by Brigit » Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:35 pm
Listening to Wal Thornhill's EU2011 talk on Electric Stars, I realized I had not read anything written by HC Dudley on the neutrino "sea". I found this paper and wanted to share it on the forum. The first half is excellent and gives a bit of a sense of history of the (particulate) neutrino aether.
I am off to read the last printed page at the Park with an iced mocha!
THE NEUTRINO SEA—HYPOTHESIS, OR REALITY?
LIST OF APPENDICES
THE NEUTRINO SEA—HYPOTHESIS, OR REALITY?
by Dr. H.C. Dudley
University of Illinois Medical Center
The last twenty years have seen a resurgence of theories which assume a generalized medium acting to transmit mass energy, and/or information. Perhaps then the ancient postulates of a phlogiston were close to the truth.
In 1974, the "Unsettled Earth" issue of Industrial Research carried an article entitled "Is there an ether?"
(1). Since this article was written more than three years ago, it seems timely to update certain of the information contained in the "ether" article.
That there is interest in the subject is evidenced by the number of scientists, worldwide, who are developing
"models" based on the assumption that all reactions take place within an energy-rich substrate which may contribute mass and/or energy to any reaction.
Such an approach to mass/energy exchanges appears in many branches, including plant and animal biochemistry, structural engineering (2), microbiology, and quite extensively in astrophysics.
One aspect of the climate of opinion which dominates the physical sciences of 1977 results from a series of experiments often referred to as the Michelson-Morley studies, carried on before 1890. Using more modern apparatus, other investigators essentially confirmed these earlier M-M studies, concluding that no subquantic medium is necessary for that transmission of electromagnetic radiation.
But all of these experimental. designs failed to consider the Earth's motion about the center of our galaxy, 220 kin/sec, or the orientation of the Earth with respect to this motion. From the astronomic information now available, it appears that the flow of the "ether" that was being sought was nearly normal to the plane of the apparatus, thus insuring the "null" results obtained (3).
A philosophical tenet long taught in all beginning physical science classes holds that absolute motion cannot be demonstrated. This concept originated with Isaac Newton (ca 1700); it provided some of the basic assumptions of Einstein's theoretical studies (1905-1915).
If one analyzes the experimental designs of M-M-type studies, it will be noted that what was being sought was a primary or absolute frame of reference whereby the lateral motion of the Earth might be demonstrated without reference to any other body.
This demonstration first was accomplished by Conklin (1969) (4) on study of the diurnal variation of the 3.5-cm radiation flux which bathes the Earth. The Earth's motion was estimated to be 160 km/sec in a direction defined in local coordinates as right ascension 13 hr: declination 32 deg.
Recently, Corey and Wilkinson (5) have shown that there is a generalized flux of high frequency electromagnetic radiation (19 GHz) in which the Earth is immersed. Their observations indicate a velocity of 330 km/sec for the Earth with respect to this "soup." These studies utilized a balloon-borne radiometer, with the lower frequencies, as used by Conklin, tuned out.
Smoot, Gorenstein, and Muller (6) have studied a still higher-frequency background radiation flux (33 GHz) at a height of 20 km; they have demonstrated motion of the Earth with respect to this flux, 320 km/sec, toward a point in the sky located at 11 hr right ascension: declination 6 deg.
Results of the various studies may vary. Yet a ball-park figure begins to emerge. It is an unescapable fact that absolute motion certainly has been demonstrated. The rush of new techniques, based on new apparatus, extending the lab bench high into space, has rendered some of our most hallowed theoretical dogma untenable.
Time (and Physics) marches on!
As a result of the M-M-type studies, combined with the theoretical/mathematical approach to nuclear science, fashionable during the past 40 years, there has evolved an assumption that a vacuum (i.e., empty space) is essentially inert: mass-free and energy-free. This assumption recently has led to an unusual state of affairs in the fields of chemistry and physics.
Two investigators, working independently, have been nominated jointly for a Nobel Prize. But the nature of their work has largely escaped the attention of the U.S. scientific community.
Kervran of France (7) reports that oat seedlings have been shown to convert potassium to calcium during the germination phase, with an increase of Ca in the range of 100 to 163%.
Komaki of Japan (8) reports that eight strains of micro-organisms grown in K-deficient culture media increase the total K by converting Ca to K.
