Talk:Polarizable vacuum

Keep it NPOV, please

68.125.78.83, you wrote Getting agreement with these classic tests is no great achievement. This kind of naked scorn is probably inappropriate (a bit ironical, considering the source). TIA ---CH 09:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidently, 68.125.78.83 (talk · contribs), aka the pltn13.pacbell.net anon, is a suspected sock of Jack Sarfatti, who has frequently posted his correspondence concerning Hal Puthoff, which in recent years has been quite scornful. Jack Sarfatti has been permabanned by Jimbo Wales and should not be editing the Wikipedia at all. ---CH 08:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Refuted?

Are there any referances? How was it refuted? This part needs more information, I think.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Engineering student (talk • contribs) (apparently a single purpose account)

New version by User:Ibison

Ibison (talk • contribs) (apparently a single purpose account) has written almost completely new version of this article which presents Puthoff's ideas as much more mainstream than is really the case.

Even worse, User:Ibison appears to be in real life one Michael Ibison, who is listed as an employee of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, an organization apparently founded by Hal Puthoff which has no relation with the reputable Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Indeed, the Puthoff insitute is apparently a subsidiary of Earth Tech International, Inc. in Austin, TX, a company which promotes the theories of Hal Puthoff. Indeed, it would apparently not be inaccurate to say that Michael Ibison is an employee of Hal Puthoff. If true, this would appear to raise issues related to WP:VAIN WP:NPOV WP:RS. Note too that Puthoff's speculations are generally regarded as fringe science at best. See also Eugene Podkletnov and the article from Wired by Charles Platt cited there.---CH 08:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

CH is correct that I (Michael Ibison) am the author of a recent edit of the Wiki page on the Polarizable Vacuum and that I am an employee of Earthtech International. The structure of the institute is such that on matters of physics, I, Harold Puthoff, and the other employees here are answerable not to each other but directly to our funders; I have complete autonomy in deciding how best to fulfill my contract of employment with respect to our (common) funder. For example, my view and that of Hal's on the utility of Polarizable Vacuum (PV) has not always coincided, which difference however has not stopped me posting a critical analysis of PV on LANL. Further, to his credit, Hal would never attempt to influence me in that regard. Please read it if you are concerned.

The reason for my edit of the Wiki PV page is that

1) I thought it too pro-PV, mostly because:

1.1) It contained a serious omission of failing to place PV in proper historical context, posing it as the creation of Puthoff & Haisch, whereas it really should be attributed to Dicke, (and perhaps even earlier: Wilson, 1926).

1.2) It did not actually say what was wrong with PV.

2) It contained an inaccurate statement about my support for PV and subsequently for the Yilmaz Theory.

On 1.2): The revised Wiki entry now

A) Points out that PV cannot accommodate frame-dragging (due to the fact there is just one scalar functional degree of freedom in the metric).

B) Points out that PV gives the wrong radiative decay rate for binary pulsars (for the same reason as above).

C) The original preamble misleadingly gave the impression that PV is an EM theory of gravity, whereas neither PV nor the (GR-correct) analogue theory of gravity by de Felice (1971) model anything other than the passage of light through a gravitational field electromagnetically.

Point 2) was especially irritating. I have published probably the only detailed critical analysis of the Yilmaz Theory (see references below). (Which, by the way, is another example of my own editorial independence: Puthoff was positively disposed towards the Yilmaz theory.)

I think the PV page is now less pro-PV, and more factually specific. If you disagree then please correct the errors you think remain. I have no interest in promoting this theory and think that the facts should and do speak for themselves. Please let me know if you intend to edit the PV page or remove the dispute.

In future please do not jump to conclusions but take the time to make a proper inquiry.

----

References

M. Ibison, "Cosmological test of the Yilmaz theory of gravity," Classical and Quantum Gravity Vol. 23, pp. 577-589 (2006).

