Alternative Science (Alt-Sci) · Run 14 · 2026-10-09

2026-10-09-run14.html · 99 projects reviewed · ranked for an alternative-science reader who distrusts institutional science

How this document is organised

  • Rankings at a glance: one row per project; click a name to jump to its entry.
  • Rank entries: every entry has the same sections in the same order, so projects compare section by section.
  • Ranked Projects and Selected Projects: one card per project; Selected Projects are those the owner named for a full card whatever their rank.
  • Ranked Themes and Selected Themes: the same kind of card for an idea shared by several projects (for example the aether or free energy), with its timeline, core propositions and member projects.
  • Other ranked projects: every project outside the top 20, one line each.
  • What changed this run: movements, reasons, and the history of runs.

Each entry is a summary. The full study document is the project's primer, linked in the entry header with the arbiter, sites log and source catalogue.

How projects are ranked

Ranked for an alternative-science reader who distrusts institutional science. Rank 1 is the most interesting. Interest is not proof: every entry carries its verdicts. Four things are weighed:

  • A - Untested Untested anomaly or documented resistance
  • B - Open question Open question the arbiter left unsettled
  • C - Testable Reader can test or calculate it
  • D - Influential Depth and influence in alternative science

Who reviewed

Physicist tests each claim against known physics.
Mathematician checks derivations, units and assumptions.
Contrarian makes the strongest honest case for the claim.
Arbiter reconciles the three and gives the verdicts.
Investigator finds outside records (leads, not verdicts).
QE audits coverage and shortcuts.

Verdict key

Established Plausible, untested Never properly tested Tested, not supported Refuted by calculation Internally inconsistent Not testable as stated Historically superseded but instructive

Evidence status: read in the review · partly read · cited or indexed, not read · not found or not obtained

Single-source evidence is described, not dismissed; parties with a stake are marked · stake.

Rankings at a glance

RankMoveProjectThe claim in one lineWhy it's interestingHeadline verdict
2–Morray-THMoray's antenna-and-ground box lit lamps before named witnesses 1925-38; never metered, device lost, FBI file anomaly; the books' physics pages largely borrow Le Bon.ABCNever properly tested box demonstrations and hidden-feed question
3–GovernmentUS government documents on scalar waves, cold fusion excess heat, tachyons and ELF mind control; refuted items beside an unreplicated heat-and-helium record.ABCContested cold fusion excess heat
4–TernionAGKassner's 1930s patents on microwave 'natural frequencies' of dipolar substances; never tested, the research record goes dark; standing-field electrolysis claim split.ABCNever properly tested sharp resonance dispersion
6–SilverToothSilvertooth's two-laser standing-wave interferometer reported a 378 km/s ether wind toward Leo, matching the CMB dipole; the derivation fails on its own premises.ABCInternally inconsistent slide interferometer derivation
7–Sigma-RoEther-Technology compiles Brown, Searl, Saxl and Seike gravity-control work; asymmetric-capacitor thrust is real ionic wind, the vacuum and Searl claims are not.ABCRefuted by calculation Searl spinning-ring mechanism
8–Vassilatos-GerryVassilatos's book on Tesla radiant energy, Moray, HAARP and Farnsworth's fusor; pulse physics is real, 60 GW HAARP and gamma-weapon claims fail by calculation.ABCDNever properly tested Tesla shield observations and ether-engine disconnect; HAARP 60 GW Refuted by calculation
9–Mills-RandalRandell Mills's classical atom and 'hydrino' states below the ground state, with kilowatt-scale heat claims from a company he runs; derivation inconsistent, lab anomalies untested.ABCDInternally inconsistent Mills's derivation; lab anomalies never properly tested
10–Pappas-PTPappas's pulsed magnetic induction device, a spark-gap 'gain' patent with a regulator dispute; later trials report small short-term effects.ABCNever properly tested net-energy gain of the discharge
11–Wallace-ByranBryan Wallace's c+v emission theory from Venus radar ranging, with documented obstruction and a never-run joint refit of the early data.ABCTested, not supported strong c+v form
13–Malove-EugeneMallove's account of the Correas' pulsed glow discharge tube (50 W in, 500 W shaft out) and Tesla-coil aether claims; never independently tested.ABCNever properly tested PAGD about 10x
14–Kelly-PatrickKelly's 'Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices': hundreds of magnet, pulse, water and aerial devices with claimed COP above 1, almost none neutrally measured.ABCDNever properly tested device COP claims; closed-cycle magnet motors Refuted by calculation
15–Rahn-OttoRahn's 1936 book on mitogenetic rays: faint ultraviolet from living cells said to speed division; a contested 1937 negative, never settled by agreed protocol.ABCNever properly tested division-accelerating UV emission
16–Kilner-WalterKilner's 1911 dicyanin screens said to reveal a human aura; no blinded trial exists, and cheap tests are described.ABCNever properly tested strong form, objective aura
18–Lakhovsky GeorgeLakhovsky's 1920s-30s theory that cells are tiny oscillating circuits, his multiple wave oscillator, and a 1924 geranium tumour-necrosis note never repeated with temperature recorded.ABCRefuted by calculation strong form, cell as LC filament; 1924 geranium experiment Never properly tested
20–BeardenBearden's potential-as-energy-flow theory and MEG patent: COP above 1 never neutrally tested, self-powered run undone; influential, with real physics underneath.ABCDRefuted by calculation sustained self-powered output
21–Linerman-PeterLindemann's book reading Gray's cold electricity as Tesla radiant energy, plus Bearden, Meyer and Testatika claims; no test reports, net-gain forms fail energy budgets.ABDNever properly tested net energy gain from radiant-energy devices
22–van Vlaenederen KoenVan Vlaenderen's scalar-potential electrodynamics keeps the Lorenz-gauge field S physical, predicting longitudinal waves and an extra force no one has tested.BCDNever properly tested S wave and J S force
23–Aspden-HearldHarold Aspden revived Maxwell's undetermined term in the force between moving charges and built a lattice-aether theory of constants; neglected, not suppressed.ABDNever properly tested revived force law
24–Meyl-KonstantinFurtwangen professor Meyl's 'potential vortex' and scalar-wave (1.618 c) theory, Tesla transmitter kits and neutrino power; algebra re-derived and found inconsistent, device claims mostly untested.BCDInternally inconsistent derivation of scalar waves; vacuum longitudinal wave Tested, not supported
27–Su-CCChing-Chuan Su's local-ether wave equation: gravity as optical index, mass as frequency, Galilean magnetism; predictions differing from relativity mostly fail or are untested.BCDNot testable as stated local ether as explanation

A Untested anomaly or documented resistance · B Open question the arbiter left unsettled · C Reader can test or calculate it · D Depth and influence in alternative science

Ranked Projects

Rank 2Morray-TH

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:57

A Utah inventor's antenna-and-ground box lit kilowatts of lamps before about 30 named witnesses; it was never metered, the device is gone, and key federal files remain unread.

Invention / theory background

T. Henry Moray (1892-1974) of Salt Lake City demonstrated his Radiant Energy device from 1925 to 1938: a box wired only to antenna and ground that lit lamps and heated irons. He said resonance captured oscillating cosmic radiation, passed through 'valves': a mineral detector nobody was allowed to examine, and gas tubes firing stage to stage. His books' physics pages largely reproduce Le Bon (1905). He and his sons later claimed transmutation and sold the Cosray therapy device.

Ranking explanation

It ranks near the top as the collection's strongest untested anomaly (A): named witnesses, a sealed 158-hour run and a two-year federal engagement, none metered. Unread records (FBI file, Army report, Ottawa letters) keep it open (B); the energy and battery arithmetic is easy to check (C). The finding that the books' physics is borrowed leaves the lamp question untouched. Below Heaviside, whose blocked ideas were confirmed; above Government's mixed claims.

Key supporting elements

  1. About 30 named witnesses on about 25 dated occasions, 1925-38, report lamps and an iron run from a box wired only to antenna and ground, including a 1938 Utah Securities Commission inspection with parts weighed, meter-tested and the box bored.
  2. The sealed 1928 run lasted 157.9 hours at about 110-120 W, 17-19 kWh: about 450-600 kg of lead-acid batteries against two small boxes. Harvey Fletcher of Bell Labs: 'I am just as puzzled as ever.'
  3. Field runs at witness-chosen sites: Strawberry Valley 1926, 26 miles from the last power line by odometer (one 100 W lamp for 15 minutes); a 1938 desert test 25-30 miles from Johnson's Pass (recalled 24 years later).
  4. Records outside the family books: the REA paid and equipped Moray, Feb 1939 to Feb 1941; its engineer Wood called him 'essentially honest, unable to ... perpetuate a hoax' and said he had 'stumbled on to something'.
  5. An Army Ordnance general (Shinkle) filed a report on a Moray demonstration in Dec 1936; the FBI interviewed Moray in 1951 about a 1929 Soviet visitor; a 74-page FBI file released in 2000 drew 'No Records' in 2013.

Key contradictions

  1. No power was ever metered. Every wattage is a sum of lamp ratings, and one witness said bulbs 'burned cold except ... a hot spot about the size of a dime', so delivered power is unknown.
  2. The detector was withheld in every recorded examination except possibly 1938, each start-up needed priming, and the 1928 ground was a house water pipe normally bonded to the mains. Hidden feed, ground path and priming are not excluded.
  3. Known radiation cannot supply kilowatts: cosmic rays fall about a billion times short, and 50 kW per square metre is 37 times full sunlight. Moray's own text says the first stage is 'excited by an external energy source'.
  4. Moray's own patent agent Hayes testified (Reno, 1932) that he could not build the machine from the patent papers; physicist Orin Tugman wrote (1940) he was refused a demonstration for 12 years and called it 'a very clever hoax'.
  5. Claimed performance fell 600-1,000 times by 1968; the 1963-70 gold yields fall about 600,000 times short of the needed energy. The books' physics pages largely reproduce Le Bon, Glasser and Preston, with no Moray data.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 12 shown)
ClaimVerdict
A box wired only to antenna and ground lit lamps and an iron (0.1 to about 8 kW nameplate, 1925-38)Never properly tested witnessed, never metered; 50 kW unwitnessed
It was not induction, hidden wires or batteriesNever properly tested batteries disfavoured for 1928 and 1938; hidden feed, ground path, priming open
The source is oscillating cosmic radiation captured by resonanceRefuted by calculation kilowatts from any known radiation, photoelectric or neutrino capture Internally inconsistent resonance as a source Not testable as stated unknown radiation or hidden channel, bounded Never properly tested primed, stored or hidden feed Tested, not supported Weber's neutrino enhancement
The secret Moray valve (detector stone)Plausible, untested rectifier-type or radium-bearing stone; 1968 cascade Never properly tested preceded the transistor Not testable as stated priority, without the stone Refuted by calculation detector alone as net power; radioisotope conversion at kW Established direct conversion at microwatts (Moseley 1913)
Matter dissociates into energy (Le Bon's thesis and observations, reprinted in the books)Historically superseded but instructive Le Bon's 1900s thesis Established plain E = mc^2; amalgam charge loss as photoelectric effect Tested, not supported light-driven charge loss as radioactivity Not testable as stated as Moray's power source
Gold made from reagents by irradiation (Research Institute, 1963-70)Refuted by calculation nuclear origin at reported yields Never properly tested assays not artefacts
Cosray therapy device healsNever properly tested efficacy Internally inconsistent 785-patient tally Refuted by calculation 1946 treatise: alpha and beta pass body and lead
The work was blocked or suppressedEstablished events as documented history, incl. REA 1939-41 Never properly tested dismissed without testing (standoff); 1939 smashing, 1940 shooting Not testable as stated broad organised conspiracy

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
T. Henry MorayInventor of the Radiant Energy device · sought patents, investors and fundingSalt Lake City, 1892-1974. Claimed an Uppsala doctorate (studied under the alias James Cain Larson, his sons say; no record found under 'Moray'). Alter's 1932 biography calls him 'Utah's electrical wizard, inventor, scientist, editor, poultry expert'. Author of Beyond the Light-Rays and The Sea of Energy; patentee of US 2,460,707.
John E. MoraySon; editor of the 1978 5th edition; ran the Research Institute's gold and uranium work · heir; sells the book and raises fundsCo-inventor of the Cosray applicators per the family's 1946 treatise; led the 1963-70 irradiation work with Hooper, Hendricks and Rudolph; relays the accounts of the 1939 smashing and the 1940 shooting from his father.
Harvey FletcherWitness (25 Sep 1928); proposed the endurance test; says Moray skipped a New York test · asked fees for reportsBell Telephone Laboratories physicist, born 1884, later dean at BYU. Wrote in 1928 'I am just as puzzled as ever'; in 1957 said Moray agreed to a Bell Labs or New York test and did not come (Moray: '100% untrue'); affidavit 1979 at 94.
Murray O. HayesSworn witness to the 1928 endurance test; failed rebuild · Moray's patent agent and associateDescribed as a patent examiner turned attorney. Said in 1929 he had seen everything including the detector; testified at Reno in 1932 that he and associates tried to build the machine from the patent papers and failed (editors' report, no transcript).
A. B. JensenWitness for the Utah Securities Commissioner, 1938 inspection and Dugway desert testCalled a battery expert in the family's 1991 paper; otherwise not in the review files. His statement is dated 1956 or 1958 and sworn 1963.
Felix J. FrazerREA investigator 1939-41; accused by the family of smashing the device · accused partyDescribed in 1944 as a WPA investigator who spent two years 'assisting, begging, cajoling and threatening Moray'. Probably the Technocracy economist of that name, later an occultist; served subpoenas for the La Follette committee in 1937. Identity not proven.
Franklin P. WoodREA engineer; August 1939 report · REA staffWrote that Moray was 'essentially honest, unable to originate or perpetuate a hoax or fraud' and had 'stumbled on to something'. Probably the Denver engineer of the American Technocratic League; identity not proven.
Orin TugmanCritic; May 1940 letter quoted in the 1944 Senate hearing · university standing; investors in his stateHead of physics, University of Utah. Said that in 12 years Moray never let him see a demonstration, that demonstrations went to 'men not fitted to be critical', and called it 'a very clever hoax'.
Evidence / artifacts (198 of 202 listed, 98%)

Own works and inventions (15)

  • 1920s-2000sMedia/photos collection (about 52 images) OCR sequence only; includes the capacitor test and a detector schematic with radioactive salt; photographs not interpreted
  • 1931Beyond the Light-Rays: Explanations of the Oscillations of Radiant Energy T. H. Moray; scan of a later printing (16 pp.) and tesla.hu transcription; quotes Tesla's 'wheelwork of nature'
  • 1932A Brief History of the Moray Radiant Energy Device (booklet) Printed in the 5th ed.; Moray later wrote it was 'composed and edited too much like promotion' (5th ed. p.62)
  • c.1940-1959Photo Actinia Oxygen Therapy by Electric Reaction (Cosray booklet) T. H. Moray, Research Institute; editions 1940/1945/1955/1959 cited; deep read pp.22-54; unsigned tally of 785 treated; June-July 1940 USDA order to build three devices
  • 1945Radiant Energy: The Evolution and Transmutation of the Atom T. H. Moray, Research Institute; 22 pp.; 1940-41 gold and silver assays (Boaz Mine, Norris MT; Union Assay Office SLC, serial 88193); September 1943 transmutation letter
  • after 1945Radiant Energy: The Evolution of Energy and Matter T. H. Moray; a printing labelled 'compiled 1926' that cites the atomic pile and plutonium, so compiled after 1945; copyright entries for a 20-page Radiant Energy (23 Dec 1945) and a 55-leaf one (15 Jan 1956); ECAFE list (1950) gives a 1943 20-page edition. 63 pp. digested. Printed pp.53-56 (Rutherford and spinthariscope passages) copied nearly verbatim, uncredited, from Le Bon 1905 (follow-ups Q01, Q04). Pp.58-59 (folded metal cylinder, electroscope) and p.46 (ultraviolet charge loss as 'dissociation') are also Le Bon's (follow-ups Q11, Q12); pp.34-35 resonance-dissociation passage has no earlier source found (Q08). The diamond passage (printed p.54) and the p.58 doped-phosphor paragraph are Le Bon's; 'and sometimes other properties' is an insertion in Moray's printing (follow-up Q09).
  • 1946A Short Treatise on Alpha, Beta, Gamma Ray Therapy By 'Dr. Henry Moray'; applicators 'the discovery and invention of John Eugene and Richard R. Moray'; 'half life ... about 1600 years'; 'no special shielding'. Internet Archive item thomas-henry-moray-radiant-energy · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 1949-02-01US Patent 2,460,707, Electrotherapeutic Apparatus (Cosray) Thomas H. Moray; filed 30 Apr 1943, continuation-in-part of a 15 Nov 1940 filing; tube with uranium or carnotite coating; the only T. H. Moray patent; no foreign family; cited by 9 later patents
  • c.1959Isotopes in Ionic Recovery of U3O8 (40-page booklet) T. H., John E. and Richard R. Moray; 0.04-2.6% ore to 21-67% U3O8; reports a Bureau of Mines radiometric report (28 Sep 1956) and an AEC Grand Junction estimate; deep read pp.33-40. p.6 calcium sulphide eighteen-months passage is Le Bon's (follow-up Q04). Pp.4-6 ('ten thousand times more active' thorium plate) copy Le Bon with Rutherford's credit removed (Q11); pp.20-23 follow Glasser 1944 and p.25 Preston's Theory of Light; p.23 claims a silver-to-cadmium change with no data (Q08). P.3 'Transmutation, Activation, and Fission are essentially one in the same reaction'; p.34 'not a refining method at all', nothing removed (follow-up Q18)
  • 1960The Sea of Energy in Which the Earth Floats (4th ed. 1960; 5th ed. 1978) 4th ed. Moray's own last edition (197 pp.; deep read pp.116-197; photocopy also digested). 5th ed. Cosray Research Institute, edited by John E. Moray with history, foreword by Tom Bearden (279 pp.; deep read pp.32-133; tesla.hu transcription). The source of most witness statements. The sons write that Le Bon's book was 'withdrawn from libraries' and that the FBI asked about it in 1942 (5th ed. pdf p.187); no second source found yet. 4th ed. pp.55-56 and 116 describe the valve as a voltage-threshold gas gap passing energy stage to stage ('bucket brigade'), p.139 also as a radio rectifier; p.107 'Ionic cold cathode tubes' (follow-ups Q16, Q17) · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 1962-01-23Speech at Valley State College, Northridge CA T. H. Moray; first stage 'excited by an external energy source'; 2 good tubes in 100; about 1 lb per kW
  • 1965-1982Progress Report: Recovery of Minerals from Low Grade Ore by High Energy Bombardment Research Institute (J. E. Moray), W. J. Hooper, Ruth L. Hendricks, T. E. Rudolph, L. M. Olsen; 68th National Western Mining Conference; 929.76 oz/ton gold; Aug 1963 controls 0.12 and 0.26 oz/ton; 62-test Varian series; Rex Research copy, deep read pp.1-22 · Research Institute, seeking investment
  • 1968-08-07Proposal for Development of Plasma Probe / Direct Energy Conversion from Radioactive Materials T. H. Moray, D.Sc. and Stan Taylor, Ph.D., to Air Force Systems Command; radioisotope-excited cascade at 'well below one pound per watt'; no reply in the folder. p.1 infrared-detector paragraph matches 1968 practice (Ge:Hg, HgCdTe), not a cosmic microwave background hint (follow-up Q02). Pp.2-4: 'excitation energy (between 2.5 Mev to 8 Mev)', 'resonance absorption and re-emission', release 'without fission' (follow-up Q18)
  • 1991The Sea of Energy: A Means for the Preservation of the Environment (26th IECEC paper) John E. and Kevin R. Moray; Strawberry distance given as 50+ miles; notes held by the family · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • undatedA Brief Analysis of the Moray Radiant Energy Device: What it Is, Possibilities, Testimonies T. H. Moray, 50 pp.; Google Books lE4FNQAACAAJ; probably the original printing of the testimonies; WorldCat blocked

Patents and patent office (3)

  • 1930sPatent Office files of Moray's seven rejected applications Moray asked for copies in 1954; Office said destroyed as abandoned; sons say 'disappeared' (5th ed. p.170). Decides: NARA RG 241, PTO file-wrapper index
  • c.1932Patent Office action on a Moray radiant-energy application (letter image) 'No natural source of electric wave energy is known to the Examiner and proof of the existence of such a source is required'; poor OCR, agrees with 4th ed. pp.163-164 · the deciding party
  • 1932-12-23Patent Office action, Serial No. 550,611 (REJECTED CLAIMS) Inoperability: unheated cathodes cannot emit; radioactive ionisation gives no space current without plate or grid potential · the deciding party

Court and state records (17)

  • pre-1921Marie Ahleen v. T. Henry Moray Utah Third District civil index
  • 1930-12Ashton-Jenkins Co. v. Thomas H. Moray, case 46754 $2,500 on mortgage; Salt Lake Telegram 18 Dec 1930; Utah State Archives index
  • 1930s-1950sUtah Division of Archives court index scans (9 pages) Folder copy of the Third District index pages; indexes stop at 1966
  • 1932-04In re Moray Products Company (Second Judicial District Court, Washoe County, Nevada) Moray's petition under section 35 of the Nevada corporations act; notices SL Tribune 27 Apr and 3 May 1932, Nevada State Journal 4 May 1932 p.6. Case file, with Hayes's testimony of a failed rebuild, not obtained
  • 1938Utah Securities Commissioner's report on the Moray device inspection Commissioner Gull; only A. B. Jensen's later statement survives in the family books
  • 1940-03Salt Lake City police and medical records, March 1940 (shooting) Family account says no police report was made (5th ed. p.186)
  • 1940-1943Ken Williams v. Moray Utah Third District civil index
  • 1941Progressive Heating Co. / E. H. Brewster & Son v. Moray, case 65983 $616.24 on contract; Deseret News 14 Feb 1941
  • 1941-1943Home Owners' Loan Corporation v. T. H. and Ella R. Moray, case 67422 Utah Third District civil index
  • 1942-05-27Sanford v. Moray, cases 67845 and 68210 Judgment of $1,290 for failure to deliver stock bought in 'a corporation to use radiant energy in aircraft'; Deseret News 27 May 1942 p.15; case files not ordered
  • 1947-1948Green/Christensen v. Mrs Henry Moray, case 80824 Utah Third District; Salt Lake Telegram 30 Dec 1947
  • 1954-1956Roy Ware v. T. Henry Moray, case 104172 Utah Third District civil index
  • 1970-09-25Research Institute and Moray v. Mark J. Hagmann, case 195569 Suit for return of papers; Daily Record 25 Sep 1970 p.1; Hagmann's endorsement is printed in the 5th ed. p.279. Case file not obtained
  • 1974Salt Lake County probate file for T. H. Moray Would list estate property and what remained of the apparatus (arbiter, Silence A)
  • 2019Utah business entity record: Cosray Research Institute, Inc. Printout from Utah Business Search
  • 2019-05-14Utah water right 57-7134 (T. Henry Moray) Printout; home and laboratory address
  • undatedUtah probate files 2492 (Johannah Petronala Moray) and 2347 (James Moray) Probably Moray's parents; index entries only

Government records (26)

  • 1935National Survey of Potential Product Capacity report (Felix J. Frazer, co-author) Basis for identifying the REA's Frazer as the Technocracy economist; Internet Archive report00ofnationalnatirich
  • 1936-12-08Shinkle's report on the Moray demonstration AGO central decimal file 413.68 or 095 Steffensen name file, NARA College Park; not requested
  • 1936-12-14War Department AGO index sheets: Shinkle report on 'Invention of sound detector by F. [T.] Henry Moray' NARA RG 407, T822; report of 8 Dec 1936 by Brig. Gen. Edward M. Shinkle, Office Chief of Ordnance; cross-filed under 095 Steffensen, K. K., 023 and Salt Lake City (NAIDs 557685758, 557741114, 556983073, 561454645); images saved
  • 1937La Follette Civil Liberties Committee hearings Felix J. Frazer served subpoenas; HathiTrust osu.32437122905215 pp.3268-3324
  • 1938-1939John M. Carmody Papers, REA files (FDR Library) Chronological File Boxes 102-103, card indexes 91-94, Box 99 'Senate Hearings [1944]', Box 30 'Technocracy'; finding aid saved; no Moray folder by name
  • 1938-1941REA engineers' reports (Ben Crim; Felix J. Frazer) Craig: Crim found tests 'entirely satisfactory as far as performance [went]'; reports 'put in the Administrator's files', probably lost in the 1941 move. NARA RG 221 unsearched · REA
  • 1939-02-14AGO index sheet: John H. Magdiel request via Sen. Elbert D. Thomas Asks for 'the report of Col. Edward M. Shinkle who witnessed a demonstration of Radiant Energy device'
  • 1939-08Franklin P. Wood's report to the REA Quoted in the 1944 Senate hearing: 'essentially honest, unable to originate or perpetuate a hoax or fraud ... stumbled on to something'; full text not found · REA engineer, probable Technocrat
  • 1940-06USDA 'written request and order' to build three Cosray devices Reported in Photo Actinia; no document
  • 1944Senate Agriculture and Forestry subcommittee REA hearing (78th Cong., S. Res. 197, pt.4-5) HathiTrust umn.31951d03587118y. Investigators' report pp.1344-1345 (V. A. Young): payroll 17 Feb 1939-28 Feb 1941 at $25 a day. Slattery interview of 2 Jun 1943, pp.1370-1376: Craig's motor and fans, the German assassination story, Tomadelli 'pretty similar' · staff hostile to Administrator Slattery; Slattery accused
  • 1945-1956Catalog of Copyright Entries: Radiant Energy (1945, 1956) and the 1946 therapy treatise Dates the folder's printings
  • 1951-05-21FBI Salt Lake memo of interview with Moray (Yakovlev / Rosenberg espionage file) 249-page file, Moray passage p.14 plus a screenshot; Moray says a Russian he knew as A. A. Yakovlev visited in Oct 1929 and the Magdiels contacted the Russian embassy · FBI, accused in the family's account
  • 1957Security-clearance hearing record for Moray Family account says a secret clearance was granted after a 1957 hearing (5th ed. p.172)
  • 1961-07-21NASA reply declining to fund Moray Probability 'not sufficient to justify support'; facsimile in 5th ed.; John Moray says NASA first agreed $5 million · funding agency
  • 1961-10-30Sen. Wallace F. Bennett letter to Lyle E. Holmgren Image fragment, no OCR; text from 5th ed.: Moray asked $50,000 and 'refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the box' · senator answering a constituent
  • 1963FDA case file for Cosray (NARA RG 88) Not yet tried
  • 1963-1964FDA Notice of Judgment 8137: Cosray Electronic device N.D. Fla.; misbranding default 3 Apr 1963, contested, motion to vacate denied 20 Aug 1963, destroyed 19 Mar 1964; 1,039-page volume searched, not read · prosecuting agency
  • 1964-03Health Frauds and Quackery, Senate Special Committee on Aging hearings 91 pp.; lessee Gilbert paid $3,210 for a Cosray machine, told never to open the cabinet; mother not improved (p.85) · committee convened on quackery
  • c.1968Air Force Systems Command file and reply on the 1968 proposal NARA; no reply in the folder
  • 1970-08-17AEC letter, Commissioner C. E. Larson to William Kerber Eyring 'convinced there is no demonstrable evidence that any energy has been harnessed'; folder fragment mostly illegible, text from 5th ed. · agency
  • 1973-1974CIA Foreign Technology Division translation list and index card: 'Short Review of Radiation Energy' 95 pp., Moray at p.80; CIA cover sheet and card (1974)
  • 2000FBI file on T. Henry Moray (the 72 released pages) Not on FBI Vault, MuckRock, governmentattic or theblackvault; request as previously processed records citing 917273; a 1942 enquiry about Le Bon's book, reported by the sons, would appear here if real · FBI, accused in the family's account
  • 2000-06-22CIA FOIA request F-2000-01342 'THOMAS HENRY MORAY' governmentattic.org CIA logs, Google snippet; outcome not posted
  • 2000-08-17FBI FOIA log: request 917273 'MORAY, T HENRY' 74 pages reviewed, 72 released, requester Michael J. Ravnitzky; a second 2000 request (924753, Nelms) closed for lack of consent; Internet Archive foia-log-2000-2002
  • 2005NASA/CR-2005-213749 Advanced Energetics for Aeronautical Applications, Vol. II, section 4.4.5 David S. Alexander for NASA; calls the claim 'not scientifically defensible'; a literature survey, not a test
  • 2013-02-11FBI FOIA log: request 1178194-002 'MORAY, THOMAS HENRY DR.' answered 'No Records' Requester Lynn Badia; received 1 Dec 2011, reopened 8 Feb 2013, closed 11 Feb 2013, 0 pages

Company and business records (7)

  • 1931-1932Moray Products Company corporate file (Nevada) Not in Nevada's online index (earliest Moray entity 1987); request by mail. President in 1931-32 D. V. Farnsworth; no link to Philo T. Farnsworth found (follow-up Q17)
  • 1932Moray Products Company stock trading, Salt Lake City Badger & Co. unlisted-stock tables (May-Aug 1932) and classified ads trading 'Moray radiant energy lighting stock'
  • 1940-1941Boaz Mine and Union Assay Office certificates Cited in the 1945 pamphlet and Fate 1956; no certificates
  • 1956US Bureau of Mines radiometric report (28 Sep 1956) and AEC Grand Junction evaluation Reported in the Isotopes booklet: 18-28% U3O8 equivalent with no 'before' value; originals not obtained. The full report would show what instrument saw the 'artificial' substance (follow-up Q18)
  • 1963-1982Research Institute, Inc. corporate file, assayer certificates and accelerator logs Unnamed 'independent assayer'; runs at High Voltage Engineering, Electronized Chemicals, Radiation Dynamics, Varian; none obtained
  • 1964-1965National Western Mining Conference proceedings Where the Institute presented the gold work
  • undatedMoray Manufacturing Company, Utah corporation no. 022465 Utah corporations deleted list; incorporation file not ordered

Witness accounts and correspondence (40)

  • 1925-08-06R. L. Judd (attorney) accounts, 1925-1928 Saw the device from Aug 1925; Oct 1925 lamp and 655 W iron with house mains pulled; Oct 1928 report to Fletcher; his own 'absolutely ... entirely new' is misattributed to Fletcher by John Moray · associate
  • 1925-12-21Emigration Canyon test statement About 4 miles up the canyon, witnesses chose the site; Judd, O. W. Adams and others; countersigned 1929 · associates
  • 1926-10-29Strawberry Valley field test account Odometer: last power line at 26 miles; one 100 W lamp at about 75% for 15 minutes after 10 minutes of magnet stroking · associates
  • 1928-09-25Harvey Fletcher letters, 1928-1933 6 Oct 1928 to Judd: 'I am just as puzzled as ever'; proposed the endurance test and an antenna-less run; 17 Apr 1933 to Benzel; May 1933 fee of 'about $200'
  • 1928-10-08Endurance test statements (Hayes sworn; Judd; E. G. Jensen) 1-8 Oct 1928, railroad seals on the trunk, 157.9 h at about 110-120 W, ending at 635 W; water-pipe ground · associates
  • 1928-1957Ottawa, Bray fonds S1-SS5-F24: Marcel C. Schiess 'witness accounts of the machine in use' and drawings; finding aid only
  • 1928-1959Ottawa, Arthur Bray fonds 30-003, S1-SS5-F4: 'Radiant Energy' Invention (by Dr. T. H. Moray) Wilbert B. Smith files, 1928-56, 0.7 cm, with a brief biography; finding aid only
  • 1929-10-24Murray O. Hayes to Lovesy Hayes has seen the wiring diagrams and 'the detector' · Moray's patent agent
  • 1929-11-05Robert Millikan to Lovesy Declines: 'suspicious of a person who is trying to conceal things from a group of scientists'
  • 1929-1930T. J. Yates statements (sworn 18 Dec 1930) 16 Mar 1929 checks; 13 Dec 1930 about 2.5 kW nameplate; shorted terminals, crystal set gave hum-free reception
  • 1930-09-02Lovesy letters (1929-1932) Postscript reports 2,150 W at Ellison's visit; NYU discussion 1929 · promoter
  • 1930-10-05M. H. Welling (Utah Secretary of State) and Mexican Consul General Gaxiola About 1.5 kW; house meter did not register
  • 1931John Y. Smith letter relaying a former GE man Patent examiners 'honeycombed' with large-company employees; relayed allegation (5th ed. pp.171-172)
  • 1931-12Knudsen visit record (Moray memo and Richards letter, 19 Dec 1931) 'over four thousand watts'; the valve stopped during Knudsen's check; Knudsen suspected a hidden wire in the 90-ft pole
  • c.1936David I. Gardner statement (sworn 1963) About forty 200 W globes, about 8 kW nameplate
  • 1936-09O. L. Polly letter, with E. G. Jensen, Herlin (1957) and Olsen (1937) extracts Polly, physics PhD per Moray's note: laboratory 'well equipped'; device 'does not depend on any battery'
  • 1937-02Chester M. Todd statement (sworn 1971) Moray's nephew; about forty 100 W globes; bulbs 'burned cold except ... a hot spot about the size of a dime' · relative
  • 1937-08-02Bell Labs (J. B. Kelly for Fletcher) to K. K. Steffensen Fletcher 'was not allowed to examine all the parts'; a small chance warranted 'complete investigation'; none made
  • 1937-12-23Pyper letter (1938) Ex-utility electrician; about 5 kW, house lit from the box with mains opened; 'I did not see the inside of the larger box'
  • 1938A. B. Jensen statements on the Securities Commission inspection and Dugway desert test About 5.5 kW for over an hour; leads 'electrically dead' before start-up; parts weighed and meter-tested; box bored; desert test 25-30 miles from Johnson's Pass. Dated 1956/1958, sworn 1963
  • 1938-03-20E. G. Jensen letter on the series-capacitor test Output lit through 0.025 microfarad in the antenna lead; series 60 W lamp never lit · associate
  • 1938-07S. E. Bringhurst statement (sworn 1971) About 5.7 kW nameplate; photograph · associate
  • 1939John Moray's account of Frazer's tests and the smashing of the device Twelve-sheet glass test; Frazer 'took a hammer and smashed' it; Frazer's counter-claim that Moray destroyed it (5th ed. pp.180-181) · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 1940-03-02John Moray's account of the shooting and the 1943 Perish threat Relayed from his father; 'no police report was ever made' (5th ed. pp.186-189) · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 1940-05Prof. Orin Tugman letter to Craig Quoted in the 1944 Senate hearing p.1345: never shown a demonstration in 12 years; 'a very clever hoax' · University of Utah physics head
  • 1945-1954Ottawa, Bray fonds S1-SS5-F6: Carl H. Betz With two Moray leaflets; finding aid only
  • 1954-05-25Carl H. Betz handwritten lab notes Geiger rate rose near the device; lead did not shield it; partly legible
  • 1955-01-05Helmut Wachs notes on detector materials Handwritten; partly legible
  • 1955-03-25Gaston Burridge note on Moray Second-hand; conflicts with accounts of motors running
  • 1956-10-22Fletcher to Schiess; Fletcher 1957 letter on the New York test Says he arranged a New York or Bell Labs test and Moray did not come; Moray: '100% untrue'
  • 1957-1958Ottawa, Bray fonds F8 Richard Buchli and F17 Hooper (1958-59) Mention Moray; finding aid only
  • 1959-03-04Ernest L. Wilkinson (BYU president) to Moray Offers help if Moray publishes or accepts an impartial jury
  • 1963Henry Eyring statements (1963, 1965 memo, 1970 via AEC) Saw lights light; 'no way of knowing anything about its effectiveness' without inspection
  • 1963Robert B. Craig letter (former REA deputy administrator) Saw the device on several occasions; recalls Crim's report (5th ed. p.119) · former REA official
  • 1973-10-31Arthur G. Foster letter P.E., Hill Air Force Base; relays Fletcher on the New York test
  • 1979-05-25Affidavit of Harvey Fletcher Age 94; made for a NASA proposal by the Eyring Research Institute (per House of Moray)
  • 1984-01-08Noffsinger, 'Description of System' (handwritten) Only composition list of the detector in the folder; partly illegible; 'snow job also'
  • 1990-04-11Arthur Glenn Foster account of pressing Moray 'detector' pellets ('Project X') Quoted in Perreault, Nuenergy (2001) p.30: ground, radium-doped 'Swedish Stone' pressed in a tetrahedral press; at a critical pressure it 'flashed', burning out the 2000-amp die-heater supply and a transformer. Only account of an outside contractor handling detector material; no letter or contractor found (follow-up Q09) · relayed by Perreault, who plans a commercial generator
  • 2011-10-07Uppsala University Library reply on a Moray doctoral thesis No thesis 1910-1922 and no pre-1962 title under 'Moray'; the alias James Cain Larson not searched
  • undatedOttawa, Bray fonds S1-SS4-F4: two letters on Moray's demonstration Finding aid only

Later accounts and media (23)

  • 1930-09-19Salt Lake Telegram reader's list of greatest Utahns Includes Moray and 'Dr. Murray O. Hayes'
  • 1932J. Cecil Alter, Utah, the Storied Domain, pp.439-440 Biography of 'Utah's electrical wizard, inventor, scientist, editor, poultry expert'; Google Books snippet
  • 1934Indian Science Congress proceedings, p.65 Cites the 1928 test ('bank of 100 lights for 154 hours'); speaker unknown
  • 1940-03-26Tooele paper: Moray speaks at a funeral Three weeks after the family's shooting date; no mention of an attack
  • 1941-12-02Salt Lake Tribune: Rep. Winter calls for an REA probe Cited by Bearden; not read
  • 1942-05-01Ogden Standard-Examiner letter by J. G. Teuscher Recalls the 1931 announcement and public statements by Welling and others
  • 1944-11-11Electrical World: REA's 'Industrial Revolution Projects' 'This scientist retailed perpetual motion to REA at $25 a day' · private-utility trade weekly
  • 1944-12-11Chicago Tribune and Salt Lake Tribune: Halleck statement on the REA and Moray Full Wood quote; Frazer 'threatening Moray'; SL Tribune p.9, recap 17 Dec 1944 · Rep. Halleck, opponent of the REA
  • 1949-03-11Ogden Standard-Examiner: lab tour 'cos ray machine reportedly quite successful in treating cancer'; transmutation 'now being proved at Harvard'
  • 1956Rosicrucian Digest, p.418 Author not identified
  • 1956-09Gaston Burridge, 'The Alchemist', Fate Magazine Transmutation claims and 1940-41 assays; '57+ hours' run
  • after 1973'Free Electricity Generated from Radiant Cosmos' (popular article) 3 page images; a retelling
  • 1977Tom Bearden, foreword to the 5th ed. and Excalibur Briefing page (cheniere.org) Zero-point-vacuum reading; says a 'trained Soviet agent' smashed the device; '50 kW' for the 157-h run · promoter with his own theory
  • 1980John E. Moray speech to the U.S. Psychotronics Association Audio transcript; 2% valve yield · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 1998Exotic Research Report: Tesla and cosmic energy Bruce Perreault per the text
  • 2000sHouse of Moray / T. Henry Moray Foundation home page and fundraising video John E. Moray; archived page and video transcript · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 2001Bruce A. Perreault, Radiant Energy Power Generation (Nuenergy) Spark-station then radioactive-dopant theory; says Moray's widow's tubes, bought by him, show no apparent radioactivity (p.12); deep read pp.9-21 · plans a commercial generator
  • 2008-12-08Free Energy Now interview with John Moray Sterling Allen; 100 W / 5 kW / 50 kW chronology; utility meters · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • c.2011Family narrative on Slideshare ('th-moray') Says the 1936 Shinkle test was of the 'Sound Detector Device'; Rep. Amlie said a report was filed · Moray family; printed by the sons
  • 2016-11-17Gery Vesperman public comment to the NRC 250 pp.; Moray passage only
  • 2016-2025Hobby replication videos, a Reddit 'blueprint' and a 2025 'specification' None with metered input and output
  • c.2020ConspiracyStuff video, 'Thomas Henry Moray and Zero-point Energy' Transcript; secondary retelling
  • undatedPatrick Kelly, Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices, ch.7 (Moray section) Mirror at alternativkanalen.com; quotes Moray's p.116 and 'bucket brigade' passages; no independent analysis of the cascade (follow-up Q16)

Related work by others (51)

  • 1882John E. W. Keely, water 'disintegrated' by vibratory motion Nearest predecessor of Moray's resonance-dissociation idea, with Tesla's 1898 oscillator story; Wikipedia (follow-up Q08)
  • 1889Elster and Geitel, light sensitivity of amalgams (Wied. Ann. 38) and 1892 amalgamated-zinc actinometer Amalgams of K, Na, Zn, Sn most light-sensitive; 'pure mercury shows no effect'; only negative charge lost. Read in Lodge's abstract and Fricke and Schlegel, HGSS 8 (2017) (follow-up Q12)
  • 1898Tesla's mechanical oscillator story Resonance said to shake a building; predecessor cited for Moray's 'as Tesla did' (Radiant Energy p.35); Wikipedia (follow-up Q08)
  • 1899E. Rutherford, electrometer separation of alpha and beta rays, Phil. Mag. 47 Probably the '1899' that the 1968 proposal cites for direct conversion; the identification is the investigator's (follow-up Q01)
  • 1900E. Rutherford, Radioactivity produced in substances by the action of thorium compounds, Phil. Mag. 49, 161-192 Original 'excited radioactivity' paper: active deposit collected on a negative wire; full text not opened (follow-up Q11)
  • 1901Nikola Tesla, US 685,957, Apparatus for the utilization of radiant energy Elevated plate and ground charging a condenser; same architecture as Moray's
  • 1902Rutherford and Soddy, The Cause and Nature of Radioactivity, Part I, Phil. Mag. 4 Excited activity 'entirely confined to the negatively charged surface', halves in about 11 hours; Le Moyne Giunta text (follow-up Q11)
  • 1902-1906Rutherford's alpha-particle velocity measurements (Phil. Mag. Aug 1906; 1908 Nobel lecture) Alphas lose ionization, phosphorescence and photographic action at about 9,000 km/s; the experiments Le Bon and Moray say should be taken up again (follow-up Q01)
  • 1903Philosophical Magazine 6th series vol. V, incl. Battelli and Magri on oscillatory discharges Period background on spark oscillation and radium physics
  • 1904E. Rutherford, Radio-activity (1st ed. 1904 sec.166; 2nd ed. 1905 sec.176, pp.297-298) Thoria vessel at +300 V, negative wire 'over 10,000 times as active per unit surface as the thoria'; the figure Le Bon credits and Moray's booklet uncredits (follow-up Q11)
  • 1905Pierre Curie, Nobel lecture Background on radium
  • 1905Gustave Le Bon, The Evolution of Matter (transl. F. Legge), Book IV ch.III Source of Radiant Energy pp.53-56 and the Isotopes booklet p.6: 'the experiments of Rutherford and his pupils should be taken up anew'; first-person sulphide-screen tests on uranium and thorium; Rex Research full text (follow-ups Q01, Q04) Also the source of Isotopes pp.4-6 (sec.6, Induced Radioactivity) and of Radiant Energy pp.58-59; its amalgamated-tin 'radioactivity' chapter is photoelectric by the tests of the time (follow-ups Q11, Q12). Also the source of the diamond passage (a radium gauge in Le Bon; his Brazilian-diamond footnote dropped) and the doped-phosphor paragraph (follow-up Q09).
  • 1906Max Wien, quenched spark gap ('impulse excitation') The gap goes out at the first current zero so the next circuit rings free of the first; the transmitter counterpart of Moray's stage-to-stage valve. Known from Wikipedia (citing Leggett 1921) and Bureau of Standards Circular 74 (follow-up Q16)
  • 1906-01-25R. J. Strutt, letter in Nature on undetected slow alpha particles Quoted in a Le Bon footnote that Moray's printing drops: ordinary matter may emit alphas below the detection threshold (about 9,000 km/s, 1.7 MeV); answered by nuclear binding energies (follow-up Q01)
  • 1906-02-17N. R. Campbell, Dr. Le Bon's Theories of Matter, The Athenaeum no.4086, pp.202-203 Le Bon's experiments 'perfectly inadequate'; light-provoked activity is not spontaneous radioactivity; replies pp.237-366 not read (follow-up Q12)
  • 1906-02-24'F. L.', reply defending Le Bon, The Athenaeum no.4087 Says Campbell's own case was quinine-sulphate luminescence, which Kalahne repeated and found chemical, as Le Bon said; Parodi repeated the phosphorescence experiments 'with perfect success'; Rutherford cites Le Bon 'without questioning their validity'. Saved text · writer of the journal's Research Notes defending his column; possibly the translator Legge (inference)
  • 1906-03-24'F. L.', follow-up letter on quinine sulphate, The Athenaeum no.4091 Sets out Le Bon 1900 and 1902 (hydration), Gates 1903 (radiation stopped by thin aluminium; no atomic emission), Kalahne 1905 and Gates 1906: supports Le Bon on chemical cause, not on atomic dissociation · same writer
  • 1906-10Ramsay and Spencer, Chemical and Electrical Changes induced by Ultra-violet Light, Phil. Mag. S.6 12:397-418 Repetition of Le Bon: tin amalgam 0.6 s against mercury 216 s; no positive leak, nothing through metal shields; the authors suggested disintegration or transmutation (follow-up Q12)
  • 1907Millikan and Winchester, photoelectric effects in high vacuum, Phil. Mag. S.6 14:188 Treat the Ramsay-Spencer data as photoelectric and reject their mechanism (follow-up Q12)
  • c.1907Gustave Le Bon, The Evolution of Forces, Part II (black light chapters) Copper zinc sulphide as an infrared reagent, calcium sulphide for blue-violet; Le Bon's black light was never confirmed; Rex Research full text (follow-up Q04)
  • 1913H. G. J. Moseley, The attainment of high potentials by the use of radium, Proc. Roy. Soc. A 88, 471-476 Radium beta cell in Rutherford's Manchester laboratory, the first atomic battery; probably the 'experiments dating back to 1913' the 1968 proposal cites (follow-up Q01, the investigator's identification)
  • 1915E. Leimer, 'Radium antenna' (abstract) Only period experiment on radium and an antenna
  • 1923-1924Oleg Losev, zincite negative-resistance amplifiers and oscillators Needed a bias supply; Wikipedia
  • 1924-1926H. E. Ives, alkali thin-film photoelectric papers (ApJ 60, 1924; BSTJ 5:320, 1926) Descend from Elster and Geitel's photosensitive metals; standing-wave mechanism unrelated to amalgams or to Moray's detector (follow-up Q12; Ives project)
  • 1925J. E. Lilienfeld, field-effect patents (Canada 1925; US 1,745,175, 1930) Solid-state amplification before Bell Labs; Wikipedia
  • 1925-06-09Hermann Plauson, US 1,540,998, atmospheric-energy collector In the Nuenergy compilation (pdf p.83): zinc, gold or polonium amalgam patches on the collector balloon; photocurrents of nanoamperes per 100 cm2 (follow-up Q12)
  • 1927Prince and Vogdes, Principles of Mercury Arc Rectifiers and Their Circuits McGraw-Hill; mercury condensed on the anode 'causes the formation of a cathode spot there' (arc-back); Internet Archive text searched (follow-up Q15)
  • 1928Preston and Porter, The Theory of Light, p.588 Oscillating Leyden-jar 'back-rush' passage that Isotopes booklet p.25 turns into atomic 'disintegration and transformation'; Google Books snippet; edition used unknown (follow-up Q08)
  • 1928A. Guntherschulze, Electric Rectifiers and Valves (transl. de Bruyne) Wiley; glow rectifiers by unequal cathode falls (alkali 80 V against platinum 180 V), the Argonal rectifier with alkali in a mercury cathode, pp.46, 54, 153-155, 162, 192-194 (follow-up Q15)
  • 1929Tonks and Langmuir, Oscillations in ionized gases Plasma oscillation background
  • 1930-05General Radio Experimenter: the dynatron oscillator Negative resistance from secondary emission
  • 1934-10Halloran, 'Farnsworth's Cold-Cathode Electron Multiplier Tube Uses Neither Grid Nor Filament', RADIO Cold-cathode multipactor oscillator with no heater; reprinted by Borderland Sciences (follow-up Q17)
  • 1936P. T. Farnsworth, US 2,139,813, Secondary emission electrode Secondary emission 'at a ratio greater than unity', meaning electron yield, not energy (follow-up Q17)
  • 1936P. T. Farnsworth, US 2,184,910, Cold cathode electron discharge tube Names an anode battery as the power supply (follow-up Q17)
  • 1936-04-03Wireless World, 'New Electron Multipliers' (Farnsworth IRE demonstration, 4 Mar 1936) Cold-cathode multipactors of 200-4,000 W to 300 MHz, 'efficiency as high as 90%'; the oscillator 'takes energy from the battery in the anode circuit' (follow-up Q17)
  • 1944O. Glasser (ed.), Medical Physics vol.1, 'Roentgen Rays', pp.1354-1355 Copied nearly word for word on Isotopes booklet pp.20-23; Glasser's 'reduced number of valence electrons' becomes the silver-to-cadmium change; Google Books snippets (follow-up Q08)
  • 1966Paracelsus Research Society Bulletin No. 29 'Mark J. Hagmann, M.A., covered transmutations'
  • 1972Okuto and Crowell, ionization coefficient in semiconductors (PRB 6, 3076; also PRB 10, 4284, 1974; Solid-State Electronics 18, 161, 1975) Screenshot in folder; papers not open access
  • 1985IEEE author biography of Mark J. Hagmann B.S. physics BYU 1960, Ph.D. electrical engineering Utah 1978; probable identity of the 1970 defendant
  • 1989Borderland Sciences editor's note on a Farnsworth multipactor tube Tube lent by Farnsworth's widow; it 'may produce over 100% efficiency'; further tests promised, no result found (follow-up Q17) · alternative-energy foundation testing the tube
  • 1996Kishek, Lau and Gilgenbach, Temporal evolution of multipactor discharge In the project folder (aa-new); saturation 'by its loading of the cavity'; an overshoot can release up to 20% of stored energy (follow-up Q17)
  • 1998Kishek and Lau, Multipactor discharge on a dielectric In the project folder (aa-new); lower and upper field thresholds for multipactor (follow-up Q17)
  • 1999Collins et al., triggered decay of hafnium-178m2 by dental X-rays, PRL 82, 695 About 4% rise in decay lines claimed; a real nuclear store with a disputed trigger (follow-up Q18)
  • 2001Ahmad et al., Argonne retest of hafnium-178m2 triggering, PRL 87, 072503 'No induced decay was observed'; limit more than five orders below Collins (follow-up Q18)
  • 2008Lawrence Livermore evaluation of the DARPA TRIP hafnium results 'Statistically marginal and inconsistent'; known through Wikipedia's quotation (follow-up Q18)
  • 2010A. Franklin, review of Weber's neutrino-detection claim Weber's stiff-crystal enhancement of about 1e23 tested at least four times with null results (Franson and Jacobs 1992; Eot-Wash; Luo et al. 1995; Feng et al. 2006, '526 times smaller'); bears on the hidden-channel form of Claim 3 (follow-up Q09)
  • 2018Borexino Collaboration, solar neutrino luminosity, Nature 562, 505 Neutrino luminosity within about 10% of the photon luminosity; bounds any hidden channel to a few per cent of the Sun's output without excluding it (follow-up Q09)
  • 2018Chiara et al., isomer depletion of molybdenum-93m, Nature 554, 216 1% depletion per ion credited to electron capture; theory 9 orders lower (Wu 2019) (follow-up Q18)
  • 2022Guo et al., molybdenum-93m retest, PRL 128, 242502 Upper limit 2e-5 per ion (follow-up Q18)
  • 2023Lyden, US 11,588,421 B1 Reads Farnsworth's 'ratio greater than unity' (secondary yield) as 'over unity' (follow-up Q17) · patentee
  • 2026Ding et al., 93mMo depletion by inelastic nuclear scattering, PRL 2.0e-5 in lead, 4.7e-6 in carbon, by nuclear scattering, not electron capture; abstract via Europe PMC (follow-up Q18)

Records named but not yet examined (16)

  • 1903F. Gates, Physical Review letter (McGill) on quinine-sulphate radiation First-hand text behind the F. L. reply
  • c.1905Parodi, memoir to the Institut Egyptien repeating Le Bon's phosphorescence experiments Reported 'with perfect success' only in the F. L. reply; no second source found yet
  • 1905Kalahne, 'Ueber die Strahlung des Chininsulfates', Annalen der Physik No phosphorescence or ionisation without water vapour, per the F. L. reply
  • 1906-01F. Gates, Physical Review letter (Cavendish) on dried quinine sulphate First-hand text behind the F. L. reply
  • 1910-1915Uppsala, Swedish church or police registration under 'James Cain Larson' Decides the doctorate claim
  • 1930sFletcher or Bell Labs telegram about the New York test No document either way; John Moray: 'no such correspondence exists in Moray's files'
  • 1939-1944NARA RG 46 Senate Agriculture Committee exhibits (Frazer testimony, Wood report) Series NAID 560253
  • 19401940 Salt Lake newspaper story that 'the Germans had tried to assassinate him' Slattery says it reached the papers; not found in about 40 searches
  • 1950sRecords of any silver-to-cadmium or resonance-transmutation test Notebooks, assays or spectrograms; none in the folder (follow-up Q08)
  • 1957-1963Witness statements for the 1957 and 1963 demonstrations About a dozen witnesses in 1957 (digest only); Eyring 1963
  • 1958-1970W. J. Hooper papers (Principia College) Named by the arbiter for the gold work
  • 1974Perreault's surviving tubes and Moray's notebook (Stan Mahurin) Gamma spectroscopy and composition would test the dopant account. Gas fill, pressure, gap and electrode surfaces would decide between a gas-gap, multipactor and crystal reading; a germanium gamma spectrum would show fission or activation products against natural lines (follow-ups Q17, Q18)
  • 1974Mary Jo Nye, Gustave LeBon's black light, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 4:163-195 The standard history of Le Bon's reception; found, paywalled, not read (follow-up Q12)
  • 1989-1991Journal of Borderland Research: result of the 1989 multipactor test Promised in the 1989 note; no result found (follow-up Q17)
  • c.1990Foster's 1990 letter, the press log and the 'Project X' contractor Would show whether the flash was stored energy or a short circuit of the press supply
  • undatedDARPA TRIP report on hafnium isomer triggering Restricted (FOUO); described as confirming Collins; not seen (follow-up Q18)

Left out: 26 earlier AI-written analyses, notes in the project folder and a 2018 enquiry to Uppsala University, duplicates, an unrelated shell script, 12 background papers not about Moray, web background on Le Bon's reception (L. Poincare 1907, Kragh 2012, a 2019 blog post) and the physics references behind the Q09 and Q15-Q18 checks (Planck 2018, CNO neutrinos, helioseismology, bound-state decay, isotope tables, work functions, LISA Pathfinder, ECSS multipactor standard, injection-locking and antenna-scattering papers, NEET and photofission data). Four minor family and address notices in Utah newspapers are counted but not listed. Full catalogue: Morray-TH sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A power meter, spectrum analyser and oscilloscope on the antenna and ground leads, in a mains-isolated room wired by a sceptic, with a driven-rod ground, calorimetry on the box, a 24-hour run, an antenna-less run and a dummy-detector blank.

Deciding records: FBI file 917273 (released 2000); Shinkle's 1936 Army report (NARA RG 407); Wood's full 1939 report and REA files (RG 221, Carmody Papers); the Ottawa Bray fonds letters 1928-57; the 1932 Washoe County case file; Moray's notebooks; Foster's 1990 letter and press log; gamma spectroscopy of Perreault's surviving tubes for Pb-210 and radium daughters.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it repeats Moray's own Appendix IV, compares it with cosmic rays and sunlight, shows resonance raises voltage but not power, and sizes the batteries for the 1926, 1928 and 1938 runs. By hand: 115 W for 157.9 h is about 18 kWh, about 500 kg of lead-acid.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter About 30 named people on about 25 dated occasions say they saw lamps lit with no visible source. That is strong evidence the effects occurred as seen. What it cannot settle, because no one metered the leads, is where the energy came from. arbiter.md, Claim 1
  2. Investigator Moray describes his cascade valve as a gas gap that fires 'when a certain voltage is reached' and stops at reduced voltage, 'much like a bucket brigade', 'a blocked circuit of no return' (4th ed. pp.55-56): a one-way coupler like Wien's quenched gap. 'Rectifier' fits only its receiver use (p.139). sites.md, Lead 46 (follow-up Q16)
  3. Contrarian The honest position: observed, partly checked, never measured, never replicated, never opened by a neutral party. The decisive test was never run by anyone, and the surviving record shows both sides declined to set it up. contrarian.md, Overall assessment
  4. Physicist The 1938 capacitor test is the most informative single observation: 100 W through a lead carrying under 0.1 A needs over 1 kV. It matches Moray's 'high voltage, low current' description, and equally a hidden high-voltage source. It does not locate the energy source. physicist.md, Physics of the witness record
  5. Investigator The Ottawa Arthur Bray fonds holds letters, witness accounts and drawings about Moray, 1928-1959, kept by Canadian government engineer Wilbert B. Smith outside the family's editing. Not digitised; copies must be ordered. sites.md, Lead 18

AI noteRadiant Energy's radioactivity pages, including its call to take up Rutherford's experiments again, are copied almost verbatim and uncredited from Gustave Le Bon's The Evolution of Matter (1905).

Rank 3Government

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 13:25

US government files on cold fusion, scalar waves, tachyons and space-time propulsion: an unreplicated heat-and-helium record sits beside claims refuted by one-line physics the reader can check.

Invention / theory background

Not one inventor but a folder of US government-held documents: a 1987 memo on Bearden-style scalar waves from a DIA science-and-technology office, held in CIA's STARGATE remote-viewing files; DIA report DIA-08-0911-003 (Beverly Barnhart, 2009) on low-energy nuclear reactions (cold fusion); Alan Holt's NASA TM-80961 (1979) on field-resonance propulsion; Feinberg's 1970 tachyon article, filed by CIA; and uncredited mind-control infographics.

Ranking explanation

Third. Below Morray-TH, whose witnessed box demonstrations are one inventor's sustained anomaly. Above TernionAG, whose untested resonance claim has no institutional record or heat-and-helium data behind it. Here the cold-fusion heat question is genuinely open (Never properly tested), with China Lake and ENEA data, a 2023 ARPA-E programme and a traced memo folder. Against it: most other claims fall to calculation, and DIA's sourcing leans on its own LENR contributors.

Key supporting elements

  1. China Lake (Miles, Bush, Johnson 1996, a Navy report): up to 0.52 W and 30% excess heat; helium-4 matched heat in 30 of 33 runs at 1e11 to 1e12 atoms per second per watt, bracketing the 2.6e11 fusion value.
  2. A third group, Italy's ENEA (De Ninno et al. 2002), reports heat and helium measured together over intervals under an hour; only its title page was read, and two authors had proposed a theory of the effect.
  3. Fairness point kept by the arbiter: DIA says cells need several hundred hours of loading, so the fast 1989 replications were not a fair test. The 2004 DOE review split evenly; ARPA-E funded eight LENR projects in 2023.
  4. The memo's own STARGATE folder holds a proponent's experiment: Glen Rein's 'Tesla watch' cut noradrenaline uptake in nerve cells by 19.5% (6 dishes per group). Field unmeasured, printed p-value not reproduced, no replication: Never properly tested.
  5. Real physics sits beside each claim: microwave hearing (Frey effect) is Established and speech by pulse-timed microwaves (Sharp and Grove) Plausible, untested; laser megagauss fields are real; Feinberg ran his own tachyon search and reported the null.

Key contradictions

  1. DIA has no data of its own: 16 of 54 endnotes trace to its five LENR-researcher contributors; per New Energy Times it grew from their 2009 SPAWAR workshop. Notes misstate Arata, Violante, the explosions and China Lake's first helium date.
  2. Ordinary d+d fusion cannot carry the heat: 1 W needs 1.9e12 neutrons/s. CR-39 tracks are about 9 orders short; the authors' 2021 claim of 14.1 MeV neutrons needs tritium, which the abstract does not report.
  3. Miles admits air helium leaks into Pyrex flasks at about the detection limit and 'we have not been able to solve the reproducibility problem'; helium held in untreated steel equals up to 31% of a one-hour 0.5 W signal.
  4. The memo's scalar wave is pure gauge (E = B = 0, no energy). Bearden's two out-of-phase beams fail by linear superposition: cancelled beams carry nothing; partial ones are radio, damped to 5.5e-18 after 1 km of seawater.
  5. Holt's flare premise fails on his own 3000 gauss figure (a 10,000 km cube holds the energy); his NASA abstracts to 2004 never define the space-time harmonic. A 10 Hz beam cannot focus on a head (30,000 km wavelength).
Verdicts by claim (8 of 23 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Anomalous excess heat in some palladium/deuterium cells (DIA, China Lake)Never properly tested no pre-registered, blind, multi-lab test of one fixed protocol
The heat is nuclear: helium-4 tracking heat, CR-39 particle tracks, transmutationNever properly tested unknown mechanism; helium and tracks contested, transmutation papers unread Refuted by calculation ordinary d+d fusion at lattice temperature
DIA: LENR 'has begun to be accepted' as 'reproducible and legitimate'Never properly tested reproducible (the excess-heat claim) Not testable as stated accepted (a claim about people, not nature)
A scalar wave with E = 0 and B = 0 exists, carries energy, penetrates seawater and draws vacuum energy (1987 memo)Established as mathematics only: pure gauge Refuted by calculation carrying energy or a signal Not testable as stated non-EM seawater carrier; vacuum or seawater energy
Proponents' material in the memo's folder: Bearden's two-beam scalar interferometry and Rein's 'Tesla watch' cell effectRefuted by calculation two cancelling beams penetrating seawater Not testable as stated detection only at a 4-8 T magnet pole Never properly tested Rein's nerve-cell effect
Laser megagauss fields tuned to a distant space-time point relocate a craft (Holt, NASA TM-80961)Established laser megagauss fields and reconnection, not at craft scale Refuted by calculation premise that reconnection cannot power flares Not testable as stated EM-gravity resonance and relocation
Faster-than-light particles (tachyons) exist (Feinberg 1970)Established imaginary-mass kinematics as consistent mathematics Tested, not supported existence of tachyons Historically superseded but instructive the 1970 research programme
Microwave or ELF beams affect the body and mind at a distance (infographics)Established microwave auditory (Frey) effect Plausible, untested speech by pulse-timed microwaves (Sharp-Grove, reported) Refuted by calculation focused standoff ELF stimulation of a brain region Not testable as stated thought insertion and radar ID by brain waves

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Beverly BarnhartPrepared the 2009 DIA report on low-energy nuclear reactionsDIA/DI, Defense Warning Office; prepared report DIA-08-0911-003 with five named LENR-researcher contributors. Education and career: not in the review files.
Dr. Jack VoronaAddressee of the 1987 scalar-waves memo ('DT (Dr. Vorona)')Named in a 1984 US Army INSCOM memo as Assistant Vice Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, DIA, heading DT and keeping overall DIA oversight of the psychoenergetic (remote-viewing) programme. Education: not in the review files.
Tom BeardenNamed in the memo as 'a chief proponent' of drawing energy from the vacuum; his 'Star Wars Now' is excerpted in the same folder · proponent of the scalar-wave claims the memo summarisesLt Col (memo's title for him); known for his 'Fer-de-Lance' briefing on 'Soviet Scalar Weapons'; per the staff note, worked with Faretto, Dea and Bedini, funded by Josh Reynolds and Essentia Research. Reviewed in this series' Bearden project.
Glen ReinAuthor of the 'Tesla watch' nerve-cell experiment filed in the memo's folder · supporter of the scalar principle reporting his own experimentProposed a 'Crystalline Transduction Theory' of scalar energy acting on cells; cites Puharich, Persinger and Bearden. Education and career: not in the review files.
Alan C. HoltAuthor of NASA TM-80961, Field Resonance Propulsion Concept (1979)NASA Johnson Space Center; 1979 University of Houston master's thesis on hydromagnetic waves and field-line merging; later in Space Station programme offices, proposing advanced EM and 'breakthrough' propulsion tests through 2004 (NTRS abstracts).
Gerald FeinbergAuthor of the 1970 Scientific American tachyon article held in CIA files; ran one of the searchesColumbia University physicist who says he named the tachyon; with Ballay, Linsker and Yeh ran the bubble-chamber missing-mass search and reported its null result himself.
Pamela Mosier-BossDIA report contributor; first author of the CR-39 triple-track papers it cites · LENR researcher whose own work the DIA report cites as evidenceUS Navy SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific, San Diego; Pd/D co-deposition work with Szpak; answered Kowalski's 2008 critique in print; with Forsley published the 2021 re-examination 'Nuclear Generated Tracks or Artifacts?'.
M. H. MilesLead author of the China Lake heat-and-helium report (1996), the best-sourced LENR evidence read in the reviewNaval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake; ONR-funded programme from 1992, earlier work from 1989; first reported helium in March 1991. Education: not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (123 of 125 listed, 98%)

Government records (14)

  • 1979-08Field Resonance Propulsion Concept (NASA TM-80961, JSC-16073, NTIS N80-19184) Alan C. Holt, NASA Johnson Space Center; private, unofficial research with a NASA disclaimer; presented June 1979 at the 15th AIAA/SAE/ASME Joint Propulsion Conference; 15 pp, no equations; read in full
  • 1984-07-25US Army INSCOM memo "CENTER LANE Meeting with DIA - 20 July 1984" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001500100012-3) Names "Dr. Jack Vorona, Assistant Vice Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, DIA" and "DT (Dr. Vorona's office)"; signed by CENTER LANE Project Manager LTC Brian Buzby (OCR); STARGATE collection; found by the Investigator; places the memo's DT in DIA
  • 1987-12-22Memo "Scalar Waves" (CIA-RDP96-00792R000500240001-6) From DT-ACO (name redacted) to DT (Dr. Vorona), a DIA science-and-technology intelligence office by inference from the office symbol; CONFIDENTIAL/NOFORN, redactions SG1B and SG1J, handwritten edits; released 2001-03-07 in CIA's STARGATE files; 3 pp, Gaussian-unit equations read from page images
  • 1989US DOE Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB) cold fusion panel report Found the 1989 results "did not present convincing evidence"; known here only from a Wikipedia summary · institutional reviewer
  • 1996-09Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems (NAWCWPNS TP 8302) M. H. Miles, B. F. Bush, K. B. Johnson, Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake; ONR-funded; internally reviewed; DIA note 40; read from a copy on lenr-canr.org, an archive run by supporters of the field · the experimenters' own account of their results
  • 2002Experimental evidence of 4He production in a cold fusion experiment (ENEA RT/2002/41/FUS) De Ninno, Frattolillo, Rizzo (ENEA Frascati), Del Giudice, Preparata; heat and helium measured together over intervals under one hour on a Pd stripe cathode; 26 pp; title page and snippets only, pp.2-26 unread · Del Giudice and Preparata proposed a coherence theory of the effect
  • 2004US DOE Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Paper review; reviewers split about evenly on excess heat; negative reviewers called helium "very close to background"; no federal programme recommended; known only from a Wikipedia summary
  • 2009-11-13Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance (DIA-08-0911-003) Beverly Barnhart, DIA Defense Warning Office, with contributions from McDaniel, Mosier-Boss, McKubre, Forsley and DeChiaro; coordinated with DIA/DRI, CPT, DWO, DOE/IN, SPAWAR Pacific and NSWC Dahlgren; UNCLASSIFIED; 8 pp with 54 endnotes; read in full · written with five LENR researchers whose own work fills 16 of its 54 notes
  • 2017-03-22California State Threat Assessment Center 24-Hour Report UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO open-source news digest (terrorism, crime); in the zip "EM effects on human body"; no physics or EM content
  • 2017-06-26California State Threat Assessment Center 72-Hour Report Same format; in the zip; no physics or EM content
  • 2017-09-05California State Threat Assessment Center 96-Hour Report Same format; in the zip; keyword search for electromagnetic, microwave, directed energy and mind control found nothing
  • 2022-09ARPA-E Exploratory Topic on LENR and February 2023 awards $10 million to eight projects "to determine whether" LENR could underpin energy technology; known from search snippets only; arbiter's fetches failed; results not seen
  • –"Defense Technical Intelligence Report" signed Jack Vorona, DIA/DT-1A (NSA-RDP96X00790R000100020003-3) Google snippet only; not opened
  • –Memo from H. E. Puthoff to Dr. Jack Vorona (CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230021-2) Title only, via archive.org; not read

Government records: the memo's STARGATE folder (RDP96-00792R0005002400xx, 8 items) (6)

  • c.1984Staff note "TO: COL BUZBY FROM: (Sanitized)" (item 0002-5) 3 pp; excerpts of Bearden's "Star Wars Now" (24 April 1984) plus the writer's "logical extensions"; two out-of-phase beams, seawater penetration, 4-8 T magnet-pole detection, "at least 78" Soviet tests; SG1B/SG1J redactions; released 2003-09-09; OCR read in full · staff summary of the proponent's claims
  • –Canada Weekly "The Secret of Entebbe" (item 0003-4) Press clipping; title only
  • –Weekend Magazine "Weapon?" (item 0004-3) Press clipping; title only
  • –Saturday Review "Front Runners" (item 0005-2) Press clipping; title only
  • –Toronto Star "Metro man Israeli hero" (item 0006-1) Press clipping; title only
  • –Toronto Star "Hero of Entebbe..." (item 0007-0) Press clipping; title only

Own works and inventions (the documents' authors and the proponents they summarise) (13)

  • 1967Feinberg, "Possibility of faster-than-light particles", Physical Review 159, 1089 Cited from memory in the review; not in the article itself
  • 1970-02Feinberg, "Particles That Go Faster Than Light", Scientific American 222(2) Copy in CIA reading-room files (CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030001-9, released 2000-08-10); why CIA filed it is not stated; 9 pp read in full
  • 1979Holt, University of Houston master's thesis on hydromagnetic waves and magnetic field line merging Holt's own earlier work, cited in TM-80961
  • 1980Holt, "Prospects for a breakthrough in field-dependent 'propulsion'", 16th Joint Propulsion Conference Known from a search-result summary; not read
  • 1982-05Holt, "Starcraft", Science Digest Popular version; known from a search-result summary; not read
  • 1984-04-24Bearden, "STAR WARS NOW! The Bohm-Aharonov effect, scalar interferometry, and Soviet weaponization" Apparently held in the CIA reading room; seen in search results, not opened; known through the staff note to Col Buzby · proponent's own paper
  • 1986-05Holt, "Space station support of manned Mars missions" (NTRS 19870008374) Conventional mission support; no field propulsion; abstract only
  • 1988Bearden, "AIDS: Biological Warfare" Cited by Rein; not read · proponent's own work
  • 1989-07Holt, "Space Station Freedom - Accommodation for technology R&D", AIAA 89-2858 (NTRS 19890059759) Proposes testing "a hypothetical advanced electromagnetic propulsion system utilizing high-temperature superconductivity materials" on the station; abstract only
  • 1990-04Holt, "Spaceport operations for deep space missions", NASA Lewis Vision-21 (NTRS 19910012853) Calls for "breakthrough level propulsion research" to "be initiated now"; abstract only; full text public, unread
  • 1993-12Holt, "Space Station technology testbed: 2010 deep space transport" (NTRS 19940022865) In-space "tuning" of micro-engineered materials; abstract only; full text public, unread
  • 1999Holt, Davis and Puthoff, "Space testing of electromagnetically sensitive materials for breakthrough propulsion physics", AIAA 1999-2143 Title only; not read
  • 2004Holt, "Space Test and Operations Port for Exploration Missions", Space 2004 (NTRS 20050217407) Mentions "an advanced space propulsion testbed"; abstract only

Experiments and replications by others: cold fusion (LENR) (38)

  • 1989Fleischmann and Pons papers, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 261, 263, 287 The original excess-heat claims; DIA note 6; DIA says they did not show the expected radiation
  • 1992Zhang et al., laboratory explosion report, ICCF-3, Nagoya Chinese 1991 explosion "not believed to be chemical"; DIA notes 25 and 27
  • 1998Gozzi et al., heat-helium correlation report Named by a search snippet (Wikiversity mirror); not opened · proponent-side experimenters reporting their own results
  • 1998Arata and Zhang, helium report Named by the same snippet; not opened · proponent-side experimenters reporting their own results
  • 2002Iwamura et al., Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 41, 4642 Transmutation claim, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; DIA note 18; peer-reviewed; not read
  • 2003Swartz et al., JET Thermal excess heat and optimal operating points, ICCF-9 Beijing (2002) DIA note 39; conference paper
  • 2003Bockris, history of transmutation at Texas A&M, ICCF-10 DIA note 1; conference paper on an earlier transmutation programme
  • 2004Szpak et al., Thermochimica Acta 410, 101 SPAWAR excess energy; DIA note 33; peer-reviewed; not read · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2005Szpak et al., Naturwissenschaften 92, 394 SPAWAR transmutation; DIA notes 32 and 35; peer-reviewed; not read · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2006Roussetski, "Correct identification of energetic alpha and proton tracks in CR-39 detection", Condensed Matter Nuclear Science Outside group; found by Crossref; conclusions not read
  • 2007Mosier-Boss, Szpak, Gordon, Forsley, "Use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. The paper Kowalski commented on; title only · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2008ICCF-14 proceedings and abstracts, Washington Whole conference cited for heat, particles and India (DIA notes 2, 11, 14)
  • 2008Iwamura, ICCF-14 talks Mitsubishi funding and transmutation; DIA notes 8 and 16
  • 2008Hioki (Toyota), ICCF-14 Corporate interest; DIA note 9
  • 2008Celani, ICCF-14 DIA note 10
  • 2008Yamaguchi, ICCF-14 Transmutation; DIA note 17
  • 2008Violante (ENEA), "On the Correlation of PdD Alloy Material Properties with the Occurrence of Excess Power", ICCF-14 DIA note 20; cited for transmutation although the title is about excess power
  • 2008Lesin et al. (Energetics Technologies, Israel), pulsed currents and "superwaves", ICCF-14 DIA notes 28 and 47 · company presenting its own technology
  • 2008Mosier-Boss et al., ACS Symposium Series chapter on CR-39 tracks DOI 10.1021/bk-2008-0998.ch014; found by Crossref in the deep read; not read · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2008Kowalski, Comment on "The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (ap08217) Published critique, Montclair State University; snippet mentions "highly-localized regions of damaged material" and etching; site blocked by a bot check; argument unread
  • 2008Mosier-Boss, Szpak, Gordon, Forsley, "Reply to comment ...: a response to Kowalski", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 44, 291-295 Published reply; bibliographic only. A related "Comments on Co-deposition Electrolysis Results: A Response to Kowalski" is on Cambridge Core · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009Mosier-Boss et al., "Triple Tracks in CR-39 as the Result of Pd/D Co-deposition: Evidence of Energetic Neutrons", Naturwissenschaften 96, 135-142 DIA's only peer-reviewed particle source, cited three times (notes 12, 23, 34); Springer page behind a login, not obtained · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009Mosier-Boss et al., "Characterization of tracks in CR-39 detectors obtained as a result of Pd/D co-deposition", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. DOI 10.1051/epjap/2009067; same group follow-up; found by Crossref; not read · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009"Arata" (probably Kitamura et al.), Physics Letters A 373, 3109 DIA note 19 credits it to Arata; authorship mismatch is [memory, medium]; not read
  • 2009Biberian, Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science 2, 1-6 French laboratory explosion, photo on DIA p.4; DIA notes 26 and 54; in-field LENR journal
  • 2009Mizuno, "Neutron Emission ...", University of Missouri seminar DIA note 24
  • 2009Prelas, University of Missouri seminar Transmutation claims from several countries; DIA note 21
  • 2009-03Mosier-Boss, American Chemical Society meeting briefing SPAWAR "nuclear particles", probably nuclear reactions; DIA notes 13 and 37 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-05McKubre (SRI), University of Missouri seminar Excess heat and helium production at SRI; DIA notes 31 and 38 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-08SPAWAR Pacific LENR workshop briefings, San Diego, 4-5 August 2009 DIA note 22 (transmutation); per New Energy Times the report was based on this workshop; presenters Tanzella, McKubre, Swartz, Mosier-Boss, McDaniel, Forsley, Hagelstein, McGinnis · presenters are LENR researchers
  • 2009-08Mosier-Boss, SPAWAR briefings Anomalous heat, particles, transmutation; DIA note 30 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2010Mosier-Boss et al., "Comparison of Pd/D co-deposition and DT neutron generated triple tracks observed in CR-39 detectors", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 20901 DOI 10.1051/epjap/2010087; compares tracks with 14.1 MeV DT-generator neutron tracks; author list includes "Jack Y. Dea" (identity unknown); not read · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2017Savrasov et al., "CR-39 Detector Track Characterization in Experiments with Pd/D Co-deposition", JCMNS DOI 10.70923/001c.72415; outside group; conclusions not read
  • 2019Berlinguette et al., "Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion", Nature 570, 45 Google-funded multi-lab Pd-D attempt, described by Wikipedia as a failed replication; design and loading time not read
  • 2021Mosier-Boss and Forsley, "Interpreting CR-39 Detectors used in Pd/D Co-deposition: Nuclear Generated Tracks or Artifacts?", JCMNS 34(1):32-58 Abstract read: "notably 14.1 MeV neutrons", damage controls, an SRI replication examined by NASA and Russian Academy CR-39 experts; answers alternative explanations; 27-page body unread · the claimants' own review, in the field's society journal; both are DIA contributors
  • 2024-03Gillespie, Lin, Jones, Duncan (Texas Tech), "Helium Detection in Technical Materials", arXiv:2405.02307 Untreated 316 steel retains 15-240 pmol of He-4 and can reabsorb it from air; pretreatment needed when helium is nuclear evidence; abstract read by the arbiter; no heat measured
  • –De Ninno et al., "4He detection in a cold fusion experiment" Method for detecting small amounts of helium in gas mixtures; lenr-canr.org; snippet only
  • –"Characterization of Neutrons Emitted during Pd/D Co-deposition", JCMNS Found by Google; PDF not opened · SPAWAR co-deposition programme, the DIA contributors' own line of work

Experiments and replications by others: scalar-wave biology, tachyons and microwave hearing (11)

  • 1961Frey, microwave auditory effect (Journal of Applied Physiology 17, 689, 1962) First report of hearing pulsed microwaves; thermoelastic mechanism; known here from Wikipedia
  • c.1968Alvager and Kreisler, Princeton charged-tachyon Cerenkov search Cesium gamma source, lead shield, vacuum field region, photomultiplier; pair rate below 1/10,000 of electron-positron pairs; described in Feinberg 1970 pp.7-8
  • c.1969Ballay, Linsker, Yeh and Feinberg, Columbia missing-mass search About 6,000 K- captures on Brookhaven bubble-chamber photographs; 101 candidates, 23 after the capture-in-flight cut, 0 after remeasurement; limit under 1/400 of pion production; Feinberg 1970 p.8
  • c.1969Columbia antiproton-proton annihilation tachyon search Same group; no tachyons, no counts given; Feinberg 1970 p.9
  • 1974Sharp, Grove and Gandhi, "Generation of acoustic signals by pulsed microwave energy", IEEE Trans. MTT 22(5):583-584 Walter Reed; about the mechanism of microwave hearing, not speech; bibliographic only
  • c.1975A. W. Guy (University of Washington), Morse-code microwave-hearing demonstration Reported in Justesen 1975, per Broughton
  • c.1988Rein, "Interactions with scalar energy - cellular mechanisms of action" (CIA-RDP96-00792R000500240008-9) Item 0008 of the memo's folder; 6 pp; "Tesla watch" cut noradrenaline uptake in PC12 nerve cells 19.5% at 30 min (n = 6 per group, printed p < 0.01, not reproduced); field not measured; Crystalline Transduction Theory; OCR read · a supporter of the scalar principle reporting his own experiment
  • 2011OPERA superluminal neutrino result Traced to an instrument fault; Wikipedia, as cited by the reviewers
  • –Byrd, EEG recordings with the Tesla watch Cited by Rein; not read
  • –Persinger, mast-cell degranulation under two cancelling 0.5 Hz, 10 uT fields Cited by Rein, who says the scalar field was not measured; not read
  • –Puharich / Max Planck, E. coli gene activation Cited by Rein; not read

Theory and reference papers cited (14)

  • 1962Bilaniuk, Deshpande and Sudarshan, "Meta" relativity, American Journal of Physics 30, 718 Reinterpretation of negative-energy tachyon states (Rochester); described in Feinberg p.5
  • 1963Grief and Tolhurst, wind-tunnel tests of a circular plan-form aircraft with peripheral jet Holt's source for the winged-disc craft
  • 1976Nishihara and Ohsawa, magnetic field generation from resonance absorption (Physics of Fluids) Holt reference; real laser-plasma physics per the reviewers
  • 1977Kruer and Estabrook, laser light and self-generated magnetic fields (Physics of Fluids) Holt reference
  • 1978Max et al., enhanced magnetic field generation (Physics of Fluids) Holt reference
  • 1979Rachman and Dutheil, special relativity in a "superliminal world" Holt says the mathematical relationships are there; none shown
  • 1982PACE newsletter Cited by Rein; not read
  • 2003Tsvetkov, ICCF-10 Waste transmutation and weapons-of-mass-destruction uses; DIA note 48
  • 2006Sinha and Meulenberg, Current Science 91, 907 LENR stimuli theory; DIA note 46; peer-reviewed
  • 2008Srivastava, Panella and Widom, arXiv:0811.3293 LENR theory preprint; DIA note 43
  • 2009Hagelstein and Chaudhary, LENR theory briefing DIA note 41
  • 2009-08Hagelstein, SPAWAR briefing DIA note 44
  • 2009-08McDaniel, SPAWAR briefing DIA note 45 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • –Olenik and Arepjev, Kiev Polytechnic LENR theory; DIA note 42 gives no venue or date

Witness accounts and correspondence (6)

  • 1973-09-28Sharp and Grove (Walter Reed), personal communication to D. R. Justesen The source Justesen 1975 gives for speech conveyed by pulse-timed microwaves ("recognizable words were reportedly perceived"), per Broughton; citation page not seen
  • 2009-05Forsley, Louvain colloquium talk Briefings to institutes abroad; DIA note 51 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-08-28DeChiaro, briefing for DDR&E Corporate and state funding; DIA note 7 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-10Personal correspondence, Dr. Michael McKubre, SRI International DIA note 50 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-10Personal correspondence, Mr. Lawrence Forsley, JWK International DIA note 52 · contributor to the DIA report (LENR researcher); the report cites this as evidence
  • 2009-11-23DIA Public Affairs email: "This is a DIA document." Reply to a Wikipedia editor asking whether DIA-08-0911-003 was real; as posted by New Energy Times, not independently verified

Later accounts and media (12)

  • 1975-03Justesen, "Microwaves and Behavior", American Psychologist 30(3):391-401 VA Hospital, Kansas City; the published account of the Sharp-Grove speech result; scan located (zoryglaser.com), p.1 read only
  • 1991Mallove, Fire from Ice Proponent's history of cold fusion; primer further reading
  • 1992Huizenga, Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century Sceptical account by the 1989 DOE panel co-chair; primer further reading
  • 2007Storms, The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Proponent's review of the experimental literature; primer further reading
  • 2008-01-17Jayaraman, Nature India news item on India's LENR restart DIA note 29, via lenr-canr.org
  • 2009New Energy Times, HTML copy of the DIA report with its origin and coordination line Steven Krivit's site; says the report was based on the 4-5 August 2009 SPAWAR workshop; lists presenters; read · a party with an interest in the field's coverage
  • 2009-04CBS 60 Minutes cold fusion segment DIA note 49
  • 2017Infographic "Bio-Electromagnetic field" (2RNM.jpg) Credited to Supratik Saha; brain-wave bands and radar identification of a person; cites no sources
  • 2017Diagram "Remote Mind Control / Remote Brain Mapping" (9RNM.jpg) Uncredited; "ELF brain stimulation" frequency table (motor cortex 10 Hz, auditory 15 Hz ...); cites no sources; read from the image
  • 2017Chart "Psycho-Electronic Weapon Effects" (EM effects on human body.gif) Watermark raven1.net; effects list from microwave hearing to forced speech, Gulf War shocks and break-ins; the Sharp 1974 note; cites no sources
  • –AFCEA SIGNAL article on the DIA report Seen in search results for "DIA-08-0911-003"; not opened
  • –Martin Broughton Research & Analysis, "Encoded communication: Morse code, speech" Secondary analysis of the Justesen and Sharp-Grove-Gandhi records; read

Records named but not yet examined (9)

  • 1986IEEE-sponsored Tesla conference proceedings named in the memo Not named in the memo; probably the 1986 International Tesla Symposium [memory, medium]
  • 2021Coordinated LENR study planned after the 2019 Nature paper Known from a secondary source only
  • –Bearden, "Fer-de-Lance" briefing on "Soviet Scalar Weapons" Named in the memo p.2; not read in this review · proponent's own briefing
  • –Redacted SG1B/SG1J portions of items 0001-0002, unreleased CENTER LANE/DT files and any DT response on scalar waves Would decide between "collecting proponents' material" (best fit to the released folder) and "work done and withheld"
  • –Records of any test flown or run on Holt's proposals None found in a one-site NTRS search
  • –SRI replication of the CR-39 work and the NASA and Russian Academy examiners' own reports Named in the 2021 JCMNS abstract; tritium measurement unknown; not seen
  • –Walter Reed report of the Sharp-Grove speech trial with power, pulse width and repetition rate Not found
  • –ARPA-E LENR project results Eight projects funded 2023; no results seen
  • –Independent blind replication of the heat-to-helium ratio Searched; none found

Left out: two background works cited by DIA for energy per mass (a nuclear engineering textbook and a Los Alamos note), four DIA explanatory notes with no source, other copies of the DIA report, Wikipedia pages used as secondary sources, and macOS junk in the zip. Full catalogue: Government sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A pre-registered, blinded, multi-lab run of one fixed Pd/D loading protocol for 500+ hours, with about 0.1% calorimetry, helium-4 measured against heat (2.6e11 atoms per joule) in pretreated, helium-blanked metal hardware, a light-water null cell, and an independent neutron counter beside any CR-39.

Deciding records: ENEA RT/2002/41/FUS pages 2-26; the 2021 JCMNS body and the NASA and Russian CR-39 examiners' reports; Kowalski's 2008 comment; Naturwissenschaften 2009; ARPA-E project results; the redacted and unreleased CENTER LANE/DT files; Bearden's full STAR WARS NOW!; Holt's NTRS full texts; the Justesen page citing Sharp and Grove.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it shows the memo's scalar wave gives E = B = 0 for any S, then computes seawater skin depth, Bearden's cancelled beams, 2.6e11 helium atoms per joule, the steel helium background, Rein's t-test and Holt's flare cube. Primer question 3 does the cold-fusion ash count by hand.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter An effect that explains away failures by unspecified incubation is close to unfalsifiable until the protocol is fixed in advance. Neither side has supplied a pre-registered protocol run blind by independent labs; that is why 'never properly tested' fits the heat claim better than 'tested, not supported'. arbiter.md, Claim 2, Arbitration point 2
  2. Arbiter The proponents offer the CR-39 tracks as evidence that something nuclear happens, not as the heat channel, so the rate argument bears on the heat budget, not on whether the tracks are nuclear. The 7.9 MeV threshold rules out primary d+d neutrons, not 14.1 MeV d+t ones. arbiter.md, Investigator findings, F2.2
  3. Arbiter The memo's released folder holds a proponent's summary, a proponent's experiment and five unrelated clippings, with no test, tasking or assessment. 'Collecting proponents' material' now fits best; 'work done and withheld' cannot be excluded while the redacted parts are unseen. arbiter.md, Investigator findings, F1.3
  4. Contrarian Nothing in the new record shows suppression of any claim in the folder. Holt kept proposing tests inside NASA for 25 years; the DIA report was fed by a proponents' workshop; a DOE agency is now funding a neutral look at LENR. Only LENR has a rejection history. contrarian.md, Investigator findings, Cross-cutting update
  5. Primer The authority trap, both ways: a CIA or DIA file stamp does not make a claim true, and dismissal by a panel does not make it false. Checking a report's footnotes is the first test of an official-looking claim. primer.md, section 7, Wrong, and why the mistake is instructive

AI noteThe scalar-weapons note in the memo's folder is addressed to 'Col Buzby', very probably the Army's CENTER LANE remote-viewing project manager, and is filed beside five press clippings, two titled on Entebbe.

Rank 4TernionAG

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:59

A 1930s Swiss-funded inventor patented sharp 'natural frequencies' that change food and chemicals beyond heating; never properly tested, cited in microwave-oven patents, and its research reports vanished.

Invention / theory background

Ernst E. W. Kassner, a German engineer, patented in 1931-36 the idea that dipolar substances such as water, juice and serum have sharp 'natural frequencies' at which a concentrated field, chiefly a standing field with the substance as a resonator's dielectric, changes them beyond heating: preserving food, altering colloids, curing rubber. Ternion AG of Glarus (1932, Max Stoffel) carried CHF 1.12 million of loan-financed research and voted to liquidate in December 1937. Kassner died in Munich by 1962.

Ranking explanation

Criteria A, B and C. Its central claim, a sharp resonance dispersion, remains Never properly tested, the research reports go dark after five funded years, and the deciding permittivity sweep is a cheap bench measurement. It sits below Morray-TH and Government, whose open questions rest on witnessed demonstrations or laboratory data, while Ternion's rest on the patentee's own text. It sits above Tesla, more of whose claims are already settled as Established or Refuted by calculation.

Key supporting elements

  1. Kassner's 1936 disc-resonator theory is correct: his own worked example reproduces within about 1 percent (100.8 ohms against his printed 102), and his water band near 1.5 cm is real Debye relaxation.
  2. The patents were noticed: abstracted in Chemical Abstracts (1935), cited in chemistry references and The Botanical Review (1944), and listed as references in Spencer's 1945 Raytheon microwave-cooking patent and Raytheon's 1954 fruit-juice patent.
  3. Goodrich and Firestone announced in January 1945 that they had bought basic electronic-vulcanisation patents based on discoveries of Dufour, Le Duc and Kassner; a 1950 Goodrich paper names US 2,089,966 and 2,109,843 in the portfolio.
  4. Others later claimed similar effects: Arnold (refused as 'too broad and indefinite', not on the physics) and Heller (Nature 1959, 'No temperature increase'); and high-frequency fields measurably cut electrolysis overpotential at a heated catalyst (Niether 2018).
  5. The deciding test is cheap and was never recorded as done. The contrarian calls this the signature of 'never properly tested', not 'tested and failed'; Kassner reported heating beside his claimed effects rather than hiding it.

Key contradictions

  1. A Debye band is broad (Q about 0.3; water at its own band has Q about 1); the claimed 2 percent band is about 170 times narrower, and Kassner's 1934 French patents describe his natural frequencies as Debye relaxation frequencies.
  2. His 1932 tuning figures (10 cm disc at 30 cm, 6.2 cm at 18.6 cm, 39 cm at 116 cm) all follow wavelength = 3 x diameter, which matches no root of his own correct 1936 Bessel theory.
  3. Every food, colloid and seed result is a single patentee run with no sample count or heat-matched control; foods warmed 2.5 to 4.5 K, and Kassner himself wrote that absorption is 'especially great in the case of resonance'.
  4. Analogue sharp-line claims in cells at 26-90 GHz were looked for and not found (Gandhi 1980 swept spectra; Gos 1997 controlled repeat); these test the class of claim, not Kassner's own bands.
  5. The buyers described the 1945 process as uniform heating (an interested party's account), and the board's own 1937 minutes give a financial end: 'complete lack of further funds', with patents lapsed for unpaid fees.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 16 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Dipolar substances have sharp natural frequencies (electrolytes about 2 percent wide, serum near 90 cm, water near 1.5 cm)Established water's broad Debye band near 1.5 cm Never properly tested Kassner's sharp resonance bands in electrolytes, serum, colloids Tested, not supported analogue sharp-line claims in cells at 26-90 GHz (class evidence only)
A resonant field permanently alters 'energy content'; a frozen-in oriented substance re-radiates on thawingEstablished conventional electret storage, about a microjoule per cm^2 Not testable as stated 'energy content' gain and same-wavelength re-radiation Never properly tested a controlled, resonance-specific version
Practical effects: food preservation, colloid changes, catalyst-free curing, seed growth, effects on men and animalsEstablished thermal RF curing, drying, vulcanisation Never properly tested resonance-specific preservation, colloid, seed and chemistry effects Not testable as stated effects 'in men and animals'
A plate pair is a tunable resonator following Bessel-zero theoryEstablished the 1934-36 Bessel mode theory Internally inconsistent the 1932 tuning rule for the stated geometry Never properly tested that the sample, not the apparatus, resonates
Valves, coaxial resonators, wavemeter and polarimeter with tuning tables and 'about 40 percent' efficiencyEstablished 1930s decimetre generation in general Plausible, untested the tuning tables Never properly tested 'about 40 percent' efficiency
Commercial significance: the 1945 Goodrich/Firestone purchase and Voss's 'foresaw the microwave oven'Established the purchase, as a press and trade record Not testable as stated that the purchase validates the resonance mechanism Historically superseded but instructive Voss's 'foresaw the microwave oven'
Essay's claim: weaponised binding energies; defence interests suppressed TernionNever properly tested suppression, as history: deciding records unread Refuted by calculation single-photon or weak-field change of bond energy
Essay's claim: net energy from a closed electrolysis cycle, or from electrolysis assisted by a resonant standing field or radiated RFRefuted by calculation closed cycle, or total work below dG = 237.1 kJ/mol Established field-assisted overpotential cut of 100-200 mV at a heated catalyst (abstracts only) Plausible, untested net energy gain with the field power counted Never properly tested Kassner's standing field or radiating field applied to electrolysis

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Ernst Eduard Wilhelm KassnerInventor: author of the Ternion patents and of later Vibranic, Universal Inventions and General Infra workGerman national (no education recorded in the review files). Addresses: Berlin 1931, Arbon 1932, London 1934-36, Bern 1938, Zürich 1943 (engineer, board member of General Infra Co AG, Chur), Montana-Vermala by 1951. Patents from about 1921 (identity of the earliest unproven) to 1960; named as deceased ('†, München') on the 1962 print of DE 1,128,930.
Max StoffelFounder, sole director and liquidator of Ternion AG; founder of Dipol A.-G.; chairman of Vibranic Ltd (1945) · Ternion's principal shareholder (60 of 100 shares at founding) and later buyer of patent rights through VibranicEntered in the register as a merchant (Kaufmann) of Arbon, resident in St. Gallen. A Swiss federal judge of the same name, born in Arbon in 1911, is documented; whether he is the same man is unresolved and must not be assumed.
Friedrich Wilhelm Otto (F. W. O.) BauchPhysicist said by his 1996 obituary to have worked on a Ternion UHF project while seconded to the GEC Research Laboratories in 1934-35Born about 1903-04 in Berlin; physics in Berlin; 1928 steel-tape recorder patents; Heinrich Hertz Institute from 1930; GEC Wembley about 1934-35; later Philips in Berlin, technical director of RIAS (1946), back in Britain from 1947, UK agent for Studer through F.W.O. Bauch Ltd; died in Brighton 1996.
H. H. Giodvad GrellNew York agent who licensed the Dufour/Leduc heating patents outside rubber and in Nov 1945 sold 'patent rights' for Fr. 200,000 to Stoffel's Vibranic Ltd · Option holder and licensing agent in the 1945 patent chain; co-inventor of a heating patent assigned to Firestone and GoodrichUS citizen, New York; held a 1941 option on the Dufour/Leduc patents; co-inventor with Harry W. Richards of US 2,415,025; held an international high-frequency heating portfolio in 1943-49; vice-president of Vibranic; described in the 1943 Congressional Record as a promoter of the 'giro' barter-bank system.
Geoffrey VossEditor who in 1987 wrote that Kassner 'foresaw both the microwave oven and the industrial electromagnetic energy applicators' and asked 'Who was Ernst Kassner?'Editor of the Journal of Microwave Power and Electromagnetic Energy in 1987. Nothing more is in the review files.
Orlan M. ArnoldLater inventor who claimed a sub-thermal effect at the centre of the anomalous-dispersion range; Kassner's US 2,089,966 was cited against himOrlan McGrew Arnold (1904-1989), dielectric physical chemist: papers on electrolyte and resin dielectric dispersion (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1936; J. Electrochem. Soc. 1938); later Chrysler research. US 2,522,082 (filed 1945). Lost In re Arnold (1950) and Arnold v. Watson (1955, affirmed 1956) on breadth, not physics.
John H. HellerLater claimant of frequency-specific, non-thermal biological effects whose 1959 patent cites US 2,089,966New England Institute for Medical Research; with Teixeira-Pinto, Nature 183:905 (1959) on chromosome aberrations in garlic root tips at 27 MHz; US 3,095,359; known for pearl-chain work. Nothing more is in the review files.
R. F. Miller and W. L. WittigAuthors of the 1950 B. F. Goodrich Research Center paper that names the Kassner patents in the portfolio and calls them marginal ('touch on this problem somewhat') · Staff of the buyer of the 1945 package and licensor of the rubber field; a heating-only reading suits that positionNot in the review files beyond their authorship of 'Radio-Frequency Heat in the Rubber Industry', Rubber World, Oct 1950.
Evidence / artifacts (211 of 210 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (27)

  • 1921Adding-machine and gear patents of an 'Ernst Kassner' (Königsberg, then Berlin) CH 100,984 (German priority 20 Apr 1921; 'Ernst Kassner, Ingenieur', Königsberg), FR 551,455, FR 559,248, AT 97,814, US 1,609,119, US 1,676,559-560, 1,679,905, 1,692,411, US 1,773,145 (1921-28). Identity with E. E. W. Kassner unknown.
  • c.1925Other Kassner-name patents not yet identified GB 357,534 / FR 697,547 (glow-discharge chemistry), FR 693,641 (gas syntheses), GB 262,829 / FR 626,217, GB 302,585, plug connectors, a sound scarecrow (FR 822,220, DE 686,126); listed by DEPATISnet, inventors not opened.
  • 1929Electro-optical patents of 'Ernst Kassner', Elektro-Physikalische Gesellschaft m.b.H. FR 672,132, GR 2381 / AU 21499/29, GB 340,964 / FR 678,190, ES 113,192, ES 111,807 (light-image microphone; making oscillations visible). Identity likely, not proven.
  • 1932GB 383,508: production of ultra-short-wave radiation for medical and other purposes Kassner, Berlin, sole applicant; convention 9 Mar 1931; Tesla spark-gap applicator radiating 'from 0.5 mm wavelength upwards'; no dose, spectrum or disease named.
  • 1933-09-26FR 732,805: Diffuseur à oscillateurs pour usages électro-médicaux et autres Kassner's own name, filed Paris 8 Mar 1932; the French member of the applicator family.
  • 1933-12GB 435,643: relay converting light variations into electric oscillations J. Y. Johnson for Ternion AG, application 15 Dec 1933, divided out of GB 417,501; a plate-resonator light detector. Abstract only.
  • 1934CH 169,177 and other members of the 1931 applicator family Swiss patent (SHAB 1934; agent Fritz Isler, Zürich; Kassner at Düsseldorferstrasse 35a, Berlin); DK 47,803, AT 132,868, CA 336,875, ES 125,879. NL and BE members on the Google Patents page of FR 732,805.
  • 1934FR 786,294: ultra-short-wave emitter to act on dipolar substances Kassner resident in England; p.1 ties the natural frequencies to Debye relaxation. Pages 1-2, 15, 17-20 read on DEPATISnet.
  • 1934French and Austrian valve patents of the 1933 family FR 786,295, 786,296, 786,297 (ball and multi-grid oscillator tubes); AT 148,300, AT 148,784.
  • 1934-03-20US 1,951,731: Oscillator-radiator Filed 8 Mar 1932, 'assignor to Ternion A.-G., Glarus': the only Ternion assignment on a US patent.
  • 1934-09-28GB 417,501: Process for altering the energy content of dipolar substances J. Y. Johnson for Ternion AG; application 32,555/32; 24 claims. The anchor patent: natural frequencies, electrets, milk, veal, juice, gold sol, agar, seed examples with powers and temperatures; hydrogen fine-structure wavelengths.
  • 1934-09-29GB 417,564: plate resonator (devices for fields at quasi-optical frequencies) Divided out of GB 417,501; 1932 provisional (10 cm disc at about 30 cm) and a correct Bessel-mode complete specification (R = 10 cm at 26.2 cm).
  • c.1935ES 135,727: Spanish member of the energy-content patent 'Un procedimiento para alterar el contenido de energía de una sustancia dipolar'; found on DEPATISnet, not read.
  • 1935DE 661,695: German member of the 1935 lamp family Assignee Universal Inventions Ltd, London (priority 9 Jul 1935).
  • 1935-10-10FR 788,428: dielectric polarisation by electric molecular resonance of 'dipole' substances Filed Paris 27 Sep 1934; French member of the energy-content patent, same examples; first natural frequency 'given by the relaxation time'. Pages 1 and 6 of about 10 read.
  • 1936GB 448,418: electric discharge devices and circuits for short waves Convention 31 Aug 1933; ellipsoidal-reflector applicator with the liquid circulated through a glass sphere. Abstract only; full scan on DEPATISnet.
  • 1936-06-02GB 448,417: apparatus for generating and applying ultra-short waves Convention 31 Aug 1933; coaxial resonators, tunable dipole, differential Lecher wavemeter; Kassner of London.
  • 1936-06-02GB 448,494: apparatus for investigating the properties of dipole substances Polarimeter in a coaxial resonator: the method for finding a substance's 'natural frequency' by induced double refraction.
  • 1936-07-02GB 483,062: plate circuit element systems and plate oscillators Void application (not accepted). Bessel-mode theory, energy and load-resistance formulas, verified correct; 40 cm disc at 32.7 cm.
  • 1937GB 448,419: apparatus for generating short electromagnetic waves Double-ended multiple-system valves; six tuning tables 0.33-4.9 m; 'about 40 percent' efficiency for one push-pull circuit, unmeasured.
  • 1937-08-17US 2,089,966: Process for altering the energy content of dipolar substances Kassner, Arbon; filed 5 Dec 1932, German priority 9 Dec 1931; 16 claims; the US twin of GB 417,501, qualitative; the patent Voss and the courts cited. p.3 defines his two methods, the 'standing field' (sample as a resonator's dielectric) and the 'radiating field', and says absorption is 'especially great in the case of resonance'.
  • 1937-10-05US 2,094,602: Apparatus for the generation of short electromagnetic waves Twin of GB 448,418; ellipsoid applicator; cited in Spencer's microwave-cooking patent.
  • 1937-10-19US 2,096,459: Ultra short wave oscillation generator Twin of GB 448,419; repeats 'about 40 percent' with no method.
  • 1938-01-04US 2,104,697: Electric lamp Assigned to Universal Inventions Ltd, London; 0.3-1 mm discharge path said to excite ultra-short oscillations; no spectrum.
  • 1938-03-01US 2,109,843: Apparatus for generating and applying ultrashort electromagnetic waves US member of the GB 448,417/448,494/448,419 family; 12 claims; named by Goodrich in 1950; cited by 32 later UHF-tube patents.
  • 1951-06-26US 2,558,568: Device for producing infra-red rays Kassner of Montana-Vermala, assignor to Vibranic Ltd; filament-and-rod lamp said to emit infra-red plus 0.3 mm to 50 cm waves.
  • 1962-05-03DE 1,128,930: UHF resonance rotating fields Filed 14 Apr 1960; inventor 'Ernst E. W. Kassner †, München'; applicant Wilma Hencke, Munich; plate resonators for acceleration, plasma, fusion research.

Patents and patent office (23)

  • 1928US Index of Patents entries for Kassner, 1928-1951 Annual indexes (Internet Archive) listing his US grants, the Ternion assignment (1934) and Vibranic (1951).
  • 1934US Patent Office Official Gazette, 1934: Ternion entries HathiTrust full-text hit for 'Ternion A.-G.'; search-only.
  • 1934-10-11Liebesny and Wertheim, GB 417,863: influencing micro-organisms and ferments Austrian priority 1932; frequencies 1.8 mm to 120 m chosen per organism; cited with Ternion in The Botanical Review 1944.
  • c.1938Dufour and Leduc high-frequency vulcanisation patents US 2,129,203, 2,163,993, 2,188,625, 2,261,847, 2,280,771, 2,303,341; the 'basic' patents of the 1945 purchase.
  • 194132 UHF-tube and resonator patents citing US 2,109,843 RCA, Bell Labs, Western Electric, GE, Westinghouse, Sperry, Stanford (1941-56).
  • 1943C. G. Smith (Raytheon), US 2,463,569: apparatus for treating gaseous media Cites US 2,089,966, GB 417,501 and GB 417,564.
  • 1943Grell's international high-frequency heating portfolio GB 624,409, GB 599,193, FR 911,170/1, FR 1,004,277, CA 437,066, CA 451,395, Spanish and Australian patents, Argentine filing 1947.
  • 1945-05-04Grell, CH 254,655 Shares its priority date with Vibranic's CH 250,508.
  • 1945-05-04Vibranic Ltd, CH 250,508: ultra-short-wave treatment Quasi-optical waves radiated into a reflecting chamber for heating, ageing and vulcanising.
  • 1945-11-22Grell, CH 264,736: heat treatment of materials in a high-frequency capacitor field Filed one week after Vibranic was founded; agent Fritz Isler, Kassner's agent in 1932 (SHAB 1949).
  • 1946Vibranic Ltd, FR 926,351 Filed 6 May 1946; same priority (22 Apr 1943) as Grell and Richards US 2,415,025.
  • 1946Westinghouse US 2,650,291 and RCA, Philco, Girdler, Deering Milliken heating patents Dielectric and microwave heating patents (1944-48) citing GB 417,564.
  • 1947-01-28Grell and Richards, US 2,415,025: treating matter in a high-frequency electric field Application 22 Apr 1943; text about uniform heating. · Assigned to Firestone and Goodrich, the 1945 buyers
  • 1950Arnold, US 2,522,082: critical frequency at the centre of anomalous dispersion Filed 1945; selective surface activation 'without' destructive heating; frequency must be tracked with temperature; examiner cited US 2,089,966.
  • 1950Arnold, US 2,575,251 Cites US 2,089,966 and GB 417,501.
  • 1950Jonas, US 2,712,713: seed treatment by high-frequency fields Cites GB 417,501; bears on the seed claim; no reviewer has read it.
  • 1950-01-24Spencer (Raytheon), US 2,495,429: Method of treating foodstuffs The microwave-cooking patent, filed 8 Oct 1945; lists '2,094,602 Kassner' among references cited; framed as heating.
  • 1954Copson (Raytheon), US 2,833,657: microwave irradiation of fruit juices Cites US 2,089,966; same application Kassner claimed, framed as thermal.
  • c.1958DE 1,027,745 B and DE 1,045,495 B, cited against DE 1,128,930 Citations in the search report of Kassner's last patent; not looked up.
  • 1959Heller, US 3,095,359: high-frequency treatment of matter 'Each organism is responsive to a critical frequency and voltage'; pulsed 'to minimize adverse thermal effects'; cites US 2,089,966.
  • 1983US Department of Energy, GB 2,120,008: Emitron, a microwave diode Craig, Pettibone, Drobot; cites GB 483,062.
  • 1983Later patents citing GB 417,501 Hayashibara GB 2,145,317 (animal productivity, 1983); Vergara Piccaluga EP 0,848,058 (cell behaviour, 1995); Aqua Dynamics water-treatment patents (1990-91).
  • –Serra group, ES 2,726,028 B2: microwave-driven water splitting Patent the authors' universities 'have jointly applied for', named in the competing-interests note of Serra et al. 2020 (follow-up Q03); date and text not seen. · The authors' universities, joint patent applicants

Court and state records (5)

  • 1948Grell v. Insurance Co. of North America (N.Y. App. Div.) Noted via CourtListener; not on the claims.
  • 1950-12-05In re Arnold, 185 F.2d 686 (CCPA) Kassner's US 2,089,966 used as prior art; the court summarises it ('excitation is especially strong ... under conditions of resonance'); ruled on patentability only.
  • 1955-09-13Arnold v. Watson, 144 F. Supp. 282 (D.D.C.) Tried on 'evidence'; Arnold 'exposed the error of certain assumptions ... by predecessors'; judgment for the Commissioner.
  • 1956-09-27Arnold v. Watson, 237 F.2d 584 (D.C. Cir.) Affirmed; claims 'too broad and indefinite'; Serial Nos. 110,469 and 576,245.
  • 1996Ohio court finding on Stanley Meyer's 'water fuel cell' After experts testified it 'was simply using conventional electrolysis', the court found 'gross and egregious fraud' and ordered repayment to two investors; the court's characterization, from a Wikipedia snippet (follow-up Q03).

Company and business records (13)

  • 1930Alfred Wiegner: ETH dissertation and dossiers Dipol's signing chemist (b. 1905): dissertation on carbides and silicides in alloys; ETH Hochschularchiv EZ-2.4/00630 and biographical dossier. Catalogue records only.
  • 1932SHAB notices for Ternion A.-G., 1932-1952 Founding (23 Apr 1932), dissolution (29 Dec 1937), three creditor calls (May 1938), deletion (29 Aug 1952); liquidator Stoffel, Rosenbergstrasse 20, St. Gallen.
  • 1932SHAB notices for Dipol A.-G., Arbon, 1932-1938 Founded the same day by Stoffel to run a laboratory; Philosophenweg factory; signatories Anton Lanter and Dr. Alfred Wiegner; trademark 79010 'Elektrische Apparate'; dissolved 1938.
  • 1932-04-18Ternion AG founding file, Glarus commercial register Constituent meeting in Glarus before Dr. H. Trumpy; CHF 100,000; Stoffel 60 shares, Dr. Hans Hoffmann 40; certified copies of 2017 with OCR and translation.
  • 1932-04-18Ternion AG statutes Purpose 'participation in electro-physical enterprises and laboratories'; no patents, inventors or Kassner named.
  • 1937Phono-Vision, Ernst E. W. Kassner: 'photos and confidential company documents' Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden CMO-59-01-A-13 (Albin Grau papers); material for an advertisement; a digital copy exists, not obtained.
  • 1937-12-20Ternion AG liquidation minutes and 1936 balance sheet 54 of 100 shares represented; research account CHF 1,120,380.15 on loans of CHF 1,096,535.05; 'complete lack of further funds', patents lapsed. Two identical certified copies. · The board's own account to its shareholders
  • 1943SHAB notices for General Infra Company AG, Chur, 1943-1953 'Ingenieur Ernst E. W. Kassner, deutscher Staatsangehöriger, in Zürich' on the board; infra-red emitters on 'a new physical principle'; in-kind rights returned 1944; deleted 1953.
  • 1944Philips Electro Spezial GmbH, Berlin: letterhead clip 'Deliverable only for war-important purposes'; an image in the essay's folder, date from the filename; Bauch was founding director of Philips-Electrospecial in Berlin (Swiss Sound 1983).
  • 1945SHAB notices for Vibranic Ltd, Glarus, 1945-1952 Founded 17 Nov 1945; buys Grell's patent rights for Fr. 200,000; Stoffel president, Grell vice-president; Ternion's old domicile; dissolved 1949, deleted 1952.
  • 1945-08Industry Inventions, Inc. (Ohio): incorporation and officers Goodrich-Firestone licensing company for the 'Leduc and Dufour' patents; officers listed in Rubber Age and Chemical Week 1945; Kassner not named. · Joint licensing company of the buyers
  • 1952-08-12Ternion AG deletion papers Liquidation complete with no assets or liabilities; Stoffel to keep the books 10 years; lawyer Dr. W. Keller-Staub.
  • 1960F.W.O. Bauch Ltd company record, 1960-1991 Company 00652326, incorporated 11 Mar 1960, liquidation noted 26 Jul 1991; directors F. W. O. and Helen Bauch, Brighton; notes of the register entry.

