Adam Hibberd

Just been remembering my strange experience at Stoke Park Comprehensive School.

In particular, this one occasion when my friends and I were sitting down to have our packed lunch in the school canteen and I had packed amongst other things a peanut butter and sausage sandwich, and a large, fat juicy tomato.

So we were eating away and I finally got around to the tomato, and I was in the middle of a humorous conversation with my best friend at the time, Ronald, sitting opposite. I took a bite.

Unfortunately as the fates would have it that day, life was about to prove very harsh for my school friend since, as I squashed the tomato with my mouth, a single squirt of juice projected out from the tomato and shot ingloriously and most hilariously (to me at least) directly into Ronald’s eye.

I immediately burst into hysterical laughter, to the huge indignation and irritation of Ronald.

But that was not the end – you see this so tickled my fancy, I determined that I must, MUST duplicate this episode and it should never, EVER become lost in history.

With replication in mind, this time I made a small invisible incision in the tomato, ready for the contents to disgourge outwards should this carefully cut gash be pointed in the right direction.

The second (but this time deliberate) attempt was not entirely successful, as it only struck his jacket, missing his eye by a foot or so.

But do you see the nascent engineer or scientist at work here?

Adam Hibberd

Woken up today with a mild case of racing thoughts, none of which do me any favours, in fact they are quite self-destructive.

So how do I turn these thoughts off and focus? Well how about posting a little update to you my admiring followers (without exception you all are, right?)

I’ve had a restorative bowl of Kellog’s corn flakes with a copious drizzle of honey in a vain attempt to cease my wandering thought processes. This you will be pleased to know has been largely successful.

I am now writing-up the paper which I started several months ago on the business of dark comets and their possible true identities.

I’ve been thinking of the paucity of good comedy TV programming in this country for the past 20 years or so at least.

For instance satirical programming, I think you would agree a much needed – in fact previously invaluable cornerstone of the British TV schedules for years – from ‘Beyond the Fringe’ in the ’60s to Rory Bremner in the ’90s, has been almost entirely absent recently except of course ‘Have I got New for You’ a lingering reminder of how important such comedy really is.

We are truly bereft, and the complete idiots now in charge need taking down a peg-or-two, as the situation is so dire and serious, only belly-aching humour can possibly retrieve it.

Adam Hibberd

Some of you may remember my blog a while ago concerning the first meeting with my new consultant psychiatrist which turned out to be rather a failure since after plainly stating to him I suffered delusional symptoms then went on to mention that I was a ‘Space Research Scientist’ working indirectly for NASA (go here for the blog).

Well it is with much regret that I have to say to you now that since that time I have received a letter from him to my GP stating that, to quote ‘Adam remains unemployed and is in receipt of state benefits’, thus cementing my suspicions that he did indeed respond to my claims with total and utter incredulity.

No matter, I have now sent him (and my GP) a letter which includes a list of my peer-reviewed papers (including links) which will, no doubt, set things to rights.

Adam Hibberd

A week of changing fortunes. It was my job to hang up a huge painting we have in the front room.

The room had just recently been decorated, and the new wallpaper obviously obscured the location of the screw hole which had been used for the picture.

I had carefully located this hole with a probing finger and it was quite clear it was far too large for my screw, and for that matter for my rawl-plug.

What to do? Drill a new hole of course.

Unfortunately (you shall soon see why) I chose a location 2 cm above the old one. I fitted the rawl plug, screwed in the screw and mounted the picture on it. All seemed fine! My mother and I then proceeded with lunch and afterwards my mother wandered into the front room again.

What she saw before her was a grotesque and totally implausible violation of all laws of physics (including that of increasing entropy) and some more well-known laws to-boot (eg Sod’s and Murphy’s).

Bewilderingly, the painting had fallen off its mount (the brick between the old hole and new hole had totally disintegrated freeing the scew), it then had fallen several inches vertically and in the process landed on a small mantle-piece clock directly below the picture.

This wonderful contraption had clearly, and bravely cushioned the fall of the picture (and in the process had sacrificed its life as it shattered in various locations) and the picture was balancing precariously on what remained of the clock, still intact and vertical.

The chances of such a thing happening without the picture falling forward and the canvas tearing must be infinitely improbable (to quote the regretably long-passed and much-missed Douglas Adams).

So I got away with it on this occasion, how long will my luck hold?

Adam Hibberd

My experience of my new consultant was a mildly interesting one.

Firstly he phoned me twice before the 2pm appointment, on both occasions seeking to advance the appointment by half an hour, which was interesting in itself.

When I waited at reception waiting room for several minutes I was suspicious there would be a no-show, so I asked the receptionist what was happening.

Fairly shortly after he appeared and invited me through, though he had NO office to invite me into, instead it was a large meeting room.

He said there was a shortage of rooms and I made a comment that at least it wasn’t the toilet.

His computer wasn’t working therefore he had no notes, so I asked about the WIFI to which he responded that the signal was weak in this particular room.

Anyway after the formalities were over he started to ask about my mental health.

I said I had severe schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations, paranoia and delusions.

He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I was a space research scientist.

He started to make notes on his pad, and he got as far as the ‘research’ bit and then asked what the next word was.

I told him ‘scientist’ and he didn’t note that down, instead his eyes began to gloss over and I could see before me and quite obviously he was beginning to doubt the veracity of what I had just told him.

I tried to reassure him that these weren’t actually delusions, and that I was genuinely being paid by NASA albeit indirectly, but I don’t think that helped to be honest.

Later in the conversation he asked me whether I was on benefits, and I said no. But then clearly quite incredulous he repeated the question, which mildly amused me and confirmed to me he genuinely hadn’t believed that I worked for NASA.

I left with the impression that the whole thing had been an utter failure and that my own consultant completely disbelieved nearly everything I had told him.

Ahh well, you win some and you lose some.

Adam Hibberd

Some of you may already know all about the eponymous ‘Aldrin Cycler’, otherwise known as the ‘Mars Conveyor Belt’.

