Talk:Heim theory

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This article was nominated for deletion on 27 September 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Antiquity – Jan 2006 Jan 2006 – Feb 2006 Feb 2006 – May 2006

Contents 1 "Disclaimer" 2 Defeat of the deletion campaign 3 Talk page headers 4 why not peer reviewed? 4.1 New comment, September 5 Balance 6 Where Heim Theory is Found 7 The shortest scientific paper ever 8 Sources and how they're used 9 Removal of PROD tag 10 Notable and important, even if probably wrong 11 A sentence I don't understand 12 "Metron" definition 13 Protosimplex Zones 14 Some comments 15 Status as a pseudoscience 16 Rewrite uploaded 17 Pseudoscience 18 Fraud allegations 18.1 Comment by John Reed 18.1.1 Clarification 18.1.2 Communique from HTRG 18.1.3 Contents of matrix A 19 More Mass Theory

[edit] "Disclaimer"

The top disclaimer of this article did change some times, from NPOV to other boxes, capital, then boldface non-mainstream. I'd suggest to use the standard (but actually not used very often, I confess) Template:Infobox Pseudoscience. Please note that the template name is "Pseudoscience" but the rendered title is the weaker "Disputed Science", so it fits pseudoscience and protoscience articles. It may seem to some, that using "Disputed Science" contradicts Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words, but it's a workable compromise. The exact qualification of the theory has to be established by the article, not by a big rubber stamp. --Pjacobi 22:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

It's fine just like it is. Enough liquid crystal displays have been illuminated on this topic. We really need to move on without constantly rehashing settled matters.--Will314159 01:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree unless by "settled" you understand "decided by hughey and yourself". Yours truly, Friendly Neighbour 11:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Quite so. When will they ever learn? Heim theory is not pseudo-, proto-, neo- or whatever other newspeak neologism. It is, pure and simple, science from a scientist in the language of science, namely maths. --hughey 08:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

There's no way for an English speaker such of myself to know whether it's in "the language of science", as the theory defines (or redefines) some terms in a manner incomprehensible to a native math speaker, such as myself :) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"English speaker such of myself." You call that English mate. Just laughing with you, not at you. Take Care!--Will314159 23:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Science is what is published in peer-revieweed journals and taught in universities. It's a process issue. Heim Theory may be truest of true, but it must be rubberstamped in academic discussion, not in Wikipedia. --Pjacobi 18:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

According to Answers.com, the website that provides the dictionary for Google, science is "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena." Seems to me that "peer reviewed" has no place in that definition. As such, it is [i]disputed[/i] science, but not proto- pseudo- or any other prefix of the word science. Heim observed several characteristics of the universe, identiied them, attempted to describe then, and formulated a theoretical explanation for whatever exactly his theory attempts to explain (I'm no scientist, just a common guy with a knack at pointing out unfounded statements). Seems to me that he, or people who worked with him, formulated an experiment that may or may not prove his theory, and that they lacked the means to perform the experiment. So that would be the only category where Heim Theory would not be called "science", but if memory serves me General Relativity was not experimentally confirmed beyond any doubt until fairly recently. 24.128.22.71 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC) ma.comcast.net anon possibly in Derry, NH

Sorry to disapoint you but General relativity was created in 1915, published in a peer-reviewed journal (Annalen_der_Physik) in 1916 and experimentally confirmed in 1919 when an effect predicted by it was observed during a sun eclipse. The Nobel Prize which Albert Einstein received in 1921 was awarded for something else (photoelectric effect). However, the impulse to give him the prize was certainly the world wide fame the confirmation of a prediction of his most important theory brought to Einstein. He published in peer-reviewed journals, his theories predicted new physical phenomena which could be (and actualy were) experimentally confirmed. This is certainly science. Mainstream science, in fact. Friendly Neighbour 07:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

There are all gradations of Non-Mainstream. For one, there is the hydrino theory of Dr. Mills. Classical Quantum Mechanics. This theory entirely denies all the Dirac-Feynman wave-particle quantum theory and resets the clock. The electron probabililty cloud of the 1s orbital of the hydrodgen atom is replaced by a spherical electon orbitsphere. On the other hand, Heim REJECTS NONE of the prior theory of his generation. He builds on it and combines GR and QM. We all are aware of the problems, chiefly: the selector calculus, instead of standard math, the growth of the theory in isolation- not peer reviewed, the seeming impenetrabity. The afficiandos are working on that. There are papers and books in the works. What do they see in Heim. An entirely different view of the universe. Matter springing organicaly and geneticaly out of spacetime. A marriage of the two. Until Loop quantum gravity matured, HT was unique in this view. Steuard has heartburn with the comparison of HT and LQG. The similarities are they are both background independent, use a quantized spacetime, and have a view of matter as emerging out of an "oscillation" of a spacetime "matrix." String theory has no explanation for matter. It is assumed a priori to be a brane/string. For my taste, fine as that goes, but not an ultimate theory.--Will314159 14:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "Steuard has heartburn with the comparison of HT and LQG." I do find the comparison rather inappropriate, as LQG is (deservedly) part of mainstream physics while Heim Theory is (deservedly) not. Trying to link the two is highly unflattering to LQG, and I'm sufficiently fond of good science (and of educating people about good science) that I'll work to debunk such misleading comparisons when I see them. I've already explained at length (and summarized above) some of the major flaws and warning signs that I see in Heim Theory as a professional physicist. I'm very happy to see people fascinated by the sorts of questions that Heim tried to answer, but I consider it a duty of any scientist to help channel that interest toward high quality, plausible approaches to answering them.

Meanwhile, I'm also rather puzzled by your comments about string theory: every string theorist would readily agree that spacetime is intrinsically quantum mechanical. In string theory, spacetime itself (like matter) emerges from vibrations of interacting strings (yes, current work in string theory always starts with some choice of background metric, but changing from one "background" to another is nothing more than a coherent state of strings: no particular background is preferred or special). It's not clear to me why assuming "a priori" that matter and spacetime are both reflections of underlying string worldsheet physics is any less "ultimate" than assuming that matter reflects lumps in some underlying spacetime physics. But that is all rather off topic with regards to this article, so I'll leave it at that. If you'd like to learn more about how these things actually work in string theory, there are some really good books and articles out there.--Steuard 04:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I've reread the WP String theory article. Based upon that and having listened to and read Witten's power point online lectures, I'm still inclined to my opinions. But I"ll consider Steuard's point of view and continue to read further. Take Care!--Will314159 22:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

That i find laudable in every way, and highly support. But at the same time String theory is simply far from being pushed forth to the general public just in order to raise funding etc. It has become more a spectacle than anything else, and as such i do not consider it good science either. As for Heim, he has done some work. What exactly this work is, is disputet up to this day, but so far no-one seriously involved could claim undisputably that it is incorrect. I would settle that it simply doesn`t have much relevance. Then again Heim should be even more off limits for the populace than anything else, considering how easy it is to obscure some rather inaccessible material, put it into a pseudo scientific context and absuse it for sake of manipulation common people. What i can`t stand about YOU is how reasonable you are on the one hand side (as any good scientist) should be on the other how blinded you are still whenever it comes to string theory (or unification as such) as if it consumed your whole life and perspective, - if that should be the case refrain from writing in a NPOV medium or read those introductory sections about science again where it explicitely says that science is about abstract modelling world phenomena, and the "magic" that happens under such great titles such as supersymetry and even for newcomers the duality of light is merely a shortcoming of one or several models that is wrongfully hailed as a feature or bonus (kinda like windows with all its intricate bugs and lack of features). Midly put string theory has advanced NOTHING but math and theoretical physics, and it`s whole makeup is set so that it will never get past the theoretical stage. It is doomed as a perpetual protoscience. But sciene is science. Yet anything beyond that is politics, and this is more than half of what string theory has grown into. This fancy material for the populace does in no way contribute to education but rathetr to dumbening the viewerbase even more down, so that they will confuse experimental science with theoretical science more and more -something bugging me for years with string theorists.Slicky 08:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Defeat of the deletion campaign

As we can see from the appearance of the page today, the glorious defeat of the deleters has been achieved. A special thank you to all the positive feelings that crushed the nay-sayers objections. A glass of champagne will be raised tonight in the light of this glorious victory :-)! --hughey 08:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully nobody else will try a delete soon - they should look here first and see the evidence of the futility of such an action. --hughey 10:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page headers

As we can see from the previous section, some editors feel very strongly that Heim theory has been mischaracterized as being "nonmainstream" and "controversial". Recently, Will314159 (talk • contribs) implied in an edit line (if I am reading his intention correctly) that my addition of the "controversial" header to this talk page was "vandalism". For the record, this header indicates that the discussion on the talk page has been heated; I would think that everyone can agree on at least this point! The intent of the headers is to help remind newbies how to wikisign their comments and to remind everyone to try to keep their cool.---CH 17:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

sorry about that, i was reverting a recatogerazation by Hillman on the main article that he did w/o talk. Previously, he had many moons ago stuck a NPOV warning [EDIT that's where i lost my bearings, i thought he had restuck the NPOV tag on the main article} on main article w/o talk that had been removed after much discussion. I had gotten lost in bearings and mistakenly removed the "controversial" tag from the talk page which i quickly restored. the vandalism tag should have been on Hillman's other drive-by-edit endeavor. I'm glad he is now making an appearance on the talk page and hope he will discuss any further changes here before he makes them. My apology for the 5-second deletion. Take Care! Will314159 21:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. BTW, I am no newcomer to the talk pages (look in the archives). About categories, a day or so ago I created Category:Fringe science to hold articles on topics generally held to be fringe science. I feel that Heim theory belongs in this category. Note that by definition continental drift would have belonged in that category for many decades until discovery of the mid-Atlantic ridge caused a sea-change :-/ This is exceptional, but I hope that proponents of Heim theory will agree that it is fair to say that this is on the fringes, i.e. not mainstream. The disagreement is over how much of this stuff has merit, I think. ---CH 22:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

we have been through the fringe science thing, had a lot of discussion about it, and then finally settled on protoscience. This page has settled down into a civilized discussion and compromise w/o edit wars and revert fights. then pop, fringe science. thanx for keeping it stable. take care! Will314159 06:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

On the merits, "fringe" has negative connotations such as "lunatic" fringe. I think controversial and non-mainstream says it all. Take Care! Will314159 06:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why not peer reviewed?

