"Top questions and doubts about UFO whistleblower, Luis Elizondo "

[Carl Grove]

A really excellent post, Thomas. Torsion physics, as I recall from reading about it ten years ago, was developed first by Russian scientists. Is that correct? Has it since become a part of standard physics in this country, or are there some physicists here [perhaps old-school types] that dispute, resist, ignore, or fail to understand it?

It is probably fairer to say that a majority have ignored it. It is actually a field of research that is fairly respectable inside Russia, although Wikipedia has (as is often the case) showcased an extremely distorted dismissal of the subject, based on the fact that one of the researchers has put forward a rather dubious theoretical model. The major work on torsion was done by Kozyrev, who regarded it as a type of energy that conducted order across the universe, and actually equated it with time. Many of his experiments have been replicated by other researchers. I came across it first in studies of time slips. The ex Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Vincent Reddish, independently conducted research on dowsing, and concluded that it was mediated by an energy that he called the D force. Subsequently, someone in the UK Ministry of Defence told him about the Russian research and asked him to continue his research. He was able to confirm that the D force was torsion energy, and also replicated some of the Russian findings. He also demonstrated that torsion could be used as a communication medium.

 

[Realm]

Positive and negative mass modulation is a central feature of GR. Literally the only thing new about Paranjape’s model is the magnitude of the negative components, and he justified that by proving that the positive energy theorem doesn’t apply to our accelerating universe.

Name one mathematical prediction of GR which can be tested, which hasn’t been proven to exist in nature. I’ll wait.

So instead of admitting what the situation actually is, you try to return it to me by basically repeating the same fallacy.

Ah yes, the appeal to authority logical fallacy.

No it's not. This is really more about you trying to appeal to Paranjape, but since he doesn't even make the claim you are trying to make, you are basically appealing to yourself.

Paranjape is making the case that we should "take the idea of negative mass seriously", "The negative-mass bubbles as we have described could have existed in the early universe, with important potential consequences for cosmology. They could even exist today", "In the realm of speculation, the possibility of creating negative-mass bubbles in the laboratory could have incredible applications", etc. He is clearly talking about a possibility, instead of something that would be a necessity or such.

That anyone stills scoffs at the idea only proves how uninformed and obtuse they are, because you literally can’t explain cosmological evolution without it.

Well of course, because you know it so much better than most physicists.

Don’t play dumb. You mentioned it because you thought it would win you a point, obviously. And I pointed out that it was a cheap shot, because it was.

And of course you also know my thoughts better than myself. Did you do that with remote viewing?

Note thought that it was originally a very cheap shot by Paranjepe, who so belittled those other authors by calling them in his article "my student Jonathan Belletête" and "student Saoussen Mbarek". Oh so cheap!

Because Lockheed never extended the invitation to the scientific community at large, as the TTSA has done.

One of their managers retired and joined an entertainment focused company. That's all they have. One retired guy. And now for some reason the scientific community should jump for joy for the prospects of him getting some funding for hiring some expert cartoonists to advance their public benefit goal of challenging DC Comics or something...

Skunk Works actually started to open up 3 years ago, not just towards potential customers and partners, put journalists as well, which likely explains how DeLonge got there too:
Under pressure, Lockheed opens up about secret weapons unit

There’s the theory of quantum retrocausality proposed by Dr. Yakir Aharonov in his book Quantum Paradoxes, which permits future boundary conditions to influence quantum measurements in the present. So perhaps it’s possible to somehow sense future knowledge in the present. Hell if I know. Consciousness is probably the least understood phenomenon in all of science, so it’s definitely premature to define constraints around it.

Just when I thought you are rational about those quantum-consciousness connections after you criticized quantum mysticism, you try to invent some connections of your own for defending pseudo-scientific nonsense.

That’s not how I heard the account in an interview with someone who was actually there (Joe McMoneagle, iirc).

So you rather believe another remote viewer from the same project. Sure, he seems objective and reliable:

McMoneagle's future predictions included the passing of a teenager's "Right to Work" Bill,[18] a new religion without the emphasis of Christianity, a science of the soul,[19]a vaccine for AIDS,[20] a movement to eliminate television,[19] and a 'temporary tattoo' craze that would replace the wearing of clothing,[21] all of which were supposedly to take place between 2002 and 2006.

Joseph McMoneagle - Wikipedia

Wikipedia is thoroughly infiltrated with disinformation agents – I’ve seen it first-hand; I’m an editor at Wikipedia.

Oh great, conspiracy theories instead of actually providing evidence to support the claims of those pseudo-scientists.

So it’s suspicious that they don’t provide a direct quote of his actual description – for all we know they’re discrediting a bogus recounting of his words.

Except that they do, with a link to another source, and it matches the account Hollywood Tomfortas linked to:

The following are Swann's exact statements:

6:06:20 "Very high in the atmosphere there are crystals... they glitter. Maybe the stripes are like bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn, though not far out like that. Very close within the atmosphere."(Unintelligible sentence.) "I bet you they'll reflect radio probes. Is that possible if you had a cloud of crystals that were assaulted by different radio waves?"[38]

So how's that conspiracy theory doing?

I’ve heard other intriguing anecdotes from that program as well, and given the nature of the US military and intelligence agencies I find it hard to believe that they’d fund such a controversial program for 20 years without producing some compelling results.

But they did:

The Stargate Project was terminated and declassified in 1995 after a CIA report concluded that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. Information provided by the program was vague, included irrelevant and erroneous data, and there was reason to suspect that its project managers had changed the reports so they would fit background cues.