Government records (13)

  • 1924NARA: 'Ernst Kassner' in a New York passenger-list index One of two catalog hits for the name; identity with E. E. W. Kassner unknown; not opened.
  • 1939Swiss Federal Archives E4264#2000/63#1515: 'Kassner, Ernst (20.11.1900)' Federal police enquiries about foreigners; open; identity with E. E. W. Kassner unconfirmed.
  • 1940NARA matches for 'Giodvad' (Grell) State Department purport lists 1940-44 (NAID 88008358); Army Secretary decimal sheets 1949-50 (NAIDs 222879108, 222877607, 222874556); context unread.
  • 1943-01-16US Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order 201 Vested the 1926-28 'Ernst Kassner, Berlin' adding-machine patents.
  • 1943-01-18US Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order 679 Vested the Dufour/Leduc patents and the French owners' interest in Grell's 1941 option; Kassner not named.
  • 1946Swiss Federal Archives E4264#1988/2#24190: 'KASSNER, ERNST, 20.11.1900' Identity papers and passports for foreigners, 1946-47; open; identity unconfirmed.
  • 1946Swiss Federal Archives E2001E#1968/78#9311: 'General Infra Co AG, Chur' 1946-48, filed under B.51.322 'Schwarze Liste'; the title alone does not show the firm was blacklisted; open, owner must order.
  • 1947-01-02JIOA Objective List of German and Austrian scientists About 1,600 names; no E. E. W. Kassner, Bauch or Hoffmann (only Rudolf Kassner, jet engines).
  • 1947-05-06UK naturalisation of Helen I. A. Bauch (HO 334/246/3669) UK National Archives catalogue; with an HO 405 reference.
  • 1962NARA Guide No. 36, Miscellaneous German Records (T-84) Finding aid to 83 microfilm rolls; nothing on Kassner, Ternion or Bauch in the digests or text search.
  • 1971PSCRL-1: Armed Services Patent Advisory Board security category list Routing list for patent secrecy referrals (directed energy, microwave emitters); dielectric heating not listed; not a record of secrecy orders.
  • 2010NARA Foreign Scientist Case Files 1945-1958, name index No E. E. W. Kassner, Bauch, Hoffmann or Stoffel; only 'KASSNER RUDOLF, box 083'.
  • –NARA: 'Ernst Kassner' in seized German records (NAID 401666746) Captured German records, 'Number 518'; not opened.

Witness accounts and correspondence (7)

  • 1938-11-05Kassner to Hans Kayser (Swiss Literary Archives SLA-Kayser-B-2-307a) Visiting card '(z. Zt. Hotel Schweizerhof Bern)' with a Herbert Lang & Cie letter to the harmonics theorist; content not catalogued.
  • 1953-02Wireless World 'Our Authors' note on Bauch Hertz Institute work on 'supersonics', then 'a short spell at the G.E.C. Research Laboratories, Wembley'; no mention of Ternion.
  • 1983-03Swiss Sound 1/83: portrait of F.W.O. Bauch Ltd Bauch's 1928 recorder, Hertz Institute, 'a first visit to England in 1934', RIAS, Studer agency; silent on Ternion. · Studer Revox house magazine: promotional history of its UK agent
  • 1990-01-18Imperial War Museum interview with F. W. O. Bauch (4 reels) Interviewer Conrad Wood; 'I left in 1934 for England ... one and a half years ... the North Wembley Laboratories'; machine transcripts; reel 4 short.
  • 1996-06F.W.O. Bauch, In Memoriam, J. Audio Eng. Soc. 44(6) At GEC 'he worked on a project for the Swiss Ternion company investigating UHF and decimeter techniques'; sold a radiation-therapy method to Marconi for 80 pounds. The only source for the Ternion project; its own source unstated.
  • –Imperial War Museum interview with Helen Irene Alexandra Bauch (3 reels) Met her husband in 1935; Berlin 1937-45; machine transcripts, reel 3 short; silent on Ternion.
  • –Bodleian, MS. S.P.S.L. 508/1-4, 'W Kaeser - E Kassner' Refugee-correspondence files of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning; which E. Kassner is unknown.

Experiments and replications by others (15)

  • 1927Muth, pearl-chain formation in high-frequency fields (Kolloid-Z. 41) Mainstream orientation effect, cited by the 1960 Navy survey.
  • 1933Schliephake and Compère, 'Spezifische Wirkung des Ultrakurzwellenfeldes' (Klin. Wschr.) 1930s claim of a specific (non-thermal) short-wave effect.
  • c.1935Archangelsky, 'Über die spezifische Wirkung des Ultrakurzwellenfeldes' Another 1930s specific-effect claimant; bibliographic record only.
  • c.1935Benedetti, yeast fermentation rising or falling with frequency Reported in The Botanical Review 1944; no data seen.
  • 1936Kowarschik, Kurzwellentherapie (Wien), chapter on biological effects Snippets say no specific short-wave effect on bacteria was proven; paywalled.
  • 1936Krasny-Ergen, theory of particle forces in HF fields (Hochfrequenztechnik und Elektroakustik 48, 49) Mainstream (induced polarisation) theory for pearl chains.
  • 1936Arnold's dielectric-dispersion papers Arnold and Williams, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1936; Gross, Ott and Arnold, J. Electrochem. Soc. 1938.
  • 1959Heller and Teixeira-Pinto, Nature 183:905 27 MHz pulsed field, garlic root tips: 'No temperature increase in the water was noted'; frequency-dependent chromosome aberrations; no counts or controls.
  • 1960-06-14Midwest Research Institute, Survey of Radio Frequency Radiation Hazards (Navy NObs-77142) Reports Heller's effects as 'frequency and species specific' and 'A new specific nonthermal effect'; offers Maxwell-Wagner polarisation as mechanism. · Government contractor in a hazard-standards programme
  • 1969Webb and Booth, 'Absorption of Microwaves by Microorganisms', Nature 222:1199 Sharp millimetre-wave absorption reported.
  • 1976Mittler, 'Failure of 2- and 10-meter radio waves to induce genetic damage in Drosophila' Environ. Res. 11:326; title only; different organism from Heller.
  • 1980Gandhi et al., 'Millimeter wave absorption spectra of biological samples', Bioelectromagnetics 1:285 26.5-90 GHz on cells, DNA, RNA, frozen samples: 'Sharp spectra reported by other workers were not observed'. Abstract.
  • 1983Grundler and Keilmann, 'Sharp Resonances in Yeast Growth Prove Nonthermal Sensitivity to Microwaves', Phys. Rev. Lett. 51:1214 The positive sharp-line report near 42 GHz.
  • 1997Gos et al., Bioelectromagnetics 18:142 Controlled repeat at 41.68-41.71 GHz: 'no consistently significant differences'. Abstract.
  • 2013Kappe, Pieber and Dallinger, 'Microwave Effects in Organic Synthesis: Myth or Reality?' Angew. Chem.; non-thermal microwave chemistry still disputed, with a published reply.

Later accounts and media (40)

  • 1933-12-30Thurgauer Zeitung on Arbon's 1933 tax shortfall (and two reprints) Names 'die Aufhebung der Dipol A.G.' as a cause; read as the lab closing in 1933, an inference. Reprints: Bote vom Untersee und Rhein, Der Landbote (Jan 1934).
  • 1935Chemical Abstracts 29:1178 abstract of GB 417,501 Cited by Weissberger and Ellis; abstract not read.
  • 1935Annales des Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones, vol. 24: Kassner French patents Lists FR 786,294, 786,296, 786,297.
  • 1935-03-01Rubber World: new British patents, '417,501. Vulcanization' J. Y. Johnson (Ternion A. G.).
  • 1936Science et industries photographiques and Photographic Abstracts (1936) on the Ternion light relay HathiTrust full-text hits for 'Ternion A.-G.', probably GB 435,643; search-only.
  • 1936Electronic Technology (1936): Ternion abstract HathiTrust hit for 'Ternion A.-G.' beside The Wireless Engineer; search-only.
  • 1936-02The Wireless Engineer: abstract of the Ternion light valve Read in OCR as GB 435,043; corrected to GB 435,643.
  • 1936-07-10The Electrical Review: published specifications 448,417-448,419 Gives the title of GB 448,418.
  • 1937Radio Daily: US 2,096,459 listing 'Ernst E. W. Kassner, London, England'.
  • 1937Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry (1937, 1945) Cites GB 417,501 for acetylene to acetic acid.
  • 1943Congressional Record appendix on Grell Grell as promoter of the Scandinavian 'giro' barter-bank system.
  • 19441944 licence notices for the Dufour/Leduc patents Rubber Age, Rubber World, Modern Plastics, Aviation, Power: Goodrich licenses rubber, Grell 'all other fields'.
  • 1944-07Weintraub, 'Radiation and Plant Respiration', The Botanical Review 10(7) 'Claim of stimulation of bacterial fermentation is made in a patent issued to Ternion A.-G.'; reported, not tested.
  • 1945Other 1945 trade-press reprints of the purchase release Science News Letter, Electronic Industries, Chemistry, Rubber Age, The Paper Industry, Ordnance ('creating uniform heat'), Coal Age, Fleet Owner and others; one release, heating described. · Buyers' announcement
  • 1945-01Electronics, Jan 1945, on Grell 'The U.S. issuing agent for licenses relating to h-f heating of dielectric materials under the patents of Leduc and Dufour'.
  • 1945-01-24Del Rio News-Herald, p.4 (AP, Akron) Goodrich and Firestone buy basic electronic-vulcanisation patents on discoveries of Dufour, Le Duc and 'E. E. W. Kassner of Switzerland'. · Buyers' announcement
  • 1945-02-10Business Week, p.53, on the purchase Adds that Leduc and Dufour's research, 'dating back to 1920, was underwritten by the French government'. · Buyers' announcement
  • 1945-04Rubber World, Apr 1945, on electronic vulcanisation 'Due not only to rapid uniform heating, but also may be connected in some way with electronic power itself'; no data.
  • 1945-05-14The Record: electronic vulcanisation may become common Patents to be licensed 'on a reasonable basis'.
  • 1945-05-21Valley Evening Monitor: sponge-rubber mattresses cured in one-eighth the time Heating account of the process.
  • 1945-11Rubber World, Nov 1945: Smithers's talk to the Chicago Rubber Group Benefits of electronic curing; foam mattress cure 30 to 5 minutes. · General manager of the buyers' licensing company
  • 1949Weissberger, Technique of Organic Chemistry (1949, 1956) Cites GB 417,501 and Chem. Abs. 29:1178.
  • 1950-10Miller and Wittig, 'Radio-Frequency Heat in the Rubber Industry', Rubber World B. F. Goodrich Research Center; names US 2,089,966 and 2,109,843; they 'touch on this problem somewhat ... about 150 million cycles per second'. · Staff of the buyer and rubber-field licensor
  • 1954van Went, Ultrasonic and Ultrashort Waves in Medicine (Elsevier) Found on the Internet Archive; text file could not be fetched; not read.
  • 1987Voss, Electromagnetic Energy column, J. Microwave Power and Electromagnetic Energy 22:49-57 Kassner 'did some remarkable experiments', 'sketched' the subject, 'foresaw both the microwave oven and the industrial electromagnetic energy applicators'; 'Who was Ernst Kassner?'
  • 2008C&EN, 'Water Fire Makes Scientists Burn' (cen.acs.org, vol. 86 no. 12) Press account of the Kanzius salt-water burning; error page in Chrome (follow-up Q03).
  • 2008-03-26Philip Ball, Chemistry World, on Kanzius's radio-split sea water Snippet: Roy et al. 'stress that Kanzius never claimed he could get out more energy than was put in' (follow-up Q03).
  • 2009Mae-Wan Ho, 'Can Water Burn?' (Institute of Science in Society) Summary of Roy, Rao and Kanzius: 13.56 MHz, about 300 W; flame only while the field is on; 'The phenomenon is real, but the mechanism is entirely unknown'; photon about 1e-8 of the energy needed; an anonymous reader comment finds the Raman spectra similar 'apart from a minor difference in peak intensities' and no independent replication (follow-up Q03). · Advocacy outlet on science policy
  • 2010-06AIChE ChEnected on the Kanzius process Snippet: Kanzius 'admitted that this process could not be considered an energy source, as more energy is used to produce the RF signal than can be obtained' (follow-up Q03).
  • 2012Resonance: Beings of Frequency (documentary) Schumann resonance and RF bio-effects; not UHF dielectric resonance.
  • 2014Jacobsen, Operation Paperclip No Kassner, Ternion or Bauch in digests or full-text search.
  • 2014Putney, The Geyser Reactor Self-published transmutation-by-resonance booklet; no measurements.
  • 2016Wikipedia: General Electric Company plc Shows BAE Systems is not owned by American GE (an essay in the project folder says it is).
  • 2016Wikipedia: GEC-Marconi scientist deaths conspiracy theory Stub; references hint at open verdicts and an official 'not a plot'.
  • 2017-08-25The Guardian: how could the 'sonic attack' on US diplomats in Cuba have been carried out? Expert opinion on ultrasound; no Ternion, Kassner or RF.
  • –Ellis, The Chemistry of Synthetic Resins Cites GB 417,501 and Chem. Abs. 29:1178.
  • –Max Stoffel (1911-2002), Swiss Federal Supreme Court biography Judge born in Arbon; identity with Ternion's founder unresolved.
  • –Max Stoffel, encyclopedia-style entry Born 28 Aug 1911 Arbon, died 2002 Morges; cites NZZ 19 Jun 1981.
  • –'Dead Scientists: The Marconi Murders' (The Unredacted) 1982-90 deaths of British defence scientists; mostly unsourced; no Ternion or Bauch link.
  • 2016-2019Private documents of the project owner (34), used in the review, not listed

Related later patents (the essay's weapon theme) (17)

  • 1976US 3,951,134: remotely monitoring and altering brain waves Malech (Dome and Margolin).
  • 1989US 4,883,067: translating the EEG into music Knispel and Wright.
  • 1991US 5,036,858: binaural beats and voice Carter and Russell.
  • 1992US 5,135,468: binaural-beat method of varying brain state Digest only.
  • 1992US 5,151,080: changed state of consciousness by electroacoustics Bick.
  • 1992US 5,159,703: silent subliminal presentation system Oliver M. Imvery (as read).
  • 1993US 5,213,562: inducing mental, emotional and physical states Monroe.
  • 1994US 5,356,368: inducing desired states of consciousness Monroe.
  • 1996US 5,507,291: remotely determining a person's emotional state Stirbl et al.
  • 2000US 6,011,991: communication system with brain-wave analysis Mardirossian.
  • 2000US 6,081,744: electric fringe field generator for the nervous system Loos.
  • 2000US 6,091,994: nervous system manipulation by subliminal pulsative fields Loos.
  • 2002US 6,488,617: producing a desired brain state Katz.
  • 2003US 6,506,148: nervous system manipulation by fields from monitors Loos.
  • 2003US 6,587,729: speech by the radio-frequency hearing effect O'Loughlin and Loree (US Air Force); thermoelastic mechanism; no power or measurement given.
  • 2009US 7,629,918: multifunctional RF directed energy system Brown, Canich, Berg (Raytheon); no frequency, power or biological mechanism.
  • 2011US 8,049,173: dual use RF directed energy weapon and imager Brown (Raytheon); W-band.

Related work on fields and water splitting (follow-ups Q03, Q05) (29)

  • 1934Onsager, theory of the second Wien effect Field-enhanced dissociation of weak electrolytes, water among them; the mainstream frame for field-assisted water dissociation (follow-up Q05).
  • 1934Cleeton and Williams, microwave absorption of ammonia, Phys. Rev. 45:234 Absorption maximum at 1.25 cm, 2 percent from Kassner's 1.28 cm, but later than his 1932 patent and not about water; found by the arbiter's web check (abstract).
  • 1937Bell Labs US 2,147,689: radio-frequency heating of dielectrics at 10-20 MHz Cited by the arbiter (via Wikipedia, Dielectric heating) to show RF dielectric heating was proposed independently in the 1930s.
  • 1946Becker and Autler, 'Water Vapor Absorption of Electromagnetic Radiation in the Centimeter Wave-Length Range', Phys. Rev. 70:300 The earliest water-vapour line measurement found by the contrarian; priority unverified.
  • 1946Townes and Merritt, water spectrum near 1 cm, Phys. Rev. 70:558 Second 1946 measurement found by the contrarian.
  • 1969Liebe et al., J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 9: the 22.235 GHz water-vapour transition Gives the line frequency used to compare with Kassner's 1.28 cm (contrarian web check).
  • 1981Chum, Review of Thermally Regenerative Electrochemical Systems Split hot, recombine cold: a heat engine with a second reservoir, Carnot-bounded; Google Scholar listing and a PDF snippet; year from the search query (follow-up Q05).
  • 1983Puharich, US 4,394,230: method and apparatus for splitting water molecules 'Complex electrical wave form' applied to water, discussed with the Gibbs free energy; a later resonance-electrolysis claim; text not read (follow-up Q03).
  • 1986Morehouse (NASA), thermally regenerative hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell power cycles Electrolyser at 1300 K, recombination cold; shows what an 'environment pays' gain would require; NTRS snippet (follow-up Q05).
  • c.1987Puharich compilation naming '22.3 GHz' as a water resonance 22.235 GHz is water vapour's rotational line (1.35 cm), about 5 percent from Kassner's 1.28 cm; the earliest vapour-line measurement found is 1946, so it cannot be what Kassner copied in 1932 (follow-ups Q03, sites.md lead 31).
  • 1998Mafé et al., 'Electric field-assisted proton transfer and water dissociation' Second Wien effect in bipolar membranes; listing only (follow-up Q05).
  • 2004Marken, Compton and co-workers, 'Microwave enhanced electrochemistry: mass transport effects and steady state voltammetry' Title names the mechanism as mass transport; not read (follow-up Q03).
  • 2005Kaatze, water's Debye relaxation near 19 GHz (with the 2017 J. Chem. Phys. paper) Relaxation time about 8.3 ps; the basis for a water-filled resonator at its band having Q about 1, loss tangent 0.88-1.03 (follow-up Q05, sites.md lead 40).
  • 2008Roy, Rao and Kanzius, polarised RF 'catalysis of dissociation' of H2O-NaCl solutions, Materials Research Innovations 12:3-6 13.56 MHz, about 300 W; gas burns only while the field is on; Raman change in the O-H region; claimants propose 'resonant coupling' and claim no net energy; no independent replication found (follow-up Q03).
  • 2008Marken, 'Chemical and electro-chemical applications of in situ microwave heating', Annu. Rep. Prog. Chem. C Review; mechanism named as local superheating; not read (follow-up Q03).
  • 2009Rassaei, Compton, Marken et al., microwave-enhanced electrochemistry in locally superheated electrolytes Title only; not read (follow-up Q03).
  • 2010Rao, Sedlmayr, Roy and Kanzius, Current Science 98:1500-1504 Polarised microwave and RF effects on the structure of liquid water; not read (bot check) (follow-up Q03).
  • 2012Saitta, Saija and Giaquinta, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108:207801 Ab initio simulation: water dissociates in fields beyond about 0.35 V per angstrom (follow-up Q05).
  • 2013Pinuela et al., 'Ambient RF Energy Harvesting in Urban and Semi-Urban Environments' Primary survey behind urban RF levels of about 0.1-10 microwatts per cm2, too small to pay for splitting water; not read (follow-up Q05).
  • 2014Hundt et al., 'Vibrationally Promoted Dissociation of Water on Ni(111)', Science 344:504 Established resonant bond weakening of water: infra-red excitation of the stretch, at a nickel surface; photon 3,400-4,700 times a 1.28 cm photon (an earlier '35,000' was corrected 2026-10-08) (follow-up Q03).
  • 2018Bond-selective dissociation of HOD on nickel, J. Chem. Phys. Exciting O-H gives mainly H + OD, O-D mainly D + OH; snippet only (follow-up Q03).
  • 2018Niether et al., 'Improved water electrolysis using magnetic heating of FeC-Ni core-shell nanoparticles', Nature Energy 3:476 RF magnetic heating of catalyst cut overpotentials by 200 mV (oxygen) and 100 mV (hydrogen) with a 5 C bulk rise; field power not stated in the abstract (follow-ups Q03, Q05).
  • 2020Serra et al., 'Hydrogen production via microwave-induced water splitting at low temperature', Nature Energy 5:910 Microwaves reduce Gd-doped ceria, which then splits water below 250 C; abstract: H2 yield and energy efficiency 'material- and power-dependent'; whether the field power is counted overall is an open question (follow-up Q03). · Authors' universities applied for a patent on the method
  • 2021Gatard, 'Alkaline water electrolysis enhanced by radio frequency alternating magnetic field', PhD thesis, Grenoble Follow-on to Niether 2018; not read (blocked) (follow-up Q03).
  • 2021Bui, Corpus, Bell and Weber, 'On the Nature of Field-Enhanced Water Dissociation in Bipolar Membranes', J. Phys. Chem. C 125 Water molecules orient in a large field, speeding dissociation; a DC rate effect, not a resonance; snippet (follow-up Q05).
  • 2022Gatard et al., ACS Appl. Energy Mater., durability of FeNi3@Ni for RF-heated electrolysis Snippet only (follow-up Q03).
  • 2025Yamamoto et al., second Wien effect enhancing water dissociation PubMed snippet: field effects 'have been demonstrated to enhance the rate' of water dissociation (follow-up Q05).
  • 2026Stovall et al., EES Catalysis, questioning the second-Wien model Snippet only (follow-up Q05).
  • 2026'A Systematic Guide to Experimental Designs in Magnetic Electrocatalysis', ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 9(16):10362 Abstract and snippet: one field-assisted method a 'negative energy balance' once coil losses are counted, one a 'net energy saving of 215.6 kWh'; context paywalled (follow-up Q05).

Records named but not yet examined (22)

  • 1931German priority applications of 9 Mar 1931 and 9 Dec 1931 The first filings of the applicator and energy-content families.
  • 1932Dipol A.-G. register file, balance sheets and liquidation report Staatsarchiv Thurgau; not catalogued online; would show where the research and money went.
  • 1932Arbon municipal tax rolls 1932-34 Stadtarchiv Arbon; would date the laboratory's closure.
  • 1934GEC Research Laboratories reports and project lists 1934-35 Hirst archive; would confirm or not Bauch's Ternion project and any Ternion contract.
  • 1934Bauch's 'Improved Method of Radiation Therapy' sold to Marconi British patents of 1934-36 not yet searched.
  • 1934UK files on Kassner as a German national in London 1934-36 Home Office/MI5 aliens files and any patent secrecy directions on his British applications (Kew).
  • 1936Universal Inventions Ltd, London: company file (BT 31) Kew; assignee of Kassner's lamp patents.
  • 1936-07-17Ternion minutes of general meetings 1-4, share register and lenders Landesarchiv Glarus; who held the 46 unrepresented shares, who lent CHF 1.1 million, 1938 creditor filings.
  • 1943General Infra Co AG register file Staatsarchiv Graubünden.
  • 1944Bücherverzeichnis, Bücherei des Flugfunk-Forschungsinstituts Oberpfaffenhofen (HathiTrust uc1.$b560612) Library catalogue of the German aviation-radio institute; a search-only hit for 'Kassner Ultrakurzwellen'; whether it is E. E. W. Kassner is unknown.
  • 1945USPTO assignment records for US 2,089,966 and 2,109,843 Would show who sold Kassner's patents in 1945.
  • 1945Goodrich and Firestone purchase files and test data; Goodrich Series VII B.F. Goodrich Company Records, University of Akron (OhAkUAS0037), Series VII Research and Development; finding aid blocked.
  • 1945Industry Inventions, Inc. charter and licence schedules Ohio Secretary of State; Goodrich records.
  • 1945-11-15Vibranic Kauf- und Abtretungsvertrag with Grell Landesarchiv Glarus; would say whether any Kassner patent was in the Fr. 200,000 package.
  • 1946BIOS Final Report No. 866, 'High Frequency Heating' Allied report on German HF heating; no online copy.
  • 1952Stoffel's retained Ternion books (kept to about 1962) Family or St. Gallen archives, location unknown.
  • 1953Arnold v. Watson trial exhibits and file wrappers (Serial 110,469 and 576,245) NARA RG 21, RG 276: the only known place an evidential test of a Kassner-type principle may be on file.
  • 1960DPMA file K 40449, Munich death record and the Wilma Hencke link Kassner's last patent file; who Hencke was; where his later papers went.
  • –Bauch's HO 405 naturalisation file and the source of the 1996 memoriam Kew; AES archives.
  • –Clayton and Algar, history of the GEC Research Laboratories Named in the source-gap note; not obtained.
  • –Der Balneologe (HathiTrust umn.31951002733267b) Physical-therapy journal; a search-only hit for 'Kassner Ultrakurzwellen'; search inside did not render.
  • –Hochfrequenztechnik und Elektroakustik volumes (HathiTrust mdp.39015082273890, nyp.33433109987119, mdp.39015013786713) Search-only hits for 'Kassner Ultrakurzwellen'; not opened.

Left out: three earlier AI analyses, OCR and translated copies of the register papers, duplicate files and a Scribd copy, a misfiled 2002 obituary (Thiele) and a generic Swiss company-law page. Full catalogue: TernionAG sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A thermostatted 0.1-3 GHz permittivity sweep of water, 1 percent salt, milk, juice and serum with an empty-cell control, plus a rebuilt crossed-Nicols detector; then a four-arm blind food test (resonant, off-resonant at equal absorbed power, heat-matched, untreated), at least 20 samples per arm, over 28 days.

Deciding records: The Arnold v. Watson trial exhibits (NARA); Ternion's 1936 minutes, share register and lenders (Landesarchiv Glarus); the Dipol A.-G. file (Staatsarchiv Thurgau); the Vibranic purchase contract of 15 Nov 1945; Goodrich R&D records (Akron); GEC laboratory reports 1934-35; three open Swiss Federal Archives files.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: with Kassner's own 1936 disc formula, wavelength = 2 pi R / x, check whether a 6.2 cm disc pair can resonate at his stated 18.6 cm. The lowest mode gives 10.6 cm; step 9 then checks the water-splitting energy books (237.1 kJ/mol floor, 6.7 W field cost).

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Claim 1 is ruled Never properly tested, not Refuted: a calculation refutes a stated mechanism, and the patent states none; it claims an optical readout with no spectrum. The Q argument shows the two kinds of band differ, not that the sharp one is absent. arbiter.md, Where the reviewers agreed, disagreed, ruling 1
  2. Contrarian Strongest honest case: the theory starts from correct science, reported heating matches stated power, and he reports it rather than hiding it. The decisive experiment is cheap and was never recorded as done: the signature of never properly tested, not tested and failed. contrarian.md, Strongest honest case for Kassner
  3. Investigator Kassner's own words tie his natural frequencies to Debye relaxation: FR 786,294 places them 'En conformité avec la théorie des dipôles de Debye'. In these texts they are relaxation frequencies, which mainstream physics accepts but which are broad. sites.md, Leads for review, lead 21
  4. Arbiter Commercial failure best explains the end of Ternion itself, and the people continued under other company names; neither explains why five funded years left no technical report. Classification and suppression are neither shown nor excluded; the deciding records are named and unread. arbiter.md, The record goes dark, Weighing
  5. Arbiter Field-assisted electrolysis at a catalyst shows an applied field can lower the voltage cost of splitting water; it is not a test of a Kassner standing or radiating field, and an earlier '35,000 times' photon ratio is corrected to about 3,400-4,700. arbiter.md, Investigator findings (2026-10-08), rulings 2 and 4

AI noteKassner's 'most effective' chemistry wavelengths, 2.74, 9.25 and 27.75 cm, match hydrogen's fine-structure intervals to 0.3 percent: they were calculated from atomic theory, not measured.

Rank 6SilverTooth

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:38

A professional optical engineer reported a bench-top ether drift of 378 km/s toward Leo, near the cosmic background dipole; one replicator saw the signal, then traced it to temperature.

Invention / theory background

Ernest Wilbur "Bud" Silvertooth (1916-2000), Caltech physics graduate, Paramount optical engineer and 1941 Academy technical award winner, argued from 1972 to 1992 that light's one-way wavelength reveals absolute motion. His 1986 paper slid a two-beam standing-wave interferometer 0.25 mm, saw a 180 degree phase reversal and computed 378 km/s with Leo on the horizon. It names partial sponsorship by the Air Force Rome Air Development Center and DARPA.

Ranking explanation

Below TernionAG because its central derivation fails on its own premises and the best replication found a thermal cause, while Kassner's claims were never tested at all and his record goes darker. Above Sigma-Ro because its open question is sharper and cheap to settle: why independent builds showed a sidereal, CMB-sized signal if the apparatus should be blind. A rotating-table, lock-in, temperature-controlled run has never been done.

Key supporting elements

  1. The reported 378 km/s toward Leo lies within about 2% of the measured cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole, 369.82 km/s toward Leo [web, arbiter].
  2. Doug Marett (2011-12), who hoped for a positive result, reproduced a 12-hour signal peaking near 5 h and 17 h sidereal time, of about CMB size after removing offsets (Investigator's reading of his web page).
  3. Marinov (January 1987, different arrangement) reported 386 +/- 38 km/s; Wesley (1987) reported 378 +/- 8 km/s, right ascension 11 +/- 2 h. Both known only from abstracts; both authors have their own absolute-motion programmes.
  4. Laser frequency drift (about 1e-6) is a thousand times too small to fake the 1.3e-3 wavelength mismatch, a point in the inventor's favour [calc, Contrarian and arbiter].
  5. Silvertooth was a competent instrument maker: his 1983 standing-wave sensor with S. F. Jacobs (Arizona) reached a 20,000:1 node/antinode ratio, and in 1989 he stated all values lay within +/-5% over several years.

Key contradictions

  1. Under the paper's own eq. (5), two opposed beams on a slide add their wavenumbers (k1 + k2 = 4 pi / lambda), so the first-order signal cancels; the alternative geometry gives lambda/(4b), not eq. (9)'s lambda/(2b).
  2. Marett found a large offset, day-to-day scatter, the opposite sign to Silvertooth's prediction and the same 12 h pattern in solar time, tracking room temperature: "a very elaborate thermometer".
  3. The inventor's own earlier one-way tests were nulls: 1972 JOSA (as recorded by Roberts and Schleif) and a 1976 two-laser test where 79 cycles were expected and "No phase shift was observed".
  4. In 1976 he wrote that frequency and velocity change, wavelength being "a resultant effect"; in 1986 frequency "cannot change". The 1986 paper does not mention the earlier experiment.
  5. The 1986 paper gives one value with no data, error bars, run count, dates or place; phase reversal was judged by eye on an oscilloscope. Krisher et al. 1990 set a 100 m/s one-way limit (conventionality caveat kept).
Verdicts by claim (5)
ClaimVerdict
Round-trip (Michelson-Morley) tests cannot fix a one-way speed or wavelength; the null needs no isotropic c or contractionEstablished weak form, as conventionality of the one-way speed Not testable as stated strong form; circular as a rebuttal of contraction
The Sagnac shift of a straight segment survives in pure translation, giving lambda/(1 +/- v/c)Internally inconsistent derivation (his 1976 paper says it cancels on a closed path) Established formula only as a synchronisation convention Tested, not supported physical measurability in translation
A slide-mounted standing-wave interferometer reads v/c = lambda/(2 Delta)Internally inconsistent as stated; reverts to Never properly tested if a correct derivation from the real geometry appears
Delta = 0.25 mm east-west with Leo on the horizon gives 378 km/s; null north-south and at Leo 6 or 18 h awayNever properly tested the original run (no data; not dismissed without testing) Never properly tested cause of the sidereal signal Marett reproduced Tested, not supported reading as a 378 km/s absolute velocity
A velocity-dependent wavelength count adds an L a/c^2 Doppler term explaining the accelerating universe, quasar redshifts and GPS errorsInternally inconsistent eq. (10) as printed in 1986 Refuted by calculation rotating-quasar example (source orbits several times during light flight) Not testable as stated accelerating universe and GPS (1990 GPS paper not read)
Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Ernest Wilbur "Bud" SilvertoothInventor and experimenter; author of the 1986 paperBorn 1916 Portland, died 2000 Bellingham WA. Caltech B.S. in physics; Paramount optical engineer (1941 Academy Class III technical award, relay condenser system); optics papers 1940-1971 and a 1965 catoptric patent; Pasadena, later Olga, Orcas Island. Natural Philosophy Wiki (unsourced) says he later did classified Air Force think-tank work linked to the Aerospace Corporation.
S. F. JacobsCo-author of the 1983 standing-wave sensor paperUniversity of Arizona Optical Sciences Center. The 1976 paper says an east-west two-oscillator ether experiment was under way there; no outcome found.
Doug MarettReplicator (2011-12) and author of a single-laser one-way null (2011) · Proposes the thermal explanation; says he hoped the effect was realToronto dissident-physics experimenter (site conspiracyoflight.com, "The search for new physics"); used a Juelich thin-film standing-wave sensor and a stabilised HeNe laser over 18 months, logging room temperature and laser lock voltage.
Stefan MarinovReported a repetition in January 1987 (386 +/- 38 km/s); wrote to Silvertooth 1 Nov 1986 · Claimant of absolute-motion detection with his own coupled-mirrors and toothed-wheel experimentsNot in the review files beyond his own absolute-motion experiments.
Paul WesleyReported 378 +/- 8 km/s, right ascension 11 +/- 2 h (1987) · Has his own absolute-motion programme (Contrarian)Not in the review files.
C. K. WhitneyCo-author of the 1992 Physics Essays nodal-spacing experiment; 1993 discussion with Marinov · Has her own absolute-motion programme (Contrarian)Not in the review files.
Chalmers W. SherwinCritic (Physics Essays 1989): AC coupling and a lambda/4 twist over about 500 wavelengths could fake the phase reversalNot in the review files.
R. G. NewburghCritic of the 1976 paper in Applied Optics (1977)Physicist at the Air Force Rome Air Development Center, Deputy for Electronic Technology, Hanscom AFB: the same agency the 1986 paper names as a sponsor.
Evidence / artifacts (56 of 64 listed, 88%)

Own works and inventions (19)

  • 1940A Modification of the Hindle Test for Cassegrain Secondaries JOSA 30(3) 140; optical testing
  • 1941Relay condenser system for transparency process projection With the Paramount Studio Engineering Department; 14th Academy Awards, Class III Scientific or Technical award (atogt.com)
  • 1942Stop calibration of photographic objectives J. SMPE; Paramount period
  • 1965Optically compensated zoom lens With G. Wooters; JOSA 55(4) 347
  • 1966Aspheric mirrors by selective evaporation Applied Optics 5(5) 868
  • 1968Correction of chromatic aberrations with single-element lenses Glamkowski, Nicholson, Silvertooth; Applied Optics 7(9) 1865
  • 1971High finesse interferograms Applied Optics 10(8) 1980
  • 1972Isotropy of C JOSA 62(11) 1330-1331; one-way test with frequency-doubling crystals, recorded by Roberts and Schleif as a null consistent with special relativity; paper not read
  • 1976-05Electromagnetic radiation, relativity, and anomalous red-shifts Applied Optics 15(5) 1100-1102; received 23 May 1975, endorsed by John Strong; Sagnac-segment argument, two-laser null (79 cycles expected), origin of the eq. (10) acceleration term, Newcomb 1881 quoted; saved in research/files
  • 1977Author's reply to comments (Groen) Applied Optics 16(3) 543-544
  • 1983Standing wave sensor With S. F. Jacobs, Univ. Arizona OSC; Applied Optics 22(9) 1274; node/antinode about 20,000:1, thickness under lambda/100; GE Syracuse photomultiplier; saved in research/files
  • 1986-05Experimental detection of the ether The project document, 5 pp., modern retyping; Speculations in Science and Technology 10(1) 3-11 (journal per Marett's page); Delta 0.25 mm, 378 km/s; RADC and DARPA named as sponsors in part; the rexresearch PDF may be a scan of the original print, not reached
  • 1986-08-14Special relativity (letter) Nature 322, 590, doi 10.1038/322590b0; possibly a reply to Aspden; promised details
  • 1987Silvertooth paper in Speculations in Science and Technology 10(3) Listed in the 1989 article's further reading; content unknown
  • 1988-06Letter to Electronics and Wireless World EWW June 1988 p.542
  • 1989-05Motion through the ether Electronics and Wireless World 95, 437-438; +/-5% repeatability over several years, three GE-made sensors, Leo alignment; unsigned "Ether Challenge" suppression sidebar; read by the Investigator from page images (spirit-science.fr), not saved
  • 1990Position Error in Satellite Navigation Systems Galilean Electrodynamics 1(6) 80-83; the GPS part of claim 5 with a numerical example; abstract only
  • 1992A New Michelson-Morley Experiment C. K. Whitney and Silvertooth, Physics Essays 5(1) 82-89; node spacing in one arm departing from lambda/2, v0 about 378 km/s; abstract only; conflicts with the 1986 model, which gives exactly lambda/2
  • 1999The Silvertooth effect: TETET-99 S. Silvertooth, D. G. Lahoz, Angel Garcia; Toronto, UNIAM; ISBN 978-0968308547; 211 pp.; authorship and content unknown

Patents and patent office (1)

  • 1970-09-08US3527526A Catoptric image-forming system Filed 26 May 1965; DE and GB family members; optics only, no bearing on the ether claims; no ether or sensor patent found

Witness accounts and correspondence (2)

  • 1881Simon Newcomb letter to A. A. Michelson National Archives RG78; quoted in the 1976 paper as stating the wavelength-compensation principle of claim 1
  • 1986-11-01Marinov letter to E. W. Silvertooth In Marinov, The Thorny Way of Truth (Yumpu blocked; rexresearch PDF not reached) · Marinov, claimant of absolute-motion detection

Experiments and replications by others (10)

  • 1978-05R. A. Muller, The cosmic background radiation and the new aether drift Scientific American 238(5) 64; U-2 radiometer, hotter toward Leo; the agreement the 1986 paper cites; existence verified, number not
  • 1987-01S. Marinov, A Simplified Repetition of Silvertooth's Measurement of the Absolute Velocity of the Solar System Different arrangement; 386 +/- 38 km/s, declination -22 +/- 6 deg, RA 12.5 +/- 0.5 h; abstract only · Claimant of absolute-motion detection
  • 1987S. Marinov, Repetition of Silvertooth's Experiment for Measuring the Aether Drift Speculations in Science and Technology; no abstract on file · Claimant of absolute-motion detection
  • 1987P. Wesley, Silvertooth's Standing-Wave Measurement of Absolute Velocity of Solar System 378 +/- 8 km/s, RA 11 +/- 2 h; abstract only; source of data and error bar unknown
  • 1988Gagnon, Torr, Kolen and Chang, guided-wave first-order one-way test Phys. Rev. A 38, 1767; cited by the Contrarian as the strongest mainstream evidence against claim 3; result not read
  • 1990Krisher et al., hydrogen-maser one-way light-speed test Phys. Rev. D 42, 731; masers 21 km apart on fibre; limit 100 m/s; abstract via PubMed
  • 2006-08-10Navia et al., Search for anisotropic light propagation as a function of laser beam alignment arXiv astro-ph/0608223; laser diffraction, reports a = -0.4106 +/- 0.0225 against SR -0.5; cites Silvertooth; abstract read
  • 2011D. Marett, A Single Laser One-Way Speed of Light Experiment using a Standing Wave Interferometer conspiracyoflight.com; reported as a null; not read
  • 2012D. Marett, A Replication of the Silvertooth Experiment conspiracyoflight.com; June 2011 to Dec 2012; 12 h sidereal signal, offset, wrong sign, solar-time pattern, temperature correlation; web page read by the Investigator, PDF not downloaded
  • 2012D. Marett, A Four Quadrant Photo Detector for Measuring Laser Pointing Stability Companion paper on the pointing artefact; not read

Analyses and critiques (13)

  • 1970J. A. Winnie, Special relativity without one-way velocity assumptions Philosophy of Science 37(2) 223-238; conventionality of one-way speed, cited by Forbes
  • 1973A. A. Tyapkin, conventionality argument Lett. Nuovo Cimento 7, 760; cited by Silvertooth to dismiss Turner-Hill and Cole, and by Marett against a one-way wavelength measurement
  • 1977R. G. Newburgh, Relativistic phase invariance: comments on a recent effort to reinvoke the ether Applied Optics 1977; RADC, Hanscom AFB; copy at i-logic.com Silvertooth4.pdf, not read
  • 1977O. Groen, On Silvertooth's discussion of special relativity Applied Optics 16(3) 543
  • 1987H. Aspden, A Note on the Silvertooth Experiment Speculations in Science and Technology, pp. 9-12
  • 1988B. A. Nanning, A Preliminary Analysis of the Silvertooth Experiment Physics Essays 1(4) 272-274
  • 1989C. W. Sherwin, An Analysis of the Silvertooth Experiment Physics Essays 2(2) 125-127; confirms Phipps: AC coupling, lambda/4 twist over about 500 wavelengths; abstract only
  • –T. E. Phipps Jr., critique of the phase-reversal reading Known only through Sherwin's abstract: a fringe output cannot go negative
  • 1991J. S. Wilczynski, A New Explanation of the Michelson-Morley, Marinov and Silvertooth-Jacobs Experiments Listed on Natural Philosophy Wiki
  • 1993C. K. Whitney and S. Marinov, Discussion on Silvertooth's Experiment Deutsche Physik 2(8)
  • –Some Cosmological Implications of the Silvertooth Experiment Listed on Natural Philosophy Wiki; no details read
  • –Getting Wind of the Ether Listed on Natural Philosophy Wiki; no details read
  • 2007Roberts and Schleif, What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity? math.ucr.edu FAQ; lists 1972 as a null, 1983/86/92 under "apparently not consistent" with SR

Later accounts and media (7)

  • 1978-10L. Essen, Wireless World article WW Oct 1978 p.44; in the 1989 reading list; copy at i-logic.com, not read
  • 1986-11Wireless World report on the Nature letter worldradiohistory.com scan; not opened
  • 1988-02L. Essen, Electronics and Wireless World article EWW Feb 1988 p.126; in the 1989 reading list
  • 1989-11Wireless World replies to Motion through the ether worldradiohistory.com scan; not opened
  • 1990New Energy Technology (PACE) States "Silvertooth has detected our motion through the ether"; search result only
  • 2018-04-06B. Koberlein, The Tale Of A 1986 Experiment That Proved Einstein Wrong Forbes; accepts the observation, rejects the interpretation (relies on Marett); notes geocentrist sites cite the Nature letter
  • –Natural Philosophy Wiki, Wilbur Silvertooth Biography without sources; Terman study and Einstein anecdote flagged as anecdote; 47 search hits, about 12 read

Records named but not yet examined (4)

  • 1975-05Third-Quarter FY75 Applied Optics Research Report, University of Arizona OSC Cited in 1976 for the east-west two-oscillator ether experiment "under way" (59 cycles predicted); outcome unknown
  • c.1986RADC and DARPA sponsorship records Contracts or reports behind "sponsored in part"; DTIC via Google found nothing; direct DTIC, AFRL Rome history office, DARPA archives, FOIA not yet tried
  • –Silvertooth's original data, lab notebooks and correspondence No data graphs in any paper (Marett); needed for claim 4
  • –Marett's full data set and PDF report Arbiter asks for the full data; PDF at conspiracyoflight.com not downloaded

Left out: copies of works already listed (Studocu, Scribd), the paper's own reference list, minor citing works (Selleri's book, Poquet 2005, viXra 1406.0045, rxiv 1508.0178, a Fandom list, a ResearchGate paper), i-logic images Silvertooth1/2.jpg and the Jacobs CV. Full catalogue: SilverTooth sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: The Contrarian's protocol adopted by the arbiter: the original design with lock-in readout instead of eyeballing an oscilloscope, a thermally controlled and pointing-monitored laser, a rotating table to separate sidereal from solar and thermal patterns, declared north-south and east-west run times, and the raw time series published.

Deciding records: Silvertooth's original data; RADC and DARPA records (direct DTIC search, AFRL Rome, DARPA archives, FOIA); the University of Arizona OSC FY75 report; the Nature 322:590 letter, JOSA 1972, Physics Essays 1992, Galilean Electrodynamics 1990, Sherwin 1989, Wireless World Nov 1986 and Nov 1989; Marett's full data.

Try it yourself: Compute v/c = lambda/(2 Delta) for 0.63 um and 0.25 mm (378 km/s), then show with lambda1 = lambda/(1+b), lambda2 = lambda/(1-b) that opposed beams give node spacing exactly lambda/2 for every b, so the slide signal cancels. example.py does both step by step.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Recomputed with SymPy: d(phi)/d(Delta) = k1 + k2 = 4 pi / lambda exactly, with b cancelling, so D1 and D2 stay in phase for every velocity. Held conditional: a correct derivation from the real geometry would revert the verdict to Never properly tested. arbiter.md, Recomputed item 2 and Claim 3
  2. Arbiter Open question: why did independent replicators (Marett, Marinov, perhaps Wesley) see a CMB-scale signal aligned with sidereal time if the apparatus should be blind? Marett's thermal explanation fits his data, but the coincidence deserves a direct rotating-table test. arbiter.md, Open questions
  3. Contrarian The null of his own 1976 two-laser test is a point against his mechanism, and a point for his honesty: he printed it. Phase reversal was judged by eye with Delta adjusted until it appeared, a procedure where expectation can steer the outcome. contrarian.md, sections 4 and 5
  4. Mathematician Within the model c(theta) = c/(1 + b cos theta) with fixed frequency, the node spacing of two opposed beams is exactly lambda/2, so the 1992 Whitney-Silvertooth claim of a departure from lambda/2 would need a different model than the 1986 equations. mathematician.md, section 4
  5. Investigator The 1986 statement of RADC and DARPA sponsorship has no report trail found; an RADC physicist (Newburgh) criticised the 1976 paper in print. Explanations to weigh: informal support, unindexed or restricted reports, overstated sponsorship. DTIC direct, AFRL Rome, DARPA archives and FOIA would decide. sites.md, Leads for review, Historical record

AI noteThe 1989 article prints the same 378 km/s as the value "on the day when this particular test was performed", so it is the 1986 number repeated, not a second measurement; Wesley's +/-8 km/s is tighter than the inventor's own +/-5%.

Rank 7Sigma-Ro

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:42

A 1977 gravity-control survey where a capacitor thrust ion wind does not fully explain, Brown's unpublished vacuum notes and a 1956 industry silence sit beside Searl claims arithmetic rules out.

Invention / theory background

Ether-Technology (1977; German original 1972) by 'Rho Sigma', identified by advocacy and popular sources as Rolf Schaffranke (1921-1994), said to have worked at Peenemuende and NASA. It compiles others' work: T. Townsend Brown's high-voltage capacitors, Erwin Saxl's charged pendulum, John Searl's spinning-ring 'levity disc', Seike Shin'ichi's spin resonance and weighed coil, Heim and others. It argues gravity is an ether flow that electricity can control, and that this work was suppressed. Most evidence is relayed second-hand.

Ranking explanation

Below SilverTooth (5), whose own instrument gave a sharp, cheaply testable signal, because Sigma-Ro's central Searl claims are refuted by calculation and rest on one undated relayed account. Above Pappas-PT (7) for breadth of open record: an Army Research Laboratory gap in the ion-wind explanation, Brown's never-published vacuum notes, a documented 1956 industry silence, nine suppression incidents with counter-evidence, two conflicting accounts of Searl's conviction, and a spinning-ring calculation the reader can run.

Key supporting elements

  1. Bahder and Fazi (US Army Research Laboratory) found ionic wind 'at least three orders of magnitude too small' to explain asymmetric-capacitor thrust in air; ionic drift gives the right order, but the model is unfinished.
  2. Brown's 1973 letters: in vacuum below 1e-6 mm Hg at 70-220 kV, thrust 'continued, even when there was no vacuum spark'; equal torque in air and transformer oil. His Paris, Winston-Salem and GE notes were never published.
  3. In 1956 Interavia reported 2 ft discs (50 kV, 50 W, 17 ft/s), results 'highly classified'; Glenn L. Martin's vice-president and Rolls-Royce's Cleaver took it seriously. After 1957 the book records nothing more from industry.
  4. Saxl, a trained physicist, published a charge-sign-dependent torsion-pendulum period in Nature (1964, timed to 1 part in 1e7) and, with Allen, eclipse period changes 1e5 above lunar attraction in Physical Review D (1971).
  5. Seike's 1984 Physical Society of Japan abstract reports a Moebius-wound coil losing 0.059 to 0.291 g at 2 to 6 A; no repeat with reversed current or a dummy winding is on record.

Key contradictions

  1. Searl's mechanism: a spinning ring's centrifugal electron voltage is 6.5e-9 V at 1,000 rpm, and at most 3.6e-7 V for any steel rotor before it bursts: 11 to 13 orders below the book's 1e5 V.
  2. The book's Searl figures disagree (1e5 V versus above 1e9 V at 'low speed'; thresholds 1e13, 1e14, 1e10-1e14 V). 1e15 W output is about 55 times world power; 1e13 V stores about 600 kilotons.
  3. Talley (1988) found vacuum force only during breakdown, Tajmar (2004) none; Hathaway and Williams (2021) saw no weight change on charged 1 kg conductors within 2 g; two Saxl repeats (1992, 1998) found no anomaly.
  4. Brown himself wrote that air thrust was 'largely ambient ion momentum transfer' and that his 10 kg gravitors 'never floated'; the '1 percent weight change' is the narrator's wording, not Brown's.
  5. A torsion pendulum's period contains no g, so Saxl's shift cannot show gravity changed; Roos's frictionless sink-flow ether gives a force falling as R^-5, not R^-2.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 36 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Asymmetric high-voltage capacitor thrust in air (Biefeld-Brown)Established as an ionic (electrohydrodynamic) effect; quantitative model incomplete
Brown's thrust in vacuum and his solar, sidereal and lunar torque variationsTested, not supported non-ionic vacuum thrust; Talley 1988, Tajmar 2004, not at Brown's 70-220 kV Never properly tested time correlations and air-versus-oil torque; records unpublished
Electric charge changes weight or gravity (static charge; Saxl's pendulum)Tested, not supported Hathaway and Williams 2021; two Saxl repeats Internally inconsistent inferring gravity from a torsion pendulum's period
Searl's ring generator reaches 1e5 to 1e14 V by centrifugal electrons plus coil feedbackRefuted by calculation the stated mechanism Internally inconsistent the quoted figures as a set Plausible, untested 1e5 V from some source
Searl craft: output exceeds input, weightless and inertia-free, 1952 lift-off to 50 ftRefuted by calculation output above input (1e13-1e15 W) Never properly tested weightlessness and the 1952 flight; one undated second-hand account
An ether exists and gravity is its sink or push flowTested, not supported detectable or Earth-dragged ether Historically superseded but instructive 'Michelson-Morley did not disprove every ether' Internally inconsistent sink-flow gravity as Roos states it
Seike: spin resonance gives negative gravitational energy; coil loses weightPlausible, untested spin mathematics, as a gravity effect Not testable as stated negative gravitational energy and 3e9 kW Never properly tested 1984 coil weight loss
Orthodox science and officials suppressed this workNot testable as stated in physics terms; historically open, Searl strand with conflicting accounts

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Rolf Schaffranke ('Rho Sigma')Author and compiler of the book; advocate of the ether hypothesis · Advocate of ether technology; promoter of the work he relaysBorn 31 Jul 1921, died 22 Apr 1994 (Young Harris GA; another account Hayesville NC). Advocacy and popular sources (Natural Philosophy wiki citing Manning and Garbon 2008; Davidson 1989; Bergier 1978) say he worked at Peenemuende with von Braun, then as a NASA Huntsville propulsion consultant and later at Boeing; no official record found. Later wrote on space-energy converters (raum&zeit, New Energy News 1993).
T. Townsend BrownInventor of the 'gravitor' capacitor; source of the 1973 letters · Reporting his own work; patenteeWorked with Paul A. Biefeld at Denison University; six US patents (1934-1965); Navy demonstration before Admiral Radford at Pearl Harbor, 1950; vacuum tests in Paris (1955-56), Bahnson Laboratories (1957-58) and GE Space Center (1959); founded NICAP in 1956; retired in the Bahamas by 1973.
John R. R. SearlInventor of the spinning-ring generator and 'levity disc' · Inventor of the devicePer the Barret Report, an electrical fitter with the Midlands Electricity Board in 1949 with no formal education beyond the job; noticed a small EMF from spinning parts, built a 3 ft generator by 1952. Lived at Mortimer, Berkshire; a 1984 letter says he was prosecuted and detained in 1982-83. Wrote 'Antigravity: The Dream Made Reality'.
P. L. BarretIssued the Barret Report, the book's main Searl source · Searl's associateStyled 'B.Sc.' in the book; Davidson calls him Searl's associate. No date, venue or affiliation for the report, and no trace of him outside the book and works copying it.
Erwin J. SaxlCharged torsion-pendulum experimenter · Reporting his own workDescribed in the book as a 'post-doctoral student with Einstein'; privately financed (about $50,000); published in Nature (1964) and, with M. Allen, in Physical Review D (1971) on eclipse period changes; later automated runs analysed for periodicities.
Seike Shin'ichi (the book's 'Seiki')Japanese physicist behind 'NER' and the 1984 coil weighing · Reporting his own work; director of his own instituteBorn 1936 in Uwajima, died 2009; master's course, University of Tokyo graduate school of science; taught at Ibaraki University and Ehime Teikyo Junior College; founded the Gravity Research Institute (1973) and the magazine Uchutei; Physical Society of Japan abstracts 1965-1997.
Burkhard HeimGerman theorist of the 'contrabaric' field-propulsion effect · Reporting his own theoryLost his eyes and hands in a laboratory explosion; degree 1954, institute 1958 at Northeim; 1952 Stuttgart lecture; ridiculed at the 1952 Innsbruck astronautics congress per the book; Jan 1976 letter calls himself a 'loner'.
Martin TajmarIndependent tester of Biefeld-Brown thrust (2004)Described by the physicist reviewer as a mainstream propulsion physicist with no commercial stake in the idea; his AIAA Journal test found no thrust once corona wind was excluded. Otherwise not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (121 of 121 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (11)

  • 1972Forschung in Fesseln: das Raetsel der Elektro-Gravitation Rho Sigma; Ventla-Verlag, Wiesbaden-Schierstein; reissued VAP 1994, 1996; German original, contents not compared
  • 1976-05Edgar Cayce and the 'Ether' Controversy A.R.E. Journal XI no.3; earlier publication of the book's ether section, per the book
  • 1977Ether-Technology: A Rational Approach to Gravity Control First edition Tamhelm Press, Lakemont GA; 1996 Adventures Unlimited printing read in full, 108 pp.
  • 1981-10-23The Development of Post-Relativistic Concepts in Physics and Advanced Technology Abroad Abstract, 1st International Symposium on Non-Conventional Energy Technology; Natural Philosophy wiki list
  • 1982The New Tesla Electromagnetics and the Secrets of Electrical Free Energy With T. E. Bearden; dated 1982 or 1984 by different lists
  • c.1989Schappellers kosmischer Energieextraktor raum&zeit no.37; teaser only (paid); bears on the book's ether-flow direction
  • 1989Plaedoyer fuer die Raumenergie-Konversion raum&zeit no.39; teaser only; includes a 1986 Vallee letter to President Reagan
  • 1990Erdbeben durch Atombombentests raum&zeit no.44; teaser only; peripheral
  • 1990Space Energy Abstract; Natural Philosophy wiki list
  • 1991Translation of the Gdansk compilation of Einstein's ether quotations Raum & Zeit (English) vol 2 no 5, per Schaffranke in 1993; not located
  • 1993-11Ether Research: Frontier Perspective in an Age of Revelation New Energy News v1 n7 pp.10-11, under his real name; Methernitha and Tewari converters; no new Searl or Brown data

Patents and patent office (10)

  • 1928Brown, British patent 300,311 (gravitor) Number from the primer's recall, not checked
  • 1934-09-25Brown, first US patent (electrostatic motor) Book p.33; Investigator's candidate number US 1,974,483
  • 1962-02-20Brown, US 3,022,430 (electrokinetic generator) Pages reproduced in the book pp.47-48, OCR garbled
  • 1965-06-01Brown, US 3,187,206 Last of six US patents; pages reproduced pp.47-48
  • 1971-10-05Hooper, US 3,610,971 All-electric motional electric field generator W. J. Hooper, Sarasota; assignee Electrodynamic Gravity Inc.; 5 claims, 8 figures
  • 1972-04-11Hooper, US 3,656,013 Apparatus for generating motional electric field Filed 19 Apr 1968; rotating magnets, E = v x B; abstract read
  • –Brown, US 2,949,550 Scale model flown around a pole (Rose report); pages reproduced pp.47-48
  • –Brown, US 3,018,394 Listed in the p.69 footnote
  • –Dudley, US 3,095,167 Charged rockets 'up to six times the normal' height (p.33); patent not read
  • –Pages, French patent FR 1,251,902 Antigravity craft design (pp.93-95); not obtained

Government records (6)

  • 1962-02Velkoff, ASD-TR-61-642, electrofluidmechanics USAF report cited in the book's addendum p.43
  • 1972-06Project Outgrowth, AFRPL-TR-72-31 USAF, Edwards AFB, 28 members; lists antigravity propulsion as a field-propulsion category; relayed pp.54-55
  • 1974Defence Minister Robert Galley, France-Inter interview with J.-C. Bourret Ministry 'secretly studied the problem since 1954' (book's paraphrase); INA archive not checked
  • c.1976Poher (CNES) computer study of about 35,000 UFO sightings Relayed pp.93-95
  • –US Navy records of Brown's rejected research proposal Brown says the Navy declined because ion wind predicted no vacuum operation (p.46)
  • –Paperclip (NARA) and NASA Marshall personnel records for Schaffranke Would document the Peenemuende and NASA career; not reached

Court and state records (3)

  • 1982Reading Crown Court and Berkshire Record Office files on Searl Would decide electricity-theft versus pylon-damage accounts
  • –Florida corporate record, Electrodynamic Gravity Inc. sunbiz.org; would test Bergier's dating claim; not reached
  • –Texas registration, Association for Pushing Gravity Research Jan P. Roos, Austin; no trace found

Company and business records (7)

  • 1930Brown's torque records, 1930-55 NRL, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Zanesville, two California stations; solar, sidereal, lunar correlations per Brown
  • 1955Brown's vacuum-test laboratory notes and film, 1955-59 SNCASE Paris, Bahnson Labs Winston-Salem, GE Space Center; 'never published and are not available to me'
  • 1956Aviation Studies, Electrogravitics Systems report Existence from memory (medium), not checked
  • 1956Glenn L. Martin Co. / RIAS gravity research files G. S. Trimble, vice-president, quoted in Interavia
  • 1956Rolls-Royce and Thomson-Houston archives on electrogravitics A. V. Cleaver; Gerardin, nuclear physics section, Le Raincy
  • 1982Southern Electricity Board records of the Searl prosecution Interested party (the prosecutor, per the 1984 letter)
  • –Tamhelm Press publisher's files Lakemont GA; first English edition

Witness accounts and correspondence (14)

  • 1952-04-08Mason Rose report on Brown and Biefeld Pacific Aeronautical Library, Los Angeles; five factors incl. dielectric mass; quoted pp.25-29
  • 1970-11-05Hermann Oberth letter to the author Inertia, gravity and energy 'different sides of one and the same thing' (p.23)
  • 1973-02-14Brown letter to Schaffranke Vacuum tests, 1928 gravitor 1 N on 10 kg, air-versus-oil torque, unpublished notes; also reprinted by Davidson 1989 (pp.44-46)
  • 1973-04-05Brown letter to Schaffranke Kitselman witnessed a tethered 15 in dome lift 110% of its weight; Navy rejected proposal (pp.46-49)
  • 1976-01Burkhard Heim letter Doubts he can publish as a 'loner' (pp.89-91)
  • 1977-02-14McCampbell (MUFON) private communication 'The French are moving out!' (p.95)
  • 1984-12-11Letter on Searl's 1982 raid, prosecution and detention Unnamed writer to Searl's associate in New Zealand; hedged 'allegedly'; p.108; original not seen
  • –C. B. Wynniatt letter to the author Onerahi, Whangarei, New Zealand; undated; Searl's claim second-hand, 1e14 V (p.73)
  • –The Ether-Vortex Turbine (the Barret Report) P. L. Barret; undated; reproduced pp.73-79; no rpm or measurement; original not obtained
  • –Searl experimental set-up photographs p.74; undated, uncredited; disc on legs outdoors and an interior with dials
  • –Jan P. Roos statement on the double toroidal vortex Austin TX, president of the Association for Pushing Gravity Research (stake); pp.81-82
  • –Dr Arthur Cain 'published testimony' on Searl Endorses Searl's 'calculations' (p.82); publication not identified; English and German searches found no trace
  • –Scientific Sub-Committee report on the Levity Disc Unnamed, undated, editor R.K.; 1e9 V and 1e10-1e14 V figures (pp.87-88)
  • –Joseph Wuest personal communication on Hess financing Told to the author in person (p.70); one source

Works by the researchers the book relays (35)

  • 1904Jean Becquerel, N-ray paper, Comptes Rendus 138 p.1413 Book wrongly calls him discoverer of radioactivity (Henri)
  • 1908Lippmann, charged-body inertia experiments No citation in the book (p.23); not identified
  • 1909Oliver Lodge, The Ether of Space 'power of recoil' quotation (p.63)
  • 1920Eguchi, electret records, Physico-Mathematical Society of Japan Cited in the Barret Report for Searl's skin effect (p.77)
  • 1920Einstein, Ether and the Theory of Relativity (Leiden; Sidelights on Relativity) 'space without ether is unthinkable'; quoted in the book and in 1993
  • 1929Brown, How I Control Gravitation, Science and Invention Rotors and pendulums under oil (p.35)
  • 1931Hilgenberg, Ueber Gravitation, Tromben und Wellen in bewegten Medien Berlin, self-published, 78 pp.; Met Office Library; Roos's sink-flow source; unread
  • 1933Wuest, Munich paper on 'a new type of radiation' 1933-34 (p.70)
  • 1942Schappeller, The Physics of the Primary State of Matter 1942/1955; archive.org; 'Davson' in Barret's bibliography; source of the ether-flow direction; unread
  • 1951Dirac, Is there an aether?, Nature Book dates Dirac's ether statement 1954 (p.62) and 1952 (p.65)
  • 1952Heim, Die dynamische Kontrabarie, Stuttgart lecture Also the 1952 Innsbruck congress (p.89)
  • 1959Dino Kraspedon, English translation (Neville Spearman) 400,822 km 'etheric covering' (p.67)
  • 1964-07-11Saxl, An Electrically Charged Torque Pendulum, Nature 203 136-138 Positive charge gives a longer swing; primary text not read
  • 1965Seike, Equation of relativistic spin waves JPS annual meeting 20.2 p.339; CiNii
  • 1966Seike, Self-excited NMR of negative energy I JPS 21.5 p.348; Univ. of Tokyo; Newton's k in the spin-field energy tensor; page images
  • 1966Seike, Self-excited NMR of negative energy II JPS autumn pp.143-144; 'energy-momentum ether'; damped solution saturates; page images
  • 1966Todeschini, Decisive Experiments in Modern Physics Bergamo; experiments named, not described (pp.66-68)
  • 1967Pages, Revue Francaise d'Astronautique no.3 Electromagnetic Magnus effect (p.83)
  • 1969Seike, Ultra-Relativity theory (Chou-soutaisei riron) Editions 1972-1999; would settle the sign convention; not obtained
  • 1970Seike, Gravitational field of antiparticles JPS spring 1970 p.3; CiNii
  • 1970-08-28Allen and Endean, particles at 'about twice' c Book's one line (p.22); paper not identified
  • 1971Seike, Klein's one-sided electromagnetic wave JPS spring 1971 p.117; CiNii
  • 1971Saxl and Allen, Physical Review D 3, 823 Pendulum during the 7 Mar 1970 eclipse; abstract via search summary
  • 1971Saxl and Allen, IRI Report #702 Eclipse gravity measurements; cited by Valone 2012
  • c.1971Hooper, New Horizons in Electric, Magnetic and Gravitational Field Theory B x V gravity monograph; snippets only
  • 1973Seike, Uchutei magazine, 1973-1998 Gravity Research Institute, to issue 163
  • 1974Pages, Le Defi de l'Antigravitation Chiron, Paris
  • 1976Seike, The Experimental Disc Has Risen (Jikken enban fujou seri) Book; CiNii and ja.wikipedia
  • 1982Seike, Nuclear Electric Resonance, 31a-NG-6 JPS spring 1982 p.5; Frenkel-Kramers equations; no gravity term or power figure
  • 1982Seike, How to Assemble an Anti-Gravity Engine, 5th ed. Presumed source of the 3e9 kW; not obtained
  • 1984Seike, Gravity cancellation experiment, 1p-EB-11 JPS autumn 1984 p.38; 17-turn Klein-bottle coil, 2-6 A, -0.059 to -0.291 g; no controls stated
  • –Searl, Antigravity: The Dream Made Reality Searl's own book; lists his publicity to 1983 (Life, Thames TV); Scribd snippet only
  • –Carstoiu, unpublished 'gravitational vortex' paper SUNY Albany / Univ. of Paris (p.86)
  • –Hieronymus, 'eloptic energy' work Relayed pp.69-70; no data
  • –Cayce readings 195-70 and 281-3 Offered as anticipating ether levitation (Part 3)

Experiments and replications by others (7)

  • 1968Harald Fischer, Leipzig dissertation on electrostatic fields and pendulum periods Karl Marx University; copy said to be at Mainz; said to confirm Saxl (p.23)
  • 1988Talley, vacuum test of Brown-type electrodes No thrust at 1e-6 torr DC; force during breakdown; via Wikipedia summary
  • 1992Li Jianguo et al., Electrically Charged Torque Pendulum Experiment with a Null Result Chinese Physics Letters 9, 117; ten times Saxl's precision; abstract
  • 1998Liu et al., Test of Saxl's effect: No evidence for new interactions Physics Letters A 244, 1; electrostatic equilibrium shift; abstract
  • 2002Bahder and Fazi, Force on an asymmetric capacitor US Army Research Laboratory, arXiv physics/0211001; ion wind three orders too small
  • 2004Tajmar, Biefeld-Brown effect: misinterpretation of corona wind phenomena AIAA Journal 42, 315; no thrust once corona excluded; abstract
  • 2021Hathaway and Williams, Null-result test for effect on weight from large electrostatic charge Physics 3(2) 160, arXiv 2103.00700; 1 kg, 10 V-200 kV, within 2 g; abstract

Later accounts and media (22)

  • 1923-04-14Michelson interview, Minneapolis Morning Tribune (Reuterdahl) Relativity need not reject the ether; via Brush 1976 and Wynniatt (p.61)
  • 1934-03Popular Science Monthly on the Pasadena light-speed tube 'Variations of 12 miles per second and more' (p.22)
  • 1956Hoversten, Interavia vol. XI no.12 p.992 2 ft discs, 50 kV, 50 W, 17 ft/s; 'highly classified'; quoted pp.38-39; original not obtained
  • 1956Seesemann, Aetherphysik und Radiaesthesie (Locarno congress report) Relays Lenard's double tube and the Einstein-1952 claim (p.65)
  • 1957A. V. Cleaver, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 16, 84-94 Rolls-Royce; 'a NEW PRINCIPLE' needed (pp.40-43)
  • 1964-06-14Boston Sunday Globe on Saxl p.50
  • 1965-01Keyhoe, TRUE magazine Heim 'put under official German security', which the book calls 'somewhat hastily'
  • 1967-09Science et Vie no.600 p.54 'French physicists are several years ahead'
  • 1972-08-25Edgar D. Mitchell, address to the 21st International Conference on Parapsychology Amsterdam; the book's foreword (pp.13-17)
  • 1976-06-26La Suisse, Bourret on UFO sightings p.95
  • 1976-11-02National Enquirer on Petit's MHD engine model CNRS plasma physicist; p.94
  • 1978Jacques Bergier, The Secret War of the Occult (chapter) Corrales translation on Inexplicata; Rho Sigma from Peenemuende; links the report to Electrodynamic Gravity Inc.
  • 1981-03CUFORG newsletter Vol 2 No 5, review of the book Canadian UFO Research Group; names Tamhelm Press; archive.org
  • 1989John Davidson, The Secret of the Creative Vacuum Reprints the Brown letters; Searl via Barret; Earth-field induction and magnet-roller alternatives; archive.org
  • 1995Yamamoto, Tondemo-bon no sekai, pp.227-238 Sceptics' book; main source of ja.wikipedia's Seike biography
  • 2002Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point Metadata match on Schaffranke; text restricted
  • 2008Manning and Garbon, Breakthrough Power, p.11 Source of the Natural Philosophy wiki biography
  • –Natural Philosophy Society wiki: Rolf Schaffranke; Shinichi Seiki Advocacy wiki; dates, career, works list
  • –Japanese Wikipedia: Seike Shin'ichi Education, institute, books; sceptical framing
  • –Kook Science wiki: John Searl Sceptical wiki; pylon-damage conviction outline; search summary only, page did not load
  • –Wendelle Stevens, UFO Contact from Reticulum Repeats the book's Roos passage
  • –W. de Fonvielle, Les Mondes, on Ducretet's flying mica disc 19th century; spun before a Wimshurst machine (pp.84-85)

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • 1982Seike, Graviton reactor abstracts 3p-BD-4 (1982) and 30p-HF-9 (1983) JPS; free on J-STAGE; not reached
  • 1983-01-05Evening Post (Reading) report on the Searl sentence Per a sceptical wiki summary: pylon damage, 15 months; British Newspaper Archive blocked
  • 1985Seike, gravity cancellation follow-up, 31a-F1-1 JPS annual 40.1 p.27; would continue the 1984 record
  • 1994Schaffranke obituary and burial record Young Harris GA versus Hayesville NC; Stone Mountain GA burial
  • –UK press on Searl, 1950-1999 British Newspaper Archive search blocked (HTTP 403)
  • –Record of the von Braun-Seike meeting Book p.83; Japanese search negative

Not counted: the book's own sections and diagrams (pp.72, 80, 92), its clairvoyant inputs other than Cayce, mainstream textbooks used only as background, Seike's other CiNii records (later abstracts, soil-mechanics papers, book editions), web snippets (Reddit, Substack, AbeBooks), and Brown's unidentified '75 patents in 12 countries'. Full catalogue: Sigma-Ro sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A hard-vacuum (below 1e-6 torr) torsion-balance test of a Brown-type asymmetric capacitor at 100-200 kV, sparks excluded, with a dummy electrode and leakage-current subtraction. And spin a metre-scale conducting disc, reading hub-to-rim voltage with an electrometer (prediction about 6.5e-9 V at 1,000 rpm).

Deciding records: Reading Evening Post 1982-83, Reading Crown Court and Southern Electricity Board files on Searl; Brown's vacuum notes and film (Bahnson papers, GE archive) and Navy proposal records; the 1956 Aviation Studies report and Glenn L. Martin files; the original Barret Report; Seike's 1985 abstract.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: compute V = m_e v^2 / (2e) for a 0.457 m ring at any rpm, then at steel's burst speed (about 357 m/s), and compare with 1e5 V. Then fit Seike's five coil points (2-6 A) and see why an I^1.4 trend cannot separate a magnetic force from heating.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Talley's force appeared during breakdown, which matches Brown's own thrust 'bursts' at every vacuum spark; the only unexplained part is Brown's statement that thrust persisted without sparks, for which he gives no numbers. Not dismissed untested: tested, but not at his conditions. arbiter.md, Claim 1
  2. Contrarian The ARL calculation that ionic wind is 'at least three orders of magnitude too small' is 'a point that critics who say it is only ion wind tend to omit'. The force is real; a gravity explanation is not needed; the vacuum case is under-tested at Brown's voltage. contrarian.md, Claim 1
  3. Mathematician Sink-flow gravity fails on its own premises: in a frictionless ether the force falls as r^-5, not r^-2; a 1/r^2 drag needs viscosity, which would drag planets. Roos calls the ether non-viscous, and his 'proof' from Searl's lift-off is a non sequitur. mathematician.md, Claim 2
  4. Arbiter Two partial accounts of Searl's case: an associate's 1984 letter (prosecuted for 'stealing electricity', detained about a year) and a sceptical wiki summary (pylon damage, 15 months at Reading Crown Court, Evening Post 5 Jan 1983). Newspaper not seen; both interested. arbiter.md, Absence-of-evidence A
  5. Investigator Bergier (1978) says the 1972 Rho Sigma report 'led to the creation' of Electrodynamic Gravity Inc., but that company's patent was filed in April 1968 and Hooper died in February 1971. Florida corporate records would decide; Schaffranke's career rests on advocacy sources. sites.md, Leads for review 4

AI noteThe book's own Lippmann citation says charge adds inertia. It does, by U/c^2: about 2.8e-18 kg at 1e5 V on a 3 ft sphere. So the book's support points the opposite way to the Searl chapter's 'inertia free' craft.

Rank 8Vassilatos-Gerry

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 03:49

A Tesla enthusiast's 1996 book says HAARP was a corporate test to pull 60 GW from the aurora. Real history and patents sit beside unsourced numbers; the energy budget decides.

Invention / theory background

Gerry Vassilatos, described by his publisher as a New York City high school science teacher, wrote Secrets of Cold War Technology (Borderland Sciences, 1996). It argues that Tesla found a neutral 'Radiant Energy' released by short impulses, that Colorado Springs was an 'ether engine', that Cold War radio, nuclear and gamma-ray projects copy Tesla, and that HAARP's Gakona prototype tests drawing the auroral electrojet's '60 Gigawatts' to a ground screen. It also claims Farnsworth's fusor reached self-sustained fusion.

Ranking explanation

All four criteria apply. A: Tesla's shield observations, the Colorado Springs disconnect and the Savo car were never tested. B: long-delay echoes, ground-touching aurora and the unobtained HAARP contract reports stay open. C: the 60 GW and seawater-gamma budgets are hand calculations. D: it ties Tesla, beamray inventors, Reich and Farnsworth into one alternative history. It sits below Sigma-Ro, which keeps one measured effect, and beside Mills-Randal, another contested energy thesis; its central HAARP claim fails by calculation.

Key supporting elements

  1. Tesla's 1,100 A is his own figure (1917 Edison Medal speech: 'from 1,000 to 1,100 amperes. That was in 1899'). The book's HAARP prototype hardware, 18 energised elements at 360 kW, matches the operator's history.
  2. The electrojet is real and large: up to half a million amperes, driving measured currents in Alaskan pipelines (about 50 A) and power lines. HF heating does modulate it into ELF/VLF radio waves, a small transmitter steering a natural current.
  3. Raytheon owned the HAARP contractor APTI from 1995 to 1998 through E-Systems, and the Eastlund patent's only non-patent citations are Tesla items, though the book says those patents have nothing to do with Tesla.
  4. The auroral record is real: Lemstrom's 1872-84 artificial-aurora experiments, Corliss's ground-touching aurora reports (Norwood 1929), long-delay echoes unexplained since 1927, and Siple-Roberval amplification of injected VLF by up to 30 dB.
  5. Farnsworth's fusors made fusion neutrons at ITT; the family archive says the reaction 'lasted no longer than thirty seconds'. The author also argues soundly against the HAARP-as-weapon and ELF mind-control readings.

Key contradictions

  1. 60 GW to a 12-acre screen fails three independent bounds: aperture (about 0.4 to 5 kW), induction (about 3 MW), and current through air (the whole Earth's fair-weather circuit carries 1.8 kA against 300,000 A wanted).
  2. Gamma rays through 'several thousand feet of seawater' with no loss: at 1 MeV the e-folding length is 14 cm, so 305 m passes 10^-959. A kilogram of cobalt-57 stores only about 49 tons TNT of gamma energy.
  3. The book's shield, microsecond pulse-scale and 10,000 V per inch statements are in no Tesla text checked. Tesla's 1892 article has one insulated plate partly stopping waves at six feet; his 1901 patents describe charged particles.
  4. 100 MV and 10,000 hp were Tesla's 1904 Wardenclyffe plan; he reported about 20 MV. Lighting 200 lamps at 26 miles by radiation needs at least 100 MW on the best antenna; the story is O'Neill's 1944 reconstruction.
  5. Many unsourced figures are wrong (Argus altitude off 26 to 117 times, Starfish at 27,000 miles, Sputnik in 1956). Fusors run at gain near 1e-5. No HAARP energy announcement followed in 29 years.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 58 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Tesla's 'Radiant Energy': a neutral ether gas, released by short impulses, that passes glass and copper shieldsPlausible, untested Tesla's own 1892 report (felt at six feet, insulated plate only partly stops it) Never properly tested the book's stronger shield story, not traceable to a Tesla text Refuted by calculation passing a closed, grounded copper shield (about 51 dB at 1 mm) Not testable as stated neutral ether gas
Colorado Springs as an 'ether engine' drawing power from space, 100 MV, 200 lamps at 26 milesEstablished high-Q resonator, 1,100 A circulating current, streamers Internally inconsistent 100 MV and 10,000 hp as 1899 results (a 1904 plan); 150,000/s with 0.0062 ms Refuted by calculation 200 lamps at 26 miles by radiation; resonator running minutes without supply Never properly tested energy 'from space'; lamp test by earth conduction or as an event
Savo's 1931 Pierce-Arrow run by a Tesla ether 'power receiver'Never properly tested one witness through one interviewer, no object, tube-dating anomaly Refuted by calculation any radiated or ambient-field supply
Marconi plagiarised; every later project copies Tesla (the 'Tesla Rule'); oligarchic 'Houses' suppress inventorsNot testable as stated Marconi priority, 'Teslian component', 1915 award, the Houses Internally inconsistent the Tesla Rule as used
Unacknowledged Cold War radiation technology 'documented in patents'Established nuclear EMP; acoustic modulation of Mossbauer lines Refuted by calculation gamma bomb, matter-to-gamma, gamma links to submarines at any depth Tested, not supported half-life changed by sound or other non-nuclear means Never properly tested Clear Atomic Light beams, orbital gamma-laser armada, Reich neutralisation, WWII beamray tests
HAARP's prototype is an industry test to draw about 60 GW from the auroral electrojetEstablished hardware description; a conventional HF heater Refuted by calculation 60 GW to a ground screen Tested, not supported 'HF cannot make ELF'; 'major announcements soon' Internally inconsistent the '1000 times Arecibo' scaling Not testable as stated purpose reached by elimination
The auroral energy record (Lemstrom, ground-touching aurora, long-delay echoes, Siple-Roberval)Established Siple-Roberval amplification; the reports as reports Never properly tested aurora reaching the ground; cause of long-delay echoes; a transmitter pulling auroral energy down
Farnsworth reached self-sustained fusion in 1966 and was suppressed through ITTEstablished fusors make D-D fusion neutrons Tested, not supported self-sustained fusion (gain about 1e-5 to 1e-6) Never properly tested suppression (funding ended; no record of intent)

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Gerry VassilatosAuthor of the book; source of every claim reviewed · Author; his other books are sold by the same publisherDescribed by his publisher as a high school science teacher in New York City; producer of the Ray of Discovery video series; author of the 11-volume Vril Compendium (1992-95), Lost Science (1999) and Borderlands articles on HAARP and auroral power (1996-97). In a 1995 interview he set his method against 'quantitative science'.
Nikola TeslaThe book's central subjectBuilt the Colorado Springs station (1899) and planned Wardenclyffe (1904: 10,000 hp at 100 MV); patented radiant-energy collectors (US 685,957/958, 1901); reported 1,000-1,100 A and about 20 MV in his 1917 Edison Medal speech. His 1895 laboratory fire and the 1943 Supreme Court reading of his patent 645,576 figure in the story.
Michael TherouxEditor of the book; supplier of its HAARP files; reported 12 ft streamers · Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the publisherOf the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation; edited and prepared the book and its bibliography, supplied the HAARP files, and interviewed Vassilatos in 1995. His streamer replication has no publication or measurement.
Eric DollardCited as reproducing Tesla's impulse effects · His 1985-86 videos and papers are sold by the book's publisherThe book credits him with 1985 'line interferometry' showing a 'super-luminal' surface component, 'interception currents' of hundreds of amperes and videotaped capacitor-charging and bulb-rupture demonstrations; no velocity, line or instrument is given. Otherwise not in the review files.
Peter SavoSole witness to the 1931 Pierce-Arrow 'ether car'Per Ahlers's 1967 summary: born in Knin, served in the Austrian army, learned to fly at Wiener Neustadt, later a foreign trade specialist at the US Embassy in Belgrade and Bucharest; called Tesla's nephew on his mother's side. A genealogy lists no nephew of that name; identity unresolved.
Derek AhlersInterviewed Savo on 16 September 1967; his summary is the car story's sourceAn aeronautical engineer who had known Savo for about ten years (per the summary); noted Savo 'lacks a formal education'. Otherwise not in the review files.
Philo T. FarnsworthFusor inventor; the book's case of suppressed fusionDirector of research at ITT, which had bought his laboratories in 1949; with staff built 'fusors' (patents US 3,258,402, 1966, and 3,386,883, 1968); ITT's board pressed to end the work in December 1965; continued at Brigham Young University from 1967. Papers at the University of Utah (MS 0648).
Selim LemstromAuroral experimenter the book cites for drawing aurora downProfessor at the University of Helsinki (1838-1904); between 1872 and 1884 tried to reproduce the aurora atop four mountains in northern Finland, with auroral and telluric current experiments at Sodankyla in 1882-84. Corliss records them as apparently never replicated.
Evidence / artifacts (155 of 155 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (10)

  • 1992Vril Compendium, Vols. I-XI (1992-1995) Gerry Vassilatos; Borderland Sciences. Vol. I holds the Ward, Vion and Palencsar aerial-battery patents, Vol. X Hettinger and Grindell-Matthews, Vol. XI ELF and Sanguine; the book's 'VC' bibliography keys. Scans on archive.org, not read · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1995'The Rediscovery of Vril: An Interview with Gerry Vassilatos' By Michael Theroux, Journal of Borderlands Research Vol. LI No. 3; reposted on aetherforce.energy. The author sets his method against 'quantitative science' · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1996'The Broadcast Power of Nikola Tesla (Part I)' Borderlands Vol. 52 No. 2; Tesla's impulse discoveries; no Colorado Springs, Savo or Wardenclyffe material found by search · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1996Secrets of Cold War Technology: Project HAARP and Beyond Gerry Vassilatos; Borderland Sciences, ISBN 0-945685-20-3 (Adventures Unlimited edition 2000, ISBN 0-932813-80-1); 162 PDF pages, the one document in the folder; digested in full, deep read chapter by chapter · Author; edited by M. Theroux of the publisher, which also sells his other books
  • 1996'HAARP With No Strings: What is the IRI?' Borderlands Vol. 52 No. 3; the author's earlier version of Chapter 7, first half; quotes a 48-element prototype description and 'Raytheon acquired the rights to the Eastlund patents' · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1996Cold War Technology Patent Collection (announced companion text) Named at the head of the book's bibliography as 'forthcoming' (p.154); the book says it would let readers check the patent paraphrases. Whether it became the 1997 companion volume is not stated in the review files · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1997'Drawing Usable Electrical Power from the Aurora Borealis' Journal of Borderland Research Vol. 53 No. 2; the 'Auroral Power Accumulator', 300,000 A x 200,000 V = 'some 60 Gigawatts', Vion, Lemstrom, Norwood 1929, pipeline currents; with references · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1997Declassified Patents of the Cold War and SDI: Companion Study Guide (Secrets of Cold War Technology II) 666 pp of patent texts and commentary; OCR on archive.org searched by keyword; names the De Ment 'Clear Atomic Light' patent and says Farnsworth produced fusion 'with control'; no HAARP material · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher
  • 1999Lost Science Gerry Vassilatos, ISBN 0-932813-75-5; chapters on Tesla, Moray and Farnsworth; copies on archive.org, not read
  • –Ray of Discovery video documentary series; Ground Radio Named in the Borderland Sciences catalog of the author's works; not examined · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher

Tesla's own texts and patents (15)

  • 1892-12-21Tesla, 'On the Dissipation of the Electrical Energy of the Hertz Resonator' The Electrical Engineer; impact of electrified air felt at 'six feet or more', 'cannot be entirely stopped by the interposition of an insulated metal plate'; the only primary text found for the shield story
  • 1900Tesla, US patent 645,576 Held by the 1943 Supreme Court to anticipate features of Marconi's four-circuit system; known from the opinion
  • 1900-06Tesla, 'The Problem of Increasing Human Energy' Century Magazine; defines a stationary wave as one with fixed nodes, against the book's 'stationary versus standing' distinction
  • 1901Tesla, US 685,957 'Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy' Sun throws off 'minute particles of matter positively electrified' that charge an elevated plate against ground; no shields, microsecond scale or neutral gas
  • 1901Tesla, US 685,958 'Method of Utilizing Radiant Energy' Ultraviolet, cathodic and Roentgen rays charge and discharge conductors
  • 1901Tesla, US 685,956 Named with 685,957/958 in the deep read's web check of Tesla's radiant-energy patents
  • 1904-03-05Tesla, 'The Transmission of Electric Energy Without Wires' Electrical World and Engineer; 'ten thousand horse-power under a tension of one hundred million volts' as a Wardenclyffe plan, the source of the book's 100 MV
  • 1915-12-08New York Times item on Tesla, p.8 Non-patent citation in Eastlund US 4,686,605
  • 1916Tesla's interview with his patent counsel (Anderson, ed.) Quoted on pupman: 'no difference whatever ... in the principle' between powering a telephone and a lamp
  • 1917Tesla, Edison Medal acceptance speech 'currents of from 1,000 to 1,100 amperes. That was in 1899'; highest potential 'something like 20,000,000 volts'; with no receiver the plant uses 'only a few horsepower'
  • 1919Tesla, 'My Inventions' IV, Electrical Experimenter Figure caption: coil 'capable of furnishing a current of 1,100 Amperes in the High Tension Secondary'; primary 51 ft (book: 75 ft cylinder)
  • 1919-05Tesla, 'The True Wireless' Electrical Experimenter [memory, medium]; cited by the book by title only, with no quotation
  • 1935-02Tesla in Liberty Magazine, p.7 Non-patent citation in Eastlund US 4,686,605
  • 1940-09-22W. L. Laurence, New York Times, Section 2 p.7, on Tesla Non-patent citation in Eastlund US 4,686,605
  • –Tesla quoted in Anderson, Guided Weapons and Computer Technology, pp.227-229 Names his post-fire laboratory '46 Houston Street' (book: 40 West Houston); quoted by Open Tesla Research

Patents and patent office (38)

  • 1860-06-19Vion, US 28,793 'Improved method of utilizing atmospheric electricity' Bibliography item; Google Patents page checked (title and date)
  • 1872-04-30Ward, US 126,356 'collecting electricity for telegraphing' Bibliography item; Google Patents page checked
  • 1889-11-12Dewey, US 414,943 Bibliography aerial-electricity patent; Google Patents page checked
  • 1899-05-30Zickler, US 625,823 Bibliography entry the book links to 'darklight communications across several miles'; no test cited
  • 1901-05-21Andor Palencsar, US 674,427 'Apparatus for collecting atmospheric electricity' Spelled 'Palinscar' in the book; Google Patents page checked
  • 1903-03-17MacFarland-Moore, US 723,176 Bibliography; the book dates his device 1898, which matches no listed patent
  • 1904-03-22MacFarland-Moore, US 755,305 Bibliography
  • 1904-06-10Hulsmeyer, British Patent 13,170 'Improvement in Hertzian Wave Projection' The 'radio searchlight' with which Chapter 5 starts its radar history; bibliography item
  • 1907-07-16Murgas, US 860,051 'Constructing Antenne' and US 915,993 'Wireless Telegraphy' (1909) Deep-well ground terminals the book makes a component of Sanguine and Seafarer; its 'ELF' tests at 50 kHz are low frequency, not ELF
  • 1909-02-02Walter I. Pennock, US 911,260 'Apparatus for collecting atmospheric electricity' Google Patents page checked
  • 1919Hettinger, US 1,309,031 Beamray device the book says was 'tested and classified during World War II'
  • 1919-05-13J. H. Rogers, US 1,303,730 'Radiosignaling System' and US 1,395,454 'Submarine Signaling System' (1921) Buried-line antennas the book says filter static and became the basis of naval ELF systems; tested at 70 kHz (LF)
  • 1922McCullough, US 1,403,700 Beamray device, same claim
  • 1923McCullough, US 1,471,406 Bibliography
  • 1924Reno, US 1,504,974 Beamray device, same claim
  • 1934-02-27S. L. Weber, US 1,948,552 'Ray Aviation Compass' Chapter 8 patent table (text year 1932)
  • 1946-11-19W. T. Weber, US 2,411,400 Chapter 8 patent table
  • 1951-04-03DeLoraine, US 2,546,984 ('Communication System'; bibliography 'X-Ray Communication System') Text year 1947; named by the arbiter as a deciding text, not obtained
  • 1957-06-25Reiffel, US 2,797,333 'X-Ray Source' Filed 24 July 1953; drawing reproduced in the book; the book calls Teller's SDI X-ray laser 'identical' to it
  • 1959-09-15Gschleiden, US 2,904,692 Passive collimator; Chapter 8 table
  • 1962-11-13Kell, US 3,064,134 Chapter 8 table
  • 1964-03-03Chope, US 3,123,714 'Space Communications System' Filed July 1961; drawing in the book
  • 1966-06Farnsworth, US 3,258,402 Fusor patent (Wikipedia IEC article via Investigator)
  • 1968-06Farnsworth, US 3,386,883 Fusor patent
  • 1968-06-11Gould, US 3,388,314 Chapter 8 table
  • 1969-02-25Eerkens, US 3,430,046 'Coherent Gamma Ray Emitter' Filed June 1966; drawing in the book; named by the arbiter as a deciding text, not obtained
  • 1970Hirsch, US 3,530,036 and US 3,530,497 Fusor patents (two)
  • 1971-01-19Pieckenbrock, US 3,557,370 'Gamma Ray Laser' OCR text misprints 3,587,370; the '30 Gigawatts' is not on the visible title sheet
  • 1973-02-06Dement, US 3,715,596 'Nuclear Explosive Light Generator' The 'Clear Atomic Light' source; named by the arbiter as deciding; not retrieved
  • 1974-05-28Viecelli, US 3,813,555 Chapter 8 table
  • 1974-06-18Jensen, US 3,818,222 Chapter 8 table
  • 1974-07-09Wood, US 3,823,325 Chapter 8 table
  • 1977-11-15Mallozzi, US 4,058,486 Book quotes 'weld, cut, and melt metals'; its '100 Gigawatts' is not tied to a patent line
  • 1987-08-11Eastlund, US 4,686,605 (altering the atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere) Assigned Eastlund to ARCO 1985, ARCO to APTI 1987, BAE Systems 2006; no Raytheon or E-Systems assignment recorded; non-patent citations are Tesla items only · Patent owned by the HAARP contractor
  • 1987-12-08Eastlund, US 4,712,155 Same ARCO/APTI assignment chain · Patent owned by the HAARP contractor
  • 1991-08-13Eastlund, US 5,038,664 Same ARCO/APTI assignment chain · Patent owned by the HAARP contractor
  • 1996Patterson, US 5,494,559 In the bibliography, as part of the author's cold-fusion lineage
  • –Reiffel, US 3,193,683 Bibliography basis for the Mossbauer 'gamma ray bomb'

Court and state records (4)

  • 1915The court award 'ratified in 1915' giving Marconi 'sole priority of Radio' Book p.58; no court, country, case or judge named; no such proceeding identified
  • 1943Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. v. United States, 320 U.S. 1 Opinion read (first 100,000 of 163,541 characters): Stone anticipated Marconi; Tesla 645,576 anticipated features; no priority awarded to Tesla
  • 1956-05-07Wilhelm Reich's conviction for criminal contempt of the 1954 injunction Encyclopedia.com account checked by the arbiter; the book calls it 'malpractice'
  • –Court of Claims record behind the 1943 decision Named by the arbiter for what Tesla's patents were held to disclose

Government records (7)

  • 1977Seafarer environmental impact statement and Navy hearings To test the book's claim that 'a few audio frequency watts' disrupted SEAFARER
  • –HAARP operator history and FAQ (University of Alaska Fairbanks) Prototype 18 elements, 360 kW (1994); 48 elements, 960 kW (1999); 180 elements, 3.6 MW (2007); transferred to UAF Aug 2015; about 10 MW diesel prime power · Current operator
  • –E-Systems and Raytheon HAARP contract technical reports (DTIC) The deciding record on whether electrojet 'contact' or energy was studied
  • –HAARP 1993-95 experiment plans and facility power log Named by the arbiter
  • –DOE nuclear test table (DOE/NV-209) For Hardtack II, Gnome and Hardhat yields the book gives
  • –Project West Ford reports (MIT Lincoln Laboratory) Book gives 1962 and 350,000 wires; record shows a failed 1961 and a successful 1963 launch
  • –USPTO assignment records for the Eastlund patents To confirm whether any was ever assigned to E-Systems or Raytheon

Company and business records (9)

  • 1899Colorado Springs Electric Company supply records Supply power for Tesla's station
  • 1924Philo T. and Elma G. Farnsworth papers, MS 0648, University of Utah (finding aid) ITT funded 'fusors'; 'the necessary reaction lasted no longer than thirty seconds'; board pressure Dec 1965; BYU 1967 · Family archive
  • 1931Pierce-Arrow registration and Buffalo records for the Savo car Named by the arbiter
  • 1965ITT board minutes on ending the fusion work Would show why funding stopped · ITT
  • 1967Farnsworth papers MS 0648 Boxes 16-17 (Mark II fusor drawings, research notes) For neutron counts and input power · Family archive
  • 1976Audio recordings 'At Jim Heiniyo - Fusor Group' (MS 0648 related) A speaker describes the fusor's development
  • 1994-06-30'E-Systems buys ARCO Power Technologies', New York Times Cited by the Wikipedia APTI article
  • 1998APTI company history (Wikipedia, citing NYT 1994, Washington Post 2003, Defense Daily 2003) ARCO Advanced Technologies; E-Systems 1994; Raytheon 1995; management buyout Jan 1998; BAE Systems March 2003
  • c.1903Marconi Company and J. P. Morgan correspondence; Wardenclyffe foreclosure papers Named by the arbiter for the priority and suppression strand

Witness accounts and correspondence (13)

  • 1842Joseph Henry's account of needles magnetised through a building by a Leyden-jar spark Third-hand in the book (p.15); no bibliography entry; named by the arbiter as a record to obtain
  • 1872Elihu Thomson / Houston, 'On A New Connection For The Induction Coil', Scientific American Sparks from metal objects throughout a building; arbiter notes Thomson's 'etheric force' work is usually dated 1875
  • 1895'Inventor Tesla's Loss' (trade report) Fire at 33 and 35 South Fifth Avenue, 13 March; no cause or arson stated
  • 1895Fire-marshal, insurance or police reports on the 1895 fire Would decide ordinary fire, arson or sabotage
  • 1895-03-13New York Sun and New York Herald reports of the laboratory fire Quoted by the Tesla podcast: fire began on floors below the lab per the night watchman; no dynamite mentioned
  • 1927Jorgen Hals's letter to Stormer on long-delay echoes 'a weaker echo about three seconds after the principal echo'; via Wikipedia
  • 1929Norwood, Ontario low aurora: 'A Low Aurora and Its Effect on a Radio Receiver', Nature 127:108 (1931) Quoted in Corliss: streamers 'from the sky to the ground' round a house; radio 'dead'; original note not obtained
  • 1951McCullough's letters on Reich's neutralisation of radium and cobalt-60 Through BSRF; McCullough was Reich's co-worker; no measurement given; not obtained · Held and published by the book's publisher
  • 1967Ahlers's original interview notes (36 questions) Named by the arbiter
  • 1967-09-16Derek Ahlers, summary of an interview with Peter Savo 'Unidentified document circulated in the early 1980s'; the source of the 1931 Pierce-Arrow story; 12 tubes incl. three '70-L-7', 80 hp, battery 'for the lights only'
  • 1996-09-13Richard Napolitano, private conversation on geopolitical regions The one source the book names for its 'Houses' model
  • –William Lehr, private discussions with the author Source for the 20 ft nitrogen blasts, carbon electrodes and radioactive roof copper
  • –Knin parish registers, US immigration and naturalisation records, US Embassy Belgrade and Bucharest staff lists To establish who Peter Savo was

Experiments and replications by others (21)

  • 1867Henri De Saussure, 'Observations on Mountain Resonance' (Comptes Rendus, Smithsonian translation) Bibliography date 1867 against 1865 in the Chapter 7 text; part of the book's aerial-electricity record
  • 1883Lemstrom, notes in Symon's Monthly Meteorological Magazine 18:33 and 18:51 Cited in the author's 1997 aurora article
  • 1883Capron, 'Lemstrom's auroral experiments in Lapland', The Observatory 6:259 NASA ADS; not reached
  • 1884Lemstrom, 'Artificially Induced Auroras', Science 4:465 In the book's bibliography; not obtained
  • 1885Lemstrom 1885 report on Sodankyla experiments Cited by Nevanlinna and Tanskanen 2024
  • 1904Mendeleev's 1904 booklet on ether as a 'zero group' element Book p.20; figures not checked
  • 1906Gustave Le Bon, Evolution of Matter (1906) and Evolution of Forces (1908) BSRF reprints; the book's source for radioactivity changed by heat or sunlight (Chapter 4) · Reprinted by the book's publisher
  • 1918-03Nipher, 'Can Electricity Destroy Gravitation?', Electrical Experimenter Book's evidence for ether-pressure gravity; not obtained
  • 1920Paneth and Peters (1926) and Helbronner (1920): 'extra energy' from hydrogen over palladium Book p.72; arbiter notes [memory] that Paneth and Peters withdrew in 1927
  • 1928Stormer, long-delay echoes, Nature 1928 Bibliography item
  • 1951Reich's ORANUR experiment Reich museum account: 1 mg radium needle in an accumulator, high readings, sick staff · Reich museum
  • 1967Hirsch, 'Inertial-electrostatic confinement of ionized fusion gases', J. Appl. Phys. 38:4522 More than 1e10 neutrons per second per a secondary reprint; paper not opened
  • 1974Helliwell, VLF wave injection from Siple Station Growth near 100 dB/s, gains up to 30 dB; snippets
  • 1982R. L. Clark, 'Reich Technology and Nuclear Systems' One of the book's sources for neutralisation
  • 1985Eric Dollard, 'line interferometry' and 1985-86 videos and papers Superluminal surface component, capacitor charging, mass repulsion; no velocity, line or instrument given · Sold by the book's publisher
  • 1985Gregory Hodowanec, capacitor 'etheric' detectors (four private or magazine titles) 'continues to flow' for hours; none on Tesla
  • 1988Helliwell, 'VLF wave-injection experiments from Siple Station, Antarctica' 30-50 dB amplification at Roberval; snippet
  • 1990Toby Grotz, 'Project Tesla' recreation of Colorado Springs (1990 International Tesla Symposium) Grotz held that Tesla 'merely stored energy in the earth' (book p.43)
  • 1995James S. Brett, 'The Whistler Serenade', Stonehenge Viewpoint pp.16-19, 1995; the book's source for Siple-Roberval VLF amplification
  • –Michael Theroux, 12 ft white streamers from a 2 ft by 1 ft secondary Book p.21; no publication, voltage or date · Editor of the book, of the publisher
  • –George Piggot, silver beads held in a positive field Book p.34; no bibliography entry

Contemporary periodical reports cited by the book (9)

  • 1914-07-04Ulivi, exploding-bomb experiments, Scientific American Bibliography
  • 1919Rogers underground-aerial articles (Secor 1919; Taylor, Proc. IRE 7(4) 1919; Electrical Experimenter 1919-1920) Five bibliography items behind the Rogers buried-antenna passage
  • 1922Grindell-Matthews, 'Diabolic Rays', Popular Radio Bibliography
  • 1924Turpain, 'Does Radio Cause Explosion?', Popular Radio Bibliography
  • 1929Van der Pol, 'Long Delayed Radio Echoes', Nature 122:878, with Beatty 1923, Villard 1969 and Rasmussen 1975 Bibliography group on long-delay echoes (the Chapter 7 deep read listed no van der Pol entry, but the bibliography has one)
  • 1934-10A. H. Halloran, 'The Farnsworth Cold Cathode Electron Multiplier', Radio With Farnsworth's 'Multipactors' patent collection and notes (VC 10); the book's Multipactor (1937) radar passage
  • 1984Reichhardt, Space World News, on Project West Ford The one source cited for the West Ford passage; not read
  • –MacFarland-Moore, 'Radio Generator That Blew Up Bombs', Popular Radio (undated) Bibliography
  • –Coblentz item and Persinger (Laurentian) and Puthoff (SRI) items in the bibliography The bibliography places Persinger and Puthoff against the text's 'Phillips Corporation'

Later accounts and media (26)

  • 1930T. H. Moray, Beyond the Light Rays (1930), with Talk on Radiant Energy (1962) and Treatise on Alpha, Beta and Gamma Rays (1946) Bibliography items; Moray is in the book's roster of Tesla-technology workers (p.57) · Some reprinted by the book's publisher
  • 1944J. J. O'Neill, Prodigal Genius Origin of 200 lamps at 26 miles, reconstructed 'by piecing together the fragmentary material'; lending copies only
  • 1978Campbell 1978 (Pure Appl. Geophys.) and 1980 on Alaska pipeline currents Up to about 50 A in mild activity; Springer page blocked
  • 1979Merritt, 'Measurement of the auroral induced current in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline', ASME Snippet
  • 1982-08-18'The Aurora Makes Waves on the Ground, Too', Alaska Science Forum Ground fields up to 10 V/km; 10 A surges on the Fairbanks-Healy line
  • 1985W. R. Corliss, Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights and Related Luminous Phenomena (with his 1986 catalogue) Lemstrom 'widely reported but apparently never replicated'; ground-level aurora reports incl. Calgary 1903; archive.org OCR searched
  • 1985Valerie Hunt, 'Human Aura', US Psychotronics Association Cited as '(Hunt)' among the ELF neurological-effect sources the author argues against (Chapter 6)
  • 1987T. E. Bearden, 'Tesla's Secret', US Psychotronics Association video The book calls Bearden's ELF triangulation 'a blatant impossibility' (p.119)
  • 1989Elma Farnsworth, Distant Vision Bibliography; its fusion pages not checked
  • 1994Savage, Aurora Cited in the author's 1997 article
  • 1995Begich and Manning, Angels Don't Play This HAARP Advertised in the book's back pages; the view the author argues against · Sold by the same publisher
  • 1998-12-24T. Neil Davis, 'Auroral Electrojets', Alaska Science Forum Electrojets 'as large as a half million amperes'; pipeline and power-line currents
  • 2007-10-16Gary Peterson, Tesla Coil Mailing List post Quotes O'Neill; calls the 26-mile account 'generally accepted as being apocryphal'
  • 2022-03-24TESLA: The Life and Times podcast, show notes 029 (1895 fire) Watchman's account, oil-soaked premises; Cheney's gas jet and Seifer's suspicion of the watchman summarised
  • 2024Fiona Amery, 'From laboratory to mountaintop: Creating an artificial aurora', History of Science 62(4) Lemstrom's 1872-1884 experiments on four mountains; abstract read
  • 2024Nevanlinna and Tanskanen, Hist. Geo Space Sci. 15:17-25 Lemstrom's Sodankyla experiments 1882-1884
  • –Open Tesla Research page on Tesla's car and 'Peter Savo' Calls the story embellished; says Tesla had no nephew of that name (that site's characterization)
  • –Swiss Tesla Society, Teslacar.pdf Download truncated and unreadable; retry
  • –Treemily, Tesla family tree Nephews Petar (Trbojevic) and Sava (Kosanovic); secondary
  • –William Terbo remarks and obituary Nicholas Terbo = Nikola Trbojevich, Tesla's nephew; William Terbo an RCA executive; snippets
  • –Valone, Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature Snippet on Nicholas Terbo as Tesla's nephew
  • –Smithsonian NMAH Ken-Rad 70L7GT sample and Valve Museum 70L7GT page Tube dated 'Ca 1939' and 'first introduced in 1947', both later than 1931
  • –Hammond Castle, 'About John Hays Hammond Jr.' Mentored by Bell and Tesla; nothing on the book's 'permanent guest'
  • –Tesla residence timelines (Hotel Governor Clinton c.1930, Hotel New Yorker from 1934) Snippets; against the book's New Yorker penthouses in the RCA period
  • –Scribd copies 'Teslas Pierce Arrow' and 'Tesla's 1930 Cosmic Energy Car'; Tesla Universe 'Tesla's Electric Car - Folklore or Fact?' Not reached or not opened
  • –Grissett, deLorge and Wever ELF neurological-effect studies Cited by surname only in Chapter 6 for the neuro-entrainment accusations the author rejects; no bibliography entry

Records named but not yet examined (3)

  • 1892-02Tesla's February 1892 London lecture and 1893 lectures Whether the shield, pulse-scale and 10,000 V per inch statements appear in Tesla's words
  • 1899Tesla, Colorado Springs Notes 1899-1900 (Nolit, 1978) Source, if any, of 150,000/s, 0.0062 ms, the disconnect and the 26-mile test
  • 1996Vassilatos, 'The Broadcast Power of Nikola Tesla (Part II)' Possible home of the Colorado Springs and Savo material · Published by Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, the book's publisher

Left out: bibliography entries no review file names (most Vril Compendium keys and many patents and articles), the reviewers' mainstream reference sources (NIST tables, Wikipedia test and device articles, HAARP ERP and ELF-generation papers), saved page copies, and the review's own analyses. Full catalogue: Vassilatos-Gerry sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Measure the current that flows into a large grounded screen at Gakona during an active aurora (amperes against the 300,000 A claimed). For claim 1, put a calibrated 1 to 6 microsecond impulse source outside a sealed, grounded 1 mm copper box with a probe inside, then repeat with a 1 mm seam.

Deciding records: Tesla's Colorado Springs Notes and his 1892-93 lectures; E-Systems and Raytheon HAARP contract reports (DTIC) and USPTO assignments; the De Ment, Eerkens and DeLoraine patents; Farnsworth papers MS 0648 Boxes 16-17 and ITT board minutes; Nature 127:108 (1931); New York Sun and Herald, March 1895; Savo's immigration records.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it multiplies 300,000 A by 200,000 V, then bounds what a 12-acre screen can catch by aperture, current through air and induction. By hand: 1 MeV gamma rays in seawater fall by a factor e every 14 cm; work out the fraction left after 300 m.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter All three reviewers agree on the large pattern: the book is accurate on some hardware and history (prototype element counts, Raytheon's ownership of the contractor 1995-98, real patents, real aurora and echo observations, Tesla's own 1,100 A), and fails on the energy and attenuation numbers its central claims need. arbiter.md, section 1
  2. Contrarian Strongest honest case: Tesla's impulse and shielding observations never had a neutral instrumented repeat; Marconi's 1901 reception rested on one listener; the electrojet is a real current that HF heating can modulate; pipeline currents, long-delay echoes and low-aurora reports are real. contrarian.md, section 4
  3. Mathematician '1000 times Arecibo' uses the wavelength ratio linearly. Power density scales as 1/lambda squared, so matching a 1.6 MW radar needs about 870 GW, not 1 GW: the book's own premise gives the opposite of its conclusion. mathematician.md, section 5.2
  4. Investigator The 1,100 A the review first called unsourced is Tesla's own (1917 speech; 1919 caption), and the 200 lamps at 26 miles began with O'Neill's 1944 reconstruction. The Eastlund patents passed ARCO to APTI to BAE; no Raytheon assignment is recorded. sites.md, Corrections to earlier documents
  5. QE Michael Theroux both supplied the HAARP files and edited the bibliography. He belongs to the publishing foundation, so he is an interested party; he is also the source of the 12 ft streamer replication. qe.md, section 3

AI noteThe book's 18 energised elements at 360 kW match HAARP's official 1994 prototype exactly, and its 20 kW per element also reproduces the later 960 kW and 3.6 MW stages: the hardware numbers are right, the energy thesis is not.

Rank 9Mills-Randal

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 11:01

A 1,876-page classical rewrite of physics puts hydrogen below its ground state as a power source; its sharpest precision test fails, while its laboratory anomalies still await a neutral test.

Invention / theory background

Randell L. Mills, founder and chief executive of BlackLight Power (founded 1991 as HydroCatalysis, now Brilliant Light Power), models the electron as a thin spherical shell of charge obeying Maxwell's and Newton's laws. His Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics derives atoms, molecules, particles and cosmology in closed form and predicts "hydrinos": hydrogen states below n = 1, reached when a catalyst takes m x 27.2 eV, releasing up to hundreds of eV per atom.

Ranking explanation

It meets all four criteria. A: outside measurements (NASA 1996 excess heat, a Delft EPR spectrum, DSC exotherms) never neutrally tested, and a patent withdrawn after an outside inquiry. B: whether those anomalies have ordinary causes is open. C: the g-factor failure is a calculator exercise. D: wide influence. Beside Silvertooth and Vassilatos it has a larger modern record, but its sharpest predictions fail and nearly all evidence passes through the interested company.

Key supporting elements

  1. NASA Lewis (1996) measured up to 11 W excess on 60 W input in a Hydrocatalysis-lent cell; the authors said recombination would need "quite a high" efficiency, which the data only "marginally admit", and further study "remains warranted".
  2. W. R. Hagen (TU Delft, declaring no BLP funding) recorded a structured EPR spectrum near g = 2.0046 in 11 samples from 11 reactor runs, with an empty-tube baseline and no nitrogen or transition ions; the company supplied the samples.
  3. The USPTO examiner allowed the hydride-compound application after seeing experimental results and samples; it was withdrawn in 2000 after an outside inquiry. A 2008 UK appeal was allowed and remitted (reportedly refused again in 2009).
  4. Formulas with no fitted continuous parameter give helium S-series quantum defects 0.144 and 0.289 (observed about 0.145 and 0.305) and a muon/electron mass ratio within 1.6e-8, though corrections are justified only in words.
  5. Further anomalies: Thermacore USAF SBIR (1994) 25 W excess with a Lehigh ESCA 55 eV peak (with Mills consulting); Glumac UIUC DSC exotherms "far more exothermic than the predicted thermochemistry" (company-hosted); NASA NIAC funded a 2002 propulsion study.