M. Ibison, "The Yilmaz Cosmology," Proceedings of the First Crisis in Cosmology Conference (CCC-I) AIP (2006).

M. Ibison, "Investigation of the polarizable vacuum cosmology," astro-ph/0302273.

----

Michael Ibison, 16:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Michael:

1. Thank you for clearing up the issue of your identity. I am happy to assume that as a newbie here at WP you simply hadn't thought about how this might appear.
2. I appreciate the information about the structure of Earthtech. This seems to keep coming up and I want to make sure I have it straight the next time I have to discuss Puthoff. Can you help me make sure I have got this right now? TIA.
   • Earthtech International is a company founded by Harold Puthoff in Austin, TX, correct?

Correct.

1. • The Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin is an organization founded by Harold Puthoff in Austin, TX, correct?

Correct.

1. • Since webpages for IASA are hosted at Earthtech, I presume IASA is a subsidiary of Earthtech. Is this correct?

I am not sure but I don't think so. I think that they are effectively two different parallel entities. The reason for the multiplicity probably has to do with the history of how they were originally funded.

1. • Does Earthtech and/or IASA disclose the identity of their sponsors?

No. The board of sponsors has asked to remain anonymous. To reveal the members' names would jeopardize our funding.

1. The inaccurate statement about my support for PV and subsequently for the Yilmaz Theory may have been added by me (don't recall for sure, but I think arose from misreading some mangled comment at a crank website); thank you for correcting that.
2. Ideally, we would like WP articles to be both well-informed and independent, but we realize that this ideal may be hard to achieve and in the spirit of WP:AGF most WP editors, including myself, would be happy to see contribs from knowledgeable persons so long as it is clear that these are not promoting some speculative idea or otherwise manipulating WP as an information resource for the world. For example, concerning the opinions of Michael Ibison I agree that you are the best source and I certainly don't want WP to misrepresent anything.
3. While we appreciate your efforts to improve the WP, but I think you can see why some of us are concerned about ties between yourself and the work discussed in the article, since it can be difficult to obey WP:NPOV. See for example the contention over Plasma cosmology, which has been intensively edited by Elerner (talk · contribs), in real life Eric Lerner, a proponent of that theory.

I am familiar with Eric's 'strength of advocacy' of his ideas!

I applaud the position of the Wiki Editorship. If you find yourself in factual disagreement with my assessment of PV then I have no problem being corrected. My aim in editing the post, as in the LANL archive paper, was to present an assessment of the theory that at the outset is neutral, though in the end finds it lacking. I think the existing post is an improvement in that regard. BTW, I think that the leading statement "The Polarizable Vacuum (PV) is a theory proposed by Harold Puthoff which provides an alternate explanation for the mechanisms of General relativity. Such claims are not accepted within mainstream physics." is misleading. GR *can* be cast as a polarizable vacuum theory (see de Felice and the website by Visser on Analogue Gravity), but *only* in so far as it describes the effects of gravity on the propagation of EM fields. PV fails in this regard not because the idea of a polarizable vacuum is flawed, but because PV admits only a single scalar 'refractive index' degree of freedom, which is too few to do the job to be consistent with observation. On the other hand, I do agree with the current flag on the PV post that "the effect of gravitation on an EM field can be modelled as that of a 'medium' on light is arguably misleading." I think that I may have written this. It should be corrected. I do not know what the correct Wiki protocol. I will assume that it is OK if I go back and reword it.

1. "In future please do not jump to conclusions but take the time to make a proper inquiry." Don't take offense, making a proper inquiry (or what passes for one at WP) is what I just did in this talk page, and thank you for answering my questions. Please bear in mind WP:AGF and note that we have limited time for investigations of individual articles. If you hang around here you will probably see why many of us feel we have a serious problem with shills and sockpuppets attempting to distort information presented in the Wikipedia, in some cases to pursue some financial gain. I don't think that was what happened here at all, but once you become more aware of this background, I think you will better understand why I was so concerned.

