the neutrino output. What is your opinion on this? (He believes the data is correct - which surprised me)
Also, neutrino strikes in detectors is lower while on the night side. Is this so? (The question didn't come up)
Neutrino oscillation, from Wikipedia:
Caveats "The crux of the solar neutrino problem, and its resolution, lies in the fact that both the interior of the Sun and the behavior of traveling neutrinos is unknown to begin with. One may assume knowledge of one and determine the other by experiment here on Earth. If one assumes the Standard Solar Model is valid, one can derive the propagation properties of neutrinos, such as neutrino oscillations, given data from solar neutrino experiments. Likewise, if one presumes something about the propagation of solar neutrinos, one may derive some conclusions about the validity of solar models."
Does this mean that the conclusions drawn are dependent on the hydrogen-fusion core model? (This was a tough question and I didn't expect a concise answer. I didn't get one.)
Have all three solar neutrino particles turned up, including Tau? (He said Tau turns up in laboratory experiments, but these solar neutrino flavors are changed when they his the earth's atmosphere)

Review of Donald Scott's "The Electric Sky"

2009-08-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Having written a review of Donald Scott's "The Electric Sky" on a site that takes a dim view of his efforts, in a moment of revelation I realized the moderator will in all likelihood give it a quick glance, then "click!" my musings would be relegated to the world of disassociated electrons. So, preempting my dissapointment, I took a moment to place the review on my own blog - where it actually belongs:

: "Just finished Donald E, Scott's "The Electric Sky", loaned to me by a plasma physicist at the U of M.
I have also read a measure of your remarks and objections on this blog which seem both considered and well thought out.
If you will, allow me to impart a layman's thoughts.

It would not surprise me that many of the concepts inscribed within the pages of "Electric Sky" prove to be inaccurate at best, groping and fanciful at worst.
However, Scott and his compatriots seem to be forcing science into a new realm where the present august body of astrophysicists cannot, dare not follow for reasons that are all too painfully obvious.
Here in this blog you have taken upon yourself the worthwhile duty to do your worst, to reveal the errors in Mr. Scott's revelations, and I predict you will have a considerable measure of success for your efforts.

In my opinion, the content Electric Sky is sublime and reading it was like seeing the Universe through new eyes. This work will be scoffed at by our generation of astrophysicists, possibly even the generation after that, but these pioneering sleepwalkers will, over the march of time, have changed the course of science long after your justifiable objections have been proven."

Non-Space, Z-pinch and Gravimeters

2009-08-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

Right now things are moving at quite a clip in my "Stevie Science" world. Here are the highlights:
Placing a query in the physics and astronomy forums, someone pointed out to me that the experiment that I was looking for, essentially a gravimeter placed near a z-pinch (a high energy electric discharge,) has recently been carried out with reportedly positive results.
("Gravitational Interaction on Quantum Level and Consequences Thereof") Truth to tell, there is so much gobbledygook equations in it that I can barely understand, but I think I get the gist.
I wrote the authors and got an answer back from S.I. Fisenko saying that it will be published shortly.
The physicist I visited at U of M - Dr. Ron Gilgenbach - told me that such an experiment could not be carried out without a published supportive theory to back it up. Well, if this gets published in a respectable peer-reviewed science journal then it meets the criteria for a repeat of the experiment. I'm hoping I can egg Ron into it, though frankly I will not be surprised if he just dismisses the whole thing. After all, I'm just an artist cook :-)

The import of this paper - if it is verified and if it is what I think it is - will turn the world of physics inside-out.

In related developments, Yukio Tomozawa, an eminent solar neutrino physicist from U of M, has agreed to an interview next Wednesday. I intend to ask him if there is enough detail in solar neutrino angle of incidence to be able to tell where on the Sun the neutrinos are coming from.

Ithican thoughts - Neutrinos Non-Space and electric sun

2009-08-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

I am in Ithaca, visiting my in-laws and reading "Electric Sun" which was loaned to me by Dr. Ron Gilgenbach

The "Electric Sun" gives a much more convincing argument than the Hydrogen-Fusion core model, the author even suggests that nothing is gong on in the Sun's interior, although he only does so in a manner of speech; if he only know how correct he is!

