Talk:Burkhard Heim

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Burkhard Heim has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Talk:Burkhard Heim/Archive1

The first talk page of this article has been archived verbatim at Talk:Burkhard Heim/Archive1. It was 112 kilobytes in length, and contained discussions dating from November 2004 to April 2005. The purpose of this header is to summarize as briefly as possible the content of the talk page. It is also intended to be an overview for the casual Wikipedian "passing by". There is also an abbreviated version of the first talk page at Talk:Burkhard Heim/Archive1Modified. However, the content of this page is significantly edited - hence if the necessity arises to refer to the first archived talk pages, this one should be used as the authoritative resource. This is because that page in particular, has not been edited. The modified version of the old talk page is intended to be used as a quick, general reference for content and information, and not a reference for the thought processes and discussion which occured on this page. The intention is that the effort placed in editing the old talk page could result in some material which could be incorporated into the existing Burkhard Heim article.

---

physicist and NOT physician, folks!! ----------

The primary participants in alphabetical order during this period were

User:Hdeasy (also posting as User:195.93.60.11 and with the nickname hughey), User:Pjacobi, User:Steuard, and User:WpZurp.

The minor participants in alphabetial order during this period were

User:192.171.3.126, User:HappyCamper, User:Lifefeed, and User:Mikkalai.

Please feel free to add to this list and modify it as appropriate. Endeavour to maintain neutrality and generality in the terms, as its purpose is to provide a summary for the archived talk page. Hence, precision is not necessarily a primary concern here; the list should not be considered comprehensive as a large number of topics were covered.

The topics discussed included:

1. Proper licensing of Heim's image in the article
2. Validity of an article on Heim

   This included discussions regarding:

   1. Notability of Heim and his work
   2. Whether the article qualifies as containing original research
   3. The encyclopedic value of an article on Heim

3. How to achieve a neutral and balanced point of view

   This included discussions regarding:

   1. The perceived bias in the initial article
   2. Requests for article cleanup
   3. Notability of Heim's work
   4. How to classify or label Heim

4. Value of Heim's works

   This included discussions regarding:

   1. Heim's work in relation to the context of modern theoretical physics
   2. Perceived inconsistencies and contradictions to current theories and experiments
      1. The neutral electron
      2. The 6, 8, dimensional spaces
      3. The fine structure constant
      4. The mass formula
      5. "Metron theory"
      6. The cosmological constant and the quantity "E"
      7. How to express experimental precision for Heim's work
   3. Academic notability and relevance
   4. Peer reviewed articles
   5. Difficulties in following Heim's theory
   6. Associations of Heim with less academically oriented spheres of thought
   7. External sites for Heim and their relevance and notability

The consensus reached on multiple issues on the archived talk page in no particular order is that

1. The articles on Heim should make explicit and clear that Heim's work needs to undergo more peer reviewing (several peer reviewed papers have now been published - including a prize-winning one on aerospace applications) and rigorous analysis before it can be taken more seriously in the scientific community
2. Split the article into Heim Theory and Burkhard Heim, where the former will focus on his theories, while the latter will be primarily biographical.
   • The biographical article should have thorough references to his academic and personal history;
3. Avoidance of derogatory terminology is prefered especially in contexts where other alternatives are available to convey the same idea.
4. Heim's physical condition influenced his decisions regarding his publications, either by choice, necessity, or both - this should also be made explicit and clear.
5. There is some reservation and skepticism towards Heim's work which is difficult to mitigate

Unresolved issues include

1. The issue about "E" and whether it renders a paper related to Heim's work inconsistent or not. Consensus was to move on to another topic. Was recently discussed again on April 19, 2005.

• (Also, many issues above under "Perceived inconsistencies and contradictions..." should probably be considered unresolved.)

Contents 1 Archiving 2 The "E" question 3 Going ahead 4 Translated text 5 This is not a biography! 6 "Outlier" 7 Plagiarism 8 No references by Hawking?

[edit] Archiving

I decided to be "WikiBold" and archived the old talk page; I added the header at the top which I hope is satisfactory. It might be better to move the header into the talk page afterwards. I also added a "reorganizing" tag for the old talk page. I'm hoping to preserve all of the original talk material and also create a new summarized version of the old talk page. It will be clearly marked as a "refactored" version. Guidelines from Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages. HappyCamper 15:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The "E" question

Recent posts were made at the first archived talk page under subsection Final comments on "E". HappyCamper 15:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Going ahead

A recent post was made in the old talk page about a recent paper published in the AIAA.