This is the wonderful astrodynamical quirk of an interplanetary orbit whereby a travelling spacecraft leaves Earth for Mars, encounters the red planet, returns back to Earth, conducts an Earth gravity assist (which in the perfect scenario of coplanar concentric circular orbits for both Earth and Mars would require no propulsion ΔV at either planets), then returns to Mars, and so on indefinitely.

The problem of rendezvousing with Earth or Mars is a separate concern, though could probably be achieved through shuttle carriers. These shuttles would be capable of lifting off from Mars with a payload and then proceeding to rendezvous with the Mars Conveyor Belt craft to drop off its payload.

Having achieved this rendezvous with the mothercraft, the shuttle could stay with it until the next encounter -in this case Earth – where it could be deployed a second time, though in reverse, i.e. entering Earth’s atmosphere and dropping off the payload at our home planet.

Why is all this relevant? It’s because a while ago I set-up my interplanetary trajectory software (OITS) – OITS being a personal astronautical software engineering project of my own – to test how effective it would be at solving the problem of a Mars Conveyor Belt.

For the results go to my youtube channel below:

Similarly the two-way solution can be found below:

Adam Hibberd

Towards the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, I was asked by a friend from Space Initiatives Inc. (a US company), to look into the possibility of a mission from Earth to encounter 4-5 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and then return samples back to Earth. A ‘Grand Tour’ so-to-speak!

These samples would be collected at each encounter by using an impactor dispatched by the main spacecraft (designated as a ‘Coracle’) towards the current encounter asteroid. This Coracle would then travel through the plume from the resulting explosion, in the process collecting the sample in question with ‘aerogel’.

So I took all the NEOs to approach close to the Earth in 2030, and tried to derive a sequence with minimum overall cumulative ΔV, where ‘cumulative ΔV’ is defined as the sum of each velocity change to divert from one asteroid to the next.

As in most mathematical problems, assumptions need to be made, and this case was no exception. For instance would there need to be a ΔV at the first asteroid?

The answer is that the heliocentric speed at the first encounter could be so tailored such that the velocity of the Coracle would naturally take it to the second. Thus with this assumption, no ΔV would need be delivered. This would especially be the case if the Coracle were a simple solar sail spacecraft, since there would be plenty of opportunity between launch from Earth to arrival at the first asteroid to do precisely this.

See below for two videos of just such a Grand Tour with cumulative ΔV of only 0.5 km/s. One video is w.r.t. the Sun, and the other is of the same mission but w.r.t. the Earth.

Adam Hibberd

In a wild and frantic attempt at seeming normal on the Bumble dating app, I have taken the extreme measure of no longer parading any of my talents which before were clearly putting any potential interested parties off.

From ‘multi-talented’ to ‘very ordinary’, this is the genius master stroke that could just change my life. I now await the hordes of prospective women rush to my profile and start chatting with me in a desperate attempt to win my affection before any of the competition get there first.

I know, clever, huh?

Adam Hibberd

Way, way past time I found a partner in life, as I have been reminded by certain unnamed parties with crass condescension.

Yes. yes I know what you are thinking, I’m just far too delicate and fragile a flower to enter a relationship this late in life, and in fact it could be quite counter-productive.

Nevertheless – there it is, in addition to my frantic white flag waving, my social life is flagging also, but no worries it is entirely my own fault, let me emphasize that: I ONLY HAVE MYSELF TO BLAME.

So there I was on the highly-acclaimed Bumble dating app, playing the mating dance of message exchanges with a particularly attractive prospective partner, and I proceeded to make a disgraceful error.

So from our brief previous chat I had surmised that this person must have a sense-of-humour of some kind and I decided to swing in with some humour of my own.

Thus to her explanation ‘You’re eager, it took me a whole hour to get to work’, I returned ‘Why? Was it bad driving?’, fully expecting her to respond with a witty repost.

I quickly sent another question to her, but met with the annoying realization that she had aborted any association with me whatsoever, as my message failed to send, clearly my innocent jocular banter had been taken far too seriously.

Damn! And damn again! But lesson learned, hey? Don’t mess about with wit, as it could lead to someone getting the shit end of the stick.

You know what I’m still gob-smacked by the ace comedian Lenny Henry’s chat-up line “My name is Theophilus P. Wilderbeast, with ‘P’ for Penetration”. Yet it seemed to work fine for him. I know, I know learn from the master, you will.

 Adam Hibberd

During the 36^th Flight of Ariane, Vol 36 (V36), and long before I joined the Ariane 4 Project, one of the strap-on boosters mounted onto the side of the 1^st stage of the Ariane 4 rocket developed an extremely low thrust perturbation. 

Consequently, shortly after lift-off the launcher strayed off course and, due to extremely high aerodynamic load on the body of the launcher, began to break up in flight. 

Unfortunately, for any launch vehicle, when this sort of thing happens there is nothing for it than to send the destruct command from ground to destroy the vehicle and so prevent the vehicle disintegrating or coming down on populated areas for example. 

Now the French, Aerospatiale, did some investigations and found the low thrust in this strap-on booster was due to a dirty rag left by a workman in the piping, and recommended some procedural changes to prevent this failure ever happening again.

However (and relevant to my work), they also concluded that an alternative guidance algorithm design for the Ariane 4 flight software in 1^st stage would have avoided the high aerodynamic loads, in turn leading to survival of the launch vehicle under this severe thrust deficit, and what’s more eventually allowing orbital injection of the satellite payload! 

The problem was that the old guidance algorithm performed a straight-forward interpolation of tables of demanded yaw and pitch against flight time. Thus, since you know the current time (the On-Board Computer had an internal oscillator), then you know the current yaw and pitch. However, this is no good at all if you have a severe thrust problem as struck V36. 

What they concluded was that instead of time, the software should employ a thrust or trajectory dependent parameter to look-up the current tabulated yaw and pitch values. A full investigation was conducted and they eventually discovered that ‘Relative Velocity’ (which is the current speed of the launcher with respect to the atmosphere) is an ideal quantity to use to look-up yaw and pitch in this way, as it is quite sensitive to thrust performance.

