# Hyperspace engine (Heim's Quantum Theory)

Blam
A hyperspace (faster then c) engine is being worked on by the U.S. It would work by going into another dimension based of of Heim's Quantum Theory.
How realistic is this and could we go faster then c with enough energy like in the experiment. Obviously not relevant to us but in parallel? If you are using it linearly with c then it has a limit at c but how could the fabric of spacetime be changed to push slower particles through space faster? They say current rules of thought would have to change like now viewing the universe as one consistant linear stream.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006 [Broken]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory

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Hdeasy
Frankly, I don't care so much for the hyperspace aspect and I think that is indeed the most speculative aspect of Droscher & Hauser's work. Much more interesting is if the basic Heim Theory is correct. This can be shown in a number of ways - first there's the spaceship angle - if Heim-Droscher theory is right, there should be particles called gravito-photons transforming electromagnetic energy into gravitational. If an effect is seen at 25 Teslas in the coils as described in their experimential setup, this would be one prediciton of the theory - without the need for that extra hyperspace effect.

The next is the particle masses - in that case either we measure neutrino masses more accurately to see if Heim's mass values are correct or we check the formidable maths background to the mass formula which has already reproduced the known masses to great accuracy using only G, h and c as input.

Hdeasy said:
Much more interesting is if the basic Heim Theory is correct.
I have read a little bit about the theory and my impression is that the theory relies on an initial postulate: that the connection coefficients of general relativity obey a Schrödinger-like equation in the quantum realm. Is this correct? Could you or anybody elaborate on this?

Hdeasy
hellfire said:
I have read a little bit about the theory and my impression is that the theory relies on an initial postulate: that the connection coefficients of general relativity obey a Schrödinger-like equation in the quantum realm. Is this correct? Could you or anybody elaborate on this?
More or less. To translate a bit from Heim-theory.com:
It's the field equations that Heim postulated must be brought into a quantized form, which then lead to eigenvalue equations, which resemble the time-independent Schroedinger equation.
It has been frequently assumed that the obviously fundamental linear structure of quantum theory is only an approximation of something different, and that the approximate character would show up clearly in the context of quantum gravitation (Isham 1998). An eigenvalue equation, which refers not to the wave Psi, but to the particle, must express its material character - similar to general relativity - by curved geometry. In place of the linear operator in the Schroedinger equation therefore a nonlinear operator, as it arises in Riemannian geometry, is needed. Heim (1979/89) proceeds from the following consideration: In Riemann geometry the curvature tensor Ri/kmp can be defined by an operator Cp, that acts on the Christoffel symbols GAMMAi/km
Ri/kmp = Cp GAMMAi/km. (1.2)
The curvature tensor is thus described by the effect of a nonlinear operator on a field GAMMAi/km. During the transition of the macro realm to the micro realm the Christoffel symbols become 'particle fields' PHIi/km, which, in contrast to the pseudo tensors GAMMAi/km, may be understood as 3rd order tensors, since PHIi/km in the observed final micro realm, in which they are exposed to no external field, except affine ones, are subjected to no curvilinear coordinate transformations. Because of the correspondence between macro and micro realm the operator Cp within both ranges has the same shape:

Cp GAMMAi/km --> Cp PHIi/km

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Schrodinger's Dog
Apologies this is a reply to a locked thread. Alkatran generaly a theory is an idea or suposition, scientifically it has to have at least some corroborating evidence. Consequently although String and Heim theory are called theories, scientificaly they should be relabled hypothesis, those who practice science though know this so there's really only any confusion amongst laymen. Evolution is a theory because it has a wide variety of corrobarative evidence, it happens to be a very good theory as well because it has several gaping holes in it that need to be filled, such as the question of homochirality, why proteins appear to form in only one handed left amino acids chains, when in nature these amino acids are found in 50/50 ratio, amongst several others.