Stargate Project - Wikipedia

You are of course free to provide actual evidence of anyone getting meaningful results with nonsense like that, instead of blaming Wikipedia for what they tell.

But frankly I haven’t made it my personal mission in life to discredit every anomaly in the public eye, and it’s probably impossible to get the documentary evidence from the Army and the DIA that would be required for a proper evaluation, so I’m comfortable leaving it in my grey box, rather than getting my panties all in a twist about it. Besides, life is more interesting when you leave a few of the darkened doorways unlocked. You should try it sometime. Maybe you’ll lighten up a little bit in the process.

Ah, the "just let us believe without and against evidence" argument in the making...

So I just don’t see any phenomenological utility in torsion field physics, because it hasn’t predicted anything that we’ve observed in nature – not that I’ve ever seen anyway.

So yet another piece of pseudoscience you are not willing to call with that name?

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

So instead of admitting what the situation actually is, you try to return it to me by basically repeating the same fallacy.

No it's not. This is really more about you trying to appeal to Paranjape, but since he doesn't even make the claim you are trying to make, you are basically appealing to yourself.

Paranjape is making the case that we should "take the idea of negative mass seriously", "The negative-mass bubbles as we have described could have existed in the early universe, with important potential consequences for cosmology. They could even exist today", "In the realm of speculation, the possibility of creating negative-mass bubbles in the laboratory could have incredible applications", etc. He is clearly talking about a possibility, instead of something that would be a necessity or such.

Well of course, because you know it so much better than most physicists.

And of course you also know my thoughts better than myself. Did you do that with remote viewing?

Note thought that it was originally a very cheap shot by Paranjepe, who so belittled those other authors by calling them in his article "my student Jonathan Belletête" and "student Saoussen Mbarek". Oh so cheap!

One of their managers retired and joined an entertainment focused company. That's all they have. One retired guy. And now for some reason the scientific community should jump for joy for the prospects of him getting some funding for hiring some expert cartoonists to advance their public benefit goal of challenging DC Comics or something...

Skunk Works actually started to open up 3 years ago, not just towards potential customers and partners, put journalists as well, which likely explains how DeLonge got there too:
Under pressure, Lockheed opens up about secret weapons unit

Just when I thought you are rational about those quantum-consciousness connections after you criticized quantum mysticism, you try to invent some connections of your own for defending pseudo-scientific nonsense.

So you rather believe another remote viewer from the same project. Sure, he seems objective and reliable:

Joseph McMoneagle - Wikipedia

Oh great, conspiracy theories instead of actually providing evidence to support the claims of those pseudo-scientists.

Except that they do, with a link to another source, and it matches the account Hollywood Tomfortas linked to:

So how's that conspiracy theory doing?

But they did:

Stargate Project - Wikipedia

You are of course free to provide actual evidence of anyone getting meaningful results with nonsense like that, instead of blaming Wikipedia for what they tell.

Ah, the "just let us believe without and against evidence" argument in the making...

So yet another piece of pseudoscience you are not willing to call with that name?

Haha – you have to understand a logical fallacy before you can use it in a debate. The appeal to authority fallacy doesn’t apply to scientific theories like GR, because they’re established by evidence - observation and experiment, not by individual and fallible human beings or nebulous entities like "the scientific community" - relativists are well aware that negative/repulsive gravitation is an intrinsic and well-proven concept in GR, and always has been (starting with the cosmological constant). The larger consensus of scientists which includes biologists, psychologists, etc., isn't relevant to this discussion at all.

Argument from authority - Wikipedia

As for the rest, whatever. I've made my points, and defended them, and then defended them some more, so people can draw their own conclusions. This has devolved into pointless nit-picking and bickering. The rest of us have better ways of spending our time.

 

[Realm]

Okay, well that’s a weird page to cite, Padre Tomfortas.

Why is that weird? After all, Puthoff was also fooled by scientology at the same time he was fooled by that remote viewing nonsense:

Puthoff took an interest in the Church of Scientology in the late 1960s and reached what was then the top OT VII level by 1971.[3] Puthoff wrote up his "wins" for a Scientology publication, claiming to have achieved "remote viewing" abilities.[4] In 1974, Puthoff also wrote a piece for Scientology's Celebrity magazine, stating that Scientology had given him "a feeling of absolute fearlessness".[5] Puthoff severed all connection with Scientology in the late 1970s.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff#cite_note-6
Harold E. Puthoff - Wikipedia

The accounts given there also seem to match those in other sources.

And you still didn't answer why anyone should show more interest towards pseudo-scientist Puthoff now that he is a contractor of "DeLonge Inc."?

 

[Realm]

Haha – you have to understand a logical fallacy before you can use it in a debate.

So you think this is my first rodeo debunking pseudo-scientists and their supporters? I'm quite familiar with the typical fallacies, the sort that you are making, and dishonest tactics of moving the goalposts and inventing arguments for your opponent. Like:

The larger consensus of scientists which includes biologists, psychologists, etc., isn't relevant to this discussion at all.

As if anyone actually tried to claim something like that.

I was basically making the point that if you seriously claim that negative mass is some sort of direct unavoidable necessity from what Paranjape was saying, the vast majority of physicist, Paranjape included, apparently can't do the math or understand the theories, since they don't claim what you are claiming.

Also if I were you, I would be rather quiet about fallacies while for example trying to extends successful experimental tests of GR to something that has none.