These studies appear to have been confirmed by other investigators. A theoretical basis for Kervran's result has been discussed by de Beauregard (9), who postulates that K, by the addition of a proton (H"), :is converted to Ca. Reasoning on the basis of presently accepted nuclear theory, this reaction would require energy of 10 MeV.
The generalized neutrino sea is considered to be the source of this energy thru the action of "neutral currents" and "weak forces." These mechanisms are those now in general use of particle physicists to explain the interaction of a host of other subnuclear entities.
During the past two decades, there has been a resurgence of theories which have in common, as one of their basic assumptions, the existence of some type of generalized medium which acts to transmit mass, energy, and/or information. To better understand the present, and to obtain an overview of the importance of this subject, let us examine one aspect of scientific history.
The necessity of the same type of generalized medium was postulated by Isaac Newton (Opticks, Book 3, Part 1, Query 18,1704):
"And do not hot Bodies communicate their Heat to contiguous cold ones, by the Vibrations of this Medium propagated from them into the cold ones? And is not this Medium exceedingly more rare and subtile than the Air, and exceedingly more elastick and active and doth is not readilly pervade all Bodies? And is it not (by its elastick force) expanded through all the Heavens?"
This concept had altered but little into the first decade of the 20th Century (Textbook of Physics, Edit. A.W.
Duff, 1912, 3rd Edit, p. 565.):
"The Ether.-To account for the transmission of waves through space containing no ordinary matter it seems necessary to assume the existence of a universal medium filling all space and even interpenetrating matter itself, as shown by the existence of transparent substances. That this medium can react on matter is shown by the fact that radiant energy is transmitted from ether to matter in the case of absorption, and from matter to ether in the case of emission of radiation by material sources."
The version which now so rigidly defines the climate of opinion of 1977 physics had its beginning in the early 1930s (Textbook of Physics, Edit. A.W. Duff, 1932 7th Edit, p. 556):
"In recent years doubt as to the necessity for assuming the existence of an ether has been expressed by some who believe that it is sufficient to attribute the power of transmitting radiation to space itself. We cannot discuss the question here, but pending the settlement of the controversy it seems wise to continue the use of the word ether as at least denoting the power of space, vacant or occupied by matter, to transmit radiation.
"The unreality' of the ether brought out so emphatically by the theory of relativity has recently become even more pronounced, in connection with the new wave mechanics. It seems very doubtful, at the present time,
"According to recent laboratory studies, the neutrino seems to have a half-life near infinity, penetration of lead with a half-thickness measured in light-years, and at least one quantum number, spin."
Question: "What has happened to all the neutrinos produced by beta and meson decay thoughout all times?"
(1957).
Having been indoctrinated early in my scientific training as to the logical necessity of some sort of "ether," I concluded that a neutrino flux, generated by the myriad of nearly randomly distributed stars, appeared to be the long sought characterization of Newton's "Aetherial Medium." I wrote of this (10) and presented papers before the American Physical Society (Bulletin APS. 7,568,609,1962):
"DeBroglie (1959) has suggested that certain phenomena arise from the interaction of particles with a 'subquantic' medium, which escape our observation, is in random motion, and is everywhere present in what we call'empty space.' Chiu suggests (1962) that we exist in a flux of the order 1 x 10 10^11 neutrinos cm2/sec.
Thus, it seems that both theoretical and experimental physics are moving rapidly toward a concept of quantized fields, or more properly a particulate' ether.'
"Observed net energy of nuclear events may be due to the exchange of mass and kinetic energy between two classes of particulate matter, i.e., interaction as at the interface of a two-phase system:
*****
where (Ma) = total mass of the neutrinos entering into the reaction; (Ea) = total energy of these neutrinos;
(M b) = total initial mass of the nucleons; and (E b) = total energy of the nucleons entering into the reaction.
"Mass and energy would then be exchanged by the two systems, momentum being conserved, with no interconversion of mass and energy."
In addition to those names given above, others wrote of "hidden variables," "neutrino sea," etc.,-1962 to 1965-Bohn, Vigier, Ponticorvo, S. Weinberg, de Silva, Lochak, et al. The volume of literature has increased steadily; recent review articles now cite hundreds of pertinent papers.
