Dr. Bryan G. Wallace
FARCE OF PHYSICS
Chapter 5 Light Lunacy At first I did not realize the military implications of realistic knowledge of the nature of the relative velocity of light in space. The article that opened my eyes on this matter was titled "The Search for a Nuclear Sanctuary (II)", and it was published in the journal Science in 1983.[58] The following quotations are from that article: Buried inside the Defense Department's bureaucracy is a small, well-run program of enormous significance in the ongoing debate over whether or not the United States should construct a large-scale antiballistic missile system, as President Reagan proposed in his widely publicized "Star Wars" speech last March. It is known as the Advanced Strategic Missile System (ASMS) program, and almost everything that falls under its jurisdiction is considered secret.... For roughly two decades, the technical managers of ASMS and its bureaucratic antecedents have analyzed potential Soviet strategic defenses and devised the means to defeat them.... ASMS, along with several newer Pentagon programs aimed specifically at countering potential Soviet space-based laser systems, will have a significant impact on the strategic balance in the event that the United States proceeds with Reagan's plan to "counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive."... The Air Force, which directs the ASMS program, does not like to crow about the program's technological successes, preferring that the Soviets, and perhaps the general public, be kept in the dark about what is obviously one of its most sensitive scientific endeavors.... The active decoy is a product of substantial wizardry in microelectronics and computing, engineered by MIT's Lincoln Laboratories and by the General Electric Company.... In 1968, Dr. Thornton Page, a prominent astrophysicist, reviewed my original c+v analysis paper titled INCONSISTENCIES IN RADAR DISTANCES TO VENUS. At that time, Page was Director of the Van Vleck Observatory, Chairman of the Astronomy Department of Wesleyan University, Associate Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Vice President for Astronomy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an Associate Scientist with NASA. He chopped the paper down to at least half its original size, making many significant changes. Page also helped me to present arguments with regard to the work to many prominent scientists he introduced me to at the Fourth Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics that was held in Dallas Texas in 1968. He concentrated mainly on radio astronomers and had advised me not to answer questions in the conclusive sense but always in the possible sense. A fair number of the scientist asked for preprints of the paper. On the fourth day of the Symposium, Dr. Irwin I. Shapiro presented a talk titled OBSERVATIONAL TESTS OF RELATIVITY. Shapiro was the principal investigator for the above mentioned Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory's analysis of the interplanetary radar data that came from radar stations scattered throughout the world, and his research was funded by the Air Force. In the talk, Shapiro presented the illusion that the radar data was consistent with Einstein's general relativity theory. The talk was essentially the same as the paper titled "Radar Observations of the Planets" which he had published in the prestigious journal Scientific American.[59] In my debate with Shapiro, in the comment session that followed his talk, he admitted that all his calculations were based on a constant speed of light c (the wave in ether model), and he had not tested c+v (the particle model). He did this, in spite of the fact, that the major problem in modern physics, is the wave- particle paradox. That is, in some experiments light seems to behave like a wave, and in other experiments it seems to behave as a particle. He admitted the fact that the published radar analysis showed very large impossible variations in the calculated value of the astronomical unit (the mean distance between the earth and the sun), that were far larger than their maximum estimate of all possible errors. The graphed calculated values of the astronomical unit contained a daily component that was proportional to the relative velocity due to the Earth's rotation, a 30-day component, related to the Earth-Moon rotation, and a component related to the relative solar orbital velocities of the Earth and Venus.[60] The variations in the calculated value of the astronomical unit are what one would expect to find if the speed of light was c+v, and the calculations were based on c. The astronomical unit is the basic unit of measurement used by astronomers for the solar system. The telescopic methods used to determine its value, had an uncertainty of as much as 170,000 miles (273,589 kilometers), due to the fact that until the interplanetary radar observations became technologically possible, the only way to measure distances was by the indirect method of analysis of the angular positions of bodies in the solar system.