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Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Hdeasy said:
More or less. To translate a bit from Heim-theory.com:
It's the field equations that Heim postulated must be brought into a quantized form, which then lead to eigenvalue equations, which resemble the time-independent Schroedinger equation.
It has been frequently assumed that the obviously fundamental linear structure of quantum theory is only an approximation of something different, and that the approximate character would show up clearly in the context of quantum gravitation (Isham 1998). An eigenvalue equation, which refers not to the wave Psi, but to the particle, must express its material character - similar to general relativity - by curved geometry. In place of the linear operator in the Schroedinger equation therefore a nonlinear operator, as it arises in Riemannian geometry, is needed. Heim (1979/89) proceeds from the following consideration: In Riemann geometry the curvature tensor Ri/kmp can be defined by an operator $$C_p$$, that acts on the Christoffel symbols $$R^i_{kmp} = C_p \Gamma^i_{km}$$. (1.2)
The curvature tensor is thus described by the effect of a nonlinear operator on a field $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$. During the transition of the macro realm to the micro realm the Christoffel symbols become 'particle fields' $$\Phi^i_{km}$$, which, in contrast to the pseudo tensors $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$, may be understood as 3rd order tensors, since $$Phi^i_{km}$$ in the observed final micro realm, in which they are exposed to no external field, except affine ones, are subjected to no curvilinear coordinate transformations. Because of the correspondence between macro and micro realm the operator $$C_p$$ within both ranges has the same shape:
$$C_p \Gamma^i_{km} \righttarrow C_p \Phi^i_{km}$$

I have taken the liberty of changing your notation to Latex for clarity in the quote. If I have made any mistakes, just let me know and I'll fix them.

Could you go into a little more detail on the field $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$? Evidently Heim acknowledges that these are not tensors, hence coordinate dependent. How then can they be a feature of the underlying manifold?

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Blam
Also Iwill change the name of the topic because that hyperspace engine is research in the 'no original research' category.
Wikipedia has a similar rule so I will continue to post links from there unless strongly discouraged by PF.

SmithWillSuffice
I wonder why this topic got bumped into "Strings, Branes, & LQG"? I guess the geometrical background-free aspect of Heim theory bears a vague relation to LQG?
For my 2cw, I agree with Hdeasy's earlier posts: that the fundamental physics of Heim theory is far more important than the hyperdrive application. You have to be dreaming if you think that concept will be tested any time soon. NASA have enough problems getting conventional propulsion systems tested like NEP systems. If someone can indirectly validate Heim's ideas by demonstrating a working gravitophotonic propulsion system then all fine and good, but I doubt that will be the first test of the theory.
My money is on some brave physicists reworking Heim's mass formula and particle lifetimes using concepts that are more familiar to most physicists than those used by Heim and the Innsbruck group.
Another interesting piece of speculation was the report (unconfirmed) that I read in either the NewScientist piece or at the heim-group website or elsewhere, that claimed that discretization of spacetime is required, but it was unclear whether this is something that follows from the assumptions of Heim's structure theory or whether it is itself one of the assumptions, if the former then that'd be really interesting.
A further puzzle was that the NS article mentioned that Heim originally proposed 8 spacetime dimensions but then settled for 6D. Later on it is reported that Walter Droscher revived the gravitophoton propulsion idea using 8D. Then I see there's a report by a guy named Gary Stephenson (apparently a gravity-wave theorist writing for a consultancy called Seculine) that refers to a 12D theory, where there are 4 "non-metric" dimensions, whatever that means(?).
What someone really should do is write a better plain English description of Heim's structure theory. For instance, what exactly are the "particles" in his theory? If they are elements of geometry and not just abstract wave-functions or fields on a background spacetime then it should be possible to explain what the heck they are. Are they like 3D knots of flux tubes embedded in 6D or 8D spacetime, or are they more general topological structures? How does charge arise? If electric fields are simply attached to Heim's spacetime as extra fields as in the old geometrodynamics a la Misner-Wheeler then that would be extremely ugly don't you think? If not, then what's the difference between Heim's ideas and Kaluza-Klein models? Surely if Heim is saying that all physics is just higher dimensional geometry then a reformulation of his work using modern Kaluza-Klein pictures should be possible I would imagine. If not then there's got to be a point of departure that can be used to start attacking the problem of clarifying Heim's ideas.

