LECTURE NO. 29

Energy Challenges for the 21st Century

Copyright © Harold Aspden, 2002

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This Lecture is my impromptu reaction to having today (July 4th, 2002) received in my mail two items, (1) being the monthly periodical Physics World (July, 2002) sent to members by the U.K. Institute of Physics and (2) the other being the Space Energy Journal (June, 2002) published quarterly by the Space Energy Association of P.O. Box 1136, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 33757-1136. The latter was accompanied by a handwritten letter from Don Kelly who reminded me of our past meetings at U.S. energy conferences and drew my attention to something pertaining to the energy research of Dr. Henry Moray. Having, as recently as 15th June, 2002 delivered, as an invited keynote speaker, a lecture in Berlin at the Binnotec 2nd Berlin Congress for Innovative Energy Technologies, a lecture which hinged on the findings of Dr. Henry Moray, I see reason to put some of my thoughts on record in these web pages.

INTRODUCTION
I have to confess that I find it extremely depressing when I see the contrasting attitudes concerning our future energy problems as revealed by these two publications referenced above, especially in the light of my contribution to that conference in Berlin. The title I have assigned to this Lecture No. 29 is the same as the one which dominates the front cover page of that July 2002 issue of Physics World, where it is followed, in small block capitals, by a sub-title: ‘CAN WATER, WIND AND FIRE SAVE THE EARTH?’. In contrast, the title of the theme I see as the subject of that June, 2002 Quarterly issue of The Space Energy Journal is: ‘Cosmic Energy – The Legacy of Nikola Tesla and T. Henry Moray’. I can also say that the title of my Berlin Lecture was: ‘Our Future Energy Source – the Vacuum!’

You may wonder why I find this depressing. My answer to this is that I find it reprehensible on the part of our physics establishment that, in spite of the growing concern about our depleting energy sources and the pollution effects of hydrocarbon fuels, it does not include in its spectrum of enquiry at least some reference to the claims of record pertaining to certain unconventional sources of energy. Can it be that the physics community at large has to be deterred from exploring avenues of research that are somewhat controversial? Should one fear witchcraft, when in fact, as that sub-title suggests, we must anyway expect to suffer the ordeals of water, wind and fire if we are to save the Earth?

As to one such unconventional energy claim of record, I wish here to acknowledge the fact that it was the Space Energy Journal which, in its September 2001 issue, drew to my attention to what may well be the first U.S. Patent to cover an invention that offered access to a source of energy which can solve all our future energy resource problems. It was an invention ‘before its time’, as we may say, but one we should not ignore and so I made a point of mentioning it in that Berlin Lecture of mine, as you may see by reading Lecture No. 27 on this website: http://www.energyscience.co.uk. That U.S. Patent No. 119,825 was granted in 1871 to Daniel MacFarland Cook of Mansfield, Ohio. It described a way of making an electrical device which, without any obvious power input source, could replace a voltaic cell and so deliver electrical energy as if from nowhere.

I therefore ask you, the reader, to weigh the implications of what I say below by contrasting two scenarios (1) a scenario in which we drift along the pathways outlined in that July 2002 issue of Physics World and (2) the alternative scenario that is open for exploration if only physicists are willing to pay attention and learn something new, even though it is reminiscent of the past. The message is important. It concerns us all and is not akin to a philosophical enquiry into black holes in far off galaxies which has no bearing whatsoever on the future of humanity. Physics which concerns energy of the kind we harness here on body Earth is what matters and there is much to learn in that endeavour.

THE FIRST SCENARIO: That of Physics World: July 2002 issue
Under the heading: ‘Energy Challenges’, the opening paragraph declared:

“Satisfying the world’s insatiable appetite for fuel without destroying the environment is the biggest challenge facing the energy industry.”

That, however, is surely not the biggest challenge the industry faces, given that our main concern should be the dwindling reserves of the fuel that is available. After all, our environment has survived so far in spite of our own need to survive by the burning of coal and the consumption of oil and gas and though a pollution-free environment might mean a longer lifespan it can hardly have priority over the concern about the ultimate energy resource needed to give us mobility and keep us warm, and so alive, in winter.

So let us look at the topics which that Physics World issue then addressed.

First, however, take note of a few of Valerie Jamieson’s other comments. They include:

“World energy consumption is expected to soar by 50% to a staggering 180,000 GWh per year by 2020, with the developing world demanding an ever-increasing share.”

“Renewable technologies still make up less than 1% of the world’s commercial energy.”

“Supporters of renewable energy are fighting claims that the environmental credentials of solar, wind and wave power are less than impeccable.”

“A longer-term possibility is nuclear fusion. Despite the enormous progress in the performance of experiments over the past 30 years, nuclear fusion is still decades away from generating electricity.”

The summary verdict by Valerie Jamieson on her theme Energy Challenges is:

“Advances in physics and engineering are making energy from renewable sources increasingly affordable. But political will- as well as scientific progress – is just as crucial for safeguarding the environment for generations to come.”

I see in this the message that physicists and engineers are doing a good job in improving orthodox technology as used in alternative energy generation, in spite of the added expense warranted as the price for reducing pollution, but, as ever, the finger is pointed at politicians telling them to do better, presumably by funding more research. I do not see the message that physicists must leave no stone unturned in their efforts to stimulate new ideas and follow every possible line of enquiry that may open the door on a new source of energy. Nor do I see the all-important message that physicists must pay attention to those, past and present, who claim or have claimed insight into new avenues leading to such new sources of energy.

Taking stock now of the orthodox technology seen as warranting attention, as discussed in this Special Issue of Physics World covering the energy theme, one finds they are itemised by separate articles under the following headings.

Green cars move into top gear
Highlighting a few comments here one learns that:

“By 2020 more than 1 billion cars (automobiles) will vie for space on the world’s roads, compared with the 400 million cars that exist today.”

“Fuel cells represent the most futuristic method of propulsion as well as the cleanest; they mix oxygen with hydrogen – a potential fuel of the future – from a pure source or a hydrogen-rich compound such as methanol, and they emit only water vapour.”

“Electric cars have a long research history; but until recently they had little to show for the work in terms of commercially viable cars for the mass market.”

The hydrogen economy blasts off
The same theme is pursued by a different author under this heading by reference to fuel-cell technology. Under the sub-heading ‘American Power’, one is informed that:

“The DOE aims to realize the “meaningful introduction” of fuel cells for energy generation by 2005, replacing 12 trillion kilowatt-hours of conventional energy with hydrogen by 2010. Each year the US consumes 2500 times as much energy, but the plans do not stop there. By 2030 the DOE intends to replace at least one-tenth of its current annual energy consumption with hydrogen power.”

Fuel cells eye up the mainstream market
Here an author at the University of Birmingham tells us something about fuel cells. His comments include:

“The fuel cell is the cleanest and most efficient power-generating device invented so far. It converts the chemical energy of molecules such as hydrogen, methane and alcohol into electrons at a potential close to 1 V. A stack of such cells can supply DC power at any desired voltage.”

“Cryostatic tanks in the boot of the car store the liquid hydrogen and are topped up at robotic filling stations. However, the practicality of storing energy in this way is still in doubt.”

“Indeed, the hydrogen storage issue is one of the most challenging problems for fuel cells. Currently the pressurized bottles used to store hydrogen are 20 times heavier than the liquid they contain. In other words, the storage density – the mass of hydrogen divided by the total mass of the container – is only 5% for hydrogen compared with 20% for petrol (gasolene).”

As I interpret this it does not sound promising for those US DOE predictions above, but, then again, I do tend to be a little suspicious when faced with numerical assertions in media publications for the general reader. However, Physics World is read by physicists and not the ‘general reader’. Thinking about the automobile that I drive, a full tank of petrol can be nearly as heavy as a passenger and I would indeed be surprised if the weight of my petrol tank when empty were to be anywhere near the weight of five passengers, which is what is implied by that latter statement! Evenso, I can accept that fuel cell technology, with the dangers and difficulties of storing hydrogen, is going to involve a trade off between the benefits of reducing pollution and the price paid for loss of life owing to the danger involved.

Energy savings go through the roof
Here, under this heading, Physics World surveys the benefits of designing buildings in such a way that they consume less energy to keep them warm in winter and cool in summer. No one can argue with this objective.

Bright future for efficient lights
Lamp efficiency is the subject discussed under this heading, but one can not get particularly excited about the likely energy savings here, though any saving is, of course, desirable.

Solar power to the people
The subject of the article having this heading is photovoltaic cells. A few comments included are:

“Solar energy is the power source that people love to love. Photovoltaic solar cells transform sunlight into electricity with no atmospheric emissions, no moving parts, no sound, and can provide a virtually endless supply of free power.”

“To overcome the obvious drawback of photovoltaic cells – that they only work when the sun shines – many systems incorporate lead-acid batteries to store energy.”

“By any account, as the price of photovoltaic cells approaches that of retail grid power in the coming years, more individuals and companies will consider the benefits of generating their own environmentally friendly energy and help to make solar power a major contributor to the world’s energy supply.”

If this cost convergence proves to be true, who can argue with the sentiment expressed here?

Surge of interest in wave energy
The opening and closing comments of this article by an author from the University of Edinburgh are:

“The challenge of generating energy from the sea has led to many different approaches to harnessing the power of the North Atlantic waves.”

“Harnessing the power of the sea economically is difficult and requires the best engineering skills. The conditions at sea are very different from those onshore and every aspect of wave behaviour and device performance has to be understood. With rising concerns about environment – and such an abundant source of natural energy on our doorstep – wave power demands a closer look.”

Wind power moves out to sea
Here an author from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands assures us that windmills located offshore can make a real contribution to our energy needs. He concludes by saying:

“Offshore wind energy could become a major source of power in Europe – and elsewhere – by the end of the decade. The technical challenges are being faced by a willing industry, with many players keen to play a part. Their efforts will no doubt lead to innovative and cost-effective solutions, just as in the onshore wind-energy and off-shore fossil-fuel sectors. One day it may even be possible to combine offshore wind farms with wave and tidal plants. It is clear that offshore wind power is an energy source with huge potential.”

I do not find this convincing. Wave power has been there for a very long time and if it has such potential then why do we still have a problem?

New designs on nuclear energy
Here, by the article under this heading, the pros and cons of conventional nuclear power generation are discussed. The industry claims to be confident that nuclear generation has a viable future. The opening and closing remarks are:

“The nuclear industry and environmental campaigners have battled long and hard over the benefits of nuclear power. One side argues that nuclear plants emit almost no greenhouse gases and use a plentiful source of fuel. The other claims that nuclear power is expensive and produces radioactive waste that is fiendishly hard to store. But the nuclear industry is starting to think it has turned the corner in the battle for public acceptance of this form of energy.”

“People realize that nuclear waste is not nice, but it is not the end of the universe. It is our weakest point, but it is not our Achilles’ heel.”

One gets the feeling from this that those in charge of nuclear power plants know their power, the strength of their position, and see pollution as something we have to live with regardless of its problems.

Waiting for the power of the sun
Here in this final article one is confronted with the ongoing saga of the hope of an energy source that I first heard about in the 1950s, as a young man having a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and employed by a major energy corporation in U.K. Over the years since that time it has always been something that needs just a little more research, a matter of just two or so more decades to bring to fruition, just enough, I came to realize, for those making that judgement to reach their years of pensioned retirement.

The caption under the title of the article includes the words “fusion energy is still decades away”. I quote the following passages:

“Nuclear fusion – the energy source that powers the Sun and the stars – requires patience. Over the past 30 years the performance of fusion devices has improved by five orders of magnitude, but of all the energy sources discussed in this special issue, nuclear fusion is still the furthest from generating electricity. Even if the ‘fast-track’ approach to fusion is adopted, it will not generate electricity until 30 years from now.”

“A major milestone on the route to fusion power will be breakeven – that is when the energy produced by the fusion reactions exceeds the energy used to heat the plasma. The record performance for a fusion experiment so far is 65% of breakeven by the Joint European Torus (JET) at Culham in the UK.”

“Fusion is not an easy technology to master but it has enormous potential if it is successful.”

“Fusion reactors will be able to generate the levels of power needed for the production of large volumes of hydrogen fuel, which is the only practical way to supply the energy needed for transport without contributing to the greenhouse effect.”

“There is something either appealingly circular or worryingly roundabout going to great lengths to achieve the fusion of deuterium and tritium to ultimately produce large volumes of hydrogen. As with so much in fusion, only time will tell.”

So, there you are, just hold your breath for another thirty years or so and, if all goes well, we will see nuclear fusion reactors generating the heat which drives our turbines to power electrical generators and so produce the electricity needed to generate hydrogen from water by electrolysis, which hydrogen can then be used in a fuel cell to power our automobiles. We shall then be mobile using power which man has tapped from a process which replicates that which, in theory, sustains the energy radiated by the sun. In the meantime we can find comfort in the technological development of solar panels and the extended use of windmills. Or, perhaps, we should heed a few voices which speak about over-unity and free-energy, and the breakeven factor in that pursuit, but that means giving a little attention to the heretic fraternity, those who respect the efforts of Dr. Henry Moray.

After reading through the detailed reports covered by the headings just summarized, one can therefore hardly be surprised if a politician’s private reaction to all this is “So what?”, as there is nothing here to stir one’s hope or imagination and one can but feel that the energy problems of the future are best left for the future generations of the political community.

But now let us examine the alternative scenario, one which at least should have been given a heading of its own in the above discourse.

THE SECOND SCENARIO: That of so-called ‘Free Energy’

What is ‘Free Energy’?
This is a reference to a form of energy that is tapped somehow from our immediate environment in defiance of our accepted interpretation of physical law and by being guided by anomalies which are revealed by experiment, even though the latter might be seen as the work of cranks in our scientific community.

The guiding spirit here is one which says that matter itself, indeed our Earth, Sun and the whole universe all had to be created from an omnipresent source of energy and so, maybe, there is a way of tapping a little more energy from that source. It is a source that some physicists refer to as ‘the zero-point energy background’, the quantum underworld that pervades all space and is the seat of quantum electrodynamic activity such as the transient materialisation of electron-positron pairs one can read about when studying theoretical physics.

It was on this basis that I presented my Lecture in Berlin by concentrating attention on the physical principles that could explain the common features of certain remarkable energy generating devices such as were demonstrated by that Dr. Henry Moray many years ago and by others including present day researchers.

Now the research I have pursued indicated how protons are created from the activity of that medium which forms the quantum underworld and so the creation of matter in the form of the hydrogen which clusters, by gravity, to form stars is explained. It is mere hypothesis to say that nuclear fusion has to be the source of the sun’s energy brought about by enormous temperatures assumed to exist in its central core. No one knows how to measure the temperature in the sun. All we know is the temperature of the surface that we all can see and that is found to be about 6,000 K. Even the evidence afforded by neutrino output falls short of proving that solar energy radiation is attributable to nuclear fusion and so the sun may well not be a good model on which to build in guiding one’s efforts at hot nuclear fusion and one might well be on a better track in adopting the route to cold nuclear fusion pioneered by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.