[61] The radar observations were estimated to be capable of measuring the distance to Venus with an accuracy of within 1.5 kilometers, the only important variable being the relative velocity of light in space. The Earth's rotation could cause a maximum difference in calculated distance between the two theories of 260 kilometers when two radar stations, one on either side of the Earth, observe Venus at the same time when the planet is at its closest point to the Earth. This difference would increase as the distance between the Earth and Venus increased. An analysis of the data based on the incorrect theory would show the center of Venus to be at different distances from the center of the Earth at the same time. The analysis of the data published by Shapiro's research group also presents evidence against the c theory from observations made at the same time from different points on the Earth. The Lincoln Laboratory made a complete c analysis of all the radar data up to 1966. The Einstein general relativity time delay goodness-of-fit for the US Massachusetts radar station was 1.57, the value for the Puerto Rico station was .97, the value for the USSR Crimean station was 7.10. The article[62] states: Although not apparent from inspection of Fig. 4, the residuals of the U.S.S.R. time-delay are systematically negative relative to the Arecibo and Lincoln Laboratory residuals during the time period (June 1964) when all three groups were observing Venus. This incompatibility cannot be removed by assuming simply that different units of time were used by the different observatories. In his chapter of the book[63] "Radar Astronomy", Shapiro states: If the theory is wrong, the values of the parameters will be selected from the data in a manner that tends to cover up the inadequacies of the theory (for example, if least-mean-square fitting is employed). I told Shapiro that my analysis of the published 1961 Venus radar data[18] showed a much better fit to the Newtonian particle c+v model for light than for the Einstein wave c model. I stated that my analysis would have been far more impressive if I had more than the sparse set of data that was published. Shapiro made no effort to challenge any of my arguments, and promised to send me any data I would require to make a more in depth analysis of the relative velocity of light in space. Thornton Page was furious over the corrosive nature of my arguments and the tone of voice that I had used, and let me know about it in no uncertain terms! From that point on, Page has not given me any further assistance in my efforts to bring scientific objectivity and integrity to the question of the relative velocity of light in space. The loss of Page's support has proven to be a devastating blow to this cause. For example, Walter Sullivan, the science editor of The New York Times, was at the Symposium and had shown an interest in publishing an article on my results. In a short letter sent 13 March 1969, he thanked me for sending him copies of my exchanges with Shapiro. He stated he was far from being qualified to assess the merit of my case and would have to depend on old friends who areДДincluding Thornton Page. Needless to say, Sullivan never wrote the article. To show the impact that this article could have had, I would like to quote from Michael Riordan's recent book[64 p.180] "The Hunting of the Quark": One might question all this concern over a mere newspaper article, but The New York Times, as the nation's foremost daily, informs scientists in other fieldsДДand especially Washington policymakersДДabout new discoveries. In a science so dependent upon government money for its continued progress, Sullivan's front-page article was a valuable trump card in the annual budget scramble. With regard to the correspondence with Shapiro mentioned by Sullivan, my first letter of 26 December 1968 states: Enclosed you will find a copy of my paper "Inconsistencies In Radar Distances To Venus" that I promised to send you. Dr. Heinrich K. Eichhorn checked the calculations and Dr. Thornton L. Page suggested how to write it and reviewed and edited it. I have sent copies to most of the research centers and observatories in the U.S. as well as a few other countries. Enclosed you will also find a small sample of the answers I have received. In Shapiro's answer of 13 January 1969, he thanked me for sending him a preprint of my paper, and said he found himself in agreement with the comments of Prof. Dingle. The Prof. Dingle Shapiro spoke of, was the Herbert Dingle I had mentioned earlier, who had published the article in Nature concerning the inconsistent logic in Einstein's Special Relativity theory.[47] With regard to the problem of Dingle's understanding the interplanetary radar paper, Dingle wrote in his letter of 16 August 1968 that he agreed that Dr. Page (whom he knew) has condensed the account too muchДДat any rate for the understanding of those who are not primarily dynamical astronomers but are concerned with that subject in relation to their own interests. In Shapiro's letter of 17 January, he states that the radar data are not consistent with the "ballistic theory" of light, but are consistent with general relativity (cf. their article on the verification of the second-order Doppler shift in Phys. Rev. Letters circa. October 1966). An interesting side note is the fact that Dr. Svetlana A. Tolchelnikova-Murri, a professional Russian astronomer and mathematician working at the Pulkovo Observatory, has published a paper titled The Doppler Observations of Venus Contradict the STR in the US journal GALILEAN ELECTRODYNAMICS.