As new papers were mentioned here before, let me announce a forthcoming article in New Scientist, Jan 7th 2006 issue, on Heim theory and propulsion - largely based on above AIAA prize-winning paper. If it does not appear, then I will be rather surprised - that should only happen if some urgent discovery pushes the article back to a later issue. --hughey 15:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Hee hee hee! That new scientist article has attracted lots of attention - largely positive. Heim's theory is widely seen as a marvellous development. So, all the negative nay sayers here who even sought the erradication of the page, are being shown the error of their ways. Web searches for Burkhard Heim now get many more hits than ever before . And with more scientific papers on the basics theory in the offing, and a mass formula applet being suggested, it seems that Heim is indeed to take the world by storm, as was once facetiously suggested here.--hughey 18:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll certainly grant you that the recent publicity for Heim makes articles on him and his ideas worth having on Wikipedia. But I don't for a moment concede that Heim's theory is correct or even well-defined, and I think that both articles here should make that clear. My own hope regarding this new surge in publicity is that a few noted theoretical physicists will look at the theory and make clear statements about it. I've already seen one, by Sean Carrol at the University of Chicago:

"Just so nobody gets too excited — this paper is complete nonsense, not worth spending a minute’s time on. If I find the energy I might post on it, but this is no better than the other hundred crackpot preprints I get in the mail every year."

As I've said before, I really don't understand why aerospace engineers would feel themselves competent to judge a highly technical paper in particle physics and quantum gravity (or why their judgement of it carries particular weight with anyone else). I certainly wouldn't trust myself to certify the reliability of an airplane design, particularly not one claiming to be based on a revolutionary (and untested) new concept in the industry!--Steuard 20:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this perhaps highlights the differences in the ways engineers and physicists think about a problem. The AIAA, in awarding the paper about Heim's work, is awarding the logic of the methodology for use of the "drive system", not reviewing the physics underlying such a drive. I'd prefer to read an abstract or the entire paper before I make that statement with any certainty, but that's my best understanding based upon discussions with several of my professors in the aerospace engineering department at my university. --ABQCat 21:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I've got to admit that I don't understand that approach at all. If I submitted a paper to the AIAA explaining in detail how to build a Star Trek style transporter with the help of the "Pyramid Jesus Unified Field Equation", would I win the next prize? (I've actually seen a booklet that used that term, incidentally.) Perhaps some engineers are so accustomed to simply applying and refining the principles supplied to them by physicists that they've fallen out of the habit of even wondering whether their underlying assumptions are correct.--Steuard 04:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Steuard, do you ever plan to contribute to the article, or are you strictly restricting your edits to just this talk page? --HappyCamper 04:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Before dismissing Heim’s initial and extended theories, one should note that the very significant distinction between him and other crackpots was the amount of respect he had commanded from such great theoretical physicists as Pascual Jordan and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (von Ludwiger, 2001). A true quantum leap in genius can be very difficult to bridge. Tcisco 15:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translated text

Hi. HappyCamper has asked me to translate a text in French which could contain information on Heim that could be useful in this article. I see that there are issues of neutrality going on, not to mention that, simply adding to the article the direct translation of a text found at this website may constitute a copyright violation. In light of all of that, I'm posting here my translation of the text, so that the people who are more involved with the article can decide how to best use it. For the original, please visit the indicated website.

Redux's translation:

"Northeim, Hannover.

A German physiciSTS of international fame, his works were translated by physiciSTS with the Sandia Lab, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He worked under difficult conditions. Both his hands were amputated following a lab accident during World War II. He also suffered from advanced deafness as well as being almost completely blind. He had to undergo more than 50 surgeries in order to recover some part of his basic abilities. He taught and work as a deaf, blind man. Through the years, with the help of his wife, who served as his secretary, and equipped with a special gadget, he had the texts read to him and memorized them. He enjoyed a prodigious memory and became a “human computer”, recording in his brain formulas and knowledge, categorizing thousands of pieces of information while being capable of imagining and creating.

