20250709

Portrait of Christopher Altman
CHRISTOPHER ALTMAN
Starlab veteran・日本語・Guinness Book of World RecordsNASA・Kavli Institute・Harvard・TU DelftChief Scientist・Quantum Technology・Artificial IntelligenceNASA-trained Commercial Astronaut

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

                              — Richard Feynman

We stand on the shores of a vast cosmic ocean, with untold continents of possibility to explore. As we continue forwards in our collective journey, scaling the cosmic ladder of evolution, progressing onwards, expanding our reach outwards in the transition to a multiplanetary species — Earth will soon be a destination, not just a point of origin.

From early childhood, I set out to convey a profound and positive impact on the long-term future of humanity — to make the world a better place for our children, our children's children, and the generations yet to come. As we're collectively propelled forwards as a species, I committed to ensuring core values of balance, integrity, and ethical responsibility are upheld with paramount importance in scientific research and principal government leadership. With unprecedented leaps and bounds of progress in our scientific understanding — enabled by the development of converging and expanding exponential technologies — newfound, unexpected discoveries await, just over the horizon.

Rapid advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, molecular nanotechnology, neuroscience, renewable energy, spaceflight, supercomputing and quantum technologies — each enabled by the recursive technological progress of Moore’s Law doubling in computer processing power, speed and complexity — will converge to confer radical changes to society over the coming decades, as we move forward in the collective transition towards the dawn of a post-scarcity economy. The future is unbounded. The responsibility falls upon us to ensure that its limitless potential is filled with dreams of hope, happiness, freedom and fulfillment. 

In tribute to timeless, inspiring, and visionary friend, colleague, collaborator, and coauthor Serguei Krasnikov (1961 – 2024) — whose midnight brainstorming sessions and legendary time travel parties at Starlab will echo through the ages. May we carry forward his boldest dreams, fulfill his most audacious ambitions, and meet again — somewhere, sometime — just beyond the horizon.

LINKS・SELECTED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

        ASTRONAUTICS・BREAKTHROUGH PHYSICS
RETROCAUSALITY・QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY

20250315


Shodan Rank Kyūdō, Meiji Temple, Tokyo, Japan

Black belt, First Class, shodanCertificate of recognition, as first foreigner to qualify in eight years. 認許する, Japanese traditional archery, Kyūdō, “standing Zen,” 弓道初, formal recognition awarded by the Japanese National Kyūdō Federation, 全日本弓道連盟

20250213



INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, SYMPOSIA

2020   Keynote on the Future of the Military in Space · Space Mastery · Portugal
2020   To the Stars and Beyond: Deep Tech & AI · San Francisco
2020   International Astronautical Congress, 71st IAF · ESA
2020   SpaceCom 2020, Enabling Commercial Space · Colorado Springs
2019   Quantum Information Processing with Superconducting Circuits
2019   Materials Frontiers to Empower Quantum Computing
2019   Quantum Technology: The Second Revolution
2018   FutureHack · Tokyo
2018   American School of Japan · Tokyo
2018   International School of Science · Tokyo
2018   Future of the Global Energy System, Institute for the Future · San Francisco
2016   Keizai · US-Japan Commercial Spaceflight · San Francisco
2016   Effective Altruism Summit · San Francisco
2016   Hive Global Leadership Forum · San Francisco
2016   RSA Information Security · San Francisco
2015   Hive Global Leadership Forum · San Francisco
2015   Further Future · TED Meets Burning Man · Las Vegas
2015   Hive Global Leadership Forum · San Francisco
2015   DefCon Information Security · Las Vegas
2015   Black Hat Information Security · Las Vegas
2014   The Future of Commercial Spaceflight · Silicon Valley Space Center
2014   Yuri’s Night: The First Manned Orbital Spaceflight · Los Angeles
2014   IEEE Quantum Photonics: The Next Frontier of Quantum Communications
2014   Yuri’s Night: The First Manned Orbital Spaceflight · Hawaiʻi
2012   NASA ESA JAXA Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems
2012   NASA CSF Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference · Palo Alto
2012   Quantum Information and Nanoscale Optoelectronics · Berkeley
2012   Yuri’s Night: The First Manned Orbital Spaceflight · Los Angeles
2012   Inaugural Quantum Future Technologies Conference · NASA Ames
2011   Quantum Coherence in Excitation Energy Transfer · Berkeley
2011   The Future of Spaceflight · Mobile Monday, Invited Keynote · Amsterdam
2011   Delft-Leiden Biannual Casimir Symposium · Leiden
2011   Alain Aspect: The Second Quantum Revolution · Leiden
2011   ESA-TNO Space Pier Day · The Hague
2010   Kavli-Delft Center for Bionanoscience, Founding Conference · Delft
2010   Quantum Mechanics in Higher-Dimensional Hilbert Spaces · Austria
2010   What is Real in the Quantum World? Int’l Akademie Traunkirchen · Austria
2010   NASA ESA JAXA Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems
2009   NASA ESA JAXA Japan-US Science, Technology and Space Applications Program
2009   From Foundations of Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Information · Delft
2009   DEISA Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications
2009   Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) · Amsterdam
2008   Quantum Decoherence and Quantum Information Science · Lorentz Center
2008   Triennial Conference on Low-Temperature Condensed Matter Physics XXV
2008   International Conference on Quantum Structures · Brussels
2007   Workshop on Time Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics · Brussels
2007   Optical Fabrication Technologies, Coherence and Metrology · Switzerland
2006   The Best of Nanoscience: International Symposium for Hans Mooij · Delft
2006   SPIE Defense and Security Applications of Quantum Information Science
2005   New Computational Paradigms: Neural Nets, Quantum, Biocomputing
2005   UNESCO Physics for Tomorrow, UNESCO Headquarters · Paris
2004   RSA Information Security · Barcelona
2004   SPIE Defense and Security Applications of Quantum Information Science
2003   Gordon Research Conference on Quantum Information
2003   Quantum Information Technology IX · Tokyo
2003   International Conference on Quantum Information · Tokyo
2002   NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Quantum Chaos · Lake Como
2002   National Science Foundation Coding Theory and Quantum Computing · Vienna
2002   United Nations International Student Conference · Amsterdam
2002   International Conference on High-Energy Physics XXXI · Amsterdam
2001   World Technology Summit · London
2001   French Senate Hearing on the Future of Artificial Intelligence · Paris
2001   US Government Conference on High Performance Computing · Salishan
2001   National Security Agency · Fort Meade


