| (no subject) |
[Aug. 29th, 2006|11:21 am] |
Exciting news from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn .
Look around their web site http://www.steorn.net/en/technology.aspx?p=5 and you see in the News section that they have been working with DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology ) in awarding students prizes. They are actually based on the tech centre in Dublin’s fashionable docklands (houses going for millions Euros there now). As a former Dublin resident I know DIT as a venerable old 3rd level institute. It used to be Bolton Street tech. college (& maybe others who joined them). I used go over there to photcopy something as a physics undergraduate. So the firm is legit and not just an Australian call-box or MS logo hoax. There seems to be more meat on this than on the standard claims to extract energy from the vacuum. For this is the claim here – though free doesn’t mean energy from nothing, but from an unknown source. I liked the idea that it might be harnessing fluxes in the vacuum like a windmill harness air fluxes. Stay tuned - I am personally holding off an order for solar panels for our roof until I hear what the jury has to say on this.
I've been following alternative energy for years and used to think that http://www.blacklightpower.com/ were likely to be the first to comercialise their claims. Similar to Steorn was for years Brearden and his MEG. He is actually adapting his magnetic theory to explain the Steorn results - see http://www.pesn.com/ , http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:A_Proposed_Proof_of_an_Overunity_Asymmetric_System_to_be_Tested etc. |
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| Ancient India |
[Jul. 26th, 2006|09:57 pm] |
It was indeed in ancient times, my visit, as it's now 22 years ago. Still, even though I've lost any record I may have kept of the two weeks spent there, some extraordinary vignettes stand out across the abyss of time.
I was taking part in the International Astronomical Union General Assembly, one of the big, if not the biggest, astro-meetings - a bit like the World Cup of astronomy and astrophysics. it was the first long plane journey I'd been on and so I was grateful for the diversion of the stewardesses of Air India as they demonstrated the yoga exercises that would afford relief from cramp during our long journey. We stopped over somewhere - not sure if Rome or Riyadh - maybe the latter as I think we had our first inkling of true heat there. I had prepared myself well scientifically for the conference, but maybe not so well spiritually. My only cultural homework was to read the Snow Leopard on the plane between glancing at my lecture notes. As a graduate student I was more focussed on the astrophysics than on the Gita.
We arrived in the middle of the night at New Delhi International airport. The first taste of the chaos of that great country greeted us as wildly gesticulating officials sorted out the bureaucracy. Then we were speeding past darkened roundabouts in one of those hair raising taxis. Luckily for our first ride there were no myriads of pedestrians to contend with. I can concur with Gerry on the toss-up between taxis and motorized rickshaws as to derring do. Later my hair would stand on end as we dodged between trucks and busses in the rickshaws. Roundabouts were a free-for-all.
We post-grads and students were staying at the Yatri Niwas, a low budget hotel compared with the Ashok and other palaces that the professors had allocated themselves. My colleague Tom heard a neighbour refer to it as the Ratty Niwas as there was one of these in his shower (- it has undoubtedly improved enormously in the last 20 years). True, the rooms were Spartan. Mine was on the 10th or 20th floor with a good view of part of the city and the laundry entrance of the hotel. For breakfast you had a choice - veg curry or non-veg. After a while we discovered a cafe at the conference centre doing euro- breakfasts: Tom & I joined some Portugese astronomers at that pleasant cafe. We may have missed a few lectures that way but there were many more talks on the program, including mine to a smaller audience than Rajiv Gandhi addressed at the opening. I was impressed that he showed up in person in a convoy of Embassador cars - it showed that astronomers were held in some regard in India. Indeed, the country has a great tradition in that area - for example we were given a tour of an ancient observatory in the city.
The atmosphere of Delhi was a culture shock for a European new to Asia. Besides all the cultural high points like museums, where I learnt a bit of ancient Indian history, there were the shopping bazaars near the hotel - around Connaught Place or environs. It was the first time I was recognised as haling from a relatively affluent continent, since in those crowded areas we were beset on all sides by people trying to sell us things that we didn't particularly need.