As for the rest, whatever. I've made my points, and defended them, and then defended them some more, so people can draw their own conclusions. This has devolved into pointless nit-picking and bickering. The rest of us have better ways of spending our time.

If only you could actually defend those with some evidence or even sources that actually state what you claim, instead of inventing conspiracy theories founded on invalid assumptions (like not having that direct quote). You have really started to sound more like a disciple of Puthoff than someone who could rationally evaluate actual evidence. For example, this was originally your opinion about that piece of metal LMH had given to Puthoff:

Look at that rubbish. How could anyone think that's a piece of recovered alien tech. Smh.

After I reminded how Puthoff took that seriously, your tone has changed like this:

I'm trying not to jump to conclusions - it seems that Puthoff and Davis et al. were simply doing their due diligence
...
I think he's right to seriously consider the substantial physical ramifications if the theory of stochastic electrodynamics is in fact the underlying physics for quantum field theory, and in this response to LMH, he explains that they found no unusual properties with her sample - but he raises an interesting untested possibility that such thin layers of these metals could act as a waveguide for terahertz waves, and exhibit a negative refractive index.
...
I'm just surprised and intrigued to find what appears to be a viable theoretical concept for mass reduction using layered metals - that hadn't occurred to me, so I have to give points to Hal Puthoff for coming up with it. I just started considering metamaterials for metric engineering recently, but I hadn't yet realized that thin metal layers could provide a theoretically valid approach to achieving the required effects, so I'm impressed that he's a step ahead of me on this. He may be the right kind of mind to crack this problem after all, working with expert specialists along the way of course.

That piece of scrap seems to have received some sort of Puthoff's touch.

 

[Hollywood Tomfortas]

Okay, well that’s a weird page to cite, Padre Tomfortas.

[ . . . ]

The inherent difficulty with RV or Remote Viewing is that it required objectivity and confirmation, although all the above examples given were amazingly correct.”

Huh, “all of the above examples given were amazing correct.” So are you trying to discredit my position, or provide evidence that supports it? Because I can’t tell anymore.

Well, to answer your binary question in a single word: YES! And maybe you can’t tell anymore because it doesn’t really matter anymore. You see, as an enlightened (OK lit-up) Zen master, I have had to upgrade Gautama Buddha’s famous 25 Century old saying “Nothing lasts” to accommodate our modern post-Gutenberg (now Zuckerberg) Galaxy level of electronic globa/tribal consciousness. The saying now reads: “Everything lasts, but nothing matters.” (More on that upgrade later.)

However, you’ve been such a good sport about my sacred tomfoolery here on Paracast, Brother M, that I will now reveal to you my connection with Hal Puthoff which goes back over 3 decades. I was first alerted to Hal’s existence in 1981 when my good friend and mentor Arthur M. Young (1905-1995), inventor of the Bell-47 helicopter (the ones you see on M*A*S*H) and founder of the Institute for the Study of Consciousness (ISC) in Berkeley CA mentioned that Hal was on Arthur’s ISC Board.

But I did not meet Hal in person until 1984 when I attended a lecture he gave at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA (a NE suburb of Sacramento) on his remote viewing research with especial focus on the successful results he had obtained in directing a team of remote viewers to raise $25,000 needed to Open a Waldorf School in Palo Alto. They actually raised $26,000 by playing the silver futures market informed through a simple process called ARV = Associative Remote Viewing, a skill that Hal taught the Board of Directors of that school, which BTW, was founded in Palo Alto by Hal and his wife Adrienne Kennedy-Puthoff and the school is thriving today known as the Waldorf School of the Peninsula. I give the link to the history of the school which does not mention its godfather Hal.
History - Waldorf School of the Peninsula

As for myself, you may infer quite correctly that I have something to do with Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy and Waldorf schools and indeed I do, being now a retired teacher of math, physics and chemistry in several Waldorf High Schools on the East and West coast. You once described me as “a horrifically cynical head case” here on Paracast, an apt description actually, but, in my defense I must say say that my cynicism is quite positive, even empathic since it was forged in the kiln of being locked up daily with 25 teenagers from grades 9 thru 12, trying to teach them things which very few wanted to learn. Actually, my best asset in the classroom was the training I received not at RSC but when I went through Interrogation School at Ft. Huachuca, AZ back in my Army Intelligence days during the Vietnam era. But I digress — or is it regress?

But anyway, Brother Thomas, I would like you to read this posting I made in 2006 to the Yahoo group called Anthroposophy_Tomorrow about how Hal Puthoff used his psychic abilities to save a budding Waldorf School from bankruptcy. (I’m in full tomfoolery mode for the Steineristas, so please bear with my juvenility and you will be rewarded at the end of the reading.)
Yahoo! Groups

 

[Constance]

It is probably fairer to say that a majority have ignored it. It is actually a field of research that is fairly respectable inside Russia, although Wikipedia has (as is often the case) showcased an extremely distorted dismissal of the subject, based on the fact that one of the researchers has put forward a rather dubious theoretical model. The major work on torsion was done by Kozyrev, who regarded it as a type of energy that conducted order across the universe, and actually equated it with time. Many of his experiments have been replicated by other researchers. I came across it first in studies of time slips. The ex Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Vincent Reddish, independently conducted research on dowsing, and concluded that it was mediated by an energy that he called the D force. Subsequently, someone in the UK Ministry of Defence told him about the Russian research and asked him to continue his research. He was able to confirm that the D force was torsion energy, and also replicated some of the Russian findings. He also demonstrated that torsion could be used as a communication medium.