As a result of the data and development of concepts in astrophysics, for cosmological considerations, the neutrino sea has been defined as an energy-rich, particulate, generalized medium consisting of electron neutrinos, ~ 10^12/cm^3, energy density estimates ranging from l0^8 eV/cm^3 to as high as 10^10eV/cm^3(I1).
All this plus muon neutrinos of mass ~0.6 MeV, which appear to be the counterpart of the uncharged electron.
There is a practical aspect to these finer points of nuclear theory. That is the implicit assumption that currently accepted theories define all parameters of all nuclear reactions.
Such a state of mind is illogical, for it flies in the face of all previous experience in the sciences. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that new apparatus and new techniques produce new and unexpected experimentally demonstrated facts and relationships, thru which all theories are eventually rendered untenable.
Quo vadis
The unpleasant aspect of inducing vast nuclear accidents has been examined previously- just prior to the first fission explosions in 1945 (12), and more recently in discussions of the propagation of fusion reactions in the sea (13). In short, what is the probability that man can inadvertently induce catastrophic nuclear events simply as the result of lack of basic information; or as the result of not using the information now available?
There is considerable opposition to even the cursory examination of this approach to nuclear science (14,15,16). The reason is clear from the text of the 1932 quotation above. If there exists a subquantic medium with which it is possible to interact, then the bulk of modern nuclear theory is untenable.
Several Nobel prize winners who are fearful of our present headlong rush into nuclear technology, have pointed out that those who have spent their lives developing this field now see the usefulness of their work being questioned. The nuclear leaders of the past 30 years react quite humanly, for they are most reluctant to accept this turn of events.
Like it or not, the fact that methods of establishing absolute motion have been found — that experimental evidence is at hand - indicates that we do exist in an energy-rich subquatic medium - that we can and are interacting with this medium.
All of this information indicates the weakness of present official projections of limits of nuclear risks. Like it or not, probing questions are indeed, being asked, worldwide. And no amount of face-saving maneuvers will be effective in stifling the subject.
Scientific revolutions can be defined as periods of time in which man is forced to reorient his basic viewpoint with respect to the workings of the physical universe in which we are observers and passengers, but not pilots. These revolutions are the direct result of the development of improved accuracy in apparatus with which to extend man's five senses.
New concepts evolve out of the attempts to correlate and understand the data which new apparatus produces. Thus, thru evolutionary processes, new paradigms replace old viewpoints, and man is better able to understand the workings of the macro-cosmos and the micro-cosmos. He nibbles away at his vast store of ignorance, bit by bit, generation after generation.
Modern man has generated three scientific revolutions, each of which required him to make radical changes in his understandings ofcause and effect. The studies of Copernicus and Kepler, when integrated into the climate of the discovery guiding Newton and his contemporaries, (ca 1675) shattered and ego of the ancients, for the Earth was not at the center of creation, it was but one of several planets orbiting our Sun.
Earth, a speck
This revolution has been extended by the 200-in. telescope, by photo and electron imaging techniques, and recently by the use of interplanetary platforms for carrying all manner of sophisticated electronic extensions of our eyes. The Earth is now but a speck on the outer rim of one galaxy, hurtling thru intergalactic space at a velocity of 200 to 300 km/sec. We don't know where we have been nor where we are going. Neither did the ancients.
The 19th Century saw the clarification of the nature of air; the combustion process was defined; heat was shown to result from a kinetic process involving moving atoms, rather than being a fluid called caloric or phlogiston. Ofsuch was the second scientific revolution composed.
Beginning in 1895, the third revolution required man to alter radically his concepts regarding the nature of the building blocks which were required to construct all that which man could observe - in fact, that which constituted man himself.
The elements which heretofore were thought to be immutable, were sometimes rather easily altered. In fact, some were changing into other atoms by some process so mysterious that it was thought to be spontaneous, occurring without prior cause.
This third revolution produced such an avalanche of new data that the present years are being called the
"Information Explosion."
The fourth scientific revolution is an out-growth of the new data, new apparatus, new concepts. Man now has begun to study and to define the particulate substrate which permeates all space and all matter.
The findings from these studies require man again to reorient his thinking and attitudes with respect to the Universe about us. But because of inertia, because of a love affair with the status quo, those indoctrinated in science 1977 may have to be forced to move ahead into the 21st century of sub-electron and subquantic physics.