Even though it was November, it was very hot by Irish standards, even at night. Only when we moved up to Kashmir did the nights get cold - well, we were near the Himalayas at that stage. But that's getting away from New Delhi. One of the cultural eye openers was that people were not so concerned about Christmas as with Diwali. There were many very colourful and artistic Diwali cards on sale. Another cultural vignette was one evening at the Niwas or another hotel - one with a sweeping arc of a marble staircase. Again as exotic Europeans, Tom and I were ushered over to a crowd of very well dressed people. It was a wedding party, and they wanted to show us the bride - and she was indeed awe-inspiringly adorned with a lovely glittering gown and traditional Indian ornaments, jewels and henna. That impressed me a lot, especially when the groom, equally resplendent in glistening suit with turban, arrived - was it on a white horse, or am I embellishing the memory?
Again the history - I hadn't realised how important the Moghuls were for that area of India. Or king Ashoka. We also had an outing to Agra to see the Taj Mahal - that was wonderful. Approaching the building in the midday sun (along with the mad dogs) it was dazzling - I don't think I had sun glasses as I remember being blinded until we got into the shade of the structure. it is impressively placed. Very dramatic. We had a nice reception afterward where we had a dot placed on our foreheads. Later we also saw the Red Fort near Agra - that was an enormous structure and also most impressive.
At least one evening we were invited by the prof to eat at the Ashok - that was a wonderful meal. Patrick was one the main conference organizer and my PhD supervisor, so he had the low-down on all the wheelings and dealings. We had several excellent curries at various restaurants during the week of the conference. Ironically 'Delhi belly' only struck me when we were in Kashmir.
In Srinigar, Tom & I were saying in a houseboat on Dal Lake. That was interesting – we needed those thick blankets at night, when the freeze set in. Breakfast was a welcome porridge brought in by our host every morning. He was very helpful – and eager to bring us to his brother’s leather factory. I came away with a leather jacket against the cold. The high points of our stay there included a taxi to a glacier and a boat ride on the lake. Due to fog we couldn’t see too much of the mountains, but it was very restful after the hectic activity in New Delhi. We had some nice meals in Srinigar also, if anything even spicier than in Delhi.
So although we hadn’t time to get to know the cows, we went back to Europe impressed with the warmth and beauty of the subcontinent – what little we saw of it. |
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| ghost cloud Germany - official now! |
[Jul. 26th, 2006|09:55 pm] |
Yahoo! The German government agrees with me that the phenomenon was too massive to be caused by a few planes. This also confirms the anlysis of the radar expert on the Q21 program on WDR tv that hundreds of planes would have been needed - (see my earlier posting http://www.ukauthors.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16036 )
http://donnerwetter.de/news/news.mv?id=6718
(My and Google’s translation :-) )
Answer of the federal state government Ministry for the interior (and sport) of Lower Saxony Hanover - 53.01-30309-02, 24.05.2006
I hereby answer the short inquiry of the Green member of parliament as follows on behalf of the federal state government: According to the available information, neither in the Ministry for the interior and sport nor in other departments involved (ms, ML, MU) is there any knowledge relevant to the answer of the questions addressed to the federal state government. For this reason, in order to clarify the topic, an appropriate request for information on the questions posed was addressed to the Federal Ministry of defence (BMVg) . The Parliamentary and cabinet representative of the BMVg answered the questions in a letter of 28.04.2006 as follows:
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Concerning 1 (what knowledge did you have of the reported phenomena over North Germany?): The Federal Ministry of defence (BMVg) does not have any knowledge of the first of the reported phenomena. No recordings of the period in July 2005 applicable to the phenomenon are at the disposal of the BMVg due to the time limit on archiving of the data and also due to the sensor technology used. At the time in question in the region concerned, no national Air Force exercises, tactical tests or similar aeronautical activities were carried out.