Fair enough? ---CH 19:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your considered reply.

--Mike 20:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW, you may have noticed that at the top of this talk page I rebuked an anon editor, apparently one Jack Sarfatti in real life, who has made spiteful additions to the wikibios of various people he apparently dislikes; it seems that this list now includes Hal Puthoff. This is just one example of the kind of problem we are trying to cope with. ---CH 19:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I am also familiar with Jack. Ibison (talk · contribs)

I never could teach him that you sign by typing ~~~~ (four tildes; no spaces) but I am sure you will quickly learn this nify trick. Thanks for your information regarding IASA. By the way, FYI, Sarfatti has been permabanned by Jimbo Wales for serious misbehavior here, which means he should not be editing the WP at all, not even as an IP anon.

Meanwhile I have noticed and become concerned about Haisch (talk · contribs) and some others you probably know who have been editing Stochastic electrodynamics anonymously; maybe you can help me get them to register, sign their talk page comments, and try to think about WP:NPOV WP:AUTO WP:CITE WP:RSS. In controversial topics, ideally we'd like to avoid having direct participants edit articles about themselves or their work. Since scientific controversies tend to technical, a case can be made that direct participants might be more knowledgeable than other contributors, so a balance needs to be struck. I hope this crowd will restrain themselves and focus on learning wikicustoms before possibly creating a problem by making controversial changes without due regard for the Wikipedia policies I just cited. ---CH 09:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the Stochastic electrodynamics page. It is too one-sided for my taste. The claim that a current version of SED predicts gravity is incorrect. It may be based on a publication by Puthoff in which Steve Carlip identified a crucial misinterpretation of the mathmematics. The claim that SED explains atomic structure is highly misleading. It is likely based on a paper by Puthoff and an earlier one on the same topic by Boyer on the stability of the H-atom. It would take me some time to explain the subtle misconception involved.

Less seriously, I think that the statement that QFT predicts an infinite Lambda is technically inaccurate. As far as I am aware, QFT predicts a Lambda that could have any value in (-infinity,infinity) due to independent contributions from bosons & fermions. I think it more likely that Bernie Haisch (talk · contribs) would be persuaded to be more circumspect by yourself (i.e. Wiki editor) rather than me, whom he probably regards as being a priori too conservative towards SED.

Who else is responsible for the SED post? --Mike 20:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Disputed science infobox

I suggest the following changes to the title box:

From

Core Tenets: Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon, in which the presence of matter alters the material properties of the vacuum

Year Proposed: 1998

Original Proponents: Harold Puthoff, Bernard Haisch

To

Core Tenets: The effect of gravity on an EM field is as if the vacuum is a refractive index medium whose profile is determined by matter.

Year Proposed: 1957 (R. H. Dicke) 1998 (Harold Puthoff)

Original Proponents: R. H. Dicke, Harold Puthoff

--Mike 21:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, your version certainly makes his claims sound less outlandish. I don't really want to take the time to look over Puthoff's eprints today, but if you can give me a few days I'll try to do so and make the changes if I agree that your description is more accurate.

There is no hurry, and I appreciate your commitment to a fair review.

My aim, and I suggest that of a genuinely objective reference, is, as far as possible, to let the facts speak for themselves. The claims of PV do not fit observation.

I do not know of your own disposition, but in general I take issue with those who ridicule others who dare to question the mainstream point of view (here GR). In my view such questioning is not only thoroughly acceptable, but is actually very healthy for science. The problems begin when either side takes a dogmatic position. In this case for example, I think it right and proper that some (eg Dicke & Puthoff) have asked the question: "Can a highly-simplified theory of gravity such as PV work?". The answer turns out to be "no". Both camps - Puthoff & Dicke, and the mainstream - are better off for having asked and answered this question. I am aware this point of view is not shared by those who say the book is closed, that further questioning (of GR) is a waste of time and off limits - i.e.: is heretical). I doubt very few who would dismiss the theory at the outset would be able to predict why it would fail (answer: not because it is not a metrical theory (it is) but because it cannot deal with frame-dragging and because it predicts a radiative decay that does not match observation.)