The main flaw of the "Electric Sun" is sadly similar to that of the hydrogen-fusion core theory, sad because plasma physicists ought to know better than to surrender to the original preconceived concept that the Sun is a gravitationally bound ball of matter.
After painstakingly describing how the electromagnetic plasma forces completely dominate over the gravitational force, why do they meekly surrender to the idea that the Sun is a gravitational ball of mass.
Any way you cut it, bringing together a significant amount of mass such as that needed for a proto-star in space is going to cause significant angular momentum, which in turn will, yes, cause gravitational contraction. But this contraction will result in violent heating long before the proto-star mass can coelesque into a ball. High temperature heating combined with angular momentum will create a dynamo effect. Powerful plasma double layers will occur. In force of the electromagnetic moment of the plasma will way outstrip any gravitational consideration - and yet even the plasma physicists cannot rid themselves of the last vestige of the gravitational boga-boo.

It is time to go back to beginnings and see the universe through new eyes.

Non-Space, Is Gravity being Induced? A Challenge to Plasma & Neutrino Physicists

2009-08-03T05:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the text:
Non-Space, Is Gravity being Induced?
A Challenge to Plasma & Neutrino Physicists 2009

Hello, my name is Stephen Goodfellow.
Does Non-Space exist? Can gravity be induced? This video is an invitation, a challenge to plasma physicists and solar neutrino physicists.
I will be the first to admit that the concept of Non-Space and gravitational induction is so outrageously preposterous, that I would not have made this video, if the concept did not rest on a plasma laboratory experiment that could be performed within the limits of contemporary technology, and an observational neutrino prediction that ought to be possible in the foreseeable future.

What is Non-space? Consider the theorized black hole, an over-abundance matter falling in on itself becoming a gravitational sink that not even light cannot escape from.
It is useful to think of Non-Space as being on the other end of this spectrum.
Non-Space is a condition in which space is vacated from a volume. Thus, it is not an empty space, it is a volume empty of space. This Non-Space volume causes exterior space to implode gravitationally upon its boundary.
It is a violent reaction as space attempts to close up the non-space, and in doing so, annihilates mass into energy as it presses in upon the Non-Space boundary.
How can Non-Space come about?
Non-Space is achievable with a high energy plasma.
A high energy plasma imbued with a dynamo effect causes electrons to disassociate from protons. These then act within like camps, electrons with electrons, and protons with protons, each particle contributing its magnetic moment to the whole.
I believe it is the repulsion of these like camps that disturb the fabric of space, allowing for the appearance of gravitationally inducing Non-Space.

The plasma experiment would consist of a high energy plasma discharge, coupled with a gravimeter: An appropriate gravimeter device placed close enough to a Z-pinch discharge, will demonstrate a minute but measurable, momentary increase in the force of gravity towards the discharge, and in doing so, demonstrate that gravity can be induced without a corresponding quantity of mass.
A successful outcome of this experiment will have far-reaching implications, because it will confirm a direct link between the electric, magnetic and gravitational forces. Furthermore, Gravitational Induction will have fundamental implications upon the very foundation of contemporary physics, in that the experiment demonstrates that the relationship between mass and gravity are not inviolate.

From the many inquiries I have made over the years, I am given to understand that this experiment has not as yet been performed, nor is anyone other than myself expecting this result.
I liken it to Hans Christian Ørsted's accidental experiment, when he happened to notice a compass needle jump when inducing a current through a wire.

Solar neutrinos: The observation I seek, is a compilation of solar neutrino data: When compiled, it will show that the angle of incidence of solar neutrinos emanating from the Sun will be expressed in a concave graph rather than a convex graph. A convex graph, is what one might expect from a standard model of the sun, with neutrinos emanating from the Sun's center.
The concave graph which is what I am predicting, will demonstrate that neutrinos are emanating from the shell and atmosphere of the Sun, and not from its core. To my knowledge, no one is expecting a concave graph.

The data will infer that the Sun is a magnetically constrained Non-Space volume. This volume is sustained by an exterior shell best described as a magnetically unified high energy plasma. The interior volume of Non-Space induces gravity, causing the Sun's shell to continually implode. This implosion of the Sun's mass releases energy, magnetically sustaining the Sun's interior volume of Non-Space.
I make no claim as to the particular nuclear chain reaction leading to solar energy output, merely that it is distributed in a shell, gravitationally crushing in on the Sun's interior non-space.

A Non-Space solar interior would also explain why sunspots are dark rather than light, and why strong magnetic fields are associated with these lower depressions in the Sun's photosphere.
Also, an expanded solar shell of matter with a Non-space interior would account for the Sun's slow rotation, in that the rapid expansion from a smaller, dense proto-star to larger shell would slow its angular momentum.