Key contradictions

  1. Mills's g-factor formula is 2.87e-10, about 2,200 standard deviations, from the measured value when modern alpha is used; its eleven-figure match relied on 1973-era alpha and two wrong coefficients that nearly cancel.
  2. The derivation supplies hbar, spin, the Bohr magneton and the hydrino integers by postulate; the force balance holds for any Z_eff; l >= 1 shells fail the book's own wave equation; "no fitted parameters" conflicts with case-by-case choices.
  3. EarthTech (1997) ran the light-water cell 164 hours with a recombiner: no excess within about 10 percent. Hagen-Mills call their EPR fit "semi-quantitative", concede a conventional two-radical fit, and report the Bruker duplicate only in Mills-co-authored texts.
  4. The 2018-dated book says far-field gravitational waves do not exist (detected 2015 and 2017) and that the Higgs "will not be observed" (found 2012); its H0 of 78.5 and top-quark mass of 187 GeV miss measurements.
  5. About 35 years and "over $150 million" (company figure) without a product sale or a neutral run on outsiders' instruments; company-hosted validators were hired or co-authors; Scientific American (2014) reports Mills saying hydrinos had not been isolated.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 52 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Spin, hbar, Bohr magneton and nonradiation derived from Maxwell and NewtonInternally inconsistent postulated inputs; l >= 1 shells and self-force fail
g factor, Lamb shift, muonium and 21 cm line as closed-form predictionsTested, not supported g off about 2,200 sigma with modern alpha
Hydrogen has stable states below n = 1 (hydrinos)Internally inconsistent Mills's derivation Refuted by calculation hydrogen Hamiltonian with a finite-size proton
Laboratory anomalies (EUV, EPR, DSC) are hydrinos; kilowatt energy releaseNever properly tested no neutral controlled test Tested, not supported light-water cell, EarthTech 1997 repeat; NASA 1996 ambiguous
Hydrinos are the dark matter; 3.48 keV and other cosmic linesNever properly tested dark-matter identity, conditional on hydrinos Not testable as stated 3.48 keV assignment as evidence
One closed-form method gives molecular energies with no fitted parametersEstablished as arithmetic, qualified; about 0.17 percent on tabulated totals Never properly tested as blind prediction Internally inconsistent "no fitted parameters" as worded
Quantum mechanics is wrong: Schroedinger charge must radiate; Bell tests are classicalRefuted by calculation radiation argument Internally inconsistent Aspect "classical" curve is the QM formula Tested, not supported loophole-free Bell tests
Gravity, cosmology and particle masses from the same theoryTested, not supported H0, CMB, top quark, Higgs, no gravitational waves Never properly tested muon/electron ratio; free-electron gravity; 1995 predictions

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Randell L. MillsInventor; author of GUT-CP; founder, CEO and President of BlackLight Power / Brilliant Light Power · Company sells hydrino technology; patent holderBy the book's own (publisher's) description: MD, Harvard Medical School; chemistry degree, Franklin and Marshall; studied electrical engineering at MIT. Medical and imaging patents from 1984, energy filings from 1989, about 115 patent results to 2022.
W. R. (Fred) HagenEPR specialist who measured the molecular-hydrino spectrum; co-author with Mills (2022, 2024, 2025) · Co-author; declares no financial support from BLP; samples supplied by BLPDepartment of Biotechnology, TU Delft (ORCID: Delft 2017 to present). A fan wiki calls him Emeritus Professor of Enzymology; unverified.
J. M. NiedraLead author of NASA TM-107167 (1996), the government-laboratory light-water cell measurementNYMA Inc., working with I. T. Myers, G. C. Fralick and R. S. Baldwin of NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland. Otherwise not in the review files.
Peter M. JanssonCalorimetry for the company (1997 thesis, 2008-09 Rowan tests, redacted report); NIAC co-investigator · Service contract with HydroCatalysis; co-author of Mills papersRowan University, Electrical and Computer Engineering. 1997 Rowan thesis "Hydrocatalysis: a new energy paradigm for the 21st century"; co-investigator on the 2002 NIAC BlackLight Rocket Engine study.
Randy BookerCompany validator: 2020 SunCell power report (194-218 kW) and chapter-by-chapter arithmetic checks of GUT-CP · Company-hosted reports; compensation not statedPhD in physics, UNC Asheville. Checked GUT-CP chapters 2017-2022 and reported reproducing its tables "to a very high degree of accuracy".
Andreas RathkeAuthor of the main published theoretical critique (New J. Phys. 2005)European Space Agency (ESA). Found "severe inconsistencies in the deterministic model"; Mills replied in 165 pages (2008), pointing out a sign slip in Rathke's Eq. 9.
Esther KepplingerUSPTO Group Director who had allowed application 09/009,294 withdrawn from issue in 2000 · Institutional party (USPTO)Not in the review files beyond her role and declaration: her "main concern" was an electron going to a lower orbital "contrary to the known laws of physics and chemistry".
Raj Ganesh PalaLeads the first academic group to announce a replication of hydrino-compound syntheses (ECS 2026)Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, with Nandita Sharma. Their abstract treats hydrinos as already supported ("later corroborated at NASA"); no results yet.
Evidence / artifacts (162 of 162 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (15)

  • c.1991Mills and Good, Mills and Kneizys early electrolysis papers Listed on the 1997 company web site as confirmations (24.6 W out for 4.73 W in; Pout/Pin > 37), per EarthTech transcription · inventor
  • 1995-11GUT-CP, November 1995 edition (Ch.22) The book cites it for predicting cosmic acceleration and the top-quark mass; not in the project folder or found online · inventor
  • 2003Conrads, Mills, Wrubel, Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 12, 389 Juelich EUV work the company calls independent; Mills a named author · co-authored by the inventor
  • 2005Seven fast-hydrogen (Balmer-broadening) papers, refs 36-42 of the book 2005-2010, all with Mills as author; co-authors Scharer, Phillips, Chen, Mayo, Nansteel · inventor
  • 2008-01-21Mills, reply to Rathke, "Physical Solutions of the Nature of the Atom, Photon ... Hydrino States" 165 pages, millsian.com; concedes the delta shell "is not a radial solution"; finds a sign slip in Rathke Eq. 9 · inventor
  • 2010Mills EUV papers: "Hydrino continuum transitions with cutoffs at 22.8 nm and 10.1 nm" and soft X-ray continuum paper NASA ADS record and company PDFs; with the Mills-Lu reply to Phelps-Clementson; not opened · inventor
  • 2018Mills, Lu, Frazer, "Power determination and hydrino product characterization of ultra-low field ignition..." Chinese J. Phys. 2018, doi 10.1016/j.cjph.2018.04.015 (Crossref) · inventor
  • 2018-12-10The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics (GUT-CP), project copy 1,876 pp, all three volumes and Appendices I-VI; cites a 2022 paper; about 75 percent deep-read with page images · inventor; published by his side
  • 2022Hagen and Mills, "Electron paramagnetic resonance proof for the existence of molecular hydrino" Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 47(56) 23751; preprint Research Square 2021-02-10; Hagen (TU Delft) measured, BLP supplied samples · co-authored by the inventor
  • 2024Mills, "Hydrino States of Hydrogen", preprint Ref 13 of Hagen-Mills 2022, the source of the Bruker duplicate statement; downloaded, not read · inventor
  • 2024Hagen and Mills, "General EPR pattern from molecular hydrino produced in various reactors" ChemRxiv 2026-04-29; broad patterns 0-8000 G, L- to Q-band, anti-Curie behaviour, transition near 107 K; abstract read · co-authored by the inventor
  • 2024Hagen and Mills, cosmic-neutrino-background EPR paper Company PDF; not downloaded · co-authored by the inventor
  • 2025Mills and Hagen, "Spectral identification of hydrino compound Fe2O3:H2(1/4) by five complementary spectroscopies" States p <= 126 (book: 137); repeats the Bruker replication sentence; p.1 read · inventor
  • 2025Mills, Hsieh, Sadman, "Reactionless propulsion" Submitted 2025, company publications list · inventor
  • 2025-02GUT-CP, February 2025 edition 1,888 pp, LCCN 2023905641, served at the old file name, PDF modified 2026-04-28; title pages read, changes not compared · inventor

Patents and patent office (69)

  • 1984-12-10US5073858A "Magnetic susceptibility imaging (MSI)" Pre-hydrino medical imaging; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1984-12-14US5064754A "Genomic sequencing method" and US5221518A "DNA sequencing apparatus" Same priority; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1985-03-19US4815447A and US4815448A "Mossbauer cancer therapy"; AU1967788A tissue-necrosis apparatus Same priority; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1986-12-31US5428163A "Prodrugs for selective drug delivery" Pre-hydrino; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1988-03-31CA1341077C "Luminide and macroluminide class of pharmaceuticals" Pre-hydrino; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1988-11-10EP0444151B1 "Magnetic susceptibility imaging (MSI)" European filing, later priority; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1989-04-21BR9007303A "Energy emission process" First energy filing in the list; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1989-06-14AU5967190A "Apparatus and method for providing an antigravitational force" Patent record of the Ch.35 fifth-force idea; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1989-12-08CA2005039A1 "Pharmaceuticals and apparatus providing diagnosis and selective tissue necrosis" Medical; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1990-12-12CA2095734A1 "Energy/matter conversion methods and structures" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1993-06-11AU7135694A "Energy/matter conversion methods and structures" Applicant Hydrocatalysis Power Corporation; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1994-05-20EP0760698A1 "Apparatus and method for providing an antigravitational force" Second antigravity filing; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1995-06-06WO1996042085A2 and US6024935A "Lower-energy hydrogen methods and structures" US patent issued 15 Feb 2000; companion application 09/009,294 withdrawn; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1997-07-22WO1999005735A1 "Inorganic hydrogen compounds, separation methods, and fuel applications" With ZA986478B and US continuations US20090123356A1, US20090142257A1, US20090129992A1 (reactor); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1997-10-29AU734961B2 "Hydrogen catalysis power cell for energy conversion systems" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1997-11-13US6477398B1 "Resonant magnetic susceptibility imaging (ReMSI)" Medical imaging; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1997-12-24CA2315833A1 "A method and system for pattern recognition and processing" US/PCT twin 09/220,970 cited in the book; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1998-01-20US20090148731A1 "Hydride battery and fuel cell" Hydrino hydride application; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1998-08-03"Inorganic hydrogen and hydrogen polymer compounds and applications thereof" AU1515900A, MXPA01001234A, AU2002318885A1/B2; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1999-01-06US20090148729A1 "Inorganic-hydrogen-polymer and hydrogen-polymer compounds" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1999-09-08GB2370162A "Apparatus and method for propulsion" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1999-09-08CA2396559A1 "Ion cyclotron and converter and radio power microwave generator" With ZA200201811B; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1999-09-30US20090196814A1 "One electron atom catalysis, increased binding energy compounds" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 1999-10-18US application 09/009,294 "Hydride Compounds": notice of allowance Examiner allowed the claims after experimental results and samples were submitted · applicant BlackLight Power
  • 2000Kepplinger declaration Her "main concern" was "the electron going to a lower orbital in a fashion that I knew was contrary to the known laws of physics and chemistry"; quoted in the 2002 opinion · USPTO, institutional party
  • 2000-01-06CA2320597A1 "Ion cyclotron power converter and radio and microwave generator" With AU2004202231A1; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2000-02-17USPTO notice of withdrawal from issue, application 09/009,294 Ordered via Robert Spar after Group Director Kepplinger read the issued patent, prompted by an "outside inquiry" · USPTO, institutional party
  • 2000-03-23WO2001070627A3 "Hydrogen catalysis" With AU2001252939A1; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2000-06-12WO2001095944A2 "Photocleavable prodrugs for selective drug delivery" Medical; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2000-08-22WO2002016956A1 "4 dimensional magnetic resonance imaging" Medical imaging; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2001-03-07"Microwave power cell, chemical reactor, and power converter" AU2002257022A1, AU2002311772A1/B2, ZA200306519B; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2001-11-14AU2002365227A8 "Hydrogen power, plasma, and reactor for lasing, and power conversion" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2001-11-21BRPI0810972A2 "Energy source and reactor, catalyst, energy center" Brazil; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2002-01-02US20090068082A1 "Synthesis and characterization of a highly stable amorphous silicon hydride" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2002-05-01AU2003234301A1 "Diamond synthesis" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2003-04-15"Plasma reactor and process for producing lower-energy hydrogen species" EP1628909A2, PL380865A1 (2004), US20100209311A1 (2005); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2003-07-21US7188033B2 "Method and system of computing and rendering the nature of the chemical bond" Patent form of claims 1 and 4; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2003-09-05US20170104426A1 "Electrical power generation systems" Brilliant Light Power applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2003-10-24WO2005041368A2 "Novel molecular hydrogen gas laser" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2004-01-05WO2005067678A3 computing atoms, and GB2434466A "Calculating the energy of electrons using Maxwell's equations" Same priority; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2004-05-17WO2005116630A3 computing excited states BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2005UK applications GB0521120.6 (plasma reactor) and GB0608130.1 (laser) BlackLight Power; the "new hydrogen species" applications · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2005-10-28WO2007051078A2 computing polyatomic molecules BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2006-04-04US20080304522A1 "Catalyst laser" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2007-01-03CA2673847A1 computing molecules and molecular ions BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2007-04-24"Hydrogen-catalyst reactor" AU2008245686B2, TW200920692A, AP2009005030A0, ZA200907494B; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2007-08-17CA2651267A1 "Fifth-force apparatus and method for propulsion" Patent record of the Ch.35 pseudoelectron claim; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2008-01-02US20100082306A1 computing atoms and molecules Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2008-04-17UK IPO decision BL O/114/08 Hearing officer P. Marchant; refused both applications as contrary to generally accepted physical law; p.1 of 10 read · UK IPO, institutional party
  • 2008-07-30"Heterogeneous hydrogen-catalyst reactor" SG10201510821PA, AU2009276601B2, TW201104948A, UY32023A, US20200299130A1; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2008-09-25US20100121619A1 computing dipole moments BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2009UK IPO decision O/170/09 on remittal Reportedly refused the applications again; search summary only, BAILII page blocked · UK IPO, institutional party
  • 2009-08-05US20120120980A1 "Molecular hydrino laser" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2009-08-07EP2462653A1 "Heterogeneous hydrogen-catalyst power system" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2010-03-18"Electrochemical hydrogen-catalyst power system" (CIHT) EP3595066A3, US20130084474A1, BR112012023251A2, AU2015246122A1, ZA201206999B; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2011-04-05EP2702623A1 "H2O-based electrochemical hydrogen-catalyst power system" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2012-05-21EP3609009A1 "CIHT power system" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2013-11-20US20160290223A1 "Power generation systems and methods" Brilliant Light Power applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2014-03-03US20170070180A1 "Photovoltaic power generation systems" Brilliant Light Power applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2014-05-29WO2015184252A1 "Electrical power generation systems" BlackLight applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2015-05-09"Thermophotovoltaic electrical power generator" ZA201707925B, US20200403555A1 (2016); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2015-10-05US20180294617A1 "Gamma-ray electron beam transducer" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2016-05-30US20200327999A1 "Thermophotovoltaic electrical power generator network" Brilliant Light Power applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2016-08-12US20190170127A1 "Gamma-ray and tri-hydrogen-cation collisional electron beam transducer" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2017-01-05WO2018129353A1 "Extreme and deep ultraviolet photovoltaic cell" With HK40016588A; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2017-02-12"Magnetohydrodynamic electric power generator" CA3053126A1, WO2018222569A1, AU2018378300A1 (2017); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2019-01-18"Magnetohydrodynamic hydrogen electrical power generator" US20220021290A1, AU2021217228A1 (2020); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2020-08-18WO2022039910A1 "increasing the kinetic energy of a directional plasma" Inventor applicant; Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)
  • 2021-03-08"Infrared light recycling thermophotovoltaic hydrogen electrical power generator" US20240079988A1, WO2023203472A3 (2022); Google Patents inventor search · inventor or his company (applicant)

Court and state records (3)

  • 2000-05BlackLight Power suit, US District Court for the District of Columbia District court opinion not read · parties: BlackLight and the PTO
  • 2002-06-28BlackLight Power Inc. v. Rogan, 295 F.3d 1269 (Fed. Cir.) Upheld the Director's authority to withdraw; "undisputed that no one involved in the withdrawal had reviewed the '294 patent application before issuance of the Notice"; FindLaw copy · parties: BlackLight and the PTO
  • 2008Blacklight Power Inc v Comptroller-General of Patents [2008] EWHC 2763 (Pat), Floyd J Appeal allowed and remitted: test is a reasonable prospect that the theory proves valid on full investigation with expert evidence; National Archives text, paras 49-52 checked · parties: BlackLight and the Comptroller

Government records (4)

  • 1994-03-24Thermacore, "Nascent Hydrogen: An Energy Source", SBIR Phase I final report Gernert and Shaubach, USAF Wright Laboratory contract F33615-93-C-2326; 25 W anomalous heat; Lehigh ESCA "predicted 55 eV signature"; in cooperation with Mills and Good · contractor working in cooperation with the inventor
  • 1996-02NASA TM-107167, "Replication of the Apparent Excess Heat Effect in a Light Water-Potassium Carbonate-Nickel Electrolytic Cell" Niedra, Myers, Fralick, Baldwin, NASA Lewis; up to 11 W excess at 60 W in, gains 1.06-1.68; recombination "marginally" admitted; cell lent by Hydrocatalysis
  • 2002-11-30NIAC Phase I final report, "The BlackLight Rocket Engine" Marchese, Jansson, Schmalzel, Rowan University; anomalies warrant propulsion work "regardless of the theoretical explanation"; pp.1-4 read
  • 2013-12New Jersey Economic Development Authority grant, about $1.1 million Per Wikipedia citing NJ.com 20 Dec 2013

Company and business records (12)

  • 1997BlackLight web-site list of 13 claimed confirmations As transcribed by EarthTech: Thermacore, HPC, Noninski, Hokkaido, NASA Lewis, MIT Lincoln, Westinghouse, AECL Chalk River, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, INEL and others · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2008-10-20BlackLight news release on Rowan "50,000 watt reactor" Rowan engineers led by Dr. Peter Jansson; Google result only · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2009-11-20Form D, BlackLight Power Inc., Cranbury NJ $10,976,000 sold of $10,983,000; 31 investors; board incl. Mills, Brewer, Good · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2010Pepco Holdings / Conectiv 10-K Exhibit 21 listing "Blacklight Power, Inc. DE" 2010-2016 exhibits; reason for listing not stated
  • 2012-05-09Form D, BlackLight Power Inc. $4,518,000 sold of $5,013,000; 21 investors · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2014-07-03Form D, BlackLight Power Inc. $120,000 sold of $10,008,000; 2 investors · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2016-06-06Summary of validation reports (redacted) Booker, Jansson, Chary, Renick; claims "1 MW+" in less than a coffee-cup volume · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2016-06-07Form D, Brilliant Light Power, Inc. $25,000,000 offering, none sold yet; minimum investment $40,000 · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2018-08-29Form D/A, Brilliant Light Power, Inc. $18,338,000 sold of $25,000,000; 45 investors · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2025Company publications list brilliantlightpower.com/pdf/Publications.pdf; newest entries 2024-2025 · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2025-08Company summary "over $150 million invested", "100kW light-emitting prototype", "Hydrino confirmed by 24 independent methods"; p.1 read · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company
  • 2026Validation presentation 23 MB company PDF, downloaded, not read · Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power, HydroCatalysis), the inventor's company

Witness accounts and correspondence (2)

  • 2000Law-firm letters to four physicists over "defamatory comments" Reported by Harvard Crimson and Wikipedia; letters not seen · sent for the company
  • 2000Mills's statement that the Navy was running research trials Reported by the Harvard Crimson; no document found · inventor

Experiments and replications by others (16)

  • 1997EarthTech gas-phase runs 1-13 and light-water calorimetry runs 1-5 Linked from the EarthTech page; not read
  • 1997-05-31P. M. Jansson, "Hydrocatalysis: a new energy paradigm for the 21st century", Rowan thesis 182 pp; calorimetry under a service contract with HydroCatalysis; p.1 read in Chrome, not saved · service contract with the company
  • 1997-10-09EarthTech International, "Attempt to Observe Excess Heat in a Ni-H2O-K2CO3 Electrolysis System" Austin; 164 h, Pd recombiner, water-flow calorimeter: "no detectable sign of excess heat"; 10 percent would have shown
  • 2008Rowan University validation tests, 2008-2009 Jansson group; "6.5 times more energy" per CBS 2009; reports not opened · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2014G. Crouse DSC replication report Company PDF, downloaded, not read · company-hosted
  • 2014-04N. Glumac (UIUC) DSC report Exotherms 101-148 J/g and 125-135 J/g "far more exothermic than the predicted thermochemistry"; p.1 read · company-hosted
  • 2016Jansson redacted validation report 194 pp, image only, not read · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • c.2016Other company-listed validators: Renick, Weinberg, Ramanujachary (Rowan), Copeland, F500 study, ENSER Listed on the validation page; not downloaded · company-hosted
  • 2017-08-07R. Booker, chapter-by-chapter checks of GUT-CP (Theory-Reviews.zip) 2017-2022, all chapters and appendices; "replicated all of his results ... to a very high degree of accuracy"; Ch.1, 7, 32 read · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2018M. Nansteel, summaries of GUT-CP Ch.14, 18, 19 In Theory-Reviews.zip · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2020-01-11R. Booker, "Report on the Power Output of Liquid Gallium Suncells" UNC Asheville; "excess power levels of 194-218 kW" · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2020-02-07S. D. Tse (Rutgers), consultant report on molten-gallium and water-bath calorimetry Tse "was hired to observe tests and protocols"; p.1 read · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2020-12-04Nansteel, 100 kW continuous steam validation Validation page entry · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2021-03-16M. Nansteel, Report on Water Bath Calorimetry Single test at BLP Cranbury; PPlasma 169 kW, "210 kW" over 50 s; local gain about 4.2 · company-hosted; author hired by or co-author with the company
  • 2026Pala and Sharma (IIT Kanpur), "Putative Hydrino Compounds in Light Water Heat Excess Electrolysis Experiments" ECS Meeting Abstracts MA2026-01 1445; replication programme announced, no results
  • 2026R. G. Pala, "Hydrino Mediated Nuclear Reactions: Model Elaboration and Search for Evidence in Electrolysis Experiments" ECS MA2026-01 1442; not read

Later accounts and media (31)

  • 1967-10-30Witteborn and Fairbank, free-fall of electrons, PRL 19, 1049 Cited by the book for zero free-electron gravitational mass; the book itself gives "less than 0.09 m_e"; title only
  • 1997Levine et al. (TOPAZ, KEK), PRL 78, 424 Cited by the book as confirming the free-electron charge profile; measures the running electromagnetic coupling
  • 2000-05-17Harvard Crimson, "Academics Question The Science Behind BlackLight Power, Inc." Board (Brewer, Kalleres, Melissaratos), over $25 million, critics Georgi and Chu
  • 2002Reichhardt, Nature news item Listed by Hagen-Mills 2022 among third-party evaluations
  • 2002Bob Park account of the USPTO "outside inquiry" Named lead via Wikipedia; not read
  • 2002-12-10Village Voice, E. Baard, "Eureka? Hydrino theorist gets nod from NASA-funded investigation" Marchese "agnostic about the existence of hydrinos"
  • 2005A. Rathke, "A critical analysis of the hydrino model", New J. Phys. 7, 127 ESA; "severe inconsistencies in the deterministic model"
  • 2005J. Naudts, "On the hydrino state of the relativistic hydrogen atom" arXiv physics/0507193; Klein-Gordon sub-ground state
  • 2005Connett and Zimmerman; Rodgers, Physics World items Listed by Hagen-Mills 2022 among evaluations
  • 2006N. Dombey, "The hydrino and other unlikely states", Phys. Lett. A 360, 62 Singular states vanish for a finite-size nucleus
  • 2007A. S. de Castro, orthogonality criterion banishing hydrino states, Phys. Lett. A arXiv 0704.0631
  • 2007Bourgoin, Adv. Stud. Theor. Phys. Listed by Hagen-Mills 2022 among evaluations
  • 2008Guizzo, IEEE Spectrum; "Loser: Hot or not?" IEEE Spectrum 2008-2009 press record; not read
  • 2008NYT/VentureBeat, CNET and New Energy Times issue 30 coverage October 2008 press; source of $60 million by 2006 figure
  • 2008-08-25P. R. Giri, "Hydrino like states in graphene and Aharonov-Bohm field" arXiv 0808.3309
  • 2008-10-29J. Phillips, "Selective atomic heating in plasmas: implications for quantum theory" arXiv 0810.5280; IJHE 34 (2009) 9816; Mills co-author elsewhere · co-author of the inventor
  • 2009-08-13CBS MoneyWatch report on the Rowan tests Google result only
  • 2011M. Rimmer, "Patenting free energy: the BlackLight litigation and the hydrogen economy" J. Intellectual Property Law and Practice 6(6) 374; source of the "cold fusion and perpetual motion" remark
  • 2011-06-28Loureiro and Amorim, "Anomalous Doppler broadening caused by exothermic reactions" Eur. Phys. J. D; ordinary mechanism for fast-H Balmer lines; title only
  • 2012Phelps and Clementson, Eur. Phys. J. D 66, 120 EUV continua from ions sputtered from electrodes; abstract read
  • 2012Lawler and Goebel, Eur. Phys. J. D 66, 29, comment on the continuum paper Not read
  • 2012-09-13Nadareishvili and Khelashvili, self-adjoint extension for inverse-square-like potentials arXiv 1209.2864
  • 2013impactlab, "Hydrino theory validated by Harvard tests" Harvard-Smithsonian CfA EUV reproduction claim; not opened
  • 2014Scientific American report: Mills said hydrinos had not been isolated Via Wikipedia; original not read; the book says they have been isolated (p.83)
  • 2015Forbes article on BlackLight Via Wikipedia; not read
  • 2015D. L. Selke, "Against point charges" Appl. Phys. Res.; cited by Hagen-Mills 2022
  • 2015-11-27Khelashvili and Nadareishvili, "On the existence of additional (hydrino) states in the Dirac equation" arXiv 1601.01957
  • 2021Hydrogen Revolution Substack, "The Misleading BLP Wikipedia Page" Supporter publication; link source for Booker reviews and Thermacore report · supporter
  • 2025D. L. Selke, "Ionization Energies from Classical Force Balance: Calcium-like Uranium and Below" Eur. J. Appl. Phys.; extends Mills's atom method; not read
  • 2025Speculative relatives: Zhigalov (dark hydrogen, erzions), Surmont 2025, Wulf 2026, Magnitskii 2025, Danghyan Recorded as found, not weighed
  • 2026Wikipedia, "Brilliant Light Power" Tertiary; funding, critics (Anderson, Chu, Park, Chu-Carroll), court history; disputed by supporters

Records named but not yet examined (10)

  • 1990sOwn reports of the company-listed confirming laboratories AECL Chalk River, Westinghouse, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, INEL, Hokkaido (Notoya and Enyo), Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Brookhaven (Noninski with Weismann)
  • 1991Company registers: HydroCatalysis Inc., Hydrocatalysis Power Corp., BlackLight Power Inc., Brilliant Light Power Inc. NJ, PA, DE registers and OpenCorporates not reached
  • 1994Lehigh University ESCA report on the 55 eV signature Named in the Thermacore report
  • 1994Thermacore SBIR Phase II or DTIC record Not located; DTIC not reached
  • 2000USPTO file wrappers of 09/009,294 and US 6,024,935, and the four related applications Would identify the "outside inquiry"; Patent Center not reached
  • 2003Harvard CfA EUV continuum report (Bykanov, "Validation", GEN3_Harvard.pdf) Book ref 29, hosted on the company server; not read · company-hosted
  • 2003NIAC Phase II proposal or refusal for the BlackLight Rocket Engine Not located
  • 2022Hagen-Mills 2022 electronic supplementary information (reactor, controls, Fig. S6) ScienceDirect; not reached
  • 2022Bruker-authored record of the duplicate EPR spectra (Billerica MA) Stated only in Mills-co-authored texts
  • 2026IIT Kanpur replication results Due after the ECS 2026 abstracts

Not counted: the 15 Google Patents results beyond the 100 saved (not identifiable), patent family members in other countries, the book's individual cited papers, forum and fan-wiki posts, mainstream measurements used only as web checks (LIGO, Higgs, Planck, g-2, Bell tests, XRISM), and earlier AI-written analyses. Full catalogue: Mills-Randal sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A neutral laboratory makes its own Ga(O)OH or FeOOH product in its own reactor, runs a hydrogen-free control through the same KOH processing, and measures EPR at several bands with spin counting and Raman near 1950 cm^-1; separately, a SunCell heat run on the evaluator's own calorimeter.

Deciding records: The November 1995 GUT-CP edition; USPTO file wrappers naming the "outside inquiry"; the Hagen-Mills supplementary controls; a Bruker-authored EPR report; unredacted Jansson, Nansteel and Tse data; the reports of the 13 listed laboratories; the IIT Kanpur results; UK decision O/170/09.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it evaluates Mills's g-factor formula (Eq. 1.228) with the 1973-era alpha (eleven-figure agreement) and with modern alpha (2.9e-10 off, about 2,200 sigma). Also check the hydrino energy: H to H(1/4) releases (16 - 1) x 13.6 = 204 eV, against 1.48 eV per atom for burning hydrogen.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter No single explanation of the 35-year silence is excluded; it is "an anomaly not a verdict": it lowers the odds of a real but hard-to-engineer effect, but cannot be read as proof of artifacts. The cheapest decisive step is a neutral laboratory with its own sample and a hydrogen-free control. arbiter.md, Absence-of-evidence analysis
  2. Mathematician The hydrino force balance is satisfied for any Z_eff, so it selects no integer; the integers come from a separate trapped-photon postulate. A rotating l >= 1 charge wave satisfies the book's own wave equation only if v = m omega R / sqrt(l(l+1)), never v = omega R. mathematician.md, claims 1 and 2; arbiter.md, claim 1
  3. Contrarian Arithmetic is not the problem. The strongest positive items are not the ones the book emphasises: the NASA excess heat, Thermacore, Glumac DSC, the structured EPR spectrum and the helium-mobility peaks deserve a neutral laboratory, and they do not need the cosmology or the muon mass. contrarian.md, section 4
  4. Physicist A real 100 kW source of hydrino gas would be easy for outsiders to authenticate with a mass spectrometer and calorimeter loaned for a week, and BLP itself invites replication. The arbiter records this as an argument about plausibility, not a test. physicist.md, claim 2 historical record; arbiter.md, claim 2
  5. QE Most important miss of the first pass: the book says gravity has no far-field waves, "consistent with the absence of the observation of gravity waves", in a December 2018 edition, after LIGO's 2015 detection; p.1642 cites 2017 papers, so the page was edited and the sentence left. qe.md, section 3, M1; arbiter.md, QE revision 6

AI noteThe project PDF's title page says December 2018, yet it cites a 2022 paper; the same download address now serves a February 2025 edition that lowers the hydrino limit from p = 137 to 126.

Rank 10Pappas-PT

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:40

A Greek physicist's spark-gap coil was said to create energy and excite cells by resonance. The arguments fail, yet small sham-controlled trials report effects; his key 1991 paper is missing.

Invention / theory background

Panagiotis T. Pappas, a Greek physicist who published on the Ampere force law, patented a medical device in 1996 (US 5,556,418). It discharges a capacitor through a spark gap into a flat coil held over the patient. Sold as PAP-IMI or PAPIMI, it was not cleared by the US FDA in 1995 and later came under an import alert. It is now CE marked and used in European pilot trials. One Greek source says he died in 2026.

Ranking explanation

Rank 7, unchanged. It ranks below Sigma-Ro, which covers several gravity-control inventors and includes one real effect (ionic-wind thrust). It ranks above Wallace-Byran, whose central c+v claim was tested and not supported. Here the energy-gain report was never tested by a neutral party, the paper behind it is unobtained, and the US regulatory story is documented. Small sham-controlled pilots report effects. A worked example lets the reader check the physics (criteria A, B, C).

Key supporting elements

  1. Small randomised, sham-controlled pilots report effects. In Viti 2023 (n = 32) heart-rate variability rose after PAPIMI but not after sham. In Keilani 2025 (Vienna, n = 20) post-COVID fatigue and walking distance improved. Both groups declare no conflicts.
  2. The arbiter found that at the manufacturer's figures the coil induces 4e3 to 2e4 V/m in tissue. That shifts a large cell's membrane voltage by tens to about a hundred millivolts, so real physiological effects are expected.
  3. The voltage and current spikes far above supply and average values are real (Established). The patent's bursts at the peaks of the damped ring match later descriptions of 'megahertz to gigahertz' peaks (Keilani 2025).
  4. No neutral party has tested the inventor's energy-gain reports: the 1991 IECEC paper and the 1998 '20% excess heat on the probe alone'. The paper was never obtained, and a Google search for its title showed a legal-removal notice.
  5. Pappas published peer-reviewed physics, including the 1983 Nuovo Cimento B Ampere-force paper (cited 151 times) and a 1986 J. Appl. Phys. experiment at NTUA. The patent was granted in Europe in 2001 with no opposition filed.

Key contradictions

  1. The patent's 'infinite then negative gain' is a ratio of resistances, not a power ratio. Its own text says some electrons gain energy only as others lose it. A 0.001% duty cycle alone makes peak power 100,000 times average.
  2. The patent gives 10^6 V/m both as the field a cell membrane needs and as the strength of air. The real values are about 1.4e7 to 2.3e8 V/m and 3e6 V/m. Induction needs no field in the air at all.
  3. Radio quanta at 100-240 MHz carry about 1e-6 eV, a millionth of a chemical step, and become heat within picoseconds. Read as plasma frequency, the 'eigenfrequency' misses an arc's electron density by about 8 orders of magnitude.
  4. In Leisner 2002, a controlled rat fracture study, untreated rats healed faster. The FDA's 2005 letter (the regulator's account) lists two rat deaths, two tachycardias and a fatal myocardial infarction during treatment. No causal investigation was found.
  5. There are no controlled data for the cancer or membrane-potential claims. The 37-site US study was uncontrolled and was terminated by its IRB, per the FDA. The manufacturer's 'several 10 kA' does not fit its own 60-96 J per pulse.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 19 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Transient voltage and current 10-100 times the supply and average valuesEstablished spikes far above average; ordinary for pulsed discharges
Arc resistance from infinite to -100 ohm gives 'infinite then negative gain'Internally inconsistent the patent's argument Refuted by calculation a resistance ratio is not a power gain
Net energy gain as an experiment (1991 IECEC paper; 1998 '20% excess heat')Never properly tested no neutral test; paper not obtained
Bursts at 'characteristic eigenfrequencies' of the gasEstablished bursts exist (class of device) Refuted by calculation read as electron plasma frequency Not testable as stated patent wording, term undefined Never properly tested spectrum shifts when only the gas changes Internally inconsistent three stated burst durations
Pulses beat air breakdown 1-100 times to give 10^6 V/m at the cellInternally inconsistent premise: 10^6 V/m for both membrane and air Established short pulses exceed DC breakdown by a factor of a few Never properly tested 1-100 times from this device Plausible, untested induced field reaches tissue at membrane-relevant strength
Resonant selective absorption drives selected endothermic chemistryRefuted by calculation single radio-quantum mechanism Never properly tested element-selective effect; later transmutation claims
Therapeutic effects (pain, heart-rate variability, fatigue, fracture healing)Plausible, untested at adequate scale: two small sham-controlled pilots positive, one single-arm; not replicated Tested, not supported fracture healing (one controlled rat study)
Restoring membrane potential cures cancer and AIDS; pulses 'pasteurize' cellsNever properly tested no test of any kind; regulators acted on missing data Never properly tested pasteurisation; induced field short of microbe thresholds

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Panagiotis (Panos, Takis) T. PappasInventor; patent holder; owner of the Greek maker of the device · Patent holder and manufacturer (commercial stake)Greek physicist and mathematician in Athens. He published papers on six-dimensional physics in Il Nuovo Cimento (1978-1982) and on the Ampere force (Nuovo Cimento B 1983; Phys. Lett. A 1985; a J. Appl. Phys. 1986 experiment at NTUA). He patented spark-gap lightning conductors (1988-1991) before the 1992 medical filing. The Seattle Times called him a math professor; a 2009 blog called him a 'professor' at TEI Piraeus. One source gives his death as 11 May 2026.
Charles (Chuck) WallachUS distributor and sponsor-investigator of the 37-site US study · Distributor (commercial stake)CEO of Bio-Energy Services Inc., Tarzana CA, and earlier of Pap Electrodynamics. Per the 2002 FDA report, he imported units declared as a 'plant and seed germinator', and the study's IRB terminated it in 2002. Pappas treated his back pain, and both called it a success. Education not in the review files.
Jorge CureCo-inventor, with Pappas and Harry Eichler, of the 1989 'ions by remote action' precursor patentsNamed first inventor on US 5,068,039 (1991) and US 5,239,442 (1993), Greek priority 1989. These are described as 'ideal in applying Nordenstrom's method' and are the direct precursor of the 1996 patent. Education and career: not in the review files.
Ifianassa Athanasia KarampatsouCollaborator since 1996; author of the June 2026 memoriam · Collaborator and promoter (interested party)A physician who also promotes olive-leaf therapy. Her memoriam reports PAPIMI results presented at a Salzburg conference and use in Cuba, Vietnam and Swiss clinics, citing no studies. She says media and pharmaceutical interests resisted the work.
Michael E. MarcarelliFDA official who signed the 10 June 2005 significant-risk letter to Pappas · Regulator (regulatory stake)PharmD, Director of the Division of Bioresearch Monitoring at the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). The letter classed the device as Class III non-heating diathermy, cited animal and human adverse events, and declared it adulterated.
S. LeisnerLead author of the only controlled animal test (2002, rat fractures)Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University, with R. Shahar, I. Aizenberg, D. Lichovsky and T. Levin-Harrus. Their study found slower healing in treated rats than in untreated controls. Further career not in the review files.
A. VitiLead author of the 2023 sham-controlled pilot and the 2025 single-arm pilotCentro Fisioterapico Apuano (Lucca, a private physiotherapy centre) and the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence. The authors declare no conflict of interest and no external funding. Further career not in the review files.
M. KeilaniLead author of the 2025 Vienna placebo-controlled pilot on post-COVID fatigueDepartment of Physical Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, working with Therme Wien Med and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute. The authors declare no competing interests. Further career not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (114 of 120 listed, 95%)

Own works and inventions (28)

  • 1978Physics in six dimensions: an axiomatic formulation P. T. Pappas, Lettere al Nuovo Cimento; Scholar listing only
  • 1979'Three-dimensional time' equation Pappas, Lettere al Nuovo Cimento; Scholar listing only
  • 1982On the R4 -> R6 -> R6 -> R4 transformations Pappas, Nuovo Cimento B; Scholar listing only
  • 1983The original Ampere force and Biot-Savart and Lorentz forces Pappas, Il Nuovo Cimento B 76, 189; cited by 151; his stated theoretical basis for energy in sparks
  • 1985On the fundamental laws of electrodynamics Pappas and P. G. Moyssides, Physics Letters A 111, 193-197
  • 1986Rigorous quantitative test of Biot-Savart-Lorentz forces Moyssides and Pappas, J. Appl. Phys.; experiment at the National Technical University of Athens
  • 1988The Cardinal Law of Electrodynamics, the Principle of Conservation of Energy, and the Tesla Magnifying Effect Conference abstract, 1988 International Tesla Symposium (Natural Philosophy Wiki, title only)
  • 1988Thirty Six Nanoseconds Faster Than Light Conference abstract (Natural Philosophy Wiki, title only)
  • 1989Non Relativistic Forces on Antennas Conference abstract (title only)
  • 1989Einsiedeln conference paper on energy in arcs Cited in the patent ('Eisiedeln'); conference in Stefan Marinov's circle; proceedings not obtained
  • 1990Energy Generation Phenomenon: Lab to Star and Galaxy Generation 1990 International Tesla Symposium; title only
  • 1991-08Energy Creation in Electrical Sparks and Discharges: Theory and Direct Experimental Evidence Proc. 26th IECEC, Boston, vol. 4, pp. 416-423. Source the patent cites for the 10-100x claim; the arbiter calls it decisive; not obtained
  • 1991-08-08On Solving the Great Problems of the World 26th IECEC luncheon speech, Boston (cited in 'Other Voices')
  • 1993Electrodynamics from Ampere to now: future perspective In Essays on the Formal Aspects of Electromagnetic Theory, World Scientific
  • 1990/1998PAP-IMI Cases Reports, 1990-1998 Inventor's case collection, cited by Moawad 2013 and the Journal of New Energy; not retrieved · Inventor (interested party)
  • c.1998papimi.gr website: 'Our Cancer Theory', 'Lung Cancer Case', RadioFungi pages, ICCF-7 paper Inventor's site 1998-2010; Internet Archive not reached · Inventor (interested party)
  • 1997-11Update on Stefan Marinov's Death: emails from Panos Pappas Listed on the Natural Philosophy Wiki
  • 1998-04Electrically induced fusion in the living cell ICCF-7 (Vancouver) contribution named in the 1998 letter; not obtained
  • 1998-06Letter from P. T. Pappas, On Ion Magnetic Inductor New Energy News vol 6 no 2, pp.27-28 (ed. Hal Fox): 'C to Fe', '20% excess heat on the probe alone', energies '30 Kev'; editor notes work with UCLA M.D.s in Santa Monica · Inventor (interested party)
  • c.1999Electrically Induced Nuclear Fusion Journal of New Energy; cited by Moawad 2013
  • 1999K-Na-K Nuclear Transmutations Inside the Living Cell 1999 Symposium on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and New Energy; title only
  • 1999The Lost Unified Theory Conference abstract; title only
  • 1999Panagiotis Pappas (dialogues without Stop), video interview YouTube, 30 min, uploaded 2016 by George Apostoleas; not watched
  • 2006-03-24Pappas' Physiology of the Cell and its Atomic Energy Athens, 67 pp, includes 2 Mar 2002 Starnberg talk 'PAPIMI - The Spark of Life'; '>1 Giga Watts', active/pause < 1e-7, cell as '(ATP) controlled microscopic Nuclear Reactor'; searched, not read in full · Inventor (interested party)
  • 2006Basteas clinical report in the 2006 compilation Dr Ilias Basteas, Athens: '888 magnetic nanopulses at about 80 Joules each', blood chemistry, 28 osteoarthritis or pain cases (pp. ~40-55); not read in detail · Practitioner reported by the inventor
  • 2011-12Pappas PDF on 'non conventional energy machines comprising arc and negative resistance' OverUnity Research forum attachment; login required, not opened
  • 2014-01-24Lecture at the Diogenes Club, Dr Panagiotis Pappas YouTube, 64 min; not watched
  • 2018-01-04Radio programme with G. Lekakis, 'On gods, humans, magnetic fields and electromagnetism' With Karampatsou; named in the memoriam

Patents and patent office (14)

  • 1988-02-09GR2000017Y Greek utility filing by Pappas; no title or abstract available
  • 1989-06-12EP 0402552 A1, High ionisation lightning conductor with an oscillating high-voltage converter Pappas; capacitor, coil and spark gap: the same topology as the medical device
  • 1989-09-20US 5,068,039 and US 5,239,442, Method and device for dispersing ions by remote action Jorge Cure, Pappas, Harry Eichler; also WO 91/04102, AU 6421390A, GR890100595; 'ideal in applying Nordenstrom's method'
  • 1990-01-19GR1000007B, Lightning arrester of high ionization and convertor of high oscillatory tension Pappas; Espacenet title only
  • 1991-07-31GR1000132B, Composite lightning protector of high ionization and attenuation Pappas; Espacenet title only
  • 1992-07-10GR920100309A, Greek priority of the medical patent 'Powerful induction of the ions ... by natural resonance plasma oscillations'; abstract read; US patent prints the number as 920200309 (probable misprint); full text at the Greek patent office not reached
  • 1994-01-20WO 94/01176 (PCT/US93/06616), Method and apparatus for pulsed magnetic induction One listing names Em-Probe, Inc. as assignee; national phases in CA, KR, EP, JP, BR, AU
  • 1996-09-17US 5,556,418, Method and Apparatus for Pulsed Magnetic Induction Pappas, Marina Del Rey; filed 6 Jul 1993; 7 pp, 17 claims; the project document, read in full with page images; fees paid to 2007, expired 2013 · Inventor (interested party)
  • 1998RU 2126278 C1 Russian member, 24 claims; abstract names 'therapeutic curing of malignant tumors'; lapsed 2011
  • 2001-01-31EP 0648140 B1, Apparatus for pulsed magnetic induction Granted after two examination rounds, no opposition; DE 69329908, ES 2154271 T3; some states lapsed
  • 2003-06-30US 2006/0220648 A1 / US 7,151,372 B2, Multi-activation of ions and atoms with NMR and EPR Pappas; wide family incl. JP 2007526991A, CN 1954229A, CY1109665T1; recasts resonance as NMR/EPR without a static field
  • 2006-08-31GR1006848B, Ion induction and atom multi-activation with NMR-EPR, using an electronic or plasma switch Pappas; abstract mentions electric-shock risk if coil insulation is lost
  • 2018-05-07GR20180200149U, Earth unbalance device - free energy generation from zero Panagiotis, Theocharis and Eleftherios Pappas; 134 m loop driven by a square-wave generator
  • 1993EPO Register file for EP93917171 (examination correspondence) Could show examiner objections and whether data were filed; not reached

Related work and prior art cited by the patent (4)

  • 1983US 4,369,345, selective localized hyperthermia Czerlinski; prior art cited in the patent
  • 1986US 4,622,953 Gordon; prior art cited in the patent
  • 1992US 5,160,591, regulating transmembrane ion movement utilizing selective harmonic frequencies Liboff et al. (ion cyclotron resonance, needs a static field); nearest mainstream-adjacent relative of the resonance claim
  • c.1983Nordenstrom's electrochemical (needle-electrode) cancer therapy Called 'quite successful' in the patent; the method the device set out to replace; not searched or assessed

Later patents citing or copying the design (11)

  • 1997WO 98/57704 and US 5,908,444, complex-frequency pulsed electromagnetic generator Healing Machines
  • 1999US 6,561,968 B1 Biofields ApS
  • 2003US 2003/0165636 A1, plasma surface treatment Koulik
  • 2003US 2003/0216729 A1, wound healing Marchitto
  • 2007US 7,280,874 B2, therapeutic resonant frequencies Boehm
  • 2007US 2007/0265663 A1 Azure LP
  • 2007DE 10 2007 030325 A1, device for contactless cell therapy Dr Wilhelm Horkel; near copy of the PAP-IMI layout; lists 'Pappas; Panagiotis T.' among original assignees; lapsed 2010
  • 2007EP 2062614 A1, Method and device for impulse induction Pulsartec S.L.
  • 2007JP 2009539511 A, device attenuating cellular metabolism Enjoy s.r.o.
  • 2008WO 2010/043190 A1, Pulse wave generator Gosbert Weth
  • 2015WO 2016/182600 A1, UV plasma power generation Brilliant Light Power

Government records (12)

  • 1995-11-06FDA 510(k) for the 'Pap Ion magnetic inductor' Not cleared because it required clinical data that were unavailable (per the 2002 FDA report and Seattle Times timeline) · Regulator
  • 2002-09-10FDA Establishment Inspection Report, Bio-Energy Services Inc., Tarzana CA FEI 3003668912; inspections 21 Aug-10 Sep 2002; 17 pp scan, pp.1-11 read by OCR; 'the science behind the device is not clear'; seed-germinator import; infant treated about 29 times · Regulator
  • 2002FDA Form 483 (14 items) and EIR pages 12-17, exhibit list OCR'd but not read closely · Regulator
  • 2003-01-13FDA Import Alert 89-08, PAP-IMI Ion Magnetic Conductor Device Importer Bio-Energy Services (listed 2009); Athens firm BioElectroDynamics added 20 Dec 2018 · Regulator
  • 2003-06-24FDA Warning Letter to Cheryl Jones Jaye MD, LifeWorks Wellness Center, Clearwater FL Consent and IRB failures; at least 50 subjects treated without IRB approval; device name redacted, CIRCARE files it as PAP-IMI · Regulator
  • 2005-06-10FDA letter to Panos Pappas PhD, Chatsworth CA M. E. Marcarelli, CDRH; significant risk, Class III; '100 watts at 2 apps (2 seconds x 50 Joules)'; 2 rat deaths, 2 tachycardias, one fatal MI; adulterated · Regulator
  • 2007-11-20Letter from Rep. Jay Inslee, House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight Via Wikipedia references; not opened
  • 2007-12-28Health Canada advisory, 'Use of Unlicensed Pap-Ion Magnetic Inductor May Pose Health Risk' With a seizure order to the Canada Border Services Agency; known via Wikipedia references; not checked directly · Regulator
  • c.2003CE 0120 (SGS UK), GOSSTANDART and Mexico 0767E2003 S.S.A. approvals Claimed in the inventor's 2006 compilation; certificates not seen · Inventor's claim
  • –Greek ministry or EOF decision on PAPIMI approval Mentioned only in a Facebook comment that the ministry refused it; not found
  • 2002/2005Adverse-event case records (rat deaths, fatal myocardial infarction, Florida deaths) Named by FDA and the Seattle Times; needed for any causal review; not obtained
  • 2001/2005Data from the US sponsor-run study (BioMed IRB 2001, TABS IRB 2002) 37 sites in at least 12 states; outcomes not in the record

Court and state records (2)

  • 2005California judgment against Gerald Allen Anderson / Bio-Energy Services (later Biophotonix) Barred from false or misleading claims; $2,750 penalty plus $7,000 costs; known via Quackwatch summary, full text not opened · Reported by an anti-quackery site
  • –Any court or Los Angeles County records on C. Wallach or Bio-Energy Services Not reached

Company and business records (6)

  • 1994Em-Probe, Inc. Named as assignee on one WO 94/01176 listing; not researched
  • c.1995Pap Electrodynamics Earlier company with Wallach as CEO (FDA EIR)
  • 2001-06-21Greek manufacturer invoice #270 and 'Z Electrodynamics' declaration of conformity Pappas's production and R&D companies, per Wallach (FDA EIR p.9, p.11); model 600P
  • 2003Bio-Energy Services website description of the device 'advanced electrotherapeutic diathermy device'; quoted by Quackwatch · Distributor (commercial)
  • 2023Pulse Dynamics Ltd, current manufacturer, and papimi.com pages Agios Dimitrios, Greece; models ASKLIPIOS and Delta; 'Clinical Trial Confirms...' page not opened · Manufacturer (commercial)
  • –Greek business register (GEMI) records for Pulse Dynamics, Bio-Electrodynamics, Z Electrodynamics Not reached

Witness accounts and correspondence (5)

  • 2002Paper by Dr Shri Kant Mishra MD on rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and ageing Exhibit 23 of the 2002 FDA inspection report; not obtained · Used in distributor advertising
  • 2002Dr David Minkoff annual report noting two subject deaths Cited in the FDA EIR; Minkoff wrote the treatments 'had nothing to do with their demises' · Study investigator
  • c.2002E-mail: 'Dr. Pappas was saying that pre-surgery treatments was shortening the recovery time by one-third to one-half' FDA EIR p.11
  • 2026-05-11Facebook death notices (G. Kasimatis; P. Giannoulakis) Give the death date 11 May 2026; snippets only; one source for the date
  • 2026-06-11Memoriam 'Takis Pappas', Arxeion Politismou Dr Ifianassa Karampatsou; Salzburg conference, Cuba, Vietnam, Swiss clinics; his two physicist children continue the work · Collaborator since 1996

Experiments and replications by others (6)

  • 2002Leisner et al., effect of high-intensity electromagnetic pulses on fresh ulnar fractures in rats J Vet Med A 49(1):33-7, PMID 11913824, Hebrew University; untreated controls healed faster; abstract read
  • c.2010Single-subject PAPIMI reports: refractory seizures, skin wound healing, fatigue syndrome Viti 2023 refs 40-42; not retrieved
  • 2014Efthimiadou et al., presowing pulsed electromagnetic treatment of tomato seed PMID 25097875, Greek group; whether a PAPIMI was used is unknown
  • 2023Viti et al., HRV after PAP Ion Magnetic Induction in chronic musculoskeletal pain: pilot RCT Int J Environ Res Public Health 20(5):3934, PMC10001461; single-blind, sham, n = 32; Lucca and Florence
  • 2025Viti et al., PAPIMI short effect on pain perception and HRV: a pilot study Healthcare (Basel), PMC12385873; single arm, n = 30; pain fell a median 2 points
  • 2025Keilani et al., pulsed magnetic field therapy in post-COVID-19 fatigue: randomized controlled pilot Wien Klin Wochenschr, PMC12534222; Medical University of Vienna; n = 20; 96 J, 50-100 mT, '20 cm' penetration (manufacturer)

Later accounts and media (24)

  • 1989P. Cornille, On the difference between the Lorentz and Ampere force laws IOP; follow-up in the Ampere-force debate
  • c.1990Stefan Marinov, The thorny way of truth, vol 7 RexResearch; cites Pappas 1983 and Einsiedeln
  • c.1997Journal of New Energy vol 2 no 2 Cites the 1991 IECEC paper beside arc negative-resistance discussion
  • c.1998Journal of New Energy vol 3 no 1 Cites 'PAP-IMI Cases Reports' 1990-1998
  • c.2000Other Voices: A Summary of Research Not Present Academia.edu; cites the 1991 IECEC paper and speech
  • c.2000Moray King, The Energy Machine of T. Henry Moray; Review of Zero Point Energy Zero-point-energy literature citing the 1991 paper
  • 2007-11-19Seattle Times, 'Public never warned about dangerous device' C. Willmsen and M. J. Berens; Pappas quoted 'absolutely safe', 'can cure cancer and AIDS'; deaths linked by the paper · Newspaper's characterization
  • 2007-11-19Seattle Times graphic 'The PAP-IMI in the U.S.' and timeline 1995-2007 89 units by state
  • 2007-12-08Herald Extra, 'FDA bans import of miracle machines'; Sun Journal 9 Dec 2007 Snippets only
  • 2008-01-04Seattle Times, 'State urges FDA to ban unproven medical devices' Not opened
  • 2008-01-30Seattle Times, 'Fraudulent medical devices targeted' Not opened
  • 2008-02-01MDDI, 'CDRH Promises Crackdown on Risky Devices' 'FDA inspected three PAP-IMI clinics outside California'; snippet
  • 2008-02-15Biomedical Safety & Standards item (Ovid) Not opened
  • 2008Chronicle of Higher Education blog on the TABS IRB Not opened
  • 2008-12-26Seattle Times, 'Miracle Machines: The 21st-Century Snake Oil' Via Wikipedia references
  • 2009-02-21Greek blog calling Pappas a 'professor' of TEI Piraeus Critical tone; snippet only · Critic's characterization
  • 2011Catherine Mayer, Amortality, p.51 Proponents' claims (pain, AIDS, cancer, grey hair)
  • 2011-05-06sarantakos.wordpress.com satirical mention Critic's characterization; snippet only
  • 2013E. Y. Moawad, Cell growth energy ... nuclear transmutations in human cell Univ. J. Med. Sci. 1(2):27-35, Ain Shams; takes up Pappas's transmutation idea in theory; abstract and references read
  • –Yumpu 'Cases from private practices - Papimi' Inventor-side case collection; not opened · Supporters
  • 2016Zukunftstechnologien fur nachhaltige Entwicklung (German survey) ResearchGate; cites the 1991 paper
  • 2024-05-23Wikipedia, Pap-Ion Magnetic Inductor Stub categorised as pseudoscience; useful for its references
  • –Natural Philosophy Wiki page 'Panos Pappas' Bibliography and conferences 1988-2011
  • –Vysotskii and Kornilova, biological transmutation work Related work cited beside Pappas; not opened

Records named but not yet examined (2)

  • –Lumen Database notice for the Google result removed on the query for the 1991 paper's title Notice text and removed URL unknown; the arbiter sets out competing explanations
  • –Inventor's lab notes and archive, via his family or company Named by the arbiter as deciding for the energy-gain claim

Left out: six minor items found only as search snippets (two MedCrave/Science Publishing Group transmutation papers, Slovak and Italian new-energy surveys, an Energetic Forum thread, a German 'Pap-Imi-Therapie' page). Also left out: duplicate copies, the Scribd copy of the 2006 compilation, a spurious Gilead citation, and the Google 'similar documents'. Full catalogue: Pappas-PT sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Measure electrical energy in and total energy out by calorimetry over many pulses, with a calibrated probe, and compare with (1/2) C V^2 per pulse. Map dB/dt and the induced field in a saline phantom. Swap the gas (air, nitrogen, argon) and watch whether the burst spectrum moves. Run a large independent sham-controlled trial with checked blinding.

Deciding records: The 1991 IECEC paper (vol. 4, pp. 416-423) and the ICCF-7 paper; the Lumen notice on the removed search result; the US study files and adverse-event case records; EIR pages 12-17 and the Mishra paper; the EPO examination file; the Greek priority text GR920100309A.

Try it yourself: Run example.py (primer section 5). From 40 kV and 60 J per pulse at 240 kHz it gets C = 75 nF, L = 5.86 uH, peak current 4.5 kA, B = 95 mT, induced E about 7.5e3 V/m at 10 cm, and membrane shift dV = 1.5 E a of about 110 mV. Repeat with the patent's 1000 A.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter The contrarian's 36 microvolts is 36 millivolts, a factor of 1000 off. At the device's published parameters, ordinary induction gives a membrane shift of tens to a hundred-plus millivolts, the same size as the resting potential. arbiter.md, section 1, correction 1
  2. Physicist Mainstream physics rejects net energy gain, element-selective radio-frequency chemistry and the need to beat air breakdown. Yet the induced fields are strong enough to stimulate nerves and muscles: 'The patent's practical device may do something in tissue, but for reasons not in the patent.' physicist.md, section 4
  3. Contrarian The FDA's refusal was on missing clinical evidence, not a refutation. No negative physics experiment was run and withheld, and the inventor did not publish one either. No blocking of funding or publication is documented. After the US ban the record moved to Europe rather than going dark. contrarian.md, How the claims were handled
  4. Mathematician Hidden assumption: that a membrane effect needs an external field equal to the field inside the membrane, which is wrong by a factor of about 3000. The patent omits capacitance, voltage, inductance, current and oscillogram scale, so it cannot be tested as a derivation. mathematician.md, Notation, units and hidden-assumption list
  5. Arbiter A Google search for the missing 1991 paper's title showed a legal-removal notice. Possible explanations: a routine copyright takedown, a request by the inventor, family or a company, or a different page. Nothing prefers one. The Lumen notice and a library copy would decide. arbiter.md, section 9, absence-of-evidence addendum

AI noteThe nitrogen-14 NMR frequency at 0.1 T is about 0.31 MHz, close to the device's 240 kHz base ring. But NMR needs a steady field, which the pulsed coil does not supply (primer, section 5 side checks).

Rank 11Wallace-Byran

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:40

Bryan Wallace argued that 1961 Venus radar echoes show light moving at c+v; the analysts kept the data, and the neutral refit he asked for has never been run.

Invention / theory background

Bryan G. Wallace (1933-1997, St. Petersburg, Florida), who worked with colleagues at Eckerd College, revived Ritz's emission theory: light from a moving source or mirror travels at c+v. From 1969 he argued that early Earth-Venus radar ranging fits c+v better than constant c. His 1993 manuscript The Farce of Physics adds a 'dynamic ether' theory of mass circulating at speed c and a long record of refused papers. He accepted E=mc^2 and much of relativity.

Ranking explanation

Ranked below Pappas (7), whose discharge gain was never metered, because Wallace's strong c+v claim has been tested by source-velocity experiments and failed. Ranked above Mallove's glow-discharge account (9) because its core is checkable: published radar papers, a specific refit nobody has run, dated letters about data access and editorial hostility, and algebra the reader can redo. Criteria A, B and C apply.

Key supporting elements

  1. A first-order ballistic effect has the size of Wallace's residuals: about 5 ms for a 10 km/s relative speed. His two equations differ by hundreds to thousands of km, against quoted radar accuracy of 1.5 km.
  2. Ash, Shapiro and Smith (AJ 1967), as quoted, found USSR residuals 'systematically negative' against Arecibo and Lincoln, up to five times the quoted error, cause unidentified; Kotel'nikov et al. (1976) report Venus residuals up to 3500 microseconds.
  3. Data access, as relayed by Wallace: Shapiro wrote the data 'did not exist in the form' asked; AFCRL's Hollingsworth wrote Lincoln Lab could not be persuaded to test anything but c; McVittie (1970) wondered whether something was 'concealed'.
  4. Pulkovo astrometrist Tolchelnikova-Murri independently argues the 1961-62 reductions used classical kinematics, and quotes Clemence (USNO) that second-order terms are no new confirmation of relativity. She does not claim c+v.
  5. Editor Robinson's letters (1979, 1990, quoted by Wallace) cite 'very negative reader reaction' and anonymous letters and calls; PRL's editor admitted a 'mistake' in rerouting Wallace's 1969 paper to a second referee.

Key contradictions

  1. Source-velocity tests needing no radar reduction find no c+v: Alvager et al. (CERN 1964) bound k below 1e-4, Brecher (1977) below 2e-9 from X-ray binaries; Cassini ranging fits relativity to 2e-5.
  2. By Wallace's own yardstick, Newcomb's tables in Fig. 1 of his 1969 paper, the constant-c curve lies closer; c+v agrees only with his own orbit integration, whose starting conditions are not stated.
  3. His own frequency datum points to plasma: the 30-day term is about five times larger at 440 MHz than at 1295 MHz; plasma predicts 8.7, a change in light speed predicts 1.
  4. Wallace conceded Salamin's binary-star objection (c+v would give simultaneous redshifts in both stars); his electron model gives 1/34 of the electron's spin, and electrons are point-like far below his 1.1e-14 m scale.
  5. Against suppression: Spectroscopy Letters printed four Wallace papers (1969-71) and then a rebuttal (Horedt and Ruck 1972); Shapiro answered in print in 1985 (unread); Wallace also published in Found. Phys. and J. Chem. Phys.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 29 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Light speed is c+v, dependent on the source or mirror (strong form)Tested, not supported Alvager, Brecher, Cassini ranging
A neutral joint refit of the early multi-station Venus radar data with a free ballistic parameterNever properly tested data not released in usable form; no refit on record
Wallace's 1961 eight-point comparison (Fig. 1) shows c+v fitting betterTested, not supported on his own yardstick; a weak test; algebra consistent for the stated c+2v rule
Shapiro admitted only c was tested; c+v was never testedNot testable as stated the 1968 conversation, one account Tested, not supported by non-radar experiments Never properly tested within radar reductions
Journals, referees and funders obstructed the work; relativity and QCD are pathological scienceNot testable as stated as physics; editorial hostility documented in quoted letters, organised suppression not established
Rest mass is mass circulating at speed c inside each particlePlausible, untested in general Refuted by calculation at his stated radius, spin 34 times low Internally inconsistent Galilean energy accounting
The mass-in-cell computer model: force deviation below 1.1e-14 m, pion of electrons and positrons, gravity and spinTested, not supported deviation below 1.1e-14 m Refuted by calculation pion of 104 or 10^4 e+e- Never properly tested photon, spin, gravity from the program
Eternal non-expanding universe with non-Doppler redshiftTested, not supported supernova time dilation, CMB Historically superseded but instructive as a 1993 position

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Bryan G. WallaceInventor and author of The Farce of PhysicsBorn 8 Feb 1933, died 19 Mar 1997, St. Petersburg, Florida. Worked with colleagues at Eckerd College (H- ion source 1975; crossed-beam electron scattering 1977, which agreed with standard theory). Four Spectroscopy Letters papers 1969-71, Found. Phys. 1973; Natural Philosophy Alliance member; spoke at Leningrad conferences 1989 and 1991. Not a professional astronomer by the book's own account.
Irwin I. ShapiroLed the Lincoln Laboratory planetary radar analysis Wallace disputed; correspondent 1968-69 · His group's reductions are the target of Wallace's chargesCo-author of Ash, Shapiro and Smith, AJ 72, 338 (1967) and Shapiro, Ash and Tausner, PRL 17, 933 (1966); Air Force-funded per Wallace; replied to Wallace in Scientific Ethics (1985), unread. Further background not in the review files.
L. M. HollingsworthAir Force Cambridge Research Laboratories official who supplied a card deck and met Wallace in 1969 · Air Force data holderNot in the review files beyond his AFCRL role and the letters of 29 Sep and 7 Nov 1969 that Wallace paraphrases.
J. W. RobinsonEditor of Spectroscopy Letters, who published Wallace 1969-71 and later stoppedProfessor of Chemistry, Louisiana State University (per the book). Letters of 4 Apr 1979 and 23 Jul 1990 cite negative reader reaction and anonymous letters and calls.
S. A. GoudsmitPhysical Review Letters editor in the 1969 referee episodeNot in the review files beyond his letters of 11 and 23 Sep 1969, as Wallace reports them.
S. A. Tolchelnikova-MurriPulkovo Observatory astrometrist; independent critic of the radar reductions and witness to Pulkovo dismissalsWrote to Wallace in 1988; translated his 1989 Leningrad talk; Galilean Electrodynamics 4(1), 3 (1993) and a 2001 Russian paper arguing the 1961-62 reductions used classical kinematics.
G. C. McVittieAstronomer who complained in 1970 of Shapiro's secrecy about methods and resultsAuthor of AJ 75, 287 (1970) on exact n-body solutions in general relativity. Further background not in the review files.
Louis EssenCritic of special relativity whom Wallace quotes as his strongest professional allyBuilt the first caesium clock (1955); wrote The Special Theory of Relativity: A Critical Analysis (OUP 1971); a 1989 letter on the eclipse results.
Evidence / artifacts (105 of 105 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (21)

  • 1967-12-09An Interplanetary Radar Test of Relativity (first radar paper, unpublished) Wallace; per the book 'rejected by a large selection of journals'; text not in the folder
  • 1969Radar Testing of the Relative Velocity of Light in Space Spectroscopy Letters 2, 361-367; eight 1961 Venus points vs Newcomb's tables; Eq. (1) tc/2 - tv/2, Eq. (2) tc/2; Fig. 1 p.366; read as page images; copies at GSJ and sciliterature.50webs.com
  • 1970Cosmological Implications of a c+v Relative Velocity of Light Spectroscopy Letters 3, 115; binaries, non-expanding universe, fused-electron atomic models; abstract quoted in the book
  • 1971Radar Evidence that the Velocity of Light in Space is not c Spectroscopy Letters 4, 79; 1961-66 residuals 'over 30,000%' of expected error; free at GSJ, not read in the review
  • 1971Expansion of a Dynamic Ether Hypothesis of Physical Reality Spectroscopy Letters 4, 123; atomic models revised to use neutrons
  • 1973The Unified Quantum Electrodynamic Ether Foundations of Physics 3, 381; said to hold the mass-dynamics equations missing from the book; abstract quoted
  • 1975Glow discharge source of H- ions Rhodes, Block, Wallace; Rev. Sci. Instrum. 46, 1710; Eckerd College; title only in the book
  • 1977Crossed beam electron-electron scattering Block, Floyd, Rhodes, Wallace; J. Chem. Phys. 66, 2108; 90 degrees, 300 eV, 1.2 and 1.3 microamp beams; agreed with Moller's cross section
  • 1977NSF research proposal via Eckerd College $159,512 including $99,655 for a Harris computer; rejected Feb 1978; proposal text not in the folder
  • 1981/1984Physics Today letters 34(8) 11 (1981); 36(1) 11, 36(8) 13, 36(9) 111 (1983); 37(6) 15 (1984); listed on the NPA wiki and in the book
  • 1982Computer Simulation of Mass Dynamics in Electrons with Rhodes and Block; J. Clas. Phys. 1(2), 17; PRIME 750 'mass-in-cell' program; program not available
  • 1984-07-09The speed of light is c+v (Physics Today letter) rejected 4 Jan 1985 by Acting Editor G. B. Lubkin; argues Moyer's JPL light-time equation is c+v in substance; described in the book
  • 1985The Great Speed of Light in Space Coverup Scientific Ethics 1(1), 2; the article Shapiro answered; also Scientific Ethics 1(3), 3 (1985)
  • 1986Speculations in Science and Technology 9, 9 Wallace's 'ninth, and last research paper'; mass-dynamics model and Moyer argument
  • 1988-01-14Physics Today letter (not published) per the book, no acceptance received
  • 1989-03-15The Problem of Space and Time in Modern Physics (Leningrad talk) 1st International Conference on space and time, Leningrad; 1961 Venus radar data; translated by Tolchelnikova-Murri
  • 1990Galilean Electrodynamics 1(2), 23 one of his last journal statements of the radar case; not found online
  • 1990Physics Essays 3(1), 94 not found online in the Investigator's search
  • 1990Reply to Salamin's binary-star objection sent to Beckmann's Galilean Electrodynamics, which printed Salamin and not the reply; content given in the book
  • 1991-09Space-time Problem in Modern Physics (2nd Leningrad conference) 16-20 Sep 1991, 114 participants, 14 foreign
  • 1993The Farce of Physics (manuscript) 49,195 words, 7 chapters, 156 references; the only document in the folder; also online at ekkehard-friebe.de (same text plus a 1989 Leningrad photo caption)

Government records (4)

  • 1969-09-29AFCRL IBM card deck of Venus radar data offered by L. M. Hollingsworth; Wallace first called it a good test (18 Oct), then useless (25 Oct): stations close, observing time constant · Air Force data holder
  • 1978-02NSF rejection letter (B. R. Holstein) 'no reason to abandon the conventional and remarkably successful theories ... your model which is beset with a number of fatal conceptual difficulties'; quoted by Wallace · the funding agency that declined
  • 1983R. J. Smith, Science 221, 133 Lincoln Laboratory decoy work; the article that led to Wallace's 'Star Wars' secrecy inference; passages quoted do not mention radar astronomy or light speed
  • 1985/1989Beam-weapon and classified-data items Physics Today 1985 and 1988 items on laser classification; Sky & Telescope 1989 on one classified astronomical data set; circumstantial items Wallace cites

Witness accounts and correspondence (29)

  • 1968Thornton Page editing and H. K. Eichhorn checking Wallace's first radar paper Wallace's account; Page sponsored him at the Texas Symposium · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1968-12Shapiro's comment at the Fourth Texas Symposium, Dallas Wallace recalls Shapiro said all calculations assumed c and c+v was untested; Wallace: 'I have quoted your remarks as I remembered them'; no transcript · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1968-12-26Wallace to Shapiro, preprint sent opens the correspondence · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1969-01Shapiro letters of 13 and 17 Jan 1969 radar data 'not consistent with the ballistic theory ... consistent with general relativity', citing PRL 17, 933; paraphrased by Wallace · Shapiro led the analysis Wallace disputed
  • 1969-03-13Walter Sullivan (New York Times) letter deferred to Thornton Page
  • 1969-03-27Shapiro letter: data 'did not exist in the form' requested paraphrased by Wallace · Shapiro led the analysis Wallace disputed
  • 1969-04-03Wallace to Shapiro: the 12:00 UT charge says Lincoln Lab removed daily variations by fixing the observing time, citing Evans et al. 1965 · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1969-08/09PRL referee episode first referee 15 Aug 'suitable ... if revised'; resubmitted 21 Aug; editor Goudsmit 11 Sep (rejected by a second referee) and 23 Sep ('made a mistake'); reports not reproduced · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1969-10-25Wallace letter: the Duncombe charge synodic variation in Ash-Shapiro-Smith Fig. 4 'could only' be removed by empirical corrections like Duncombe's · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1969-11-07Hollingsworth (AFCRL) letter 'impossible for him to persuade Dr. Shapiro or other Lincoln Laboratory people' to measure light speed as anything but c; paraphrased · Air Force data holder
  • 1969-10/12Shapiro letters of 13 Oct, 6 Nov, 28 Nov, 9 Dec 1969 9 Dec: 'too much occupied with university matters to direct any large-scale investigation'; paraphrased · Shapiro led the analysis Wallace disputed
  • 1969-12Hollingsworth meeting, AAAS Boston four-hour meeting; per Wallace, AU values 'ranged over thousands of kilometers' and data needed Shapiro's permission · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1970G. C. McVittie letter Shapiro's secrecy 'makes him wonder whether there is something to be concealed'; paraphrased by Wallace; letter unread
  • 1979-04-04J. W. Robinson letter (Spectroscopy Letters editor) could no longer publish Wallace because of 'very negative reader reaction'
  • 1990-07-23J. W. Robinson letter 'completely unsavory and unobjective anonymous letters and phone calls'
  • 1979/1985APS meeting confrontations S. Weinberg 1979, L. Lederman 1981, G. Brown 1982, C. Rubbia 1985; Wallace's accounts, no replies quoted · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • c.1983PRL paper rejected without a referee title and date not given · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1984Santilli, Il Grande Grido allegations that Coleman, Glashow and Weinberg blocked his salary; relayed by Wallace; also Santilli's Foundations of Theoretical Mechanics I-II · Santilli's own allegations
  • 1987-10V. Sekerin letter (Novosibirsk) computes c+v from double stars; passed Wallace's paper to Pulkovo
  • 1988S. A. Tolchelnikova-Murri letter (Pulkovo) 'Two scientists were dismissed because they discovered some facts which contradicted Einstein'
  • c.1988R. T. Fienberg (Sky & Telescope) declines to review News Notes · Wallace, the inventor; his own account
  • 1989-03Pulkovo early retirements under Director Abalakin two anti-relativist women retired early, later reinstated; A. Schpitalnaya named; Wallace's report of conversations
  • 1989P. F. Parshin's Ives-type experiment data published in a Soviet journal, theory refused; no journal or numbers given
  • 1989J.-P. Vigier letter offer to publish in Physics Letters A; 'doubts on Prof. Shapiro's observations'
  • 1989L. Essen letter a former Pulkovo director argued the eclipse results 'did not support Eddington's claim'
  • 1990-03-15Salamin's binary-star objection (via Beckmann) c+v would give simultaneous redshifts in both members of binaries; Wallace conceded the prediction
  • 1991NASA (W. E. Brunk) question-and-answer noted in the online edition of Ch.5
  • 1991-09Beklyamishev's Leningrad talk on Wallace's Venus radar data title only
  • variousEinstein statements via Pais and Clark to Zangger 1912; to Freundlich 1913 ('my whole theory ... is false' if source speed matters); on Dayton Miller 1921 ('collapses like a house of cards')

Experiments and replications by others (19)

  • 1962Pettengill et al., A radar investigation of Venus AJ 67, 181; Millstone radar 6 Mar-18 May 1961
  • 1962Muhleman, Holdridge and Block, AU by radar from Venus AJ 67, 191
  • 1964Alvager, Farley, Kjellman, Wallin, CERN pion-decay photon speed Phys. Lett. 12, 260; 2.9977 +/- 0.0004 x 10^8 m/s from sources at 0.99975c; |k| < 1e-4
  • 1965Evans et al., Venus radar AJ 70, 486; the 12:00 UT charge rests on it
  • 1966Shapiro, Ash and Tausner, Radar Verification of the Doppler Formula PRL 17, 933; Shapiro's cited answer to the ballistic theory; paywalled · Shapiro's group
  • 1967Ash, Shapiro and Smith, astronomical constants from radar and optical data AJ 72, 338; USSR residuals 'systematically negative', up to five times quoted error; fit values 1.57, 0.97, 7.10; quoted by Wallace · Shapiro's group
  • 1968Shapiro chapter, Radar Astronomy (Evans and Hagfors eds.) p.159 'parameters will (usually) be selected ... to cover up the inadequacies of the theory' · Shapiro's group
  • 1969Shapiro, Radar observations of the planets Uspekhi Fiz. Nauk 99:2; its citing list includes Wallace 1969 (Math-Net.Ru)
  • 1972Hafele and Keating, around-the-world atomic clocks Science 177, 166; -59 +/- 10 ns east, +273 +/- 7 ns west
  • 1974-12Standish (JPL), AAS meeting report 'significant unexplained systematic variations' fitted with empirical corrections; per Wallace
  • 1976Kotel'nikov et al., 1975 Venus radar Astron. Zh. 53, 1270; residuals 'reach 3500 microseconds ... 500 km' against planetary theory
  • 1977Brecher, Is the Speed of Light Independent of the Velocity of the Source? PRL 39, 1051; X-ray binaries, k < 2e-9
  • 1981Moyer, JPL light-time equations Celestial Mechanics 23, 33, eq. (A6); 'the Newtonian light time'
  • 1995/2004Radio (VLBI) light deflection by the Sun Lebach et al. 1995 gamma = 0.9996 +/- 0.0017; Shapiro et al. 2004 gamma = 0.99983 +/- 0.00045
  • 1996A. G. Kelly, FOIA reanalysis of Hafele-Keating raw data Institution of Engineers of Ireland Monograph 3; disputes the data analysis
  • 2000LEP Bhabha and g-2 electron size limits r < 2.8e-19 m (LEP); below about 1e-18 m (g-2)
  • 2001Goldhaber et al., supernova light-curve time dilation 35 supernovae, b = 1.07 +/- 0.06; later DES to z ~ 1
  • 2003Bertotti, Iess, Tortora, Cassini radio test Nature 425, 374; gamma = 1 + (2.1 +/- 2.3) x 10^-5
  • 2018Li et al., Jupiter energy balance (Cassini) emitted/absorbed 2.132 +/- 0.051, against Wallace's 2 1/2

Related work and published replies (20)

  • 1964F. Schmeidler, Sky & Telescope 27(4), 217 92 star shifts from the 1922 eclipse 'going in all directions'; basis of the 'Trimming and Cooking' claim
  • 1965J. G. Fox, Evidence against emission theories Am. J. Phys. 33, 1; the extinction loophole; cited by Wallace
  • 1967Clemence remark, IAU Symposium 21 second-order terms 'cannot be regarded as a new confirmation of relativity' (Tolchelnikova-Murri's rendering)
  • 1970G. C. McVittie, AJ 75, 287 passage quoted concerns n-body solutions in GR
  • 1971L. Essen, The Special Theory of Relativity: A Critical Analysis OUP; SR as 'a new system of units', 'accelerations are always involved'; quoted by Wallace
  • 1971P. M. Rapier, VLBI of quasar 3C 279 Spectroscopy Letters 4, 303; cites Wallace
  • 1972Horedt and Ruck, Constancy of the Velocity of Light in Vacuum Spectroscopy Letters 5, 455; published rebuttal of 'papers 1-15'; abstract read, full text paywalled
  • 1975Wegener and Ohrstrom, Relativity, gravitation and absolute time Nuovo Cimento B 30, 291; cites Wallace
  • 1979Chandrasekhar, Am. J. Phys. 47, 212 Eddington's 1917 deferment; no statement on data handling
  • 1983I. E. Segal, chronometric cosmology Phys. Rev. D 28, 2393; last sentence quoted
  • 1985I. Shapiro, reply in Scientific Ethics 1(2), 10 Shapiro's published answer to Wallace; content unknown; first record to obtain · Shapiro led the analysis Wallace disputed
  • 1986P. LaViolette, Is the universe really expanding? ApJ 301, 544; tired light fits four tests better than a no-evolution q0 = 0 model
  • 1986R. R. Wilson APS address Physics Today 39(7), 26; 'ostracize the culprit ... well-practiced referees'; Wallace concedes it may be humour
  • 1988G. Burbidge review of Arp Sky & Telescope 75(1), 38; 'interminable refereeing, blackballing of speakers ... denial of telescope time'
  • 1989Langmuir, Pathological Science Physics Today 42(10), 36 (1953 talk); criteria Wallace applies
  • 1990V. N. Barykin, Soviet Physics Journal 33, 856 cites Wallace
  • 1993S. A. Tolchelnikova-Murri, The Doppler Observations of Venus Contradict the SRT Galilean Electrodynamics 4(1), 3; also GED 5(6), 116
  • 2001Tolchelnikova-Murri, Radar observations of Venus confirmed the classical (Galilean) rule Izv. VUZov Geodeziya i aerofotos'emka No.6, 85-108; read via ritz-btr.narod.ru summary; argues the round trip cancels, not c+v
  • 2010/2012G. B. Malykin reviews of the Ritz ballistic hypothesis Optics and Spectroscopy 109, 951 (2010); with Romanets, 112, 920 (2012); cite Wallace
  • 2011/2022Other citing papers G. Cao, Physics Essays 24, 381 (2011); M. Tran, arXiv:2208.14828 (2022)

Later accounts and media (4)

  • 1967-12I. D. Novikov, report on the Fourth Texas Symposium Soviet Astronomy (ADS dates it Dec 1967); date conflict with Wallace's Dallas 1968, possibly the Third
  • 2026Natural Philosophy Wiki biography born 8 Feb 1933, died 19 Mar 1997; NPA member; publication list; states the mainstream reading (a sympathetic society's page)
  • variousSecondary mentions Sungenis, Galileo Was Wrong (relays the Shapiro claim); viXra 'The Aether' calls him a radio astronomer; a Zhihu column
  • 2012ritz-btr.narod.ru Russian site on Ritz's ballistic theory hosting Tolchelnikova-Murri's article

Records named but not yet examined (8)

  • 1968-12Fourth Texas Symposium discussion record would settle what Shapiro said
  • 1969PRL editorial file and the second referee's report content of the negative report
  • 1961/1966Lincoln Laboratory and AFCRL reports and multi-station data needed for a joint c vs c+v refit
  • 1977/1978NSF review file reviewers' itemised 'fatal conceptual difficulties'
  • 1975/1986Eckerd College archives and the mass-dynamics program source Block, Rhodes, Floyd; whether gravity is derived or fitted
  • 1919/1922Eclipse plates and Dyson-Eddington-Davidson (1920) with the modern re-measurement of the 1919 plates (arXiv 1409.7812, unread)
  • 1997Obituary (St. Petersburg / Tampa Bay Times) none found; also a 1969 Florida Presbyterian College lecture
  • 1985Physics Today editorial correspondence the Lubkin rejection and later letters

Left out: the book's philosophy-of-science and general cosmology references not used by the reviews (Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Mahoney, press reports on COBE), and web copies of listed works (GSJ, sciliterature.50webs.com, the Friebe edition), counted with their originals. Full catalogue: Wallace-Byran sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Refit the 1961-66 multi-station Venus radar data, or modern spacecraft ranging, with orbit elements, the AU and one ballistic (c+v) parameter all free, using the same epoch bookkeeping for both models. Nobody has published this.

Deciding records: Shapiro's reply in Scientific Ethics 1(2), 10 (1985); the Fourth Texas Symposium discussion record; Evans et al. AJ 70, 486 (1965) and Ash, Shapiro and Smith AJ 72, 338 (1967); Moyer 1981 eq. (A6); PRL 17, 933; Lincoln Laboratory and AFCRL data; the 1969 PRL referee reports; the NSF file.

Try it yourself: Run example.py. Derive tc/2 - tv/2 (constant c) and tc/2 (Wallace's c+2v rule), then compute tv/2 = -2,774 km for t = 452 s and v = -12.3 km/s, 30 days after the April 1961 conjunction, against 1.5 km radar accuracy. Then check that mass circulating at c on 5.7e-15 m gives 1/34 of the electron's spin.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Withdrew its own 'Internally inconsistent' verdict after QE: each radar equation follows exactly from its stated reflection rule, both at reception, so the tv/2 gap is a real model difference. But by Newcomb's yardstick in Fig. 1 the constant-c curve is the closer one. arbiter.md, QE revision A
  2. Contrarian The size of Wallace's 3 ms is the natural scale of a first-order ballistic effect: the strongest honest observation in his favour. The same fact makes it testable, and the radar-specific question was never put to a neutral test. contrarian.md, Claim 1
  3. Physicist Wallace's reading of JPL's Moyer formulation as c+v is a confusion: evaluating each endpoint at its own time is what a constant-c light-time equation in a barycentric frame requires. Moyer itself was not read in the review. physicist.md, Claim 1 b
  4. QE Shapiro published a reply, Scientific Ethics 1(2), 10 (1985), answering Wallace's 'Great Speed of Light in Space Coverup'. Nobody located it, though it bears directly on the claimed admission; it is the first record to obtain. qe.md, section 3 item 1
  5. Primer His methodological point is right: a fit that assumes c cannot, by itself, test c against c+v. Shapiro said as much in general terms. Source-velocity experiments that need no reflection rule still find no c+v effect. primer.md, sections 5.7 and 7

AI noteThe reviewers first called Wallace's radar algebra inconsistent; QE re-read the 1969 page images and found they had misread the epoch. His equations were right, yet his own Fig. 1 favours constant c.

Rank 13Malove-Eugene

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:41

Mallove saw 50 W go into the Correas' glow-discharge tube and about 500 W come off a motor shaft. A cheap closed-loop test would settle it; none was ever reported.

Invention / theory background

Eugene F. Mallove, editor and publisher of Infinite Energy and a leading cold-fusion advocate, wrote 'Tesla and the Aether' (2003). He argues that physics wrongly dropped a dynamic aether. His evidence: Paulo and Alexandra Correa's patented Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge (PAGD) tubes, which he says gave about ten times more output than input; their Tesla-coil 'massfree' radiation; an acupuncture brain-scan paper; and cold fusion. He was the Correas' editor and fund-raiser.

Ranking explanation

Criteria A, B and C: a stated 10x figure that a closed loop would decide cheaply, and an independent test arranged in 2002 that stalled. It sits below Wallace, whose radar data, documented obstruction and never-run refit make a fuller record, because here the core evidence is one sole-observer letter and Correa-run sources. It sits just above Kilner, another untested but cheaply testable claim, because Mallove's comes with a number and an arranged test.

Key supporting elements

  1. Mallove's letter of 14 June 2001 reports 50 W of DC input and about 500 W of shaft output, measured with electric meters, a digital storage oscilloscope and a data acquisition system. One letter, published on a Correa-run site.
  2. Patent US 5,449,989 reports battery-to-battery 'breakeven efficiencies' of 228% to 906%, including 485.2% +/- 18% over 64 runs. The inventors themselves state that battery accounting could distort these figures 'by up to 10 fold'.
  3. Named witnesses: Mike Carrell (open-box demonstration, December 1999), Arthur Axelrad, Uri Soudak, Harold Aspden and William Tiller, plus reports by Bahman, Sapogin, Minchrowski and King. All of them reach us through Correa-run or Correa-listed sources.
  4. The claim was not dismissed without testing. In 2002 SEAS offered an independent test for its Z-Prize. The arbiter's arithmetic: a 50%-efficient generator on a 500 W shaft returns 250 W to a 50 W input, a fivefold margin.
  5. Joie Jones, the co-author Mallove quotes, did not approve the 2006 retraction of the acupuncture paper. Johnson's 1994 Skeptical Inquirer piece mocks a conference and gives no technical argument against Tesla's physics.

Key contradictions

  1. The 10x compares DC electrical input with motor shaft power. How the 500 W was measured is not stated, and SEAS's prize rules said torque-to-wattage calculations 'may be inaccurate by an order of magnitude'.
  2. No closed loop was ever reported. The Correas refused NASA and Navy participants and any off-site testing, and tied tests to $15-16M of funding. No report exists after the meeting of 16 November 2002.
  3. The inventors' own patent says that adding two cells to the 29-cell charge pack cut the oscillation tenfold, and that more cells 'extinguishes the phenomenon'. The effect is highly sensitive to load.
  4. The acupuncture reference names the wrong authors and title, and five of eight authors retracted the paper. An 80-microsecond resolution can show only about 125-190x nerve speed, not 1,000x, and fMRI's blood-flow signal lags by seconds.
  5. Mallove calls cold fusion 'irrefutable', but the 2004 DOE panel split evenly on excess heat, and two thirds were unconvinced of nuclear reactions. His own 2003 conference paper says the nuclear-ash hypothesis 'has not been proved'.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 22 shown)
ClaimVerdict
PAGD tubes give about 10x (50 W DC in, about 500 W shaft out)Never properly tested strong form (closed-loop gain): no demonstration; weak form (an indication in the inventors' lab, one observer): not replicated; an independent test was proposed in 2002 and not carried out
Tesla coils emit 'massfree' non-electromagnetic radiation; pulsing converts aether energy to electricityNever properly tested experimental part; Correa monographs not obtained Not testable as stated wording ('massfree', 'aether energy')
Two kinds of electricity, massbound and massfree ('cold electricity')Not testable as stated a name for an unmeasured entity
The aether is real, dropped by fashion; Tesla's global wireless power was possibleTested, not supported detectable preferred-frame aether Historically superseded but instructive 'dropped by fashion' history, partly accurate Never properly tested dynamic Reich-Correa aether, global power, aether as an energy source
A foot acupuncture point drove visual-cortex activation at least 1,000x faster than nerve speedInternally inconsistent speed as printed Tested, not supported the paper's finding; retracted by five of eight authors, contested by three
Galvani detected massless 'Tesla radiation'Not testable as stated
Establishment science suppresses experiment-based challengesNot testable as stated general claim; suppression of PAGD not demonstrated Tested, not supported 'dark energy is a fudge' Established 'settle it in the laboratory' as method
Cold fusion is established and needs the aetherNever properly tested heavy-water/palladium excess heat, in the decisive sense; transmutation without electric input Tested, not supported 'irrefutable' nuclear reactions (contested); light-water nickel/platinum excess heat Not testable as stated electron-cloud claim; 'needs the aether'

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Eugene F. MalloveAuthor of the article; sole observer of the 50 W / 500 W PAGD figure (visits August 2000 and March 2001) · Editor and publisher of Infinite Energy, ran Cold Fusion Technology, Inc.; the Correas' editor, fund-raiser and business intermediaryLeading cold-fusion advocate; author of Fire from Ice (1991); founded the New Energy Research Laboratory and, in late 2002, the New Energy Foundation; co-author of a 2004 Correa Stirling-engine paper; died 2004. Education not in the review files.
Paulo N. CorreaCo-inventor of the PAGD tube and the aetherometry programme whose results Mallove reports · PAGD patent holder; runs aetherometry.com, aetherenergy.com and eugenemallove.com, the source of most later materialFormer graduate student and collaborator of Arthur Axelrad at the University of Toronto (serum-free culture medium work); Labofex laboratory, Concord, Ontario, set up about 1987; US patents 5,416,391, 5,449,989 and 5,502,354.
Alexandra N. CorreaCo-inventor of PAGD; co-author of the Tesla-coil and biological-energy monographs · PAGD patent holder; co-runs the Correa websites and Akronos Publishing / ABRINot in the review files beyond her co-authorship of the patents, the ABRI monographs and the Journal of Aetherometric Research papers.
Arthur A. AxelradWitness to an Aether Motor demonstration; author of the April 2002 letter saying the lab was closing for lack of funds · Paulo Correa's former supervisor and friend of more than twenty yearsMD, PhD, FRSC, Emeritus University Professor, University of Toronto; writes 'I am not trained in this field'.
Mike CarrellWitness to an open-box PAGD demonstration (December 1999); wrote an overview of the Correa invention for Infinite Energy · Worked for Infinite Energy at the timeRetired RCA engineer. His report was not obtained by the review.
Theodore C. (Ted) Loder IIIProposed evaluator of PAGD for the SEAS $1M Z-Prize; at the 16 November 2002 Concord, Ontario meetingProfessor at the University of New Hampshire; gave a briefing on 'outside-the-box' technologies at the 2001 Senate field hearing. The SEAS side is known only through the Correas' quotations.
Joie P. JonesCo-author of the 1998 PNAS acupuncture paper; source, in a June 2001 lecture, of the 80-microsecond figure Mallove quotesDid not approve the 2006 retraction. Later wrote in the Journal of Scientific Exploration and on 'torsion'; his later pranic-healing experiments drew critical blog commentary (2012). Further background not in the review files.
Jeff JohnsonAuthor of the 1994 Skeptical Inquirer article that Mallove's side piece rebuts · Writes for CSICOP's journal; member of the board of the Rocky Mountain SkepticsElectrical engineer, Littleton, Colorado. His article reports on an International Tesla Society conference; it names no specific error in Tesla's physics.
Evidence / artifacts (99 of 99 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (19)

  • 1991Fire from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor E. F. Mallove, book; named in the primer and the contrarian from memory
  • 1991MIT Special Report (reanalysis of MIT cold-fusion data) Mallove; contrarian, from memory
  • 2000-02The Strange Birth of the Water Fuel Age (memorandum requested by the Clinton White House) Mallove; listed in S. Hrg. 107-564 as 'not available at the time of this compilation'
  • 2000-08-28Mallove letter after the first PAGD demonstrations 'satisfied myself in a preliminary way that the PAGD device was as-advertised'; quoted in the Correa narrative · Published by the Correas
  • 2000-09-01Mallove letter of 1 September 2000 Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2000-09-21Mallove letter of 21 September 2000 Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2001-06-14Mallove letter to the Correas (source of the 50 W in / about 500 W shaft out figure) Visits August 2000 and March 2001; figure from the March 2001 visit; 'no one else from Infinite Energy was with me'; his stated certainties; saved in research/files · Mallove, the Correas' promoter; published by the Correas
  • 2001-12-04Mallove letter to ABC (PDF) Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2002The Correas: an Appreciation of their Science and Technology Mallove, aetherometry.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2002-02-20Mallove letter: Aether Motor, ORAC-driven Stirling MM6, capacitor charger, Aether Field Meter 27,000 microfarad capacitor to about 2 V overnight; gold-foil weight effect; outputs judged by hand; saved in research/files · Published by the Correas
  • 2003Tesla and the Aether, with side article Tesla and the Science Cops Infinite Energy issue 48, 4 pages; the project's only document; read in full · Mallove, editor of Infinite Energy
  • 2003LENR and 'Cold Fusion' Excess Heat (ICCF-10 paper) Groups PAGD with Graneau arcs, Wallman/Dammann arcs and BlackLight Power; says the nuclear-ash hypothesis 'has not been proved'; saved in research/files · Published by the Correas
  • 2003New Energy FAQ Mallove; Correas spent about $1.2M of their own money since 1987; saved in research/files · Published by the Correas
  • 2003-10-29Mallove letter of 29 October 2003 Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2004Power performance of Stirling motors driven from modified Orgone Accumulators, Part III P. N. Correa, A. N. Correa and E. F. Mallove, Infinite Energy 53:9; not read · Correas and Mallove
  • 2004-01Mallove letters to Herman Branover (January/February 2004) Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • –Demonstrating Aether Energy (PDF) Mallove, from eugenemallove.com; saved in research/files; contents not summarised in the review · Correa-run site
  • –Confrontation with Jed Rothwell Mallove, listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • –Cold Fusion/LENR: what Aetherometry has to teach Mallove, listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site

Correa works (PAGD and aetherometry) (18)

  • 1993Labofex report LS1-07 P. and A. Correa; from the Correa bibliography · PAGD patent holders
  • 1996PAGD paper, 3rd International Symposium on New Energy, Denver pp. 43-62; where Mallove met Paulo Correa · PAGD patent holders
  • 1996PAGD articles in Infinite Energy issue 7 (pp. 18-21 and 22-27) Two Correa articles; the article says PAGD was profiled in issues 7-9 · PAGD patent holders
  • –Excess Energy Conversion System Utilizing Autogenous Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge Paulo Correa, Proceedings of COFE, p. 150; known from Valone's citation in the Senate record · PAGD patent holder
  • –LGEN cathodes article, Infinite Energy 17:73 From the Correa bibliography · PAGD patent holders
  • 1999PAGD article, PACE 10(2&3):11 From the Correa bibliography · PAGD patent holders
  • 1999ABRI monograph AS2-13: (Re-)Examination of the energy radiation output by Tesla coils (1) Article ref. 3 ('S2-13'); paid download, also in Experimental Aetherometry Vol. IIA (2003); not obtained · Correas
  • 1999ABRI monograph AS2-14: massfree and massbound nonelectromagnetic frequency functions (Tesla coils 2) Article ref. 4; in Experimental Aetherometry Vol. IIA; not obtained · Correas
  • 1999ABRI monograph AS2-16: primary massfree waves, secondary massbound waves, tertiary EM waves (Tesla coils 3) Article ref. 5, printed correctly as 'S2-16'; in Experimental Aetherometry Vol. IIB; not obtained · Correas
  • 1999ABRI monograph AS2-17A: The indirect ORgone effect of Tesla radiation From the Correa bibliography · Correas
  • 2001-05The Reproducible Thermal Anomaly of the Reich-Einstein Experiment Under Limit Conditions Infinite Energy issue 37; Mallove called it one of IE's most important papers; not read · Correas
  • 2002-01A Modified Orgone Accumulator (HYBORAC) as a Drive for Low Delta-T Stirling Engine Infinite Energy issue 41; not read · Correas
  • 2002Correa Stirling/ORAC article, Infinite Energy issue 42 Named in the primer with the issue 41 piece; not read · Correas
  • 2002ABRI monograph AS2-28: Fundamental measurement of biological energies 1 Source of the Galvani 'Tesla radiation' quotation; not obtained · Correas
  • 2003A Short Appreciation of Nikola Tesla Correa and Correa, Infinite Energy 48:40, same issue as Mallove's article; not read · Correas
  • –The Aether Motor and the years of Gene's demos (2000-2004) Correa narrative on eugenemallove.com: Denver 1996 meeting, CFTI funding effort, demos, investors briefed, black-box policy; saved in research/files · Correas
  • 2025Critical Appraisal of XXIst Century Energy Science and Technology (1): Relevance of Nikola Tesla's Inventions J Aetherom Res 4(1):1-54; not read · Correas
  • 2026The PAGD Ping-Pong System J Aetherom Res 4(9):1-11; named by the arbiter as a deciding record; not read · Correas

Patents and patent office (6)

  • 1969Ernesto Manuel patent on externally pulsed abnormal glow (can coating) Cited as prior work in the Axelrad letter; number not given
  • 1995-05-16US 5,416,391: Electromechanical transduction of plasma pulses Correa and Correa; priority 15 October 1992; PAGD driving a motor; saved page, abstract read · Patent holders
  • 1995-09-12US 5,449,989: Energy conversion system Battery-to-battery 228-906%, 485.2% +/- 18% (n=64), 'up to 10 fold' caveat, 29-to-31-cell sensitivity; saved in research/files · Patent holders
  • 1996-03-26US 5,502,354: DC energized pulse generator utilizing autogenous cyclical PAGD Parent filed 31 July 1992; saved page, abstract read · Patent holders
  • 1993Foreign family of US 5,502,354: WO 94/03918, GB 2,284,093, CA 2,141,309 CA 2,141,309 granted 4 January 2000; full texts not read · Patent holders
  • 1993Foreign family of US 5,416,391 and 5,449,989: WO 94/09560, CA 2,147,153, AU 5147693, IL 107285 PCT/CA1993/000430; full texts not read · Patent holders

Government records (3)

  • 1989US DOE (Department of Energy) cold fusion panel report Unfavourable to cold fusion; named by the reviewers from memory
  • 2001-05-30S. Hrg. 107-564, Innovative Environmental Technologies (Senate EPW field hearing, Durham NH) Mallove statement p.87 (not read in full); Valone briefing citing PAGD; Loder, Greer, Chubb, Bearden; printed 2003; searched for names only
  • 2004US DOE Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Reviewers split about evenly on excess heat; two thirds unconvinced of nuclear reactions; seen via search results and a copy on a pro-LENR site

Company and business records (2)

  • 2002-09-30SEAS (Space Energy Access Systems) $1M Z-Prize announcement and rules Rules exclude torque-based claims under 10x; known only as quoted by the Correas · SEAS (Steven Greer), prize sponsor
  • 2002-10Correa 'Azure' development plan $15-16M; 1 kW converter demonstration prototype; known from the SEAS e-mail page · Correas

Witness accounts and correspondence (11)

  • 1995Canadian Breakthrough on the One (Kilo)watt challenge Harold Aspden, Electrifying Times 12:25
  • 1996Power from Space: the Correa Invention Harold Aspden, Energy Science Report No. 8
  • 1996An Overview of the Correa Invention Mike Carrell, Infinite Energy 8(3):10-15 (year as in the Correa list; the arbiter ties it to his December 1999 open-box demonstration); not obtained
  • –The Correa PAGD Reactor: errata and supplement Mike Carrell, Infinite Energy 8(4) or 9(4):33-34 (the two Correa lists disagree)
  • 1996The Supertube M. B. King
  • 1998Auskopplung von Atherenergie durch Plasma-Entladung W. Bahman, NET-Journal 9/10:17 (German)
  • 1998The theory of excess energy in a PAGD reactor L. G. Sapogin, Infinite Energy 20:48
  • 2000The Correa device A. Minchrowski, PACE 11(1&2):31
  • 2001Some Reflections on Gas Discharges and PAGD Pulses William Tiller (Stanford emeritus)
  • 2002The PAGD, SEAS and the Z prize (2002 e-mail compilation) Greer, Kolber, Loder, Mallove, Correas; NASA/Navy refused; 'at our premises'; 16 Nov 2002 Concord meeting; 'holy grail'; about 50k of 178k characters read · Compiled and published by the Correas
  • 2002-04-03Axelrad letter A. A. Axelrad, University of Toronto; Aether Motor demonstration witnessed; lists referees Aspden, Carrell, Soudak, Mallove, Tiller; lab closing for lack of funds; saved in research/files · Paulo Correa's former supervisor and friend; published on aetherenergy.com

Experiments and replications by others (14)

  • 1941Reich-Einstein correspondence on the orgone-box thermal anomaly Einstein, 7 Feb 1941: 0.3-0.4 degrees, attributed to convection; Reich's 25-page reply; published in The Einstein Affair (1953); seen via search-result text
  • –Reich's orgone motor Cited as prior work in the Axelrad letter
  • 1969Harold Aspden's 'law of electrodynamics' Invoked by Axelrad and the Correas
  • –Graneau water-arc and air-arc excess-energy experiments Excess 'approaching 24%' in a plasma physics journal, per Mallove's ICCF-10 paper
  • –Wallman/Dammann underwater carbon arcs Grouped with PAGD by Mallove
  • 1991Mills and Kneizys, light-water nickel excess heat Explained by Mills as 'hydrino' formation; BlackLight Power; primary paper not opened · BlackLight Power
  • 1991Shkedi and colleagues, Faraday-efficiency calorimetry 1991-93; reported to remove light-water excess heat; known via a Wikipedia article
  • c.1992Notoya and others, light-water excess heat reports 3-50% levels per a search summary; not opened
  • c.1992Bockris et al. (Texas A&M) transmutation reports Cited in Mallove's ICCF-10 paper; confirmations not searched
  • 1998So, Jones, Kidney, Saito, Evaluation of Acupuncture Using fMRI and Ultrasonic Imaging (as printed in ref. 6) Not found; PNAS 95:2670-2673 is a different paper
  • 1998-03-03Cho et al., New findings of the correlation between acupoints and corresponding brain cortices using functional MRI PNAS 95(5):2670-2673; Cho, Chung, Jones, Park, Park, Lee, Wong, Min; abstract read via Europe PMC by the contrarian; full paper not read
  • 2006-07-05Retraction of Cho et al. 1998 PNAS 103(27):10527; five of eight authors; Jones, J. B. Park and H. J. Park did not approve; saved in research/files
  • 2007Kurs et al., Wireless power transfer via strongly coupled magnetic resonances Science 317:83; 60 W at about 40% efficiency over 2 m; abstract via search
  • –SEEM journal paper on an orgone-accumulator thermal anomaly journals.sfu.ca/seemj; authorship and quality unknown; not read

Later accounts and media (18)

  • c.1875Encyclopaedia Britannica 9th edition, article on the aether (by Maxwell) Quoted by Mallove, p.2
  • 1891-05Tesla's address to the AIEE, Columbia College 'electricity and ether phenomena are identical'; quoted via Seifer p.71
  • 1910Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th edition, aether article Quoted by Mallove, p.2
  • 1931-07-20Time magazine cover story on Tesla at 75 Mallove printed 'July 10, 1931' (Tesla's birthday); checked by the arbiter via archive.org and teslauniverse search results
  • 1957Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science pp. 11-14, paraphrased by Johnson; Mallove prints the paraphrase as a Gardner quotation
  • 1994Jeff Johnson, Extraordinary Science and the Strange Legacy of Nikola Tesla Skeptical Inquirer 18, Summer 1994, pp. 366-378; saved copy lacks pp. 368-374; quotations checked · CSICOP's journal; author on the Rocky Mountain Skeptics board
  • 1994Nikola Tesla: Genius, Visionary, and Eccentric Same Skeptical Inquirer issue; not read · CSICOP
  • 1996M. J. Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla Article ref. 1
  • 1997Fox 1997 PDF on newenergytimes.com Search result for Carrell/PAGD; not opened
  • 2001J. P. Jones, Journal of Scientific Exploration 15(2):183-197 Lead from search results; not read
  • c.2002J. P. Jones on 'torsion' (2002 and 2004a) Scribd copies in search results; not read
  • 2003-02-12New York Times report on the age of the universe (13.7 billion years) Quoted by Mallove, p.1; not seen
  • 2003-02-18Dennis Overbye, New York Times profile of Adam Riess Quoted by Mallove, p.1; not seen
  • –www.electricspacecraft.com Article ref. 2
  • –Nikola Tesla: Man of Three Centuries (teslauniverse.com) Possibly a Mallove essay; mentions the June 2001 SSE meeting and Jones; not opened
  • 2004Report on the Death of Infinite Energy Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read · Correa-run site
  • 2005Murder-investigation press releases on Mallove's death Listed on eugenemallove.com; not read; nothing in the record ties his death to any claim · Correa-run site
  • 2012Respectful Insolence / ScienceBlogs posts on Jones's pranic-healing experiments Critical commentary in search results; not opened

Records named but not yet examined (8)

  • c.1999Records of the earlier DOE/State episode ('Parks and Zimmerman') Cited by the Correas, via Valone, as a reason to refuse state participants
  • 2000Non-disclosure agreement terms Covered the first visits and the proposed 2002 test; named by the arbiter as deciding
  • 2001Mallove's own New Energy Research Laboratory results on the Reich thermal anomaly Promised in the June 2001 letter; no publication found
  • 2001-06Joie Jones lecture, Society for Scientific Exploration, La Jolla Source of the 80-microsecond remark; whether it gave a latency figure is open
  • 2002The 'Berlin video' Shown by Mallove to Loder in October 2002
  • 2002-11SEAS / Loder evaluation notes and e-mails (SEAS side) Would show whether the Z-Prize evaluation went on after 16 November 2002
  • –File histories of the PAGD patents Named by the arbiter; not read
  • –Corporate and patent-office records: Labofex, ABRI, Akronos, Aethera; CIPO files for CA 2,141,309 and 2,147,153 Ontario/Canada registries not reached by the Investigator

Left out: bibliography and index pages, reprints of the article on other sites, the rexresearch compilation of copies, Correa monographs unrelated to these claims (e.g. AS2-15 on magnetism), and the review's own AI-written analyses. Full catalogue: Malove-Eugene sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A neutral lab measures PAGD input as the time integral of v(t)i(t) at adequate bandwidth and shaft power on a dynamometer. It then closes the loop (shaft generator feeding the tube, battery removed) and runs unattended for about a day, box open, having agreed beforehand how to tell load extinction from no gain.

Deciding records: The SEAS/Loder evaluation notes, the NDA terms and the 'Berlin video'; Carrell's 1999 report; the Correa Tesla-coil monographs AS2-13/14/16 (count rates, distances, Faraday-cage results); the 2026 PAGD Ping-Pong paper; the full Cho 1998 paper and Jones's 2001 lecture, for any latency figure.

Try it yourself: Run example.py. Then check by hand: a pulse train of 500 V, 10 A at 1% duty is 50 W true average, but pulse voltage times RMS current gives 500 W. Also, 80 microseconds over 1.2 m bounds the speed at 15 km/s, only 150x nerve speed.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Contrarian Dismissed without testing? No. The record shows the opposite: a third party proposed a test and the conditions were not agreed. Who bore the larger share of responsibility cannot be said, since the SEAS side is known only through the Correas' quotations. contrarian.md, Claim 1, c. Tests
  2. Arbiter Physicist and contrarian are both right. The first law has no confirmed exception, and ordinary artefacts are not excluded. But this is no refutation: two numbers are all the data there are. A claim of this form is settled by measurement, not argument. arbiter.md, Claim 1
  3. Mathematician If 80 microseconds is the shortest resolvable time, then over 1.2 m the largest demonstrable speed is 15,000 m/s, about 150 times fast nerve speed. Showing 1,000x would need about 12 microseconds, so the stated resolution is 6.7 times too coarse. mathematician.md, Claim 5
  4. QE There was an error in the review chain. Mallove printed reference 5 correctly as S2-16. The 'S2-15' came from the Step 1 deep read, and all three reviewers and the arbiter then corrected Mallove for an error that was not his. It has since been retracted. qe.md, section 4, check 6, and Recheck
  5. Investigator Most of the new primary material comes from websites run by Paulo and Alexandra Correa, who hold the PAGD patents and were Mallove's collaborators. It is reported as their selection and characterization. No independent, off-site measurement has been found. sites.md, interested-party note and Leads 2

AI noteIn 2003 Mallove's editorial called the cold-fusion evidence 'irrefutable'. The same year, his own ICCF-10 paper conceded that the nuclear-ash hypothesis 'has not been proved' and is approximately correct 'in only a few experiments'.

Rank 14Kelly-Patrick

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 03:49

The largest compendium of free-energy claims, checked number by number: a few are refuted by their own arithmetic, most were never metered, and the book names its own cheap tests.

Invention / theory background

Patrick J. Kelly (pen name of Edward Dickson Williams, died 11 July 2020) compiled 'The Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices', V32.9, 2018, 2,481 pages: magnet motors, pulse and spark circuits, Sweet's VTA, gravity wheels, water-fuel cells, Moray's aerial device, Papp's engine and about 1,000 pages of reproduced patents. His thesis: devices are open to an ambient zero-point field, so COP above 1 breaks no law. He calls it mostly hearsay, even 'a work of fiction'.

Ranking explanation

All four criteria. A: dozens of COP claims never neutrally metered, plus suppression episodes (Moray's emptied patent file, Papp's suits, Meyer's death). B: open records and Puharich's unexplained gas excess. C: the richest set of checks a reader can run (Benitez energy per spark, Gibbs floor, Kelly's own timed-discharge test). D: very wide influence. It sits beside Mallove and Rahn because breadth replaces a single strong anomaly: almost nothing here has an instrumented record.

Key supporting elements

  1. Kelly's open-system point is correct physics: COP is not efficiency, and heat pumps, solar panels and ram pumps legitimately deliver more than the operator pays for (arbiter: weak form Established).
  2. Moray's device was shown to named witnesses: Hayes (675 W of lamps, 26 miles from a power line), and BYU's Eyring, who 'found no fault with the demonstration' and suggested only induction. Never metered; the device is lost.
  3. Skinner's 1939 machine was examined by two named engineers: A. P. Michaels called it 'a practical device'; George Estill's check was incomplete. The UP story gives Skinner's own estimate of 1,200 percent (a factor of 12).
  4. Puharich's water-splitting gas was measured by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry in two laboratories, the most careful measurement in the water chapters; it shows 1.4 to 2.1 times the gas his stated current allows, unexplained.
  5. Records go dark where they matter: Moray's 1931 application file jackets survive but the contents are gone (family's statement); the 'TC 2800 special interest' list on p.17 flags free-energy applications; provenance unconfirmed.

