2026-10-04 APS Journals (journals.aps.org)

URL: https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.013285 (Chrome; a Cloudflare check cleared after a wait). The PDF was downloaded by curl: files/Chyba-Hand-Chyba-2025-PRResearch-7-013285.pdf. The 2016 Phys. Rev. Applied PDF returned HTML to curl and was not saved.

Findings [web]

• C. F. Chyba, K. P. Hand, T. H. Chyba, "Experimental demonstration of electric power generation from Earth's rotation through its own magnetic field", Phys. Rev. Research 7, 013285 (19 Mar 2025), open access, with a correction on 28 May 2025. A Comment by R. J. Wijngaarden and a Reply appeared in Phys. Rev. Research 8, 028001/028002 (2026). The authors report a DC voltage of a few µV from a Mn-Zn ferrite cylindrical shell carried by Earth's rotation through the axisymmetric geomagnetic field, with a solid-cylinder control, a MuMetal-shell control and a second site. They say "The next step would be for an independent group to reproduce (or contradict) our results". The authors are interested parties in their own effect. Veltkamp & Wijngaarden reported null results, which the authors say did not meet their conditions.
• Their historical section: Barnett's 1912 open-circuit experiments "settled the question ... These results were reproduced by Kennard [17], and Pegram showed that corotation of the capacitor and connecting wire together with the solenoid also charged the capacitor [18]. These results proved that the field of a rotating axially symmetric electromagnet does not 'rotate with the magnet,' a conclusion that is now a standard part of the electromagnetics literature." They add: "A subsequent attempted theoretical refutation of these results was shown to be incorrect due to calculational error [22-24]". Refs 22-24 were not identified in this pass; Kholmetskii 2003 Am. J. Phys. is a candidate, unverified. Also: "Some authors have nonetheless argued that an axisymmetric field rotates with a permanent magnet [25]."
• Discrepancy worth noting: Chyba et al. credit the corotation (solenoid and condenser together) result to Pegram, but Kennard 1917 reports exactly that case ("Both", mean ratio 0.242). Barnett's 1919 AIEE report credits both Kennard and Pegram [web] files/AIEE-1919-report-electromagnetic-induction.pdf §23.
• In the modern reading the paper gives (their characterization): "the only relevant velocity is the velocity of a charge ... relative to a frame in which the magnetic flux density is B". This frames the v in v x B as relative to an inertial frame, not to a stationary aether. It is the same experimental fact, with the opposite interpretation to Kennard's §8.

Bearing

Priority 2 (the Barnett/Kennard/Pegram open-circuit result is now accepted as standard) and priority 3 (the same principle, a conductor moving through an axisymmetric field that does not co-rotate, used to claim power from Earth's rotation; disputed).