mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH A Catastrophics Newsletter VOL VI, No 4 June 30, 2002 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS GETTING AT THE TRUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mel Acheson FROM: THE MANY FACES OF VENUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ev Cochrane PULSAR REDSHIFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a discussion ANTIGRAVITY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wal Thornhill -----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< GETTING AT THE TRUTH by Mel Acheson Science begins with observations and gets at the truth with inductive reasoning. Or so I was taught. Scientists look at things and perform experiments; then they draw conclusions from the results. They need to watch out for preconceptions that can distort their conclusions, but basically they are engaged in looking clearly at what's before their eyes. Ideally, science would arrive at indubitable truth by applying inductive reasoning to pure observation and eliminating all assumptions and speculations. Karl Popper would undercut this idea of inductive reasoning by commanding his listeners to start observing and to report their inductive conclusions. After a moment of confusion, someone would ask what they should observe. =46rom this observation Popper would conclude that science begins with problems, questions, and conjectures. Observation is never pure. Looking is guided by some idea of what to look for. And seeing is constituted by some theory, some viewpoint, what's seen is seen from. These ideas and theories are like eyeglasses: You have to look through them in order to see your observations. They are, strictly speaking, pre-conceptions. The ideal of inductive reasoning is self-contradictory. Popper proposed that the chief purpose of observation (and the criterion that distinguishes science from all other intellectual endeavors) is testing. Because theories are generalizations, they can't be tested directly. What can be tested are specific deductions from theory. If a theory is true, certain consequences logically and necessarily follow. But deductive logic is only certain if the test finds the consequences are not true. If the consequences don't actually occur, the theory is necessarily false. Logicians call this type of argument "modus tollens": If A, then B; not B; therefore, not A. On the other hand, if the consequences DO actually occur, that is no guarantee the occurrences are not for some other reason than the theory in question. Perhaps an alternate theory, not yet developed, would also predict the same consequences. To insist that "verifying the prediction proves the theory" is to commit what logicians back to the time of Aristotle have known as "the fallacy of affirming the consequent." Because of this, all theories are provisional. The only certain knowledge available is knowing a theory is false. And this mires us in skepticism and relativism. We can't do anything with a theory that's false. We can only do things with theories that are true. Every day we do things with ideas and theories we intuitively "know" to be "true." Can something this common be inherently false? Has humanity survived this long on illogical knowledge and unreasonable truth? What is this everyday truth and how do we know it? Bernard Lonergan came up with an answer in his 1957 book, _In sight_. He turned Popper's formulation on its head. Instead of deducing consequences from a theory and testing them, he determined the conditions which, if verified, would make the theory true. The theory would still be provisional--a better one might come along tomorrow--but, given the data on hand and the understanding of today, the conditions for truth could be determined and sought. If those conditions were actually fulfilled, the theory would be logically true. Logicians call this type of argument "modus ponens": If A, then B; A; therefore B. This introduces a third leg to enable knowledge to stand above the swamps of both an illusory absolutism of blind belief and a whimsical relativism of make believe. Empiricism understood that knowledge had to be based on experience. But experience by itself is meaningless. Idealism recognized that intelligence and imagination were necessary. But ideas by themselves are indistinguishable from fantasy, and ideas combined with experience can never get beyond conjecture and criticism. (In _Anything Goes_, Australian philosopher David Stove calls it "criticismism".) Empiricism and idealism are the two legs which, by themselves, have persistently caused theories of knowledge to fall on their faces. Lonergan discerned that what turns observation and conjecture into knowledge is judgement. It's the "yes" or "no" answer to the question, "Are the conditions fulfilled for this theory to be true?" With knowledge staggering on only two legs, the history of science is a drunkard's walk of wrong theories believed by our predecessors, who must have been either stupid or benighted. To avoid ending up with them