Key contradictions

  1. Benitez's 1918 patent, the most fully specified design, fails its own numbers: 0.16 J stored per spark at 1,000 sparks per second caps output at 160 W, against 2,400 W claimed (primer worked example).
  2. The NBS tested Newman's motor in 1986 (77 measurements) and found input above output every time, 27 to 77 percent efficiency; Hastings's COP 8 counted MHz back spikes as output.
  3. Water claims sit below the Gibbs floor as printed: Boyce pulsed implies 0.125 V per cell, Meyer's 5 gallons per hour needs 84 kW against about 1 W, and 3 L/min of HHO holds 0.36-0.43 kW against 5.5 kW claimed.
  4. Numbers shift on retelling: Sweet's input is 0.31, 1 or 10 mW and output 0.5, 1 or 5 kW; Heins 30, 39.6 or 3.77; Barbosa and Leal 100, 273, 104 or 102.4; Papp 35 or 40 minutes.
  5. Kelly warns that volts times amps is not power for pulsed loads (pp.1089-1091), yet reports his own boost converter at 'COP=1.5' from such readings (p.1259); a 90 percent converter would give 233 mA, not 389 mA.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 93 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Closed-system argument: COP above 1 is allowed because devices are open to an ambient or zero-point fieldEstablished weak form, an identified and metered inflow Refuted by calculation strong form for named reservoirs (atmospheric field, radio, vacuum) Not testable as stated strong form for an unnamed source with no flux
Sharp pulses, sparks and resonance tap the field (Smith, Kapanadze, Bedini, Adams, Benitez)Never properly tested device COP claims, including Adams COP 1,223 and Kelly's own LM2587 reading Refuted by calculation Benitez GB 121,561 worked example (also Internally inconsistent) Internally inconsistent Smith / Mohamed power formulas (units) Tested, not supported Kelly's Joule Thief lux test Established resonance as voltage and current amplifier
Floyd Sweet's VTA: over 500 W from under 0.31 mW with conditioned magnetsRefuted by calculation if the magnets supply the energy (about 11 J stored) Never properly tested as a measured COP of 2e5 to 1.7e6 Not testable as stated Dirac-sea 'negative energy' mechanism
Permanent-magnet motors and switched-magnet devices (Wang, Perendev, Heins, MEG, Flynn, Asaoka)Refuted by calculation continuous rotation from rigid magnets alone, closed cycle Never properly tested Wang, Perendev, Johnson, Kawai, Heins device, Klingelhoefer Tested, not supported MEG, two small tests Plausible, untested Flynn factor 2 in coil power; Asaoka drive reduction
Impulse, gravity and buoyancy machines give excess energy (Campbell, Tseung, Skinner, Milkovic)Refuted by calculation net gain from a conservative field in a closed cycle Never properly tested the machines; Skinner read as COP 12, not 1,200 Internally inconsistent Milkovic 'COP 12' is a force ratio
Water split, and engines run on it, for far less than textbook energy (Boyce, Meyer, Puharich, Hasebe, Spiros)Refuted by calculation as printed: below the Gibbs floor, HHO generators, Meyer, Puharich surplus, Hasebe, Spiros loop Never properly tested the measurements themselves; booster mpg reports Tested, not supported Meyer 1996 court examination (secondary sources) Established ordinary electrolysis baseline; Puharich's 63.5 percent Gibbs yield
Aerial, passive and fuel-less devices deliver power (Moray, Papp, Newman, Joe Cell)Never properly tested Moray kilowatts; Papp 300 hp Refuted by calculation atmospheric-electric source; Papp patent's one-helium-atom fusion Tested, not supported Newman motor (NBS 1986) Not testable as stated Joe Cell, pyramids
Inventors are suppressed by vested interests (10,000 builders, 40,000 confiscated patents)Not testable as stated global claim Never properly tested counts (unsourced) and individual episodes; primary records not obtained

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Patrick J. Kelly (Edward Dickson Williams)Compiler of the book; ran free-energy-info.com · operator of a free-energy information siteSelf-described 'ordinary person' who became interested after the Channel 4 programme 'It Runs on Water' and bought Stan Meyer's patents in 1986. Built a few small test circuits. Pen name per the FESIG memorial; died 11 July 2020. Final edition V34.8, February 2020.
Floyd SweetInventor of the Vacuum Triode Amplifier (VTA), the book's largest COP claimFirst Space Quanta Modulator test May 1986; filmed demonstration 1987; 1988 paper on 'negative energy'. An associate, 'Maurice', says he held a 1969 MIT MSEE; rexresearch shows MIT and General Electric credentials. Funded by Mark Goldes (Aesop Institute). Died 1995.
Thomas Henry MorayInventor of the radiant-energy device shown to witnessesDemonstrated a device lighting 635-675 W of lamps to Hayes, Eyring and Fletcher; patent application 550,611 (1931) refused, its file contents now missing per his family; only grant found US 2,460,707 (1949, electrotherapeutic apparatus).
Carlos F. BenitezPatentee of GB 121,561 (1918), the primer's worked example · patenteeDescribed as a civil engineer in his patent; four GB patents 1914-1918 on battery-charging spark circuits; cited by Lyden's 2023 US patent. Fuller biography not found in the review files.
Josef PappInventor of the inert-gas engine · patentee (Environetics Inc; Papp International Inc)Patents US 3,680,431 (priority 1968) and US 4,428,193 (1984). A November 1968 demonstration ended in an explosion with at least one death; partner and investor suits followed; he sued Feynman and Caltech and was paid in a settlement. Died April 1989.
Richard FeynmanCritic and witness at Papp's 1968 demonstration · party to Papp's suitCaltech physicist who attended with students; his account in LASER says three were injured, that he judged the engine a fake, and that the suit was settled out of court.
Stanley MeyerInventor of the water-fuel cell, Kelly's starting point · patentee; defendant in an investors' suitOhio inventor; patents US 4,936,961, 5,149,407 and others. A 1996 Ohio court found 'gross and egregious fraud' (secondary sources). Died 1998; the coroner ruled cerebral aneurysm; his brother reported he said 'They poisoned me'.
Joseph NewmanInventor of the Newman motor, tested by a government laboratory (NBS) · patent applicant and litigantThe Patent Office refused his patent as inoperative; in Newman v. Quigg (1988) the court recorded his witness Roger Hastings's COP claim and the NBS finding of 27 to 77 percent efficiency.
Evidence / artifacts (250 of 250 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (9)

  • 2015-10Kelly's own LM2587 boost-converter test, 'COP=1.5' p.1259: 800 mA at 3.33 V in, 389 mA at 10.3 V out; no meter, averaging or repeat; the only COP above 1 Kelly says he measured himself
  • 2017-09-12Kelly's video on William F. Skinner's gravity-powered device YouTube channel @TheEngpjk (79 videos, newest about six years old); not watched
  • 2018-02-16The Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices, V32.9 (the project copy) Patrick J. Kelly (pen name of Edward Dickson Williams); 2,481 pp., 22 chapters plus Appendix A of about 1,050 pp.; about 85 percent deep-read. Later editions V34.5 (24 June 2019, 2,561 pp., tuks.nl) and V34.8 (26 Feb 2020, archive.org) downloaded, not compared; V34.8 adds sections on the Buie-Morin Power System and Art Porter's magnetic device · compiler and operator of a free-energy information site
  • 2019-09Kelly's web site (free-energy-info.com and tuks.nl mirror) 'Simple Free-Energy' chapters, 2019 chapter PDFs; main site's last dated item May 2020, 503 from 2022 (Wayback)
  • –Kelly's Joule Thief lux test p.476: 139-221 lux/W against 470-918 lux/W for direct LED drive; a null result against the Joule Thief (one row misprinted)
  • –Kelly's FLEET toroid battery-swap test p.480 and pp.574-577: 'both batteries gained'; voltages not reported
  • –Kelly's true-power caveat in the Electronics Tutorial pp.1089-1091: volts times amps is not power for non-sine or reactive loads; a 'COP = 1.56' reading 'may be wrong'
  • –'The Suppression of Knowledge' essay and the 'Basics of Free-Energy' essay pp.12-17 and 993-1005: 10,000 American builders, 40,000 confiscated patents, both uncited
  • –Kelly's untested designs (Tseung-type pulsed rotor, flywheel and PWM self-powered proposals, buoyancy design) Chapters 4, 15 and 17; Kelly says the proposals have 'not been built and tested'

Patents and patent office (81)

  • 1901Tesla US 685,957, aerial plate pp.584-586; Kelly prints two dates
  • 1913Meyers GB 1913/01098 Appendix A, deep-read
  • 1915-05-13Benitez GB 191417811A (filed 1914-07-28) System for the Generation of Electric Currents; Google Patents · patentee
  • 1915-08-19Benitez GB 191505591A Addition to 17,811/14; not in Kelly's list; Google Patents metadata · patentee
  • 1916-08-17Benitez GB 191514311A Two sets of accumulators, one charging the other · patentee
  • 1918-12-24Benitez GB 121,561, 'New Process for the Generation of Electrical Energy' pp.452-458, page image p.457; 400 W in, 2,400 W claimed; the primer's worked example (160 W ceiling) · patentee
  • 1923Prentice 'Electrical Power Accumulator' patent 500 W in at 500 kHz, 50 x 60 W lamps claimed
  • 1933Pogue carburettor patents (three) First printed as US 642,434 (1932) against 1,938,497 (5 Dec 1933) in his later patents; no mpg figure
  • 1935-07-02Garrett US 2,006,676, electrolytic carburettor No voltage, current or gas data
  • 1949-02-01Moray US 2,460,707, electrotherapeutic apparatus Moray's only grant found; cited by Lyden 2023
  • 1956Colman and Seddon-Gillespie GB 763,062 '70-year battery', 300 MHz irradiation
  • 1961-05-02Shelton US 2,982,528 'approximately eight times the mileage'; book prints 1940
  • 1966Schwartz US 3,294,381 'over 200%' mpg, ambiguous
  • 1972-08-01Papp US 3,680,431 (priority 1968-11-01) Assignee Environetics Inc; Google Patents · patentee
  • 1976-08-31Britt US 3,977,191, 'AEROPS engine' Noble-gas photon 'chain reaction'; no measured output · patentee
  • 1978-08-08Hasebe US 4,105,528 2.8 V, 30 A, 116 cc/s, '20 times' Faraday; page image p.1936 · patentee
  • 1979Ogle US 4,177,779 'in excess of one hundred miles per US gallon', 1971 V-8 · patentee
  • 1979-04-24Howard Johnson US 4,151,431 Motor 'powered solely by permanent magnets'; no output figure
  • 1982Kunel DE 3024814 Cascade claim, 1,000 MW from 1,000 W; digest-level
  • 1983Newman WO 83/00963 126 V x 99 mA in, 640 V x >20 mA out, '102 percent' · patentee
  • 1983-07-19Puharich US 4,394,230 Water splitting by modulated carrier; see article · patentee
  • 1984-01-31Papp US 4,428,193, 'Inert gas fuel' pp.2196-2228 without the numbered claims (claim 1 read on Google Patents); 'minute fusion' of one helium atom per stroke; no measured output · patentee
  • 1995Spiros WO 9528510 (PCT/AU94/000532) Pressure-electrolysis 'over-unity' loop; 20-run test to 2,450 psi; tables from page images · patentee
  • 1995-10-03Flynn US 5,455,474 (lapsed 2007-10-03) Factor 2 in coil power; fee lapse per Google Patents
  • 1999Asaoka US 5,926,083 About one fortieth of the drive for equal flux with a magnet present
  • 1999Ainslie WO 99/38247 (EP 0932248), 'Harnessing a Back EMF' Examples COP 1.086, 2.45, 0.976-1.176 · patentee
  • 2000-10-03Chambers (Xogen) US 6,126,794 3.6 W, '1 p.s.i. per minute', engine run without gasoline; book prints 16 July 2002 · patentee
  • 2002-03-26Bearden et al. MEG US 6,362,718 (lapsed 2006-03-26) 48 W out per 12 W in claimed; assignment to Magnetic Energy recorded · patentees
  • 2003-01Hatem FR 2,826,800 Gain '20 times'; Kelly also says 1955
  • 2005Stephen Meyer US 2005/0246059 No figures
  • 2006Correa US 2006/0082334 Appendix A
  • 2007Barbat US 2007/0007844 COP up to 59 CdSe, 5,100 InSb (calculated) · patentee
  • 2007Diduck US 2007/0296284 Magnet motor; units mixed · competing applicant
  • 2008Lisac US 2008/0030165 Chapter 5
  • 2008-08-28Kapanadze and Turk WO 2008/103129 and WO 2008/103130 (TR200700996U) Found on Google Patents; not read · patentees
  • 2009-04-16Annis and Eberly US 2009/0096219 (abandoned) COP 200-400 for the switches 'without the coupling circuit' · patentees
  • 2013Barbosa and Leal WO 2013/104041-43 (BR2013/000015) 'at least 1 to 100'; electron-trap coil · patentees
  • 2015Tewari US 2015/0084467 A1 Claims only 'partial nullification of the back torque'
  • 2023-02-21Lyden US 11,588,421 B1 Cites Benitez's four GB patents as keeping two batteries charged 'with relatively little or possibly no energy loss'; cites Moray · patentee
  • –Plauson US 1,540,998 Aerial installation, 100 kW claimed from over 100 aerials; digest-level
  • –Newberry US 2,218,922 Vapour carburettor; no mpg figure
  • –Jines US 3,469,130 Permanent-magnet motor; no data
  • –Tracy US 3,703,653 Magnet motor; no data
  • –Tucker US 3,653,643 Carburettor; no mpg figure
  • –Imris US 3,781,601 Appendix A, deep-read
  • –Ognyanov US 3,766,094 Appendix A, deep-read
  • –Ecklin-Brown US 3,879,622 Magnet motor-generator
  • –Alexander US 3,913,004 1,200 W in, 3,520 W out (COP 2.93), patentee figures · patentee
  • –Teal US 4,093,880 Magnet motor
  • –Donald Kelly US 4,179,633 Magnet motor; digest only
  • –Jamison EU 82400992.2 Appendix A, deep-read
  • –Meyer US 4,389,981 and US 4,421,474 Hydrogen gas burner and injection patents
  • –Meyer CA 1,213,671, magnetic-particle generator No data
  • –Spence US 4,772,816 Kilowatts rest on Aspden's report
  • –Hyde US 4,897,592 Electrostatic generator; '10 kW' and 'COP 10' are Kelly's headings
  • –Meyer US 4,936,961, water capacitor Example 1: geometry and 26 V, no gas volume or power · patentee
  • –Meyer US 5,149,407, CA 2,067,735 and WO 92/07861 About 5 US gallons of water per hour at 1-2 mA, 360-650 V · patentee
  • –Beck US 5,188,738 Blood-electrification patent cited by Beck
  • –Kawai US 5,436,518 19.55 W in, 62.16 W out, COP 3.18, one patentee run · patentee
  • –Garcia del Castillo ES 2,119,690 Gravity layout
  • –Hayasaka US 5,892,311 '1/5.2 torque'
  • –Jong-Sok An US 6,208,061 Appendix A, deep-read
  • –Flynn US 6,246,561 Force per coil power x2
  • –Bedini US 6,392,370 and US 2003/117111 US 6,392,370 states COP 0.98
  • –Bedini US 6,545,444, battery pulse charger Kelly: 'COP>10 when tuned'
  • –Reardon US 6,946,767 Bench figures up to 13,713 percent; headline 100.87 mW · patentee
  • –Grandics US 6,974,110 Oscilloscope data with Faraday cage check
  • –Kundel US 7,151,332 Magnet motor with moving stator magnets
  • –Klostermann US 7,076,950 Air-plasma engine, patent only
  • –McQueen US 7,095,126 Doubtful Devices chapter
  • –Thane Heins CA 2594905, bi-toroid transformer 0.29 W in, 11.51 W out, 'COP of 39.6'; page images pp.150-151 · patentee
  • –Ribero US 7,958,726, buoyancy Kelly: 'never been built'
  • –Rossi US 9,115,913, 'Fluid Heater' 6 kWh out per 1 kWh in, 180 days; no test report · patentee
  • –Markov EP 0844626 Voltage ratio 5 to 11; Table 1 not reproduced
  • –Coutier FR 739458 '216x for three sets'
  • –Molina-Martinez patent Chapter 5 and Appendix A
  • –Boyd transformer patent No replication known (June 2013)
  • –Emme earth-battery patent Patent figures, Chapter 6
  • –Drbal razor-blade pyramid patent '1778 shaves'
  • –Kwok 'Hidro' buoyancy patent Text includes a solar collector; licensing offered · licensing seller
  • –Von Platen and Munters absorption-cooling patent Chapter 14, conventional

Court and state records (6)

  • c.1969Papp v. Feynman and Caltech (settled) Known from Feynman's account: 'Mr. Papp was paid something'
  • 1988Newman v. Quigg, 681 F. Supp. 16 (D.D.C. 1988) Hastings counted MHz 'back spikes' as output; NBS 77 measurements, efficiency 27-77 percent; read in Chrome (Justia) · both sides parties to the suit
  • 1988-07Investors' suit against UPC (Papp) Judge ordered investors to work with Papp; per Ansley 1989
  • 1989Newman appeal, 877 F.2d 1575 (Fed. Cir. 1989) Not reached
  • 1996Ohio investors' suit against Stanley Meyer 'gross and egregious fraud', $25,000 repaid; known from Wikipedia and Sunday Times 1 Dec 1996 citations; court file not seen
  • 1998Franklin County coroner's ruling on Meyer's death Cerebral aneurysm, high blood pressure; known from a Columbus Dispatch snippet

Government records (3)

  • 1986-06NBSIR 86-3405, 'Report of Tests on Joseph Newman's Device' 'At all conditions tested, the input power exceeded the output power'; summary read by the contrarian; treatment of MHz spikes unread (image-only PDF) · commissioned for the Patent Office, a party
  • 2006'Subject matter of special interest in TC 2800' list Image on p.17, which Kelly calls a 2006 reminder to Patent Office staff; perpetual motion, free energy, 'unfavorable publicity for the USPTO'; provenance unconfirmed
  • 2013Invention secrecy order counts (FAS) About 5,445 (FY2013) to 5,976 (FY2021) in force, all subjects

Company and business records (7)

  • 1985-12-29Goldes-Sweet agreement Listed in the AboveUnity notes; not seen · funder (Aesop Institute)
  • 2008-04Claimed Chinese 'Reliability and Safety' test of ShenHe Wang's 5 kW generators Kelly's statement, source his own site; no tester or data
  • 2008-07Smack's Booster ('Eletrik') report 1.7 L/min at about 20 A; no mpg figure
  • 2010Perendev (Mike Brady) sales claims 'not less than 100 kilowatts'; Kelly: unconfirmed; backers 'most unhappy' · seller
  • –Les Pearson, Saturn SL booster and chip report 26 to 44-46 mpg, one 88 mpg run · seller of chips and kits
  • –Hotsabi booster report 1992 Caprice 18 to 27 mpg; no method
  • –Romag company specification 3.5 V, 7 A, self-running; Naudin only · maker

Witness accounts and correspondence (18)

  • 1939A. P. Michaels letter on Skinner's machine Jacksonville engineer: 'a practical device'; quoted in the UP story
  • 1939George C. Estill examination of Skinner's machine Retired president of Florida Power and Light; 'check was not complete enough'
  • 1969Sweet MIT MSEE thesis 'Dynamics of Magnetic Domains' Maurice's statement; MIT index not checked
  • 1971-03-19Chester M. Todd statement on Moray About forty 100 W bulbs, from memory
  • 1986Darryl Roberts lab notes on Sweet (May-June 1986) Outputs 6-19 W, then 100-110 W, per hyiq.org; notes not seen
  • 1987-04-26Sweet ('Sparky') letter to 'Maurice' 'one milliwatt ... over 200 watts', 'gain of some 200,000'; page 1 of 8 read · fund-raising letter
  • 1988-06-24Sweet, 'Nothing is Something' typescript 10 mW in, over 5 kW claimed; A-808 to A-817
  • 1994Ashley Gray lab notes 23 uW in, 19.15 W out; 1 mW in, 111 W out; witnesses unnamed
  • 2009Anonymous Kapanadze interview translation 40 W start, 5 kW out, 200 kW earlier
  • 2011-02-17Lawrence Tseung, X+Y 'lead-out' statement Energetic Forum thread 7530 post 8
  • –Murray O. Hayes PhD statement on Moray 675 W of lamps; 'no instrument ... able to measure'; device 26 miles from a power line
  • –Carl Eyring and Harvey Fletcher (BYU) on Moray 'found no fault ... it might be induction'; asked for a test 3-4 miles from power lines
  • –David Gardner affidavit on Moray rexresearch excerpts of The Sea of Energy
  • –'Maurice' narrative report on Sweet Demonstration, weight loss, Glenn/DOE/GM/FBI story, Sweet's death 1995; A-803 to A-808, p.2243 · associate
  • –Forum builder 'Maimariati', Adams motor 27.6 W in, 33.78 kW out, COP 1,223 (p.93)
  • –Forum builder 'Clarence', household 3 kW Battery, charger, inverter and ground rods (pp.198-204)
  • –Unnamed Tseung frame replicator 'COP = 1.5' after cutting three magnets to two
  • –Ron Knight, battery professional, on pulse charging Chapter 6: batteries need conditioning; about 15 times gain claimed; no data

Experiments and replications by others (34)

  • 1986Sweet's own Space Quanta Modulator tests First test 19 May 1986; shown to Goldes and Roberts 24 May; hyiq.org
  • 1986Hastings measurements of the Newman motor COP 8 per Kelly; output included MHz spikes (court opinion) · Newman's witness
  • 1987Sweet VTA filmed demonstration 10 V x 31.2 uA in, 112.5 V x 4.7 A out, 'power factor measured to be 1'; transcribed by AboveUnity; video not watched
  • 2007Ossie Callanan charger test 33 Ah battery 10 V to 14 V in about 6 h at 0.6 A
  • 2008Murdoch University thesis, hydrogen injection in a diesel generator 18 percent in one low-load case, generally under 5 percent; search summary only
  • 2009-10Tseung and Tong pulsed-flywheel demonstrations COP 3.3 (text) and 3.4 (heading)
  • –Chas Campbell flywheel and replication video 750 W in, 2,340 W out; larger versions May 2017
  • –South African 40 W pulse generator 0.89 W in, COP 45, three weeks (Chapter 19)
  • –Jes Ascanius Tesla-plate replication 2.6 V per module, 20 modules charge 12 V overnight
  • –Ascanius Hohl V-track replication A magnet stack rolled along a track, not a rotor
  • –Matchett and Ascanius mains-rod measurements 2.6 V fuse out, 129-162 V fuse in, 61 V under a 7 W LED; Kelly doubts net power
  • –Ron Pugh Bedini charger build COP>10 claimed, 43 W PSU display
  • –Sucahyo 'Stingo' charger Warns voltage rose without genuine charge
  • –UFOpolitics rewound motors and 'cold electricity' coil Battery terminal-voltage logs
  • –Nick Giannopoulos back-to-back Tesla coils 24 W in lighting two 220 V bulbs
  • –'Salty Citrus' Kapanadze-style build 12 V, 1-2 A in; ten 100 W bulbs bright
  • –Russian Kapanadze builds and Sergei's 'Dynatron' 2-2.5 kW lamps; Dynatron test ended in a blown coil
  • –Ming Cao coil tests Longitudinal speed 1.40 c; rejects Smith's 4:1 rule
  • –Gegene induction hot-plate 758 W metered against 2,800 W of lamp nameplate
  • –Ace_Propulsion Joule Thief 30 mW in, 52.8 mW out
  • –Klingelhoefer 'Gabriel Device' 60 W in, 480 W out from rms readings
  • –'Jack Noskills' resonant transformer Bulb brightness only, 'I have no meters'
  • –Heins outer-toroid variant 106.9 mW in, 403.3 mW out; source not named
  • –Dave Lawton replication of Meyer's cell 300-900 percent, assessor unnamed
  • –Dave Lawton asymmetric MEG test Laminated-iron version; magnet removal made no difference
  • –Universiti Sains Malaysia MEG prototype Search summary only
  • –hyiq.org Sweet replication attempts 'for a number of years now, without any success' (via Weyrich)
  • –Three UK men: generator on HHO 3 L/min, 4-5.5 kW claimed
  • –Cramton / Laesa electrolyser 6 L/min for 12-36 W, '2,340 percent'
  • –Bob Boyce electrolysers 211-216 percent DC, 1,000-1,200 percent pulsed of 2.34 Wh/L
  • –Zigouras HHO cell 17,500 L/min claimed for 140 W to 2.7 kW
  • –Puharich gas analysis, Gollob Analytical Services 10.80 cc H2 + 5.40 cc O2, two laboratories, +/-10 percent
  • –Naudin tests of Romag and Frolov/Moller cell Reported in Chapter 13
  • –Sterling Allan's brief Perendev test The only test Kelly knows

Device reports reproduced in the book (54)

  • 1712Bessler wheel Cited, Chapter 4
  • 1902Clemente Figuera apparatus 550 V, 20 hp motor per a Daily Mail report as quoted
  • 1919Alfred Hubbard generator 35 hp motor, no batteries
  • 1939William F. Skinner torque machine '1200 percent'; Kelly reads COP 1,200
  • 1968Josef Papp 300 hp test, 1968 detonation, 1983 certification p.642-643; 35 min (p.642) vs 40 min (p.37)
  • 1973Ed Gray / Marvin Cole 'Cal-Tech 1973' test 27 W in, 10 hp out; no report
  • 1977Brock rabbit experiment and Trawoeger pyramid 46.5 vs 34.5 oz; 8 W, 21 W
  • 1991Testatika (Paul Baumann) 3 kW claimed by D. A. Kelly; commune refuses inspection
  • 2014-08Mohamed, 'The Resonance Energy Device Explained' Part 2 retracts parts of Part 1
  • –Robert Adams motor 'at least 800%'
  • –RotoVerter 'at least 10 times', unnamed replicators
  • –Coil shorting on a Bedini window motor 16 V to 440 V open circuit called 100x power
  • –Don Smith documents and 'The Designs of Donald Smith' 160 kW from 12 V; 28.8 kVA suitcase; A-907 to A-937
  • –Meyl Tesla transfer 0.5 mW in, 6 mW out; source not read
  • –Alexkor zero back-EMF coils and chargers No measurements
  • –ShenHe Wang colloidal-magnet generator 5 kW; Expo story
  • –Mr Sung 20 kW and an unsourced 225 hp machine pp.67-68
  • –Steorn Orbo pp.66-67
  • –Infinity SAV motor-generator Video only
  • –James Hardy water-jet generator No figures
  • –Raoul Hatem generator '144 watts of excess power' video
  • –Tesla Switch / Electrodyne Batteries 'conditioned' to 36 V
  • –Walter Ford crystal set Chapter 5
  • –Joseph Cater magnetisation-curve explanation Chapter 5
  • –Oleg Gritskevitch hydro-magnetic dynamo 1.496 MW from 14.4 kW; destroyed January 1997
  • –Rosemary Ainslie COP 17 heater No protocol in the text
  • –Bitsadze, Wilson, Watts CEACU, Dmitriev, Milkovic pendulum Chapter 4 gravity devices
  • –Rayburn TREC 10 kW, 600 V stages; digest-level
  • –Compressed-air engines (Neal, Robertson, Rogers, Van Valkinburg) and Clem motor Chapter 8
  • –PlasmERG engine Chapter 8 · seller
  • –Hans Coler Magnetstromapparat 6 kW claimed; 104 to 27 mA
  • –Ighina ERIM and Elios; Les Brown Chapter 9
  • –Joe Cell reports At least fifteen cars; Williams truck in 'shandy' mode
  • –Lowrance coils, B.A.C. coil, coax electrets, Davidson 'Shape Power' Chapter 9
  • –Boyce, Lawton, Cramton, Harris, Quirey, Lindemann, Lowrie, Ewert, GEET, SG Gas, Blue Chapter 10 water and booster builds
  • –Aguero, Horvath and Eccles electrolysis items Digest only
  • –Dave Lawton gravity-wave detector; Lafonte; Daniel Cook; Searle generator Chapter 11
  • –Michael Eskeli heat pump Cycle table, design calculation only
  • –Karl Schappeller (Stevens article) 'the facts are not yet proven'
  • –N-Machine (Lindemann, Tewari COP 2.5) Chapter 13
  • –Nitro Cell, HydroStar, aluminium-hydrogen (Cornish) Chapter 13
  • –Utkin, 'Avoiding Lenz's Law' Chapter 16
  • –Perkins and Frenette shear heaters; Kim HHO heater; Bhargava bicycle Chapter 14
  • –Denis Sabourin generator Battery-swapping motor, Chapter 22
  • –Keshe GaNS water Chapter 21; not reviewed
  • –FEMA wood-gas generator manual A-997 to end; digest-level
  • –Puharich, 'Cutting the Gordian Knot of the Great Energy Bind' Appendix A, pp.1901-1960, with US 4,394,230; 0.9 percent saline, about 600 Hz carrier, 98.8-100 mW for 30 minutes; undated (after 1973) · patentee
  • –Ivanov motor (Bulgaria) COP 2.4, later 'up to 5.4'; Chapter 3, pp.206-268
  • –Leben video: Meissner oscillator with a Flynn frame A proposal only, no numbers; Chapter 3
  • –Lidmotor magnet motor Chapter 2, pp.101-112
  • –Battery chargers: Bedini / Roger Andrews tri-filar rotors, Halay conditioning, Booysen/Boyce, Rene's fast-charge Joule Thief, Seiler Chapter 6, pp.516-582; terminal voltages, no timed discharge reported
  • –HHO booster designs: West, DuPlex, Hogg, AVA Chapter 10; fuel-economy claims 8 percent to over 100 percent, none documented
  • –Bundock booster report and HydroStar / HydroGen plans Chapter 13: Bundock 25 to 35 mpg with a booster; the plans critiqued by the forum user Chemelec
  • –Rutherford-Geiger radium alpha count, Kelly's 'Four Corners' conclusion Chapter 11: 3.4e10 alpha per second at 4.5 MeV, read by Kelly as energy from the environment

Health documents in the book (not reviewed) (5)

  • 1991Beck printed sources (Science News 30 Mar 1991, Longevity News Dec 1992, LA Times 10 Dec 1996) Named in the book; not obtained
  • 1997-03-20Beck, 'Expanded instructions for experimental/theoretical HIV blood neutralization' pp.1069-1071; 2 h a day, about 2 months, 50-100 uA · inventor
  • –Anonymous Lakhovsky oscillator build Tumour settings 'based on very limited patient experience'; 'eighteen' replications
  • –Colloidal silver, suramin and Alzheimer audio statements pp.1210-1212, 1375, 1416-1417; anecdotes naming doctors (Nordstrom, Farber, Moyer, Bretano, Margraf, Crookes) and a burn case; no source
  • –Hulda Clark health claims Chapter 20, pp.1375-1417: illness from poisons or 'destructive bugs'; no study cited

Later accounts and media (20)

  • 1902Daily Mail report on Figuera As quoted by Kelly; no date or page
  • 1939-04-04United Press story on Skinner (Breckenridge American) 'about 1,200 per cent' for a 1/8 hp motor; rexresearch transcription read, scan not opened
  • 1939-07-31British Pathe 'Gravity Power!', film 1190.10 Description read
  • 1980Science and Mechanics, Spring 1980, Johnson motor Cited by Kelly
  • 1986-08-29Chicago Tribune 'Perpetual commotion' (Newman) Not opened
  • 1987-02-08Orlando Sentinel 'Energy inventor triumphs in court' Not opened
  • 1989-08-27Ansley, 'The Dream Machine', San Jose Mercury News Hoaxes.org reprint: one dead, 'Eight others ... badly wounded' · reprinted by a hoax museum
  • 2007-07-08Columbus Dispatch, 'The car that ran on water' Opening read; coroner snippet
  • 2010-09-20Columbus Dispatch on Meyer's followers Snippet only
  • 2013-10-15hyiq.org, Sweet VTA Generation 1 1986 outputs and funding
  • 2020-07-13OverUnity Research 'In memoriam: Patrick Kelly' Real name, death 11 July 2020; snippet only
  • 2020-08-05FESIG memorial service video Names Edward Dickson Williams
  • 2021PolitiFact on the Meyer assassination claim Snippet only
  • 2021-09-23AboveUnity 'My Notes on Floyd Sweet' Builder's compilation
  • –Feynman, 'Feynman on Papp' (LASER) Three injured; suit settled · party to the suit
  • –The Sea of Energy in Which the Earth Floats (Moray family) rexresearch excerpts; file jackets 'there', contents 'gone' · family
  • –Wikipedia 'Water fuel cell' and 'Josef Papp' Secondary
  • –Doug Arcuri Medium essay on Papp 'Authorities found no explosives'; snippet, untraced
  • –Kapanadze videos and Facebook post (move to Turkey, 100 kW) Not opened
  • –Jes Ascanius 'Radiant collector' forum thread Not read

Records named but not yet examined (13)

  • 1931-07-13Moray patent application serial 550,611 file wrapper USPTO / National Archives
  • 1968Roser v. Papp suit file and TRW / NUWC demonstration records Plus the coroner's record of the reported death
  • 1987Sweet 1987 video with meters in view, frame by frame YouTube 5EksumJXwEw, 53:59
  • 1987Bearden, 'Phase Conjugate Vacuum Triode' paper Named by the deep readers
  • –Michael Watson coil data (intalek.com) Sweet-type build
  • –Ainslie / Panacea 250-page test document Cited by Kelly for COP 17
  • –Gritskevitch commission test report 14-451 Device reportedly destroyed January 1997
  • –Grove City police report on Meyer's death
  • –FOIA records (DOE, FBI) on Maurice's Sweet account
  • –Florida newspapers 1939-1945 on Skinner; Estill's papers
  • –Original TC 2800 document with date and issuing office
  • –Hotsabi and Pearson original mpg reports
  • –Edward Dickson Williams civil records (UK probate, death index)

Counted once each: later editions and copies of the book, the 2019 chapter PDFs and archive.org re-uploads; left out: the Chapter 12 electronics lessons, conventional renewable-energy items in Chapter 14, the review's own AI-written analyses, the Lee-Yang, Penner and Bockris textbook citations, and devices the book mentions but the review files never name. Full catalogue: Kelly-Patrick sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: On any one device (Sweet-type, Smith, Kapanadze, Campbell flywheel), a true-power wattmeter on input and output, the drive circuit's own supply logged, run for hours into a calorimeter or a timed battery discharge through a known load, the test Kelly names on p.544.

Deciding records: USPTO file wrapper for Moray's 550,611; Sweet's 1987 video meters and Roberts's 1986 notes; NBSIR 86-3405 on the MHz spikes; Papp suit files and TRW records; the 1996 Meyer judgment; the TC 2800 document's provenance; Wang's 2008 Chinese test.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it rebuilds Benitez's 1918 design, computes 0.16 J per spark and the 160 W ceiling against 2,400 W, then checks Puharich's gas against the Gibbs energy and Faraday's law. Or compute the cell voltage implied by Cramton's 6 L/min on 36 W.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter The book contains almost no input-and-output measurement by a named independent party. The measured items are bulb brightness, V x I products, nameplate ratings, terminal voltages and patentee examples. The cheapest decisive tests are named by the book itself and have never been reported by a neutral party. arbiter.md, How the three reviewers compare
  2. Contrarian The two cheapest decisive experiments are named by the book itself: a timed discharge through a known load (Kelly p.544) and a closed-loop Campbell/Hardy flywheel run on a stated load. Neither has a reported neutral result. contrarian.md, Cross-cutting findings
  3. Arbiter Page 17 reproduces an image no reviewer had read: 'Subject matter of special interest in TC 2800', listing perpetual motion, free energy and claims that 'would generate unfavorable publicity for the USPTO'. Provenance unconfirmed; it fits both a screen for inoperative applications and Kelly's suppression reading. arbiter.md, Claim 7
  4. Primer The book contains both the correct warning that volts times amps is not power for pulsed or reactive loads and its author's own 'COP=1.5' boost-converter reading that ignores it. Energy per event times events per second would have caught most of the book's numbers. primer.md, section 7
  5. QE The fact-finder first sampled about 40 percent of the book; QE ordered eight deep reads that added magnet-only motors, Adams COP 1,223, Heins 39.6, Papp's fusion mechanism, Puharich, Hasebe, Spiros and the medical claims. Headline verdicts did not change; recheck PASS. qe.md, Verdict and Recheck

AI noteSkinner's 1939 '1,200 per cent' is a factor of 12 in the United Press text; Kelly read it as COP 1,200 to make the newsreel's '3,500 homes' add up, and he flags his own reading.

Rank 15Rahn-Otto

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-06 18:25

A Cornell bacteriologist's 1936 case that living cells signal each other with faint ultraviolet light: tested by both sides, never settled, and its energy fails per photon.

Invention / theory background

Otto Rahn (1881-1957), Professor of Bacteriology at Cornell 1927-1949, wrote Invisible Radiations of Organisms (1936) to put Alexander Gurwitsch's 'mitogenetic radiation' (found with onion roots in 1923) before English readers. Cells, blood, nerves and even simple reactions were said to emit very weak ultraviolet (about 1900-2600 Angstrom) that speeds division in other cells, passes quartz but not glass, and is missing from cancer patients' blood. Rahn's laboratory did some experiments; Sidney W. Barnes wrote the physics chapter.

Ranking explanation

Rahn enters at 10 on criteria A, B and C. Below Mallove (9), whose glow-discharge tube claims a tenfold power gain in a machine; Rahn's anomaly is biological and tiny in energy. Above Kilner (11): both rest on unblinded observers, but Rahn's record adds counter data, paired controls (Julius, cornea, Blacher's tadpoles) and a funded 1937 negative whose protocol the proponents contest, and a modern photon counter could test the emission now.

Key supporting elements

  1. Living tissue does emit faint light: ultra-weak photon emission is established, and Rahn's 100-1000 quanta/cm2/s for strong senders matches modern photomultiplier figures, though modern work reports 350-1300 nm, not far ultraviolet.
  2. Series with built-in controls are strong on their face: Julius's 56 quartz-glass fibroblast pairs (1.92 against 1.01), 15 of 15 cornea pairs, Blacher's tadpole limbs (net 10.6 and 12.1 percent), Suchow and Suchowa's 25 of 25.
  3. Physical counters responded too: six of ten Table 30 rows exceed 3 combined errors; Siebert and Seffert report several hundred normal bloods raised counts while carcinoma and cyanide-poisoned blood did not, which Rahn calls 'most convincing'.
  4. The objection to the 1937 negative is specific: Volodyaev and Beloussov (Gurwitsch tradition) say it used 15-19 hour cultures, a bare salt medium and constant stirring; Potozky's 1930 daylight result predates the Quickenden test they say ignored it.
  5. Rahn was candid: he printed the energy objection himself, listed ten detector failures and called his own induction percentage of 'no quantitative value whatever'. Wainwright's UK group (1997) reported 'partial evidence', a good effect they could not make reproducible.

Key contradictions

  1. Hollaender and Claus (NRC Bulletin 100, 1937) worked two years with biological and physical detectors: 'all the attempts have yielded negative results.' It is the heaviest single item against the effect; the bulletin itself was not read here.
  2. Energy per event: a 2020 Angstrom photon carries 6.1 eV, while sucrose hydrolysis releases 0.14 eV and neutralisation 0.58 eV per event. Rahn's reabsorption rescue reaches only about 2767 Angstrom on his own numbers.
  3. The field disagreed on its defining band: Reiter and Gabor (1928) found 3200-3500 Angstrom; Gurwitsch's school found 1900-2500 and nothing at 3400. Rahn says the German results were 'never accounted for in a really satisfactory way'.
  4. Detector failures were recognised after the fact (54 of 373 Gurwitsch experiments), no positive control was fixed in advance, blinding is never stated, and the cancer blood test gives no case counts, sensitivity or specificity.
  5. Screens did not isolate ultraviolet: glass-paraffin-glass also passed the sea-urchin effect (Magrou and Reiss proposed electricity); fingertip and oxy-cholesterol tests lack a tabulated glass control, and at the book's intensities the dose is 10^10 too small to kill yeast.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 43 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Living cells emit very weak light, in the book's version short ultraviolet (1900-2600 A)Established weak form: ultra-weak light, near-UV to near-IR Never properly tested emission at 190-260 nm at 10-1000 quanta/cm2/s
The radiation speeds division in other cells that absorb itNever properly tested under a protocol both sides accept; NRC 1937 negative contested Tested, not supported Reiter and Gabor's 3200-3500 A band, by the rival school Never properly tested regular light pulses 30 times more potent; daylight-dependent senders
Ordinary reactions emit it, each with a narrow-band fingerprintEstablished some oxidations emit faint near-UV or visible light Plausible, untested oxidations emitting 190-260 nm Refuted by calculation neutralisation, NaCl, hydrolysis as one-photon-per-event sources Never properly tested reaction-specific fingerprints
Energy accounting: 420 cal/g needed against 9.7 cal/g measuredRefuted by calculation one 2020 A quantum per reacting molecule Refuted by calculation Rahn's reabsorption chain Plausible, untested rare-event weak emission at the book's intensities
Secondary radiation travels about 30 m/s along roots and nerves and may carry the nerve impulseNever properly tested the speeds as a UV relay Historically superseded but instructive role in nerve conduction
Healthy blood radiates, cancer blood does not; cancer may be a radiation disorderNever properly tested blood radiation as a cancer diagnostic Not testable as stated cancer as a radiation disorder Established ordinary UV causes skin cancer (Roffo), not shown for the mitogenetic band
The radiation shapes development, and a harmful form from fingertips and oxy-cholesterol kills yeastNever properly tested tadpole limbs and wounds, sea-urchin larvae Refuted by calculation harmful UV at the book's intensity Never properly tested something from skin or oxy-cholesterol kills yeast through quartz
Failed replications do not disprove the effectEstablished detector state sensitivity in general microbiology Plausible, untested as the explanation for the NRC null Not testable as stated as a blanket defence

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Otto RahnAuthor of the book; advocate who reported the Gurwitsch school's work and ran some experiments himself · His laboratory produced some of the reported resultsBorn 9 April 1881, died 26 September 1957. Probable doctoral thesis on a terpineol (1902). Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois from 1913; Professor of Bacteriology at Cornell 1927-1949. Books include Physiology of Bacteria (1932), Mathematics in Bacteriology (1939) and Microbes of Merit (1945).
Alexander GurwitschDiscoverer of mitogenetic radiation (onion roots, 1923) and head of the school that produced most positive results · Originator of the theory; criticised rival resultsRussian biologist; his school's 1932 monograph is the source of most numbers in Rahn's Chapters V-VII. Otherwise not in the review files.
Sidney W. BarnesWrote Chapter I, the physics primer on quanta, spectra and photoelectron countersResearch Associate in Physics, University of Rochester. Not the Barnes of the oxy-cholesterol work. Otherwise not in the review files.
Margaret N. BarnesProbable co-author of the 1933 oxy-cholesterol and yeast-death work · Member of Rahn's laboratoryThanked in the book as Mrs Margaret N. Barnes; co-author of a 1933 J. Gen. Physiol. paper with Rahn; a Cornell dissertation on yeast morphology is cited by Macht (1949). Otherwise not in the review files.
Reiter and Dennis GaborGerman rivals (1928, Siemens) who put the active band at 3200-3500 Angstrom, which the Gurwitsch school could not reproduceThe book gives only 'Gabor'; the review files identify him as Dennis Gabor, later a Nobel laureate in physics (memory, high confidence). Reiter is not in the review files.
E. LorenzCritic who named three artefacts in counter work and the per-molecule energy objection as Rahn presents itAuthor of J. Gen. Physiol. 17:843-862 (1934). Otherwise not in the review files.
Alexander Hollaender (with W. Claus)Ran the two-year National Research Council study (Bulletin 100, 1937) that found nothingAlso wrote 'The problem of mitogenetic rays' in Duggar's Biological Effects of Radiation (1936). Claus's initials are not confirmed. Otherwise not in the review files.
I. Volodyaev and L. V. BeloussovModern authors (2015) who argue the negative studies used untested conditions and credit Rahn with optimising the bacterial protocol · Work in the Gurwitsch tradition at Moscow State University and defend the fieldVolodyaev also co-wrote the 2018 historical review of early research and the Soviet cancer-quencher work. Otherwise not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (126 of 126 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (18)

  • 1902Uber ein neues Terpineol vom Schmelzpunkt 32 Grad Probably Rahn's doctoral thesis; HathiTrust full view; not opened
  • 1928Physik der Milchwirtschaft Rahn with a co-author; HathiTrust catalogue only
  • 1932Physiology of Bacteria Rahn's textbook; HathiTrust catalogue; may hold his view of the radiation
  • 1933Ferguson and Rahn, Archiv fur Mikrobiologie 4:574-582 Bacterium coli detector work; Table 36 (3.4-4.2 times faster growth at 6 h), known only through Rahn's account, pp.133-144 · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1933Tuthill and Rahn, Archiv fur Mikrobiologie 4:565-573 Yeast bud detector; Table 21 and the 10/20/40-minute dose table with no proportionality; known only through Rahn's account · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1933Rahn and M. N. Barnes, criteria of death in yeast, J. Gen. Physiol. 16:579 Listed in the book's author index; Mrs Margaret N. Barnes of Rahn's laboratory, not the physicist S. W. Barnes · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1933Barnes and Rahn oxy-cholesterol experiments (Table 53a) Five batches; day 1: three dead, one mostly dead, one normal Mycoderma through quartz; no glass or blank control; page image p.200 · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1933Rahn, Problems in Growth Chemistry JSTOR; section on blocking growth acceleration by absorbing the rays in gelatin; Google snippet only
  • 1933Ferguson's two-sided irradiation (unpublished) Strong effect, no cancelling, against Gurwitsch's interference idea; prose only, p.142 · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1934The Disagreement in Mitogenetic Experiments, a Problem in Bacterial Physiology J. Bacteriol. 28:153-158, PMC533662; free scans; Rahn's own statement of claim 7; opened, not read
  • 1934The physico-chemical basis of biological radiations Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 2:226-240; excerpt read: 'need not necessarily appear as heat'
  • 1934Tuthill and Rahn, Analysis of the bud formation of the Baron method Archive of Biological Sciences Ser. B 35:289-296; cited by Naumova et al. 2018 · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1934Huntington and Rahn, 'Mitogenetic irradiation' (title only) Journal of Bacteriology index, p.718; not opened
  • 1936Invisible Radiations of Organisms (Protoplasma-Monographien IX) Borntraeger, Berlin; 230 PDF pages; physics chapter by S. W. Barnes; deep-read pp.44-146 and 160-200, digests for the rest; a 1944 printing is in HathiTrust, not compared · Rahn, advocate; his laboratory did some of the experiments
  • 1936Fingertip and herpes-zoster yeast-killing tests One student's fingertip: 5 min over an open glass ring, 15 min through 2 mm lanolin-sealed quartz; zoster patient 15 min for about 6 months; page image p.111 · Rahn's laboratory
  • 1937Mitogenetic radiation, Tabulae Biologicae 14:1-35 Rahn's review after the book, possibly after the NRC study; would show whether he changed his view; not located
  • 1939Mathematics in Bacteriology HathiTrust catalogue; not read
  • 1945Microbes of Merit HathiTrust catalogue; possible record of his later view; not read

University and biographical records (4)

  • 1913-09-01University of Illinois trustees record: Otto Rahn, Assistant Professor (3 years) uihistories.library.illinois.edu; search result text
  • 1957Cornell memorial statement, Otto Rahn 1881-1957 Office of the Dean of the University Faculty; hdl 1813/18707; PDF found, download needs approval; not read
  • 2017Singleton, Albert Jan Kluyver and the Unity of Life, J. Hist. Biol. Cites the memorial statement: born 9 April 1881, died 26 September 1957
  • 2022Jeff Weber Rare Books catalogue 279 'Professor of Bacteriology at Cornell University from 1927 until 1949'; snippet

Company and business records (1)

  • c.1934Terzano and Co. (Milan) hemoradiometer for Protti's blood-radiation work Named in the book; known only through Rahn's account · Instrument maker

Experiments and replications by others (63)

  • 1923Gurwitsch's onion-root discovery Root tip aimed at another root's growing zone; more mitoses on the facing side; p.68-69 · Originator of the theory
  • 1928Reiter and Gabor, Zellteilung und Strahlung (Siemens) Effective rays 3200-3500 A (maximum 3400), antagonistic 2900-3200 A; parthenogenesis at 3340 A (3 + 3 eggs); pp.73-76, 183-184
  • 1928L. Gurwitsch and Anikin, corneal epithelium 2030 A on one eye, other eye control; exposed above control in 15 of 15 pairs; page image p.98 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1929Frank: repeat at 3400 A, negative Three runs; no radiation above 2400 A from tetanised muscle; p.75 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1929Schwemmle's analysis of about 200 onion-root results Error +/-10% at 500 mitoses; 'did not consider it proved' that rays cause the effect; p.72
  • 1929Rajewsky photoelectron counter measurements Onion root, pulp and mouse carcinoma excesses 10-29% (1.3-8.8 combined errors); flux 10-100 quanta/cm2/s; Table 30
  • 1930Chariton, Frank and Kannegiesser No effect beyond 2600 A; Table 18 nulls at 3340-3380 A · Gurwitsch school
  • 1930Frank and Rodionow counter measurements Frog muscle and heart excesses 21-233% (2.5-9.6 combined errors); Table 30
  • 1930Potozky, daylight dependence of yeast senders (Table 33) Daylight-grown 20-35%; dark-grown -6 to +6.5%; n 4-8; page image p.122 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1930Ziripolo, sea urchin eggs (Table 27) Unchanged eggs 71-98% in controls against 8-35% irradiated; page image p.95
  • 1930Siebert, 35 cancer patients and frog muscle runs Majority showed no blood radiation; excited muscle above resting in 24 of 24 (Tables 19-20); pp.78-79
  • 1931Taylor and Harvey, Biol. Bull. 61:280-293 Photographic plates against fermenting yeast for 90 days: no effect; p.104
  • 1931Nakaidzumi and Schreiber Negative test, via Naumova et al. reference list
  • 1931Motshejewa's critique of onion-root work Pressure, tube, root selection and omitted sections; negatives with yeast and blood senders; p.76
  • 1932Gurwitsch monograph (source of most Chapter V-VII numbers) Intermittent light about 1/30 the time (Table 31), gradual approach, polarisation reports; known only through Rahn's account · Originator of the theory
  • 1932Kalendaroff, frog sciatic nerve spectra Minimal exposure 6 min resting, 2-3 excited; Rahn's own calibration-shift note; pp.169-171 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1932Anna Gurwitsch, optic nerve and optic lobe radiation (also 1934a, b) Light on the eye makes lobes radiate; colour-dependent spectra, intensities not stated; Table 49 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1932Kostoff and Kendall, tomato tumour tetraploid 120 plants, 7 shoots, 1 tetraploid; no control; p.183
  • 1932Christiansen, menstrual-blood radiation Most experiments lacked exclusion of volatile substances (Rahn); p.175
  • 1933Paul, onion roots without tube Steel-needle control; Rahn: 'number of examples ... not large enough'; p.77
  • 1933Acs, antagonistic radiation between bacteria B. anthracis retarded 22-136% in 14 experiments; no quartz-glass control; p.186
  • 1933Lepeschkin, necrobiotic rays Dying yeast blackened AgBr and Eastman Speedway plates; dead and living yeast did not; pp.113-114
  • 1933Nelson and Brooks, infrared and sea urchin fertilisation 9 of 9 experiments, 18.5-87.1% fewer fertilisations; p.115
  • 1934Barth, proteolysis counter series 24 of 25 runs above control (p about 8e-7 if independent)
  • 1934Siebert and Seffert, blood on photoelectron counters Several hundred normal bloods raised counts; carcinoma and KCN blood did not; no counts printed; page image p.106
  • 1934Lorenz, J. Gen. Physiol. 17:843-862 Three error sources: water vapour, charge on the quartz, induction-coil stimulation
  • 1934Kreuchen and Bateman, Protoplasma Photoelectric yields over 2000 quanta per electron except Rajewsky's; negative review; Table 30a
  • 1934Suchow and Suchowa, egg white over silver bromide Quartz vessel darkened sooner than glass in 25 of 25; pp.114-115
  • 1934Wolff and Ras, polarised secondary radiation (1934a) 'Enormously' more effective; no numbers; p.127-128
  • 1934Klenitzky, blood radiation after tumour removal Radiation returned when all tumour removed, against Gesenius; p.195
  • 1934Protti, cytophotolysis, yeast injections and young-blood rejuvenation Table 48, ten cases, no controls; 12 + 12 starved mice; p.166, 196 · Clinical stake in the treatments
  • 1934de Korosi, propagation of secondary radiation The only published experimental proof of propagation, per Rahn
  • 1934A. G. and L. D. Gurwitsch, school summaries with error data Cited by Rahn, p.54 · Gurwitsch school
  • 1935Julius, chick fibroblasts split between quartz and glass 56 pairs 1.92 +/- 0.15 against 48 pairs 1.01 +/- 0.08; only on poor media; page image p.97
  • 1936Hollaender, 'The problem of mitogenetic rays', in Duggar (ed.) Biological Effects of Radiation pp.919-958; critical review
  • 1937Hollaender and Claus, NRC Bulletin 100 Two years, biological and physical detectors, all negative; protocol contested by proponents; bulletin not obtained
  • 1938Audubert, Angewandte Chemie 51:153 UV emission from chemical reactions
  • 1938Glasser and Barth, Radiology 30:62-67; Grebe, Krost and Peukert, Strahlentherapie 60:538-571 Later physical-detection papers in Naumova's reference list
  • 1939Gurwitsch and Gurwitsch, 'Ultra-Violet Chemi-Luminescence', Nature 143:1022 Positive physical report; title only · Gurwitsch school
  • 1947Koyenuma, Biochem. Z. 318:1-14 'On the existence question of so-called mitogenic radiation'
  • 1954Colli and Facchini, Nuovo Cimento Photomultiplier measurements of weak light from living matter
  • 1967Metcalf and Quickenden, Nature 216:169 Not opened
  • 1974Quickenden and Que Hee, BBRC 60:764-770 Weak luminescence from yeast and the existence of mitogenetic radiation; not read
  • 1989Quickenden et al., Radiation Research 117:145-157 Attempt to stimulate yeast division with weak UV; no abstract found; proponents say daylight condition was violated
  • 1997Wainwright, Killham, Russell and Grayston, Microbiology 143:1-3 'Partial evidence for the existence of mitogenetic radiation'; record only
  • –Magrou (and Magrou and Reiss), sea urchin larvae (Table 29) 0% abnormal in 221 controls; 78-85% through quartz; glass-paraffin-glass also transmits; electrical explanation offered; pp.100-101
  • –Blacher, tadpole limb growth and tail-wound healing Net limb gain 10.6 +/- 1.4% and 12.1 +/- 1.8%; wound series over 500 tadpoles (Table 51); pp.182-190
  • –Bromley, salamander tail Table runs 6.2-56.4% over 1-24 h; no second maximum shown; page image p.188
  • –Golishewa, 54 failures in 373 blood experiments Recognised because all associates using that culture that day were negative; p.107 · Gurwitsch school
  • –Gesenius, blood radiation and cancer; yeast fermentation counts No case counts; 'occasional exceptions'; 102 runs 68/4/30; p.99, 193-195 · Clinical advocate
  • –Heinemann, gold-sol nephelometer and cancer blood test Blood about 26 units against 2-3; single runs; positive result 'excluded ... tumor with certainty' · Clinical stake in cytagenin
  • –Seyderhelm, cytagenin raising blood radiation 70-80 year olds after 1-2 weeks; duration not stated; pp.165-166 · Clinical stake
  • –Braunstein and Heyfetz, tumour rats (Table 53) Groups of 3-14; page image p.194
  • –Roffo, ultraviolet and sunlight rat tumours 150 rats all with tumours in 4 months under UV; 52% of 700 in sunlight; none under tungsten; p.197
  • –Latmanisowa, parabiosis of sciatic nerve by radiation; Lapitzki, mercury lamp More than 40 repeats; no quartz-glass screen named; p.174 · Gurwitsch school
  • –Salkind, periodicity and bud-count depression (Tables 34-35) Repeats with opposite signs; Rahn: 'no definite periodicity' · Gurwitsch school
  • –Wolff and Ras, neutralisation and NaCl dissolving (Table 14) +45% at 5 min; +28 to +45% at 20-30 s; one group, no error estimate; pp.64-65
  • –Zoglina, half-disk intermittent irradiation Five values near zero, five at +28 to +64% · Gurwitsch school
  • –Stempell, Liesegang rings and peroxide decomposition Disturbed by radiation and by volatile onion oil; pp.102-103
  • –Zwaardemaker, radioactive potassium substitutes restart frog hearts 34 experiments; not tied to mitogenetic rays; pp.115-116
  • –Rubner's heat of sucrose hydrolysis, 9.7 cal/g Basis of the 43-times energy objection; p.55
  • –Kannegiesser; Braunstein and Potozky; Ponomareva, oxidation spectra Agree on 2200-2350 A; one school, one detector · Gurwitsch school
  • –Unpublished oxalic acid + permanganate run (Table 15) The only same-time quartz-against-glass control in the deep-read pages

Later accounts and media (34)

  • 1932-06-25'Evil Eye' Is Found to Be Based on Fact, New York Times p.14 Report of Rahn's AAAS Syracuse talk: eye, nose and fingertip radiation killed yeast; right hand stronger
  • 1932-09-10Science Service wire by Watson Davis, 'Deadly Human Radiation' Read in the Hawera Star; also Gisborne Times, Greymouth Evening Star, Dunstan Times, Timaru Herald, Franklin Times (Aug-Oct 1932); 'preliminary stages'
  • 1932Theosophical Quarterly report of Rahn's human-radiation lecture IAPSOP; not opened
  • 1932Stempell, Die unsichtbare Strahlung der Lebewesen (Jena) German book with nearly the same title; not read
  • 1934Science 79(2061):584, Cold Spring Harbor symposium programme Lists 'mitogenetic rays, Rahn'; not opened
  • 1936JAMA 107(5) review of the book Seen in Google only
  • 1936ACS journal review of the book Seen in Google only
  • 1937-12-11'Mitogenetic Rays?', Nature 140:1007-1008 Unsigned news item on NRC Bulletin 100: 'all the attempts have yielded negative results'; about 600 papers published; abstract read
  • 1939Gerlach, 'Existiert die mitogenetische Strahlung?', Naturwissenschaften Review of Hollaender and Claus; title only
  • 1942Pesochensky, doctoral dissertation on blood-radiation quenching in cancer Leningrad Oncological Institute; via Naumova et al. · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1947The Teaching of the Cancer Quencher Soviet monograph; via Naumova et al. · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1948Introduction to the Teaching of Mitogenesis Gurwitsch and Gurwitsch; via Naumova et al. · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1949Macht, 'Concerning the chemical nature of menstrual toxin', Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol. Cites Rahn and M. N. Barnes dissertation; snippet only
  • –Macht, 'Experimental studies, old and new, on menstrual toxin' 'Rahn and his co-workers claimed that oxycholesterol emits destructive ultraviolet rays'; snippet
  • 1950Avchina, dissertation on blood radiation and cancer Via Naumova et al. · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1955Sneshko, dissertation on blood radiation and cancer Via Naumova et al. · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1968A. A. Gurwitsch, later books (1968, 1974) Soviet continuation; not read · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1973Tompkins and Bird, The Secret Life of Plants Links Rahn to Hieronymus's 'eloptic' devices; not opened
  • 1976F. A. Popp, biophoton work (from 1976) Related ultra-weak photon emission research
  • –Vladimirov and Tarusov, ultra-weak emission (1950s-70s) Related work
  • –Corliss, Incredible Life: A Handbook of Biological Mysteries Reprints a 1932 press item; not opened
  • 1988A. A. Gurwitsch, 'A historical review of the problem of mitogenetic radiation', Experientia 44:545-550 Not read · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 1988Van Wijk and Schamhart, Experientia 44:586-593 Related work; not read
  • 1992Albrecht-Buehler, cell-to-cell light signalling Related work
  • 1998Wainwright, 'Historical and recent evidence for the existence of mitogenetic radiation', Perspect. Biol. Med. 41:565-571 Project MUSE blocked by CAPTCHA; snippet calls the book 'impressive and influential'
  • 2000Goraczko, Med. Hypotheses 54:461-468 Not read
  • 2003Trushin, non-chemical distant interaction (2003-04) Related work
  • 2007Farhadi, cell-to-cell signalling Related work
  • 2009Fels, cellular communication through light Related work
  • 2011Cifra et al., Electromagnetic cellular interactions Academia.edu; not opened
  • 2013Scholkmann, Fels and Cifra, Am. J. Transl. Res. 5:586-593 Related work
  • 2014Cifra and Pospisil review of ultra-weak photon emission Search summary: 350-1300 nm, several to thousands of photons/s/cm2
  • 2015Volodyaev and Beloussov, 'Revisiting the mitogenetic effect of ultra-weak photon emission', Front. Physiol. 6:241 First 100,000 of 185,000 characters read by a fetch tool; disputes NRC and Quickenden conditions · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field
  • 2018Naumova, Naumova, Isaev and Volodyaev, historical review, JBPE 4(4):040201 Abstract and about 190 references read; 'very promising results', 'interrupted and almost abandoned' · Gurwitsch tradition, defends the field

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • –Cornell Rare and Manuscript Collections: Rahn papers and Dept. of Bacteriology records Named by the arbiter as deciding for the post-1937 silence
  • –Smithsonian Institution Archives, Science Service records Original 1932 Watson Davis wire text
  • –NRC correspondence on Bulletin 100 and Hollaender's papers Named by the arbiter
  • –Reviews of the 1944 printing Would show the book's reception after the NRC negative
  • –Day-level raw data from any mitogenetic laboratory Would decide whether detector failures can be identified in advance
  • –M. N. Barnes dissertation, Morphological Changes in Yeast Induced by Biological Radiation Cornell; known from Macht's citation · Rahn's laboratory

Left out: the many other papers in the book's bibliography that no review file singles out (about 600 had appeared by 1937), the 1944 printing as a separate item, catalogue and index pages, and search hits for the unrelated writer Otto Rahn. Full catalogue: Rahn-Otto sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A pre-registered, blinded two-laboratory test: proponents fix culture age, medium, induction time and a calibrated UV-C positive control (10-1000 quanta/cm2/s) that declares a responsive day; quartz, glass and paraffin-glass screens assigned blind; analysis by day, copying Julius, Blacher and the cornea pairs. Alongside, a photomultiplier spectrum of lag-phase yeast and onion roots, 190-300 nm, with blanks.

Deciding records: Hollaender and Claus's NRC Bulletin 100 and NRC correspondence; Rahn's 1937 Tabulae Biologicae review and 1934 J. Bacteriol. paper; the Cornell memorial statement and Rahn papers; Quickenden 1989 and Wainwright 1997 in full; the Soviet cancer-quencher dissertations (1942-1955); the 1932 Science Service wire; reviews of the 1944 printing.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it reproduces Rahn's 420 cal/g (414, a ratio of 42.6), the per-event energies, the 2767 Angstrom limit of his rescue, a photon yield of 2.6e-14 per molecule and the 10^10 dose gap. By hand: a 3000 rpm disc, a 15 degree shift over 2.5 cm, gives about 30 m/s.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Dismissed without testing? No: it was tested by both sides. Was it properly settled? No: the only neutral, well-resourced negative is contested on protocol, and the positive results are unblinded and mostly lack error estimates. arbiter.md, Claim 1
  2. Arbiter The total energy budget costs nothing at the observed intensities, about a millionth of a millionth of the heat power. What stands is the per-event problem: one 6 eV photon needs the energy of 43 sucrose events, and Rahn's remedy fails. arbiter.md, Claim 3
  3. QE The text layer of p.111 reads '1.5minutes' where the page says 15 minutes. Two reviewers, the arbiter and the first primer discussed a faster-through-quartz anomaly the page does not contain; caught on the page image and withdrawn. qe.md, section 3, check 5
  4. Contrarian Rahn complains that few English papers appeared and those were 'mostly negative'. That is a complaint about a literature, not documented suppression. The record is thin and the absence is not proof of its opposite. contrarian.md, section 2
  5. Investigator The work went on in the USSR after the West stopped: Pesochensky's 1942 dissertation, The Teaching of the Cancer Quencher (1947), dissertations in 1950 and 1955. Naumova et al. (2018, Gurwitsch tradition) report 'very promising results', 'interrupted and almost abandoned'. sites.md, Leads for review 2; research/2026-10-06-jbpe.md

AI noteRahn's 1932 talk made the New York Times as ''Evil Eye' Is Found to Be Based on Fact'; his 1936 book says such human radiation occurred 'only very rarely' and that the authors did not want that publicity.

Rank 16Kilner-Walter

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:39

A London hospital physician said a dye screen lets anyone see a human aura; a cheap blind test was designed in 1912 and is still not on record as run.

Invention / theory background

Walter J. Kilner (1847-1920), Cambridge-trained physician and former medical electrician at St Thomas's Hospital, London, published The Human Atmosphere in 1911. After looking at daylight through a glass cell of dicyanin dye, he said, an observer sees a three-layer haze round the body. He used it with a coloured afterimage band to read sex, heredity, temperament, epilepsy, pregnancy and local disease. A 1920 edition called the aura 'an ultra-violet phenomenon'.

Ranking explanation

Kilner meets A, B and C. Below Mallove (9), whose glow-discharge tube claims a large measured power gain; Kilner's claims are perceptual, with no energy anomaly at stake. Above van Vlaenderen (11), a theory whose predictions have no experiments or reception history yet; Kilner has 1911-12 trials in Chicago, Philadelphia, Graz and Paris, published counts, and a blind design by de Fontenay (1912) that nobody reports running. A reader could run the decisive test with a filter and a curtain.

Key supporting elements

  1. Others reported seeing something: O'Donnell before about twenty Chicago physicians (newspaper report, 1911), H. C. S. and Goodspeed ('no doubt... a physical phenomenon is observable'), and two observers in Graz (Surya, 1912).
  2. An unwitting sham: three times a methylene-blue screen was handed over in place of dicyanin, and the viewer saw nothing; Kilner says he did not tell her 'because this was regarded as a good test' (1920 edition).
  3. Parent-child aura width classes agree in 15 of 15 pairs, far above the 0.38 chance rate; all 8 epileptics in the first hundred cases fall outside the blue-aura group (chance about 0.01).
  4. Several readings ran against the patient's own belief: Case 21 told she was not pregnant (period came 7 days later); a 38-year-old's period came 7 days after the reading, not the fortnight she expected.
  5. Kilner published his failures and retractions: failed photography, a 'healthy symmetrical' case who had hidden an epileptic fit, and 'the limitations of the Aura as a diagnostic agent are great'.

Key contradictions

  1. In Paris (1911-12) de Rochas, de Fontenay and their friends saw nothing matching Kilner's descriptions with his own four screens; de Fontenay, sympathetic, called it 'a reservation, not a denial'.
  2. H. C. S. found the haze 'more pronounced with an inanimate hand-towel than it is with the human being', against a body-specific emanation; Kilner replied he had never seen haze round any inanimate object except magnets and radio-active substances.
  3. Every diagnosis and aura class rests on one observer, Kilner, usually the treating physician who knew the history; there is no blinding, no second observer who confirmed a band patch, and no count of failures.
  4. A filter that only removes visible light cannot reveal a band outside the visible spectrum; the eye's lens absorbs below about 390 nm, so a normal eye cannot see an ultra-violet aura directly.
  5. The two hidden-site willing trials used one paid subject who saw auras herself, signalled when to look and was in view; the blue band used cannot tell red from yellow, so they test location, not colour.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 23 shown)
ClaimVerdict
A structured haze round the body becomes visible after looking through a dicyanin screenPlausible, untested weak form: screen-primed observers report a haze Never properly tested strong form: an objective, body-specific emanation
The aura is a force from the body acting on the ether (1 aF and 2 aF)Historically superseded but instructive the 'two forces' are a bookkeeping device by Kilner's own words
The aura lies outside the visible spectrumInternally inconsistent 1911 form: invisible yet seen through visible-light screens Never properly tested 1920 ultra-violet form
Hazes round magnets, uranium and galvanic circuits; aura changed by static charge and halogen fumes (1920)Never properly tested single observer, unblinded, no counts
Dicyanin shifts the eye's focus (about 1 dioptre)Plausible, untested the focus shift itself Never properly tested Kilner's inference to ultra-violet sight
Aura width, colour and shape reflect sex, age, heredity, temperament and diseaseNever properly tested width vs sex, age, parentage; colour series; left-side narrowing in epilepsy Not testable as stated temperament, intelligence, disease types without a rule
The complementary-colour afterimage band diagnoses disease, tenderness, menstruation and pregnancyNever properly tested as a diagnostic method Plausible, untested kernel: patches track skin and lighting Established the negative afterimage itself
Band changes show aura colour; the will projects rays and changes colour; two willed spots found blindNever properly tested willed rays and colour; the two hidden-site trials Not testable as stated the Appendix design as a test of colour

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Walter J. KilnerInventor of the dicyanin screen method; sole observer in nearly every accountBorn 1847, Bury St Edmunds; St John's College, Cambridge (B.A., M.B.); MRCP 1883. Medical electrician in charge of electrotherapy at St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1879-1893, then private practice in Ladbroke Grove. Earlier N-ray needle work, abandoned. Died June 1920; place of death conflicts (Isle of Wight per Wikipedia; Bury St Edmunds address in the 1920 preface).
Francis J. RebmanPublisher of the 1911 book and of the Archives of the Roentgen Ray, which reviewed it · Sold the screens with the book (30s. boxed set; screens 17s. 6d.)Described by Wikipedia as a friend of Kilner who supported his research in America; issued a 1912 booklet explaining the discovery. Otherwise not in the review files.
Patrick S. O'DonnellPhysician said to have repeated Kilner's experiments at Mercy Hospital, Chicago, June 1911, before about twenty physicians · The report is his own announcement, relayed by newspapersNot in the review files beyond the 1911 newspaper reports relayed by the Annales des Sciences Psychiques and an encyclopedia entry citing Harry Price.
Guillaume de FontenayParis investigator who tried Kilner's screens with Count Albert de Rochas and friends (1911-12) and saw nothing; proposed two blind testsWrote the March 1912 Annales des Sciences Psychiques review; sympathetic to the aura and called his failure a reservation, not a denial. De Rochas had earlier tested sensitives by secretly reversing a magnet's current. Otherwise not in the review files.
H. C. S. and Dr GoodspeedUS correspondents who reproduced 'some of the effects' and found the haze stronger round a hand-towel than a personH. C. S. is unidentified. The Investigator suggests Dr Goodspeed is probably Arthur W. Goodspeed, University of Pennsylvania physicist and early X-ray worker, recorded as memory, medium confidence, not verified.
G. W. SuryaRan screen trials in Graz (1912); two observers reported haze and rays; estimated about half of first-time viewers see nothing · Editor of Zentralblatt fur Okkultismus, published by Altmann, which also published Feerhow's book on the trialsNot in the review files beyond his editorship and the trials Feerhow reports.
Dr MerrickPhysician who brought patients to Kilner, including the one case Kilner framed as a test (history withheld)Saw the aura 'quite plainly' in his ulcer patient (Case 33) but not the band spot Kilner reported. Otherwise not in the review files.
Harry BoddingtonRevived the screens as 'Aurospecs' goggles c.1929-31 and wrote the only account of the 1914-1930 gap · Maker and sole seller of Aurospecs (one guinea), held a provisional patent, sold Kilner's book and coursesRan the London Psychic Educational Centre; Spiritualist teacher. He himself warned that 'suggestion and optical illusions have a definite place'.
Evidence / artifacts (50 of 50 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (4)

  • 1911The Human Atmosphere, or the Aura Made Visible by the Aid of Chemical Screens Rebman, New York and London; 42 cases, Tables I-II, Appendix willing experiments; Google Books scan, deep-read in full
  • 1911The Shifting of the Chromatic Focus of the Eye by the Use of a Dicyanin Screen Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 pp.344-352; 12 observers of 30; read by the Investigator in a browser on HathiTrust, table not saved
  • 1912Kilner's reply to H. C. S. Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 p.240: never seen a haze round an inanimate object except a magnet or radio-active substance
  • 1920-09The Human Atmosphere (The Aura), second edition Kegan Paul / Dutton; second impression May 1926; ultra-violet hypothesis, Wimshurst, fumigation, microscope and hypnosis series; Internet Archive OCR, deep-read; later reprints 1965 and 1973

Patents and patent office (1)

  • c.1930Boddington 'Aurospecs' provisional patent UK; mentioned in Boddington's booklet; Espacenet / UK IPO search not reached · Seller of the goggles

Government records (2)

  • 1920Kilner death registration and probate FreeBMD and probate; would settle Isle of Wight versus Bury St Edmunds
  • 1914British dye import and wartime control records Would test the wartime loss of German dicyanin

Company and business records (6)

  • 1911Rebman's Analytical Catalogue, Spring 1911 Bound into the project PDF (pp.350-357); lists the book 'with screens' at $10.00 · Publisher and screen seller
  • 1911Unsigned review of The Human Atmosphere, Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 p.156; 'many of them are able to see a bluish haze'; cautions on 'sight and suggestion'; prices · Publisher's own journal
  • 1911Editorial on the aura, Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 p.122; editor W. Deane Butcher; 'artificial or temporary myopia' anecdotes · Publisher's own journal
  • 1912The Human Aura: a Brief Explication of Dr. Kilner's Discovery Rebman booklet; HathiTrust hvd.hnxbgt, full view; not reached · Publisher
  • 1910Meister, Lucius and Bruning (Hoechst) dye catalogues 1910-1920 Named by the arbiter as deciding for the dicyanin supply question
  • 1911Rebman sales records Named by the arbiter for the commercial-failure explanation

Witness accounts and correspondence (4)

  • 1911Letter from H. C. S. (with Dr Goodspeed) Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 pp.199-200; 'some of the effects'; haze stronger round a hand-towel
  • 1929-06-06A. E. Mundy endorsement of Aurospecs Chemist who says he compounded the original Kilner screens; 'not prepared to say' what the aura is; printed in Boddington's booklet · Printed by the seller
  • 1929-09-19Dr Drysdale Anderson letter He and his wife 'can make out the aura', about three inches thick; quoted in Boddington's booklet · Printed by the seller
  • c.1931Seven Aurospecs buyer testimonials Mist, sparks, 'X-ray' hands; one says 'may have been due to imagination'; in Boddington's booklet · Selected and printed by the seller

Experiments and replications by others (11)

  • 1911-06-15New York Herald report of O'Donnell's Mercy Hospital demonstration About twenty physicians, four young women, 'succeeded'; known through the Annales 1912 · O'Donnell's own announcement
  • 1911-06Chicago newspaper report of Kilner's discovery London correspondent's note of 19 May, printed 21 June 1911; relayed by the Annales
  • 1911-07Clipping: O'Donnell watches the radiation vanish at a death Headline says 'photographed', text says only 'saw'; relayed by the Annales · O'Donnell's own claim
  • 1911-09-01De Rochas on the Chicago and New York reports Annales des Sciences Psychiques v.21 pp.264-268; not obtained
  • 1912-02Surya's Graz screen trials Zentralblatt fur Okkultismus, February 1912; known through Feerhow 1913 ch. III · Altmann publication
  • 1912-03De Fontenay, L'Aura humaine et les ecrans du Dr Walter J. Kilner Annales des Sciences Psychiques 22, pp.74-84; Paris negative trials with de Rochas and J.-C. Roux; two proposed blind tests; read from page images
  • 1912Paris psychical society report of a de Rochas and de Fontenay lecture on Kilner's screens Annales des Sciences Psychiques 1912, PDF p.196
  • 1912Werner and Caan on photo-activity of human tissue Relayed in Annales 1912 (printed p.183) from L'Annee Electrique; Heidelberg; no data given; a different effect
  • 1913Feerhow, Die menschliche Aura und ihre experimentelle Erforschung Max Altmann, Leipzig; ch. III (other experimenters) read; ch. II and Vienna Psychological Society appendix not reached · Altmann, also Surya's publisher
  • –Scatcherd and Baraduc film 'photographs' of the aura One undated paragraph in Boddington's booklet; shown at 'the French Academy'; no plate or reference · Reported by the seller
  • –Harry Price note on O'Donnell, via Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 'Aura' Encyclopedia.com snippet: O'Donnell 'controlled and confirmed' Kilner's experiments; page returned 404

Later accounts and media (14)

  • 1911-02-05The human aura has at last been photographed New York Times; headline only, page rendered blank; conflicts with the book's report of failed photography
  • 1911-08-19Daily Journal-Gazette item on Rebman promoting Kilner's work Mattoon, Illinois, p.3; cited by Wikipedia
  • 1918Bureau of Standards, wave-length measurements in spectra from 5600 to 9600 A US Bureau of Standards; dicyanin as a red and infra-red sensitiser; archive.org
  • 1919Bureau of Standards, application of dicyanin to the photography of stellar spectra archive.org app144875051919318318unse
  • 1925Powell, The Etheric Double and Allied Phenomena Used Kilner's findings; HathiTrust full view, not read
  • –Richet, Thirty Years of Psychical Research Cites Kilner and 'Dr. O'Donnell'; Google result only
  • 1930-03-14Daily Chronicle article on Drysdale Anderson Said by Boddington to have 'confirmed Dr. Kilner's researches'; not quoted, not obtained
  • c.1931Boddington, Aura. Kilner Screens (Aurospecs) and All About Them London Psychic Educational Centre Handbook No. 4, ed. David Gow; account of the dicyanin gap 1914-1930; deep-read · Maker and seller of Aurospecs
  • 1937Bagnall, The Origin and Properties of the Human Aura Pinacyanol screens in place of dicyanin; 1970 and 1975 editions on archive.org, borrow only · Maker of his own screens
  • 1970The Human Aura: A Study of Beliefs Scribd snippet: dicyanin supply from Meister Lucius and Bruning cut off in 1914-18
  • 1993Nickell on Kilner Sceptic author; calls it pseudoscience; via Wikipedia
  • 2005Lindgren on cobalt-blue glass screens Via Wikipedia
  • 2013Melton on Kilner Results seen as artefacts of the observer's optic process; goggles advertised into the 1970s; via Wikipedia
  • 2026Wikipedia, Walter John Kilner Biography and reception; read by the Investigator and re-fetched by the arbiter

Records named but not yet examined (8)

  • 1893BMJ society reports 1893 and 1898 (possible Kilner electrotherapy work) PMC2422466, PMC2422189, PMC2433863; listed by Europe PMC, not checked
  • 1912-01-06BMJ review of The Human Atmosphere Issue 2662, pp.20-22, PMC2344221; 'Macbeth's visionary dagger' line and a replication claim known only from Wikipedia; blocked by CAPTCHA
  • 1912Lancet and BMJ coverage of Kilner 1912-1920 Named by the arbiter for the professional-rejection explanation
  • 1912St Thomas's Hospital minutes and Kilner-BMA correspondence Named by the arbiter for the suppression and rejection questions
  • 1912BMJ editorial files Named by the arbiter
  • 1911Arthur W. Goodspeed papers, University of Pennsylvania archives To identify H. C. S. and the 1911 trial
  • 1920-06-30Death of Dr. W. J. Kilner, Suffolk and Essex Free Press p.6; cited by Wikipedia
  • 1929Light, 1929-1931 Spiritualist weekly edited by David Gow; for Mundy, Anderson and the Aurospecs revival

Left out: further reprints and library copies of Kilner's books, the Google front matter and back matter of the scan, search hits not opened (Leaf 1926, Occult Review 1911, Electrograms from Elysium 1958, Tansley 1984, Dakin 1975, a 2026 web essay), and bibliographies that only cite de Fontenay. Full catalogue: Kilner-Walter sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Blinded detection: several observers primed with dicyanin or a sham screen of similar colour; behind a curtain a person, a warm towel at body temperature, or nothing, in random order; 50 or more trials each, pass criteria fixed beforehand. De Fontenay's 1912 designs (hidden magnets; a 25-pair wire board switched from a distant room) test the magnet haze.

Deciding records: The BMJ review of 6 January 1912 (did anyone run a trial?), the New York Herald of 15 June 1911 and Chicago reports on O'Donnell, the NYT article of 5 February 1911, the saved table of Kilner's chromatic-focus paper, and the Rebman 1912 booklet.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it turns Kilner's microscope shift (+2.5 divisions of 1/1000 inch) into about 1 dioptre of eye focus, and recomputes the hidden-site chance (about 1 to 3 per cent per guess), the heredity Fisher tests and the epileptics-outside-blue odds (about 0.01).

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter The perceptual reading explains more of the record at no cost; the strong form has no independent support beyond Kilner's own reports. This is a judgement of fit, not a proof: nobody has tested a person against a towel or an empty background, blind, with a sham screen. arbiter.md, section 4, claim 1
  2. Contrarian Several groups in 1911-12 reported seeing something with his screens. That is not nothing: it shows the screens produce a reproducible visual impression in some people. A cheap blinded test exists and was never run by anyone on record. contrarian.md, The strongest honest case for Kilner
  3. Arbiter The first pass called the microscope shift far too big for the eye; that is withdrawn. With the 1.5-inch objective the 1920 text gives, the shift is about 1 dioptre, the size of ordinary focus changes, and it says nothing about ultra-violet sight. arbiter.md, 11.3
  4. Arbiter Why the record goes dark: Kilner himself wrote that since the war 'it has been impossible to obtain any dicyanin'. War, one dye, one trained observer's method, poor repeatability by others, age and death combine. No evidence of blocked publication; one seller reports a chemist feared for his reputation. arbiter.md, 6 and 11.9
  5. QE The OCR reads the digit 3 as 8 in case headings, so 'Case 88' in the scan is two patients (33 and 38). Two menstrual readings were first mis-scored and the sibling count was incomplete; all were corrected, and the recheck ended PASS. qe.md, Recheck

AI noteThe 1920 second edition is dated September 1920, three months after the June 1920 death Wikipedia gives, and it was still being reprinted in 1926, so the book outlived both its author and his dye supply.

Rank 18Lakhovsky George

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - Testable Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:57

A 1920s radio theory of the living cell, a co-signed 1924 test in which three geranium tumours died while sixteen untreated ones grew, and an oscillator still sold today.

Invention / theory background

Georges Lakhovsky (1869-1942), an engineer born near Minsk and working in Paris, held that chromosomes are tiny insulated circuits filled with salt water, ringing in the infrared and powered by cosmic rays; disease is a cell pushed off its frequency. He built a 150 MHz Radio-cellulo-oscillator (1923-24), passive copper collars and belts sold by his company COLYSA, and the spark-driven Multiple Wave Oscillator (patented 1931-34). He moved to New York in 1941 and died there in 1942.

Ranking explanation

Criteria A, B and C. Like Rahn's mitogenetic rays and Kilner's aura screens, it rests on an early anomaly nobody settled: the four-author 1924 geranium note, never repeated with temperature recorded, plus case series from named clinicians. It sits below them because its central cell-circuit theory is Refuted by calculation, and ahead of Eskridge and Bearden because the experiment is published and cheap to repeat: crown-gall geraniums, a 150 MHz source and a thermometer.

Key supporting elements

  1. The 1924 note (C. R. Soc. Biol. 91:626), co-signed by surgeon A. Gosset and Pasteur Institute plant pathologist J. Magrou: all 3 treated crown-gall geraniums necrosed from about day 16; 16 untreated controls kept growing. Known only from quotations.
  2. Independent contemporaries took it seriously: Kotzareff's 1931 Paris thesis called the note the only experimental study of its kind; Nature's 1940 reviewer granted the oscillator 'apparently has worked marvellous cures in cases of cancer, goitre and enlarged prostate'.
  3. Named clinicians reported cases, relayed through Lakhovsky's publications: de Cigna (Genoa, Vienna 1937) with histology-confirmed skin lesions and radiographed ulcers, and Attilj (Rome, 1928) with regressing sarcomas; Saint-Louis hospital cases carry biopsies and years of follow-up.
  4. Heat is not an easy answer: the arbiter's bound gives at most a few kelvin of far-field heating at 0.1 m, though near-field heating is not excluded; Schereschewsky's 1926-28 mouse-tumour results were reinterpreted as thermal, not refuted by experiment.
  5. His question is live science in other forms: 200 kHz Tumor Treating Fields extend glioblastoma survival, and radio noise disrupts robin orientation (Engels 2014), like his pigeon reports, though neither supports his circuit mechanism.

Key contradictions

  1. His own stated materials sink the cell circuit: a salt-water filament has a quality factor near 1e-6, its resistance 1e5 to 6e5 times the critical value, so it cannot ring; cosmic rays supply 8 or more orders too little power.
  2. The geranium test had 3 treated plants, no stated randomisation, blinding, field, distance or temperature, and 6, 9 and 33 hour doses all gave onset near day 16; it was never repeated.
  3. No case series has a denominator or control, and all reach us through the maker's publications; de Cigna's ulcer patients also had lemon-juice regimens, diets and stopped medication, and he wrote 'six cases are not sufficient'.
  4. The 1941 book says no contra-indication was ever reported, yet records five haemorrhage deaths after treatment, which Lakhovsky blamed on tumour necrosis freeing eroded arteries; whether the device or the disease caused them cannot be decided from the record.
  5. Side claims fail checks: radium decay shows no cosmic-ray dependence deep underground, Roffo called his agent 'photo-active', not 'radio-active', a passive collar captures at most microwatts against 100 W of metabolism, and Orly contradicted his soil rule.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 41 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Every cell is an oscillating circuit: chromosomes as insulated salt-water filaments ringing in the infrared, powered by cosmic radiationRefuted by calculation strong form, LC filament with cosmic power Plausible, untested soft form, cells respond to selected frequencies Not testable as stated his version, no frequencies given
Disease and cancer are oscillatory disequilibrium, a 'war of radiations' (microbes, irradiated cholesterol)Not testable as stated general form Never properly tested Roffo's irradiated-cholesterol result, single report Tested, not supported Roffo's related heated-fat stomach tumours Refuted by calculation a 'radio-active' carcinogen made by UV Established UV skin carcinogenesis (background)
The 150 MHz oscillator (1924) and a copper spiral (1925) necrosed crown-gall tumours on geraniumsNever properly tested 1924 note, 3 treated against 16 controls, heat not controlled Never properly tested 1925 spiral, one treated plant
Passive circuits heal and sterilise: collars and belts (Attilj 1928, animal reports) and silver spirals in water (1929)Refuted by calculation collar as an energy supply Never properly tested clinical relief, including Attilj; animal reports Established silver kills B. coli, as chemistry Never properly tested silver result as proof of nuclear oscillation
The Multiple Wave Oscillator emits 10 cm to 400 m at once and has cured cancer, goitre, prostate and ulcers with no contra-indicationPlausible, untested many simultaneous damped frequencies Internally inconsistent stated spectrum Never properly tested cures Internally inconsistent 'no contra-indication' as printed beside five haemorrhage deaths Not testable as stated whether the device caused the deaths, from this record
Cosmic 'universion' drives radioactivity (a 25 m lead sphere would stop radium), body heat and cancer after 40-45Tested, not supported radium decay triggered by cosmic waves Refuted by calculation cosmic waves as the energy of radioactivity or of body heat Internally inconsistent lead-sphere passage as printed; skin screen to age 40-45
Cancer follows the electrical constants of soil and water (Paris quartiers, Thiais and Orly), with faster cures on conducting soils and a full-moon stallNever properly tested cancer geography via soil conductivity Never properly tested full-moon stall, conducting-soil response, water-supply effect Not testable as stated electrical mechanism of the water effect
Radio transmitters disorient homing pigeons; animals navigate by their own radiationNever properly tested pigeon on-off reports, 1924-26; oak-bombyx test Not testable as stated orientation by emitted radiation; canals as radio direction-finder Plausible, untested duck-wing charging, about 600 V

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Georges LakhovskyInventor and theorist; seller of the collars and oscillators through COLYSA · inventor and sellerBorn 17 Sept 1869 at Ilya near Minsk (ncip.by, one source); Odessa School of Arts and Crafts, then the Sorbonne from 1894 (physics, bridges and roads, anatomy and physiology). Railway engineer with track patents 1902-1913, then telephone and loudspeaker patents. Built the Radio-cellulo-oscillator 1923, the MWO 1930-31; emigrated to New York 1941; died 31 Aug 1942 in Brooklyn after a car accident.
J. MagrouCo-author of the 1924 geranium note; produced the crown-gall tumoursOf the Pasteur Institute, chef de laboratoire at the Salpetriere; the plant-tumour specialist who had produced many Pelargonium tumours by Erwin F. Smith's method.
A. GossetCo-author of the 1924 note; host surgical clinic at the SalpetriereSenior Paris surgeon (professor); A. Gutmann, head of his medical clinic, also co-signed.
Anastas KotzareffIndependent contemporary; called the 1924 note the only experimental study of its kind and reported the 40 W input figure · had a rival method (radon colloid therapy)Born Ochrida 1890, Swiss citizen, MD Geneva, former privat-docent at Geneva; Paris MD thesis 1931 (jury president J.-L. Faure) on inoperable cancers treated with radon colloids and ultra-short waves.
Vittorio de CignaClinician who reported the best-documented MWO series (Genoa 1935, Vienna 1937)Faculty of Medicine, Genoa; Royal Academy of Medicine of Genoa. Used the MWO from 1934; reported only cases with photographs, radiographs or histology, and wrote that the oscillatory mechanism could not yet be 'completely proved'.
Pierre RigauxPhysician reporting cases, including the penis-cancer colonel and two throat deaths after the fourth treatment · collaborator at Lakhovsky's instituteInstitut de Physique Biologique, Paris; author of Cosmic Rays and Oscillating Circuits (1932); spoke on Colonel T. on 20 Jan 1933 and named 'effluvia and sparks' among the acting agents.
Sordello AttiljHospital radiologist who reported collar and belt tumour regressions (Florence, May 1928)Radiology service, Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome. His reports reach us through Lakhovsky's publications.
James RitchieNature reviewer (26 Oct 1940) of The Secret of LifeNot in the review files beyond the signed review, which identified the Corynactis 'circuit' as a stinging-cell thread.
Evidence / artifacts (141 of 141 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (19)

  • 1924-07-26Gosset, Gutmann, Lakhovsky and Magrou, Essai de therapeutique du 'cancer experimental' des plantes C. R. Soc. Biol. 91:626-628; Salpetriere; 3 treated Pelargonium crown galls (6, 33, 9 h) necrosed from about day 16, 16 controls kept growing. Known from a 1925 press quotation, Kotzareff 1931 and Roussakow 2013; original not obtained (BHL, Gallica blocked)
  • 1925-02Curing Cancer With Ultra Radio Frequencies Lakhovsky's own English article, Radio News (Gernsback); cited by Stadler 2009; worldradiohistory.com not reached
  • c.1925Le Secret de la Vie / The Secret of Life Founding book: cell as circuit, pigeons and radio stations, duck-wing electrometer, geraniums, silver spirals, soil and cancer, Attilj. Folder copy is the 1939 Heinemann English (tr. Mark Clement, preface d'Arsonval) re-typeset 2008 with 'Hatonn' and 'E.Y.' editorial layers that are not Lakhovsky; no figures. Spanish (1925) and German (1931) editions exist
  • 1926L'Origine de la Vie (The Origin of Life) Listed in the 1941 book's bibliography and quoted there
  • 1927L'Universion Gauthier-Villars; cosmic 'universion' waves, lead-sphere argument, the Rivera scale; text downloaded from archive.org, scale read by the mathematician
  • 1927Contribution a l'etiologie du cancer (Italian: Contributo all'eziologia del cancro) Paris 1921-22 cancer deaths per 1000 by quartier against geology (sand low, clay and marl high); table read directly by the mathematician
  • 1928-12-15Sur la theorie du cancer basee sur la nature geologique du sol Revue generale des Sciences; listed in Kotzareff's 1931 bibliography
  • 1929Note in C. R. Acad. Sci. 188 p.657, with d'Arsonval's remarks p.659 Cited in patent CH 135072 for the 2 m plant spiral and in Kotzareff 1931; whether it is the same note as the 15 April 1929 silver communication is not settled in the review files
  • 1929-04-15Lakhovsky and Sesari, silver-circuit sterilisation of water Presented by d'Arsonval to the Academie des Sciences; abridged in The Secret of Life pp.35-36: B. coli 1,128,000 per cm3 to 0 in 25 h against 43,680,000 in the control; Experiment III survives heating, lost on Chamberland filtration
  • 1929La Sante par les ondes C.O.L.Y.S.A., 26 rue des Marronniers, Paris; theory, geranium history, practitioners' letters 1928-29 (Remond, Attilj); BIU Sante copy on archive.org · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • 1930La Science et le Bonheur Gauthier-Villars; cited by Kotzareff; a dokumen.pub hit seen, not opened
  • c.1930sNouvelles applications de l'oscillateur a ondes multiples Seen as a Slideshare listing only
  • 1930sMatter; The Skin; Civilization and the Racial Folly (and Racism) Further own books named in the 1941 book (pp.51-59) and by ncip.by; not obtained
  • 1931L'Oscillation cellulaire Said to hold the originals of the horse and other animal data (Fournier-Ormonde); not obtained
  • 1932L'Oscillateur a ondes multiples Gaston Doin, Paris; cited in bibliographies on Scribd; no free copy found
  • 1939-03-18(Toward) The End of a Nightmare L'Illustration, Paris; cited in the 1941 book pp.49, 52, 57
  • 1939Pour rester jeune a 100 ans: la spermatotherapie Editions S.A.C.L., Paris, for physicians; opens with cellular oscillation; read only at the opening
  • 1941Radiations and Waves, Sources of Our Life English of Radiations et Ondes (1938); Emile L. Cabella, New York; preface by Jacques C. Presner. Fullest late statement: case histories, de Cigna's Vienna 1937 text, five haemorrhage deaths, New York tables, Roffo, universion, Child of the Waves
  • 1941The Child of the Waves (three cases) and the municipal pre-marital treatment proposal Radiations and Waves pp.63-69; treated mothers' children framed as 'a new race'; digest-level only, case records not obtained · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)

Patents and patent office (23)

  • 1902-1913Railway patents: US 1,028,743; US 1,136,427; AT 19763B; GB 1903/07775 Sleeper-screw liners, fastenings, track gauge instrument; fits his start as a railway engineer
  • 1902-1904AT 22361B / FR 325045A Mustard dispenser
  • 1922-1940Telephone and sound patents: FR 570117, FR 578177, US 1,544,460, US 1,593,457, US 1,640,330 Diaphragms, horns, loudspeakers
  • 1922-1940Later sound patents: FR 807497, FR 816144, US 2,263,408, FR 866037, FR 879824 Loudspeakers and microphones
  • 1923FR 574671A Multi-branch adjustable antenna
  • 1923German patent for the 1923 cellular oscillator Claimed by ncip.by; not found
  • 1924-10-18FR 601155A Devices generating electric oscillations by oscillating circuits (published 1926); probably the Radio-cellulo-oscillator period; text not on Google Patents
  • 1927-10-26CH 135072A / FR 657295A Open oscillating circuit (collar, belt, plant spiral of about 2 m); claim: open insulated circuit with 'aucune source d'energie propre'; cites C. R. Soc. Biol. 26 July 1924 p.626 and CRAS 188 p.657
  • 1929-04-13FR 688887A Sterilisation of liquids by silver circuits; first of the series
  • 1929-1932FR 37940E and FR 41175E Certificates of addition in the sterilisation series
  • 1929-1931CH 147806A Silver chains whose links rub as the liquid moves; no heat, vacuum or chemicals
  • 1930FR 696192A Razor
  • 1931FR 733396A / CH 166006A Filtration and sterilisation by metal circuits
  • 1931-05-02FR 732276A French priority of the Multiple Wave Oscillator (published 15 Sept 1932)
  • 1931-11-13US 1,962,565 Apparatus with circuits oscillating under multiple wave lengths; granted 12 June 1934; six concentric split rings, spark gap; no wavelength, voltage or medical word
  • 1932-02-12FR 42146E Certificate of addition to FR 732276 (published 31 May 1933)
  • 1932-04-05CH 164027A Swiss MWO member (published 15 Sept 1933); names use 'comme agent therapeutique' and adds gas tubes, 'un veritable soleil artificiel'
  • 1935CH 193774A / FR 810280A Sterilisation by metal circuits, later form
  • 1935-05-20FR 802262A Polymetallic circuit for capturing electromagnetic waves; text not on Google Patents
  • 1939FR 866036A Portable sterilisation device
  • 1941-11-21US 2,351,055 Tube for producing multiple wave lengths; granted 13 June 1944 after his death; administratrix Anne-Marie Louise Lakhovsky; assignor to Henry S. Blum, Chicago; names therapy of cellular life · assignee Blum, a commercial party
  • 2006-07-13Winey, US 2007/0258329 A1 Golf-shaft tuning application; background paragraphs say Lakhovsky 'treated and cured' cancer until 1942 (citing 1939) and link him to Rife and Priore; no experiment · applicant with a commercial and legal stake
  • c.2014EP 2862596 A1, Device for treating diseases Says the MWO 'used cw systems with some (though limited) success'; cites the 1941 Cabella edition · later applicant

Company and business records (6)

  • 1929C.O.L.Y.S.A. (Circuit Oscillant LakhovskY S.A.) 26 rue des Marronniers, Paris 16e, from the 1929 booklet's imprint; made and sold the circuits · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • c.1934-1940Institute of Biological Physics (Institut de Physique Biologique), Paris Lakhovsky's institute; Rigaux worked there; source of the Institute cases Nos. 1-4 (1939-40), chosen 'at random' by an unnamed chief of staff · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • 1939Editions S.A.C.L. 25 rue des Marronniers, Paris; publisher of Pour rester jeune · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • 2021-08-30Colysa SA, Val-de-Ruz (Zefix CHE-103.596.682) Swiss register entry, last publication 2021; purpose technical products; no Lakhovsky link in the entry
  • 2026colysa.ch, Laboratoires Colysa Present-day seller of Lakhovsky-type devices; hosts the 1925 article quoting the 1924 note · seller
  • 2026Present-day MWO sellers (lakhovsky.com, altered-states.net, Tesla BioLights) Seen in search results; altered-states.net 'frequency analysis 20 Hz to 20 GHz' not opened · sellers

Witness accounts and correspondence (40)

  • 1924-07-02Paterna (Valencia) radio station pigeon observation, with repeats to 7 Nov 1926 Pigeons released during transmission circled, then flew home minutes after it stopped; observer unnamed; Secret of Life pp.5-6
  • 1926-03Kreuznach (Germany) pigeon trials Station on the homing line; birds lost bearing near the aerial; relayed by Lakhovsky only
  • 1927-03-15Dr. Simeray, Academie de Medecine Village free of cancer on its own wells, cases after a distant supply; no name, counts or dates; relayed in Secret of Life p.55. Bulletin de l'Academie de Medecine paper not read
  • 1928-03-16Dr. D. Marcus, insomnia letter Paris; on-off-on with a borrowed collar; Waves That Heal
  • 1928-05Prof. Sordello Attilj, report to the Florence radiology congress Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome; collars and belts: relapsing hand sarcoma almost gone in two months, breast sarcoma no longer palpable; 'merely the beginning'; four or six patients depending on the book
  • 1928-06-10Dr. Barinque letter Wound report dated before the healing it describes (20 July)
  • 1928-11-20Prof. Remond (Toulouse Faculty) letters Asks to buy three circuits; in La Sante par les ondes · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • 1928-12-06Dr. Perineau letter Patient of 81, leg ulcers healed with a collar, recurred when it broke, cleared with a new one
  • 1928-1929Collar letters of Vaccaro, Cincin, Barthe de Sandfort, Sister Marie de l'Annonciation (Deauville), Duc de Valencay Practitioners' and users' letters, printed by the seller · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • c.1928-1931P. Fournier-Ormonde, horses with collars Institut Physiologique de la Croix Blanche, Vaucresson; seven horses, more red cells, lower viscosity; no values or controls
  • 1929-1940Animal reports: filly Ballerina, Mercurin's fox-terrier (Cannes), Brisbane vet's dog (Jan 1940), a parrot Owners', trainers' and vets' reports in Waves That Heal
  • 1931-05-01Dr. Raul Araujo, Montevideo, over 300 collar patients Summary only, no denominators; non-response blamed on latent infection; full report said to be in Rigaux 1932
  • 1931-09-08Hospital Saint-Louis cases: Mme C. (rodent ulcer, biopsy), M.M. (naevo-carcinoma, followed to 90), J.S. (basal-cell, 13 Oct 1931) As told by Lakhovsky and Clement, with photographs; dates differ between retellings
  • 1931-12Saint-Louis throat-cancer deaths (two patients) Haemorrhage found when Lakhovsky came for the fifth session; Radiations and Waves pp.41-42
  • 1931-11Val-de-Grace, Captain H. (Prof. Chaumet) 8-10 kg thoracic tumour necrosed; died of haemorrhage January 1932
  • 1932-04-26Mme S., 82, epithelioma of the cheek, Calvaire clinic After surgery and radium; healed in 16 to 35 days depending on the account
  • 1933Prof. Mathieu Nicolau letter (Romanian colonel) Second-hand: 'went home not only cured, but really restored to his youth'
  • 1933-01-20Dr. Pierre Rigaux, talk on Colonel T. (penis cancer) Biopsy positive 1931; radium, X-ray, silver nitrate under the apparatus; 'I'll let you be the judge'; also two throat deaths after the fourth treatment · collaborator at Lakhovsky's institute
  • 1933-06-26Dr. H. (Brussels), five prostatitis cases Relayed by Rigaux's letter of 7 July 1933; micturitions '25 to one or two', unit unstated
  • 1933-07-20Ch. Hulin, Paris Society of Odontology Salpetriere dentist; re-ossification in pyorrhoea with calcium-chloride iontophoresis under the apparatus; radiographs
  • 1933-07-26Dr. Raoul Araujo, Cancer Institute of Montevideo, MWO letter 'Marvelous cures' after eight months of use; no cases
  • 1933-09-03Dr. Postma (Groningen) letter German-built MWO; one ulcerated cancer 'nearly cured' after 12 sessions
  • 1933-12-31Mr. C. ('Courbe') letter Cerebello-pontine tumour without histology, unchanged by radiotherapy in 1929; walking and working after MWO
  • 1934Dr. Roversi (Bologna) letter List of results, one control radiograph, no histology; admits failures in advanced cases
  • 1934-02Mme X., 'cancerous lupus' of the face (Rigaux) Retold in the 1941 book
  • 1934-10Rigaux prostate case 3 Three specialists advised surgery; working at three weeks, no recurrence four years on
  • 1935Dr. Nicholas Gentile, Medicina Nuova XXVI no.5, Rome Abridged report: technique every 4 days, 5-15 min; acute phlebitis contra-indicated; cardiac asthma negative
  • 1935The English lady, leucocytes 20,000 to 5,000 in a week Pre-operative case, unnamed surgeon
  • 1935-05-31Prof. Vittorio de Cigna, Royal Academy of Medicine of Genoa About ten cancer cases with histology and photographs said to be shown; the session record not obtained
  • 1937-07De Cigna, communication to the Vienna International Congress of Short Waves Printed in the 1941 book: five skin cases, eight radiographed ulcer cases (later 18), lemon-juice regimen, 'six cases are not sufficient'
  • 1937Dr. Vryonis, Polykliniki Hospital, Athens Bought an MWO; one-line mention
  • 1938Exophthalmic goitre case (11 Jan to 4 Mar 1938) Goitre of 11 years gone in seven weeks; Waves That Heal
  • c.1938Prof. Sven Johansson, Goteborg (radium burn of a finger) Relayed in Waves That Heal p.27
  • 1939Jacques C. Presner, stomach-cancer patient and preface letters (Cardin, Barthelemy) Gradual amelioration after 'several exposures'; prior treatments unstated · preface writer of the American edition
  • 1939-12Institute cases Nos. 1-4 (Dec 1939 to Mar 1940) Mr. A. scirrhus with red cells under 3 million to 4.8 million; three others with no counts; follow-up one week to one month · Lakhovsky's own company or publications (inventor and seller)
  • 1940-04-16Dr. Alexander Francis, Frinton-on-Sea, deafness and nerve cases No numbers; the one case told is a spinal paralysis
  • 1941-07New York hospital table, 1 July to 21 Aug 1941 19 patients, mostly arthritis, each with a result, all improved; hospital anonymous, its own report withheld
  • 1941Brooklyn urologist's cases Anonymous buyer of a machine; 8 cases and a 6-patient prostate group; S.B. bladder tumour smaller on cystoscopy · bought the device
  • 1941Prof. Hugo Walter Reilly (Buenos Aires) and Prof. P. Liebesny (Vienna) Named as users; Reilly 'more than 1200 patients with short wave'; no works cited
  • c.1925-1929Unnamed Paris hospital professor, weekly records of circuit wearers Weight, blood counts and pressure; improvement stalled about eight days at full moon; no numbers printed (Secret of Life p.59)

Experiments and replications by others (21)

  • c.1870s-1900sJ.-H. Fabre, bell-glass experiments with moths Males find caged females; Fabre read it as smell; Lakhovsky departs from it (Secret of Life p.9); the attractant is now known as a pheromone
  • 1913Curie and Kamerlingh Onnes, radium at low temperature Decay unchanged; search summary only
  • 1930sRegener, Lake Constance cosmic-ray depth measurements Ionisation down to 231 m of water (arXiv 1411.6217, search summary); about 12 m of lead by Lakhovsky's own 1927 conversion, so not a contradiction of his 11 m
  • 1926Schereschewsky, Public Health Reports 41 no.37 p.1939 US Public Health Service; 8.3-135 MHz fields lethal to mice 'without substantial heating'
  • 1927-10-22A. Nodon, Les nouvelles radiations ultra-penetrantes et la cellule vivante Revue Scientifique p.609; electrometer 'radio-activity' of plants and insects, as relayed by Lakhovsky
  • 1928Schereschewsky, The action of currents of very high frequency upon tissue cells Public Health Reports 43; mouse tumour grafts destroyed, 23 percent complete remission at 67 MHz (per Roussakow); thermal view adopted 1933
  • 1928-1929Schliephake (Giessen) and Esau (Jena) short-wave experiments Milk sterilised, mice killed; Lakhovsky's stated reason for leaving single-band waves
  • 1930sRoffo, irradiated cholesterol feeding (over 55 percent tumours) No paper cited; species mice or rats depending on the book; Roffo's own word 'photo-active and luminescent'
  • 1930sRoffo, Bulletin No. 56 (photofluorescence of precancerous lesions); letter of 27 Sept 1938; 1935 Golden Book Buenos Aires Institute; Roffo said results 'could be interpreted as' compatible with oscillation
  • 1930sRivera, Table of Radiations Printed in the 1941 book p.54 (page image read); 1941 copy's 0.25 mm is a misprint for L'Universion's few millimetres
  • 1930sRoussy, Oberlin and Guerin, thorotrast in rats 11 of 17, 4 of 5; authors only
  • 1931Kotzareff, Paris MD thesis (radon colloid therapy with ultra-short waves) Calls the 1924 note 'seule et unique'; reports Lakhovsky's 40 W input power and 2-10 m waves; dogs, mice, patients
  • 1931Roffo, Ultra-short hertzian waves and cellular life In vitro tissue culture; no journal named
  • 1936-11-25S. Laborde, Medical Press Cited without title or finding
  • 1938R. Reding, The Struggle Against Cancer (Jul-Sep 1938) Cited in the 1941 book p.55
  • 1939Roffo, Nature 144:246 Irradiated-cholesterol products; page would not open; search snippet only
  • 1939-05-22Metalnikoff et al., presented by Roubaud to the Academie des Sciences Pasteur Institute; irregular bacterial growth under radon, read by Lakhovsky as confirmation
  • 1939Cook (London) and Carnegie Institute Antwerp 'confirmation' Name only in the 1941 book
  • 1941-1948Beck and Peacock 1941; Morris, Larsen and Lippincott 1943; Kirby, Br J Cancer 2:70 (1948) Did not confirm Roffo's heated-fat and heated-cholesterol stomach tumours (a different experiment)
  • 2014Engels et al., Nature 509:353-356 Robins lost magnetic-compass orientation in 2 kHz-5 MHz noise, regained when shielded, blinded; related to the pigeon reports, not a test of them
  • 2018Gran Sasso Ra-226 and K-40 decay-constant measurements (arXiv 1802.09373) Underground, cosmic flux suppressed; no time dependence at 3.5 ppm; abstract level

Later accounts and media (20)

  • 1924-08-16L'Illustration article on the geranium work Cited in the 1941 book p.55
  • 1925Vers la guerison du cancer (press article) Newspaper unnamed; quotes the 1924 note; apparatus 'under 200 francs'; reproduced on colysa.ch · hosted by a seller
  • 1926Guiberteau, Paris thesis Cited beside the 1924 note in a radon-cancer document
  • 1926-08-22Paul de Kruif, Life as a Matter of Voltage New York Times; cited by Stadler
  • 1930sAdam and Givelet, La Vie et les Ondes Source of Presner's Postma quotes
  • 1930sPostma, Leven en Golven Dutch book said to prove the theory
  • 1932German reviews and press (Wissen und Fortschritt, Funk Wacht, Koestler in Gazette de Voss) Listed in Presner's preface
  • 1932Rigaux, Cosmic Rays and Oscillating Circuits (Les ondes cosmiques et les circuits oscillants) Monograph said to hold Araujo's full report; petit-fichier.fr PDF not reached
  • 1940-10-26James Ritchie, review of The Secret of Life, Nature 146 no. 3704 Filament model 'so far removed from known facts'; Corynactis 'circuit' is a cnidocyst thread; oscillator 'apparently has worked marvellous cures'
  • 1949Mark Clement, The Waves That Heal Popular account (Health Research reprint); collar letters, animal reports, Gentile, case histories, New York tables; discrepancies with the 1941 book
  • 1950-07-13Le Haut-Parleur no. 873 French radio trade journal; calls him founder of a field and lists about 30 later workers
  • 1982K. Farrell, Hyperthermia for malignant disease: the work of Georges Lakhovsky Adv Exp Med Biol 157:9-10; not read
  • 1986-1987Journal of Borderland Research XLII and XLIII MWO material
  • 1989B. L. Reid, Medical Hypotheses 29:199-216 Names 'Lakhovsky's non-linear oscillators' in a growth-filament hypothesis; abstract
  • 1994Thomas J. Brown, The Lakhovsky MWO Handbook Borderland Sciences; text downloaded, not read · publisher with a market for MWO material
  • 2009Max Stadler, Assembling Life (Imperial College PhD) Places him beside Schereschewsky and Schliephake
  • 2010-2020USPA MWO presentation videos (2010), BAGLIS TV (2020), Integrity Research Institute PDF Not examined
  • 2013V. G. Roussakow, The History of Hyperthermia Rise and Decline Reads the 1924 note as 'mainly or entirely not temperature dependent' · author with a position in the non-thermal debate
  • 2020-09-17ncip.by biography (Belarus IP office) Born 17 Sept 1869, Ilya; died 31 Aug 1942, Adelphi Hospital, Brooklyn; 1945 institute; unsigned, no sources
  • undatedMaxwell, Consider the Lilies; Sasha Archibald, Mass Effect (Cabinet); priore-cancer.com Secondary accounts seen in search; Cabinet link did not open

Records named but not yet examined (12)

  • 1924-1926M. J. Casamajor's Paterna report and Spanish pigeon service records Valencia; title, journal and date not given
  • 19251925 Paris statistical yearbook: age-standardised mortality for all 80 quartiers; Seine figures for Thiais and Orly with populations To re-test the soil-cancer map and the Thiais (3.36) and Orly (0.36 per 1,000) pair
  • 1928-05Proceedings of the Florence radiology congress (Attilj)
  • 1929-1950Paris Registre du commerce for COLYSA; Neuchatel cantonal extract for Colysa SA Would show any line of succession
  • 1930s-1940sFDA, Post Office, AMA Bureau of Investigation and NARA files None found; nothing shown either way
  • 1931-1933Saint-Louis, Calvaire and Val-de-Grace case files with biopsies, and records of the five haemorrhage deaths
  • 1934Proceedings of the Venice Congress of Radiobiology Presner says it recognised Lakhovsky's priority
  • 1937-07Proceedings of the Vienna International Congress of Short Waves Priority claim; Lakhovsky says reports were positive and negative
  • 1941The New York hospital's own report to the New York Society of Physiotherapists
  • 1942-08-31NYC death certificate and obituaries (New York Times, Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
  • 1944-1945Henry S. Blum and Chicago corporation records; New York incorporation of the George Lakhovsky Institute of Multiple Waves
  • 2026Lumen Database notices for results removed on three Lakhovsky queries Content unknown; no inference drawn

Left out: the remaining Lakhovsky patent records not named in the review files (77 in all on Google Patents, many family copies), the roughly 30 later workers listed in Le Haut-Parleur 1950, reprints and translations of the same books, and the later editors' commentary in the Secret of Life copy. Full catalogue: Lakhovsky George sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Repeat the 1924 test on Pelargonium crown gall at 150 MHz and about 40 W: 10 or more plants per arm, randomised, blind scoring, a fibre-optic thermometer in the gall, field mapping, sham and heated-only controls. For the MWO: spectrum and near-field measurements of a patent-built unit, then a sham-controlled trial on biopsy-confirmed basal-cell carcinoma.

Deciding records: C. R. Soc. Biol. 91:626-628 (1924) and C. R. Acad. Sci. 188 (1929) via Gallica or BHL; de Cigna's Genoa 1935 and Vienna 1937 files; Venice 1934 and Vienna 1937 proceedings; Saint-Louis and Val-de-Grace files on the five deaths; Casamajor's pigeon report; Simeray's 1927 paper; the 1942 death record, 1945 institute and Blum papers.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: a 10 micrometre salt-water filament gives L 8.6e-12 H, C 1.2e-16 F, a natural frequency near 4.9 THz and Q about 4e-6, against about 50 with a copper core. By hand: 2 m is 150 MHz, and the chance that the 3 necrosing plants of 19 were exactly the 3 treated is 1/969.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter The geranium note is a real four-author communication with a stated control group. Against it: three treated plants, allocation and blinding not stated, no field, distance or temperature. Far-field heating looks small, but near-field coupling is not excluded: heating is neither shown nor excluded. arbiter.md, Claim 3
  2. Contrarian The 1924 result was not refuted and was never replicated; short-wave oncology turned thermal after Schereschewsky's 1933 retreat. That is a case of 'superseded by a competing interpretation without a decisive experiment' more than 'tested and failed'. contrarian.md, section 3
  3. Arbiter Two readings fit the five haemorrhage deaths and the record cannot separate them: treatment-induced necrosis exposing eroded vessels, which is evidence the device acted and an adverse-event signal, or the late course of advanced head-and-neck cancer. arbiter.md, QE revision, Claim 4
  4. Arbiter The soil side-predictions do not test the soil-cancer link; they show how it was used. Orly, a counter-example on the same limestone, was absorbed by an added cause (water), and rocks are classed conducting or insulating to fit their cancer figure. Weakened as evidence, not refuted. arbiter.md, QE revision, Claim 5 soil section
  5. Primer The cell-circuit model fails because an analogy was carried over without its hidden conditions: a good conductor, a signal above thermal noise, a power source. Q is about 50 for copper and 4e-6 for salt water. List a borrowed formula's assumptions and check each. primer.md, section 7

AI noteThe 1941 directions tell users to pause two to three weeks after the fourth treatment; the throat-cancer deaths Rigaux reported came after the fourth. The book never connects the two, and the arbiter reads nothing into it.

Rank 20Bearden

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 13:25

A patented solid-state magnet generator reportedly gave 1.7 to 2.6 times its input; a US examiner asked for a demonstration that never came, and no neutral lab has tested it.

Invention / theory background

Thomas E. Bearden of Huntsville, Alabama, argued in The Final Secret of Free Energy (1993, updated 1994) that electric potential is ordered energy flowing from the vacuum, so a battery could charge a collector that then powers a load free. With Stephen Patrick and three others he patented the Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (US 6,362,718, 2002; EP 1 446 862, 2013): a permanent magnet in a Metglas core whose flux is switched between two paths at 87.5 kHz.

Ranking explanation

Moved 13 to 11, above van Vlaenederen Koen and Aspden-Hearld, on criteria A to D. The Investigator found a granted European claim requiring self-powering, a USPTO demonstration request left unanswered, builders seeing excess only on nonlinear loads and a Tektronix statement against the patent's power cross-check. The supply-removed run is a cheap test nobody has done. It stays below Kilner-Walter (10). Interest is not proof: sustained self-powered output is Refuted by calculation.

Key supporting elements

  1. The patent's Fig. 8 shows COP (output over input power) measured by the patentees from about 1.7 at 10 V to about 2.6 at 75 V; they say their computed power agreed with a Tektronix THS730 scope's RMS reading.
  2. Outside builder Jean-Louis Naudin reported 'The measured COP is 1.75' (MEG v2.0, 7 Nov 2000) and, on v2.1, 6.76 W output on 3.25 W total input (2.08), adding that measurement artifacts remain possible.
  3. The European Patent Office granted EP 1 446 862 B1 in 2013 after 12 years, with claim 1 requiring output fed back to drive the switching (self-powering); no opposition was filed. A grant is not a performance test.
  4. Bearden's 2004 USPTO remarks link his vacuum theory to the MEG (magnet as broken-symmetry dipole; E = -dA/dt pulses). The device-level test this makes possible, a run with the supply removed, is on record as Never properly tested.
  5. Real physics underneath: potentials act physically (Aharonov-Bohm), Whittaker's 1903-04 decompositions are correct mathematics, his copper relaxation time of 1.5e-19 s is right, and his conditional that closed classical EM forbids overunity is Established.

