Obituary, R. S. Shankland, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 72(4), 1335 (1982).
It is interesting to contrast the above letter by Einstein to earlier discussions between Einstein and Miller. Below is the text of an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, 27 January 1926, published in Cleveland Ohio, home of the Case Western Reserve University where some of the original ether-drift experiments were undertaken. The article suggests there was a war of words going on between Albert Einstein and Dayton Miller, which modern historians have failed to adequately address. In particular, I would ask any reader to contact me at demeo(at)mind.net, if they know where copies of the letters between Einstein and Miller could be found, and also, where the various "press dispatches" mentioned in the article, from the University of Berlin, might have been published. The article suggests Einstein was irrationally dismissing Miller's work on ether-drift with the temperature argument, decades before the Shankland team attempted to do this in a more formal manner.
--------------------------------
GOES TO DISPROVE EINSTEIN THEORY
Case Scientist Will Conduct Further Studies in Ether Drift.
Dr. Dayton C. Miller, professor of physics at Case School of Applied
Science, the man who raised doubt about the Einstein relativity theory,
will leave tonight or tomorrow for Mount Wilson, California, to continue
his ether-drift experiments.
Dr. Miller believes he already has proved that interstellar space is
occupied by ether, but he proposes to nail down the proof so conculsively
that Einstein and every other critic of his studies will have to capitulate.
However, while he has been a little annoyed by Einstein's criticisms,
cabled in press dispatches from Berlin, Dr. Miller has not been influenced
by them.
Einstein's theory is predicated on the assumption that ether does not
exist. And he got that idea from studying the experiments of Prof. A.A.
Michelson, Prof. E.W. Morley, and Dr. Miller conducted in Cleveland from 35
to 40 years ago.
Einstein Discounts Experiments
Speaking before scientists at the University of Berlin, Einstein said the
ether drift experimetns at Cleveland showed zero results, while on Mount
Wilson they showed positive results. Therefore, altitude influences
results. In addition, temperature differences have provided a source of
error.
"The trouble with Prof. Einstein is that he knows nothing about my
results." Dr. Miller said. "He has been saying for thirty years that the
interferometer experiments in Cleveland showed negative results. We never
said they gave negative results, and they did not in fact give negative
results. He ought to give me credit for knowing that temperature
differences would affect the results. He wrote to me in November suggesting
this. I am not so simple as to make no allowance for temperature."
Dr. Miller made about 100,000 interferometer observations at Mount Wilson.
He will begin another series of several thousand next week.
Additional Links on Dayton Miller, or generally on the subject of Ether.
* Web site of Science News-Letter, c.1920s, containing information about Miller's work:
From the 9 Nov. 1929 Science News-Letter:
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/11_13_99/timeline.htm
"IS THERE AN ETHER?
Science still must answer the great and fundamental question: "Is there an ether?" And despite the many feats of the Einstein theories of relativity in explaining and predicting observed facts of physics, such as the way the planet Mercury moves in its orbit, they are seriously menaced by having one of their foundations pulled out from under them. Prof. Dayton C. Miller has reported to the Optical Society of America that he has during the past year laboriously repeated the ether drift experiments that he has been making during the last nine years in a Cleveland laboratory and on high Mount Wilson in California. Again, he finds an observed effect in the light path of his apparatus such as would be produced by a relative motion of the Earth and the ether of about ten kilometers (six miles) per second. This is the same result that Dr. Miller has obtained during the past few years. In 1925, his paper on this work won the annual prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This continued ability to obtain the same results over a period of years, whether the apparatus is at normal level in Cleveland or on a California mountain, makes Dr. Miller's results all the more important."
From the 30 Nov. 1929 Science News-Letter
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/12_4_99/timeline.htm
"SOLAR SYSTEM RUSHING THROUGH SPACE
The Earth and the rest of the solar system are rushing at a rate of some six miles a second toward the portion of the sky in which is seen the constellation of the Dragon, [an early estimate which was later revised] Dr. Dayton C. Miller of the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, has discovered. That there are at least 12 different experimental evidences of such a cosmic motion of the solar system is announced by Dr. Miller for the first time in a report to the National Academy of Sciences. Among these are the famous ether drift tests that he has been making for the past decade. This year's tests were made at Cleveland within 300 feet of the location of the original Michelson-Morley experiment on ether drift upon whose supposed negative result Einstein supported his theory of relativity. Dr. Miller, on the basis of reinvestigation of the original test data and thousands of observations of his own on Mount Wilson and at Cleveland, concludes that the original experiment of 1887, cited in every textbook as proof that there is no ether, in reality shows the same sort of motion that he has found in his much more extensive repetitions of the experiment."