in the gutter of history, to ensure our theories appear to be the final truth, we are compelled to suppress novel conjectures and to overlook anomalous observations. But with knowledge standing firmly on three legs, the history of science is a progression of intelligent people like ourselves figuring out the truths of their times. Mel Acheson thoth at whidbey.com www.dragonscience.com ************************************************************ FROM: THE MANY FACES OF VENUS by Ev Cochrane [editor's note: This is the introduction to Cochrane's latest book. _The Many Faces of Venus_ and Cochrane's first book in the series, _Martian Metamorphoses_ can both be purchased at the Aeon website, www.aeonjournal.com ] "If we look at the physical universe the way astronomers do, we may never know anything about it. The recent U.S. planetary probes revealed a shocking paucity of real knowledge about the contents of the cosmos." Garrett Verschuur The slow and steady movement of the respective planets about the sun is frequently lauded as a sign of the clock-like regularity and order which distinguishes the solar system. Yet it can be shown that this much vaunted regularity is a comparatively recent development. As we will document in the pages to follow, the ancient sky-watchers describe a radically different solar system. If we are to believe their explicit testimony, recorded in countless sacred traditions from every corner of the globe, Venus only recently moved on a much different orbit, cavorting with Mars and raining fire from heaven. Is it possible that modern astronomers, in neglecting the ancient folklore surrounding the respective planets, have overlooked a vital clue to the recent history of the solar system? I, for one, believe this to be the case. =46rom time immemorial the planet Venus has fascinated terrestrial skywatchers, and cultures everywhere assigned it a prominent role in their mythological traditions and religious rituals. Already at the dawn of recorded history, Sumerian priests composed hymns in honor of the planet which they venerated as the goddess Inanna: "To her who appears in the sky, to her who appears in the sky, I want to address my greeting, to the hierodule who appears in the sky, I want to address my greeting, to the great queen of heaven, Inanna, I want to address my greeting, to her who fills the sky with her pure blaze, to the luminous one, to Inanna, as bright as the sun, to the great queen of heaven." sacred marriage-hymn of Iddon-Dagan, circa 1960 BCE As our earliest historical testimony regarding Venus, the Sumerian literature surrounding Inanna is indispensable for reconstructing the ancient conceptions surrounding our Sister planet. Especially intriguing are those hymns which describe the planet-goddess as dominating the skies and raining fire and destruction. The following passage is typical in this regard: "You make the heavens tremble and the earth quake. Great Priestess, who can soothe your troubled heart? You flash like lightning over the highlands; you throw your firebrands across the earth. Your deafening command ... splits apart great mountains." Such imagery is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with Venus' current appearance and behavior. Indeed, scholars investigating the literature surrounding Inanna/ Venus rarely make an attempt to interpret it by reference to celestial phenomena, preferring instead to interpret the vivid catastrophic imagery as the product of poetic metaphor and creative imagination. As we will document, however, the Sumerian testimony has striking parallels around the globe, in the New World as well as the Old, a telling clue that common experience of catastrophic events -- not poetic metaphor -- is responsible for the peculiar traditions surrounding Venus. The planet Venus as disaster-bringer is equally apparent in Mesoamerica, where the observation and veneration of Venus amounted to a collective obsession. For the Aztecs and Maya alike, the heliacal rise of Venus was an occasion of ominous portents marked by dread and hysteria. Bernardino de Sahag=FAn, a Franciscan friar writing in the 16th century, chronicled the Aztecs' perception of Venus: "And when it [Venus] newly emerged, much fear came over them; all were frightened. Everywhere the outlets and openings of [houses] were closed up. It was said that perchance [the light] might bring a cause of sickness, something evil when it came to emerge." In the attempt to propitiate Venus, the Aztecs offered it human sacrifices, a practice associated with the planet in the Old World as well. What is there about the planet Venus that could have inspired such grim rites? Venus' present appearance would never inspire mass hysteria or vivid tales of impending doom and world destruction. How, then, are we to account for the fact that Sahag=FAn's testimony documenting the Aztec's attitude towards Venus echoes the Sumerian skywatchers' conception of Inanna/Venus: "To provoke shivers of fright, panic, trembling, and terror before the halo of your fearsome splendor, that is