The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

Long-time Townsend Brown inquirer Jan Lundquist – aka 'Rose' in The Before Times – has her own substantial archive to share with readers and visitors to this site. This forum is dedicated to the wealth of material she has compiled: her research, her findings, and her speculations.
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Jan Lundquist
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The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

Post by Jan Lundquist »

This is a prequel to the Cady Report of 1952, found at http://www.rexresearch.com/ttbrown/ttbrown.htmI.

In March, an urgent meeting was secretly convened at Patrick AFB on Cape Canaveral to address the issues around testing guided missiles over a West Indies seabed rife with gravitational anomalies.* This meeting resulted in a notable AF push for more research in the field that would become known as geodesy, the interdisciplinary science of measuring and understanding the fundamental properties of the Earth: its shape, its gravitational field(s), its orientation in space, and changes in these properties over time.

Dutch Scientist, Felix Andreis Vening Meinesz, was asked to address the immediate problem. His December report, The Gravity Problem of the Mapping and Charting Research Laboratory at Columbus and Related Problems laid out the principals of orbital mathematics, for perhaps for the first time ever.

Meinesz would suggest how to best locate the equatorial plane in a changing elliptical gravitational field and how observed values from gravitational anomalies expressed themselves at different angles in the larger field. He would describe the equipment and methods for taking standard measurements, and, of course, note that there was still much mapping to be done.

The anomalous areas of concern in the Atlantic Test Range region had first been identified by the Princeton-Navy Gravity Exepidition of 1932, helmed by Meinesz with the support of Princeton scientist, Harry Hess, future father of plate tectonics, and Seaman Townsend Brown. Brown was responsible for the equipment, the calculations, and documenting the cruise for the Navy. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... =1up&seq=7)

And, more importantly, Townsend Brown would continue to work with with variations of Meinesz 1915 pendulum* set up for years into the future.
In 1915 a doctor’s degree cum laude was conferred on him for his thesis ‘Contribution to the theory of pendulum observations’. In this thesis a theory was elaborated, ultimately leading to the equation of motion of a pendulum, whose rotation-axis was subjected to arbitrary translations. The solution of this differential equation is given in the form of corrections caused by the disturbing accelerations, which should be added to the period and amplitude of the corresponding non-disturbed mathematical pendulum. It appeared from the formulae that the effect of disturbing acceleration—of which the horizontal acceleration in the pendulum plane is by far the greatest—on the mean periods of two isochronous pendulums swinging on the same support is eliminated, provided that both pendulums have the same amplitude and opposite phase.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/ ... .1967.0015

It seems quite likely that Meinesz would have been the Dutch scientist Townsend requested to be invited to participate in the Paris experiments. Is it equally likely that it was Meinesz who first brought Townsend to the attention of the USAF?

* Footnoted in A Matter of Gravity: Military Support for Gravimetry during the Cold War by Deborah J. Wagner, In: Instrumental in War, Science, Research, and Instruments Between Knowledge and the World Series: Editor: Steven Walton 2005
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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Jan Lundquist wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:04 pm This is a prequel to the Cady Report of 1952, found at http://www.rexresearch.com/ttbrown/ttbrown.htmI.
Boy, if ever there was a website that needs a Search function, Rexresearch is it. I wonder what was the last time anybody updated the site, or applied some web design from, say, the 21st century... 🤪

Anyway, that URL doesn't work.

The closest I could find is a directory:

http://www.rexresearch.com/invnindx.htm

... with a couple of links to Townsend Brown material under "BBB" - one a link to the 1929 Popular Science article How I Control Gravitation and the other a link to the notebooks that William Moore put into circulation.

I cannot find the Cady Report there at all.

And I don't know if I've ever scene the whole 'Cady Report' apart from what appears in Cook's book – which I found in its entirety online here:

https://plain2.tripod.com/huntforzeropoint.pdf

You can search that .pdf file for 'Cady' and it the excerpts show up.
Paul Schatzkin, author of 'The Man Who Mastered Gravity' https://amz.run/6afz
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It's "a multigenerational project." What's your hurry?
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"We will just sail away from the Earth, as easily as this boat pushed away from the dock" - TTB
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Jan Lundquist
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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Paul, try this one with htm vs html at the end:

http://www.rexresearch.com/ttbrown/ttbrown.htm


Unfortunately, this is a transcription. I have been unable to find the original anywhere.
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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The solution of this differential equation is given in the form of corrections caused by the disturbing accelerations, which should be added to the period and amplitude of the corresponding non-disturbed mathematical pendulum. It appeared from the formulae that the effect of disturbing acceleration—of which the horizontal acceleration in the pendulum plane is by far the greatest—on the mean periods of two isochronous pendulums swinging on the same support is eliminated, provided that both pendulums have the same amplitude and opposite phase.
Am I leaping to conclusions, or is that 1915 insight right there - "just run two pendulums and remove the common motion" - pretty much the heart of the Navy gravimetrics system that later became Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry? I mean General Relativity came out that year too, seems like 1915 was a big year for gravity. Except that, imo, FTGG, though it's much more prosaic and doesn't have any of the science-fiction wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, has been vastly more useful than GR has been so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_gradiometry
During the 1970s, as an executive in the US Dept. of Defense, John Brett initiated the development of the gravity gradiometer to support the Trident 2 system. A committee was commissioned to seek commercial applications for the Full Tensor Gradient (FTG) system that was developed by Bell Aerospace (later acquired by Lockheed Martin) and was being deployed on US Navy Ohio-class Trident submarines designed to aid covert navigation. As the Cold War came to a close, the US Navy released the classified technology and opened the door for full commercialization of the technology. The existence of the gravity gradiometer was famously exposed in the film The Hunt for Red October released in 1990.

