Jack Sarfatti

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Jack Sarfatti

Jack Sarfatti
Born: September 14, 1939
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation: Theoretical Physicist
Website: Sarfatti's website

Jack Sarfatti (born September 14, 1939) is an American theoretical physicist and the author of a number of popular works on quantum physics and consciousness. He is known for his iconoclastic ideas, and is interested in what he sees as the breakdown of the paradigm that posits science and the humanities as separate disciplines, arguing that physics — which he calls "the Conceptual Art of the late 20th Century" — [1] has replaced philosophy as the unifying force between science and art. [2]

Sarfatti's main interests lie in Timothy Leary's "SMI²LE" program of space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension.[3] His views include Colonel Phillip J. Corso's speculation that UFOs may be of extraterrestrial origin or could be "terrestrial time ships" originating from our own future; that parapsychological phenomena may be real; that "retro-causal" (future-to-past) faster-than-light communication may be possible; and that space travel could be achieved by a controlled, possibly "psychokinetic" (mind manipulating matter), local warping of "emergent curved and torsioned" spacetime.[4] in "the fuselage of the flying saucer using nano-engineered 2D quantum wells with anyon condensates" ("Super Cosmos").

He is the author of the self-published books Super Cosmos (2005), Destiny Matrix (2002), and Space: Time And Beyond Ii (Dark Energy) (2002), and co-author with Fred Alan Wolf and Bob Toben of Space-Time and Beyond: Toward an Explanation of the Unexplainable (1982). He is a frequent contributor to Usenet [5] and has set up a website where he discusses his ideas. [6] His views are not accepted by the mainstream physics community.

Contents

[edit] Academic background

Sarfatti was born in Brooklyn, New York to Hyman Sarfatti, an Italian Sephardi Jew from Macedonia and his wife Mildred.[7][8][9]

He completed his B.A. in physics at Cornell University in 1960, where he wrote an honors thesis under the guidance of Hans Bethe, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967. His first published paper, "Quantum-Mechanical Correlation Theory of Electromagnetic Fields," appeared in 1963 in Nuovo Cimento, the journal of the Italian Physical Society.

He obtained his Master's, also in physics, from University of California, San Diego in 1967, and in the same year, "The Goldstone Theorem in the Jahn-Teller Effect," which he co-authored with Marshall Stoneham, was published in Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, and "Laser Self-Focusing Analogue to the Landau-Ginzburg Equation of Type II Superconductivity" in Physics Letters. [10]

From 1967-71, he worked as an assistant professor of physics at San Diego State University, obtaining his Ph.D from University of California, Riverside in 1969, where he wrote his thesis under the supervision of Fred Cummings. In 1970, he and Cummings co-authored "Beyond the Hartree-Fock Theory in Superfluid Helium," which was published in Physica Scripta in Switzerland.[11]

From 1971-2, he was employed as a research fellow under David Bohm, the American quantum physicist, at Birkbeck College, London.[12]

From 1973-4, he worked with Abdus Salam, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. He then left academia. Thereafter, he worked at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, and in 1999-2000 at Joe Firmage's ISSO exotic propulsion group in San Francisco with a budget of several million dollars.[citation needed]

[edit] Observation of Uri Geller

Jack Sarfatti with Uri Geller, 2004
Jack Sarfatti with Uri Geller, 2004

On June 21, 1974, Sarfatti was one of a number of scientists and other interested parties — a group that included Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur Koestler, David Bohm, and John Hasted — who conducted observations of Uri Geller while the latter displayed what he said was telekinetic energy.

Sarfatti was impressed by Geller, and commented: "My personal professional judgement as a Ph.D. physicist is that Geller demonstrated genuine psychoenergetic ability at Birkbeck, which is beyond the doubt of any reasonable man, under relatively well-controlled and repeatable experimental conditions." [13] He later revised this opinion after discussing the matter with James Randi. He wrote in a letter: "On the basis of further experience in the art of conjuring, I wish to retract my endorsement of Uri Geller's psychoenergetic authenticity." [14]

[edit] Publications

[edit] Written works

[edit] Broadcast

  • Sarfatti appears on several television shows on the Learning Channel & Wisdom Channel, and is interviewed periodically on R. U. Sirius's IPODCAST Radio Network. Videos of his appearances are available at The Sound Photosynthesis Online Catalog.
  • Paramount Pictures "Star Trek IV" DVD has commentary on time travel by Sarfatti: "Time Travel: The Art of the Possible runs eleven minutes and 14 seconds and provides information from 'three prominent quantum physicists'. We get comments from Dr. Nick Herbert, Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, and Dr. Jack Sarfatti." [15]
  • Sarfatti's ideas on physics and consciousness have been cited in a number of popular and scholarly books, including "Cosmic Trigger" by Robert Anton Wilson, Bohemia by Herbert Gold, Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension by mathematician Rudy Rucker, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will edited by philosopher Robert Kane, White Holes by physicist John Gribbon, Rocket Dreams by Marina Benjamin, books by Stanislav Grof, Dancing in the Light by Shirley MacLaine, and The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. Sharon Weinberger, an editor at Aviation Week, mentions Sarfatti in her book Imaginary Weapons, in reference to his early work with Hans Bethe at Cornell on the idea for a nuclear isomer gamma ray laser.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ weird science
  2. ^ The Universe, As Seen From North Beach
  3. ^ weird science
  4. ^ UFOs and the New Physics
  5. ^ Googl Groups search
  6. ^ Stardrive
  7. ^ UFOs and the New Physics
  8. ^ Stephen Schwartz lies
  9. ^ My Story by Hyman Sarfatti (pdf)
  10. ^ The Universe, As Seen From North Beach
  11. ^ The Universe, As Seen From North Beach
  12. ^ The Universe, As Seen From North Beach
  13. ^ Science News, vol. 106, July 20, 1974, p. 46.
  14. ^ Science News, December 6, 1975, p. 355.
  15. ^ Star Trek IV commentary

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Sarfatti, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Physicist
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn, New York
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
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