Thank you for that information. I decided to look into torsion physics again and began by searching for information on Kozyrev's theories and experiments. I also came across a recent arxiv paper based in this research, linked here:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.5161.pdf

Linked in the first footnote to that paper is another paper providing an overview of developing Russian and Asian research pursuing Kozyrev's and Shipov's theories and experiments, here:

doc3 torsion

I am not trained in physics; my special interests and degrees have been in literature, philosophy, and interdisciplinary critical theory. But I've tried over a number of years to obtain a layperson's grounding in quantum physics and its relation to classical physics. Some reading in those areas likely led me to read about the Russian physicists' torsion theories a decade ago. I found those ideas to be attractive and ramifying to the limited extent that I fully understood them. Having read the papers at the two links above, I continue to find this subject to be intriguing.

 

[Realm]

Some reading in those areas likely led me to read about the Russian physicists' torsion theories a decade ago. I found those ideas to be attractive and ramifying to the limited extent that I fully understood them. Having read the papers at the two links above, I continue to find this subject to be intriguing.

And you just don't care that it has been exposed as scams and pseudo-science because?

This theory was a base of a number of various pseudoscientific claims and scams.

Torsion field (pseudoscience) - Wikipedia

Torsion fields really do exist, in the advanced physics of Einstein-Cartan theory. However, the concept has been adopted by woo-salesmen who love the sciency sound to the phrase, but stand no chance whatever of understanding the truly scary equations of the real Einstein–Cartan theory. Accordingly, the torsion fields you are liable to hear about on such thoroughly unscientific outlets as Coast to Coast AM have approximately the same validity as a fortune cookie.
...
Starting in the 1980s, Anatoly Akimov and Gennady Shipov began torsion field research at the state-sponsored Center for Nontraditional Technologies in Moscow. Their theory was loosely based on Einstein-Cartan theory and some variant solutions of Maxwell's equations.[1] However, the group disbanded in 1991 when their research was exposed as a fraud and an embezzlement of government funding.

Torsion field - RationalWiki

 

[Carl Grove]

And you just don't care that it has been exposed as scams and pseudo-science because?


Torsion field (pseudoscience) - Wikipedia


Torsion field - RationalWiki

As I pointed out above, the Akimov-Shipov theory has been criticised severely and I am not qualified to assess this issue (my background is psychology). However, these are only two out of at least 8o Russian workers who have based their research on Koxyrev's ideas rather than Akimov and Shipov, so dismissing the whole field of torsion research as "scams and pseudo science" is hardly justified. Moreover I suspect that the authors of the two articles you cite have their own hidden agenda. Notice that they did not directly criticise Kozyrev, who was widely regarded as "the Russian Einstein" and a towering figure, nor did they criticise (nor even mention!) the many replications of Kozyrev's work that have supported his findings, including Reddish's pioneering studies that were originally conducted without any knowledge of the torsion issue at all!

 

[Carl Grove]

Thank you for that information. I decided to look into torsion physics again and began by searching for information on Kozyrev's theories and experiments. I also came across a recent arxiv paper based in this research, linked here:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.5161.pdf

Linked in the first footnote to that paper is another paper providing an overview of developing Russian and Asian research pursuing Kozyrev's and Shipov's theories and experiments, here:

doc3 torsion

I am not trained in physics; my special interests and degrees have been in literature, philosophy, and interdisciplinary critical theory. But I've tried over a number of years to obtain a layperson's grounding in quantum physics and its relation to classical physics. Some reading in those areas likely led me to read about the Russian physicists' torsion theories a decade ago. I found those ideas to be attractive and ramifying to the limited extent that I fully understood them. Having read the papers at the two links above, I continue to find this subject to be intriguing.

I couldn't get the first link to work; the second I know of already. Also check out Claude Swanson, who had a good review of the Russian work: he is a US physicist and regards this as a valid and important area of research. This link should get you to a pdf:

THE TORSION FIELD AND THE AURA | Swanson | Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine Journal Archives
Like you I am a layman where physics is concerned. I would have liked to study it at university, but my mathematics skills weren't good enough. I first heard of torsion energy in Nick Cook's very interesting book The Hunt for Zero Point, then later on came across evidence that it is correlated with time slip phenomena. I feel, as some do, that it could be a highly significant field of research.

 

[Realm]

As I pointed out above, the Akimov-Shipov theory has been criticised severely and I am not qualified to assess this issue (my background is psychology). However, these are only two out of at least 8o Russian workers who have based their research on Koxyrev's ideas rather than Akimov and Shipov, so dismissing the whole field of torsion research as "scams and pseudo science" is hardly justified.

So you are not qualified to assess it, yet you are siding with some small group with shady credentials and ignoring the fact that the rest of the scientific world is either denouncing or ignoring such pseudo-science. That's the real hardly justified part.

Moreover I suspect that the authors of the two articles you cite have their own hidden agenda. Notice that they did not directly criticise Kozyrev, who was widely regarded as "the Russian Einstein" and a towering figure, nor did they criticise (nor even mention!) the many replications of Kozyrev's work that have supported his findings, including Reddish's pioneering studies that were originally conducted without any knowledge of the torsion issue at all!