in your nature, oh Inanna!" In this book we will seek to discover the historical circumstances and logical ratio-nale behind the ancient mythology attached to Venus. To anticipate our conclusion: Venus was associated with dire portents and tales of apocalyptic disaster for the simplest of reasons -- it was a primary player in spectacular cataclysms involving the Earth in relatively recent times, well within the memory of ancient man. The implications of this theory, if true, are at once revolutionary and far-reaching. In addition to necessitating a drastic revision in our understanding of the historical determinants of ancient myth and religion, the central tenets of modern astronomy and a host of allied sciences would be called into question as well. With stakes this high, it is imperative that we endeavor to gain further insight into the origins of ancient Venus lore. The ancients' obsession with the planet Venus stands in marked contrast to the relative indifference currently accorded our nearest planetary neighbor. Who among us could even point out the Evening Star on any given night? Would anyone in their right mind be inclined to view Venus as an agent of destruction and impending doom? David Grinspoon, a NASA astronomer and the author of a very entertaining history of Venus observation, offered the following summary of the ancients' preoccupation with Venus: "Venus must always have seemed a unique, animated entity. For our ancestors the details of the complex movements of Venus served as important harbingers of war and peace, feast and famine, pestilence and health. They learned to watch every nuance for the clues they could wrest of what nature had in store. They watched carefully, obsessively, through skies not yet dimmed by industrial haze and city lights, and they learned to predict accurately, for years and decades to come, the rising, setting, dimming, brightening, and looping of Venus." Confronted with Venus' prominent role in ancient consciousness, Grinspoon, like countless others before him, seems to take it for granted that it is only natural that the ancients would look to that particular planet for omens of things to come. But why should this be, since there is neither an inherent nor logical relation between Venus and the phenomena mentioned by him -- war, pestilence, fertility, etc.? Indeed, it stands to reason that any ancient skywatcher worth his salt would soon discover that there was precious little to be learned about such terrestrial matters from the patient observation of Venus. That is, of course, if we are to believe the conventional version of Venus' history, which holds that the planet's appearance and behavior has hardly changed for millions of years. In recent years, modern astronomy has made great strides in removing the veil which had previously obscured the physiognomy of Venus. For the first several centuries of telescope observation it was commonly believed that Earth's so-called twin was home to beings like ourselves, complete with a thriving civilization. Until the midpoint of the present century it was still thought possible that Venus might be "Earth-like" in its features, with a tropical climate, vast oceans and swamps teeming with various forms of life. Yet all such geocentric scenarios were to receive a severe jolt in 1962 when, courtesy of Mariner 2, Venus was revealed to be a most inhospitable place, with surface temperatures in excess of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Under such conditions, oceans (of water, that is) are quite out of the question and life, as we know it, almost unthinkable. The recent history of the scientific investigation of Venus reveals a vast theoretical graveyard of discarded hypotheses, false deductions, erroneous premises, shoddy observations, and wishful thinking. While many astronomers, Carl Sagan among them, expected the Venusian clouds to be composed of water, Mariner 9 found precious little water and plenty of concentrated sulfuric acid. Where leading astronomers "observed" luxuriant Venusian vegetation in full bloom, modern space probes discovered a barren, desiccated wasteland. Indeed, if the truth be known, the Mariner, Magellan, and Pioneer missions have forced astronomers to radically revise their previous assessments as to Venus' origin, nature, and geological history. On virtually every major feature of the Venusian landscape and atmosphere, the astronomers' theoretical expectations have been proven wrong time and again. And wildly wrong at that. Given this dismal track record, there would appear to be some justification for maintaining a healthy skepticism with respect to astronomers' current "best guesses" as to what is possible regarding Venus' recent history. Indeed, as we will document, there are good reasons for believing that other -- even more radical -- revisions in our understanding of Venus are in order. Ev Cochrane ************************************************************ PULSAR REDSHIFT a discussion JASON GOODMAN starts it: Amy posted an article about the recent