why is it not peer reviewd? as i understand it he didn't let people see his work when he was alive, but he's dead now, isn't he?--Wan30ate 23:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Apparently it hasn't provoked much interest by other writers in academic journals. Recently the Droscher Hauser paper was published in a peer reviewed journal. Hopefully, there will be more to follow. Also now, Heim in not the only background independent theory that quantizes spacetime- there's LQG- that's my take on it. Take Care! Will314159 13:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

What Droscher-Hauser paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal? What journal? (I don't know if it's significant, but keep in mind that conference proceedings don't count as "peer reviewed".)--Steuard 18:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Using Science Citation Index Expanded (a service available only to paying institutions) and Häuser's Web page, I could identify eight peer-reviewed papers by Jochem Häuser (sorry for the format of the older ones):

• Hauser J, Ludewig T, Williams RD, et al. "A test suite for high-performance parallel Java" ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING SOFTWARE 31 (8-9): 687-696 AUG-SEP 2000
• Ginsberg M, Hauser J, Moreira JE, et al. "Panel session: future directions and challenges for Java implementations of numeric-intensive industrial applications" ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING SOFTWARE 31 (8-9): 743-751 AUG-SEP 2000
• Winkelmann R, Hauser J, Williams RD "Strategies for parallel and numerical scalability of CFD codes" COMPUTER METHODS IN APPLIED MECHANICS AND ENGINEERING 174 (3-4): 433-456 MAY 25 1999
• HAUSER J, WONG H, PAAP HG, et al. "PARALLEL COMPUTING IN AEROSPACE USING MULTIBLOCK GRIDS .1. APPLICATION TO GRID GENERATION" CONCURRENCY-PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE 4 (5): 357& AUG 1992
• HAUSER J, WILLIAMS R "STRATEGIES FOR PARALLELIZING A NAVIER-STOKES CODE ON THE INTEL TOUCHSTONE MACHINES" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS 15 (1): 51-58 JUL 15 1992
• HAUSER J, PAAP HG, EPPEL D, et al. "BOUNDARY CONFORMED COORDINATE SYSTEMS FOR SELECTED TWO-DIMENSIONAL FLUID-FLOW PROBLEMS .1. GENERATION OF BFGS" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS 6 (8): 507-527 AUG 1986
• HAUSER J, PAAP HG, EPPEL D, et al. "BOUNDARY CONFORMED COORDINATE SYSTEMS FOR SELECTED TWO-DIMENSIONAL FLUID-FLOW PROBLEMS .2. APPLICATION OF THE BFG METHOD" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS 6 (8): 529-539 AUG 1986
• HAUSER J, PAAP HG, SENGUPTA S "NUMERICAL GRID GENERATION IN APPLIED ENGINEERING PROBLEMS" CME-CHARTERED MECHANICAL ENGINEER 33 (3): 50-51 MAR 1986

and none at all by Walter Dröscher. Have I missed anything? I need not add that none of the above has anything to do with Heim Theory. --Friendly Neighbour 19:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

So the question still stands... why not have it reviewed, instead of simmply dissmissing it for it not having been reviewed? seems like the most scientific way around it. i smell elitism. i'm a n00b in this area, so sorry if i'm missing something.--Wan30ate 00:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There's no "elitism" in wanting new and important science to be published in peer-reviewed journals. First, doing it realy does give a stamp of aproval of at lest some leading expert of the field. Two (and more important in the case of Heim Theory), publishing the results make them available to the community. Heim theory is mostly gossip: "someone posted on a forum that someone else has a new important results". This is not how science progress is made.

The problem with making Heim's work published is a simple one. Heim is dead and no one else can claim authorship of his work. However, the new results (if any) of Häuser and Dröscher should undergo their first real world test of a peer-review. Most of the time you can go to a conference to claim almost anything. If the abstract is not completely nuts, your work will be assigned at least a poster status (that is not a talk) and you will be able to publish it in the conference proceedings (nowadays published actually often before the conference). Therefore publishing anything in conference proceedings is no stamp of aproval, except maybe in a "this is no obvious nonsense" way.

The prize Häuser and Dröscher won means that the engineers (the conference was not one by theoretical physicists) believed it is an original idea. It is, obviously. But we will not be sure how sensible the idea is until it is reviewed by the specialists in the field of quantum field theory. Friendly Neighbour 05:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

If I may add an alternate perspective, it may be that there appear to be such glaring problems with the theory that nobody has bothered to review it. (You can probably skim the talk page here to see what some of them are.) Also, as far as I know, the website on this theory is impossible to follow if you try to go through the steps rigorously, and there is no single paper that explains it all in detail—so what is there to review? -- SCZenz 05:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Q: "so what is there to review?" A: where those quantum numbers and that mass forumula are coming from that are accurately predicting particle masses. What other theory has such a concise computational mechanism? When Bohr had his little forumla that predicted some Hydrogen spectral lines, it wasn't absolutely right, but look where it lead. Take Care! --Will 07:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

One of the problem is simply that you cannot peer-review a website. Where would you do it? I also agree with SCZenz there there are no published (even on a website) rigorous derivations of any end results of Heim Theory, including the mass formulas (if I'm wrong show me a link to the derivation). You cannot review the results of a theory without cheching how they are reached, can you? Friendly Neighbour 07:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Show me a rigorous derivation of the Bohr theory of the Hydrogen atom. His assumptions were pure crap and just that-- unfounded assumptions. But you are correct, you have to be well versed to follow the intricacies of HT and read German. The gentleman who developed the Excel worksheet for the mass forumla for one, Olaf, knows the nooks and crannies. I wish he and Dr. Deasy would write a book, HT made easy w/ cartoons. Something in the spirit of Kindergarten Quantum Mechanics http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0510032 Take Care! --Will 07:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You say: "Show me a rigorous derivation of the Bohr theory of the Hydrogen atom". OK, here it is. And it's a... peer-reviewed article (Niels Bohr, "On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules", Philosophical Magazine Series 6, Volume 26 July 1913, p. 1-25). I could make a (positive) review of this paper, unlike any Excel document. The assumption are there (agreed, they were strange at the time, but they were explicitely stated). The logical thought trail to the final results is there. It's good enough to be taught in Universities up to this day (I learnt it myself). It has everything the Excel document (which link or even the author's surname you actually forgot to give) cannot have: for peer-review we need a derivation, not just the end result. And you cannot just say "Believe this nice gentelman, he certainly knows what he's doing". This is no peer-review. I know what I'm talking about as I do at least half-a-dozen paper reviews per year. Friendly Neighbour 09:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Olaf's excel workseet Friendly Neighbor, It's fairly well documented. He would be glad to answer any questions about it. The mass formula is also implemented in other languages w/ documentation. Of course the key is the origin of the quantum numbers that go into the mass formula. Ask a specific question and you will get an answer. The general answer is that mass arises as a oscillation in the metron lattice or protosimplex. Mass is an artifact of the quantization of space in a background independent theory. The same thing happens in LQG. As a WP encyclopedia article, we have given a general idea of an interesting theory. What makes it interesting is 1) it is unique in its concise mass formula and 2) its promise of practical space travel. We have given links to the reader to various implementations of the mass formula. AND we have adequately warned the reader that HT is non-mainstream, non-peer reviewed, and it is proto-science. Not a bad job. Take Care! --Will 08:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

"Take a look at Olaf's excel workseet Friendly Neighbor". OK, but where it is? Actually I've already found that. It was a little easier than "Da Vinci code" but you needed not make it so mysterious. The author is named Olaf Posdzech and the link is here. There are C and Pascal versions as well. They are well commented for a software code but nowhere enough to trace how the formulas were derived. It could be peer-reviewed as code (there are journals which publish code of scientifically useful procedures) if only the underlying theory was published and available to the reviewers. Alas, it isn't. Friendly Neighbour 11:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't think I had to supply the link, It's in the article at the end at external links. I thought we were all familiar with the article. Heim theory is there at Heim's book and is further elucidated at some pdf docs found at web sites. There is enough info there to pull the quantum number that several independent programmers were able to implement the mass formula in a variety of languages. The links are given at the end of the article. Like everything in physics, it's not all spoonfed, it takes a little digging. I remember when I was taking physical chemistry and they were trying to teach us fortran and we solved schrodinger's equation numerically, and came up with s, p, orbitals. Of course the carbon atom looks nothing like that. What the hell was going on? A new concept appeared, Linus Pauling's hybridization- based on symmetry. Likewise in Heim- there's that kind of that stuff going on. You can't expect to be spoonfed, you have to dig in it. It like the world is a complicated place. Take Care! --Will 18:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Will, the word "Olaf" is mentioned nowhere in the article. And I asked you specifically for the link (I wrote: "if I'm wrong show me a link to the derivation" and you offered me "Olaf's excel workseet"). Do not expect me to use hours of my time researching this one article. I have also real life to deal with (today in the shape of a thesis I'm supervising that needs to be read). Cheerio, Friendly Neighbour 18:49, 6 June 2006 (U TC)

My apology. There is only one Excel sheet mentioned in the external link, I thought it was sufficient. "Protosimplex The Protosimplex site was among the first to offer a popularized introduction of Heim theory in both German and English. The Excel Worksheet Heim Mass Calculator is available there." Olaf has a lot of resources on his site. He has a flowchart that traces the evolution of equations in Heim's books. He really has a solid grasp of Heim theory and the mass formula.http://www.engon.de/protosimplex/downloads/04%20posdzech%20-%20landkarten%20zu%20elementarstrukturen%201998.pdf is instructive shows evolution of equations. Again Heim theory is in three books by Heim. these books are in German. Protosimplex site has pretty good resources. Seven page summary of Mass derivation http://www.engon.de/protosimplex/summary/summary.htm

Olaf's email address is at the site. He is pretty responsive to polite requests for information. Take Care! --Will 21:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we see why this isn't peer reviewed: the best documentation that anyone can point to is an Excel spreadsheet. When I complained about the lack of a "rigorous derivation" I wasn't judging what the foundations might or might not be, I was simply asking for a paper with:

1. A clear description of what the fundamental principles of the Heim theory are.
2. A mathematical derivation of the mass formulae from those principles.