Those sites are reporting the same information that can be found from basically any available source that has something to do with actual science. Just try to find any actual peer-reviewed recent scientific work that would support those pseudo-scientific ideas.
You can for example forget that arxiv document, which is not published in any scientific publication, and is written by Mark Krinker, who seems to be some sort of engineer instead of a physicist, and I can't even find any record of him being employed by the department mentioned in the paper. His papers seem to be either unpublished or conference reports (without peer review), as it's easy to publish all sorts of crap to many of those.

Here's a couple of recent news reports about the state of science in Russia and how those who try to sell nonsense like torsion fields are hampering actual scientific progress and public understanding of it:

Rampaging Pseudoscience Turning Russia into 'Medieval State' — Q&A

The ongoing brain drain and lack of financing is not the only reason Russian science has suffered in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union. The increase in pseudoscience has been so strong that the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) has formed a body to deal with the influx, the Commission on Pseudoscience and Research Fraud.

The Moscow Times spoke with the chairman of the commission, Yevgeny Alexandrov, who is also the head of a laboratory at the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg, one of Russia’s largest institutions for research in physics and technology.
...
Q: You managed to stop the “Clean Water” funding project, but which costly pseudoscientific projects have managed to get state funding?

A: So-called “Torsion fields” have been widely discussed in Russia since the end of 1980. RAS has labeled them pseudoscientific many times, but our statements were ignored. In 2008, the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center launched the Yubileiny satellite, in which they installed an engine [along with other regular engines] based on those “torsion” technologies.


That engine [known as a “reactionless drive”] was supposed to take the satellite beyond the solar system. The idea contradicts the basic law of angular momentum.


The “torsion” engine weighed almost a ton — and every kilogram we launch into space costs $10,000.

[In a debate after the launch, scientists concluded that the “torsion engine” had not had any effect on the satellite’s orbit — MT].

RAS academics have many times expressed their concerns about increasing obscurantism in our society. Why are occult mystics and healers still so popular in Russia? Because the media loves them! Take any newspaper or turn on the TV. [You’ll see] shows, articles and advertising for healers who can allegedly cure fatal diseases, help people find husbands or wives, lift spells. They promise things doctors will never promise.

What’s even more absurd is that these charlatans cooperate with our state. For example, in 2013 there was a conference, “Problems of Crime Investigations,” organized by the Investigative Committee. The conference included a section dedicated to “non-traditional ways to obtain information from criminals.” Hypnotists and occult mystics were introduced as being able to help investigate crimes by looking at victims’ photos. What a medieval approach!

Rampaging Pseudoscience Turning Russia into 'Medieval State' — Q&A

Putin’s Great Patriotic Pseudoscience
Russia has a proud history of scientific inquiry and advancement. Now the Kremlin is investing in academic kooks and conspiracies.
...
Science is under assault in the land that has produced some 17 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences. It’s not just that funding has been slashed (though it has) or that the field struggles with corruption and brain drain (though it does). Members of the scientific community say one of the biggest issues they face is the recent embrace of pseudoscientists like Yermakova by the Russian state.
...
In September, the academy’s special commission to fight Russian pseudoscience published a report that found that its rise was in part tied to the country’s growing isolation and nationalism. Russians who reject global scientific norms have treated this ideological shift as an opportunity to lobby for government support for their projects.
...
Russia has a mixed historical legacy when it comes to science policy. Science in the Soviet Union enjoyed relative prestige, especially fields that had applications for the military, space, and nuclear research. Students, beginning from a young age, were encouraged to pursue physics and mathematics in particular (the country’s proud stock of Nobel laureates and Fields medalists attests to the success of those efforts), and universities headhunted promising students to work in secret government labs in relatively comfortable conditions.

But the country has also long been susceptible to the potent combination of political power and pseudoscience. Research on an idea known as the Torsion field theory, for instance — which claimed to be able to explain telekinesis and levitation, among other phenomena — secretly received funding from the Soviet military and the KGB in the 1980s despite rejecting basic principles of physics.
...
“Pseudoscience exists in all countries, but it is like cancerous cells: A healthy organism rejects them and does not let them grow,” said Svetlana Borinskaya, a geneticist who works at the Institute of General Genetics. “A sick organism is not able to react.” There are signs in Russia that the cancer is taking hold: An annual study by the Higher School of Economics, a research university in Moscow, found in 2015 that the number of Russians who felt that science and technology bring more harm than good was 23 percent. The ratio of positive to negative views of science places Russia 30th out of 31 countries in a ranking of how much they value scientific progress; the study called it a “worrying signal.”

Putin’s Great Patriotic Pseudoscience

 

[Carl Grove]

I like the way you actually ignore any points that I made regarding specific researchers and findings. It seems to be par for the course for torsion critics. If you actually read what I said you will see that I was not siding with a shady group (or pair) of researchers but drawing attention to work done by many others including some of the most reputable scientists in Russia. I suggest you read Swanson's review and then think again.

 

[Realm]

I like the way you actually ignore any points that I made regarding specific researchers and findings. It seems to be par for the course for torsion critics. If you actually read what I said you will see that I was not siding with a shady group (or pair) of researchers but drawing attention to work done by many others including some of the most reputable scientists in Russia. I suggest you read Swanson's review and then think again.

So you are saying I should waste my time investigating your specific "reputable" torsion "scientists", but it's ok for you to ignore the point that the whole idea is regarded as pseudo-scientific nonsense that is against the principles of basic physics?