There is, however, one aspect concerning the creation of the sun which warrants our attention. It is the need to explain how the primordial sun acquired its angular momentum, enough to shed the planets and impart to them their orbital motion while leaving a small residue of spin angular momentum without reversing the direction of that spin. My early research on this question revealed why that medium of the quantum underworld, the aether, could impart spin angular momentum as a function of the radial electric field set up by the protons that formed the sun. The theory indicated that, for every unit of electric field energy in that field, the aether would import from its own store of energy an exactly equal amount of dynamic energy. In short, I was destined eventually to realize that it could well be possible, by pulsing a radial electric field in suitable electrical apparatus, to import aether energy at a continuous rate, energy that one could then deliver as an electrical power output. The creation of the sun was my source of enlightenment.

I could then see that the necessary apparatus for implementing such a free-energy objective would be a pair of concentric cylindrical capacitors primed by a charge at high voltage, but not drawing power steadily from that high voltage source. The energy would come from the aether directly. The operation would depend upon setting up an oscillation of the charge as between the two capacitors and so the pulsing of the radial electric field between the electrodes would import aether energy at a steady rate.

Once I saw that U.S. Patent No. 119,825 in the September, 2001 issue of Space Energy Journal, of which Don Kelly was a founder, I was triggered into writing the Lecture I delivered in Berlin on June 15th, 2002. I could then see why Dr. Henry Moray needed an antenna to feed the D.C. voltage necessary to prime the capacitor charge and raise the output power from that of a simple voltaic cell to one of kilowatt proportions. Moray, some 70 years ago, could generate those kilowatts of energy as if from nowhere using apparatus transported to a remote location in the luggage trunk of his automobile. Furthermore I could then understand why the Methernitha community in Switzerland can generate free energy in their apparatus. They also use cylindrical electrode capacitors, in the form of a pair of two large Leyden jars, and have a large electrical influence machine (Wimshurst machine) connected to provide the D.C. voltage priming.

I leave it to the reader to refer to the earlier LECTURE No. 27 to see the scope of that Berlin Lecture and its accompanying NOTES which augment the argument. I further remind the reader that any claim to have an electrical device which purports to operate as a ‘free-energy’ system, must, of necessity, imply a negative resistance property and that, according to standard electrical theory, must imply the onset of electrical current oscillations. Pulsing therefore occurs naturally and it is the pulsing of the radial electric field that imports dynamic energy from the aether.

So, in summary, I owe it to Space Energy Journal for providing the extra input I needed to add emphasis to what I had to say in my Berlin Lecture. However, there is a further observation I now wish to add and this is on a point raised by Don Kelly in his letter to me dated June 27, 2002. It concerns the story that Nikola Tesla, by his Pierce Arrow car demonstration in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1931, actually had a free-energy system which powered that vehicle. This is mentioned on page 1 of the June 2002 issue of Space Energy Journal, where Don Kelly notes that somehow Tesla had found a way of importing cosmic energy without using an antenna in conjunction with a ground connection. This contrasted with Dr. Henry Moray’s device, but it is explained if Tesla had seen what I have now seen, namely that one could use any D.C. high voltage priming method to get the capacitor system operating. Instead of tapping into the atmospheric voltage gradient with hardly any current draw, Tesla could have used the ignition coil otherwise needed for activitating spark plugs in the car. The vertical tubes he used to start his engine by pushing rods within them could have been transformer cores which provided an inductive coupling that stepped up the voltage to a higher level needed to really enhance the action of those capacitors, their charge priming being proportional to the square of their voltage. However, what I do not know and still lack such information is the detail of the electrical circuit that Tesla may have used, though I see the following statement in Don Kelly’s note on ‘Cosmic Energy’ in the June, 2002 issue of Space Energy Journal:

“The common approach to both of these cosmic energy systems (those of Tesla and Moray) was the use of three basic stages, i.e. (1) cosmic energy collection, (2) storage or capacitance and (3) the conversion of transformation or cosmic energy into useful EMF.”

I would classify these stages by using the wording:

“(1) A D.C. voltage source to prime the capacitor charge, (2) at least a pair of capacitors having concentric cylindrical electrodes, whereby to facilitate charge oscillations between the capacitors which, owing to their radial electric fields, import cosmic energy and (3) a transformer coupling which provides inductance to define with the capacitors a suitable oscillation frequency and to serve as the means for feeding power output at a useful level of EMF.”

Finally, as one can see from the text of my Berlin Lecture and the related Notes, it seems manifestly feasible to contemplate powering a motor vehicle at the normal levels of power, by using a capacitor system no larger than one that would fit neatly into the luggage trunk of the vehicle.

The logical message, in conclusion, is that maybe we are now in a position to understand the principles of operation of Nikola Tesla’s and Henry Moray’s free-energy devices and harness them in our future technology. Maybe we do not have to be patient and await the creeping advance of hot fusion research before we can have automobiles that run on an abundant source of energy without pollution. Only time will tell, but one must wonder how long it will really take before the physics establishment is willing to listen and willing to support our efforts, as guided by the pioneering work of scientists and inventors such as Nikola Tesla and Henry Moray.



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Harold Aspden
July 4th 2002

SPACE, ENERGY AND CREATION

The printed version of this paper was issued on the occasion when the author, Dr. Harold Aspden, delivered an invited lecture to the students and staff of the Physics Department at the University of Cardiff in Wales in 1977. It is appropriate here, some 25 years on from that date, to draw attention to some aspects of it that warrant special comment in the light of onward developments. The paper itself is in PDF format and can be accessed by pressing the link to it at the end of the text which follows.

The paper highlights new scientific evidence that should help in our understanding of the creation of the solar system. As there stated, it was based on the author’s theoretical investigations into the structure of the vacuum (the aether) and it pointed to a quite simple experimental approach which could possibly verify the effect of the aether in controlling the stability of an electrical discharge by inducing aether rotation about the discharge axis.

So far as the author knows this suggestion of what could prove to be a very important experiment has not aroused interest and has not, as yet, been performed by our academic fraternity.

The paper drew attention to three unexplained phenomena evident in laboratory bench testing and related these to the major unexplained phenomena that confront cosmologists. These are (1) the mystery source of energy and angular momentum fed into the solar system at its creation, (2) the mystery of the expected but unresolved unification of the action of gravity and electrodynamic interaction, and (3) and the mysteries posed by the creation of thunderballs.

Admittedly, the paper had a limited distribution, being a hand-out at that Cardiff event and thereafter given away to those who corresponded with the author on scientific matters of mutual interest. The author was not a active researcher seated in a university and there was hardly any chance of getting a peer-reviewed paper published on the taboo subject of the aether. The aether had been well and truly outlawed by theoretical physicists who were addicted to the Einstein doctrines concerning space-time and its abstract formulations of virtual reality in an imaginary world which depends more on the observer than the underworld of a real aether medium.

However, the author’s private research efforts were progressing and, gradually, the theme of that paper on “Space, Energy and Creation” did gain in strength. Publication in scientific periodicals became easier, thanks to the open-mindedness of the editorial staff of Lettere al Nuovo Cimento, of the Italian Institute of Physics, a research periodical that was published in the English language before its demise in 1986. It was a peer-reviewed periodical offering rapid publication and, though several of the author’s papers were found acceptable, there were others which were rejected, an indication that not all of the referees used were of like-minded opinion.

Now, in the author’s writings, certain anomalies in electric arc discharges in ionized plasma having bearing upon the basic law of electrodynamics had been stressed and these eventually attracted the attentions of a Canadian man and wife research team, namely Paulo and Alexandra Correa. They had made a rather breathtaking discovery that, by a method of discharge pulsing using a suitable circuit and a specially configured electrode system in a discharge tube, it is actually possible to generate electrical power by tapping energy from the aether itself.

Arising from this and our mutual contact at conferences in USA the author wrote ENERGY SCIENCE REPORT No. 8 which was entitled “Power from Space: The Correa Invention”, which was published in 1996. By inspecting that Report it will be seen that its final reference [85] is the subject paper “Space, Energy and Creation”. That Report No. 8 includes material which, apart from the Correa breakthrough, shows how there has been further development having bearing on the author’s observations in “Space, Energy and Creation”.

Now, at the time of writing these words in May 2002, we are on the eve of a conference event in Berlin in which the author will have opportunity to update his further contribution to the insight we have into the scope for tapping energy from the aether and hear also of the onward research of the Correas. It is for this reason that Space, Energy and Creation” is now being added to this web site, as Lecture No. 28, even though it is 25 years on since it was delivered to that university audience in Cardiff.

Also added at this time is the author’s BERLIN LECTURE “Our Future Energy Source – The Vacuum!”.

It is hoped the reader will find these of interest.

Harold Aspden
[May 28, 2002]

NOTES ON BERLIN LECTURE

This set of six Notes was compiled as an aide memoire for use in the author’s onward discussions following the presentation of the Lecture at the 2nd Berlin Conference for Innovative Energy Technologies organized by BINNOTEC e.V., Berlin and held the location of SolarEnergy 2002, Messe Berlin, Messedamm 22, D-14055 in Berlin, Germany on June 13th-15th 2002.

I

EINSTEIN: ENERGY AND THE VACUUM

When reading about energy as a property of the medium we call the ‘vacuum’, there will
be those who wonder about the role which Einstein played in clarifying our picture of things.
Well, much as you may wonder, you will find that Einstein had very little to say about energy, as
such, and far less, if anything, about the vacuum as a source of energy. Do not be deceived by
what you think may be implied by the formula E = Mc². This equation is easily derived by
investigating how an electric charge accelerated by an electric field can respond to avoid radiating
its energy E and, indeed, its very charge. Its response has to be such that it exhibits inertia
according to a mass property M as given by the above formula, c being the speed at which electric
field disturbance propagates through the vacuum from the seat of action, the electric charge.
However, that was not how Einstein came to formulate that equation. His approach was
somewhat philosophical, albeit guided by a fact known from experiment in the latter part of the
19^th century that, the faster an electric particle moves, the greater its mass, subject to a limiting
threshold set by the speed of light c. The correct interpretation, however, is the simple fact that
energy has to be conserved and, as an electric charge has an associated amount of energy, energy
which increases by augmenting the electric field energy of the particle with a retinue of kinetic
energy, that energy is not dispersed by radiation and so accumulates and enhances the mass.

As you can see, under that heading of the Berlin Lecture ‘Capacitor Magic or a Mere
Dream’, I began by asking you to ‘imagine’ a capacitor as having a rather unexpected property
and followed this by asking how you would turn this into a ‘practical’ device. Imagination of
what might be possible in our world of reality, coupled with practical skill are characteristic of the
engineer and inventor and energy is the realm of the engineer. In contrast, noting that that Berlin
Lecture, though prepared in draft form in January 2002 before I accepted the invitation to speak
at the Berlin meeting and completed on 8^th March after returning from a four week absence on
vacation, it struck a chord in the author’s mind to read, on 14^th March 2002 in the English
newspaper THE TIMES, that that day was the anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein and that:

While at secondary school, Albert Einstein – who was born on this day in Ulm,
Germany in 1879 – wrote an essay in which he proposed becoming a teacher of
theoretical science, because of his “disposition for abstract and mathematical
thought, and my lack of imagination and practical ability”.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Einstein came to see the aether, or rather space-time, as an
abstraction definable in terms of mathematical equations but could not imagine its real form and
see its potential as a practical energy source!

Admittedly, this author is here giving vent to his feelings, having in mind the hostility he
encountered when trying to advance his insights into the nature of the aether and encountering
shocked reaction expressed by the words “Have you never heard of Einstein?”. To have one’s
scientific papers during a 14 year period up to 1969 rejected on sight for non-conformity with
Einstein’s teaching did leave its scars. This accounts for the unusual choice of title of the author’s
first major printed work, namely Physics without Einstein, a 224 page book which, incidentally,
at pp. 8-14, presents the full mathematical analysis proving that an accelerated electrical charge
that seeks to preserve itself from loss of energy must exhibit an inertial property according to a
formula E = Mc² where M is the mass defining that inertial property, E is the energy of the particle
and c is the speed at which disturbances produced by accelerating electric field action propagate
by displacing the electric charge system of the aether.

[H. Aspden: 15^th March 2002]

II

AN UNEXPLAINED ANOMALY

It was only as I finalised the text of the BERLIN LECTURE that I recalled that, some 19
years before, in 1983, I had been given a copy of a Ph.D. thesis by someone I knew as a Research
Manager at IBM’s development laboratories in U.K., Dr. Bruce P. Piggin. I and Dr. Piggin had
just retired from IBM and I had become a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of
Southampton in England. Dr. Piggin’s Ph.D. research had been in the Chemistry Department of
that university and his thesis entitled ‘Pulse Studies on an Electrochemical System’ was dated July
1967.

I remembered that he had some particular views about capacitors and an aspect that he
saw as warranting attention, but what he had said at the time did not stir my interest, even though
I was then intent on experimenting with a torsionally suspended capacitor system excited by high
voltage pulsations to repeat my own version of the Trouton-Noble Experiment, which had in 1904
been an attempt to detect the Earth’s motion through space. Indirectly that experiment is
concerned with the law of electrodynamics because the detection of motion through the aether
depends upon a certain interpretation of that law, as it concerns the notion of two spaced
capacitor charges moving with body Earth through space and an experiment aimed at detecting
the effects of electrodynamic interaction forces as between the moving charges.

So my copy of that thesis has lain dormant in my files for those 19 intervening years, and
it is only now, having been inspired by new ideas to write the BERLIN LECTURE, that I have
seen reason to browse through it once more. My reason is that the test capacitor of Bruce
Piggin’s thesis is a cell of concentric cylindrical electrode construction and it is pulse-charged.
I also note that, as I now read this 1967 Southampton University thesis, it has occurred to me that
the cold fusion theme that captured our headlines in the 1989 era, had involved a cell of somewhat
similar construction and that Professor Fleischmann, of cold fusion fame, had his professorial seat
in the Department of Electrochemistry at Southampton University.

Now, in this brief note, which I admit I present as possibly only of passing interest, I only
wish to draw attention to a feature of the Piggin thesis that I find curious as it may have some
bearing upon the claim I am making in presenting that BERLIN LECTURE. Remember that in
that Lecture I am suggesting that the aether can import energy anomalously into a concentric
cylindrical capacitor. Critics will ask for evidence in support, so I feel obliged to point to anything
that can help in this quest.

So all I intend to present here is a copy of page 105 from Dr. Piggin’s thesis, which
introduces his Fig. 49, and couple this with a quotation concerning that Fig. 49 that appears on
page 100 of the thesis. I leave others who may read this to infer what they may, but say further
that in his experiment Piggin applies an electrical pulse to charge the capacitor and follows this
by an opposite polarity pulse to force its rapid discharge, after which, for some mysterious reason,
that capacitor begins to recharge of its own accord. Can the inertial energy of the aether that I
discuss in the BERLIN LECTURE be feeding in by a sub-microsecond delay?

