journey 08 - uri geller and de broglie waves

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    Journey 08 - URI GELLER AND DE BROGLIE WAVES

    Uri Geller is the world's greatest living paranormalist.

    "Paranormalist" is the term he prefers, not one I would have chosen. He is most famous for bending

    spoons or keys, usually by lightly stroking them, or starting old clocks or watches. Sometimes heonly has to hold his hand over them. Sometimes keys and spoons nearby will spontaneously bendand curl. Sometimes they will keep on bending and curling after he has left the room. Bendingmetal and starting watches are examples of the "Geller Effect." When he does this on the radio or TV he asks that people at home get out old cutlery and make them bend in the same way. He alsoencourages them to get out old watches and start them by the Geller effect. Thousands are able todo so. Some of them are still able to do it months or years later. I shall dub this the "second Geller effect."

    No one has ever been able to explain the Geller effect, but I intend to do so, mostly in terms of 20thCentury physics. The mind-brain information and control interaction takes place because of de

    Broglie waves. All physical and chemical phenomena on the atomic and molecular scale are alsodue to the de Broglie wave of every particle, including those particles like photons that behave likewaves. All wave-like effects of particles are due to the de Broglie wave because it has positive andnegative interference, resonances, radiation, reflection and all other wave phenomena. The deBroglie wave is an information wave, determining the possible behavior of its associated particle,and the probability of each possibility. The greater the intensity of the de Broglie wave at some

    point, the more likely the particle will be there.

    The ability to make clocks run relates to spoon bending. Both are de Broglie effects, produced bythe human aura, especially the aura around the hands. An old-fashioned wind up clock (which wasthe usual thing in the 1970s) will quit running if the internal friction is greater than the force

    produced by the spring. Stick and slip friction is in turn a de Broglie phenomenon on the twosurfaces that are sliding past each other. There is a certain probability that they will stick and acertain probability that they will slip. Uri Geller and all the people who can do the "Geller effect"can push the probabilities towards slip and away from stick. It will sometimes happen that a watchor clock that was running will cease to run. Indeed, Uri Geller has twice stopped the Big Ben clock in London (Big Ben is the name of the bell). Therefore, we can push the probabilities either way,towards slip or towards stick.

    This is very similar to what happens in spoon bending. If we look at the structure of an alloy under high magnification, we see that it is a collection of small domains of different kinds of atoms, heldin place by stick and slip friction. In metals that allow the domains to slip, bending is possible, as ina springy kind of steel. If stick dominates, bending is not possible, except with great force that may

    break the spoon or key instead of bending it. The aura around Uri Geller's hands can push the probabilities towards stick or slip. If we make one side of the key or spoon slip (where the tinydomains can slip past each other), they tend to flow together into a more orderly state. Thiscontraction of one side of the key or spoon causes it to curl up. Uri can hold a spoon and allow theslip to go right through the spoon or key and this will allow gravity alone to make it bend or break.

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    It may seem odd that the aura knows how to produce exactly the right quantum state for the phenomenon wished for by the conscious mind. The mind does this all the time. We control our brains in an entirely unconscious fashion. The mind consciously wishes something to happen andunconscious levels of the mind produce the right quantum state for it to happen.

    Sports provide examples of the second Geller effect. There are many things we could do, if weonly knew that they were possible. How do we know that it is possible? By seeing someone do it. Here's an analogy. I was a track "star" at the small college I attended in the late 1950s and early1960s. This was also the time when people were trying to break the 4 minute mile. However, noone could do it. Athletes were afraid it was beyond the physiological capabilities of the human

    body. It seemed an insuperable barrier for decades, until Roger Bannister (if memory serves) did it.Immediately, the other world class mile runners also broke the barrier. They merely needed to knowthat it was possible. The only thing that was keeping them from doing it was a mental block,thinking that it was beyond the physiological capabilities of mankind.