Why don't you give me a couple of actual peer-reviewed scientific papers from actual reputable scientific journals by those "reputable scientists", as after all, that's how actual science is done and published, and let's talk about torsion "science" then.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

Thank you for that information. I decided to look into torsion physics again and began by searching for information on Kozyrev's theories and experiments. I also came across a recent arxiv paper based in this research, linked here:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.5161.pdf

I looked at that paper and honesty from a physics POV it's a disaster. This would never have passed a peer review panel. I gave up on it before they explained what “natural gamma-ray radiation sources” they’re talking about, but if they’re messing around with radioisotopes (the only natural terrestrial source of gamma rays that I know of, besides lightning – which would be too impractical/spurious for experimental scenarios) then they’re probably giving themselves cancer because gamma rays are ionizing radiation.

They start by citing claims that have been experimentally debunked, including the work of Hayasaka and Takeuchi, which unfortunately did slip past the peer review process back in 1990 but was very quickly tested independently and disproved with several superior experimental efforts like this one:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0111069.pdf

The broader physical context of these kinds of claims falls under the category of "experimental tests of the equivalence principle." There are actually a few different equivalence principles which mean different things, but the most common usage refers to this key notion: the inertial mass of any body or system regardless of its composition or internal dynamics is equivalent to its gravitational mass (this is technically known as the “weak equivalence principle” but the word “weak” can be misleading).

Experimentally that means that the inertial mass of a body or system and its gravitational mass are identical – if you change one then you change the other to the same degree.

And Einstein’s stress-energy tensor precisely defines the mass of a body or system. So here’s what that means in practice: a gyroscope in rotational and/or translational motion has kinetic energy, so the net mass of a test device that’s spinning and/or in linear motion will be higher than its rest mass (but at the energies that human technology can attain experimentally, this mass increase is far too small to measure, due to the well-known proportion m = e/c^2). And to complicate things further (the stress-energy tensor is generally rather complex to calculate in real-world scenarios since pretty much everything contributes to the net mass value, so idealized concepts like a “perfect fluid” are commonly invoked for theoretical analyses) a gyroscope also possesses tension (negative pressure) in the flywheel, which contributes an even smaller, but negative, contribution to the net mass.

So briefly, a gyroscope can’t lose mass - it can only gain mass (and that mass increase is vanishingly tiny in all modern terrestrial experiments). It’s worth mentioning however that we do substantially increase the mass of test particles every day in particle accelerators around the world, because in those scenarios the particle is undergoing highly relativistic motion.

The physics community has investigated all manner of claims involving a prospective “fifth force,” which is ultimately what these kinds of efforts come down to. And it continues to do so – the discovery of a new force in nature would certainly precipitate a Nobel prize, and spark a revolution in physics. But to date every proposed method of investigating nature for any kind of fifth force has been tried and failed. Some would argue that the dark energy and the dark matter phenomena might qualify, but so far no viable theoretical explanation or laboratory experiment has arisen which might point to a fundamental physical fifth force mechanism in nature, so physicists are left with a mysterious cosmic background field of energy, and unseen “dark matter” particles, as the most likely explanations. Hopefully, in time, someone will propose a more satisfactory explanation for one or both of these effects. But as far as I’ve seen, no torsion physics model can explain either one of them (or anything else that’s been observed), so that’s why I say that I’m waiting for some kind of theoretical or observational motivation before I’ll consider it seriously.

 

[DROBNJAK]

Name one mathematical prediction of GR which can be tested, which hasn’t been proven to exist in nature. I’ll wait.

What about energy creating space time curvature? Astrophysicists found black holes and neutron starts that curve space time, but nobody so far found pure radiation that curves space-time. And GR predicts that.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

What about energy creating space time curvature? Astrophysicists found black holes and neutron starts that curve space time, but nobody so far found pure radiation that curves space-time. And GR predicts that.

That prediction of GR can't be tested yet, because we can't manufacture a vessel capable of containing enough radiation to produce a measurable magnitude of mass. But photons do have energy, which we know curves spacetime, because mass and energy are equivalent (and after all, it's called the stress-energy-momentum tensor for a reason). It's a pretty rudimentary argument: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/99253

 

[Hollywood Tomfortas]

That prediction of GR can't be tested yet, because we can't manufacture a vessel capable of containing enough radiation to produce a measurable magnitude of mass. But photons do have energy, which we know curves spacetime, because mass and energy are equivalent (and after all, it's called the stress-energy-momentum tensor for a reason). It's a pretty rudimentary argument: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/99253

Oh dearest Brother Morrison, what serendipity you bring into my life! Just when I need to consult an expert in the Mass-Energy Equivalence of GR, you write about it here in your very latest comment! OMG, this is truly destiny at work. What fortuitous karma I must have!

Now Brother Thomas, please do not be alarmed that the documentation I am about to show you is still very highly classified . But I reason that since it appears already on a public website, I don’t think either one of us will get in trouble for accessing and discussing it. (Famous last words, possibly?)

In any event, I must boldly press forward and ask you directly: Can you please check the accuracy of my calculations and offer your seasoned expertise about the ramifications of this astounding mass-energy conversion device? Without further ado, my esteemed Brother Thomas R. Morrison, Grand Keeper of the Flame of Equivalence, I give you the link and put the “money quote” in bold and then follow it with my calculations for you to check:

Theta and the Mest Body by L. Ron Hubbard : Hubbard and the Babalon Working

==============
The body is then held together by electronic structure which is easily influenceable, and that electronic structure has much more command upon the body than the MEST around it. In Scientology it has been discovered that mental energy is simply a finer, higher level physical energy. The test of this is conclusive in that a thetan “mocking up” (creating) mental image pictures and thrusting them into the body can increase the body mass and by casting them away again can decrease the body mass. This test has actually been made and an increase of as much as thirty pounds, actually measured on scales, has been added to, and subtracted from, a body by creating “mental energy”. Energy is energy. Matter is condensed energy.
=============

Now here are my calculations.