As Ariane 4 guidance lead, I was responsible for the design/implementation/validation of this new algorithm into the Ariane 4 flight software. It was first flown in V52 and was called Back-Up Mode (BUM). 

BUM gave mission planners the reassurance that if a similar rocket engine failure to V36 happened during 1^st stage of a future real flight, then rather than losing the entire mission, the vehicle would be steered by BUM along a trajectory with low aerodynamic load and would even eventually result in attainment of some kind of orbit.

Of course, in V52 no such thrust failure transpired, but I did not hesitate to open a bottle of Veuve-Clicquot to celebrate the successful maiden flight of the BUM Guidance Algorithm.

Adam Hibberd

POST 1

Foremost in my thinking recently has been the subject of ‘teleology’ (the study of purpose) and in particular I have been contemplating the ‘teleology of curiosity’. Have you ever wondered about the definition and in particular the purpose of curiosity? Well I have found an answer to this question, teleologically speaking, and as a consequence I have found wider implications of this discovery which have proven to bear wonderful fruits upon which I shall elaborate in future posts.

The answer a scientist might give, is that it is a quality of humans which allows us to discover new knowledge about the universe. In turn the benefit of this knowledge is that we might find potential threats which otherwise could detrimentally affect our well-being or even extinguish us. By knowing, we can take counter-measures to reduce or even nullify these threats, or alternatively avoid them altogether.

The examples of the benefits of curiosity are numerous, whether it be curiosity in medicine, horticulture, agriculture, astronomy, astronautics, and others, inevitably new discoveries extend our existence on this planet and indeed in this universe.

You might wonder about the last two on this list, namely astronomy and astronautics, as they may seem entirely out of place. To elucidate, and taking astronomy first, imagine if a curious astronomer were to discover an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, we could then send a spacecraft (that’s astronautics) to deflect it from its course and extend our life here on Earth. Without this curiosity and acquisition of knowledge, we would have been extinguished. There are other myriad examples of this teleology of curiosity in action.

But what, you ask, is the purpose of this post? The answer is that a while ago I was working on a paper which addresses exactly these issues of teleology and ontology (the nature of being) and furthermore by a scientific rationale leads to some amazing and startling repercussions which will impact on us all. I shall continue to elucidate on my findings in future posts.

POST 2

In my last post I discussed the teleology (purpose) of curiosity. It is the acquisition of knowledge and the consequent responsive measures that allow us to extend our existence on the ‘planet’. I must emphasize at this juncture that, although I used the word ‘planet’ here, I could also have referred to the wider context, in other words the ‘universe’. This is because I shall be looking largely at the ‘bigger picture’ and clearly, ‘Earth’ is only a small portion (or subset) of the overarching universe in which we live. In what follows, however, my next question is not why but HOW do we acquire this knowledge?

There are two answers to this depending on whether you are considering a single human or the entire set of humans – the human species. For now I shall address the former case, which needs us to assume all of humanity is extinct save for a solitary human individual. How would this single human exercise his curiosity and discover new things?

First and foremost this individual must be aware of his surroundings. Here I define awareness as the transfer of information about his surroundings into his mind. In turn, to do this, he must have SENSES, there are of course traditionally five associated with humans, so sight, sound, touch, smell, taste.

By itself this information would be entirely useless, it would just be random data – in practice it all needs a CONTEXT in order for it to make cohesive sense.

I contend here (and I am not alone in this regard) that this context takes the form of an internal MODEL of the individual’s surroundings and these surroundings being a small part of the universe, we can say this model he has is a model of the universe.

It seems to me, whoever you may be, whatever your circumstances, you will necessarily have some form of internal model, or put another way, a representation, or view, or perspective, of the universe, which has been in the process of construction over the entire course of your existence. This model was constructed over time through the exercise of your curiosity and the discovery of the new, and I have articulated the purpose of curiosity in my last post.

As humans we are dependent on the influences of our carers as a baby or young child to provide reward and punishment to keep us on the right track and make sure our model is correct. In fact if, in our thought experiment, we were to assume the sole survivor was an infant, then clearly such an individual wouldn’t last long.

But here I make the assertion that the phenomenon of modelization is not confined to the human species, indeed any organism also has some form of internal model. From an amoeba to an elephant, every living member of a species has an awareness and an internal model of the universe. In the case of an amoeba clearly such a model is very simplistic, but note I make no assertions as to the fidelity or representivity of a living entity’s model with respect to the real universe, I just assert it exists in SOME FORM.

In my next post I shall address the methods of how the human species as a collective acquires knowledge.

POST 3

I have previously explained how we discover new knowledge on an individual basis – through curiosity, awareness and modelization. In doing so, I proposed a thought experiment where  only one human exists. Of course reality is different – and so we must extend our argument to the true case, indeed we actually all belong to a social network, a community, a nation, a whole species. We are not alone.

As I have already explained, we each have our own perspective or internal model which allows us to understand our surroundings and indeed acquire new information which, through the action of our senses, will improve our model. Why do we need this model? It is so we can better cope with the universe’s challenges and also to predict its behaviour and take action to enhance our well-being or avoid dangers which would destroy us. Each individual has their own history of awareness and also a genetic make-up which means they have formed their own unique model or perspective on the universe which allows them to live their own way – a way which benefits them personally.

But this begs the question, could this model also benefit others? The answer is clearly yes! Thus, let us say I know a pharmacist in Coventry which stocks a certain medicine. This is therefore a part of my own internal model of reality. Let us further suppose I know someone else who needs this medicine, but is not aware of the location of the pharmacy, so it is NOT a part of his internal model. I can then through the act of communication convey the specific part of my model relevant to this other human. This second human has then updated his model and so has benefitted from this transfer of information through language.