[151] Dr. Tolchelnikova delivered a Russian version of that paper at a 1991 Conference that I talk of in the next chapter. In my answer to Shapiro of 23 January, I wrote: With reference to your letter of January 17, I read the article you referred me to. You should know by now you can't bluff me. The article does not support your argument and you know it. You admitted at the symposium in front of 500 scientists that all your calculations were based on c. How can you state that the radar data is not consistent with the "ballistic theory"? Prove it, and then publish it. Considering the capabilities of the Lab. and the importance of the question, this is the most responsible thing you can do. You state the radar data is consistent with general relativity, yet when the observing time is varied you get variations that are far larger then the maximum possible and the variations are proportional to the change in the observing time. The variations disappear when the observing time is held constant but variations between radar stations that are proportional to the distance exist. These facts are documented by articles published by your group in "The Astronomical Journal." You lost the fight when you did not challenge me at the symposium. This fact has made a impression on a large number of scientists. Your only hope is to finish a half-finished job, and make a complete and fair analysis of the radar data based on the ballistic model before someone else does. I brought the matter out in the open, now you must decide to sink or swim. Good luck! In my 13 February letter to Shapiro, I wrote: Dr. Wilbur Block is a radio astronomer who is doing research on radio radiations from Jupiter. He has collaborated with others in publishing a number of papers on this subject. He was the one who invited me to give a lecture at his college on radar testing of Special Relativity. I told Block that you had promised to send me all the data I needed. He wants to do research on this himself. If he limits his analysis to a test of relativity and does not get involved in a deep analysis of Venus' orbit, he will probably be the first one to publish verification of my work. He would like the data from about five consecutive days during inferior conjunction. He needs transit time and Doppler shift from three observations each day, one at the earliest time, one at 12:00 UT and one at the latest time, all from your station. The larger the difference between observing times, the more dramatic will be the results. He would also like the geographic location and data for 12:00 UT for the same five days from the U.S.S.R. station. Please send it as soon as possible. From the way the other radio men were talking at the symposium he may not have much time. Here is his address:... In Shapiro's letter of 27 March, he wrote that unfortunately the data did not exist in the form in which I wanted them and, hence, he could not honor my request. In my reply of 3 April, I wrote: You promised to send me all the data I would need, yet when I requested a limited amount, you ignored the request in two letters and offer an excuse for not doing so when I make an issue of it. I have quoted your remarks as I remembered them. The main reason that your newer results appear to look better, is that your group found it could eliminate the large daily variations by changing to a constant observing time (12:00 UT), even when the planet was not observed or in some cases was not even visible.(J. V. Evans, etal., Astron. J. 70, 486 - 1965) Of course there is a second-order difference in the Doppler formulas between c and c+v, but it is obviously irresponsible to state that a solution based on c that is valid only for a constant observing time and a single radar station, proves that the velocity is c. I will tell you what more one could ask. One could ask for a complete and honest evaluation of the data based on c and c+v. Then one would have sufficient information to make a valid and intelligent comparison of c and c+v. Since the Department of Defense had funded the research, I wrote a letter to Dr. John Foster, Jr. the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, requesting the data. In reply to the request, I received a letter dated 29 September from Dr. Lowell M. Hollingsworth, Technical Advisor for Electronics, Department of the Air Force, Headquarters Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. Hollingsworth wrote that he spoke with Dr. Shapiro regarding the data requested by me on radar observations of Venus. The data in the form I requested did not exist. However, if the data in the form in which it did exist would