Approximately every 3 months (give or take) I will publish a codeword and an email address. That code word will have been selected 3 months prior and retained in a filing system not connected to the Internet. Anyone that has knowledge of the future can email the address and/or provide a comment on the blog here.

The comment should provide information which clearly shows foreknowledge of a soon to come event which is not easily guested at. The event predicted should be something that can be verified within 3 months of the prediction. So examples of such information would be along the lines of

• Significant world event(s) (political, geographical, cosmic events, births, deaths, etc.)
• Significant weather event(s) (rainfall, temperature, snowfall, etc..)
• Stock values at a given date and time
• Sport scores at a given date and time
• Winning lottery numbers (personally this would be helpful ;-)

So for example, the code word and email might be something like

Code Word: crispers enginery 
eMail: copycats165@timeodyssey.com
Validity Dates: Oct 1 to Dec 31, 2008

The email address will only be valid for the period of time indicated and will be taken down prior to being published on the web site here. As of the date and time of this posting the first email address has been created and is ready to accept emails. 

For those that are interested in the odds of someone selecting the code word and email address correctly through random chance, they are approximately 24,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. So the odds are definitely stacked in the favour of only someone who is either lucky in the extreme or someone that can send a message back in time to show that time travel is in fact possible.

Or actually, maybe you don’t. You see I didn’t either until I started going back to my University physic and chemistry days and started thinking about the nature of atomic orbitals and then started to compare pictures from another fascination of mine, astronomy. So take this picture for example

Electron Atomic Orbitals

The essence of atomic orbitals is that as the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons increases, the shape of the atomic orbitals reconfigures itself so as to represent the minimum amount of energy to bind the electrons to the nucleus. So for Hydrogen with only 1 electron, the electron orbital property is given by the 1s orbital layer whereas carbon’s 6 electronic would involve 2 x 1s, 2 x 2s, and 2 x 2p atomic orbitals.

Loosely translated then, as atoms get larger in atomic mass their electron shells start to look more and more like an onion however where each layer looks like either an s-type, p-type, d-type, or f-type layer of skin in a massive and tightly packed jigsaw puzzle arrangement. (See WebElements for more)

What I found interesting in considering the question of “what element am I” was the symmetry I began to see when looking at these atomic orbitals and various pictures of supernovae. Take for example these images taken over the last 4-5 years from Hubble:

Ring Around Supernova 1987A (SN1987A) - January 8, 1999

Supernova 1987A: Halo for a Vanished Star

Dust Disk Fuels Black Hole in Giant Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4261

Now what fascinates me about these sets of images is how remarkably similar they are. Yes you could argue that because of the nature of spinning disks and the collection of matter and the way the light shines through the surrounding material that this is simply just a trick of the light – blah blah blah.

But what if its not? We are talking about thought experiments here so let’s throw out conventional wisdom for a moment and assume that somewhere along the way we missed the boat.

The old school of thought before quarks, leptons, and bossons was that the nucleus could be considered akin to a sun and the electrons planets. Now consider reworking that very simple analogy and instead each electron were akin to a individual sun on a micro level. Obviously stars have constituent parts just like electrons do. And funnily enough, the pattern of atomic orbitals look remarkably similar to that of nova and supernova. Is there a connection which is far more simple that what physics is trying to develop currently?

One possible implication is that atoms are essentially constantly in the process of atomic nova on a per electron basis which may explain why the patterns produced in nova and atomic orbitals are so similar. Especially if each ‘electron explosion’ can only occur in series rather than in parallel. What we are seeing then may simply be the resonance of quantum strings vibrating in response to these little electron novas occurring which give the perception of uncertainty when in fact none exists.  If each micronova occured in series then it would effectively shape each successive micronova that followed leading to the patters we see in the atomic orbitals. I dunno but this is going to be interesting following the chain of logic to see where it may break down. -K

It goes something like this – that a column of aquious liquid that can suspend iron molecules evenly throughout the column. Like maybe buckey balls with an iron ion in their center in a very large column of glicerine maybe. You sort of get the idea. Wrap the column with copper wire and then attach an air hose to the bottom of the cylinder. Pump air. The air causes the iron molecules to circulate inducing an electric current in the wire and presto – instant energy.