Thus the model everyone has need not necessarily be of a private or personal benefit. He can disseminate part of it to other entities in order to assist them and also, in turn, if he is presented with a challenge (like say he is unwell) then he can request knowledge from someone else, which originates in this other person’s unique model constructed from this other person’s own unique experience. This may all seem rudimentary, but the logic here has some quite incredible implications so I ask you to bear with me.

In my next post I shall talk about the implications of all this on the nature of cooperation.

POST 4

In the last post we addressed the notion of communication with other members of a species, which allows us to consolidate, enhance and update our personal internal model. My contention is that every entity in a collective has a model and a means of communication to other individuals in its species. These phenomena exist in every single creature and it is THESE processes which are apparent when cooperation takes place.

The rationale behind the existence of cooperation between separate entities of a species has been a mystery which has stimulated much heated debate between scientists for some time and in truth has never really been properly explained. This is primarily because of the notion of the free-rider.

Imagine a collective of entities, all cooperating with the others and what’s more investing energy in doing so. However by engaging in cooperation, each individual is also receiving a benefit from it, which is greater than the cost to him, this cost being his own expenditure of energy.

But then you get to the question of free-riders and evolution. Because a free-rider decides to defect from the cooperation part but still benefit from the effort of others, such a free-rider in evolutionary terms would on an individual basis have a fitness advantage over those who cooperate and so should eventually over generations dominate the population. This then begs the question as to how does cooperation evolve? This free-rider paradox has existed for a long time and has never really been resolved, especially in the context of the insights of scientists such as Richard Dawkins and his Selfish Gene.

You now have in my previous posts on the subject an answer to this question. The answer is that the cooperation is not only in the form of physical activity, but of communication. Thus why should I go and get someone some pink Himalayan salt for example when it is far easier for me to tell that person how to get hold of it. In the first scenario, I am expending all the energy in cooperation, in the second scenario, I am only expending energy in the act of communication, the physical energy is used by my friend, who gets the pink Himalayan salt himself, off his own back.

You may now see that cooperation can be explained in the combination of three phenomena 1) Awareness, 2) Modelization, 3) Communication.

The consequences of this logic will be revealed in future posts.

POST 5

In my previous posts we have seen how awareness, modelization and communication combine to allow us to extend our life in the universe and also to help others and help ourselves. Let us now think about the nature of intelligence and complexity, specifically how we might measure them and what would these measures exactly represent.

Let us take the notion of modelization. Clearly the greater our awareness of what surrounds us then the more sophisticated we can make the model of our environment, which is after all just a small part of the universe. By moving around the universe, all-be-it a tiny fraction of its mind-boggling vastness, and experiencing it in the form of our senses, we can construct a more and more representative model of the universe which we exist in. Furthermore we have seen that we can exchange information about our models with other entities of the same species, allowing us to improve our models even further.

The more we are curious and the more we explore then the more likely we are to become aware of dangers which might inflict harm on us or alternatively find benefits which will enhance our well-being. Thus by building up our model, we are extending our stay in this universe.

This leads us to a possible measure of intelligence as being the degree of representivity or fidelity of our model to the real universe that we exist in. We might allocate 0 to no model whatsoever through to a maximum value of 1 to there being an exact correspondence in the model to everything which exists. It would seem that with the maximum possible intelligence of 1.0, we could survive until the end of the universe, whereas with no model at all, we would be totally unaware of any kind of danger which could extinguish us.

In what follows, I shall equate the measure of complexity with intelligence and use the identical definition as described above. It seems to me that it is an inevitable consequence of an evolutionary process, which in the long term favours those entities which can survive longest in the universe, to enhance intelligence/complexity, as I have defined them.

POST 6

We have seen how intelligence/complexity might be measured using some kind of relationship between an entity’s internal model of the universe and that of the real universe (where 0 is no model at all and 1 is a perfect model). I have also explained how an entity can engage in communication with other entities for two reasons: a) in order to enhance the models of the other entities by conveying aspects of its own or b) by updating its own model according to what they might communicate to it.

What becomes clear is that by both of the aforementioned activities, models can be constructed, shared and combined such that a global model begins to take shape.

Indeed, the model which each individual has begins to show characteristics similar to those of others. This then might lead one to consider combining all the individual humans into a unified whole. For the sake of convenience let’s call this unified whole of humanity H. The model that Hpossesses comprises a collective of all the models of its membership of individuals. Let us call this unified model M_H. We could designate the intelligence of this model (previously defined) as I =I(M_H).

It is possible that H will divide or bifurcate into two separate entities, say H1 and H2, because the models of the universe which each subdivision has is different. We could view this division as a separation of the global model M_H into two distinct models M_H1 and M_H2. The discrepancy of these two models may be due to cultural reasons, or reasons of nationalism or religious differences, or political differences, my point here is that H1 and H2 have different perspectives of the universe M_H1 and M_H2 which don’t align.

This is where we get into the field of evolutionary group theory. We have two groups H1 and H2, how will evolution operate on these groups? I have previously resolved the thorny problem of the free-rider paradox, because within each group, members will hold together and not be undermined by the free-rider. But between these competing groups H1 and H2, what governs the successful group? The answer to this is from the preceding arguments now  quite clear, it is generally the one whose model most accurately reflects the universe, it is generally the one with the highest metric of intelligence as I have previously described. In other words, generally what will happen is that H1 will defeat H2 if I(M_H1) > I(M_H2), alternatively H2 will defeat H1 if I(M_H2) > I(M_H1)

Let us delve further into the nature of this model and inquire what form this model might take? The previous analysis actually makes this quite clear in that the superior model is the one which corresponds most closely to the real universe. I state here that this will generally be the better scientific model because the whole purpose of science is to explain, understand and predict the nature and behaviour of the universe.