Key contradictions

  1. The patent names the magnet's stored flux as the fuel and concedes demagnetisation. Its 38.7 cm^3 NdFeB magnet holds about 7-22 J (web-checked range); the claimed 82 W excess would use that in 0.09-0.27 s.
  2. A Tektronix support reply (2002, relayed by builder Jon Flickinger) calls scope 'RMS power' on non-sinusoidal waveforms 'bogus', the patent's cross-check. Flickinger saw COP 1.75-5 only with MOV loads, none with linear resistors.
  3. The US continuation 10/081,847 was rejected in 2004 as violating thermodynamics; the examiner required a model or demonstration, the applicants asked to defer it, then let the application lapse (abandoned 2005). The file does not say why.
  4. The collector scheme fails its own energy budget: charging 1 uF to 12 V takes 144 uJ from the battery but stores 72 uJ, so a load gets at most half; Bearden's trapped energy K_T equals the battery's outlay.
  5. Longitudinal vacuum waves are excluded by div E = 0 and by polarisers; matter-neutrality tests (Bressi 2011) bound any charge shift; his current split uses d/dt(phi m) = (dphi/dt)(dm/dt), a product-rule error. The 1993-94 papers report no measurement.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 33 shown)
ClaimVerdict
The MEG (US 6,362,718) delivers more power than it takes in and can run itself after start-upNever properly tested measured COP about 1.7-2.6 at 10-75 V; patentees and builders only; no calorimetry or true v(t) i(t) record either way Not testable as stated COP 3.44 at 100 V, a curve extrapolation; European text keeps it without the data Refuted by calculation sustained self-powered net output, with the magnet named as fuel Plausible, untested as an ordinary flux-switching circuit below unity; structure already in US 4,006,401
Closed classical EM cannot give overunity, so real devices must tap a hidden vacuum sourceEstablished the conditional (Poynting's theorem) Not testable as stated hidden source in general, and the 2004 broken-symmetry / E = -dA/dt mechanism Never properly tested the MEG supply-removed run as the test of a vacuum source; Floyd Sweet's vacuum triode Not testable as stated charged capacitor across a magnet as a 'free energy generator' (2002)
A battery that only charges a collector, which is then switched to a separate load, is never depleted and could run a car or a gridRefuted by calculation strong form; COP at most 0.5 per cycle Internally inconsistent 'current-free' charging via relaxation time; 1 ms implies an insulator Plausible, untested lower-loss step charging; efficiency N/(N+1), never above 1
Energy and potential are the same thing, and each scalar potential holds infinite energy exchanged with the universe (Whittaker/Ziolkowski)Established Whittaker/Ziolkowski decomposition as mathematics, no energy content Internally inconsistent energy = potential (J versus J/C) Refuted by calculation infinite energy read as stored field energy Not testable as stated infinite energy read as a vacuum reservoir
No force fields exist in vacuum; vacuum EM waves are longitudinal; electron charge varies with ambient potentialTested, not supported longitudinal waves and potential-dependent charge, by existing experiments Refuted by calculation div E = 0 forces transverse vacuum waves Internally inconsistent product-rule step d/dt(phi m) Not testable as stated EM wave as oscillating rate of time flow; photon pairs to gravitons
Maxwell's original quaternion theory held the gravity-EM unification that Heaviside's vector version removedTested, not supported historical record; Maxwell's own 1865 gravity attempt failed Historically superseded but instructive quaternion to vector notation
Fogal charge-blocking semiconductor plus step-up transformer gives very high power gain and runs itself as a 'negative resistor' (13 May 1994)Never properly tested reported gain; no data of any kind Not testable as stated gain in meter form Refuted by calculation closed-loop self-powered form Internally inconsistent dphi/dt current decomposition
Operational efficiency alpha (load power over power lost inside the source) above 1 means overunity; conventional circuits are always below 1 (15 Feb 1994)Established alpha above 1, as ordinary and not overunity Refuted by calculation 'conventional alpha always under unity' Not testable as stated efficiency above unity via vacuum influx Internally inconsistent 'local conservation does not apply to open systems' against his own global-conservation claim

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Thomas E. BeardenThe inventor reviewed: author of The Final Secret of Free Energy (1993) and its 1994 updates, co-inventor of the MEG and spokesman for Magnetic Energy Ltd · Co-inventor and spokesman for the company developing the MEGWrote from A.D.A.S., P.O. Box 1472, Huntsville, Alabama (1993); says the principle took him some 30 years to discover. Filed a declaration with the USPTO in 2004; co-author of the 2001 Evans et al. MEG paper; announced Energy from the Vacuum (2002). Education and career are not in the review files.
Stephen L. PatrickFirst-named inventor of US 6,362,718 and of the continuation and European patent · Co-inventor of the patented deviceListed with Huntsville, Alabama on the patent and as first inventor on continuation 10/081,847. Not otherwise in the review files.
James C. Hayes, Kenneth D. Moore and James L. KennyCo-inventors of US 6,362,718 and EP 1 446 862 · Co-inventors of the patented deviceNot in the review files beyond their names on the patents, all in Huntsville, Alabama.
Jean-Louis NaudinBuilt MEG v2.0 (COP 1.75, Nov 2000) and v2.1; the main outside replication on recordIndependent private builder (JLN Labs). Reported coil failure from sparks above 3 kV, an unsuccessful attempt to close the loop, apparent output above the heat in the load, and that artifacts remain possible; did not have the inventors' original diagrams. Other details not in the review files.
Jon FlickingerIndependent MEG builder; found excess only with nonlinear MOV loads and relayed the Tektronix statement on scope 'RMS power'Author of 'The MEG Notes' on Naudin's site; posted to the MEG_builders list. Other details not in the review files.
Shawn RileyUSPTO primary examiner who rejected continuation 10/081,847 on thermodynamic grounds and required a model or demonstration (2004) · Agency examiner; the rejection is the USPTO's characterizationArt unit 2838. Not otherwise in the review files.
Floyd SweetInventor of the vacuum triode amplifier (VTA), which Bearden cites as his Method 1 overunity deviceReported in Sweet's and Bearden's accounts to have claimed about 330 microwatts in giving over 500 W out; never had the device independently tested and kept his magnet-conditioning process secret; Bearden says Sweet feared for his life. Other details not in the review files.
William J. FogalMaker of the 'charge blocking semiconductor' Bearden places at the heart of his self-powered 'negative resistor' (13 May 1994) · Inventor of the deviceHolds US 5,196,809 (filed 1991) and US 5,430,413 (granted 1995) for a high-gain transistor with an electrolytic capacitor at the emitter; his patents claim higher gain, not power above input or vacuum energy. Other details not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (100 of 100 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (12)

  • 1993-02-09The Final Secret of Free Energy (slightly revised 23 Mar 1993) T. E. Bearden, A.D.A.S., Huntsville AL. PDF pp. 1-27 of the project bundle, read in full: energy defined as an ordering of the vacuum's virtual photon flux, Whittaker/Ziolkowski wave pairs, two-cycle collector scheme, pseudo-equations [1]-[8], footnote 25. No measurements. Also printed in Magnets 7(5) and Explore! 4(3/4) per its Ref 1. A byte-identical duplicate PDF is in the folder.
  • 1993-03-12Additional Comments (appendix to The Final Secret of Free Energy) PDF pp. 25-27, read in full. Closed classical EM cannot be overunity; Method 1 (nucleus as pumped phase-conjugate mirror, Sweet's vacuum triode), Method 2 (collector), released freely 'so it cannot be suppressed'.
  • 1994-02-15Additional Information on the Final Secret of Free Energy (Update) PDF pp. 28-41, deep read with page images p.29 and p.31. Contents list says 5 Feb, heading 15 Feb. Operational efficiency alpha, 'suicide circuit', step-charged capacitor collector in 'several hundred' steps, 98% Al / 2% Fe collector alloy, 25,000-component MOSFET. No measurement.
  • 1994-05-13Practical Overunity Electrical Devices PDF pp. 42-49, a cheniere.org printout, deep read. Charge split into massless charge and mass (product-rule error), rigidized capacitors, SQUID argument, Fogal charge-blocking semiconductor in Figs. 1-2 (drawings not read). No measurement.
  • 2000-12-02Bearden e-mail on MEG builds and an arranged independent test billstclair.com mirror of cheniere.org/correspondence/120200.htm, opened by the arbiter. Magnetic Energy Ltd builds at 'COP = 17 to 20', one pushed 'to destruction of the output coil' at 'COP>100'; university replication 'under U.S. Department of Defense auspices' arranged, names withheld; Naudin builds at COP 1.3 and 7.3. No waveforms or input/output values. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2001-04-11cheniere.org MEG status page rootaction.net mirror. Magnetic Energy Ltd 'a private company and in business', 'in intense negotiations with several large financial enterprises' for capitalization. No COP measurement. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2001M. W. Evans, T. E. Bearden et al., Explanation of the Motionless Electromagnetic Generator with O(3) Electrodynamics Found. Phys. Lett. 14(1); doi 10.1023/A:1012085429802 (Springer login wall). Takes COP above 1 as given; a theory paper, not a test. Naudin's index lists Bearden among 15 AIAS authors, so it is a co-inventor's own account. · Co-authored by a co-inventor
  • 2001-07-04Bearden message about the Evans review Listed on Naudin's MEG index page; not opened. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2001-10-30Bearden, 'MEG patent status, manufacturing update' Listed on Naudin's MEG index page and in cheniere correspondence; not opened. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2002-08-15Bearden letter on the state of Magnetic Energy Ltd billstclair.com mirror of cheniere.org/correspondence/081502.htm (cheniere.org itself no longer serves the page). 'successful little experimental devices'; $9 million a year for three years sought; demonstrations only to prospective financiers; planned 2.5 kW and 10 kW units; 10% of sales in poor countries for wells, schools and clinics; 'vertical cliff' of scale-up funding; P.S. calls a charged capacitor across a magnet a 'proven free energy generator'. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2002Energy from the Vacuum: Concepts and Principles (book) Announced in the 15 Aug 2002 letter as 'nearly 1,000 pages'. Not read.
  • c.2003Bearden paper on pdfcoffee giving Magnetic Energy Ltd, P.O. Box 1472, Huntsville AL 35807 Seen in Google results; cites Ritson, Nature 421 (2003). Not opened ('Solving the Energy Crisis' on pdfcoffee, not reached). · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company

Patents and patent office (12)

  • 1994Patent application on two electrical overunity processes (collector and step-charged capacitor) Stated as filed in the 15 Feb 1994 update (p.28). No number, date, country or office given; nothing links it to US 6,362,718.
  • 2002-03-26US 6,362,718 B1, Motionless Electromagnetic Generator S. L. Patrick, T. E. Bearden, J. C. Hayes, K. D. Moore, J. L. Kenny, Huntsville AL; filed 6 Sep 2000 (09/656,313); attorney Norman Friedland. Deep read pp. 7-15 and figure sheets as images: 10-75 V data, Figs. 6-8, p.12 'magnet is the fuel' passage, claims 1-29 (11.5 ms slip in claims 5 and 17). NdFeB magnet 40 x 25.4 x 38.1 mm, Metglas 2605SA1 core. Legal events on Google Patents: lapsed for the 4-year fee and reinstated 2006; 8-year fee paid late 2010; 12-year fee paid 2013; expired 2020; cited by 76 later patents (not examined). · Patent holders
  • 2002-02-26US continuation 10/081,847, 'Power generation within a motionless electromagnetic generator' Same specification (page 2 missing per the examiner), 14 claims; published US 2004/0057255 A1. Full file wrapper (31 documents) on archive.org, uploaded 2014 from USPTO bulk data. · Patent applicants
  • 2004-01-23USPTO non-final rejection of 10/081,847 (examiner Shawn Riley) All 14 claims rejected under 35 USC 101 as violating the first and second laws, under 112 and for double patenting over claims 1-29 of the parent; drawings and the 'perpetual motion' title objected to; model or demonstration required, citing Newman v. Quigg. Read on archive.org (OCR). · USPTO examiner (agency)
  • 2004-05-24Applicants' remarks in reply (10/081,847) Asks that the demonstration requirement 'be held in abeyance'. Sets out the MEG mechanism: magnet as broken-symmetry dipole absorbing vacuum energy (Lee and Yang 1957), Prigogine, Whittaker flows, Aharonov-Bohm localisation and E = -dA/dt pulses, heat-pump COP (9.22 maximum, Halliday and Resnick), COP 5 feedback example, Kron's negative resistor, GR non-conservation, Dirac-sea negative energy and Bedini, 'time-energy' E = tc^2. First 50,000 of 85,447 characters read. · Patent applicants
  • 2004-05-24Bearden's declaration filed with the reply (10/081,847) In the archive.org item list; not read. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 2004-07-26USPTO final rejection of 10/081,847 Remarks 'not deemed persuasive'; refers to Fig. 8 and the THS730 sentence; windmill argument that COP is below 1; 'Request for a model/demonstration has not been held in abeyance.' Read on archive.org. · USPTO examiner (agency)
  • 2005-05-16Abandonment of 10/081,847 PlainSite docket: 'Abandoned -- Failure to Respond to an Office Action'; no appeal in the item list. The notice itself was not read.
  • 2001-11-06PCT application and family members (WO, KR, CN, IL, JP) Listed on Google Patents for EP 1 446 862; WO, KR and CN shown struck through. Status and numbers of each not checked. · Patent applicants
  • 2001-11-06European Patent Register file EP01988155 (92 documents, 2001-2014) Timeline read from the document list: claims filed 2004; description pages and drawing sheets replaced 15.06.2005; deemed withdrawn 2009 and 2012, both cured; intention to grant 2012; consultation 2013; no opposition. Applicants: the five inventors as individuals. · Patent applicants
  • 2006-09-18EPO Examining Division communication and annex Pages 1-3 of 5 read: novelty objection that US 4,006,401 'discloses a motionless electromagnetic generator having the same structure', the only difference being power for the coils taken from the output rather than an AC source; inventive step over US 4,883,977 with FR 2,312,135 or US 2,866,943; clarity objections. · EPO examiner (agency)
  • 2013-10-23EP 1 446 862 B1, granted European patent 19 claims; claim 1 requires switching without core saturation and feedback of output power to the switching circuit (self-powering). The granted description keeps the 3.44 extrapolation and the demagnetisation paragraphs but lacks the COP-versus-voltage plot and the 'all COP greater than 1' sentences. Expired 2021. Read on Google Patents. · Patent holders

Court and state records (2)

  • 1988Newman v. Quigg Court case cited by the USPTO examiner (2004) for requiring a demonstration of an energy device. Not read.
  • 2026-10-05Alabama Secretary of State business-entity search for 'Magnetic Energy' Form search, all types and statuses: only an unrelated non-profit. No Alabama registration found, although the 2006 USPTO assignment names 'Magnetic Energy, Ltd., Alabama'. A single name search.

Company and business records (4)

  • 2006-05-30Nunc pro tunc assignment of US 6,362,718 from the inventors to Magnetic Energy, Ltd. (Alabama) Reel/frame 017706/0167, recorded 2006-06-01; corrective assignment fixing the name 'Magenetic', 017746/0237, recorded 2006-06-08. Seen as legal events on Google Patents; documents not obtained.
  • 2006-05-23Security agreement: Magnetic Energy, Ltd. to Colmac Holdings Limited, Canada Reel/frame 017759/0537, recorded 2006-06-12. The only financing record found; secured amount, Colmac's identity and any release unknown. USPTO legacy assignment site returned an error.
  • –Business-directory listings for Magnetic Energy Ltd, Huntsville Manta ('Noncommercial research organizations') and ChamberofCommerce.com; seen in Google results, not opened. Directory traces, not registration records.
  • –Facebook page 'Magnetic Energy Ltd (@MagneticEngergyLtd)' Describes MEG technology; seen in Google results, not opened. · Company page

Witness accounts and correspondence (5)

  • –ZPEnergy, 'Letter to JLN Laboratories' An AIAS writer offers to work 'with your company and Magnetic Energy Ltd. to develop the MEG commercially'. Seen in Google results, not opened; bears on the AIAS group's commercial interest.
  • c.2001Account of the university/DoD replication ending over a non-circumvention agreement Two search summaries: the scientists 'observed the MEG in operation' and wanted to replicate it, but 'the university's administration refused to sign a noncircumvention agreement, and consequently the process was stopped'. Underlying page (apparently Bearden's) not identified. · Co-inventor and spokesman for the developing company
  • 1997Tektronix application note on power measurement Quoted in the 2002 support reply: Vrms x Irms x cos(theta) is valid only for pure sinusoids; 'THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS RMS WATTS'. Not read directly.
  • 2002Tektronix customer-support reply on scope 'RMS power', forwarded by Jon Flickinger Posted by Naudin 05-10-02 (jnaudin.free.fr/meg/ths720p.htm): 'the RMS measurement on a math waveform is bogus and has no value'; true power is the mean of v(t) i(t). The patent says its power agreed with RMS power on a THS730. One support reply relayed by a builder.
  • 2021-01-01A. Craddock, 'Twenty years after Tom Bearden's MEG' (ZPEnergy) zpenergy.com News sid=3918, opened by the arbiter. Reproduces Bearden's 2000 statements (COP 17-20; university/DoD test 'being arranged') and records no later test or product.

Experiments and replications by others (6)

  • 2000-11-07J. L. Naudin, MEG v2.0 replication novakcorp.com megv2.htm, opened by the arbiter: 'The measured COP is 1.75' (Test Run 1); output coils broken by sparks above 3 kV (16 Nov 2000); 'I am trying to close the loop ... the device stops after a while'. No input or output watts or instruments named on the page.
  • 2000-12-06J. L. Naudin, MEG v2.1 status (page updated 2002-05-10) jnaudin.free.fr/meg/megv21.htm: ferrite magnets, Metglas C-cores, TL494/BUZ11 driver at 16-20 kHz, 10 ohm shunt, Tektronix THS720P. 3.25 W total input against 6.76 W measured output (2.08); nonlinear load required; apparent power above load heat; 'measurement artifacts remain possible'; calorimetry and loop closure not done.
  • –Naudin's later builds (COP 1.3 and 7.3 per Bearden), v3.0 and v4.0 cross-flux (meg4cf.htm) Reported by Bearden (2 Dec 2000); Naudin's own pages not opened. Whether he ever did calorimetry or closed the loop is unknown.
  • –Jon Flickinger, 'The MEG Notes' jnaudin.free.fr/meg/megnot01.htm, undated. Independent builder: no excess with linear resistive loads; COP 1.75 to 5 only with MOV loads (Panasonic ZNR10K621U); 'If anyone should experience valid COP's >1 with standard linear loads, please speak out!'
  • –Cyril Smith and Dave Squires analyses of the MEG Listed on Naudin's MEG index; not opened.
  • 2011G. Bressi et al., Testing the neutrality of matter by acoustic means in a spherical resonator Phys. Rev. A 83, 052101; arXiv 1102.2766. Electron-proton charge difference below about 1e-21 e. Bears on 'charge varies with ambient potential'.

Related work by others (22)

  • 1865J. C. Maxwell, A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, section 82 (gravity) Found gravitational field energy would be negative and could 'not go any further'. Known via the Royal Society commentary; text at bem.fi not opened.
  • 1897G. J. Stoney, Phil. Mag. 5(43) 368-373 Cited by Bearden as part of the 'Stoney-Whittaker-Ziolkowski' decomposition. Not read.
  • 1903E. T. Whittaker, Math. Annalen 57, 333-355 Solutions of Laplace's equation as plane waves in complex directions; checked via arXiv 2205.08309. Real mathematics with no energy content.
  • 1904E. T. Whittaker, Proc. London Math. Soc. 1, 367-372 Field expressed by two scalar potentials; Bearden's footnote 2. Not read.
  • 1957T. D. Lee and C. N. Yang, broken symmetry (parity) Cited in the 2004 USPTO remarks for the magnet as a broken-symmetry dipole absorbing vacuum energy. Not read.
  • 1959Y. Aharonov and D. Bohm, Significance of electromagnetic potentials in the quantum theory Phys. Rev. 115, 485. Cited by Bearden; reviewers count the physical role of potentials in his favour, as a quantum-phase effect with no classical energy channel.
  • –G. Kron, the 'negative resistor' Cited in the 2004 USPTO remarks and in the 1994 papers' language. Not read.
  • 1983Calkin and Kiang, capacitor charging (Am. J. Phys.) Cited by Bearden for charging 'almost without entropy'; reviewers say it concerns ordinary low-loss charging. Not read.
  • 1984Gupta, Shanker and Sharma, capacitor charging (Am. J. Phys.) Same use. Not read.
  • 1985R. W. Ziolkowski, localized-wave solutions, J. Math. Phys. 26, 861 Cited for the wave-pair structure; these concern focused pulses, not a static potential. Not read.
  • 1986Heinrich, capacitor charging (Am. J. Phys.) Same use as Calkin and Kiang. Not read.
  • 1989R. W. Ziolkowski, Phys. Rev. A 39, 2005 Localized transmission of EM energy; cited by Bearden. Not read.
  • 1989H. E. Puthoff, Source of Vacuum Electromagnetic Zero-point Energy Phys. Rev. A 40(9) 4857-4862; cited by Bearden. Not read.
  • 1991J. E. Tippett and R. W. Ziolkowski, J. Math. Phys. 32(2) 488 Cited among the decomposition papers. Not read.
  • 1991T. W. Barrett, quaternion Tesla oscillator-shuttle-circuit paper Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie 16(1) 23-41; cited for storage of potentials in circuits. Not read.
  • 1992Fundaun, Reese and Soonpaa, capacitor charging (Am. J. Phys.) Bearden's lead support for step charging; arbiter's web check failed. Not read.
  • 1993C. W. Hsue, A DC Voltage is Equivalent to Two Traveling Waves on a Lossless, Nonuniform Transmission Line IEEE Microwave and Guided Wave Letters 3, 82-84; cited for 'a DC potential is a bidirectional flow'. Not read.
  • 1993D. C. Cole and H. E. Puthoff, Extracting Energy and Heat from the Vacuum Phys. Rev. E 48(2) 1562-1565; cited by Bearden. Not read.
  • –The Testatika (Swiss electrostatic device) Named in the 1993 Foreword as an overunity device. Nothing further in the review files.
  • 1991W. J. Fogal, US 5,196,809 (filed 1 Mar 1991) and US 5,430,413 (granted 4 Jul 1995), high-gain transistor Emitter tied to ground through an electrolytic capacitor; claims at least twice the gain; no claim of power above input or of vacuum energy. Fetched summary of US 5,430,413. · Inventor's own patents
  • –rexresearch compilation of Fogal articles and patents Exists per the arbiter; not opened.
  • 2003Ritson, Nature 421, 575 Cited in a Bearden paper on pdfcoffee; not opened.

Related patents and prior art (14)

  • 1957Starr, US 2,802,170 Flux-switching patent on Naudin's list of related devices. Not read.
  • –US 2,866,943 EPO prior-art citation D6 (2006 annex). Not read.
  • 1963Toffolo, US 3,087,108 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • 1968Garron, US 3,368,141 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • 1975Galley, FR 2,312,135, 'Dispositif statique generateur de courant electrique' EPO citation D4 and on Naudin's list: an earlier static flux-switching generator. Not read.
  • 1977deRivas, US 4,006,401 EPO citation E1: same structure as the MEG claims, coils driven by an AC source. Not read.
  • 1978Richardson, US 4,077,001 EPO citation E2 and on Naudin's list. Not read.
  • –Kunel, DE 3024814 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • –Volkrodt, DE 3501076 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • –Bramanti, US 4,675,615 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • –US 4,883,977 EPO citation D2: electromagnet in place of a permanent magnet. Not read.
  • –Boday, CA 2172240 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • –Keiichiro, US 5,926,083 On Naudin's list. Not read.
  • 2000Flynn, WO 00/07285 (Parallel Path Technology, Magnetic Revolutions) Listed by the Investigator and Naudin as closely related flux-switching work. Not read.

Later accounts and media (10)

  • –amasci.com, Sweet's vacuum triode amplifier page Sweet's claims, no independent certification, magnet-conditioning secret. Search summary only. · Archive of Sweet's and Bearden's accounts
  • –rexresearch.com, Sweet 'nothing' page About 330 microwatts in, over 500 W out claimed; Bearden's account that Sweet feared for his life. Search summary only. · Archive of Sweet's and Bearden's accounts
  • –Bork, on Maxwell's use of quaternions kirkmcd.princeton.edu bork_76.pdf: Maxwell wrote some equations in quaternion form but did not calculate with them. Search summary only.
  • –Bishop, 'In Disdain of Garbage Physics', and Cyril Smith's 2003 critique of it Listed on Naudin's site; not opened.
  • 2003-02arXiv physics/0302016, critique of the AIAS (Evans group) literature Noted by the mathematician, title only.
  • 2007-11arXiv 0711.4636, history of the neutrality-of-matter bound Physicist's source for the 1e-21 e bound.
  • 2008-01arXiv 0801.4182, charge relaxation times Copper 1.53e-19 s, fused quartz about 51 days; Bearden's numbers right in order of magnitude.
  • 2015Royal Society commentary on Maxwell's 1865 paper Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 373, 20140473. Arbiter's source that Maxwell had no gravity-EM unification; search summary.
  • 2022-05arXiv 2205.08309, Whittaker's 1903 plane-wave representation explained Mathematician's and primer's source for Whittaker 1903.
  • –Maxwell's quaternions vs Heaviside's vector calculus (Medium article) Secondary web source: forms equivalent for classical EM.

Records named but not yet examined (13)

  • c.2000The MEG inventors' raw data Simultaneous v(t) and i(t), logic-supply current, load values, magnet strength before and after. The patent shows only Figs. 6-8 and does not say whether the logic supply is in the input.
  • –A neutral laboratory test of a MEG built to the patent, including a supply-removed run None found by any reviewer or the Investigator.
  • 2000-09-06Parent file wrapper, US application 09/656,313 archive.org: 'Item cannot be found'; USPTO Patent Center not tried. Would show whether the parent's examiner raised utility or asked for a demonstration.
  • 2007-03-19EPO file: applicants' replies 2007 and 2009, 2008 annex, 2006 annex pp.4-5, 2013 consultation minutes Public on the European Patent Register; viewer stalled. How the applicants defended COP above 1 in Europe, and why the COP plot left the text.
  • –Colmac Holdings Limited corporate record, and any release of the 2006 security agreement Corporations Canada and USPTO Assignment Center not reached.
  • –Magnetic Energy Ltd registration and dissolution record Not in Alabama; other states and countries not searched.
  • c.2001Measurement reports from investor demonstrations, and the identity of the university and DoD programme Bearden says financiers' technical representatives 'do their own measurements'; none has surfaced.
  • –Sweet's VTA device and magnet-conditioning process Withheld by the inventor; not available.
  • –Fogal charge-blocking semiconductor as used in Bearden's Figs. 1-2: structure, ratings, any overunity measurement Fogal's transistor patents exist; no overunity measurement found.
  • 1873Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism Not checked for any gravity-EM suggestion.
  • –Source of the SQUID measurement of the field between charging capacitor plates Cited by Bearden (p.44) with no reference.
  • 1994Bearden's promised follow-up paper or book ('in 60 to 90 days') and proof-of-principle circuits Promised on p.28 of the 15 Feb 1994 update.
  • c.1993Bearden's paper on biological harm from rising EM signal density and a cancer mechanism Referred to on pp.10-11 of the 1993 paper; not identified.

Left out: the byte-identical duplicate PDF, textbooks and general references cited only for argument (Griffiths, Feynman, Halliday and Resnick, Hilbert 1917, Logunov, Kondepudi and Prigogine and others), the 76 later patents citing US 6,362,718 (not examined), an unrelated Bedini patent found by a wrong guess, and earlier AI-written analyses. Full catalogue: Bearden sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A neutral lab builds a MEG to the patent, logs v(t) and i(t) together at the supply (logic supply included) and each output coil, integrates v times i, and calorimeters a linear then a MOV load; then runs EP claim 1's self-powered loop, supply removed, for hours, checking magnet flux before and after.

Deciding records: Bearden's 2004 declaration and the rest of the remarks; the parent file 09/656,313; the EPO 2007 and 2009 replies, 2008 annex and 2013 minutes; the Colmac security agreement (reel/frame 017759/0537) and any release; investor-demonstration measurement reports; the university and DoD programme named in 2000; Naudin's later build pages; the inventors' raw waveforms.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: the collector spends 144 uJ to store 72 uJ; step charging approaches but never exceeds efficiency 1; Part F shows Vrms x Irms overstating true power with harmonics, Naudin's 2.08 on total input, and the self-powering condition f x c at least 1. By hand: how long do 7-22 J last at 82 W?

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Two descriptions of one fuel, both by the patentees: the 2000 patent names the magnet's flux and concedes demagnetisation; the 2004 remarks name the vacuum. The energy-budget refutation addresses the first; the untested supply-removed run addresses the second. Neither has a measurement behind it. arbiter.md, Investigator findings, Where they differ, item 4
  2. Arbiter The physicist would rate the strong form Tested, not supported at an informal level; the arbiter keeps Never properly tested, because the scale requires controlled experiments and the builder reports are uncontrolled. Flickinger's linear-load null is stated in full as evidence against excess. arbiter.md, Investigator findings, Where they differ, item 1
  3. Mathematician With open-loop COP c and a fed-back fraction f, running on its own needs f c at least 1; at f = 0.5 that needs c at least 2, which the patent's 1.7-2.6 straddles. The supply-removed run is the one test independent of instrument method: it runs or it stops. mathematician.md, Investigator findings; arbiter.md item 9
  4. Contrarian Bearden is right that potentials are physically fundamental in quantum mechanics, that closed classical EM forbids overunity, and that the MEG is a concrete, cheap-to-test device never tested in public by a neutral lab. Against him: no data, mixed units, conflict with polarisation and charge experiments. contrarian.md, Fair case for the proponent
  5. Investigator The USPTO continuation holds the only official demonstration request found, and it went unanswered; the EPO found the MEG structure already in US 4,006,401 (1977), its novelty being only the self-powering feedback, which is also the one feature never demonstrated. sites.md, Leads for review; research/2026-10-05-epo-register.md

AI noteThe granted European text keeps the extrapolated COP 3.44 but drops the measured COP plot and the 'all COP greater than 1' sentences; pages were replaced in 2005. Why is in EPO papers nobody has read.

Rank 21Linerman-Peter

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-06 18:24

A tabloid-famous 1973 battery-and-capacitor motor, a 1974 DA raid, three patents and a disputed death: Lindemann reads it as Tesla's radiant energy, but nobody ever metered it.

Invention / theory background

Peter A. Lindemann (born 1951; honorary D.Sc. in complementary medicine; Borderland Sciences vice president 1987-99; Clear Tech co-founder) published The Free Energy Secrets of Cold Electricity (2000) and The World of Free Energy (2001). He argues that Edwin V. Gray's capacitor-discharge motor (1973) and spark-gap conversion tube (patents 1986-87) released Tesla's ether-borne radiant energy, that seven families of free-energy devices are proven, and that they are withheld.

Ranking explanation

Rank 13 on criteria A, B and D. Below Bearden (12), whose MEG has patent-office records and a cheap supply-removed test; here every device figure is an advocate's assertion. Above van Vlaenderen (14), a theory with no experiments or reception history: Gray's story has witnessed 1973 demonstrations, a raid and prosecution, an unseen Crosby test report and records that go dark. Interest is not proof: net gain as a closed ledger is Refuted by calculation.

Key supporting elements

  1. Gray's patents are real: US 3,890,548 (1975), 4,595,975 (1986) and 4,661,747 (1987), with Canadian, Japanese and Greek filings; the motor geometry is internally consistent (27 firings of 13 1/3 degrees).
  2. 1973 demonstrations (Tattler): a hurled 1.25 lb magnet caught by Hackenberger; six bulbs, a TV and two radios on a motorcycle battery; McCulloch Oil's C. V. Wood Jr. looked for hidden outlets. A sympathetic reporter; voltmeter only.
  3. Crosby Research Institute's J. A. Maize, testing for investor Pan World, reported 7,460 W into a dynamometer on 26.8 W of battery draw (Tattler 1973): the only numerical test claim; no report found yet.
  4. AP 1975 confirms the July 1974 raid; the DA said it was 'hard to find investors willing to press charges', as Lindemann says. An anonymous friend (2000) reports a 12-hour run ending with more battery charge.
  5. Lindemann's critique of Gray's FIG.1 holds on page images (#42 shorted, #28 grid floating, #36 no coil), and he is right that Gray's 'peak apparent power' explanation is not an energy gain.

Key contradictions

  1. Gray's own patents and 1980 application claim only partial back-e.m.f. recovery with a continuing battery supply, 'on theory', with no figures; the radiant-energy and 100:1 readings are Lindemann's alone.
  2. TRW staff scientist Donald Cronin watched a test about mid-1974: 'It ran for about 10 seconds and then everything blew'; a Japanese team then packed up and left (AP 1975; one wire story, no second source yet).
  3. The Crosby figures do not close: 7,460 W on 26.8 W is 278:1, not 'efficiency exceeding 99%'; energy is given in 'watts per hour'; the 203 hours is projected from a 21-minute run.
  4. Lindemann writes that a motor built to the patent's principles 'doesn't perform anything like what was described' (no build details), and his '99% lost in the voltage drop' is wrong: arc loss is 2Va/V0, a few percent.
  5. Tesla's own patents do not say it: 685,958 credits charged particles from the sun, not ether; 787,412 gives a finite 'mean velocity' of 471,240 km/s (about pi/2 times c), not instantaneous propagation.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 30 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Gray's motor and tube recover part of the coil energy into a second battery (what the patents claim)Established the recovery mechanism Plausible, untested the motor as an efficient, useful machine
Gray's devices give net energy gain (1973 demonstrations, Crosby test, 32-day run, Lindemann's 100:1)Never properly tested private tests only, none neutral or instrumented; not dismissed without testing Refuted by calculation as a closed-ledger net gain
Gray's 'cold electricity' is Tesla's radiant energy, an Electro-Radiant Event drawn from the etherNot testable as stated no measurable definition
Radiant energy propagates instantaneously, outside Maxwell's equationsTested, not supported signal timing matches c Not testable as stated 'Light Ether' vocabulary
Gains of 100:1 (Gray) and 1000:1 (Methernitha Testatika)Never properly tested no protocol; Testatika closed to measurement Refuted by calculation as net energy gain
Seven free-energy families 'proven beyond all reasonable doubt' (samples)Never properly tested Bearden MEG, by a neutral test Tested, not supported Meyer electrolysis (1996 court experts) Refuted by calculation 350 hp solar heat pump Contested cold fusion
The laws of thermodynamics are not universal; Tesla's self-acting engineTested, not supported strong form Internally inconsistent Lindemann's text Refuted by calculation engine on ambient heat alone
Gray's venture was raided and prosecuted, and suppressed; he died under mysterious circumstancesEstablished patents, 1974 raid, 12 counts filed 1975 Never properly tested suppression as the cause; circumstances of death

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Peter A. LindemannAuthor reviewed: proposes that Gray's cold electricity is Tesla's radiant energy · Sells the book; co-founder of Clear Tech, Inc.; runs free-energy.ccBorn Milwaukee 1951; left Iowa State engineering in 1970 for self-directed study; honorary D.Sc. in complementary medicine (Open International University of Alternative Medicine, Colombo, 1999-2000); co-founded Unifield Dynamics (1983); Borderland Sciences vice president 1987-99, which published his 1994-95 articles (per a society wiki).
Edwin V. GrayInventor of the EMA motor and conversion switching tube; the subject of the book · Founder of EVGray Enterprises, which sold shares to about 800 investorsBorn 8 January 1925 in Washington DC (contents page says 1923); Army and Navy service and later a mechanic (Lindemann's biography); patents 1975, 1986, 1987; died 20 April 1990 in Sparks NV per a VA record (Lindemann says 1989, an anonymous informant 1993).
Tom ValentineReporter who wrote the 1973-74 National Tattler articles and the 1977 NewsReal piece · Advocate press that championed GrayNot in the review files beyond his articles; the March 1974 Tattler says a DA investigator threatened him with arrest.
Richard B. HackenbergerWitness at the 1973 demonstrations: 'only 1% of the energy was used - 99% went back into the battery' · Gray's Vice President of EngineeringFormerly with Sony, Sylvania and the US Navy, according to the Tattler.
J. A. MaizeCrosby Research Institute engineering director, Beverly Hills; reported the 1972 dynamometer test · Test commissioned by investor Pan World Enterprises (Japan)Not in the review files beyond the Tattler's report.
Donald CroninWitness to a failed test about mid-1974 ('then everything blew')Staff scientist at TRW Systems, Inc. (AP 1975); otherwise not in the review files.
Mitchell HarrisDeputy District Attorney quoted on the raid, the charges and reluctant investors · ProsecutorLos Angeles County District Attorney's office (AP 1975); otherwise not in the review files.
Gerry VassilatosAuthor of the 'Rosetta Stone' chapter on Tesla's 1889-92 impulse work that Lindemann builds on · Author-publisher of a book arguing the same thesisWrote Secrets of Cold War Technology: Project HAARP and Beyond (1996); otherwise not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (86 of 102 listed, 84%)

Own works and inventions (11)

  • 1986A History of Free Energy Discoveries Lindemann's earlier book; listed in the Chappell wiki biography; not in the folder · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1987Free Energy Research: Peter Lindemann and Eric Dollard (video) 1987 video posted by Eric Dollard; found in a Google result, not viewed · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1988Tesla's Longitudinal Electricity (video) Lindemann video listed in the wiki biography; not viewed · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1994Thermodynamics and Free Energy Journal of Borderland Sciences Research, Q3 1994; reprinted in the book pp.141-148; Constable 100,000:1, DePalma, Tewari hydrogen; deep-read · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1995Tesla's Self-Acting Engine Journal of Borderland Sciences Research, Q3 1995; book pp.149-152; Doczekal, Schaeffer/Serogodski, Wiseman; deep-read · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1996Thermodynamics (article) Listed in the wiki biography; not read · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 2000-10The Free Energy Secrets of Cold Electricity Clear Tech, Inc., Metaline Falls WA; 156 pp., 81 OCR; chapters 1-4 and reprints all deep-read except pp.153-156; Fig. 34 probable schematic signed August 2000; 2015 Lulu reprint and web copies are the same work · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 2000-09-12Lecture: The Free Energy Secrets of Cold Electricity Irvine, California (Tesla Tech circuit); also sold as a VHS; known through Ken Adachi's 2003 write-up · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 2001-03-01The World of Free Energy (essay) 8 pp.; seven device families, Four Forces, eight US patent numbers, con-man warning; deep-read · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 2006Radiant Energy and Its Role in Our Free Energy Future (video) Listed in the wiki biography; not viewed · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • c.2000sBedini SG handbooks and Electric Motor Secrets Co-authored with Aaron Murakami and John Bedini; apply the radiant-energy idea to battery chargers; Google results only · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)

Patents and patent office (23)

  • 1897-11-02Tesla US 593,138, Electrical Transformer Reprinted book pp.125-128; 185,000 miles per second worked example; deep-read
  • 1901-11-05Tesla US 685,957, Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy On Lindemann's essay list; Google Patents summary checked by the arbiter: radiation charging an insulated plate
  • 1901-11-05Tesla US 685,958, Method of Utilizing Radiant Energy Book pp.129-133; charging credited to charged particles from the sun, not ether; deep-read
  • 1905-04-18Tesla US 787,412, Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Medium Book pp.134-139; 'mean velocity of about 471,240 km/s', checked on page image p.136 and Google Patents
  • 1939Doczekal Austrian patent NR 155744 Benzene/water engine said by Lindemann to beat Carnot; patent not read
  • 1957Freedman US 2,796,345 Alloy said to split water for free; only the number is given (essay list)
  • 1973-11-02Gray US 3,890,548, Pulsed Capacitor Discharge Electric Engine Issued 1975-06-17; Evgray Enterprises; 27 firings of 13 1/3 degrees, partial recovery into a second battery, 12 V and 18 x 3,500 V on FIG.2; book pp.74-91, page images; two copies in the PDF · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • c.1975Gray Canadian CA 1030600 A Family member of US 3,890,548 (application CA 211,165); Google Patents listing; text not read · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1975Gray Japanese JP S50-74712 A Family member of US 3,890,548 (application JP 49-127019); text not read; fits a Japanese backer · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1978Richardson US 4,077,001 Permanent-magnet device on Lindemann's essay list; number only
  • 1978-04-25McDonald US patent (number not given) Related patent listed by the KeelyNet 2000 page; not checked
  • 1979Frenette US 4,143,639 Rotating-cylinder heater on the essay list; number only
  • 1980-04-10Gray, Regenerative Energy Recovery System, e.g., for Electromagnetic Propulsion 'Unidentified British application'; saved text on rexresearch: 24 V battery, about 2000 V capacitor, discharge through load into recovery battery; no measurements · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1983-12-16Gray Greek priority application 24388 Printed on the front page of US 4,661,747; Google Patents lists GR73274A / GR72864B instead; applicant and text unknown · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1984Perkins US 4,424,797 Rotating-cylinder heater on the essay list; number only
  • 1984-10-18Gray US 4,595,975, Efficient Power Supply Suitable for Inductive Loads Issued 1986-06-17, Council, Idaho; no figures, gain 'on theory'; FIG.1 checked on page image p.115; book pp.110-116 · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1985-10-25Gray US 4,661,747, Efficient Electrical Conversion Switching Tube Issued 1987-04-28; division of 662,339; claims the tube only; book pp.116-125 · Gray's own patent, attorney-drafted
  • 1990Meyer US 4,936,961 Water fuel cell on the essay list; number only
  • c.1995Schaeffer and Serogodski DE 42 44 016 A1 Ambient-heat engine; Lindemann says 'granted'; A1 normally an unexamined application; not read
  • 1995-10-10Gifford US patent (number not given) Related patent listed by KeelyNet 2000; not checked
  • 1996-05-07Gossler US patent (number not given) Related patent listed by KeelyNet 2000; not checked
  • 2000Chambers US 6,126,794 On the essay list; the essay never says what it is
  • 2002Bearden et al. MEG patent Basis of the '6 W in, 96 W out' claim; American Physical Society statement against it known via Wikipedia · Patent holders

Court and state records (1)

  • 1996Ohio court finding against Stanley Meyer Three expert witnesses found conventional electrolysis, 'gross and egregious fraud'; via Wikipedia

Government records (5)

  • 1974-01-24SEC News Digest Searched for Gray, Evgray, Van Nuys, motor: no Gray item (negative)
  • 1990-04-20VA burial record (Find a Grave memorial 3813396) Created by US Veterans Affairs Office: Edwin Vincent Gray Sr., veteran, b. 8 Jan 1925 Washington DC, d. 20 Apr 1990 Sparks NV, Riverside National Cemetery plot 27-1479
  • 1990FamilySearch tree LY5P-7C9 Same dates and places; sources 1930 census, Find A Grave index, California divorce index; user-maintained tree
  • 1990-06-17USPTO fee lapse of US 4,595,975 'Expired - Fee Related', two months after the VA death date; Google Patents
  • 2004US Department of Energy cold fusion review Panel split about evenly on excess power; via Wikipedia

Company and business records (5)

  • 1973EvGray Enterprises, 'Power Plant of the Future' Company text on the saved rexresearch page: a '21-minute run' using '9.75 watts', 'operated continuously for 203 hours' · Gray's company
  • 1973-06EMA-4 data sheet (Probe The Unknown, Jack Scagnetti, 'The Engine That Runs Itself') 12 V DC, 2550 rpm, brake hp 32.05, 'Fuel Consumption: None'; book shows only a thumbnail · Gray's company figures
  • 1973-10-11Letter, Renate Gray for EVGray Enterprises, to Lindemann 'due to our security we are unable to give out any information'; page image p.13 · Gray's company
  • 1976-02'Inventor of the Year' nomination, Los Angeles Patent Attorney's Association Documented in one published source, Lindemann's biography p.21, and the Tattler/NewsReal; no document seen
  • c.1980sGray's letters offering the technology for SDI To every member of Congress, the President and Cabinet, 'not a single reply' (Lindemann p.21 only)

Witness accounts and correspondence (11)

  • 1973-07-01Tom Valentine, 'Man Creates Engine That Consumes No Fuel', National Tattler Van Nuys demonstrations: Hackenberger, Fritz Lens, C. V. Wood Jr., two unnamed physicists; voltmeter only; reprinted book pp.7-12 and rexresearch · Advocate press
  • 1973-07-01Tom Valentine, 'Gasless Auto Gets $6-Million Backing', National Tattler Gray and designer Paul M. Lewis; in the saved rexresearch file · Advocate press
  • 1973-07-08Tom Valentine, second Tattler article (EMA motor test) Four 6 V batteries, over 2,500 rpm for 30 minutes, '100 horsepower' beside 'brake horsepower 32.06'; page image p.11 · Advocate press
  • 1974-01-23Tom Valentine, 'Two Inventors Work To Devise Fuelless Car', National Tattler Listed on rexresearch; not read · Advocate press
  • 1974-03Tom Valentine, 'Inventor of the World's First No-Fuel Engine is Suppressed by L.A.'s District Attorney', National Tattler With 'Threat of Arrest Spurs Tattler Reporter' (DA investigator Ran Novell); listed on rexresearch · Advocate press
  • 1975-07-07AP wire, 'Either Saint or Sinner: Auto Motor Inventor Just Fueling Around?' Progress Bulletin, Pomona: July 1974 seizure; 12 counts May 1975; 800 shareholders; Deputy DA Mitchell Harris; TRW's Donald Cronin 'ran for about 10 seconds and then everything blew' · DA quotes are the prosecutor's account
  • 1977Tom Valentine, 'EMS: Electronic Power...', NewsReal Book p.15: plea to 'a minor Securities and Exchange violation'; Dr. Chalfin 'no loss of energy'; 'one of six children' · Advocate press
  • 1986Lindemann and Tom Brown bulb test near Dollard's transmitter Filament lit with the men 6 and 8 ft away, no shock, no instruments; book pp.50-51 · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1990-03-18'Issue 15' (free-energy-info.tuks.nl) Dated source carrying the Zetech sentence; may be the KeelyNet March 1990 file; not opened
  • 2000Back-cover testimonials: Trevor Constable, Brian Desborough, Ken Rauen Desborough: 'incoming spikes over 1000 amps'; book p.156 · Associates promoting the book
  • 2000-02-23KeelyNet, 'EV Gray Updated' (mirror) Anonymous friend: death April 1993 Riverside, three police stories; 12-hour run ending with more charge; six motors; Western States holds rights; '$60 million offshore'

Experiments and replications by others (7)

  • 1986Photograph of Eric Dollard's Magnifying Transmitter Alison Davidson, supplied by Tom Brown; 400,000 V 'anyone's guess', over 4 A on an RF ammeter, under 2,000 W from the wall; book p.50
  • 1999Testatika 90-minute demonstration film About thirty engineers; only pictures of the machines; enthusiast pages at rimstar.org; no independent measurement
  • c.2000Naudin MEG replication pages Lindemann says Naudin 'duplicated' the MEG; primary page refused connection
  • 2010Jelinek and Pekarek, MEG paper Found by the arbiter's search; not read
  • 2019Google-funded cold fusion study (Nature) Found no excess heat; via reviewers' web sources
  • 2019-2024groups.io EVGRAY forum Present-day builders: 'EV Gray CST', 'Capacitor energy anomaly'; not visited
  • c.2020sReddit r/plasma_pi, 'Modern Cold Electricity' Says Lindemann 'improved and simplified' Gray's circuit; not visited

Later accounts and media (10)

  • 1900-06Tesla, 'The Problems of Increasing Human Energy', Century Magazine Quoted in book ch.3 and the 1995 article; self-acting engine 'for a long time yet'
  • 1904-03Tesla, Electrical World article Quoted in book ch.3
  • 1996Gerry Vassilatos, 'The Rosetta Stone' (Secrets of Cold War Technology, ch.1) Reprinted book pp.22-38; no footnotes or data; Dollard reproduction in one sentence; deep-read · Author-publisher of the same thesis
  • 2002-12-16Tesla Universe review of the book Google result; not opened
  • 2003-04Ken Adachi, 'Radiant Energy: Unraveling Nikola Tesla's Greatest Secret' ExtraOrdinary Technology pp.23-26, on the Irvine lecture; no measurements
  • undatedEducate-Yourself review of Lindemann's video Google result; not opened
  • undatedYumpu, 'E. V. Gray and the Self-Sustaining Motor' Google result; not opened
  • undateduapmurders.com page on conflicting narratives of Gray's death Google result; not opened
  • undatedWikipedia, 'History of perpetual motion machines' Cites free-energy.cc/graybio.html; en-academic copy
  • 2026-09-02Chappell Natural Philosophy Society wiki, Peter A Lindemann Biography: born 1951, honorary D.Sc. Colombo 1999-2000, Borderland VP 1987-99, Clear Tech 2000; its sources unchecked

Records named but not yet examined (13)

  • 1892Tesla, 'Dissipation of Electricity' lecture Vassilatos's only named primary source; would check the oil-bath and impulse claims
  • 1872Scientific American account of Elihu Thomson Cited by Vassilatos without issue
  • 1972-09Crosby Research Institute report (J. A. Maize for Pan World Enterprises) Tattler: 7,460 W out, 26.8 'watts per hour' in, 'efficiency exceeding 99%'; no report found · Commissioned by an investor
  • 1975Los Angeles Superior Court file, People v. Gray Would settle the outcome: dismissal, plea or fine
  • 1975-1976SEC News Digests and litigation releases Lindemann's March 1976 'two minor SEC violations'
  • c.1977-1990USPTO assignment records and Zetech / Western States corporate records Absorption versus abandonment of the patents
  • 1986-1989Lindemann's unpublished photographs and unreleased video footage of experiments Listed in the book's references pp.153-154 · Lindemann, author and seller of the book (Clear Tech)
  • 1987-1988Borderland Labs videos Listed in the book's references
  • 1990-04Washoe County death certificate and April 1990 obituary Cause and circumstances of Gray's death
  • 1990-03 / 1991-10KeelyNet EVGRAY #1 and #2 files Predate Lindemann's book; linked from the 2000 page
  • undatedTewari Space Power Generator hydrogen report 'Twice as much hydrogen'; single sentence in the 1994 article
  • undatedConstable / Atmos Engineering rainfall and gauge records For the 100,000:1 claim
  • undatedPatent secrecy-order lists and FOIA releases Would test the patent-denial allegations

Left out: about 16 minor items, namely copies of the AP story on other sites (LENR Forum, BangShift, fuel-efficient-vehicles.org, tesla3.com), the seven-item bibliography of the 1994 article (Reich, Lehrs, Steiner, Wachsmuth, Constable), and the prior-art references printed on Gray's patents. Full catalogue: Linerman-Peter sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A metered build of the tube circuit: integrate battery voltage times current over a full discharge-recharge cycle including the charger, put a calorimeter on the spark gap, measure energy into a resistive load and into the second battery, and run a dummy battery as control. Only net battery energy rising across a cycle would matter.

Deciding records: The Crosby/Maize report; the Los Angeles Superior Court file for the 1975 case; SEC digests 1975-76; USPTO assignment, Zetech and Western States records; the Washoe County death certificate; the Greek 1983 priority file; the Canadian and Japanese patent texts; KeelyNet 1990-91 files; Lindemann's unreleased 1986-89 footage.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: one 15.3 J discharge kept as an energy ledger, arc loss 2Va/V0, the Crosby 278:1, firings per second for 7,460 W, the 100 hp versus 32.06 bhp table, and Tesla's 471,240 km/s as pi/2 times c. By hand: 140 BTU in 2 minutes against 100 W in.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Net gain from the motor or tube is Never properly tested, not dismissed without testing: Crosby, the Japanese team and Cronin all report private tests, and none was published or instrumented neutrally. As a closed-ledger net gain it is Refuted by calculation. arbiter.md, Claim 1, final verdict
  2. Primer The most useful lesson: Lindemann's 100:1 (output over arc loss), the solar 17:1 and Constable's 100,000:1 all draw the ledger boundary so that an input is left outside. primer.md, section 7, Wrong, and why the mistakes are instructive
  3. QE Every review first said Lindemann built a copy of Gray's motor and it failed. The text never says he built one: 'if you try to build this motor ... it doesn't perform'. Corrected; it stays as his statement against the motor, with no data. qe.md, section 4, item 6
  4. Contrarian The DA finding no stockholder willing to press charges favours Lindemann's picture of loyal investors; it also fits Gray selling shares on a fuelless-engine promise, which is a regulated act whether or not the engine worked. contrarian.md, Claim 5, d
  5. Investigator US 4,595,975 lapsed for unpaid fees on 17 June 1990, two months after the VA death date. An anonymous 2000 source says an oil-drilling firm, Western States, owns the Gray patents; USPTO assignment records would decide absorption versus abandonment. sites.md, Leads for review, 4. The historical record

AI noteGray's 1987 tube patent claims priority from a Greek application of 16 December 1983, ten months before the US parent, though Gray lived in Council, Idaho. Nothing in the record says who filed it or why.

Rank 22van Vlaenederen Koen

no change B - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:40

An electrical engineer kept the quantity textbooks set to zero in electromagnetism and found new waves and forces; mainstream journals now study the same field, but nobody has detected it.

Invention / theory background

Koen J. van Vlaenderen, a Dutch electrical engineer (Institute for Basic Research, later Ethergy B.V.), argues in papers from 1999 to 2016 that the Lorenz-gauge quantity S (later the scalar magnetic field B_l) is physical. Adding it to Maxwell's equations gives longitudinal waves, a force J S along currents, a static-charge power term, a Newton's-third-law-respecting force law and a superluminal Phi wave he links to Tesla, Moray and Podkletnov.

Ranking explanation

Rank 11 for open questions, things a reader can calculate, and real influence: his 2001 paper has 99 citations and mainstream journals (Minotti-Modanese, EPJ C) develop the same field with a bench proposal. Below Kilner, whose anomaly is the claimant's own and cheap to test; here every experiment is someone else's and no suppression record exists. Above Aspden because the S-field programme is live in peer-reviewed physics today.

Key supporting elements

  1. The algebra holds: every identity in the 2003 and 2015 papers checked symbolically, the extended equations are self-consistent, and the Grassmann force between open current elements really is non-reciprocal (1e-5 N imbalance in the worked example).
  2. Sceptics rebuilt the Monstein-Wesley ball antenna in 2013 and found a pattern closer to Monstein-Wesley's theory than their own data; they rejected both that theory and the ground-current explanation: 'a yet-unidentified mechanism'.
  3. The same S field is developed in peer-reviewed physics journals by Minotti and Modanese (EPJ C 2023), who cite the 2001 paper and propose a detection circuit; the 2001 paper has 99 citations.
  4. Reed and Hively (2020) independently reach the same J S force and power term and report preliminary tests in which the wave passed thousands of skin depths of copper (authors' own report; Hively holds the antenna patent).
  5. Longitudinal-force experiments (Graneau's blocked-hairpin jets, Saumont 1992, Johansson 1996, Phipps on the Marinov motor) have never been closed by a decisive neutral test, per the arbiter.

Key contradictions

  1. With charge conserved, the theory's own eq. 24 makes S a source-free wave, so ordinary antennas and capacitors produce none; Bruhn pressed this, and the author's 2001 preprint concedes a point charge cannot source S.
  2. In standard theory the Newton's-third-law imbalance between open current elements is balanced by field momentum; the 2015 paper's own eq. 4.34 contains time-varying field momentum it says is absent.
  3. The 'far-field inconsistency' fails: for an oscillating dipole the two longitudinal 1/r terms cancel exactly, so Lorenz- and Coulomb-gauge fields are identical (Jackson 2002).
  4. The 4/3 resolution needs a self-energy twice the paper's own eq. 4.33; eq. 4.22, offered to select a >> c, holds for any a; Caprez et al. (2007) found no Aharonov-Bohm force delays.
  5. The author reports no experiment of his own, gives no magnitude for S, and reads the same data two ways (Monstein-Wesley as Phi waves in 2003, LEM waves in 2015).
Verdicts by claim (8 of 35 shown)
ClaimVerdict
S is a physical field (extended theory with S, 2003)Plausible, untested self-consistent extended theory Never properly tested S measurable; proposals only Refuted by calculation gauge 'circularity' argument for S
Longitudinal electro-scalar waves and the J S force along currentsNever properly tested no discriminating test
Static charge as a power source via the (rho/eps0)S termNot testable as stated no S magnitude or matter-side law; Internally inconsistent only if rest mass is fixed
Maxwell-Lorentz force violates Newton's third law for open circuitsEstablished Grassmann non-reciprocity, mathematically Refuted by calculation as a physical violation; field momentum balances it
A distinct longitudinal Ampere force J B_l existsNever properly tested contested hairpin and longitudinal-force experiments
2015 derivations: far-field inconsistency, a >> c and b = c, Rutherford 4/3Refuted by calculation Lorenz-gauge far-field inconsistency Internally inconsistent a >> c selection; speed itself Never properly tested Internally inconsistent 4/3 resolution, factor 2
Cited experiments support scalar or longitudinal effectsNever properly tested Monstein-Wesley, Ignatiev-Leus, Tzontchev, Strebkov, de Sangro Tested, not supported Aharonov-Bohm as a force; exploding wires (provisional) Not testable as stated Tesla longitudinal waves and teleforce
Anomalous devices run on Phi or LEM radiationTested, not supported Podkletnov weight effect Never properly tested Podkletnov 64c, Moray, Correa, Chernetsky Not testable as stated Phi photoelectric effect

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Koen J. (Koenraad) van VlaenderenAuthor of the theory (folder name misspells him 'Vlaenederen') · Theoretical research at Ethergy B.V., a company he gives as his R&D affiliation for scalar-field energy conversionMaster of Engineering per ResearchGate; 'Electrical engineer MD, The Hague' on his 2002 site; addresses in The Hague, Venlo and Alkmaar; Institute for Basic Research affiliation 1999-2018 ('Associate professor' in 2018); papers 1999-2018, Prague lecture 2023.
Andre WaserCo-author of the 2001 Hadronic Journal paper and 'Electrodynamics with the scalar field'Swiss electrical engineer and publisher (aw-verlag.ch) per citing papers; wrote on Tesla's radiations and cosmic rays. His website was unreachable.
Gerhard W. BruhnCritic: two web reviews showing the modified sources conserve charge only if S solves the homogeneous wave equation · Critic with a stake in showing the work wrongMathematician at TU Darmstadt who wrote web critiques of several alternative-energy theories (the research note tags this as model memory, medium confidence).
Christof Monstein and J.P. WesleyExperimenters reporting longitudinal electrodynamic waves (EPL 2002); the author claims priority for their energy formulasNot in the review files.
E.J. Butterworth, C.B. Allison, D. Cavazos and F.M. MullenRebuilt the Monstein-Wesley apparatus (2013); reproduced the pattern, left the mechanism openNot in the review files beyond their stated prior that Maxwell's equations are valid and longitudinal EM waves do not exist.
Lee M. HivelyIndependent extended-electrodynamics author with the same scalar field, force and power term; reports copper-penetration tests · Inventor on US 9,306,527 (scalar-longitudinal wave antennas, Gradient Dynamics LLC)Retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory; papers with Giakos (2012), Loebl (2019) and Reed (2020).
F. Minotti and G. ModaneseDevelop 'Aharonov-Bohm electrodynamics' with S physical, cite the 2001 paper, propose a gauge-wave detection circuitNot in the review files beyond their publication record (EPJ C, J. Phys. Commun., Symmetry, 2021-2026); Modanese also co-authored with Podkletnov.
G.F. Ignatiev and V.A. LeusReported a 1.12c phase velocity from a spherical antenna, and per the 2003 paper unusually high transmitted energyKrasnoyarsk University and Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, Novosibirsk, per their paper.
Evidence / artifacts (82 of 82 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (15)

  • 1999-10-16A charged space as the origin of sources, fields and potentials arXiv physics/9910022, 6 pp plus references; Institute for Basic Research affiliation; psi as real charge density, rho_mass c^2 = rho Phi, charge dimension 3/2; whole paper deep-read with page images
  • 2001-10-04The Lienard-Wiechert potentials satisfy the Lorenz gauge condition (and the Maxwell equations) Notes from the author's archived website: 4 Oct 2001 version and extended Institute for Basic Research version of 1 Mar 2003 (5 pp); copies in research/files, not read
  • 2001-10-17Electrodynamics with the scalar field (with A. Waser) 3-pp preprint, biquaternion form, from the author's archived website; abstract read: a single point charge cannot source S because the Lienard-Wiechert S is zero. Later version Hadronic J. 27(6):673-691 and chapter 18 of a 2016 book, not retrieved
  • 2001-11-13Generalisation of classical electrodynamics to admit a scalar field and longitudinal waves (with A. Waser) Hadronic Journal 24:609-628, Hadronic Press, Palm Harbor FL; received 13 Nov 2001; origin of S, the LES wave and theorem (33); basis of the priority claim; 19-page scan, only p.1 read; cited 99 times (Google Scholar)
  • 2002-01-24Generalisation of classical electrodynamics to admit a scalar field and longitudinal waves (conference draft) Word file by the author alone, template Conf_Proceedings.dot, archived 2003; list of consequences read (superluminal waves, possible classical photon tunnelling, a charge density wave that only induces S)
  • 2002-12-12The revealed secrets of classical electrodynamics (author's web page) home.wanadoo.nl/raccoon, Wayback capture; 'Koen van Vlaenderen, Electrical engineer MD, The Hague'; says Tesla waves and overunity devices 'have been kept a secret'
  • 2003-05-21A generalisation of classical electrodynamics for the prediction of scalar field effects arXiv physics/0305098, 13 pp; S field, extended Gauss and Ampere laws (18-19), LES waves, J S force, static-charge power term, cited experiments, priority claim against Monstein-Wesley; whole paper deep-read with SymPy checks
  • 2003-05-26One-page check of the Lorenz condition for Lienard-Wiechert potentials (Landau notation) Author's archived website, Wayback capture; copy in research/files, not read
  • 2004Chapter in 'Has the Last Word Been Said on Classical Electrodynamics?' Rinton Press book; confirmed by an Academia.edu snippet and ref. 40 of viXra 1512.0297; not retrieved
  • c.2006Gerhard Bruhn's 'Remark' on my scalar field theory is wrong (reply to Bruhn) Author's comments interleaved in red in Bruhn's text; Wayback capture 2006-04-23; 'S is introduced not for mathematical reasons ... for describing new effects'
  • 2015-01Classical Electrodynamics in agreement with Newton's third law of motion 25 pp, viXra 1505.0132; longitudinal Ampere force J B_l, three waves (a >> c, b = c, c), 4/3 problem, far-field claim, Section 5 experiments review; pp.1-21 deep-read, pp.22-25 digest only
  • 2015-12-11General Classical Electrodynamics, a New Foundation of Modern Physics and Technology viXra 1512.0297, 31 pp, Institute for Basic Research; 'Coulomb premise' a >> c, b = c; energy conversion 'in the footsteps of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Henry Moray'; p.1 read
  • 2016General Classical Electrodynamics Universal Journal of Physics and Application 10(4):128-140, HRPUB (author-pays), DOI 10.13189/ujpa.2016.100404; Ethergy B.V. Research, Alkmaar; Whittaker reciprocal force law; abstract and Section 4 experiments list read
  • 2018-04General Classical Electrodynamics, part two ResearchGate preprint on the energy density of sources; abstract snippet only; full text not retrieved
  • 2023-10-11Scalar field theory and technologies (SEM2023 lecture, Prague) and Q&A YouTube, channel NAMI-Tech, 48.6 min plus about 21 min Q&A; description mentions Moray's radiant energy source and devices converting the scalar field into electricity; not watched or transcribed

Patents and patent office (6)

  • 1901-11-05Tesla US 685,953, Method of Intensifying and Utilizing Effects Transmitted Through Natural Media Printed as 1905 in the 2003 paper; grant date 5 Nov 1901 web-checked by the arbiter
  • 2016-04-05US 9,306,527 B1, Systems, apparatuses, and methods for generating and/or utilizing scalar-longitudinal waves Inventor L.M. Hively, assignee Gradient Dynamics LLC, filed 2015-05-29; antennas for the same longitudinal wave; does not cite van Vlaenderen; page metadata and abstract read · Patent holder's characterization of what the device does
  • 2026-10-04Google Patents search, inventor 'vlaenderen' No patents by the author; one unrelated 1980 German patent
  • unknownTesla US 512,340 Cited in the 2003 paper's references as support for longitudinal waves; date not in the review files
  • unknownTesla US 568,176 Cited in the 2003 paper's references; date not in the review files
  • unknownTesla US 685,012 Cited in the 2003 paper's references; date not in the review files

Company and business records (1)

  • 2026-10-04Ethergy B.V. register entry OpenCorporates mirror of KvK 59508701, active B.V., head office Amsterdam; the papers give Ethergy B.V. Research, Hobbemalaan 10, Alkmaar; identity not confirmed; officers and filings not seen

Witness accounts and correspondence (3)

  • 1979Harvey Fletcher affidavit on T.H. Moray's radiant energy device Cited by the author (2015 ref 9; 2016 ref 36, thmoray.org/images/affidavit.pdf) as confirming the device 'functioned as claimed'; host unreachable; text not obtained · Hosted by Moray's family and supporters
  • c.2005-10G.W. Bruhn, On Koen van Vlaenderen's Seventh Field Component Again TU Darmstadt web page; modified sources conserve charge iff S solves the homogeneous wave equation (same as 2003 eq. 24); 'Maybe that some reasons can be found for the validity of condition (II)'; saved copy read · Critic of the theory
  • unknownG.W. Bruhn, A Remark on van Vlaenderen's Seventh Field Component TU Darmstadt web page; S is 'completely superfluous' in standard theory and the 'Tesla' results are not correct; saved copy read · Critic of the theory

Experiments and replications by others (26)

  • 1926T.H. Moray, radiant energy receiver Cited (2016 ref 35) for a 'Phi photoelectric effect'; 'kilo Watts of useful electricity, day and night', germanium cold-cathode tube, first stage at least 200,000 V, per the author; no calorimetry on record
  • c.1985Cavalleri et al., repeat of Graneau-Pappas Reported a conventional explanation; Physics Letters A listing (sciencedirect 0375960185905912); search summary only
  • 1989Chernetsky hydrogen discharge tube Plekhanov Institute report per the contrarian; excess energy attributed by the author to the Phi photoelectric effect; no input/output figures; not read
  • 1992R. Saumont, longitudinal force measurement Physics Letters A 165 (1992) 307-313; cited in the 2016 paper; not read
  • 1996P.N. and A.N. Correa, abnormal glow discharge (PAGD) reports Labofex Scientific Report Series 1996; excess energy claims; not read · Inventors of the device
  • 1996L. Johansson, longitudinal forces, Lund Institute of Technology Thesis-level study reporting longitudinal forces; web page via the contrarian (dflund.se); cited in the 2016 paper
  • c.1999G.F. Ignatiev and V.A. Leus, On a superluminal transmission at the phase velocities Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk; 2.5 km wavelength, 0.5 km fibre reference, 1.12c across terrain and season; 2-pp text from the author's site read; 2003 paper adds 'transmitted energy was unusually high'; Nova Science 1999 chapter not found
  • 2000Tzontchev, Chubykalo and Rivera-Juarez, Coulomb interaction speed Hadronic Journal 23 (2000); speed about c; apparatus not described in the author's text; not read
  • 2001Woods et al., Podkletnov gravity-impulse replication attempt Null with a note that many conditions were not met; search summary only
  • 2002-08-15C. Monstein and J.P. Wesley, Observation of scalar longitudinal electrodynamic waves Europhysics Letters 59(4):514-520; ball-antenna longitudinal polarisation; subject of the author's priority claim; not read
  • 2003Hathaway et al., superconducting gravity-impulse null No weight change to 0.001%, with the disk turned mechanically at lower speed; tested the weight effect, not the 64c timing; search summary only
  • 2004J.R. Bray and M.C. Britton, Comment on Monstein-Wesley Europhysics Letters (2004); title only
  • 2004Monstein and Wesley, Remarks to the Comment by Bray and Britton Europhysics Letters 66(1):155-156; title only
  • 2007Caprez, Barwick and Batelaan, absence of Aharonov-Bohm time delays Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 210401; no force-type delays; the author calls the null 'premature'; abstract web-checked
  • 2008K. Rebilas, On the origin of 'longitudinal electrodynamic waves' Proposes ground plasma currents for the Monstein-Wesley result; title only
  • 2012-11de Sangro, Finocchiaro, Patteri, Piccolo and Pizzella, Measuring propagation speed of Coulomb fields arXiv:1211.2913, EPJ C 75:137 (2015); field 'rigidly carried by the beam'; cited by the author for a >> c; abstract read
  • 2013Wang et al. (2013); Nimtz and Stahlhofen, evanescent-field superluminal results Cited in the 2016 paper as superluminal Coulomb near fields; not read
  • 2013Butterworth, Allison, Cavazos and Mullen, The Monstein-Wesley Experiment Reconstructed J. Scientific Exploration 27(1):13-23; duplicate apparatus; pattern 'resemble[s] MW's theoretical pattern more closely than did their own experiment'; 'a yet-unidentified mechanism'; abstract read
  • 2019-03L.M. Hively and A.S. Loebl, Classical and extended electrodynamics Physics Essays 32(1):112-126; primary report of preliminary tests with propagation 'through thousands of skin-depths of solid copper'; paywalled · Hively holds US 9,306,527
  • unknownAmpere's hairpin experiment and the Ampere, Gauss and Weber force experiments Cited for the longitudinal Ampere force and, per the 2015 paper p.16, as open-circuit experiments; no sources or numbers given; conventional account (Lorentz force plus diverging currents) also on record
  • unknownGraneau and Graneau-Pappas exploding-wire and hairpin experiments Cited for longitudinal forces; strong mercury jets reported with the hairpin blocked; not read
  • unknownNasilowski, exploding-wire striations Cited in the 2003 paper (pressure 'substantially greater than the pinch pressure'); no numbers; not read
  • unknownT.E. Phipps Jr., Observations of the Marinov motor Apeiron 5(3); the 2016 paper says the motor 'works as claimed'; not read
  • unknownE. Podkletnov and G. Modanese, impulse gravity generator, at least 64c Up to 2 million volt discharge from a superconducting electrode; 63 +/- 1 ns trigger difference; claimant's own timing; not read
  • unknownPublished replies to de Sangro et al. Argue the data show the Lienard-Wiechert field; search summaries only
  • unknownNekrasov, Strebkov and Avramenko, single-wire resonant energy transmission 2015 ref 6; 'very efficient', no figures; author's discriminator: ground return means TEM, none means LEM; not applied; not read

Related theory by others (23)

  • 1994Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff, inertia from the zero-point field Phys. Rev. A 49, 678; cited by the 1999 paper as the ZPF mass model
  • 1996W.A. Hofer, Beyond Uncertainty (Material Wave Theory) quant-ph/9611009; the 1999 paper builds on it
  • 1999V. Petkov, mass of a charge as its electrostatic energy physics/9909019; cited by the 1999 paper
  • 2002J.D. Jackson, From Lorenz to Coulomb and other explicit gauge transformations Am. J. Phys. 70, 917-928; fields are the same in any gauge; bears on the far-field claim; abstract only
  • 2004C.H. Thompson, The phi-wave aether Rinton Press 2004; cited in the 2015 conclusions and viXra 1512.0297
  • 2004G. Nikolaev (Tomsk), scalar magnetic field and induction law Named B_l the 'scalar magnetic field'; his account of the Aharonov-Bohm effect is adopted; cited in 2015 and 2016 papers
  • 2009A.I. Arbab and Z.A. Satti, On the generalized Maxwell equations and their prediction of electroscalar wave Progress in Physics; says the author's eq. (35) becomes identical to their eq. (43); snippet only
  • 2011A.I. Arbab, The analogy between matter and electromagnetic waves EPL; cites the 2001 paper
  • 2012L.M. Hively and G.C. Giakos, Toward a more complete electrodynamic theory Int. J. Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering
  • 2016V.M. Simulik, Longitudinal electromagnetic waves in the framework of standard classical electrodynamics arXiv:1606.01738; discusses van Vlaenderen and Waser
  • 2017A.I. Arbab, Extended electrodynamics and its consequences; Quantized Maxwell's equations Mod. Phys. Lett. B 2017; Optik 2017; claims to explain the scalar function in van Vlaenderen
  • 2017G. Modanese, Generalized Maxwell equations and charge conservation censorship; Time in quantum mechanics and local non-conservation of the probability current Mod. Phys. Lett. B 2017; Mathematics 2018
  • 2019E.I. Nefyodov and S. Smolskiy, Electromagnetic fields and waves Springer textbook chapter citing the 2001 paper
  • 2020D. Reed and L.M. Hively, Implications of gauge-free extended electrodynamics Symmetry 12:2110; same scalar field, J.C force and rho C power term; cites 'van Vlaederen' 2001-2003; read in Chrome · Hively holds US 9,306,527
  • 2021Minotti and Modanese, earlier extended-electrodynamics papers Symmetry 2021 (current discontinuities in molecular devices); Quantum Reports 2021 (energy flux); titles only
  • 2023F. Minotti and G. Modanese, Gauge waves generation and detection in Aharonov-Bohm electrodynamics Eur. Phys. J. C 83:1086, arXiv:2310.13968; S physical, sourced by non-conserved currents; cites van Vlaenderen and Waser 2001; reference list and abstract read
  • 2023Minotti and Modanese, A scalar e.m. field cannot cause dissipation in a medium Symmetry 2023; title only
  • 2024F. Minotti and G. Modanese, Simple circuit and experimental proposal for the detection of gauge-waves J. Phys. Commun. 8, 055003, arXiv:2403.10580; proposal only, no results; cites the 2001 paper
  • 2025-12-15A.K. Tomilin and V.A. Panchelyuga, Longitudinal electromagnetic waves Metaphysics (RUDN, Moscow), Russian with English abstract; experiment review; cites the 2001 paper; abstract and reference list read
  • 2026Minotti and Modanese, 2026 papers EPJ Plus 141, 788 (quantum collapse and local charge conservation); EPJ C 86, 593 (scalar-tensor gravity and superconductors); Fluctuations preprint; titles only
  • unknownMoyssides, Peoglos and Hillas, longitudinal-force papers Cited in the 2015 references; not read
  • unknownD.E. Rutherford, energy density correction (4/3 problem) Unrefereed web page (2015 ref 20); the 4/3 resolution needs its doubled self-energy; not read
  • unknownA. Waser, Nikola Tesla's Radiations and the Cosmic Rays Cited by the 2016 papers; not read

Later accounts and media (3)

  • c.2014Moray and Fletcher material on the web rexresearch Moray page; 'The Sea of Energy' 5th ed. (lists a 1927 affidavit); J.E. Dalton 2014 PDF with a 'Harvey Fletcher Affidavit' section; search results only
  • 2026-10-04Google legal-removal notice on a Moray/Fletcher query Two results removed after a legal request (LumenDatabase); removed items unknown; recorded, not interpreted
  • 2026-10-04Google Scholar citing list of the 2001 paper 99 citations; first page of 99 read; citing authors include Arbab, Simulik, Hively, Modanese, Minotti, Nefyodov

Records named but not yet examined (5)

  • unknownKvK extract and filed annual accounts of Ethergy B.V. Founding date, SBI activity code, Alkmaar link; would decide the absence-of-evidence question
  • unknownEspacenet and WIPO filings with applicant Ethergy or inventor van Vlaenderen Not reached in the time limit
  • unknownarXiv moderation correspondence, referee reports and submission histories after 2003 Would show why publication moved to viXra and HRPUB; none on record
  • unknownJ.D. McDonald's Ampere hairpin analysis kirkmcd.princeton.edu/examples/hairpin.pdf; fetch failed
  • unknownLagrangian behind the 2003 power and force theorems (33)-(34) Named by the arbiter as a paper-only check the author could supply; matter-side equation of motion not written

Left out: the review's own AI-written analyses, duplicate copies (PhilArchive, Academia.edu, the Wayback W. Heitler textbook excerpt), the author's ResearchGate profile, and unrelated namesakes (a Belgian chess player and company co-founder). Full catalogue: van Vlaenederen Koen sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Build the Minotti-Modanese gauge-wave circuit, or repeat the Hively-Loebl copper test independently with a closed grounded shield, a distance scan and a stated null; and repeat Monstein-Wesley beyond lambda/(2 pi) with isolated battery receivers and ground-current controls.

Deciding records: Hively-Loebl 2019 test report; Monstein-Wesley 2002 with the Bray-Britton comment and Rebilas 2008; the full 2001 Hadronic Journal scan; the Fletcher affidavit; Rutherford's energy density correction; the SEM2023 lecture and Q&A; the Ethergy B.V. KvK extract and any Espacenet filings.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: two 1 A m current elements 0.1 m apart give a 1e-5 N Grassmann imbalance, balanced either by the author's J B_l push or by field momentum; Part D shows a 231 N Coulomb force that swamps it in a real open circuit.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter The static-charge power term is a covariant four-force; energy closes only if the charge's rest mass changes at dm/dtau = qS. The paper never says where the energy goes and gives no magnitude for S. arbiter.md section 8.2
  2. Contrarian All parties agree on the condition: S needs non-conserved sources. The claim and its critics agree on the mathematics and disagree about whether nature ever supplies the source. contrarian.md section 3
  3. Physicist The extended equations are a genuinely different theory, not a reinterpretation, and such theories exist in the mainstream literature. The question is empirical: does nature contain a free S field? So far nothing has detected one. physicist.md section 0
  4. Arbiter Monstein-Wesley is the cleanest anomaly in the file: sceptics found the pattern, rejected both explanations, and said 'a yet-unidentified mechanism'. It does not test an S wave. arbiter.md section 3, claim 2
  5. Investigator Ethergy B.V. (KvK 59508701, active) is the author's R&D affiliation, yet no patents, products or papers were found, while his 2023 lecture discusses devices converting the scalar field into electricity. KvK filings and Espacenet would decide. sites.md, Leads for review, historical record

AI noteThe author's own 2001 preprint already states that a single point charge cannot be a source of S, the same condition his critic Bruhn later pressed as an objection.

Rank 23Aspden-Hearld

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sources Card updated 2026-10-05 11:41

Maxwell admitted the force between two moving charges is not fixed by experiment; Aspden filled the gap with a mass-ratio term nobody has ever tested directly.

Invention / theory background

Harold Aspden (Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge) argued from 1960 to a 2005 essay that Maxwell's undetermined term in the force between moving charges carries the ratio of their masses, giving heavy ions an unbalanced push paid for by a vacuum lattice aether. His self-published Physics Unified (c.1980) builds gravity, Mercury's perihelion, alpha, particle masses and the 2.7 K background on that lattice. Paulo and Alexandra Correa cited his 1969 paper in three plasma-discharge patents.

Ranking explanation

Rank 12 for criteria A, B and D. Like van Vlaenderen (11), Aspden's core is a precise, never-tested addition to electrodynamics, and its plasma consequence is open at second order; his influence through the Correa device is wide. He sits below 11 because much of his numerical programme has since been tested and failed, and the record shows neglect rather than resistance. He sits above Bearden (13), whose headline claim is refuted by calculation. Interest is not proof.

Key supporting elements

  1. Maxwell's own Treatise says closed-circuit experiments leave the force between single moving charges undetermined. Aspden's extra term integrates to zero around any closed loop, so no circuit experiment rules it out (arbiter: Established).
  2. Ions hotter than electrons are real: Roth's bumpy torus per the essay, beam-heated plasmas and coronal holes. Coronal heating is not fully settled in mainstream physics (arbiter, [memory, medium]).
  3. Sethian, Hammer and Wharton (Phys. Rev. Lett. 1978) measured electron-ion energy transfer 1000 times faster than classical and themselves suggested, without particular justification, the ion/electron mass ratio, the size of Aspden's factor.
  4. Most of the arithmetic recomputes as printed (alpha 137.035915, m_p/m_e 1836.15232, G, 2.56 K, deuteron, pion, muon g). The revised alpha 137.035953 sat 0.7 standard uncertainties from the 1979 Williams-Olsen measurement.
  5. His plasma papers passed refereed journals (J. Franklin Inst. 1969, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 1977 and 1986, Phys. Lett. A 1985). His explicit CMB formula predicts a solar-system gradient and a 0.08 K annual swing nobody has checked.

Key contradictions

  1. The essay's case for net ion heating fails at first order: the extra force on a near-static ion is the time derivative of 1/r, so a complete electron flyby gives exactly zero impulse (mathematician, arbiter, example.py).
  2. The corona 'factor of 160' is 1,000,000 K divided by the 6,000 K photosphere, two places, not ions against electrons; and the million degrees itself comes from iron lines excited by electron collisions.
  3. Solar pp-chain and CNO neutrinos (Borexino 2020) identify the fusion reactions directly, against the essay's 'I am sure it is not'. Sethian's abstract reports electron cooling and ion heating at constant total energy, not a net gain.
  4. Alpha 137.035915 is about 3,800 standard uncertainties from CODATA 2022 (137.035953: about 2,100). Each particle match uses 3 to 5 choices made with the target known, and every one stayed with its pre-1980 value as measurements moved.
  5. Mercury's perihelion is matched only by picking the distribution that agrees with general relativity (n = 0 gives 28.7 arcsec per century). The same CMB formula with the Galaxy's potential gives 270-450 K, not 2.7 K.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 57 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Closed-circuit experiments cannot fix the isolated-charge force termEstablished historical, Maxwell's own remark
The force law with the -(M/m)(v.r)V term is the true law for isolated chargesNever properly tested the law itself; tension with beam data unsourced Internally inconsistent the derivation as a proof of uniqueness
The extra term makes plasma ions hotter than electronsNever properly tested the mechanism, never quantified Refuted by calculation the essay's four-case argument, first order Internally inconsistent corona factor of 160
The sun is not powered by fusionTested, not supported solar neutrino detection
Lattice aether as preferred frame and energy source for the Correa deviceNever properly tested Correa excess power, no neutral calorimetry Not testable as stated preferred frame, null by construction Tested, not supported Rydberg factor 2 - gamma, [memory, medium]
Gravity from lattice electrodynamics: Mercury's perihelion, G and a 2.587 GeV gravitonInternally inconsistent perihelion and parameter-free G Tested, not supported G 0.1 percent low; graviton not found Not testable as stated the mechanism
Alpha, m_p/m_e and particle masses follow from lattice geometry with no free parametersTested, not supported at modern precision Historically superseded but instructive c.1980 agreement Internally inconsistent no free parameters
The 2.7 K background is a local lattice temperature set by gravitational potentialRefuted by calculation stated form, Galaxy's potential Never properly tested solar-system gradient and annual swing

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Harold AspdenAuthor of the force law, the vacuum lattice theory, Physics Unified and the 2005 plasma essayPh.D., Trinity College, Cambridge (book title page). The primer gives 1927-2011 and a long career as a patent manager at IBM UK, both from model recall (medium confidence, not web-checked). Self-published from 1960 (Sabberton, Southampton); refereed papers 1969-1986; wrote a 1996 report on the Correa invention.
Paulo and Alexandra CorreaInventors of the pulsed plasma-discharge device that Aspden took as 'power from space'; the only uptake of his 1969 paper he names · Patent holders (US 5,416,391; 5,449,989; 5,502,354); excess-energy claims come from their own publications; their aetherometry.com site hosts the essayNot in the review files beyond the patents and their Akronos/Labofex publications claiming excess energy (e.g. '483%' overall efficiency).
James Clerk MaxwellNoted in his Treatise that closed-circuit data allow 'any value of Q', the undetermined term Aspden revivedNot in the review files beyond the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (3rd edition) as quoted by Aspden.
J. D. Sethian (with D. A. Hammer and C. B. Wharton)Measured anomalously fast electron-ion energy transfer, Aspden's chief quoted supportNot in the review files beyond Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 451 (1978): beam-heated plasma, electrons cooling and ions heating 1000 times faster than classical, total perpendicular energy constant.
Peter and Neal GraneauExploding-wire and arc experiments Aspden cites as supportNot in the review files beyond their 1983 and 1985 papers. Kiloampere pulses break 1 mm copper wire into about 100 pieces; they credit Ampere longitudinal forces, others credit conventional forces. Ampere's law is not Aspden's law.
J. Reece RothReported heavy ions hotter than electrons in a bumpy-torus plasma, cited by the essayNot in the review files beyond IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. PS-6 (June 1978), which was not obtained.
Paul Gerber1898 retardation theory of Mercury's perihelion that Aspden says he completesNot in the review files beyond a secondary web source: a fitted gravity speed of about 305,000 km/s, Seeliger's objection, and a 1917 republication arranged by Ernst Gehrcke in an anti-Einstein priority campaign, which the book omits.
E. W. SilvertoothLaser aether-drift experimenter whose null result Aspden reports from private conversationNot in the review files beyond the 1976 two-laser experiment (detectors 50 cm apart, 79 cycles expected at 30 km/s, no shift seen), told to Aspden and unpublished.
Evidence / artifacts (89 of 89 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (15)

  • 1960The Theory of Gravitation H. Aspden, Sabberton, Southampton; first statement of the structured space medium and a lattice particle of 3.7e-29 g, 'firmly asserted' (book p.197)
  • 1966The Theory of Gravitation, second edition Sabberton; introduces the 2.587 GeV G-frame particle deduced from G and hadron data (book p.197)
  • 1969Physics without Einstein Named in facts.json as the book Physics Unified supersedes; that relation and the year are from model recall, low confidence
  • 1969Paper in Journal of the Franklin Institute 287, 179 The revised force law and anomalous cathode reaction forces in the vacuum arc; the paper the Correa patents cite; the arbiter's first record to obtain
  • 1975Paper with Eagles in Nuovo Cimento giving m_p/m_e = 1836.15232 Cited in the book (page image p.122-123)
  • 1977Paper in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science PS-5, 159 Anomalous acceleration forces exerted by electrons on ions (essay)
  • 1977Paper in International Journal of Theoretical Physics 16, 401 g-factor average relation (book p.146)
  • 1978Paper in Speculations in Science and Technology 1, 59 Psi-particle work (book p.124)
  • 1979Paper in Lettere al Nuovo Cimento 26, 257 Psi decay thresholds 3551, 3503, 3455, 3415, 3340 MeV; published after the psi discoveries (book p.128)
  • c.1980Physics Unified Sabberton, Southampton; 212-page scan, all pages OCR'd; deep-read pp.7-36, 54-80, 94-200 and 211 with equations checked on page images
  • 1985Paper in Physics Letters A 111, 22 Discusses the Graneau experiments under the revised law (essay)
  • 1986Paper in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science PS-14, 282 Cited in the essay
  • 1996Power from Space: The Correa Invention 35-page report, Aspden's website www.aspden.org (essay)
  • 2005-10-30A Problem in Plasma Science 2-page web essay; PDF is a 6/11/2019 printout from aetherometry.com; read in full
  • –Aspden article in Intercom Popular article cited in Chapter 9 of the book; date not given in the review files

Patents and patent office (3)

  • 1995-05-16US 5,416,391 P. and A. Correa, plasma-discharge apparatus; cites Aspden 1969 · Patent holders
  • 1995-09-12US 5,449,989 Correa; Google Patents page linked by the arbiter; data not obtained · Patent holders
  • 1996-03-26US 5,502,354 Correa; data not obtained · Patent holders

Experiments and replications by others (34)

  • 1875Gore self-rotation experiment Refuted by Maxwell and Stokes; the book's basis for 'no self-torque' (p.12)
  • 1887Michelson-Morley experiment Null result; the book's E-frame follows the laboratory so the null is automatic
  • 1893Lodge rotating-disc experiment Null result read by Aspden as the E-frame not rotating
  • 1903Trouton and Noble, charged-capacitor torque experiment Proc. Roy. Soc. 72, 132; cited for Maxwell's law over Lorentz's; special relativity also predicts the null, and eq. 14 predicts a larger couple for a real capacitor
  • 1915Einstein-de Haas gyromagnetic effect Book p.46
  • 1923Sucksmith and Bates gyromagnetic ratio Source of Aspden's k = 2; the factor is electron spin g = 2
  • 1925Michelson-Gale-Pearson experiment Earth-rotation Sagnac effect, which special relativity also computes
  • 1930Kobel, cathode reaction forces in cold-cathode discharge Phys. Rev. 36, 1636; cited support for anomalous ion forces
  • 1932Kennedy-Thorndike experiment Null, reproduced by the E-frame construction
  • 1938Ives-Stilwell experiment Transverse Doppler; book pp.66-68
  • 1958Townes et al. opposed-beam maser test 1.08 cps beat, 0.05 cps daily variation; by Aspden's own scaling this already limits his expected 0.3 km/s signal
  • 1962Mandelberg and Witten, hydrogen Doppler test 0.498 +/- 0.025 at v/c < 0.01; tests only the beta^2 coefficient
  • 1970Altschuler et al., ball lightning energy density Nature 228, 545; 2-5e9 J/m^3, against Aspden's 8e9 from a freely chosen speed
  • 1972Jones, light through a rotating glass rod (Fresnel drag) Proc. Roy. Soc. A328, 337
  • 1972Hafele-Keating flying clocks Book pp.189-191 says it should be repeated at different times of year; numbers not computed
  • 1972Eagles and Burton computer check of lattice sum r/d = 0.302874 National Standards Laboratory (book pp.113-115); the sum depends on summation convention
  • 1975Zinsser, 'Kinetobarische Effekte - ein neues Phanomen?' Umschau 5, 152; anomalous torque, cited with no description of the experiment
  • 1975Taylor and Cohen value of alpha 137.03592 AMCO-5, Paris; book footnote p.119
  • 1976Silvertooth two-laser experiment No phase shift seen; told to Aspden privately, unpublished (book p.65)
  • 1976-08Fermilab report of a state at 2.250-2.270 GeV Matched Aspden's 2.260; known via Calder; may be Knapp et al., PRL 37, 882 (model recall, unverified); later fate unverified after two failed web checks
  • 1977Apostolakis et al., resonance near 2.60 GeV Phys. Lett. 66B, 185; the candidate for Aspden's 2.587 GeV graviton
  • 1977Rapidis et al., psi(3770) Discovered before Aspden's 1979 'prediction' of 3.772 GeV
  • 1977-10Smoot, Gorenstein and Muller, U-2 microwave background anisotropy Phys. Rev. Lett. 39, 898; 390 +/- 60 km/s, which Aspden reads as aether drift and uses in Appendix III
  • 1978van Apeldoorn et al., search for the 2.60 GeV state Phys. Lett. 72B, 487; failed to confirm it, as the book itself reports
  • 1978Sethian, Hammer and Wharton, anomalous electron-ion energy transfer Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 451; abstract checked on the web: faster equilibration, total energy constant
  • 1978-06Roth, bumpy-torus plasma with ions hotter than electrons IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. PS-6, No. 2
  • 1979Williams and Olsen value of alpha 137.035963(15) Book footnote; 3.2 sigma from eq. 157, 0.7 sigma from the Appendix III revision
  • 1979Perl, tau lepton at 1.785 GeV New Scientist; compared with Aspden's 1782 MeV
  • 1983P. and P. N. Graneau, wire-rupture experiments Phys. Lett. 97A, 253
  • 1985P. and P. N. Graneau, exploding-arc experiments Appl. Phys. Lett. 46, 468; the fragmentation is real, its cause contested
  • –Sagnac experiment Discussed in Chapter 3 with Michelson-Morley
  • –Champeney, Isaak and Khan, Moessbauer rotor Proposed by Ruderfer; null reproduced by nested E-frames (book p.64)
  • –Snyder and Hall, neon Doppler test 0.502 +/- 0.003; cannot separate Aspden's factor from special relativity
  • –Pound-Rebka gravitational redshift Book p.190, explained by atom-lattice energy exchange

Theory and literature the book relies on (16)

  • 1873Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism Vol. 2, the undetermined term Q; quoted on book p.12 (checked by the arbiter)
  • 1893Heaviside's advice on the spatial distribution of interaction energy Cited on book p.35-36
  • 1898Gerber, 'Die raeumliche und zeitliche Ausbreitung der Gravitation' Zeitschrift f. Math. u. Phys. 43, 93
  • 1917Gerber republication and Seeliger-Oppenheim exchange Ann. d. Phys. 52, 415; 53, 31 and 163; 54, 38; arranged by Gehrcke (web, secondary)
  • 1951Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity Source of Aspden's vector notation (essay)
  • 1960Vonnegut on tornado energy J. Geophys. Res. 65, 203; a speculation quoted as corroboration
  • 1963Ritchie on ball lightning Book p.197
  • 1966Phillips, 'Is the Graviton a Goldstone Boson?' Cited as support (book p.198)
  • 1967Steiner on geological and galactic periodicities J. Geol. Soc. Australia 14, 99; also Geology 1973
  • 1970Brillouin, Relativity Reexamined Speed of gravity and mass of interaction energy
  • 1970Bailey and Picasso, a 3.8 GeV 'leptonic boson' for muon g-2 Cited as encouragement (book p.198)
  • 1974MacGregor quark mass fit Aspden's printed 336.9 MeV equals this fit, not his own equations
  • 1975Koshiba, 'Does Hadronic Ether Exist?' Cited as support (book p.198)
  • 1977Calder, The Key to the Universe BBC popular book, p.122; source for the 2.260 GeV report
  • 1978Bardeen and Tye, a light Higgs near 50 keV Cited as support (book p.198)
  • 1978Matsuki, Higgs scalar effects on gravity Cited as support (book p.198)

Later accounts and media (7)

  • –Correa publications on aetherometry.com Excess-energy claims for the pulsed abnormal glow discharge (PAGD) device, e.g. '483%' overall efficiency (contrarian, web) · Inventors and patent holders
  • –Rex Research Correa page rexresearch.com/correa; proponent compilation cited by physicist, arbiter and primer
  • –aetherscience.org Energy Science Report 8 page Cited by physicist and arbiter as a Correa source; whether it is Aspden's 1996 report is not established in the review files
  • –Eugene Mallove web page on the Correa work eugenemallove.com, cited by the arbiter
  • –Enthusiast forum discussions of informal Correa verification and non-verification attempts Found by the arbiter's search; disputed, not peer reviewed
  • 1985Physics Letters A article in the Graneau wire-fragmentation debate ScienceDirect 0375960185905912; seen as abstract and search summary only; authorship not stated in the review files
  • –Wikipedia, Paul Gerber Secondary source for Gerber's fit, Seeliger and Einstein critiques, Roseveare on light deflection, Gehrcke's role

Tests by others used in the verdicts (11)

  • 1977Schwinberg and Dehmelt, Penning-trap electron g-factor Aspden's series about 23 sigma off it (model recall, medium)
  • 1977CERN muon g-2 result Aspden's muon g already about 4.7 sigma below it (model recall, medium; web check failed)
  • 1997COBE FIRAS microwave background spectrum 2.7255 +/- 0.0009 K near-perfect blackbody (arXiv astro-ph/9705101)
  • 2003Saathoff et al., stored-ion Ives-Stilwell test Li+ at beta = 0.064, a few parts in 1e7; excludes the Rydberg factor 2 - gamma (model recall, medium)
  • 2007Reinhardt et al., stored-ion time-dilation test Model recall, medium; web check failed
  • 2018Gaia local escape speed estimates 445-580 km/s (arXiv 1807.04565 and ApJ ac4244); gives the 270-450 K Galactic term
  • 2020Borexino detection of CNO-cycle solar neutrinos Nature 587, 577
  • 2021CMB temperature-redshift T(z) compilation arXiv 2106.00119; beta consistent with zero
  • 2022MICROSCOPE final equivalence-principle result arXiv 2209.15487; about 1e-15
  • 2022CODATA 2022 constants (alpha, m_p/m_e, G) NIST web pages
  • –Geomagnetic polarity timescale About 183 reversals in 83 million years, irregular, Cretaceous superchron; last reversal about 780,000 years (Wikipedia via deep read)

Records named but not yet examined (3)

  • 1976University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center Silvertooth-type experiment 'Under way' per the book (p.65); outcome unknown
  • –Existing beam-ion and ion-trap force measurements The arbiter's cheap test of claim 1: any measured force along the ion's velocity of size (M/m)vV/c^2 times Coulomb
  • –FIRAS, WMAP and Planck monopole data fitted for a solar-distance or annual signal Would test the 0.08 K peak-to-peak swing of eq. 230

Left out: earlier AI-written reviews, the book's popular and newspaper sources in Chapter 9 (Markert, Hill, Stoneley, The Times), and standard textbooks named in the primer. Full catalogue: Aspden-Hearld sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Measure the force between isolated charges of very different mass, such as an electron beam passing a trapped ion, looking for a force along the ion's track of size (M/m)vV/c^2 times Coulomb. Separately, run blind neutral-lab calorimetry of a Correa discharge device with true input and output power.

Deciding records: Aspden, J. Franklin Inst. 287, 179 (1969) and his 1977, 1985 and 1986 plasma papers; Kobel 1930; Graneau 1983 and 1985; Roth 1978; the data behind the three Correa patents; Aspden's 1996 report Power from Space; the fate of the 1976 Fermilab 2.26 GeV report.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: one electron flying past a proton gives zero net energy at first order; the Sun and Earth potential gives T = 2.56 K but adding the Galaxy gives 267-453 K; alpha swings from 137.06 to 137.01 between integers 1841 and 1845. Then test Aspden's Earth magnetic-moment formula on Jupiter.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter No source on file shows any claim was dismissed without a test. Aspden says his papers were ignored, though they appeared in refereed journals. Neglect, not documented suppression, is what the sources support; no funding block, retraction or data omission is documented. arbiter.md, The contrarian's distinctions, Dismissed without testing
  2. Contrarian Strongest honest case: closed-circuit data leave a gap (Maxwell said so), the Ampere-versus-Lorentz question for longitudinal forces in metals is not entirely closed, and the Graneau fragmentation is real. A momentum-carrying medium is not absurd; Maxwell's own field momentum works that way. contrarian.md, Claim 1, Strongest honest case
  3. Physicist Sethian, Hammer and Wharton saw electrons cool and ions heat with total perpendicular energy constant: faster equilibration, not ions gaining net energy from outside. That is weak or no support for an unbalanced force pumping ion energy. physicist.md, Corrections to Step 1, item 4
  4. Arbiter Every particle comparison value predates the book, and wherever the measurement later moved, Aspden's number stayed with the old value. That pattern is what fitting produces. Yet much of the arithmetic reproduces exactly: the freedom, not the algebra, fails. arbiter.md, QE revision Q3
  5. Primer Genuinely open: does Aspden's term give a net ion energy gain at second order or with correlated motion in a current-carrying discharge? Nobody has done the kinetic calculation; a Monte Carlo of many encounters is a good project. primer.md, section 7, Genuinely open

AI noteThe book's revised alpha (Appendix III) depends on the lattice's speed through space, so the model implies an annual change in alpha of about 0.02 ppm as Earth orbits. The book never states it and nobody has checked it.

Rank 24Meyl-Konstantin

no change B - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 11:00

A Furtwangen engineering professor says Maxwell dropped a term, yielding faster-than-light 'scalar waves', neutrino power and a growing Earth; his table-top Tesla kit and numbers are checkable at home.

Invention / theory background

Konstantin Meyl (born 1952; Dr.-Ing. Stuttgart 1984 on eddy-current couplings; professor of power electronics at Furtwangen 1986-2018) keeps a 'potential vortex' term he says Maxwell's equations leave out. From it he derives longitudinal 'scalar waves' up to 1.618 c, equates them with Tesla's radiations and with neutrinos, and claims over-unity from a two-coil kit his firm INDEL sells, Earth growth by neutrino absorption, particle masses from vortex shells, and medical uses. Books and papers 1990-2016.

Ranking explanation

Strong on influence (D): the textbook, the kit and 'Neutrinopower' shaped the German-speaking scalar-wave scene. Strong on C: the kit, the 490% power record and the Earth-growth arithmetic can be checked at home. Open questions (B) remain: no cage measurement, no direct speed measurement, no full-scale Tesla transmitter. It sits beside van Vlaenderen and Aspden but below them: its derivation is internally inconsistent and its over-unity tested and not supported. Above Ives, whose core result is mainstream.

Key supporting elements

  1. The kit effects are real: the IGF reproduced the receiver LEDs lighting and the transmitter 'feedback' before explaining them, and Meyl's granted patent DE10348862B4 describes a working resonant capacitive link carrying energy and data.
  2. The algebra from Meyl's extended laws to his 'fundamental field equation' is correct; a magnetic-current term is a legitimate formal extension, and his rule that a speed needs two measured quantities (wavelength and frequency) is sound.
  3. He made falsifiable predictions: a proton-radius ratio of 0.948 (2014) matching the muonic puzzle in size before the 2019 data, and dated eclipse forecasts; on his named day, 4.4.2006, an M5.5 quake struck off Zakynthos.
  4. Nobody has built Tesla's full-scale magnifying transmitter; the IGF itself wrote that Tesla's experiments 'have not yet been exactly replicated', and neither side published a Faraday-cage measurement or a wire-removed control.
  5. Meyl reports his own negative results plainly: 1990 capacitor-Q differences that 'drowned in the mean variation', a 3 kW magnetic converter his lab could not reproduce, failed Moebius-winding rebuilds, three inventors he told had 'measured wrong'.