* Web page presenting a bit of history about Dayton Miller, who was well-known for his scientific work in the field of acoustics, and mainted a large collection of flutes (portions of this are quoted below):
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/may0.html
* Web site of Caroline Thompson, presenting serious questions and challenges to modern physics, with a variety of materials related to the question of ether.
http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1
* Web site of Maurice Allais, on the question of anisotropy in space, with various discussions on the question of ether, and the work of Miller:
http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/Science.htm
* Additional information about Maurice Allais' work, and the work of Erwin Saxl on the torsion pendulum:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/7919/Allais.htm
* Here is a separate webpage with a long list of citations on the ether-drift experiments, and the larger question of energy in space. Download links are provided to the original items where possible. Many or most of these are experimental papers showing positive results for the ether and ether-drift.
* From a Master's Thesis on the subject of Dayton Miller's life and work:
Maynard, William J. "Dayton C. Miller: his life, work, and contributions as a scientist and organologist." Master's Report, Palmer Graduate Library School, Long Island University, Brookville, New York, 1971, 101 pp.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/may4.html
If the year 1900 was important to Miller's organological investigations of the gold flute, it must have been equally, if not more, important to his scientific work. While in Europe at that time, 1900, he attended the International Congress of Physics in Parks, and heard a lecture on ether drift delivered by Lord Kelvin, the British physicist. Miller's future studies relating to ether drift were to last a lifetime, and would become for him a definitive study. He had known of the ether drift experiments because many were made at Case by Albert A. Michelson, a former professor of physics at Case who taught there during the 1880's.
Physicists had long been asking themselves whether the ether surrounding our earth remained fixed in respect to the motion of heavenly bodies through it, or whether the earth in its motion through space dragged the ether with it. Michelson devised an instrument known as an interferometer, which was capable of measuring more minute distances than the most high-powered microscope. As a reward for his scientific achievements, Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907.
Michelson was associated with a fellow physicist, Edward W. Morley of Western Reserve University, in many of these ether studies. When Michelson left Case in 1889, Morley moved on to other experiments. With Miller's new interest in 1900, however, Morley returned to his earlier studies of ether drift, and the two men set about building a new and larger interferometer which was four times as sensitive as the one used in the earlier experiments. Observations were made with this new improved instrument in 1904 and the results were expressed as follows:
If the ether near the apparatus did not move with it, the difference in velocity was less than 3.5 kilometers a second, unless the effect on the materials annulled the effect sought. We desire to place the apparatus on a hill, covered only with a transparent covering to see if an effect can be there detected. (Dayton C. Miller, "The Ether Drift Experiment," Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 10, 1940. [1904??])
Albert Einstein, the scientist, was interested in this ether drift theory and used the Michelson, Morley, and Miller experiments as a basis for his theory of relativity. However, Einstein formulated his theories on the basis that ether did not fill outer space, wheras Miller felt that indeed it did exist. Speaking at the University of Berlin, Einstein stated that the experiments at Case showed zero results and later experiments on Mount Wilson showed positive results. Therefore, he said, altitude influences results as well as do differences in temperature, and these both provide sources of error which would rule the findings invalid.
Miller replied to these charges:
The trouble with Professor Einstein is that he knows nothing about my results....He ought to give me credit for knowing that temperature differences would affect the results. He wrote to me in November suggesting this. I am not so simple as to make no allowance for temperature. (Cleveland Plain Dealer January 27, 1926.)
Computer analysis of all the data, after Miller's death, proved that although the shifts were statistically significant, they were not due to an ether drift but rather to very small temperature gradients across the interferometer which displaced the fringes. [JD Note: My paper above shows that this is not the case.] When Miller's data were reorganized to take account of this temperature factor, they were shown to support the postulates of the special theory of relativity. (R. S. Shankland, Dictionary of American Biography, unpublished Supplement Three)
How many times these two scientists met, we do not know, but it is known that Einstein was a guest in the Miller home on at least one occasion, as shown by Einstein's signature in the Miller guestbook.