That quotation reads:

” An interesting observation is shown in Fig. 49. In this case, decay of the stored
charge is assisted by the search pulse of opposite polarity. It is observed that the
voltage decays at an accelerated rate during the search pulse as expected. The
interesting question posed is why should the decay voltage rise of its own accord,
after the search pulse has finished? Similar observations will be reported in later
chapters.”

Readers do need to be mindful of the fact that Dr. Piggin’s thesis concerned tests on cells
using a chemical dielectric in the capacitor system, platinum electrode in iodine-iodide solutions
and so chemical factors may account for the observed anomaly, but equally the chemical factor
would not preclude aether-energy inflow and that phenomenon could well have been in evidence.
Without there being test data for cells not loaded with a chemical dielectric this remains an open
question.

The following is a copy of page 105 from the thesis.

Footnote

As a point of interest I recall from my school education (some 60 years ago) that my
physics master introduced us to the properties of a Leyden jar by demonstrating an experiment
with two concentric electrodes and a removable cylindrical dielectric spacer element. He charged
the assembly as a capacitor and then removed the dielectric element before (I believe – if my
memory serves me well) then connecting the electrodes to discharge any energy they might have.
Then he reassembled the capacitor with its dielectric spacer element and showed us that the
capacitor did, indeed, still have some electric charge. His message was that there was energy
stored in that dielectric spacer element, which I now can imagine as attributable to an inertial
aether spin action within its cylindrical form, an action which can shed energy immediately on
demand only if the electrode system is present and its electrodes are short-circuited so as to permit
a discharge current to flow.

[H. ASPDEN : 16^th March 2002]

III

THE ASYMMETRICAL CAPACITOR ACTION

In the BERLIN LECTURE it was suggested that a capacitor, particularly one of
concentric cylindrical electrode construction, might deliver as output, when discharging, an
amount of energy that could be as much as double that supplied as input when charging. This
might seem to pose a problem with regard to the conventional mathematical analysis of capacitor
properties, bearing in mind that we assume that the charge input Q is equal to the capacitance C
multiplied by voltage V.

I will, therefore, examine this problem from two points of view. I will begin by making
a strong assertion, expressing an opinion that I feel sure 99% of the academic community versed
in electrical theory will support, but I will then contradict what this implies by reference to
experimental data. After that I will engage in a measure of theoretical speculation in presenting
the only alternative point of view available, an approach which not even 1% of that academic
community would support, and then I will endorse what this implies by pointing to experimental
data that has been drawn to my attention but which I cannot vouch for as verified by independent
researchers.

The First Point of View

One can be sure that the charge displaced around a circuit from one electrode to the other
cannot suddenly double in value merely because of the transition which occurs as the charge-discharge cycle peaks at its maximum value. The action, therefore, must occur in the state of the
aether between the two electrodes of the capacitor as the energy stored in that region of aether
seeks release as the aether there senses a transition from the input to the output state.

In short, it has to be the effective permittivity of the dielectric properties of the capacitor
that changes to deliver the extra energy as output. In mathematical terms, it would seem that the
permittivity during discharge must be half that applicable during the charging period, even though
we are referring essentially to the properties of what we understand as the vacuum state. This
implies a capacitance during discharge that is half that during the charging period, so that the
charge Q, which equals CV, remains the same at the instant of transition, whilst the voltage V
doubles. C, which is proportional to that permittivity value, is halved. In energy terms, bearing
in mind that energy E = CV²/2, this results in a doubling of the energy E, meaning that the
discharge will release twice the amount of energy that was fed in as input during charging.

Now, the problem here is that I am not aware of any experimental evidence that reveals
a doubling of output voltage when a capacitor begins to discharge. Even if the case is restricted
to capacitors having concentric electrodes I still think that, if such a phenomenon were to occur,
it would have been mentioned in our textbooks on the subject. Indeed, to the contrary, as
reference to the Ph.D. thesis of Bruce Piggin just discussed in the preceding note shows, the
capacitor voltage of the concentric cylindrical electrode capacitor merely follows the normal path,
but yet, if then abruptly fully discharged by a negative input pulse, there is some kind of after
effect which does show a mysterious voltage build-up.

Accordingly, adopting this first point of view, has still left us with the problem of
understanding how a capacitor can shed energy electrically if in truth it has acquired an excess of
energy from aether input.

The Second Point of View

Here I need to outline a feature of the aether that my rigorous theoretical analysis of that
structured vacuum medium has revealed. The aether has a cubic cell structure with an aether
particle seated in each cell. It sits in a uniform continuum of electric charge which fills the space
in that cell not occupied by the particle form and this continuum charge has a polarity opposite
to that of the aether particle, so that the aether overall is electrically neutral. The aether particle
would itself expand under its internal electrostatic repulsion forces were it not for there being a
an energy presence in the cell pervading that continuum, the energy concentration matching that
of the aether particle form so as to have equilibrium and balance of pressure. That energy
presence is provided by a virtual pair of leptons, the heavy electrons that particle physicists refer
to as mu-mesons or muons. They perform no known role in the physical constitution of the
universe, because that role is primarily the one they serve in assuring pressure equilibrium within
the aether itself and because the aether, as such, is ‘unknown’ to the theoretical physicist of today.

I know this fact about the aether virtual muon system because my theory has allowed the
evaluation of the unit cell energy in terms of the rest mass energy of the electron and the analysis
suggests that a virtual muon can be either a positive or negative electron unit of charge with an
associated energy quantum that is either 205 or 207 times the value of the electron rest mass
energy. The theory indicates that the 207 units outnumber the 205 units by a two to one ratio.

Indeed, by assuming that these virtual muon quanta migrate through space and suffer
mutual annihilation and recreation at the same cyclic frequency as the quantum jitter motion of
those aether particles, one can recognize their secondary role which accounts for the process of
proton creation and so derive a theoretical value for the proton/electron mass ratio that is
1836.152, in good accord with the measured value.

This is all of record in this author’s published work, as summarized in ‘Aether Science
Papers‘ (1996), but I make particular reference to the ninth of the fourteen appended papers in
that book, which is ‘A Theory of Proton Creation‘, Physics Essays, v. 1, pp. 72-76 (1988). It
discusses the role of the virtual muon in creating the proton from the energy underworld of the
aether, the energy equilibrium of that medium being maintained as it absorbs energy dissipated by
matter, reorganizes it into a quantized virtual muon form and then sheds it as surplus by creating
protons with an accompanying electron to keep the electrical charge balance.

Now, why is this relevant to our capacitor problem? The simple answer here is that, if the
capacitor is to deliver twice the amount of energy on discharge as it receives during the charge
period, and do this without doubling its voltage for the discharge period, then it must somehow
be able to double its charge so as to deliver twice as much output charge as it received as input.
That is impossible unless the vacuum medium within the capacitor plates can itself produce a flow
of charge through what is normally seen as a non-conductor of electricity.

My proposition, therefore, is that, given that the aether has energy it seeks to release and
given that it is alive with a virtual muon activity that passes unnoticed normally, we can look to
that muon activity to find a way of shedding that energy as a flow of current from that capacitor.

The action is probably one where a negative muon of 207 electron mass units sheds two
electrons at the negative capacitor electrode and converts into a positive virtual muon of 205
electron mass units, whilst the reciprocal action occurs at the positive electrode as two electrons
are drawn from that electrode and absorbed into a positive virtual muon 205 to convert it into a
negative virtual muon 207. As the virtual muons deploy in their equilibrium activity this will
amount to a flow of electrons through the space between the electrodes.

It means that the capacitor can, without doubling its voltage, deliver the double energy
output by delivering double the input charge as output.

It may all sound highly speculative and that I do not deny, but at least I offer a possible
answer to the problem. Furthermore, though it is indeed quite fortuitous, I find that, after a lapse
of 14 years since a previous contact, a U.S. researcher named Alexis Guy Obolensky mailed me
a letter dated February 28, 2002 in which he reminds me of a supporting opinion I expressed back
in 1988 concerning his discovery of faster-than-light-speed action in an experiment involving
transmission via coaxial cables. It is quite astounding to find that, as I write this commentary as
a Note to back up the text of the BERLIN LECTURE that I compiled in January, I can quote a
paragraph from Obolensky’s February letter that seems to endorse my speculation. It reads:

“I was the first to employ matched coaxial cable time delays and phase matched
current sensors to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic (faster than light)
shock waves. This substantiated Tesla’s magnifying transmitter patent
application’s superluminal claim. His technique to extract fuelless coherent-energy, from the incoherent-heat of the ambient medium, was suggested but not
proven back in 1988. This, notwithstanding the numerous superluminal shock
wave experiments that revealed an approximate doubling of the remote receiver’s
integrated-current output compared to a simultaneous measurement of the local
transmitter’s integrated-current input. To my knowledge, electronic research has
still not investigated electromagnetic shock waves by using equal-time-delay,
simultaneous measurements, to circumvent the Einstein clock problem.”

That reference to the electric charge output from a pulse-excited coaxial transmission line
being double the charge input has attracted my attention. It implies an energy gain which
Obolensky, in the next paragraph of his letter attributes to ‘the incoherent heat in our planet’s
atmosphere’ as the source. However, my opinion, as is evident from my BERLIN LECTURE is
that the aether is the energy source and I can but point out that a voltage pulse travelling along
a coaxial cable is the sequential charging and discharging of a capacitative component which has
a conductor as central electrode and an earthed electrode formed by a concentric conducting
sleeve, that is a concentric cylindrical electrode capacitor in which one can develop aether spin.

Accordingly, I can but regard what Obolensky describes as supporting this second point
of view and endorsing my conductive aether notion based on those virtual muons.

[H. ASPDEN: 16^th March 2002]

IV

CAPACITOR ENERGY ESCALATION ANALYSIS

Here we calculate the condition for the circuit shown in Fig. 7 of the BERLIN LECTURE
to tap aether energy based on the capacitor property there discussed, namely the feature that for
a cyclic change of capacitor energy the capacitor energy doubles during the discharge. It seems
appropriate to assume that the development of aether spin in a system which is to be governed
by a phase-lock between a space region in spin and a non-spinning enveloping space region will
require that a small but finite threshold of radial electric field intensity between the capacitor
electrodes has to be exceeded.

Let C be the value of each capacitor. Let V be the d.c. capacitor priming potential in
volts. Let v denote the voltage of a transient potential drop across each of the two sections of the
inductor system. Let R here denote the resistance of each such inductor section, this resistance
including that of a load which is connected to the secondary winding of a transformer of which
the primary winding is the inductor system just mentioned.

At any instant the voltage across one capacitor will be V-v when that across the other
capacitor is V+v. This is because capacitor charge can oscillate between the two capacitors as
current flow through the inductors changes cyclically, the corresponding induced EMFs of
strength v across each inductor section being in anti-phase and so of opposite polarity relative to
the central earth terminal.

By standard electrical theory the energy stored by the two capacitors is given by:

C(V+v)²/2 + C(V-v)²/2

which is:

C(V² + v²)

and so as v changes there is no energy gain but merely a loss owing to the flow of current through
the overall inductor resistance 2R.

However, we are considering a situation where the discharging capacitor is shedding twice
as much energy as it gained during charging. Therefore, allowing for the presence of the aether
energy acquired during the charging stage, in discharging to the V-v condition, a capacitor will
shed an excess of energy drawn from the aether amounting to:

C(V+v)² – C(V-v)²

which is:

4CVv

This excess energy is deemed to flow in as input from the aether owing to the quantum
synchronisation of the zero-point vacuum energy of that aether medium. This latter energy is
replenished in each half cycle of oscillation only to the extent needed by the fluctuation of the
voltage v across the inductors.

Suppose now that v, which is zero initially, is induced by some internal fluctuation or
external field stimulus and so begins a natural oscillation at the resonant frequency of the circuit.
Let v now denote the amplitude of a sinusoidal variation so that as this passes through its zero
value the energy 4CVv which has come from the aether has been shed in half a cycle.

This energy has to do more than overcome resistance loss if there is to be a build up of
the oscillations as needed to render the system useful as a power generator. Note then that the
resistance loss plus power delivery will be proportional to v², because v is the amplitude of the
voltage acting across the inductors and so, with inductance fixed, the current magnitude is
proportional to v and the resistance loss plus power delivery is proportional to the current
squared. Accordingly, the crucial factor is whether kv², with k determined by that inductance and
resistance, is less than 4CVv when multiplied by twice the frequency of oscillation. If so, and
provided that threshold condition mentioned above is exceeded, then the oscillations will escalate
in strength and provide a source of ‘free’ energy. It is then clear why the priming voltage V is
important.

The factor k will also depend upon the capacitance of the capacitor as this limits the
current. Indeed the current amplitude is 2πvC times the frequency of oscillation and if 2R is the
circuit resistance the overall condition for an escalating energy action becomes one for which
2V/v is greater than π²CR times the frequency. This is a simple numerical ratio because CR has
the dimension of time. It is a condition that, at least in theory, is easily satisfied but that unknown
threshold value of electric field intensity has to be exceeded, a factor which makes that priming
voltage V extremely important.

It must be high and, being high, this means that v will increase more and more until it rivals
V in value, which in turn means that a high rate of energy output can be achieved if V+v is of the
order of 25,000 volts and the resonant frequency is of the order of 100 kHz. Indeed, potentially,
a pair of capacitors each of only 1 nanofarad capacitance could, on this theoretical basis, deliver
aether energy at a power rating of the order of 50 kW, 62.5 kW being applicable if v were to
climb to a limiting value V.

To put this in perspective, if this capacitor energy escalation theme is a valid proposition,
one can begin to contemplate a practical application based on the above 50 kW power output
from a pair of 1 nanofarad capacitors. Such a capacitor using air as dielectric would need an
electrode separation of the order of 1 cm to withstand the 25,000 volt charge. If it were to
comprise two concentric cylinders, one having an internal diameter of 20 cm and the other an
external diameter of 19 cm, and an overall length of 50 cm, then its capacitance would be 2.2
nanofarad and two such capacitors would only take up a fraction of the space assigned to the
engine compartment of an ordinary automobile. Yet the potential power rating, based on that 2.2
nanofarad value would be in excess of 100 kW, which is an acceptable level for such an
application. The equipment needed to generate a 25 kV capacitor priming voltage, taken together
with a standard electrical car battery to feed in the initial charge of the capacitors plus the
inductor/transformer units which form the resonant circuit and provide a lower voltage
transformer output need be no larger in volume than the capacitors. One is then left with the need
for an electric motor that can provide the mechanical drive for the automobile, this being standard
technology but the greater weight factor in terms of drive power generated and so the primary
design criterion that could limit vehicle performance.

One can, however, be sure that if the new technology implied can meet the requirements
of powering an automobile, it can be even more advantageous in large scale electric power
generation for domestic and industrial use as well as in ship propulsion.

Accordingly, the scientific principle involved warrants the necessary research to verify or
disprove what is suggested and, if viable, ascertain such criteria as may impose limitations on
performance.

[H. ASPDEN: 17th March 2002]

V

POWER FROM CONCENTRIC CAPACITOR PAIRING:

A GENERAL OBSERVATION

The inevitable question concerning my BERLIN LECTURE is: “Why what is suggested
has not been discovered already in the electrical laboratories of our many universities?” To
suggest that energy outputs of some 100 kW could be delivered as if from nowhere by connecting
two capacitors of a few nanofarads capacitance by inductors to form a resonant circuit is an awe
inspiring proposition.