Without those things, written as a paper in a clear linear progression, reviewing the work is impossible. -- SCZenz 08:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, you are right. The more I think about this, the more I'm sure Heim theory is not encyclopedia worthy. There are no objective sources, only webpages of the proponents, a few conference papers (not reviewed), some forum postings and an Excel document. With this kind documentation, we cannot be sure that Heim theory is not an elaborate joke or even a scam. I do not say it is, but for something to be of encyclopedia quality, much more is needed than we have now. The article should probably be a short stub mentioning the theory, the controversies and the author. Plus the recent prize tor the conference paper (this is a fact unlike most of the rest).

Will, please do not take this personally. I'm not against Heim theory. I'm simply for scientific truth: I would like us to learn the mysteries of nature. I'm simply not convinced that what the Heim theory proponents do is helping the progress of science. Inscrutable symbols in hidden manuscripts and men of wisdom who know the truth but utter only mysterious hints are good for Hollywood blockbusters but not the progress of physics. Until any papers appear which actually show how the mass formula (any of its many versions) is actually derived from the theory assumptions, I will be wary of calling Heim theory science. Friendly Neighbour 10:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My opinion when I first saw the Heim Theory stuff here was "not notable", too. But since then, it's gotten a substantial chunk of press coverage because of the engineering prize, so it's probably worth mentioning at least briefly. On the other hand, I've been arguing from the start that its treatment here is too positive: this isn't remotely mainstream science, and in recent discussion (at Talk:Heim theory/Archive2#Arguments_contra_HT) I've listed ten problems with the theory which would each probably prevent its publication, and that's without even having access to the derivation of the theory. But of course, I haven't published these critiques any more than the Heim Theory folks have published their work, and they would presumably count as "original research" by Wikipedia standards. I'm not sure how such things should be treated here. (On some level, though, if a controversial theory isn't sufficiently well-known for it or criticism of it to have been published anywhere, perhaps that is a sign that it's not notable enough to include.)--Steuard 19:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia's treatment of Heim theory should be much briefer; the mass tables are misleading precisely because there is no published critique of the theory, and the technical details may not all have sources anywhere. It would simply suffice to briefly give proponents' claims and note the engineering prize or whatever. -- SCZenz 20:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

even if it is a scam, it's a notable scam. so why havn't the original calculations been made availible for peer review? edit: when i wrote "i smell elitism" I meant to imply that the reason the theory still hasn't been reviewed is that other scientists don't want their work proven wrong--Wan30ate 11:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't a very nice implication, now was it? It also means you don't understand how much scientists like disproving each others' work, given the opportunity. If any particle physicist could integrate the Heim theory mass formulae into the (already spectacularly succesful) Standard Model of particle physics, he would do it for sure. -- SCZenz 14:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

How true. One should not forget about all the young physicists who did not invest any prestige in the old theories but desperately seek a breaktrough to make their names. And actually it is the young scientists who make most important theoretical discoveries in physics. That, plus they know no one got his Nobel prize for defending old theories ;-) --Friendly Neighbour 14:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you're agreeing with me. -- SCZenz 14:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do. I already corrected my edit above. Must have misunderstood you at first reading. Friendly Neighbour 14:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

point taken--Wan30ate 17:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Friendly Neughbour, science is about rationalizing and presenting the whole truth and not just suppressing or omitting parts. Either you are blind or if you are not, which i assume you will notice that there is fuss about Heim. Okay that being made clear, where science comes into play is to educate the populace whether it is a scientific theory, has merit, is simply wrong or misused etc... This is what an encyclopedia provides. There are hollocaust deniers and AIDS deniers as well so you say one should just omit those, and let this abuse grow because people who wanna inform themselves on a neutral platform like wikipedia simply won`t find anything regarding those issues. Besides Heim did publish extensively, the books are logically for the most part only present on univiersities in the german speaking countries - which may just be because those books are german.

And to clear one last issue: Heim so far hasn`t been seriously debunked of anything, because no one really gave a shit so far to go all the way into all this stuff - me including. A theory is about introducing potential readers and not giving a black box without any incentive in the first place. On the contrary there are a few highly citited and accessible researches who worked with Heim, so at least i am interested what their results will be within the next few years. One more thing, much of the whole pro-Heim stems from hearsay and quoting one or two sources over and over again. There really are just a few credible and sophisticated researchers out there working on Heim, everything else are just amateuristic attempts of working up one or another issue. I value any interest in science, but please always try to reset yourself to NPOV, nothing is better for that than wikipedia, in fact i think it is the one thing where wikipedia really stands out. If you notice that some post or edit of yours gets constantly reverted or changed by a magnitude of people out there, it may just be time to rethink your position.Slicky 10:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining to me what science is about. It seems I have been a scientist for over 20 years without knowing what I am doing. To make it worse, I have wrong religious beliefs as well (see the previous edit by Slicky). In future, please try to refrain from this kind of personal attacks, especially as you completely misread my view about the theistic evolution (IMHO clearly signaled by including the Spaghetti Monsterism userbox).

Slicky, the funny thing is I fully agree with your opening statement, above. I am fully against suppressing or omitting any evidence needed for deciding which theory is closer to reality. I feel no urge to mix science facts with any philosophic or religious beliefs. I would be happy enough if Heim Theory turned out to be the Theory of Everything. The problem with Heim theory is simply it was never published in a form in which it could be reviewed by the scientific community. The few physicists who claim to advance it (I use the word as there is no hard evidence they are actually working on anything) so far have been unable or unwilling to publish the main parts of the theory in a widely circulated journal in the language all science is now published in. This fact made me (originally an sympathizer) more and more suspicious of any claims about Heim theory. Every time I hear that someone has read in a forum postings that someone else had got a breakthrough result but nothing is in fact was published anywhere, I lose another layer of good will towards the theory. Friendly Neighbour 14:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

As i already commented on your talk page i really didn`t read your boxes, in it´s totality they make sense and give an impression about you, all i saw were a box of god and a box about big bang (which IMHO is just as controversial as the box above) which was right in the center of my screen. Online reading is ususally comprised of scanning, which i did, otherwise i would sit in front of each site that is of marginal educational value for me minutes instead of seconds. I may be to blame but i didn`t do it in awarness of the full context, that you provided on your page however. Also i am not Pro-Heim neither am i Pro-string theory or anything else, but try to stay as NPOV as my cerebrum allows me to be. I support any general interest in physics. Also the whole Droescher etc Theories may be initially based and motivated on Heim but are in the end their works but human psychology alone has it that mysterious dead people make for a better story and greater fascination than some living physicst publishing their own crazed work of their mind. I have great respect for Jochen Häuser and Droscher and see two very capable theorists in them. But the difference is that and let me quote that verbatimly from an interview he gave recently "I`ve learned that physics is partially still in it`s infancy" - an obvious enough POV which i see so blatantly lacking in string theorists (despite those who converted their discipline back to other religions of physics). I am pretty sure that the whole Heim stuff is dead for the most part, as for one part there is only so much a person can do, especially of his time. Heim IMHO (and that should not be taken offendingly) was extremely disconnected with reality which expressed as much in his works positvitely as it does negatively. Positively in that his works were truly quite original, negatively in that they are incompatible with mainstream science. As for the mass formula, even if it is faked by "reverse engineering" an approximative algorithm for the empirical data (logical reasoning let`s me fail to see how it is anything else), that still is just as remarkable and should be investigated further.

At last i read the Häuser / Droscher Paper and it is very readable and certainly not off base. It doesn`t give any insight in the calculus of the actual applied theory, which in the end is the whole problem, but i find it utmost hard to believe that those two scienists have any reason to fool everyone else for motivations beyond me. IMHO for now all there really is, is an interesting paper which has won an important award which itself says something economical, and that it should be given the benefit of the doubt. As without the groundworks and tools there can be no peer reviewing, nor can the paper be judged or called "valid pyhsics". But i wouldn`t scathe them, in full awareness that They are not just trying to make sense out of Heims theory but instead are working on their own independent works - which is often forgotten. The orgininal Heim theory is virtually dead and not being worked on. Besides what do you think sells better a "Droscher Hauser" theory or an "extended Heim theory", or in analogy a "noname music remix" vs a "mozart remix featuring someone". Slicky 16:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Walter Dröscher and Jochem Häuser may do a great job but they are not helped by their fans who make the theory completely non-falsifiable. I'm happy to see you are acquainted with Karl Popper's epistemology and you know that science is by definition that which may be empirically tested. Eager fans of the theory, who claim that possibly everything is predicted by one of its many versions, create the impression that you cannot falsify the theory whatever you do. Higgs may be incorporated into the theory or not. Quarks are predicted or not. Etc, etc. Ergo, according to Popper's solution of the demarcation problem, it would seem Heim theory is not science. Which means the theory proponents may make a great disservice to Heim's work and to the physicists who try to follow up on his work. Friendly Neighbour 20:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ouch! Take Care! --Will^(talk) 03:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely, yet it is too sad that many scientists spiral downwards in dreams and theories with increasing disregard of what is. The problem is never the original papers which are solid and present very cautiously a new hypothesis how some x could fit into picture y. But then proponents mix in and soon they frantically make it their witnessed "coming of jesus" and sooner or later with enough proponents things like einstein and black holes and so forth happen, in that they are dictactically tought as if they are real physical objects just as visible as you and me. One could argue that such a thing wouln`t happen if students were tought completely theoretically, that is in pure mathematical terms without ever seeing a visualization of a black hole and so forth as undergrads. But mankind is too complex in fact too balanced as if that would have any advantages. The problem is nonetheless that too often it is forgotten that all of these are just models, and most of the so flawed and patched together more and more with each new experimental breakthrough that if you really understand the current state of physics you are rather motivated by bringing sense into some topics rather than a pseudo-inherent beauty of it all. (let`s leave quantum mechanics out of the game - they really are somewhat sexy , certainly incomplete but irrelevant as the acceptance of science means that the scientific nature is always a work in progress and never static dogmas and paradigms - squinting towards "religion"). Regarding Heim you absolutely misunderstood. You are right it is not science but not because Heim is an idiot, but because science is a mutual effort. So far there really isn`t a theory, hardly anyone has read the books and published anything in succession to it. It is clear that nearly all theories are holistic in some way and not really modular (at least regarding the way of the publication of a theory. - meaning a " to be continued next month" isn`t a feasible option for a new theory). Heim certainly was never a pseudo-scientist, and at least had the possibility of being a genius whereas einstein and so forth hardly could. But then again so far genius isn`t anything scientific but rather a PR term in order to raise interest and promote a product. Anyone who had initial visual experience within the first 15-20 years and looses his eyesight later on can ultimately create abstract thinking capabilities due to neural plasticitiy that IS IMPOSSIBLE for a fully sensual human beeing. The same goes for any handicapped, but this is in effect all illusion because what i am doing is laying out a possible quantisizable definition of genius. Then again why choose a term that has been so intensivly abused and misused when any sequence of letters like ewrhwefhsd would suffice - i admit not the best succession of vowels ;)Slicky 13:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You say Regarding Heim you absolutely misunderstood.. Do you mean myself? That would be strange as you further say esentially the same I did above. Heim may have be a genius. The few physicist who try to publish something on his theory are respected but so far published next to null. It's the proponents who make the theory non-scientific by making it impossible to falisify. The last three sentences could be a resume of both my and your edits. So where did I misunderstood? Friendly Neighbour 13:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well now i completely agree. I didn`t quite notice the congruence of our views the first time, that may just be because i have gotten so used to scanning rather than reading, - that is when i browse around with no specific scholarly intend. But nonetheless i think your post summed up what i tried to utter more concisely and precisely. Slicky 16:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New comment, September

