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The publication of our verification of the Reich-Einstein experiment was recognized by Gene as being of paramount importance and totally unique in more than five decades of its neglect by the disciples of Reich and then self-styled Reichians. Here was evidence of a simple physical phenomenon which had no explanation in the framework of existing physics and which W. Reich discovered and had presented to A. Einstein. Einstein confirmed it and then proceeded to do a poor job of experimentally debunking it. Yet, the phenomenon is real. The needed controls, however, had not been performed until our own experimental verification, which Gene promptly tested on his own and later published in IE#41. So, when he published our report in IE#37, he immediately drew the parallel between the thermal anomaly discovered by Reich and the thermal anomaly reported by cold fusion experimentalists and what happened to its verification - not only because both experimental anomalies targeted, in effect, existing physical and thermodynamic theory, but also because both had become the object of a systematic suppression and wilful negligence. There was now, in Gene's mind, a precedent to what had happened to the cold fusion field - in the way that Einstein refused to pursue the matter of the Reich-Einstein experiment. And Gene perceived the full import of our commentary on that experiment: that at the very least, Einstein's attitude was unscientific.

So, in the same issue (#37, 2001) entitled "The mysteries and myths of heat" (whose cover quoted Einstein's statement of admiration towards Reich's findings ("...like a bombshell in physics"), Gene published our epoch-making report on the reproduction of the Reich-Einstein experiment, as well as an Editorial (on page 6) entitled precisely "A Bombshell in Science", in which he wrote:

In January 1941, Austrian physician Wilhelm Reich. a former associate of Sigmund Freud who was then living in the United States as a refugee from Nazi tyranny, brought to the attention of Albert Einstein a profound thermal anomaly: a significant elevation of temperature (average 0.5°C, peak near 2°C, more in other experiments) above the top of a metal box (a Faraday cage). The temperature was higher than that registered by a freely-suspended thermometer in nearby air. In the course of his researches, Reich had measured this anomaly repeatedly with accurate mercury thermometers. To Einstein's credit, he gave Reich a long audience (over four hours), and later measured and verified the thermal anomaly himself on apparatus provided by Reich within a few weeks.

Unfortunately for Einstein and tragic for the world, on the advice of his assistant Leopold Infeld, Einstein very prematurely dismissed the thermal anomaly as a triviality caused by air currents being shielded by a wooden table. He rejected all further communication from Reich about the experiment. As it turns out, that thermal anomaly is real and important, as many investigators have subsequently found. (In preliminary experiments, with some astonishment, I have observed the phenomenon myself.) And, it is associated with electrical anomalies that are relatively easy to measure with standard gold-foil electroscopes placed in such Faraday cages. Taken together, these anomalies offered dramatic insight into a whole new conception of physics - and most likely much else in science, from astrophysics to biology, medicine and meteorology - based on the preponderance of evidence I have recently examined from many sources. Einstein had told Reich that if the thermal anomaly was real and significant, it would be like a "bombshell" in physics. He was right about that, albeit the bomb had to wait many decades to go off. It is 2001: The explosion has just begun...

Beginning on page 12 we present what I believe to be one of the most important technical papers ever to grace this magazine. Dr. Paulo Correa and Alexandra Correa, whose work with patented, over- unity Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge (PAGD) electricity-generating reactors we have previously covered (beginning with IE No. 7 in 1996), have re-examined the thermal anomaly experiment which Wilhelm Reich brought to Albert Einstein in 1941. They have re-done the Reich-Einstein experiment in the most disadvantageous way for Reich (far higher temperature differences - on the order of 10° to 20°C or more - are achievable, they say, by optimizing specially fabricated Faraday cages with multiple layers of dielectric material and steel wool). Still the anomaly persists. They prove conclusively, to the satisfaction of this editor, that this thermal anomaly is real, with extremely high statistical confidence. Others have confirmed this anomaly in working with what Reich called "orgone accumulators" or ORACs, as they have come to be known, but this is the creme-de-la-creme of scientific replications.

Dear Alexandra and Paulo,

(...)
> Your 'testimonial' was superb. No. Not too long at all. We all liked
> it very, very much - the composition, the flow and the structure. You
> were inspired!

I am relieved and happy! (...)

> On your response to G. Harris - we think you could done have done a
> little better, since the question is whether, once equilibrium is
> established over a thermally conductive surface, there is anything in
> thermodynamics that suggests that the net balance of all oscillations
> should be positive, day in and day out.

Yes, I should have added such a point.

> Neither Infeld or Einstein
> would have overlooked this. However, our sympathy for your difficult
> position as an editor is very great indeed. There, we think you did
> your very best.