After an investigation of radar recordings of the Air Force it was stated that at the end of March 2006 in Netherlands air space an aerial engagement exercise took place on the night of the 22nd to the 23rd of March 2006 approx. 1 hour before occurrence of the phenomenon. The recordings prove that thereby very small quantities of chaff were released, which however, as can be proven, had dissipated again after approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Concerning 2 (How were these interpreted and explained?): The possibility of causing such a phenomenon of the described order of magnitude by active electromagnetic radiation can in principle be excluded due to the following physical considerations: Only the release of very special chaff in substantial quantities (in the range of many tons) could generate such a phenomenon. In the framework of the aerial engagement exercises, however, only a tiny fraction of this quantity is discharged by the self defence systems of aircraft of the German Federal Armed Forces as well as of allied armed forces. The Air Force has no electronic interference or deception procedures, which could cause a phenomenon of this dimension while at the same time confining a closely limited effect to a specific sensor. On the basis of the information available here, aerial systems of the German Federal Armed Forces are out of the question as possible perpetrators of the cloud phenomena.
Concerning 3 (Does the federal state government concur with the estimate of Meteorologists, Geologists and Physicists that the inexplicable weather phenomena and/or radar recordings must be due to military experiments, since otherwise no serious explanation for it is to be found? ): The German Federal Armed Forces do not perform experiments, which could cause such a phenomenon.
Concerning 4 (Does the federal state government have knowledge of appropriate military exercises over Northern Germany with the goal of defence from terrorists or influencing the weather?): The German Federal Armed Forces do not perform military exercises with the goal of defence from terrorists or for influencing the weather.
To 5 to 7 (5. Is it to be feared that health or other dangers for humans and nature might result from these attempts? 6. Which Federal authority is and/or would be responsible for the notification of such military exercises? 7. According to which relevant standards are such experiments permitted?): See answers to 3 and 4.
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So! It's official - either a massive ghost airforce was active, or weird stuff like dark matter, real ghosts, other dimensions etc. There is simply no getting round the sheer mathematical scale of the phenomenon - somewhere between 10,2000 and several million tons of material would have been needed. Then there is the fact that the phenomenon stayed aloft for 8 hours - both in 2006 and 2005. As you see from the above, military chaff normally dissipates after only 1 hour. Finally, the 'ghost cloud' was at a great height - 3 - 6 km. Military chaff is released at lower altitudes (1 - 2 km typically). Yes, this is a real X-file... |
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| quantum gravity breakthrough & daily activity |
[Jun. 22nd, 2006|09:08 am] |
Yes, it's always a bit of balancing act, work and home. I also know that if I work too much when I return home I am not relaxed - it is as if the ' chi' of the Chinese is out of balance and one feels that. Much better when work and home are in Yin Yang harmony.
On ISS - on the Friday or Saturday night, when it was to rise at 00:08 , the skies were luckily
clear. I alone was still awake, in my warm attic, with the window open in observatory mode. I looked toward Jupiter, where it was predicted to appear and sure enough around 12:08 I noticed a little star moving near Jupiter. It was funny - as it exited the Earth's shadow, it grew in brightness to rival Jupiter, and flew overhead, elevation of about 87 deg. So it was fine. I see why some might think it a UFO, though of low strangeness, as it moves in a straight line.
It was a nice break from the football. And amazing to think that humans were aboard this dot.
We finally got a storm on Monday - quite a hurricane for a few minutes, with thunder & lightening, heavy rain etc. Ironic, as new garden had just been watered for an hour - at that time it was still blue sky - then in an hour blue turned to black - never saw such massive thick clouds...
On the books - I am dipping into Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing - Bede Rundle as well as "An introduction to Systems Theory" - Gerald M. Weinberg and "The Road to Reality" by Penrose. But they are all a bit heavy going, so I alternate and leave them aside for a while in favour of fiction. The Rundle has some interesting concepts, but is a bit too philosophically technical. Reality is the easiest to go through, as
it is basically a refresher course on some of the stuff done at Uni ages ago. The Systems book was sort of the technical equivalent of Capra's "Web of Life " - so they were good to read together.
Yesterday was stupidly busy - crises on 4 satellites simultaneously. So today I'll take it a bit easier, I hope.