Why don't anyone just simply buy the books and read it? Alright, it was not peer reviewed, so just do the review yourselves. It´s so unlikely to get so many masses at such precison randomly, so it is worth the effort of learning german and reading the book. It must have lots of correct formulations and nicely thougth derivations, even if the assumptions are completely non sensical. I guess I will look for the book myself and learn gearman, instead of just throwing flames at each other. --Daniel de França 16:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all Wikipedia editors can't do their own analysis of theories, since Wikipedia is a secondary source. We rely on reliable sources; a reliable evaluation of the theory would be whether it is judged suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Secondly, the derivations in the books are (so I've heard) confusing, difficult to follow, and sometimes wrong—which is why even proponents of the theory haven't been able to put out much material yet, as they have to work through it and fix it all. Finally, my own personal evaluation (from the available material in English) is that it is very likely that the masses could be predicted correctly without the theory being accurate. The mass tables show that the theory has more "quantum numbers" than proponents readily admit, and many more particles than it should; they just pick the particles that fit known states, and ignore the others. The theory also measures some things too accurately (i.e. they match the experimental values with greater precision than the experimental measurements themselves, which is not very likely either), and does not seem to do many things that a theory of particle physics should do like predict interactions and widths and structure and so on. That's why I'm not reading more, at least. -- SCZenz 16:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Amen. You could have added more reasons why we don't read the books:

• That someone is a physicist working in the field and a fully qualified expert reviewer of the books does not mean that (s)he has actually time to do this. Active scientists nowadays have too many duties to have time to decifer long tomes of obscure notations just to improve one Wikipedia articla. Sad but true.
• As far as I know, the books are out of print.
• They are written in German, a language that is no more a standard language of international physics.

Friendly Neighbour 18:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't see any reason to not buy the books. The fact that it just predicts masses with great accuracy is enough for me. Even if it predicts a million particles, if 0.1% of those fits any data, it will be really awesome, given the accuracy of the results. As for the structures and interactions, I will calculate them when the book is available. I would just love that some people made a copy of them, and send it to me, if it's not available to buy... if you want to contact-me, my msn is juanmaldacena@hotmail.com (Yes, I stole his name a few years ago!!!!hehee). My email is danieldiniz@gmail.com . I would be really glad to discuss this matter and anything else personaly (on messenger...). You guys feel free to add me or contact me! :)

PS.:I was not asking to make research and publish here. Merely, to make research, so that would be peer reviewed and published, and after that, make the edits here. It seems more reasonable this way... --Daniel de França 23:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A theory which has predictions that may or may not hold—in this case, because some predicted particles exist and others don't—has no predictive power at all and thus fails a very basic test of what scientists require from a theory. Serious Heim Theory proponents do not claim (as you do) that this problem is irrelevant—rather, they expect that at some point they'll find additional selection rules that eliminate the non-existent states. In any case, we've given some reasons why the theory is not yet peer reviewed above. If you are interested in personally investigating Heim Theory, of course, you can get the books yourself. There are many references, including the information on the books, in the article. -- SCZenz 02:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balance

While I am excited that this theory could have some merit and wish, likely beyond hope, that theoretical physicists(there's too much spin/hype about space-drives from the Heim-Theory Group for my liking) could consider some of the ideas more closely, I do think that the article reads a bit blissfully. I wish that some of the problems pointed out in the archived discussion(namely, the contra HT points) would be put into the article respecting some adjustments for inclusion quality.

start a crticism section but how would you footnote it since WP has no original research policy and there is no peer review? B/ forget about review, find some published review, there is just that prof pissed about the innsbruck university web site. in the French WP, the cites are listed pro and con. Take Care! --Will 07:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Another, minor change I wouldn't mind seeing has to do with the gravitophoton particle under the heading "Matter and Forces" in the description of the Hsub11 hermetry group. Would it be too much trouble to just call it a theoretical particle? I don't like the implication of "as yet unobserved." While this is certainly true, I think it might be a bit loaded for an article on predictive science. Hopefully, a consensus can quickly be reached on this minor issue. Having just re-read the article for the first time in a long time, it was one of the things that stood out to me.

no probelmo amending to 'thereotical as yet unobserved" Take Care! --Will 07:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Did it "H11 predicts gravito-photons, as yet theoretical unobserved particles" Take Care! --Will 08:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

ROFL!!Slicky 16:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not this is fair, those of us who are proponents must realize that Burkhard Heim did us no favors by not bothering to learn English or follow modern procedure for establishment of theoretical science. His apparent stubborness on these matters and some of its consequences obviously will cast doubt on any science he may have discovered. I think it's a fair price to pay to have unconvential ideas met with skepticism if there was no effort to on the part of ideas' originator to integrate them into the establishment he was attempting to revolutionize. Duke nemmerle 07:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgetting about the politics of that War he was in, but just focusing on him being a disabled veteran, it's a wonder he was able to accomplish anything at all given his particular disabilites. Take Care! --Will 07:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

he didn't learn english? it says on the page about him that he could learn a language in a matter of days... of course ther's the whole cultural imperialism argument, but if he could learn it that easily, it's just basterdly of him--Wan30ate 14:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I hate to say this but there is a lot of bastardly behavior holding up a lot of things with regard to this. If this theory can -really- predict the masses with those input parameters then I'd say it's the duty of everyone involved in this "circle of friends" of Heim's to make everything public and quit holding onto things for a shot at glory. There are some extraordinarily frustrating facts surrounding the situation that just ring as nasty with me. Namely, the secretiveness of the group, their reluctance to get on with the show and start treating this like real science instead of a cult ritual, and Heim's wife's reluctance to donate any of his work, that should probably be poured over. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Duke nemmerle (talk • contribs) .

He was just a youngster when the accident put him out of the war - this in a way froze his mentality in the war era. Thus can you blame him for resenting those he perceived as the enemy which had been at least indirectly responsible for his injuries? Of course, it might be too much to expect the historically challenged youth of today to inderstand that. So in a way it will be ironically amusing if his theory does become the TOE everyone is searching for.--172.158.96.184 21:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where Heim Theory is Found

Much is being made of the Excel work sheet. I made a direction to the excel sheet giving as an external link, the only excel sheet given as an external link- not much chance for confusion there- as a quick way to get the flavor of what's involved in the mass formula. It has quantum numbers for each particle- and the worksheet is well documented. But that is not the paper where Heim theory resides. Like Isaac Newton, Heim did not publish in a peer reviewed journal, he wrote a book. In fact he wrote three books. They are given in the references Burkhard Heim. Elementarstrukturen der Materie. To perform his quantization, Heim invented and used Selector Calculus. Much has been said that Courant also invented a discrete calculus in the 1940's but there was a war going on and Heim was handicapped and he invented his own mathematics. Because of unfamiliar math and the language barrier, and probably the multidimensional character HT has been difficult to follow, but its promise is immense b/c of the success in 1) unification, 2) mass formula, and 3) space travel. A lot of the negative comments sound frankly like narrow mindedness. I don't think HT is the ultimate answer. It is not the only theory I read. I read brane theory, LQG. I read all of it, and I keep an open mind. But I sincerely think there is something here. Take Care! --Will 21:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the introductory paragraph needs to be revised to say that HT was introduced in Heim's book Vol 1 Elementarstrukturen der Materie, published on a certain date, followed by Vol. 2 , and then by Vol 3 co-written with Droscher (?). If I recall Dirac went straight to a book when he added Spec Relat to QM in " Principles of QM" (I have an autographed copy). It is not unheard of to publish a theory in book form. What is unusual is the followup lack of journal articles about HT. Why hasn't some enterprising academic written a paper saying HT is bullcrap b/c of xxx and yyy? Or another tried to build on it? It has certainly been in the news. In the best light to HT, one can say it takes a prodigious amount of effort to master it. Is it worth mastering? That's a POV matter. Take Care! --Will 01:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Newton lived long before the modern model of science (including peer-reviewed journals) was born. Dirac did publish his work in peer reviewed journals. His most famous discovery was the Dirac equation, a relativistic quantum mechanical wave equation describing the motions of electrons (and other spin-1/2 particles). He published it in two papers:

• P A M Dirac 1928 The quantum theory of the electron Proc. R. Soc. (London) A 117 610-612
• P A M Dirac 1928 The quantum theory of the electron Part II Proc. R. Soc. (London) A 118 351-361

Will, please stop finding false examples of non-publishing physicista and tell us whether an out-of-print book in German is the only published version of Heim theory. BTW, it was none other than you who gave us the Excel work sheet which "much is being made of" as an example of where to find the theory.

To sum it up, if this article is not an example of what Wikipedia rules mean by "original research" (see Wikipedia:No original research), I don't know what is.

-- Friendly Neighbour 10:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Friendly: We can spar around the edges but we agree on the main points. I referred to the Excel sheet as a mistake. I thought you genuinely wanted to get in the spirit of the mass equation- not to critique it. The source of HT is an out of date German book with web "annotations." HT has lately breathed new life. Dirac's main contribution was his book Principles of Quantum Mechanics where he introduced the bra-ket notation and made extensive use of the Dirac Delta Function. The Delta Function was very useful but took another twenty years to acquire a rigorous mathematical foundation. i'm sure if there was a wikipedia of his day, they would have tossed him right out for being non-rigorous and eccentric. imagine such a novelty as a delta function-existing only at an infintesmal point and being infinite- a veritable spike. It was a very intuitive approach and much more fruitful than von neumann's approach. It has taken a while but it appears that HT is going somewhere. Take Care! --Will 16:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

No, Paul Dirac did not get his Nobel Prize for the delta function. It was the Dirac equation not the Dirac delta which made him famous.

