Accutron Inertial Field Detector

ufology

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ufology
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I've been trying to figure out if Hoagland's "inertial field detector" is a gimmick or what, but from what I can tell, there could very well be something to it. This isn't to say that all the Hoagland's hypotheses and theories that have sprung up surrounding it are true, but to start with, this instrument isn't something Hoagland invented. It was invented by physicist Bruce DePalma. But I haven't been able to find anything definitive that explains why it works the way that it does, but it does seem to register changes that manifest themselves as a discrepancy in time between the Accutron and the computer that does the analyzing. It also seems true that when it is placed near spinning masses the readings do change, and it is this phenomenon that has led Hoagland to link it to Torsion Field Theory.

Without going into detail on the various incarnations of Torsion Field Theory ( TFT ), they all seem to referring to the idea that there is a sort of "fabric" to space that is affected by the presence of mass. We sometimes see this idea illustrated ( as an analogy ) by placing a ball on a rubber sheet upon which some kind of grid has been drawn, or by some similar 3D rendering where planets are caught in something that looks like a net, but which is meant to illustrate the bending of space itself. Inertial Field Theory suggests that in the presence of mass, this space grid doesn't simply dent inward but also that when the mass is spinning, it drags space around with it a small amount resulting in a sort of elastic compression of the fabric of space. The compression patterns are sometimes called a "torsion field" and are envisioned as waves or ripples that move out away from the object in a spiral like manner.

This brings me to my question. What makes this device work the way it does? So far I've found no conventional scientific explanation, but if anyone has an explanation, please let me know, and in the meantime I'll keep rummaging around for more information. In the context of Inertial Field Theory, it seems that what's being implied is that changes in the density of space cause changes in the mass ( and consequently the intertia ) of the metal that composes the tuning forks in the Accutron, resulting in a change in the rate of vibration, and in turn the measurement of time. Right now I'm still trying to wrap my head around this concept. Something about it doesn't seem exactly right, but the variables aren't easy for me to visualize because it isn't just mass alone. This hypothetical space density variable should affect not only the mass of the tuning fork, but also its tensile properties. In other words, if the mass becomes denser and therefore heavier and consequently slower to vibrate, should not the density also amplify the tensile properties ( the springiness of the metal ) thereby compensating and resulting in no change? Perhaps the two properties aren't perfectly synchronous with each other. I don't know. If anyone can help me figure this out please post up!
 
How interesting. Googling "Accutron Inertial Field Detector" reveals this very thread as the first entry. Never a good sign.

So I Google "Torsion Field" and in the Wikipedia entry, titled "Torsion Field (pseudoscience)" we find:


Despite the fact that several contradictions have been identified in the basic postulates of these theories (as have several statements that are considered nonsensical by mainstream science), torsion field theory has been embraced by some as the scientific explanation of homeopathy, telepathy, telekinesis, levitation, clairvoyance, ESP, and other paranormal phenomena. The harnessing of torsion fields has been claimed to make everything possible from miracle cure devices (including devices that cure alcohol addiction) to working perpetual motion machines, stargates, UFO propulsion analogs, and weapons of mass destruction( WMDs).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_field_(pseudoscience)​


Why am I not surprised?
 
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The first question that popped into my mind was "what else could a device be detecting?"

Wind? Changes in light reflection? Static charge caused by motion? The latter gets my vote.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
"Never a good sign": Hoagland claiming anything scientific. :p
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I tend to agree. But like I said, the device was actually invented ( apparently ) by a physicist named DePalma, and so far, it seems to register these odd changes. What are they exactly? I don't know. I find it kind of intriguing and I'd like to see a real scientific evaluation from a respected lab. If anyone runs across such a thing, please post it up!
 
casebro said:
The first question that popped into my mind was "what else could a device be detecting?"

Wind? Changes in light reflection? Static charge caused by motion? The latter gets my vote.
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Interesting speculation. The Accutron is designed to a tolerance ( according to Bulova ) of +- 2 seconds per day. What aspect of its engineering would fail to cause these significant anomalous readings under repeatable conditions?
 