discovery of anomalous periodic redshift in a pulsar. The article is at http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/1132/index.html. AMY AND MEL CAN'T RESIST COMMENTING: Amy says: They didn't miss a beat -- jumped straight from "magnetic field a hundred trillion times more intense than Earth's" to "gravitational redshift" without even mentioning the "electro" part of every magnet. Mel says: If you limit yourself to one set of assumptions, deduction will lead you into a tunnel of inevitability that is logically secure but blind to other inductive possibilities. It pulls you through a conceptual black hole into a theoretical universe of fact-free ideas. JASON SAYS (about the pulsar redshift): This is exactly what I predicted. There must be an electrical connection to redshift. The K effect is observed in blue stars, which are extremely electrical. Quasars have the highest of all redshifts, and there are giant plasmoids so are probably the most electric things in the universe. And don't starburst galaxies have rather high redshifts compared to non-starbursts on the same morphological types? Now we have a pulsar, which is the most electrically stressed star of all in Juergens' theory, having redshifts. We must now check to see if Herbig-Haro objects have a redshift (an HH-K effect, so to speak). WAL RESPONDS: You can take it to the bank that intrinsic redshift is electrical in nature since it relies on lower orbital energies of electrons to give the desired effect. I think the story goes something like this: If we assume that the charge of an electron and proton always remains the same it means that their effective inertial mass must be lower. If we take Sansbury's model of electrons and protons - being composed of smaller orbiting charges - then it means that the electrons and protons are subject to a lower ambient polarizing electrostatic force - in other words, gravity. That is borne out by the high initial velocity and subsequent slowing of quasars as their redshift falls. Herbig-Haro objects should show the same effects because in both cases I think that the plasma focus (PF) effect, that spits out jets and quasars. I believe that the PF traps the much lighter electrons for a time after the main ejection event. Also, many of the protons are released from the PF in the form of an intense beam of neutrons which subsequently decay into protons and electrons plus a great shower of gamma-rays to add to those from the PF. IMHO that PF mechanism is the origin of gamma-ray bursts (the neutron decay half-life and gamma-ray energy will probably not be what we expect on Earth, however). The synchrotron radiation from the jets is a result of electrons streaming after electron-deficient knots of matter that have been ejected earlier. As the electrons recombine with the knots (quasars), the electrostatic polarization (gravity) increases along with the masses of particles. The stable or resonant orbits undergo quantum shifts from time to time to accommodate the increasing particle masses. These are Arp's decreasing-redshift quanta. Since this is my best guess at the moment and I haven't had time to examine all of the details and consequences, I would appreciate it if you kept it as background information to test against new discoveries. I would be pleased to receive any thoughts on this proposed model. JASON: On another thing. If, as the article speculates, pulsars are composed largely of kaons or pions, then that idea is worse than a neutron star. Positive pions decay in 2.6 x 10^-8 seconds, neutral pions in a paltry 8.3 x 10^-17 seconds, and kaons in 1.24 x 10^-8 seconds. Much less than the 15 minutes of a neutron. Of course, they still have gravity, which is thousands of trillions of trillions of times weaker than the "weak force" that causes particle decay, being the boss of everything. WAL: The redshift of the pulsar indicates that it is highly electron deficient and the plasma is unable to deliver the electrons in a steady stream but instead undergoes repetitive pinching of the current - hence the pulses. Instead of the gravitational field of the pulsar being impossibly high, the redshift shows that it is actually low. The chain of deduction used to figure out the radius and mass of the pulsar and the magnetic field is flawed at every step. ************************************************************ ANTIGRAVITY? by Wal Thornhill According to the physicist, Lee Smolin, cranks are just a fact of life for working physicists. "Several of us have speculated that there must be a particular psychosis that results in people believing that they have disproved relativity." New Scientist, 12 Jan 2002, reported that Evgeny Podkletnov is a Russian =E9migr=E9 whose claim to have demonstrated antigravity caused such a storm he was thrown out of his job at Tampere University of Technology five years ago. He now works as a researcher in superconducting materials at the nearby University of Tampere. He has recently convinced NASA to spend $600,000 on a machine he claims will shield matter from Earth's