Things like new symbols or even the delta function are not generally suitable for a peer-reviewed paper. How do you review symbols? It's possible the delta function was not popular at first, but this is completely different from Heim theory. Heim theory is either true or false. Dirac delta is either a convenient notation or not but there is no question whether it's true. It's just a mathematical function.

However, this whole discussion is off topic. The important thing is how to make the article "original research" free but still balanced. That is it should be neither a panegyric of Heim theory nor a long list of complaints against it. At the same time everything should have reliable sources (see WP:RS) which means the article should be probably much shorter than it is now. Still, the webpages with "original research" which are the main source of info on the theory should be described and linked. I'm thinking about such a plan of work. Friendly Neighbour 17:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I hear what you are saying Freindly. But what is true or false in physics. Bohr theory was patently bullcrap. It took de Broglie to supply the motivation for quantizing angular momentum. So was Sccrodinger's. He didn't have a clue what his waves were. It took Von Neumann to figure out what was going on had something to do with Hilbert space and put the theory on a logical foundation. Dirac had an equivalent formulation but it took another twenty years to come up with a rigorous mathematical description. (In fact it was only in the 19th century that the calculus of Newton and Liebnitz was made safe.) HT was the first multidimensional background independent theory w/ a mass formula that unified forces and avoided singularites by using a discrete calculus. In the future it may never be more than a historical artifact with no offspring, but it has a place. In law when legislation is proposed or analyzed, one looks at the mischief or harm the legislation is designed to alleviate. What is the evil the present article is causing? The article has warnings all over the place. HT is labeled as non-mainstream non peer reviewed theory. Take Care! --Will 18:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

You don't understand. The problem of the article is not Heim theory itself. It is the lack of reliable sources on the theory. Most of the things we have now in the article have no reliable sources (in the meaning of the relevant Wikipedia WP:RS policy: "At the other end of the reliability scale lie personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, which are not acceptable as sources"). I've seen articles deleted by Wikipedia admins for lesser offences. Friendly Neighbour 18:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, the primary sources are the Heim original books, the Droscher-Hauser papers containing the extensions, and the recent Aeronatuics conference paper. There are numerous secondary "annotations" explaining the original German text and computer programs implementing the mass formula. The chief complaint is there are no papers in "peer" published journals supporting the content of the WP article. There are of course counterbalancing arguments from another POV previously made. Take Care! --Will 20:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

At present the book is not even mentioned in the article (except as "Further reading"). Nowhere it is given as a direct source of any facts. I believe I can guess the reason. Most probably none of the authors of the article is an owner of a copy. Are you? If not, how can you use it as a primary source? Friendly Neighbour 21:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Friendly. No I am not the owner of Heim's book, I am waiting for the English version of HT made Easy w/ Kartoons, however; I am the proud owner of an autographed copy of Dirac's Principles of QM to which he inscribed "you are a very good physics student Will." Just kidding, but he did sign his autograph after asking if the pen worked. They always seem to ask that. I agree the book needs to be mentioned in the article w/ the date of its publication and the Dorscher Hauser papers. Take Care! --Will 01:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The things that worry me most are all the variants of Heim theory that are not in the original book. Where were the 8 and 12 dimestional variants published? In the third volume authored by Dröscher and Heim? Both of them? If so, why is the third volume never mentioned at all? Which versions come from which volumes, if at all?

I believe the article in its present version is a mess. It should be shortened and properly referenced. But do not worry. I do not plan any rapid revolutions. First, I do not have the book myself (and do not plan to buy it, especially as it is out of print). Second, I do not have time at present to do a proper research of the subject.

However, even the cursory research I've done shows an English language paper that's never mentioned in the article (T Auerbach, I von Ludwiger "Heim’s Theory of Elementary Particle Structures" Journal of Scientific Exploration,Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 217-231, 1992). It's not a proper scientific journal, rather a fringe one (see the Wikipedia article on it linked in the reference). Anyway, it is possibly the best description of the theory in English. And it is available on-line (see here). Why was it never used? Adding a link to it in the "External links" section will be my only change to the paper for now. Friendly Neighbour 07:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

This is an extremely useful paper. It was written by someone with some understanding of the issues such a theory must address, and is honest about points where the theory makes difinitive predictions that may be problematic. I note in particular that Heim's particles have no substructure, that there have not yet been any successes in quantitatively predicting particle interactions from Heim theory, and that there are in fact a large number of allowed states that do not exist in nature. (The neutral electron and two extra neutrinos are the two most glaring examples of this, but there are many others.) I do not think we should exclude the website information—once Heim Theory is established as notable by the award, the Heim Theory website becomes a perfectly usable resource—but I do think the paper above will be of assistance in writing a more balanced article. I think, when I have time, that I will try to wrtite a new article from the ground up, which incorporates the verifiable elements of the current article. Any thoughts on this? -- SCZenz 07:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am ready to help. For now, I'll read the paper. Friendly Neighbour 11:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course I am not the one in command of German here or the native speaker or the one with deep HT understanding, I just happpen to the the one available online presently. HDeasy and Milka among others probably fit the bill and will be along sooner or later and participate. But it is my understanding that Heim Books 1, 2 were Heim's alone, Book 3 was co-written w/ Droscher. Vol. 1 & 2 need corrections due to Heim's handicaps. Vol. 3 is more cosmological. I have been to the publishers website and done a Systrans translation. Heim translates as "home." Basic HT is enough for matter and GR. There is a selection rule that outlaws only a certain combination of dimensions. The Droscher extension is necessary for unification. There are "zones' within the particles. There is even "room" for ?quarks. Although many particles are "?allowed," there are selection rules, not yet fully worked out, that may preclude all but certain particles. Take Care! -- 11:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Will, what is the source for the above? Especially the room for quarks in the theory? Is this the same source as for the compatibility of Higgs particles with Heim theory (meaning another forum posting by HDeasy)? I hope you realize that there is no way it could be treated as anything but "original research"? Friendly Neighbour 11:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Friendly. from T.Auerbach, I. von Ludwiger Heim´s Theory of Elementary Particle Structures page 7 of 10 cited above. The internal structural of the particles "The interior of an elementary particle must be viewed as consisting of a number of metronic condensations in various subspaces. The configuration which is projected into our 3-dimensional physical world consists of 4 concentric zones occupied by structural elements. " quarks: Luwiger's view follows but I have seen otherwise although I can't presently find it "The actual mass and inertia are not a property of the 3-dimensional structures themselves, as might be thought. Instead, they are the secondary result of exchange processes between the 4 internal zones described above. These processes are the actual carriers of mass and inertia. For this reason, Heim’s elementary particles definitely are not composed of subconstituents such as quarks. The inner 3 structural zones are difficult to penetrate, the innermost being almost impenetrable. In scattering experiments they might create the illusion of 3 particles being present in the interior. Emperical predictions that have led to the formation of quark theory can be interpreted by Heim in geometrical terms. " Take Care! --Will 21:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. This would explain why no version of HT tries to predict quark massess.

My next question is what about gravity waves (=gravitons) propagating at 4/3 c? Auerbach & von Ludwiger claim it is what HT predicts. I remember seeing some discussion about this but probably not here. Why does the article omit this important prediction of HT? (True or not, but the only way we can test theories is by their predictions.) Friendly Neighbour 06:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Quarks in HT: What Will said is correct, but one should not fall into the trap of assuming the inner zones 2, 3 and 4 being identical to the 3 quarks. Instead the extrema of the exchange processes "look" like quarks. My personal (and a little too) simple analogy / mental image: Think of a pendulum alternating between two extrema. Or a tube, half filled with water, fixed at the center of the tube, where the water flows from the right end to the left and back and forth .. These extrema "look" like quarks, but you cant separate them, cause if you isolate (take away) one of them the whole exchange process would break down. One problem with my analogy: It has only two extremas instead of three. As far as i understand the state of the art, quarks cant be isolated in mainstream physics too, however no one knows why. Ive read so many papers about HT that i dont remember where i found that, but my first bet would be Heim's MBB lecture of 1976 ( http://www.engon.de/protosimplex/downloads/02%20heim%20-%20mbb%201976.pdf ), where he explains his theory to mere mortal engineers (in german language). Thats where i experienced a certain maxima of light bulbs over my head .. ;-P

Graviton speed: In older version the graviton speed was 4/3 c, however later, when Heim and Dröscher collaborated, that error was fixed without dramatic consequences for the rest of HT. In current HT, the propagation speed of gravity is just c. Again, unfortunately i dont remember where exactly i found that.

I'm a little busy right now, but i will try to find the sources on sunday.

MillKa 06:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

MillKa wrote: "As far as i understand the state of the art, quarks cant be isolated in mainstream physics too, however no one knows why.". Well, the reason is quite simple. Quantum chromodynamics predicts the force between quarks does not diminish with distance. If you try to separate them, you need to use an amount of work (=energy) equal to the binding force integrated over the distance. Because the force does not taper off, the energy you use will at some distance be greater than one needed to create two new quarks (a quark and its antiquark). The new quarks will stick to the pre-existing ones creating new particles. The end result is a classical particle reaction (like this Δ₀ → p + π^- reaction where a pair of Up quark and antiquark is created).