On the propulsion front, more exciting news: Droscher & Hauser have done it - reproduced Tajmar et al.'s findings - they derive the gravitophoton effect in Tajmar's
experiment ( http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html ) - and reproduce the value of the Quantum London moment almost exactly (H & D's value is 1.3 x 10**-4 g, compared to 1.0 x 10**-4 g measured by Tajmar et al., where g is acceleration due to gravity at Earth's surface!!) This sort of agreement, considering the complexity of their calculation, is a sensation, as they say - considering that GR gets the answer wrong by many orders of magnitude. The paper may cause a lot of interest when presented to the AIAA in July in Sacramento, California. Tajmar et al.’s trick was that they used bosons in his coils in the form of Cooper pairs, whereas Droscher & Hauser had always used good old fermions in their propulsion coils. Now they see that with bosons the threshold is lower, so they want to switch - they might not need the Z-machine any more! A relatively cheap lab set-up like Tajmar's would do the job – I’ve seen the pre-print of the paper which they will present – in July it will be generally available. |
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| Books and football |
[Jun. 16th, 2006|12:03 pm] |
At least the work is sort of satisfying, in that I can perform the tasks assigned well enough and have fewer actions on me than most other team members. It's good to see the procedures one worked out with one's colleagues working well in a simulation, so one knows it should work in the real event.
On Gaelic - children are not forced to learn it even in Ireland now: which may be a positive thing, as many people hated the language due to that compulsory aspect. Nowadays it tends to be those with a real interest that learn it, and also it's ' cooler' now to know Irish, with Riverdance and Irish Tenors etc. being seen as cool world-wide.
When I describe those books – it’s because I read a bit slow, and several books at the same time, that I only finish one after a longish while – they may be remembered better that way, though. I was just skimming through Lisa Randell's "Warped Passages" about String Theory - she's unusual as a beautiful woman theoretical physicist. I also like the fact that she quotes rock music like Bjork instead of Aquinas or Dickens. By the way, I reccomend "The Lure" - amusingly it starts out in Trinity College Dublin and he describes walking thrugh the main gate, past Exam Hall, old library, maths & geology buildings - then next he places a chaos building next to where the actual physics building is. Also, his dark matter particle detector was under the Tatras, which I visited when I worked in Poland (pity about their going out against Germany in the World Cup).
I see that ISS will be visible over Germany these days. I hope to try tomorrow night to see it. It’s a bit late, but earlier than other days: http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step3.asp?SatID=25544&lat=49.803&lng=8.598&alt=0&loc=Pfungstadt&TZ=CET&Date=38884.9226721406
We never get out in the country for a great sky at night - last time was in Dingle, south-west Ireland, where we were remote from any settlement. That was fanstastic - seeing the Milky Way and so many more stars. No wonder the ancients built pyramids and other astro-buildings - they always had those awe-inspiring sky-scapes.
It will make a nice break from the football. It was funny that 3 of the first 4 teams to win were the adoptive countries of my brothers and I – Germany, Argentina and England. Amusing atmosphere now because of the soccer – but it is a bit overkill – football beer, milk, chocolate, underwear etc… And the horns were beeping late in the night when Germany beat Poland even though it was only a 1st round match. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 16th, 2006|08:00 am] |
Yes, we Irish do get around - the initial diaspora was good for getting out from under the shadow of Britain,
and in recent years the celtic tiger sends a new wave of computer literati out to mingle with the nations.
Saw the 3 Irish tenors on NDR TV last night - another sign of popularity of Irish music & dancing. So yes, after centuries of celtic obscurity, eclipsed by germanic Englanders, the 3rd major Euro-language group is making itself felt again.
On the heavy work - I had a taste last night, with that overtime - it is very annoying and if it goes on for a long time I understand how people feel about that. I will have a week or two of that in July with the launch. After such a week of shifts one is drained of life and soul... so take any chance you can to ease off on the over-work.
