Scandals in Electromagnetic Theory http://www.ivorcatt.com/28scan.htm

Some of the correspondence with officials of the Institution of Electrical Engineers as they fooled around for thirty years (and continue to fool around) in order to delay publication of our advances. We remain totally censored. The mid-98 Lynch-Catt paper published by the IEE is only a question about classical theory. None of our own work has ever been published by the IEE. I.C. feb99.

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Dear Mr. Davidson,

'Displacement current'

Your contribution on the above subject has been received.

….

Yours sincerely B Dunkley. Group Ed., ProcIEE 6oct76

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To B Dunkley, Group Editor, Proceedings IEE.

From Ivor Catt. 15oct76.

….

The first step in attempting to disclose (=communicate) all of our results is the article "Displacement Current". [Later published in Wireless World, dec78.]

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Confidential. [Dunkley always added this, and I always repudiated confidentiality in every letter. IC feb99]

To Ivor Catt

From B Dunkley, Group Ed., ProcIEE 12nov76

Materials submitted to Proceedings IEE and later correspondence. [=article Displacement Current, pub. Wireless World dec78.]

The answer from the IEE Electronics Board is, predictably, negative.

Since our telephone conversation, I have come to the conclusion that you may have something to tell the electrical-engineering profession, but the way you will achieve this is by releasing the information very slowly, rather than, as many radical thinkers have tried unsuccessfully, in a flood.

In fact I would even advise you to withold information deliberately at first, and suggest to readers that they are making discoveries for themselves…..

….

….

I am sure that now is the right time for us to go back to fundamentals and to form new and more versatile models for components and their behaviour. ….

[IC feb99. In the event, the IEE published nothing whatsoever for the next 22 years.]

REFEREES' COMMENTS [on the paper later published in WW dec78.]

Referee No. 1

The technical standard of this contribution is not high enough and it is not very well written.

There is nothing new in stating that lumped circuits are an approximation to distributed systems, nor is it new to suggest that transmission-line concepts are relevant to digital-systems design when high-speed switching is involved.

If better presented, the material might be useful in an educational journal (e.g. Int. J of Electrical Engineering Education), but in its present form it is not suitable for any IEE publication. [It was later rejected by the journal suggested, and by all other learned journals throughout the world. IC feb99.]

Referee No. 2

The paper says that a capacitor can be considered as a low impedance transmission line and that if the line is kept short that the current and voltage waveforms approximate closely to those of an ideal capacitor. This is a well known result.

In addition the paper is badly presented, and makes no mention in the text of two of the diagrams provided or the single reference given. The headings used entitled Abstract and Appendix are not particularly appropriate.

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To F G Helps, Deputy Secretary, IEE.

From I Catt 20nov83.

…. I have again started to think about how to get the IEE to stop obstructing my work in both my fields, both computer architecture and electromagnetic theory.

After rejecting all attempts by me to publish my work on computer architecture for ten years, I was at last invited by Professor F G Heath to speak about it at an IEE colloquium in the IEE Savoy Place a year ago. However, the embargo on any publication of my work remains. It is reasonable to conjecture that the continual recommendations to reject every paper by me comes from a very small clique including perhaps Aspinall and Randall. This action by them has inflicted very heavy damage on me, and much more serious damage to the British Computer Industry. As a result of their action through the IEE, my patented work, in particular the later part of it, the subject of my later (1975 vintage) worldwide patents, is virtually unknown. In the light of this total lack of mention in the learned journals, it was very difficult to get projects going, although in spite of this Burroughs Corp put in $300,000 plus and the British Govt. has 100% funded five projects to a total of more than £100,000. Of course, the blocking of all communication of my inventions means that the lion's share of government financial support goes to your IEE referees, Aspinall and Randall, or whoever they are.

The IEE has also for more than ten years rejected all attempts by me to publish my work on electromagnetic theory.

….

I think that as I become more and more acknowledged as a leading if not the leading expert in the world in both fields, the continued obstinacy of a small rump of ignorant referees serving the IEE increases the damage to the IEE exponentially.

Yours sincerely, Ivor Catt 20nov83.