be of value to me a deck of IBM cards could be prepared from which I could by analysis obtain the data I desired. This deck would be a stack of IBM cards totalling an inch or so in thickness. For machine computation the data resides in the holes punched in the cards but pertinent data would appear typed on the cards. Thus I would be able to read the cards visually for the purpose of my analysis. I wrote Hollingsworth 1 October, stating: With reference to your letter of September 29, please send the IBM cards containing the radar data. They will make possible a far more conclusive test of the relative velocity of light in space. I have read Fox's 1965 article and have a correspondence with him. He is enthused about the results from my radar analysis. And I closed my letter with the sentence: I plan to attend the AAAS meeting in Boston in December. I would be interested in talking to you on this subject. I wrote Shapiro 4 October stating: Wilbur Block has suggested to me that I offer to collaborate with you and the Lincoln Lab., in a full investigation of the relative velocity of light in space and celestial mechanics. I am willing, if you are. It is obvious that continued opposition will be mutually destructive to both of us. On the other hand, collaboration is bound to be mutually beneficial. Shapiro's reply of 13 October asked if I would be more explicit as to exactly what form I would wish the collaboration to take? In my letter to Shapiro of 18 October, I start out with: Your letter of October 13 has caused me to make a fast rewrite of the lecture I am going to give October 30, at Florida Presbyterian College. I had planned to be rather hard on both you and the Lincoln Lab, but it would not be wise to try and hurt the credibility of a potential ally. The lecture will be publicized and open to the public. I am hoping for enough publicity to bring this thing out into the open. further into the letter, I wrote: L. M. Hollingsworth sent the radar data I wanted and he asked me to call him when I get to Boston in December so that we can get together. I think there is a good possibility that the data will make a more impressive test of c. I will send you the results of the analysis. Perhaps you would like a joint paper on this? Both our names on the same paper would be mutually beneficial; it would tend to repair any damage I may have done to your reputation and help me by making it easier to overcome the remaining psychological barrier that exists on this question. Shapiro's answering letter of 6 November stated that he was pleased to hear that I had received the radar data that they had sent me, and he hoped that I would find them useful. In my reply of 12 November, I stated: I am sorry to say that the data you sent me can't be used for a test of the relative velocity of light in space. There was no significant difference in the location of the stations or the observing time, so there would have been no significant difference between a c and c+v analysis. How about us having a private get together when I am in Boston this December? Shapiro's answer of 28 November states that he could not understand why I concluded that the Venus data sent to me was inappropriate for my purpose. In my letter to Hollingsworth of 25 October, I wrote: I am afraid that Shapiro has pulled a fast one on us, the data you sent me can't be used for a test of the relative velocity of light in space. There is very little difference in the distance between the radar stations so I can't show that the false theory shows the planet Venus in different places at the same time while the true theory shows it in the same place. There is almost no difference in the observing time so I can't show that the false theory shows Venus doing a jig while the true theory shows it moving in a rational manner. Analysis of Shapiro's article in The Astronomical Journal (72, 338 - 1967) shows that the Lincoln Lab has the data that I would need. Page 343 shows that they had data from both their station and the U.S.S.R. station for June 1964 and Figure 4 on this page shows considerable daily variations for 1964 indicating data at different observing times. The only possible way they could have eliminated the synodic variation from the General Relativity Fit part of Figure 4 was by using empirical corrections similar to Duncombe's corrections. They eliminated the daily variations for later years by observing for only a short time at the same time each day. The early articles published by the Lincoln Lab group are open and above board, but the later articles are little more than misleading fabrications and I am sure that Shapiro knows this. They started out by believing that c was a proven fact so they made no attempt to treat the velocity of light as a variable. After several years of not being able to make sense out of the data, they were probably under considerable pressure. So they used empirical methods to overcome the inconsistencies they did not understand. I do not think that one should blame them. For all practical purposes Einstein's Theory is based on empirical ad hoc equations