More generally, I hope the Wiki editors understand that scientific knowledge is a process not a conclusion. In particular, the currently optimized state of knowledge is comprised not just of our best theories, but an understanding of how and why we have got to where we are, including a catalogue of the dead-ends! PV is one of those dead-ends and deserves it proper place in the archives.

By the way, the technical wikiterm is infobox.---CH 00:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. I appreciate your patience with my ignorance in these matters!

--Mike 04:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

About gtr, unfortunately I have been kept so busy trying to protect the relativistic physics-related pages from cranky/misinformed edits that my pace of article creation has been greatly slowed. One of the most ambitious articles I want to write here would attempt to survey the status of theoretical objections to gtr, which I think are almost invariably terribly misunderstood by amateurs (sometimes even by physicists new to the area). (Experimental objections would be a much more boring article if written in the near future, of course, although the Pioneer anomaly remains interesting.) User:ErkDemon did try to write such an article (which he eventually abandoned and wiped), but I felt his attempt was far too limited in scope (focusing only on issues vaguely related to Mach's principle (really, Mach principles, plural). If I ever did get around to this I think it would be clear that I am by no means uncritical of gtr (or anything else I try to describe here at WP).

Wikipedia editors are a diverse lot, but the knowledgeable editors have strong backgrounds (Ph.D.s and such like) so this subgroup certainly has an excellent appreciation for how "established scientific knowledge" evolves over time, as well as the salubrity of challenges. ---CH 10:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

New version

OK, after studying many eprints and printed papers, and as per discussion with Michael Ibison, I have written a new version which keeps many of the changes made in his version. In particular, I modified the infobox, although for reasons given in the article I can't agree to cite Dicke as a proponent of PV as stated in the Foundation of Physics paper by Puthoff. I also feel that Puthoff does appear in at least some of his writings to be claiming some kind of "electrogravity", in the sense of reducing graviation to an EM effect (see also Haisch and Rueda, who arguably are not trying to do quite this, but if not, some their rabid "new energy" fans have seriously misunderstood their "energy from the vacuum" proposals).

In the new version, I drew attention to some other related work, and I believe I have fairly characterized the mainstream response to this other work and to Puthoff.

While we must avoid WP:NOR, I note that Watt & Misner and Puthoff obtain the same Lorentzian manifold as the Schwarzschild analogues in their scalar theories (not surprising since so few simple second order differential equations admitting solutions with the desired qualitative behavior), so they should obtain the same results for the classical tests and for inspiral of test particles. Watt and Misner studied inspiral from the innermost circular orbit. It is not clear to me that their result is consistent with that obtained by Ibison, so in the new version I was careful to waffle :-/

Mike (Ibison), if you are reading this, I note that Watt and Misner say that they couldn't find a cosmological solution in their theory, so they should be interested in your eprint.---CH 02:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Chris

Mostly I have no objection to your new version. Clearly you ahve put some time into the effort which I really appreciate.

A couple of items though:

Under 'Related Work':

In general I think you have done TOO MUCH research in to the background! and have taken at face value attempts by others to join the dots that - in my opinion - cannot be joined. It is true Haisch, Puthoff & Rueda both have published in Stochastic Eletrodynamics (SED) and that this leaning no doubt colors their discussion in other areas. But the Wikipedia entry of PV should really have nothing to do with this. Points 3 and 4 on Sakharov and the SED work of Haisch & Rueda have no bearing on PV, even if they are linked in the minds of the authors. I suggest these be expunged from the PV entry. Personally, I think the inertia from ZPF idea has not worked. Others will probably feel the same. In which case point 4 at least could be intepreted as an attempt to damn by association. But PV fails not because of its association with other areas of maverick physics, but because it does not describe observation.