Key contradictions

  1. Combined, Meyl's starting equations E = v x B and H = -v x D hold only for v = c, as his book itself prints; his 1.618 c needs an inward-moving profile (outward gives 0.618 c).
  2. The only worked over-unity record (December 1999): 49 mW out for 233 mW in, 21%; '490%' is 49/(233-223), and at power factor 0.055 just 56 ps of probe skew equals the 10 mW.
  3. With LEDs removed and a low-harmonic oscillator the IGF found Meyl's effects 'no longer exist'; his own manual says unplugging the cable puts the receiver LEDs out, and his patent says a return line 'is required'.
  4. Earth growth of 18 cm/yr needs 2.3e26 W, 60% of the Sun's output and about 6.6e10 times the whole solar neutrino flux's energy; space geodesy measures 0.1 +/- 0.2 mm/yr radius change against his 28.7 mm/yr.
  5. Dated forecasts failed at the named places (no quake excess after 11.8.1999, nothing at Crete in 2006 or South Carolina in 2017, day-length changes of the wrong sign); his particle model gives a neutron-proton mass excess 39 times too large.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 61 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Maxwell's equations are an approximation; the potential-vortex term b = B/tau2Internally inconsistent derivation from E = v x B and H = -v x D Refuted by calculation short tau2 acting in vacuum Tested, not supported div B not zero in ordinary dielectrics Not testable as stated long or unspecified tau2 in matter
Potential vortices explain noise and capacitor lossesRefuted by calculation complex c and noise-match arguments Never properly tested loss as vortex decay; Meyl's 1990 Q test; Kirlian and microwave runs Tested, not supported capacitor circles as proof (electrode corrosion) Not testable as stated charge amplifier 'E not a gradient field'
Longitudinal scalar waves of variable speed, stability limit 1.618 cInternally inconsistent derivation of 1.618 c and the antenna rule Tested, not supported source-free longitudinal wave in vacuum; neutrinos above c (SN 1987A) Never properly tested the same at Tesla's full scale Established longitudinal waves in matter and radial near fields (not Meyl-specific)
The two-coil kit shows scalar-wave effectsEstablished transfer and feedback as resonant circuit effects with a conducting return Tested, not supported scalar interpretation; 500-1000% over-unity (490% record within probe-skew noise) Refuted by calculation 1.5 c as inferred from a frequency ratio Never properly tested Faraday cage; direct speed; flat versus cylindrical coils; Tesla's full-scale apparatus
Neutrinopower: neutrinos as vortices, harvested, and making the Earth growRefuted by calculation Earth growth 18-19 cm/yr; harvesting at standard coupling Tested, not supported Earth growth (space geodesy); superluminal neutrinos Not testable as stated resonantly enhanced coupling and 'Tesla radiation = neutrinos' Historically superseded but instructive Hilgenberg-Carey Earth expansion
Eclipse neutrino lens, dated forecasts and relayed free-energy devicesRefuted by calculation eclipse lens against Meyl's own refraction mechanism; railgun '399 GJ' energy budget Tested, not supported dated eclipse, earthquake and day-length forecasts 1999-2017 at the named places Never properly tested Zhou eclipse-clock reports; relayed devices (no per-device verdict) Not testable as stated after-the-fact links (Montserrat, pendulum); galaxy 'resonating interaction'; slow-neutrino premise
Theory of objectivity: fields set lengths and c; particle masses; SchroedingerInternally inconsistent lengths and c; Moon factor 36; Schroedinger derivation Tested, not supported beam fields; particle masses; 2014 proton-radius prediction; proton moment, neutron = proton + electron, anti-suns Refuted by calculation Hafele-Keating as support Not testable as stated gravitation as closed field lines; length law from inside a laboratory (Meyl's own words); no strong interaction
Scalar waves as biological carrier; electrosmog; vibration medicineTested, not supported nerve standing wave; rouleaux demonstration method (FGF-printed Bonn note) Not testable as stated scalar-share harm, therapies, cancer Never properly tested no controlled trial; 1997 grounding-detection session

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Konstantin MeylInventor and author of the theory · Sells the kits, books and devices through INDEL GmbH; adviser to egmBorn 1952 in Lemgo; Dr.-Ing., Universitaet Stuttgart 1984 (eddy-current couplings); professor of power electronics at FH Furtwangen from 1986, retired 2018; head of the 1st TZS transfer centre, St. Georgen; earlier patents on regulators, eddy-current drives and converters.
Johannes von ButtlarInterviewer and co-author of Neutrino Power (2000) · Co-promoter; the publisher also runs the Magazin 2000plus congressSympathetic popular-science author (publisher's blurb: 'more than 28 million' books sold); named Annalen der Physik as the journal that rejected Meyl's 1990 paper. Further background not in the review files.
Herbert WeidnerTester of the kit (IGF Waldaschaff)Co-author of the six-author IGF report (Sept 2001) and sole author of the companion analysis of 10 Aug 2001, which found the effects vanish with LEDs removed; thanks the Goede foundation for the kit and instruments. Further background not in the review files.
Gerhard W. BruhnPrincipal critic · Organised critic (GWUP member)Mathematician, TU Darmstadt; wrote the critique printed beside Meyl's JSE 2001 paper, arguing the basic equations give only transverse waves at |v| = c; documented the dean's statement, the Runckel opinion and the 2004 withdrawal notice.
Robert HoenlDean of Meyl's faculty at Furtwangen · The university's reputationDean of CEE at FH Furtwangen; in CoMed 12/2002 said the topics were excluded from teaching and independent opinions on the kit were negative in Meyl's sense (quoted by Bruhn).
Hans-J. RunckelThe one named academic supporterProfessor of financial mathematics, Universitaet Ulm; wrote an opinion on Meyl's equations (Nov 2003) after Meyl's dean asked for names; Meyl lists him as an adviser; text known only through Bruhn's rebuttal.
Gao PengIndependent builder reporting a positive resultLaboratory of Beijing Wellan Century Co.; viXra 1607.0130 (2016): torsion-balance deflection near a 45 W dual Tesla coil, resonances 2.65 and 4.17 MHz, on/off controls only.
F. Gollnick and G. ConradTested the mobile-phone blood-rouleaux demonstration · Published by the FGF, an industry- and ministry-linked associationPhysiological Institute, University of Bonn; repeated the live-blood demonstration in their laboratory and found rouleaux independent of a phone call (FGF Newsletter April 2000). Further background not in the review files.
Evidence / artifacts (139 of 145 listed, 96%)

Own works and inventions (41)

  • 1984Dreidimensionale nichtlineare Berechnung von Wirbelstromkupplungen (doctoral thesis) Universitaet Stuttgart; eddy-current couplings, the root of the potential vortex as the dual of the eddy current; named by de.wikipedia
  • 1990Potentialwirbel, Band 1 (1990) and Band 2 (1992) INDEL, ISBN 3-9802542-1-6 and 3-9802542-2-4; Band 2 cited in the 1996 patent for the electron vortex model · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • 1995Meyl, article in EMC Journal 1 (1995) pp.56-59 named in the folder documents; not obtained
  • c.1997Elektrosmog, die physikalischen Grundlagen 11 pp, condenses the 1996 'Elektromagnetische Umweltvertraeglichkeit' Part 1; grad div versus rot rot split; Kelvin 1897 visit; Tesla US 787,412; digest only
  • c.1997Teslas Radiations und Kelvins Ringwirbel aus Sicht der modernen Neutrinoforschung 1. TZS St. Georgen, 13 pp, after June 1997; no equations; neutrino as ring vortex alternating electron/positron; deep-read
  • c.2002Objektivitaetstheorie, Beitrag 1: Der Aether und die Einsteinsche Fehlinterpretation 9 pp, undated (written 1997 or later; PDF 2002-02-25); E, H proportional to 1/l^2; sign error in E_z; glyph losses restored; deep-read with page images
  • c.2002Objektivitaetstheorie, Beitrag 2: Die Vereinigungstheorie 10 pp; c proportional to l; Moon lengths '36-fold' (own law gives 2.45); Apollo 15 features called Apollo 11; no constants derived; deep-read
  • 2000Neutrino Power: Der experimentelle Nachweis der Raumenergie (interview book) J. von Buttlar with Meyl, Argo-Verlag, 302 pp; kit 'over 500%', Clausthal '1000%', failed 3 kW converter p.240, Annalen account pp.213-214, length law 'unmoeglich' to test p.193; deep-read in full · publisher and interviewer sell the book and congress
  • c.2000Teslastrahlung: Die drahtlose Uebertragung von Skalarwellen (lecture with demonstration) TZA Steinbeis, 15 pp; demonstrations Nov 1999 and Feb 2000, Technologiepark Villingen-Schwenningen; kit 1,100 DM; unnamed EMC laboratory 'confirmed' the cage · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • c.2000Longitudinalwellen-Experiment nach Nikola Tesla 6-page lecture handout; five kit claims, over-unity 'approximately 10', 1.5 c from 7/4.7 MHz; deep-read with figure images
  • 2000-06Scalar Wave Technology: Documentation for the Experimental Kit (German: Skalarwellentechnik und Dokumentation, ISBN 3-9802542-6-7) INDEL kit manual, 34 pp, experiments 21 June and 1 July 2000; prices 800, 1400 and SWG-A 3950 EUR; Experiment 2: unplug the cable and the receiver LEDs go out · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • 2001Scalar Waves: Theory and Experiments Journal of Scientific Exploration 15(2) pp.199-205 (SSE Amsterdam talk, Oct 2000), printed beside Bruhn's critique; five kit experiments, 500-1000%; deep-read
  • 2001-04-29Skalarwellenstrahlung: Welche Bedeutung haben Skalarwellen fuer die Medizin? GNP lecture, Wiesbaden, 14 pp; nerve 60 kHz from 1 mm nodes; 'up to 500%'; 'over 50 universities' with four named and no results; deep-read
  • 2001-06-23Fortschrittliche Konzepte zur drahtlosen Energieuebertragung INET/DVR conference lecture, Thurgauerhof, 16 pp; over-unity 'between 1 and 10'; earth lead off, oscillation stops; deep-read
  • 2001-10-06Physikalisch-technische Aspekte komplementaermedizinischer Diagnose- und Therapieverfahren G.E.I.M. lecture, Kaiserslautern, 12 pp; zapper, bioresonance, Clark frequency therapy 'should not work' by present physics; digest only
  • 2003Scalar Waves: first Tesla physics textbook for engineers (German: Elektromagnetische Umweltvertraeglichkeit Teil 1-3, 1996-2002) INDEL, 657 PDF pages; theory, relayed devices, ch.19 own experiments, ch.20 eclipse forecasts; deep-read except ch.1-4 and 6 · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • 2003Faraday or Maxwell? Do scalar waves exist or not? 16-page translated extract of the 2003 book; shortest form of the derivation; deep-read with page images
  • 2003-01Elektrische bzw. magnetische Skalarwellen im Kreuzfeuer der Kritik (CoMed 01/03 interview) Meyl answers H. Groesser; calls the IGF 'a questionable private institute'; unnamed 'hundreds of measurements' and professors; deep-read
  • 2003-05-24Erdwachstum durch Neutrino-Absorption colloquium paper, Schloss Theuern (with TU Berlin); 18-19 cm/yr circumference growth from 0.71 s/yr of leap seconds; deep-read, arithmetic recomputed
  • 2004Sendetechnik der Goetter (novel) INDEL, 3rd ed. 2004; neutrino telegraphy between Roman temples; Meyl later calls it historical science fiction
  • 2004Neutrino power and the existence of scalar waves (Extra Ordinary Technology Conference, Salt Lake City) listed on rexresearch with a video link; not fetched
  • c.2005Kritik zur Erdexpansion and FAQ zu Erdexpansion 2 pp and 12 pp on k-meyl.de; 19.9 cm/yr from equatorial drift rates with subduction called 'a postulate'; tidal 1.7 ms/century set against 7.3 s/yr
  • 2005-12-08Neutrinopower lecture, HAPAG-Lloyd house, Hamburg 2 pp from k-meyl.de; hosted by IVH (BDI) and Norddeutsche Affinerie; kit 'rebuilt' at etzs.de
  • 2007Far Range Transponder (1st RFID Eurasia Conference, Istanbul) engineering form of the kit link; listed on rexresearch; not fetched
  • 2009k-meyl.de FAQ answer: Clausthal '1000%' = 50 mW in, 500 mW out inventor's site, 2009 answer to a reader in Vienna; no measurer, date or report; cage failures blamed on leaks or tuning
  • 2011DNA and Cell Resonance: Magnetic Waves Enable Cell Communication DNA and Cell Biology 31(4) 2012, with JCCS, PIERS Moscow 2012 and WMSCI 2012 versions (one work, four publications); retracted 2013 for duplicate publication
  • 2012Wireless Power Transmission by Scalar Waves (PIERS Moscow 2012) proceedings PDF on k-meyl.de; listed on rexresearch; not fetched
  • 2012About Vortex Physics and Vortex Losses Journal of Vortex Science and Technology 1, Ashdin, doi 10.4303/jvst/235563; div B not 0; Fig. 11 tan delta plot; deep-read with page images
  • –Documentation Volume 2 (reply to Eibert) Meyl says Eibert relied on a different Prof. Meyl (Stuttgart, later TU Muenchen); seen as a Scribd snippet only · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • 2013-08Consequences of the Extended Field Theory PIERS Stockholm 2013 pp.930-935; six textbook equations; vortex-loss curve only as a plot from the Treskatis thesis; Yializis photographs; deep-read
  • 2013-08Wireless Power Transmission by Enlarging the Near Field (PIERS Stockholm 2013) found in a Google result list; not fetched
  • 2013-09Medikamenten-Fernuebertragung (CoMed 09/2013) remote transfer of drug information, the article form of DE102014109660; on k-meyl.de; not fetched
  • 2014Zur Berechnung des Protonenradius (NET-Journal 19, 11/12 2014) 2 pp on k-meyl.de; predicts muonic/electronic proton radius 0.9483; matched the 2010-13 puzzle in size, failed after PRad 2019
  • 2015Plant growth and ATP papers (IJEE 2(1) 2015; BEM 2016 doi 10.15761/BEM.1000156) longitudinal magnetic waves said to raise plant ATP and slow ageing; listed on rexresearch; not fetched
  • 2015Calculations Concerning the Variable Size of Protons and Other Nuclei (PIERS Prague 2015) pp.2436-2438; draft on k-meyl.de; not fetched
  • 2015-08-25Earth Expansion by Neutrino-Power J Geol Geophys 4:5, 1000219 (OMICS); English version of the 2003 talk plus an Aristarchus year-length comparison; deep-read
  • 2015-10-16Microcosm to Macrocosm Calculated with One Equation lecture, TU Epirus, Arta; listed on rexresearch; not fetched
  • 2016-01-01The Transition from Far to Near Field calculated by Vortex Wireless Power Transmission Fluid Mechanics: Open Access 3(1):122 (OMICS); v^2 - vc - c^2 = 0 gives 1.618 c (outward profile gives 0.618 c); checked with SymPy
  • 2016Der Skalarwellenkrieg (autobiographical book) INDEL, 173 pp, ISBN 9783940703460; the inventor's account of the controversy; names Eibert among critics; not obtained · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • –Later k-meyl.de papers: Wassermotor mit Ozon, Die Struktur von Gas 1-3, no blue shift of a shrinking galaxy, Visoko (NET-Journal 09/2014) listed on the inventor's site; not fetched
  • 2026k-meyl.de home page: scalar-wave devices (SWD) at 6.78 MHz devices on sale with a return line between receiver and sender; Schrodt-Meyl 'Zellradio'; 'Entdeckung magnetischer Monopole' cited as recognition · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)

Meyl's own experiments (reported in his books) (11)

  • c.1989Charge-amplifier measurement: 'the E-field is not a gradient field' home-built amplifier, pointer 'dance'; no readings or controls (book ch.19)
  • c.1990Kirlian 'phantom leaf' photographs and a student's spark-gap map 20000 V; no cleaning or blind comparison; the spark-gap map showed no place dependence (book ch.19)
  • 1990-06-11Capacitor Q test, HF laboratory, FH Furtwangen about 400 MHz on a network analyser; Q 48 silver on, 28 polished off, 9 acid-stripped; repeats 'drowned in the mean variation'; colleague withdrew from joint paper (PDF pp.410-412)
  • 1995Tesla flat-coil receiver 50-100 mV blew the oscilloscope input diode; over half a volt in distant thunderstorms; no controls (book ch.19)
  • 1996-10-22Microwave oven versus hotplate cooling comparison student practical; one run per method; curves 1-2 degrees C apart; text and caption disagree on direction (book ch.19)
  • 1997-06-14Electrosensitivity on/off test at an electrobiology seminar one woman called the receiver grounding state every 5 s, '100 percent' after training; unblinded, trial count not given; repeated 'with different success' (PDF p.418)
  • 1998-01-22Student high-voltage generator work a fluorescent lamp glowed in the field; 511 kV not reached (book ch.19)
  • 1999-08-11Eclipse forecast and radioactivity measurement near Munich focusing of 27-28 times forecast over Ulm-Augsburg-Freising (NET-Journal 7/8-1999); granite under the umbra showed 'almost no change'
  • 1999-12Scalar-wave transmission line power record, TZ St. Georgen 6.7 MHz, LeCroy 9304C, M. Andresen and M. Rehm; 233 mW in, 223 mW idle, 49.1 mW out; read as 490%, gross 21%, power factor 0.055 (PDF pp.419-422)
  • c.2000Reproduction attempts: an inventor's 3 kW magnetic converter and Seike's Moebius windings Neutrino Power pp.238-240: 'could not be reproduced in my laboratory'; none of the Moebius rebuilds worked; Meyl took part in the converter design
  • 2003Dated eclipse forecasts for 29.3.2006, 13.11.2012 and 21.8.2017 2003 book p.448: rotation slowing and earthquakes near 4.4.2006 at Crete and Asia Minor; South Carolina 2017; checked by the review against USGS and IERS

Patents and patent office (15)

  • 1900Tesla US 645,576 and US 649,621 named as the kit's forerunners; Psiram notes Tesla claimed no efficiency above 1; not read
  • 1905-04-18Tesla US 787,412, Art of transmitting electrical energy through the natural mediums 471,240 km/s is Tesla's own number ((pi/2) c); 'six per second'; no '12 Hz' or Schumann in the text; read on Google Patents by the arbiter
  • 1980-02-12DE3005103A1, adaptive regulator Meyl's control-engineering filing; Google Patents
  • 1981-01-17DE3101323A1, regulated eddy-current drive (1-15 kW) Meyl; eddy-current background
  • 1986-07-31DE3625913A1, reducing switching losses in current-injecting converters Meyl; power electronics, his teaching field
  • 1988Stanley Meyer water-cell patents (WO 89/12704, Canadian 1234773) cited by Meyl via Raum und Zeit Special 7; '18 patent specifications'; not read
  • 1996-04-12DE19614575A1, Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Empfang von Neutrinos spheres plus flat spiral coil in antiphase resonance; 66e9 neutrinos/cm2/s, 'about 27 W/m2', the only energy budget; application only, ceased
  • 1997-09-30Patterson US 5,672,259 (CETI cell) cited by Meyl with 'over-unity up to 4000'; reprinted in Infinite Energy 1997; not read
  • 1999Reichwein patent family (DE10005906A1, WO2001034096A1, EP1230649A1, US6611412B1) D. Reichwein, coils and emission reduction; matched Meyl vocabulary; texts not opened
  • 2003-10-21DE10348862B4, Vorrichtung zur Datenuebertragung (granted 2009-03-12) capacitive path plus conducting connection forming one L-C circuit; 'a return line is required'; no over-unity claim; Meyl's only granted patent on this work
  • 2011Lange DE202011005559U1 and DE202006000736U1 bio-energetic 'harmonisation' devices using scalar-wave vocabulary; texts not opened
  • 2012Mendes Waechter WO2013155580A1, Scalar energy generation device text not opened; whether it cites Meyl not checked
  • 2014-07-10DE102014109660A1, information transfer by a self-resonant LC circuit with organic fluids Meyl, Radolfzell; withdrawn; patent form of remote drug-information transfer
  • –CN106772547A/B (China Aerospace Construction Group) cites DE19614575A1 in its citation list; not opened
  • 2021-10-21DE102021127321A1, expansion engine with magnetised gas before compression Meyl; withdrawn; latest dated work; found on Espacenet

Company and business records (4)

  • c.1990INDEL Industrieelektronik GmbH, Freiburg HRB 603012 Villingen-Schwenningen; managing directors Meyl and A. Schrodt-Meyl; accounts to FY 2012 filed 2013; managing director N.N. from 25.03.2024 (North Data) · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • 2000Kit price lists and SWG-A scalar wave device 800 EUR demo set, 1400 EUR experiment set, 3950 EUR SWG-A for 'biological information' (manual p.34); book p.649 advertises '1 to 3 times over-unity' · Meyl sells the kit, books and devices (INDEL GmbH)
  • –INDEL Industrieelektronik GmbH, St. Georgen, Muenchen HRB 64127 second, dissolved company at the transfer-centre address (North Data)
  • –egm international GmbH, Papenburg, 'Wirbelwandler' advisory board Meyl on the scientific advisory board (Psiram); fuel mixed with water and CO2 · advisory role

University and publication records (5)

  • 1990-04Rejection of 'Potentialwirbel in der Elektrodynamik' (journal named by the interviewer as Annalen der Physik) Meyl's account, Neutrino Power pp.213-214: one ground in the passive voice, one 'referee' sentence on approximation methods; no date or report · the inventor's own account
  • 2002-11-27Furtwangen dean R. Hoenl, statement in CoMed 12/2002 topics excluded from teaching; independent opinions on the kit 'negative in Meyl's sense'; positive sources not named (quoted by Bruhn) · university reputation
  • 2003-10-25DGEIM meeting and H. J. Herrmann's statement on Stuttgart ICA I chair claimed Stuttgart led in this technology; director Herrmann says his institute never worked on scalar waves (Bruhn, Richtigstellung 2004)
  • 2008Furtwangen chancellor G. Kusserow to SWR; Suedkurier 'Hochschule distanziert sich von Messeauftritt' Suedwest-Messe 2008 show 'Neutrinopower'; Meyl may not lecture on scalar waves; devices 'knapp 10000 Euro' (copy on Bruhn's pages) · university reputation
  • 2013-02-22Retractions of the cell-communication paper (Retraction Watch) DNA and Cell Biology and JCCS, for fourfold duplicate publication after a complaint by U. Berger (Austrian sceptics' society); a referee called it 'way out there' but possibly right · complainant is an organised critic

Witness accounts and correspondence (9)

  • 1897Kelvin's visit to Tesla's laboratory, in Tesla, 'Famous Scientific Illusions', Electrical Experimenter, Feb 1919 Tesla's own account: 'true conduction', not Hertz waves; no 'longitudinal' and no 'Both are right' (Meyl's additions); read on the web · Tesla, on his own priority
  • 1930sMoray's report of solar neutrinos dropping at night (in a 1960 book) cited by Meyl in Erdwachstum and the 2015 paper; predates the neutrino's detection (1956); single source in the folder
  • 1932-02-06New York Times, Tesla statement on superluminal cosmic particle radiation cited in Neutrino Power p.25; says nothing about collecting energy with a coil (deep read)
  • 1994A. Schneider compilation of free-energy devices (Coler: Kloss and Franke, TU Berlin, '450%'; Schumann '4.8 to 6.7 times') Coler documents said to be confiscated by British intelligence, partly declassified 1962; relayed by Meyl (book ch.14-18)
  • 1997-05-28Gruber's eyewitness report of the Patterson cell at CETI with N. J. Olson (Pacific Northwest Laboratory) and an ABC team; '50% of the radioactivity removed' in one hour, 'up to 80%' elsewhere; relayed by Meyl (book p.370) · Gruber, space-energy advocate
  • c.1999Third-party devices relayed in the textbook (railgun, Testatika, Bedini, Ecklin, RQM, Searl, Stan Meyer, Podkletnov and others) second-hand figures from NET-Journal, Raum und Zeit Special 7, company pages; Meyl's doubts (Testatika 'can't be talked of free energy'); railgun '399 GJ' from 'the Internet'
  • 2001-10-27raum&zeit report on Hartmut Mueller's 'G-Com' demonstration, Bad Toelz H.-J. Ehlers, raum&zeit 115/2002 pp.99-102; voice link to St. Petersburg 'without carrier'; no independent check; does not name Meyl · publisher was an exhibitor
  • 2003-11H.-J. Runckel (Ulm), 'Betr. Theorien von Herrn Prof. Meyl' the one academic opinion Meyl named; known only through Bruhn's reply of 12.08.2004; text not found
  • 2018A. Schneider's report of an SBB 'railway without overhead line' plan (Sissach-Olten) relayed by Psiram with the 2014 stroke report; a record at SBB or in the Swiss press would settle it

Experiments and replications by others (16)

  • 1972Hafele-Keating clock experiment -59 ns east, +273 ns west: difference 332 ns, not Meyl's 214 ns (arbiter web check)
  • 1980Yializis, Cichanowski and Shaw, IEEE ISEI Boston 1980 source of the 'visible proof' capacitor photographs (450 V, 60 Hz, 100 C); the paper speaks of electrode corrosion
  • 1984Taylor, IEEE Trans. EI-19 (1984) discusses the same electrode marks as corrosion; cited in Meyl's figure caption
  • 1987SN 1987A neutrino timing neutrinos and light agree to 2e-9 for 10-40 MeV; 1.618 c would arrive 64,168 years early
  • 1993Tunnelling experiments: Enders and Nimtz (Cologne), Chiao (Berkeley), Krausz (TU Wien) cited by Meyl for 2-5 c; mainstream reading: group delay with fronts at c (Winful); Nimtz reads them as superluminal
  • 1998Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino deficit and solar day-night data night flux a few per cent higher, not half missing; up-going deficit explained by oscillation (abstracts read)
  • 1999Shu-wen Zhou, eclipse anomalies, 21st Century Science and Technology 12(3) spectra, caesium clocks (USNO pair 1989-91) and Allais-type pendulum during eclipses; cited by Meyl
  • 2000-01Live blood 'rouleaux' demonstration against a mobile mast, Kall (Eifel) reported in the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger 15./16.1.2000; the demonstration the Bonn study repeated
  • 2000-04FGF Newsletter 1/00: Gollnick and Conrad, Bonn rouleaux test Physiological Institute, Bonn: rouleaux appeared with or without a mobile-phone call; no sample sizes; deep-read pp.4-7, 13-14 · FGF, industry- and ministry-linked
  • 2001-08-10H. Weidner, 'Analyse eines Teslaschwingkreises oder Was ist dran an Skalarwellen?' (IGF companion report) recovered from the Wayback Machine (gravitation.org/meyl2.html); LEDs removed and low-harmonic source: 'the effects no longer exist'; coil loss 0.8%
  • 2001-09IGF Waldaschaff, Experimente zum Nachweis von Skalarwellen Junker, Schmelzer, Senkel, Weidner, Winkels, Zentgraf; measured 10 Jul 2001; Lecher-line resonances 5.35 and 29.5 MHz, 3.4 mA in the link, about 45% by eye-matched LEDs
  • 2009Morris, Tennant et al., spin-ice 'monopoles', Science 326, 411 cited by Meyl for div B not 0; authors' abstract says div B = 0 remains intact (abstract read)
  • 2011Wu et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L13304, Earth radius change 0.1 +/- 0.2 mm/yr against Meyl's 28.7 mm/yr
  • 2016-07-10Gao Peng, Attempts to Detect the Torsion Field Nature of Scalar Wave Generated by Dual Tesla Coil System viXra 1607.0130, Beijing Wellan Century Co.; torsion balance near a 45 W dual coil, positive by author, on/off controls only
  • 2019PRad proton radius and CODATA 2018 0.831 and 0.8414 fm; muonic/electronic ratio near 1, against Meyl's 0.948
  • 2026-10-08USGS ComCat and IERS length-of-day checks of Meyl's eclipse claims 27 M6+ events after 11.8.1999 (25 expected); M5.5 off Zakynthos on 4.4.2006, nothing at Crete or Anatolia; LOD changes opposite in sign

Related work by others (7)

  • 1755R. Boscovich, only ratios of lengths are observable Meyl's named source for field-dependent lengths (proton-radius paper)
  • 1933O. C. Hilgenberg, Vom wachsenden Erdball credited by Meyl as pioneer of Earth expansion; aether physics replaced by neutrino absorption; historically superseded
  • 1967G. Bosse (Mannheim 1967) and K. Simonyi (Berlin 1979) textbooks Meyl's support for unipolar induction as the general law; he concedes there is no proof (Neutrino Power p.164)
  • –W. R. Pohl's textbook equations per Bruhn the source of Meyl's 'dual field approach', describing a transverse wave at c
  • 1996R. Shannon, Notes on Scalar Detector Designs (Barkhausen effect detector) 9 pp in the folder, Bearden-style detectors; no measurements; not by Meyl; digest only
  • 2002I. Perrin, NCGT 2002 analysis of NASA data diameter growth 7.79-7.94 cm/yr, Meyl's comparison value
  • 2003Bearden MEG and Evans AIAS circle cited in support at DGEIM 2003 shared theme of longitudinal EM and vacuum energy (Bruhn)

Later accounts and media (12)

  • 2001G. W. Bruhn, On the Existence of K. Meyl's Scalar Waves, JSE 15(2) pp.206-210 printed after Meyl's paper; the JSE editorial explains why; not downloaded · organised critic (GWUP)
  • 2003-02-20Bruhn, Stellungnahme zu Aeusserungen des Herrn Meyl in CO'MED 01/03 basic equations give transverse waves with |v| = c; 'nobody disputes scalar waves in general' · organised critic
  • 2004Bruhn, Richtigstellung, Runckel reply and 'Meyl zieht sich zurueck' notice Feb-Aug 2004; reports a March 2004 withdrawal announcement not found in the Wayback Machine · organised critic
  • 2008-05-30Bruhn, commentary on three near-identical Meyl papers Meyl's dual equations taken from W. R. Pohl; misapplied chain rule · organised critic
  • –Bruhn, Skalarwellen und die rauhe Wirklichkeit der Experimente, and about 40 further pages Fresnel polarisation as evidence against longitudinal light; 'Zwoelf Fragen', 'Abschlussbericht', the Dipol-Elektron prize pages not opened · organised critic
  • 2008-05-17Suedwest-Messe show 'Neutrinopower', model boat and plane shown to minister Ernst Pfister Suedkurier and Schwarzwaelder Bote 4.4.2008 PDFs on k-meyl.de (not opened); Psiram captions
  • 2020J. J. Gryz, The future of energy security of states, Security and Defence Quarterly cites Der Skalarwellenkrieg pp.33-34
  • –Psiram, 'Konstantin Meyl' anonymous sceptic wiki: Eibert and Kuehlke critiques, 2008 boat demo, INDEL accounts, 2014 stroke (one source) · critic wiki
  • –de.wikipedia, 'Konstantin Meyl' born 1952 Lemgo; Furtwangen from 1986, retired 2018; works with ISBNs; IGF result
  • –Goede-Stiftung summary of the IGF kit tests current foundation page: effects explained by standing waves on a Lecher line
  • –Press items listed by Meyl (Spiegel 'Schwarzwaelder Kopernikus' 21.5.2001, Suedkurier 23.4.2003, Gruber in DVR 4.4.2003, Rothdach in GeoForum 2003) named in the textbook bibliography; not obtained
  • –Klaus Keck, critic's documentation site xy44.de/skalar Konstanz chemist named in Suedkurier 2008; not reached · organised critic

Records named but not yet examined (19)

  • c.1899Tesla's Colorado Springs notes on the 200-lamp story Meyl gives 42 km and 25 miles in two texts
  • 1990-04Annalen der Physik referee report or 1990 correspondence would test Meyl's account of the rejection
  • 1999NET-Journal 7/8-1999 and Magazin 2000plus nr.148, 150, 151 eclipse articles hold Meyl's forecast data
  • 2000A. Waser, NET-Journal 12/2000 cited by the IGF; not obtained
  • 2000-07-06TU Clausthal 'control survey' of the kit (1000%) no names, data or report; no Clausthal record found
  • 2001IGF Faraday-cage check and correspondence after Aug 2001 report says the cage was checked but prints no measurement; reply to the invitation unknown
  • 2002Independent opinions on the kit held by Furtwangen dean says they are 'negative in Meyl's sense'; none published · university reputation
  • 2004T. F. Eibert, 'Eine kritische Betrachtung der Theorien von K. Meyl', FGF Newsletter 1/2004 Meyl says Eibert confused him with another Prof. Meyl · FGF, industry-linked
  • 2004-03Meyl's own 'withdrawal' statement (k-meyl.de Stellungnahme_Rueckzug) no Wayback capture
  • 2010T. Treskatis, bachelor thesis on dielectric losses of a film capacitor, University of Konstanz the only measured data behind the capacitor-loss claim; supervised by Meyl per his note; not online
  • 2012Meyl, 'Self-consistent electrodynamics', PIERS Moscow 2012 the loss-term paper
  • –Hallock/McNair Tamarack mine plumb-line records single-source account used for the theory of objectivity
  • –Declassified British report on the Coler device would decide the confiscation story
  • –'EMC laboratory' cage confirmation and CE declaration unnamed laboratory, no report
  • –'Over 50 universities' and 'hundreds of measurements' on the kit Edinburgh, Vienna, Stanford, TU Beijing named; no results
  • –D. Kuehlke, 'Elektrische Skalarwellen: Spekulation oder Tatsache?' Furtwangen physicist colleague; not online
  • –DPMA file histories of DE19614575 and DE10348862 examination, grant and lapse
  • –Bundesanzeiger filings 2010-2012 and Handelsregister history of INDEL company record after 2012
  • –Furtwangen faculty minutes 2002-2008 teaching ban and dean's statement

Left out: the review's own AI analyses, saved web pages and duplicate copies, German editions counted with their English works, and six minor citations (a 1932 Tesla letter on Einstein, the Cheney biography, Gottfried's NCGT paper, Hassler and HealthTech patents, 2024 diefreien.ch excerpts). Full catalogue: Meyl-Konstantin sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: One day in an RF lab: a low-harmonic source, no LEDs, calibrated power at generator and load with deskewed probes, the link wire removed as a control, a battery transmitter in a welded enclosure for the cage, gated-burst time of flight for the speed, and a closed loop.

Deciding records: The TU Clausthal notes of 6 July 2000, the Treskatis 2010 thesis and the PIERS 2012 loss formula, Waser's NET-Journal 12/2000, the unnamed EMC laboratory report, Runckel's opinion, Eibert's FGF 1/2004 critique, IGF correspondence after August 2001, and the 1990 Annalen referee report.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: Part A shows Meyl's 0.71 s per year is an accumulated leap-second count, not a yearly change of the day, so the growth falls about 100-fold; Part B gives 0.618 c for an outward profile. Also compute 49/233 and 49/(233-223).

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Mathematician Put H = -v x D into E = v x B: E = (v^2/c^2) E, true only if v = c. Meyl prints this as 'result: v = c', so his own starting equations rule out the arbitrary speed his scalar waves need; Bruhn said so in 2003. mathematician.md, section 0
  2. Arbiter Faraday cage: Never properly tested, not Tested, not supported. The IGF says the cage was checked but prints no measurement; Meyl's test has a cable or gap through the wall, and he concedes the received signal cannot show what share was scalar. arbiter.md, claim 4
  3. Contrarian Against the critics: the IGF's 45% comes from eye-matched LED brightness, its distance curve also fits conducted transfer, there is no cage measurement and one test group only; Wikipedia and Psiram labels are characterisations, not tests; the IGF itself says Tesla-scale experiments were never done. contrarian.md, Where I would push back on both sides
  4. Arbiter Asked how to prove E, H ~ 1/l^2 in a laboratory, Meyl says it 'duerfte ziemlich schwierig bis unmoeglich werden'. By his own account the length law cannot be tested from inside, while his outside predictions (fields of fast beams) fail. A reader should see both. arbiter.md, QE revision 2, claim 6
  5. Investigator The IGF companion report (Weidner, 10 Aug 2001), listed as missing, was recovered from the Wayback Machine: with a low-harmonic oscillator and LEDs removed, 'the effects described by Meyl no longer exist'; the IGF invited Meyl to repeat the tests. sites.md, Leads for review 4; research/2026-10-08-wayback-gravitation-org.md

AI noteTesla's patent US 787,412 does say 471,240 km/s, which is (pi/2) c to five digits; it has no '12 Hz' and no Schumann comparison. Those are Meyl's readings, and Tesla's 1919 Kelvin story never says 'longitudinal'.

Rank 27Su-CC

no change B - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-06 18:24

A Taiwanese engineering professor rebuilt relativity's results with an ether that rides along with each planet; it matches GPS, but its own distinctive cavity prediction was later measured null.

Invention / theory background

Ching-Chuan Su, professor of electrical engineering at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, published 2000-2006 a 'local-ether' model: light moves at c relative to an ether fixed to Earth's centre near Earth and to the Sun between planets. A matter-wave equation makes mass a frequency, gravity becomes an optical index, magnetism a Galilean force law, and quasar redshifts gravitational. Papers appeared in Eur. Phys. J. C, Europhys. Lett. and J. Electromagn. Waves Applic.

Ranking explanation

Rank 16 for open questions, things a reader can calculate, and a small continuing literature. Below Aspden, whose revived force law is untested; Su's sharpest prediction, the 62 Hz cavity term, has since been tested and not supported. Above Haisch-Bernard, whose net-power claim is refuted by calculation: Su still leaves open questions (aberration, his F2 term beside a 1976 anomaly, electronic-clock redshift) and offers clean worked calculations.

Key supporting elements

  1. Every number Su matches (GPS Sagnac correction, Hafele-Keating, Ives-Stilwell, light bending, Shapiro delay, neutron Sagnac and gravity phases) is correct; the reviewers found the algebra right throughout the deep reads.
  2. The GPS observation is real: the Sagnac correction is applied in the Earth-centred frame and Earth's 30 km/s orbital motion is not; relativity gives the same, so GPS cannot adjudicate either way.
  3. Su stated departures as numbers (62 Hz, about 1 degree, -11.5 Hz) and named his own unsolved problem (annual aberration) and his unfavourable data ('not good quantitatively'), behaviour the Contrarian calls falsifiability-minded.
  4. Edwards, Kenyon and Lemon (1976) reported an unexplained coil potential quadratic in current with electron sign: the form and sign of Su's F2 term, though 24-320 times larger than F2 with uniform current.
  5. Published in refereed journals, cited 46 and 32 times; Gift (2021) calls the nested ethers 'a reasonable working hypothesis' (a proponent); Field 2019 and Kipreos 2024 (IJMPA) examine preferred frames and cite Su.

Key contradictions

  1. Herrmann et al. (Berlin, 2009) measured the lab-fixed term at twice the turntable rate at about 1e-17 over a year, roughly 4e4 below Su's 4.5e-13; an incidental test, not a dedicated one.
  2. An ether carried by the Earth cannot yet give annual stellar aberration; Su conceded it, and no rule says where Earth's ether ends.
  3. Su's one-way turntable effect cancels when his own clock formula is applied to atomic clocks; his transverse radar Doppler shift is the standard formula evaluated at a different instant.
  4. His wave equation, expanded, gives a different gravitational redshift for electronic than for hyperfine transitions, contradicting his own universal formula; he never sized it.
  5. The quasar fit uses a weak-field formula at Phi/c^2 = 4.1 with a chosen density: 1.3e16 solar masses, escape speed 2.9 c, free-fall time 272 years.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 40 shown)
ClaimVerdict
A local ether carries light (Earth-centred frame near Earth, heliocentric between planets)Established ECI-frame Sagnac, no orbital term (not evidence for an ether) Not testable as stated ether as the explanation at first order Tested, not supported annual aberration with an Earth-carried ether
Lab-fixed second-order cavity anisotropy (62 Hz at 3.39 micron, 40 deg latitude)Tested, not supported Herrmann et al. 2009, incidental test
Gravity is an optical index, not curvatureEstablished deflection, delays, GR's numbers by construction Not testable as stated no curvature needed Never properly tested second-order redshift and frame effects
Matter waves obey the preferred-frame equation; mass is a frequencyEstablished de Broglie and clock relations, as SR in the ECI frame Not testable as stated preferred-frame reading; mass as origin of inertia Plausible, untested hyperfine and nuclear extension, as a derivation
Gravitational redshift is (1 - Phi_g/c^2) for every transitionEstablished hyperfine clocks Internally inconsistent electronic transitions, from Su's own equation
Magnetism can be Galilean (augmented-potential force law)Established low-speed reduction to Lorentz force; Fresnel drag Never properly tested extra terms F1-F3 incl. F2 after Edwards et al. 1976; Barnett; magnetic-medium drag
Other predictions differing from relativityInternally inconsistent one-way turntable link with atomic clocks Refuted by calculation transverse radar Doppler as a difference Never properly tested Bragg asymmetry, -11.5 Hz offset, third-order rotor
Quasar redshifts are gravitational, with preferred values from halvingInternally inconsistent formula at Phi/c^2 = 4.1 Tested, not supported Karlsson periodicity premise (contested) Not testable as stated abrupt-boundary argument

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Ching-Chuan Su (C.-C. Su)Originator of the local-ether model and Quantum Electromagnetics · Originator; his accounts of relativity, GPS practice and others' experiments are his characterisationsBorn 1955 in Taiwan; B.S., M.S., Ph.D. in electrical engineering, National Taiwan University (1978, 1980, 1985); ITRI 1980-82 (IC fabrication); NTHU faculty from 1985, professor of EE; antenna and microwave papers in IEEE journals 1988-2003; local-ether papers 2000-2006; record stops 2006.
James MarsenPromoter of Su's work; source of the c.2007 death date; proposed orbital Michelson-Morley tests · Advocate of the model; author of his own 'Tron Theory' with a 'very similar' etherEducation and career not in the review files. Wrote viXra 1906.0336 (2019) and 2105.0110 (2021) and presented Su's model to the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society in June 2021.
Petr BeckmannProposed the same local-ether postulate in 1986, apparently independently of SuNot in the review files beyond his works: Einstein Plus Two (1987) and the journal Galilean Electrodynamics; described as 'the late Prof.' by Marsen.
Stephan J. G. GiftIndependent author arguing from GPS timing for an Earth-bound ether; endorses Su's hierarchy of ethers · Proponent of preferred-frame readings of GPSNot in the review files. Papers 2006, 2012 (viXra) and Applied Physics Research 13(1) (2021) on the same point.
A. Brillet and J. L. HallRan the 1979 laser isotropy test whose 2-omega residual (about 34 Hz, per Su) is Su's one old comparisonNot in the review files; their paper (Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 549, Boulder) was obtained only as an abstract, so their reasons for calling the term spurious are unread.
S. Herrmann et al.Berlin rotating-cavity experiment (2009) whose lab-fixed amplitudes bound Su's cavity term about 4e4 below predictionNot in the review files beyond the paper: Phys. Rev. D 80, 105011, data May 2007 to June 2008, designed to test sidereal modulation, not Su.
W. F. Edwards, C. S. Kenyon and D. K. LemonUtah State University experimenters who reported a coil potential quadratic in current (1976, 1992), the record bearing on Su's F2Not in the review files beyond the papers; they did not test or cite Su.
Halton Arp and Geoffrey BurbidgeSources of the quasar-ejection view and cases Su adopts for his redshift mechanism · Proponents of quasar-galaxy associationNot in the review files beyond their cited papers (Arp 2001, Arp and Russell 2001, Arp et al. 2002; Burbidge and Napier 2001).
Evidence / artifacts (122 of 122 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (34)

  • 2000A local-ether model of wave propagation complying with the Sagnac correction in the global positioning system IEEE AP-S International Symposium 2000; earliest statement of the model; cited by 10 (Google Scholar); not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2000Generalisation of radar Doppler shift for target of arbitrary velocity relative to transceiver Electronics Letters 36, 1812, doi 10.1049/el:20001281; source of the transverse radar Doppler item; not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2000Second-order radar echo time paper J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 14, 1525; cited in claims.md as carrying derivations; not in the folder · Author and originator of the model
  • 2000/2002APS March and April meeting abstracts Su's talks 2000-2002, listed by the Natural Philosophy Wiki; not reached in the time limit · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001A wave-propagation model for gravitational effects on light deflection and radar echo time J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 15(2), 259-268 (f5b); index n_g = 1 + 2GM/(c^2 r); 1.75 arcsec, 43-60 ps GPS delay, about 230 microseconds Earth-Venus; OCR scan, equations from page images, numbers recomputed · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001A local-ether model of propagation of electromagnetic wave Eur. Phys. J. C 21, 701-715 (also as f1a); foundation paper: GPS Sagnac, Japan-USA and Japan-Korea links, Michelson-Morley, 62 Hz cavity prediction, aberration admitted unsolved, CMBR second-order test; pp.1-15 deep-read; cited by 46 · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001A local-ether wave equation and speed-dependent mass and quantum energy Eur. Phys. J. B 24, 231-239 (f6); f = f0 sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2), Hafele-Keating, GPS clocks, Hughes-Drever, -11.5 Hz prediction, universal redshift formula eq. 25; pp.1-9 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001Explicit definitions of electric and magnetic fields in potentials and derivation of Maxwell's equations Eur. J. Phys. 22, L5-L8, doi 10.1088/0143-0807/22/3/101; not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001On the Sagnac effect in wave propagation J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 15(7), 945-955; not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001-07Modifications of the Lorentz Force Law Invariant under Galilean Transformations IEEE AP-S 2001 Digest vol. 1, Boston, p.208 (f2b); scan from the Wayback copy of Su's site; abstract-level reading · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001-07Modifications of Maxwell's Equations Invariant under Galilean Transformations IEEE AP-S 2001 Digest vol. 1, p.212 (f3b); Wayback scan; abstract-level reading · Author and originator of the model
  • 2001-10-15Reinterpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment based on the GPS Sagnac correction Europhys. Lett. 56(2), 170-174 (f1b); downloaded from the Wayback Machine; orbital term absent, rotational term too small; read by the Mathematician; cited by 32 · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002A local-ether wave equation unifying gravitational and electromagnetic forces J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 16(3), 403-410 (f5a); gravitational index in the matter-wave equation, identity of inertial and gravitational mass; OCR scan, equations from page images · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002A local-ether wave equation and the consequent electromagnetic force law J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 16(9), 1275-1290 (f4a); m0 = hbar omega0/c^2, augmentation operator, force law; OCR scan, equations from page images · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002Book contents, chapter abstracts and publication notice (web version) contents.htm, ch1-ch8.htm, publish.htm from Su's site, Wayback 2002 captures; lists 'Unsolved and Predicted Propagation Phenomena'; 'publish of this book is in preparation' · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-08-23Local-ether wave equation of electric field and interferometry experiments with moving medium and path arXiv physics/0208082 (f3a); Fresnel drag from polarisation current, Krisher fibre link, Sagnac index-dependences, no drag in a magnetic medium; pp.1-12 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-08-23Modifications of Schroedinger's equation complying with the effect of Earth's rotation on quantum energy in atoms and with the electromagnetic force arXiv physics/0208083 (f4b); downloaded twice (arXiv, Wayback); abstract only; likely source of the unsized atom-radiation prediction · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-08-23Resonant absorption between moving atoms due to Doppler frequency shift and quantum energy variation arXiv physics/0208084 (f7); Ives-Stilwell, ammonia masers, Mossbauer rotor; third-order rotor prediction about 1e-18; pp.1-12 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-08-23Reinterpretation of matter-wave interference experiments based on the local-ether wave equation arXiv physics/0208085 (f8a); neutron Bragg-angle asymmetry about 1 deg; compared with Staudenmann et al. 1980, 'not good quantitatively'; pp.1-12 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-10-01Reinterpretation of the effects of the Earth's rotation and gravity on the neutron-interferometry experiment Europhys. Lett. 60(1), 1-6 (f8b); matches standard Sagnac and COW phases; rotation-yes, orbit-no test; OCR scan read from page images · Author and originator of the model
  • 2002-11-05Modifications of the Lorentz force law complying with Galilean transformations and the local-ether propagation model arXiv physics/0211019 (f2a); augmented potentials, extra terms F1-F3, CRT example; pp.1-12 deep-read, QE deep read pp.8-11 · Author and originator of the model
  • 2003A local-ether wave equation unifying quantum mechanics, electromagnetics, and gravitation IEEE AP-S 2003; cited by 2 (Google Scholar); not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2005Reinterpretation of Fizeau's experiment with moving medium in accord with the Sagnac effect due to Earth's rotation J. Electromagn. Waves Applic. 19(4), 559-567 (f3c); Su concedes first-order Fizeau cannot discriminate; pp.1-9 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • c.2005Quantum Electromagnetics: outline of the book outline.pdf, 9 pp.; 11 predictions on p.8, four not derived in any folder paper; QE deep read pp.4-9 · Author and originator of the model
  • c.2005Quantum Electromagnetics: web summary page summary.htm; one-page summary listing experiments 'accounted for' and predicted effects · Author and originator of the model
  • c.2005Author biography page Ching-Chuan Su.html (same text as autobio.htm on the Wayback copy): born 1955, NTU degrees 1978/1980/1985, ITRI 1980-82, NTHU from 1985 · Author and originator of the model
  • 2005An Ignored Mechanism for the Longitudinal Recoil Force in Railguns and Revitalization of the Riemann Force Law Listed by the Natural Philosophy Wiki; not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2005-12-20Reexamination of Barnett's experiment based on the modified Lorentz force law arXiv physics/0512179 (f2d), Wayback copy; predicts non-zero induction outside a rotating solenoid or with a short one; unsized; partly read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2006Mechanisms for the longitudinal recoil force in railguns based on the Lorentz force law IEEE Trans. Magn. 42, 2193, doi 10.1109/tmag.2006.878010; last Crossref record; not obtained · Author and originator of the model
  • 2006-01-02A wave interpretation of the Compton effect as a further demonstration of the postulates of de Broglie arXiv physics/0506211 v3 (f8c); reproduces the Compton shift; unsized 'direct radiation' at lambda_C/(gamma - 1); pp.1-7 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • 2006-04Connections between the Riemann and the Lorentz force laws Found. Phys. Lett. 19(2), doi 10.1007/s10702-006-0376-z (f2c); relative-speed force law obeying action-reaction; Wayback copy; abstract-level reading · Author and originator of the model
  • 2006-08-16A proposed mechanism for the intrinsic redshift and its preferred values purportedly found in quasars based on the local-ether theory arXiv physics/0608164 (f5c); z = 2.07 vs 2.114 for the NGC 7319 quasar with an assumed density; halving series vs Karlsson peaks; publication status unknown; pp.1-11 deep-read · Author and originator of the model
  • unknownCompanion gravitational-redshift paper Cited in f6 as ref. 15, 'submitted'; not in the folder or found · Author and originator of the model
  • 2008-03Quantum Electromagnetics: A Local-Ether Wave Equation (book) NTHU Press, ISBN 9789574110971 (ISBN dated 1 Feb 2005; NTHU Press edition 1 Mar 2008); HyRead e-book and a scholar.archive.org PDF listed; full text not obtained · Author and originator of the model

Experiments and replications by others (36)

  • 1851Fizeau, flowing-water interferometer Re-derived by Su (f3a, f3c) via polarisation current; same first-order result as special relativity
  • 1887Michelson and Morley Su's reinterpretation: rotational second-order term about 1e-12, 'too small to detect' (EPJC, f1b)
  • 1912Barnett, induction with a rotating solenoid Basis of Su's 2005 preprint; original not read
  • 1912/1917Kennard, unipolar-induction experiments Described only by Su; ambiguous; unread
  • 1914/1942Harzer 1914; Dufour and Prunier 1942, Sagnac loops with moving media Cited by Su via Post 1967 for index-dependences; same coefficients as first-order special relativity
  • 1925Michelson and Gale, Earth-rotation Sagnac interferometer Listed by Su among results accounted for; primer evidence table
  • 1925Bothe and Geiger coincidence experiment Arbiter web check (Wikipedia): photon-electron coincidence, against a wave-only reading of Compton scattering
  • 1925Compton and Simon coincidence experiment Arbiter: memory, medium; not web-checked
  • 1958Cedarholm et al., ammonia-maser ether-drift test Null beat frequency; Su's formula independent of lab velocity (f7)
  • 1960Hay et al., Mossbauer rotor Cited by Su (f7) as a demonstration; no data quoted
  • 1960-1961Hughes-Drever isotropy experiments Null; Su's agreement comes from symmetry of the ECI speed, not a calculation (arbiter QE revision)
  • 1962Mandelberg and Witten, Ives-Stilwell experiment Su's v^2/c^2 = 7.26e-5 and 7.24e-5 reproduced; same as special relativity; wavelengths possibly representative, not raw (Contrarian)
  • 1963Champeney et al., Mossbauer rotor Cited by Su; no data quoted
  • 1963Kundig, Mossbauer rotor Not cited by Su; named by the Contrarian as a record to read
  • 1964Turner and Hill, Mossbauer rotor Cited by Su; no data quoted
  • 1964Bertozzi, kinetic energy of fast electrons Electrons to about 15 MeV agree with relativistic mechanics; possible tension with Su's high-speed F1, not worked through by anyone
  • 1971/1979Shapiro 1971, Anderson 1975, Reasenberg 1979 radar time-delay tests Cited by Su (f5b) without measured values; agree with the gamma = 1 coefficient (memory, medium)
  • 1972Hafele and Keating, flying atomic clocks Su quotes HK's predicted -40 and +275 ns, not the measured -59 +/- 10 and +273 +/- 7 ns (memory, high)
  • 1974Edwards, report preceding the 1976 Phys. Rev. D paper Named in the QE deep read; not read
  • 1976Edwards, Kenyon and Lemon (Utah State University), possible electric fields from steady conduction currents Phys. Rev. D 14, 922; superconducting coil potential quadratic in current, n = 2.02 +/- 0.05, 'as yet unexplained'; same form and sign as Su's F2 but 24-320 times larger; scan read pp.924-928
  • 1976Saburi, Yamamoto and Harada, Japan-USA satellite time comparison About 0.3 microsecond Sagnac-type error, cited by Su (EPJC)
  • 1977Kimble, Dagenais and Mandel, photon antibunching Phys. Rev. Lett. 39, 691; abstract web-checked by the arbiter; Su does not discuss it
  • 1977-1985CMBR dipole and seasonal-modulation observations Su's EPJC refs 41-43; cited for the CMBR 'local ether'
  • 1979Brillet and Hall, improved laser test of the isotropy of space Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 549 (Boulder); per Su a 2-omega term of about 17 x 2 Hz 'attributed to a persistent spurious signal' against his 62 Hz; abstract only obtained
  • 1979Dresden and Yang, neutron interference with moving lattices Cited by Su (f8b) as precedent
  • 1980Staudenmann, Werner, Colella and Overhauser, neutron interferometry Su's one Bragg-angle comparison; zero offset and wavelength source unknown; named by the arbiter as deciding; not obtained
  • 1980Vessot et al., hydrogen-maser redshift (Gravity Probe A type) link Discussed by Su (f6); same formula as general relativity
  • 1989Lee et al., Japan-Korea time comparison About 40 ns Sagnac error cited by Su (EPJC)
  • 1990Krisher et al., 21 km hydrogen-maser fibre link Phase stable over days; Su predicts a turntable test (f3a)
  • 1990Krisher et al., spacecraft 2.3 GHz links Basis of Su's -11.5 Hz item; Su says the data cannot test it (fitted oscillator term)
  • 1990Bartlett and Maglic, reported null test of current-induced electric fields Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61; recalled (memory, low-medium); the arbiter's search did not find it
  • 1992Lemon, Edwards and Kenyon, observed potential difference Phys. Lett. A 162, 105; cited via the abstract of arXiv:1009.0474; not read
  • 1997Littrell et al., neutron interferometry geometry Su's eq. 8 (f8b)
  • 2003Cassini, PPN gamma = 1 + (2.1 +/- 2.3)e-5 Arbiter web check; Su's index reproduces gamma = 1 by construction
  • 2007Ashby et al., hydrogen masers vs caesium fountains Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 070802; |alpha_H - alpha_Cs| < 2.1e-5; both hyperfine clocks, so not a test of Su's electronic-transition coefficient; search summary
  • 2009Herrmann et al. (Berlin), rotating optical cavity test at 1e-17 Phys. Rev. D 80, 105011, arXiv:1002.1284; lab-fixed 2-omega year means C0 = -0.2 +/- 11.7, S0 = -10.2 +/- 14.4 (1e-18), about 4e4 below Su's prediction; text read by the arbiter

Astronomical observations cited (quasar paper) (11)

  • 1971Karlsson, preferred quasar redshift peaks Premise of Su's halving series; peak 0.60 has no counterpart in Su's series
  • 2001Arp, Arp 220 companions and NGC 383 group Cited at second hand in f5c; Su notes NGC 383 sits uneasily with axis ejection · Proponent of quasar-galaxy association
  • 2001Arp and Russell, clusters and quasars aligned across M82 Cited at second hand in f5c · Proponents of association
  • 2001Burbidge and Napier, periodicity reported in other samples Contested; cited via Wikipedia by the arbiter · Proponents of association
  • 2002Arp et al., NGC 3628 filament to quasars z = 0.995 and 2.15 Cited at second hand in f5c · Proponents of association
  • 2002Gutierrez et al., NGC 7320 abrupt redshift change The observers read it as evidence for projection; cited at second hand
  • 2002Hawkins, Maddox and Merrifield, no periodicities in 2dF data 1647 galaxy-quasar pairs; arXiv astro-ph/0208117 (web)
  • 2004Gutierrez and Lopez-Corredoira, NEQ3 filament z = 0.1935, 0.1939, 0.2229; cited at second hand · Proponents of association
  • 2005Galianni et al., NGC 7319 quasar z = 2.114, 8 arcsec from the nucleus, V-shaped filament; basis of Su's worked example
  • 2005Lopez-Corredoira and Gutierrez, MCG 7-25-46 H-alpha at z = 0.003 stops where z = 0.098 begins; cited at second hand · Proponents of association
  • 2005Tang and Zhang, 2dF and SDSS periodicity tests No periodicity found; cited via Wikipedia

Related theory and citing work by others (23)

  • 1967E. J. Post, Sagnac effect review Rev. Mod. Phys. 39, 475; first-order coefficients Su offers as a test match it
  • 1973Le Bellac and Levy-Leblond, Galilean electromagnetism Il Nuovo Cimento B 14, 217; the textbook magnetic limit is already Galilean covariant (memory, medium)
  • 1986/1987P. Beckmann, local-ether proposal; Einstein Plus Two; journal Galilean Electrodynamics Same postulate (light at c relative to the dominant local gravitational field); Su's EPJC text does not cite him; text not read
  • 2001OPTIS satellite test proposal arXiv gr-qc/0104067; proposal only, flight status not found
  • 2006/2012S. J. G. Gift, earlier papers incl. one-way light speed from interplanetary tracking (viXra 2012) Same Earth-bound-ether point; 2012 paper cites Su; not read · Proponent of preferred-frame readings
  • 2010D. L. Khokhlov, spatial and temporal wave functions of photon Applied Physics Research; cites Su (OpenAlex)
  • 2015Fiscaletti and Sorli, dynamic quantum vacuum and relativity viXra; cites Su (OpenAlex)
  • 2015Jing and Dong, GEO satellite motion in TWSTFT Two-way satellite time transfer; cites Su's EPL Sagnac formulation; how it is used unknown
  • 2016Jing and Guang, antenna direction in TWSTFT IEEE Frequency Control Symposium; cites Su's EPL paper; not read
  • 2017A. Hauschild, Basic Observation Equations Springer Handbook of GNSS ch. 19; cites Su's EPL paper; not read
  • 2018J. Marsen, Tron Theory Describes its ether as 'very similar' to Su's model (Google snippet) · Advocate of Su's model
  • 2018/2021Zihua Weng, coordinate transformations and refractive indices arXiv; AIP Advances 2021; cites Su's EPL paper
  • 2019J. H. Field, The Sagnac and Hafele-Keating experiments Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 34, 1930014; preferred frames near a gravitating body; cites Su; abstract only
  • 2019J. Marsen, A Michelson-Morley type experiment should be performed in low Earth orbit and interplanetary space viXra 1906.0336; 7.6 km/s and 30 km/s signals predicted; reads Brillet-Hall residual as possibly Su's signal; read · Advocate of Su's model
  • 2019J. Wu, H.-W. Tsao and Y.-R. Huang, Reviewing Michelson interferometer experiment and measuring the speed of starlight J. Mod. Phys. 10, 539; cites Su's EPL paper; wave-ether model with zero drag; abstract and p.1 read
  • 2021S. J. G. Gift, Detection of the ether using the Global Positioning System Applied Physics Research 13(1), 12; ECI frame as an Earth-bound ether; calls Su's nested ethers 'a reasonable working hypothesis'; read · Proponent of preferred-frame readings
  • 2021J.-E. Persson, The misunderstood Sagnac effect; The wave-particle dilemma in light Physics Essays 34; cites Su; not read
  • 2022M. M. Tran, The c-equivalence principle Universal J. Phys. Research; cites Su
  • 2024E. T. Kipreos, Assessment of the experimental support for differential simultaneity Int. J. Mod. Phys. A; alternate transformation compatible with current experiments; cites Su; abstract only
  • 2024G. Scalera J. Electromagn. Anal. Appl.; cites Su
  • 2024/2025B. Kovac, two papers J. High Energy Phys. Grav. Cosmol. 2024; Open J. Philosophy 2025; cite Su
  • 2024L. Li and J. Yan, multistatic UAV SAR synchronisation IEEE GRSL; cites Su's EPL paper
  • 2025W. Ma and Z. Xu, distributed MIMO-SAR synchronisation IEEE GRSL; cites Su's EPL paper

Company and business records (2)

  • 2005/2008ISBN and book-trade records for ISBN 9789574110971 isbn.tw and Amazon.com.au: 1 Feb 2005, publisher Ching-Chuan Su; govbooks and sanmin: NTHU Press, 1 Mar 2008, 230 pp.; search listings read
  • 2008-05-09NTHU alumni e-news item announcing the book ROC year 97 March edition, NT$900; seen only as a Google result, page did not open

Later accounts and media (10)

  • 2002/2023Wayback Machine captures of Su's site qem.ee.nthu.edu.tw 38 URLs, captures 2002 to 2023, including 2017; six papers not in the folder recovered
  • 2021-05-19J. Marsen, The Local-Ether Model and Quantum Electromagnetics Theory of Prof. Ching-Chuan Su viXra 2105.0110; written 'to promote the work of the late Prof.'; sole published source that Su 'passed away in approximately 2007' and the website was removed · Advocate of Su's model
  • 2021-06-12J. Marsen, CNPS talk 'The Local-Ether Model - A viable alternative to Einstein's Relativity' YouTube 6tbT8Wh6R24; title and snippet only · Advocate of Su's model
  • 2025-11CosmoQuest 'Against the Mainstream' thread on Su's book Advocacy post calling Su 'the late Prof.'; closed 27 Nov 2025 with no discussion
  • 2026Natural Philosophy Wiki page 'Ching-Chuan Su' Sympathetic secondary page (dissident-science society); death 'about 2007' citing Marsen; bibliography; Beckmann precedent · Dissident-science community promoting the model
  • 2026-10-06Live site qem.ee.nthu.edu.tw Now redirects to the NTHU EE department home page
  • 2026-10-06Crossref and arXiv bibliography of Su DOIs 2000-2006; no record after 2006; no arXiv paper after Aug 2006
  • 2026-10-06Google Scholar and OpenAlex citation records Scholar: EPJC cited 46, EPL 32, EPJB 12; OpenAlex lists about 20 citing works; Scholar cited-by lists blocked by CAPTCHA
  • 2026-10-06Google searches for a Comment, Reply or obituary No published Comment or Reply found; no obituary or university notice; one result removed under a legal request (Lumen), content unknown
  • unknownResearchGate copy of a Su paper with 'Einstein Plus Two [1]' in its snippet Whether Su himself cited Beckmann there is unclear; not checked

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • 2007-2008NTHU EE department or alumni notice, newspaper obituaries Would decide whether Su died c.2007; need his Chinese name, which is not established (the arbiter's guess returned nothing)
  • unknownNTHU personnel and institutional-repository records Faculty record, retirement or death notice; not reached
  • unknownTheses advised by Su (Taiwan NDLTD) Not reached; needs the Chinese name
  • unknownFront matter of the 2008 book Who saw the book through the press if Su died c.2007
  • unknownGoogle Scholar cited-by lists for the EPJC and EPL papers Deciding record for reception and rebuttal; blocked
  • unknownReferee correspondence on Su's papers Unobtainable; would show how the papers were received

Left out: the review's own AI-written analyses, the duplicate copy f1a and the duplicate biography and f6 web pages, site images, Su's unrelated antenna and microwave papers, and mainstream textbooks given only as further reading. Full catalogue: Su-CC sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: A rotating-cavity comparison at two latitudes reporting the lab-fixed 2-omega amplitude (Su predicts 1.2e-12 times cos^2 latitude); a copper-coil repeat of Edwards et al. at Su's 0.1 microvolt F2 level with current distribution measured; an optical-clock redshift comparison against Su's electronic-transition coefficient.

Deciding records: Brillet and Hall 1979 full paper (phase and size of the 2-omega term); Staudenmann et al. 1980 (zero offset, wavelength); Bartlett and Maglic 1990 and Lemon et al. 1992; physics/0208083; the 2008 book; an NTHU notice or obituary (needs Su's Chinese name); Scholar cited-by lists.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: derive the round-trip time on an arm moving through an ether, get Su's 62 Hz at 40 deg latitude, see Lorentz contraction cancel it, then compare 4.5e-13 at Berlin with Herrmann's 1e-17 year mean.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter A constant lab-fixed term would not average out over a year; that is exactly what distinguishes it from the varying systematics. The measured year mean is about 1e-17, a factor of roughly 4e4 below the prediction. arbiter.md, section 1, D1
  2. Primer Same numbers, different story, is not evidence. In every case his formula is relativity's formula evaluated in the ECI frame; the lesson is to ask, for every confirmation, whether the rival theory predicts the same. primer.md, section 7
  3. Contrarian Published, not suppressed: the core papers appeared in refereed journals, so the 'blocked from publication' narrative does not apply. Ignored rather than refuted: no Comment or Reply was found. contrarian.md, How the claims were received
  4. Arbiter The strongest honest reading is that a published, unexplained anomalous signal (Edwards, Kenyon and Lemon 1976) has Su's F2 form but not his size, and no neutral, controlled test of F2 exists. arbiter.md, QE revision, Q2
  5. Investigator The death c.2007 rests on one advocate source (Marsen 2021); no obituary or university notice was found. The book appeared from NTHU Press in March 2008, yet Su's site was still captured in 2017. sites.md, Leads for review 4; arbiter.md section 5

AI noteSu's model keeps time dilation of clocks but drops length contraction of rods; the primer shows that this single omission is what creates the 62 Hz cavity signal, and adding contraction removes it exactly.

Selected Projects

Named by the owner for a full card whatever their rank.

Rank 19Eskridge-Amy

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:57

She said her NASA-engineer father's unpublished 2015 superconductor test threw off strange forces; his NASA memo reports a spinning bismuth disc changing weight by 0.3 g. Neither was properly checked.

Invention / theory background

Amy Eskridge (1987-2022), a University of Alabama in Huntsville chemistry graduate, co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science to fund gravity-modification research privately. Her 2018 HAL5 lecture surveyed Podkletnov's and Poher's superconductor claims and said her father Richard, a NASA Marshall propulsion engineer, tested a Poher-type device in 2015, unpublished. His 2021 NASA memorandum proposes a 'spin-coupled force' and reports a bismuth-rotor weight change. She published no paper, equation or data, and died in 2022.

Ranking explanation

Meets all four criteria: an unpublished NASA test and a 0.3 g rotor result, both Never properly tested and never dismissed (A); the 2015 test, the rotor and the Institute's silence after 2020 left open (B); a nuclear-alignment calculation the reader can do (C); a much-discussed figure in gravity modification (D). Below Lakhovsky, whose own 1924 experiment is on record; here her own physics is absent and the data are others'. Above Bearden, whose self-powered claim fails an energy budget.

Key supporting elements

  1. NASA-published author biographies say Richard Eskridge and Michael Schoenfeld 'researched the anomalous gravitational effects of electrically pulsed superconductors', matching her 'my dad did that' account of the 2015 Marshall test.
  2. The first-hand voice in her Q&A: a magnet over a second superconductor 'went far away', 'strange effects ... forces coming off the disc', and a disc 'pristine' after the blast, which it offers against a thermal explosion.
  3. The NASA memorandum's 211 g bismuth rotor lost 0.3 g anti-spin and, after a rebuild, gained 0.3 g co-spin (October 2016); the motor reverses by phasing, not current; magnet field measured unchanged; the effect returned with new magnets.
  4. Her method point holds: the published Podkletnov nulls were static (Li 1997) or slow and unpowered (Hathaway 2003, 400-800 rpm against 5,000), so the original was never copied.
  5. Sokol (Falcon Space, an interested party) reports 'a positive correlation between Dynamic Nuclear Polarization and changes in sample weight'; Institute adviser Glen Robertson began a new Podkletnov replication in 2025 (per APEC). No data seen.

Key contradictions

  1. The same first-hand voice: 'we never reproduced the waves' and, with a double Faraday cage, 'we did not reproduce Boyer's [Poher's] signals'. No control discharge with a warm disc; boiling nitrogen and a 0.08 T pulsed field not excluded.
  2. By the memorandum's own force law, a 0.2 T magnet at room temperature aligns about 4e-7 of bismuth nuclei, predicting 1.5e-4 g, about 2000 times less than the 0.3 g reported.
  3. The rotor effect faded with use; the rotor was taken apart between modes; no spin-zero control was run; the authors raised buoyancy and air currents, later suspected the magnets, and call the data 'rudimentary and preliminary'.
  4. Poher-type devices tested by others: Lorincz and Tajmar found an electromagnetic artifact under a double Faraday cage and acoustic noise; Dembovskis (2024) did not confirm Poher's accelerations.
  5. Tajmar offered to test her samples and she did not send them; her 'funded by the German Air Force ... publishes no results' has no source, and his group publishes detailed nulls and artifact analyses.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 23 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Podkletnov's rotating superconducting disc reduces weight (0.05-2%)Never properly tested original conditions: 5,000 rpm, RF drive, composite disc Tested, not supported reduced versions: static, slow, no RF
Poher-type pulsed superconductor impulse device produces a forceTested, not supported artifact under shielding; positives only in Poher's reports
Her father's unpublished 2015 NASA Marshall test of a Poher-type device gave anomalous effectsNever properly tested informal, no controls or data on record; not dismissed
The POAMS spin-coupled force of the NASA memorandumInternally inconsistent in application: three results for one nucleus Never properly tested orbiting-gyroscope prediction: contradicts rigid-body mechanics, never measured in its regime
A spinning bismuth rotor changed weight by 0.3 g, consistent with the theoryNever properly tested the 0.3 g effect itself Refuted by calculation 'matches the theory': about 2000 times too large at 0.2 T, room temperature, no microwaves
Dynamic nuclear polarization lowers weight (Alzofon), the next thing to testNever properly tested Alzofon's own regime Tested, not supported NMR variant (Dresden 2024) Plausible, untested as a 2020 research programme
Mainstream nulls are not decisive; Tajmar used a monolayer and is funded to publish nothingPlausible, untested logic: modified setups do not exclude the original Never properly tested monolayer premise Not testable as stated German Air Force funding
She was surveilled, burgled and threatened because of this workNever properly tested the events: no records examined Not testable as stated NSA list of five and 5,000 agents

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Amy EskridgePresident, chairwoman and co-founder of the Institute for Exotic Science; lecturer and advocate for gravity-modification research · Her Institute sought equity investment for this researchBorn 19 Sep 1987, died 11 Jun 2022 (ruled a suicide). UAH degree in chemistry (obituary: double major with biology); UAH Materials Science PhD student in 2018; says she nearly finished a biotechnology PhD. MEMS and gyroscope testing at AMRDEC, Redstone Arsenal; CEO of HoloChron. Published no paper, patent or data.
Richard H. EskridgeHer father; Institute co-founder and lead scientist; ran the 2015 MSFC test by her account; first author of the NASA POAMS memorandum · Co-founder of her Institute; assignee of the plasmoid-thruster patent33 years at NASA Marshall; retired Dec 2016 as Chief Technical Advisor of the Propulsion Research Lab. Research included 'superconductor impulse gravity generators', fusion and electric propulsion; co-inventor of US7808353B1 (PT-1 plasmoid thruster). Told NewsNation her death was not suspicious: 'Scientists die also'.
Chris MilamCEO of Quantum Machines LLC, which requested and funded the POAMS Space Act work; present at the 7 Oct 2016 bismuth test · Thought POAMS could underpin a propulsion system; holds the V5 rotor dataNot in the review files beyond the memorandum's account.
Mark SokolCo-interviewer in 2020; head of the New Jersey lab pursuing Alzofon's weight-reduction experiment · CEO of Falcon Space (Hawthorne, NJ) and co-founder of the APEC conference that reports his workWorks with the Alzofon estate on S-band and X-band DNP rigs; claims a DNP-weight correlation (poster with David Chester, not found). Says he was 'havana attacked' during her 2020 visit.
Martin TajmarCritic and tester: she confronted him at Estes Park in 2018 over his superconductor nulls; he offered to test her samplesTU Dresden. Rotating-superconductor gravitomagnetic experiments 2006-2011; with Lorincz, a scaled Poher-device replication found an artifact; co-author of the 2024 NMR test of Alzofon's claim, which reported a null and a heating artifact.
Eugene PodkletnovSource of the rotating-disc 'gravity shielding' claim she treated as the field's central anomaly · Author and patentee of his own claimReported 0.05-2% weight loss over a rotating YBCO disc (1992, 1997); 2001 patent and impulse-generator paper with Modanese; dispute with Tampere University and a withdrawn preprint; consultant to the UAH-MSFC disc work. No visual record of the original was found.
Claude PoherFrench researcher whose discharged static YBCO disc device her father tested at Marshall in 2015, by her account · Author of his own claimHis discharged static YBCO disc device is independent of Podkletnov's, not a replication of it (Gallerati review); he claims positive results, while Lorincz and Tajmar found an electromagnetic artifact and Dembovskis (2024) did not confirm it. Not otherwise in the review files.
Ning LiUAH physicist whose stopped superconductor-gravity work is the main 'disappearance' case in her lectureWorked with NASA Marshall in the 1990s (Physica C 1997 static test); founded AC Gravity LLC 1999; $500,000 DoD contract 2001 (her slide). Published nothing after 2002; injured by a vehicle on the UAH campus in 2014; died 27 Jul 2021.
Evidence / artifacts (112 of 120 listed, 93%)

Own works and inventions (15)

  • 2017-01'Amy Pettigrew' Medium blog posts (@amypgrew) Posts of 30 Jan and 5 Feb 2017 by a 'CEO/Co-founder at Black Label Data LLC', chronic-pain patient advocate; Anomaly Archives files them under her name; identity not verified
  • 2018Institute X (Twitter) account @ExoticInstitute Listed on her last HAL5 slide; a post congratulating the Institute on its site launch seen in search results; posts not read
  • 2018-12HAL5 program page for 'A Historical Perspective on Anti-Gravity Technology' Huntsville Alabama L5 Society announcement; her self-reported bio: UAH chemistry degree, Materials Science PhD student, President of the Institute, CEO of HoloChron Engineering
  • 2018-12-06A Historical Perspective on Anti-Gravity Technology (HAL5 slides) 35 pp., Huntsville-Madison County library; no references; slide p.29 'tested at NASA MSFC, 2015' (Poher device); p.34 'promising results always disappear into the classified realm'; deep-read with page images
  • 2018-12-06HAL5 lecture recording and Q&A (YouTube --2dfdJElBg) 1 h 08 min, machine captions, no speaker labels; 'my dad did that' (00:29:39); an unnamed first-hand voice on the 2015 MSFC test (00:49:38-00:52:44); 'I believe in the ether'; deep-read in full
  • 2019YouTube upload of a 2019 talk or video Named in the owner's source notes as unavailable; content unknown
  • c.2020'Institute for Exotic Science - 60 Second Spot' New District Media House; listed by Anomaly Archives; not opened
  • c.2020Talks at the Alternative Propulsion Engineering Conference (APEC), 2020-2021 Unconfirmed in the owner's source notes; a search for a video found none
  • 2020-02'Institute For Exotic Science' promotional video New District Media House, 3:40, YouTube 77_39zgEv24; transcript not read
  • c.2020-05Interview with Jeremy Rys and Mark Sokol (YouTube l0O4cEIkUZc) 3 h 15 min machine captions, uploaded 2024 by Rys; Tajmar monolayer story, 'six forces', planned 28 May New Jersey test, surveillance account, Maxar calendar entry; deep-read in large part · Both interviewers planned a 'disclosure' documentary; Sokol runs the New Jersey DNP lab
  • 2021The Proof is Out There (History), six episodes 2021-2022 Credited as President, Institute for Exotic Science; IMDb nm13210059; segment content not seen
  • 2022The Proof Is Out There: Skinwalker Edition, one episode IMDb credit; content not seen
  • 2022The Proof Is Out There: Bermuda Triangle Edition, one episode IMDb credit; content not seen
  • 2024The Proof Is Out There: Alien Edition, one episode Aired after her death, probably earlier footage; IMDb credit; content not seen
  • –'New Antigravity Research Institute', Parts 1 and 2 Galactic Gregs YouTube channel; listed by Anomaly Archives; not opened

Patents and patent office (6)

  • 1928US 1,655,144, shown on her slide p.12 as Tesla's 'space drive' Actually a grain-treating machine by Hallgarth and Chandler; slide image taken from William Lyne's book; checked on Google Patents in the QE round
  • 1928-01-03US 1,655,114, Tesla, Apparatus for Aerial Transportation Vertical take-off 'helicopter-plane'; the nearest real Tesla patent; no space drive in it
  • 1971US 3,626,605, Wallace 'kinemassic field' patent Cited by the NASA memorandum as the Wallace effect; her slide p.18 marks Wallace 'unsubstantiated'
  • 2001Podkletnov gravity-shielding patent Named on her slide p.26 with the claimed 2% weight reduction; not obtained · Podkletnov's own claim
  • 2010-10-05US7808353B1, Coil system for plasmoid thruster Inventors R. H. Eskridge, M. H. Lee, A. K. Martin, P. J. Fimognari; filed 2006 by NASA; US only; expired for fees; the only Eskridge propulsion patent; none by Amy, the Institute or HoloChron
  • 2018-10-03Assignment of US7808353 from NASA to Richard H. Eskridge Seen as an event on Google Patents; USPTO reel and frame, and terms, not checked

Court and state records (7)

  • 2018-07-16HoloChron LLC, Alabama entity 000524283 Formed in Houston County; organizer Lucus S. Michels, Seattle; annual reports 2019-2021; dissolved 2022-12-28; read on the al.ltddir.com mirror of the state register
  • 2018-07-16HoloChron Holdings LLC, Alabama entity 000524282 Formed the same day by the same organizer; dissolved 2020-12-27
  • 2018-07-19HoloChron formation certificate, annual reports and dissolution filings Scanned at the Alabama Secretary of State; would show what the companies did; not read
  • 2018Institute for Exotic Science Delaware public benefit corporation filings She said it was registered in Delaware (lecture); entity search needs a CAPTCHA; not tried
  • 2018AC Gravity LLC (Ning Li) Alabama entity and licence Licence renewed through 2018 per the Huntsville Business Journal; filings named by the arbiter as deciding the Ning Li question
  • –Record of the 'court case' she says ended her biotechnology PhD Interview 02:05:28, 'a sexual harassment thing ... a really horrible court case'; a filed case would leave a record
  • 2022-06Death investigation report Ruled a suicide; Madison County Sheriff per the Sentinel, Birmingham police per Wikipedia (conflict unresolved); no public report

Government records (13)

  • 1969Mansfield Amendment, Public Law 91-121 section 203 Limited DoD research to work with 'a direct and apparent relationship to a specific military function'; does not mention gravity; her slides date it 1973; checked by search summary
  • 1973Senate roll-call vote on a 1973 Mansfield amendment voteview RS0930410; what it changed was not retrieved
  • 2001Ning Li's $500,000 DoD contract Her slide p.24; contract record not obtained
  • 2015-07-01Space Act Agreement SAA8-1519855, NASA MSFC and Quantum Machines LLC Funded the POAMS work; proprietary period now ended; known from the memorandum p.5 · Quantum Machines thought POAMS could underpin a propulsion system
  • 2015MSFC records of the Poher-type pulsed YBCO test Notes, accelerometer traces ('excess of 500 Gs') and whatever was sent to management ('we told management about this'); no NTRS report found (search inconclusive); FOIA named by the arbiter
  • 20151,000,000 frames-per-second film of the discharge Described by the first-hand voice as showing 'a wave coming off' an emitter
  • –Space Act Agreement with a 'France' partner Memorandum p.37 lists France among Nelson's partners; whether it was Poher is an inference
  • 2017-12AATIP / DIA reference documents Covers shown on her slide; contents not examined
  • 2018-12-17SAM registration of the Institute, entity FTWBFXR1NE21 Amy as President, Joppa, Alabama, per the Sentinel Network; not verified at SAM.gov
  • 2021-11NASA/TM-20205010911, A Study of the Pope-Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis Theory (POAMS) R. H. Eskridge, M. A. Nelson, M. P. Schoenfeld; she is not named; eq. 28a; 211 g bismuth rotor 0.3 g on 7 Oct 2016; author bios on pulsed-superconductor gravity work (pp.37-38); deep-read · First author is her father; work funded by Quantum Machines
  • –MSFC property-disposal and GSA auction records Would test her claim that cancelled prototypes are 'melted down for scrap' (interview 01:16)
  • 2024-11-13Michael Shellenberger written testimony, House Oversight UAP hearing HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-ShellenbergerM-20241113.pdf; includes her death; not read
  • 2026FBI and congressional inquiry into a 'missing scientists' cluster Reported by CNN, NewsNation and the Huntsville Times; Rep. Eric Burlison named; no record seen

Company and business records (9)

  • 2018-11-11Institute for Exotic Science website (Wayback capture) Public benefit corporation; staff Amy, Richard Eskridge (co-founder, 33 years at MSFC), Shantel Butler, Samuel Reid, Glen Robertson, Robert Becker · Promotional page of a venture seeking investors
  • 2019-07-23Institute website, rebranded 'Technology for a space economy' (Wayback capture) Now 'for-profit'; Richard's bio lists 'superconductor impulse gravity generators'; Bill Dent and Seth Wahle on staff · Promotional page
  • –LinkedIn posts quoting a HoloChron mission statement 'To create a public-facing persona to disclose anti-gravity technology'; original source not found
  • 2019-12-17Maxar plasma-thruster patent negotiation She reads it from her calendar (interview 00:57:56); possibly US7808353B1 (arbiter's inference); correspondence not obtained
  • 2020-09Cease-and-desist letter sent on behalf of the Institute, citing NASA Reported as stopping Falcon Space's presentation at the online Estes Park workshop; posted on X by @Alien_Scientist; text not seen
  • 2020-05-28Falcon Space test logs for the planned New Jersey 'Alzofon' experiment Caption reads 'alzheimer's experiment'; link to Alzofon via APEC; no result in any document · Falcon Space (Sokol)
  • 2021-12holochron.com Only an 'under construction' page, per the owner's notes
  • –Institute bank and investor records She said equity investment was 'closing right now' (2018); named by the arbiter as deciding
  • –V4 and V5 bismuth rotors and their data Held by Quantum Machines after NASA work stopped for lack of funding (memorandum p.35) · The funder

Witness accounts and correspondence (6)

  • 2020-09@Alien_Scientist posts of the cease-and-desist X status 1306981668419301379 and 1307975074050441216; X needs a login; not opened
  • 2025-10-27Mark Sokol's account of being 'havana attacked' during her 2020 visit Red Panda Koala's UFO History Archive video, via Anomaly Archives; recording not checked · Interviewer and DNP-lab head
  • –Franc Milburn's claim she was targeted with directed-energy weapons by a private aerospace company Via Anomaly Archives · Retired UK intelligence officer active in the UAP field
  • 2026-04-20Richard Eskridge to NewsNation Declined interview; does not think her death suspicious: 'Scientists die also, just like other people' · Her father and collaborator
  • 2026-04-21Family statement to CNN 'a marvelously intelligent person' who suffered from 'chronic pain'; Google snippet only; WSJ of 25 Apr 2026 quotes the family too
  • 2026-04Text she sent a friend saying she would not have killed herself Reported in 2026 coverage (Daily Mail 'chilling texts', Facebook snippets); seen only in search summaries

Experiments and replications by others (26)

  • 1981-07F. Alzofon, Anti-gravity with present technology, AIAA 81-1608 17th Joint Propulsion Conference; INIS record found; paywalled, not obtained
  • 1987Wu, Ashburn, Torng et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 908 (YBCO at 93 K) UAH co-authors; her 'stolen patent' story names 'Jim Ashworth', probably Jim Ashburn; the patent story is unchecked
  • 1989Hayasaka and Takeuchi gyroscope weight-loss report Spinning gyroscopes said to lose weight
  • 1990Quinn and Picard, Nature 343, 732 Gyroscope null: about 5% of the claimed size, cut more than tenfold after friction and temperature corrections
  • 1990Faller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 2115 Gyroscope weighing null
  • 1990Nitschke and Wilmarth gyroscope test Null more than two orders of magnitude below the reported effect
  • 1992Podkletnov rotating YBCO disc report Sintered single-layer disc; 0.05-2% weight loss claimed; no visual record found · His own claim
  • 1994Alzofon's dynamic nuclear polarization weight experiment 0.5 g aluminium powder with iron, about 0.33 T, 9.5 GHz; maximum 1.1 mg (0.22%); known through the Dresden paper · His own claim
  • 1997Podkletnov preprint cond-mat/9701074 and the Tampere dispute Withdrawn paper; her slide says he was 'ousted' from Tampere, no source
  • 1997-08Li, Noever, Robertson, Koczor and Brantley, Physica C 281, 260-267 MSFC static levitated-YBCO test; change under 2 parts in 10^8; not a rotating disc; NTRS 19990039542
  • 2001NASA MSFC rotating-disc Podkletnov replication (Robertson, final report due 2001) 'Never completed ... despite rumors' per Robertson via APEC
  • 2001Woods et al. rotating-disc attempt Unsuccessful, per the Gallerati review
  • 2001Podkletnov and Modanese impulse gravity generator (physics/0108005) Composite crystal; source of the 'impulse' line Poher followed · Authors' own claim
  • 2003Osborne and Pope, An Angular Momentum Synthesis of 'Gravitational' and 'Electrostatic' Forces Galilean Electrodynamics 14 (2003), as cited in the memorandum (p.55); the theory the memorandum reformulates; not in the folder
  • 2003Hathaway et al. rotating-superconductor test 400-800 rpm against Podkletnov's 5,000 rpm, no RF drive; null to 0.001%; arXiv gr-qc/0404005 checked by the arbiter
  • –Claude Poher's own pulsed-disc reports (universons) Static YBCO disc discharged at about 2 kV; claims positive results · His own claim
  • –Lorincz and Tajmar scaled replication of the Poher device 2.2 kV; effect an electromagnetic artifact once a double Faraday cage was used (via Gallerati)
  • 2016Tajmar group follow-up on the Poher device Remaining accelerometer signal attributed to acoustic noise (via Gallerati)
  • 2019-07-16David Prutchi, critique of Alzofon's 1994 experiments diyphysics.com PDF: the data show 'absolutely no effect'; not downloaded
  • 2022Gallerati, Interaction between macroscopic quantum systems and gravity, Frontiers in Physics 10:941858 Review with Podkletnov, Poher and UAH-MSFC sections; read via arXiv 2206.07574 by reviewers, page extraction failed for the Investigator
  • 2024-02Stark, Grafe and Tajmar, Investigation of the Alzofon weight reduction experiment using NMR arXiv 2402.15529; NMR at 9 T, 5 K; null at low pulse counts; high-power signal also without specimen, tracks temperature; DNP not tried; deep-read
  • 2024Tajmar, Kossling and Neunzig, steady-field search for a gravity-electromagnetism coupling Scientific Reports; cited by APEC and in search results
  • 2024-12Dembovskis, Report on replication attempt for C. Poher's pulsed gravity accelerator ResearchGate DOI 10.13140/RG.2.2.28989.17129; 'did not confirm' Poher's accelerations; snippet only
  • –Sokol and Chester poster, Experimental NMR Conference (Asilomar) Said to show 'a positive correlation between Dynamic Nuclear Polarization and changes in sample weight'; not found · Falcon Space
  • –The Tajmar protocol she says used a YBCO 'monolayer' Paper not named by her and not identified by any reviewer
  • 2025Glen Robertson's new Podkletnov replication Begun with volunteers per APEC; Robertson was an Institute adviser; no result reported

Later accounts and media (20)

  • –F. and D. Alzofon, How to Build a Flying Saucer (and Save the Planet) Book on Alzofon's weight-reduction idea; cited by APEC; a copy found online, not read · The Alzofon family promotes the idea
  • –William Lyne, Occult Ether Physics Source image of her slide p.12 'space drive' claim · Popular book arguing its own thesis
  • –Robertson and Modanese (eds.), Gravity-Superconductors Interactions: Theory and Experiment Cited in Robertson's Institute bio; not read
  • –Anonymous r/conspiracy post on Ning Li's disappearance Screenshot on her slide p.25, the slide's only source
  • –NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics document on Podkletnov replications Hathaway private replication done; 'Tony Robertson, NASA MSFC, Final report due 2001'; Google snippet only
  • 2022-06Obituary (obits.al.com / Arab Heritage Memorial Chapel) Born 19 Sep 1987, died 11 Jun 2022 aged 34; UAH chemistry and biology; mirrored by Anomaly Archives, AL.com blocked
  • 2022-06Arab Tribune obituary URL recorded; not opened
  • 2023-01-08APEC 'UAP Technical Briefing' tribute to her Snippet only · Sokol's conference
  • 2023-07-30Huntsville Business Journal on Ning Li No publications after 2002; AC Gravity licence renewed through 2018; died 27 Jul 2021; partial extraction
  • 2024-09Courtney Marchesani, 'Amy's Disclosure Launchpad' (Medium) Not reached
  • 2025-01Mike Hobart, 'Who Was Amy Eskridge?' (Substack) Quoted by Anomaly Archives: little came out after the Sept 2020 cease-and-desist
  • 2025-07-09APEC, Superconductors and Gravity Control: A 30-Year History Gary Stephenson interview; NASA's replication 'never completed'; Poher 'claimed positive results' · Promotes the field
  • –Anomaly Archives collection file 'Pettigrew, Amy Eskridge' Hub: obituary, blog, cease-and-desist, Sokol and Milburn accounts, video list
  • 2026-04-21APEC, Mark Sokol: Anti-Gravity with Present Technology Falcon Space, Hawthorne NJ, works with the Alzofon estate; S-band and X-band DNP rigs · Sokol's own conference site
  • 2026-04-23AL.com, Death of 'genius' Alabama woman linked to investigation of missing, dead scientists Paywalled and blocked in Chrome
  • 2026-04-30The Sentinel Network, 'The Garrison' SAM entity, Physica C 1997, Ning Li's 2014 injury; misexpands POAMS · Argues a suppression thesis
  • 2026-05-16APEC, NASA's Spin-Coupled Force Experiments Popular account of the memorandum; finds no Eskridge patent on POAMS or gravity · Promotes the field
  • 2026Wikipedia, Missing scientists conspiracy theory Ruled suicide; says Birmingham police, which conflicts with other sources
  • –Reddit r/UFOs post and X posts (@UAPLuigi, Tobie Venne) on the cease-and-desist Say the C&D cited NASA and halted the Falcon Space work; archive.ph copy blocked
  • –Post-death videos UFOB edited interview, 'Rest in Peace Amy', German ExoMagazinTV segment, 'alleged radiation burns on hands', Michael Salla videos; none checked

Records named but not yet examined (10)

  • –Robert Becker's UAH quantized-gravity thesis She says she photographed every page; Becker was the Institute's quantum-gravity adviser
  • 1999UAH loan record of the Becker thesis She says it shows a 1999 'DIA' interlibrary checkout
  • 2018Estes Park workshop records, 2018 (Tajmar meeting) and 2020 (Falcon Space presentation) SSI workshop videos not reached; Shantel Butler a possible second witness to 2018
  • c.2020The 'paper' she planned to post on arXiv Never published; press reports say NASA authorization was needed
  • c.2020The 'mathematical equation' for six forces Claimed in the interview (00:20:20); never shown
  • c.2020Audio of the 2020 interview Needed to fix who says what (German Air Force repeat line, six forces)
  • c.2020Bluetooth 'logs and live packet captures' She says they exist; never shown
  • c.2020Uber trip record of the Lexus with the swapped plate, and any plate photograph or police report Named in her account; none examined
  • c.2020Cybersecurity consultant's findings Ex-CIO of Northrop Grumman, unnamed, who said her story matched other women in technology
  • c.2020'Mana World Holdings Trust' $100 million offer She calls it a Russian criminal intelligence front; no document

Left out: eight minor 2026 news and commentary pages seen only in search results (WION, WFMD, Lifehacker, uapmurders.com, Council Estate Media, The Political Saucer, Hack Liberty, Vremya footage), copies and re-uploads, and the historical devices and programmes her slides survey without examination (Brown, Searl, Dean, Laithwaite, Hutchison, Woodward, Morningstar, Boeing GRASP, Torr-Vargas-Datta). Full catalogue: Eskridge-Amy sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Weigh the bismuth rotor against a matched-mass spin-zero rotor in a closed, temperature-controlled housing, with no disassembly between spin directions and magnet-only runs; and repeat the 2015 discharge with a warm or non-superconducting disc as control.

Deciding records: The 2015 Marshall notes, accelerometer traces and million-frame film (FOIA; Richard Eskridge could name the Q&A speaker); the V5 data from Quantum Machines; the Sept 2020 cease-and-desist text; Delaware, SAM and HoloChron filings; the packet captures and Uber record she named.

Try it yourself: Estimate bismuth-209 nuclear alignment with the Curie law, P = (I+1)/(3I) x mu B / kT, with I = 9/2, mu = 4.11 nuclear magnetons, B = 0.2 T, T = 300 K: about 4e-7. The 0.3 g on 211 g needs 8.4e-4, about 2000 times more. example.py does every step.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Within the memorandum's own framework the reported 0.3 g is about 2000 times what its force law predicts for the available alignment. That refutes 'the data match the theory', not every conceivable spin-weight coupling; the 0.3 g itself stays Never properly tested. arbiter.md, claim 3 and QE revision A2
  2. Mathematician For a rigid body the arm force is total mass times centre-of-mass acceleration, whatever the spin. The memorandum's 15-19% gyroscope prediction at 60 Hz therefore needs a new force, not a reformulation; its long derivation only restates the POAMS postulate. mathematician.md, Verification of the POAMS / SCF mathematics
  3. Contrarian The Dresden group did not test Alzofon's method: plain NMR at 9 T and 5 K, not microwave DNP at 0.33 T and room temperature. It is a null for NMR-style excitation, not a refutation of Alzofon's regime. contrarian.md, Corrections to Step 1, item 1
  4. Physicist She declined a test offered by the person she accuses of suppressing results. A group publishing detailed artifact analyses is the opposite of 'publishing nothing'. physicist.md, Claim 4, b
  5. QE The arbiter first said, with confidence, that the memorandum's Table 1 does not follow from its eq. 28a; that was a sign error, now withdrawn. The primer had also dropped the 'pristine disc' argument and the memorandum's own control arguments; both were restored. qe.md, Verdict and Retention check; arbiter.md QE revision A1

AI noteHer slide's Tesla 'space drive' patent 1,655,144 is a 1928 grain-treating machine. It sits beside the cover of William Lyne's book, its likely source; Tesla's real 1928 aircraft patent is 1,655,114.

Rank 1Heaviside

no change A - UntestedC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-07 10:07

A self-taught outsider whose 1887 loading paper was blocked by a Post Office chief, then confirmed in the field from 1899, with the patent money going to others.

Invention / theory background

Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925), an English telegraph engineer and mathematical physicist with no degree or university post, published mostly in trade journals. He recast Maxwell's theory as four vector equations (1884), found the energy flux E x H independently of Poynting, gave the distortionless-line condition R/L = G/C (1887), patented a coaxial conductor (1880), invented an operational calculus, and in 1902, after Kennelly, suggested a conducting layer in the upper air.

Ranking explanation

The clearest documented arc in the collection from a claim blocked without testing (1887) to field confirmation (1899 onward), now backed by his own 1887 text and archive records of Preece's position. The reader can check his numbers with first-year electromagnetism. Morray-TH (2) and Government (3) carry open, untested anomalies but no completed arc. Interest is not proof: most verdicts are Established.

Key supporting elements

  1. His own 1887 Electrician text (Electrical Papers Vol. 2, Sec. XL): 'Make R/L = K/S, and the distortion is annihilated', with the exact travelling-wave solution and 'half electric, half magnetic' energy; all three reviewers re-derived it.
  2. The block is documented: Hunt (2012) and Bruton (2018) say Preece, as Arthur's superior, blocked the April 1887 joint paper; an IET notebook notes Phil. Mag. parts 'blocked by Preece'; Preece's draft calls Heaviside's work 'dreadful twaddle'.
  3. Campbell's loading-coil test on a 46-mile cable worked on 6 Sept 1899; Krarup built loaded cable in 1902; AT&T bought Pupin's patent option fearing it was unpatentable 'due to Heaviside's prior publication' (Wikipedia, arbiter-checked).
  4. Checks the reader can repeat: attenuation is smallest exactly at R/L = G/C, equal to sqrt(RG) at every frequency (arbiter); his 1888 half-transmitting copper sheet recomputes exactly to 8.488e-9 cm (QE).
  5. The conducting layer of his 1902 Britannica sentence ('There may possibly be a sufficiently conducting layer in the upper air') was shown by Appleton in 1924 (Nobel 1947); Breit and Tuve measured its height in 1925.

Key contradictions

  1. Source gap: the folder holds nine page images. The primary texts now cited were read by the Investigator as OCR on archive.org and not saved; no formulas for claims 7a, 7b or eqs. 47-48 have been read.
  2. The block is reported two ways: before submission (Hunt, Bruton) or rejection by the Society of Telegraph Engineers (1925 IEE obituary). The Electrician's editor cited space, readership and libel; Preece pressure rests on Biggs's later hint.
  3. Faults on more than one side: Heaviside's 1873 duplex paper ridiculed Preece's and Culley's work and omitted Preece's 1855 patent; Kelvin in July 1887 called a Heaviside footnote 'ill natured'; Arthur later sided with Preece.
  4. His 1902 layer sentence is tentative ('may possibly'), about guidance between sea and layer rather than reflection, and about nine months after Kennelly's March 1902 article. The coil proposal's date (1887 or 1893) is not fixed by any primary text.
  5. Wikipedia's 'confirmed by Gravity Probe B' is stronger than any source shows: the probe tested general relativity, not his 1893 equations. His anti-relativity arguments are unread (Einstein is not named in Vol. 3).
Verdicts by claim (8 of 9 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Maxwell's theory can be written as four vector equations in E and HEstablished
Added inductance balanced so R/L = G/C makes a line distortionless; Preece was wrongEstablished published by Heaviside 1887; joint paper blocked 1887; tested 1899 onward
Waves plus diffusion in conductors; diffusion is repeated internal reflection; a perfect conductor is a perfect reflectorEstablished eqs. 60-62, perfect reflector; eq. 63 as a formula only Plausible, untested eqs. 47-48, no proof given, calculation not done
Operational calculus (d/dt treated as algebra) solves differential equationsEstablished outputs, later justified by Bromwich and the Laplace transform Historically superseded but instructive the unrigorous method itself
A conducting ionised layer in the upper atmosphere guides long-distance radioEstablished layer shown 1924; his 1902 text tentative, after Kennelly, credit shared
Maxwell's internal force on intrinsically magnetised matter is wrongNever properly tested internal distribution only, not total force; formulas unread
Gravity analogue of electromagnetism (1893)Historically superseded but instructive 'confirmed by Gravity Probe B' stronger than the sources show
Opposition to Einstein's relativityNot testable as stated his arguments unread; not in Vol. 3 by keyword

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Oliver HeavisideThe scientist reviewed: author of the vector equations, the distortionless-line condition, the operational calculus and the 1902 conducting-layer suggestionEnglish telegraph engineer and mathematical physicist (1850-1925), self-taught with no degree, working outside any university and publishing in trade journals such as The Electrician. Collected his work in Electrical Papers (1892) and Electromagnetic Theory (1893, 1899, 1912). Struck off the Society of Telegraph Engineers for unpaid fees (Bruton dates it 1881), IEE honorary member 1908; refused a Royal Society Relief Fund grant in 1894; civil-list pension from 1896.
Arthur West HeavisideOliver's brother and co-author of the 1887 'bridge system' telephony paper that Preece blocked; supplied line observations and a tube-return experiment · Post Office employee subordinate to Preece; later sided with Preece on loading1844-1923. Post Office District Superintendent and Superintending Engineer at Newcastle 1870-1904; supervised Preece's inductive wireless experiments on the Northumberland moors and worked with him on parallel lines in 1885 (1923 IEE obituary, via Grace's Guide). Published his part of the bridge system in his 1900 IEE Newcastle address (Bruton).
William PreecePost Office engineer who held self-induction harmful to signalling and blocked the 1887 joint paper · Senior Post Office official with a public position (a costly iron-to-copper wire change justified by reducing inductance) and authority over Arthur; Wikipedia's attribution of his motive to reputation is that article's characterizationHead of the Post Office telegraph engineers (Electrician in 1887, Engineer-in-Chief from 1892); holder of an 1855 duplex patent. In 1873 called Oliver's duplex paper 'most pretentious and impudent'. His draft reply to Kelvin uses Kelvin's cable formula against Heaviside (IET catalogue).
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)Author of the cable formula Preece relied on; wrote to Preece in July 1887 that a Heaviside footnote was 'ill natured', then praised Heaviside's propagation theory in 1889His 1855 cable theory is the inductance-free (KR law) limit of the telegrapher equation (arbiter). Helped Heaviside's waves series into the Philosophical Magazine in Nov 1887 and praised it in his Jan 1889 IEE presidential address (Hunt). Other details not in the review files.
BiggsEditor of The Electrician who supported Heaviside, declined his anti-Preece letters for fear of libel, and was removed in October 1887 · His later hint that his removal was prompted by his support for Heaviside is his own account (Hunt, citing Mahon 2009)Not in the review files beyond this episode; first name not given.
George CampbellRan the first loading-coil demonstration, on a 46-mile cable, 6 Sept 1899 · AT&T engineer; AT&T held the commercial interest in loading coilsEngineer employed by AT&T, which in 1897 set him and Pupin 'to find some respect in which Heaviside's work was incomplete or incorrect' (Wikipedia Loading coil page). Other details not in the review files.
Michael PupinPatented loading coils (filed Dec 1899); AT&T bought the rights · Patent holder, paid $455,000 (Wikipedia), 'over $400 000' (IET blog) or $500,000 (Hunt); says he conceived loading while climbing a mountain in 1894, with nothing published thenProfessor in America (Russell, Nature 1925), who worked 'on these lines some ten years later'; published a paper on loading in 1900 (IET blog). Wiener later called AT&T and Pupin 'thieves'. Other details not in the review files.
Arthur KennellyProposed the conducting upper-atmosphere layer in Electrical World and Engineer, 15 March 1902, before Heaviside's December 1902 Britannica sentenceNot in the review files; his 1902 article has not been read.
Evidence / artifacts (96 of 108 listed, 89%)

Own works and inventions (24)

  • 1873Paper on duplex telegraphy Disparaged Culley's and Preece's duplex work and did not cite Preece's 1855 patent; provoked the Preece-Culley exchange (Bruton 2018). A copy is in the Preece papers (IET catalogue snippet).
  • 1885-01/1887-12'Electromagnetic Induction and its Propagation', series in The Electrician Ran 3 Jan 1885 to sec. 46 (Sept 1887) plus a straggler 31 Dec 1887. Sec. XL (1887, EP2 pp. ~119-124) read by the Investigator: 'Make R/L = K/S, and the distortion is annihilated', critical inductance, the 'unbelievable result' caveat.
  • 1886-08/1887-07'On the Self Induction of Wires', Phil. Mag. Parts I-VII Parts VIII and IX(?) were 'declined by the Philosophical Magazine and blocked by Preece, and partly published in The Electrician' (Bruton, describing IET notebook SC MSS 005/I/1/12).
  • 1887-04'Bridge System of Telephony' (with Arthur Heaviside) Joint paper for the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers, blocked by Preece; manuscript location unknown. Theory later in EMT1 and the Electrician sections (Bruton).
  • 1887-09-24'Mr. W. H. Preece on the Self-Induction of Wires' (Electrical Papers Vol. 2, Art. 38) Headed 'Sept. 24, 1887; but now first published' (1892): 'Mr. Preece is wrong ... radically wrong'. Read in OCR by the Investigator. · Heaviside's characterization of an opponent
  • 1888Verse after the 1888 Bath meeting ('You British Engineering man!') IET notebook 7 p. 113, quoted by Hunt 2012.
  • 1888Letter to Oliver Lodge on losing his outlet 'I should have been obliged to take some very decisive measures' (Hunt 2012).
  • 1888-89'On Electromagnetic Waves, and the Propagation of Potential' (Phil. Mag.), in Electromagnetic Waves (1889; Cambridge reprint) Pages 139, 142, 143 read as page images: eqs. 47-48, 58-63, 'let p = ni', magnetic-conductor duality. Full 1889 text located on archive.org (electromagnetic01heavgoog), not opened.
  • 1892Electrical Papers, Vol. 1 Three contents images read (Arts. 1-28: duplex, propagation of current in wires, the operator del, localisation of energy, thermo-electricity). Full text on archive.org (electricalpapers01heavuoft); bodies unread.
  • 1892-93'On Operators in Physical Mathematics', Parts I and II (Royal Society) Printed; links in arbiter (gwern.net Part I, archive.org Part II). Not read in the review.
  • 1893'A Gravitational and Electromagnetic Analogy' (The Electrician; EMT1 App. B, pp. 455-466) Finite-speed gravity, (u/v)^2 radial intensity change, moving-mass h field and reversed energy flux (arbiter's own OCR read). Exponent of u missing in OCR; probably 7. Equations unread.
  • 1893Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. 1 Contents pages read as images; secs. 1, 68 ('gravitational difficulty') and 83 ('Maxwell's Solution probably wrong') read in OCR by the Investigator. Holds the bridge-system theory and the 1893 discrete-coil proposal (Bruton; Grace's Guide).
  • 1894'On Operators in Physical Mathematics', Part III Refereed (William Burnside, per a snippet of Hunt 1991) and rejected over divergent series; a modified version is said to be in EMT2 (deadreckonings snippet). Original text not located.
  • 1899Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. 2 Operational calculus. Sec. 425: 'not good enough for Another Place ... wet blankets of rigorists'; p. 9: 'Shall I refuse my dinner ...' (Investigator, archive.org OCR).
  • 1902Nature letter, 'The Waste of Energy from a Moving Electron' Listed on archive.org by the Investigator; unread.
  • 1902-12'Telegraphy', I. Theory, Encyclopaedia Britannica 10th ed., vol. XXXIII 'There may possibly be a sufficiently conducting layer in the upper air ... guidance will be by the sea on one side and the upper layer on the other.' Author initials garbled in OCR (likely Heaviside).
  • 1903Nature letter, 'The Undistorted Cylindrical Wave' Listed on archive.org; unread.
  • 1905Nature letter, 'Electromagnetics in a Moving Dielectric' Listed on archive.org; unread; a possible place for his relativity views.
  • 1908Manuscript notes on Preece's proof 'America Revisited - 1907' IET SC MSS 005/I/2/057, 30 pp.; catalogue entry only.
  • 1912Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. 3 OCR keyword count only: 'Einstein' 0, 'Minkowski' 0, 'Lorentz' 30, 'relativ' 21; sec. 473 'Lorentz's Equations of a Moving Dielectric'.
  • 1886-1889Notebook SC MSS 005/I/1/12 (IET) MS copy of 'Self Induction of Wires' with notes on the fate of Parts VIII-IX (Bruton fn. 18). One of 21 notebooks in the IET Heaviside Collection; a further notebook records 'disputes with Sir William Preece and Lord Kelvin' (catalogue 110000639).
  • 1922Letter to Highfield on Arthur and Preece (IET SC MSS 068) 'AWH was very afraid of P ... The greatest mistake AWH ever made was to throw me overboard' (Bruton). · Heaviside's characterization, 35 years after
  • –Letter to Bethenod on refusing the Hughes medal Mentioned in a Google snippet of Mahon 2009; letter and reason unread.
  • –Heaviside Library at the IET (his books with marginal notes) IET archives blog; not examined.

Patents and patent office (3)

  • 1855Preece's duplex telegraphy patent Not cited in Heaviside's 1873 paper (Bruton). · Preece
  • 1880British patent no. 1407, 'Improvements in Electrical Conductors' Granted to Oliver alone (Arthur, a Post Office servant, could not hold it); Bruton calls it 'essentially the patent for ... a coaxial cable'. Specification unread.
  • 1899-12Pupin loading-coil patent and its purchase by AT&T Filed Dec 1899 (US patent 1900, Grace's Guide); AT&T paid $200,000 by Jan 1901 and $455,000 in total (Wikipedia), 'over $400 000' (IET blog) or $500,000 (Hunt). Patent number not in the review files. · Michael Pupin (patentee) and AT&T (purchaser)

Government records (5)

  • 1886-1887Preece's public statements justifying the iron-to-copper wire change Cited by Hunt 2012 as reducing inductance, the 'bete noire'. · Post Office (Preece)
  • 1896Civil-list pension to Heaviside GBP 120 a year, later GBP 220 (Hunt 2012).
  • 1932GPO report 'The Application of the Heaviside Analysis to Electrical Engineering Problems' 'No copies of which survive' (Bruton).
  • c.1936Typed copy of a report by Arthur West Heaviside Probably made by Sir Arthur Preece for correspondence with The Times (IET catalogue 110008809); not opened.
  • c.1957Heaviside papers found under the floorboards of his former Paignton home Used by H. J. Josephs of the GPO (Bruton); present location not stated.

Company and business records (3)

  • 1881Striking-off for unpaid fees and 1908 IEE honorary membership IET archives blog; Bruton dates the striking-off 1881.
  • 1894Royal Society Relief Fund grant, refused Hunt 2012.
  • 1897AT&T commission to Campbell and Pupin To 'find some respect in which Heaviside's work was incomplete or incorrect'; AT&T estimated savings of $700,000 (New York and New Jersey) and about $100 million by 1925 (Wikipedia Loading coil). · AT&T

Witness accounts and correspondence (9)

  • 1873Preece-Culley letters on Heaviside's duplex paper Preece: 'most pretentious and impudent ... He must be met somehow'; Culley: 'We will try to pot Oliver somehow' (Bruton, archival ref. 22; letters not seen). · Post Office officials whose work the paper criticised
  • 1887-07-12Kelvin to Preece (IET SC MSS 022/VII/535) A Heaviside Phil. Mag. footnote 'should not have appeared as it was so ill natured' (cataloguer's wording).
  • 1887Preece's draft reply to Kelvin (IET SC MSS 022/VII/526) 'Heaviside and his dreadful twaddle'; uses Kelvin's formula to show Preece is right; 'drawing room philosophers like Oliver Heaviside and Sylvanus Thompson'. Undated; catalogue description only. · Preece
  • 1887-10Biggs's account of his removal as editor of The Electrician Hinted it was prompted by his support for Heaviside (Hunt, citing Mahon 2009 p. 79); no second source. · Biggs, the removed editor
  • 1888-09-09FitzGerald notebook entry 'Very important ... Must be all in O. Heaviside' (Trinity College Dublin, per Hunt).
  • 1888-03Lodge's lightning lectures praising Heaviside Hunt 2012.
  • 1889-01Kelvin's IEE presidential address praising Heaviside's propagation theory Hunt 2012; Grace's Guide.
  • 1897-1921C. A. Stevenson correspondence (IET SC MSS 005/I/6/43) Includes 'Heaviside's brother's career and being blocked by Preece'; catalogue only.
  • c.1894Pupin's account of conceiving loading coils while climbing a mountain Nothing published by him at that time (Wikipedia Loading coil). · Pupin, the paid patentee

Experiments and replications by others (11)

  • c.1885Arthur Heaviside's observations of oscillations making ABC indicator pointers jump Reported by Oliver in Electrical Papers Vol. 2 (pp. ~120s); prompted part of the induction work.
  • c.1886Arthur Heaviside's tube-return experiment No inductive action outside the tube (EP2 pp. ~185-186), as textbook electromagnetism predicts; known only through Oliver's text.
  • 1886Arthur Heaviside's bridge-circuit telephone observations More telephones in parallel improved clarity (Hunt 2012); the basis of the 1887 paper.
  • c.1887Reports of good long-distance telephony on copper-covered steel wire Cited by Heaviside in Sec. XL, 'I do not wish to magnify its importance'; others' practice, not a controlled test.
  • 1887-88Hertz's electromagnetic wave experiments Confirmation of Maxwell's theory in Heaviside's form; from recall (high confidence).
  • 1899-09-06Campbell's loading-coil test on a 46-mile cable George Campbell, AT&T (Wikipedia Loading coil). · AT&T
  • 1902Krarup's continuously loaded cable Wikipedia Loading coil.
  • 1923-24Permalloy and mu-metal loaded cables Wikipedia Loading coil, cited in contrarian.md.
  • 1924Appleton's demonstration of the ionised layer Experiments begun late 1924 (Bruton); direct evidence with Barnett Dec 1925; Nobel 1947. The Heaviside Wikipedia page says 1923.
  • 1925Breit and Tuve's measurement of the layer's height Wikipedia Kennelly-Heaviside layer.
  • 2004-2011Gravity Probe B results Frame dragging -37.2 +/- 7.2 mas/yr vs general relativity's -39.2; tested relativity, not Heaviside's 1893 equations.

Related work by others (7)

  • 1855Kelvin's cable theory (KR law) Inductance-free limit of the telegrapher equation, right for slow cable signalling, wrong at voice frequencies (arbiter, physicist).
  • 1884Poynting's energy-flux theorem Heaviside derived the same flux independently (Wikipedia).
  • 1894Foppl's textbook carrying Heaviside's form of Maxwell's equations 'From which Albert Einstein, among others, would learn electromagnetic theory' (Hunt 2012).
  • 1900Arthur Heaviside's IEE Newcastle address His part of the bridge system, published here (Bruton).
  • 1900Pupin's paper on loading IET archives blog. · Pupin
  • 1902-03-15Kennelly, 'On the Elevation of the Electrically-Conducting Strata of the Earth's Atmosphere' Electrical World and Engineer 39(11): 473; independent layer proposal. Cited by search results and Bruton; text unread (an ETHW copy exists).
  • –Bromwich's contour-integral justification of the operational calculus Links Heaviside's method to the Laplace transform (Wikipedia). Date not in the review files.

Later accounts and media (24)

  • 1898C. S. Bright, Submarine Telegraphs Recognised the 1880 coaxial patent (Bruton).
  • 1923IEE obituary of A. W. Heaviside On Grace's Guide: Newcastle career, Preece's experiments, 'fights with Headquarters'.
  • 1925IEE obituary of Oliver Heaviside On Grace's Guide: Preece's circle caused papers 'to be rejected by the Society of Telegraph Engineers'; Silvanus Thompson and Pupin as early adopters; 'sarcasms' in the 1902 article. · Written by an admirer
  • 1925-02-14A. Russell, obituary in Nature Quoted inside the IEE obituary: Pupin worked 'on these lines some ten years later'; Vol. 4 'found impossible'. · Written by an admirer
  • 1925Personal appreciation in The Electrician, vol. 94, p. 174 Referred to by the IEE obituarist (possibly Lodge, low confidence); unread.
  • 1959Norbert Wiener, The Tempter Novel; Wiener denounced AT&T and Pupin 'as thieves' (Hunt).
  • 1988P. J. Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude Standard biography; recommended from recall, not read.
  • 1991B. J. Hunt, The Maxwellians Recommended from recall, not read.
  • 1991B. J. Hunt, 'Rigorous Discipline: Oliver Heaviside Versus the Mathematicians' In The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (ed. Dear); names Burnside as referee (snippet only; PDF did not load).
  • 2007'Heaviside's Operator Calculus', Dead Reckonings Says EMT2 holds a modified Part III; search summary and snippet.
  • 2009B. Mahon, Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity (IET) Source of the Biggs episode (via Hunt); snippets only.
  • 2011I. Yavetz, The Work of Oliver Heaviside 1872-1889 Springer; snippet only.
  • 2012-11B. J. Hunt, 'Oliver Heaviside: A first-rate oddity', Physics Today Read in full: April 1887 block before submission, Biggs, Operators Part III rejection, Pupin $500,000.
  • 2018E. Bruton, 'From theory to engineering practice ...', Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 376: 20170454 Read to footnote 24: the brothers, the 1873 quarrel, patent 1407, notebook 005/I/1/12, the floorboard papers, BT archive references.
  • 2023-04IET archives blog, 'From under the sea to the edge of space' Archivist's summary; Pupin 'over $400 000'; collection references.
  • –Grace's Guide chronologies of Oliver and Arthur Heaviside 1887: Heaviside 'suspected' Preece blocked publication.
  • –Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry Snippet only: 'Heaviside's career reached a watershed in 1887'.
  • 2025Lenhard, 'The most important thing: Wittgenstein, engineering, and ...' Snippet mentions Burnside; unread.
  • –Wikipedia: Oliver Heaviside Preece's block and motive (the article's characterization), 'confirmed by Gravity Probe B', Eves on relativity, 1923 ionosphere date.
  • –Wikipedia: Loading coil Campbell 1899, Pupin patent and payments, AT&T's reasoning, Krarup 1902, 1893 discrete inductors.
  • –Wikipedia: Heaviside condition R/L = G/C (contrarian.md).
  • –Wikipedia: Kennelly-Heaviside layer Appleton 1924, Breit and Tuve 1925.
  • –Wikipedia: Gravitoelectromagnetism Heaviside's analogy 'differing only by some small factors'.
  • –Wikipedia: Gravity Probe B Final frame-dragging and geodetic results.

Records named but not yet examined (10)

  • 1884-85Heaviside's original papers on the four equations and the energy flux Named by the arbiter for the Poynting and Gibbs priority questions.
  • 1887Society of Telegraph Engineers council minutes and Journal Would decide block before submission vs rejection: a paper never submitted leaves no council record (arbiter).
  • 1887The Electrician 1887 volumes and proprietors' papers Biggs's removal; Preece's British Association paper (16 Sept 1887, p. 400). HathiTrust not reached.
  • 1886-1900BT Archives TCB 274/1, inductive telegraphy experiments Not reached.
  • –BT Archives TCK 89/23, Preece press cuttings Not reached.
  • –BT Archives POST 30/2668B, patent rules for government servants Bears on why Arthur could not hold patent 1407. Not reached.
  • 1894Royal Society referee report on 'On Operators' Part III RR series; catalogue not reached.
  • 1899-1901AT&T-Pupin contracts Would settle the payment total.
  • c.1912-1925Notes for a fourth volume of Electromagnetic Theory In the 1971 and 2003 Chelsea editions (archive.org, lending only, not opened); the likely place for his relativity remarks.
  • 1893Page images of EMT1 secs. 79-85 and App. B Needed for the 7a and 7b formulas and the printed exponent of u.

Left out: search-result titles seen only as snippets with no bearing stated (a 2022 ResearchGate history of the Heaviside equation, an Elgar chapter citing POST 30/631A, an Academia.edu wireless paper, Encyclopedia.com, two radio-history PDFs, three ionosphere histories citing Kennelly), two unrelated IET Preece records, finding aids (AIM25, TNA Discovery), textbooks cited only for teaching and the 66 browser-junk files. Full catalogue: Heaviside sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: None pending for the central claims; field and laboratory tests 1887-1925 settled them. Residues: check eqs. 47-48 against the telegraph equation once pp. 136-138 are obtained; compute the frame dragging his 1893 equations predict against Gravity Probe B; an internal-stress measurement in a permanent magnet (7a), possible in principle, never done.

Deciding records: Society of Telegraph Engineers 1887 minutes; IET notebook SC MSS 005/I/1/12 and Preece's draft SC MSS 022/VII/526; The Electrician 1887; the Royal Society referee report on Operators Part III; Kennelly's March 1902 text; AT&T-Pupin contracts; the fourth-volume notes; page images of EMT1 secs. 79-85 and App. B.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it reproduces his 1888 half-transmitting copper sheet (8.488e-9 cm), shows a thin sheet absorbs at most half the wave, and tabulates attenuation at 300 Hz to 3 kHz for bare, loaded and distortionless lines. By hand: substitute V = e^(-Rt/L) f(x - vt) into the telegrapher equation and find R/L = G/C.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Contrarian Preece's draft is better evidence of conviction plus stake than of bad faith. A model-based objection (the KR law is correct for slow cable signalling, wrong for telephony frequencies) would explain the dispute without suppression, and nothing found refutes that reading. contrarian.md, Investigator findings, Finding 3.3
  2. Arbiter Whether the paper was blocked before submission (Hunt, Bruton) or rejected (IEE 1925) would be decided by the Society of Telegraph Engineers council minutes: a paper never submitted leaves no council record, which is itself a prediction that can be tested. arbiter.md, Records that go quiet, item 1
  3. Arbiter The Investigator's u = 3 x 10^6 cm/s for the 1893 gravity analogy was not read from the text: the OCR drops the exponent. Heaviside's printed 'one-millionth' and 'one two-millionth' fit 3 x 10^7 cm/s; a page image would settle it. arbiter.md, Claim 7b and QE fixes 5b
  4. Primer Heaviside's half-transmission sheet is also the sheet that absorbs the most, and no single thin sheet in free space can absorb more than half of an incident wave: a standard modern thin-film result that falls straight out of his 1888 equations. primer.md, 5.5 Energy audit
  5. QE After the Investigator update, Heaviside's own 1887 evidence and his self-flagged 'unbelievable result', and Arthur's line observations and tube experiment, had been dropped at condensation; all were restored to the arbiter and primer. No verdict changed. Final: PASS. qe.md, Investigator update check and Recheck

AI noteHeaviside papers turned up under the floorboards of his former Paignton home around 1957, while a 1932 Post Office report on 'the Heaviside Analysis' has no surviving copy (Bruton 2018).

Rank 25Ives

no change B - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 01:01

Ives measured moving clocks running slow (1938), then rebuilt relativity and Einstein's gravity inside a fixed ether: same numbers, no new force. Moray's book cites him for exactly that.

Invention / theory background

Herbert E. Ives (1882-1953), Bell Telephone Laboratories physicist and television pioneer, measured with G. R. Stilwell (1938, 1941) the second-order Doppler shift of fast hydrogen canal rays: moving atomic clocks run slow. He read it as Larmor-Lorentz slowing in a fixed ether and, from 1937 to 1953, re-derived special relativity and the Schwarzschild solution of general relativity in ether language. Ruderfer's appendix in Moray's Sea of Energy cites him as proof that an ether is admissible.

Ranking explanation

No anomaly or suppression of his own (no A): Bell Laboratories funded the work, and Physical Review and JOSA printed his ether papers. It scores on open points (B: the Pobedonostsev-Parshin deficit, the exact-field postulate, the untested dishing disk), on what a reader can compute (C: example.py refits the plates and Mercury's 43 arcsec) and on influence (D: neo-Lorentzians, Ruderfer, Moray). Its verdicts are more settled than Aspden's or van Vlaenderen's; unlike Su's local ether, its predictions match experiment.

Key supporting elements

  1. The 1938 design cancels the 21.5 A first-order Doppler shift by viewing atoms coming and going together, leaving a 0.011-0.047 A clock shift; eight plates fit (slope 0.972 +/- 0.031). Part II (1941) reached 0.113 A, above the doublet.
  2. Repeated many times since, now to parts per billion: Mandelberg-Witten 1962, Saathoff 2003, Reinhardt 2007, Botermann 2014 at 34% of light speed, and the CERN muon storage ring at gamma 29.3.
  3. Ives's 1939 and 1948 papers derive the exact Schwarzschild line element and Mercury's 42.98 arcsec per century with no fitted constant; his light-speed field gives the full 1.75 arcsec light bending, as Ruderfer says in Moray's book.
  4. Robertson checked Ives's theory papers expecting errors and found every deduction valid. The 1945 paper gets mass increase, contraction and clock slowing from conservation laws and radiation pressure, showing how little of relativity is extra.
  5. A dissenting repeat exists: Pobedonostsev and Parshin (SPIE 1989) report the second-order shift 40-82% below relativity at 150-300 keV, stated error 0.04 A per line. No replication or rebuttal has been found.

