The learning map
Physics, evidence, and engineering.
Seventeen units in six parts: sources and experiments, the quantum vacuum, metric geometry, plasmoids, gravity control, and fusion. Open any unit and go straight to the material.
Part I
How to know
The maturity scale, and the government's own reading list.
The foundation stone of this curriculum: Puthoff 1987, the hydrogen ground state as a balance with the zero-point field
- 01
The evidence ladder
How to read a bold physics claim without swallowing it or waving it away.
- Place any claim on a five-rung maturity scale, from well-posed idea to textbook fact.
- Update your confidence the way Bayes' rule says, and tell independent evidence from repetition.
- Name the next experiment that would move a claim up or down the ladder.
- Study
- Measurement, uncertainty, and evidence · Mechanics and conservation laws · Experimental methods and error analysis · Open replication laboratory
- For ages 8–12
- How Scientists Decide What Is True
- Engineering
- The reversal test · Settle the inertia correlation function · Angular acceleration, not rotation rate · Make ball lightning and instrument it · The EVO crater — two accounts, one micrograph · The calorimetry and neutron scorecard · Isotopic forensics · If Planck's constant measures the field's density, then find the test that separates it from the fine-structure constant
- 02
The reference documents and the institutional record
Thirty-eight technical documents a defence agency commissioned, and how to read an official record as a document rather than as a verdict.
- Say what the thirty-eight reference documents are, who commissioned them and who administered them, and read one as a technical document with a stated scope.
- Separate what an official record establishes, that a question was funded and studied, from what it does not, and name which of the thirty-eight carry original results.
- Trace a single claim from a reference document through to the peer-reviewed paper it rests on, and place both on the maturity scale.
Part II
The medium
What the vacuum is, how it is measured, and how it is engineered.
- 03
What the vacuum is
Empty space is the lowest setting of every field, and the lowest setting is not zero.
- Explain why the quantum vacuum carries energy, and how the Casimir force measures it.
- Say what zero-point energy means, and what the measurements do and do not settle.
- Follow the vacuum from the old aether to a medium physicists now shape in the laboratory.
- Study
- Waves, resonance, and spectra · Why empty space is not simple · Quantum mechanics: states, amplitudes, and measurement · Quantum mechanics I–II · Quantum field theory · Quantum fields in curved spacetime
- For ages 8–12
- Empty Space Is Not Empty
- Engineering
- Quantum friction — the vacuum as a shear medium · Settle the inertia correlation function · Weigh the vacuum · Vacuum field sampling as a student instrument · Quantum atmospherics · If Planck's constant measures the field's density, then find the test that separates it from the fine-structure constant
- 04
Casimir physics and vacuum-force engineering
The force between two plates is measured to better than a percent, and it already moves parts on a chip.
- Derive and then measure the Casimir force, and say what the two independent 1997 and 1998 measurements settle and what they leave open.
- Predict how real materials, roughness, temperature and geometry change the force, and use the worldline and scattering methods practitioners use.
- Design a device that uses the force, an actuator, a self-assembling structure or a torque element, and state its complete force budget.
- Engineering
- The geometry-tuned Casimir cell · The switchable vacuum rotor · The real moving boundary versus the electrical one · The dark cavity as a materials engine · The Moddel cell and the thermodynamic ledger · Quantum friction — the vacuum as a shear medium · The Casimir force at nuclear separations · The pillar cavity that already looks like a warp metric · Weigh the vacuum · Quantum atmospherics · If a cavity changes electron-phonon coupling, then it changes the screening energy · If Planck's constant measures the field's density, then find the test that separates it from the fine-structure constant · If a plasmoid is vacuum-coupled, then its lifetime tracks the boundary around it · If the zero-point field carved the voids, then the void edges carry its fingerprint
- 06
The vacuum at cosmic scale
Dark energy and zero-point energy enter Einstein's equations in the same place, and the gap between them is the research programme.
- State the three densities and the size of the gap between them, and say why the gap is the programme rather than an embarrassment.
- Follow the dark-energy identification through the physical argument rather than the semantic one, and place it on the maturity scale.
- Name the measurement that would move it: what DESI's next release would have to show, and what a test separating Planck's constant from the fine-structure constant would look like.
- 07
The vacuum as a quantum fluid
Volovik's programme: particles and gravity as ripples on a cosmic condensate.
- Show how curved-spacetime physics genuinely emerges inside superfluids and condensates.
- Say what analogue Hawking radiation in a laboratory does and does not demonstrate.
- Name the Lorentz-symmetry tests that decide whether our own vacuum is such a fluid.
Part III
Energy from the vacuum
Devices that break the vacuum's symmetry, and the machines that burn what they make.
- 05
Energy from the vacuum
Real photons out of nothing was measured in 2011. Standalone power is the milestone three funded labs are building toward.
- Explain the dynamical Casimir effect and quantum energy teleportation, and why both obey thermodynamics.
- Describe how a Casimir-cavity device is built and what its complete energy ledger must show.