    Some of Uri Geller's books are on-line at www.uri-geller.com or you can search with Google. Icannot quote page after page of it here because of copyright restrictions. At least his first book, URIGELLER: MY STORY is available on-line and you can buy it on-line. This book is only the first

    part of his biography, written when he was 25 and published in 1975. I shall make references to itthis way: (Geller, 1975, p. 29), as I do with all references. The name refers you to the bibliography.If that author has more than one book in the bibliography, I also include the publication date. Oneof the beautiful things about the Web is that it is now easy to find books and ideas and letters thatwere once inaccessible. Just use your browser to Google for it.

    Both the Stanford Research Institute and Professor John Taylor, a mathematician at King's Collegeat the University of London thoroughly checked and verified Uri Geller's abilities. Very little of thiswas ever published. The SRI published nothing about the "Geller Effect" and so far as I candetermine, neither did John Taylor. This reminds me of the reception of D. D. Home in the 19thCentury. He demonstrated levitation, including levitating himself, before all the crowned Heads of Europe, as well as all the famous scientists of the time. Yet, this had no lasting effect on thereductionist materialism that is the chief article of faith in the religion of the scientists.

    There is another very interesting Geller Effect (Geller, 1975, p. 29). He can take pictures of himself through a solid black lens cover without removing or touching the lens cap. This was during hisfirst visit to the US. An English reporter from one of the London papers named Roy Stockdill wentwith him. At the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, Uri shot three rolls of film, holding the camera atarm's length, pointing it at his face. When they got back to London the films were developed. Twoof the rolls were blank, but in the middle of the third roll, there were two pictures of Uri, perfectlyclear, and reproduced in his first auto-biography. (Geller, 1975, before p. 161). This is due to aquantum effect called tunneling. If the de Broglie wave for a particle exists on both sides of a

    barrier, that particle will sometimes be on one side and sometimes on the other, without ever passing through the barrier. This may be hard to believe, but it is a well-known quantum effect.Suppose that there is clear sailing for the photons bouncing off Uri and the background to the film,except for the lens cap. Uri's aura succeeded in making the probability of those photons continuingon the other side of the lens cap non-zero. Indeed, he was able to push the probability high enough

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    so that some photons actually did get through on two pictures, enough to show on this high-speed black and white film. It would be interesting to know if the other pictures on the three rolls weregenuinely blank or merely very faint.

    After 1975, Uri Geller seemed to vanish from the American scene, and I always wondered what he

    was up to. The answer, at least up to 1986, is in THE GELLER EFFECT, by Geller and Playfair.TIME MAGAZINE and THE NEW SCIENTIST had published lying, scathing and scurrilousattacks on Geller by quoting illusionists and ignoring the things that millions of people had seen.After that, Geller learned to be wary about the media. He also learned to quit being a guinea pig for the scientists, especially after Prof. John Taylor became a turncoat traitor and lied about what hehad seen. NATURE and THE NEW YORK TIMES had favorable things to say, based on the littlethat the SRI published. That is the trouble. They published only Uri's most trivial of talents, andones shared by many psychics. That was just the tip of the Uri Geller iceberg. What follows is alittle about Uri's life after the disillusionment with the press and with the scientists.

    Although Uri lived part of each year in New York City, he avoided the limelight. He spent much of

    each year in Mexico, where he became friendly with the ruling class. He also spent time in Europeand Israel. Mostly, he moved up several notches in the social ladder, so he was now working withthe Presidents of countries and of companies. He was making himself rich, not through anyillegitimate use of his powers, but by helping people who were prepared to pay. He found that hewas good at finding things, whether it was a kidnapped person or gold and oil deposits. He and afriend in Israel invented and marketed a number of useful devices, such as an electrical pen thatdistinguished diamonds from any fake. He spent some time working with the CIA and some timeworking with the FBI. Uri was very busy. His powers are undiminished, but he uses them moreselectively. Like many celebrities, he discovered that fame itself is unpleasant. Unlike show

    business celebrities or politicians, Uri does not need fame to help people or to make a good living.

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