that were designed to save the ether theory from the Michelson-Morley experiment. The ballistic theory explains the results of that experiment in a simple manner without any ad hoc assumptions. They had a precedent in the fact that the Duncombe empirical corrections were already used to correct similar variations in the optical data when all the calculations were based on c. The only real difference is the higher accuracy of the radar measurements made the inconsistencies more obvious. Shapiro has already shown an interest in collaborating in a full analysis of the relative velocity of light in space. Considering the resources and capability of the MIT Lincoln Lab group, they would be the ideal ones to conduct this investigation. It would be great if it were possible for you to persuade them to do this. In Hollingsworth's reply of 7 November, he wrote that there were a number of reasons why it is impossible for him to persuade Dr. Shapiro or other Lincoln Laboratory people to prove that the velocity of light in space can be measured as anything else than a constant value c, and that he looked forward to talking with me when I would be in Boston that December. In my letter to Shapiro of 5 December, I wrote: I received another letter from Hollingsworth. He is looking forward to talking to me on this during the week I will be in Boston. I am going to try and get him to recommend to the Air Force that they finance a full c+v investigation. Would you be interested in heading this investigation? This sort of thing is just not my cup of tea. Of course, I would be available to help in case there were any difficulties. Shapiro's reply of 9 December 1969 states that he was at present too much occupied with university matters to direct any large- scale investigation. When I attended the AAAS meeting in Boston that December, Hollingsworth drove through a snow storm to meet with me in my hotel room. It was a long and interesting meeting that lasted for about four hours. I found him to be far more reasonable in person than he had been in his correspondence. I had brought with me copies of all the referenced articles, as well as a copies of correspondence with scientists on this matter from around the world. Hollingsworth admitted that while the Lab's published center value for the astronomical unit had stayed virtually unchanged, the graphed individual values ranged over thousands of kilometers, and that the variations were related to the relative velocities. He also admitted that the data I wanted existed, but he refused to release it without Shapiro's permission. I now suspect that he was just giving me the run around and the real reason he would not release the data was military secrecy. I now think that it is most probable that the Soviet military is not involved in the speed of light coverup, and that the main force behind the coverup is the US military "Star Wars" adventure. The many conversations and the evidence of text books that were little more than translations of US text books that I saw during my visit to the USSR in 1989, seemed to show that the dominant trends of Soviet physics and astronomy, are little more than copies of their US counterparts. Then there was my conversation with the young man with the long nose and fancy suit, that came to sit beside me during the Pulkovo Observatory conference. He asked for information with regard to the articles I had published in regard to this matter. When I told him I would be glad to send him reprints, he stated that his institution had a very extensive library that contained all the western journals, and he only needed the journal names, dates, etc. He seemed genuinely concerned about the fact that he had not heard these arguments before. Svetlana told me that he worked at a small elite institution in Moscow, and that the people working there were highly paid, and she did not know what work was done at the institution. I suspect that the work involves the Soviet military, and they are about to find that they had been duped with regard to this matter. Actually it is easy to see how this was done, the (2) equation of my 1969 paper shows the radar evaluated c+v Newtonian distance to the planet to be D = t(c+v)/2 - tv/2 = tc/2 for the time the beam returns to the transmitter. The fact that the +v in the first term which is related to the motion of the photon relative to the transmitter, can be canceled by the -v of the second term which is related to the motion of the target relative to the transmitter, presents the illusion that the combined term of tc/2 is relativistic in the Einstein relativity c sense. But the true Einstein c equation for the distance to the target at the time the beam returns to the transmitter is D = tc/2 - tv/2, and the two equations differ in magnitude by the second term of tv/2. Dr. T. D. Moyer of the JPL, in his 1981 Celestial Mechanics paper[36] evaluates the distance at the time the signal returns to the transmitter, does not include the -tv/2 term that would make the evaluation relativistic in the Einstein c sense, renames the terms and rearranges the equations, adds