However at small distances (like inside a hadron), quarks have asymptotic freedom, which means they behave as normal particles. It has been confirmed in particle accelerator experimenst that they behave like normal particles in high energy collisions and indeed their masses and collision cross-sections have been measured. I'm not sure how HT can reproduce asymptotic freedom if it says quarks are not particles. By the way, the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics was given "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction". Friendly Neighbour 07:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

How vain is man and "Heim" thinking he/she has zeroed in on unltimate reallity, even quarks are thought to have subparticles, rishons, preons, and such, see A topological model of composite preons http://www.citebase.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:hep-ph/0503213. Does it ever end. Or is back to the particle zoo of the 60's? Take Care! --Will 18:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

For now, we can leave the ultimate reality to philosophers and theologicans. But theories wanting to compete with the standard model, better account for experimental results at the large collides, which include by now all particles (save the Higgs) from the SM. --Pjacobi 19:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

definitetly mispoke/miswrote. should've said ultimate particle. Proton or "first" or primal particle lost any meaning long ago. Now quarks are thought to made or rishons or preons and they in turn will be made of something else unless they transmute into each other like snakes swallowing their tails. Take Care! --Will 17:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would not state it this way. Not many scientists seem to believe in the particles, so far. In recent years there were only 3 preon papers and under 1 rishon paper on average per annum. That's much less than for example the number of papers on antigravity, which is also at present a fringe subject. Friendly Neighbour 21:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The Standard model w/ quarks is a great success and simplified the hithertofore "zoo" of particles. That's a strike against any non-quark theory, I agree. Maybe a modified Heim Theory or LQG or string/brane that condenses or vibrates as quarks? There's a nice WP preon article (not to be confused with "prions" that cause mad cow disease. Also a Harari Rishon Model article. Rishon is Hebrew for first or primal from head like "Rosh Shanah," New Year. Take Care! --Will 19:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am an owner of copies of the book and I was one of the first authors of the page. From my reading of the books I see no inconsistency with this page. Rather busy at the moment - when I have some time I might go through it and put in more specific references to the books themselves.--hughey 10:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I would appreciate that. Especially, which statements about the theory come from which volume. At present the article does a very botched job of differentiatng the original 6D HT from the later versions. Friendly Neighbour 10:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

QCD is the theory of Quarks and their interaction, right? Would the writer of the paragraph below explain it

"There are some discrepancies between the original "Heim Theory" and the extended versions proposed by his successors. For example, in its original version Heim theory used 6 dimensions, which was sufficient to derive the masses of elementary particles. Droescher first extended this to 8, in order to demonstrate that the quantum electrodynamics and QCD structures of the standard model could be found within this expanded version of the original Heim theory. Later, 4 more dimensions were used in the 12 dimensional version that involves extra gravitational forces one of which corresponds to quintessence. "

Am I right in reading that to mean that Heim-Droscher theory allows for quarks? Take Care! --Will^(talk) 02:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I"m going to amend the article to read "Droscher found the structures of the Standard Model in his 8 dim extension of Heim theory. The same zoo of particles is produced using the condensation zones of Heim or the quark model." I don't think QCD exists in Heim theory-no colour, strange, or charm. Take Care! --Will^(talk) 15:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that even if "the same zoo of particles" (by which I assume you mean leptons and hadrons) were found in the Standard Model and Heim theory (which isn't actually the case), experiments have produced clear signatures of the quarks themselves (including clear signatures not just of the quark content of each particle but of the three quark "colors" from QCD). You might take a look at Quigg's textbook Gauge Theories of the Strong, Weak, and Electromagnetic Interactions (Addison-Wesley, 1983, 1997). Even though it was written way back in 1983, the section of the introduction entitled "Why We Believe in Quarks" presents rather a lot of evidence for the Standard Model and its specific picture of hadrons. (The section is twelve pages long and I'm afraid it's fairly technical, but even twenty years ago the data supporting the details of the quark model was entirely compelling.)--Steuard 19:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I"ll look into it. Next time I visit the mother-in-law in Raleigh, I"ll pop over to NC State U. library and check out Quigg. Take Care! --Will^(talk) 01:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The shortest scientific paper ever

Does this pen work?

Yes.

P. A. M. Dirac

Quoted by CH 02:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Deja vu all over again. I think we've done this one time before CH. Unfortuanately I live on the Outer Banks of North Carolina next to the Atlantic Ocean, not the best place for my Dirac masterpiece. I should donate it to the Physics Department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Take Care! --Will 01:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources and how they're used

I see a real problem with sources and how they're used (or proposed to be used) by proponents of this theory: every time there's a concrete prediction in one source that doesn't make much sense, we're immediately told that some other source does it a different way. Essentially this article picks and chooses whatever makes Heim Theory look best. Really what I think we need to do is cut most of the technical details until they are published somewhere and can be cited concretely. -- SCZenz 07:18, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

A less drastic alternative is to identify the "deficient" places and indicate them by a "citation needed." And after a sufficient time then Plan B can be considered. Take Care! --Will 10:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

You'd usually be right. However the issue here is not that there's somewhere all the facts can be cited, but rather that different facts are available in different sources of varying reputability. -- SCZenz 10:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

SCZ. And you may be ultimately be right. But the first step would be to tag the places that citations are needed. And then it would be seen if those citations are unavailable or insufficient EDIT or unsuitable. Take Care! --Will 14:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I've put places in the main article where I think dates and footnotes should go. Unfortunately, i haven't mastered WP footnotes. Take Care! --Will 20:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I just added the four original books about HT by Heim and Dröscher. I couldnt find any specific rules about book links in WP help - please check the formatting.
I would like to suggest to compile a list of sources about HT here on the talk page. Suggested format of that table:
- short name, e.g. Heim Book 1, Auerbach paper, MBB lecture, ..
- authors
- classification according to WP source quality rules:
-- primary: original books and papers from Heim, Dröscher, Hauser
-- secondary: papers from others, e.g. Ludwiger, Auerbach, ..
-- tertiary: web sites, forums, implemenations, ...
- year or date
- language
- link
- remarks, e.g. most important topics
Then we can discuss which sources should be added to the article. MillKa 09:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Milka: I've taken the liberty of indicating in the main article where dates, citations and/or footnoting would be helpful IMO to the reader. Take Care! --Will 22:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of PROD tag

I removed a proposed deletion tag, which suggested to delete the article because it has no peer-reviewed sources. Although I agree that there are many assertions in this article that are misleading, improperly cited, and possibly uncitable, the existance of Heim theory itself is verifiable. The subject is notable, due to a significant amount of mainstream media attention. I think this article needs significant improvement, but that's a different matter than deleting it. -- SCZenz 11:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable and important, even if probably wrong

This article needs expansion, and the addition of lots of good citable references, which should now be available due to the current resurgence of interest in Heim Theory among mainstream physicists.

Heim theory is certainly a real theory, even if it's far from the mainstream, and is interesting from the point of view of the history of science. It certainly belongs to the category of protoscience, rather than pseudoscience, because it makes testable claims which render it falsifiable. Whether it's even partially correct is a different matter; but if it's wrong (and so far, all known Theories of Everything seem to have been, so it almost certainly is) it's wrong in interesting ways. -- The Anome 11:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Good sources do not seem to exist. We have asked for them repeatedly. -- SCZenz 11:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've taken a quick online search: the only thing I can see which isn't already listed is Heim's only published paper:

Heim, B., Vorschlag eines Weges einer einheitlichen Beschreibung der Elementarteilchen, Z. für Naturforschung, 32a, 1977, pp. 233-243.

• which is available online as doi:10.1002/andp.200510174 here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112221745/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Unfortunately, the ArXiv seems to come up with nothing, which is surprising! -- 12:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You may be under some misapprehensions about the mainstream interest in Heim theory. Also, that link doesn't work (it complains of missing cookies); can you look for a simpler one? -- SCZenz 12:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like you're right about that. Try this link instead: [1], or do a Google search for "doi:10.1002/andp.200510174" -- The Anome 13:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

There are two problems with the article link:

• First, the link works only for institutions that pay Wiley for on-line access (I had to use a proxy in an institution I'm affiliated with to get the PDF).
• Second, the paper ("Zur Geschichte der einheitlichen Feldtheorie: Einsteins Jahre erfolgloser Forschung" by H. Goenner) does not mention Heim anywhere. The language is German which I am able to read. It's about Einstein trying with no success to create a unified theory. Have you mixed up the papers?

--Friendly Neighbour 15:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

H. Goenner's paper is also available from Wiley after free registration.

An extended version is available here: http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2004-2/

In that extended version, the Conclusion section refers to part 2 of that paper, which is about unified field theories after 1933. Most likely HT is referenced there, but i wasnt able to find part 2 of Goenner's paper.

MillKa 16:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Even in the extended version, Heim is nowhere mentioned. What's the relevancy of the paper to the article? OK, I've seen only part 1 but still we cannot be sure Heim is mentioned in part 2 (if it exists). Friendly Neighbour 17:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I must have mixed up the links. :Look for the right link, I found this: http://www.datadiwan.de/netzwerk/index.htm?/heim/he_001d_.htm which might be of interest.-- The Anome 20:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The remark about the theory being interesting from the point of view of the history of science was correct, precisely because the theory is so brilliant and with a high probability correct despite not conforming to the stagnant and staid 'creeping conformism' that science has become. But never fear – the predictions of the theory seem to be ever more fulfilled – Droscher and Hauser in a preprint of a paper to be presented to the AIAA in July, have shown that Heim theory correctly derives the quantum gravity effect seen by Tajmar et al. and reported on the ESA main page in March, and which has been the subject of several journal articles now. They derive the gravitophoton effect in Tajmar's experiment - and reproduce the value of the Quantum London moment almost exactly ( D & H '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 their 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. Journal articles to ensue. --hughey 22:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Once there are publications in journals to cite, we can use such information to improve the article. Until then, there's not much purpose to this sort of discussion; Wikipedia is not a message board. -- SCZenz 22:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me - I stand corrected oh holier than thou one. Far be it from me to impugn the sensibilities of the establishment.--217.224.44.219 08:11, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. Private communication is no source according to Wikipedia rules (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources). Friendly Neighbour 08:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Tajmar was highly regarded for the Ion Thrusters that his group designed – they will be used on various satellites soon. This increases the confidence that he really found a gravito-magnetic effect. And Droscher’s derivation of the effect’s size and direction ties beautifully into his theory and increases confidence that the Heim-Lorenz force will scale up nicely. Oh and another thing – on the Wikipedia discussions about the Heim pages, String Theorists and other ‘purists’ have often complained that a space propulsion conference was not fundamental physics. But where has maybe this greatest piece of fundamental physics, i.e. a confirmation of quantum gravity, been first publicised? At a space propulsion conference in ESTEC, for the Euro SPACE Agency! Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s one in the eye for the conservatives.--192.171.3.126 12:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A sentence I don't understand

I do not know what this sentence means:

Droescher first extended this to 8, in order to demonstrate that the quantum electrodynamics is included and the structures of the Standard Model, i.e. the same zoo of particles is produced using the condensation zones of Heim as in the quark model- QCD.

Does the 8-dimensional theory include the interactions between electrons and charged particles, or only the particles themselves? Also does "structures of the standard model" refer to the "particle zoo" of composite hadrons, or to quarks and glouns?