gravity. The implication is that if it works it will open up a whole new branch of theoretical physics. In 1992 he published a paper describing how he had stumbled across a "gravity shielding" effect while running a routine test on one of his superconductors. The details were sketchy. But the basics are these: make a superconducting disc 145 millimetres in diameter and 6 millimetres thick, according to a special chemical recipe that Podkletnov did not make public. Cool the disc to below -233C, then levitate it using a magnetic field. Finally, apply an electric current alternating at around 100 kilohertz to coils surrounding the disc. The current makes the disc rotate in the constantly changing magnetic field, something like an electric motor. So far, there's nothing extraordinary here. [See full article, with pictures and diagrams at http://www.holoscience.com/news/antigravity.html ] But Podkletnov claimed that when the disc was spinning at more than 5000 revolutions per minute, objects placed above it lost around 1 per cent of their weight. Increasing the spin speed, he claimed, reduced their weight still further. In subsequent experiments, he claims to have seen weight reductions of up to 2 per cent. Podkletnov concluded that this apparatus somehow reduced the strength of the Earth's pull on any object placed above it and called it a "gravity shielding" device. Stick a more powerful version of this apparatus on the bottom of a spacecraft and rocket propulsion would be history: just the slightest nudge would be needed for lift-off into space. Terrestrial transport would be revolutionised too, together with a large chunk of theoretical physics. Comments from Wal: Here we see a tendency to ascribe observations that don't fit the accepted paradigm to "new physics" or "new forces." However, rather than add more barnacles to the heavily encrusted vessel of theoretical physics, the truly scientific approach would be to revisit all of the assumptions that underpin the accepted paradigm to see if they might be wrong. Unfortunately, it is at this point we are usually torpedoed by fashionable dogma, as shown by the opening comment from Lee Smolin, who also wrote: "What is space and what is time? This is what the problem of quantum gravity is about. In general relativity, Einstein gave us not only a theory of gravity but a theory of what space and time are--a theory that overthrew the previous Newtonian conception of space and time. The problem of quantum gravity is how to combine the understanding of space and time we have from relativity theory with the quantum theory, which also tells us something essential and deep about nature." In the words of the inimitable Harry Belafonte, "It was clear as mud, but it covered de ground, de confusion made me head go 'round.'" Here we have the confusion about gravity, space and time, instigated by Einstein, to be compounded with ignorance about the physical meaning of quantum theory. We are about 80 years overdue for a simplification, rather than more complexity. If, by the attempt I must join the ranks of the cranks, then so be it. As one noted astronomer has said, "When the complete answer is not known, in a sense everyone is a crackpot." It is somewhat ironic that Einstein hated the probabilistic nature of quantum theory because it seems that the confusion created by his Relativity theories prevented a classical model being developed. That is, a model that relates cause and effect, and where time and space are not subject to dilatation. "God does not play dice," he is reputed to have said. He felt that quantum physics could not possibly be complete because it cannot relate cause and effect and does not go beyond predicting the properties of matter statistically. Einstein, starting with the following three premises, showed that quantum theory was not a complete description of reality: 1. The predictions of quantum theory are correct 2. No effect can travel faster than the speed of light 3. If; without in any way disturbing a system, we can predict with certainty the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of physical reality corresponding to that physical quantity. The Irish physicist, John Bell, was able to prove rigorously that any theory claiming to describe reality on the basis of (1) and (3) is automatically in conflict with (2). But rather than confront the possibility that (2) may be wrong at the level of fundamental particle interactions, physicists have preferred to enter the realm of metaphysics with meaningless terms like "spooky interaction at a distance", "non-locality", and "entanglement." It has even been suggested that macroscopic objects behave classically but atoms and subatomic particles do not! The coherent behaviour of lasers , Bose-Einstein condensates, and on the grandest scale- the discovery of quantized redshifts of galaxies, should have disposed of that idea. What can a simple answer possibly be? "God is subtle but he is not malicious," Einstein said in 1921. But was it his "law" of the universal speed limit that stood in