To be frank (please do not take offense) point 4 is totally spurious. Similarly for point 3 - the Sakharov connection with the ZPF - which is never addressed by PV.

Bernie Haisch is given as an 'original proponent' of PV. I am not aware of him having published on this topic, and no reference in support of this association are given. I suggest you provide a reference or remove him from the proponent list.

Everying you attribute to Puthoff under the title 'Puthoff's claims' can be found in Dicke, not just in his Rev. Mod. Phys. 1957 paper, but also at length in a book article which I cannot recall right now. You will probably find it without difficulty in a web search. I really think Dicke ought to be credited with the PV idea. I do not understand why you have ignored him.

Under the main heading:

On point 2: "an attempt to unify gravitation and electromagnetism in a theory of electrogravity"

If Puthoff ever claimed this in connect with PV he is wrong. But did he?

You also say:

"Ibison feels that Puthoff has never claimed to provide a unified field theory which combines gravitation and electromagnetism. However, Puthoff has coauthored papers with Bernard Haisch which apparently do make this claim, and Puthoff's other papers apparently fail to explicitly disavow any such intention."

I was speaking from the point of view of PV, not from the point of view of Puthoff, who may have made such claims in this context, though more likely he made them in the context of SED. By contrast, PV is clearly not an attempt to unify EM and GR because it provides no EM basis for inertia.

With your indulgence, I will edit this para directly, since it pertains directly to what I believe.

Best Regards,

--Mike 05:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted this (adding a POV flag as per your comments) so that your comment refers to what I wrote, while we pursue discussion on this talk page, which I hope will result in some concensus about what changes best suit the needs of our readers. ---CH 22:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

With regard to Haisch and Rueda, I have been arguing with Haisch (talk · contribs) regarding his bio and stochastic electrodynamics, so it seems that our discussion overlaps that one. I think you make a good point about alleged connections being popularized by Haisch and Rueda (or rather, by "low to no cost energy from the vacuum" fanatics at zillions of cranky websites), but unfortunately, in the interests of our readers (who are likely to first encounter PV and SED at such websites, not in a physics journal!) we need to clearly sort out the science from the crankhype.

I agree that the my version needs improvement in this area, but I am not sure I entirely agree with how you want to describe PV as being due largely due to Dicke. For one thing, Dicke is unfortunately unavailable to comment here, unlike Puthoff. For another, raw count of papers suggests Puthoff has published more words (not neccessarily better words) on this topic than Dicke did. For another, AFAIK, the internet crankhype is based entirely upon Puthoff, not Dicke.

Can you Google to find some of the dozens of cranky websites which mention Haisch and Puthoff, so that you can see how they misrepresent the scientific status of this stuff (and also frequently get their facts wrong, or at least grossly mischaracterize alleged "U. S. government interest", e.g. hinting at some Manhattan project type secret project at some place like Area 51)? With my comments above in mind, can you try to explain here your view of the (i) provenance (ii) main branches of P.V?? ---CH 22:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of these cranks and think that perhaps some of their 'heroes' could do more to set these people straight!

I do not understand why you reinstated

"Ibison feels that Puthoff has never claimed to provide a unified field theory which combines gravitation and electromagnetism. However, Puthoff has coauthored papers with Bernard Haisch which apparently do make this claim, and Puthoff's other papers apparently fail to explicitly disavow any such intention."

The problems are:

1. My opinion about Puthoff's view of unification has no place on the PV page since PV is not such an attempt.

2. You have given no reference to such a claim by Puthoff & Haisch along these lines.

3. Even if a reference were found, I am confident it will have nothing to do with PV.

I hope you can answer these points.

--Mike 23:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

With the benefit of more time to think about the re-write, I have come, unfortunately, to a less positive view.

