I recently became interested in Maurice Allais, the Nobel Prize Winner for Economics in 1988 who was also devoted to the study of physics. Now I have studied economics to degree level and hold Allais in the greatest esteem. If he had been writing in English, I feel he would be up there with Keynes, Samuelson, von Hayek, Hicks and Friedman as one of the big names.

As I take as much interest in astronomy as in economics these days, I naturally checked out his contribution to physics – and became increasingly more interested and more mystified. It was not so much that he was “Against the Mainstream” as that he presented data that defied explanation within the recognised laws of physics. Well, plenty have done that! (The names of Pons and Fleishman spring to mind.) However, Allais’ findings have been corroborated on several occasions over a period of years.

Quite simply, Allais observed anomalous behaviour in a Foucault pendulum during the solar eclipse of 1954 (Paris). His observations, which took place over a period of days, happened to coincide with the eclipse. In addition to the expected normal rotation (the Foucault effect), Allais recorded a remarkable 13.5 degree shift in the plane of oscillation lasting for the two-and-a-half hour duration of the eclipse. He obtained a similar result during an eclipse in 1959.

Saxl and Allen (Physics Review, D3, 1971) repeated the experiment at Harvard in 1970 with a torsion pendulum, reporting that their observations “agreed qualitatively with the work of Allais”. Elsewhere, experiments led to mixed results.

The eclipse of 11 August 1999 was seen as an opportunity for settling things one way or the other. NASA was at the helm. A global network of scientists were to make their observations. A team of NASA scientists were to coordinate and interpret the results.

AT THIS POINT, Maurice Allais disappears from the NASA website and from history. INCROYABLE? NON, MES AMIS – C’EST VRAI! The results of those 1999 observations are nowhere to be found. I have Googled. A dozen websites report what was to have happened. They look forward to what was to be learned. THE REST IS SILENCE.

WHAT WAS IT THAT THE WORLD COULD NOT BE TOLD?
No wonder conspiracy theorists abound!

Surely I have simply missed something?

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

I see this page is still on the NASA website:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...t06aug99_1.htm

Have you tried contacting everyone listed there about him?

Yes, there's that page, and one other of about the same date (1999), and then NASA goes silent as far as I can tell.
Actually, as regards Prof Allais himself, as far as I know he is still alive, still living in France, and about 93 years old. I suppose it's really the disappearance of a NASA research team that has perplexed me!

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

If you do decide to contact the team members, don't forget to let us know what happened!

Allais' results could have had Geocentric implications. Short term variations in the rate of rotation of a Foucault Pendulum, cyclic fluctuations with 24 & 25 hour periods, and the disruption of its period & turning during eclipses, should not occur with a steadily rotating Earth, but could be explained by a moon, sun & stellatum around a fixed Earth.

If there really was a NASA conspiracy over Allais, it doesn't inspire much confidence in Gravity Probe B.

Exactly how much control do NASA have over the data from Gravity Probe B? Is it conceivable that the Relativity paradigm is so entrenched a mindset, that if Einstein was really being challenged by the results, that there would be a conspiracy to withold/doctor/delay the results?

Googled a bit and found a report (in German) of the university of Vienna.
"Observed devitations are within the expected tolerances and cannot be seen as anomalies" is the statement.
This can hardly be a conspiracy, since the actual experiments were done by dozens of universities worldwide, none of which are in any way dependent on NASA.
Apparently it was simply a non-event.
http://www.astro.univie.ac.at/~wuchterl/Foucault/
http://esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/nph-bi...bd042273016731

According to Aujard, the 1999 results showed that the "Allais Effect" is real

http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/media1-1.htm
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.co...summ01TOC.html

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/fall99.html
"Abnormal Physical Phenomena Observed When the Sun, Moon, and Earth Are Aligned", Prof. Shu-wen Zhou, Houazhong University

Could you post some more info and links on this. I'm trying to follow it but not sure what is so surprising. Can these variations not be explained by the traditional model if we are simply missing some data? Are the variations caused by tidal effects. Do they happen at any location on earth or in earth's orbit? How closely related is this phenomena to eclipses and why? Is it because the moon is in a direct line between the sun and earth? Albeit, every 28 days it is on that plane, but not the line. I hardly understand the effect, are there any theories attempting to explain?