the way of further progress? We observe that gravity operates between atoms at a speed far greater than the speed of light. Otherwise the Earth would be tugged toward an empty point in space that the Sun occupied 8 minutes ago, and the Earth's orbit would quickly change. If Newton was right and gravity does operate at near-infinite speed then Einstein's Special Theory reduces to Euclidean space of 3-dimensions and time is universal. There is no reality to "warped space" and "space-time." We return from fantasy-land to the world we perceive, which is probably a giant step back to the future. So, could it be that the force of gravity and the electric force are the same, and that the speed of light is merely the characteristic velocity of an electrical disturbance in the medium of space? After all, space is not a vacuum - it teems with neutrinos. That would be a major simplification. The first problem with an electric gravitational force is that like charges repel and unlike charges attract, whereas gravity always attracts. A simple way out of that problem is to propose that electrons, protons and neutrons are composed of smaller orbiting charged units (which we may dub "subtrons")* whose total charge sums to -e, +e and zero, respectively. The magnetic moment of the neutron and spin of the electron suggests that this is so. The stumbling block to such a model has always been the assumption of Einstein's speed limit on the electric force between charged subtrons. For instance, it has been calculated that subtrons orbiting inside the classical radius of the electron would have a speed of 2.5 million light-years per second. That is the distance from here to the other side of the great Andromeda galaxy in one second! The speed of the electric force must exceed that by a considerable margin for the electron to be a stable particle. * The word "subtron" was coined by Ralph N. Sansbury in his monograph "Electron Structure" in The Journal of Classical Physics in January 1982. It led to a new classical explanation of magnetism and gravity. The electron, proton and neutron have not only a classical size but also a shape, which changes in response to the electric force. The electrical energy absorbed by these particles in deformation rather than acceleration gives rise to the phenomenon of inertial mass. It is the fundamental origin of the relationship E =3D mc^2. If gravity is an electrical force, we can see why the gravitational mass of a body is identical to its inertial mass. We have a real classical model with which to explain inertia, gravity, magnetism and quantum theory. Magnetism is a subject on its own to be dealt with later. But if we take an atom for example, it is a complex system of electrical resonances between orbiting charged subtrons within orbiting charged particles. A stable electron orbit is one in which the gain and loss of energy between a deformable electron and all of the subtrons in the other electrons and the nucleus sums to zero over that orbit. Electrons in an atom "whisper" to the nucleus in order to prevent the "classical catastrophe" of the electron spiralling into the nucleus. Changes in resonant state occur in quantum jumps and give rise to an un-cancelled oscillating electric force that may be accepted by another atom. An atomic nucleus operates in the same way, so that quantum tunnelling effects and nuclear interactions can be understood in resonant terms rather than simplistic coulomb barriers. The nuclear force is then another manifestation of the electric force between resonant subsystems within the nucleus. "Cold" fusion is possible in such a resonant system and radioactive decay has an electrical cause and can therefore be modified. It seems that electrons in composite (more than one proton) atomic nuclei are essential for resonant stability. When they leave a nucleus in the company of a proton we call the pair a neutron. Oddly enough, that resonant system is unstable, with the result that it has a lifetime outside the nucleus measured only in minutes. " ... it may be that the next exciting thing to come along will be the discovery of a neutron or atomic or electron electric dipole moment. These electric dipole moments ... seem to me to offer one of the most exciting possibilities for progress in particle physics." --Steven Weinberg, from his summary talk for the 26th International Conference on High Energy Physics at Dallas in 1992. To return to gravity, each subatomic particle is itself a small sphere of orbiting charges, which will be distorted in an external electric field to form an electric dipole. Since each particle is free to rotate, the dipoles will align themselves with the field so that they always attract each other. Chemists who deal with dipolar molecules have already noted the similarity of their interactions to that of gravity. The distortion of the subatomic particles is exceedingly small and so the dipole is exceedingly weak. That accounts for the difference between the naked electric force and the gravitational force of some 40 powers of