Key contradictions

  1. The ether adds no force and no prediction: Robertson called the theory 'completely equivalent in substance' to special relativity; Ives wrote of 'no ... new law of gravitation' and force equations 'implicit in the general relativity solution'.
  2. The energy-filled ether linking Ives to Moray is Ruderfer's addition: none of Ives's 31 papers gives the ether energy or force to tap. Ruderfer's 'any Lorentz-ether theory ... necessarily equivalent' fails: Nordstrom's theory bends no light.
  3. The gravity result rests on one postulate, the field factor y exactly 1 - 2GM/(Rc^2); a second-order term kappa changes Mercury's advance by (6 - kappa)/6. It covers one static mass: no field equations, radiation or two bodies.
  4. The Pobedonostsev-Parshin deficit jumps erratically, vanishes at 1.5-2.0 MeV and has no systematic-error budget; a half-degree misalignment of their two optical arms gives a deficit of that size, and their own classical model predicts +5%.
  5. Side claims fail: relativity gives the same Sagnac result, as Ives's 1938 paper does; his 1949 'internal inconsistency' is the Lorentz transformation with re-set clocks; Einstein's E = mc^2 step is not circular; the photon survived (Grangier-Roger-Aspect 1986).
Verdicts by claim (8 of 32 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Moving clocks run slow: the Ives-Stilwell second-order Doppler shift (1938, 1941)Established modern tests to parts per billion; 1938-41 data alone modest; Pobedonostsev-Parshin dissent kept, unreplicated
The result shows real slowing in a fixed ether and favours Larmor-Lorentz over EinsteinEstablished with Michelson-Morley and Kennedy-Thorndike it fixes clock rate and contraction (l = 1) Not testable as stated ether over special relativity; identical predictions Tested, not supported entrained-ether and ballistic rivals Historically superseded but instructive absolute simultaneity as a 1938 position
Sagnac and Michelson-Gale show a fixed ether that relativity cannot handleRefuted by calculation relativity gives the same first-order result, as Ives's own 1938 paper does Not testable as stated whether his reading differs measurably
An alternative theory rebuilt from classical ether physics (1937 transported clocks, 1945 conservation laws, 1948-51 rod-clock quotients)Not testable as stated equal predictions; 'relativity principle superfluous' not shown Historically superseded but instructive as a programme; the 1945 route is the most instructive Refuted by calculation charge that special relativity is self-contradictory (1949, 1937 clock paradox)
Gravitation: the Schwarzschild solution as forces in an ether (1939, 1947, 1948)Established one static mass: Mercury 43 arcsec per century, light bending 1.75 arcsec, red shift (general relativity's values) Not testable as stated ether reading and transverse force as a separate force Never properly tested as a complete theory; large-interferometer conjecture Refuted by calculation the earlier review's 'fitted to reach 43'
Einstein did not derive E = mc^2 in 1905Refuted by calculation circularity charge, partly withdrawn by Ives in 1953 Established the 1905 proof is not fully general (Planck 1907, Ohanian 2008) Established E = mc^2 itself, which Ives accepted
The photon will 'go the way of the caloric' (1951 Rumford lecture)Tested, not supported single-photon anticorrelation, Grangier-Roger-Aspect 1986
Other physical claims: radiation pressure on a moving absorber (1942), a spinning disk 'dishes' (1939), ripple-tank ether (1941-42)Established radiation-pressure formula; 'earlier values wrong' is a definition difference Never properly tested dishing disk, far below classical stresses Established ripple tank as a classical-wave analogy only, not a test of light

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Herbert Eugene IvesExperimenter (Ives-Stilwell 1938, 1941) and author of the fixed-ether reading, the transported-clock and conservation-law derivations, the Schwarzschild-in-ether gravitation papers and the 1952 E = mc^2 critiqueBorn Philadelphia 1882 (31 July per LoC, 21 July per the Chappell wiki), son of colour-photography inventor Frederic E. Ives. B.S. Pennsylvania 1905; Johns Hopkins doctorate 1908 under R. W. Wood on Lippmann colour photography. Army aerial photography 1918; Bell Laboratories electro-optical research: facsimile, 1927 television, about 100 patents; standing-wave explanation of thin-film photoemission, which he called 'probably my most important contribution to science'. OSA president 1924-25, NAS 1933, Rumford Medal 1951. Retired 1947; died November 1953 (13, 15 or 3).
G. R. StilwellCo-experimenter on the 1938 and 1941 atomic-clock papers and the 1941-42 ripple-tank (moving-medium) papersLong-time member of Ives's Bell Laboratories television group (Bell Laboratories Record 1947); co-author with Ives of the 1927 sodium-potassium photoelectric paper. Otherwise not in the review files.
M. RuderferThe link to Moray: his 1975 'Neutrino Structure of the Ether', reprinted in Moray's Sea of Energy, calls Ives 'the most direct verification of the validity of a Lorentz ether' and fills that ether with a neutrino-sea energy store · Advocates his own neutrino-sea ether and cites Ives as supportDimensions, Inc., Hempstead, New York (per the reprint). Proposed the 1960 Mossbauer rotor ether-drift test (Phys. Rev. Lett. 5) that Preikschat carried out; papers on a neutrino sea 1972-75. Otherwise not in the review files.
H. P. RobertsonReferee of Ives's 1947 Phys. Rev. gravitation paper and author of the relativity assessment in Ives's 1956 NAS memoir: deductions valid, theory 'completely equivalent in substance' to special relativity · Ives's referee and critic, then the memoir's chosen judge of his workCaltech relativist; main Physical Review referee for relativity from 1930 through the 1940s (Lalli 2016). Robertson Papers at Caltech, 10024-MS.
L. A. Pobedonostsev and P. F. ParshinAuthors of the only experimental dissent: a 1989 canal-ray repeat reporting a shift 40-82% below relativity at 150-300 keVPobedonostsev at the V. G. Khlopin Radium Institute, Leningrad; Parshin at the Leningrad Academy of Civil Aviation. Papers on the Doppler effect 1989-1995 (Chappell wiki); full Russian account in Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 1989.
Albert EinsteinCalled the experiment 'the most direct proof yet' of relativity (NYT, 27 April 1938); author of the 1905 mass-energy paper Ives criticised; a correspondent in the Ives papers at the LoC; his 1920 Leiden address kept an ether 'endowed with physical qualities' to which 'the idea of motion may not be applied' (follow-up Q20)Not in the review files beyond these items.
P. W. BridgmanSympathetic evaluator: used Ives's arguments, but his 1959 memo called Ives's real-but-indeterminable absolute simultaneity 'a complete negation of the operational attitude'Harvard physicist; posthumous A Sophisticate's Primer of Relativity (1962); papers at Harvard University Archives (HUG 4234.50). Otherwise not in the review files.
E. E. ButterfieldCorrespondent, late 1940s-1953, whose letters describe anti-Einstein feeling; recipient of Ives's 5 October 1951 'Semitic school' letter quoted by LalliNot in the review files beyond the Library of Congress finding aid and Lalli 2014.
Evidence / artifacts (156 of 156 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (63)

  • 1906Improvements in the Diffraction Process of Color Photography Phys. Rev. 22:339. Early colour-photography paper from Wood's laboratory; NAS memoir bibliography.
  • 1907Three Color Interference Pictures Phys. Rev. 24:103. Lippmann standing-wave line; NAS memoir bibliography.
  • 1908An Experimental Study of the Lippmann Color Photograph (doctoral thesis) Astrophys. J. 27:325, Johns Hopkins under R. W. Wood. Standing light waves imprint layers in the film; root of his later photoelectric idea (NAS memoir pp.6-8; Rumford lecture).
  • 1920Airplane Photography (book) From his 1918 Army aerial-photography work; seen in an Internet Archive search listing only.
  • 1922The Voltage-Current Relation in Central Anode Photoelectric Cells With T. C. Fry, Astrophys. J. 56. Public domain; not fetched (follow-up Q10).
  • 1923The Properties of Very Thin Films of Photoelectrically Active Material Phys. Rev. 21:389. Public domain, open on the Internet Archive; not fetched (follow-up Q10).
  • 1923The Velocities of Emission of Photoelectrons in the Normal and Selective Photoelectric Effects Phys. Rev. 21:713. NAS memoir bibliography; not fetched.
  • 1924Photoelectric Properties of Thin Films of Alkali Metals Astrophys. J. 60:209-230, saved from NASA ADS. Thin Na, K, Rb, Cs films on platinum show the selective effect only at one stage of growth; selective/normal ratios 15-25 against at most about 4 from absorption. Digest.
  • 1924Normal and Selective Photoelectric Effects in Alkali Metals and Alloys With A. L. Johnsrud, Astrophys. J. 60:231. Elster and Geitel's ratio of 70 for Na-K at 70 degrees; potassium on a flat bulb gives only 3-4. Digest.
  • 1924-1928Further photoelectric papers listed in follow-up Q10 JOSA 8:551; Phys. Rev. 32:44 and 32:57. Public domain, open on the Internet Archive; titles not given in the review files; not fetched.
  • 1925The Influence of Temperature on the Photoelectric Effect of the Alkali Metals With A. L. Johnsrud, JOSA 11:565; companion on rubidium films, Astrophys. J. 62:309 (ADS timed out twice).
  • 1926Photoelectric Properties of Thin Films of Alkali Metals. II Astrophys. J. 64:128. Caesium films on a heated platinum ribbon: photoemission peaks 5-10 times above room temperature near 650 K; thermionic electrons not photo-excited. Digest.
  • 1926-04The Alkali Metal Photoelectric Cell Bell Syst. Tech. J. 5:320, saved. Why the Bell System's picture transmission used alkali cells; Einstein's equation eV = h(nu - nu0); photocurrent ratios 20-30 for polarised light against 4-8 in absorption. Digest. Popular companion: Engineering Foundation 3:66-80 (1926).
  • 1927Photoelectric Emission as a Function of Composition in Sodium-Potassium Alloys With G. R. Stilwell, Phys. Rev. 29:252. Peaks of 14, 16 and 31 in the selective/normal ratio (memoir pp.20-21).
  • 1927Rubidium film thickness measured optically With A. L. Johnsrud, JOSA 15:374. NAS memoir bibliography.
  • 1928The Distribution in Direction of Photoelectrons from Alkali Metal Surfaces With A. R. Olpin and A. L. Johnsrud, Phys. Rev. 32:157 (NAS memoir).
  • 1929Maximum Excursion of the Photoelectric Long Wave Limit of the Alkali Metals With A. R. Olpin, Phys. Rev. 34:117. Long-wave limit moves to the free-atom resonance wavelength and back as thickness changes.
  • 1929The Preparation of Photoelectric Cells with Thin Films of Lithium as the Photoactive Material Phys. Rev. 33:1081.
  • 1930Photoelectric Properties of Extremely Thin Films of Alkali Metals Phys. Rev. 35:669.
  • 1931The Vectorial Photoelectric Effect in Thin Films of Alkali Metals Phys. Rev. 38:1209.
  • 1931The Photoelectric Effect from Thin Films of Alkali Metals on Silver With H. B. Briggs, Phys. Rev. 38:1477.
  • 1932The Depth of Origin of Photo-Electrons With H. B. Briggs, Phys. Rev. 40:802.
  • 1933-03Standing Light Waves; Repetition of an Experiment by Wiener, Using a Photoelectric Probe Surface With T. C. Fry, JOSA 23:73-83, saved. Caesium film on a quartz wedge over platinum; Ives expected 'only positional and qualitative agreement' and called the result 'very satisfactory'. Digest.
  • 1934Optical Factors in Caesium-Silver-Oxide Photoelectric Cells With A. R. Olpin, JOSA 24:198.
  • 1936The Optical Constants and Photoelectric Emission of Potassium With H. B. Briggs, JOSA 26:238, with companion 'Calculated and Experimental Photoelectric Emission from Thin Films of Potassium', JOSA 26:247.
  • 1936Photoresponsive Devices Electrical Engineers' Handbook (Wiley), sec. 5, arts. 21-27, pp.68-82.
  • 1937Optical Constants of Sodium; Optical Constants of Rubidium and Caesium JOSA 27:181 and 27:395. Remeasured to test the standing-wave explanation (memoir p.21).
  • 1937Graphical Exposition of the Michelson-Morley Experiment JOSA 27:177-180. Huygens chart; Kennedy-Thorndike 'cannot by itself test the Larmor-Lorentz hypothesis'. Digest.
  • 1937Light Signals on Moving Bodies as Measured by Transported Rods and Clocks JOSA 27:263-273. Deep read with page images; equations checked to 40 digits: equal to special relativity for the same transport procedure. Aberration called his 'strongest evidence' (p.10).
  • 1937Apparent Lengths and Times in Systems Experiencing the Fitzgerald-Larmor-Lorentz Contractions JOSA 27:310-313, sequel to 27:263. Digest and inside the 27:263 deep read.
  • 1937Measurement of Light Signals on Moving Bodies by Transported Rods and Clocks Science 85:442. NAS memoir bibliography.
  • 1937-09The Aberration of Clocks and the Clock Paradox JOSA 27:305-309. The ether frame supplies the asymmetry; special relativity's frame-change resolution not discussed.
  • 1937-11The Doppler Effect Considered in Relation to the Michelson-Morley Experiment JOSA 27:389-392. Proposes the canal-ray experiment; credits 'Einstein and Ritz'; laboratory ether velocity cancels in its algebra. Digest.
  • 1938Rate of an Atomic Clock in Motion Nature 141:551. Not searched (follow-up Q10).
  • 1938Unsymmetrical Doppler Effect in Hydrogen Canal Rays Rev. Sci. Instr. 9:283. Not obtained; would show whether Ives reported the asymmetry Faraj describes.
  • 1938Correlation of Optical Properties and Photoelectric Emission in Thin Films of Alkali Metals With H. B. Briggs, JOSA 28:330.
  • 1938-04-16Light Signals Sent Around a Closed Path JOSA 28:296-299. Page images read: derives the standard first-order Sagnac result himself and objects only to its interpretation.
  • 1938-04-25An Experimental Study of the Rate of a Moving Atomic Clock (with G. R. Stilwell) Read to the NAS 25 April 1938; JOSA 28:215-226. Eight plates, 6,788-18,350 V, shifts 0.011-0.047 A; caveat: all below the 0.09 A H-beta doublet separation. Deep read. · Bell Laboratories funded it
  • 1939-05The Behavior of an Interferometer in a Gravitational Field JOSA 29:183-187. Deep read: exact Schwarzschild line element, which Ives names; 'no non-Euclidean geometry, nor new law of gravitation'; red shift and bending in words. Cited by Ruderfer.
  • 1939-07Derivation and Significance of the So-Called 'Chronotopic Interval' JOSA 29:294-301. Ether as 'a theoretical tool'; Lorentz transformations a limiting case. Digest.
  • 1939-11Theory of the Double Fizeau Toothed Wheel JOSA 29:472-478. Wood-Hackett 'twist' from contraction alone; a spinning disk 'dishes' like a saw blade. Digest plus passages.
  • 1940-02The Measurement of Velocity with Atomic Clocks Science 91:79-84. Natural philosophy against prediction only (per Lalli 2014).
  • 1940-06The Doppler Effect from Moving Mirrors JOSA 30:255-257. Moving-mirror Doppler gives a null only with the same contractions as Michelson-Morley. Digest.
  • 1941-01Interference Phenomena with a Moving Medium (with G. R. Stilwell) JOSA 31:14-24. Ripple-tank analogue: contraction, clock slowing and Fresnel drag appear in a moving liquid. Digest.
  • 1941-05An Experimental Study of the Rate of a Moving Atomic Clock. II (with G. R. Stilwell) JOSA 31:369-374. Up to 43,000 V: 0.113 A against 0.1098 computed, above the doublet separation; answers Jones and Otting. Deep read, Table I from page image.
  • 1942-01Interference Phenomena with a Moving Medium. II (with G. R. Stilwell) JOSA 32:25-31. Mercury ripples, v/c = 0.585; one ratio 0.852 against 0.658 predicted, put down to dispersion. Digest plus passages.
  • 1942-01The Pressure of Radiation in a Moving System JOSA 32:32-33. Absorber moving toward a source: P = E_a(c + v)/(c - v); calls Lorentz's and Poynting-Abraham's values wrong. Digest plus passages; reproduced by the arbiter.
  • 1943-03Impact of a Wave Packet and a Reflecting Particle JOSA 33:163-166. Lorentz mass-velocity law from classical waves and Newtonian conservation laws. Digest.
  • 1944-04Impact of a Wave Packet and an Absorbing Particle JOSA 34:222-229. Absorbing case with heat terms. Digest.
  • 1945Derivation of the Lorentz Transformations Phil. Mag. (7) 36:392-403. Deep read: no relativity formula put in, but the relativity principle enters through three premises; calls it 'a superfluous hypothesis'. Ruderfer's note 5.
  • 1947-08The Physical Significance of Birkhoff's Gravitational Equations Phys. Rev. 72:229-232. Deep read: a transverse force v^2/c^2 times the normal part of gravity; moving mass alone gives one sixth of Mercury's advance. Refereed by H. P. Robertson.
  • 1947-10Historical Note on the Rate of a Moving Atomic Clock JOSA 37:810-813. Four contractions consistent with Michelson-Morley give four clock rates; the data 'decide unequivocally for l=1'.
  • 1948-04The Behavior of an Interferometer in a Gravitational Field. II. Application to a Planetary Orbit JOSA 38:413-416. Deep read from page images: one postulate gives 42.98 arcsec per century, no fitted constant; force equations 'implicit in the general relativity solution'.
  • 1948-10Measurement of the Velocity of Light by Signals Sent in One Direction JOSA 38:879-884. Defines the 'rod-clock-quotient'. Digest.
  • 1949-09Lorentz-Type Transformations as Derived from Performable Rod and Clock Operations JOSA 39:757-761. Deep read: his 'internal inconsistency' equations are the Lorentz transformation with clocks lagging by k r'.
  • 1950-04Extrapolation from the Michelson-Morley Experiment JOSA 40:185-191. Missing from the NAS bibliography. Digest.
  • 1951Revisions of the Lorentz Transformations Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 95:125-131 (read 27 Oct 1950). The constant 'is not equal to c and should not be called the velocity of light'. Digest.
  • 1951Clock Paradox in Relativity Theory Nature 168:246, letter. Not obtained.
  • 1951-11Adventures with Standing Light Waves (Rumford Medal lecture) Proc. Am. Acad. Arts Sci. 81:1-32. Standing-wave career; predicts 'the photon will go the way of the caloric'. Digest plus the photon passage.
  • 1952Proc. Roy. Dublin Soc. 26:9 Cited in Ives's 1953 'Genesis' paper; absent from the NAS bibliography. Not searched.
  • 1952-08Derivation of the Mass-Energy Relation JOSA 42(8):540-543. Credits Poincare; ends 'The relation E = mc2 was not derived by Einstein'. Read; in copyright, cited by reference.
  • 1953-03Genesis of the Query 'Is There an Ether?' JOSA 43, reply to Dirac 1951: Sagnac and Michelson-Gale as 'positive first-order results'. OCR copy (in copyright).
  • 1953-07Note on 'Mass-Energy Relationship' JOSA 43:619, reply to Riseman and Young: 'something must be added ... from valid physical considerations, not by assumption'.

Patents and patent office (1)

  • c.1920-1953Ives's US patents (about 100: television, facsimile, stereoscopic panoramagrams) NAS memoir: 'no fewer than one hundred'; Google Patents shows about 105 before 1954; none on relativity surfaced.

Company and business records (3)

  • 1927-04Long-distance television demonstration with Herbert Hoover (AT&T, Washington to New York) Dated 7 April (NAS, Wikipedia) or 27 April 1927 (Optica). Ives led the work.
  • 1947-05Bell Laboratories Record, May 1947 Biographical note and 20th-anniversary photo naming Stilwell and Ives. Saved. · Ives's employer and the experiment's funder
  • 1947-08Bell Laboratories Record, August 1947 (retirement notice) 'First direct proof of the system of compensation for motion embodied in the theories of Larmor, Lorentz and Einstein'. Saved. · Ives's employer and the experiment's funder

Government records (3)

  • 1869-1957Frederic Eugene Ives and Herbert Eugene Ives Papers, MSS27508 Library of Congress, 15 boxes, about 5,000 items; Einstein among correspondents. Finding aid read; container list not opened.
  • 1938-04Photograph of Ives at the National Academy of Sciences meeting Smithsonian Institution Archives, Science Service Records, image SIA2008-4306. Record page read.
  • 1959-05M. Benton, The Clock Problem (Clock Paradox) in Relativity: annotated bibliography US Naval Research Laboratory. Lists Ives-Stilwell 1938 and 1941 as verification of clock retardation, Ives 1937 as resolving the paradox 'through motion relative to the ether'.

Witness accounts and correspondence (7)

  • 1920-1970Ralph V. L. Hartley papers AIP Niels Bohr Library finding aid lists Ives as a correspondent. Not opened.
  • 1938-04-27'Einstein Hails Proof; Dr. Ives Provides Best Support for Relativity' New York Times p.25. Einstein: 'the most direct proof yet' of relativity, while the article frames it as verifying the ether. Opening only.
  • 1947-03H. P. Robertson's referee report on Ives's Birkhoff paper Robertson Papers 10024-MS, Caltech. Framing 'a bit (ca. 40 yrs) out of date'; paper published. Known through Lalli 2016. · Robertson was Ives's referee and critic, and later wrote the memoir's assessment
  • c.1947-1953E. E. Butterfield letters to Ives LoC MSS27508. Anti-Einstein feeling in 'certain scientific circles'; Einstein and followers 'castigated as left-wing radicals' (finding aid). Not seen.
  • 1950-10-24Ives letter on his 1938 Princeton reception Hostile reception; Pauli reported his 'work didn't amount to anything'. One published source (Hazelett and Turner p.90, via Bonizzoni and Giuliani); no second source found yet. · Ives, the party describing his own reception
  • 1951-10-05Ives to E. E. Butterfield LoC MSS27508 Box 13. Quoted by Lalli 2014: championing 'the classical English school ... against the paradox of the Semitic school'; Lalli: it 'seems to imply' an implicit anti-Semitism.
  • 1959-08-18P. W. Bridgman, Comments on Ives' Papers on Relativity (unpublished memo) Harvard University Archives HUG 4234.50. Real-but-indeterminable absolute simultaneity 'a complete negation of the operational attitude' (via Lalli 2014).

Experiments and replications by others (24)

  • 1939G. Otting's canal-ray repeat Physikalische Zeitschrift; Part II (1941) answers his criticism; fit 2-3% with the 1938 points per Mandelberg and Witten.
  • 1960V. W. Hughes et al. (1960) and R. W. P. Drever (1961), Hughes-Drever isotropy tests Phys. Rev. Lett. 4:342. Unsplit lithium NMR line: no direction dependence in nuclear energy levels; later clock-comparison limits 10^-25 to 10^-33 GeV (Wikipedia, follow-up Q20).
  • 1962H. I. Mandelberg and L. Witten, Ives-Stilwell-type repeat JOSA 52:529-536; exponent 0.498 +/- 0.025; judged the 1938 real uncertainty 10-15% (via Giuliani).
  • 1963Magyar and Mandel, Interference fringes produced by superposition of two independent maser light beams Nature 198:255-256. Fringes photographed from two independent pulsed ruby lasers: independent beams combine where they overlap (follow-up Q20, search snippets).
  • 1964T. Alvager et al., speed of light from fast pi0 decay photons 2.9977 +/- 0.0004 x 10^8 m/s from pions at v/c >= 0.99975; rules out ballistic emission. Web-checked.
  • 1967Pfleegor and Mandel, interference of two independent single-mode lasers Extends Magyar-Mandel to continuous single-mode lasers (follow-up Q20, ADS snippet).
  • 1968-10E. Preikschat, The Mossbauer Effect and Tests of Relativity (PhD thesis, Birmingham) Ruderfer's rotor proposal carried out: ether drift (2.0 +/- 5.2) cm/s, a null for both theories; summarises Ives 1948. Passages read.
  • 1977CERN muon storage ring (gamma = 29.3) Time dilation of stored muons to 2e-3; part of the modern record.
  • 1986P. Grangier, G. Roger and A. Aspect, single-photon anticorrelation Fewer beam-splitter coincidences than any classical wave allows, by 13 standard deviations: the evidence against Ives's 1951 photon prediction. Search-summary web check.
  • 1989L. A. Pobedonostsev and P. F. Parshin, 'New results in Ives experiment' SPIE 1121, Interferometry '89, pp.36-41. Shift 0.17-0.60 of relativity at 150-300 keV, 0.9-1.1 at MeV. All 6 pages read from page images.
  • 1989Pobedonostsev and Parshin, full account, Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 1989 no. 3 pp.84-99, and Khlopin preprint PU-199/L Raw data and error budget behind the SPIE report; the arbiter's deciding record for the dissent.
  • 1991-1995Pobedonostsev and Parshin, later papers 'Experimental Investigation of a Relativistic Effect' (1991) to 'Once Again About the Doppler Effect' (1995). Titles only.
  • 1997Wardle et al., Observational Evidence against Birefringence over Cosmological Distances No vacuum birefringence over cosmological paths; known from the Lorentz-violation page's reference list (follow-up Q20).
  • 2003Saathoff et al., laser Ives-Stilwell test in a storage ring Cited by the reviewers (via Giuliani 2015).
  • 2005Rainville et al., direct test of E = mc^2 Agreement to 4e-7; web-checked (MIT news).
  • 2007Reinhardt et al., Li-7+ at 3.0% and 6.4% of c Nature Physics; Mansouri-Sexl alpha <= 8.4e-8 (abstract-level check).
  • 2007MAGIC, energy-dependent photon arrival from Markarian 501 A possible energy dependence of light speed; superseded by the more precise Fermi-LAT measurements (Wikipedia, follow-up Q20).
  • 2008Rath, Kanseri et al., Fresnel-Arago laws verified in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer Am. J. Phys. (2008): 'light waves with orthogonal polarization do not interfere' (follow-up Q20, snippet).
  • 2009Herrmann et al. and Eisele et al., rotating optical resonator tests Phys. Rev. D 80:105011; Phys. Rev. Lett. 103:090401. Light-speed anisotropy excluded at 10^-17, though the Solar System moves about 368 km/s relative to the cosmic microwave background (follow-up Q20).
  • 2009Fermi-LAT, GRB 090510 photon arrival times Nature 462:331. No energy dependence of light speed, beyond the Planck scale for a linear term: no vacuum dispersion (follow-up Q20).
  • 2010D. Marett, Interference of Light Beams from Two Independent Lasers conspiracyoflight.com, the site hosting the Ives papers. Two independent HeNe lasers beat at a photodetector; only same-polarization modes beat; blocking one beam removes all beats. Marett presents it as refuting Dirac (follow-up Q20).
  • 2014B. Botermann et al., Test of Time Dilation Using Stored Li+ Ions as Clocks at Relativistic Speed Phys. Rev. Lett. 113:120405; beta = 0.338, below 4e-9. Saved; abstract and p.2 used.
  • 2015Nagel et al., rotating orthogonal microwave resonators Light-speed anisotropy limit about 10^-18, against about 5e-9 for Brillet and Hall 1979 (Wikipedia, follow-up Q20).
  • 2016ATLAS (2016) and CMS, light-by-light scattering Seen in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions: the vacuum's one observed nonlinearity (Wikipedia, follow-up Q20).

Related theory and criticism by others (25)

  • 1819A. Fresnel and F. Arago, laws of interference of polarized light Two orthogonal, coherent linearly polarized waves cannot interfere: why crossed beams can show no fringes (follow-up Q20, Wolfram and Wikipedia snippets).
  • 1900H. Poincare, radiation momentum (1900, 1904) Credited by Ives 1952 as the source of E = mc^2; Ives's own 1942-45 derivations use m = E/c^2 for radiation.
  • 1905A. Einstein, 'Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy content?' The derivation Ives called defective in 1952.
  • 1907M. Planck's objection to Einstein's 1905 mass-energy step Raised first the point Ives repeated; settled by von Laue 1911 and Klein 1918.
  • 1917A. S. Eddington (1917, 1923) and H. B. Phillips (1922), gravitation in force form Gave the same relations as Ives 1948; Ives cites them, so his is a re-derivation, not an advance prediction.
  • 1920M. von Laue (1920) and P. Langevin (1921), Sagnac effect in relativity Give the same first-order result as the ether reading.
  • 1920A. Einstein, Ether and the Theory of Relativity (Leiden address) Wikisource text: space 'is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether', but 'the idea of motion may not be applied to it' (follow-up Q20).
  • 1922E. Schroedinger, photon emission from energy-momentum conservation Gives the Ives-Stilwell factor without clocks; rediscovered by Davisson 1938 (claim 6).
  • 1939R. C. Jones (Bell Laboratories), JOSA 29:337 Re-derived the Ives-Stilwell predictions from special relativity and raised the imparted-velocity objection Part II answers. Known through Part II and Bonizzoni-Giuliani.
  • 1951P. A. M. Dirac, 'Is there an aether?' Nature 168:906. The paper Ives answered in 1953. Not read.
  • 1957G. Builder, clock paradox and 'Ether and Relativity' Aust. J. Phys. 10 (1957), 11 (1958). Extended Ives's one-way light argument. CSIRO copy blocked.
  • 1960M. Ruderfer, 'First-Order Terrestrial Ether Drift Experiment' Phys. Rev. Lett. 5. The Mossbauer rotor proposal Preikschat carried out.
  • 1961M. Jammer (1961), Arzelies (1966), A. I. Miller (1981) Supported Ives's charge against Einstein's E = mc^2 derivation (per Ohanian); Miller judged the theory never developed into a serious alternative.
  • 1962P. W. Bridgman, A Sophisticate's Primer of Relativity Posthumous; uses Ives's arguments (per Lalli 2014).
  • 1968Stetson, JOSA, on Wiener's experiment Wiener's results 'establish that the photographic process is sensitive to only the E vector' (follow-up Q20, search snippet).
  • 1972S. Marinov's classical model Proposed by Pobedonostsev and Parshin; predicts about +5% at their angle, not their deficit.
  • 1975M. Ruderfer, 'Neutrino Structure of the Ether', Lett. Nuovo Cimento 13:1 Reprinted as Appendix VI of Moray's The Sea of Energy, 5th ed., pp.271-275: Ives as 'the most direct verification of the validity of a Lorentz ether'; neglect of his gravitation 'unwarranted'; a neutrino-sea energy store. Read in the Moray text. · Ruderfer advocates his neutrino-sea ether and cites Ives as support
  • 1977R. Mansouri and R. U. Sexl, test theory of special relativity Gen. Rel. Grav. 8; the framework in which Ives-Stilwell fixes one coefficient and preferred-frame limits are set.
  • 1982J. Stachel and R. Torretti, reply on Einstein's 1905 derivation Argued it is not circular (via Ohanian).
  • 2009D. Y. Gezari (2009) and W. Kantor (1971) Sources Faraj cites for the 'longitudinal asymmetry' reading. Not read.
  • c.2010A. A. Faraj, 'The Ives-Stilwell Experiment' General Science Journal no. 727. Says only a longitudinal asymmetry was measured; his algebra gives twice the Larmor-Lorentz shift (deep read). Saved. · Advocate of the emission (ballistic) theory
  • 2024J. Chen, The fundamental factor of optical interference (arXiv) Questions the 'only the electric field' reading of Wiener's experiment; a dissenting lead seen as a snippet only, not read (follow-up Q20).
  • n.d.G. D. Birkhoff's flat-space theory of gravitation The equations Ives rewrote in 1947; admits only a fluid with sound speed c and lacked a general derivation (arbiter, summary-level web check).
  • n.d.G. Nordstrom's scalar theory of gravitation Newtonian static limit but no light bending: the arbiter's counterexample to Ruderfer's 'any Lorentz-ether theory ... necessarily equivalent'. Web-checked.
  • n.d.R. W. Wood and F. E. Hackett, double toothed-wheel (Fizeau) experiment Their 'twist' of the axle is what Ives's 1939 disk paper explains by contraction alone. Known through Ives's paper.

Later accounts and media (24)

  • 1956O. E. Buckley and K. K. Darrow, NAS Biographical Memoir of Herbert Eugene Ives 47 pp., in the folder; relativity section by H. P. Robertson ('completely equivalent in substance' to special relativity); bibliography to 1951. Digest plus deep reads. · Robertson, quoted for the verdict, was Ives's referee and critic
  • 1977D. Turner and R. Hazelett (eds.), The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers Devin-Adair, 1977 or 1979, revised 2005; holds Ives's later correspondence. Not obtained. · Editor Hazelett: Hazelett Strip-Casting vice president (per Martin Gardner, a critic); anti-relativist preface (Giuliani)
  • 1980S. C. Som, review of The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers Journal of Optics (Springer). Search result only.
  • 1994R. S. Edgar, Field Analysis and Potential Theory, Part 3 DTIC ADA299147; cites Hazelett and Turner. Download blocked.
  • 2000I. Bonizzoni and G. Giuliani, interpretations by experimenters of time dilation experiments 1940-1970 arXiv physics/0008012, in the folder; deep read pp.16-21.
  • 2007L. C. Young, thesis on newspaper dissemination of Einstein's theory of time OhioLINK ETD; covers the 1938 press coverage. Not opened.
  • 2008H. C. Ohanian, Einstein's E = mc2 mistakes arXiv 0805.1400, in the folder; deep read pp.1-5. Ives 'wrong' on circularity, but Einstein's step valid only for slow internal motion.
  • 2008-05-04Classic Science Paper: Otto Wiener's experiment (1890), Skulls in the Stars blog Explainer: the electric field is the active field; electric node and magnetic antinode at the mirror. Keyword passages read (follow-up Q20).
  • 2013R. Lalli, 'Anti-Relativity in Action' (Ives) Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 43(1):41-104; abstract only: 'most important American opponent of Einstein', 'hidden network of allies'.
  • 2014R. Lalli, The Revival of the Larmor-Lorentz Ether Theories: Herbert E. Ives' Opposition to Relativity 1937-1953 ESHS 2012 proceedings pp.359-365; saved and read.
  • 2015G. Giuliani, Experiment and theory: the case of the Doppler effect for photons arXiv 1502.05736, in the folder; deep read pp.7-12.
  • 2016R. Lalli, Robertson and Physical Review refereeing Notes Rec. R. Soc. 70(2):151-174; read on PMC.
  • 2017P. J. E. Peebles, Robert Dicke and the naissance of experimental gravity physics Eur. Phys. J. H; discusses Ives-Stilwell and Ruderfer 1960. Search results only.
  • 2019Study of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 'Relativity Criticism Group' Names Ives and Dingle among the group's sources (ResearchGate 327752597). Snippet only.
  • 2020'Whittaker, Einstein, and the History of the Aether' (Sage) Describes Ives as 'a staunch antagonist of Einstein's person and his theories'. Snippet only.
  • 2024'Herbert Ives: relativity, the aether, and theory choice' Essay at text.nxg.me.uk/2024/1; blocked (Chrome permission denied, HTTP 403).
  • 2026'Secret Clocks: The US Military, Einstein's Relativity, and the GPS' HSNS 56(3):210; abstract read; Ives cited as early evidence only.
  • 2026Wikipedia, Herbert E. Ives Saved page in the folder; digest. Birth 31 July 1882, death 13 November 1953.
  • n.d.Martin Gardner on the Hazelett-Turner book In The Colossal Book of Mathematics; a critic's account. Not opened.
  • n.d.H. Nieper, Revolution in Technik, Medizin, Gesellschaft Free-energy book citing the Ives volume (search snippet).
  • n.d.R. Sungenis et al., Galileo Was Wrong Geocentrist book citing the Ives volume (search snippet).
  • n.d.Optica history biography of Herbert E. Ives Saved page in the folder; digest.
  • n.d.Optica list of JOSA articles by early OSA presidents 66 Ives JOSA papers with ids.
  • n.d.Chappell Natural Philosophy Society wiki, Herbert E Ives and Lev A Pobedonostsev Dissident-science society wiki; bibliography, Hazelett-Turner details, Pobedonostsev papers 1991-95.

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • 1890O. Wiener, standing light waves, Ann. Phys. 276:203 Original not obtained. Known through Ives-Fry 1933, Ives's 1951 Rumford lecture and Q20 web sources; would confirm the oblique 45-degree no-fringe variant cited from memory in follow-up Q20.
  • 1938Bell Laboratories project files on the canal-ray experiment Would explain why the work stops after Part II (1941). Not located.
  • 1938Bell Laboratories Record 1938 issues as page images; NYT 8 May 1938 'A Mystery Deepens; Dr. Ives Revives Ether Controversy' Text search of the 1938 Record found nothing; the NYT URL returned 'Page Not Found'.
  • 1938Princeton colloquium notes and Pauli correspondence Second source for Ives's hostile-reception account. Not located.
  • c.1938Science Service Records, RU007091 Smithsonian Institution Archives; may hold the April 1938 press copy. Finding aid not opened.
  • 1974C. M. Will, Scientific American (cited by Ruderfer) Cited in Ruderfer's appendix; not obtained.

Left out: the project README, the review's own AI analyses, Ives's non-relativity colour-photography, lenticular and television papers (about 250 papers in all), his roughly 100 patents one by one, textbook experiments (Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike) cited only as background, and records follow-up Q20 cited from memory (Kostelecky-Russell tables, PVLAS). Full catalogue: Ives sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: For the dissent: an independent canal-ray or storage-ring repeat across 150-2,000 keV with the viewing-arm alignment measured. For the ether: only preferred-frame tests (Mansouri-Sexl parameters, Mossbauer rotor) could decide, and limits are null. For Ives's gravity postulate: a second-order test fixing kappa, or a binary-pulsar result derived from it.

Deciding records: Pobedonostsev-Parshin, Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 1989 no. 3 pp.84-99 with raw data; Ives, Rev. Sci. Instr. 9:283 (1938); a legal copy of JOSA 42:540 (1952) and the 1953 notes; citation indices for Phys. Rev. 72:229 and JOSA 38:413; the LoC MSS27508 container list; Robertson's and Bridgman's papers.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: Parts 1-5 show why the line centre moves by lambda0 beta^2/2, give 0.047 A at 18,350 V and refit the eight 1938 plates; Part 6 the 43 kV points of 1941; Part 7 Mercury's 43 arcsec and the one sixth from moving mass alone; Part 9 the ripple-tank ratios.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Ives matters to Moray as a credential: a Bell Laboratories experimenter whose experiments and theory leave a physical ether admissible. Ruderfer's next step, an ether whose energy may exceed that of matter, is his own: none of the 31 papers gives the ether energy that could be tapped. arbiter.md, The owner's questions
  2. Contrarian A Lorentz ether adds no new force and no new prediction to Lorentz and Einstein; it supplies a different story (a physical medium, absolute time, real contractions) for the same measured numbers. Those who prefer the ether reading are choosing on grounds of physical picture, not data. contrarian.md, The owner's questions
  3. Physicist His gravitation work is not a one-number fit: it is the exact Schwarzschild solution for a single static mass, re-derived in fixed-ether language, and he says himself it adds nothing measurable. Where he goes beyond that, the claim fails, was never tested, or is a definition. physicist.md, Bottom line for the reader
  4. Mathematician The 43 arcseconds follows from the choice 'the Newtonian escape speed, exactly', not from the ether idea: with a second-order term kappa in the field the advance is (6 - kappa)/6 of the GR value. Ives states the exactness openly, so it is an input, not a fudge. mathematician.md, Claim 4a
  5. Investigator A pond betrays itself to a wave-only observer by dispersion, loss and a rest frame: Ives's own mercury ripple tank missed exact invariance by dispersion (0.852 against 0.658). The vacuum shows none: no dispersion (Fermi-LAT) and no anisotropy to 10^-17 to 10^-18, which a Lorentz ether also predicts. research/2026-10-08-followup-Q20.md, Reasoning 4

AI noteRuderfer wants two things from the ether that pull apart: invisibility, to stay equivalent to relativity, and usable energy. A truly Lorentz-invariant vacuum energy offers no gradient to extract work from (arbiter, citing the Mathematician).

Rank 12LeBon-G

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 03:50

A famous crowd psychologist's decade of physics: real infra-red and phosphor discoveries, a sweeping claim that all matter decays, and a book Moray cited by name.

Invention / theory background

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), French physician and author of The Crowd, ran physics experiments in his Paris laboratory from about 1894 to 1908. The Evolution of Matter (1905; English 1907) and The Evolution of Forces (1907; English 1908) argue that all atoms slowly dissociate toward the ether, that atoms store vast 'intra-atomic energy', and that invisible 'black light' persists in phosphors. A 1990 Borderland review calls the books Thomas Moray's sourcebook.

Ranking explanation

Strong on all four criteria. A: the 1896 black light and the hot-metal emanation were never neutrally tested, and the US press dismissed black light without testing. B: the Campbell dispute, the 1897 priority notes and the IMEC notebooks are open. C: afterglow, infra-red quenching and the coin energy are reader-testable. D: Moray cited him. Like Wallace it rests on the inventor's own tabulated data; its strong form failed indirect tests, while Mills's lab anomalies stay untested.

Key supporting elements

  1. He was right against Henri Becquerel that uranium rays are not polarised (May 1897); Becquerel credited 'Rutherford and Le Bon' in 1900 and dropped the credit in 1903 (Martins).
  2. His black-light work is real physics: months-long invisible afterglow, infra-red stimulation of CaS and quenching of ZnS, near-infra-red passing ebonite and black paper, with glass-strip, ice-trough and split-screen controls.
  3. His photo-leak tables match modern work functions (aluminium and zinc leak in sunlight, copper hardly), and he separated electron emission from air ionisation by vacuum ultra-violet.
  4. Repeats and endorsements on record: Berget in Lippmann's Sorbonne laboratory (1897), Kalahne 'absolutely confirm' the quinine effect (1905), Izarn 'stupefied with the clearness', Ramsay and Spencer and Gates partial repeats, Poincare presenting four notes.
  5. His gram-of-matter energy arithmetic is exact (5.0e12 J, 6,800 million metric horse-power if stopped in a second), the right order for mc^2 before Einstein, and Moray's 1926 Radiant Energy quotes him by name.

Key contradictions

  1. He predicted metallic radium 'will never be isolated' and would be inactive if it were; Curie and Debierne isolated radioactive radium metal in 1910.
  2. The background leaks he read as matter dissociating were traced to radioactive impurity, radon, penetrating radiation and cosmic rays; stable nuclides show no decay products (proton partial lifetime above 8e33 years).
  3. His floating aluminium strip would need about 260 W to vanish in 300 years; small sparks carry milliwatts. Dynamo output rises with shaft torque, so it does not come from atoms.
  4. No blank run in the same open geometry is reported for the leak experiments, only a capped-electroscope criterion (1 degree per hour); his dark cylinder and warmed cage rates are 60-360 times that.
  5. The 1990 review misreads the book: heated radium recovers in 'twenty days or so' as radon grows back, not 'a week', and no half-life change appears; 'records stricken' is contradicted by the open IMEC archive.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 59 shown)
ClaimVerdict
All matter is perishable: atoms slowly dissociate toward the etherEstablished weak form: some atoms disintegrate; light, heat, chemistry free electrons Tested, not supported strong form: every atom of ordinary matter Historically superseded but instructive ether as the end state
Atoms are reservoirs of intra-atomic energy; conservation of energy is a dogmaEstablished matter holds energy of order mc^2 (by later physics) Historically superseded but instructive his 1900-1905 magnitude estimate Refuted by calculation 6,800 million hp as the yield of ordinary matter; dynamo draws on atoms Not testable as stated conservation as a dogma, philosophical form
Over-unity: a machine giving more than it takes 'can be considered possible'; electrification by influence turns matter into energyNever properly tested machine proposed (Matter p.231), never built Refuted by calculation floating strip as matter-to-energy; battery versus static tension
Light, heat and chemistry release this energy in ordinary bodiesEstablished charge leaks under light, UV, flames, hydration (photoelectric, ionisation) Tested, not supported reading as dissociation of ordinary matter Never properly tested warmed-metal emanation that rest renews
Chemical theory of radioactivity: a pure body cannot be radioactive; radium metal will never be isolatedTested, not supported radium metal isolated 1910; lifetime of 100 years about 23 times too short
Black light: invisible afterglow, infra-red action on phosphors, near-IR seeing through opaque materialsEstablished in kind: afterglow, IR stimulation and quenching, IR transparency, ZnS imaging; Branly-Le Bon shielding Plausible, untested his specific decay and sensitivity numbers Never properly tested 1896 single new radiation through metal; dismissed without testing in the US press Not testable as stated 'darkness added to darkness gives light'
Le Bon was first and was resistedEstablished non-polarisation of uranium rays against Becquerel Tested, not supported priority for universal radioactivity of ordinary bodies Historically superseded but instructive resistance: documented disagreement, slide out of physics; no suppression found
Moray connection and the effluves through insulatorsEstablished Moray cited and drew on Le Bon (his own 1926 text) Never properly tested library and FBI story; 'Girard Le Beau'; particles crossing the plates Plausible, untested glow beyond thin insulators in a high-frequency field; one repeat by Legge Not testable as stated books hold a working method for releasing atomic energy

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Gustave Le BonInventor and author of the two booksFrench physician (1841-1931), author of The Crowd (1895). With no physics training he experimented from about 1894-96 to about 1908, with an assistant, in his private laboratory at 29 rue Vignon, industrial laboratories and Bouty's Sorbonne laboratory; about 15 Comptes rendus notes; directed Flammarion's Bibliotheque de philosophie scientifique; title pages say member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.
Henri PoincareReviewer of protocols and presenter of four of Le Bon's notesLeading French mathematical physicist. In letters of 1896-1911 he questioned exposure equality, light leaks and de-fogging, presented the January 1899 notes, attended Le Bon's Wednesday lunches, and in 1903 asked how an endothermic atom could be so stable.
F. LeggeTranslator and editor of both English editions · Sympathetic editor; his footnotes report reception in Le Bon's favourHis signed footnotes record confirmations (Kalahne, Gates, Ramsay and Spencer) and objections (Thomson, Campbell, Elster and Geitel); he repeated the effluve passage with a Tesla transformer, ran a vacuum-jacket null test, and asked for an independent check of the Faraday-cage experiment.
Pierre de HeenPhysicist who, per Le Bon, repeated and adopted his experimentsProfessor at the University of Liege and director of its Institut de Physique (per Le Bon). Le Bon says he likened the experiments to X-rays in importance; his 1912 Academie royale de Belgique memoir cites Le Bon. His own texts were not read.
Henri BecquerelCritic and priority rival · Rival for credit in radiation researchCriticised black light strongly and suggested in 1897 that it was infra-red; his own polarisation result for uranium rays was an error; in 1900 credited Rutherford and Le Bon with the negative result and omitted them in 1903 (Martins); said Le Bon 'had no idea of the phenomena of radio-activity'.
Thomas Henry MorayInventor who cited Le Bon · Promoted his own radiant-energy and transmutation workSalt Lake City inventor (reviewed in the Morray-TH project). His 1926 Radiant Energy and Sea of Energy quote Le Bon and list both books; a 1960s Air Force proposal credits Le Bon with direct conversion 'as early as 1897'.
John E. MoraySource of the library and FBI story · Moray's son and head of the Research Institute that promoted the Moray processEdited the 1978 Sea of Energy and spoke to the U.S. Psychotronics Association in 1980, recalling FBI agents asking about the Salt Lake City Library copy of Le Bon's book in 1940-41.
Gerry VassilatosAuthor of the 1990 review linking Le Bon to Moray · BSRF, which publishes him, sells the books he recommendsNot in the review files beyond his Journal of Borderland Research articles (1990 review, Black Waves, Induced Radioactivity by Solar Light, 1997).
Evidence / artifacts (152 of 163 listed, 93%)

Own works and inventions (32)

  • 1896Nature et proprietes de la lumiere noire, Comptes rendus 122, pp.386-390 Named by the Poincare Papers editors; not obtained
  • 1896-01-27La lumiere noire, Comptes rendus 122, pp.188-190 Presented by d'Arsonval; light from lamp or sun said to pass cardboard, iron and copper; IA scan in research/files
  • 1896-05-11Paper read 11 May 1896 widening 'dark light' and answering the light-leak objection Known from the Cosmos notice of 23 May 1896 reprinted at BSRF
  • 1897Le Bon, Revue scientifique [4] 7, pp.72-81 Cited in Martins, A pool of radiations; not obtained
  • 1897-04-05Comptes rendus note: metal-light experiment reproduced in Lippmann's Sorbonne laboratory Presented by d'Arsonval; named by the arbiter as deciding for the 1897 priority; not obtained
  • 1897-04-26Sur les proprietes electriques des radiations emises par les corps sous l'influence de la lumiere, Comptes rendus Presented by d'Arsonval; cited in the Poincare Papers
  • 1897-05Note denying polarisation of uranium rays, with reply to Becquerel (p.691) Quoted by Martins: experiments 'do not invariably succeed'
  • 1897-08-05Comptes rendus note on leak from illuminated bodies Named by the arbiter as deciding for priority over Lenard and Thomson; not obtained
  • 1899Le Bon 1899 text, pp.108-109: metallic and uranium radiations never polarised Quoted by Martins
  • c.1899Hertzian-wave weapon proposal: mirror beam to detonate ships and magazines at kilometres Forces p.179; not attempted 'solely on account of the expense'; Oudin room-sparking anecdote, Le Bon sole witness
  • 1899-01-16Luminescence residuelle invisible (invisible residual luminescence), Comptes rendus 128 Presented by Poincare; 2 h at 3 days to traces at 18 months; names operator Gaston Braun fils
  • 1899-01-30Transparence des corps opaques pour les radiations de grande longueur d'onde, Comptes rendus 128 Presented by Poincare; CaS 300 times, plates 5000 times less sensitive than ZnS; read by mathematician and contrarian
  • 1899-04-01Branly and Le Bon, Hertzian-wave absorption by metal enclosures and dielectrics, Comptes rendus pp.879 ff. Joint note with Edouard Branly; summarised in Forces pp.178-196; note itself unread
  • c.1900Oudin-resonator effluves through glass and ebonite plates (with Dr Oudin) Matter pp.235-237, 444-447; up to 1/2 mm; frequency, plate size and controls not reported
  • c.1900Electrification by influence: the floating aluminium strip Forces pp.140-143; 0.5 by 2 cm; no charge, mass or control measurement
  • 1900-05-05Revue scientifique article cited for the 'silence' of radium holders Le Bon's reference in Matter p.213
  • 1901-08Solar ultra-violet 'disappearance' spectrograms, 23 and 30 Aug, 26 Oct, 12 Nov 1901 Matter pp.371-374; slow-leak days tied to missing UV lines; no dark rate for those days
  • c.1902Quinine hydration and gas-evolving reaction leaks Matter chs VI-VII; 1 mg water per g gives 12 degrees in the first minute; phosphorus 80 degrees per minute; controls stated
  • c.1902Warmed-metal 'emanation' in a Faraday cage and the 8-day dark cylinder Matter ch.X; cage 5-6, cylinder 1-2 degrees per minute; no same-geometry blank; Legge asked for an independent check (p.411)
  • 1902-06-09Comptes rendus 134, pp.1387-1388: measurements of light acting on bodies Referred to commissioners Sarrau, Poincare and H. Becquerel
  • 1902-07-07Second 1902 note claiming 1897 priority over Nodon Poincare: 'plutot nuisible'
  • 1902-11-15Revue scientifique memoir, pp.614-625 Cited in Le Bon's 29 Nov 1902 letter to Poincare (reaction-produced discharges)
  • c.1903'Tin 40 times uranium': sunlit amalgamated tin against a uranium nitrate screen Matter pp.386-388; 40 degrees in 10 s against 6 in 60 s; printed 'four times' is a slip for forty
  • 1903-10-17Revue scientifique memoir on intra-atomic energy (from 17 Oct 1903) Cites Larmor, Maxwell, W. Thomson; Poincare commented
  • c.1904Radium tests: zinc-sulphide scintillation screens and diamond phosphorescence Matter pp.163-165; Forces pp.268-272, about 200 Brazilian and Cape diamonds (digest only)
  • 1905L'Evolution de la matiere (Flammarion); English The Evolution of Matter, tr. F. Legge, 1907 (1909 printing) 489 PDF pages, OCR; deep reads of pp.159-176, 201-216, 227-243, 350-432, 444-447; French scans on IA and gustavelebon.org
  • c.1905Seances with Dastre: 'nothing demonstrative' Forces p.402; medium and conditions not given
  • c.1906Infra-red plant and antagonism experiments Forces pp.369-391; black-paper greenhouses as 'hints', one season; ZnS behind a copper-sulphate trough 14 times brighter; conflicts with p.364
  • 1906-03-24Reply to Campbell, Athenaeum Legge says it showed Campbell's 'mistake'; content unread
  • 1907L'Evolution des forces; English The Evolution of Forces, ed. F. Legge, 1908 454 PDF pages; deep reads of Black Light pp.317-368 and pp.137-196, 369-402, 415-420
  • 1907-08La Naissance et l'Evanouissement de la Matiere (Mercure de France, 1908) From an Ostend lecture, Aug 1907; Project Gutenberg 67253; general law of dissociation quoted
  • 1911Les opinions et les croyances Recalls H. Becquerel's belief in N-rays; via Poincare Papers note

Patents and patent office (1)

  • –US patent 4,507,562, infra-red stimulation of luminescent phosphors Cited by the arbiter as the modern counterpart of Le Bon's CaS stimulation; a search for any patent by Le Bon found none

Government records (4)

  • 1903Nobel Prize in Physics nomination, no. 18-0, nominee Gustave Le Bon Google snippet of the Nobel archive; nominator and motivation unread; arbiter could not confirm
  • c.1907French Minister of Marine's inquiry on masking ship and lighthouse lights Forces pp.365-368; Le Bon's account only; no trial reported
  • c.1965Moray proposal, Direct Energy Conversion from Radioactive Materials (Air Force Materials Command file) Credits Le Bon with direct conversion 'as early as 1897' · Moray, proposer
  • n.d.Academie royale de Belgique membership Title pages: 'member of the Royal Academy of Belgium'; election date unchecked

Company and business records (4)

  • 1964John E. Moray, Recovery of Minerals from Low Grade Ore by High Energy Bombardment Research Institute, Inc.; on rexresearch; no Le Bon mention · Moray company
  • 1965-02-04Transmutation of Low Grade Ores by High Energy Bombardment (Hooper, Hendricks, Rudolph) 68th National Western Mining Conference, Denver; Hooper finds 'no avenue of escape' · Moray company and its consultant
  • 2019BSRF catalogue, Radiant Energy Sells Le Bon's two books as xerographic copies; no 'Girard Le Beau' title · Seller of the books
  • 2019BSRF catalogue, Flying Saucers: Resines booklet 'an electrogravitic experiment by Dr Le Bon ... about 1907'; no such experiment in pages read · Seller

Witness accounts and correspondence (22)

  • c.1896-01-28Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-2) Sees no explanation but diffusion by air; asks about cleaning, exposure; proposes lead-plate geometry; editors' summary
  • c.1896-02Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-3) Validates protocol except the negative; Pierre-Sadi Carnot collection
  • c.1897-04Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-4) Saw with Lippmann M. Berget, who reproduced Le Bon's experiment; summary
  • c.1897-04Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-5) Asks whether UV-struck metal discharges the electroscope at a distance; summary
  • c.1898-12Poincare's questions on lumiere noire (2-35-8) Storage, temperature, polarisation, pre-fogging; summary
  • 1899M. Izarn's letter to Le Bon 'I was stupefied with the clearness of the results'; Forces p.350 footnote; only source Le Bon's book
  • 1899-01Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-9) Plate de-fogged in infra-red under ebonite; Le Bon annotated 'Jamais'; full text
  • 1899-01-05Le Bon to Poincare (2-35-6) Announces the two January 1899 notes; letterhead 29 rue Vignon; full text
  • 1899-01-09Le Bon to Poincare (2-35-10) Infra-red maximum near 1 micron on sulphides; full text
  • c.1899-01-25Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-11) Agrees to present the note; troubled that de-fogging needs ebonite; summary
  • 1899-03Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-12) Reflection experiments: find cause of weakening with distance; full text
  • c.1902-07-07Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-17) Nodon priority note 'plutot nuisible'; summary
  • 1902-11-29Le Bon to Poincare (2-35-18) Quinine in a closed box: discharge 'enormement reduite', ions must circulate
  • 1903Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-19) On ether density and N-ray plate measurements; summary
  • 1903-11Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-20) Endothermic sub-atoms: 'comment peut-elle etre si extraordinairement stable?'; summary
  • 1909-02-23Le Bon to Georges Renard Seen in a Google snippet of Marpeau 1998
  • 1911-11-26Poincare to Le Bon (2-35-23) On Les opinions et les croyances; summary
  • 1922-04-09Le Bon to Einstein Collected Papers of Albert Einstein vol.13 calendar; not selected for translation
  • 1922-06-30Einstein's reply to Le Bon Per Moatti; text unread
  • 1922-07-13Einstein's second reply to Le Bon Per Moatti; text unread
  • 1978John E. Moray, introduction to Sea of Energy 5th ed. Library withdrawal and FBI visit; '1,340,000 barrels' misread as fission; 'I am told' Einstein letter to Le Bon's daughter · Moray's son and promoter of the Moray process
  • 1980John E. Moray, talk to the U.S. Psychotronics Association 'FBI coming to my father's door' over the Salt Lake City Library copy, 1940-41 · Moray's son and promoter of the Moray process

Experiments and replications by others (37)

  • 1867Niepce de Saint-Victor's photographic action of dark radiations Credited by Le Bon as 'real author' of radioactivity's discovery
  • c.1888Hertz, Hallwachs, Elster and Geitel, Branly: earlier photo-leak and sunlight results Acknowledged by Le Bon (Matter p.389); precede his photo-leak work
  • c.1897H. Becquerel: black light is infra-red Per Poincare Papers editors · Priority rival
  • 1897Berget's reproduction in Lippmann's Sorbonne laboratory Metal-light experiment; documented in Le Bon's 1897 note and Poincare's letter summary
  • c.1897W. J. Russell, chemical fogging of plates by metals Nature 60 (1899) p.210 related item found; 1897 paper not seen; Le Bon accepted a chemical cause
  • 1899Gaston Braun fils, statuette photographs in a cellar Named operator in the 1899 note; 8-15 day exposures; not independent
  • c.1899Bose and Veillon reports of transparent metal boxes Corrected by Branly and Le Bon (Forces pp.181-182)
  • 1900H. Becquerel: 'same negative conclusions' by Rutherford and Le Bon Credit dropped in his 1903 book (Martins) · Priority rival
  • 1900J. A. Fleming, Cantor Lectures Called the Oudin effluve passage 'striking' (Matter p.235)
  • 1900Lenard, ionisation of air by extreme ultra-violet, Ann. der Physik Cited in Matter pp.400-401
  • c.1900Von Wesendonk, positive discharge of a Tesla secondary Cited by Legge for the effluves' polarity (Matter p.447)
  • 1901De Heen (Liege) memoir adopting Le Bon's experiments Le Bon says he repeated them and likened them to X-rays; unread
  • 1902Nodon, Comptes rendus 134 Priority dispute
  • 1902Rutherford and Soddy, transformation theory of radioactivity Quoted selectively by Le Bon as allies for 'chemical' (Matter p.210)
  • 1903Curie and Laborde: radium heat about 100 cal per hour per gram Le Bon's quoted figure (0.116 W/g)
  • 1903Rutherford and Cooke; McLennan and Burton, closed-vessel leak fell up to 30% with shielding Known through a 1926 PNAS abstract
  • 1903-10-15Heydweiler, radium weight loss, Physikalische Zeitschrift 0.02 mg per day from 5 g; Matter p.211
  • 1904J. J. Thomson, emanation of ordinary substances, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. Attributed to radioactive impurity (Legge's notes)
  • 1904Miss Gates, Physical Review 18 p.144 Le Bon 'right as to the cause' but rays differ from radioactive ones; later retreat (1906)
  • 1904Kelvin's statement on radium heat and withdrawal, BA Cambridge Matter p.86 translator's note
  • c.1904Elster and Geitel, penetrating radiation over the whole earth Legge's notes p.178, 429
  • 1904Rutherford, Radio-Activity: adopts the quinine finding, classed as not true radioactivity Known via Legge and the deep read; book unread
  • 1905Kalahne (Heidelberg), Ann. der Physik pp.450, 457 'absolutely confirm' the quinine chemical phenomenon; interpretation differs
  • 1905-04N. Campbell, Radio-activity and Chemical Change, Phil. Mag. Ascribes chemical leak to heat; outcome of dispute open
  • 1906Cambridge critics in the Athenaeum Admitted theory 'in the main correct', contested experiments and priority (Matter p.27)
  • c.1906Delbruck: soaring birds may cancel gravitation by intra-atomic energy Forces p.401; Le Bon: 'not fundamentally absurd'; hypothesis, no test
  • 1906-10Ramsay and Spencer, Phil. Mag. Repeated UV charge experiments; different explanation of metal fatigue
  • 1907P. D. Innes, Proc. Roy. Soc. p.442 'a great store of energy in the atom seems now beyond question'; quoted by Legge as approval
  • c.1907Legge's Tesla-transformer repeat of the effluve passage Ernecke transformer in vaseline; 1/2 cm glass, ebonite, sulphur, shellac, 1 cm paraffin; Matter p.446 footnotes · Sympathetic translator
  • c.1907Dufour: breathed air contains radioactive particles Forces p.419; no citation or figures
  • c.1908Legge's vacuum-jacket test of the needle 'attracted' by living bodies Needle stayed motionless; convection concluded; Forces p.401 · Sympathetic translator
  • 1910Curie and Debierne isolate metallic radium Refutes Le Bon's prediction; webelements history page
  • 1912De Heen, Introduction a l'etude de la physique, Mem. Acad. royale de Belgique Persee; cites Le Bon; PDF refused
  • 2009Super-Kamiokande, proton partial lifetime above 8.2e33 years arXiv 0903.0676; used by the arbiter against the strong form of claim 1
  • n.d.De Heen, La Matiere (CORE pdf) 403 to script; not read
  • n.d.Gariel, Physique Biologique: textbook summary of the black-light work 'almost extraordinary ... no occasion to put them on one side' (Forces p.319); only source Le Bon's book
  • n.d.Red-glass greenhouses at Juvisy Cited by Le Bon as others' work (Forces p.374), no reference

Later accounts and media (46)

  • c.1896Internet Archive 'Bulletin' item mocking 'lumiere noire (!)' Seen in search results; not opened
  • 1896-05Popular Science Monthly 49, Recent Work on X Rays Quotes Le Bon: thickness of plates 'absolutely without importance'
  • 1896-05-23Cosmos notice 'Dark Light' via Literary Digest Light-leak suspicion; 'no one ... thought it worth while' to test; reprinted by BSRF
  • 1896-09-26L'Eclairage electrique on lumiere noire CNUM; not reached
  • 1903Revue scientifique notice: 'Depuis six ans, Gustave Le Bon poursuit ses recherches' Quoted at gustavelebon.org
  • 1903French newspaper: 'Poincare and Le Bon fearlessly undermine the old scientific dogmas' Via Nye 1974 p.185, quoted by Kragh
  • 1910-07-09Revue scientifique item Google snippet only
  • 1926T. H. Moray, Radiant Energy (The Evolution of Energy and Matter) pp.41-42 quote and paraphrase Le Bon by name · Moray
  • c.1960T. H. Moray, The Sea of Energy in Which the Earth Floats, 4th ed. Bibliography lists both Le Bon books · Moray
  • c.1960T. H. Moray, Isotopes in Ionic Recovery of U3O8 'Matter may be Reconverted' attributed to Le Bon · Moray
  • 1974Mary Jo Nye, Gustave LeBon's Black Light, HSPS 4, pp.163-195 Standard history; paywalled; named as deciding
  • 1987Falconer, citing Le Bon, Comptes rendus 122 p.188 Seen in search results; not opened
  • 1990-03G. Vassilatos, review of the two books, Journal of Borderland Research 46(2) Moray 'sourcebook'; 'Girard Le Beau'; radium 'a week'; project document · BSRF sells the books
  • 1997G. Vassilatos, Induced Radioactivity by Solar Light, JBR 53(3) Magnesium plate under focused sunlight; Lehr anecdote; not weighed · BSRF
  • 1998Benoit Marpeau, Gustave Le Bon et les universitaires, Mil neuf cent 16 Revises 'university rejected him'; opening only
  • 1999L. Rollet, thesis on Poincare Seen in search results; not opened
  • 2000Benoit Marpeau, biography of Le Bon Cited by Moatti and the arbiter; unread
  • 2007Moatti, Einstein, un siecle contre lui, ch. XI and XIII Einstein replies 1922; antisemitic writings; ch. XI paywalled · Critic of 'alterscience'
  • 2007Poincare correspondence volume, chapter 'Gustave Le Bon' (Birkhauser) Private lab, industrial labs, Bouty's Sorbonne lab, an assistant; abstract only
  • 2010Etherwave blog, Exemplary Episodes: The N-Rays Seen in search results; not opened
  • 2012Helge Kragh, Eight Physicists and Astronomers, arXiv 1208.3114 'most physicists failed to detect the rays'; no test named
  • 2012Helge Kragh, A Sense of Crisis Black light 'no more real than N-rays'; Lodge congruent
  • 2013Moatti, Alterscience, ch. XIV Publisher's listing only · Critic
  • 2018Gloubik Sciences, La dissociation de la matiere et les radiations nouvelles Not reached
  • 2020Scribd 'Alchemy Archive Reference' index Indexes the BSRF review; text obfuscated
  • n.d.Nuenergy Repeats 'synthetic radioactivity as described by Gustave LeBon'
  • n.d.G. Vassilatos, Black Waves, JBR 48(4) 'more sublime than ... Los Alamos'; Dan Winter galena experiment · BSRF
  • n.d.G. Vassilatos, Recording Telluric Signals, JBR 48(6) Le Bon radioactivity 'vitalistic'; not read · BSRF
  • n.d.R. A. Ford, Homemade Lightning Describes the calcium sulphide experiment; not opened
  • n.d.William R. Lyne, Pentagon Aliens Techniques 'rediscovered' from Le Bon; not opened
  • n.d.Martins, Becquerel's experimental mistakes, Studia 2-3 Le Bon first to deny polarisation of uranium rays
  • n.d.Nye, Gustave Le Bon: a 'Scientific Irregular' and His Media ResearchGate listing
  • n.d.Millikan paper grouping black light with N-rays and Burke's radiobes University of Chicago Press; not opened
  • n.d.Martins, A pool of radiations: Becquerel and Poincare's conjecture Cites Le Bon in Revue scientifique 1897; not read
  • n.d.Martins, Did Niepce de Saint-Victor discover radioactivity? On Le Bon's plagiarism charge against Becquerel; not read
  • n.d.Nys, Cosmologie Internet Archive; cites Le Bon and De Heen; not opened
  • n.d.Oublier les savants (JSTOR) Mentions De Heen and Le Bon; not opened
  • n.d.How Einstein Discovered E0=mc2 (ResearchGate 258706471) Cites Evolution of Matter on intra-atomic energy; not opened
  • n.d.Wellcome Collection, Recherches sur une propriete nouvelle de la matiere Mentions Le Bon's lumiere noire; not opened
  • n.d.JF Ptak Science Books blog on the 1903 Nobel nomination Only source the arbiter found for the nomination; fetch failed
  • n.d.Einstein travel-diaries volume, index entry 'Le Bon, Gustave, AE on, 151' Google Books index; text unread
  • n.d.G. Vassilatos, Lost Science Internet Archive and Scribd; seen in results · BSRF author
  • n.d.WISE wiki page linking Le Bon to Moray's Cosmic Ray Receiver Seen in search results
  • n.d.Energetic Forum PDF: matter as condensed cosmic energy 'according to Le Bon and Moray' Seen in search results
  • n.d.rexresearch1, Space Energy Receivers PDF Moray circuit; seen in search results
  • n.d.SVP wiki timeline Dates Evolution of Matter to '1872', an error

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • 1940FBI file on T. H. Moray, 1940-41 FOIA not requested
  • 1940Salt Lake City Public Library holdings and withdrawal records Would test the Moray-family library story
  • –IMEC fonds 851GLB (notebooks, scientific documentation, correspondence) Abbaye d'Ardenne, Caen; description read, finding aid not reached
  • –Academy of Sciences referee records for Le Bon's notes Named by the arbiter as deciding on suppression
  • –'Girard Le Beau', The Evolution of Matter and Energy Hearsay in the 1990 review; no trace in HathiTrust, Open Library, BSRF
  • –Einstein letter to Le Bon's daughter John E. Moray, 'I am told'; not found

Left out: about eight Poincare-Le Bon letters in the 2-35 series that were not fetched and three BSRF pages that mention Le Bon in passing; also, uncounted, encyclopedia pages, editions, scans and reprints of listed works, and AI-written analyses. Full catalogue: LeBon-G sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Blank-corrected ionisation-chamber runs on clean copper and zinc, shielded and unshielded, with radon monitoring over days; and an independent black-light repeat with a calibrated 1 micron infra-red LED, unexposed blank screens and a darkroom without a red lamp.

Deciding records: Le Bon's Comptes rendus notes of 5 April and 5 August 1897, the 1903 Nobel nomination file, De Heen 1901, Nye 1974, the IMEC finding aid and notebooks, the Academy's referee records, Campbell's 1905 paper and the 1906 Athenaeum reply, Moray's FBI file and Salt Lake City Library records.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: redo Le Bon's one-gram coin energy (5.0e12 J, 6.8e9 metric hp-seconds) against mc^2 and radium's real yield, and check the dynamo balance, the photoelectric cut-offs (1240 eV nm divided by work function) and radon ingrowth after heating radium (72% at 7 days, 97% at 20).

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Le Bon's energy arithmetic is exact for metric horse-power; the flaw is the premise 'suppose the whole gram is dissociated', which his own figures contradict: one molecule in 100 million, and radium yields about 350 times less. arbiter.md, section 2, claim 2
  2. Contrarian I found no experiment that tested Le Bon's own protocols neutrally and published a failure with data. The objections on file are reinterpretations and a general light-leak suspicion; the red darkroom lamp he blamed for failed repeats really does quench ZnS. contrarian.md, section 9
  3. Arbiter Kragh's 'most physicists failed to detect the rays' names no test. I find no published neutral controlled test and no published failure with data, so the 1896 black light stays Never properly tested; Le Bon himself later abandoned the single-agent form. arbiter.md, section 2, claim 4
  4. Arbiter The effluves passing glass and ebonite fit a displacement-current reading at every reported detail: high frequency needed, insulators only, thicker plates need more tension, plate unharmed. No control separates it from Le Bon's particle reading. arbiter.md, section 8, R6
  5. Investigator The record did not go dark: it moved out of physics into history of science. IMEC holds Le Bon's notebooks, scientific documentation and correspondence, open by appointment, which answers the 1990 claim that 'all records of Professor Le Bon have been stricken'. sites.md, Leads for review, 4

AI noteMoray's 1926 booklet is subtitled 'The Evolution of Energy and Matter', close to the title of the 'Girard Le Beau' book the 1990 review says exists; no copy of that book has been found.

Rank 85Maxwell

no change D - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:59

The founding papers of field theory, read on the page: what Maxwell's 1865 equations, numbers and ether actually say, and where textbook and alternative-science retellings differ from them.

Invention / theory background

James Clerk Maxwell gave Faraday's lines of force a mathematical form (1855-56, a fluid analogy he called only notation), then in 1865 wrote twenty equations in twenty variables with displacement current, predicting waves whose speed, from Weber and Kohlrausch's electrical ratio, matched light within about 5 %. Oliver Heaviside, a self-taught telegraph engineer, recast them as four vector equations in 1884-85. The folder holds both Maxwell papers and two articles on Heaviside (Hunt 2012, Belrose 2014).

Ranking explanation

Its interest is depth and influence (D): these equations are the reference point that the scalar-wave, ether and quaternion claims elsewhere in the collection argue against. It sits among other D-only projects such as Dunning-Davis's quaternion Maxwell and Very's ether particles rather than higher, because its central claims are Established and its open items are conceptual (local energy flow, the reality of A) or printed slips, with no untested anomaly. The owner selected it for a full card.

Key supporting elements

  1. Weber and Kohlrausch's electrical ratio, 310,740,000 m/s, matched light speeds measured by wholly independent methods (Fizeau +5.03 %, Foucault -0.60 %, aberration +2.74 % from modern c); Hertz confirmed electromagnetic waves in 1887-88.
  2. Page images show the 1856 paper already has B = curl A and EMF = -(1/4 pi) dA/dt with explicit gauge freedom; the Aharonov-Bohm experiments (Tonomura 1986) later showed the loop integral of A is physical.
  3. Displacement current makes the equations consistent with charge conservation, and Maxwell's field-energy integral checks on the page image (p.34); Heaviside's four equations are in effect the sign-repaired set.
  4. Heaviside's loading result, blocked by Preece in 1887, worked in practice: Pupin patented loading in 1899 and sold it to AT&T for $500,000 (Hunt 2012, one secondary source).
  5. Maxwell published his own anomaly: gold leaf passes 1/500 to 1/1000 of green light where his theory gave about 10^-50, 'unless' losses are smaller at light frequency (page images pp.52-53).

Key contradictions

  1. As printed, 1865 equations (F) and (G) have sign errors: with (F) the absorption equation (95) amplifies a wave that Maxwell's own text calls weakened. Arbiter: Internally inconsistent as printed; two sign flips repair it.
  2. In 1865 the 5 % match was suggestive, not decisive: Fizeau and Foucault differed from each other by 5.7 %, and Maxwell's calculated coil inductance (430,165 m) differed from two measurements by +6.18 % and -4.69 %.
  3. Maxwell's sunlight field, 600 Daniell cells per metre, is 1.6 times below what his own formula and input give (975 V/m; modern peak 958 V/m), and his Sun-surface value is about ten times low; causes unknown.
  4. The ether Maxwell believed in was not supported: Michelson-Morley (1887) found no ether wind. Maxwell had written that his conclusions were independent of that hypothesis, and the equations survived.
  5. The suppression story holds only in part: the 1893 Royal Society rejection was a rigour objection to divergent series, later met by Bromwich and Wagner (1916); the Electrician cancellation's cause rests on Biggs's later hint.
Verdicts by claim (7 of 17 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Faraday's lines of force given exact mathematical form by an incompressible-fluid analogy (1855-56)Established as a mathematical representation; checked on page images Not testable as stated the fluid itself, which Maxwell disclaims
Faraday's electro-tonic state is a vector potential A (B = curl A, EMF from its rate of change), 1856Established loop-integral form confirmed by Aharonov-Bohm experiments Not testable as stated A as a local physical entity, classically Historically superseded but instructive A as a state of a medium
Field energy and displacement current, as twenty equations in twenty variables (1865)Established field energy and displacement current Internally inconsistent the printed 1865 set: signs of (F) and (G); later repaired Plausible, untested twenty in twenty as a well-posed system, in the mathematical sense Not testable as stated where the energy is, beyond the total
Transverse waves travel at v, the ratio of units, which matches light, so light is electromagneticEstablished confirmed by Hertz; the 1865 evidence alone was plausible and suggestive; V = v for mu = 1
The effects occur in an all-pervading ethereal mediumTested, not supported mechanical ether with a detectable rest frame Not testable as stated undetectable Lorentz-type ether Historically superseded but instructive Maxwell's 1865 position
Heaviside's four vector equations and S = E x H; the real action lies in the fieldEstablished four-equation form; S as an integral conservation law Not testable as stated local energy location ('action in the field')
Heaviside, a self-taught outsider, was blocked and later vindicatedEstablished loading physics; Preece's obstruction is documented history (Hunt) Historically superseded but instructive operator-calculus rigour objection, later resolved; Electrician cause never established

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
James Clerk MaxwellAuthor of both papers in the folder; field theory and the electromagnetic theory of lightLived 13 June 1831 to 5 November 1879; first Cavendish professor at Cambridge from March 1871 (Belrose). Wrote On Faraday's Lines of Force (1855-56), A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (1865) and the Treatise (1873).
Oliver HeavisideRecast the equations into four vector equations; energy flow S = E x H; the resisted outsiderSelf-taught, reclusive telegraph engineer (Hunt). Vector equations 1884-85, inductive loading, operator calculus; elected FRS 1891; government pension from 1896. Never patented loading.
Michael FaradaySource of the lines of force and the electro-tonic state; credited by Maxwell with the electromagnetic theory of light in substance (1846)Not in the review files beyond his experimental researches, which supply every experimental reference in the 1856 paper, and his 1846 Thoughts on Ray Vibrations.
Wilhelm WeberRival action-at-a-distance theory; with Kohlrausch measured the ratio of units that gave Maxwell his speedNot in the review files beyond his force law, which Maxwell printed in 1856 and called 'a really physical theory', and the 310,740,000 m/s measurement.
William PreeceBlocked the 1887 Heaviside loading paper · Post Office official whose public position against inductance the paper contradictedPost Office chief engineer, head of its telegraph engineers and Arthur Heaviside's superior; campaigned publicly against inductance in telephone lines in 1886-87 (Hunt).
Heinrich HertzProduced and detected the predicted waves (1887-88); 1890 component restatementNot in the review files beyond these experiments, which FitzGerald hailed as the confirmation of Maxwell's theory, and the 1890 restatement (via Belrose).
Michael PupinPatented inductive loading in 1899 · Patent holder; sold the rights to AT&T for $500,000Not in the review files beyond the patent and sale, which Hunt describes as 'under somewhat shady circumstances'.
Bruce J. HuntHistorian; author of the folder's main source on Heaviside (Physics Today 2012)Historian of physics; also wrote The Maxwellians (1991). His article is the single secondary source for the three Heaviside episodes.
Evidence / artifacts (76 of 76 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (9)

  • 1855-12Maxwell, On Faraday's Lines of Force (read 10 Dec 1855 and 11 Feb 1856) Trans. Cambridge Philosophical Society 10; 75-page scan in folder. Part I fluid analogy (deep read, page images pp.13-28), Part II electro-tonic state (page images pp.36-54); Part III worked examples pp.56-75 digest only
  • 1861Maxwell, mechanical vortex model of 1861-62 (On Physical Lines of Force) Named by the physicist and mathematician from para 73 of the 1865 paper, where Maxwell says he avoids that hypothesis; not in the folder
  • 1864-12-08Maxwell, A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (Phil. Trans. 155, 1865) Smithsonian/Dibner scan, 66 pp. Deep reads pp.7-24 and 53-60; page images pp.15-20, 29, 31-34, 47, 52, 53, 57, 59, 60; rest digest. Twenty equations, wave speed, (F)/(G) sign defect, sunlight estimate, British Association coil
  • 1873Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Arts. 616-619 and 783-784 Quaternion forms; chi 'not related to any physical phenomenon'; J and Psi left out for periodic waves. Read as Wikisource text for follow-up Q06, not on page images; (G) sign said to be corrected here (Arthur, via Wikipedia)
  • 1884Heaviside, Electrician articles: four vector equations and energy flow (1884-87, resumed January 1891) Per Hunt: recast Maxwell's equations into four vector relations in E and H (1884-85) and found S = E x H independently; series cancelled late 1887 by a new editor
  • 1887-04Arthur and Oliver Heaviside, joint paper on adding inductance to telephone lines Blocked when Preece, Arthur's superior at the Post Office, declared it worthless and refused clearance (Hunt p.6)
  • 1887-11Heaviside, Philosophical Magazine series on waves (1888) Placed with William Thomson's help after the Electrician series ended (Hunt p.6)
  • 1893Heaviside, On operators in physical mathematics (three instalments) First two published by the Royal Society; the third refereed and rejected over divergent series (Hunt p.7)
  • 1893Heaviside, Electromagnetic Theory, 3 vols. (1893-1912) Listed in the primer's further reading [memory: high]; not in folder

Patents and patent office (1)

  • 1899Pupin, inductive loading patent Patented loading in 1899 and sold the rights to AT&T for $500,000, 'under somewhat shady circumstances' (Hunt's phrase); Heaviside never patented · Pupin was the patent holder and seller

Government records (1)

  • 1896Government pension to Heaviside 120 pounds a year, later 220, accepted two years after he refused a Royal Society Relief Fund grant (Hunt p.7)

Royal Society records (3)

  • 1891Heaviside elected Fellow of the Royal Society Hunt p.7; before the 1893 rejection
  • 1893Royal Society referee report rejecting the third operator instalment Grounds: handling of divergent series (rigour), not the Preece feud; report itself not seen (Hunt p.7)
  • 1894Royal Society Relief Fund grant, refused by Heaviside Hunt p.7

Company and business records (2)

  • 1887-10The Electrician: editor Biggs removed, Heaviside series cancelled New editor said he found no one who read the series; series resumed January 1891 (Hunt pp.6-7)
  • –AT&T use of inductive loading 'AT&T and other companies later used it with great success' (Hunt); no primary company record seen

Witness accounts and correspondence (7)

  • 1886Preece's campaign against inductance in telephone lines (1886-87) Head of Post Office telegraph engineers; called the loading paper worthless (Hunt) · Preece was the official whose view the paper contradicted
  • 1887Heaviside's caustic letters attacking Preece Declined by the Electrician's editor Biggs for fear of a libel suit (Hunt p.6)
  • –Biggs's later hint about his removal Biggs 'later hinted' he was removed for supporting Heaviside; the only evidence of cause, so the arbiter rates the cause never established
  • 1888-09FitzGerald at the British Association meeting, Bath Address hailing Hertz's work as the confirmation of Maxwell; notebook entry 'essentially a gauge condition' during the 'murder of Psi' debate with Lodge, Thomson and Rowland (Hunt)
  • 1889-01William Thomson's address recognising Heaviside Hunt's chronology (deep read)
  • –Heaviside's reply to his rigour critics 'Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?' (Hunt)
  • –Wiener's denunciation of Pupin Mentioned by the contrarian, who calls it the polemic of an interested party; not seen

Experiments and replications by others (20)

  • 1856Weber and Kohlrausch, ratio of electromagnetic to electrostatic units v = 310,740,000 m/s as quoted by Maxwell, +3.65 % from modern c; Maxwell's speed link. The 439,450,000/sqrt 2 origin is [memory: medium]
  • –Fizeau, speed of light 314,858,000 m/s Quoted by Maxwell 1865; +5.03 % from modern c
  • –Foucault, rotating-mirror speed of light 298,000,000 m/s Quoted by Maxwell 1865; -0.60 %; differs from Fizeau by 5.7 %
  • –Speed of light from stellar aberration, 308,000,000 m/s Quoted by Maxwell 1865; +2.74 %
  • –Pouillet's solar measurements (83.4 ft-lb per s per sq ft, as calculated by Thomson) Input to Maxwell's sunlight field estimate; equals 1217 W/m^2
  • 1856Faraday rotation and Verdet's reversed rotation in paramagnetic solutions Maxwell's evidence for motion in the medium (1865 p.9); Verdet 1856/57 per the deep read
  • –Hockin's gold-leaf transmission measurement 1/500 to 1/1000 of green light passes where the theory with d.c. conductivity predicts about 10^-50 (page image p.52)
  • 1863British Association spinning-coil experiments (sixteen runs) Least-squares L = 456,748 m against Maxwell's calculated 430,165 m (+6.18 %); Maxwell's own rough electric-balance value 410,000 m (-4.69 %)
  • –Felici's induction experiments Maxwell 1865 rests the induction facts on Faraday's and Felici's experiments
  • –Tyndall's repetition of Weber's reverse polarity of diamagnetics Cited by Maxwell 1856 p.54
  • –Foucault's heating of a rotating conducting shell Cited at the end of the 1856 paper (p.75, digest only)
  • 1887Hertz, generation and detection of electromagnetic waves in air (1887-88) Reflection, refraction, polarisation, light-like speed [web: ETHW milestone]; FitzGerald called it the confirmation of Maxwell
  • 1888-03Lodge, waves along wires from Leyden-jar discharges Parallel, independent work overshadowed by Hertz at Bath; Hunt does not say Lodge replicated Hertz
  • 1887-11Michelson-Morley ether-drift experiment Null result [web: APS News]; excludes a detectable-rest-frame ether
  • –Later ether-drift null tests (Kennedy-Thorndike, Ives-Stilwell, resonators) [memory: medium/high], not web-checked; no verdict depends on them
  • –Miller's positive ether-drift reports (1920s) Raised by the contrarian; no source in the folder; the arbiter makes no claim and does not rate them
  • 1960Chambers, first claimed Aharonov-Bohm observation Shielding later questioned [web: Wikipedia]
  • 1986Tonomura, unambiguous Aharonov-Bohm experiment Shows the loop integral of A is physical [web: Wikipedia]
  • 1928Langmuir and Tonks, plasma oscillations (1928-29) Longitudinal electric oscillations in a medium of charges, matching Maxwell's 1865 para 100 'electric fluid with density' case (follow-up Q06, [memory: high])
  • 1989-06C.E. Smith, Short Low Loss AM Antenna (IEEE Trans. Broadcasting 35) Measured data for station KVOK against which Belrose ran NEC-4D

Related work by others (19)

  • –Faraday, Experimental Researches Every experimental reference in the 1856 paper (Exp. Res. 60, 371, 2429 ... 3320; Series XI)
  • 1845Neumann, induction law Cited by Maxwell 1856 p.54; vector-potential-like quantity [memory: medium]
  • 1846Faraday, Thoughts on Ray Vibrations Maxwell: the same electromagnetic theory of light 'in substance', lacking only the speed data (1865 p.14)
  • 1847Helmholtz, conservation of force Maxwell derives induction by this energy balance (1856 p.50)
  • 1847William Thomson, papers of 1847 and 1851 Credited by Maxwell for the possibility of the electro-tonic mathematics (1856 p.55)
  • 1849Stokes, similar expressions Credited by Maxwell 1856 p.55
  • –Weber's force law and electrodynamics Printed by Maxwell 1856 p.54 as 'a really physical theory'; set aside in 1865 only for 'mechanical difficulties' and called possibly still useful
  • 1854William Thomson, energy argument for the density of the medium (and his solar calculation) Maxwell's ether evidence (no number given); the arbiter names it to check the foot-pound convention behind the sunlight factor of 1.6
  • 1856William Thomson, magnetisation as motion in the medium (1856/1861) Basis for Maxwell's 'some reason to suppose' rotation (1865 p.9)
  • 1867Lorenz, gauge condition Named in follow-up Q06 [memory: high]
  • 1870Helmholtz, electrodynamics with an adjustable constant Allows longitudinal waves for some values [memory: medium]; Belrose says Heaviside criticised it (one unsourced sentence)
  • 1884-01Poynting, energy-flow theorem (abstract January 1884) Preceded Heaviside's independent result (Hunt)
  • –Gibbs, vector analysis Similar path to Heaviside, published after him (Hunt)
  • 1890Hertz, component restatement of the field equations 'Mathematically equivalent' to Heaviside's version (Belrose quoting Arthur and Forfar; second-hand)
  • c.1900Drude, frequency-dependent conductivity of metals Possible resolution of Maxwell's gold-leaf anomaly [memory: medium, not checked]
  • 1916Bromwich and Wagner, rigorous operational calculus (later Carson, van der Pol 1929, Laplace transforms) Met the Royal Society's rigour objection on Heaviside's methods (Belrose p.1)
  • 1949Ehrenberg and Siday (1949); Aharonov and Bohm (1959), vector-potential phase effect Prediction that A has measurable effects through its loop integral [web: Wikipedia]
  • 1949Bohm and Gross, warm-plasma longitudinal wave Follow-up Q06 [memory: high]
  • –Extended electrodynamics with a scalar field S (Ohmura, Hively, Arbab) Keeps S = div A + (1/c^2) dphi/dt as a field; reviewed in the van Vlaenederen Koen project; cited in follow-up Q06

Later accounts and media (6)

  • 1988Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude (IEEE Press) Standard biography; Belrose's subtitle borrows its title
  • 1991Hunt, The Maxwellians (Cornell University Press) FitzGerald, Lodge and Heaviside; may document Hertz replications
  • 2012Arthur and Forfar, Maxwell Foundation newsletter Source of the Hertz 1890 remark, quoted by Belrose
  • 2012-11Hunt, Oliver Heaviside: A first-rate oddity (Physics Today 65(11), 48) 8 pp. in folder; deep read pp.5-7. The single secondary source for the Heaviside episodes
  • 2013Arthur, The Evolution of Maxwell's Equations from 1862 to the Present Day (IEEE A&P Magazine) Sign questions in the 1865 equations; known via Wikipedia [memory: medium]
  • 2014Belrose, Oliver Heaviside: a first rate oddity, sage in solitude 9 pp. in folder; deep read pp.5-8. Paraphrases Hunt; adds the NEC-4 antenna case and the Helmholtz remark

Records named but not yet examined (8)

  • 1887Post Office correspondence on the 1887 loading paper Arbiter: deciding archival record for the Preece episode
  • 1887The Electrician editorial records for 1887 Arbiter: would decide why Biggs was removed and the series cancelled
  • –Heaviside's primary letters used by Hunt Not seen; Hunt's account is single-source
  • 1888Documented repetitions of Hertz's air experiments, 1888-89 (Lecher and others) [memory: medium]; arbiter suggests Hunt's book
  • –Another printing or edition of the 1865 paper To check the factor of ten in the Sun-surface values
  • –Source for Heaviside's criticism of Helmholtz's longitudinal waves Belrose's sentence is unsourced (follow-up Q06 lead)
  • 1999-03Belrose, Umbrella Top Loaded Antennas (ACES review, Monterey) Holds the numbers behind the NEC-4 versus KVOK comparison
  • 2001-04Belrose, Radiation Characteristics of an Electrically Small MF Broadcast Antenna (IEE Conf. Pub. 480) Same comparison; not seen

Left out: textbooks and web reference pages used only for checks, people Maxwell cites only in passing (Ohm, Kirchhoff, Quincke, Ampere), and the AI-written review files; no Investigator web run has been made yet (there is no sites.md), so outside records come from reviewer checks and follow-up Q06. Full catalogue: Maxwell sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: No experiment is needed for the core physics; Hertz settled it. The open items are calculations: redo the sunlight and Sun-surface figures against Thomson's 1854 foot-pound convention, and recompute the error budgets of Weber-Kohlrausch and Fizeau to judge whether the 1865 agreement was earned.

Deciding records: Treatise (1873) page images to date the (G) sign repair; another printing of the 1865 paper for the factor of ten; Post Office and Electrician archives for 1887; documented repetitions of Hertz in 1888-89 (Hunt's The Maxwellians); Belrose's 1999 and 2001 NEC papers.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: Part A gives the 1865 speed percentages, Part B the printed sign error (amplitude 1.368 against 0.731 per wavelength), Part C energy entering a wire through its sides (0.5348 W = I^2 R), Part D sunlight: his formula gives 975 V/m, he printed 600.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Printed (F) makes conduction current run against the field, so equation (95) amplifies the wave while Maxwell's text says it is weakened. The minimal repair is two sign flips, (F) and (G). It does not touch displacement current, the wave speed or the energy integral. arbiter.md, Disagreements 1
  2. Mathematician Maxwell finds V = v only for mu = 1, and his plane wave 'consists entirely of magnetic disturbances'; the symmetric E and B wave of textbooks is a later restatement. mathematician.md, Corrections to Step 1, item 2
  3. Contrarian Heaviside and Hertz eliminated the potentials as unphysical; Aharonov-Bohm later partly vindicated A. The correct reading is that A is physically meaningful up to gauge, not that new energy sources follow. contrarian.md, Claim 2
  4. Primer The 1865 paper is in plain Cartesian components, not quaternions; quaternions appear only in the 1873 Treatise. So the claim that Heaviside 'truncated' Maxwell's quaternion equations does not apply to the 1865 paper. primer.md, section 4.1
  5. Investigator In a perfect insulator Maxwell found 'no disturbance depending on J can be propagated as a wave', yet left 'normal vibrations' open if electricity had a density. Heaviside kept div D = rho and div B = 0 and dropped only the potentials. research/2026-10-07-followup-Q06.md (follow-up Q06), sections 1 and 5

AI noteThe number that tied light to electricity, Weber and Kohlrausch's 310,740,000 m/s, came from Weber, whose action-at-a-distance theory Maxwell set aside only for 'mechanical difficulties' and said may yet be useful.

Rank 17Meyers-Stan

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 11:00

The best-known car that 'runs on water': patents, eyewitnesses, a 1996 fraud judgment, and one cheap deciding measurement, gas against true electrical input, that nobody on record ever made.

Invention / theory background

Stanley A. Meyer (1940-1998) of Grove City, Ohio, patented and promoted a 'Water Fuel Cell' from 1982 until his death. Water between stainless tubes is the dielectric of a capacitor, pulsed through chokes and a diode at resonance, said to split water 'without electrolysis' on far less energy. He added 'hydrogen fracturing' (up to 2.5 million barrels of oil per gallon), water-fuel injectors, a magnetised-gas generator and a self-sustaining loop, and sold dealerships and profit-sharing certificates.

Ranking explanation

Meets all four criteria: an untested anomaly with a story of resistance (A), an unsettled history and a bench test never made (B), arithmetic the reader can redo (C), and wide influence among builders (D). Below Kilner and Rahn, whose core observations stay untested in ways calculation cannot settle; Meyer's headline claims fall to energy accounting. Above Lakhovsky and Eskridge for a richer record: about two dozen patent families, eyewitness accounts, court and probate dockets, and unobtained government evaluations.

Key supporting elements

  1. Electronics World, Jan 1991: Hindley, with Laughton and Admiral Griffin present (Oct 1990), saw gas from tap water at ammeter readings 'no greater than a tenth of an amp', a cold cell, and a burner melting a steel bar.
  2. Perkins Technology bench observation, 8 Oct 1992: dissociation from about 10 V, 'maximum observed current was less than 1 milliamp', vessel at room temperature; the firm agreed to support WFC subject to proof of concept.
  3. Nagypal (Vienna, 1991) built a 600 V plate cell: 0.5-1 cc of gas per minute at about 20 mA, 2-4 times Faraday's figure; never repeated with net charge measured. He also offered to distribute WFC.
  4. Per the Perkins notes, a DTI-sponsored Queen Mary report could not reconcile the claims with established science 'however they left open the possibility' of a new development, and a Sussex breadboard rig produced hydrogen.
  5. The arbiter rates 'more gas per joule than ordinary electrolysis' Never properly tested: thermodynamics allows a pulsed cell to beat a poor DC cell, up to about 121 percent, and nobody measured it.

Key contradictions

  1. At kHz water conducts: the cell's Q is at most 4 even for ideal pure water, and 0.004 for Meyer's own tap-water analysis; holding 20 kV across tap water would take megawatts. The resonant voltage gain cannot build up.
  2. Meyer's own numbers read as ordinary electrolysis: his 1983 patent runs at 12 V and 1 A with gas linear in current, its Fig. 16 shows DC beating pulses, and his 1995 table, units corrected, matches Faraday at 40 A.
  3. 2.5 million barrels per gallon is 4.5 percent of the water's entire rest-mass energy and 57 times the ceiling for fusing all its hydrogen; Meyer's own injector figure sits eight orders of magnitude lower.
  4. Perkins, a willing partner, noted that on three UK visits (1990-92) no water-fuelled engine was ever shown running; NIST reportedly found 'a net consumer of energy' (second-hand); two dealers won a 1996 fraud judgment ($40,515.72 garnished).
  5. The self-sustaining loop cannot run: splitting water costs at least 237 kJ/mol and recombining returns at most that, so real loops return about 38 percent; the '100 V x 100 A' example is 68 times the gas energy.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 27 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Pulsed high voltage across a water cell releases hydrogen and oxygenEstablished as electrolysis and discharge chemistry
Resonant gain to 20-40 kV in the water capacitor, and charge-free bond breaking by the fieldRefuted by calculation resonant gain in conducting water Refuted by calculation bulk-field bond breaking (field 270-17,500 times too small)
More gas per joule than ordinary electrolysis, or gas energy above inputNever properly tested no test measured input energy and gas together; above 286 kJ/mol out would break energy conservation
Meyer's printed equations, and the 1983 patent text that pulsing 'enhances considerably' the splittingInternally inconsistent Eq 9, '78.54 ohms', Eq 14, Eq 17 Internally inconsistent text against the patent's own Fig. 16
'Hydrogen fracturing': 44,000 to 2.5 million barrels of oil per gallon of waterRefuted by calculation the barrel figures Internally inconsistent 'complies with thermodynamics' beside 'Zero Point energy' Not testable as stated the thermodynamics statement alone
Vehicles run on water through water-fuel injectionRefuted by calculation water as net fuel, on Meyer's own flow and power numbers Never properly tested the dune buggy or tractor itself Plausible, untested engine supplemented by battery-electrolyser hydrogen (not Meyer's claim; no free energy)
Self-sustaining loop: electrons extracted from water fed back so it 'goes until there's no more water'Refuted by calculation the loop Internally inconsistent 'not perpetual motion, water is the fuel' beside 'does not create energy'
Electrical Particle Generator ('gas battery', voltage amplification)Established voltage step-up by induction Not testable as stated net power gain; 'permanently magnetized gas' Never properly tested the device as built Refuted by calculation laser 'compounding' of a 10 W laser to 10-100 kW

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Stanley A. MeyerInventor, patent holder and promoter of the Water Fuel Cell · Patent holder; sold dealerships and profit-sharing certificates1940-1998, Grove City, Ohio; his brief calls him a 'businessman and free-lance inventor' (heart monitors, a banking 'Validator', oceanography). Solar patents from 1976, hydrogen patents from 1982. Died 20 or 21 Mar 1998; the coroner ruled a cerebral aneurysm.
Dr Keith HindleyEyewitness author of the Electronics World account (Oct 1990 visit)UK research chemist. Reported gas at low meter current, a cold cell and a melted steel bar; argued that Section 101 patents amount to independent confirmation, a characterisation the reviewers found unsupported by USPTO practice.
Prof. Michael LaughtonObserver in 1990; probable author of a 1992 report; named as the 1996 expert witnessDean of Engineering, Queen Mary College, London. Favourable observer in Electronics World (1991); the Sunday Times names him as the 1996 court expert, but the docket transcription does not show him. Whether his view changed is unresolved.
Admiral Sir Anthony GriffinSupporter who brought UK engineers and Perkins Technology to Meyer · Sought UK partners to proceed with WFCFormer Controller of the Navy and past president of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. Present in 1990 and 1992; Warsash lecture 1993 ('10 W in, gas at 10 psi within 10 s, vessel cold').
Tibor NagypalBuilt a Meyer-type cell in Vienna and reported to Meyer (1991) · Offered himself as WFC distributor for Austria and HungaryEducation and career not in the review files. His letter gives the file's one number above a Faraday estimate (0.5-1 cc/min at about 20 mA) and says he could not reproduce Meyer's waveforms.
T.W.E. DownesManaging director, Perkins Technology Ltd (Peterborough); led the 1992 visit and Project TACO · Prospective partnerNot in the review files beyond his role. His firm's notes record the under-1 mA bench run, the planned VW and ferry-engine proof of concept, and that no water-fuelled engine was shown.
George P. LewettNIST correspondent on Meyer's claims (letter of 28 Jun 1991, cited by Heard)Described in the Investigator's notes, from memory (medium confidence), as head of NIST's Office of Energy-Related Inventions, whose report is quoted as 'a net consumer of energy'. The file itself is not obtained.
Judge William Corzine IIIPresided over Willis and Harper v. Meyer, Fayette County, 1996Not in the review files beyond the case. Meyer says he ruled the cell 'only electrolysis' and switched off the court audio (Meyer's allegation, no second source); the decision transcript is not obtained.
Evidence / artifacts (139 of 139 listed, 100%)

Own works and inventions (17)

  • 1981-1997Surviving hardware, photographed (39 images) Watermarked Gries Petty Research / RWGresearch.com / AlexPetty.com; VIC diode-ladder cylinders, ten-port cell, 11-slot rack, 1981 'Electrical Polarization Process' instrument, 1982 'Hydrogen Fracturing Process' box, GMS rack, 'Laser Accelerator Assembly', 'WATER POWERED' buggy, 1997 Heat Resonator; sticky note dated 13 June 2009; no operation shown; chain of custody unknown
  • 1987WFC News Release No. 3 (Winter/Spring 86/87) Staff writer Marcia Thompson; '44,000 barrels of oil' headline with no derivation; EPG lab model 'required by the patent office'; Pentagon presentation planned; 'filing 42 patents'; dune buggy on ABC news 1985; read as page images · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1988WFC News Release No. 4 (Winter/Spring 87/88) 44,000 to 108,000 barrels 'predicted' from 'preliminary tests'; 'Nine out of Forty-two patents' issued; EPG as a 'gas battery'; 351-acre development centre, 5 percent of profits to investors; read as 200 dpi page images · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1989Talk at the SAFE Free Energy Conference, Einsiedeln, Switzerland Video, about 57 min transcribed (whisper); 'maintains itself as long as there is water in the fuel cell'; 'excite it for 5 seconds ... producing gas for 94 seconds'; about 40 patents; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1989House meeting in New Zealand Video, 2 h 38 min, whisper transcript without speaker labels; dealership terms, 0-2,000 V and up to 90,000 V, 100 V x 100 A 'self-sustained oscillation', EPG figures, 'General Abramson' and 'General Bachard' stories; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • c.1990-1996The Birth of New Technology: Water Fuel Cell Technical Brief 222 pp., Memos 420-430 and Appendices A-B; two identical folder copies; a 1990 edition cited by Heard; a 233-page viXra edition (2006) with Lawton's appendix; pp.1-56 and 126-222 deep read, Memo 424 read at pp.117-125, pp.57-116 unread · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1990-1994Conference talks listed in the brief Colorado Springs 1990 and 27 Jul 1991 (Extraordinary Science Conference), Geneva 1991, Daytona Beach 1991, Denver 1993, Ukiah 1994; named in the Birth biography and Newsletter No. 8; no texts found · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992WFC International News Release No. 8 (Winter/Spring 91/92) Reprints Grove City Record 31 Jul 1991; five retrofits listed, only the buggy installed; Nagypal 'Your theory works'; patent date 'June 25, 1991' matching no patent; 11 US numbers against 'more than 25'; page images · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992'Voltage Disassociation of Water', Global Sciences Congress talk Video on the Internet Archive; not downloaded or transcribed · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1993Interview, 'Stanley Meyer on One World Government and Alternative Fuel Sources' Video on the Internet Archive; not downloaded · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1994-05WFC International News Release No. 10 'Military funding is anticipated'; US 5,293,857 as '26th major patent'; buggy still being retrofitted 'to match the acceleration performance of gasoline-driven cars'; profit-sharing certificates; Bell water chart (test date 10 Jan 1983) · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1995-01-01WFC International Independent Test-Evaluation Report (binder) Meyer's own compilation: Perkins notes, Nagypal letter, affidavits and witnessed water-collection tests (pp.48-58), lab reports (pp.40-47), energy table pp.59-60 (12.5 V at 40 A, 46,666 cc/h per tube), Dublin IT and Griffin papers; machine transcription marked unverified at stanslegacy.com · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1996WFC Technical Supplemental Report No. 11A 'Pre-manufacturing'; 26 patents; zero-point 'energy aperture' beside 'complying with the Laws of Thermodynamics'; 40,000 V at about 1 mA; pp.12-18 duplicate Issue No. 10 · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1996-12-02Request to Retract, letter to the Sunday Times About Tony Edwards' article of 1 Dec 1996; named in the Public Notice; text not seen · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1996-12-20WFC Public Notice to Inform Meyer's account of the Franklin and Fayette County suits: judge ruled the process 'only electrolysis', court audio switched off during his VIC demonstration, expert Mathias Johanson never called; counterclaim $333,929 plus $279,250; read at stanslegacy.com · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1997'WFC Industrial Contract: Europe' placard and Heat Resonator concept (project 427-DA) Spiral-bound placard 'Proposed Packaging Concept', copyright 1997; seen in the photographs; no party, date or country given · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • undatedOther lecture videos on the Internet Archive 'Stan Meyer: Fuel From Water', 'Secrets of Stanley Meyer's WFC Lecture 1.1', 'Stan Meyer explains the Water Fuel Technology'; among 81 search hits; none downloaded · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)

Patents and patent office (27)

  • 1976-07-20US 3,970,070 Solar Heating System With Stephen R. Gray, Columbus; Meyer's earliest patent in the folder; front page only
  • 1981-05-05US 4,265,224 Multi-Stage Solar Storage System Solar heat storage; biographical context; front page only
  • 1981-06-30US 4,275,950 Light-Guide Lens 176 pp., mostly drawings; front page only
  • 1983-1986Electrical Particle Generator family CA 1,213,671 (4 Nov 1986, 16 claims), EP 0 098 897 A2 and A3 (search report 27 Feb 1985, five category-A citations, examiner M. Galanti), JP 58-207610; priority 9 Apr 1982; no voltage, current or turns; CA deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1983-06-28US 4,389,981 Hydrogen Gas Injector System for Internal Combustion Engine Family: EP 0 086 439 A1 (1983) and B1 (31 Jan 1990), CA 1,233,379 (1988), JP 58-202352; priority 17 Feb 1982; no engine, flow or power figure; US deep read, others front pages · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1983-12-20US 4,421,474 Hydrogen Gas Burner Filed 25 Aug 1982; quenching nozzle; front page only · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984JP 59-129791 (unidentified hydrogen generator) Classes C25B 9/00, C01B 3/04; priority not legible
  • 1984JP 59-148584 (unidentified generator) Classes H02N 11/00, F03G 7/00; probably the generator line; not identified
  • 1984-08-14US 4,465,455 Start-up/Shut-down for a Hydrogen Gas Burner Filed 24 Sep 1982; front page only · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1987Gas Electrical Hydrogen Generator family US 4,613,304 (23 Sep 1986), CA 1,228,833 (1987), EP 0 106 917 A1, JP 59-132784; DC plate electrolyser plus magnetic particle accelerator, not the pulsed cell; US deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1988Resonant Cavity Hydrogen Generator family (gap resonance) EP 0 103 656 A2 and A3 (search report: Wolf, Inoue/Japax, category A), CA 1,234,773 (5 Apr 1988), JP 59-59889; priority 24 Sep 1982; no dimensions, frequency or data; EP deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1988Hydrogen Generator System family EP 0 111 573 A1 (filed 14 Dec 1982; 12 V at 1 A; Fig. 10: 84 W with 456 in3/h, 120 W with 2700 in3/h; Fig. 16 gas falls with shorter pulses; search report 9 Sep 1983, category A only) and CA 1,234,774 (1988, 'restricting the current'); both read in full · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1988Hydrogen injection family, priority 23 Mar 1983 EP 0 122 472 A2 and A3 (search report 22 Apr 1985 cites Meyer's own EP 0 086 439 and EP 0 111 574 as category X), CA 1,231,872 (1988), presumed JP 59-153922; A2 searched, rest front pages · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1990Controlled Hydrogen Gas Flame family CA 1,235,669 (1988), EP 0 101 761 A2, A3 and B1 (granted 28 Mar 1990), JP 59-38525; 'rippling wave form' without polarity change; front pages only · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1984-1991Hydrogen Aeration Injection System, EP 0 111 574 A1 (1984) and B1 (11 Sep 1991, narrowed and retitled); German family members DE3280356D1 and DE3280143D1 per Google Patents; front pages only · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1986-09-23US 4,613,779 Electrical Pulse Generator A rotating brushless electromechanical generator, not a cell circuit; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1987-09-22CA 1,227,094 Hydrogen/Air and Non-Combustible Gas Mixing Combustion System Filed 4 Feb 1983; front page only · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1989-01-17US 4,798,661 Gas Generator Voltage Control Circuit Filed 25 Mar 1985; cites Puharich 4,394,230; onset ladder 2.5-8.5 V with distilled water and 'negligible' current; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1989-05-02US 4,826,581 Controlled Process for the Production of Thermal Energy from Gases With WO 89/01464 (PCT/US88/02680); four-stage 'hydrogen fracturing'; 'thermal explosive energy beyond the gas burning stage'; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1989-1993EP 0 333 854 (Euro-PCT, hydrogen aeration injection) A4 supplementary search report 28 Sep 1989 in the folder (category A only); A1 deemed withdrawn 2 Mar 1993 per Google Patents
  • 1990-06-26US 4,936,961 Method for the Production of a Fuel Gas The core water-capacitor patent; Newsletter No. 8 misdates it 25 Jun 1991; fees paid to 2002; read in full by the fact-finder · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1990-09-05EP 0 381 722 A4 supplementary search report Examiner Wassenaar; four category-A citations; family not stated on the page
  • 1992-05-14WO 92/07861 Control and Driver Circuits for a Hydrogen Gas Fuel Producing Cell With AU7485291A (abandoned); 0-650 V unipolar pulses, 1-2 mA leakage at resonance, about 5 kHz, '5 gallons of water per hour'; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992-09-22US 5,149,407 Process and Apparatus for the Production of Fuel Gas With WO 89/12704, JPH03500042A, AU3862389A (abandoned); 26 V, 10 kHz, single Example I; lapsed 22 Sep 2004; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992-12-23WO 92/22679 Water Fuel Injection System With CA 2,067,735 (examination requested 15 May 1998, dead 2003); injector as micro water capacitor; no numbers; deep read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992-1994Hydrogen Gas Fuel and Management System family WO 92/08046 (deep read), US 5,293,857 (granted 15 Mar 1994, lapsed 2006; not in the folder, downloaded by the Investigator, not yet deep read), AU6887091A; burn-rate dilution · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 2001-03-22USPTO assignments and legal events US 4,936,961, 5,149,407 and 5,293,857 assigned from the estate (administrator Alphonse P. Cincione) to Marilyn Meyer; fees to 2002, lapses 2004-2006; no licensee found; Google Patents

Court and state records (15)

  • 1979-1981Franklin County 79CV004853, Schuler / Leukart v. Meyer Earlier investor suit, 3 Oct 1979 to 8 Sep 1981; docket index only
  • 1993-1994Franklin County 93CV005477, Schneider, Brooks and Gilvesy v. Meyer Dealership contract ('Fuel C Water'); settled 1994, Brooks's money (over $300,000) returned per the Dispatch; Schneider and Brooks also named as retrofit partners in Newsletter No. 8 (names only)
  • 1993-1997Fayette County CVH19930292, Willis and Harper v. Meyer: docket Judge William Corzine III; inspection order 27 Oct 1995; trial 1-2 Feb and 8-10 May 1996; judgment 24 Sep 1996; $40,515.72 garnished; satisfied 6 Mar 1997; transcription · Transcribed and framed by an advocacy archive (stanslegacy.com)
  • 1995-1996Fayette County exhibits and depositions Videotapes, poster boards, depositions of Willis, Harper and Meyer, exhibits 1-11 and A6-A37; destroyed 18 Jun 2014
  • 1996Meyer's judicial-misconduct complaint to the Ohio Supreme Court Disciplinary Counsel Meyer's statement; Ohio Supreme Court case lookup found nothing (such complaints are usually confidential) · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1996-09-04Affidavit of Dr Russell E. Fowler with Meyer's new-trial motion Docket entry; Fowler was a WFC officer; text not seen · WFC officer
  • 1996-09-11Fayette County decision transcript Filed 11 Sep 1996; would show the court's findings, the 'gross and egregious fraud' wording and the expert evidence
  • 1996-09-24Fayette County Final Judgment Entry Min 116/166-168; should remain in the court journal
  • 1998-03Death certificate The Dispatch gives 20 Mar 1998, the probate sheet 21 Mar 1998; the certificate would settle it
  • 1998-03Franklin County coroner's report Ruled cerebral aneurysm; toxicology only lidocaine and phenytoin (per the Dispatch); report not obtained
  • 1998-03Grove City police investigation file Lt. Steve Robinette; no taped interviews of the two Belgian investors in the file (per the Dispatch)
  • 1998-2001Franklin County Probate 457686, estate of Stanley A. Meyer Administrator Alphonse P. Cincione; inventory $306,608.04; ADS Systems searched his computer; Canadian patents maintained; '83 DuneBuggy' transferred 5 May 2000; transcription · Transcribed and framed by an advocacy archive (stanslegacy.com)
  • 1999Franklin County 99CV006575, Kramer v. Cincione, Admr. Creditor suit against the estate; docket index only
  • 1999Franklin County 99CV006793, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur v. Cincione, Admr. Law-firm suit against the estate; docket index only
  • 1999-09-15Probate valuation: 'Water Fuel Cell: Valuation of Sole Proprietorship as of March 21, 1998' In the court file, not online; would show what an appraiser valued the technology at

Government records (4)

  • 1988-1989US foreign-filing licences 492680 and 490606 Printed in the Birth brief as government permission; 492680 dated 10 Jul 1989; 490606 dated 15 Nov 1988 in the folder copy and 15 Nov 1989 in the viXra copy; a routine permission · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1991-06-28NIST Office of Energy-Related Inventions evaluation (George P. Lewett) 'would be a net consumer of energy, not an energy producer' as quoted by Spy (Dec 1991); Heard (2000) cites Lewett's letter; a government agency's characterization, no known stake; file not obtained; web checks failed
  • 1992DTI-sponsored Queen Mary and Westfield College report (probably the 'Laughton Report on SM's patents', 13 Apr 1992) Experts 'unable to reconcile' the descriptions with established science but 'left open the possibility'; known only from the Perkins notes (Annex J1); UK National Archives search found nothing
  • 1994Securities filings for WFC profit-sharing certificates Newsletter No. 10 says filings were submitted to the SEC and Ohio and other state securities divisions, approval pending; not searched · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)

Company and business records (5)

  • c.1987-1996WFC Profit Sharing Certificate Prospectus and dealership terms $100 to $1,000,000; 8 percent of net profits a year up to 300 percent; dealerships as licences by deposit; referred to in the brief, newsletters and the New Zealand talk · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1992-10-06Perkins Technology visit notes and Project TACO plan T.W.E. Downes, G. Purkins, Dr M. Graham with Griffin; bench run 8 Oct 1992 (about 10 V, under 1 mA, room temperature); VW engine then the Thames ferry Brunel; binder transcription · Prospective partner
  • 1993-02-28Perkins Technology meeting note with Griffin $125,000 deposit, 'no redress' clause; no water-fuelled engine shown on three UK visits; Sussex breadboard; QMW/DTI report; UK scientists see a breach of the first and second laws; binder transcription · Prospective partner
  • 1993Perkins Project TACO file and outcome The record stops at 28 Feb 1993; Peterborough or Livett Launches would hold it
  • 1998Belgian investors' land agreement, 56 acres on Seeds Road, Grove City Phillippe Vandemoortele and Marc Vancraeyenest; research campus approved by the city two months earlier; known from the Dispatch

Witness accounts and correspondence (9)

  • 1982Steel-analysis affidavit of Robert L. Queen, Materials Joining Consultants T-304 tubing; binder pp.48-58 with witnessed water-collection tests; linked by Lammertink to his scrap-alloy hypothesis; not read in full
  • 1983Laboratory reports and patent-validation summary by Anthony D. Cennamo Binder pp.40-47; patent attorney's summary; not read · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1991-01'Free energy for ever?', Electronics World + Wireless World, pp.10-12 Hindley's eyewitness account (Oct 1990, with Laughton and Griffin): ammeter 'no greater than a tenth of an amp', cell cold, steel bar melted, brown precipitate; editor Frank Ogden: technique 'has more holes in it than a sieve'; saved PDF
  • 1991Griffin, Laughton and Hindley, 'The Adoption of Hydrogen as a Universal Energy Source: An Appreciation' Quoted in Newsletter No. 8: recommends that WFC credibility 'first be established'; paper not in the folder · Supporter seeking UK partners
  • 1991-06-04Tibor Nagypal letter, Vienna Plate cell, 600 V bursts, about 20 mA, 0.5-1 cc/min (2-4 times Faraday); 'can't reproduce' the waveforms; 'your theory works'; binder pp.66-68 transcription · Offered to distribute WFC in Austria and Hungary
  • 1993-09Griffin, 'Water as Fuel', Southampton Institute, Warsash Binder pp.113-128; '10 W in, gas at 10 psi within 10 s, vessel cold' as reported (vessel volume unknown); a merlib.lackluster.org copy not reached · Supporter seeking UK partners
  • c.1995Dublin Institute of Technology explanation (Rea O'Neill, Industrial Liaison Office) Binder pp.81-95; not read by any role
  • 1996-12-14Hans Nieper letter (DVS, Hannover) Refers to 'the tested overunity effect'; unseen
  • 1997-01-16Russell Fowler memo Calls the technology 'scientifically verified by the German Association of Vacuum Field Energy'; stanslegacy transcription · WFC officer

Experiments and replications by others (4)

  • 1983-01-10Bell water analysis, R & D Laboratory, Columbus (C. Thomas Bell) Sodium and potassium in seven waters (tap 11 ppm, distilled under 2, ocean 26,100); Birth p.163 and newsletters; assay only, no energy test
  • 1992-1993Sussex University breadboard rig 'succeeded in producing hydrogen from a breadboard rig based on Meyer's circuitry' (Perkins note); report not found
  • 2006-06-02Dave Lawton, Replication of Stanley Meyer's Demonstration Electrolyser Six 316L tube pairs; about 1-2 A at 12 V; no gas rate; appendix to the viXra edition; Ravi Raju and Scott Cramton built on it
  • 2000s-2020sLammertink wiki (tuks.nl): scrap-steel alloy hypothesis and replication project Inferred COP 'of at least 500' (his inference, not a measurement); Pollack exclusion-zone reading; about 9 minutes of buggy footage said to survive

Related work by others (14)

  • 1983-07-19Puharich, US 4,394,230 Method and Apparatus for Splitting Water Molecules 0.9 percent saline, 100 mW, '114.9 percent' (unit slip; corrected 77 percent); cited by Meyer's US 4,798,661; deep read
  • 1986Azevedo, P. Graneau and N. Graneau, water-arc explosions, Physics Letters A Filed by Meyer in his binder; not read by any role
  • 1987Jearl Walker, 'The Amateur Scientist', Scientific American Cited on the face of US 4,798,661; not read
  • 1987-02Puharich, ELF Magnetic Model of Matter and Mind 344-page typescript; patent reprint and PHASER chapter (600 Hz, 0.16 mW) read, about 140 pages not; no mention of Meyer
  • 1997-05-27Kucherov, US 5,632,870 Energy generation apparatus Cites Meyer; electrolytic cell said to draw ambient heat; abstract only
  • 2005Shimizu et al., 'A novel method of hydrogen generation by water electrolysis using Short Pulses Power' Ultra-short-pulse electrolysis; on the Internet Archive; not read
  • 2005-11-03Stephen Foster Meyer, US 2005/0246059 MLS-Hydroxyl Filling Station In the folder; a different Meyer (Golden Valley, Minnesota); no link to Stanley found
  • 2025Puteanus et al., 'Efficiency improvement by pulsed water electrolysis: An unjustified hope', IJHE 113 Jensen's-inequality argument that pulsing cannot beat DC for a standard cell model; saved PDF
  • 2026Ghosh et al. (TU Delft), current modulation in water electrolysis, IJHE Search hit; PDF not retrieved
  • undatedNational Bureau of Standards Monograph 168, 'Selected Properties of Hydrogen' Cited by US 4,389,981 and Appendix A for flame speeds; Meyer attributes the '2.5 times gasoline' figure to the NBS; not read
  • undatedGary L. Johnson (Kansas State), 'Electrically Induced Explosion in Water' Cited by Meyer (Appendix A) and in his binder; not read
  • undatedNortheastern University, 'Powerful Water-Plasma Explosion' Center for Electromagnetics Research; cited by Meyer (Appendix A); not read
  • undatedTony Woodside, 8XA WFC Driver Circuit and PSU 7490 Component layout and PCB artwork in the folder; third-party design, relationship to Meyer unknown
  • undatedGerald Pollack, exclusion-zone water Charge-separated layers next to hydrophilic surfaces; raised by Lammertink; contested; no prediction for this cell

Later accounts and media (39)

  • 1976-03-18Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.5; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1976-04-29Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.5; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1976-07-29Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.16; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1979-11-29Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.18; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1982-07-01Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1984-11-08Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.3; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1985ABC and Columbus television news items on the dune buggy Named in Newsletter No. 3; about 9 minutes said to survive of an alleged 3 hours, original held by the Columbus Dispatch news department (Lammertink)
  • 1985-07-04Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.9; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1985-10-17Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.5; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1986-11-13Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.3; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1987-04-15Columbus Dispatch article Cited by stanslegacy.com; not searched
  • 1987-10-29Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1988-01-21Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.3; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1988-07-07Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; 'The U.S. Patent Office has completed the process of granting me all the patents' (index OCR); indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • c.1989WTVN 'Action 6 News' report Appended to the Einsiedeln video; read in the transcript
  • 1990-01-25Grove City Record Local newspaper, pp.4 and 7; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1990-09-13Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1991-06Ship & Boat International (RINA), p.38 Diagram of the cell; Griffin and Hindley; 'Demonstrations ... were, however, surprising' (snippet)
  • 1991-07-31Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; reprinted in Newsletter No. 8; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1991-10Air & Space Smithsonian, Oct/Nov 1991, p.32 'Energy-Related Inventions. The verdict was clear.' (snippet)
  • 1991-12Spy, pp.45-47 Quotes NIST's report: 'a net consumer of energy, not an energy producer'; Google Books full view searched in-book
  • 1992Asian Defence Journal, p.59 'very small amount of initial power using high voltage and low current' (snippet)
  • 1992-09-16Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.1; 'Running a car on water is now several steps closer to reality' (index OCR); indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 1993Bailey and Grotz review, Proceedings of the 28th IECEC, p.2-909 'over 28 patents ... over $1.6 million' (snippet)
  • 1995-12-17'It Runs on Water', documentary narrated by Arthur C. Clarke Channel 4 per stanslegacy, BBC per the Dispatch; on the Internet Archive; not viewed
  • 1996White, Hodgson and Crainer, The Future of Leadership, p.120 'managed to get his device patented around the world' (snippet)
  • 1996House of Lords seminar, British Maritime Charitable Foundation Meyer says it was cancelled; Hansard not searched · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1996-12-01Tony Edwards, 'End of road for car that ran on Water', Sunday Times, Features p.12 Laughton as expert witness, three experts found 'nothing revolutionary', '$25,000'; known via Wikipedia and a stanslegacy summary; original not found
  • 1996-1997New Energy News items on Meyer Bibliography PDF at newenergytimes.com blocked to script
  • 1997Fortean Times 94-99, p.9 Fraud finding, 'ordered to repay $25,000' (snippet)
  • 1998-03-25Grove City Record Local newspaper, p.4; indexed at stanmeyerfiles.com; scans not downloaded; the library archive was blocked
  • 2000Alex Heard, Apocalypse Pretty Soon, p.354 Endnote citing Lewett (NIST) correspondence of 28 Jun 1991 and a 1990 edition of the Birth brief (snippet)
  • 2007-07-08'The car that ran on water', Columbus Dispatch Death, coroner, missing police tapes, Belgian investors; Charles Hughes saw the tractor run 15 minutes on well water; family buy-out stories ($250 million, $800 million); Neville Reay quoted; read in Chrome
  • 2020Reading of the coroner's verdict (YouTube, uwantsun) Pointed to by stanslegacy's death-certificate page; not viewed
  • 2026Wikipedia, 'Water fuel cell' Relies on the Sunday Times and the Dispatch; 'three expert witnesses' tagged as needing a source
  • 2026Stan's Legacy archive (stanslegacy.com) Proof page, timeline, 'What the encyclopedias cite', transcriptions of the binder, dockets and probate · Advocacy archive
  • 2026Stan Meyer Files (stanmeyerfiles.com) Primary-source archive; Franklin County case snapshots; Grove City Record index; 'has not located a controlled, independently reproducible energy-balance test'
  • undatedPatrick Kelly, Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices, chapter 10 Builders' material on Meyer cells; listed on stanslegacy 'Proof'
  • undatedJames Robey, 'Water Car', and the Kentucky Water Fuel Museum Named by the Dispatch

Records named but not yet examined (5)

  • 1982-1988Canadian and European patent file wrappers of the 1982-83 filings May hold the 'Patent Validation Report' and any test filed
  • 1983-01-14WFC Patent Validation Report Cited once (Birth p.190) as 'WFC Test-Results, Mode of Operability'; no author, lab or number; possibly in the 1995 binder · Meyer's own description (patent holder, dealership seller)
  • 1988-1992USPTO file wrappers of US 4,936,961 and 5,149,407 Would show whether any demonstration or affidavit was filed; the cheapest deciding record
  • 1983-2000The '83 DuneBuggy' itself Transferred in probate on 5 May 2000; present custodian unknown; could be run with logged fuel and power
  • c.2009Shelves of binders photographed with the hardware Visible in one photograph (p.34); contents unread

Left out: copies and duplicate pages (second Birth copy, the Newsletter 11A reprint of No. 10, the 8XA PNG and PCB counted once), the binder's individual pages (counted in the binder), Thingiverse replica parts, forum builders' posts, Who's Who entries named in the brief, and search hits not opened (a 2023 MDPI review). Full catalogue: Meyers-Stan sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: One 100-second bench run of a Meyer-patent cell and drive on tap and deionised water: a power analyser integrating v times i at the supply, a fast scope at the cell, net charge through the cell, gas collected in a burette, a plain-DC control in the same cell, and a calorimeter; compare gas with Faraday and with input energy.