Now, I expect significant skepticism for these extraordinary claims, and I realize that the experiment and observation might well return a null result, rightfully condemning my contemplations to the historical trash-heap of absurd ideas.
Consider though, that the plasma experiment is achievable with our present technology, and I suspect at a relatively reasonable cost, and the solar neutrino data-collection ought to be feasible the foreseeable future.

It would be a great shame not to perform the plasma experiment, for if by the slimmest chance the experiment produces a positive result, is that not in itself enough incentive?
And, if the proposed experiment, with the potential seed of a positive result languishes, would history not condemn today's plasma physicists for their reticence? Would we have to wait, leaving the discovery to a future generation, a generation who would look back and mock you?

I think it is appropriate to say, I am looking for my Eddington. Are you that Eddington?
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this. Goodbye.

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram - "Wart on the Umpire's Nose"

2009-04-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is the bulwark of stellar evolution, but consider this little story:

An umpire is standing in a crowded stadium. Upon his nose is an intelligent wart. This wart desires to know the process of evolution of its host, the umpire. To aid itself in this quest, the wart observes the other people in the stadium. Although the wart cannot see, it is able to monitor the heartbeats and blood pressure of the people present. Armed with this information, the wart constructs a graph upon which it now places its data.

The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, where luminosity is replaced with blood pressure, and temperature with heartbeat.

The wart now mistakenly believes that by comparing people in this manner it has acquired a system that displays a sequence of evolution from birth to death. The graph displays no such information; it merely describes the momentary state of excitement of the people in the stadium.

Published in Science News,
Vol. 177, Mat 17th, 1980

2009-03-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

"An Empty Sun - Is Gravity being Induced?"
A proposal suggesting that the Sun is a shell of sustained charged plasma encasing a non-space/absolute vacuum sphere that induces gravity. There is a FAQ page here

Life on Titan?

2008-12-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it would be going out on a limb, but would it not be possible that Saturn’s surprisingly active moon Titan might support a unique life-form? This moon exhibits temperatures that make superconducting electrical currents a certainty, and there is an awful lot of chemistry sloshing about. Might it not be possible that some pretty stunning surprises await us?

Addendum 10/13/11-Another article "The hazy history of Titan's air" (physorg.com)

Addendum 09/25/11- Interesting article about possible life on Titan, Fertile frontiers" in Science News, (with the unlikely date of publication, Oct. 8th, 2011)

Addendum 01/06/11 - I realize that the temperatures on Titan's surface are exceedingly cold, but we have already been surprised more than once on the tenacity of life. Consider the creatures thriving around the oceanic ridge vents in temperatures above boiling on our own planet. If there is chemical movement on Titan (note the river deltas welling into Titan's mysterious oceans,) and the now observed complex molecules in it's atmosphere - combine that with temperatures that allow for super-conduction; well, I'd say there is a pretty good chance that something really exciting is happening on that surface.

Update: 12/31/2010 - Nice to find oneself on the bleeding edge. Here is an article quite some time after my musing:

"Did Life Fall from the Skies? Lessons from Titan"

And earlier still: 10/20/10
ScienceDaily (June 7, 2010) — Two new papers based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft scrutinize the complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. While non-biological chemistry offers one possible explanation, some scientists believe these chemical signatures bolster the argument for a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized "methane-based life."

2008-12-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

"Just the facts, Ma'm..." If you want a clear picture of how to go about building a space elevator, you cannot do better than visiting The Space Elevator Blog. Concise and interesting, a great resource for learning the principles of space elevator construction.

The Space elevator and Dooms Day pundits

2008-12-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

Space Elevator detractors are such an interesting phenomenon. If you were to peruse newspapers, magazines and science periodicals from the late 1800's, you will find endless articles by the learned who ceaselessly informed the public that powered flight was impossible.
Critical discovery is inevitable and necessary. It is an inherent aspect of tackling a new, bold idea. In a way, it is evidence that the Space Elevator is coming of age.
Unfortunately, rather than just stating the possible problems that might incur in the construction a Space Elevator, the pundits inevitably infer that the hitch is insolvable, making construction impossible.
Discovering possible pitfalls is healthy. But the sweeping pronouncements that a newly discovered hurdle makes building a Space Elevator impossible is both arrogant and counterproductive.

Space Elevator Animation 1, 2, 3 & 4

2008-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

My hat off to the creators of this visionary work. This series of animations gives a very credible blow-by-blow account of how to build a space elevator. Yes, the animation is somewhat crude and the ambient techno music that accompanies the documentary is dorky, but this in no way inhibits the inspirational work. I recommend you turn down the sound and play some appropriate classical music. Sit back and enjoy what will be mankind's greatest accomplishment in the 21st century.