My simple answer has to be to ask where I can look up the record of such an experiment
having been performed and its negative result recorded. Clearly, had such an experiment been
performed and had it delivered a ‘free’ energy output, then that would inevitably have been
newsworthy besides being documented in a scientific periodical.

Has the experiment ever been performed? Until someone can say: “Yes” to this question
and quote the reference for my inspection, then I must assume the answer is: “No” and adhere to
my argument that the issue must be clarified in view of its potential importance.

However, just ask yourself why anyone in a university electrical laboratory would be
interested in setting up an oscillation in an inductor-capacitor circuit as between two series-connected capacitors and an inductor and how they would proceed. I suggest that if they did they
would obtain the capacitors commercially and that those capacitors would not be of concentric
electrode construction. I suggest that they would not see much point in using a series connection
of the capacitors, given that one normally connects capacitors in parallel if one seeks to augment
the capacitance in circuit. I suggest that the series connection, if adopted, might be deemed to
serve only as means for using capacitors of lower voltage rating in a higher voltage application,
perhaps in a high voltage laboratory for delivering high voltage d.c. pulse discharges for test
purposes, but not as part of a resonant inductor-capacitor circuit.

Then consider the chance that someone would deem it worthwhile to build themselves two
large concentric cylindrical electrode capacitors for coupling with an inductor in a resonant circuit
and then connecting a high d.c. voltage source to the junction between the two capacitors when
standard circuit theory says that, once connected, no steady current would flow from that d.c.
source. Yes, were the capacitors to be of electrolytic form and have the necessary polarized
medium as the dielectric element, one might contemplate such an assembly but then consider the
point I now make. The ‘free’ energy theme we are discussing requires a high priming voltage V
and a resonance that involves the capacitance attributable to the aether alone. A high dielectric
permittivity merely means a higher loss-generating current oscillation, whereas the maximum
‘free’ energy gain arises from the base permittivity value of the vacuum medium and the
capacitors with vacuum or an air-cored dielectric medium offer that maximum gain. Any spurious
power gain in a circuit using electrolytic capacitors, even if their assembly were to be a simple
single-pair electrode form (which is extremely unlikely) would easily be overlooked in an
application aimed at some other objective than power generation.

Then there is the factor of operating voltage level. I have used 25,000 V as a nominal
voltage in estimating the ‘free’ energy potential output of the order of 50 kW based on operating
a pair of 1 nanofarad capacitors at 100 kHz. However, an experiment on a laboratory test bench
not in a high voltage electrostatic test laboratory environment is more likely to be performed at
a voltage of the order of 250 V. This would lower the anomalous output power to a mere 5
watts, which could easily pass unnoticed unless one was expressly looking for such a power
discrepancy.

The chance of building a circuit of the kind required and then discovering that it generates
power in a manner contrary to expectation as founded on conventional theory is, therefore,
extremely improbable. Yet, given that this has happened in history, what chance is there that the
discoverer of the new ‘free’ energy source can stir interest by those in authority who are
committed to their belief that what amounts to a ‘perpetual motion’ device is impossible because
it defies the established laws of physics?

There is the greater chance of what seems to be a ludicrous scientific claim being given
attention for its general interest as a story worthy of the telling. So it is the authors of books on
fringe-science topics that we must applaud for bringing such ‘free’ energy claims to our attention.
There is entertainment value in the subject and, as ever, the excitement that the underdog may yet
be proved right and turn the world of energy science around just in time to save us from the
impending disaster that is getting ever nearer owing to the demise of our oil reserves. In saying
this I am mindful of the reference I made in my BERLIN LECTURE to the book by Keith Tutt.

I can but conclude that the formal academic task of pursuing the necessary experiments
is there as a challenge for our learned brethren of the physics and electrical engineering sectors
to undertake. Disprove by experiment what I have suggested in that lecture and find comfort in
the ongoing belief that all is well with the prevailing laws of energy conservation which exclude
energy inflow from the aether. Alternatively, prove that such inflow can occur and ease our
concern about future energy resources, besides opening the door for the entry of a new
cosmological belief, namely that our Sun and Earth were created by energy shed by an overactive
aether.

[H. ASPDEN: 12 April 2002]

VI

THE PARALLEL PLATE CAPACITOR

The key factor pointing to how energy is extracted from the vacuum medium by the cyclic
charging and discharging of a capacitor, the subject of my BERLIN LECTURE, is the need for
synchronisation as between the orbital motion of charge forming the quantum underworld even
though the charges sit in different regions subjected to different extraneous field effects. The
presence of an electric field between the electrodes of a capacitor displaces the charge orbits there
located and this means that, to hold that synchronism with charges elsewhere throughout the
orbital cycle, the system of that charge between the capacitor plates must move in a direction at
right angles to the electric field direction.

This is possible in the cylindrical electrode capacitor configuration of Fig. 6 but this poses
problems for the action in the parallel plate capacitor configuration of Fig. 5. I have suggested
that the linear motion of the charge system in this latter case does deploy energy from the vacuum
medium to keep that state of synchrony but that as the capacitor discharges the collapse of that
linear motion would dissipate the energy within the aether itself and so not be available as a useful
excess power output.

Here, on reflection, I find that I may have been in error in suggesting that holding to strict
synchrony throughout the orbital period without lateral motion might lead to an impossible
process of continuous very high frequency oscillation of energy exchange. If that linear lateral
displacement of charge were to be precluded by the fact that charges would be driven into one
another and so set up an electric field opposing that motion, then the charge orbits between the
capacitor electrodes could not be displaced in that lateral direction.

Then what I at first deemed to be impossible may indeed be possible. The quantum
underworld may well be able to cope with extremely rapid exchanges of energy as between its
constituent vacuum charges and the ruling factor has to be the facts of experiment that prevail in
the different circumstances. The phenomenon under consideration appears not to manifest itself
in experiments involving parallel plate capacitors, where we see no anomalous behaviour, but the
evidence, as discussed in that BERLIN LECTURE, does reveal itself when the capacitors have
cylindrical concentric electrodes. In other words, in order for us to gain access to energy that can
be shed by the vacuum medium by setting up a pulsating electric field between two capacitor
electrodes, those electrodes must have a configuration which provides a passageway for free flow
of the charges in the direction lateral to the field direction.

[H. ASPDEN, 28^th April 2002]

OUR FUTURE ENERGY SOURCE – THE VACUUM!

This was written for presentation at the 2nd Berlin Conference for Innovative Energy Technologies organized by BINNOTEC e.V., Berlin and held at the location of SolarEnergy 2002, Messe Berlin, Messedamm 22, D-14055 in Berlin, Germany on June 13th-15th 2002.

A Scientific Introduction

Whilst oil companies scan ocean beds in search of future drilling sites by which to
replenish our dwindling energy resources there seems to be little or no interest in looking for
energy within the omnipresent vacuum medium which exists everywhere, both here on Earth and
in outer space.

The reason, of course, is that scientists do not recognize the vacuum as a source of energy.
They tell us that the vacuum is, in simple words, a mere ‘nothing’, but yet they teach by reference
to textbooks which declare that the vacuum has a magnetic permeability expressed as �_o of value
4π10^-7 henries per metre and a permittivity 1/�_oc² of 8.854187817×10^-12 farads per metre.

How can the vacuum, as a medium devoid of matter, be said to have such curious
properties if it is a mere nothing? Consider what we mean by that word ‘permittivity’. It tells us
how much energy we can store by setting up a voltage between two metal plates in a vacuum.
That energy sits in the vacuum – not in those metal plates! The vacuum has a way of releasing
that energy when that voltage is reduced and that mysterious quantity we call ‘permittivity’
governs that action.

Note now my point that a magnetic property is also involved owing to that �_o term, as is
c, the speed of light. Magnetism is basically a dynamic action arising from electric charge in
motion and motion implies energy. The vacuum, that mere ‘nothing’, also somehow determines
the speed of light c, a factor in the famous energy equation E = Mc², and yet scientists ignore the
vacuum as a potential source of energy. There is indeed much they have to learn about this aspect
of Energy Science and I intend here to summarize this in four stages.

In the first and third of these I will point to free energy technology that has been
demonstrated. In the second stage I will outline the physical principles involved and in the fourth
stage I will conclude my message by reminding you that our universe had to be created from
energy that apparently came from nowhere and cast some light on that great mystery.

I. Capacitor Magic or a Mere Dream?

I want you to imagine that you have discovered an electrical capacitor that you can charge
with energy and which, on discharge, gives you double that amount of energy as output. It is as
if you can perform magic, though you are merely dreaming.

How would you turn this into a practical device? The problem you face is that the
capacitance is quite small. Let me tell you how I would do it.

I would connect two identical capacitors through an inductive circuit to form a resonant
system and let the energy oscillate between the two capacitors, as one discharges whilst the other
charges. I would draw power off, as, for example, by incorporating an electrical load denoted R
in the Fig. 1.

Now, the chances are, that if I built such a device it would not work because of that low
capacitance property and the energy loss owing to the resistance of the inductive circuit. So,
exercising my ingenuity, I would connect a high d.c. voltage V to the capacitors (see Fig. 2),
knowing that this additional source could not deliver energy continuously, once I had switched
the device on. The reason is that d.c. does not flow through capacitors.

For a high enough d.c. voltage this would, as I can verify by basic electrical theory, have
the quite remarkable effect of making the energy oscillations escalate in strength sufficiently to
overcome the resistance loss problem. I would then surely have a working ‘free energy’ device.

If I did not use that high voltage d.c. polarizing source then there is still the possibility that
I could get a self-sustaining oscillation and draw as output a small amount of ‘free energy’, but
only if I made sure that the inductors were quite large and wound from thick gauge wire so as to
have a very low resistance.

Can solving our future energy problems really be so simple? It is such a wonderful dream,
truly magical, but we have, of course, to live with reality and here we need to face up to the facts
of life. Can such a capacitor property ever be a reality? As to facts, I have several examples in
mind, three of which I now mention.

Firstly, as long ago as 1871, there was a U.S. patent granted which comprised two cross-coupled inductive components each having two concentric windings separated by insulation and
so constituting, in effect, a capacitor which could develop a resonant oscillation with the
inductance of the other cross-coupled component. Fig. 3 is a copy of Fig. 2 of that patent. The
introductory paragraph of the patent specification stated that the invention:

‘relates to the combination of two or more simple or compound helices and iron
cores or magnets in such a manner as to produce a constant electric current
without the aid of a galvanic battery’.

Here then in 1871 was U.S. Patent No. 119,825, as granted to Daniel McFarland Cook
of Mansfield, Ohio, telling us how to build a device which somehow generates electricity with no
evident power input source. Here I see a device in which electric charge can oscillate between
the two components and somehow generate a steady excess of output energy which is supplied
by the windings on those two inductive components. Here there was no priming d.c. high voltage
input source, but large gauge wire was specified as essential for the inductive windings.

These were very early days in the history of the electrical power industry. Thomas Edison
was only 24 years old and Nicola Tesla was 15 years of age at the time, so it is no wonder that
this very important invention was buried in Patent Office records.

Secondly, there is the almost incredible story of the efforts of Dr. Henry Moray. It was
reported that on 21 December 1925, Moray and three others, who went along to witness what
was to be demonstrated, took a trip to a canyon in USA which was well removed from any
electric power lines. A wire antenna was strung between two points well above the ground and
connection made from the antenna to Moray’s apparatus, which itself had a ground connection.
Electric power was delivered as if from nowhere. It was said to be powered by ‘radiant energy’,
energy somehow delivered via the aether, but in spite of repeated demonstrations, some delivering
substantial power measured in kilowatt terms, Moray’s discovery, notwithstanding our developing
hunger for a new energy source, has not found its way into modern technology. The reason, of
course, is incredulity on the part of our learned scientists plus lack of insight as to the true energy
source.

A description of the Moray device by T. J. Yates of Cornell University, dated 16 March
1929, says that, in the demonstration he witnessed, two wooden boxes were placed on a table.
On one box there was a high-frequency transformer and in the other box there were ten large
capacitors and ten small capacitors, these all being connected by wires in a circuit including the
antenna. One can see, therefore, that somehow it is possible to set up a resonant inductor-capacitor circuit which can deliver aether energy with the help of an antenna placed well above
ground level in open air which delivers that high d.c. input voltage but not the steady input power
needed to explain what was observed.

It is, by the way, experimental fact that atmospheric electricity exists everywhere in the
open air and has a vertical voltage gradient of several hundred V/m. It is caused by solar-powered thermal radiation exerting a downward pressure on electrons in the atoms of our
atmosphere. Of itself, this is not a useful source of power but, as the Moray apparatus shows, it
can serve as a priming agency in setting up the operating charge on those capacitors.

Thirdly, there are the reports on the ‘free energy’ apparatus of the Methernitha
community in Switzerland. They have an electrical generating machine they call Thesta-Distatica.
It produces a substantial output of electrical power. Its main features are inductive coils
connected to a pair of glass Leyden jars plus an electrostatic generator that we in England call a
Wimshurst machine. When the discs of that Wimshurst machine rotate high voltages are
generated and the pulsed output somehow activates the energy-generating properties of those two
Leyden jars. A Leyden jar is merely a capacitor having concentric cylindrical electrodes, one on
the outside and one on the inside of that glass jar. Here also we have two capacitors in an
oscillatory circuit and a d.c. source that can supply high voltage but very little energy. Yet,
somehow those capacitors can tap aether energy and generate electricity which serves that Swiss
community.

I believe we have here a situation where there is skill and knowledge in that community
as to how to build this ‘free energy’ device, but I feel sure that no one there understands the
physics that can explain where the energy that is generated really comes from.

An extensive account of both this Swiss discovery and the story of Henry Moray’s efforts
is provided in a recently-published book by Keith Tutt entitled ‘The Search for Free Energy’,
published in 2001 by Simon & Schuster (ISBN 0-684-86660-9).

II. The Physics of the ‘Magic’ Capacitor

All physicists have heard of Clerk Maxwell and Werner Heisenberg. Some few may have
heard of Alexandre Veronnet. Maxwell’s name is associated with electrical displacement within
the aether (the medium we refer to as the ‘vacuum’). Heisenberg’s name is linked to quantum
mechanics and the Principle of Uncertainty by which matter has an underlying jitter motion as if
sharing a universal circular motion in tiny orbits at the very frequency physicists associate with
the creation of the electron. As to Veronnet, he has also a place in history. On December 16, 1929
the French Academie des Sciences conferred the Henry Poincare medal on Louis de Broglie for
his work on wave mechanics, but on that same occasion Veronnet was presented with the Prix
Lalande for his works in astronomy. The point I want to make is that Veronnet saw the aether
as having electrical structure and an underlying quantized angular motion akin to that we learn
of from Bohr’s theory. Veronnet realised that jitter motion in the aether could perhaps explain
why electrons in atoms have a quantized angular momentum, that is, why they have specific
energy quanta linked to their rotation.