POST 7

We have defined H as the combined set of all humans. Let us now analyse the precise ontology of H. To this end note that H is doing the following:

1. Firstly, H is manipulating its environment by construction of tools and machines which generally benefit itself. This manipulation manifests in all sorts of ways – agriculture, power generation, transport, habitation, etc. By all these activities, H is modifying the universe not only to enhance its own well being but further to extend its existence in the universe.
2. Secondly, we observe that H is also building tools and machines to expand its awareness of the universe. These are such devices as microscopes, telescopes, compasses, infrared detectors, electron microscopes, etc – all these assist H in expanding its awareness and model of the universe as I have previously defined them.

What I shall now do is subsume these tools/machines into our definition of H and include all the means by which H is modifying and becoming increasingly aware of the universe into our definition of H.

Furthermore H is now in the process of developing particular types of machines – computers. Computers are themselves becoming increasingly aware and intelligent, these computers add to the model of H and so these are also incorporated into our definition of H.

The previous post showed how the entity H might bifurcate into two groups H1 & H2, the winning group generally being the one whose model of the universe is closest to that of the actual universe. As H expands its domain, through for example interplanetary and then interstellar travel, it may encounter another intelligent entity H’. At this point there are two possibilities, either H and H’ will come into conflict or they will unite peacefully. In the former case, as has been shown, the winning entity will generally be the one with the highest intelligence metric, and in the latter case, the two entities will combine their models and come together to make a new entity. In either case let us denote this new entity U.

POST 8

So we each exist in a universe as a member of an entity H – or extrapolating forwards in time, as a member of the combined entity U. It seems to be the case that the universe is so designed through evolution, through the presence of awareness, modelization and communication, and through an increasing metric of intelligence; to support the emergence of this very entity U we are a part of. It’s as though the universe wants us not only to be aware of it, but to increase the sophistication of our model of it by an ever-expanding awareness. We have seen that this model will be a scientific model, so let us address the general aim of scientists and indeed the purpose of science.

One of the purposes of science, or even the overarching purpose of science, is to fathom the fundamental law or laws of the universe. Indeed we have seen that U is building an ever-improving model of the universe which will undoubtedly include its natural laws. Let us now ask: why would the universe want U to achieve this ultimate destination?

One potential outcome of U knowing these fundamental laws would be to create a new universe, i.e. start a new universe from the big bang onwards. This might be a bit of a leap, but bear with me as if we make this leap, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.

A machine which can self-replicate is known as a von Neumann machine. Now is the universe a huge von Neumann machine? Let us analyse all the implications of this.

Have you ever thought that organisms on Earth are a kind of imperfect von Neumann machine? They certainly self-replicate – in fact they reproduce – but often they perform this task imperfectly, these imperfections result from the potential mutation of their genetic code, in turn due to mistakes in the replication of its DNA.

Let us continue on with this thought experiment and suppose that the universe is equivalent to an organism we are all familiar with on Earth. What then would be the analogue of an organism’s genetic code in the case of the universe? With some contemplation one can conclude that the analogue would be the LAWS OF NATURE, the very laws of nature we have established that U is trying to read.

Again, returning to the organism, this reproduces itself by replicating DNA sequence, this duplication being subject to possible mistakes. But isn’t it the case that U is doing precisely this, i.e. reproducing, and a part of this will be to duplicate the fundamental laws of nature? Furthermore there is the problem that these laws can never be known exactly, the principle which imposes a tolerance on knowledge – an inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known about the universe (for example the cosmological constants may never be perfectly measured), and in addition these fundamental laws may never be precisely known or understood. This then represents the very uncertainty in replication we see for DNA code in life on Earth.

POST 9

We now have proposed that the universe might be an imperfect von Neumann machine, or even a living organism here on Earth. We have seen that the entity U which we are all a part of, is gradually developing a knowledge of the universe, most importantly the fundamental laws of nature, which it would be able to use to create another universe, slightly different from our own, in that there will undoubtedly be errors in the duplication process due to the inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known. But if the universe is such an organism, where is the habitat, the environment in which it exists? (Just as organisms live in the environment of their host planet – in our case Earth.)

Can we conclude that the universe organism in which we exist, is a part of and living in a superuniverse? Furthermore when our universe reproduces, the new daughter universe which it creates will actually also be alive in this superuniverse. In fact could this superuniverse be abundant in other universes, separate and parallel to ours, some of which will be cooperating with our own through communication, some of which will be competing with our own in this superuniverse? In the former case, our universe may be a part of a multi-universe organism, in the latter case, our universe might be an entirely separate entity to its competitors, as they fight for survival in this superuniverse.

Whatever the case, can we go even further and argue that the superuniverse in which our universe organism exists, is also an organism in its own right, and that this superuniverse exists in a super-superuniverse. Indeed it is not a great leap of the imagination to conclude that this super-superuniverse may also be an organism existing in a super-super-superuniverse and so on. This begs the question, where does this all stop? Maybe there is no end, in other words we exist in a macrouniverse of universes and superuniverses which go on ad infinitum. This is a repeating pattern on all scales and levels of existence. Such a structure has a name – a fractal.

Is our universe a part of a macrouniverse whose nature is a fractal at all levels?

As we are entering the world – or should I say the macrouniverse – of the outrageous, could this whole macrouniverse structure have been built by some architect – an overseeing architect (possibly a software engineer?) Could all this in fact be a computer program? Indeed could this architect which we shall call C, exist in another macrouniverse? Could this macrouniverse have been crafted by some other architect which exists in another macrouniverse?

I think you can see where we are going with this logic. Each macrouniverse fractal structure is itself buried in an infinity of macrouniverses, in other words we have a fractal within a fractal structure.

Adam Hibberd

I’m doing a bit of research into the USSR Venera-2 mission to Venus.

Although inserted into the correct interplanetary escape orbit, it turned out to be a failure when communication was lost with the probe.

This escape orbit was achieved via an intermediate parking orbit whose parameters are supplied with the attached plots.

These plots indicate the probable (optimal) ascent trajectory the Molniya-M (R-7 8K78M) followed to reach the temporary parking orbit, before the probe was inserted using a Blok-L Upper Stage into its required escape trajectory.

This was all generated using specs I have for this historical launch vehicle and also software I derived myself.

