Central claims: Wallace-Byran (The Farce of Physics, 1993)

Single document in the project: farce.txt, a 1993 manuscript. Text is fully readable. Every chapter has now been read in the extracted text by a deep reader (QE remediation round; see facts.json how_read). Equations and primary papers for the theory (Found. Phys. 3, 381 (1973); Spectroscopy Letters 1969-71; J. Clas. Phys. 1982; Speculations Sci. Technol. 1986) are not in the folder.

Source gap (partial). The book prints no equation of "mass dynamics", no description of the atomic models with "fused electrons" or neutrons, and not the Venus radar residual data or its c+v fitting; the computer programme figures are described but not reproduced. Updated after the QE deep reads: Chapters 4-6 (the radar evidence and the obstruction accounts) are now deep-read, and the 1969 Spectroscopy Letters paper (pp.364-367) was read as page images by the reviewers and QE. Still not read: the 1971 radar paper (Spectroscopy Letters 4, 79), Shapiro's published reply (Scientific Ethics 1(2), 10, 1985), Evans et al. (AJ 70, 486, 1965), Ash, Shapiro and Smith (AJ 72, 338, 1967), Moyer (Celestial Mechanics 23, 33, 1981), Kotel'nikov et al. (1976), McVittie (AJ 75, 287, 1970), and Schmeidler (Sky & Telescope 27, 217, 1964). Where a conclusion about the theory's mathematics rests on the book's prose alone, say so. Almost everything about Shapiro, referees, editors and Soviet colleagues is Wallace's own account (he is the interested party); Shapiro's side of the 1969 letters is only paraphrased and his 1985 reply has not been read.

1. Radar evidence that light speed is c+v. This has two parts that must be kept apart. (a) The 1961 eight-point comparison (the 1969 paper): Wallace says published 1961 Earth-Venus radar distances fit his c+v model better than the constant-c model, measured against Newcomb's tables. Both of his equations give the distance at the time the echo returns to the transmitter; the c+v equation (his Eq. 2, as the book prints it) is D = t(c+v)/2 - tv/2 = tc/2, and the constant-c equation is D = tc/2 - tv/2, so the models differ by tv/2 (QE confirmed against the 1969 paper p.364 that both refer to the reception epoch). Which curve fits better by Wallace's own yardstick is a separate point reviewed in qe.md. (b) The later residuals (1961-1966 and after): Wallace says Earth-Venus radar time-delay residuals analysed with light speed fixed at c vary by about 3 ms against an expected error of about 10 microseconds ("30,000%"), with terms tied to Earth's rotation, a 30-day term and relative radial velocity; he reads this as the relative velocity of light in space being c+v. He adds specific charges: Lincoln Laboratory removed the daily variation by observing at a constant 12:00 UT (Evans et al. 1965); the synodic variation in Fig. 4 of Ash, Shapiro and Smith (1967) could only be removed by empirical corrections like Duncombe's; the JPL light-time equation of Moyer (1981) is "the Newtonian light time", equivalent to c+v; and the 1975 Soviet Venus radar delays (Kotel'nikov et al.) reach 3500 microseconds (500 km) against planetary theory. Against this, Shapiro's letter of 17 Jan 1969, as relayed by Wallace, says the radar data are consistent with general relativity and not with the ballistic theory, and Salamin's binary-star objection (c+v would give simultaneous red shifts from both stars) is conceded by Wallace in his reply.
2. Einstein's second postulate (constant light speed) is the linchpin of modern physics, and Wallace says that Shapiro admitted at the 1968 Fourth Texas Symposium that all calculations assumed c and that c+v had not been tested (Wallace's recollection, not a transcript; Wallace's own letter says he quoted Shapiro "as I remembered" the remarks). Shapiro's side is given only in paraphrase: letters of 13 and 17 Jan, 27 Mar, 13 Oct, 6 Nov, 28 Nov and 9 Dec 1969; a published reply by Shapiro exists (Scientific Ethics 1(2), 10, 1985) and has not been read. Wallace separately infers that data were withheld for military ("Star Wars") secrecy; the documents he quotes for this do not mention radar astronomy or light speed, and he words it as a suspicion.
3. The inertial mass of matter is the same entity as the virtual mass of a photon: a rest particle's mass circulates internally at speed c, and this becomes linear motion at c in a photon when matter is converted to energy; everything is one compressible, fluid-like "dynamic ether" obeying conservation of mass, conservation of momentum and an equality-of-action attraction.
4. A computer "mass-in-cell" model with all mass moving at c reproduces photon emission, a 1/r electron mass distribution, electron-electron forces, spin, gravity (as surface tension) and nuclear forces, and predicts that electron-electron force laws deviate below about 1.1e-14 m separation; hadrons (the neutral pion) are built from many electrons and positrons.
5. The universe is infinite and eternal, redshift is not purely Doppler, and energy and matter recycle through the ether, with pressure-induced matter annihilation powering stars, planets and quasars. Wallace relies on LaViolette (Astrophys. J. 301, 544, 1986), who found a tired-light model fits four cosmological tests better than a no-evolution, q0=0 expanding model, on Arp's anomalous redshifts (and Burbidge's account of Arp's loss of telescope time), on Segal's chronometric cosmology, and on 1990-91 press reports on COBE.
6. Journals, referees, funding agencies and professional meetings obstructed this work: PRL referee reversal 1969 (Goudsmit); Physics Today rejections 1985 and 1988 and a PRL no-referee rejection c.1983-84; Sky & Telescope declined (1988); the NSF rejection of Feb 1978 (reviewers' words, as quoted by Wallace: "no reason to abandon the conventional and remarkably successful theories ... in favor of your model which is beset with a number of fatal conceptual difficulties"); Spectroscopy Letters editor Robinson stopped publishing him in 1979 after hostile reaction and anonymous letters; Beckmann (Galilean Electrodynamics) declined his reply to Salamin. Wallace also reports a second named astronomer's complaint about data access (McVittie, 1970), Hollingsworth's letter of 7 Nov 1969, Pulkovo dismissals and early retirements (Tolchelnikova-Murri's letter and conversations, one published source), and applies Langmuir's criteria for pathological science to special relativity, quarks and the Big Bang. All of these are documented in Wallace's book alone; the other side's accounts are mostly absent.
7. The 1919 and 1922 eclipse light-bending results were selected and reduced to fit relativity: a plot of 92 star shifts from the 1922 eclipse shows many "going the wrong way", and the results depended strongly on the reduction method and the omission of individual stars (Wallace's paraphrase of F. Schmeidler, Sky & Telescope 27(4), 217, 1964); he calls this "Trimming and Cooking" and links the motive to Eddington's 1917 conscription deferment (Chandrasekhar). This is a peripheral, checkable claim about the record. Related: Louis Essen's argument that special relativity is a system of units with no experimental support because accelerations are always involved in time-dilation tests.

Note on Wallace's own position (so it is not overstated): he accepts E=mc^2 ("so in general, much of relativity theory is true, but many of the original arguments are not") and accepts Hafele-Keating time dilation as real, relative to an absolute frame at rest with the distant galaxies.