So, as I see it, it is quite logical that we should be influenced by the perceptions of these
three great men of science and begin to portray the aether as I do in Fig. 4 which I copy here from
page 89 of my 1980 book ‘Physics Unified’ (ISBN 0-85056-009-8). Here I depict the vacuum
as having a cubic structure, a state of order of the kind we see in crystals or in the magnetic
domains of a ferromagnetic material. In each notional cubic cell there is an aether particle
describing a circular orbit with all such particles keeping in step in a synchronous motion. They
all have the same electrical polarity and are immersed in a continuum of uniform charge of
opposite polarity and are attracted to their respective centres of those cubic cells, but are
displaced from those centres to radii at which their mutual electrostatic energy avoids being
negative. Therefore they must move in orbit to assure that their centrifugal force is in balance
with the electrostatic force attracting them to the centres of those cubic cells. It all sounds very
hypothetical, but I can assure you that this model of the aether holds the key to solving the
prevailing mysteries of physics, and it is unquestionably correct.

However, here my subject is concerned with capacitors and their ‘free energy’ potential
and I must not digress into other fascinating realms of fundamental physics. So let us now
consider a parallel plate capacitor sitting in the aether as just portrayed. I refer now to Fig. 5.

When I asked myself what happens when an electric voltage is applied between those two
capacitor plates I could see that the aether charges would all be displaced in unison relative to the
centres about which they are in circular orbit. Then I could see that they could not keep strictly
in synchronism with their counterparts elsewhere in nearby space unless they were subject to a
continuous very high frequency oscillation of energy exchange, something I felt was impossible.
Then, and by ‘then’ I mean nearly 50 years ago, I saw how Mother Nature deals with this
problem. If that applied voltage has a two-fold effect, in that it displaces the aether charge in the
direction of the electric field to a new equilibrium position but also produces, between the
capacitor plates, a continuous motion of that charge at right angles to that direction, then there
can be absolute synchrony with external space charge with no high frequency energy exchange
problems. In Fig. 5 the centres of the charge orbits are indicated and one can see that charges
seated between the capacitor plates have an eccentric orbital motion and so their velocities in orbit
need to be compounded with a superimposed velocity in order to keep in synchronism throughout
their orbital period. This means the whole structure of aether particles must acquire a linear
motion in the space between the capacitor plates, a motion which increases as the voltage between
those plates is increased.

In other words, I could see that one unit of electrical energy added to charge the capacitor
would be supplemented by a further unit of energy accounting for that linear motion and it would
be supplied by the external quantum jitter of the aether, since it was the external aether that was
applying the constraint that assures the universal synchrony. Here was the ‘free energy’ source
but the extra energy was locked into that aether motion and, as soon as the capacitor was
discharged, that motion would collapse and dissipate the energy within the aether itself as it
recovers and sustains its equilibrium.

What I have just described applies to the parallel plate capacitor but even back in the late
1950 era when I was researching on these matters I knew that that aether motion produced by
electric field action could import both energy and angular momentum but I saw this as limited to
the realm of cosmology and so of no technological significance. I earned my living by dealing with
technological issues but still let my thoughts wander into pure physics and that higher plane that
is the realm of those who seek to understand our universe on a grand scale and delve into that
quest for the Holy Grail that is termed ‘Unified Field Theory’ and the problem of gravitation.
With a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and working in a high technology corporate environment
I really had no platform from which to project my scientific contribution, especially as my belief
in a real aether medium made me an outcast from the world of theoretical physics.

Nevertheless, 20 years on, in the 1970s I had seen how the aether feeds energy into events
on body Earth, as evidenced by the creation of the thunderball and the inflow of energy to power
the action of a tornado. This was still far from the ‘free energy’ technology theme we are
discussing today.

To jump rapidly ahead, now consider Fig. 6. Here I show a section of a concentric
capacitor. That aether motion I mentioned is now not linear motion but rotary motion confined
between the capacitor electrodes and so, when the capacitor voltage is reduced, that motion will
have inertia and not dissipate by collisions which feed energy back into the enveloping aether.
Instead, it will try to sustain the electric displacement, meaning that it will deploy its energy into
the release of electrical energy which can be drawn from the capacitor. In other words, we have
our ‘magic capacitor’. It can deliver very nearly twice as much energy on discharge as is supplied
during charging!

One, therefore, now has a physical explanation of the energy source that may have been
tapped accidently and in ignorance of the true physics involved, by Cook back in 1871, Henry
Moray in the 1920s and the Methernitha community in the 1980s.

That, at least is my personal assumption, and I leave it to others to judge on such matters,
whilst I am all too conscious of the implications of what I say here from the point of view of
patenting technology in this field.

If we now move ahead to develop technology that taps energy from the aether, guided by
the physical principles just outlined, will the U.S. patent granted in 1871 be seen as prior
disclosure? Will the work of Henry Moray, which was denied U.S. Patent protection, be seen as
prior disclosure? Will the confusing reports we have heard concerning that Methernitha apparatus
be seen as prior disclosure, when the only inference is that Leyden jars (concentric capacitors)
were used in conjunction with a Wimshurst machine to deliver the `free energy’ as they claim?

If so, then the patent system offers no incentive to those who pioneer the forthcoming
revolution in the ‘free energy’ field, but we must do our best to take things forward in spite of the
inevitable hostility of those who oppose our efforts.

III. ‘Free Energy’: The Way Forward

Fig. 7 shows how one can design a circuit aimed at tapping aether energy. I leave it to
those of you who understand electrical circuit theory to work out what may be the practical scale
of what is suggested on the basis of this ‘magic capacitor’ theme.

My own calculations assure me that a concentric capacitor system running at a bias of, say,
25,000 volts and oscillating at, say, 100 kHz, can deliver power, whether on a power/size or a
power/weight basis, that can more than rival existing power plant technology – all with no
chemical pollution and no cost for fuel input. It can even suit the needs we have for powering an
automobile when our oil resources dry up.

One can, therefore, dream of what might be possible, but, as ever, one might be deluded
and encounter new obstacles, but, at least, one should confront those who ridicule the possibility
by getting them to heed the underlying scientific message in the hope that they will wake up and
see the sense of joining us, or leading us, in our efforts.

As to those ‘obstacles’, one might doubt whether aether energy can flow in fast enough
to satisfy one’s design specification, but I feel assured on that from the performance data reported
by those who have witnessed Henry Moray’s demonstrations. The one ‘obstacle’ I would see as
warranting special attention is the effect of large current oscillations at a high kHz or even MHz
frequency in the large inductors of a future power generating plant. There are those who worry
about the adverse EM (electromagnetic wave) radiation effects of using mobile telephones. To
allay such concerns I draw attention to the Energy Science Report No. 10 that I published in
1997, ‘Cyclotron Resonance in Human body Cells’ (ISBN 0-85056-011-X), where I discussed
the real danger, which occurs at the much lower power frequencies as used in overhead power
lines and in electric blanket heating. High frequency EM power radiation leaking from our future
power generating systems need only be an interference problem affecting radio communication
that happens to be in the same frequency band.

As to the way forward, I can but draw attention to something I published in 1996 as
Energy Science Report No. 8, ‘Power from Space: The Correa Invention’ (ISBN 0-85056-016-0).
That report was essentially directed at highlighting the experimental findings in Canada of
Alexandra and Paulo Correa, who have already proved over-unity operation of their PAGD
(Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge) technology. As that report explains I see there the same
physical action for generating excess power that I have just discussed. Also I mention that I was
so interested by the recently reported experimental efforts of the Correas on another anomalous
energy generating theme [‘The Reproducible Thermal Anomaly of the Reich-Einstein Experiment
under Limit Conditions’, Infinite Energy, 7, 37, pp. 12-21, 2001] that it caused me to write about
this energy inflow from the aether topic in a related article published earlier this year [‘Gravity and
its Thermal Anomaly’, Infinite Energy, 7, 41, pp. 61-65, 2002].

In that Report No. 8 I also mentioned the apparatus designed by Geoffrey Spence, an
inventor based in U.K. This is the subject of
his U.S. Patent No. 4,772,816.

I feel, after what I have explained to
you about the physical principles of tapping
energy from the aether, that, just by looking at
Fig. 8, copied from that patent, you will see
how this relates to the Spence invention.

Electrons injected into a chamber
formed between two concentric electrodes are
deflected into the inner electrode by a pair of
magnets that provide and magnetic field along
the central axis of the concentric electrodes.
Of itself, this should add no excess energy,
because the energy fed into accelerating the
electrons is merely absorbed by electrostatic

repulsion in charging the central electrode and so the capacitor. However, if that electron flow
pulsates and there are connections to draw electron current from that central electrode then the
pulsation implies a recurring sequence of charge and discharge. That ‘magic capacitor’ function
is then harnessed.

The questions then are whether the Spence invention really works and whether it is
commercially viable? Well, I wrote that Energy Science Report back in 1996, six years ago, and
it is only a few months ago that I heard any more of that project. Geoffrey Spence has developed
the prototype product to the stage where he has closed the loop in the sense that a portion of the
output power was fed back to impart the energy needed to sustain the electron beams. He has a
self-sustaining unit that can deliver kilowatts of useful electrical power with no visible energy
input.

In the light of what I have discussed here, there will, no doubt, be those who take note of
my message but say: “Well, we have heard it all before; so, when will see ‘aether energy’ heating
our houses and powering our automobiles?” My answer is that it will be only be when the
scientific explanation of that potential source of energy is well understood and endorsed by our
energy research community. That is the real hurdle that stands in the way of progress, given that
inventors in this field who see excess energy are mystified themselves.

I recall Stanley Meyer in 1993 at the International Symposium on New Energy held in
Denver, Colorado (April, 1993) describing his so-called ‘Water Fuel Cell’. He claimed to be
producing a combustible gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen by the electrical pulsing of a
concentric cylindrical capacitor using water as a dielectric. His oral explanation and the paper as
published in the conference proceedings were completely incomprehensible, even allowing for his
terminology for a resistor as an ‘amp consuming device’ or as an ‘amp inhibitor’. He inferred that
some kind of cold fusion process was involved but it was evident he had no idea as to the true
source of the excess energy that he was claiming.

So, having explained the energy source, and guided by what others have discovered, I feel
vindicated in asserting that a concentric capacitor system can perform as the ‘magic capacitor’ of
our dream world and I just hope that I may live long enough to see the technology applied on the
grand scale.

IV. The Energy of Creation

As to the ‘grand scale’ of things, what can be grander than the creation of stars such as
our sun and their satellites such as our Earth?

I see a beginning where matter, essentially protons and electrons, is dispersed throughout
space, along with the electrical charges that come together to form the aether. Once the aether
condenses from a state of chaos into the ordered state of its quantum form, as by shedding a little
more of the energy which created that matter, then the phenomenon of gravitation would be born.
There is analogy here with the state of ferromagnetism which appears in iron only when it cools
into a state of order that we see as magnetic domains in the iron crystals. I simply mention this
because it was my Ph.D. research interest in ferromagnetism that caused me to think in depth
about the aether.

Once gravity appeared then those protons, being of greater mass than the electrons, would
cluster together in each space domain to form a spherical body of matter having a positive
electrical charge, pending the eventual arrival of all the electrons.

That would set up a radial electric field and, as I have explained, that means aether energy
inflow and aether spin. The star so formed will acquire angular momentum and, as that builds up,
the star will seek to shed much of that angular momentum as matter, and so we have the planets.

My message here is that the prospect of ‘free energy’ and our future on a non-polluted
Earth is related to the very creation of this our Earth and the scientific community that seeks to
explain everything as a Big Bang scenario in an expanding universe is wandering astray and
neglecting the real issue common with the phenomenon of Creation, our concern with ‘aether
energy’ as a ‘free’ energy source that can power our future.

Harold Aspden

8 March, 2002

See now the NOTES prepared to facilitate discussion of the controversial issues that the above Lecture will have opened.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: DISCUSSION

THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE

INTRODUCTION

Although I have chosen to talk about inventions in opening these Web pages, the primary topics to be dealt with as we proceed fall into two categories. These are Energy Technology and Fundamental Physics. The secret of tapping energy from the physical underworld of our environment can only be found by deciphering the data coded in what are recognized as the universal constants. Indeed, I have entitled my opening remarks as a ‘Keynote Address’, having in mind my attendance at the 1981 Conference on Precision Measurement and Fundamental Constants held by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, MD, from June 8-12 of that year. At that meeting there was a Keynote Address on The Laws and Constants of Nature delivered by Professor Ian W. Roxburgh of Queen Mary College in the University of London. He spoke about unsolved problems in the theories related to those constants, problems which I knew I had already solved many years before. In contrast, I, who had taken leave from my management duties in a corporate environment and was there purely for my personal interest, was denied a spot on the conference programme. The two or three souls, like myself, who had ventured into this conference forum without the platform of a university department or government research institution, were allocated a few minutes at a poorly attended beer and pretzel session one evening. “Let him speak” was the cry when the moderator asked if the audience really did want to hear what I had to say about the way in which the aether determines the values of the proton-electron mass ratio and the fine-structure constant. You will not, therefore, find record of what I said in the proceedings of that conference, just my name as an attendee and my image on the group photograph of the event. However, though I did spend nine years back in academia following my later retirement from IBM, these Web pages are now my platform and I can pick up the thread of the fabric of space that I was speaking about by quoting from Professor Roxburgh’s Keynote Address at that NBS meeting. Take note that if one can explain how the energy needed to create the proton is wrapped up into that tiny particle, one can explain the creation of the whole universe. It is then a small step for mankind to find the way of tapping some energy from the same source to supply our energy needs, though not such a small step for the solitary individual.

SECTION 12 OF THE ROXBURGH ADDRESS

I quote now from Section 12 of the Conference Proceedings version of Professor Roxburgh’s Address. This is at pages 1-9 in the 646 page National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 617 dated August 1984.

I have already pointed out that in standard theory (i.e. general relativity and quantum mechanics) the large numbers vary in time, and it is just a chance event that these three numbers happen to be about 10⁴⁰. These numbers could be different, in which case the properties of the universe would be different, and in particular we, man the observer, would not be here to ask why the universe is as it is. This idea has been elevated to the status of The Anthropic Principle.

Now I quote this because it brings together three facets of the energy scenario. These are the conflicting roles played (a) on the grand universal scale by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, with its implications for gravitational energy potential, (b) on the microscopic scale of quantum mechanics where the energy of the minute photon quantum does its work and (c) man, the observer, in the middle of an ‘Anthropic Principle’ which amounts to a conundrum concerning his energy requirements.

It may be awe inspiring to think that the universe is as it is because we happen to be around to see it or, conversely, that we are around to see it because it is as it is, but such thoughts and those implicit in the Large Number Hypothesis are far removed from the fact that deciphering the values obtained by precision measurement of fundamental constants is what counts.

