Mind Machines You Can Build

MIND MACHINES

YOU CAN BUILD

by G. Harry Stine

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN PUBLISHING Largo, Florida 34643-5117 U.S.A.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, utilized or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical— including photocopying, recording on any information storage and retrieval system—without written per¬mission from the publisher, except for brief quotations or inclusion in a review.

Top Of The Mountain Publishing

11701 South Belcher Road, Suite 123

Largo, Florida 34643-5117 U.S.A.

SAN 287-590X

FAX (813) 536-3681

PHONE (813) 530-0110

Copyright 1992 by G. Harry Stine

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Stine, G. Harry (George Harry). 1928-

Mind Machines you can build/by G. Harry Stine.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-56087-016-8: $11.95

1. Machinery. I.Title.

TJ153.S774 1992

133.028-dc20 91-27801 CIP

Manufactured in the United States

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

5

THE REALIST'S DILEMMA

9

DETECTOR RODS

21

PYRAMIDS

37

THE ENERGY WHEEL

61

PENDULUMS

83

THE HIERONYMOUS MACHINE

103

SYMBOLIC MACHINES

125

THE SYMBOLIC HIERONYMOUS MACHINE

143

THE WISHING MACHINE

165

POSTSCRIPT

181

BIBLIOGRAPHY

195

Devoted

to

Patsy and Clyde

INTRODUCTION

The intent of this book by my friend and colleague Harry Stine is to challenge the technical community and ama¬teurs to build these machines, then try to figure out why they work. All of them seem to violate the well-known laws of physics or mechanics. Thus, the challenge is to resolve the apparent contradiction.

In the history of science, the resolution of a dis-crepancy is one of the most fruitful ways to make progress. For example, it was Rutherford who saw an apparent contradiction in the course of his study of alpha particle emission by radioactive nuclei. He asked how it was possible for an alpha particle of measured range and energy to emerge from a nucleus without having the energy to penetrate the higher energy potential barrier around the nucleus - which could also be measured. Such penetration by an alpha particle was energetically

5

impossible. It was the challenge of this apparent discrep-ancy that led Gurney and Condon to the discovery and development of quantum mechanical tunneling which has been of major importance not only in physics but also to modern solid-state electronics.

In science, one progresses from an observation to a hypothesis about how or why the observed phenom-enon works, then to an experiment in which one proves not only that the hypothesis is correct but that the hy-pothesis is indeed a theory. The theory must then predict other observable effects that can be tested and experi-mentally confirmed. The fact that a certain device in this book works does not mean that all our theories are wrong but only that our understanding of how these theories should be applied is faulty in this particular case. Essentially, we do not know everything. Indeed, what we do know may not be so, but may have some curious little twist that we have overlooked. Apparent violations of the laws of physics are usually an opportunity to make progress in our knowledge of the universe.

In science, we also seek to understand how na-ture works. And we often misunderstand or follow false leads. Actually, the "laws of nature" are generalizations from experience. For example, the violation of the law of gravity is punished not by a jail sentence but more fit-tingly by falling on one's face. Further, such generaliza-tions are living concepts needing modification in details as we go alone. Einstein did not prove Newton to be

6

wrong but rather provided the next approximation in our understanding of what actually happens when we make measurements at speeds approaching that of light. Mass, length, and time must be measured, taking the speed of light into account. A basic physics experiment is that of measurement, and it is important to carefully think through the details of the actor procedure in a step by step fashion.

Science is a living and growing discipline, and much remains to be done. This book will, one hopes, stimulate people to build and test these odd devices, to think about them, and perhaps to hit upon further ap-proximations to our understanding of the universe. Good science is done not with apparatus but in people's heads by thinking.

- Prof. Serge A. Korff

(Prof. Korff was professor emeritus, department of physics, New York University; Fellow, American Physical Society; past president and life member, New York Academy of Sciences; life member, American Society for the Advance¬ment of Science; past president and director, the Explorers Club; and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.)

7

Mind Machines You Can Build

8

CHAPTER ONE

THE REALIST'S DILEMMA

For more than thirty years, I've been working in high technology areas - rocketry, space flight, aviation, ad-vanced industrial processes, electronic instruments, and space industrialization, among others. I've managed an industrial research laboratory, designed escape pods for pilots of supersonic aircraft, and been involved in high-technology marketing. None of these jobs existed in 1885. In fact, these scientific and technical areas would have been considered "magic" as recently as a hundred years ago, and I would have been tagged a wizard or, even worse, a witch.

9

Mind Machines You Can Build

Many people still believe or would like to believe that much of the modern technology with which they must cope every day has indeed been created by wizards and witches.

We've all encountered machinery that seems to be magical or that doesn't or shouldn't work because our common sense or expertise tells us so. But in my career as an industrial research scientist and an engineer deal¬ing with far-out areas of advanced high-tech, I've run onto a series of baffling, frustrating, and vexing machines and devices that shouldn't work at all according to what we presently know about the Universe.

But they do.

Sometimes they don't work for everyone. But they do work for some people.

The apparent fact that some things work for some people but not for others doesn't bother me. Although I enjoy good brass band music, I can't get a single mu¬sical note to come from a trumpet. Some people can, and some people can't. But playing the trumpet isn't a magi¬cal feat. It is mystical, however, as we'll see later. But people can teach other people how to do it. Perhaps I can't get music out of a trumpet because I've never been trained to play the trumpet. But I can't get music to come out of a trumpet or a violin.

I'm a "grubby-handed engineer." I can build things that work. I can usually discover why something doesn't work when it quits, and I can usually manage to fix it or

10

The Realist's Dilemma

get it working well enough to get me to a place where a real expert can make it work properly again. I'm at home in a scientific meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences as well as at the controls of an airplane. I'm a pragmatic and skeptical person. I've run onto a lot of wild and wonderful devices that don't work as claimed. But if a gadget works, I'll use it.

So I'm not a mystic in the way I look at the world around me. Murphy's Law notwithstanding, I believe that if something works in a demonstrable and reason¬ably repeatable manner, there must be a reason why because the Universe isn't a place that behaves capri¬ciously. Murphy's Law exists and the Universe only seems to be capricious occasionally because we still don't know everything there is to know about it. The nine¬teenth century philosophy of materialism says that we do indeed know everything there is to know about the Universe, but that belief seems to be incredibly presump-tuous. As J.B.S. Haldane has observed, the Universe is not only stranger than we know, it's stranger than we can possibly imagine.

I've collected enough data and conducted enough experiments with these amazing gadgets now that it's time to put all the data together in a book so that other people with inquiring minds and an open outlook on the Universe can also try them for themselves.

11

Mind Machines You Can Build

But I didn't write this for mystics or for those who dabble in the occult. This is a collection of how-to instruc¬tions for demonstrable gadgets that are somehow based upon technology we don't understand yet.

We don't know why or how some of these de-vices work, but apparently they work reliably for a large number of people. Scientists haven't explained them yet. But you don't have to accept the reality of these devices on blind faith. By following the directions given herein, you can build the strange device, test it, and determine for yourself whether or not it's a hoax.

Some of these machines may be precursors to the big scientific breakthroughs of the future. After all, the early parlor experiments with electricity and magnetism in the late

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