From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: SARFATTI LECTURES IN NEW AGE PHYSICS
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 07:50:32 GMT



Work in progress
excerpted from

THE SARFATTI LECTURES IN THE NEW PHYSICS

SUPER PHYSICS
Faster than the speeding photon.
by Jack Sarfatti

for Whole Earth Review
"Let us Americans be masters of destiny, not victims of fate."
Ronald Reagan, 1992 Republican Convention.

What is time? Why does it flow from past to future? Do we have free
will? Is there a Force of Destiny? Can an event in the future cause an
event in the past? How does the Universe come into being? Can we have
knowledge from the future? Can we make money if we had knowledge from
the future? Can minds directly communicate by telepathy? Can we time
travel to the stars cheaply in one life time? Can we extend the human
life span to two hundred thousand years? Is there a God? Can we
communicate with God in an objective scientific way? These are some of
the problems of the New Physics. I have important good news about some
of them.

I. Popular overview of modern physics.

Galileo showed that everything falls the same way in a gravitational
field. Building upon Galileo, Newton invented calculus  and mechanics of
point particles in the 17th century.  He showed that vector  forces
change the vector momentum  of particles and that the universal central
force of gravitation depended upon the product of the masses and the
inverse square of the distance between the masses. Newton's mechanics
was generalized to fluid mechanics in the 19th century. Newton's
mechanics is based upon the "Galilean relativity" of common sense  in
which time is absolute  separate from space. Two "inertial observers"
(i.e., moving uniformly relative to each other in a straight line in the
absence of a gravitational field) might measure different spatial
distances between  two events A and B. but they would certainly measure
the same time difference between those same two events.

James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism and light into a
single unified electromagnetic field theory.  A vector field
configuration is a little arrow at every point in space at a fixed time.
The field equations tell how a field configuration evolves as time moves
forward. A magnetic field changing in time at a point in space generates
a non uniform electric field at that point.  Electric charges in
unaccelerated motion generate magnetic fields. A magnetic field exerts a
force  on a charged particle in motion that is at right angles to the
momentum of the charge and to the direction of the magnetic field. An
electric field in empty space that changes in time at a point in space
creates a non uniform magnetic field at that point. Electric charges in
accelerated motion radiate transverse  polarized electromagnetic wave
fields at the speed of light in empty space. The combined feedback
effects of Faraday induction and Maxwell's effective displacement
current sustain the propagation of the electromagnetic waves in empty
space far from electric charges. Electric power, electric motors, radio,
radar and TV are all applications of Maxwell's field equations.

The engineers who started the Industrial Revolution with the steam
engine developed thermodynamics whose "second law of entropy increase"
is the most important discovery. The entropy of a closed system must
always increase. This defines an "arrow of time's flow" from past to
future. Entropy is a measure of disorder and information. The second law
also places a limit on the efficiency of heat engines. The efficiency is
defined as the mechanical work done by the engine divided by the heat
energy input from a hot reservoir into the engine. The maximum
efficiency of any heat engine  is one minus the ratio of the cold
absolute temperature at which the engine ejects waste heat divided by
the hot absolute temperature at which the engine accepts heat. An
absolute Kelvin scale of temperature is defined in which the temperature
is a measure of the random kinetic energy of the particles that we sense
as heat. Absolute zero is the coldest temperature imaginable at which
all the particles would be sitting still were it not for the quantum
jiggle imposed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Room temperature
is about 300 degrees Kelvin.

At the close of the nineteenth century the world of physics was neatly
divided into localized point-like particles of matter described by the
Newton's mechanics and spread out electromagnetic fields described by
Maxwell's equations and their interactions. Time was separate from
space. The universe was static and existed for infinite time. All this
was to change rapidly.