Space elevator animation, part one:

Space elevator animation, part two:

Space elevator animation, part three:

Space elevator animation, part four:

Nauru and the coming of the Space Elevator Complex

2008-09-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

Open Letter to the Government and President of Nauru:

Dear Friends,

It may not have come to your attention yet, but the Republic of Nauru is about to become the most valuable real estate on our planet, because it is one of the very few locations where a space elevator can be realized.

For physical reasons, the space elevator can only be constructed on or near the equator. Your country is ideally suited because Nauru has harbor installations, asphalt roads and a landing facilities capable of handling large aircraft. Most importantly, it is an island surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. Hence, security will not be an issue.

If you look at a globe and circumvent the World at the equator, you will see that most of the equatorial landfall is on countries that are politically unstable and where security would be a real issue. The other few islands that exist on the equator have no infrastructure to speak of. These factors make your nation a very attractive site for the space elevator complex.

Because of these factors, it would behoove your government to give close consideration to this issue and take a pro-active stance. It would be nice to see Nauru gain a long term benefit from this resource, rather than have it become an exploited Panama, or as in your not so distant past, a wholesale rape of your island by mining speculators.
Could the unproductive land in the island interior be nationalized? If that were possible, it could be leased to the highest bidder without the conflict that would inevitably occur if it were left to real estate speculators.

When you have your ducks in order, it would be prudent to start making NASA, the European Space Agency and the Chinese Space agency aware of your real estate. As far as the media goes, this will be a very "sexy" issue, and your nation is sure to gain a lot of coverage, long before the space elevator is actually realized.

Respectfully yours,

The Space Elevator and the Old Testament

2008-04-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

"...He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun
had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his
head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there
was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven;
and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And
behold, the LORD stood above it [or "beside him"] and said, "I am the
LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on
which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your
descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread
abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south;
and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth
bless themselves..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_Ladder_(Bible)

Space Elevator "Wobble" - Ain't no big thing...

2008-03-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

Well, duh...

Of course there'll be vibration in a Space Elevator cable. You can't have a long taught cable like that without it trying to behave like a guitar string.
That's why you need magnetic dampeners on either ends. As soon as an oscillation starts to build, the de-oscillation computer program instructs the rings holding the cable in place to magnetically shift in the direction of the oscillation, thus causing the cable's movement to dampen.
As with anything new and wonderful, there'll be many obstacles - but that's what us hairless monkeys are so very, very good at overcoming.

Ideal Space Elevator location

2008-02-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

Where does one place a Space Elevator?
Nauru, a small island in the Pacific, an optimum place for a Space Elevator.

I took a virtual trip, circumnavigating the World at the equator to see what places were realistically feasible for placing a space elevator using the following three points as a guide:

The location must be near the equator.
Easy access for transportation.
Road infrastructure.
Securable.

There is surprisingly little land on the equator, and much of that is subject to unstable governments and/or too easily accessible to terrorist attack. One of the few locations that almost fit the above parameters is in the Galapagos islands, but unfortunately it is on an active volcanic island.
When all was said and done, I was really only left with a small island called Nauru

Nauru can accommodate Commercial aircraft and has port facilities

The island is a scant 40 miles from the equator.
It has a full-size runway that can take commercial aircraft.
There are port facilities.
The population is small and inclined to Western ideals.
Because of the vast expanse of ocean surrounding it, access to the island can easily be monitored, thus enhancing security.

At a glance, it is surprising that such a small island with a proportionate population would be in possession of such over-sized transportation facilities, until you learn that this is because of it's main - and dwindling - export.
Guano - essentially bird-poop, layer upon layer created century upon century, creating a commercially viable quantity of rich phosphates, suitable for fertilizer and other commodities. These were ruthlessly mined to exhaustion in the last century. With some of the proceeds, Nauru was able to build a hard-cover road that rings the island. They also had a first-rate runway constructed, capable of receiving commercial aircraft.
To remove the guano, a deep port facility was created which now sits largely unused.
English is widely spoken and literacy is at %97. The country desperately needs some kind of economical infusion, and an invitation to host a Space Elevator would probably be very favorably received.

Welcome to the Pantheo Animist

2007-12-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

Pantheo-wah?
Pantheo-animist. It is the belief that nature is God, and that all matter and energy is imbued with life.