Now the real question is simply this: The system is assumed to work because we are allowing the potential energy of the air bubbles to do the work as a result of buoyancy. However, is the amount of energy required to get an air bubble to form at the bottom of the cylinder greater or less than the energy output? Good question and one that I think the answer to is “less”.

Reasoning: To form an air bubble at the bottom of a column of liquid you have to overcome the force of the liquid and the tendency of gases to disolve in liquids under pressure. Which means you never quite get the full potential energy of those first few bubbles as you start the system up. However, once started you have three things going for you which are not quite energy for free but may sort of seem like it.

The first is the way buoyancy works and how gasses expand in a liquid as they rise to the surface. This puts kinetic energy into the liquid which establishes a circulation (2) and heat (3) which further enhances the viciousness of the liquid. Since electric currents are all about getting a magnet to pass across copper coils in a consistently cyclical fashion, I would suspect that these three forces driving a circulation pattern which would be very prominent near the surface of the liquid would be sufficient to create greater electric charge than the energy require to start the process off in the first place.

Now – taking a leap of faith for a moment. Lets assume that this all happens to work out. The neat thing then is that this contraption wouldn’t necessarily be used in order to power a car or city. Rather you would use something like this to ‘bootstrap’ other processes are at or close too 100% efficiency already, such as a hydro-sonic pump, and hence multiply the output. Now we are talking about something more capable of powering a city and without radioactive by-products kicking around for the next 500,000 years.

Will see what I can pull together and if the idea actually works. First step — anyone have about 2 miles of very thin copper wire?  – K

By analogy, picture two inclined planes. One has an absolutely smooth surface. The second is filled with indentations of varying shapes and sizes. Now roll a marble down each. It would seem obvious that the marble on the smooth surface would reach the bottom the fastest as the other marble would be slowing down and trying to get back to speed as it hits each bump in along the surface. Further, that for each bump of a given size, the depth only becomes an issue after the size of the bump increases in relationship to the size of the marble. If the marble and the bump are relatively the same size then the depth (or scale) really doesn’t matter all that much – all that matters is the fact that the surface isn’t perfectly smooth.

This would suggest that we have the speed of light correct, but only within our frame of reference which is our local neighbourhood. The actual speed of light in a vacuum in terms of a constant should be greater than what we have experimentally measured. This idea provides for a number of rather weird implications that should be able within reach of experimental evidence.

The first is that the energy released according to Einstein’s equation E = mc²may need to be modified to take into account the gravitation effects of the frame of reference in which the calculation is made. For example, the energy released in a highly dense environment (i.e. larger numbers of gravity wells) should be less energetic than that in a vacuum (with fewer gravity wells) since the speed of light would be slower in highly dense environments.

The second is that the size of the universe and distances to far away galaxies should not be able to be calculated with any great precision as the light which is used as the yardstick for determining time will have sped up and slowed down countless times as it travels through space of various densities. What I don’t know is whether that effect has any impact on red-shift and blue-shift which would certainly thrown just about every astronomer into a tizzy if the de facto standard for determining spacial relationships suddenly proved to be bogus.

The third then would be this concept of the speed of light being absolute. If c is a function of the wavelength of light times a gravitational factor, then by reducing the gravimetric effects of the surrounding space, technically there would then be no limit to the speed at which we could travel. Einstein’s prediction that infinite speed requires infinite energy would no longer be the case if a spaceship could be encased in a bubble of non-gravity. I would suspect that the time effects also predicted by Einstein’s equations would also no longer be of relevance because we have now essentially changed our frame of reference so that the gravitational influences on the rate of time potentially cancel out.