30 lb. in the English system is not technically mass, so I will convert to the KGS system. Thus:

30 lb. = 13.64 kg

Calculating the Energy Equivalence from E=mc^2 in the KGS units yields
(13.64 kg) * [(3 x 10^8 m/s)^2 ] = 1.23 x 10^18 Joules

Thomas, are your eyes bugging out like mine? 10 to the 18 Joules of energy? Let me find the correct prefix multiplier. Beyond Giga-, Tera-, Peta-, all the way up to Exa-!!!

Approximately 1 Exajoule of energy, 1 EJ!!!! By golly Thomas, wouldn’t this be sufficient energy for you to traverse your lucky entelechy well outside the solar system for your longed for intergalactic travels? I would think so, but first I want you to check the math. (If correct, I will happily introduce you to the spacetime metric engineer who will happily launch your lucky MEST arse into spacetime and beyond with matter-energy equivalence, he being none other than the once and future Hal (still the Owl) Puthoff!!!)

Gratefully yours,

Padre Tomfortas (known as Father Thomasius in the Vatican)

 

[DROBNJAK]

That prediction of GR can't be tested yet, because we can't manufacture a vessel capable of containing enough radiation to produce a measurable magnitude of mass. But photons do have energy, which we know curves spacetime, because mass and energy are equivalent (and after all, it's called the stress-energy-momentum tensor for a reason). It's a pretty rudimentary argument: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/99253

As always @Thomas R Morrison that was excellent explanation. Although I expected that answer ;-)

But try this. If one plugged in a total energy of all the gluons inside planet Earth into energy-stress tensor, with corresponding density etc., would he get the same space-time curvature as Earth's gravitational field creates? In short, can one link Quantum Chromodynamcis and GR?

The greatest thing about GR is that it was completely developed from the first principles and than it later was independently confirmed by experiments. Other theories, like QM or QFT were simply curve-fitted onto experimental data. QFT is matching electron's behavior down to 12 digits because it was shoehorned all the way. But when QFT is tested on muons, electron's first cousin, than it only matches about 5-6 digits. So, QFT is still unfinished. More shoehorning on the way

 

[Hollywood Tomfortas]

In short, can one link Quantum Chromodynamcis and GR?

No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn.

 

[Realm]

This test has actually been made and an increase of as much as thirty pounds, actually measured on scales, has been added to, and subtracted from, a body by creating “mental energy”.

Dear Father Thomasius, you should tell that to Saint Tom Believes-a-lot of TTSA, so that he can mix those joyful news among his other facts on the next Rogan interview.

If correct, I will happily introduce you to the spacetime metric engineer who will happily launch your lucky MEST arse into spacetime and beyond with matter-energy equivalence, he being none other than the once and future Hal (still the Owl) Puthoff!!!

Puthoff is definitely one of those characters that the more you read about him, the weirder it gets (and the less there's any credibility left, if he had any to begin with). I wonder if he has actually retained some portion of those crazy beliefs of scientology, even though he left the church.

During his scientology days, he believed stuff like this:

Puthoff took an interest in the Church of Scientology in the late 1960s and reached what was then the top OT VII level by 1971.[3] Puthoff wrote up his "wins" for a Scientology publication, claiming to have achieved "remote viewing" abilities.[4] In 1974, Puthoff also wrote a piece for Scientology's Celebrity magazine, stating that Scientology had given him "a feeling of absolute fearlessness".[5] Puthoff severed all connection with Scientology in the late 1970s.[6]

Harold E. Puthoff - Wikipedia

Martin Gardner has written the founding researcher Harold Puthoff was an active Scientologist prior to his work at Stanford University, and that this influenced his research at SRI. In 1970, the Church of Scientology published a notarized letter that had been written by Puthoff while he was conducting research on remote viewing at Stanford. The letter read, in part: "Although critics viewing the system Scientology from the outside may form the impression that Scientology is just another of many quasi-educational quasi-religious 'schemes,' it is in fact a highly sophistical and highly technological system more characteristic of modern corporate planning and applied technology".[6] Among some of the ideas that Puthoff supported regarding remote viewing was the claim in the book Occult Chemistry that two followers of Madame Blavatsky, founder of theosophy, were able to remote-view the inner structure of atoms.[6]

Remote viewing - Wikipedia

Apparently Puthoff tried to endorse the E-meter in the letter quoted above:
Letter from Hal Puthoff Endorsing The E-meter – While Working For the CIA at Stanford Research Institute

This is one example how he apparently used it according to this source:

Dr. Hal Puthoff, a physicist at the Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto, invited Vogel and five other scientists to witness the effects he was getting by hooking up a chicken egg to the electro-psychometer, or E-meter,” developed by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The E-meter’s function is almost identical to that of the psychoanalyzer which Vogel had first used with his seminar students. Puthoff attempted to demonstrate that the egg wired to the E-meter would respond when another egg was broken. He broke three separate eggs, but nothing happened. After asking Puthoff if he could try, Vogel put his hand over an egg and related to it exactly as he had learned to relate to his plants. In one minute, the needle on the E-meter’s galvanometer dial began to move and finally “pinned." Vogel backed ten feet away and got gyrations from the needle by opening and closing his hands. Though Puthoff and several others present tried to do the same, all failed.