Einstein developed the special theory of relativity by 1905 which
explained the Michelson-Morley experiment which tried to measure the
speed of the earth through the ether  using the coherent interference
of light waves. It was thought that light propagated through the ether
the way that sound propagated through air. The experiment was not able
to detect any sign of such motion. The ether demanded by Galilean
relativity could not be detected. Einstein's theory unified 1D time and
3D space into 4D "space-time" in which an absolute "proper time" between
two point events could be defined using a modified Pythagorean theorem.
Ordinary time which was absolute in Galilean relativity is not absolute
in Einsteinian relativity. A moving clock runs slow. The time it takes
the moving clock to move from 12 to 1 relative to us is longer than one
hour.  To the person at rest relative to the clock everything is
normal. However, if you take a very fast rocket to near the speed of
light and return to earth your trip may have taken only one year of your
time in terms of your aging process but a million years may have gone by
on earth. Einstein's special theory of relativity, confirmed by
experiment, allows us to time travel to the future if we have enough
energy. The equivalence of mass to energy predicted by Einstein was
dramatically confirmed in nuclear reactions culminating in the explosion
of fission bombs on Japan.

Breakthroughs in fundamental physics always have important technological
applications that their creators do not anticipate.

The special theory of relativity defines the modern technical notion of
"retarded causality" which starts off from the common sense idea that
causes are always before their effects. The Michelson-Morley experiment
showed that the speed of light c in empty space was the same for all
inertial observers no matter how they moved uniformly relative to the
source of light. This fact led to the 4D space-time geometry of
"lightcones". Each point in space-time is the origin of a double
lightcone (the future and past cones). All paths or worldlines in space-
time that are inside the local light cone at every point of the path are
called "timelike" and they correspond to subluminal motions of point
particles that are slower than the speed of light. Given two events A
and B. Imagine all possible timelike worldlines that start at A and end
at B. The straightest ones have the longest real proper time length.
All paths on the surface of the cone are lightlike of zero proper time.
The photon is a quantum particle of a light wave. If the photon had a
mind it would not experience the flow of time if psychological time is a
function of physical proper time as is usually assumed. Since ordinary
consciousness cannot be conceived without a flow of time, if a photon
has a mind then that mind is in an extraordinary altered state of
consciousness! All paths that are locally outside the light cone in the
"absolute elsewhere" are called "spacelike". They correspond to
superluminal (i.e., faster-than-light) motions of particles in which the
proper time is imaginary.   It is straightforward to show that if
spacelike motions exist then it is possible to have advanced causality
in which causes are in the frame-invariant absolute timelike future of
their effects for all inertial observers. Although the future-past
partial order for two events A and B that are spacelike separated is
frame-dependent, it is frame-independent if A and B are timelike
separated. Einstein's relativity permits faster-than-light (FTL) and
backward-in-time (BIT) reverse or advanced causality. The classic
experimental tests of relativity are independent of the postulate of
retarded causality in which the effect must be in the absolute timelike
future of the cause. I make the hypothesis that this retarded principle
of causality is factually wrong and that the explanation of how the
universe is created demands the logically self-consistent "destiny" of
advanced causality. Quantum mechanics violates retarded causality.

Einstein's theory of general relativity of 1915 explained gravitation as
caused by the bending or "curvature" of space-time. General relativity
used Galileo's observation  that everything falls the same way under
gravity in absence of air resistance to describe how observers
accelerating relative to each other see the same pair of events A and B.
Einstein, the genius, looked at Galileo's old observation in a new way.
An non-inertial observer in a closed box with no portholes accelerating
uniformly in a straight line in empty space far from large masses will
experience the weight of a constant gravitational field in which
everything falls the same way. On the other hand, an inertial observer
freely falling in an elliptical orbit about the earth will experience
weightlessness the same as she would experience moving uniformly in a
straight line in empty space far from any large masses. To a "non-
inertial observer" fixed to the surface of the earth the inertial
observer appears to be accelerating. From the point of view of the
equations of general relativity the freely floating weightless inertial
observer is moving along the straightest possible "timelike worldline"
in curved 4D space-time! A path that is straight or "geodesic" in curved
4D space-time will project down to a curved path in 3D space. Newton's
law of gravity, according to general relativity is due to incredibly
shrinking circles moving to the future and back from the future! Kip
Thorne of Cal Tech and Igor Novikov of Moscow have recently shown the
possible logically consistent existence of space-time tunnels that would
permit time travel to the past if the missing mass of the universe has
superluminal properties.
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