Also be sure to review these items:
* 1679: Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Boyle, on the Cosmic Ether of Space:
http://www.orgonelab.org/newtonletter.htm
Cosmic Ether-Drift and Dynamic Energy in Space: Bibliography and Resources
http://www.orgonelab.org/energyinspace.htm
Abstracts of Other Papers by James DeMeo on the Subject of Ether, or Energy in Space:
- "A Dynamic Biological-Atmospheric-Cosmic Energy Continuum: Some
Old and New Evidence", Presented at the 11th International Congress
of Biometeorology, International Society for Biometeorology, Purdue
University, September, 1987, Abstracts, p.43. Updated version (below) Presented
and Published in Geo-Cosmic Relations: The Earth and its Macro-Environment,
Proceedings, First International Congress on Geo-Cosmic Relations,
19-22 April 1989, Amsterdam, Netherlands, G.J.M. Tomassen, et al, Editors,
PUDOC Science Publishers, Wageningen, 1989.
From 1934 to 1957, Dr. Wilhelm
Reich published a series of experimental reports demonstrating the existence
of a specific biologically and meteorologically active energy continuum
at work within the atmospheric ocean, and in high vacuum. Reich developed
unique experimental devices, notably a metallic energy-accumulating enclosure
(the orgone accumulator), and a special water-grounded instrument for affecting
clouds and weather patterns from a distance (the cloudbuster). His most
crucial experiments and observations have been verified and duplicated
in both Europe and the USA. In controlled studies, the metallic energy-accumulating
enclosures have been found to have specific influences upon air temperature,
humidity, and electroscopical discharge rate in a manner dependent upon
local meteorology. A stimulating effect upon plant growth, wound healing,
and general physiology have also been documented. The cloudbuster, which
must be partly grounded in moving, unpolluted water, has a demonstrated
capacity to influence cloud dynamics over large regions, and has been used
to break droughts and bring rains in various parts of the world. This body
of work demonstrating the existence of an excitable, pulsatile cosmic-atmospheric-biological
energy is in general agreement with similar findings of Piccardi and Bortels
on fluctuating physicochemical and biological phenomena. In particular,
the metallic enclosures used in Piccardi's tests are similar to the metallic
accumulators used in Reich's energy experiments. Piccardi's observations
on water activation parallel those of Reich on the capacity of water to
absorb the atmospheric orgone energy, a principle employed most effectively
in the cloudbuster. Likewise, Bortel's suggestion of a specific weather
radiation is founded upon observations similar to those made by Reich and
his coworkers, who came to similar conclusions. The works of Miller on
the dynamic ether drift, Burr on electrodynamic fields, Alfven and Arp
on plasma energy in space, Kervran on biological transmutations, Brown
on exogenous biological clock phenomena, and Benveniste on water-activating
principles in high dilutions, have likewise demonstrated either the importance
of cosmic spatial/environmental factors to experimental results, or the
necessity for the existence of a biologically and meteorologically active
ether-like energy continuum.
- "Similarities and Differences Between Wilhelm Reich's Orgone Accumulator
and Giorgio Piccardi's Shielded Enclosures", Presented (in absentia)
to the International Symposium on Relations of Biological and Physicochemical
Processes with Solar Activity and Other Environmental Factors, Pushchino,
Russia, 1993, Abstracts of Papers, p.229.
From 1934 to 1957, Dr. Wilhelm
Reich published a series of experimental reports demonstrating the existence
of a specific biologically and meteorologically active energy continuum
at work within the atmospheric ocean, and in high vacuum. Reich developed
unique experimental devices, notably a metallic energy-accumulating enclosure
(the orgone accumulator), which was capable of altering the basic physical
properties inside of itself. Reich and other physicians associated with
his group reported powerful healing effects of the orgone accumulator upon
a wide variety of disorders, including cancers and other degenerative ailments.