Full text of "Peter Tompkins The Secret Life Of Plants"

According to this, Puthoff departed the church but became involved with some sort of "breakaway movement" of it:

US Army General Stubblebine came to head the project. He broadened the remit of the project, involving his military staff in spoonbending, and hiring tarot readers and channelers (or spirit mediums). The timing mirrors the involvement of many breakaway Scientologists in channeling groups. In 1984, General Stubblebine left under a cloud of controversy. By this time Puthoff and Swann had departed the Church of Scientology and become involved with a breakaway movement. With General Stubblebine's withdrawal, the Defense Intelligence Agency took over control of project "Grill Flame".

The Hubbard Intelligence Agency

Apparently much later (sometime close to 2000 based on how that page is dated) he tried to create these sorts of links between physics and all sorts of religious concepts:

Throughout mankind's cultural history there has existed the metaphysical concept that man and cosmos are interconnected by a ubiquitous, all-pervasive sea of energy that undergirds, and is manifest in, all phenomena. This pre-scientific concept of a cosmic energy goes by many names in many traditions, such as ch'i, ki, or qi (Taoism), prana (yoga), mana (Kahuna), barakah (Sufi), elan vital (Bergsonian metaphysics), and so forth.

Complementary to the above metaphysical concept, contemporary physics similarly posits an all-pervasive energetic field called "quantum vacuum energy," or zero-point energy, a random, ambient fluctuating energy that exists even in so-called empty space. (The adjective zero-point means that such energy or activity exists even at a temperature of absolute zero where no thermal agitation effects remain.)
...
Should we further consider the possibility that such random vacuum energy might be subject to influence by consciousness orintention, then, given that it is well understood by physicists that a restructuring or cohering of vacuum energy would have physical consequences for matter, animate or inanimate, such could provide a rational basis for healing or other processes that are part and parcel of the pre-scientific view. In such fashion the similarities, differences, and possible synthesis of the pre-scientific and modern concepts of an all-pervasive energy field can be considered.

As a physicist specializing in fundamental quantum physics and yet interested in these issues, I have an abiding interest in pushing the envelope with regard to the present scientific paradigm. This includes the issue as to whether what we know of the life process itself can find rapprochement with modern quantum physics, or whether and how it needs to be extended. Given my own earlier decade-plus background as director of the Cognitive Sciences program at SRI International in the '70s and early '80s, investigating remote viewing and other so-called paranormal phenomena, the life-science data I have to integrate all by themselves push the envelope
...
Contemplation of such provocative issues in both the physical and life sciences led me into investigating an area of physics concerned with what is known as quantum vacuum fluctuations or zero-point energy, a universal background energy pervading all of space and associated with fluctuations of underlying space itself. Specifically, I began to consider the underlying quantum fluctuations as a fundamental stuff out of which a greater synthesis could be built. I hasten to add that I do not mean for such an approach to be simply reductionism on a grander scale, with no room for nonphysical factors to play a role. Rather, to the degree that energy is involved not only in physical but in nominally non- or para-physical phenomena (including, perhaps, such mundane phenomena as thought, charisma, etc., let alone psychokinesis), then such energy patterns might in principle emerge as a result of cohering or patterning the otherwise random, ambient zero-point energy. For me this hypothesis emerged when I considered how uneconomical Nature would have to be to posit, on the one hand, an all-pervading energetic field of ki or chi, as in the metaphysics of the martial arts and acupuncture, and, on the other hand, also posit an all-pervasive energetic field of quantum zero-point energy. It appeared to me to be more likely that we were dealing with a single underlying substructure which goes by various names in various cosmologies, depending on whether it is in its pre-manifest random form, or patterned at various hierarchical levels, including the purely material.
...
I showed that on the cosmological scale a grand hand-in-glove dynamic equilibrium exists between the ever-agitated motion of matter on the quantum level and the surrounding zero-point energy field. One consequence of this is that we are literally, physically, in touch with the rest of the cosmos as we share with remote parts of the universe fluctuating zero-point-energy fields of even cosmological dimensions. Who is to say whether, for example, modulation of such fields might not carry meaningful information as in the popular concept of the Force?
...
All of this characterizes the underlying, ambient, random quantum zero-point-energy sea as a blank matrix upon which coherent patterns can be written, such information constituting at the bottom end of the scale coherent particle and field structures, and, to a zero-point-energy chauvinist like myself, an ascending ladder of possible other information structures, whether it be coherent electromagnetic field structures around living organisms, possibly non-biochemical components of memory, or other more esoteric aspects of Nature. If my goal for this research comes to full fruition, what would emerge would be an increased understanding that all of us are immersed, both as living and physical beings, in an overall interpenetrating and interdependent field in ecological balance with the cosmos as a whole, and that even the boundary lines between the physical and metaphysical would dissolve into a unitary viewpoint of the universe as a fluid, changing, energetic/information cosmological unity.

Quantum Vacuum Energy

That New Age mumbo jumbo with the Force and whatnot reminds me of the movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats", which was inspired by the adventures of Puthoff and others. They state in the beginning of the movie that "More of this is true than you would believe", and it's easy to understand what they mean by comparing the film with the stuff those nutters seemed to believe for real.