ten. An immediate objection to this model is that the force between dipoles falls off with the cube of the distance, while gravity diminishes with the square of the distance. But Newton's law operates counter-intuitively as if the entire mass of the Earth were concentrated at the center of the Earth. The electrical model must take into account the real situation and integrate the effect of all of the dipoles throughout the Earth. The result is the usual inverse square relationship. Newton developed a mathematical expression that related an apparent force, gravity, between ponderous objects, to their masses and the distance between them. The expression involved a constant, G, given the grand title of the Universal Gravitation Constant, with no evidence whatsoever of its universality or its constancy. The electrical model of gravity has G a variable that depends also upon the charge distribution in the body. That would explain why G is the most ill defined "constant" in physics The New Scientist report goes on to mention that "Podkletnov's only current collaboration is with Giovanni Modanese, an Italian physicist who is trying to build a theoretical explanation for Podkletnov's results. But because physicists have such a poor understanding of the mechanisms behind both gravity and high- temperature superconductivity, his explanations are necessarily vague. He suggests that quantum processes within the superconducting material are interacting with quantum processes in the gravitational field. But, he admits, he can't go far with the work because there are too many unknowns." We can understand his problems! However, the electrical model may offer a basis for understanding the Podkletnov experiment. When the thermal energy of a conductor is reduced to a level where it becomes a superconductor, the resonant behaviour of the conduction electrons extends throughout the entire conductor and is lossless. The atomic nuclei are also involved in the macroscopic resonance and that may explain why particular atomic nuclei in particular proportions work best as superconductors. It is a curious fact that conduction electrons in a superconducting magnet have an inertia that is the square of the number of electrons, instead of the normal Newtonian linear relationship. This seems to be telling us that the electrons in Podkletnov's spinning superconducting disk are able to absorb energy more by distortion than by acceleration. Now, if we envisage the electric force of gravity acting on a static horizontal disk, it distorts all of the subatomic particles in the disk in the direction of the gravitational force and consequently forms small vertical electric dipoles. If we spin the disk, there is an accelerative force toward the center of the disk, which will distort the particles radially. These particle distortions must rotate through 360 degrees for each revolution of the disk. But as we have seen, superconductors fiercely resist such accelerations so there will be a lag in orientation of the dipoles. All that is required to provide a gravitational shield like that claimed by Podkletnov is to have the gravitationally induced dipoles offset from the vertical by particle distortion. It seems probable that the effect would be more marked if the disk were rotated in the vertical plane. In that case the gravitational dipoles have to rotate through 360 degrees each revolution and the opportunity for offset from the vertical seems much greater. That could possibly explain the apparent loss of weight of gyroscopes demonstrated on TV by the controversial Eric Laithwaite. When Professor Eric Laithwaite [1921-97] was invited to give the Faraday Lecture in 1974-5 at the Royal Institution, he brought with him an array of gyroscopes - from toy ones that balanced on model Eiffel towers, to a huge 50lb one that he spun up and raised effortlessly above his head with one hand. "Look," he exclaimed to the assembled dignitaries, "It's lost weight!" ignoring their evident shock at such a heretical claim. "I thought my fellow scientists would be genuinely interested, so I wasn't prepared for the utter hostility of their reaction," Laithwaite recalled later. The Royal Institution did not publish his lectures. Laithwaite's nomination for the Fellowship of the Royal Society was cancelled. He retired from Imperial College in 1981 pretty much in disgrace. "None of my critics could ever explain to me how a 50lb spinning wheel loses weight," he said. At the very least, the work of Ampere, Gauss and Weber should be reexamined to see how Weber was able to deduce by 1870! the existence of the charged atomic nucleus and oppositely charged orbiting electrons, the classical electron radius, and the nuclear binding force. Some of these things had to wait until the 20th century for their eventual discovery, without any mention of the priority of the aforementioned distinguished scientists. So goes the scandalous politics of science. Their work demonstrated that the more general laws of the electrical behavior of matter must take into account all of