Thank you! Oh, it is tough being in my position.
(...)
By the way, perhaps a rather far-fetched Idea, but I think it would be workable: I would bet dollars to donuts that Sir Arthur C. Clarke would put you up in a facility near his FOR FREE, near his place in Sri Lanka. The unsettled politics of that country would mitigate against it, but it is a lovely place, I understand. The right physical climate, but the wrong political one. On the other hand, it may be worth considering? You could not have a better advocate or potential funder (of some smaller level) than Clarke.

He sent me a nice note regarding #37. I'll forward it to you.

>
> Warmest regards
>
> Alexandra & Paulo

All good wishes,

Gene

A year later, when Gene posted his Appreciation of our work to Vortex, the issue of the Reich-Einstein experiment resurfaced, together with Gene's Editorial in IE#41 where he reported his own verification. We have already seen above in Gene's June 2, 2002 email, what Gene thought Vortexians should do - reproduce our verification of that experiment with the same controls and stringency: "think experiment!", he told them. Two days later Gene could not contain himself - he wondered whether there was anybody out there who cared to hear, understand and even reproduce properly such a simple experiment. So he launched his torpedoes with a rebuttal of Jed Rothwell's ridiculous allegations and assertions on Vortex:

[snip]
Stirring up the air in the room is most certainly not part of the experiment. The experiment described by the Correas does not involve a person wandering around in a small room. The point of the experiment is to note what happens to delta-T during quiescent conditions. Therefore, your observations are not relevant to the experiment. Anyone observing such an experiment at say 30 minute intervals will absolutely NOT see the kind of variations you observed while moving around in a high-ceiling garage or a home room in Georgia. Furthermore, so as not to allow this red herring to be taken out of context by the uninitiated, this experiment was intended by the Correas primarily to reconstruct the particular happenings of early 1941 at Einstein's residence and how they were then mis-interpreted, which they most certainly were. (I'd bet quite a lot that almost no one but myself on this forum has had the curiosity to read the 100 pages of technical correspondence between Reich, Einstein, and Einstein's associates.) The Reich-Einstein experiment is thus a severe limiting case of much more provocative thermal experiments connected with ORACs -- indoor and out, which the Correas report.

[snip]
> I observed fairly persistent variations at locations no more than a meter
> apart, vertically or horizontally, at all levels. When I say "fairly
> persistent" I mean they kept reappearing, but at any given reading they
> might not be present. I assume that is because I was stirring up the air by
> entering and leaving the room, and sometimes it took more than 5 minutes to
> recover.

Yes, that is precisely what happens when one enters and leaves a room, but this is not the protocol of the experiment.

>
> This was in my house and at the Perkins-Pope test facility, which are both
> particularly drafty and ill-suited for such studies. I observed ~2 deg C
> temperature differences, which were obviously caused by convection
> currents, drafts, and so on. Heat would move in or go out of the room, no
> matter how quiescent I tried to make it. If I observed 2 deg C noise, it is
> not unreasonable that in a much quieter, better suited room a person might
> see 0.6 deg C variations. I would be amazed if you could reduce these
> variations lower than that in any ordinary room.

Well, be amazed... The variations are NO WHERE NEAR WHAT YOU REPORT, period. Movement of even 0.1 C in the the temperatures takes more time, as does especially *delta-T*. It does not occur as random fluctuations. It is very easy to verify that with the actual equipment that I described. Thus, delta-T measurements as a function of time during the day are of great interest. Note well, there were no negative differentials, even in the limited part of the experiment that I reported. Interesting, and important to note.

[snip]
> The Wright's observations of the effects of furniture and human bodies on
> flowing air in a room indicate the persistence of effects caused by solid
> objects on air currents. You must an airflow in a room. The airflow is
> always large enough to be detected easily, with smoke, soap bubbles etc. It
> is impossible to stop air currents, except by moving the room to
> interstellar space and holding it close to absolute zero.

Bah! Either do experiments or stop speculating this way...

[snip]
> I said this experiment as performed is "unconvincing." I did not say it is
> bunk and should be dismissed.

You used some pretty harsh words against the Correas -- possible "liars, insane, etc." -- so why should anyone think that you have any genuine interest in these experiments except to exhibit your supposed knowledge of air currents?

> There are enough unknowns and unsatisfactory
> aspects to make it unconvincing. Some sort of null with a block of wood, a
> pillow or what-have-you would help, but as I said persistent variations
> occur even in the absence of objects, presumably caused by such things as
> hot water pipes in the walls. My guess is the only way to make this
> experiment more convincing would be to either boost the temperature
> difference to something like 6 deg C (~3 sigma in my house), or put the
> whole thing in some sort of calorimeter. Unfortunately the calorimeter
> might interfere with the putative effect, since I presume most calorimeters
> act as Faraday cages.

