Chapter 12 " The " Biefeld-Brown " Effect

[grinder]

You know everytime I turned around when I was studying about Townsend Brown I would run into those two words. (Biefeld and Brown) . I never really understood why or how a man who had spent his entire life trying to explain an effect that he had discovered would share his name so easily with someone else. And I had never known very much about Dr. Biefeld, his name was ALWAYS, always linked withTownsend Browns work when it was mentioned. So it was a curiosity. Thank you Paul for giving me a better understanding.

And I think what you have said about Townsend Browns personality is as much an answer as can be found as to why he would share this effect with someone else. It was a trait that probably made him a perfect candidate for future work where his own personality had to remain in the shadows. If he had been egotistical and self centered he would have never have shared his effect so readily with Dr. Bielfeld. I think now that the effect should rightly simply be called the Townsend Brown Effect, but I am sure if Townsend Brown was here today he would dispute that and stand up for the man who stood up for him. Interesting, really. grinder

[Trickfox]

You know Grinder
I can sympathize with Dr. Brown's thinking here. Remember that he was about to declare that he had discovered a NEW fundamental quirk in nature. The unbalanced distribution of electric charge. Dr. Brown knew that this was a hitherto unnoticed or unreported fundamental symetrical unbalance in nature. He may have been aprehensive before declaring this finding in public literature. He knew that his observations would be tested and scrutinized by dozen of scientists and so perhaps he just needed to run it by someone whom he respected to give him an honest opinion first before going out on a limb and declaring this new fundamental scientific principle.

If I were to put myself in his shoes at that time, I would also have reacted the very same way. I would have found someone who was recognized with a "sheepskin", I would have shown them my observations, tests, and experiments. I would have shown them my research to find prior works, observations or literature, and I would have asked for opinions, and guidance. Most of all I would have selected a person with an open mind and a willingness to go out on a limb with me.

It appears by all accounts that Dr. Biefeld was that very person to Thomas Townsend Brown. I know that it's been said somewhere by Dr. Biefeld's familly heirs, -that "the two of them hardly knew each other", but then this heresay may also be the lingering remnants of previous security measures which were enacted by Brown himself in an effort to hide the importance of the discovery.

I say to everyone reading this. MAKE NO MISTAKE, high voltage electrostatics is a subject for which very few books have been written about except of course in the prevention of static build-up in places where sensitive CMOS electronic circuitry are in use.

To prove my point about the rare nature of this atomic scale unbalance in electric charge I would ask anyone to do a "yahoo search" on the topic "Apoelectric" as in "Apoelectric effect" or "dielectrophoresis", both of which are terms used extensively in the domain of electrostatic voltages.

Note that a search of the two "t.t. Brown" and "Dielectrophoresis" together in Google will yield very interesting results.

Good luck everyone.

Trickfox

[Mark Culpepper]

Thank you so much Trickfox for that link up. I'll get back to you on that when I have had some time to study it. Elizabeth must have awarded you her stir stick before she left! On vacation? Just other business? Have to say I miss her input but thanks to this last I think we will have plenty to talk about.

And I agree with you. I would have done the same thing that Townsend Brown did. I would have sought out someone well respected in the scientific community because he was after all just a studentthen. He needed the warmth of that sheepskin!

Luckily (or perhaps he qas guided <g>) he found his way to this gentleman. And I am sure through the years he maintained the use of the name Biefeld- Brown" effect because of his respect for that person and as a sort of a thankyou.

Now I am going to throw a real mental monkey wrench in things. I have considered this carefully and it is meant as no disrespect toward the Biefled family or to that mans memory. BUT. You know ....... the germans during World War Two were apparently developing some very strange things. Things that sound suspiciously familiar to Dr. Browns ideas. Could it have POSSIBLY been that Dr. Biefeld still had friends in Germany and was in communications with them? Could POSSIBLY his conversations with this young student been communicated to others in the scientific communities of Germany?

I got there by thinking hard about why Mr. Twigsnapper would know Townsend Brown, would have stories of them together in what sounded like to me the end of the war. WHY would a secretive man like DR. Brown be encouraged to go over to a crumbling Germany ?.... UNLESS he was expected to find in the recovered technology, something that he was familiar with already? Sent over there to steal back his own work? I have a feeling that Paul already knows this, he just hasn't shared it with us yet. I can't have gotten to this thought by myself!

Call me nuts. But I think it makes sense. A student brings a brilliant idea to a German gentleman who still has scientific ties over there. Obviously the great minds here (look at the rough treatment he got from his Nobel prize winning professor) were not going to pay attention to this radical idea. But Germany after one war and before the next, would they have paid attention.? You bet your bottom dollar!

Somebody get back to me and tell me if I am actually off the deep end or if this makes some sort of sense? The thought hit me in a flash, so after all that we have talked about on this forum I decided I should at least give that thought the respect of writing it out for others to see. Mark C.

[Trickfox]

You know Mark...
That makes a good deal of sense to me. I've allways wondered why Dr. Brown actually needed to go to Germany anyway. If there was something important and secretive located there, nobody else could possibly have been trusted enough to know, understand, or even recognize it....
Except of course for the very persons who were working with the technology itself.

Someone out there must know something about this.

Paul will undoubtedly fill in some of the mystery in any case. I guess if nothing else we'll just have to wait until the story is told for that period in time right?

Trickfox

[Martin Calloway]

As I understand it there were teams sent over just before the end of the war to secure German technology before the Germans had a chance to destroy it or the Russians got ahold of it. I understand from some folks I have had a chance to talk to that plenty of both happened actually, but much of what we take for granted today was hauled away from Germany. The scientists in the United States were VERY much interested in everything that the Germans were developing.

I understand that the teams sent over usually included specialists in the fields of interest. So who would have sent Dr. Brown then. The war ended in 1945, right? He left the Navy in 1942. So who would have had the authority to "send him" anywhere? Unless of course he was involved in a classified situation and had the pull to get himself over there.

What would have tipped anyone off that there was something in Germany that might have ANYTHING to do with what Dr. Brown was working on.

Course as Paul has said, once he left the Navy its as if he dropped off the end of the Earth. Still, There is Mr. Twigsnappers remembrances and you certainly can't discount his wonderful viewpoint. And the guy, without a doubt earned his place, beside Dr. Brown, I'll just bet.

And Dr. Brown was an important person then or Mr. Twigsnapper wouldn't have already told us that he was under orders to shoot Dr. Brown if it became apparent they might be captured. I remembered that particularly because Mr. Twigsnapper said that Dr. Brown knew that and he still went.

So what was so damned important that the Germans had? And did Dr. Brown group find it? And if they did, what happened to "it"? Shoot I act as if I have an idea of what "it" might be, but I don't. Help Paul! Martin