Einstein’s theory does not tell me how energy is stored in empty space, meaning space devoid of matter, by the process of magnetic induction. Nor, indeed, does quantum mechanics. I do know that mankind would be in a sorry plight if that empty space could not somehow store the energy locked into a magnetic field. Numbers do creep into the picture here, because I realized that the real question we must face is not how we shed energy into space when we send magnetizing current through an air-cored coil, but how that energy can ever come back as electricity when we switch the current off? Mathematics or man-made laws based on empirical observation offer no answer.

I had to reason that something equivalent to current flow in a coil was occurring within that space taken up by the real coil. This meant that if I applied a current having the effect of, say, 2 amps in the coil and that hidden space coil reacted by setting up a 1 amp current reaction, then the net effect would be that of a 1 amp input, but when I switch off the current input, that residual 1 amp reaction effect in space would collapse energy back into my primary coil. Overall, space would need to respond as if there was a 2:1 anomaly in the field reaction.

As my Ph.D. research was all about magnetic reaction effects in steel and I knew there was a 2:1 anomaly observed in the gyromagnetic reaction of pivotally mounted ferromagnetic rods when subjected to field reversal, it was clear to me that here was the signature of space itself. It had a thermodynamic property. It would heat up when a steady magnetic field was applied and cool down when that field was switched off. For ‘it’ read ‘aether’, because it, meaning empty space, is ‘nothing’ and one can only put energy into ‘something’.

So, far from that large number of 10⁴⁰, here was I, concerned about the simple number 2! When, back in the 1950s I told physicists about my factor-of-2 theory, I was duly kicked in the teeth for daring (a) to say there was an aether, when Einstein had proved otherwise, and (b) for ignoring Dirac’s explanation of the factor of 2 based on his contriving a combination of relativistic principles and quantum mechanics.

I did know enough about Einstein’s theory and quantum mechanics to set about building an aether theory which fitted the empirical facts on which those two theories had been founded. That kept me busy for many years but was rewarded very early by the discovery of how to decipher those fundamental constants pertaining to fine-structure in the atomic spectrum, gravitation and the proton-electron mass ratio and, eventually even the Hubble constant fell into place on my aether theory. However, that factor of 2 holds the secret which tells us we can tap energy from the aether with the aid of ferromagnetism.

So, when you have finished reading this discussion note and you return to the main Web page, the HOME PAGE, you have a choice in your onward journey through the subject of Energy Science. You may go directly along the TECHNOLOGY path by studying the relevant Lectures and Essays or you may take the more academic scientific route and embark on the PHYSICS route which has its own separate set of Lectures and Tutorials. Of the latter, do work through the Tutorials first, because you will then find how easy it is to understand how the key fundamental constants of physics are determined by aether theory. However, if your mind is on technology and tapping the energy of the aether, then the starting point should be my Lecture entitled ‘The Invention of Hans Coler, which is Lecture No. 7.

SECTION 11 OF THE ROXBURGH ADDRESS

Returning briefly to the Roxburgh Keynote Address I quote now from the early Section 11 of that paper:

Other pure numbers we have considered are the fine-structure constant and the mass ratio of the electron to proton, these being approximately 1/137 and 1/1836, respectively. Why do these numbers have these values? What would the universe be like if these numbers were different? I think most scientists would conjecture that one day we will be able to explain why the particles masses are as observed and why the fine-structure constant has its particular value. At the moment we do not have a deep understanding of particle physics to provide the explanation. A similar view can be taken about the cosmological numbers of the order 10⁴⁰. Such fundamental theories linking cosmology and microphysics have been pursued by several people, but without apparent success.

On this latter point there were two references quoted, one being to Eddington’s ‘Fundamental Theory’ and the other to Roxburgh’s own account in ‘The Encyclopedia of Ignorance’.

I may add that I had gone to the Conference expecting to be given a hearing on my own theory for those two numbers 1/137 and 1/1836. I was not intending to announce any kind of discovery, but rather to draw attention to what had been published on the subject already in well respected scientific periodicals. My 1972 Physics Letters paper: ‘Aether Theory and the Fine Structure Constant’, v. 41A, pp. 423-424, [1972a] was known to Brian Petley, an attendee from the U.K. National Physical Laboratory at that Conference. Indeed, he expressly referred to it in the book entitled: ‘The Fundamental Physical Constants and the Frontier of Measurement’, (Publishers: Adam-Hilger), which he wrote in the aftermath of that Conference. However, it seems he did not know about the 1975 paper: ‘Calculation of the Proton Mass in a Lattice Model for the Aether’, Il Nuovo Cimento, v. 30A, pp. 235-238 [1975a], as that eluded mention in his book, though it did attract later comment in a research paper by experimentalist R.S. Van Dyck, another attendee at that Conference, one famous for his measurements of the proton-electron mass ratio. I refer to that in my recent book: Aether Science Papers as listed in the Bibliographic section of these Web pages and commend that book for attention by any physicist willing to have an open mind on such matters as particle creation and those fundamental constants.

So you see, I have a theory which gives the answers, but yet, because those answers come, not from relativity or string theory or from one of the popular modern theories, but come instead from the mundane aether, those answers are ignored. We shall have to see if physicists can ignore the energy bonanza that is now at hand, thanks to that aether source!

WHY INTERPRET RELATIVITY?

To end this discussion I offer a few words about the theory of relativity. Periodically there are conferences in London held under the auspices of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science on the subject of ‘Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory’. The last such event at the time this was written was held on 6-9 September, 1996.

As an attendee I was surprised to find that my research was praised by a speaker who was unknown to me, J. Dunning-Davies of the University of Hull. In the text of his paper, as later published, he writes:

In this country, possibly the two best known critics of relativity are Louis Essen and Harold Aspden but, as Essen points out, even someone as academically eminent as ‘Rutherford treated it as a joke and Soddy called it a swindle’. On the other hand, equally eminent academics such as Eddington championed the pro-relativity cause. Recently, the fluid dynamist Kenneth Thornhill has reported significant results without recourse to relativity.

Now, to correct the above impression it was really Essen, acclaimed for his discovery of the caesium atomic clock and the measurement of time at the U.K. National Physical Laboratory, who made a full-frontal attack on the theory of relativity. Essen pointed a finger in my direction as a ‘Hope on the Horizon’ and referred to my book ‘Physics without Einstein’ and also to ‘Modern Aether Science’, but I never did set out to probe the weaknesses of Einstein’s theory. All I was aiming at was to be sure that that theory did not block the path for acceptance of my aether theory. I do not wish to be remembered as a critic, but rather as the discoverer of the secrets hidden in the aether.

Reading further in the Dunning and Cole paper: ‘Qualms concerning relativity theory and some of its applications’, in the conference proceedings of that meeting (pp. 52-63 in the Late Paper section), I was interested in the following reference to Thornhill’s work:

Thornhill concludes by noting that a return to Newtonian mechanics and all that that implies would create a backlog of problems still demanding conventional solutions, as well as a suitable aether. However, he claims that such problems may be solved using the methods of unsteady gas dynamics and the theory of characteristics.

On that subject I stress that it is a false approach to try to explain the properties of the aether in terms of the properties of matter and especially in terms of fluid dynamics. You see, the root of the problem is that of understanding the very nature of mass in terms of electrical energy. It is electrical action and the attendant magnetic actions that can assert their influence through the space which separates electric particles. Fluid dynamics requires contact and does not countenance action at a distance. If we are to tap energy from space there has to be something other than exchange of energy by collisions between particles. We have to tap into the energy pool to which we are coupled by those magnetic fields and it is the latter that come quantized in units determining the Planck constant. That tells us to look at the dimensionless fine structure constant as an aether property, because it combines Planck’s constant, the unitary electron charge and the speed of light in one numerical expression 1/137. Decipher that in terms of an electrical aether and you have arrived where you need to be and there are then really few unsolved problems even though Einstein’s theory sinks into oblivion.

I end this Discussion by emphasizing that the subject of interest in these Web pages is ENERGY. We are dealing with Energy Science of the kind which concerns actions involving AETHER. This is the domain of those electrical phenomena we still do not fully comprehend. Our subject is not philosophically based on the problems of communication across space and Einsteinian-type questions such as how light can always travel at a constant speed and yet bend in its path around a star. Imagine two runners going around a curved track, side-by-side, and see one get ahead as they run at the same speed! Let two separate observers time their motion by their different stop watches to find they keep pace with one another. Then go away and make sense of those findings in the light of what you know you have seen. You will soon lose all sense of time and have no regard for the energy expended by those runners. I would say that those stop watches needed calibrating against the steady rhythm of Nature’s natural time and without reference to Einstein, the Swiss Patent Examiner.

ENERGY is what counts, and once we understand all we need to know about how energy is juggled about in space, particularly in the space local to our Earth, then we can build a picture of that AETHER. So we will delve into Aether Science and Energy Science and jump between the two as these Web pages take form.

I have much to say about what lies ahead in that territory, but there are still vast unexplored regions. The physical basis of that 1836 number ratio for the proton-electron mass ratio tells us about proton creation but does not fully answer questions such as “when” and “where” those protons found they could form the atomic nuclei of, say, carbon and oxygen. It is all too easy to speculate about what happens inside stars, assuming their cores are at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. Give ‘cold fusion’ a hearing and you might wonder if stars need be much hotter than, say, 10,000 degrees. Resolve the anomalies surrounding the photon and the transport of energy by electromagnetic waves, with gravity in mind, and you might wonder if waves ripple through the aether, promoting fluctuations of aether energy already there, whilst the source energy of stellar radiation is pulled back to the star by gravity and so conserved. Such a hypothesis would account for how a star can sustain its radiant condition for billions of years. Go even further and face up to that question of whether the fundamental physical constants can change with time. They may be different in different galactic regions. If so it could be that those oxygen atoms could form in some regions of space as part of the ongoing process of proton creation, rather than by a subsequent fusion process. Then we could see a way of forming the hydroxyl ion and so water and begin to pay attention when scientists tell us that comets are composed of ice. One might even wonder if comets contain more than a good measure of spinning aether, inasmuch as the aether exists, what exists can move and a form of movement is ‘spin’. Anything, therefore, which involves energy in an unusual way and has bearing on both cosmology and microphysics warrants scrutiny with the aether in mind. However, amidst all of this, it is the interplay between aether and the ferromagnetic condition of matter or the interplay of aether and the electrodynamics of the heavy ion that offers us an access route to ‘free energy’. Do not let your false preconceived notions about the AETHER deter you from considering what is said on the subject in these Web pages. The aether is the only hope we have for avoiding the pollution caused by fossil and nuclear fuel. If that aether can create protons and package energy into photons then it has something useful to tell us about energy. If, as a scientist, you can explain proton creation and photon creation without needing an aether, then you can claim an alternative scenario. If you cannot, in a way which can rival what I have to say in these Web pages, then do see the aether as I do and offer it your support.

Now make your choice. Go back to the Homepage and decide whether you wish to select a Lecture topic or work through the Tutorials to see how easy it is to explain those mysterious numbers 137 and 1836, or even those very large numbers that come into play as the Constant of Gravity gets into the act. I thank you for your interest.

Harold Aspden, August 19, 1997

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS: CONTINUATION

On ‘The Repression of Inventions’

REPRESSION OF THE SECOND KIND: PATENT OFFICE HOSTILITY

The next act of ‘repression’ also concerns an invention in the energy field and this time I shall point my finger at the U.S. Patent Office. The subject is ‘cold fusion’. Some of you will recall that in 1989 two professors, Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, hit the news headlines by declaring that they had found that an electrolytic cell filled with heavy water had shown some spurious effects by generating heat apparently from nowhere, unless perhaps, that heat came from a nuclear fusion reaction.

Scientists have been trying for close on 50 years to build an operable nuclear fusion reactor that runs on the hydrogen isotope found in heavy water. They have not succeeded by their method of producing very high temperatures to trigger the reaction and yet here was a test-tube experiment that was said to deliver that success by operating at room temperature.

It needs little imagination to guess the feelings of those who were spending vast sums of government money on trying to produce controlled nuclear fusion in the laboratory when they heard that two professors of electrochemistry had found that heat, seemingly coming from a fusion reaction, can be generated at water temperatures using simple chemical apparatus.

The object is to generate heat which we can turn into electricity, but those nuclear scientists expect a nuclear reaction to produce vast quantities of radiation in the form of neutrons or gamma radiation. On that reasoning, Professors Fleischmann and Pons should have killed themselves or at least signed their own eventual death warrants by doing the experiment. Yet they found very little evidence, indeed negligible evidence, of such radiation products in their tests on the heavy water cells.

Now, instead of waiting to see the new technology develop in the hands of these electrochemists and the sponsors who rushed in to assist, the scientific community, particularly those who lived only in a world of theory, went on the rampage. It came to be described as ‘The scientific fiasco of the century’.

In retrospect it seems that Fleischmann and Pons announced their discovery before they knew enough about the process to understand why it worked. There was more heat being generated than could be explained in chemical terms and this is why fusion came into the picture, but the process was elusive and could not, at the time, be replicated on demand, at least by the many who then tried their hand at building the Fleischmann and Pons cell. Now, my interest in all this arose because I had, for many years, been developing a theory which assured me that atomic nuclei of the hydrogen isotopes in heavy water do not contain neutrons. There being three isotopes of hydrogen in a 1, 2, 3 series, this meant that, assuming a fusion reaction where two heavy water (2+2) nuclei combine to form one heavier atomic nucleus (3) and one lighter atomic nucleus (1), there is no need for a neutron to be emitted.

To my way of thinking there was a way in which to improve the operation of the cell used by Fleischmann and Pons and within three weeks of their initial announcement back in 1989 I had filed a patent application on that ‘invention’ of mine at the British Patent Office. It was not something I had tested experimentally. It was simply a ‘paper proposal’ but I well knew the need to file a patent before one made a general disclosure of an invention and I wanted to set the scene for airing my views on the subject and draw attention to my earlier theoretical work. That British patent was eventually granted without any problem, but the corresponding United States patent application that I filed ran into an incredible barrage of ‘repression’ staged by the Patent Examiner.

My background in the patent profession, some 37 or so years on from that encounter with my German visitor, meant that I knew what was normal, abnormal and outright incredible when it came to dealings with a Patent Office. I had never, in my whole career encountered the latter situation until I filed that ‘cold fusion’ patent application in the U.S. Patent Office in the wake of Fleischmann and Pons.

I have heard that over 200 patent applications on the subject of cold fusion have been rejected by the U.S. Patent Office. Included in these is the original application by Fleischmann and Pons, even though their corresponding European patent application has been granted. At this time [APRIL, 1996] my own U.S. patent application is still in contention.

I have had no less than 14 patents cited against my application together with 37 articles from newspapers and scientific periodicals. Most of these are dated after my priority filing date but they have been cited to support the Examiner’s case that there is no reputable evidence to show that excess energy can be generated in a device working at water temperatures.