The introduction needs further cleanup very badly, so please clarify the intention of this sentence ASAP. -- SCZenz 12:08, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

there are no quarks, gluons, or QCD in heim. The four zones of the particles simulate the asymptotic behavior of quarks. Charge is included in Heim theory. That is my understanding. I agree the paragraph needs to be further worked to flatly say "in hT, there are no quarks, gluons or QCD and to show a pix of a particle with the four zones. I"m trying to find a pix and a release to WP. Take Care! --Will^(talk) 23:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

According to this [2] link, there are gluons in the Extended Heim theory, at least, although no quarks. Check out Table 2 in page 6. Apparently, they're Hermetry Form 10. By the way, Z⁰ and W^± are there, too: Hermetry Forms 6 and 8, respectively. Perhaps we should change the article. --Wtrmute 21:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Metron" definition

Setting aside my broad objections to this article's content, one of its current statement is that "The Metron is a unit of surface area and is analogous to the branes of string theory." I'm having trouble even understanding what this is trying to say. It wouldn't make any sense at all to say that a brane in string theory was "a unit of surface area"; in fact, I'm having trouble thinking of how even any one of the words "unit", "surface", or "area" would apply to them. The word "area" might apply to the D2-brane specifically (since it is extended in two spatial dimensions), but not to branes in general. Branes aren't generally the "surface" of anything, nor is there a clear sense in which they have a "surface". And as for "unit", string theory branes are dynamical objects that can move, stretch, wiggle, and even split into pieces; it's hard for me to reconcile all that with them being a "unit" of anything. I'm not particular sure of what a "metron" is, but I can't imagine that this analogy is accurate. I hope that someone with a sense for both "metrons" and branes can clean this up.--Steuard 01:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Point taken - I've changed the definition to: "The Metron is a unit of surface area and is analogous to the surface elements of the spin networks of loop quantum gravity. The Metron is approximately equal to the Planck length squared, or 10−70 m². " --hughey 12:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protosimplex Zones

I was persuing the French Heim Theory article. I saw where they have more info on protosimplexes and the four zones and whether each zone reflects or not. That stuff needs to be in the article. There's a lot of hi faluting incromphensible math in this article but not a lot of concrete stuff a person can put his hands on . That remark is made in the context of Piaget's theory of cognitive development where concrete is meant in the sense of "concrete operations." Best Wishes. Will314159 14:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

There is also a link to a site in the section "Sites détracteurs". --Zinoviev 17:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I saw that the llinks were structured in a bipolar way. pro and con/ best wistes Will314159 17:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some comments

I voted against deletion because I think the article can be improved to an acceptable standard. The following point must, i.m.o. be addressed:

Does the theory predict anything about the dynamics? If you predict some particle masses and call a few particles neutrinos and another one an electron, then what is that based on? Their mass, or the way they interact with other particles? What does the theory predict about the lifetime and mass of the Z-boson? If this follows the rules of ordinary quantum field theory, then the theory is ruled out because of the spurious neutrinos. But how can you violate the rules of QFT without being in conflict with almost everything we know?

The neutral electron is not a problem. Particles that don't interact at all with standard model particles are not experimentally constrained. One also has to demand that the particle did not contribute significantly to the energy density during Big Bang nucleosynthesis. If it was in thermal equilibrium with other particles, it would have led to too much Helium being produced. The same is true for the additional neutrinos (and everything else lighter than a few MEV). Examples of viable theories that predict new light particles are the axion models and the mirror matter models.

I propose that the article be trimmed down. We don't need all the details about the mathematical methods, the fact that cerain terms are called ""hermetries" etc. etc. The article should give refs. to the literature where the interested reader can find such details. The only reason why you would give more than just a few examples of some details of the theory is if you can demonstrate some non trivial thing like e.g. a prediction of the theory. But this isn't the case here. We should just mention that according to the refs. the theory predicts all the known particles plus some additional particles and some of their properties and contrast that with what is known.

Count Iblis 02:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

We should also decide whether any Wikipedia acceptable sources predicts quarks inside any version of Heim theory (yes, they do exist and behave like normal particles in the asymptotic freedom scale); whether Higgs particle is predicted by any version of the theory (we have heard they are and are not but only on the level of "science gossip") and generally how many versions of the theory actually exist and which predicts what (presently "early Heim", "Heim and Dröscher" and "Dröscher alone" seem to be pretty much mixed up in the article). Friendly Neighbour 19:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status as a pseudoscience

The reasons behind Heim Theory being listed as a pseudoscience seems a little unclear. I could not see sufficient reason to deem it a pseudoscience, and removed it from being linked on that list, but it was reverted with the reasoning that "Heim theory contradicts known experimental results (e.g. five light neutrinos). The derivation of the mass formula was never published."

Neither of these reasons seem, to me, to be sufficient. Heim theory predicts particles which have not been detected, and does not predict particles which have been detected, so it is almost certainly not a complete Theory of Everything. However, generally speaking predicting everything relevant in a field is not a requirement before a theory is considered scientific - theories, of course, are always in need of refinement, and unless I am deeply misled, unproven predictions do not disprove a theory. To be termed a pseudoscience as I understand it, the theory needs to meet one of the following criteria:

1. Does not make falsifiable predictions: Heim theory is falsifiable - supersymmetry is noted in the article as one potential result which would prove the theory false.
2. Lack of reproducibility: As a purely theoretical theory, so long as the mathematics is correct, this shouldn't be an issue (although he seems to have tried his hardest by inventing notation as he has apparently done).
3. Lack of useful predictions: It seems to make accurate predictions which mainstream theories were unable to make although, as stated, the mathematics behind the predictions were never published (and as I understand it, few people have really tried to reproduce them as the mathematics is damn hard). However, presumably there were predictions made in the original paper, or it would not have been accepted.
4. Does not submit to peer-review: Clearly the strongest one in relation to this theory, however there do seem to have been at least some papers published in peer-reviewed journals.

So, am I missing anything? Help me out here - I'm just a physics minor who thinks this looks like an interesting mental toy, and am having my fun disturbed by it being labelled as crank science. -Xiroth 14:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I know nothing about Heim theory, but I share your concern that we may be too eager to classify theories as pseudoscience simply because they are wrong. As you say, this is not sufficient. We should be careful with this lable, if nothing else to avoid undermining our case against real pseudoscience. However, if key mathematical derivations have not been made public/published/peer reviewed (as Count Iblis states in his editing summary), this may be a serious indication that the classification may be correct (per your pt 4). Comments? O. Prytz 14:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been busy with a rewrite of this article (off-line, it will take me some time to finish it because I need to explain some quantum field theory as well to explain why it isn't taken seriously). I've done my best to find derivations of the mass formula from some basic principles. But all I could find are extremely complicated ad hoc formulae for certain terms. Although I cannot definitely say that these formulae are not really derived from fundamental principles, it certainly looks like it is just reverse engineering like the Greeks did to explain the motion of the planets using epycircles. But I don't call it pseudoscience on these grounds, as that would be POV.

A more serious objection is the following. Heim theory claims to be compatible with quantum mechanics and claims to reduce to the standard model (presumably at low energies at least). This makes the mass formula even more suspect, as it would imply that you could solve QCD (at least to some very good approximation). We already know, in princple, what acounts for the masses of the hadrons and it has nothing to do with anything that goes on beyond standard model physics (appart from where QCD itself comes from, of course). Whatever the laws of fundamental physics really are, it is "integrated out" at the level of the standard model and all you're left with is the standard model.

So, even if there is more to the mass formula than the skeptics suspect, it would then be like accupuncture. You then have something that works, but not because of what the idea behind it theorizes.

Then there are the spurious particles predicted by Heim theory. Now either the theory can describe the interactions of the particles it predicts or it can't, you can't have it both ways. The extra particles that are predicted must be (almost) sterile otherwise it is ruled out.

So, Heim theory is nothing more than a claimed fundamental theory that is implausible. You can argue wether it is pseudoscience. Perhaps Heim's original theory can be classified as an obsolete physical theory and Heim theory supporters who are still working on it today are busy with pseudoscience. Count Iblis 17:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That certainly sounds better. At the moment, there seems little that indicates that the theory was developed on unstable logic or contrary to scientific convention, so the original theory shouldn't be tainted with that label. If it is being utilised by groups with less than perfect integrity then it shouldn't retroactively dismiss the entire theory, or vast swathes of modern mainstream science must be labelled as pseudoscience (thermodynamics, for example, is often used in attempts to support psuedoscientific claims). -Xiroth 01:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmph - how insufferably arrogant of one so recently defeated with ignominy in the AfD discussion. Heim was well aware of the problem of additional particles. Many could be ruled out by selection rules he derived himself. There is much work to be done in finding all the selection rules that may eliminate the remaining 'spurious' particles: note that they may just be spurious in the sense of having vanishingly small lifetimes. But then the Iblis POV must assume the worst - get this: your POV was thown out in that debate. I agree that the pseudoscience category be removed. Heim worked with Heisenberg and his successor (Durr, who persuaded him to publish) as well as many other giants of physics who recognised his genius and saw the promise of his approach. Thus it is not appropriate for some pipsqueak born yesterday to term his theory pseudoscience. --hughey 15:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Which AfD discussion is referred to here? Unless there was an subsequent edit to it, Iblis seems to have voted to keep this page. I reject the premise that someone today cannot judge those in the past, whether their name be as relatively unknown as Heim or giants such as Heisenberg - so long as the categorisation is properly applied, it should apply equally to all. However, that said, there does seem to be some agreement that the original theory was not pseudoscientific, and terming it as such is something of a disservice to an impressive theoretician (regardless of whether or not his theories have since held water). Thus I propose that a new header be put in place to discuss modern attempts to apply Heim's theory, including their recent attention, their scientific merit and allegations of psuedoscientific methods. -Xiroth 03:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The AfD discussion is of course still available (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heim theory). Count Iblis voted Strong Keep. I voted Keep but rewrite. Xiroth did not vote. So which of us is the one "recently defeated with ignominy in the AfD discussion"? I mention this only because hughey tried to make me admit defeat (see this edit) on October 5 and now he makes the same request of Count Iblis (as far as I can understand his allusion). Does hughey need to treat anyone editing his favorite article as an enemy? Friendly Neighbour 09:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've started a small section describing the theory's current status. Hopefully it will be edited soon by people more familiar with the subject matter. -Xiroth 04:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite uploaded

