Torsion field
Encyclopedia
A torsion field is a pseudoscientific
theory of energy in which the quantum spin
of particles can be used to cause emanations lacking mass and energy to carry information through a vacuum
at one billion times the speed of light
. The theory, conceived in the Soviet Union by a group of physicists in the 1980s, is loosely based on Einstein-Cartan theory and some variant solutions of Maxwell's equations
. The group, led by Anatoly Akimov and Gennady Shipov, began the research as the state-sponsored Center for Nontraditional Technologies. However, the group disbanded in 1991 when their research was exposed as a fraud and an embezzlement of government funding by Ye. B. Aleksandrov; yet, for unknown reasons Akimov and Shipov received financing for torsion field research from the Ministry of Science from 1992 to 1995 and from the Ministry of Defense from 1996 to 1997, and continued further secretly, as a private enterprise called The International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics (later called UVITOR). Presently championed outside of established scientific research due to its lack of scientific recognition, the theory has been used to proclaim faster-than-light travel
(FTL), extra-sensory perception
(ESP), homeopathy
, levitation
, and other paranormal
phenomena, and has been used to provide a rationale for the purported functioning of miracle cures and similar products.
is an assignment of a quantity (vector
, tensor
, or spinor
) to every point of the space containing it. The word torsion
refers to any variable that describes rotation. Thus, torsion fields do exist. For example, an electromagnetic wave with circular polarization or the stress tensor
of a solid body under torsion stress can be described as torsion fields, although such usage is rare. Spinor field
s, in particular fermionic field
s, are existing concepts from particle physics
and quantum field theory
.
Beyond this established research, advocates of the scientific spin field or torsion field theories claim that spin-spin interaction
— itself a well-studied quantum phenomenon — can be transmitted through space similar to electromagnetic waves, does not carry mass or energy but only information, and does so at speeds of up to 109 times the speed of light. At the same time they claim that spin-spin interaction is carried by neutrino
s — which have very little mass and high energy — that it does not interact with matter but, at the same time, can be generated and detected easily.
, telepathy
, telekinesis, levitation
, clairvoyance
, ESP
, and other paranormal phenomena. The harnessing of torsion fields has been claimed to make everything possible from miracle cure devices (including devices that cure alcohol addiction) to working perpetual motion machines, stargates
, UFO
propulsion analogs, and weapons of mass destruction( WMDs). Some such devices, in particular the miracle cure boxes, have been patented, manufactured and sold.
Torsion field theories are sometimes presented as alternatives to general relativity
. Examples of this include the Einstein-Cartan Theory and gauge theories of gravitation for the Poincaré and the affine groups, which seek to add torsion of space-time to the curvature-based description of gravity; and thereby predict a multitude of new physical effects. However, the predicted effects of such alternative theories are either infinitesimal or directly contradict the experimental evidence. It may be shown that space-time curvature and torsion are alternative ways of describing the gravitational field and are completely interchangeable, while attempts to account for them simultaneously produce inconsistencies.
Another example of such funding applications was an experiment conducted in 1994 by the Russian private research group "VENT" (VEnture for Non-traditional Technologies,) which claimed to lower the resistivity
of copper
to as little as 1/80th of its normal value after exposing it to a torsion field generator. The group applied to the government of the Russian Federation for funding to open a factory, and promised great savings in energy consumption. The samples of exposed and unexposed copper were independently tested in presence of a VENT representative and their resistivities were not only found to be identical [(2.08+/-0.02)×10−7 Ωm and (2.05+/-0.02)×10−7 Ωm], but worse than industrial copper as well (1.7×10−8 Ωm).
More recently, in 2002, an application was made for oil drilling licenses in Russia and the UK using "microlepton technologies."
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
theory of energy in which the quantum spin
Spin (physics)
In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...
of particles can be used to cause emanations lacking mass and energy to carry information through a vacuum
Vacuum
In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...
at one billion times the speed of light
Speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...
. The theory, conceived in the Soviet Union by a group of physicists in the 1980s, is loosely based on Einstein-Cartan theory and some variant solutions of Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits. These fields in turn underlie modern electrical and communications technologies.Maxwell's equations...
. The group, led by Anatoly Akimov and Gennady Shipov, began the research as the state-sponsored Center for Nontraditional Technologies. However, the group disbanded in 1991 when their research was exposed as a fraud and an embezzlement of government funding by Ye. B. Aleksandrov; yet, for unknown reasons Akimov and Shipov received financing for torsion field research from the Ministry of Science from 1992 to 1995 and from the Ministry of Defense from 1996 to 1997, and continued further secretly, as a private enterprise called The International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics (later called UVITOR). Presently championed outside of established scientific research due to its lack of scientific recognition, the theory has been used to proclaim faster-than-light travel
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
(FTL), extra-sensory perception
Extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...
(ESP), homeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, levitation
Levitation
Levitation is the process by which an object is suspended by a physical force against gravity, in a stable position without solid physical contact...
, and other paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
phenomena, and has been used to provide a rationale for the purported functioning of miracle cures and similar products.
Detailed description
In physics, a fieldField (physics)
In physics, a field is a physical quantity associated with each point of spacetime. A field can be classified as a scalar field, a vector field, a spinor field, or a tensor field according to whether the value of the field at each point is a scalar, a vector, a spinor or, more generally, a tensor,...
is an assignment of a quantity (vector
Vector space
A vector space is a mathematical structure formed by a collection of vectors: objects that may be added together and multiplied by numbers, called scalars in this context. Scalars are often taken to be real numbers, but one may also consider vector spaces with scalar multiplication by complex...