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

Now let me first say two things. First: I believe in conspiracies, and anyone who doesn't think they happen because some CTs verge on lunacy is an unwitting ally of conspirators. Second: I don't think there is a conspiracy involved here.

I have been making some inquiries and I hope to learn more. If I discover nothing more inside the next couple of days, I will post what little I have learned. (You know: I really expected one of the professional astronomers might have had some information for me on this.)

Now AntEater, you say this was "simply a non-event". But the abstract you point to says So there WAS an event, right?
But an explanation for it is offered:That sounds unlikely - but then the observations themselves are unlikely - so it is not to be dismissed on that count. Can someone explain to me how this might operate? Is this drag effect something we should be paying attention to because it might affect other experiments?

Jpax, Hi! Do follow up the links that have already been given - and what they link to! There's a lot of interesting stuff out there. I'm pretty sure tidal effects have been factored in. But if you want an explanation ... ah, that's another thing altogether! Thing is, we are observing effects here that mainstream physics doesn't seem to explain - but, where gravity is concerned, that's nothing new anyway.

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

With "non-event" I meant that the results were not conclusive enough to attract attention by the media.

Is there anyone who thinks that conspiracies never occur? I'd like to see a show of hands.

Sounds like you ought to start a poll....

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"I am Meteora, supreme goddess of weather" - Meteora, in The Unchained Goddess

One nice thing about being a meteorologist who also likes astronomy is that the sky is always interesting!

Definitely not. BABB polls are unreliable. I'd want to see someone step forward here.

Eh, I don't think science actively undertakes conspiracies.
I don't know about the government, but then again, they have good reason to hide a lot of stuff, and it probably does take more than one governmental person to do that.

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Contrary to the opinion of the press, the public, and their mothers, most scientists are dull and uninteresting people.
- James Watson

Which brings up the point that there is a difference between a conspiracy and an illegal conspiracy.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

But to what degree are the usual "conspiracy" claims crimes?
Sure, assassination would be an illegal conspiracy.
Hiding aliens? Eh, not really.

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Contrary to the opinion of the press, the public, and their mothers, most scientists are dull and uninteresting people.
- James Watson

My point, exactly. 8)

To me, a bad conspiracy is when two or more people get together to perpetrate a crime in secret.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Like, whoever helped Versaci come out with his summer fashions. I mean, how HID!

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Contrary to the opinion of the press, the public, and their mothers, most scientists are dull and uninteresting people.
- James Watson

Not sure exactly how a conspiracy works into this. I’d call it more of being “Googally Challenged”.

Negative result:
http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/full.html

Positive result:
Wang et al., Phys. Rev. D62 (2000) 041101
Critique of positive result:
Unnikrishnan et al., Phys. Rev. D63 (2001) 062002

Negative result:
http://www.eclipse2006.boun.edu.tr/sss/paper01.pdf

Anecdotally, the paucity of additional peer-reviewed articles would point to an overall negative result consistent with predictions of mainstream theory. That said, I’m going to try to hunt down the faculty at Virginia Tech that participated in the ’99 study (Gravimeter) next time I’m down there.

Edit: I should also check the journal articals above to see if any papers cite them, which should turn up some more results. I wish I still had direct access to VT's online journals...

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Thanks for the reference. An interesting paper. I read it, thinking "Good try! But hang on - the gravitational implications of this idea are tiny in astronomical terms." So when I reached the Conclusion I was pleased to read:A negative result? Not in the sense you meant, surely?
If the suppositions of Wuchtern and Wirrer in the reference quoted by AntEater are along the same lines as those of Van Flandern and Yang in this paper, then attempts to square the (claimed) Allais effect with the mainstream seem a bit feeble. That said, I am all for further observations under more tightly controlled experimental conditions.