Deciding records: The USPTO file wrappers of US 4,936,961 and 5,149,407; the NIST Energy-Related Inventions file (Lewett, 1991); the DTI/Queen Mary and Laughton 1992 report; the Fayette County decision transcript and Final Judgment Entry; the 1983 Patent Validation Report; the binder scans of pp.59-60; the probate valuation; the Perkins TACO file; the surviving buggy and hardware.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: it computes the 3-inch cell's capacitance, its quality factor Q = omega epsilon / sigma (independent of size), the power to hold 650 V and 20 kV on tap water, and the energy behind '5 gallons per hour'. Then check Faraday: 1 A for 1 h gives about 686 cc of mixed gas.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter One calibrated bench test settles claim 1. It has been possible since 1990 and costs little. Its absence is the central fact of this project. arbiter.md, section 12
  2. Mathematician The ratio of the cell's conductance to its susceptance is sigma over omega epsilon, independent of geometry, so no electrode design rescues it; holding 20 kV costs 2.6 kW even with ideal pure water and about 24 MW with tap water. mathematician.md, claim 1; arbiter.md, section 2
  3. Contrarian The Perkins and Nagypal numbers are real observations by non-Meyer engineers who gave their figures; they were never repeated with net charge measured, and a proper test of that one point is cheap. contrarian.md, Case for the claims
  4. Physicist A US patent needs credible utility, not a demonstration; under MPEP 2107 asserted utility is presumed unless doubted, so 'granted under Section 101' is not independent confirmation, contrary to Hindley. physicist.md, section 1
  5. Investigator Laughton was a favourable observer in 1990, and the Sunday Times names him as the 1996 expert witness, but the docket transcription does not show him. The decision transcript would settle whether, and for whom, he testified. sites.md, Leads for review, historical record

AI noteMeyer's own 1983 patent (EP 0 111 573 A1) says pulsing 'enhances considerably' the splitting, yet its Fig. 16 shows gas falling as pulse on-time shortens: continuous DC gave the most gas.

Rank 5Tesla

no change A - UntestedB - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:57

Tesla's own 1899 diary records a storm-night signal he read as standing waves in the earth; it was never repeated, while his loss-free global power fails on measured losses.

Invention / theory background

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) built the polyphase induction motor and AC power system, the high-frequency Tesla coil and resonant wireless lighting. From Colorado Springs (1899-1900) and Wardenclyffe (1901-1917) he pursued a World System: ring the earth as a tuned circuit so receivers anywhere draw power. Around it sit his 1900 'self-acting engine', the bladeless disc turbine (1906-1913), the 1930s 'teleforce' beam and the papers sealed at his death in January 1943.

Ranking explanation

Meets all four criteria: an unrepeated storm-night observation in his own diary (A); open questions the arbiter left unsettled, from the 1943 papers and Wright Field photostats to the Allis-Chalmers report (B); guide loss, steam efficiency and coil resonance the reader can recompute (C); and deep influence on Moray, Bearden, TernionAG and the scalar-wave literature (D). More of its claims are settled, Established or refuted by calculation, than Morray-TH's or TernionAG's, but its open points are unusually well documented.

Key supporting elements

  1. Tesla's diary for the night of 3 July 1899 records a receiver that kept responding at about half-hour intervals as a storm retreated beyond 200 miles: 'It showed clearly the existence of stationary waves'. Never repeated, never disproved by experiment.
  2. His 1900 patent filing (US 787,412) gives the earth a lowest resonance near 'six per second'; the earth-ionosphere cavity rings at about 7.8 Hz. The Notes' editor quotes J. R. Wait (1974): 'an intriguing similarity' to ELF communications.
  3. The resonant engineering is Established: polyphase motor, Tesla coil, wireless lighting, single-wire power, low-frequency signalling round the globe. The Corums' reconstruction finds his 1899 receivers 'more than adequate' for natural VLF signals.
  4. The disc turbine runs: Lowenstein's sworn 1911 tests (102.8 bhp, Prony brake, condensate weighed) and later rigs (Hoya and Guha 2009, about 25 per cent), whose authors blame much of the shortfall on the nozzle, not the rotor.
  5. Military interest in his papers is documented: 1945 photostats of the Trump-annotated exhibits sent to Wright Field and 'never returned' (Cheney quoting OAP letters), a 1981 Defense Department memo, and a 1983 FBI airtel on alleged Soviet access.

Key contradictions

  1. Measured guide loss (2-3 dB per 1,000 km at VLF) leaves 10^-4 to 10^-6 of the power at the antipode; 1 MW sent reaches a 1 km^2 collector 10,000 km away as 3.6 mW. 'Almost without loss' fails by calculation.
  2. In June 1900 Tesla had 'not as yet actually effected a transmission ... to a great distance'; in 1916 his Colorado receivers were 'Oh, 10 miles or so', longest signal about 30 miles. O'Neill's 26-mile, 200-lamp test cites no source.
  3. His '18 million horsepower' was, by his own 1916 account, condenser energy discharged 'in an inconceivably small interval': his antenna store (550-660 pF at 4 MV) holds 4.4-5.3 kJ, about 0.3-0.4 microseconds at 13.4 GW.
  4. His 1900 sink argument says 'what is converted is clear gain'; a Carnot calculation (300 K ambient, 77 K sink) shows restoring the sink costs exactly the work gained. Nichelson's bifilar 'voltage gain' rests on transmission ratios below 1.
  5. The turbine test figures recompute to about 25-52 per cent of ideal expansion, against the 80-90 per cent Tesla stated; Allis-Chalmers (Dahlstrand, as quoted by O'Neill) reported about 38 per cent, with disc distortion.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 53 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Stationary waves in the earth seen on the night of 3 July 1899Never properly tested unrepeated; no trace record; Lowenstein's account not found
Power and signals to any distance through the earth by resonanceEstablished global low-frequency signalling, as guided radiation, not conduction Refuted by calculation power 'almost without loss' to the antipodes
Tesla's reported tests: O'Neill's 26 miles and 200 lamps; current sent 'around the globe' (1904-1927)Never properly tested as historical events; no record or witness Refuted by calculation 10 kW at 42 km by radiation; 'undiminished strength' at VLF
Resonant circuits, wireless lighting and the bifilar coilEstablished lighting, single-wire power, resonant voltage rise Plausible, untested coil capacitance neutralising self-induction Tested, not supported Nichelson's 'voltage gain'
Energy drawn from the ambient mediumRefuted by calculation Tesla's 1900 partial-gain step; equilibrium generator Never properly tested his 1902 and 1931-33 device statements; Gray-type devices
The disc turbineEstablished works as a machine Tested, not supported 80-90 per cent efficiency Never properly tested 10 hp per pound
Teleforce particle beamNot testable as stated as described to the press Refuted by calculation known particles through 400 km of air
Priority claims made for TeslaEstablished polyphase system, induction motor, Tesla coil Never properly tested pre-Roentgen X-rays, cosmic rays, atom smasher; planetary signals of 1899

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Nikola TeslaThe inventor reviewed: polyphase AC, the Tesla coil, the World System, the disc turbine and teleforce · Raising money for Wardenclyffe (1899-1904) and later; seeking priority against MarconiBorn 1856; studied at the Real Gymnasium and at Graz; conceived the rotating field in Budapest in 1882; worked for Edison, then licensed his motor patents to Westinghouse. Lectured on high-frequency currents 1891-93, ran Colorado Springs 1899-1900 and Wardenclyffe from 1901; died in New York in January 1943.
Fritz LowensteinTesla's assistant at Colorado Springs, named in 1904 as having made 'similar observations' of the 3 July 1899 effect; author of the sworn 1911 turbine test report · Tesla's associateGave Tesla's turbine test tables (102.8 bhp at 53.4 lb of steam per bhp-hour; 77 hp at 35 lb) with Professor Richards keeping the record. No account of his own 1899 observations has been found.
John J. O'NeillFirst biographer (Prodigal Genius, 1944); source of the 26-mile, 200-lamp test, the Dahlstrand quotation and the claim that FBI agents took the papers · Friend and admirerJournalist and friend of Tesla who wrote with his cooperation. Names no source for the 26-mile test; concedes records of the priority claims 'are not available'; his voltages are 5-10 times Tesla's own figures.
John G. TrumpExamined Tesla's papers in January 1943 and abstracted Exhibits A-Q, including the teleforce and Amtorg items · Government evaluator judging wartime valueNDRC/OSRD scientist. Judged the papers 'speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional' with nothing of 'significant value' or hazard; the only scientist known to have assessed them. His full report is not online.
Hans DahlstrandAllis-Chalmers engineer who reported the 500 kW disc-turbine trial · Manufacturer that tried and dropped the machineConsulting Engineer of the Steam Turbine Department at Allis-Chalmers. Reported about 38 per cent mechanical efficiency, disc distortion and a need for gearing; known only through O'Neill's quotation.
Aleksandar MarincicEditor of the 1978 Colorado Springs Notes; quotes Wait and Jackson on Tesla's earth resonance and lists Tesla's errors · Tesla Museum, which published the NotesWrote the scientific commentary of the Nolit, Beograd, edition. Says Tesla's expected resonances lie at much lower frequencies, in the earth-ionosphere cavity rather than the earth, and that high voltage was not needed.
James F. Corum and Kenneth L. CorumReconstructed Tesla's 1899 receivers; propose a Jovian origin for his 1899 signals; authors in Valone's anthology · Founders of Viziv Technologies and co-inventors on CPG guided-surface-wave patentsTesla-coil researchers. Their 2003 papers describe an RF-biased coherer with negative resistance in the 8-22 kHz range; their 1984 table gives earth-ionosphere cavity Q of 3.8-7.8 (accepted) and 3.2-6.4 (from Tesla).
Oliver NichelsonAdvocate of a Tesla 'fuelless generator' (unipolar dynamo, bifilar coil); author of the 1990 voltage-gain measurement · Advocate; says commercialisation was blocked by industryPresented 'Nikola Tesla's Later Energy Generation Designs' at the 26th IECEC (1991), calling it speculation; measured two 43-turn coils with M. King at Eyring Corp. in December 1990.
Evidence / artifacts (188 of 194 listed, 97%)

Own works and inventions (42)

  • 1888'A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers', AIEE paper The rotating-field reasoning, synchronising and torque motors, polyphase transformer. Printed in Martin 1894, Part I; digest.
  • 1889'Notes on a Unipolar Dynamo' Printed with the unipolar-dynamo chapters in Martin 1894, Part III; the machine Nichelson reads as Tesla's first fuelless design. Digest.
  • 1891Exchange with J. J. Thomson on electrodeless discharge Electrostatic against electromagnetic explanation; Martin 1894 pp.417-430. Digest only; the deep read recommended by QE was not run.
  • 1891-05-20'Experiments with Alternate Currents of Very High Frequency', AIEE lecture, Columbia College Infinite energy stored in the ether; electrodeless tubes; lamps lit across thick bars; energy 'in some more direct way from the medium' as a possibility. Whole text deep read (Opus). No 'wheelwork' passage in it. Includes the stout-bar experiment: lamps shunting a thick bent bar light 'although they are short-circuited' (IRW pp.194-195, Figs. 128-129; follow-up Q19).
  • 1892London and Paris lecture ('wheelwork of nature') Printed in Martin 1894 (printed p.236, PDF p.261): 'a question of time when men will attach their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature'. Digest.
  • 1892-12-21'On the Dissipation of the Electrical Energy of the Hertz Resonator', letter to the Electrical Engineer Reply to Bjerknes: air carries off energy as 'electric sound waves'; loss assumed to go as surface density squared times frequency, 'quantitative determinations' lacking. The word 'longitudinal' does not appear. Deep read.
  • 1893'On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena', Franklin Institute and NELA lecture Proposes disturbing 'the electrostatic condition of the earth' to send 'intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance'; resonant rise 50-fold from 1,000 V. Separate PDF plus Martin 1894 (deep read pp.341-416). pp.36-37, Fig. 19a-c: 50 V and 100 V lamps and a tube burn properly in parallel on two stout bars only 'by carefully determining the positions' (Q19).
  • 1893Mechanical and electrical oscillators, Chicago World's Fair Martin 1894 pp.505-520, digest only; Tesla said in 1900 the free-piston oscillator was the first element of his self-acting engine programme.
  • 1896X-ray (Roentgen) letters and shadowgraphs Letters in Tesla Said (digest). Known shadowgraphs date to 1896, after Roentgen's 8 Nov 1895 announcement; Crookes-tube work from 1894 and the 13 March 1895 laboratory fire are reported [web, arbiter].
  • 1896-03-08'Earth Electricity to Kill Monopoly', The World An early earth-power statement before Colorado; listed in the Tesla Museum bibliography (no. 14); text not read.
  • 1897-04-06Lecture before the New York Academy of Sciences An Anderson-edited text exists on archive.org; not opened (time limit).
  • 1898-11-17Electro-therapy paper on high-frequency oscillators Sliding contacts on stout conductors give 'any difference of potential, from a few volts to many thousands'; the stout-bar arrangement used as an adjustable tap. Known through Kraakman's 2017 quotation (follow-up Q19).
  • 1898-1899Submarine-destroyer articles and the 1899 Electrical Review account Tesla Said, chronological compilation; digest.
  • 1899-12-08Statement to the North American (Philadelphia) on the century's achievements Sent at I. Hawthorne's request and copied into the Colorado Springs Notes: the 'intelligent beings on a neighbouring planet' passage. A press statement, not a laboratory draft; that day's lab work has nothing on signals.
  • 1899-1900Colorado Springs Notes 1899-1900 (laboratory diary; Nolit, Beograd, 1978) Read: 3-4 July 1899 ('It showed clearly the existence of stationary waves'); 24 and 30 July and 26 August arrester-spark entries (Tesla asks whether induction through the air, not earth conduction, causes them); 6 August water-pipe item omitted, only '550 feet' given; 1 January 1900 loop lamps about 60 ft away and 2 January lamps fed through the ground (distance unstated); '300,000 W set in movement'; 'feasibility ... almost beyond any doubt'. Not read: 3-7 January text, 3 July 'signals' entries. research/files.
  • 1900-06'The Problem of Increasing Human Energy', Century Magazine Sink argument: 'what is converted is clear gain' (p.21) beside 'cannot hope to produce a self-acting machine ... for a long time yet' (p.22); his second law drops Kelvin's 'coldest', and his thermopile to outer space is an ordinary two-reservoir engine; 200 lb casting 'offset by an equal loss of the producer'; effects to about 600 miles; 'not as yet actually effected a transmission ... to a great distance' (p.32). pp.15-24 deep read; pp.15-33 read from the text layer. · Tesla, seeking funds or priority
  • 1901-02-09'Talking with Planets', Collier's Weekly Colorado signals 'with such a clear suggestion of number and order'; 'could not decipher their meaning'; 'the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another'. Does not say numbers. Tesla Said deep read.
  • c.1901-1904World System prospectus Magnifying transmitter 'passed a current, sufficient to light more than 200 incandescent lamps, around the Globe'; 'a loss not exceeding a few per cent'. Known as O'Neill's quotation (pp.182-184). · Tesla, promotional document
  • 1902Letter to R. U. Johnson on a fuelless generator Prompted by a New York Herald clipping of 9 June 1902 about Clemente Figueras; known through Nichelson's 1991 paper.
  • 1904-03-05'The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires', Electrical World and Engineer Account of 3 July 1899: maxima 'in regularly recurring intervals' as the storm retreated to about 300 km; Lowenstein made 'similar observations'; power 'to any terrestrial distance and almost without loss'; 'ten million horse-power' of activity. Scan and transcription in research/files. Also in the 1904 Rankine file: a first 10,000 hp plant at 'one hundred million volts'. · Tesla, seeking funds or priority
  • 1904-12Frank G. Carpenter interview 'With my transmitter I actually sent electrical vibrations around the world and received them again'. Known through the Corums' chapter in Valone (p.192).
  • 1904-1905Kelvin fuel debate and 1905 World System articles Tesla Said: loss 'a small fraction of one per cent' over 12,000 miles; earth period 'twelve times a second'; 10,000 hp ready 'next fall'; stationary wave lengths of 25-70 km (Reply to Edison, p.95). Deep read. · Tesla, seeking funds or priority
  • 1907'Tidal Wave' article and Mars-signalling articles Tesla Said deep read: 75,000 hp arc plant and a printed ratio of 16,400,000,000 that recomputes to 1.64e13.
  • 1907Tesla-Poulsen priority letters Includes John Stone Stone's testimony that Tesla first saw the role of the upper atmosphere (Tesla Said pp.104-105, 182-183). Digest.
  • 1907-06-21Letter: 'one hundred amperes around the globe' Printed 23 June 1907 (Tesla Said p.111); no voltage, frequency or method given.
  • 1912'Disturbing Influence of Solar Radiation' Tesla Said; digest.
  • 1915Statement that a voice was projected across the globe in 1899 Tesla Said pp.136-137; no laboratory record of it in the pages read.
  • 1916Legal interview with his patent counsel (ed. L. I. Anderson, 1992) '18 million horsepower activities' were condenser energy 'discharged in an inconceivably small interval'; antenna 500-600 cm at 3.5-4 MV, 1,000 A; Colorado receivers 'Oh, 10 miles or so'; longest signal about 30 miles (Houston Street to West Point, before 1897); the field coil 'I cannot tell you' where; Long Island 'not yet quite ready'. Interview with counsel for patent litigation, not sworn. Ch. VI and Appendix III deep read. research/files.
  • 1917Edison Medal speech Efficiency 'as high as 96 or 97 per cent'; known through O'Neill.
  • 1919'My Inventions' autobiography (as The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla, c.1935 booklet; Penner transcription 1995) Budapest 1882 rotating field; Magnifying Transmitter and World System; 187-foot tower; 'about 100,000,000 volts' in 1893; the automaton theory. Text and PDF copies are one work. Digest.
  • 1919-02'Famous Scientific Illusions', Electrical Experimenter Moon's rotation, Franklin's rod, wireless by 'true conduction'; Kelvin converted 1897; (1/4)^30 of 1000 kW printed as 115 billionth of a watt (about 0.9 pW); ground-current speed c/sin(theta). All pages deep read as images; web copy is the same work.
  • 1919-10-12New York Herald interview on planetary signals Signals 'might have come from Mars' (Tesla Said pp.226-228).
  • 1921Electrical World letter on signals from Mars 'A regular repetition of numbers' that 'must have emanated from Mars'; also ascribes others' 1919-21 signals to transmitter undertones. Tesla Said.
  • 1925-1942Writings abstracted by Trump: Exhibit F 'New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy through Natural Media' Electrostatic generator and open-ended vacuum tube projecting particles, 'presumably electrons'. Abstract only (FBI file 2, pp.43-48); full text not seen.
  • 1925-1942Exhibit J 'A Method of Producing Powerful Radiations' (Tesla's hand) Only description: a fluid jet creating 'a vacuous space around a terminal'. Trump abstract only.
  • 1927Statement of a test with a 1,500 kW generator Current 'returning from the antipodes to its origin with undiminished strength'; the Corums elsewhere give 250 kW. Via Valone ch.12, p.194.
  • 1929Herald Tribune interview Reporter's paraphrase: Tesla 'transmitted a considerable amount of electrical current to the other side of the earth' at Colorado. Tesla Said.
  • 1931'Our Future Motive Power' and a sea-and-earth heat power plant Tesla Said and Hayes; digest.
  • 1931-07-10Brooklyn Eagle: 'I have harnessed the cosmic rays' With New York American, 1 Nov 1933; no device or description. Known through Tutt (Valone ch.3).
  • 1934'Possibilities of Electro-Static Generators' Tesla Said; digest.
  • 1934-07Teleforce press statements and Tesla's July 1934 letter NYT 11 July 1934 ('10,000 planes 250 miles away', cited by Ventura); letter: 'Rays of the requisite energy cannot be produced ... Not so the agent I employ' (O'Neill pp.209-215).
  • 1937-1938Prepared statement and Immigrant Welfare text 'Dynamic theory of gravity'; energy 'flashed through interstellar space to any distance without the slightest dispersion'; prize claim to the French Academy. Tesla Said p.281; O'Neill pp.214-215.

Patents and patent office (26)

  • 1885-1886Arc lamp and dynamo regulator patents (US; CA 24,348) Collected US patents, digest; Canadian patent from the Google Patents search.
  • 1888Polyphase and induction motor patents, US 381,968-382,282 The rotating-field system; Established by practice (arbiter claim 7).
  • 1889US 406,968 Dynamo Electric Machine (unipolar) Two disks in opposite fields joined by a belt; no output figures. Separate PDF and in the collection; assignor of two-thirds to Peck and Brown.
  • 1889-1890Thermomagnetic motor and pyromagnetic generator patents Collected patents and Martin 1894; digest.
  • 1891US 447,921 high-frequency alternator; US 454,622 System of Electric Lighting; 455,069 Collected patents, digest.
  • 1893Power-transmission patents, US 487,796 and 511,559-511,916 Collected patents, digest.
  • 1894Reciprocating engine and oscillator patents, US 514,169, 517,900 (and 514,167-514,173) Collected patents, digest.
  • 1894-01-09US 512,340 Coil for Electro-Magnets (bifilar coil) Built-in capacitance to neutralise self-induction; (50/0.1)^2 = 250,000 energy ratio; claims the purpose only, no gain. Deep read with page image; OCR prints 512,840.
  • 1896-1897High-frequency apparatus patents, US 568,176-568,180, 577,670, 583,953; US 593,138 Electrical Transformer 593,138 is reprinted in Lindemann's appendix. Digest.
  • 1896-1898British patents GB 1896/20981, GB 1897/24421, GB 1898/12866 Production of electrical currents; transmission systems (possible family of 645,576/649,621); circuit controllers. Titles from Google Patents.
  • 1898Circuit controllers US 609,245-613,735 and telautomaton US 613,809 Radio control; Swiss family member CH 18652 (1898). Digest.
  • 1900US 649,621 apparatus for transmission of electrical energy 'True conduction', quarter-wave coils. Deep read.
  • 1900-03-20US 645,576 transmission through the natural media (air conduction) Terminals at 30,000-35,000 ft with 15-20 MV; 'model plant' 0.04 uF, 50 kV, 230-250 kHz; no energy budget. Deep read.
  • 1900-06-15Austrian patent AT 9098 (insulating conductors) Google Patents title only.
  • 1901US 685,012 liquid-air cooled resonators; US 685,953-685,956 stored-energy receivers Deep read pp.349-406.
  • 1901US 685,957 and 685,958 apparatus and method for utilising radiant energy Charging a condenser from rays or particles; no rate or voltage. Reprinted by Lindemann. Deep read.
  • 1901-06-01GB 1901/11293 utilisation of radiant energy Abstract: impulses through the natural media, one terminal to earth and one to an elevated body; probable family of 685,957/958. Espacenet original not viewed.
  • 1901-07GB 1901/13563 and AT 16480 transmission of electrical energy AT 16480 (German text): two primaries 'almost in resonance' with secondaries, toothed disc, earth plate. GB has no text on Google.
  • 1903US 723,188 and 725,605 (signalling) 'More than one hundred receivers' operated selectively; influence 'many hundreds of miles'. 723,188 incomplete: PDF p.415 duplicates p.414, claims missing.
  • 1905-04-17FR 354,791 'Perfectionnements dans la transmission de l'energie electrique' Same title as 787,412; possible counterpart, not confirmed; original not viewed.
  • 1905-04-18US 787,412 Art of Transmitting Electrical Energy Through the Natural Mediums Filed 16 May 1900. Earth of 'inappreciable resistance'; lowest 'six per second'; 0.08484 s; 471,240 km/s = (pi/2)c; wave lengths 25-70 km; checked on page image p.425. Cited by 431 later patents.
  • 1909-1921Foreign turbine and other patents: AT 60332 (1909), FR 515388 (1913), FR 540616/540617 (1916), GB 186,082, GB 174,544, FR 549,259-549,261, FR 541113, FR 549628 (1921) Disc machine, fountains, valvular conduit, lightning rods, the 1921 turbine set, balancing, air transport. Titles only.
  • 1913US 1,061,142 and 1,061,206 fluid propulsion and turbine Disk runner using adhesion and viscosity. Collected patents and Hayes.
  • 1914US 1,119,732 apparatus for transmitting electrical energy 'Tens and even hundreds of thousands of horse-power' in a resonating circuit; about preventing leakage. Deep read.
  • 1914-1928Later US patents: speed indicators and meters (Waltham Watch Co.), lightning protector 1,266,175, valvular conduit 1,329,559, aerial transportation 1,655,113-4 Collected patents, digest; 1,113,716 and 1,209,359 noted briefly in the deep read.
  • undatedCanadian patents CA 29537, 30172, 33317 Power transmission and current conversion; titles only.

Court and state records (3)

  • 1904-1922Waldorf-Astoria (Boldt) v. Tesla, Wardenclyffe foreclosure and appeal (NY Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 2nd Dept) Mortgages to Boldt 1904 and 1908; action 1915; judgment 20 April 1922. Appendix III extracts read: Tesla's plant description (100 x 100 ft building, 400 hp engine, 187 ft tower, 'loss of not more than five per cent'; pp.163-181), Bingham's account of an open, rifled building with 'four truckloads' of papers on the floor (pp.235-247); full transcript not seen.
  • 1915-04-08Defendants' Exhibit B: bill of sale, William N. Hallock to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Company Schedule 'including but not limited to': 200 kW alternator, two Babcock and Wilcox boilers, four lathes, '4 high-tension transformers in tanks', two submarine boats; no oscillator, condenser bank or coil. Counts differ from Tesla's 1922 memory; who drew it up is not stated. Transcript pp.309-312. · Conveys chattels to the creditor
  • 1943-06-21Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. v. United States, 320 U.S. 1 Marconi four-circuit claim invalid; the Court did not decide who invented radio; summaries say Lodge and Stone were decisive. Opinion text could not be opened (HTTP 403).

Government records (15)

  • 1925Bureau of Standards decline of Flowers's proposal (H. L. Curtis, J. H. Dillinger) Known only from Valone quoting Exotic Research Report (July 1999); no Bureau reply quoted.
  • 1940-1983FBI file 100-2237 on Nikola Tesla (1998 FOIA release, two PDFs, 265 pp.) Redacted; pp.1-60 and 70-133 of part 1, pp.1-60 of part 2 deep read. The FBI says it never held the papers; it has a stake in O'Neill's claim that it did. · FBI
  • 1943-01FBI teletypes and Hoover memo of 11 Jan 1943 Safe opened 7 or 8 Jan by Kosanovic, Clark and Swezey (a testimonial book and three photographs taken); Washington told New York to approach the State's Attorney and Surrogate Court. · FBI
  • 1943-01-09Office of Alien Property Custodian seals Tesla's effects About two truckloads at Manhattan Storage (Gorsuch and a Fitzgerald); recorded in the FBI file.
  • 1943-01-30John G. Trump's report and abstracts of Exhibits A-Q 'Speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional'; nothing 'of significant value' or hazardous; abstracts read in FBI file 2 (pp.43-48); the full report is not online. · Government evaluator (NDRC/OSRD)
  • 1945FBI informant report placing Pvt Bloyce Fitzgerald at Wright Field FBI file 2.
  • 1945-10FBI memos: 75 boxes and trunks still sealed; Wright Field men ask for access Rent about $15 a month paid for Kosanovic; a former protege and two men from a Wright Field research unit referred to the Custodian; the file does not say whether they saw the effects.
  • 1950sFBI review of Manhattan Storage records Only recorded visit: 'Federal authorities' in January 1943 who 'had taken numerous photographs' (possibly microfilm).
  • 1957-07-25FBI New York memo on a 'Tesla Set' newsletter Contains the FBI's paraphrase 'wall of force' for the 1934-40 teleforce claims.
  • 1960-12-06FBI memo on a caller doing 'a research study for U. S. Air Force on subject of geophysics' Told O'Neill's FBI statement was untrue; referred to OAP. Earlier dated 1959 in error.
  • 1981-02-09DoD memo 'Papers Recovered on the Death of Nicola Tesla' (Lt Col Allan J. MacLaren, OUSD R&E) Papers 'may contain basic principles which would be of considerable value to certain ongoing research within the DoD'.
  • 1981-03FBI replies to the Defense Department Examined by OAP, OSRD, ONI and NRL; nothing of 'significant value'; the two letters disagree on release to Kosanovic (Feb 1943) or storage in 1945. · FBI
  • 1983-08-18SAC Cincinnati SECRET airtel (Wright-Patterson AFB, Foreign Technology Division) Staff ('Butler', Soviet beam weapons) seek Tesla papers because the Soviets 'allegedly' had access; none found in WPAFB libraries.
  • 2003FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Parts 01-03 About 354 page objects against 265 pp. in the folder; Part 03 (Final) not read. Measured in Chrome, not saved.
  • undatedFBI 'List of persons associated with Nikola Tesla' Unsigned; includes O'Neill's report that the British approached Tesla through Baldwin and Chamberlain, range 200-250 miles. OCR poor.

Company and business records (7)

  • 1904Kerr, Page & Cooper opinion on Tesla's patents Known only from Tesla's covering letter to Rankine: 'you will see that they are controlling' is Tesla's reading of the enclosed statement, and 'not less than $5,000,000' is his own sentence. The opinion's text is not in the saved scan; the catalogue lists the firm's reply. · Tesla's characterisation, soliciting money
  • 1904-01-01Circular listing Tesla's US patents In the Smithsonian 'Nikola Tesla papers' scan (research/files).
  • 1904-04-19Tesla to William Birch Rankine on financing Wardenclyffe Plant 'could now be finished in three to four months'; $100,000 needed; 'ten thousand dollars a day'; the Nikola Tesla Company 'has no liabilities'; investors 'about seven times' their money in the worst case; Morgan and Astor interests; Tesla Electric & Manufacturing Company ($5,000,000) shelved. Deep read. · Tesla, raising money
  • c.1912-1913Allis-Chalmers 500 kW disc-turbine trial (Hans Dahlstrand report) 60-inch rotor, 3,600 rpm, about 38% 'mechanical efficiency' (definition unstated), disc distortion, gearing needed. Known only from O'Neill's quotation; no original found. · Manufacturer
  • 1935-04-20Tesla-Amtorg Trading Corporation agreement (Trump Exhibit Q) $25,000 for plans: 50 million volts, 'very small particles in a tube open to air', 100 miles or more, at least 350 miles per second. Abstract only; no Soviet reply in the file.
  • c.1990s'Tesla Pumps Generating Sales in the Multi-Millions' (unsigned, in Hayes) Promotional; no sales or test data. · Promotional
  • n.d.Westinghouse contract ($1,000,000 and royalty waiver) O'Neill's account; also 133 Hz changed to Tesla's 60 Hz (Penick essay).

Witness accounts and correspondence (8)

  • 1899-07-03Fritz Lowenstein's 'similar observations' Named by Tesla in 1904 as second observer; no account by Lowenstein found.
  • 1925-07-16John B. Flowers's 10-page proposal to test Tesla's system Sketch A (60 Hz world system), Sketch B (300 m electrical ring model), a balloon with standing waves at 29 Hz; arithmetic consistent. Quoted in a 1999 newsletter via Valone.
  • 1936-1938Tesla's letters to British Government representatives (Trump Exhibit H) 28 Aug 1936, 26 Oct 1937, 15 Dec 1937, 5 Apr 1938 offering a particle beam for a fee; reply 7 Jan 1938 'a polite expression of disinterest'. Abstract only.
  • 1943Abe Spanel's statement to the FBI Informant on the risk to Tesla's formulae; FBI file 2.
  • 1943-01Bloyce Fitzgerald's statements to the FBI Tesla said wireless experiments 'completed and perfected'; a model costing 'more than ten thousand [dollars]' in a Governor Clinton Hotel box; 'some eighty trunks'. The Trump party later found 'standard electrical measuring instruments'. · Informant, stake unclear
  • 1945-08OAP letters on photostats sent to Wright Field (Holliday, Houle, Shaulis) Trump-annotated exhibits forwarded to the Equipment Laboratory, 'please return'; 'never returned' per Cheney. Known through Cheney's quotation in the FBI file.
  • 1970Letter on 'Mr. Tesla's notes blowing down the street' as junk men dismantled his equipment Second hand; does not name Wardenclyffe. FBI file 1.
  • 1976Letter (writer redacted) enclosing Design News article Writer's view that Tesla's standing-wave claim 'was erroneous and involved techniques similar to Project Sanguine'. FBI file 1.

Experiments and replications by others (26)

  • 1911Waterside (Edison) station demonstration of the 18-inch turbine 200 hp at 9,000 rpm, 125 psi, 38 lb steam per hp-hour (Tesla's figures; journalist read the gauges). Hayes.
  • 1911-07Lowenstein's sworn report on Tesla turbine tests 102.8 bhp at 18,000 rpm, 53.4 lb steam per bhp-hour (Prony brake, condensate weighed, record by Prof. C. D. or C. B. Richards); 77 hp at 35 lb. Recomputes to about 25-52% of ideal. In Hayes; deep read. · Tesla's associate
  • 1952Armstrong ten-disc turbine 1.11 hp, 14 per cent; via Hoya and Guha 2009.
  • 1965W. Rice, J. Eng. Power 87, 29-36, and Beans Small disc turbines; later units 20-35 per cent; via Hoya and Guha.
  • 1973-1982R. Golka, Project Tesla, Wendover AFB, Utah (US Air Force contract) 51 ft coil, 130 ft tower, 'twice Tesla's original power levels'; used for lightning simulation; no cavity or distance result. Via Van Voorhies and Grotz (Valone). · Project promoters
  • 1976Design News article on Project Tesla (Snigier) Golka and Bass, Wendover, 20 MV discharges, 'based upon the unpublished notes of Nikola Tesla'. Enclosure in FBI file 1.
  • 1979-1987Rauscher and Van Bise ELF magnetic measurements (Valone ch.14) Portland, San Leandro (30.5 Hz), seven cities; 3.16 Hz earthquake precursor '84% accuracy' with no statistics; three coil wire lengths printed. · Hold detector patent 4,724,390
  • 1984Corums' comparison of cavity Q (Grotz Fig. 4) Accepted Q 3.8-7.8; Q from Tesla's disclosures 3.2-6.4; 0.20-0.30 dB/Mm. In Valone.
  • 1986Golka-Grotz proposal to excite the earth-ionosphere cavity Predicts 46 pT at 7.8 Hz from 150 kW and '90-94 per cent efficient' without calculation; 'about 6% per round trip'. No result reported. · Project promoters
  • 1986Lamp lit in the hands of Lindemann and Tom Brown near Eric Dollard's coil No instrument readings. Free Energy Secrets. · Advocate
  • 1988Sutton and Spaniol: cavity Q 'as high as 1000' Magnetic measurement 3-30 Hz, International Tesla Symposium; 'confirmed by others' via personal correspondence. Reported by Van Voorhies; paper not obtained.
  • 1988Corum, Corum and Spaniol, 'Concerning Cavity Q' Low Q 'does not necessarily limit' wireless power; reported by Van Voorhies; not obtained. · Corums, CPG/Viziv interest
  • 1990-12-10Nichelson and King, Eyring Corp.: 'A Special Case of Voltage Gain' Two 4-inch, 43-turn coils (Fuelless says 3-inch); S21 peaks 0.18 at 19.1 MHz and 0.97 at 11 MHz, transmission ratios below 1; '929%' should be 946%. Deep read. · Advocate
  • c.1990sTrinkaus, Son of Tesla Coil Oil-immersed close-coupled coil to over 2,000 V from 12 V; tubes lit at 5.4-12 W input; no light-output data. Deep read. · Sells booklets and kits
  • c.1990sValone's homopolar generator trials Closed circuit about 380 A; output and motor power within 1 W (Valone pp.261-267). Digest.
  • c.1999Cairns, The Tesla Disc Turbine Half-size model, two no-load speeds (20,000 rpm at 1.75 bar; about 50,000); no torque or power data; 9.75-inch machine a design only. Deep read. · Advocate
  • 2000Lindemann's build of Gray's 1975 patent US 3,890,548 'Doesn't perform anything like what was described'; 'negligible' energy recycled; no data. · Advocate
  • 2003Corum and Corum, 'Tesla's Colorado Springs Receivers' (Tesla Memorial Society) Reconstructed 1899 receivers: RF-biased coherer with frequency-selective negative resistance, 'more than adequate' for natural VLF signals, 8-22 kHz. research/files. · Corums, CPG/Viziv interest
  • 2003Corum and Corum, 'Nikola Tesla and the Planetary Radio Signals' (NASA Radio JOVE copy) Jovian and Io-modulated emission as a hypothesis for 1899 signals; Io events of 22 July 1899. Not read in full. · Corums, CPG/Viziv interest
  • 2008-12-27Karl Palsness, 'Tesla's Stout copper bars "Hairpin Circuit"', Energetic Forum thread 3546 Earliest use of the name found. Bars 3/8 in x 4 ft, 10 kV furnace-ignition transformer, 100 W and 60 W halogen lamps; bars held by hand; lamp lit in tap water (video 27 Feb 2009). No voltage, current or power measured: 'we can not meter this energy'.
  • 2009Hoya and Guha, Tesla disc turbine test rig, Proc. IMechE Part A 223 92 mm rotor, 140 W at 25,000 rpm, about 25% efficient; nozzle losses dominant. research/files.
  • 2010-2018Guha group papers on Tesla turbine flow (Guha and Smiley 2010; Guha and Sengupta 2012-2018) Listed on the author's site; not downloaded.
  • c.2016Davy Oneness, lamps lit 'under salt water' on the hairpin circuit A fluorescent and a 12 V lamp in series held under salt water with bare hands, no shock. One published photo report (Manning, Substack, 22 Jun 2026); no concentration, lead insulation or brightness given. · Reported by an advocate writer
  • 2018E. Alvarez-Cespedes, 'Tesla Hairpin Circuit' poster, Liberty University research symposium Undergraduate poster; parts list only from a search snippet; PDF refused to curl and has no text layer, so any measurements are unread.
  • c.2018N. Kraakman, Tesla Hairpin Circuit replication (Waveguide) 15 kV 30 mA neon transformer, 1000 pF, 22 mm bars: 12, 50 and 110 V lamps and an 8 W tube lit together after careful adjustment; wrong order fails. Counter 45-60 kHz; LCR 182.23 uH, about 100 times the geometric estimate; no nodes; no power measured.
  • n.d.Project Sanguine ELF transmitter tests (US Navy) About 1 W radiated from about 2.6 MW input; used by the reviewers for the launch problem [web].

Related work by others (19)

  • 1871Houston, 'On a New Connection for the Induction Coil' One pole earthed, one to a large insulated conductor: sparks drawn 30 feet away. Pre-Tesla earth-and-elevated-capacity observation. Digest.
  • 1872Elihu Thomson and Houston experiment Cited by Vassilatos as an earlier sighting of the 'radiant' effect.
  • 1892-12-14Bjerknes resonator experiments, Electrical Engineer The work Tesla answered with his Dissipation letter; not in the folder.
  • 1902Clemente Figueras generator (New York Herald, 9 June 1902) The clipping that prompted Tesla's letter to R. U. Johnson; via Nichelson.
  • 1930s-1980sMoray and Baumann radiant-energy devices Linked to Tesla by Vassilatos and Lindemann; no instrumented neutral test in the folder.
  • 1930s-1990sDoczekal, Schaeffer and Serogodski (DE 42 44 016) and Wiseman self-acting engines Claimed working models in Lindemann's 1995 article: Doczekal (Austrian patent 'NR. 155744', 1939, 'well above' Carnot), Schaeffer and Serogodski (DE 42 44 016 A1), Wiseman's HEAT books (Eagle Research address and price printed); no power-in or power-out figures.
  • 1973Edwin V. Gray demonstrations (National Tattler, 1 and 8 July 1973, Tom Valentine; Probe the Unknown; NewsReal 1977) Magnet thrown 2 ft from a 6 V battery; bulbs, a TV and radios from a motorcycle battery; witnesses Hackenberger (EVGray) and C. V. Wood Jr.; nothing metered. As quoted by Lindemann. · Company officers and promoters
  • 1975-1987Gray patents US 3,890,548, 4,595,975, 4,661,747 Reproduced in Lindemann's appendix (digest only); 4,595,975 also printed as 4,595,977.
  • c.1980s-2008Hobby Tesla-coil guides: TESLA-EQ sheet, solid-state coil TCL3 (Information Unlimited), J. Kelly 'Tesla Coil Theory' (2008) Design formulas, a flyback coil lighting a 20 W tube, spark-gap coil practice; no Tesla claims tested. Digests.
  • 1987Rauscher and Van Bise detector patent US 4,724,390 Named in the Valone chapter.
  • c.1990sNichelson's 'quantum energy' chapter and Bass's 'longitudinal' waves (Valone) Nichelson: per-electron 3.1e-14 eV, not 19-190 MV (unit error). Bass: E parallel to B, zero Poynting vector, 'without attenuation' asserted. Deep read with page images.
  • c.1990sVassilatos, 'Rosetta Stone' chapter Unidirectional impulses as a shield-penetrating 'shocking field'; under 100 microseconds painless; reprinted by Lindemann (deep read). · Advocate
  • 1991Nichelson, 'Nikola Tesla's Later Energy Generation Designs', 26th IECEC Unipolar dynamo and bifilar coil as a fuelless generator, called 'speculation'; cites Elsasser; earth-capacitor 1.6e11 J should be 1.6e10. Deep read. · Advocate
  • c.1991-2006Nichelson, 'The Second Law Thermodynamics and Tesla's Fuelless Generator' Displacement-current device 'with no expenditure of energy'; quotations omit Tesla's 'continuous pumping out'; sizing example stores 0.0125 J against 0.025 J needed. Deep read. · Advocate
  • 1994-1995Lindemann, 'Thermodynamics & Free Energy' and 'Tesla's Self-Acting Engine', Journal of Borderland Sciences An 'Etheric Energy Field' breaks the second law; First Law 'an outmoded, intellectual MODEL'; mechanical equivalent of heat 'not known'; a self-acting cycle with no condenser (refuted by calculation); two-phase heat-pump concept from Tesla's 1900 text. Free Energy Secrets reprints, deep read pp.137-156. · Advocate
  • 2005-2009Resonant wireless-power patents citing US 787,412 (MIT/WiTricity: Karalis, Joannopoulos, Kurs; Energous; Ut-Battelle 2009) Near-field non-radiative coupling, the short-range relative of claim 3. Of 431 citing patents. A citation is not an endorsement.
  • 2015-2019CPG Technologies / Viziv / Texzon guided-surface-wave patents and tower (Milford or Waxahachie, Texas) US 9,923,385, 9,857,402, 9,882,436 and about 140 rows citing 787,412; J. F. and K. L. Corum founders and co-inventors; no published field measurement found. Hackaday 2019; Viziv site redirects. · Patent holders, fundraising
  • n.d.Tewari and DePalma rotating-magnet generator 'Twice as much hydrogen' by electrolysis, one second-hand sentence in Lindemann 1994; no set-up or citation.
  • n.d.Moray, Radiant Energy pamphlet, p.19 'The draft of current is adapted to the load': one lamp or fifty with no retuning; the comparison Q19 weighs against Tesla's position-matched lamps. From the Morray-TH project files.

Later accounts and media (23)

  • 1894T. C. Martin, The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla Compilation of the 1888-1893 papers and lectures; all 18 chunks digested, pp.341-416 deep read.
  • 1910-1912Turbine press: Electrical Review, NY Times, Scientific American, ENR, Popular Mechanics, Technical World; Maule 1912; Stockbridge Reprinted by Hayes; '10 hp per pound'; '80 to 90 per cent' to a journalist. Hayes dates Stockbridge 1920; internal evidence 1910-11.
  • 1917-07Wire copies: Rogue River Courier (20 July), Bridgeport Evening Farmer (26 July) Found, not read (time).
  • 1917-07-19The Sun (New York): tower 'Demolished as Precaution' Federal Government had it dynamited, suspecting use for spying. Chronicling America.
  • 1917-08-05The Sun feature 'Destruction of Tesla's Tower' Repeats the Government story but says whether the buyer was the Government 'is not known'.
  • 1944J. J. O'Neill, Prodigal Genius 26 miles, 200 lamps, 'higher than 95 per cent' with no source named (p.171); Tesla's 1900 caveat on p.172; FBI 'opened the safe' (p.244); voltages 5-10 times Tesla's own; priority claims with records 'not available'. Deep reads pp.109-135, 153-185, 209-221. · Friend and admirer
  • 1974-04J. R. Wait, IEEE Trans. Communications COM-22 no. 4 (ELF special issue) Tesla's experiments have 'an intriguing similarity with later developments in ELF communications'. Quoted by Marincic; not seen directly.
  • 1978A. Marincic, commentary in the Colorado Springs Notes Tesla predicted 6, 18, 30 Hz against the measured 8, 14, 20 Hz; 'never able to carry out the experiments'; standing waves 'cannot be significant' for the arrester sparks; the 2 January 300 kW is circulating energy, active power smaller by the Q-factor; credits Tesla on excitation-dependent wave type. · Tesla Museum, publisher
  • 1981M. Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (pages in FBI file 2) Source of the 1945 Wright Field photostat account; probable source of the 'Project Nick' chain.
  • 1984J. T. Ratzlaff (comp.), Tesla Said Tesla's letters and articles 1888-1939; all 20 chunks digested, deep reads PDF pp.60-140, 219-233, 279-285.
  • c.1990sJ. A. Hayes (comp.), Tesla's Engine: A New Dimension for Power Turbine anthology with Lowenstein's report and Dahlstrand quotation; deep read pp.129-188. · Compiler promoting Tesla turbines
  • 1998-10-14T. Penick, 'Nikola Tesla, Master of Imagination' (EE 155 essay) Life from Britannica, Cheney and O'Neill; carbon-button lamp '20 times as efficient' with no test. Digest.
  • 1999-07Exotic Research Report (Flowers 1925 quotation) Source Valone cites for the Bureau of Standards episode; not obtained.
  • 2000P. A. Lindemann, The Free Energy Secrets of Cold Electricity Gray's circuit and Tesla's transmitter as 'radiant energy'; 99% lost, 'output 100 times greater' claimed; Gray's 1974 raid and 1976 SEC plea (book's account); US 787,412 reprinted (no gain claimed); back-cover blurbs by Constable, Desborough, Rauen. Deep reads pp.1-79 and 137-156; p.148 has no text layer. · Advocate, Clear Tech
  • 2000PBS, 'Tesla - Master of Lightning: The Missing Papers' Quotes Trump; tells 'Project Nick' (Brig. Gen. L. C. Craigie, Wright Field) with no source; papers to Kosanovic in 1952.
  • 2002T. Valone (ed.), Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature Anthology; deep reads of Tutt (ch.3), Van Voorhies (ch.7: 'Tesla's worldwide wireless power concept remains unverified'), Grotz (ch.9), Corum (ch.12: 7.5 Hz, ring effect 1.17 at 5 kHz), Rauscher (ch.14), Nichelson, Bass, Flowers; Terbo, Puharich and Niagara chapters digest only. · Advocates
  • 2009J. Manning, Atlantis Rising No. 77, report on the 2009 AEPC meeting Palsness 'prefers the Hairpin Circuit' to Tesla's 'Two Stout Copper Bars'; Lindemann quoted. Live site blocked; read from the Wayback copy (research/files/q19-ar77). · Advocate writer
  • 2017N. Kraakman, 'A Brief History of the Tesla Hairpin Circuit / Stout Copper Bars' (Waveguide) 'Nikola Tesla himself never used the term'; origin of the name unknown to him; quotes Tesla's 1898 tap; names Lecher lines as the mainstream relative.
  • 2019-11-20Hackaday, 'Texas Tesla Tower Titillates' Viziv tower near Milford, TX; Zenneck surface wave; no measured results.
  • 2023EEVblog forum, 'Tesla Hairpin circuit - curious phenomenon' Engineers read it as transmission-line or inductive-loop behaviour; tungsten hot-to-cold resistance about 8; 'doubtful that any of the lightbulbs are near nominal power'. No measurements posted.
  • 2026Wikipedia, Wardenclyffe Tower Boldt demolished it for scrap; calls the government story a rumour (citing Cheney 2011, Anderson 2002).
  • n.d.J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, on Tesla's earth-resonance estimate About 6 Hz against 6.6 Hz for a perfectly conducting sphere, per Marincic; the Mathematician could not reproduce 6.6 Hz.
  • undatedT. Ventura, 'Tesla's Death Ray: A Reconstructive Postulate' Focused 'longitudinal' electrostatic wave with a Fresnel lens; -15 V against -30 V without derivation. Digest.

Records named but not yet examined (19)

  • 1856-1943Nikola Tesla Museum archive, Belgrade 163,911 call numbers in 548 boxes, seven units (Legal Affairs & Finance; Plans and Drawings ...); no online viewer.
  • 1899-1900Colorado Springs raw charts and the Tesla Museum originals No trace record, distance log or sferic frequency for 3 July 1899 is known.
  • 1903US 723,188 full claims from the patent office Missing from the collected-patents PDF.
  • 1911Professor Richards's turbine test log Only Lowenstein's tables survive in the folder.
  • c.1912-1913Allis-Chalmers company records (Wisconsin / Milwaukee County Historical Society) Would hold Dahlstrand's original report; not searched.
  • 1915-03-30Foreclosure Exhibit A: Tesla-to-Holmes bill of sale and schedule Would show which Wardenclyffe apparatus was listed, against Tesla's 1922 list and Exhibit B.
  • 1917Wardenclyffe salvage records and 1917 Navy or Justice orders on Long Island radio stations (NARA RG 38, RG 60) Would decide between government demolition and commercial scrap.
  • 1925Flowers's own document and Bureau of Standards (NIST) files Not obtained.
  • 1930sUK National Archives, War Office reference 84/T/3458 Tesla's beam offer to Britain, as quoted by Valone.
  • 1939Austrian patent 155744 (Doczekal) Lindemann says it claims efficiency above Carnot 'with or without condenser'; the patent office record could check it.
  • 1943-1952NARA RG 131, Office of Alien Property Tesla case file Should hold Trump's full report and the exhibits.
  • 1943-1952Manhattan Storage and New York Taxation Department records Who saw the sealed effects and when they were released; the inventory, against Tesla's 1922 list, would show whether Wardenclyffe's special apparatus went to storage.
  • 1945-1948NARA RG 342 (Wright Field) and Brig. Gen. L. C. Craigie papers; Lt Robert E. Houle correspondence Would show what was done with the 1945 photostats and whether 'Project Nick' existed.
  • 1973-1988Golka's Wendover contract reports; Radio-Electronics (Feb 1981); the 28 Oct 1986 proposal; 1988 New Energy Technology Symposium proceedings Would show whether the coil was ever used to excite the cavity.
  • 1974-1989Gray records: Los Angeles County court and DA files, SEC file, Zetech records, Sparks (Nevada) death record No document in the folder.
  • 1990Eyring Corp. raw network-analyser traces Needed to recheck the bifilar 0.97 peak (half-wave resonance of about 13.7 m of wire).
  • 1990s-2008Tesla Coil Mailing List, KeelyNet and Usenet archives; Palsness's 2008 video descriptions Would show whether 'hairpin' was used for Tesla's stout bars before December 2008 (follow-up Q19).
  • 2015-2026Viziv/CPG field-strength data; Texas SOS filings (Texzon, Viziv, CPG); FCC experimental licences No published measurement found.
  • variousLibrary of Congress Tesla Papers finding aid; Columbia University Rare Book Library Tesla collection LOC search returned HTTP 503; Columbia not reached.

Left out: six further groups of Tesla Said items, digested but bearing on no claim (1890 hysteresis and Swinburne letters, 1891 Thomson controversy, 1901 variable-capacity and wireless-light items, 1908-1912 forecasts, 1914-1919 patent wrappers, 1919-1925 moon and balloon articles); the other 400-odd patents citing US 787,412; web copies and search snippets (History.com, a salt-water YouTube title, the NVtronics thread behind a login, Energetic Forum thread 11044's untested proposal, social media, X-ray and Marconi summaries); textbooks and reference pages used only for teaching; duplicate copies. Full catalogue: Tesla sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Repeat 3 July 1899 with a recording, non-threshold VLF receiver and logged lightning positions, or search sferic-network archives for half-hour modulation of distant storms; and measure field strength against distance (10-1,000 km) from a grounded quarter-wave resonator near 100 kHz, against 2-3 dB per 1,000 km.

Deciding records: The Tesla Museum's Colorado charts and 1943 papers; NARA RG 131 (Trump's full report) and RG 342 (Wright Field, Houle letters); the Kerr, Page & Cooper opinion itself; foreclosure Exhibit A and the Manhattan Storage inventory; 1917 salvage or Navy orders; the Allis-Chalmers report; Viziv/CPG field data; Lowenstein's own account.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: half-hour maxima from a storm moving 20-60 km/h imply a 5-15 kHz wave; compare 40-60 dB lost over 20,000 km with the 0.0011 dB per 1,000 km Tesla's 'small fraction of one per cent' needs. Step 6 turns 18 million hp into a 4.4-5.3 kJ antenna store released in about 0.3-0.4 microseconds.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Never properly tested for the 3 July observation: the data, a relay playing with a threshold adjusted several times, cannot be read as a stationary-wave amplitude pattern, and alternatives (mode fading, storm cells, sunset) are not excluded. The antipodal power claim fails on the guide's measured loss. arbiter.md, Claim 1
  2. Arbiter Correcting its own earlier reading: Tesla's 1900 text argues 'what is converted is clear gain'; restoring the sink costs exactly the work gained. A hypothesis stated in good faith from a heat-as-fluid picture, not a hoax; Nichelson's reading was closer to the text than first said. arbiter.md, QE revision A
  3. Contrarian No evidence that a negative experiment, a reanalysis or censorship of results stopped Tesla's wireless programme. Rejection of the strong claims was by non-adoption, not by controlled test; Wardenclyffe ran out of money. contrarian.md, How the claims were rejected
  4. Arbiter In the 1916 interview with his own counsel Tesla claims no Colorado test beyond about 10 miles and says Wardenclyffe 'was not yet quite ready'. His stake ran towards claiming more, so this weighs against O'Neill's 26-mile account; it was not sworn testimony. arbiter.md, QE revision F4 and F9.9
  5. Investigator Wardenclyffe's end has competing accounts: The Sun (19 July 1917) says the Federal Government dynamited the tower as a wartime precaution; its 5 August feature says the buyer is unknown; Anderson (1992) says it was destroyed for commercial development after foreclosure. sites.md, Leads for review 4; research/2026-10-08-chronicling-america.md

AI noteIn April 1935 Tesla signed a $25,000 agreement with the Soviet trading body Amtorg for plans of a 50-million-volt particle projector; it survives only as John Trump's 1943 abstract in the FBI file.

Rank 26Whittaker-ET

no change B - Open questionC - TestableD - Influential Primer · Arbiter · Sites log · Sources Card updated 2026-10-09 10:58

A leading mathematician wrote in 1902 that steady gravity can be cancelling longitudinal waves in light's medium: correct mathematics, a source of 'scalar wave' lore, unmentioned in his later History.

Invention / theory background

Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1873-1956), Cambridge then Edinburgh, showed in 1902-03 that solutions of Laplace's and the wave equation can be built locally from simple waves, and suggested gravity is carried by longitudinal waves, perhaps far faster than light, in the medium of light. In 1904 he wrote any electromagnetic field with two scalar potentials. His History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity (1910; 1951; Vol. 2 1953) records older pulsation models of gravity and, in 1953, light-speed gravity.

Ranking explanation

No anomalous experiment and no suppression story (no A): Stoney answered the idea in print within a year, and Whittaker's own 1953 History adopts light-speed gravity. It scores on open questions (B: a tensor-form shared medium, a common-phase oscillation of g), on what a reader can compute (C: example.py, Stoney's flicker to the 1.75 arcsec bending) and on influence (D: twistors, scalar-wave literature). Like Ives and Meyl: B, C and D without A; above Su-CC's local ether.

Key supporting elements

  1. The theorems hold: all three reviewers verified the integral solutions and the plane-wave decomposition independently; the 1904 potentials reproduce the Lienard-Wiechert field to 12 digits. The 1903 integral is an acknowledged ancestor of Penrose's twistor theory.
  2. The 1903 sum (2 dmu/pi mu) sin(mu(Vt - r))/r really is +1/r inside the front: a steady Newtonian potential can be written as waves whose time dependence cancels (arbiter: Established as mathematics).
  3. Whittaker named the waves longitudinal in his own words in 1902 ('a gravitational force perpendicular to the wave-front'); Wangerin's 1903 review read it the same way. McCrea (1957) says it 'anticipated some features of general relativity'.
  4. In 1953 Whittaker gave gravity an exact medium reading: for light a static field acts as a medium of varying permittivity and permeability (Copson 1928), which gives the measured 1.75 arcsec bending. FitzGerald's aether 'structure' became Einstein's 'curvature'.
  5. 'An identical property of the medium' fits the measured equal speeds of light and gravity (GW170817) as well as GR does. His History records relatives: Bjerknes' in-phase pulsating spheres attracting by the inverse square, Korn 1898, Larmor 1895, Riemann's aether.

Key contradictions

  1. The full sum is sgn(Vt - r)/r: -1/r outside the front, so the source changes sign at t = 0 and the field is steady only inside r < Vt. Whittaker printed only the inside case.
  2. Stoney (1903): each constituent force flickers, with 1/r and 1/r^2 parts, cancelling only for one exact 1/mu spectrum, an assumption 'so overwhelming' in improbability. Whittaker's reply, if any, has not been found.
  3. Observed gravitational waves are tensor (transverse) at speed c: LVK finds no non-tensor polarization, GW170817 bounds the speed, PSR B1913+16 matches GR to 0.2 percent. 'Longitudinal' follows from choosing a scalar potential, not from nature.
  4. 'Standing wave' is not Whittaker's word; it enters through Barrett (1993), Bearden and Titleman. A real standing wave makes g oscillate; keeping the inverse square to 1e-8 at 1 AU needs a period near 257 days at wave speed c.
  5. Whittaker's own 1953 History: Laplace's case for far-superluminal gravity is not 'very plausible', gravity and gravitational waves travel at c, and the single scalar potential was rightly dropped. Neither volume mentions his 1902-03 note; it is neither repeated nor withdrawn.
Verdicts by claim (8 of 15 shown)
ClaimVerdict
Integral solutions of Laplace's and the wave equation, and every finite wave solution as plane waves in all directions (1903)Established local, real-analytic; global form not proved and not needed
Two scalar potentials F and G give the field of moving electrons (1904)Established as a reformulation of Maxwell-Lorentz theory Not testable as stated later 'hidden longitudinal scalar wave' reading, absent from the paper (root: Riemann 1861)
A static 1/r potential is a sum of waves whose time dependence cancelsEstablished mathematics; sgn(Vt - r)/r, steady only inside the front
The constituent waves are physically real, with a 1/mu spectrum (Stoney's objection)Never properly tested argued against in 1903, not measured; not suppressed
Gravitational waves are longitudinal and may travel enormously faster than lightTested, not supported longitudinal/scalar radiation (LVK finds no non-tensor modes; a small scalar admixture is still allowed); his own 1953 History puts gravitational waves at c Tested, not supported speed far above c, for waves (GW170817); static-field speed untestable
One medium carries both light and gravityNever properly tested generic form, indistinguishable from GR so far; his 1953 History gives GR's static-field medium reading Tested, not supported scalar polarizable-vacuum form (Ibison, one analysis)
Gravity as a longitudinal standing wave (a hypothesis put to the review, Q07)Not testable as stated no frequency, amplitude, coupling or medium given Never properly tested concrete versions: in-phase pulsation (Bjerknes/Korn/Larmor) or a genuine scalar standing wave
The aether as the seat of fields; in 1951-53, the vacuum or space-time may fitly be called aetherHistorically superseded but instructive material aether Not testable as stated vacuum-as-aether, a terminology choice Established the underlying vacuum physics

All verdicts: arbiter.

Associated scientists / relevant people (8)
NameRole in the storyBackground and contribution
Edmund Taylor WhittakerAuthor of the 1902 note, the 1903 and 1904 papers and both volumes of the History; proposed undulatory, longitudinal gravity in the medium of light, and in 1953 described gravity at the speed of lightBorn Southport 24 October 1873, died Edinburgh 24 March 1956. Trinity College, Cambridge, Second Wrangler 1895, Fellow 1896; pupils included Bateman, Eddington and Jeans. FRS; RAS Secretary 1901-06; Royal Astronomer of Ireland 1906; Edinburgh chair 1912; Catholic convert 1930; Copley Medal 1954. Later papers on electromagnetism inside general relativity (1921-1940).
G. Johnstone StoneyCritic: wrote the 1903 MNRAS 'Examination' that praised the mathematics and rejected the physics1826-1911, M.A., Hon. Sc.D., FRS; the physicist who named the electron (Investigator's note).
C. A. BjerknesAuthor of the pulsating-spheres model: bodies pulsating in phase in a fluid attract by the inverse square, the nearest ancestor of a 'longitudinal standing wave' gravityNot in the review files beyond Whittaker's report of his 1876-77 papers (Gottinger Nachrichten, Comptes Rendus).
E. T. CopsonAuthor of the 1928 point-charge result that Whittaker's 1953 History uses to show a static gravitational field acts on light as a medium with epsilon = mu = (r+1)^3/[r^2(r-1)]Not in the review files beyond that citation (Proc. R. Soc. A 118, 1928, p.184, not read); the review notes, from memory with medium confidence, that he was Whittaker's student and colleague at Edinburgh.
W. H. McCreaObituarist (1957): read the 1902-03 result as an anticipation of propagated gravity in general relativity; recorded the daily-press attention · colleague and obituarist (the mathematician's interested-party note); no commercial stakeCosmologist and Whittaker's former colleague (Investigator's note); wrote the J. London Math. Soc. obituary with a full bibliography.
Jaume NavarroHistorian who used the Fisher Library letters to explain Vol. 2's treatment of Einstein and Whittaker's commitment to the aetherAcademic historian; History of Science 59 (2020) and Notes and Records 79 (2025). Leaves the antisemitism question unsettled for lack of evidence. His characterization is now set beside Whittaker's own framing in Vol. 2.
Thomas E. BeardenBrought Whittaker's 1903-04 papers into the scalar-wave literature (mid-to-late 1980s) with the 'standing waves' reading · patent applicant for devices based on his scalar-potential theory (provisional application noted by the Investigator)Not in the review files beyond the Investigator's snippets; see review/Bearden.
Mark TitlemanLiving author developing Whittaker's potentials into a theory of gravity and electromagnetism; repeats Barrett's 'standing waves' sentenceNot in the review files beyond his preprints: arXiv 2205.08309 (2022-2026) and Qeios 2023, with four open reviews averaging 3.25.
Evidence / artifacts (124 of 131 listed, 95%)

Own works and inventions (19)

  • 1902-07-14On the General Solution of Laplace's Equation and the Equation of Wave Motions, and on an undulatory explanation of Gravity MNRAS 62, 617-620, doi 10.1093/mnras/62.9.617. First statement of the gravity idea: force 'perpendicular to the wave-front'. Read by the Investigator from page images on OUP; not in the project folder.
  • 1903On the partial differential equations of mathematical physics Mathematische Annalen 57, 333-355. Scan with no text layer; all journal pp. 333-355 read as page images; gravity passage section 5 part 5, pp. 353-355, read by four readers.
  • 1903-11-12On an expression of the electromagnetic field due to electrons by means of two scalar potential functions Proc. London Math. Soc. (2) 1 (1904) 367-372. All 6 pages deep-read; Lienard-Wiechert field reproduced to 12 digits by the deep reader. No gravity, no longitudinal waves.
  • 1910A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, Vol. 1 (1910 first edition; revised and enlarged 1951) 1910 Longmans: digest plus four passages compared. 1951 Nelson: Ch. V, VIII, IX, XIII and gravity passages deep-read; preface keeps 'aether' for the quantum vacuum; mentions his own work only at bk 409 (the 1904 F and G).
  • 1921On tubes of electromagnetic force Proc. R. Soc. Edin. 42, 1-23. Known from Synge 1958.
  • 1927On Hilbert's world-function Proc. R. Soc. A 113, 496-511. Synge doubts its finite light-pulse claim; Vol. 2 cites it among variational developments (bk 170).
  • 1927-09-23On electric phenomena in a gravitational field Proc. R. Soc. A 116, 720-735. Maxwell's equations in the Schwarzschild field, inside general relativity. Section 1 read by the Q07 follow-up; rest not read; not cited in Vol. 2 Ch. V. A deciding record per the arbiter.
  • 1928Note on the law that light-rays are the null geodesics of a gravitational field Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 24, 32-34. Known from McCrea and Synge; cited in Vol. 2 (bk 165).
  • 1928The influence of gravitation on electromagnetic phenomena J. London Math. Soc. 3, 137-144 (also Nature 121, 1022). Compares EM in a gravitational field to a medium with variable permittivity and permeability, 'not quite perfect' (Synge's summary). Not read.
  • 1928On the potential of electromagnetic phenomena in a gravitational field Proc. R. Soc. A 120, 1-13. McCrea bibliography.
  • 1933With W. O. Kermack and W. H. McCrea, On properties of null geodesics Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. 1933. Listed in the Wikipedia bibliography (Q07 follow-up); not read.
  • 1935Relativity, gravitation and world-structure Observatory 58, 179-188. McCrea bibliography.
  • 1937The relativity theory of protons and electrons Observatory 60, 14-23. McCrea bibliography.
  • 1921-1940On distance in curved space; On Gauss' theorem and the concept of mass in general relativity; On the relations of the tensor-calculus to the spinor-calculus Three papers among the ten summarised by Synge 1958; the Gauss's theorem paper (1935) is cited in Vol. 2 (bk 194).
  • 1943The aether: past and present Endeavour 2, 117-120. Not online; cited by Navarro 2020.
  • 1944Old and new ideas of gravitation Endeavour 3, 39-42. Not online; cited by Navarro 2020 at p.41. The arbiter's first deciding record for whether he kept the wave-gravity idea.
  • 1949From Euclid to Eddington Later view of the aether and relativity. archive.org copies are lending-only.
  • 1953A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, Vol. 2: The Modern Theories 1900-1926 In the project folder since 2026-10-07. All 15 chunks digested; Ch. V 'Gravitation' (bk 144-196) deep-read with page images: gravity and gravitational waves at c, single scalar abandoned, Copson medium law, flat-space alternatives; no mention of his 1902-03 note. Other chapters digest or text search.
  • variousWhittaker and Watson, A Course of Modern Analysis Textbook chapter on Laplace's equation ('Whittaker's integral'); named in the primer's further reading.

Contemporary responses (1903-1904) (5)

  • 1903-06G. Johnstone Stoney, Examination of Mr. Whittaker's 'Undulatory Explanation of Gravity' from the Physical Standpoint MNRAS 63, 424-428. Praises the mathematics; rejects the physics: constituent forces 'flicker' with 1/r and 1/r^2 parts and cancel only for one 'overwhelmingly' improbable spectrum. Postscript on Mercury. Read from page images.
  • 1903Wangerin, review JFM 34.0827.01 (Jahrbuch ueber die Fortschritte der Mathematik) Summarises the gravity section as 'longitudinal waves ... with very great speed in a medium'. Read on zbMATH.
  • 1903Lampe, review JFM 34.0839.01 of Stoney's critique Records Stoney's dissent 'from the physical standpoint'. Read on zbMATH.
  • 1903-06-11Nature 68, 144, Diary of Societies Probably the meeting notice for Stoney's paper; behind a login wall.
  • 1903-1904Index and abstract entries for the exchange HathiTrust phrase search 'Whittaker's undulatory': 88 hits (MNRAS index, International Catalogue, Fortschritte der Physik, Year-book of Learned Societies). Hits not opened.

Related work recorded in Whittaker's History, Vol. 1 (25)

  • 1675Newton: conjectured aether whose density gradient might cause gravity; action at a distance as an absurdity Royal Society paper 1675, Principia Scholium, Opticks queries as cited by Whittaker; 1951 PDF pp.16, 21 (bk 18-19, 28-29). No speed given.
  • undatedHuygens: Cartesian vortex of subtle aether particles round the Earth as the cause of gravity 1951 PDF p.21, bk 28.
  • 1713Cotes: gravity treated as instantaneous 1951 PDF p.22.
  • 1759Aepinus: gravity as a residual of nearly balanced electric forces 1951 PDF pp.32-33.
  • 1760-1761Euler: aether-pressure gravity, 'Constant - 1/r' 1951 PDF p.56.
  • 1782Le Sage: ultramundane corpuscles, gravity by shadowing 1951 PDF pp.22-23; no speed given.
  • undatedLaplace: gravific fluid, speed 'at least a hundred million times greater than that of light' 1951 PDF p.110, bk 206-207; Whittaker calls it 'evidently in the highest degree questionable', and in 1953 'not very plausible'.
  • undatedElastic-solid aether and its longitudinal mode (Fresnel, Stokes, Poisson, Navier, Green, Cauchy, Kelvin, MacCullagh) 1951 Ch. V, PDF pp.71-81, deep-read: the longitudinal mode made infinitely fast, zero-speed or absent so it never showed in optics.
  • 1846-1851Faraday: Thoughts on Ray-Vibrations (1846) and the aether with 'other uses than simply the conveyance of radiations' (1851) Vol. 1 PDF pp.103-104, text layer only. Whittaker: 'the origin of the electromagnetic theory of light'. Earliest one-medium-several-jobs statement in the folder.
  • 1853Riemann: gravity and electrostatics from the aether's resistance to compression 1951 Ch. VIII deep read.
  • 1861Riemann lectures (Hattendorff 1875, p.330): scalar potential as aether density 1951 bk 291: Lorenz-type condition read as a continuity equation; field energy hard to match. Root of the later density-wave reading of Whittaker's potentials.
  • 1864Maxwell's abandoned attempt to trace gravitation to the medium 1951 Ch. VIII: 'I cannot go any further in this direction' (medium would need enormous intrinsic energy).
  • 1867L. Lorenz: retarded potentials and an electromagnetic theory of light Following Riemann's 1858 proposal of finite-speed electrical action; 1951 Ch. VIII deep read, PDF pp.140-142 (bk 267-271). The Lorenz condition is the one Riemann read as aether continuity.
  • 1872Tisserand: Weber-law gravity gives 14 arcsec per century at Mercury 3/8 of the 38 arcsec excess; 1951 bk 207-208.
  • 1876-1877C. A. Bjerknes: pulsating spheres in an incompressible fluid attract by the inverse square when in phase Gottinger Nachrichten 1876; Comptes Rendus 84 (1877). Reversal beyond a quarter wavelength if the medium is compressible. 1951 PDF p.149.
  • 1879-1880W. M. Hicks: the mathematics of the force between pulsating spheres Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 3, 276 and 4, 29. The exact retarded law is here; not read.
  • 1884A. H. Leahy: in an elastic medium (long wavelength) like phases repel Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. 14, 45. 1951 bk 285.
  • undatedKelvin: vortex atoms imply gravity acting instantaneously 'Since Laplace's investigations ... believed to be instantaneous'; 1951 PDF p.154, bk 294-295, deep read.
  • 1890Levy: Riemann-law gravity gives 3/4 of Mercury's excess 1951 bk 207-208.
  • 1895Larmor: gravitation from vacuous electrons with free periods in the fluid aether Phil. Trans. 186, 697; 1951 only, bk 286.
  • 1896Kelvin: electrostatic changes propagated by condensational (longitudinal) aether waves Nature 1896; contested by FitzGerald in a private letter to Heaviside (one party's account). 1951 Ch. VIII.
  • 1897Michelson: no dependence of light speed on height above the Earth 1951 PDF p.202.
  • 1898A. Korn, Eine Theorie der Gravitation und der elektrischen Erscheinungen Berlin. Pulsating slightly compressible spheres in an incompressible fluid give Newtonian forces. 1951 footnote, PDF p.149.
  • 1899Planck: compressible aether subject to gravity, compressed round the Earth 1951 PDF p.200.
  • 1909-1910Witte versus V. Bjerknes exchange on pulsation forces Cited in 1951 without content.

Related work recorded in Whittaker's History, Vol. 2 (1953) (23)

  • 1894FitzGerald: 'Gravity is probably due to a change of structure of the aether, produced by the presence of matter' Vol. 2 bk 157, page image. Whittaker: FitzGerald's aether became Einstein's space-time, and 'structure' became 'curvature'.
  • 1895Lehmann-Filhes: finite-speed gravity Filed with Laplace under 'not very plausible' assumptions (bk 149, fn 6).
  • 1898P. Gerber, retarded gravitational potential fitted to Mercury (1898; reprinted Ann. d. Phys. 52, 1917) Z. f. Math. u. Phys. 43, 93; bk 148, fn 7. The speed-near-c gloss is the deep reader's [memory, high], not Whittaker's.
  • 1900H. A. Lorentz, Considerations on gravitation Proc. Amst. Acad. 2, 559. Le Sage's corpuscles replaced by very-high-frequency electric waves; a net force needs electromagnetic energy 'continually disappearing'; then Mossotti-type unequal charges, about 1e-35 (bk 149-151, page images). Not read directly.
  • 1905-1906Poincare: relativity requires gravity propagated at the speed of light, not contradicted by observation Comptes Rendus 140, 1504; Palermo Rend. 21, 129. Vol. 2 bk 151, page image; developed by Minkowski and de Sitter.
  • 1907Planck and Einstein 1907: all energy gravitates; the principle of equivalence Berl. Sitz. 1907, 542; Jahrb. d. Radioakt. 4, 411; Eotvos 1891 cited for equal inertial and gravitational mass (bk 151-152).
  • 1909-1910H. Bateman: variable quadratic form for light in a gravitational field Proc. L.M.S. (2) 8, 223. Credited by Whittaker before Einstein-Grossmann (bk 154-156): Whittaker's priority framing.
  • 1911-1912M. Abraham: light speed c(x, y, z) as the gravitational potential Lincei Atti 20, 678; N. Cimento 4, 459; bk 153, page image. A scalar theory recorded by Whittaker.
  • 1911-1912Planck's second theory: zero-point energy 'The first appearance in theoretical physics of the doctrine of zero-point energy' (bk 103-104, text layer).
  • 1912-1914G. Nordstroem, gravitation theory Named with references only (bk 151-157); the label 'scalar' is the primer's, not Whittaker's.
  • 1912-1915G. Mie, field theory of matter The potentials are 'physical realities' in Mie's theory (bk 154); bears on the two-potential theme.
  • 1913Einstein and Grossmann, ten potentials g_pq Z. f. Math. u. Phys. 62, 225. 'The abandonment of the time-honoured belief that a gravitational field can be specified by a single scalar potential-function'; the one-third-work argument (bk 156-157).
  • 1914E. Cunningham: aether with velocity c at every point Whittaker: 'an objective aether is not necessarily foreign to the point of view of the principle of relativity' (bk 248, text layer).
  • 1916W. Nernst: the aether everywhere occupied by zero-point energy Bk 104, text layer. Root of the 1951 preface's 'so rich in physical properties'.
  • 1916-1922Einstein 1916 and 1918, Eddington 1922: gravitational waves Cited for 'gravitational waves are generated, which are propagated outwards with the speed of light' (bk 183, page image).
  • 1919-1947Eclipse measurements of light deflection Table of 1.61 to about 2.24 arcsec against 1.75; Whittaker in 1952: 'there is a discordance' (bk 180-181). Later radio and VLBI work resolved it in GR's favour (primer, memory).
  • 1920E. Wiechert: FitzGerald's aether structure as a change of dielectric constant Ann. d. Phys. 63, 301 (bk 158). Not read.
  • 1922A. N. Whitehead, flat-space gravity propagated at c, with Synge's 1952 study Synge, Proc. R. Soc. A 211, 303 (bk 175). Will (1971) later ruled it out by Earth tides (deep reader's memory).
  • 1925D. C. Miller, ether-drift residuals Proc. Nat. Ac. Sci. 11, 306. Rosen's flat-space programme 'claimed' it might account for them (bk 175).
  • 1940N. Rosen, flat-space general relativity Phys. Rev. 57, 147, 150, 154 (bk 175).
  • 1946A. S. Eddington, Fundamental Theory (edited by Whittaker) Offered a Mach-principle reason for the Mossotti-type charge imbalance (bk 151, page image).
  • 1951A. G. Walker, flat-space model with one Newtonian potential Nature 168, 961. Reproduces GR's perihelion advance and light bending (bk 181-182). Whittaker: 'It is unwise to accept a theory hastily'.
  • 1908-1922R. Hargreaves, integral form of the field equations and potentials of a moving electron Bk 250-252, text layer; no link found to Whittaker's 1904 F and G.

Experiments and observations by others (9)

  • 2003Bertotti, Iess and Tortora, Cassini radio test of light bending Nature 425, 374: gamma - 1 = (2.1 +/- 2.3)e-5 (physicist, web search summary).
  • 2003Kopeikin-Fomalont Jupiter speed-of-gravity measurement Reported c within 20 percent; Will and Samuel dispute what it measured. Arbiter web check.
  • 2007Kapner et al., Eot-Wash short-range inverse-square test PRL 98, 021101: no departure to 56 micrometres; a later test to 52 micrometres (arXiv 2002.11761, fetched by the arbiter; Kapner itself known from that check).
  • 2016Weisberg and Huang, PSR B1913+16 Orbital decay 0.9983 +/- 0.0016 of the GR quadrupole value (arXiv 1606.02744).
  • 2017LVK, GW170817 and GRB 170817A Gravitational-wave speed equals c within -3e-15 to +7e-16 (arXiv 1710.05834). Rules out 'enormously greater' for waves.
  • 2018Parkes Pulsar Timing Array search for an oscillating potential from ultralight scalar dark matter 26 pulsars 2004-2016, no significant signal, nanohertz band, one model (arXiv 1810.03227). Not a search for a Whittaker-type wave.
  • 2021LVK, Tests of GR with GWTC-3 'no evidence for ... non-GR modes of polarization' (arXiv 2112.06861).
  • 2022Touboul et al., MICROSCOPE final results All materials fall alike to about 1e-15 (arXiv 2209.15487).
  • 2026-10-06Jin and Zheng, breathing-mode limits from GWTC data (preprint) Breathing amplitude near tensor amplitude disfavoured in three events; smaller scalar parts still allowed (arXiv 2610.08588; not peer reviewed).

Later accounts and media (8)

  • 1956G. F. J. Temple, Biographical Memoir of Whittaker Biog. Mem. FRS 2, 299-325; full bibliography. Seen in Google results only.
  • 1957W. H. McCrea, obituary in J. London Math. Soc. 32, 234-256 The 1902-03 result 'anticipated some features of general relativity' and 'attracted attention in the daily press of the time'. Read (PDF text).
  • 1958J. L. Synge, Whittaker's Contributions to the Theory of Relativity Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc. Ten papers summarised; no mention of the 1902-03 idea or the aether. Read (PDF text).
  • 2003O'Connor and Robertson, MacTutor biography Dates, RAS secretary 1901-06, 'most sensational' (Watson).
  • 2003A. Warwick, Masters of Theory (ch. 5) Cambridge aether school; source of 'convinced that gravitation and electromagnetism were ultimately connected'. Not read.
  • 2020-11-03J. Navarro, Whittaker, Einstein, and the History of the Aether History of Science 59, 287-314. Uses the Fisher letters; GR's low standing in the early 1950s shaped Vol. 2; antisemitism left unsettled. Abstract only (paywalled); its Poincare-Lorentz point is confirmed on Vol. 2's own text (bk 40).
  • 2025J. Navarro, Edmund T. Whittaker, physics and Catholicism Notes Rec. 79, 195-216, open access. Searched for aether and gravitation, not read in full.
  • 2026Wikipedia, Bibliography of E. T. Whittaker Read in the Q07 follow-up; no edits since May 2026.

Later work built on Whittaker's mathematics (7)

  • 1904H. Bateman, extension of the integral to the wave equation Whittaker's pupil; known from Mason and Barrett notes.
  • 1989R. S. Ward, Twistors in 2+1 dimensions Cites JFM 34.0827.01 (zbMATH: 26 citing documents).
  • 2005M. Dunajski, Oriented straight lines and twistor correspondence zbMATH citing list.
  • 2014Thompson, Swearngin and Bouwmeester, Linked and Knotted Gravitational Radiation J. Phys. A 47, 355205 (arXiv 1402.3806): linearised gravitational waves built from the 'Whittaker solution'; tensor waves, no medium.
  • 2015Berthel et al., scalar Whittaker potentials in plasmonics Phys. Rev. E 92, 033202: the 1904 method in ordinary optics.
  • 2016-2025Other twistor and wave papers citing Whittaker 1903 Nicolas 2016; Pantilie 2017; Banjai et al. 2017; Martin 2018; Baird and Wehbe 2018; Adamo, Mason and Sharma 2023; Baumann et al. 2025 (zbMATH list).
  • variousHitchin (on Atiyah), Mason (Oxford notes), J. Barrett (Chameleon Twistor Theory), arXiv 1312.4020 Each traces the Penrose transform back to Whittaker 1903. Google snippets.

Related work by others: aether, scalar and longitudinal gravity (10)

  • 1911-03-23C. F. Brush, A Kinetic Theory of Gravitation Nature 86, 130-132: aether waves, longitudinal allowed, a wave form of Le Sage. Read on rexresearch.
  • 1911-03-30Oliver Lodge, reply in Nature Calls it a modified Le Sage theory; screening and other objections.
  • 1917T. J. J. See, Electrodynamic Wave-Theory of Physical Forces, vol. 1 Wave theory of gravitation; on archive.org; not opened.
  • 1926-1929C. F. Brush, free-fall and calorimeter papers (Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.) and 'Gravitation' (1929) Claims heat-generating silicates fall slower, about 1e-5 over 122 cm; Bureau of Standards check announced. One source (rexresearch compilation).
  • 1957R. H. Dicke, Gravitation without a principle of equivalence Polarizable-vacuum idea: gravity as a vacuum dielectric. Cited via Wikipedia and Q07.
  • 1998T. Van Flandern, speed of gravity at least 2e10 c from missing aberration Cited by the contrarian and physicist from memory; answered by Carlip 2000.
  • 2000S. Carlip, Aberration and the Speed of Gravity Phys. Lett. A: in GR aberration is almost exactly cancelled, permitting c_g = c (arXiv gr-qc/9909087, abstract).
  • 2002H. E. Puthoff, polarizable-vacuum model of gravity Known via the Wikipedia 'Polarizable vacuum' page (which labels it fringe; that label is the source's).
  • 2003M. Ibison, Investigation of the polarizable vacuum cosmology PV model radiates 2/3 of GR's power, so it fails PSR B1913+16 as published; one analysis from within the Puthoff group (arXiv astro-ph/0302273).
  • 2014Khmelnitsky and Rubakov, oscillating potential from ultralight scalar dark matter Cited from memory (medium) by the reviewers; the model the 2018 pulsar-timing search tested.

Scalar-wave and standing-wave readings of Whittaker (12)

  • 1981 onT. E. Bearden, writings on Whittaker's potentials 'Solutions to Secrets' (1981), energy-from-vacuum PDF using the 'standing waves' sentence, a provisional patent application, video series. Google snippets; see review/Bearden. · patent applicant for devices based on his scalar-potential theory
  • 1993T. W. Barrett, Electromagnetic Phenomena Not Explained by Maxwell's Equations Source of the 'they are standing waves' sentence quoted by Titleman.
  • 1997Munera and Guzman, longitudinal currents in Maxwell's equations Apeiron. Known from Munera 2019.
  • 2001Trovon de Carvalho and Rodrigues, The Non Sequitur Mathematics and Physics of the 'New Electrodynamics' Proposed by the AIAS Group Critique of the AIAS/Bearden use of Whittaker; known from Titleman's citation.
  • 2018H. A. Munera, periodicity critique of the 'general solution' Known only as reported by Titleman 2023.
  • 2019H. A. Munera, Neo-Cartesian unified fluid and field theory J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 1251, 012038: 'agrees with Whittaker' on longitudinal waves; argues composition-dependent gravity. Read (PDF text).
  • 2022S. Darmos, Strong evidence for composition-dependent gravity from Cavendish experiments, with a published response ResearchGate; snippets only.
  • 2022-2026M. Titleman, The Duality of Whittaker Potential Theory arXiv 2205.08309, v11 25 Sep 2026: gravity and EM from longitudinal waves; MOND and more. Abstract read.
  • 2023-05-24M. Titleman, Representations and Implications of Papers Written by E.T. Whittaker in 1903 and 1904 Qeios Y3D1HM; 4 open reviews, mean 3.25. Read.
  • 2026-07M. Titleman, Gravitation Due to Scalar Potentials and Black Holes ResearchGate; not opened.
  • undated'Files on Scalar Electromagnetics' (critique of Bearden, author not identified) Scribd: says Bearden 'appropriated' Whittaker's work in the mid-to-late 1980s (that source's characterization).
  • variousCurrent 'longitudinal standing wave' papers: Meyl (Scalar Waves), Gouveia 2025, 'Theory of the Gravitational Constant Part IV', CCSE in/out matter waves Google snippets; none opened; none cites a measurement separating them from GR.

Records named but not yet examined (6)

  • 1902-1903Daily-press coverage of the undulatory gravity result McCrea: it 'attracted attention in the daily press'. Targets: British Newspaper Archive, Times Digital Archive, Chronicling America, Trove.
  • 1903Whittaker's reply to Stoney, if any Not found anywhere, including both volumes of the History.
  • 1903Fortschritte der Physik v.59 abstract of Whittaker and Stoney HathiTrust hit not opened; also an unidentified 'Journal v.30 (1919-20)' hit.
  • 1911-1931US Bureau of Standards check of Brush's silicates; Brush papers at Case Western Reserve Result not located.
  • 1918-1956Fisher Library, Toronto, Edmund Taylor Whittaker Papers, MS COLL 00219 11 boxes: letters to his son J. M. Whittaker (Box 5, 22 Sep 1953), writings, autobiography (Box 11). Finding aid PDF not downloaded; only the owner can obtain.
  • 1928E. T. Copson, point charge in the field of a point mass Proc. R. Soc. A 118, 184: source of the epsilon = mu = (r+1)^3/[r^2(r-1)] law in Vol. 2 (bk 158). Named by the arbiter as a deciding record; queued for the Investigator.

Left out: Whittaker's Analytical Dynamics (mentioned only in passing), his unrelated self-citations in Vol. 2 (small divisors 1917, de Sitter world 1931), works cited only inside Titleman (Yurth 2007, Laszlo 2003), and two secondary snippets on the Fisher boxes (McCartney 2019, Maidment 2021). Full catalogue: Whittaker-ET sources.

What would settle it · Try it yourself

Deciding experiment: Detection or tight exclusion of scalar, breathing or longitudinal gravitational-wave polarization with a network able to see it; and, for standing-wave forms, a search for a common-phase oscillation of g at one frequency (gravimeters, atom interferometers, pulsar timing) correlated with an optical-clock modulation at the same frequency.

Deciding records: Whittaker's 1944 Endeavour article 'Old and new ideas of gravitation'; the Fisher Library papers MS COLL 00219, especially the Box 11 autobiography; the 1902-03 newspaper articles; any reply to Stoney; the 1927 Proc. R. Soc. A 116 paper; Copson (1928); Hicks (1879-80) on the retarded pulsation force.

Try it yourself: Run example.py: Part 2 sums Whittaker's waves to +1/r inside the front and -1/r outside, Part 3 shows Stoney's flicker, Part 5 finds the 257-day period, Part 7 gives Bjerknes' 4d/c bound (33 minutes Sun-Earth), Part 8 turns Copson's 1953 medium law into the 1.75 arcsec bending.

Top reviewer notes (5)
  1. Arbiter Vol. 2 (1953) is the inventor's own published view: gravity and gravitational waves at c, Laplace's superluminal case implausible, the single scalar dropped. It agrees with the modern tests but is not a recantation: he neither retracts nor repeats 1903. Weight moves toward 'gave it up'; a medium conviction survives. arbiter.md, QE revision 2, How this bears on the verdicts and Absence of evidence item 1
  2. Arbiter The Q07 hypothesis has two homes to keep apart: Whittaker 1902-03, the origin of 'gravity as waves in the light medium', and Bjerknes-Korn-Larmor, the origin of 'gravity from in-phase longitudinal oscillation of a medium'. 'Longitudinal standing wave' is closer to the second: an oscillating near-field with common phase. arbiter.md, QE revision, Where the Q07 hypothesis lives best
  3. Mathematician Every scalar-potential wave is automatically longitudinal: the force -grad V lies along the direction of travel. Maxwell's waves are transverse because their fields are curls. So 'identical property of the medium' does not carry over from light to gravity. mathematician.md, 4.3
  4. Contrarian The idea was published in two major journals and answered in print within a year; no sign of suppression. The maths won, becoming a tool for gravitational radiation itself, but as tensor waves with no medium; the physical picture lost. contrarian.md, section 2
  5. Investigator Stoney's 1/r component is a concrete point: each constituent force falls off as 1/r, like radiation, and cancels only in the sum. If the constituents were real and the cancellation inexact (recent switch-on, moving source, spectrum cut-off), time-varying 1/r forces would remain. That inference is the Investigator's, not Stoney's. research/2026-10-07-oup-mnras.md, section 2

AI noteWhittaker was RAS Secretary when his gravity note appeared and when Stoney's rebuttal was read there; fifty years later both volumes of his own History of exactly this subject leave the note out, while adopting light-speed gravity.

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53–Znidarsic-FrankZnidarsic's 'transitional velocity' 1.094e6 m/s, said to explain cold fusion and Podkletnov effects, equals alpha c / 2 and so derives nothing.BCInternally inconsistent transitional velocity derivationsPrimer
54–LarkenLarkin's 1903 'Radiant Energy': a corpuscle sea carries all radiation and the sun drives storms; the solar link holds, the sea does not.BDHistorically superseded but instructive corpuscle-sea ether; sun-storm link EstablishedPrimer
55–Minderle-ThomasMontalk's scalar superpotential: gravity as beta times div A, gauge physical, E=B=0 longitudinal waves, ambient potential c squared over 2.BCNever properly tested longitudinal wavesPrimer
56–StClairJohnJohn St. Clair's five hyperspace patents: opposed coils making negative mass, 'hyperspace energy' cables and charge-propelled craft; none built on record.CNever properly tested every devicePrimer
57–zzz-UnknownBoyd's Subquantum Plenum essay: aether gas, push gravity, Piggott's 1920 gravity-neutralising discharge and a missing 1999 paper.BCRefuted by calculation push gravityPrimer
58–CorreaThe Correas' pulsed abnormal glow discharge tube reporting battery gain of 2 to 5 times; self-pulsing is real, net gain never neutrally tested.ACNever properly tested net gainPrimer
59–Gray-EVEdwin Gray's capacitor-discharge repulsion motor and the 1974 Los Angeles raid story; the power claim fails an energy budget.ACRefuted by calculation 10 hp for 26.8 WPrimer
60–Ainslie-Rosemary-AnnA transistor-switched battery heater reporting 16-18 times scope-measured input; the input measurement was never neutrally checked.ACRefuted by calculation net energy gainPrimer
61–Tolman-RTolman's 1917 relativity textbook, a mainstream work whose evidential case was weaker than it says; Ritz emission theory now tested and unsupported.BDEstablished relativity textbook contentPrimer
62–Willams-CrookesCrookes's 1879 radiant matter lecture: cathode rays as a fourth state of matter; the observations stand, the molecule reading was superseded by the electron.CDEstablished observations; carriers were not gas moleculesPrimer
63–Farnsworth-PTFarnsworth's multipactor tube with a 1934 report of 25 W out from 25 W in; the mechanism is real, this tube never rebuilt.BCPlausible, untested this tube's 25 W in, 25 W outPrimer
64–Lodge-OOliver Lodge's 1908 stationary perfect-fluid ether of density 1e12 g/cm3; the arithmetic is right, the vacuum-density reading is off by 1e41.DNot testable as stated fluid ether densityPrimer
65–Poincare-HenriPoincare's 1909 lecture 'The New Mechanics': velocity-dependent mass, relativity principle and Lorentz gravity; mostly established, evidence overstated, Mercury fit fails.BDEstablished velocity-dependent mass and relativity principlePrimer
66–Thompson-JJJ. J. Thomson's corpuscle (electron), plum-pudding atom and positive rays; the electron is Established, the atom model and transmutation claims are not.BDEstablished corpuscles and e/m; plum-pudding atom Tested, not supportedPrimer
67–Lorentz-HALorentz's 1906 electron lectures: the transformation, contraction by molecular forces and the deformable electron in an immovable ether, with limits he states himself.BDEstablished transformation and free-ether invariance; rigid electron Tested, not supportedPrimer
68–Jeans-JHJeans's classical case against equipartition, with a time-symmetric atom and electromagnetic electron; escape and mass formulas stand, the specific-heat rescue failed.BDHistorically superseded but instructive classical answer to equipartition; Jeans escape EstablishedPrimer
69–Brush-CharlesCharles Brush's push gravity from aether-wave 'energy shadows', with pendulum tests showing composition-dependent weight and heat.ACRefuted by calculation push gravityPrimer
70–Bedini-JohnBedini's pulse motor recharging a second battery with spikes, said to give net gain; the cheap two-battery test is not done.ACNever properly tested whole-system COP above 1Primer
71–Evans-MyronEinstein-Cartan-Evans theory: electromagnetism as spacetime torsion and free power from the spin connection; its key identity is disguised Einstein.DInternally inconsistent resonance derivationPrimer
72–Fedderson-DaedalusSpark-gap studies in which unlike-metal gaps fire preferentially on one polarity; a small genuine anomaly with no suppression.BCNever properly tested rectification seriesPrimer
73–RuderferMRuderfer's neutrino theory: unbound neutrinos as bosons in a 33 K sea, a neutrino route to ESP, a Moessbauer ether argument; the sea fails budgets.BDRefuted by calculation saturated neutrino sea; ether-cancellation point EstablishedPrimer
74–Dollard-EricSteinmetz and Tesla-style dielectric electricity with faster-than-light and earthquake-warning claims; field energy is real, the extras are not.DRefuted by calculation faster-than-light releasePrimer
75–SchusterAndHemsalech1899 moving-film spark spectra showing metal vapour crossing a 1 cm gap in microseconds; a clean mainstream question a gated Doppler test would settle.BCNever properly tested matter-velocity readingPrimer
76–Morton-WallHouston's 1871 coil-with-earth connection and Wahl's 21-inch Morton coil: sparks from pipe-connected objects 30 ft away, an early 'etheric force' episode; quantities never measured.BCEstablished qualitative earth-and-conductor spark effect; any quantity Never properly testedPrimer
77–Popa-SimilFission-fragment direct conversion in nanometre stacks claimed above 80 percent efficiency at under 10 mV; no stack was measured.ARefuted by calculation strong form, over 80 percentPrimer
78–NRGFromTheVacA 24 V battery, ferrite coil and timed switch charging a capacitor to 170 V or more, with an 'endothermic' spark; videos lost.CNever properly tested net gainPrimer
79–Perreault-BruceUS 7,800,286 alpha fusion energy valve on germanium and a Moray-lineage valve chain; the 6.06 MeV figure is a reaction cost.BRefuted by calculation net energy from alpha reactionPrimer
80–Radiant_One_YoutubeAnonymous YouTube series on a one-transistor RF oscillator lighting 52 LEDs only with an earth rod; no output power recorded.CNever properly tested strong form, ground energyPrimer
81–Frollov-Alexander'Free' energy from a potential field, single-wire Avramenko-plug transmission and Brown's asymmetric capacitor.CNever properly tested free powerPrimer
82–Dunning-Davis-JMaxwell's quaternion Temporal Field, scalar waves, aether and hadronic mechanics, including the Sweet-Bearden battery-less claim.DRefuted by calculation scalar-wave energyPrimer
83–DLHotsonDirac's negative-energy sea as a real epo Bose condensate underlying photons, gravity and nuclei.DNot testable as stated epo modelPrimer
84–Very-FrankFrank Very's 1919 pamphlet on light as electron-sized ether-particles and a universal aura; his own arithmetic fails.DTested, not supported fixed-size light particlesPrimer
86–Brown-PaulA radioactive resonant LC 'nuclear battery' and gamma-ray waste transmutation; the patent example is 5e7 times over budget.CRefuted by calculation strong formsPrimer
87–Distinti Robert'New Electromagnetism' force laws and mass from charge; the laws are the textbook laws in disguise.CNot testable as stated mass and gravity modelsPrimer
88–Gardi-LoriAn aether of Planck granules said to derive physical constants; derived alpha is about 13,900 sigma off.BRefuted by calculation derived fine-structure constantPrimer
89–Gift-StephanEther from GPS and Sagnac timing, scalar gravity and 'magnatons'; the Sagnac numbers equally fit relativity.DNot testable as stated ether readingPrimer
90–Becquerel-HenriBecquerel's discovery of radioactivity and the energy-from-nowhere puzzle it raised.BDEstablished spontaneous emissionPrimer
91–SoddySoddy's two radium books: disintegration, isotopes and the heat of radium as stored atomic energy, with a few printed slips; mainstream-successful, nothing suppressed.DEstablished disintegration, chain, isotopesPrimer
92–Builder-GBuilder's claim that relativity's clock effect needs an absolute ether velocity.DInternally inconsistent clock effect demands an etherPrimer
93–TrichelTrichel pulses of a negative needle corona and a 2010 simulation; a mainstream topic with a cheap bench test.CEstablished the pulsesPrimer
94–Peek-FrankPeek's 1920 corona law and line-loss formula from General Electric tests; mainstream engineering with a bench test and no anomaly claimed.CEstablished visual corona lawPrimer
95–Flynn-CA permanent-magnet flux-switching actuator and motor patent that does not claim net gain.CEstablished principlePrimer
96–Baranski-LeoA unitary field of mirror-image 'dimitants' with biology and consciousness add-ons.DNot testable as stated unitary fieldPrimer
97–Babcock-PaulA fringe-field motor patent with flyback capture, a control case with no over-unity claim.CPlausible, untested thrustPrimer
98–BlondlotN rays, seen by about 120 scientists and refuted when Wood secretly removed the prism: the counter-example to suppression stories.BTested, not supported N raysPrimer
99–ComptonCompton's X-ray scattering shift as a photon-electron collision; nothing dismissed or suppressed.DEstablished core claimPrimer

A Untested anomaly or documented resistance · B Open question the arbiter left unsettled · C Reader can test or calculate it · D Depth and influence in alternative science

What changed this run

Run history

Each run is saved as its own dated page, so the set of pages is the history.

RunDateProjectsWhat changedPage
162026-10-10101Flat-Earth enters at rank 13; the 88 projects from old rank 13 down move one place; no other project changes order.2026-10-10-run16.html
152026-10-09100Naudin-JL enters at rank 16; the 15 projects from old rank 16 down move one place; no other project changes order.2026-10-09-run15.html
142026-10-0999Independent recheck after QE revisions to Mills-Randal, Meyers-Stan, Summerfield and Rutherford-Ernest; no project enters or leaves and no rank moves.this page
132026-10-0999Four newly reviewed projects added (Mills-Randal, Meyers-Stan, Summerfield, Rutherford-Ernest); ranks 1-99.2026-10-09-run13.html
122026-10-0895Ten newly reviewed projects added (LeBon-G, Vassilatos-Gerry, Kelly-Patrick, Wheeler-Ken, Tousey-Sinclair, Tyndall-John, Steinmentz-Charles, Larken, Jeans-JH, Thompson-JJ); ranks 1-95.2026-10-08-run12.html
112026-10-0885Nine newly reviewed projects added (Lakhovsky George, Meyl-Konstantin, Smith-Don, Handwerker-Roberto, Stiffler, Morton-Wall, RuderferM, Lorentz-HA, Soddy); ranks 1-85.2026-10-08-run11.html
102026-10-0876Morray-TH and TernionAG re-read after review updates; no rank changes.2026-10-08-run10.html
092026-10-0876Tesla reviewed and ranked 5th; projects ranked 5 and below each move down one place.2026-10-08-run09.html
082026-10-0775Ives re-reviewed after 31 of his papers were read; it stays at 17 with a changed gravitation verdict and a new answer on why Ives matters to Moray.2026-10-07-run08.html
072026-10-0775Ives enters as a new selected project at 17, ahead of Whittaker-ET; projects ranked 17 to 74 each move down one place.2026-10-07-run07.html
062026-10-0774Whittaker-ET re-read after two QE revisions; its rank is unchanged and its entry is refreshed; no other project moves.2026-10-07-run06.html
052026-10-0774Whittaker-ET, a selected project, enters at 17; projects ranked 17 or lower move down one place.2026-10-07-run05.html
042026-10-0773Eskridge-Amy, a selected project, enters at 12; the other projects keep their relative order, and Sykes-Chris returns to the top 20.2026-10-07-run04.html
032026-10-0672Ten newly reviewed projects enter; Rahn-Otto, Linerman-Peter, Su-CC and Hilgenberg-OC join the top 20, and all existing projects keep their relative order.2026-10-06-run03.html
022026-10-0562Re-read of Heaviside, Government and Bearden after Investigator and review updates; Bearden moves from 13 to 11, others unchanged.2026-10-05-run02.html
012026-10-0562First run in the new HTML format: reformat of the 2026-10-04 Markdown index, order unchanged, top 10 widened to top 20.2026-10-05-run01.html

Also: what each review file is · review progress