Severe burns also responded well to the orgone radiation, which was additionally
objectified through various measures. Visual and subjective sensory examinations
of the orgone accumulator have yielded fairly consistent positive indications
of an unusual property, as compared to a control enclosure, and at least
one double-blind test of human-sized orgone accumulator devices has yielded
positive indications of such effects. Controlled studies with plants and
cancer mice have likewise demonstrated the growth-promoting and healing
properties of the orgone radiation. Other controlled studies with the orgone
accumulator, verified numerous times, have indicated patterned changes
in internal air temperature, humidity, and electroscopical discharge rates,
tied to meteorological and solar fluctuations. Anomalous changes in response
patterns of Geiger-Muller counters and ionization properties within high
vacua suggest that the orgone accumulator effect is that of a basic energy
continuum, similar to that of a dynamic ether, though one possessing distinct
and powerful biological properties. Reich therefore discussed the orgone
radiation in the context of being a life-energy continuum. In the USA,
Reich's research was attacked by the US Government in the 1950s, which
banned and burned all pertinent publications, initiating a period of censorship
of the topic which continues today. In Europe, however, discovery of this
same energetic principle appears to have developed in the works of the
late Dr. G. Piccardi, who described a similar metallic/organic enclosure
which possessed similar properties to the orgone accumulator, though apparently
not as intensive. The metallic enclosures used in Piccardi's tests are
similar to the metallic/organic accumulators used in Reich's energy experiments.
Piccardi's observations on water activation parallel those of Reich on
the capacity of water to absorb the atmospheric orgone energy. Likewise,
Bortel's suggestion of a specific weather radiation is founded upon observations
similar to those made by Reich and his coworkers, who came to similar conclusions.
The works of Miller on the dynamic ether drift, Burr on electrodynamic
fields, Alfven and Arp on plasma energy in space, Kervran on biological
transmutations, Brown on exogenous biological clock phenomena, and Benveniste
on water-activating principles in high dilutions, have likewise demonstrated
either the importance of cosmic spatial/environmental factors to experimental
results, or the necessity for the existence of a biologically and meteorologically
active ether-like energy continuum. The author suggests that the discovery
by Reich of the orgone energy, which is an excitable, pulsatile, water-active
cosmic-atmospheric-biological force, provides a concrete and experimentally-demonstrated
mechanism to the entire field of physico-chemical and biological fluctuating
phenomena.
- "Energy in Space: Empirical Evidence and Implications for Orthodox
Theory", Presented (in absentia) to the Pacific Division,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual Meeting,
June 1994, Special session on "Challenges to Contemporary Views in Physics
and Astronomy", San Francisco State Univ., California, Proceedings
13(1):64.
Experimental findings from
a variety of research disciplines have independently observed and documented,
or theoretically derived and implied, the existence of an energy in space
which satisfies the described properties of a dynamic ether, but one with
biological and meteorological properties. From the brief 1887 experiment
of Michelson-Morley, undertaken for three days only in the basement of
a stone building, one may properly conclude only the defeat of the static
ether of Newton they never followed through with their expressed desire
to test for a dynamic ether. An Earth-entrained dynamic ether would not
be detectable from basement locations, or from inside any dense enclosure.
Dayton Miller's later work (1920-33) satisfied these criteria, of high
altitude and light density of interferometer environment, clearly detecting
the dynamic ether. In later years (c.1950), Giorgio Piccardi detected
an unusual energetic phenomenon with similar and additional unusual properties:
solar-terrestrial components, affected by metals (density), more active
at higher altitudes, capable of affecting the physical chemistry of water,
with physiological and meteorological components. Harold Burr identified
(c.1960) a similar electrodynamic phenomenon at work in nature.
Wilhelm Reich likewise identified a life-energy phenomenon at work
(c.1940) in living systems, in the atmosphere, and in ultra-high vacuum:
capable of influencing the physical properties of air and water, reflectable
by metal shields, more active at higher altitudes. More recent studies
on anomalous energy fluctuations in ultra-high vacuum (Puthoff), anomalous
coincidental placements of high and low red-shift stellar objects (Arp),
and streaming cosmic plasmas in space (Alfven) provide additional independent
evidence suggesting the existence of a tangible and measurable bio-cosmic
energy continuum pervading the natural world. The relativistic and "big-bang"
cosmologies are challenged empirically, by researchers working independently
in different disciplines.
- "Dayton Miller's Discovery of the Dynamic Ether Drift", Presented
to the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Southwestern & Rocky Mountain
Division, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Northern
Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, Arizona, 2-6 June 1996. Program and Abstracts,
pp.41-42.