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

Well, I looked up the sources but they didn't really explain the background as much as I would have liked. I understand there is an effect, but I don't understand the magnitude, how the measurments were taken, and what is the significance of the eclipse. The lunar distance should not vary enough during the time of an eclipse to make a difference, so it may be related to the geometry of the eclipse. So were the affected pendula in shadow? penumbra or umbra? What latitudes, longitudes, and altitudes at the time of the measurments?

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

Sorry Jpax (and others) - I have not been thinking straight! I have been following the posts on this thread in parallel with those on this other thread and forgetting that it was the other thread that already had useful references to Allais' work.

Take a look here:
http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/Science.htm

and also here:
http://www.allais.info
This latter site has a promised link to: "My (Thomas Goodey's) own theoretical ideas about the phenomenon (not as yet written)..." - so its looks like someone thinks he's beginning to see light!

Allais' re-examination of the Miller data (which I believe inspired the other thread) is every bit as interesting as his own pendulum experiments.

As I implied in my intro, my assessment of his contribution to economics already marked out Allais as a man of genius in my eyes. I believe him to possess intellectual ability of gigantic proportions. Now that Claude Elwood Shannon is dead, perhaps he is the nearest thing on Planet Earth to a benign version of the Mekon!

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

A couple of days ago, I promised to reveal as much as I had learned myself about the disappearance of Maurice Allais - or rather about the disappearance of the NASA research team investigating the Allais effect.

From a couple of different sources I hear that team leader Dr David Noever and some others of his team quit NASA to found or work for an Internet company called Mobular: http://www.mobular.com/ - and that NASA responded by simply abandoning the project.

Well, I thought I had better tell you this unsensational news.
I feel underwhelmed too!

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"True skepticism encompasses not dismissing evidence because it seems to defy rational explanation."

I had some contact with members of Allais' group for a while. What they told me is more or less the same. Noever quit the project and took all the data that others had contributed with him. But they also told me that Noever did not use the right type of pendulum in the experiments. Noever used long pendulums, whereas they should have used shorter ones with a quicker response time. Nonetheless there were at least a few 'positive' results found, one in Romania and one in China (as I recall).

Personally, I wouldn't put much stock in the papers by Unnikrishnan & Gillies and Van Flandern on this. The paper by Wang et al is the important one. I like the mechanism that Tom Andrews proposed for the Chinese eclipse experiment result, on pp 15-17 of this paper

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109110

One thing that bugs me about the Allais group is they want to have a lot of attention to Allais' work, but they hesitate to delve into the actual mechanism of gravity.

Well, I'll keep reading and pay attention when I can. I just hope this doesn't devolve into a GLP style "missing microbiologist dan burisch" type thing. I do have a number of questions but don't know where to direct them. For instance, were any of these anamolies detected by more than one pendulum at a time, and if so, what were their separation, etc.

If we had an aray of pendula around the world, then their intersecting plans could be used for trangulation or direction finding of a source of the effect in deep space (if it's not local). I still can't tell if the incident during the eclipse is a one time deal over and above the normal 24 and 25 hr periodicity. Perhaps a distant supernova had a gravitational effect that was not figured into the experiment, check records and see if one was recorded at that time... or perhaps we can't see that particular supoernova yet because light is limited to c whereas gravity's influence is more immediate.

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

More to the point, did any gravimeters detect anything unusual? I dislike pendulum experiments because there are too many variables that can affect the results, particularly air pressure and mechanical design. If there is a gravitational sheilding effect (or other anomaly), it should show up clearly on the gravimeters, repeatably, and in proportion to the percentage of totality of the eclipse (in contrast to even the original Allais data, which starts and stops rather sharply).

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Do try not to take me too seriously.