Would be interesting to see if this is actually the case. Experimentally it would be simple to prove under conditions in which gravimetric effects of the surrounding frame of reference could be cancelled out. Same experiment as originally done to prove the time dilation effect – just done in a gravimetric bubble. Two clocks out – two clocks back – should remain synchronized with a source clock maintained within normal space. And just think of the worlds that little trick would open up – K

So to some extent we can imagine a process whereby there then exists the possibility that in quantum software, the master copy can be retained at a head office and the quantum copy is what is distributed. You have automated verification that what you are working with is a verifiable copy. Also updates to the software can be made at the head office and since quantum entanglement means that what you do to one set of quantum information the other set mirrors, software updates are automatic.

Take this process further – You could have a set of quantum disk drives where the master file record is contained in a central repository and when the remote copy is updated so is the master without the need to connect via the Internet.  The process can be extended to other mechanisms that we typically take for granted but are vital for current day to day living. Router and switch software updates, BIOS updates for example. Nanotechnology which uses small specialized programs to do things such as monitor health or conduct internal tissue repair could auto update without ever having to be extracted and reprogrammed.

This is the real holy grail of quantum computing. Its not going to be in the amount of processing power although that will have definite impacts. Its going to be in the fact that once you have loaded your quantum computer with your applications the need for Internet communications leads towards a world in which Internet based communications disappears. Science being what it is, you can kind of figure that if we can figure out how to develop quantum states between two particles that we can figure out how to do it with n particles.

Essentially where this is leading is towards a world where communications can occur instantaneously without the need for satellites, fibre optics, fixed wired, or wireless communications. This will be the next huge technological leap forward and the one that is going to open up vistas never before imagined. Putting this into perspective - Scientists at a future version of JPL / NASA will be able to remotely explore planets in real time without having to account for time lags due to speed of light communications. Robots could be sent to Mars, Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons, and we could work as easily there in real time as there would be no immediate need to send people to those planets to build initial infrastructures along with the associated risks inherent in their creation. – K

Why is this important? Well, from a military standpoint, the advent of quantum computers will essentially change the face of nuclear deterrents such that the MAD of opposing superpowers will no longer be determined by how many nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles one country has over another. Both China and the US have shown a peculiar bent towards proving that a missile screen is possible through the shooting down of satellites and other  missiles. The trick however has never been a matter of shooting down just one. The trick has always been how to shoot down 5000-10000all coming in at the same time. While the various militaries have always maintained an edge in technological innovation which is anywhere from 5-10 years ahead of that commercially available to the general marketplace, the computing power necessary to shoot down 5000 missiles without some type on on-board AI computing systems is still beyond the grasp of what is currently available at a reasonable cost. Even it if were, simple computer programmed mechanisms to create chaotic flight paths may be enough to circumvent any type of a screen.

Quantum computers however level that playing field allowing for on-board AI systems which may be intelligent enough (i.e. contain fast enough processors) to provide an effective missile defense such that it wouldn’t matter whether the number of nuclear missiles fired was 5000, or 50000. So long as the number of interceptors were greater than the number of attacking missiles, an effective screen could potentially work.

This would, in effect, substantially change the nature of warfare such that direct head on encounters would no longer represent the dominant form of engagement even against a weaker opponent in the long term. The reason is that, within reason, any given technology can only remain secret for so long before it becomes ‘public’ knowledge. Which means there is a competitive edge towards the major powers for a given period of time (say roughly 50 years) after which you would have to assume everyone possesses the same defensive capability. By which point your political and military strategy should have already changed to compensate for the fact that you now need a more effective means of circumventing an opponents defenses.

The bottom line on all this is that this technological nuclear nightmare we’ve created for ourselves, which hasn’t gone away by any stretch of the imagination, is in fact something we will get over without blowing ourselves up in the process. Yes, that is a bit of a stretch, but given the pace of innovation my feeling is that our next doomsday scenario is not going to come from countries suddenly firing nukes at each other in mindless first strike or retaliatory agression regardless of the continued threat from terrorists getting their hands on nuclear material. – K