I'm re-reading Fritjof Capra's "Web of Life" at the moment - and agree it was his best work - the later ones were a bit too polemic and Tao of Physics somewhat heavy on light-weight mysticism. Finished "The Lure" by Bill Napier of Armagh Observatory - he has beaten me to it as Ireland-based astronomer to become a best-seller. It's a good book - like a cross between "Contact" (a la Jodie Foster film), "Species" and other such thrillers, but told with a good smattering of hard science. Other books being dipped into now: Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (again we've seen it all before in many sci-fi scenarios, a lot better told than this), "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett etc. The latter has fired me up to the extent that I added a few more pages to my consciousness/ genome book -
it's up to 20 pages now and the chapters are laid out. I will take it up again now, I think, after having left it for some months. In one chapter I'll give my take on the rubbishy Multiple Drafts theory of Dennett. |
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| Pentecost |
[Jun. 7th, 2006|01:20 pm] |
A long weekend was had here in Germany. Pentecost Monday and Tuesday were given. Started with a company curry on the Friday. Saturday a day of rest for me as family went off to visit my in-laws. Monday I couldn't shirk the second familial occasion and so visited the wife's aunt & co. It was nice enough and interesting to see they were into electrotherapy and homeopathy. Seems to be doing them good - they were less complaining of health than before, since a long time. I was able to concentrate a bit on the new book - fleshed out the introductory chapter a bit more. Also met up with Ian in his shop - we exchanged notes on the wild and wonderful areas that interest us. Then back to a chaotic garden. Then the solar guys rang. It was all go.
Used always be a contemplative time when I would do a painting with tongues of fire on people's heads or similar mystic imagery. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 7th, 2006|01:16 pm] |
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A long weekend was had here in Germany. Pentecost Monday and Tuesday were given. Started with a company curry on the Friday. Saturday a day of rest for me as family went off to visit my in-laws. Monday I couldn't shirk the second familial occasion and so visited the wife's aunt & co. It was nice enough and interesting to see they were into electrotherapy and homeopathy. Seems to be doing them good - they were less complaining of health than before, since a long time. I was able to concentrate a bit on the new book - fleshed out the introductory chapter a bit more. Also met up with Ian in his shop - we exchanged notes on the wild and wonderful areas that interest us. Then back to a chaotic garden. Then the solar guys rang. It was all go. |
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| A day of work, play and surfing |
[May. 31st, 2006|07:06 pm] |
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Ohhh aaahhh – just flexing my imaginary muscles as I dive into the imaginal realm as described in that book The Dreaming Universe. That read, and Ian Wilson’s Miracle Visitors gulped down with pleasure, I turn anew to Dennett’s troublesome book. Hard reading his diatribes against dualism and triumphalist contempt for non-materialists. Heh heh…. Got to read it if I’m to contradict him in my forthcoming masterpiece. Know thy enemy. Well it was a misty day of rain and clouds. Gradually got into the rhythm of work, tackling actions on me, tinkering with chunks of code, doing May timesheet, surfing web at lunch. Hee hee – left a pithy comment on Nature News’s article on the Brits’ UFO revelations – pointed to the scholarly rubbishing of the Condon Report in JSE… Then talking to Uwe about the antigravity of Heim and Hauser. Hard to believe he worked with the guy. Dreams of spaceships and an end to string theory. Sigh. Such stuff as dreams are made of. |
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| Hello again world |
[May. 30th, 2006|01:03 pm] |
Yep - anohter day, another blog - how many blogs & logs
and forums (4 - o'ems) am I now in? Groucho Marx would have been ashamed of me - he wouldn't join a blog that would have him as a member.
Yes, the passionate black feline did it again - miaowed so pitifully and hurled herself against the door until we had to let her in.
I would have read more sci-fi or philosophy but when the cat is there it's early to bed, early to rise. Sure enough, at 04:30 it"s not hte secret police but the cat, shuffling papers politely to get my attention.
I groan groggily, forcing her to let out one plaintive miaow.
That's enough for me. Shrugging off sleep after 4 1/2 hours, I get up slow and easy. Meantime cat has become intersted in ball of paper. I'm having none of that and walk determinedly downstairs. She is trained well enough now to give up that playfulness and march after me down to the kitchen, snacks and out the door. Back to bed for more shuteye. Wake after an hour. Doze for 1/2.
C'est la vie! |
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