Adam Hibberd

For your appreciation, I reiterate my hypothesis as to the nature of ‘Oumuamua below:

What is ‘Oumuamua?

I have a pet theory, which I have been keeping very much to myself but I feel I now need to tell you. Do you want to hear it? It goes something like this….

For me, this is definitely NOT an altogether natural phenomenon but NOR is it some spacecraft developed by some now-ancient alien race.

Its path was such as to maximise its likelihood of observation by Earth telescopes. Not only this, it flashed like some sort of beacon to declare its presence to us.

But WHY would it want us to observe it exactly? Can you think of any reason? It seems its message was ‘I’m here, come and chase me!’ – and maybe this was precisely its purpose! But what on Earth would be the benefit to it of us chasing it?

Maybe a chase would NOT be so much in its interest but in OUR interest. My reasoning is that it would be the impetus for humanity to become a space-faring and for that matter an interstellar species.

Note also that (as Loeb himself pointed out) ‘Oumuamua was floating like a buoy in interstellar space just waiting for some star – and its associated system – to plough right into it. Scientists estimate that there are loads and loads of ‘Oumuamua-like objects floating around out there.

Now let us say these objects have some kind of nurseries in our Milky Way, and for that matter, throughout other galaxies, which are designed to create them and disperse them throughout their host galaxies.

Furthermore maybe like ‘Oumuamua possibly did, they all have a high Beta-value, in other words a high area to mass ratio. It turns out this would be IDEAL for distributing them around the galaxy and they would, through drag from molecular and dust clouds, become dispersed and float around the galaxy, in the precise manner ‘Oumuamua did.

My hypothesis is this: that the purpose of ‘Oumuamua – and for that matter other objects like it – is as a catalyst or seed to allow intelligent life to seek to expand across space by beckoning this intelligence to chase it.

But why is scientific expansion across space so important? Could the ultimate purpose be in some way to the Universe’s benefit?

There is more to say, but I shall leave it there. Just refer to my theory document to fill in the remaining story.

Adam Hibberd

There is this theory about ‘Oumuamua that certain parties seem to be pursuing quite aggressively despite there being little or no evidence to substantiate it, in fact it can be quite easily shown to be incorrect.

This idea is that ‘Oumuamua ISN’T AN INTERSTELLAR OBJECT at all but a SPENT ROCKET STAGE used in some interplanetary mission by NASA or some other space agency, which has received a gravity assist (GA) from one or a combination of encounters of the planets Mercury, Venus or Jupiter.

Let me now try and break it to you parties gently that you are all entirely wrong and what’s more you are totally deluding yourselves.

So first of all, if you back-track ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory it can be shown quite conclusively that it came NOWHERE NEAR the planets Mercury, Venus or Jupiter, thus ruling out any combination of GAs from these planets. Go here for instance.

I helpfully and respectfully suggest that you all look into QUANTIFYING precisely some way in which your suggested mechanism could boost the speed of ‘Oumuamua (or spent rocket stage) to such an extent that it achieves a speed WAY IN EXCESS of the Solar System ESCAPE SPEED.

I also suggest to you that as far as Jupiter is concerned, you could look into a metric called the TISSERAND PARAMETER, which when calculated for a Jupiter reference would establish (POSSIBLY) whether ‘Oumuamua came from an encounter with Jupiter.

Finally I suggest you do a paper on the subject and get it peer-reviewed.

Instead of doing any of these useful suggestions please don’t keep coming back at me, time and time again!

I am trying to help here, what else am I to do?

Adam Hibberd

Could we have done a sample return to ‘Oumuamua?

What’s that?

A sample return would go to ‘Oumuamua, dispatch an impactor, pick up the dust from the resulting impact plume using aerogel, and finally return to Earth for atmospheric re-entry with the sample on-board to be analysed by scientists on Earth.

Well this trajectory gives an answer. We could have done so if:

(1) we had detected ‘Oumuamua early enough

(2) we had a s/c lying in wait at the Sun/Earth Lagrange 2 Point (L2)

Now it’s too late for either (1) or (2) but maybe for some future ISO (another Interstellar Object like ‘Oumuamua), we could try this out? The Comet-Interceptor mission to be launched in 2029 will do a comet flyby or possibly an ISO flyby but not a sample return.

The main issue with a sample return is the huge relative velocity that the spacecraft would have with respect to the target ‘Oumuamua, probably way in excess of 60 km/s. Thus the spacecraft could well be taken out by debris ejected from the plume. Note aerogel works best for relative velocities of < 6 km/s, in other words a full order of magnitude lower than the spacecraft’s encounter with ‘Oumuamua.

So this is a big problem, not just for ‘Oumuamua specifically, but for ISOs in general.

Adam Hibberd

I have woken up at some ungodly hour and what of all things should I be obsessing about? You guessed it – that weirdness of weirdnesses, to use a word employed many times by H. P. Lovecraft himself, the truly eldritch interstellar object known as ‘Oumuamua.

I occasionaly grasp for a mental image of this almost-lone extrasolar visitor to our abode, but I dare not fill in the unknown aspects of this celestial body to give me a full picture, though my imagination demands it, my scientific integrity simply does NOT allow it.

All we have is its strange set of observed characteristics, one of which being its tumbling motion. That got me to thinking, what exactly sets off a chaotic tumbling state in a body such as ‘Oumuamua? Many scientists believe the likely explanation is that ‘Oumuamua was struck by an object – possibly in its planetary system of origin, indeed many asteroids in our Solar System experience the same phenomenon and with the same explanation.

But why should ‘Oumuamua have left its natal planetary system in the first place? Possibly the collision was a cause of this, but I think that would be unlikely, more likely gravitational resonances or an encounter with a massive planet in its host planetary system was the cause, after all Jupiter is known to have done exactly this to comets in our own system.

But there is a BIG problem here and I shall endeavour to explain the logic below.