MEDIA AND PUBLIC OUTREACH

⦿    NASA-trained Commercial Astronaut visits International School of Science · Tokyo
⦿    Astronauts for Hire Names New Commercial Scientist-Astronaut Candidates · NASA
⦿    Astronaut scientists for hire open new research frontier in space · NASA
⦿    Flat World Navigation: The Global Digital Economy · Google
⦿    Global Leadership Forum: Closing Speech on the Future of Humanity · San Francisco
⦿    Tomorrow’s Technologies Today · OASA Hong Kong
⦿    Space Academy Mission Specialist Boot Camp · OASA Hong Kong
⦿    Student gives up cycle, heads to Japan on Japanese Fulbright · AIEJ Fulbright
⦿    Astronauts for Hire: The Emergence of a Commercial Astronaut Corps · Springer
⦿    NASA vs. the Free Market: Which is Better for American Spaceflight
⦿    Future of the Global Energy System, Expert Workshop · Institute for the Future
⦿    Orion Astropreneur Space Academy · OASA Hong Kong
⦿    State of the Future · Live two-hour radio interview
⦿    Keynote Tribute on the Future of Space Exploration · Amsterdam
⦿    US Space Force and Future Space Technologies · Space Mastery · Tokyo
⦿    Hive Global Leadership Forum, Featured Alumnus · San Francisco
⦿    Starlab — Deep Future, Discovery Channel Special · Starlab Brussels
⦿    To the Stars and Beyond, Deep Tech & AI · San Francisco
⦿    Further Future, TED Meets Burning Man · Nevada
⦿    Entangled Life · Discover Magazine

20250205

Quantum Entanglement Backpropagation through Time

NATO WORKSHOP SERIES — New Technology Options and Threats To Detect and Combat Terrorism (NATO) — Identification of Potential Terrorists and Adversary Planning: Emerging Technologies and New Counter-terror Strategies (Vol. 132). New algorithms and hardware technology offer possibilities for the pre-detection of terrorism far beyond even the imagination and salesmanship of people hoping to apply forms of deep learning studied in the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) decades ago. For example, new developments in Analog Quantum Computing (AQC) give us a concrete pathway to options like a forwards time camera or backwards time telegraph, a pathway which offers about a 50% probability of success for a well-focused effort over just a few years. However, many of the new technologies come with severe risks, and/or important opportunities in other sectors. This paper discusses the possibilities, risks and tradeoffs relevant to several different forms of terrorism.

Breakthrough Technology for Prediction and Control Computational intelligence (CI), which includes deep learning, neural networks, brain-like intelligent systems in general and allied technologies, the Internet of Things (IOT), Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) and Quantum Information Science and Technology (QuIST).

  1. Using the same type of desktop machinery which created three entangled photons for the Greenberger, Horne and Zielinger (GHZ) experiment, replicate the stunning preliminary results achieved in 2015 on an extended experiment supporting the time-symmetric reformulation of quantum physics. Because of the preliminary results so far and the strong underlying logic, I would estimate the probability of success at 80%. Note that success would also open the door to many other new technologies. Even failure would provide important new clarification about the physics and modeling requirements for advanced QuIST.
  2. Enhance the existing approach to quantum ghost imaging by using that same GHz source, using two photons on the left to create the recorded image and detect when an entangled triplet is being recorded from, and the one on the right to reach into space to the object to be imaged. This is a mathematical task, mainly aimed at proving that coincidence detection can be done well enough just on the left-hand side without a need for some kind of detector out in space as required in conventional quantum ghost imaging. This is where most of the risk lies in this recipe. But even in the case of failure at this stage, it seems likely that other approaches to developing BTT, exploiting the lessons from step 1, would eventually be able to work.
  3. Attach the new triphoton ghost imaging system to a powerful telescope imaging the sun, so that the third photon goes backwards into the eyepiece. If step 2 works out, this would yield an image of the sun eight minutes forwards in time, unlike the usual images which are eight minutes old by the time they reach the earth. Because the sun is highly dynamic, this should provide a very clear demonstration that we can enter a whole new era in QuIST, and it should also supply some advance warning on solar flares, of practical value in itself. If this works, the value in upgrading world culture should be immense, similar in a way to the recent discovery of exoplanets, but much larger.
  4. Then attach the triphoton ghost imaging system to long and slow optical fibers, curving the light around, to allow such capabilities as a forwards time camera or BTT for use on earth, more or less making real the kind of possibility envisioned in past science fiction. Following the strictest, safest procedures of science, one would normally not even talk about steps 2 through 4 in any detail before step 1 is completed in a way which establishes more confidence and reduces legitimate uncertainty and controversy.

Keywords. Predetection, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, cyberblitzkrieg, time-symmetric physics, GHz, deep learning, internet of things, backwards time, retrocausality