He believed that it was possible to both increase or annul gravity. On January 7, 1969, at the Institute for the study of force fields of Nordheim, near Goettingue, in the region of Basse Saxe, he stunned his colleagues by demonstrating in practice that it was possible to create artificially a gravitation field, transforming light into magnetism.

Ten years earlier, he had already demonstrated, in theory, the possibility of transforming an electric field into a gravitation field and vice-versa. At the time his theory of the uniformity of the quanta of the force fields of gravitation and matter, which, in addition to describing physics and the biosphere, also disserted on psychology and the spiritual domain, was a sensation in the scientific world and made way for numerous publications that spanned from serious analyses to the phantoms of science fiction. His theory is one-of-a-kind in modern physics because it allows, among other things, to calculate exactly the masses of all particles as well as the most important constants. His theory of fields deducts the existence of a hyperspace, a sixth dimension and has relevant consequences to cosmology, both technologically and metaphysically. The Second Congress on his theory was held in 1998. Heim imagined devices in which photons lost their luminosity, that is to say, their energy. They become invisible as the luminescent energy is transformed into gravitational energy which exercises magnetic force. The savant inspired himself in air chambers to build an extremely sensitive detector that allows to register even the weakest pulses of gravitation. This invention can be considered as the future corner stone of space propulsion and evokes an analogy between terrestrial science and extraterrestrial technology. According to Burkhard Heim, discovery through cognition is common to all the sentient systems in the Universe, for they possess a common source. So, for religious reasons, he discontinued voluntarily his studies on cosmogenesis and evolutional phenomena."

END OF TEXT

There are many technical terms in the text. I did my best to word it as accurately as possible, but some review may be necessary as far as the technical stuff is concerned. Regards, Redux 01:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Redux, your translation will help us assess what material can be added to the article. Thank you very much! HappyCamper 01:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

This translation is quite interesting, as it mentions some references which I don't think have been discussed previously on this page. For example, what might "On January 7, 1969, at the Institute for the study of force fields of Nordheim..." refer to? HappyCamper 01:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. About the Institute, they didn't give the name of the place, but rather discribed its scope and where it is located. It could be that it is the "Institute for the study of force fields of Nordheim", maybe that's the actual name of the place. Perhaps someone knows about that... I didn't, so I stuck to what the text read. Redux 01:48, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, after my latest biographical additons to yhe article, it should be clear that the "Institute for the study of force fields" is the "Institut fuer Kraftfeldphysik e.V.", from which a colleague embezzled funds, increasing Heim's distrust and secrecy. Nordheim was where Heim lived with his wife, so he must have registered the firm with HQ at his house. However, looking again at the 'Nachruf', there's a photo of Heim in front of his 'Kontrabator', which is presumably in the lab in his home in Nordheim. This is from 'Bunte' in 1957.

--hughey 10:59, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This is not a biography!

Folks, this is no way to write a bibliograpgy. A section title "Posthumous results" in a biography is ridiculous. Please move all the non-biographical stuff to Heim theory. --Pjacobi 10:34, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Why not make the change yourself and see how it works out? We can always revert if it turns out that it's more difficult to incorporate it into Heim theory :-) --HappyCamper 12:24, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of an operation using a scalpell by one of the regular contributors to this page, e.g. you. But if you can live with an operation by axe, I can give it a try. --Pjacobi 17:21, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Heh, interesting metaphors! Well, just go right ahead and as always, feel free to do so. I'd much rather see more active participation on these pages anyway. If you move large chunks of text around, I'd probably just edit the text in their new locations so they fit in nicely with the rest of the context in which it's placed. I'm comfortable with this approach for articles like this, as I think its a pretty productive and positive type of editing. Just remember to leave edit summaries and notes on talk pages! :-) --HappyCamper 18:33, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Corrective readjustments to the chronology are needed and a few historical milestones are missing from the 1940's to 1950's subsection of the Academic and work history segment. Tcisco 14:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Outlier"

Hdeasy, your math is bogus. If the experimental value has 7 or more valid decimal places and the theoretical value differ in in the first seven places, either the the theoretical value has less than 7 valid decimal places or is in disagreement with the experimental value. In neither case it is correct to say, that it has 7 places of accuracy. --Pjacobi 10:56, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