First and foremost, you have given no good reason for your focus on Harold Puthoff. PV was not invented by Puthoff, it was merely re-cast. He also atttempted to use it to talk about metric engineering / warp-drive issues. IMO Puthoff should appear only as a link, perhaps with a sentence about him being a recent proponent. Whilst it is true that Puthoff is interested in UFOs, I see this as completely irrelevant to PV as an idea and appears to be an attempt to smear the issue. As I keep saying, PV is an old, old idea due principally to Dicke. Its Wiki entry should be principally about PV, not whatever shenanigans its most recent proponents are up to, or what beliefs they hold on other topics. Why not just say what PV IS? No-one would think it acceptable that there be links on the Wiki page for Newton's 2nd Law to Angelic Beings, or a link on the page describing quantum mechanics to Marital Infidelity (Schrodinger), or a link on the page describing the Path Integral Method to Anti-Papism (Feynman). Yet your re-write of the PV page has references to

• Stochastic electrodynamics
• UFOs
• Bernard Haisch

None of which have anything to do with PV, but serve only to smear the PV page with guilt by association.

PV doesn't need any of this to be shown to be refuted. Let the observational facts speak for themselves!

In the light of these objections, I have flagged the new version as disputed. I hope we can come to an agreement on what should be on this page (rather than on the Puthoff bio).

--Mike 16:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

You wrote "whilst it is true that Puthoff is interested in UFOs, I see this as completely irrelevant to PV as an idea and appears to be an attempt to smear the issue." To the contrary, this is a first attempt to provide some kind of corrective to the many wild claims which can be found at dozens of cranky websites and thousands of newsgroup postings by persons who claim that Haisch, Puthoff, Podkletnov, Tajmar and Matos, etc. provide "verified scientific evidence" supporting their often wild claims about "free energy" (as in "no cost energy from the vacuum").

Yes but what has that got to do with PV?--Mike 23:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that through discussion of specifics in the talk page you can probably help me come up with a better second attempt, but because of your direct involvement, I think it is best if I myself rewrite the current version after discussions with you and others knowledgeable about this stuff. (I often find it helpful to keep in mind the analogy of successive approximation in the sense of Cauchy sequences.)---CH 22:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I Think that this will be perhaps best cleared up by your looking at Dicke's original works. Perhaps then you will share my view that the association of PV with Puthoff is a result only of a narrow focus in time, and in the end probably ephemeral. The chapter Dicke wrote (see my LANL archive paper on PV for the exact reference) is quite comprehensive. - I think that you are wrong that Puthoff has written more than Dicke. If after looking at that reference you still feel the same I will be very surprised.--Mike 23:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't wish to slight Dicke's contrib (and I don't think I have done that), but isn't the issue what the phrase "P.V." most often refers to in the contemporary physics literature? Whenever I see that phrase it seems to refer to Puthoff's papers, not Dicke. ---CH 01:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

On a related subject, what about cranky mischaracterizations of Tajmar and Matos eprint?

While I have your attention, have you read these (plus two dozen or so eprints posted in between the given dates)?:

• M. Tajmar, C. de Matos (2000). "Coupling of Gravitation and Electromagnetism in the Weak Field Approximation". arXiv:gr-qc/0003011. {{cite arXiv}}: Unknown parameter |version= ignored (help)
• M. Tajmar, F. Plesescu, K. Marhold, C.J. de Matos (2006). "Experimental Detection of the Gravitomagnetic London Moment". arXiv:gr-qc/0603033. {{cite arXiv}}: Unknown parameter |version= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