The entire array of experiments in AS2-05 suffices to deal with these matters.

> Proving or disproving the existence of this effect is a tough problem.

Yes, it requires much experimentation, which AS2-05 reports.

[snip]
>> The items -- the free air suspended thermometer and the Faraday cage
>> should be in relatively close proximity -- whether 1 or 2 feet separate
>> did not make much of a difference, in a few spot checks. However, the
>> Correas did more extensive controls and tests than I did. [In issue #37]
>
> And WAY better controlled that the tests I did, which is probably why the
> Delta-T temperatures he observed in adjacent locations were much smaller
> than the ones I observed. They seem to correlate with the box materials, as
> Reich suggested, but I do not the results are as clear cut and
> "irreducible" as Correa thinks. More control experiments and a much bigger
> effect with a proper calorimeter instead of guesswork and supposition would
> be more convincing.

AS2-05 is not guesswork and supposition. It is an attempt to localize the source of the heat evolution.

[snip]
> The cold fusion "skeptics" never perform experiments or refer
> to them, whereas I always do.

Yeah, but just be sure to do the right one...

More than a year later, Gene still persisted in unmasking the errors and the malice of Jed Rothwell - the leader of the Vortex pack of hyenas - unceasingly correcting the record, even in the matter of the simple Reich-Einstein experiment. What great patience, dear friend!

(...)
[Jed Rothwell:]
> I listed a number of technical errors in the Correa's experiments in this
> forum, such as the fact that they never ran a blank in their "Orgone
> energy" experiment,

There is no such thing as "their Orgone energy" experiment. There are numerous experiments by the Correas in the field of measurement of aether energy, and discussions of its relation to what Reich called Orgone energy. You have read nothing and understood nothing -- like Mr. Kooistra (who was badly slapped down), as his ignorance about "RF" effects on the Faraday cage showed. This was the subject of published letters by me and the Correas in Analog, to deal with that particular slander. (...)

Correction: You have tried to read the Correa work (in IE), gave up, and then decided that you could be an adequate commentator about their work. That is your supposed forte. Then, knowing or not knowing what you don't know about their work, you had no trouble slandering them and those who take the time to read their work -- many more people than yours truly, I might add. You further convey this slander to others -- whenever you have the chance and think no one is listening. This is becoming quite common and offensive. Just this week some new furtive remarks of yours came to light.

> and they exposed the other experiment to direct
> sunlight without measuring the sunlight.

This is such hollow posturing it hardly merits comment. The "sunlight" that you speak of is the subject of elaborate series of control experiments discussed in the Correa monographs and referenced in some of the papers published by Infinite Energy. In any event, the Correas now have a Stirling/Hyborac configuration that has run round-the-clock for over two days continuously -- i.e. through two nights and two daylight periods. It could have continued indefinitely -- local aether conditions permitting. The earlier one only went some 7-hours after sun-down. The new experiments will be the subject of a new DVD that is in preparation by them. I have also worked in parallel with them to measure the mechanical power output by several different methods, as they had already done. The experiment confirms the general claims of the Correas that the Sun (and, by inference, all stars) is a source of mass-free ambipolar radiation (Tesla radiation). Faraday cages have a "draw" for this energy -- that is quite evident from the corpus of their work. Of course the Reich-Einstein experiment shows the beginning of understanding that, quite clearly, for those who take the time to perform it in a closed, darkened room with precision calibrated mercury thermometers -- rather than pontificating about RF and multi-degree variations of cheap alcohol thermometers in a drafty garage. You made utterly absurd comparisons about thermometers in drafty rooms and the like, which have no relevance to that experiment. And your cheer- leading section in this forum nodded in approval -- or worse, knew its over-the-line nature and were silent. This reminds me of the early days of cold fusion when Nate Lewis of Caltech pontificated about the supposedly thermally non-stratified cells he said he was using and compared them to what P&F were using. It's the same brand of reckless, venom-inspired ignorance. (...)

Somehow Gene was never deterred. He had an impeccable fighting spirit. It would appear that the hope could only lie with the youth - in teaching them from early on to think differently. Even a year after these events he would still be carrying on with the struggle, making us the gift whenever he could:

Dear Alex and Paulo,

Welcome back from your travels! (...)

I am about to give an invited lecture this afternoon at Concord High School to the Science Club -- under the watchful eyes of the Chemistry teacher :) That won't stop me from purveying my heretic wares...I'll probably mention the Reich-Einstein experiment after I get done reviewing the CF/LENR history and status.

Unbelievable, hm? Reach the children, teach them well, under the watchful eyes of their teachers. Because, without the hope of youth, without a promising youth, we're bound to fall even deeper into the foggy night where all cows are grey.

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