Gold Member
I'm wondering why it wasn't moved to the fantasy and science fiction bookshelf.

Hdeasy
I have taken the liberty of changing your notation to Latex for clarity in the quote. If I have made any mistakes, just let me know and I'll fix them.
Could you go into a little more detail on the field $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$? Evidently Heim acknowledges that these are not tensors, hence coordinate dependent. How then can they be a feature of the underlying manifold?
First, the inital equation you correct had a $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$ too many. it should be: In Riemann geometry the curvature tensor $$R^i_{kmp}$$ can be defined by an operator $$C_{p}$$? , that acts on the Christoffel symbols
$$R^i_{kmp}$$ = $$C_{p}$$ $$\Gamma^i_{km}$$. (1.2)

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Hdeasy
SmithWillSuffice said:
I wonder why this topic got bumped into "Strings, Branes, & LQG"? I guess the geometrical background-free aspect of Heim theory bears a vague relation to LQG?
For my 2cw, I agree with Hdeasy's earlier posts: that the fundamental physics of Heim theory is far more important than the hyperdrive application. You have to be dreaming if you think that concept will be tested any time soon. NASA have enough problems getting conventional propulsion systems tested like NEP systems. If someone can indirectly validate Heim's ideas by demonstrating a working gravitophotonic propulsion system then all fine and good, but I doubt that will be the first test of the theory.
My money is on some brave physicists reworking Heim's mass formula and particle lifetimes using concepts that are more familiar to most physicists than those used by Heim and the Innsbruck group.
Another interesting piece of speculation was the report (unconfirmed) that I read in either the NewScientist piece or at the heim-group website or elsewhere, that claimed that discretization of spacetime is required, but it was unclear whether this is something that follows from the assumptions of Heim's structure theory or whether it is itself one of the assumptions, if the former then that'd be really interesting.
A further puzzle was that the NS article mentioned that Heim originally proposed 8 spacetime dimensions but then settled for 6D. Later on it is reported that Walter Droscher revived the gravitophoton propulsion idea using 8D. Then I see there's a report by a guy named Gary Stephenson (apparently a gravity-wave theorist writing for a consultancy called Seculine) that refers to a 12D theory, where there are 4 "non-metric" dimensions, whatever that means(?).
What someone really should do is write a better plain English description of Heim's structure theory. For instance, what exactly are the "particles" in his theory? If they are elements of geometry and not just abstract wave-functions or fields on a background spacetime then it should be possible to explain what the heck they are. Are they like 3D knots of flux tubes embedded in 6D or 8D spacetime, or are they more general topological structures? How does charge arise? If electric fields are simply attached to Heim's spacetime as extra fields as in the old geometrodynamics a la Misner-Wheeler then that would be extremely ugly don't you think? If not, then what's the difference between Heim's ideas and Kaluza-Klein models? Surely if Heim is saying that all physics is just higher dimensional geometry then a reformulation of his work using modern Kaluza-Klein pictures should be possible I would imagine. If not then there's got to be a point of departure that can be used to start attacking the problem of clarifying Heim's ideas.

Similarity to LQG: not only the geometrical background-free aspect, but also Heim's metron lattice is very like the spin lattice of LQG.
All the physicists working on Heim theory now are trying to re-formulate it in concepts more familiar to most physicists. E.g. instead of his 'selector calculus', which is form of
integer differencing as opposed to the usual calculus, the latter is being substituted for the former almost everywhere - only down around the Planck scale is the differencing method needed to avoid singularities. On the discretisation of space: Quoting Heim-theory.com:
"From Heim's computation of two extremum principles on the gravitational field quantum of a smallest mass, the product of two lengths resulted as a natural constant. This smallest surface is the square of the Planck length, which was also determined by Treder (1974) (Treder, H. J. 1974: Philosophische Probleme des physikalischen Raumes, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag) , and which is referred to by Heim as the Metron. Heim was the first to draw the conclusion from the discovery of this natural constant that this two dimensional element makes calculation with area differences necessary and thereby justifies 'Metron calculus' ". For details of the reasoning that Heim used, further reading would be needed - or maybe ask Dröscher himself!