We have gone over this a number of times already. Why don't you make a change to the article which you think would be suitable instead? --HappyCamper 12:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Please provide two (one can always be seen as tuning) mass predictions which match current experimental values in seven digits. Can you? Then I'll humbly apologize to interfere with your editing. --Pjacobi 15:55, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Hey, it's a Wiki - anything can be changed so no need for any potential apologies :-) I was suggesting that if you think the quoted number is only accurate to say, only one or two digits, then you could change the number so that it reflects this. I'm not sure how this should best be done. I don't mind how the numbers are presented so much myself, but it might be worth mentioning that other sites consider the results more accurate than that those presented here. Right now, I've sort of drifted off to collecting some other relevant papers. I might add some of these as references to the article later. The response from the German archives are rather slow. --HappyCamper 16:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Somewhat agree. The current formulation as a result of my edits is self-contradictory. But to judge between "agreement withing error bars of the theoretical calculation" and "according to the newest experimental results, in disagreement by X stddevs", we need to have more information on the theoretical error bars. --Pjacobi 17:19, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Just saw all this. Is this not against the Wikipedia policy against insulting behaviour to say my math is 'bogus'?: It was not I who put in the original figure of 7. I had intended altering to a more realistic figure. What the original user of this figure probably meant was 7 significant figures. Leaving this unjustified insult aside, I must say it shows poverty of spirit on your part, Pjacobi, to essentialy ignore the AIAA prize - as someone who lives in north Germany you should be impressed by Uni Braunschweig's praise of Hauser. Another link in this regard: http://www.braunschweig.ihk.de/innovation_umwelt/innovationsberatung/?viewMeldung=meldung_1115878075.4 .

--hughey 08:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Statements of fact are exempt from WP:NPA. Whoever inserted the "7 decimal places" claim should elaborate or we should better delete this claim. --Pjacobi 10:03, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear. Why don't we try this?

1. Get rid of the "7 decimal places" claim, but print the numbers verbatim.
2. Let's take a page, say [1], and put the results online in a table as they are depicted in the document verbatim
3. Then, we mention something like "the results in this table are from" this source. We avoid attempting to interpret the numbers, and simply state something like, "in 19XX calculations were done with Heim theory and we got this". Period.
4. We won't mention anything about X number of decimal places of accuracy. The fact is, this is the only source I know of which has these numbers calculated and none of us are in any better position to say whether the published numbers are "good" or "bad". So, as a neutral encyclopedic article, we won't comment on how these numbers look. We'll just say, "X said it was this number".

Does this sound reasonable to everyone? I'm well aware of the shortcomings of the published results, but the reality is, any interpretation we give of the numbers will necessarily be an interpretation, and at the moment, it's probably best to avoid that.

Well on a side note, I disagree that statement of facts are exempt from WP:NPA. I think people can choose to refrain from using the word "bogus", and instead chose an alternative which is less of an intensifier. Let's just move on from that and focus on how to add these numbers to the article in a balanced way, good? --HappyCamper 12:35, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I apoligize for using the word "bogus". Your proposal is fine with me. --Pjacobi 12:55, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism

I removed:

, e.g., Anderson and Ahner (see [2] for a related paper by these authors with a higher dimensional theory reminiscent of Heim's)

Without some evidence that Heim did suspect A&A, this seems inappropriate. And higher-dim theories are pretty common. William M. Connolley 19:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC).

[edit] No references by Hawking?

Why is there nothing about these theories in Stephen Hawkings books ? After all, that's what he's working on.. unified theory

Burkhard Heim's work is not an accepted part of mainstream physics. As I recall, Hawking's books deal primarily with established physics (such as general relativity) and to a limited extent with mainstream efforts at unification (he mentions string theory, for example).--Steuard 23:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Illobrand Von Ludwiger told me that Hawking had been approached and asked to look through Heim's work, but he had refused as the 3 volumes are in German, which he does not understand sufficiently well. That's where Hauser and Dröscher are improving on the situation - they are prepared to publish in English. Already they've 'taken the world by storm' with their AIAA papers and the New Scientist publicity. Next year will see peer reviewed papers with more technical backround that given in the aerospace presentations. And don't poo-poo that please - the enemies of Heim-theory must eat humble pie for a while after their humiliating defeat in the attempts to delete the theory page :-) . --hughey 16:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe I've read this too. Stick to the Facts 04:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the citation corrections. I have never had a course in German. Subsequently, I have had to rely on Babel Fish to translate text from German to English. Tcisco 03:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)