Now, in this talk, I cannot go into the details of all this. I just want to make the point that I have known for a very long time that the scientific community can be very repressive in resisting those who intrude into their fields of specialty. Scientific papers are sent off for the peer review of experts in the relevant field. These are those with the most to lose if what is on offer is new and runs counter to their own beliefs. If the papers support the ‘party line’ and particularly the prior work of the referee, then they are accepted. Otherwise they are rejected, because no one wants to rock the boat by showing that there is dissent that can raise doubts amongst those on committees who have charge of research funding.
I have, however, never before seen a situation where the ‘party line’ of a group of scientists could penetrate the ranks of an examining patent office. It is legitimate for patent examiners to argue that something is not new or may be obvious and so unpatentable. It is legitimate for patent examiners in U.S. practice to invite evidence and testimony as to operability of an invention. It is legitimate also to contend that what is claimed is ‘perpetual motion’, which is said to be contrary to natural law (meaning the established laws of physics), but the rejection of which I am speaking is not put in such simple terms. Rather than declaring, as by some kind of administrative edict, that what can be classed as a ‘cold fusion’ application should be deemed unpatentable, as being akin to claims for perpetual motion, it is as if the U.S. Patent Office, or their examiners as their agents, decided to grind the applicant down. I was first asked to decide which aspect of my application was to be selected for examination, the implication being that there were numerous different inventions involved. Yet in the U.K. the British examiner saw the same patent specification as relating to one single invention. When I made my selection, then came the 51 items of cited art, whereas 6 would have been a reasonable number of cited documents.

It may interest you if I refer to just one item. After the cold fusion announcement, Harwell scientists mounted a crash programme to verify what was claimed by Fleischmann and Pons. A U.S. Government representative from Oak Ridge National Laboratory named J.F. Cooke visited Harwell to check their progress. His report was cited by the examiner including a verbatim quotation from it. The report made a point of saying that Prime Minister Thatcher had telephoned Harwell to see how things were progressing. Some 13 lines of Examiner remarks later in that report one reads the words: “Calorimetric cells, which took into account and eliminated temperature gradient problems, were also used.”

Now my patent application involves injecting power into the cell which would actually inject heat into the cathode and one of my arguments is that, to get the action started that might cause excess heat to be generated, it requires some such influence in the metal electrode to set up electric fields which can stimulate the onset of the activity. I know that the combination of a temperature gradient in an electrode and the passage of electric current can work together to produce electric fields even inside a metal conductor. Such fields can involve residual charge which neutralizes the repulsive action between two hydrogen nuclei and may allow them to come together close enough to trigger fusion. So I see the need to make special provision for that activity as by introducing heat into the electrode in the cell to set up the needed temperature gradient. Now when Harwell set out to verify or discredit the cold fusion claim they decided that, to measure any heat generated, their apparatus should be put in a cocoon so as to keep it at a uniform temperature and so ease the task of measuring any change of that temperature. Measuring increase of heat generated depends upon accurate measurement of temperature change. That is fairly obvious, but what is equally obvious to me, though not to the U.S. Patent Examiner, is that, if a temperature differential within the hydrated metal is the essential ‘cold fusion’ trigger, so the Harwell experiment killed the goose before it could lay the golden egg!

However, in killing the goose they gave basis for a U.S. Government report which the U.S. Patent Examiner relies upon as a citation against my invention to prove, in effect, that the goose that had been killed had never existed!

What is so outrageous is that none of this was prior art concerning the scope of the invention that I was claiming in my U.S. patent application. It concerned the Fleischmann and Pons process, which had become prior art which could be cited in its own right had my patent claims not distinguished my invention from what they had disclosed.

On this whole subject we shall have to wait and see how the dust finally settles on this question of cold fusion, but certainly, if it is found that we can eventually generate electric power from the excess heat of a cold fusion reactor, then history will show that here was a technology, the many inventions on which were subjected to deliberate repression by the U.S. Patent Office. What I do find hard to understand is the reason behind that repression, because I have always seen Patent Offices as referees functioning as passive filters which allow patents to be granted solely on their merits in the fair contest between what is old and what is new and better technology for the world at large.

REPRESSION OF THE THIRD KIND: THE EMPLOYED INVENTOR

The third form of repression is one which affects numerous inventors and, short of changing the whole philosophy of the patent system internationally, I cannot see any remedy. The problem is a fact of life. Imagine you are employed in a technical capacity by a high-tech multinational company. You have contracted that your inventions belong to your employer. You make an invention that your employer does not want to develop. What do you do? Contractually it belongs to your employer. Now I can assure you that, if you press to get possession of the rights so that you can offer them to other companies, then you will have an interesting experience. Your request will be rebuffed if the invention is in your employer’s technical field. One reason is that there may be cross license arrangements with those other companies and, should you offer your invention to those other companies, they may wonder why they should pay you money to use the invention when they should have free use had it been patented by your employer. Also, your employer would be concerned to find you sniping at his competitors in an uncontrolled way, especially as the accepted playing field for competition is in the customer market place and there is nothing to stop you from trying to enforce your patent against customer and competitor alike.
So, if the invention lies within your employer’s technical field, then, in trying to promote your invention independently, you run risks with your career that you would rather avoid. On the other hand, if your invention lies outside your employer’s field, then there are also similar risks. Why should an employer be enamored by you if you use your creative technical faculties for private purposes when that skill should be concentrated on the employer’s technology and for your employer’s benefit?

So, without there being any repressive act, as such, the system operates in silence with the same result. If you have a research mind and half of your ideas have application outside your employer’s field of activity then half of your inventive power is suppressed. It is an inevitable fact of life, so long as the patent system remains as it is now.

What you can expect, therefore, is that the real break-through on the new energy front is more likely to come from someone well qualified technically but not tied to a corporation or an institutional body.

The Fleischmann and Pons cold fusion work was initiated at their own expense and not as a formally funded project. I can also say that there was a time in my career with IBM when I decided, at my own expense, to file a patent application on an invention that I felt simply had to go on public record. I took that initiative and then told IBM it was theirs if they wanted it, but otherwise I would abandon the rights upon publication, which is what happened. IBM did not repress that invention. I was senior enough in IBM’s patent organization to act responsibly and not let that invention cause any problem, but I made sure that it was not ‘repressed’ by having been thought of but not documented on public record owing to inaction stemming from the employee-inventor syndrome. I sought, as back-up, to get a scientific paper published on the invention, but knew that the ‘peer review’ system involved in that could have its own kind of ‘repression’, which is why I made sure of publication by applying for the patent. Unlike the situation in U.S.A. application for a patent in U.K. offers initial publication before grant, which means that it is scrutinized for its form and for search purposes but does not have to overcome the main Examiner hurdles before being published.

Now, what was my invention? It was nothing less than a proposed method of extracting energy from the aether, as revolutionary an idea as one can possibly conceive – energy from a medium which most physicists say does not exist, but which I say is everywhere in and around us. You may think that I had lost my mental faculties or that I had, like the German U-boat engineer mentioned earlier, gone adrift in my scientific reasoning, but I can assure you that I was ready to defend my case.

That was in 1977. My invention required the use of an electrical discharge in a rarified gas, what is known as a cold-cathode discharge, but involved a technique which had the object of gaining power over and above the electrical input. The patent specification was published in 1978 and assigned the number GB 2,002,953. My technical paper on the subject, overcame referee scrutiny and was published in 1977 in the IEEE Proceedings on Plasma Science, PS-2, pp. 159-163 under the title ‘Electrodynamic Anomalies in Arc Discharge Phenomena’. Both were duly ignored by the scientific community. That is as you might expect, but I had satisfied my desire to put my contribution on record.

Not surprisingly, however, at least to me some nine years later in 1986, a British scientist named Geoffrey Spence, acting also on his own behalf, succeeded in demonstrating a somewhat similar plasma discharge device operating and delivering kilowatt output power substantially in excess of input power. Indeed, his invention would, in my opinion, have infringed claim 4 of my patent had I pressed onward to the grant stage and kept it alive. However, the academic world, being what it is, though partially successful in replicating the Spence device, lacked that something needed to take the project forward. Spence had his problems because the device suffered from electrode failure because too much heat was eroding the electrode where the energy was collected. The Spence invention, surprisingly, was duly patented in the U.S.A. Unlike the fiasco over cold fusion, the United States Patent Office allowed a patent on something that, on the face of it, did cover the electrical equivalent of perpetual motion. It was U.S. Patent No. 4,772,816.

Now, has the Spence invention been ‘repressed’? Well, has it or hasn’t it? You tell me! The scenario is that Spence built something that worked. It delivered excess power, but the durability of the device posed problems. Its operation did attract sponsors. When I heard about it I was told that a university project had verified operability, but that the device failed after 14 hours or so owing to electrode erosion. Spence lived as a recluse but he had set up a trust to cope with the potential exploitation of his invention rights. This was a glimpse of a new technology that could deliver power in breach of the laws of physics. It had the necessary patent cover, but to get it to work commercially it needed development of the kind available to major corporations in the electronics industry.
Has the invention been ‘repressed’ or simply neglected because the wisdom of the technology world rules that such inventions are impossible? Was this another version of something similar to the Hans Coler saga, where the invention most assuredly did work to deliver excess power, but the wise men in authority who had not seen it working felt they knew better and diverted their attentions elsewhere?

A HOPE CONCERNING A NEW ENERGY INVENTION

The description of the Spence invention sits there on record in Patent Offices and anyone can buy a copy of the patent specification, but we are not enjoying that bonanza that can come from the generation of electrical power from the bountiful aether. You see, if the scientific community believe something is not possible, they do not try to make it happen. On the contrary, they go out of their way to make sure that no one in their own ranks strays by beginning to think that the ‘impossible’ has become the ‘possible’.

If you believe in God then you can say that God can achieve the impossible. Otherwise how could the forms of energy we see around us have been created, given that everything is in decline as energy is dissipated as heat.

If you do not believe in God or can accept that God, like us, is governed by the laws of physics, then the creation of matter from a lesser form of energy has to be scientific possibility.

I could not indulge in such reasoning when my work required me to evaluate inventions. Though there is repression by scientists and technologists in their cursory evaluation of those dubious inventions, it was part of my duty in a corporate patent department to be attentive to the ‘crackpot’ ideas of inventors, just in case one comes along which wins the ‘jackpot’. Sadly, institutional research funding is no gambling game. There is no jackpot to be won, because funded research has to stay on secure territory and aim at modest objectives which succeed only by building very slowly on well established foundations, even though those foundations are unable to support the fabric of the new energy world.

So much for the invention of Geoffrey Spence, but that is not all. Moving on another three years to 1989, there was a press release issued by the Novosti Press Agency telling us about an energy breakthrough in Moscow. Energy was being tapped from the vacuum using a plasma discharge! This was the work of a team led by Professor Chernetskii. You may have heard mention of this briefly during a recent T.V. programme in the EQUINOX series. [U.K. television]. That particular programme was named ‘IT RUNS ON WATER’ and its documentary background was mainly of U.S. origin. The Chernetskii invention was mentioned because it gave back-up to the developing scene where U.S. inventors are claiming to have discovered various ways of getting energy apparently from nowhere, and in the process are attracting scorn and derision from those who believe that just cannot be.

So, why have the Russians not swept the field with that new technology? Can it be that they have so much oil that they see no need to invest in plasma generators? I have no answer to offer. It is just one of those facts that we, or rather they, live with. There is a kind of mental inertia that builds up in experts to the point where they cannot change their ways, whereas those who have not acquired much inertia lack the driving force to break through those barriers that one encounters in this field of new energy.

Yet the seeds of a new energy technology are there waiting to be nurtured, but it seems the energy scientists would rather try to harness the hot fusion power of the hydrogen atom bomb or go off into space to try to tap into the electron power of the ionosphere.
I mention that because the news we heard about six weeks ago, on 26th February [1996], was that a satellite costing hundreds of millions of dollars had been lost because of an unexpected electrical discharge which fused the tether connecting the satellite to the Columbia space shuttle.

Now, what have I been talking about in referring to my 1977 invention, the 1986 invention of Geoffrey Spence and the 1989 news about the Chernetskii invention is the enormous excess power delivery to a cold-cathode subjected to a plasma discharge in an evacuated tube containing gas at very low pressure. That experiment in space did not use a discharge tube. It had a 12.8 mile cable sweeping through the Earth’s magnetic field to set up a voltage of several kilovolts between the satellite and the space shuttle. This was intended to deliver electrons to the shuttle which were then to be fired back into space to close the circuit loop. Here we have a situation where the ‘discharge’ is through a plasma out in space rather than inside an evacuated tube in the laboratory. The secret of those three plasma inventions is that the action which brings in the energy bonanza is not carried by the electrons, but rather by the positive ions, the protons that sit with the electrons if the plasma involves hydrogen. Those protons pick up energy mysteriously at a rate that is several thousand times greater than they should according to accepted theory!

So what happened to that space experiment? The space shuttle itself was the cathode and the satellite was the anode in the discharge and the inevitable energy bonanza converged onto the cathode, not carried by the electrons coming down through that cable, but rather carried by positive ions moving in through the space plasma to join up with those electrons at the cathode, namely at the point of connection with Columbia. The seven-man crew were indeed lucky to survive such a close encounter with a release of excess energy from the aether. Once the connection had fused, the cable with its satellite took that power source away. It was lost.

Now you may think that I am merely speculating imaginatively in rambling on like this, and I cannot deny that is partly true, because I am human and this talk of ‘free energy’ inspires one to dream. Someone like myself has to think about these matters, given that those paid to do that thinking have to stay in line with what has become orthodox (non-imaginative) opinion.

I will therefore now end by telling you that three U.S. patents have issued recently and they read like university doctorate theses in showing, by data referenced to numerous experiments, that plasma discharge devices can generate electrical power many times greater than is supplied as input power. They were granted to Canadian inventors, a man and wife team also acting on their own private funding. Dr. Paulo Correa and his wife Alexandra drew this research to my attention, which is why I know about it first-hand. Indeed, I find that my earlier writings in this field are referenced in those patents. It seems that Dr. Correa has conquered the problem of electrode over-heating and, after long duration running of the many devices he has built using different electrode configurations, shapes and materials, his development is now at the point where predictably 40 megawatt-hours of energy can be delivered from something of light weight construction that one can hold in one hand. Imagine holding something that can deliver 2 kilowatts of electrical power output and keep going for 20,000 hours. Then ask yourself when we can expect to see electrical vehicles on our roads using somewhat larger versions of those tubes.

So here is the invention that must not be repressed and that is why I have accepted this invitation to speak to you here about ‘repressed inventions’. It was not to tell a sorry tale and bring bad news from the past, but rather to inspire you with hope, the kind of hope which I now see as good news for the world’s energy future.

Next week at this time I plan to be in Denver, Colorado, attending the Third International Symposium on New Energy, where Dr. Paulo Correa will disclose details of the invention I have just mentioned. An invention by Win Lambertson will also be discussed, which could prove to be the solid-state equivalent of the plasma discharge device. We may well now be facing a future that repeats in the power generating industry what we have seen in the electronic communication industry.

Finally, I say that if there are forces of repression where inventions are concerned then those forces now have plenty of work to keep them fully employed!