the smaller corrections due to time dilation, gravity, and the troposphere and charged particles in the beam path, and correctly identifies his major term as the Newtonian light time. What Moyer does not do is clearly explain the enormous implications of his mathematics, or explain how the transit time of light signals in the solar system is the ultimate test of the Einstein wave in ether c model and the Newtonian particle c+v model of light. The fact that he does not present an analysis that compares the results of the c and c+v models tends to maintain the illusion that there is nothing wrong with the Einstein general relativity model! I have sent Moyer reprints of the articles I've published that present the argument that his mathematics is relativistic in the c+v sense, and he has not chosen to rebut this argument either by correspondence or publication. Moyer's sin is the sin of omission, he has not lied, but has simply refused to present the full truth. Of course, a half truth that presents the illusion of a lie, is for all intents and purposes, a lie. In my 1969 paper[18] I quote Shapiro as stating "If the theory is wrong, the values of the parameters will usually be selected from the data in a manner that tends to cover up the inadequacies of the theory", so you see, even Shapiro does not state outright lies, if you carefully read everything he has published on this matter, he only presents the illusion of a lie. But the funding for all this research comes from the US Department of Defense, and they have strict control over all information that results from research that they fund. So one of the questions one could ask, is it wrong for a scientist to publish the illusion of a lie to preserve a military secret? Years ago I worked on top secret defense work, and this sounds like a classic case of how the system works. All top secret information is handled on a need to know basis: it does not matter how high a position you hold, if you do not have a need to know the information in order to help you in your work, you cannot obtain access to that information. This would also tend to explain Shapiro's refusal to challenge my arguments published in journals or presented at meetings, it is a federal crime to confirm or deny top secret information, even if it is published in journals or newspapers. In an expansion of the military secret argument, a recent article[75] titled THE BIRTH OF THE LASER states on page 27: In July 1958 Townes applied to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for funds to initiate work on a potassium laser at the Columbia Radiation Laboratory. and on page 28: One agency TRG approached was the Advanced Projects Research Agency, which had been set up after Sputnik in the secretariat of the Department of Defense and oriented in 1959 toward exploration of innovative weapons technologies. ARPA, which had more money than it could easily spend, proved a good choice: TRG made a request for $300 000 but ARPA, which was interested, inter alia, in the possibility of beam weapons, awarded it a $999 000 contract for a secret program leading to operating lasers. and on page 32 we find: The high energy density in a laser beam interested ARPA, which was then investigating every plausible scheme for anti- missile defense. In a current article[76] titled HOW THE MILITARY RESPONDED TO THE LASER, on page 36 we find: "I feel as do others here that the LASER may be the biggest breakthrough in the weapons area since the atomic bomb." This statement, made in 1962 in a letter by Major General August Schomburg, head of the Army Ordnance Missile Command, reflected an attitude that was pervasive in the military in the first years after the birth of the laser. and further on page 36 we find: By forcing a change from small to big science, from academic to in-house and contract laboratories and from open research to classified development, military interest in the laser transformed the nature of laser research and development. on page 37 we find the paragraph: The laser offered a coherent, directed, concentrated beam of light that promised to realize an ancient dream, epitomized in Archimedes's idea to attack the Roman fleet at Syracuse by using mirrors and lenses to focus burning solar rays on ships at sea. Science fiction's preoccupation with burning "death rays" added modern sanction to the ancient dream. The Soviet Union's large boosters, which lofted Sputnik and the first cosmonauts into space and might equally well launch warheads, provided suitable targets for the rays. The promise of beam weapons enhanced the services' interest in lasers and launched a number of industry and service research programs that transcended the interest in laser ranging, communication and detection. on page 38 we find the statement: "Defense at the speed of light!" became a rallying cry for the military-industrial complex. As an example of military secrecy with regard to lasers, or anything connected to them such as the relative velocity of light in space, I present the following taken from the front of an article[135] titled "Incident over