References
1. Dudley, H. C., Is there an ether? Industrial Research. Nov. 15, 1974, p. 97.
2. Grimer, F.J., and Hewitt, R.E., Structure, Solid Mechanics & Engineering Design, John Wiley & Sons.
London, 1971, p. 681 and 863.
3. Dudley, H.C., Bull. Atomic Scientists, Jan. 1975, p. 47.
4. Conklin, E., Nature, 222, 1969, p. 971.
5. Corey B.E., and Wilkenson, D.T., cited in Science News, July 3, 1976, p.10.
6. Smoot, G., Gorenstein, M.V., and Muller, R. A., cited in ScienceNews, July 16,1977, p. 44.
7. Kervran, C.L., Prev. era Biologie de Transmutation a Faible Energie, Maloinx, Paris, 1975.
8. Komaki. H., Rev. de Pathologie Comparee; 67, 1967, p. 213; 69, 1969, p. 29.
9. de Beauregard, O. Costa, Proceed. 3rd. Int. Cong. Psych. (Tokyo), June 1977, p.168.
10. Dudley, H.C., New Principles in Quantum Mechanics, Exposition - University Press, New York, 1959.
11. de Graaf, T., Cosmic Background of Low-Energy Neutrinos, Astronomy & Astrophysics. 5, 1970, p.
335.
12. Konopinski, E.J., Marvin, C., and Teller, E.; Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bombs, Los Alamos Report La - 602 1945. Classified Secret. Declass. Feb. 1973.
13. Dudley, H.C., Ultimate Catastrophe, Bull. Atomic Scientists, Nov. 1975, p. 21; June 1976, p. 38.
14. Bethe, H., Bull. Atomic Scientists, June 1976, p. 36.
15. Feld, B.T., Bull. Atomic Scientists, June 1976, p. 38.
16. Dudley, H.C., Morality of Nuclear Planning? Kronos Press, Glassboro, NJ, 1976.
APPENDIX VI
Article reprinted from Lettere Al Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 13, N. 1, May 3,1975; with permission.
Listening to Wal Thornhill's EU2011 talk on Electric Stars, I realized I had not read anything written by HC Dudley on the neutrino "sea". I found this paper and wanted to share it on the forum. The first half is excellent and gives a bit of a sense of history of the (particulate) neutrino aether.
I am off to read the last printed page at the Park with an iced mocha!
THE NEUTRINO SEA—HYPOTHESIS, OR REALITY?
LIST OF APPENDICES
THE NEUTRINO SEA—HYPOTHESIS, OR REALITY?
by Dr. H.C. Dudley
University of Illinois Medical Center
The last twenty years have seen a resurgence of theories which assume a generalized medium acting to transmit mass energy, and/or information. Perhaps then the ancient postulates of a phlogiston were close to the truth.
In 1974, the "Unsettled Earth" issue of Industrial Research carried an article entitled "Is there an ether?"
(1). Since this article was written more than three years ago, it seems timely to update certain of the information contained in the "ether" article.
That there is interest in the subject is evidenced by the number of scientists, worldwide, who are developing
"models" based on the assumption that all reactions take place within an energy-rich substrate which may contribute mass and/or energy to any reaction.
Such an approach to mass/energy exchanges appears in many branches, including plant and animal biochemistry, structural engineering (2), microbiology, and quite extensively in astrophysics.
One aspect of the climate of opinion which dominates the physical sciences of 1977 results from a series of experiments often referred to as the Michelson-Morley studies, carried on before 1890. Using more modern apparatus, other investigators essentially confirmed these earlier M-M studies, concluding that no subquantic medium is necessary for that transmission of electromagnetic radiation.
But all of these experimental. designs failed to consider the Earth's motion about the center of our galaxy, 220 kin/sec, or the orientation of the Earth with respect to this motion. From the astronomic information now available, it appears that the flow of the "ether" that was being sought was nearly normal to the plane of the apparatus, thus insuring the "null" results obtained (3).
A philosophical tenet long taught in all beginning physical science classes holds that absolute motion cannot be demonstrated. This concept originated with Isaac Newton (ca 1700); it provided some of the basic assumptions of Einstein's theoretical studies (1905-1915).