In the first, Tajmar and Matos appear to rediscover GEM and add a comment in the last paragraph clearly suggesting they think of this in terms of a unified field theory, which would certainly be a fringe interpretation. While you are googling cranky websites, you are likely to come across many claims to the effect that Tajmar and Matos (or just "ESA") have "scientifically confirmed" what "we have been saying along" about Eugene Podkletnov, UFOs, etc.---CH 23:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that Ibison (talk · contribs) never responded to this query, possibly because I omitted to mention his name. ---CH 02:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. One of my jobs is to investigate wacky ideas such as this. But there is only so much time. I have deferred to Giovanni Modanese in Italy and to our sister institute in Toronto to investigate these claims, and in particular that of Eugene Podkletnov. Recall that Podkletnov's claim was originally an observation (anomalous 'antigravity' rising of smoke above a spinning superconductor). --Mike 18:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Students beware

I extensively rewrote an earlier version of this article, which concerns a fringe science notion which has been assiduously promoted by Harold E. Puthoff and thereupon became embroiled in a controversy over the content with Michael Ibison, who is employed at Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, a research institute founded by Puthoff. I am leaving the WP and am now abandoning this article to its fate.

Just wanted to provide notice that I am only responsible (in part) for the last version I edited; see User:Hillman/Archive. I emphatically do not vouch for anything you might see in more recent versions. Given the legion of cranky websites which attempt to "co-opt" the papers of Puthoff and coworkers to promote as "mainstream science" a huge variety of dubious "zero cost energy from the vacuum" and "spacecraft propulsion schemes" (which typically constitute perpetual motion machines), and given the personal involvement of Ibison (talk · contribs) and Puthoff (talk · contribs) in this topic, it seems likely that at least some future versions are likely to present slanted information or even disinformation. In fact, I haven't had the heart to even read the most recent edits so for all I know, as I write, the current version may contain such WP:NPOV problems.

Good luck to all students in your search for information, regardless!---CH 02:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I have have argued that Dicke is the chief author of PV, and that your beef with Puthoff's association with UFO's and free energy should be confined to the relevant Wiki Pages else, in the future, this ranting about personalities on the PV page will look silly and childish. You write that my personal invovlement in future versions will "present slanted information or even disinformation". Why? Because I disagreed with you on this?--Mike 18:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty much OK with this page now. It seems to have been cleaned up since I last looked. Anyhow I retract my NPOV objection. Mike 23:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Fringe physics/science??

i would like to hear from other editors regarding categorizing this article in the fringe science or physics caterogy. my opinion is that as of today, June 2009, the government has spent tons of cash exploring PV-GR theory. hence, PV can not be considered fringe any more than GR can be considered fringe. what say you? i'm interested in revamping this article using 2009 citations and limiting existing copy, including criticism, to historical section. Henry Delforn (talk) 05:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Fringe physics my fanny. Argue with my interpretations, please!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.34.224.173 (talk) 04:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

New science is created on the fringe. So I guess you could call Polarizable Vacuum a fringe science. Puthoff attempted to create a cosmology of local variables that can be tested experimentally using only one adjustable parameter K instead of 26 parameters in the standard model. He failed but not by a wide margin. After several revisions PV matches the major components of General Relativity reasonably well, but falls short in obscure details like frame dragging at high speed stress energies. As a first attempt PV is a rather good model for study purpose related to space exploration and deep space transport, and the only published cosmology of local variables that can be tested locally. Other scientists have proposed modifications to PV theory to bring it into closer agreement with observations. One retired engineer offered a mathematical proof from special relativity that Puthoff's 2012 version of Polarizable Vacuum theory can not be applied in flat space for velocities greater than zero, no matter how you measure the velocity, unless minor modifications are made to PV theory. Maybe that explains why PV failed the test for frame dragging at high speed. PV does seem a lot like a fringe science, but a useful fringe the main stream might develop into the future of cosmology. Most scientists agree that the standard model of 26 parameters is not entirely satisfactory and should be restated on a smaller set of fundamental principles. Astrojed (talk) 20:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Kerr metric

I am working very hard analyzing light nullspeeds as per the Kerr metric for low-mass objects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ncutssss (talk • contribs) 04:20, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:59, 24 January 2018 (UTC)