- Name the three funded programmes and the milestone all of them are aiming at.
- Study
- Thermodynamics and statistical reasoning · Statistical mechanics · Quantum-energy technology seminar
- For ages 8–12
- Can You Get Energy From Nothing?
- Engineering
- The quantum-energy-teleportation cell · The geometry-tuned Casimir cell · The real moving boundary versus the electrical one · The Moddel cell and the thermodynamic ledger · The EVO crater — two accounts, one micrograph · If entanglement is the vacuum's fuel line, then the cell array has a scaling law · If a plasmoid is vacuum-coupled, then its lifetime tracks the boundary around it
- 08
Fusion machines: pinches, focus devices and inertial drivers
Fusion is the first door, and this is the door: every machine that has ever made fusion, and what each one measured.
- Tell the confinement families apart by their physics, and say for each one what it confines, for how long, and what its published record is.
- Read a fusion diagnostic, neutron yield, ion energy or imaging, and say what it establishes and what it does not.
- Design the direct-conversion stage of an aneutronic machine, and state the energy ledger from wall plug to delivered current.
- Engineering
- The benchtop fusion machines · Aneutronic fuel and the compact machines that suit it · The sheared-flow Z pinch and the repetition problem · Build a Nachamkin plasmoid on purpose · The plasmoid lifetime ladder · The calorimetry and neutron scorecard · If a plasmoid is vacuum-coupled, then its lifetime tracks the boundary around it
- 09
Lattice confinement fusion
NASA Glenn's peer-reviewed fusion in deuterated metals, and the milestones ahead.
- Explain how electron screening and the Oppenheimer–Phillips process let fusion run inside a metal.
- Say what NASA's two Physical Review C papers measured, and how it differs from the 1989 claims.
- Describe the net-energy milestone and how a calorimeter proves it.
- Study
- Atoms, nuclei, and radiation · Nuclear reactions, fission, and fusion · Advanced nuclear and lattice-assisted reactions
- For ages 8–12
- Fusion Inside a Block of Metal
- Engineering
- The Casimir force at nuclear separations · The lattice ladder · The Lattice Energy Converter — the garage rung · Fusion by field conditioning rather than by heat · The calorimetry and neutron scorecard · Isotopic forensics · If a cavity changes electron-phonon coupling, then it changes the screening energy
Part IV
Mass, inertia and gravity
If the vacuum makes inertia, the vacuum can change it.
- 10
Inertia and gravity from the vacuum
What if mass, inertia and gravity are things the vacuum does to matter?
- Reconstruct Sakharov's induced gravity and the Haisch–Rueda–Puthoff inertia proposal as published.
- Use the polarizable-vacuum picture of gravity as a changing refractive index.
- Separate what is measured from what is a live hypothesis, and name the deciding experiment.
- 11
Gravity control and superconductors
Frame-dragging is measured. The programmes ask whether coherent matter can make it big enough to use.
- State how large gravitomagnetism is, as Gravity Probe B measured it.
- Compare the Ning Li, Podkletnov, Tajmar and Alzofon programmes and what each measurement found.
- Name the variable the next run has to control.
- Go deep
- The Josephson Junction · Superconductors
- Engineering
- The dark cavity as a materials engine · Fusion by field conditioning rather than by heat · The superconducting gravity bench — an emitter and a mirror · The reversal test · Angular acceleration, not rotation rate · The megahertz-to-gigahertz gravitational-wave receiver · If a cavity changes electron-phonon coupling, then it changes the screening energy · If a plasmoid is vacuum-coupled, then its lifetime tracks the boundary around it
- 12
Inertial mass reduction, the Navy patents and transmedium craft
If inertia is the vacuum's reaction to acceleration, could you lighten a craft, and what do the patents and the sensors actually show?
- Read the inertial-mass-reduction and gravitational-wave-generator patents and the operability attestation as documents, and say what each can and cannot show.
- Trace the conditional chain from a vacuum origin of inertia to a lighter craft, and use the Schwinger limit to size the gap between the first test and the patent's own drive conditions.
- Follow the bench thruster to its dated orbital flight, and say what each possible result would mean.
- For ages 8–12
- Could a Ship Become Lighter? · The Navy's Very Strange Patents
Part V
Engineering the metric
You do not move the ship. You engineer the distance.
- 13
The metric, warp drives and wormholes
The exact idea behind engineering space, and the exact gap between the maths and a machine.
- Read a metric as the rulebook for every ruler and clock.
- Follow the Alcubierre warp bubble and the Morris–Thorne wormhole through Einstein's equations.
- State why negative energy is the price, how much has been measured, and which bench tests are running now.
