Bernard Haisch

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Bernard Haisch is a German-born American astrophysicist who has done research in solar-stellar astrophysics and stochastic electrodynamics and has developed (with Alfonso Rueda) a speculative theory proposing that a hypothetical "quantum vacuum inertia hypothesis" might provide a physical explanation for the origin of inertia, and more controversially, might someday be used for spacecraft propulsion.

Haisch has advocated the serious scientific study of phenomena outside the traditional scope of science and is known for his interest in the UFO phenomenon as well as a variety of other unorthodox topics.

Since 2002 Haisch has been involved with the ManyOne and related Digital Universe projects which aim to produce, among other things, a multimedia online encyclopedia.

In 2006 Haisch published a popular book in which he attempted to reconcile modern scientific belief with traditional religious belief. He attributes his spiritual interests to his educational experience at the Latin School of Indianapolis (a high school affiliated with the Catholic Church), and at the St. Meinrad Seminary and Archabbey.

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[edit] Scientific career

Haisch was born in Stuttgart, Germany and earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin in 1975 and thereafter spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

Haisch has worked at the Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, California and served as deputy director of the Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany and at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. His main research from the mid 1970s until the late 1990s was high energy astrophysics, and specifically the ultraviolet and X-ray emissions from coronae and flares on the Sun and other late-type stars.

Haisch has published more than one hundred research papers on a variety of topics (some more speculative than others) in mainstream journals, including some very prestigious ones, such as Nature, Science, Physical Review, Astrophysical Journal, and Annalen der Physik. He also served for ten years as an editor of the Astrophysical Journal.

[edit] Speculative proposals regarding inertialess drives

In a long series of papers, Haisch and Alfonso Rueda, a physicist currently teaching in the Department of Electrical Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, have developed a controversial hypothesis in the context of stochastic electrodynamics. In his recent popular book (see section below), Haisch has described this hypothetical quantum vacuum inertia hypothesis as follows:

There exists a background sea of quantum light filling the universe and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object. That is why matter seems to be solid, stable stuff that we, and the world, are made of. So maybe matter resists acceleration not because it possesses some innate thing called mass as Newton proposed and we all believed, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place.

– Bernard Haisch, The God Theory

This assertion, that accelerated observers experience a force due to the zero-point field, and that this "electromagnetic reaction force" is responsible for the inertia of material objects, apparently rests upon a computation in which Haisch and Rueda claim to have computed a nonzero "zero point field Poynting vector". (See the 1998 Foundations of Physics paper cited below.)

However, computations by other physicists, such as Bill Unruh, apparently contradict this result. The mainstream view is that the so-called zero point field does not give rise to a physical force on observers accelerating with respect to "the vacuum". This casts doubt upon the "inertia modification drive" concept; see stochastic electrodynamics for details.

Some of this theoretical work has been funded by Lockheed Martin and NASA (independently of the now defunct Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program). Haisch has stated

I will be the first to admit that my work with Rueda and others on a possible connection between inertia and the electromagnetic quantum vacuum is speculative, and could well be totally wrong in the end.

– Bernard Haisch, from the talk page

but adds that forthcoming experiments may test some of the predictions of stochastic electrodynamics.

One of these papers was directly but unintentionally involved in the saga of internet entrepreneur Joe Firmage.[1]

[edit] Non-mainstream publications

Haisch is a former editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, which publishes papers on "topics outside the established disciplines of mainstream science" such as paranormal effects, the UFO phenomenon, and cryptids. Concerning his (unpaid) involvement with JSE, Haisch has stated:

I think it is important for science to apply its tools to things that may lie outside the current corpus of scientific knowledge. There is no way to tell in advance where the next discoveries lie, so if most of what has appeared in JSE proves to be wrong (as it might) publishing on those topics is still a valid and, in my opinon, necessary function of science.

– Bernard Haisch, message in the talk page of this article

In addition to papers in mainstream journals and conference proceedings, Haisch has published papers in such unorthodox places as Science and Spirit magazine and the Journal of Noetic Sciences, a parapsychological journal published by Institute of Noetic Sciences, which says that it "sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness."

[edit] Other ventures

[edit] California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics

In 1999 Haisch founded the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Scotts Valley, California, an organization mainly devoted to the study of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum and funded by private philanthropic money. The institute formerly employed five full time physicists doing research on string theory, general relativity and stochastic electrodynamics. Haisch served as the institute's director from 1999 until 2002.