, tensor
Tensor field
In mathematics, physics and engineering, a tensor field assigns a tensor to each point of a mathematical space . Tensor fields are used in differential geometry, algebraic geometry, general relativity, in the analysis of stress and strain in materials, and in numerous applications in the physical...
, or spinor
Spinor
In mathematics and physics, in particular in the theory of the orthogonal groups , spinors are elements of a complex vector space introduced to expand the notion of spatial vector. Unlike tensors, the space of spinors cannot be built up in a unique and natural way from spatial vectors...
) to every point of the space containing it. The word torsion
Torsion
The word torsion may refer to the following:*In geometry:** Torsion of a curve** Torsion tensor in differential geometry** The closely related concepts of Reidemeister torsion and analytic torsion ** Whitehead torsion*In algebra:** Torsion ** Tor functor* In medicine:** Ovarian...
refers to any variable that describes rotation. Thus, torsion fields do exist. For example, an electromagnetic wave with circular polarization or the stress tensor
Stress tensor
Stress tensor may refer to:* Stress , in classical physics* Stress-energy tensor, in relativistic theories* Maxwell stress tensor, in electromagnetism...
of a solid body under torsion stress can be described as torsion fields, although such usage is rare. Spinor field
Spinor field
In particle physics, a spinor field of order 2s describes a particle of spin s, where s is an integer or half-integer. Therefore, a spinor of order 2s contains as much information as a tensor of order s...
s, in particular fermionic field
Fermionic field
In quantum field theory, a fermionic field is a quantum field whose quanta are fermions; that is, they obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. Fermionic fields obey canonical anticommutation relations rather than the canonical commutation relations of bosonic fields....
s, are existing concepts from particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
and quantum field theory
Quantum field theory
Quantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically parametrized by an infinite number of dynamical degrees of freedom, that is, fields and many-body systems. It is the natural and quantitative language of particle physics and...
.
Beyond this established research, advocates of the scientific spin field or torsion field theories claim that spin-spin interaction
Angular momentum coupling
In quantum mechanics, the procedure of constructing eigenstates of total angular momentum out of eigenstates of separate angular momenta is called angular momentum coupling. For instance, the orbit and spin of a single particle can interact through spin-orbit interaction, in which case the...
— itself a well-studied quantum phenomenon — can be transmitted through space similar to electromagnetic waves, does not carry mass or energy but only information, and does so at speeds of up to 109 times the speed of light. At the same time they claim that spin-spin interaction is carried by neutrino
Neutrino
A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected...
s — which have very little mass and high energy — that it does not interact with matter but, at the same time, can be generated and detected easily.
Applications
Despite the fact that several contradictions have been identified in the basic postulates of these theories (as have several statements that are considered nonsensical by mainstream science), torsion field theory has been embraced by some as the scientific explanation of homeopathyHomeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
, telekinesis, levitation
Levitation
Levitation is the process by which an object is suspended by a physical force against gravity, in a stable position without solid physical contact...
, clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
, ESP
Extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...
, and other paranormal phenomena. The harnessing of torsion fields has been claimed to make everything possible from miracle cure devices (including devices that cure alcohol addiction) to working perpetual motion machines, stargates
Jumpgate
In science fiction, a jump gate is a fictional device able to create a wormhole or portal, allowing fast travel between two points in space...
, UFO
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
propulsion analogs, and weapons of mass destruction( WMDs). Some such devices, in particular the miracle cure boxes, have been patented, manufactured and sold.
Torsion field theories are sometimes presented as alternatives to general relativity
Alternatives to general relativity
Alternatives to general relativity are physical theories that attempt to describe the phenomena of gravitation in competition to Einstein's theory of general relativity.There have been many different attempts at constructing an ideal theory of gravity...
. Examples of this include the Einstein-Cartan Theory and gauge theories of gravitation for the Poincaré and the affine groups, which seek to add torsion of space-time to the curvature-based description of gravity; and thereby predict a multitude of new physical effects. However, the predicted effects of such alternative theories are either infinitesimal or directly contradict the experimental evidence. It may be shown that space-time curvature and torsion are alternative ways of describing the gravitational field and are completely interchangeable, while attempts to account for them simultaneously produce inconsistencies.
Torsion-field-related scams
Proponents of torsion field theories have sought large-scale government and military contracts at different times, starting with the 1987 application to the Ministry of Defence of the USSR requesting funding to develop "highly-reliable detection of an enemy strategic weapons (ICBM, nuclear submarine, aircraft, etc.); the long-range destruction of enemy strategic weapons without contact; covert jamming-resistant communications with objects in outer space, on Earth, underground, and underwater; mobile equipment on gravitational principles; and psychophysical and biomedical influence on troops and the population" The Soviet government allocated 500 million rubles (about US$700 million at today's exchange rate) for this research.Another example of such funding applications was an experiment conducted in 1994 by the Russian private research group "VENT" (VEnture for Non-traditional Technologies,) which claimed to lower the resistivity
Resistivity
Electrical resistivity is a measure of how strongly a material opposes the flow of electric current. A low resistivity indicates a material that readily allows the movement of electric charge. The SI unit of electrical resistivity is the ohm metre...
of copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
to as little as 1/80th of its normal value after exposing it to a torsion field generator. The group applied to the government of the Russian Federation for funding to open a factory, and promised great savings in energy consumption. The samples of exposed and unexposed copper were independently tested in presence of a VENT representative and their resistivities were not only found to be identical [(2.08+/-0.02)×10−7 Ωm and (2.05+/-0.02)×10−7 Ωm], but worse than industrial copper as well (1.7×10−8 Ωm).
More recently, in 2002, an application was made for oil drilling licenses in Russia and the UK using "microlepton technologies."