- Watch
- Lecture 1 · What is a metric? · Lecture 2 · Special relativity and four-vectors · Lecture 3 · General relativity · Lecture 4 · The Alcubierre warp metric
- Study
- Space, time, motion, and reference frames · Special relativity without shortcuts · Calculus, vectors, and differential equations · Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics · Tensor calculus and differential geometry · General relativity · Metric-engineering research studio
- For ages 8–12
- Bending Space and Riding a Wrinkle
- Engineering
- The geometry-tuned Casimir cell · Warp Factory on a laptop · The pillar cavity that already looks like a warp metric · Look for somebody else's warp drive · Condition the field, not the power · If Planck's constant measures the field's density, then find the test that separates it from the fine-structure constant
- 14
Wormholes, energy conditions and the negative-energy budget
Every metric-engineering proposal meets the same bill. This is the unit that reads it, line by line.
- Write down the energy conditions and say which geometry each one forbids, and why.
- Apply a quantum inequality to a proposed geometry and get a number for how much negative energy is allowed, over what sampling time, in whose frame.
- State the negative-energy accounting correctly, below the ambient vacuum level rather than below nothing, and name the laboratory experiments that generate it.
- 15
Scalar waves and the field behind the fields
Whittaker's real mathematics, the Aharonov–Bohm effect, and the longitudinal fields Maxwell already permits.
- Explain why the vector potential is physical: electrons respond to it where the fields are zero.
- Say where longitudinal fields genuinely exist, and what free-space scalar-wave energy would require.
- Describe the bench test that would settle the scalar-wave energy proposal.
- Go deep
- The Vector Potential
- For ages 8–12
- The Field Hiding Behind the Fields
Part VI
The craft and the ledger
The worked example, and every claim on one map with its next test.
- 16
Plasmoids, charge clusters and the orbs
Self-organising plasma is real, thriving physics. The orb footage is the worked example, with its tests named in advance.
- Explain how plasmoids and ball lightning organise themselves, and what their spectra reveal.
- Describe Ken Shoulders' exotic vacuum objects and the modern mechanism proposed for them.
- Test a piece of footage: provenance, optics, and the checks that decide.
- For ages 8–12
- Glowing Balls That Hold Themselves Together
- Engineering
- The benchtop fusion machines · Aneutronic fuel and the compact machines that suit it · Build a Nachamkin plasmoid on purpose · The plasmoid lifetime ladder · Make ball lightning and instrument it · The EVO crater — two accounts, one micrograph · If a plasmoid is vacuum-coupled, then its lifetime tracks the boundary around it
- 17
The unified picture
The convergence thesis: where every claim stands, and the next test for each one.
- Draw the energy, medium and actuator stack a metric-engineering craft would need.
- Place each pillar on the maturity scale and see how the uncertainties compound.
- Name the single most decisive experiment for each row, and where its result will appear.
- For ages 8–12
- Putting the Whole Puzzle Together
Electric Universe: follow the current
How much of the structure we see in space can electricity explain? Follow a path from measured currents around Earth to the wider proposals of plasma cosmology and Electric Universe researchers. Each stop connects a physical principle, an original source and a part of this curriculum.
Current → magnetic field → plasma motion → changing current. This feedback shapes plasma; the energy comes from the system's driver.
Space carries current
Plasma contains mobile charged particles. ESA's Swarm observations connect electric fields, oppositely directed Birkeland current sheets and fast ion flows near Earth. Begin with the aurora: trace where current flows, where it returns and how energy reaches the atmosphere.
A current shapes its own channel
A current along a plasma column produces a magnetic field around it. The magnetic force can squeeze the column: a Z-pinch. Fusion experiments study how sheared flow keeps that column stable. This is a direct bridge from cosmic filaments to the site's plasma and fusion lessons.
A small boundary, a large change
A double layer contains adjacent regions of charge imbalance and a voltage drop. A particle crossing a stationary electrostatic potential gains kinetic energy as its potential energy falls: ΔK = −qΔV. A singly charged positive ion crossing a 10-volt drop gains 10 electronvolts. Bow-shock measurements give this idea a place to study in space.
Follow the energy
Voltage can accelerate particles, and current can transport energy into a plasma. Identify the driver, the return path, stored energy and the load. This circuit view connects electric propulsion and plasma fireballs to our energy lessons. A vacuum-power proposal needs its own measured input and output account.
From the laboratory to galaxies
Anthony Peratt's plasma-universe programme explores how current-carrying plasma can organise cosmic structures. Read his work alongside laboratory pinches. To carry a result across scales, compare density, field strength, collision rates, stability and boundary conditions as well as the visible shape.
Read the source: Anthony Peratt · Physics of the Plasma UniverseContinue in the curriculum
Electric stars and electric gravity
Thunderbolts researchers propose wider electrical explanations of stars and galaxies; Thornhill also explored an electrical origin of gravity. Follow these as distinct models. Ask what each predicts for stellar power, spectra and motion, or for neutral matter and falling bodies. Compare those predictions with the vacuum and gravity models taught here.
Read the source: The Thunderbolts ProjectContinue in the curriculum
Prefer to climb by level?
The same physics is also laid out as 36 courses in 6 levels, from first principles to research preparation.
The six-level course path →