If one analyzes the experimental designs of M-M-type studies, it will be noted that what was being sought was a primary or absolute frame of reference whereby the lateral motion of the Earth might be demonstrated without reference to any other body.
This demonstration first was accomplished by Conklin (1969) (4) on study of the diurnal variation of the 3.5-cm radiation flux which bathes the Earth. The Earth's motion was estimated to be 160 km/sec in a direction defined in local coordinates as right ascension 13 hr: declination 32 deg.
Recently, Corey and Wilkinson (5) have shown that there is a generalized flux of high frequency electromagnetic radiation (19 GHz) in which the Earth is immersed. Their observations indicate a velocity of 330 km/sec for the Earth with respect to this "soup." These studies utilized a balloon-borne radiometer, with the lower frequencies, as used by Conklin, tuned out.
Smoot, Gorenstein, and Muller (6) have studied a still higher-frequency background radiation flux (33 GHz) at a height of 20 km; they have demonstrated motion of the Earth with respect to this flux, 320 km/sec, toward a point in the sky located at 11 hr right ascension: declination 6 deg.
Results of the various studies may vary. Yet a ball-park figure begins to emerge. It is an unescapable fact that absolute motion certainly has been demonstrated. The rush of new techniques, based on new apparatus, extending the lab bench high into space, has rendered some of our most hallowed theoretical dogma untenable.
Time (and Physics) marches on!
As a result of the M-M-type studies, combined with the theoretical/mathematical approach to nuclear science, fashionable during the past 40 years, there has evolved an assumption that a vacuum (i.e., empty space) is essentially inert: mass-free and energy-free. This assumption recently has led to an unusual state of affairs in the fields of chemistry and physics.
Two investigators, working independently, have been nominated jointly for a Nobel Prize. But the nature of their work has largely escaped the attention of the U.S. scientific community.
Kervran of France (7) reports that oat seedlings have been shown to convert potassium to calcium during the germination phase, with an increase of Ca in the range of 100 to 163%.
Komaki of Japan (8) reports that eight strains of micro-organisms grown in K-deficient culture media increase the total K by converting Ca to K.
These studies appear to have been confirmed by other investigators. A theoretical basis for Kervran's result has been discussed by de Beauregard (9), who postulates that K, by the addition of a proton (H"), :is converted to Ca. Reasoning on the basis of presently accepted nuclear theory, this reaction would require energy of 10 MeV.
The generalized neutrino sea is considered to be the source of this energy thru the action of "neutral currents" and "weak forces." These mechanisms are those now in general use of particle physicists to explain the interaction of a host of other subnuclear entities.
During the past two decades, there has been a resurgence of theories which have in common, as one of their basic assumptions, the existence of some type of generalized medium which acts to transmit mass, energy, and/or information. To better understand the present, and to obtain an overview of the importance of this subject, let us examine one aspect of scientific history.
The necessity of the same type of generalized medium was postulated by Isaac Newton (Opticks, Book 3, Part 1, Query 18,1704):
"And do not hot Bodies communicate their Heat to contiguous cold ones, by the Vibrations of this Medium propagated from them into the cold ones? And is not this Medium exceedingly more rare and subtile than the Air, and exceedingly more elastick and active and doth is not readilly pervade all Bodies? And is it not (by its elastick force) expanded through all the Heavens?"
This concept had altered but little into the first decade of the 20th Century (Textbook of Physics, Edit. A.W.
Duff, 1912, 3rd Edit, p. 565.):
"The Ether.-To account for the transmission of waves through space containing no ordinary matter it seems necessary to assume the existence of a universal medium filling all space and even interpenetrating matter itself, as shown by the existence of transparent substances. That this medium can react on matter is shown by the fact that radiant energy is transmitted from ether to matter in the case of absorption, and from matter to ether in the case of emission of radiation by material sources."
The version which now so rigidly defines the climate of opinion of 1977 physics had its beginning in the early 1930s (Textbook of Physics, Edit. A.W. Duff, 1932 7th Edit, p. 556):
"In recent years doubt as to the necessity for assuming the existence of an ether has been expressed by some who believe that it is sufficient to attribute the power of transmitting radiation to space itself. We cannot discuss the question here, but pending the settlement of the controversy it seems wise to continue the use of the word ether as at least denoting the power of space, vacant or occupied by matter, to transmit radiation.
