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Heim theory is a collection of ideas about the fundamental laws of physics proposed by Burkhard Heim*, * and further developed by Walter Dröscher and Jochem Häuser.*. Neither most of their original work nor theories based on it have been peer reviewed. Heim attempted to resolve incompatibilities between quantum theory and general relativity. To meet that goal, he developed a mathematical approach based on quantizing spacetime itself, and proposed the "metron" as a (two-dimensional) quantum of (multidimensional) space. The theory is formulated in terms of difference operators; the mathematical formalism is called "Selector calculus" by Heim. The mathematics behind Heim's theory requires extending spacetime with extra dimensions; various formulations by Heim and his successors involve six, eight, or twelve dimensions. Within the quantum spacetime of Heim theory, elementary particles are represented as "hermetry forms" or multidimensional structures of space. Heim has claimed that his theory yields particle masses directly from fundamental physical constants and that the resulting masses are in agreement with experiment; however, many of the particles whose masses he calculated (specifically the hadrons) are now known to be composite particles and not elementary after all. For Heim, this composite nature was an expression of internal, six-dimensional structure. After his death, others have continued with his multi-dimensional "quantum hyperspace" framework. Most notable are the theoretical generalizations put forth by Walter Dröscher, who worked in collaboration with Heim at some length. Their combined theories are also known as "Heim-Droescher" theories *. 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 has six dimensions. Droescher first extended this to eight and claimed that this yields quantum electrodynamics along with the "particle zoo" of mesons and baryons. Later, four more dimensions were used in the twelve dimension version, which involves extra gravitational forces; one of these corresponds to quintessence *. All of these theories are often called "Heim theories." Heim derived a constraint on the number of possible dimensions. 12 was the highest practical number. Although it purports to unify quantum mechanics and gravitation, the original Heim theory cannot be considered a theory of everything because it does not incorporate all known experimental data. In particular, it gives predictions only for properties of individual particles, without making detailed predictions about how they interact. The theory also allows for particle states that don't exist in the Standard Model, including a neutral electron and two extra light neutrinos, and many other extra states. At present, there is no known mechanism for exclusion of these extra particles, or explanation for the reasons why they have not been observed. * Although it is claimed that Heim theory can incorporate the modern structure of particle physics *, the available results predict the masses for composite hadrons rather than quarks and do not include gluons or the W and Z bosons *, which are experimentally very well-established. ••• In Heim theory, quarks are interpreted as 'condensation zones' of the six-dimensional internal structure of the particles *, and the gluons are asserted to be associated with one of the "hermetry forms" *; however, no results have been published in which the observed properties of these particles are predicted in detail. History The basic theory was developed in near-isolation from the scientific community. Heim's disabilities -- an explosives-handling accident when he was 19 had left him without hands and mostly deaf and blind -- led him to prefer this isolation as the effort of communication in a university environment was too much of a strain for him. Heim himself had only one publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal, and this only at the insistence of his friends, as he himself did not see the need for publication until his theory was complete. Heim's original 1977 publication remains the only peer-reviewed publication on Heim theory. A small group of physicists is now trying to bring it to the attention of the scientific community, by publishing and copy-editing Heim's work, and by checking and expanding the relevant calculations. Recently, a series of presentations of Heim theory was made by Häuser, Dröscher and von Ludwiger. A paper based on the former was published in a conference proceedings by the American Institute of Physics journal in 2005 (see table of contents in * and abstract of paper in *). This article has won a prize for the best paper received in 2004 by the AIAA Nuclear and Future Flight Technical Committee. Von Ludwiger's presentation was to the First European Workshop on Field Propulsion, January 20-22, 2001 at the University of Sussex (see list of talks *). Dröscher was allegedly able to extend Heim's six-dimensional theory, which had been sufficient for derivation of the mass formula, to an eight-dimensional theory which included particle interactions. Claimed predictions of the theory Two predictions claimed to have been derived from first principles that are