I've just finished the new version. This version is more accurate as far as the physics is concerned. I've omitted some of the technical details of Heim theory. A few details are ok. to illustrate what the theory is about, but very technical details serve no purpose unless one could show some interesting nontrivial derivations. Count Iblis 17:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudoscience

As long as this theory is listed in List of pseudoscentific theories in physics, there should be a reference of some sort from this article to that one. Whether there should be such a reference there is unclear to me. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think that current research in Heim heory is pseudoscientific, while earlier work by Heim was more legitimate. Count Iblis 17:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sigh - when will you understand- this is not pseudoscientific - to say so is a profound insult. The only thing pseudo is this pseudo-intellectual version of casting the first stone.--hughey 08:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It is up to to the people working on the theory to show that there indeed exists a well defined "Heim theory" at all. This is not at all clear. The Ancient Greeks also had a "theory" about the motion of the planets and they could very accurately predict the position of the planets in the sky. Count Iblis 13:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not up to you decide what the nebulous 'people working on the theory' (paranoia on your part? Are they out get you?) need to do or not do. There is no decree passed down from the god of particles that lays down such modes of behaviour. Anyway, the logic of re-including pseudoscience and not Unified Field Theory boggles the imagination. You'd think the likes of you had won the AfD debate and were thus now strutting arrogantly in this fashion. Ergo - UFT goes back in. If I had more energy I'd do the proper job of excising the true cancer, namely the entry in Pseudo-pseudoscience (what a pseud!) and #metastasing# references to heim-theory in other parts. If the AfD losers bug me sufficiently I may do just that. --hughey 09:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Check the AFD votes; I voted for keeping this article. The merits of a theory have to be proved in the scientific community by publishing results in peer reviewed journals. Only a few results have been published but the derivations are nowhere to be found. Tesla also claimed to have a theory of gravitation based on electromagnetism. And Fermat claimed to have a proof of his famous theorem. These are just claims without a shred of evidence. Count Iblis 15:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not altogether true to say that there is no shred of evidence. Several physicists (the Heim-theory group, Droscher and a few others) have spent the year or more of intense study needed to understand the theory from the books and say that they perceive the logic therein. The fact that the mass formula gets so close to actual measured values is another sign that the logic may indeed lead to a remarkable result. Though the full derivation of the mass formula may take some years to sort out – hopefully not as long as Fermat’s last theorem. Also, Droscher & Heim’s reproduction of standard model particle properties using the hermetry forms is a another indication of authenticity – the modified Tajmar experiment suggested by Hauser & Droscher may confirm that their calculations’ predictions of the gravito-magnetic effect are correct. Thus we may be not far from a thick shred of evidence.--hughey 07:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fraud allegations

It is claimed by John Reed [3] that Heim's mass predictions are not predictions at all, but were taken from a table of known empirical masses. This is a strange claim, as Heim predicts masses of particles (the neutrinos, or the posited neutral electron) that have no such empirical data. In fact, at the time Heim formulated his mass predictions (the first volume of his work, published in 1980), the neutrinos were believed to be massless. Seen in this context, Mr. Reed's allegations are highly suspect. Perhaps they ought to be taken out of the article until they are substantiated. Freederick 13:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by John Reed

Jreed here. I don't like to be accused of fraud, so I'll let the readers of this note judge for themselves. First on Heim predictions of neutrino masses, at present only the difference of the neutrino masses can be experimentally verified. I tried to check Heim's neutrino mass values by finding differences of his masses. I could not find any correlation with the experimental differences and Heim theory neutrino mass differences. The neutral electron has not been found and it is doubtful that such a particle exists.

Now on that A matrix. On page 335 of "Elementarstrukturen der Materie", volume 2 the following statements are found (German text first):

"Die Koeffizienten A(i,m) konnen als Elemente einer Rechtecksmatrix vom Typ 3,6, namlich A(3,6)=(A(i,m))(3,6) aufgefasst werden. Auf jeden Fall gilt sowohl fur diese Elemente A(i,m)=A(i,m)* als auch A(6,6)=A(6,6)*.

Es war bislang nicht moglich, die F(i,m) explizit herzuleiten, so dass dies auch fur A(i,m) und A(6,6) gilt. Untersucht man jedoch unter Verwendung der Interpretation (101b) die empirischen Daten der Grundzustande, dann kann man heuristisch die A(i,m) and A(6,6) numerisch allein auf die Grenzwerte pi, e and xi sowie auf die beiden Kopplungskonstanten alpha and beta aus (105a) zuruckfuhren,"

and here's my translation:

"The coefficients A(i, m) are understood to be elements of a rectangular real matrix of the type 3,6, namely A(3,6) = (A(i, m))(3,6). In every case one has for these elements A (i, m) = A (i, m)* and A(6,6) = A(6,6)*.

It is not possible at the present time to deduce the F(i, m) explicitly and this also applies to A(i, m) and A(6,6). If one examines the empirical data however using the interpretation (101b), then one can represent heuristically A(i, m) and A(6,6) numerically alone on the limiting values pi, e and xi as well as on the two coupling constants alpha and beta from (105a),"

I take this to mean that the expressions in the A matrix were derived by using the experimentally measured mass values. The A matrix consists of products of pi, e and the golden ratio xi. These expressions must have been adjusted to obtain agreement with the ground state particle masses. It is important to note that all this discussion takes place in Heim's chapter entitled "Resonance Spectra and its Limits". It looks like Heim was trying to find particle resonances, and needed ground states to do this. The ground states are contained in the A matrix.

I did more than look this up in Heim's book. I also programmed up Heim's equations in Mathematica. I am able to see where the A matrix comes into calculating masses. It is possible to see the progression of mass calculations as the particles go through their various types. For neutrons, only A(2,1) is used. For Lambda, A(2,1) and A(2,2) are used. For Omega-, only A(2,2) is used. This continues until all Heim's mass values can be found.

I think that people who believe Heim's theory calculates ground state masses from first principles are wrong.

John Reed —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.74.164.49 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

“I don't like to be accused of fraud...” This was not what I meant. It was not my intent to accuse you of fraud; I was referring to your allegations that Heim rigged his data, which is how I understood your position at the time. Freederick 14:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There's little evidence that Heim said that he predicted particle masses, or that he "rigged his data". He apparently adjusted parameters to match known particle masses. Nothing wrong with that.

Others have said that Heim predicted particle masses, and they may have committed fraud. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Communique from HTRG

In regard to the above, please note the following note received from the Heim Theory Research Group:

We would like to draw your attention to a paper of Heim which we suppose to have been written in 1989 . A summary is given on www.heim-theory.com . In that 1989 paper formulae for the partikel masses, resonances and life times are given which do not use those A(i,m). Instead some new quantum numbers are introduced representing the occupation of four geometric zones by energy . A straightforward derivation of those quantum numbers is given. For the outer zone in some cases we could not obtain the corresponding quantum numbers with our Fortran Program but this might be due to a lack of understanding an only verbally described equilibration procedure between the 3rd and 4th zone. Fortunately the masses of the ground states depend only slightly on the number for the outer zone. Our program computes the ground states only. In an addendum to their book "Strukturen der physikalischen Welt ..." (1996) W.Droescher and B.Heim present a new derivation of particle life times, but sad to say, the 1989 mass formulae have not been published in print.
Yours faithfully,
Research Group Heim Theory

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.178.4.176 (talk • contribs) 01:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The 1989 program came from the 1982 program. Although I haven't made the full connection yet, I am able to solve for all the new "quantum numbers" needed in the 1989 version using the 1982 program. This means that the A matrix is buried in those numbers, although now well hidden.

John Reed 7 March 07

[edit] Contents of matrix A

You say that "The A matrix consists of products of pi, e and the golden ratio xi." While I haven't seen the actual matrix, the use of what are, essentially, combinations of geometrical parameters seems to reflect the geometrical "metron" underpinnings of Heim's quantized space. IIUC, Heim considers the particles to be geometrical arrangements of "metron" space quanta in his 6-dimensional quantum space ("metron structures"). Furthermore, there is a limited number of such arrangements that are possible, and each allowed geometrical structure corresponds to a separate posited particle. The metrons themselves are two-dimensional, and each metron lies in a two dimensional subspace of the 6 dimensional space. Assuming that the metrons are directed, this gives a total of 6²– 6 distinct subspaces, conveniently represented in a 6×6 matrix. Are the diagonal elements of matrix A null?

Viewed in this context, the "adjustment" necessary to obtain agreement with the ground state particle masses might mean, simply, that the allowed structures, consisting of various combinations of the elementary metrons listed in the matrix, were pairwise matched against the empirical properties of known particles, rather than being derived from them (as in: "OK, this particular structure matches the known data for the proton; it must correspond to the proton"). Looking at the text you quoted, this appears to hinge on what "interpretation (101b)" is.

Note that what I am saying here is highly conjectural, as I have no access to the actual text. In your opinion, is such reading feasible? And what is "interpretation (101b)? Freederick 14:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The diagonal elements of A are not null. (101b) is an illustration showing all the elementary particles known at the time along with their organization into particle groups. I think Heim arranged for the elements of A to have this form because he thought when it became possible to derive them they would consist of these factors. This doesn't prove anything about these expressions being related to geometry. With Mathematica I can arrange for a number to be represented by products of specified constants up to any precision.

Randomcipher 15:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I must admit that this is a very discouraging development. The prediction of particle masses was one of the strongest points in support of the theory. I suppose there is little to do other than sit back and wait for an experimental verification of neutrino masses (which should happen in the next few years). Freederick 12:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Mass Theory

I haven't been here for a while. I did a little copy editing. Article looks very nice. learned a lot reading it.

Here's a question "However, since no other theory gets this close to the measured masses from first principles, if the derivation of the mass formula can be confirmed, then Heim theory would achieve major corroboration. "

LQG has a mass derivation formula from first principles. I don't know how close it gets. Where are the gaps in the Heim theory derivation? Are the quantum numbers pulled out of thin air? or is the forumula pulled of thin air? It's a higgs-less mass theory. Mass shows up as artifact mass. A metron resonance. How does the resonance translate into a formula? That would be a first principle approach.

I was disappointed that all the space travel stuff is gone from the article. That's okay. Super Article very readable. I took out some very complex sentences and "Hemingwayed" them into short sentence structure. Thanx for the good work John Reed and others Godspeed John Glenn! Will 02:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)