the electrostatic and electrodynamic interactions between the positive and negative charges that comprise normal matter. By applying their methods to charged subtrons we may find the secret to antigravity. Warped Minds The best analogy I have seen of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity comes from a small book, The Logic of Special Relativity by S. J. Prokhovnik. In it he equates the apparent shortening of measuring rods and slowing of clocks when they move away from an observer at constant velocity to the diminution in size experienced by two receding travellers. The effect is reciprocal but no one imagines that the effect is real. Strangely, in effect that is precisely what Einstein did imagine and it has led to continual confusion and argument. Experiments were said to prove the effect was real but when examined closely each brought its own set of preconceptions to the data. The problem was compounded when it was argued that space itself shortened, not the rod. It is like saying that the receding traveller appears to shrink because the space he occupies is shrinking. And as space is shrinking it takes less time to cover a given distance. Here we see the insidious effect of this kind of thinking because we now have time and space tangled up together. The British scientist, Herbert Dingle, for many years wrote the entry for the Encyclopedia Brittanica on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity before recanting. Then, in his book, Science at the Crossroads, he related the difficulties he encountered after he realized that Einstein's version of the theory of relativity didn't make sense. He wrote, "The equations [Einstein or Lorentz as the need arose] worked, so the 'experimenters' became convinced that the theory, whatever it was, must be right. The superior minds acknowledged that they did not understand it, but the majority could not rise to that height. Nothing is more powerful in producing the illusion that one understands something that one does not, than constant repetition of the words used to express it, and the lesser minds deceived themselves by supposing that terms like 'dilation of time' had a self-evident meaning, and regarded with contempt those stupid enough to imagine that they required explanation. Anyone who cares to examine the literature from 1920 to the present day, even if he has not had personal experience of the development, can see the gradual growth of dogmatic acceptance of the theory and contempt for its critics, right up to the extreme form exhibited today by those who learnt it from those who learnt it from those who failed to understand it at the beginning." Mathematics is an indispensable and powerful tool where it has been demonstrated that it applies to a real world experience. However, it is inappropriate and, as Dingle points out, potentially dangerous, to give credence to deductions arising purely from the language of mathematics. The problem is that mathematicians now dominate physics and it is fashionable for them to follow Einstein's example, with fame going to those with the most fantastic notions that defy experience and common sense. So we have the Big Bang, dark matter, black holes, cosmic strings, wormholes in space, time travel, and so on and on. It has driven practically minded students from the subject. There is an old Disney cartoon where the scientist is portrayed with eyes closed, rocking backwards in his chair and sucking on a pipe, which at intervals emits a smoke-cloud of mathematical symbols. Much of modern physics is a smoke-screen of Disneyesque fantasy. Inappropriate mathematical models are routinely used to describe the universe. Yet the physicists hand us the ash from their pipes as if it were gold dust. If only they would use the ashtrays provided. "It seems that every practitioner of physics has had to wonder at some point why mathematics and physics have come to be so closely entwined. Opinions vary on the answer. Bertrand Russell acknowledged "Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little." ...Mathematics may be indispensable to physics, but it obviously does not constitute physics." Klein & Lachi=E8ze-Rey, THE QUEST FOR UNITY - The Adventure of Physics. ~Wal Thornhill visit the electric universe at www.holoscience.com ************************************************************** PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA GROUP WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, now with regular features on the Saturn theory and electric universe, may be ordered from this page: http://www.kronia.com/html/sales.html Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.aeonjournal.com/index.html http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.holoscience.com http://www.electric-cosmos.org/ http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/index.htm http://www.science-frontiers.com http://www.dragonscience.com ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. thoth at Whidbey.com New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above.