"The unreality' of the ether brought out so emphatically by the theory of relativity has recently become even more pronounced, in connection with the new wave mechanics. It seems very doubtful, at the present time,
"According to recent laboratory studies, the neutrino seems to have a half-life near infinity, penetration of lead with a half-thickness measured in light-years, and at least one quantum number, spin."
Question: "What has happened to all the neutrinos produced by beta and meson decay thoughout all times?"
(1957).
Having been indoctrinated early in my scientific training as to the logical necessity of some sort of "ether," I concluded that a neutrino flux, generated by the myriad of nearly randomly distributed stars, appeared to be the long sought characterization of Newton's "Aetherial Medium." I wrote of this (10) and presented papers before the American Physical Society (Bulletin APS. 7,568,609,1962):
"DeBroglie (1959) has suggested that certain phenomena arise from the interaction of particles with a 'subquantic' medium, which escape our observation, is in random motion, and is everywhere present in what we call'empty space.' Chiu suggests (1962) that we exist in a flux of the order 1 x 10 10^11 neutrinos cm2/sec.
Thus, it seems that both theoretical and experimental physics are moving rapidly toward a concept of quantized fields, or more properly a particulate' ether.'
"Observed net energy of nuclear events may be due to the exchange of mass and kinetic energy between two classes of particulate matter, i.e., interaction as at the interface of a two-phase system:
*****
where (Ma) = total mass of the neutrinos entering into the reaction; (Ea) = total energy of these neutrinos;
(M b) = total initial mass of the nucleons; and (E b) = total energy of the nucleons entering into the reaction.
"Mass and energy would then be exchanged by the two systems, momentum being conserved, with no interconversion of mass and energy."
In addition to those names given above, others wrote of "hidden variables," "neutrino sea," etc.,-1962 to 1965-Bohn, Vigier, Ponticorvo, S. Weinberg, de Silva, Lochak, et al. The volume of literature has increased steadily; recent review articles now cite hundreds of pertinent papers.
As a result of the data and development of concepts in astrophysics, for cosmological considerations, the neutrino sea has been defined as an energy-rich, particulate, generalized medium consisting of electron neutrinos, ~ 10^12/cm^3, energy density estimates ranging from l0^8 eV/cm^3 to as high as 10^10eV/cm^3(I1).
All this plus muon neutrinos of mass ~0.6 MeV, which appear to be the counterpart of the uncharged electron.
There is a practical aspect to these finer points of nuclear theory. That is the implicit assumption that currently accepted theories define all parameters of all nuclear reactions.
Such a state of mind is illogical, for it flies in the face of all previous experience in the sciences. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that new apparatus and new techniques produce new and unexpected experimentally demonstrated facts and relationships, thru which all theories are eventually rendered untenable.
Quo vadis
The unpleasant aspect of inducing vast nuclear accidents has been examined previously- just prior to the first fission explosions in 1945 (12), and more recently in discussions of the propagation of fusion reactions in the sea (13). In short, what is the probability that man can inadvertently induce catastrophic nuclear events simply as the result of lack of basic information; or as the result of not using the information now available?
There is considerable opposition to even the cursory examination of this approach to nuclear science (14,15,16). The reason is clear from the text of the 1932 quotation above. If there exists a subquantic medium with which it is possible to interact, then the bulk of modern nuclear theory is untenable.
Several Nobel prize winners who are fearful of our present headlong rush into nuclear technology, have pointed out that those who have spent their lives developing this field now see the usefulness of their work being questioned. The nuclear leaders of the past 30 years react quite humanly, for they are most reluctant to accept this turn of events.
Like it or not, the fact that methods of establishing absolute motion have been found — that experimental evidence is at hand - indicates that we do exist in an energy-rich subquatic medium - that we can and are interacting with this medium.
All of this information indicates the weakness of present official projections of limits of nuclear risks. Like it or not, probing questions are indeed, being asked, worldwide. And no amount of face-saving maneuvers will be effective in stifling the subject.
Scientific revolutions can be defined as periods of time in which man is forced to reorient his basic viewpoint with respect to the workings of the physical universe in which we are observers and passengers, but not pilots. These revolutions are the direct result of the development of improved accuracy in apparatus with which to extend man's five senses.