As for the number of dimensions - the full exposition does require 12 dimensions it seems. Roughly speaking, the number should be a multiple of 4 as tensors with 2 or 3 indices over Einstein's 4-D space are involved. So 8 or 12 are prime candidates. In the 8-D version, the energy density tensor has only 36 non-zero elements and so Heim justifies restriction to a 6 x 6 space. 6 x 6 is enough for the mass formula derivation. Quoting Hauser & Droscher "The dimensional law derived by Heim requires a 12-dimensional space, but the additional four coordinates are needed only in the explanation of the steering of probability amplitudes (information)."

Particles are stable distortions in the metron lattice - the 'condensation' that results in a particle involves projection from 6 dimensional structures on 4-D. I confess that the details of this are hard to understand and I haven't got that far yet. Charge is associated with a partial-metric: the full metric is a 'poly-metric', with the normal g(i,j) of gravity and others for the other forces. That part is rather elegant and not at all 'ugly'. Heim acknowledged Kaluza-Klein theory as having the right idea. Only for Heim the extra dimensions are not compacted - there are 3 normal space dimensions, 3 time-like dimensions (including normal time) and the rest of an 'organisational' nature, having to do with quantum probabilities etc.
Von Ludwiger is working on transcribing tapes of Heim speaking on all this (in German admittedly) and wants to then have it translated into English and published as an
introduction. Apparently when he talks about it, it's much easier to understand where he's coming from.

Apropos: does anyone have an idea about publishers might be interested in that?

Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
SmithWillSuffice said:
I wonder why this topic got bumped into "Strings, Branes, & LQG"?

For clarification, Heim's stuff showed up on different forums in different threads, and the mentors here had a discussion about what to do with it. Although the spacedrive stuff is probably a bit far-fetched, it occurred to us that the THEORY could be discussed here, so there was a consensus to have the thread here.

Hdeasy
SmithWillSuffice said:
I agree with Hdeasy's earlier posts: that the fundamental physics of Heim theory is far more important than the hyperdrive application. <snip> Surely if Heim is saying that all physics is just higher dimensional geometry then a reformulation of his work using modern Kaluza-Klein pictures should be possible I would imagine. If not then there's got to be a point of departure that can be used to start attacking the problem of clarifying Heim's ideas.

If the Heim books are translated into English, some clarifications and conversions must be added to the text. That is difficult work. If one were to hear (or to read in English) how Heim expressed things in his own words, then one would receive a very good overview of what Heim actually did. Then one could maybe understand even the German text with the mathematical formulation. I find it good that the Heim theory is considered more important than the proposed experiments of Häuser and Dröscher. The dimensions in Heim theory are indeed somewhat confusing. Because of the existence of surface quanta only a few space-times are permitted for possible geometrical structures. Those are the regions R4, R6, R8 and R12. However in R6 the geometrical structure of matter can be described. According to Dröscher and Heim, the particle interactions can be indicated in R8, and the cause of quantum theory is in the dynamics of the 4 imaginary dimensions x9 to x12. However in his first two books Heim used only R6.

Gold Member
Chronos said:
I'm wondering why it wasn't moved to the fantasy and science fiction bookshelf.

Because it's a tragedy?

Paracelsus
Here's my question about HQT, since it will be a while yet before I can really dive into it -

How does it fare in the context of Bell's inequalities?

Hdeasy
Paracelsus said:
Here's my question about HQT, since it will be a while yet before I can really dive into it -

How does it fare in the context of Bell's inequalities?

Well, it's a quantum-gravity theory so it has wave functions in it and non-locality. The main difference is that there are 4 dimensions (X9 - X12) responsible for steering the quantum probabilities.

Anome
A link to Heim Mass Formula in Java:

http://www.daimi.au.dk/~spony/HeimMassFormula/

Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Hi Anome,
welcome to our humble board.