What happens when Jupiter ejects a body is that the body’s so-called hyperbolic excess (its speed reached at a great distance, in other words entering into interstellar space) is very small WITH RESPECT TO OUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM.

Look at it this way, let’s say you throw a ball gently out of a moving train. It is clearly the case that, although the ball’s velocity relative to the train is small, relative to the ground that ball has a velocity which is almost precisely the velocity of the moving train, so anyone observing that ball on the ground would get a good idea of the velocity of the train by measuring the velocity of the ball.

This should also be the case for ‘Oumuamua, by measuring its velocity in interstellar space, we should be able to trace its velocity to its natal system. But therein lies a big mystery.

What we find is that ‘Oumuamua’s velocity in interstellar space was virtually zero – technically it was very close to the Local Standard of Rest (LSR), which is the mean velocity of all the stars in our vicinity as they rotate around our Galaxy’s centre. Going back to our train analogy, that means the train – or planetary system – it came from had almost zero velocity w.r.t. the LSR. What is the likelihood of that happening? My mind now is cast back to my time as a pupil at Stoke Park Comprehensive school where I impressed my chemistry teacher Dr Brooks with the following deduction.

We were studying what is known as the ‘Maxwell Distribution‘, this is what you get when you plot on the horizontal x-axis the speed of the molecules of a particular volume of gas and on the vertical axis the number of molecules in this volume which have this speed.

What one finds is that there is a peak speed, that is there is a MOST likely speed for a molecule and as the possible speeds increase, the number of molecules with these speeds reduce – in fact the graph decays and approaches zero to the right.

But what happens to the left of this peak in the curve – that is as the speed of the molecules decrease to zero?

What we find is that there is a similar decrease on the left side of the peak until the curve actually touches the horizontal axis, AT THE ORIGIN. Another way of looking at this is that the number of molecules with zero speed is actually zero. This is in line with the observation that the only way a gas could have ANY molecules with no speed is at minimum energy or ABSOLUTE ZERO, which is impossible, right?

Now let’s apply this to ‘Oumuamua’s system of origin which, as we have seem, had almost zero speed w.r.t. the LSR, and make the anaolgy of the speed of stars in the galaxy with the speed of molecules in a gas. A zero speed w.r.t the LSR for a star should actually be exceedingly unlikely, in precisely the way it is for molecules in a gas.

It seems the more you think about ‘Oumuamua the stranger – and more eldritch – it gets.

Adam Hibberd

I decided to attend Breakthrough Discuss this year.

But what could I bring to Breakthrough Discuss? It’s amazing how one’s delusions of grandeur are demolished wholesale when one encounters the truly BIG names in science. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, etc, were all present and correct and that brought me down to Earth with a huge thud.

I guess a reality check is a big thing in a science conference of any kind, after all what can be more important to science than discovering the nature of reality?

But there is also a sanity check too and seeing two grown men arguing on stage over the latest topic in science, is always, ALWAYS an exceedingly tedious affair, especially in my experience when the issue is rather trivial. Fortunately, the organizers had left this to the end.

And can the nature of consciousness be expressed mathematically? Well, there was a whole presentation about mathematical consciousness. I’m afraid I found this particular talk hard to stomach. You see, to my knowledge there is no generally accepted scientific definition of what consciousness is exactly, and in my view this thing is so hard to pin down that it might be a red herring anyway.

On the contrary, there are loads of definitions of intelligence, all generally accepted, and this seems a much clearer line of enquiry to pursue than the arcane expression of consciousness. What’s more, the conclusion that any current AI software tool does not meet the requirement of consciousness seems to be a rather dubious claim. My opinion is like Turing’s test – in other words, if it waddles, swims and quacks like a duck then it is genuinely a duck, and this will be achieved in the very near future.

There was a lot of discussion about life in this Breakthrough Discuss and principally how it was created (biogenesis), how it can be identified (biosignatures) and what forms it might take (xenobiology). However, although interesting, there was no discussion of the PURPOSE of life (teleology).

That might sound a rather strange subject for a scientist to contemplate (and many of you might think it should be left to theologists), however I have found there is much to be gleaned by addressing the notion of life in this way.

So first ask yourself what is the ultimate goal of life? Does that concept have any meaning really? Stephen Jay Gould, among others, has warned of the dangers of conceiving life as a ladder of ascent, the notion that evolution creates things which are ‘better’ is a common misconception, and should be entirely rejected. It is all to do with adaptation into the current environment (whatever form that may take), which may change very rapidly with time, for example when a meteor strikes.

Yet on the other hand, if one looks at the human brain it is generally acknowledged as the most complex thing we know of in the Universe. Furthermore, what humanity is doing is creating even more sophisticated intellects than our own. True, Roger Penrose (who also talked at the conference) would claim these artificial things are not the same as us, yet as I have mentioned the nature of this irreconcilable difference he proposes, consciousness, may well be undefinable anyway.

So, what if the teleology of life is to produce super-intelligence? Why would it want to do that? And why would such a thing want to exist? In my view the answer to the first question is very much tied in with the second.

It seems to me that the reason intelligence exists is to know more about the Universe, since by knowing it can understand any dangers which may hurt it – and so avoid or counter them or, alternatively take advantage from any benefits. True – curiosity might kill the cat but nonetheless generally having this asset has greatly improved our lot. Whether it be agriculture, habitation, power generation, medical research, etc all this curiosity has been wonderful for humanity.

But what is the goal of all this acquisition of new knowledge? Is it the Fundamental Laws of Nature themselves? And would that be the reason why Artificial Intelligence would continue to exist and enquire?

I think I shall leave these questions unanswered for the moment as I feel I might have outstayed my welcome in a magazine quarterly to do with interstellar travel. However, this is what attending a conference, moreover, attending a science conference on the nature of life can do to you.

Adam Hibberd

Juno the wife and sister of Jupiter in Greek mythology, is also a spacecraft currently orbiting the planet Jupiter. The spacecraft suffered a major setback in 2016 when the main engine became unusable necessitating key alternative arrangements to be made to the Juno mission plan.