New concepts evolve out of the attempts to correlate and understand the data which new apparatus produces. Thus, thru evolutionary processes, new paradigms replace old viewpoints, and man is better able to understand the workings of the macro-cosmos and the micro-cosmos. He nibbles away at his vast store of ignorance, bit by bit, generation after generation.
Modern man has generated three scientific revolutions, each of which required him to make radical changes in his understandings ofcause and effect. The studies of Copernicus and Kepler, when integrated into the climate of the discovery guiding Newton and his contemporaries, (ca 1675) shattered and ego of the ancients, for the Earth was not at the center of creation, it was but one of several planets orbiting our Sun.
Earth, a speck
This revolution has been extended by the 200-in. telescope, by photo and electron imaging techniques, and recently by the use of interplanetary platforms for carrying all manner of sophisticated electronic extensions of our eyes. The Earth is now but a speck on the outer rim of one galaxy, hurtling thru intergalactic space at a velocity of 200 to 300 km/sec. We don't know where we have been nor where we are going. Neither did the ancients.
The 19th Century saw the clarification of the nature of air; the combustion process was defined; heat was shown to result from a kinetic process involving moving atoms, rather than being a fluid called caloric or phlogiston. Ofsuch was the second scientific revolution composed.
Beginning in 1895, the third revolution required man to alter radically his concepts regarding the nature of the building blocks which were required to construct all that which man could observe - in fact, that which constituted man himself.
The elements which heretofore were thought to be immutable, were sometimes rather easily altered. In fact, some were changing into other atoms by some process so mysterious that it was thought to be spontaneous, occurring without prior cause.
This third revolution produced such an avalanche of new data that the present years are being called the
"Information Explosion."
The fourth scientific revolution is an out-growth of the new data, new apparatus, new concepts. Man now has begun to study and to define the particulate substrate which permeates all space and all matter.
The findings from these studies require man again to reorient his thinking and attitudes with respect to the Universe about us. But because of inertia, because of a love affair with the status quo, those indoctrinated in science 1977 may have to be forced to move ahead into the 21st century of sub-electron and subquantic physics.
References
1. Dudley, H. C., Is there an ether? Industrial Research. Nov. 15, 1974, p. 97.
2. Grimer, F.J., and Hewitt, R.E., Structure, Solid Mechanics & Engineering Design, John Wiley & Sons.
London, 1971, p. 681 and 863.
3. Dudley, H.C., Bull. Atomic Scientists, Jan. 1975, p. 47.
4. Conklin, E., Nature, 222, 1969, p. 971.
5. Corey B.E., and Wilkenson, D.T., cited in Science News, July 3, 1976, p.10.
6. Smoot, G., Gorenstein, M.V., and Muller, R. A., cited in ScienceNews, July 16,1977, p. 44.
7. Kervran, C.L., Prev. era Biologie de Transmutation a Faible Energie, Maloinx, Paris, 1975.
8. Komaki. H., Rev. de Pathologie Comparee; 67, 1967, p. 213; 69, 1969, p. 29.
9. de Beauregard, O. Costa, Proceed. 3rd. Int. Cong. Psych. (Tokyo), June 1977, p.168.
10. Dudley, H.C., New Principles in Quantum Mechanics, Exposition - University Press, New York, 1959.
11. de Graaf, T., Cosmic Background of Low-Energy Neutrinos, Astronomy & Astrophysics. 5, 1970, p.
335.
12. Konopinski, E.J., Marvin, C., and Teller, E.; Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bombs, Los Alamos Report La - 602 1945. Classified Secret. Declass. Feb. 1973.
13. Dudley, H.C., Ultimate Catastrophe, Bull. Atomic Scientists, Nov. 1975, p. 21; June 1976, p. 38.
14. Bethe, H., Bull. Atomic Scientists, June 1976, p. 36.
15. Feld, B.T., Bull. Atomic Scientists, June 1976, p. 38.
16. Dudley, H.C., Morality of Nuclear Planning? Kronos Press, Glassboro, NJ, 1976.
APPENDIX VI
Article reprinted from Lettere Al Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 13, N. 1, May 3,1975; with permission.