The above is the full text of the notes I used as preparation and for reference in delivering my talk to the very large audience that attended my session at the Fortean meeting in London on Saturday 20th April, 1996. I now invite you to read my onward ‘Discussion’ of these matters, by pressing the following link button:



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KEYNOTE ADDRESS

THE REPRESSION OF INVENTIONS

Copyright, HAROLD ASPDEN, 1997

This is the full text of the author’s notes for a talk delivered to the
very large audience that attended the session on ‘Repression of Inventions’ at UNCONVENTION ’96, as organized by FORTEAN TIMES and held in London, England on Saturday 20th April, 1996.

The reason this is chosen as the ‘KEYNOTE ADDRESS’ to open these Web pages will be explained in a Discussion Note at the end of this discourse. Our subject is ‘ENERGY SCIENCE’ in the context of generating useful power from the thermodynamic condition of our space environment. However, these Web pages reveal far more than a glimpse at the prospect of a new technology which can solve the world’s energy problems and avoid pollution. In penetrating the barriers of energy science we expose the secrets of creation on a universal and a microscopic scale. Those processes of creation are powered by the same action that delivers the excess power in the electrodynamic and ferromagnetic devices that will be at the very heart of our power generators in the years ahead. The source of that energy is the aether, ‘AETHER SCIENCE’ being the theoretical discipline which gives foundation for the technological discipline of ‘ENERGY SCIENCE’. The subject is vast in scope and the theme I was asked to speak about when invited to give the following talk, though chosen for me by the organizers is as good a place as any from which to start. I hope it will prove interesting.

ABOUT THE TITLE

I was rather surprised to be invited to come here today and speak to you about ‘The Repression of Inventions’. I have not expressed views on the subject before. The topic concerns the deliberate restriction on the use of an invention. This implies exercise of restrictive powers, as by the Government, but I think there is a more popular belief that major corporations sometimes buy inventions which might threaten their business and keep them from being used to the public good.

In my retirement from gainful employment with a major corporation I am not at all interested in the politics of these matters but I have become interested in inventions which can help to solve the world’s energy problems and the need to reduce pollution. I therefore realize that a revolutionary discovery in the energy field can have such impact that one could wonder whether an oil company, for example, might contrive to suppress such an invention and deprive us from its benefit. My guess is that their initial reaction on hearing about such an invention would be more an exercise in curiosity and that, by the time that turned into fear about business outlook, the news about the invention would have spread and it would be too late to keep the discovery secret.

The repression I fear, on the energy front, is that which has other roots well planted in the fertile soil of what I can best describe as ‘human nature’.

It is a human reaction of experts in the energy field to pour scorn on anyone who dares to challenge the conventional threshold which limits what is deemed possible in energy terms. There is a line that must not be crossed. Whoever dares to mount such a challenge can risk being seen as a Don Quixote tilting at a windmill and attempting the impossible.

So what I have to say will be focused on that theme and I would ask that you take note that I am not here talking about my problems or the problems of the individual inventors, but your problems, the problems ahead that we all face together if there is no breakthrough invention on the horizon that can ease our energy worries and allow us to stop the use of nuclear power.

Now, I have to mention patents, because the way to get business people interested in an invention, besides demonstrating it working is to secure some patent protection. Neither inventors nor those in authority who can take inventions forward can expect to benefit from their efforts and their investment without securing some patent protection.

Here I do urge you not to see patents as ‘repressive’. I did not choose the title of this talk! They are the very opposite of that because they involve a contract with the Government, one respected on an international scale, by which a monopoly limited to a period of years is conferred in return for the open publication of details sufficient to implement the invention. So, if a patented invention is ‘repressed’, you, the public, could easily inspect the public records, see what it is that we are losing out on and ask the necessary questions. I could, of course, wish that the patent system was more effective, but one needs to keep in mind that it really does work, and it has held its ground for a century in the treaty arrangements of international politics.

So I suggest that an invention is not to be endorsed as such until the inventor secures a patent and ‘repression’ has to be seen more as a lack of action than a withholding of something from the public. However, there can, on occasion, be deliberate obstruction with the public standing by and watching something they cannot understand. Almost always, the inventor has trouble getting anyone to take an interest in his invention.

REMINISCENCE AS A PATENT MANAGER

To put things in perspective, I will begin by indulging in a little reminiscence and tell you about the way some inventors try to project their ideas.

36 years ago I was hired as the new Patent Manager at IBM’s Head Office in London. We were busy enough working on the hundreds of inventions in process through the Patent Office without having to worry about the inventions offered by outsiders, but we were attentive and polite to any would-be inventor who knocked on our doors. My first visitor in that capacity popped in off the street, Wigmore Street. In those early days IBM had its Head Office just behind Selfridges, a principal department store in Oxford Street. He introduced himself as being a member of MENSA and as having a very high intelligence quota. Then he digressed to ask me how I was getting on in my new job. Eventually he got to the point. Yes, he had made an invention. Yes, he understood that our company policy was not to accept the confidential disclosure of inventions offered by strangers. Yes, he knew he ought to file a patent application before talking to us, but he really had something so wonderful to offer that would revolutionize IBM’s typewriter business. Then he said that he would not disclose his invention to us there and then and that all he wanted was to borrow my secretary for two weeks and she would come back and be able to vouch for the merit of his invention.

When I then rose to accelerate his departure he explained that he had devised a new language which would require a new keyboard lay out which would be more efficient because it only had ten keys. In saying this, he looked attentively at his eight fingers and two thumbs. I thought he had in mind some kind of stenographic machine. But, no, what he had ‘invented’ was a new language based on ten characters! We were all expected to learn a new language. That sort of idea is not patentable and I could not imagine IBM succeeding in an effort to sponsor the elimination of the English language.

When I terminated the meeting he departed with the comment that I had only said what my predecessor had said four years previously and that he had only popped in to see me to kill time while his wife was shopping in Selfridges.

I dare say that I could be accused of suppressing his invention, but only in the sense that I decided that IBM was not interested and if I did wrong I hope I will be forgiven!

Every Patent Manager can tell many such stories. I will very briefly mention three from my prior employment in the London Patent Department of a major Engineering Company.

One Friday afternoon the company received a two-line telegram which read “If you do not send 5,000 pounds by return, I will not tell you my invention”. It was from Ireland, but a little while later there was a communication just as humorous from Australia about an idea for electrocuting rabbits. I remember it because it had no proper address. It was mailed to England addressed to ‘The Company that made the Canberra’. That was the name of a bomber aircraft back in those days. The gist of the invention was the idea that when a rabbit popped up from a rabbit hole it would interrupt a light beam, causing a photocell to sense the presence of the rabbit and thereby cause a bell to ring. That would frighten the rabbit which would then withdraw and seek to escape by running to another exit hole. The electrocution device located at that hole was then to be triggered with a delay set according to the distance to the other hole and the known speed of travel of the rabbit, so that the rabbit would be duly killed. It was asserted that our engineers would have the technical skills needed to design such a device. Now, on the face of it, this communication was not intended as a joke, but you will agree that it ranks as one of the many inventions that does warrant ‘repression’.

The last inventor encounter that I will mention here was more serious. It dates from 1955. An elderly German gentleman was shown into my office. He explained that he was very senior, having been a chief engineering designer of U-boats during World War II, and, though what he had to offer needed the attention of the company’s Managing Director, he said he was willing to speak to me in spite of my lowly position, just to secure introduction to the Company’s top management. Then he produced three letters by way of displaying his credentials and he folded each in turn as he presented them, one by one, across my field of view so that I could only read the signature on the letter. “You know Albert Einstein?”, he said, as my gaze saw Einstein’s signature. Then followed one signed by Max Planck and after that one signed by Heisenberg, both renowned physicists. That was enough to tell me that if they concerned something he had invented, his invention had been disclosed several years earlier. When I did a check later I found that, though Max Planck had lived well into is 80s, he had died in 1947.

Next, fully knowing the answer to his question, he said: “You make diesel engines? Telephone the factory right away. Tell them to stop production. My invention will replace all such machines.”

Eventually he produced a copious set of design drawings backed by calculations of thrust forces and reaction forces on turbine blades. He was talking about a gas turbine but he said it was one that could operate on a closed cycle, meaning that the gas was circulated around inside the engine and there was no exhaust. Now a gas turbine works by turbine blades which operate to compress the gas before it is heated further by combustion in a middle chamber and then it harnesses the power of the expanded gas to drive the main turbine blades. (In my engineering upbringing a ‘gas turbine’ was a developing technology distinct from that of the ‘steam turbine’.) My German visitor said he had designed a machine which developed a thrust force without needing any exhaust. If used on an aircraft it would have been a jet engine with no jet! On the face of it this was impossible and here I was confronted by extensive calculations by an expert who well understood thermodynamics and he was saying that there would be a thrust force if the engine was built. (As an aside here I note that I was not being blinded by scientific technicalities. I had graduated with high honours in my engineering studies and the thermodynamics of heat engines had been one of my final test subjects. But, equally, I was well versed in the physical principles which are embodied in Newton’s laws of mechanics. I also knew from my then-recent professional qualification in patents that there was a class of ‘invention’ that was denied patent protection – that which purports to offer prospect of ‘perpetual motion’.)

My reaction to all this was to appear passive but yet sufficiently interested to be sure I understood exactly what he was saying about his design, intimating that we would consider his proposal and advise him of our interest.

He left his data with me ‘to pass on for consideration by our engineering management’, but there was no need for that. When I later scanned through his analysis, looking for the fatal flaw that had to be there, somewhere, I could see that he had introduced flow channels for recirculating gas and omitted to allow for the fact that, besides the axial thrusts on the turbine blades, there are reaction forces set up when gas goes around a U-bend and is involved in pressure changes in those feedback flow channels. Those reaction forces would cancel any forward thrust. His invention would not work but, in line with usual practice, it was our company policy not to engage in argument about the merits of an outsider’s invention. He was duly informed by letter that our production facilities were so committed that the company just could not undertake any involvement with his invention. (I could add here that there had been an earlier encounter with an inventor by one member of our patent staff who had rejected an inventor’s proposal by letter telling him why it would not work. The response had been an invitation to a duel, albeit one which, on closer reading, meant a willingness to engage in a public debate on the merits of the invention. However, that had been enough to confirm the policy to which I was adhering.)

In having taken no action to have our visitor’s invention proposal reviewed by engineers of our gas turbine section, it could be assumed that I had acted in a repressive way and perhaps unfairly. Yet I was doing my job to the best of my ability and, indeed, there are certain legal dangers in passing on outside inventor’s ideas to technical departments within a company without having in place certain contractual understandings. Yet I assure you that, had a meritorious invention crossed my desk in this way, it would have been looked at with more positive interest.

REPRESSION OF THE FIRST KIND: GOVERNMENT SECRECY

Based on that background, what I now come to is the invention of another German, someone I never did meet but would have been glad to meet. His name was Hans Coler. I do not know whether he had a patent but I can say that it was unlikely as I expect the German Patent Office would have thrown it out as being a claim for perpetual motion. It concerned the generation of electrical energy using magnets and I really do wish that knowledge of that invention had come to my attention in those early days of my career. I had a Ph.D. for research on an energy anomaly connected with electromagnetism so I would have been particularly interested. That invention is one that did work and yet it does seem to have been ‘repressed’ by Government intervention.

Curiously, by a quirk of bad fortune, Mother Nature has done a little repression herself, because some months ago I had a tidy-up of my papers at home and now I cannot lay my hands on the Coler documentation when I need to in order to prepare these notes. I am therefore speaking from memory, but, because of a separate record I kept, which included a drawing, I can quote the reference of the official document should anyone like to check it. It is the subject of a British Intelligence Committee Report: B.I.O.S. Final Report No. 1043: Item No. 31, entitled: ‘THE INVENTION OF HANS COLER, RELATING TO AN ALLEGED NEW SOURCE OF POWER’. It was eventually, after declassification, available from the Department of Scientific and Industrial research, but presumably it is in quiet repose somewhere in the Government’s public archival records.

The report is that of two experts, one U.K. Government scientist and one Norwegian army scientist, sent to Germany to see Hans Coler demonstrate the very substantial excess energy that he could generate from magnets when subjected to special current excitation conditions. The report explained how testimony from German professors confirmed that the invention did work and did generate power in a mysterious way. Evidence on that was part of the report, but the really fascinating aspect of this was that Hans Coler had, owing to the War (World War II), lost access to the equipment needed to give a demonstration. The necessary components were therefore brought in from England by those visiting scientists. Then, closely watched by the scientists, Coler wound coils around the magnets, made connections and assembled an array of six magnets in a loop with a small spacing between their poles and, lo and behold, the apparatus began to deliver power to light bulbs used as a load.

The two scientists were there for several days making repeated observations and making detailed drawings and notes about the set-up, all of which are reported in that official report. The Coler invention had been seen as warranting promotion to help to sustain Germany’s energy needs during the war-time adversity. The report was put under British Government official secrecy and, having eventually surfaced, one can now read that the report recommended onward development and expert investigation of the device because it did perform to generate electricity with no evident input source of power. The problem, of course, was that neither those scientists, nor the German professors who had seen Coler’s earlier devices working, could understand the principles involved. One might even wonder whether Coler himself understood what he had discovered!

[HERE MY LECTURE NOTES REQUIRED THAT I SHOW SOME FIGURES ON AN OVERHEAD VIEWER AND TALK ABOUT HOW THE WINDINGS CONNECT THROUGH THE MAGNETS. AS I WILL BE INCLUDING ELSEWHERE IN THESE WEB PAGES, A FULL LECTURE ON WHY THE COLER INVENTION REALLY WORKS, I WILL JUST PRESENT HERE THE FIGURE 2 WHICH APPEARS AT PAGE 31 OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE OBJECTIVES SUB-COMMITTEE TRIP REPORT NO. 2394 (BIOS TARGET NUMBER: C31/4799.]

I see the Coler invention as a mystery still needing solution. I only heard about it after I had myself addressed an energy conference in Canada in 1988 by declaring that I was beginning to see a way of tapping energy from the aether by exciting magnetic cores in an electric motor in a certain way. Someone who had heard about my talk was kind enough to send me a copy of that Hans Coler report which by then had found its way into the network of individuals interested in this emerging new energy field.
So, I leave the Coler question as an open issue, by saying that I do see this as a ‘repressed invention’, at least until someone assures me that an organ of the British Government or some other such authority did probe deeper into the technology indicated in that secret report and reached a definitive conclusion on the Coler mystery. Possibly, with nuclear power on the horizon, the attentions of those looking for new energy sources in the aftermath of the war were diverted away from the Hans Coler situation. More likely, however, any committee which looked into the subject would adopt a consensus view that what was claimed could not be viable as it was contrary to long standing experience, so concluding that the file ought to be closed with the mystery unsolved.

[Note, not part of the Fortean presentation: When eventually I did acquire access to another copy of the Coler report I found a reference to patents in a sentence at the bottom of its page 2, under the heading The “Stromerzeuger”:

In 1925 Coler showed a small (10 watt) version to Prof. Kloss (Berlin), who asked the Government to give it a thorough investigation, but this was refused, as was also a patent, on the grounds that it was a “perpetual motion machine&quot. ]

Press the link below to continue and move on to ‘REPRESSION OF THE SECOND KIND: PATENT OFFICE HOSTILITY’:

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