SPIE papers muddies scientific secrecy issue": Just when it seemed the furor over Defense Department restrictions on certain scientific papers had been quelled, the situation flared up again. The fracas this time involved an international symposium of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineering (SPIE) meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on 8-12 April. Two weeks before the meeting, DOD informed SPIE officials that 20% of the 219 scheduled papers could not be presented, even in a "controlled" session. Until then, SPIE organizers were so confident the reports of work done under military contracts had been cleared by the DOD that titles, and in some cases abstracts, were printed in the program. But it turned out that some authors had failed to follow all the Pentagon procedures for clearing their papers and others were unaware of the new authority that Congress had provided in the 1984 Defense Authorization Act to deny public access to technical data under DOD control that are judged to possess military or space applications of use to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact neighbors. About 100 papers were submitted to DOD for clearance. Of these, 45 raised security problems. On closer reading, DOD reviewers decided that 16 papers, most by defense scientists, contained classified information and another 6, by scientists at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, required special releases for foreign disclosure. What's more, presentation of the other papers at an open session, DOD officials argued, would violate US export controls. `Star Wars' connection. Most of the papers had originally been scheduled for a classified session on synthetic aperture optical systems and laser beams to be held at the Naval Research Laboratory, across the Potomac River from the main SPIE meeting. Another SPIE session on adaptive optics was set for the Corps of Engineers offices in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. It came off without a hitch. Although these fields are important to astronomy, most applications are military, dealing with high-energy laser optics and space surveillance that could benefit the Strategic Defense Initiative, more commonly known as the "Star Wars" program. Current documentation of the nature of this coverup was published in a news article[77] titled Reactors in Space Threaten High-Energy Astronomy. In 1976 satellites started to record very-high energy radiation. Then in 1979 a NASA scientist received a call from the military saying the information was classified and not to be published. Amid growing discontent at NASA, the classification was lifted last August. It turns out that the radiation that had hampered US high-energy astronomy programs and even damaged some detectors was from the nuclear reactors powering Soviet spy satellites, and the Soviets obviously know of the problem because their current detectors will orbit far above the interference. With regard to USSR military laser research, there is an interesting paragraph in a recent article[78] titled US PHYSICISTS PAY FIRST VISIT TO CHERNOGILOVKA SOLID STATE INSTITUTE on page 74 as follows: The invitation to visit the Institute for Solid State Physics came after the conference had begun in Moscow, and on 2 June the ten US participants piled into a bus and were driven by a somewhat circuitous route to a spot about 50 km east- northeast of Moscow. The standard explanation for why no previous visit by Westerners had been allowed was that Chernogolovka is situated in the first ring of ballistic- missile defenses that surround Moscow. Another explanation was that an institute doing work on high-power chemical lasers may be situated at Chernogolovka. on page 76 is the paragraph: The group also was impressed, more generally, by the freedom with which their Soviet counterparts talked about politics and expressed critical opinions in public. "Most striking...is the new freedom of people to know and speak the truth. For us, this removes several layers of barriers in our relationship with Soviet scientists," Worlock observed. There is a possibility that the Soviet military is aware of the exact nature of the relative velocity of light in space. The American Institute of Physics publishes translation journals of the major Soviet journals, and some of these journals are carried by the University of South Florida Library in nearby Tampa. One finds many hints to the fact that Einstein's general relativity does not give a proper explanation to the transit of light signals in the solar system. For example, in the abstract of an article[79] titled "Measurements of delay time and Doppler correction in radar observations of Venus in 1975", we find: It is shown that the discrepancies between the actual position of Venus and the position calculated on the basis of the existing theory of motion of the planets at different inferior conjunctions have different characters. The concluding sentences of the article state: An analysis of the data presented shows that the differences between the measured and calculated