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Bernard Haisch

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Bernard Haisch is an astrophysicist best known for developing (with Alfonso Rueda) a speculative "quantum vacuum inertia hypothesis" which might provide a physical explanation for the origin of inertia, and more controversially, might be used for spacecraft propulsion someday (perhaps in the far future). In internet culture, Haisch is also known for his interest in the UFO phenomenon and his willingness to seriously consider a wide variety of notions which other physicists tend to regard as fringe science. He attributes his interest in "spiritual" matters to his early days in a Catholic seminary environment (the Latin School of Indianapolis, St. Meinrad Seminary and Archabbey).

Academic career

Haisch earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI and thereafter did three years of postdoctoral research at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Haisch has worked at the Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, CA and served as deputy director of the Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (space physics) in Garching (see Max Planck Institute) and at the University of Utrecht in Holland.

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 a scientific editor of the Astrophysical Journal.

Speculative proposals regarding inertialess drives

In a long series of papers coauthored with Alfonso Rueda which concern their version of stochastic electrodynamics, Haisch and Rueda have pursued a controversial hypothesis, which Haisch has recently described in a non-technical work (see section below) 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

(See stochastic electrodynamics for citations and a more technical discussion.)

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 his long time collaborator, Alfonso Rueda (Ph. D. in physics from Cornell who teaches in the Department of Electrical Engineering at California State University, Long Beach) 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 (see description of email from Unruh in this posting by John Baez). 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 "quantum vacuum inertia hypothesis" concept which Haisch and his coworkers have proposed can perhaps be used to propel spacecraft someday.

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

An experiment to test a key prediction of stochastic electrodynamics which should shed light on this controversy has been awarded government funding.

— Bernard Haisch, in a previous version of this article

According to a Washington Post story, one of these papers was directly involved in the bizzare saga of internet entrepreneur Joe Firmage (see link below).

Fringe publications

Haisch served as the second editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, founded in 1987 by Stanford professor Ronald Howard, which publishes peer-reviewed papers presenting "scientific" evidence for various paranormal effects, UFOs, and cryptids. JSE is often regarded as a "fringe science journal" (by mainstream physicists) or even a "paranormal journal" (by paranormal researchers).

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 unusual 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".

Other ventures

Haisch has recently founded an organization called the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics. During the dot com era this Institute employed five full-time postdoctoral physicists with expertise in string theory, general relativity, astrophysics and stochastic electrodynamics.

UFO Skeptic website

Haisch also has 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

The God Theory

Haisch has recently published a book (see references below), 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

Digital Universe

Haisch is currently Chief Science Officer of ManyOne Networks, which is headquartered in Scotts Valley, CA. He is also President of the Digital Universe Foundation, which among other things, apparently aims to create a "peer-reviewed" alternative to the Misplaced Pages, apparently seeking among other things to provide a comprehensive and reliable account of current mainstream scientific theory, evidence, and belief.

See also

Related articles:

Related biographies:

External links

References

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

  • Haisch, Bernard; and Rueda, Alfonso (1998). "Contribution to inertial mass by reaction of the vacuum to accelerated motion". Found. Phys. 28: 1057–1108.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) arXiv eprint
  • Haisch, Bernard; and Rueda, Alfonso (1999). "Toward an Interstellar Mission: Zeroing in on the Zero-Point-Field Inertia Resonance". arXiv:physics/9909043. {{cite arXiv}}: Unknown parameter |version= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Haisch, Bernard; Rueda, Alfonso; and Dobyns, York (2001). "Inertial mass and the quantum vacuum fields". Annalen Phys. 10: 393–414.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) 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.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) arXiv version
  • Deardoff, J.; Haisch, B.; Puthoff, H. E. (2005). "Inflation-Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation". J. British Interplanetary Soc. 58: 43–50.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) eprint version from UFO Skeptic, Haisch's UFO website

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

Haisch's popular book:

  • Haisch, Bernard (2006). The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, And What's Behind It All. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser Books. ISBN 1-578-63374-5.
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