While Michelson-Morley are
given credit for having disproven the existence of ether, their very short,
6-hour experiment addressed only the theologically-necessary
static
ether of Newton. Dayton Miller, student of Michelson, continued researching
this same question and undertook the most systematic and thorough work
on the subject, proving the existence of a dynamic and Earth-entrained
ether, with properties that made understandable the very small results
observed by M-M and nearly all investigators of this question. Miller's
work was never addressed straightforwardly, however, but only ridiculed
and marginalized by political fiat. Only after his death did his opponents
attempt to finally defeat his work by, once more, raising questions he
had repeatedly addressed during his lifetime. Miller's work on the dynamic
ether has never been replicated by his critics, nor to my knowledge by
his supporters, which is what would be necessary to either fully confirm
or refute his findings. However, there are numerous other researchers who
have come to nearly similar conclusions, or who have described a natural
ether-like energetic phenomenon with very similar properties. At the very
least, physics textbooks should cease misrepresenting the M-M experiments
as "definitive" and more accurately portray the question of ether, or
energy-in-space, as an open question.
- "Independent Discovery of a Dynamic Bio-Cosmic Energy in Space
and in the Atmosphere: Miller, Reich, Piccardi, Burr & Brown", Presented
to the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Southwestern & Rocky Mountain
Division, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Northern
Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, Arizona, 2-6 June 1996. Program and Abstracts,
pp.41-42.
One of the more significant
proofs for a new scientific finding is the independent discovery and/or
verification of similar findings by other researchers. There is growing
evidence for such independent discovery of a dynamic energy in space, with
both biological and meteorological characteristics, based upon the work
of different researchers. Dayton Miller's work identified a dynamic
ether, moving faster at higher altitudes, and slowed or reflected
by dense materials such as metals or stone. Wilhelm Reich discovered an
unusual energy, the orgone, reflectable by metals and more active
at higher altitudes, with cosmic, biological and meteorological functions.
Giorgio Piccardi discovered a similar biocosmic, physico-chemical fluctuating
phenomenon at work in physical chemistry, reflected by metal plate,
more active at higher altitudes, and possessing significant solar-terrestrial,
biological and meteorological components. Harold Burr, a neurosurgeon,
identified an electrodynamic field surrounding and penetrating living
organisms, with environmental-meteorological components. Frank Brown, investigating
the biological clock, observed similar unshieldable cosmic solar-lunar
phenomena capable of affecting the behavior and metabolism of many living
creatures. Other names could be added to this incomplete listing, of scientists
whose work either directly demonstrated or implied and/or postulated the
existence of a very similar natural energetic principle (i.e., Halton Arp,
Bjorn Nordenstrom, Rupert Sheldrake). Virtually all of these researchers
have been attacked and censored or through other unethical political tactics,
shut out of participation in their different fields of research.
- "Practical Applications of Ether: Novel Biological and Atmospheric
Experiments", Presented to the 74th Annual Meeting of the Southwestern
& Rocky Mountain Division, American Association for the Advancement
of Science, Mesa State College, Grand Junction, Colorado, 17-21 May
1998, Program and Abstracts, p.45.
Most arguments and experiments
addressing the question of ether focus upon anticipated changes in the
behavior and properties of light, such as speed of transmission or frequency
shifting. Experiments undertaken since the 1940s (not originating within
physics), using simple but novel arrangements of different materials, have
yielded anomalous phenomena suggesting the existence of an energy-rich
substrate meeting the requirements of a
dynamic ether weakly interacting
with matter, but also with biological and meteorological properties. Empirical
findings, notably of Wilhelm Reich, indirectly support ether-theory in
ways not generally discussed or anticipated by ether-advocates. Meteorological,
biological, nuclear and solar-terrestrial aspects are discussed. Practical
applications suggested by medical experiments, seed-charging and desert-greening
field experiments are also reviewed and documented. (Published as "A Dynamic and Substantive Cosmic Ether")
A listing of Dr. DeMeo's published books, papers and lectures can be found here.
Heretic's Notebook: Emotions, Protocells, Ether-Drift and Cosmic Life Energy, With New Research Supporting Wilhelm Reich (Pulse of the Planet #5),
Click here to review and/or purchase books on new ideas in physics, along with reprints of Dayton Miller's primary 1933 paper on ether-drift, and a set of photocopies of his original ether-drift data-sheets from Mt. Wilson.