delay times have different dependence on the time in the different conjunctions and reach 3500 microseconds, which when converted to the distance from the earth to Venus comprises 500 km. The presence of such errors in the prediction of the position of Venus relative to the earth on the basis of the existing theory of motion of the planets in the absence of radar measurements could hinder considerably the successful performance of the terminal stages of flights of automatic interplanetary stations to Venus, landing on its surface, and the insertion of artificial satellites of Venus. Along with my campaign to discredit QCD that I mentioned in Chapter 2, I've also been involved in a campaign to discredit "Star Wars." As part of this effort I published the following letter[31] titled "Directed-energy weapons": At the 1981 APS Spring Meeting, we had a Symposium of the Forum on Physics and Society on directed-energy weapons that was filmed by the BBC for a documentary on the arms race. The first speaker, Douglas T. Tanimoto of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, showed a film of a propeller-driven dark red drone plane that was destroyed by an infrared laser that focused on it for a period of several seconds as it slowly circled at a relatively close distance. I asked Tanimoto if it was not cheating to use a close, slow-moving, dark red drone to simulate a large number of fast-moving, distant, polished metal targets, and he admitted that it was cheating "a little." The last speaker, Kosta Tsipis of MIT, presented conclusive evidence that the technology needed to develop effective ABM Directed Energy Weapons did not now, and probably never would exist! At the 1982 Spring meeting, I attended the APS Council Meeting and learned that they intended to hold off on taking a stand on the nuclear freeze issue until after hearing the results from the Forum Symposiums on this question. One of the Forum speakers, Hans Bethe, gave a talk that showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the US was the aggressor in the nuclear arms race and that the Russians have been desperately trying to catch up! At the final Forum meeting I called for a vote on the question of a nuclear freeze, and there was almost a 100% show of hands! At the 1983 Spring meeting, George A. Keyworth II, President Reagan's science adviser and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, gave a talk in which he asked for help from the physics community to develop the technology for future antiballistic missile systems. I was the first to comment on his talk, and I argued that development of these types of weapons would expand the arms race and bankrupt the economy! The loud applause in support of my argument left little question that a large majority of the physicists have had enough of the arms race and would not support the development of Reagan's "Star Wars" weapons. In my local newspaper there was also a 2/3/91 article titled NASA scientist to speak at SPJC, and the content of the article was as follows: The man who headed NASA's planetary astronomy program for almost 20 years will speak on future Venus and Mars missions Wednesday at the St. Petersburg Junior College's St. Petersburg campus. Dr. William E. Brunk directed the programs from 1964 through 1982. He was also program scientist for the Voyager mission to the outer planets. He retired from NASA in 1985. Brunk will appear as a Harlow Shapely Lecturer of the American Astronomical Society. The speech, open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Lynch Auditorium, 6605 Fifth Ave. N. I went to Brunk's speech, and during the questions and answer period, asked Brunk the following question: Considering the importance of the wave-particle paradox of light in modern physics, I am surprised by the lack of scientific objectivity and integrity of the concerned NASA scientists on the question of the relative velocity of light in the solar system. My 1969 published analysis of the first published Venus radar contact data showed that the best fit to the data was for the Newtonian c+v particle model, and not the Einstein general relativity c wave model. The equations in T. D. Moyer's JPL NASA 1981 Celestial Mechanics journal article were based on the c+v particle model, and Moyer called the main term the Newtonian light time, yet the lack of emphasis of the importance of this fact, means that the average person does not know of the overwhelming evidence against the Einstein special and general relativity theories. What is your comment on this matter? Brunk's answer was that the analysis of the data and publication of the results, was the responsibility of the individual involved scientists, and that NASA was only the bus driver. I suspect that when the final history of science in the 20th century will be written, NASA's greatest blunder will be considered to be the lack of objectivity and integrity on the question of the relative velocity of light in space, and not the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion, or the flawed mirror on the $1.5-billion Hubble Space Telescope!