A paper by Avi Loeb, Adam Crowl and I will shortly come out – do look out for it – on the possibility of diverting the Jupiter probe from its current highly elliptical Jupiter orbit in order to execute a flyby of 3I/ATLAS. Juno’s current orbit has a perijove altitude of 73,400 km and apojove at 5.8 million km. Just as a reminder, the perijove altitude is the closest approach of Juno to Jupiter and apojove is the farthest point.

This highly eccentric orbit has various advantages should Juno wish to escape Jupiter’s pull, in that the extra velocity need at perijove to perform this feat would only be a few 100 m/s, it seems that Juno is teetering on the brink of escape, and only needs a tiny nudge to do so.

This assertion however is not quite correct in the case of 3I/ATLAS due to a problem with Juno’s orbital plane (to be precise its Longitude of Ascending Node, LOAN). It turns out not to be at a good angle for 3I/ATLAS missions.

Let’s examine this object as a target then. 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object to be discovered in our Solar System, will actually get quite close and personal to Jupiter on 16 March 2026, as can be seen on the plot below. Could Juno intercept this and provide invaluable data for scientists on Earth?

Let us assume that there IS sufficient DeltaV for Juno to undertake such an intercept, but how much DeltaV would be needed, to wit, what is the lowest possible DeltaV needed from the engines?

Below is the colour contour plot which provides precisely this information, and assuming that the path to 3I/ATLAS is a direct one without any intervening impulses before the target is intercepted.

Bear in mind, in a final Thelma and Louise moment, the spacecraft is planned to plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere towards the end of September this year. This is a shame because funding for the Juno mission beyond this point is simply not available (even though significant science data could still be returned from extending the mission). There’s plenty of life left yet in the old bird.

It seems from the above contour plot that a well timed DeltaV around mid-August, or alternatively early September of 2025 would enable an intercept with 3I/ATLAS around the time of its closest approach to Jupiter, with the single DeltaV for reaching 3I/ATLAS being executed at a magnitude of 3.3 km/s. But is there an alternative lower DeltaV solution?

The answer to this question is a resounding yes, that is by conducting what is known as a Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre (JOM). For a JOM, first of all an adjustment is necessary to line up the orbital plane of Juno to enable it to reach 3I/ATLAS at the appropriate moment, and secondly another impulsive DeltaV is applied with a low perijove to slingshot the spacecraft to the target. A table of this is provided below.

Observe that the overall DeltaV amounts to 2.1574 + 0.5181 = 2.6755 km/s, which is a few hundred metres per second lower than the direct method.

Given the state of Juno’s main engine, would this intercept be pracitical? I am merely a humble astrodynamicist and the key-players for this NASA mission are in a far better position to make the call on this.

Please look out for the preprint on arXiv.

Adam Hibberd

I have been slogging away at the usual old astrodynamics which I seem to have made my particular field of expertise, and in the process receiving some degree of flack from certain parties. I do this not for the money – clearly since I’m a lowly volunteer – but for the sheer fun of it, and it so happens on this occasion the work I’m doing is quite important also.

Is it indeed possible for the Juno spacecraft, now orbiting Jupiter to come closer to the 3rd interstellar object to be discovered, 3I/ATLAS?

The first step was to find the possible intercept opportunities using my own software development Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS), and it was serendipitous that my colleagues, Avi Loeb, Adam Crowl, with me leading on the celestial mechanics side, had embarked on this course since it turned out the date of DeltaV application for Juno to intercept 3I/ATLAS at its closest approach (in March 2026) was as soon as mid-August or alternatively mid-September of this year.

So surprised we were at these results, we decided to publish a paper and notify the NASA personnel responsible for the Juno mission, asap.

Having achieved this aim quite expeditiously in the end, we could then go about honing the research down to the more salient question, of how close might Juno be able to get to 3I/ATLAS GIVEN IT MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DELIVER the required DeltaV for an exact intercept?

To this end I developed some REBOUND software for the investigations, which also exploited the NASA JPL NAIF toolset known as SPICE as well as the NLP solver NOMAD. Go here to look at the latest version of the paper.

Note that this study assumed one application of DeltaV only and furthermore, examined two launch windows for reaching 3I/ATLAS, in mid-August and mid-September. I provide the results below.

Once NASA has provided the necessary information, we shall then be able to move forward and investigate more complicated scenarios, such as the multiple-impulse case, which adds significantly to the NOMAD solution time and increases the likelihood of convergence to local optima.

For the moment the above plots are hugely encouraging since, as we can see, that for as little as 5.4% of the initial propellant mass, Juno could quite easily get within 27 million km of the target.

Adam Hibberd

Having demonstrated yesterday that a reasonably low DeltaV (velocity increment) applied by the Juno’s engine could achieve a significantly closer approach to 3I/ATLAS than would otherwise be the case if Juno stayed in its current Jupiter orbit, surely that would be the end of the matter?

The answer is ‘not quite’, since this was a ‘single impulse’ scenario and assumed only a one-off application of DeltaV to heave the probe closer to the target. This clearly neglected the possibility of multiple impulses, which could well demand a much smaller overall DeltaV budget though still achieve the same desired goal.

As already explained in my previous blog here, further impulses add significantly to the overall complexity of the problem, and so slows the convergence time of the Non-Linear Problem (NLP) solver, in this case NOMAD. However I determined to investgate the double impulse option using a modified version of the REBOUND software I developed for the single impulse case, and the results were forthcoming after a couple or so days of execution.

See below for the pertinent plots extracted from the revised paper (which is here btw).

We see from the first plot that for 3I/ATLAS distances of less than say 25 million km, there is a significant saving in required propellant as compared with the single impulse case, with typically 50% less propellant being required.

This incredible finding is offset to some extent by the fact that for distances greater than 25 million km, where very little propellant is needed, the saving from the additional impulse becomes negligble and with reducing DeltaV requirement, the double impulse merges into the single impulse solution, as we see from the second plot above.