Defying Gravity: The Biefld-Brown Effect -
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Published on: 1/16/2007
Last Visited: 11/11/2007
Dr. Paul Alfred Biefeld was appointed the first director of the new Swazey Observatory at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, when it opened in 1911, and simultaneously assumed the post of Chairman of the University's equally new Department of Astronomy.Prior to his arrival in Granville, Biefeld had received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1894 and - following the trail of Robert Millikan and other Americans to Europe - went to Switzerland and received his doctorate from the Polytechnic University in Zurich in 1900.
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Whenever the name of Paul Biefeld finds its way into publication, it is invariably accompanied by phrases like "colleague of Albert Einstein," or "classmate of Albert Einstein."However, it is not clear that the two had anything more than the sort passing acquaintance that any two individuals who attended the same large university at roughly the same time might have had.
Einstein failed his first entrance examination for the Zurich Polytechnic Institute in 1894, was finally admitted in 1896, and graduated as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics in 1900 - the same year that Biefeld earned his doctorate.Dr. Biefeld remained at the Polytechnic Institute as a professor from the time he received his degree until 1906, while Einstein left academia and found work as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern - where he ultimately became the most famous patent clerk in the history of the profession.So, while it appears that both Biefeld and Einstein were in Zurich during roughly the same period at the end of the 1890s, they were enrolled in entirely different programs - Einstein at the undergraduate level and Biefeld in the doctoral program.It thus seems unlikely that they actually attended any classes together.
Nevertheless, in a 1941 newspaper article, the 74-year-old Biefeld claimed first-hand recollections of his by-then infinitely more famous classmate."Yes," Biefeld told the Denison campus newspaper, "when Einstein would forget to go to a class, he would come and borrow my notes to get caught up on what he had missed.He was rather careless in his appearance, and made no show of himself.Yet he had strong ideas and wasn't afraid to speak them out."
The only other thing that Einstein and Biefeld had in common was music: they both played the violin.
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About his relationship with Biefeld, Brown wrote some years later,
Dr. Biefeld had been interested in the subject of gravitation for many years.This interest probably coincided with [Einstein's] interest in the "Unified Field Theory" and in the new concept of "Relativity" which was gaining recognition at that time.Biefeld believed in the possibility of some connection with gravitation.As he expressed it - "I am constantly on the 'look-out' for something that might represent an 'electrodynamic-gravitational' coupling. "
If the account is accurate, then Brown seems to be saying that Paul Biefeld was not only thinking along similar lines, but looking for the same sort physical demonstration of such a coupling, the sort of "practical invention" that would demonstrate a link between electricity and gravity.
According to Brown the pivotal exchange, took place when Brown asked Biefeld, "If a coupling did exist, what (physical) instrumentality might it resemble?"Biefeld "thought for a few minutes and then answered without equivocation, "the capacitor."
A capacitor is one of the most basic of electrical components, along with resistors, transistors, diodes, etc.A capacitor is an electrical device that is capable of storing and discharging electrical energy.It typically consists of two charged metal plates - the electrodes - that are separated by an insulating substance called a "dielectric" which cause the electrodes to absorb their charge without actually conducting it between them.A typical electrical circuit will have anywhere from one to hundreds of capacitors, each capable storing a different level of voltage and current and discharging that current according to the requirements of the circuit.
So, by Brown's account, it was Biefeld who first suggested that the "mechanism" for the transmission of gravitation might resemble the common capacitor.But in point of fact, Brown already knew that was the answer.He had observed as much in his Coolidge tube, which, with it's asymmetrical electrodes, actually acted as precisely the kind of capacitor Biefeld was supposedly proposing.
But the question and answer served their purpose: By posing the question to Biefeld and getting the answer he anticipated, Brown had found for himself precisely the ally he was looking for.
This is really as much as anybody knows about the relationship between Paul Biefeld and Townsend Brown that has been immortalized in the naming of the basic electrical effect that Brown discovered in his Coolidge tube.
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And because of his association with Biefeld in the mid-to-late 1920s, the effect has come to be known as the "Biefeld Brown Effect" though the first recorded instance of that terminology is lost to posterity.