experimentally testable are: Heim correctly predicted nonzero neutrino masses in the 1980s. However, he did not predict the observed neutrino oscillation, which is a consequence of the fact that the mass eigenstates do not correspond to the flavor eigenstates. Empirical confirmation of supersymmetry (for example detecting the hypothetical Lightest Supersymmetric Particle or any other particle predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model) would falsify all existing versions of Heim theory, which are mutually exclusive with supersymmetry. Also, it is not certain whether Heim theory would be able to accommodate the existence of the Higgs boson, the only undiscovered particle expected in the Standard Model, and one which has not been predicted by the published versions of the Heim mass formula. The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider are likely to discover the Higgs boson in the next several years, if it exists. Heims claimed predictions for particle masses experimental masses Here are tables comparing the experimental masses and lifetimes of selected particles with the data generated using Heim's non-peer reviewed code: The predicted masses were claimed to have been derived by Heim using only 4 parameters - h (Planck's Constant), G (Gravitational constant), vacuum permittivity and permeability. This implies that all masses must be dimensionless functions containing no free parameters multiplied by the Planck mass. The ratio of two predicted masses should therefore have no theoretical error caused by uncertainties in the four input parameters. While Heim theory is the only physical theory which has come close to predicting the correct masses of particles, when comparing such ratios using the above table one can see that they are outside the experimental limits. Heims predictions for a quantum gravity force Already in the 1950's, Heim had predicted what he termed a 'contrabary' effect whereby photons, under the influence of a strong magnetic field in a certain configuration, could be transformed into 'gravito-photons', which would provide an artificial gravity force. This idea caused great interest at the time *. A recent series of experiments by Martin Tajmar et al., partly funded by ESA, may have produced the first evidence of artificial gravity *. As of late 2006, groups at Berkeley and elsewhere were attempting to reproduce this effect. By applying their 'gravito-photon' theory to bosons, Droscher and Hauser were able to predict the size and direction of the effect, which is 40 orders of magnitude higher than predicted by General Relativity *. A further prediciton of Heim-Droscher theory shows how a different arrangement of the experiment by Tajmar et al. could produce a vertical force against the direction of the Earth's gravity. See also A similar (though opposite, in that the Cooper pairs actually weigh more than predicted by general relativity ) result has been confirmed as of March 2006 by recent and extensive studies carried out by the European Space Agency, and the results do not correlate with the gravitomagnetism, that is predicted by general relativity, by several orders higher in magnitude. (see ESA report at * and paper at *) First publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal Vorschlag eines Weges einer einheitlichen Beschreibung der Elementarteilchen (Suggestion of a way of a unified description of the elementary particles), Zeitschrift für Naturforschung (Max_Planck_Society), 1977, Vol. 32a, pp. 233-243. Bibliography Elementarstrukturen der Materie: Einheitliche strukturelle Quantenfeldtheorie der Materie und Gravitation, Band 1 (Elementary structures of matter: Unified structural quantum field theory of matter and gravitation, Volume 1); Resch-Verlag, Innsbruck (Austria); 3rd corrected edition 1998; ISBN 3-85382-008-5, ISBN 978-3-85382-008-7; in German. * Elementarstrukturen der Materie: Einheitliche strukturelle Quantenfeldtheorie der Materie und Gravitation, Band 2 (Elementary structures of matter: Unified structural quantum field theory of matter and gravitation, Volume 2); Resch-Verlag, Innsbruck (Austria); 2nd edition 1996; ISBN 3-85382-036-0, ISBN 978-3-85382-036-0; in German. * Strukturen der physikalischen Welt und ihrer nichtmateriellen Seite (Structures of the physical world and its immaterial aspect); Resch-Verlag, Innsbruck (Austria); 1st edition 1996; ISBN 3-85382-059-X, ISBN 978-3-85382-059-9; in German. * Einführung in Burkhard Heim: Einheitliche Beschreibung der Welt (Introduction to Burkhard Heim: Unified description of the world); Resch-Verlag, Innsbruck (Austria); 1st edition 1998; ISBN 3-85382-064-6, ISBN 978-3-85382-064-3; in German. * Theory A site which attempts to offer an explanation of Heim theory: Description of the theory in a (non-mainstream) scientific journal paper: Various Implementations of Heim theory mass formula Heim's mass formula has been implemented in several programming languages. The first version was implemented by physicists from DESY in collaboration with Burkhard Heim. More recent implementations are available in Java, C, C Conference proceedings Propulsion physics News items | |||||||
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