There are two types of Lockheed Martin gravity gradiometers currently in operation: the 3D Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometer (FTG; deployed in either a fixed wing aircraft or a ship) and the FALCON gradiometer (a partial tensor system with 8 accelerometers and deployed in a fixed wing aircraft or a helicopter). The 3D FTG system contains three gravity gradiometry instruments (GGIs), each consisting of two opposing pairs of accelerometers arranged on a spinning disc with measurement direction in the spin direction.
I admit that I am grumpy about GR because I want my warp drive and GR talks a big game but doesn't want to give one to me unless I have a stellar sized black hole, and I just can't afford to house and feed one of those.

Nate
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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Oh and looking at the Cady Report again for the first time in several years, it jumps out at me that the Gravity Radio was very much a part of that demonstration. It was not hidden. Does the Radio being right on display in there entirely track with the idea of the saucers being a distraction from the Radio? Was the Radio itself a distraction from something else?

Cady's complaint about lack of electromagnetic shielding in the Radio seems very similar to what Bryce DeWitt (if I remember correctly) complained about the lack of shielding in the Bahnson devices. "Measurable electrical fields everywhere, so high that the hairs of the body stood on end" or something to that effect. Both devices seem to have had the effect of immediately turning off any physicists who looked at them.
2.4 ) There has been briefly inspected a third electrical device, purporting to be a communication equipment operating on waves related to the electrogravitic effect. It appears that the transmitter is simply a relaxation oscillator consisting of a high tension DC power supply, a high resistor, and a condenser which periodically discharges through a short gap. The receiver, shown in Figure 2, consists of two Pyranol capacitors 0-5 mf, two titanium oxide capacitors 500 mf, a Brush recorder, and a bypass capacitor 0.1 mf to prevent the recorder from oscillating. Two terminals in the circuit are charged as indicated before reception and left floating during reception. The bridge of four capacitors is housed in a cabinet, indicated by a dashed line, which forms an obviously imperfect shield against electromagnetic radiation. When the transmitter is operated in an adjoining room, the Brush recorder jumps with each spark. Mr. Brown states that the effect is present, but reduced, if the 25 kv potentials are not applied. If the Pyranols are short-circuited and removed, the effect is still reported present. No attempt has been made at conscious electromagnetic shielding of either the transmitter or the receiver. In the writer's opinion the response may be the result of a chance rectifying contact.

The relation between the communication device and the mechanical effects which form the topic of this report appears to remote that no further mention will be made of the former.
Bendix Aviation being involved, though, is a good glimpse of Townsend's other side, the steely-eyed Navy missile man.
On 17 June 1952 the undersigned accompanied (censored) of the Townsend Brown Foundation to the Glendale plant of the Bendix Aviation Corporation. An experiment of the type described in paragraph 4.1 had been set up by Bendix personnel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendix_Corporation
During World War II Bendix made nearly every ancillary instrument or equipment for military aircraft.[citation needed]... In the 1950s, Bendix and its successors managed United States Atomic Energy Commission facilities in Kansas City, Missouri and Albuquerque, New Mexico... During the 1960s the company made ground and airborne telecommunications systems for NASA. It also built the ST-124-M3 inertial platform used in the Saturn V Instrument Unit... During World War II, Bendix was contracted to make engine order telegraphs for the United States Navy.... A collaboration between Fred McLafferty and Roland Gohlke and William C. Wiley and Daniel B. Harrington of Bendix Aviation in the 1950s led to the combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry,
Clevite-Brush, Bendix, Lear... Townsend certainly liked hanging out with very high end precision nuclear/aerospace instrument companies. Which doesn't at all track with the Cady and DeWitt impression of Townsend as a slapdash experimenter unable to do basic electrical shielding. But that weird sense of duality has always been part of the package, hasn't it?


Regards, Nate
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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Nate, that is a very astute observation about Townsend hanging out with precision nuclear/aerospace instrument companies. When the National Labs were organized under the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission, one of the 5 public directors, whose name I cannot locate now, but who was designated as the head of research, had a very particular interest in and influence upon the development of scientific instrumentation.

Progress in Atomic research would epend upon corresponding progress in precise measurement technologies. (And yet, the Nevade Grounds MET test of April 15, 1955 was totally ducked up by a last minute change in plans that absolutely nooooo one expected. /s.)

Scientific eras are marked by subtle linguistic shifts. We can see the change in focus over time from theoretical to applied research, reflected in the names of Sarbacher's labs. While he was conducting atomic research in DC, between 1948-1950, , his organization was the "National Labs, Inc." But when he surfaces again for us, in 1956, his "new" lab, in that same old location on Dupont Circle, is now The Washington Institute of Technology.
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Re: The USAF Gravity Problems of 1952

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When the National Labs were organized under the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission, one of the 5 public directors, whose name I cannot locate now, but who was designated as the head of research, had a very particular interest in and influence upon the development of scientific instrumentation.
It's always amused me that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (National Bureau of Standards before 1988) does some very cutting-edge things with atomic energy and even General Relativity, I think, (because of atomic clocks) yet it's in the Department of Commerce.

Makes me wonder just what other capabilities might be hidden what departments. Everyone thinks about Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, State, Treasury... but what about the little ones? Commerce has NIST, and what else? Agriculture's got some Earth-pointing crop-sensing satellites - might some of those have a dual mission?

Nate
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
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