|
|
|
| 11 July 2006 (email and slomail) second copy sent email and slomail 27 July 2006 Lord Rees, President, The Royal Society Dear Lord Rees, I refer first to your role as President of The Royal Society. A Howie FRS, Head of The Cavendish (Westerner) and Sir M Pepper FRS, "knighted for services to Physics" (Southerner) totally contradict each other in response to The Catt Question [Howie Private Communication and Pepper under instruction from the then Master of Trinity.] In your role as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, two Fellows of our College, Nobel Prizewinner Josephson (Westerner) and Pepper (Southerner) totally contradict each other in response to The Catt Question . [Josephson recent comment.] [Pepper is not isolated as a Southerner. He is supported by the Iinstitution of Electrical Engineers {Note 1}and by an IEE book review .] There is a refusal by all of the above to resolve their differences, or to initiate any procedure to deal with the problem - for instance by telling Cambridge students that there are unresolved uncertainties at the core of the Electromagnetic Theory that they are being taught when it is applied to digital electronuics. I had an interesting conversation with you when I sat next to you
at Trinity High Table a few months ago. We agreed that it was wonderful
to have been fortunate enough to go to Trinity College.
St. Albans AL3 4JR, England {Note 1} "The favoured explanation aligns with the statement to which you refer, attributed to Professor Pepper, namely that as a TEM wave advances, so charge separation occurs close to the conductor surface effectively giving a transitory current flow at right angles to the direction of wave propagation. - Yours sincerely [signed] Professor Philip E Secker Deputy Secretary IEE 4sep95" "The special theory of relativity owes its origin to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field." - Einstein. From ed. P A Schilpp; "Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist", pub. Library of Living Philosophers, 1949, p62. cc A Howie FRS, 194 Huntingdon Rd., Cambridge Sir Michael Pepper FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge Professor Josephson, Trinity College, Cambridge Letter to The Master of Trinity College @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ " The discovery of discordant facts is cause for rejoicing, not consternation." - Professor Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in "The Velikovsky Affair", ed. Alfred de Grazia, pub. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1966, p176. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ On becoming President of the Royal Society, Lord Rees said; "The Royal Society has throughout its history supported the scientific community in its quest to improve knowledge about humankind and the universe around us. It has done this for the 'public good' because the acquisition and application of this new knowledge can lead to a better quality of life and an increase in prosperity." .... His recent awards include the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ " .... anomaly "subverts the existing tradition
of scientific practice" (6). These shifts are what Kuhn describes
as scientific revolutions—"the tradition-shattering complements
to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" (6). @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Quantum leap of a scientist facing the G-word Stuart Wavell MARTIN REES [ .... most of the key problems have not been solved,
he agrees....] is the astronomer who told us that the It is his appointment as president of the Royal Rees's work in unravelling the mysteries of the cosmos He has always portrayed his job as astronomer royal as The Royal Society gives him a much bigger platform as Here is one of the many pitfalls awaiting Rees: only Unrepentant on the issue, Rees says: "It's He acknowledges the raft of problems on which the I succeed in transporting Rees back to the "It was a time when young people could quickly make an The loser was Fred Hoyle, the pioneering astronomer Hoyle may have got the wrong answers but he asked the N is roughly 10^36, which means gravitational forces Again, this apparent tweaking implies an intelligent "Let me say I don't see any conflict between science He is an Anglican for cultural, aesthetic and tribal Yet most of the key problems have not been solved, he The barrier we may have to confront is our stupidity, The Sunday Times © The Australian
.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Pepper writes on "The Catt Question" in 1993 @@@@@@@@@@@@@ From "The Catt Anomaly" , now called "The Catt Question" @@@@@@@@@@@@@ UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS CAVENDISH LABORATORY MADINGLEY ROAD CAMBRIDGE CB3 0HE From: Professor M. Pepper, FRS June 21, 1993 Ivor Catt, Esq., 121 Westfields, St Albans, AL3 4JR Dear Mr Catt, As a Trinity physicist the Master suggested that I might provide some comments on the questions raised in your recent letter to him on aspects of electromagnetic theory. .... [There followed what is called "The Southerner Argument"]. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Pepper's statement above at the beginning of his 1993 letter misrepresents the situation. The truth is in "The Catt Anomaly" as follows; "Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote to past members of the college including myself asking for money to finance their expansion programme. They argued that Trinity had been in the forefront of academic advance, and my money would help to keep them there. "I replied that Trinity and Cambridge had for twenty-five years refused to comment in any way on Catt's theories on electromagnetism, and for ten years on the Catt Anomaly, a problem in classical electromagnetism, of which I enclosed a copy (above). I suggested to Atiyah, Master of Trinity, a mathematician, that he cause his leading expert to comment. The result was the following letter from Pepper. ...." @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Note that the then Master selected Pepper as the best expert to speak for Trinity College. In due course, in view of Pepper's failure to resolve his differences with McEwan (below) and now with Josephson, I shall point out to the present Master that he may decide to select a replacement represenatative who can speak for the whole of Trinity, or assert that (1) the matter is important; (2) unimportant, or (3) there is a fundamental problem flagged up by "The Catt Question" which reqires that a conference be held . @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Two years later the Dean at Bradford University selected Dr. Neil McEwan, Reader in Electromagnetism, as his top expert to respond to "The Catt Anomaly" . McEwan gave the conventional "Westerner argument". His response totally contradicted Pepper's. When informed, Pepper (and McEwan) went totally incomunicado for a decade. It is possible to infer that Pepper saw a Reader in Electromagnetism at Bradford University as beneath his dignity. However, twelve years later, Pepper's closest colleague repeated the Westerner argument, totally contradicting Pepper. Note that initially the Master of Pepper's (and Newton's) College instructed Pepper to write on behalf of his college. Now his response was clearly unsatisfactory because it was contradicted by a fellow- Fellow of the College, fellow Professor at The Cavendish, and a Nobel Prizewinner. There was now no doubt whatsoever that Pepper had to respond to Nobel Prizewinner Josephson's contradictory comment on what was now called "The Catt Question". Sir Michael Pepper FRS was knighted in the January Honours List "for services to Physics". This increases his duty to his Discipline, Physics. Pepper's continuing refusal to comment, even by saying that the Catt Question is unimportant (or important), is continuing Professional Misconduct. We are not merely dealing with one technically incompetent scientist. Initially, Professor Secker, when selected and then instructed by the Chief Executive of the IEE to comment, copied Pepper and used his "Southerner" argument. So did Lago of the IEE when he reviewed my book. . Ivor Catt 29 May 2006. Power versus Scholarship in Cambridge Atiyah, Master; "Yes. Colleges like this are essentially conservative institutions. ...." The Rise and Fall of Bodies of Knowledge p31 Self resonant frequency of a Capacitor The Betrayal of Science by 'Modern Physics'. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@
by Forrest Bishop May 16, 2006 Thursday, May 18, 2006 Kurt Metzer is picked up by Ivor Catt, arrives at Ivor's house.
I am his guest at High Table this evening. We depart for Cambridge
about 11:30 AM. We stop at a pub near Cambridge. Kurt tells us stories
of his life and family history in India, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
etc. We arrive at Trinity College and park near the dining hall.
We have a picnic lunch on a park bench by the river Cam, in front
of the Wren Library on The Backs. Ivor takes me to the emergency
room to remove something in my eye. Dinner at High Table I arrive at the Parlour around 7:15 PM. Kurt Metzger is already
there, and one other gentleman. A portrait of Sir Isaac Newton graces
the mantle, other personages are on display about the room. Coffee
is on service. A dignified lady 'deputy manciple' stands outside,
I later learn from Brian that she is senior staff. The dinner list
is short, about twenty, with three guests including myself. High
Table seats about seventy at two long tables. Dinner at High Table The room is reminiscent of the nave of a cathedral, with stained
glass windows rising to a vaulted ceiling. High Table is a low platform
at one end, where the altar would be, the two long tables arranged
as in *The Last Supper*. The undergraduates are seated in the main
area, where the faithful might be found. We then discuss matters other than "The Catt Question". After Dinner Coffee avec Ordeal Brian Josephson and myself retire to the Parlour for coffee, while
Kurt, Ivor, and a few others go upstairs to the "Sanctum"
for port, wine, cheeses, and fruit. I am helping myself to coffee
when I hear right behind me- I ask the young professor what was it he wished to know; he replied with "nothing". Forrest Bishop ========== Forrest Bishop, of San Diego, California, has been a student of electromagnetic theory for decades. Until last year, he was cut off from Ivor Catt's contributions by comprehensive Establishment obstruction and censorship.[Power versus Scholarship in Cambridge.] However, since he stumbled on Catt's material on the www last year he has put in a lot of work on it, and gained a remarkably good grasp of it. He says that Catt's writings resolved many of the unresolved problems and confusions in electromagnetic theory that had frustrated him from his school days onwards. He had always been confronted by gobbledeygook like Pepper's and McEwan's . Ivor Catt 30 May 2006 @@@@@@@@@@@ "Teaching of physics in steep decline" - Liz Lightfoot, Daily Telegraph, 11 August 2006, p8 Physics in schools and universities is in the grip of a downward spiral with little prospect of recovery, academics warn today. The lack of suitably qualified teachers and the perception that the subject is difficult has deterred pupils from studying it in the sixth form, says a report by Prof Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson. Exam entries for A-level physics have halved since 1982, with only 3.8 per cent of sixth-formers taking the subject in 2004. There are also significantly fewer physics undergraduates and there has been a 28 per cent fall in students on home courses. The authors warn that the problem will get worse as fewer physics graduates train to teach in schools. @@@@@@@@@@@ The suppression of inconvenient facts in physics The Politics of Knowledge ; The Politics of Knowledge The Rise and Fall of Bodies of Knowledge My co-author, the late Dr. Arnold Lynch Electromagnetic Theory vol. 1 by Ivor Catt Riposte
| |
|
| |