Hdeasy
Anome said:
A link to Heim Mass Formula in Java:

http://www.daimi.au.dk/~spony/HeimMassFormula/

Well, I just provided the Fortran code of the Heim-theory group, courtesy of Dr. Mueller of the group, to Spony who wrote the Java version quoted above. Hopefully it will help him correct the outstanding inaccuaracy.

Hdeasy
The thread http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=4385&st=630 [Broken] is very popular - 43 pages and growing - meantime mass formula in Mathematica, C++, Excel, Pascal etc.

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Universe_Man
It would be really cool if all this is confirmed. Heim Theory is one of my reasons for getting into Physics.

TRodrigues
SmithWillSuffice said:
(snip) Another interesting piece of speculation was the report (unconfirmed) that I read in either the NewScientist piece or at the heim-group website or elsewhere, that claimed that discretization of spacetime is required, but it was unclear whether this is something that follows from the assumptions of Heim's structure theory or whether it is itself one of the assumptions, if the former then that'd be really interesting. (snip)

According to http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/ExtendedHeimTheory.pdf" [Broken] paper by Dröscher, the derivation goes something like this:

First, consider a clock of length $$l$$ and mass $$m$$. The Schrödinger relation says that the uncertainty in the measurement of the clock's time is inversely proportional to the measurement of its energy uncertainty, like $$\Delta t \Delta E > \hbar$$. Therefore, the time resolution for the clock $$\delta t > \Delta t > \frac{\hbar}{\Delta E}$$. However, $$\Delta E < mc^2$$, otherwise it would generate additional clocks. Therefore,
$$\delta t > \hbar \frac{1}{\Delta E} > \hbar \frac{1}{mc^2}$$ (1)

Now, as for the length of the clock, it must be small enough that the timekeeping signal can cross it within the time uncertainty, and larger than its Schwarzschild radius so it doesn't collapse into a black hole. Therefore, $$c\delta t > l > \frac{Gm}{c^2}$$; from this, we reach that $$\frac{c^3\delta t}{G} > m$$. Replacing this value for $$m$$ in the equation (1), we get:
$$\delta t > \frac{\hbar}{c^2} \frac{1}{m} > \frac{\hbar}{c^2} \frac{G}{c^3\delta t}$$.

Multiplying by $$\delta t$$ on both sides and then taking square root, we come to the conclusion that the time resolution of any clock is $$\delta t > \sqrt{\frac{G \hbar}{c^5}}$$. What a coincidence! The right-hand side is the formula for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_Time" [Broken]... It doesn't make physical sense to talk about time intervals which are fractions of the Planck time, because one can't measure fractions of Planck time. This is the same as saying that time is quantized. It follows that space must be quantized also by Planck length, since one cannot measure the distance traveled by a light pulse in less than a Planck time.

Interestingly, there is not one iota of Heim theory in this derivation, but it comes straight from GR and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

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Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
I was struck by the resemblance between Droescher's algebra and Finkelstein's flex algebra. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0608/0608086.pdf [Broken]. Especially look at Finkelstein's Appendix 2. Seems to me they may be approaching the same idea from opposite directions.

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Hdeasy
80 pages now on the Heim thread at physorg -
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=4385&st=960 [Broken]

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Hdeasy
Now it's up to 105 pages - and exciting news:
M.Tajmar has published brand new article "Search for Frame-Dragging in the Vicinity of Spinning Superconductors" two days ago (25 July) - http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0707/0707.3806.pdf

What is really good in that? It's the first time when Tajmar references Dröscher/Häuser in his own article. :-)

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A hyperspace (faster then c) engine is being worked on by the U.S. It would work by going into another dimension based of of Heim's Quantum Theory.
How realistic is this and could we go faster then c with enough energy like in the experiment. Obviously not relevant to us but in parallel? If you are using it linearly with c then it has a limit at c but how could the fabric of spacetime be changed to push slower particles through space faster? They say current rules of thought would have to change like now viewing the universe as one consistant linear stream.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006 [Broken]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory

I read the article and it seems like it's only hypothetical, and they have to prove the physics before working on it.

That would be awesome if they could do that!