[edit] UFO Skeptic

Haisch has also created a website called UFO Skeptic, which promotes the investigation of the UFO phenomenon by "professional scientists". In an open letter addressed to scientists, Haisch wrote in part:

I have learned quite a bit about the UFO phenomenon over the years (certainly more than I had bargained for) and have met many of the leading figures, some credible, some deluded...There are astronomers and pilots and NASA engineers -- and others who have been around the block a few times when it comes to observing natural phenomena -- who have witnessed events for which there is no plausible conventional explanation...There is another aspect to the UFO phenomenon that involves politics and secrecy rather than observational evidence. Over the years I have gotten to know individuals who for one reason or another would be aware of the existence of black programs and secret projects...I see myself a bit like the kid standing next to the kid looking through the hole in the big tall fence at the baseball game. This means that the closest I am getting to inside information will be a recounting of what is going on in there. I myself am definitely not an insider, but certain contacts I have acquired and/or befriended over a long period of time seem to be on the periphery of some kind of inside which appears to contain at least remarkable information, and apparently more than that. Let me be (somewhat) more specific. I now have three completely independent examples of individuals whom I trust reporting to me that individuals they trust have admitted to handling alien artifacts in "our" possession in the course of secret official duties. (The special access level in the one case for which I know it is R, a not widely known SCI level whose existence was finally verified for me by someone who himself had a very high access level, though short of that one, as being "reserved for someone at the very top." I do not know, however, whether it is specifically reserved or designated for this topic.) It is interesting that from the clandestine intelligence world perspective the scientific community, for all of its technical and theoretical sophistication, is viewed as remarkably naive in certain respects. Over the course of time I have learned how it would indeed be possible to maintain decades-long secrecy on this topic and why this might be justified. ...I propose that true skepticism is called for today: neither the gullible acceptance of true belief nor the closed-minded rejection of the scoffer masquerading as the skeptic. One should be skeptical of both the believers and the scoffers.

– Bernard Haisch, UFO Skeptic website

[edit] The God Theory

Haisch has recently published a book entitled The God Theory, in which he writes

I offer a genuine insight into how you can, and should, be a rational, science-believing human being and at the same time know that you are also an immortal spiritual being, a spark of God. I propose a worldview that offers a way out of the hate and fear-driven violence engulfing the planet.

– Bernard Haisch, The God Theory

[edit] Digital Universe

Since 2002 Haisch has been Chief Science Officer of ManyOne Networks, which is headquartered in Scotts Valley, California and lead by Joe Firmage. Since 2004 he has also served as president of the related Digital Universe Foundation, which, among other things, aims to create a peer-reviewed alternative to Wikipedia, seeking to provide a comprehensive and reliable account of current mainstream scientific theory, evidence, and belief.

[edit] Thoughts on Wikipedia

In response to the Wikipedia article about him, Haisch wrote an op/ed piece in the Los Angeles Times in which he criticized Wikipedia's policies and founding principles, alleging that "the negative slants and biased cherry picking of facts ... can paint a quite inaccurate portrait." He also raised doubts that the content of Wikipedia would aggregate towards accuracy, since "if it does get fixed it could change again five minutes hence."[2]

[edit] Book and publications

  • Haisch, Bernard (2006). The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, And What's Behind It All. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser Books. ISBN 1-57863-374-5. 

Selected mainstream papers by Bernard Haisch on astrophysics:

  • Haisch, B.; Strong, K.T.; Rodono, M. (1991). "Flares on the Sun and other stars". Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics 29: 275. 
  • Haisch, B.; Schmitt, J.H.M.M.; Fabian, A.C. (1992). "Disappearance of coronal X-ray emission in stars with cool dense winds". Nature 360: 239. 
  • Haisch, B.; Antunes, A.; Schmitt, J.H.M.M. (1995). "Solar-like M-class X-ray flares on Proxima Centauri observed by the ASCA satellite". Science 260: 1327. 

A few representative publications regarding the proposed physical origin of inertia as an electromagnetic drag force and hypothetical spacecraft propulsion schemes:

  • Haisch, B; Rueda, A.; Puthoff, H. E. (1994). "Inertia as a zero-point-field Lorentz force". Physical Review A 49: 678-694. 
  • Haisch, Bernard; and Rueda, Alfonso (1998). "Contribution to inertial mass by reaction of the vacuum to accelerated motion". Found. Phys. 28: 1057-1108.  arXiv eprint
  • Haisch, Bernard; and Rueda, Alfonso (1999). "Toward an Interstellar Mission: Zeroing in on the Zero-Point-Field Inertia Resonance." 21 September 1999.
  • Haisch, Bernard; Rueda, Alfonso; and Dobyns, York (2001). "Inertial mass and the quantum vacuum fields". Annalen Phys. 10: 393-414.  arXiv version
  • Haisch, Bernard (2001). "Freeing The Scientific Imagination". Noetic Sciences Review 57: 24. 
  • Haisch, Bernard; and Rueda, Alfonso (2005). "Gravity and the Quantum Vacuum Inertia Hypothesis". Annalen Phys. 14: 479-498.  arXiv version
  • Deardoff, J.; Haisch, B.; Puthoff, H. E. (2005). "Inflation-Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation". J. British Interplanetary Soc. 58: 43-50.  eprint version from UFO Skeptic, Haisch's UFO website

A CV as well as a complete list of Haisch's publications is available at the California Institute for Physics website.

[edit] See also

Related articles:

Related biographies:

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The CEO from Cyberspace: Joe Firmage, A Master of the Universe at 28, Wants to Defy Gravity and Visit the Far Corners Of His Realm by Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, March 31, 1999
  2. ^ Why Wiki can drive you wacky,a Los Angeles Times editorial, Bernard Haisch published July 24, 2006
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