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Hdeasy
Now that Tajmar refernces the heim-theory explanation of Droscher/Hauser as one of the likely explanations of the artificial gravity effect, the theory is moving out of the realm of the hypothetical into that of the real.

Staff Emeritus
Heim's theory is inconsistent with data:

(1) He predicts five light neutrinos, not three.

(2) The masses of the neutrinos are inconsistent with measurements from neutrino oscillations.

(3) The masses of the proton, neutron and electron lie far (~100 standard deviations) outside Heim's predictions and quoted errors.

Now that I think of it, I can't recall a single prediction that Heim got right.

Hdeasy
Grossly unfair Vanadium: Heim theory doesn't claim to be complete as yet. Droscher, for instance, found recently that the neutral electron can be interpreted as secondary matter and might actually be what we term Dark Matter.

The neutrino masses were at least in the right ball park and predicted 20 years before most people accepted there were non-zero masses to them. Which other theory has done even that much? As for oscillations: this probably can be shown within Heim theory also, as it is an amalgam of GR & QM and so should have at least the standard model within it if enough research was done into its foundations.

As for proton and Neutron mass predictions wrong - Don"t make me laugh: String theory has nothing to say on these masses and the standard model, with more input parameters, can, via perturbative lattice QCD, now get to within a few percent ( > 2%) of the proton mass! Hah! Pathetic compared to the Heim prediction, which gets to within 0.0007 % of the answer with analytical equations not needeing massive perturbative iterations.

No predictions right, eh? Also, there is the artificial gravity for which its discoverer, Tajmar, acknowledges Heim theory as one of 3 candidate predictions for the effect - the others being dubious extensions of the standard model.

Finally, the 3rd Heim gravity force matches dark energy pretty well... I rest my case.

Dr_Zinj
It strikes me that a good group of grad students with a sizeable budget could build a scaled down model of a drive unit. It doesn't have to lift any spacecraft into orbit or the next star system. But it could be used to pull a small cart, or possibly a small aircraft. I wonder how hard it would be to convince UNH that it would be a worthwhile endeavor?

Orbb
Hi Physicsforum, I'm new here ;)

As this is the most recent thread to Heim Theory, i decided to post in here:

I have a question regarding the sometimes assumed connection between Heim Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity: In Heim's theory, at the microscopic level, differential equations become difference equations. Is that also the case in LQG or any other QG approach? (I assume it's not in any String Theory; correct me if I'm wrong.)

Hdeasy
Hi Orbb - no, only Heim theory uses the differences method explicitly. LQG also avoids infinities due to the quantisation of space in that the finite size of a surface element in its spin networks or spacti-time foam means that quantum fluctuations do not go down to arbitarily small wavelengths. That stops the infinities that plague the stnadard model and string theory, which only avoid them by ugly artificial tricks such as renomalisation or worse.

gendou2
... compared to the Heim prediction, which gets to within 0.0007 % [of observed proton mass] ...

From what I've read, the surprisingly accurate Heim results you speak of were generated by a computer program which uses the empirical data as an input. In other words, you're using the value of X to solve for the value of X. It doesn't demonstrate anything about the Heim conjecture at all.

Source: http://www.geoffreylandis.com/Heim_theory.html

Also, there is the artificial gravity for which its discoverer, Tajmar, acknowledges Heim theory...
Tajmar's 2006 experimental results have not yet been reproduced, and seems not to be very widely accepted.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gravity#Tajmar_et_al_.282006_.26_2007_.26_2008.29

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Homework Helper
Gold Member
From what I've read, the surprisingly accurate Heim results you speak of were generated by a computer program which uses the empirical data as an input. In other words, you're using the value of X to solve for the value of X. It doesn't demonstrate anything about the Heim conjecture at all.

Source: http://www.geoffreylandis.com/Heim_theory.html

Perhaps you missed this line:

www.geoffreylandis.com/Heim_theory.html said:
in 2007, however, Reed changed his opinion. Working with Fortran code that Heim helped develop later that was not published, he says that he can derive particle masses without the use of that A matrix.

And Reed's quoted analysis that followed.