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Could you provide a link that explains WHAT an Accutron inertial field detector is? I'm a watchmaker, and have actually WORKED on genuine Bulova Accutrons and their related brethren (like Swissonic). Are they actually using an Accutron movement as part of some new-agey-type detector? I'd like to know the specifics. Then, I might be able to shed some insight on what's going on, or at least have a more informed opinion.

Beanbag
 
I'm somewhat confused.

We're talking about one of these, right?

And this 1970s electric watch is supposed to display some anomolous physical effect? Can you let us into what that might be?
 
Beanbag said:
Could you provide a link that explains WHAT an Accutron inertial field detector is? I'm a watchmaker, and have actually WORKED on genuine Bulova Accutrons and their related brethren (like Swissonic). Are they actually using an Accutron movement as part of some new-agey-type detector? I'd like to know the specifics. Then, I might be able to shed some insight on what's going on, or at least have a more informed opinion.
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Sure, but it gets convoluted. My first post is a quick introduction that explains what we're trying to establish. In a sentence, the claim is that when the the watch is placed near a massive spinning object the tuning forks in an Accutron watch are affected by an unknown force called an inertial field, and that this phenomenon might be used to measure larger scale but similar effects during things like planetary alignments or eclipses. What we are trying to establish first of all is whether the phenomenon is real. At this point we're not interested in examining Hoagland's other claims associated with his use of the device. Hoagland and DePalma's explanations can be found here:
What we could use is some verification about the software that Hoagland says is used to work on the Accutrons. Have a look at the screen shots of the chart readouts. Have you seen anything similar and do you have any composite screen shots of a readout that identifies aberrations over the course of say 10 or 15 minutes that could give us an idea what the baseline looks like for an Accutron?
 
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Hoagland claims that he is measuring Torsion Field effects in the fact that the frequency of the tuning fork changes (because the mass of the tuning fork changes) during specific astronomical alignments and at certain geographic locations. The problem is that Hoagland has never published any data (only screen captures of graphs on a laptop), and has never done any base line measurements.

A few months back, he solicited his followers on Face Book to donate funds for a possible trip to Egypt, where he could do his measurements at the Pyramids at Giza during the Venus transit. As things turned out, he never got further than a local restaurant to make his "readings". He's been rather silent since then.
 
Chris L said:
Hoagland claims that he is measuring Torsion Field effects in the fact that the frequency of the tuning fork changes (because the mass of the tuning fork changes) during specific astronomical alignments and at certain geographic locations. The problem is that Hoagland has never published any data (only screen captures of graphs on a laptop), and has never done any base line measurements.

A few months back, he solicited his followers on Face Book to donate funds for a possible trip to Egypt, where he could do his measurements at the Pyramids at Giza during the Venus transit. As things turned out, he never got further than a local restaurant to make his "readings". He's been rather silent since then.
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Yes I've heard these things, and we can set aside Hoagland's fund raising efforts as they aren't relevant to the issue. Regarding the baseline for the device, lets just call it an Inertial Field Detector ( IFD ) for the sake of convenience, if you look at the way the IFD is setup, there are two timekeeping mechanisms in play, one inside the Accutron and another in the computer. According to Bulova, the Accutron watch itself is built to specifications of +- 2 seconds per day, which is as accurate than most quartz clocks, including those inside most PCs. I haven't found any extended time chart for the Accutron watch itself, however that doesn't mean there is no baseline because each session produces a new baseline at the start.

Specifically, if I understand what's going on correctly, the tuning fork in the Accutron vibrates at 360 Hz ( 360 times per second ), so it doesn't take very long to establish a baseline at the start of each session. In just 60 seconds you've got over 21,000 samples and the software automatically detects and records deviations from that baseline which are clearly visible in the charts. What we don't know is the cause of the deviations. The theory is that the PC's clock isn't affected by the inertial field the same way as the Accutron, and experiments independent of Hoagland's allegedly indicate that in the presence of a nearby spinning mass, the Accutron is somehow affected by some unknown force that manifests itself as an irregularity in the Accutron's timekeeping.

Original experiments were done with a Westclox unit as the secondary timekeeping mechanism. However, the clock in a PC ( when running ) is very accurate ( more accurate than when they are shut down ) and are capable of ultra precise measurements. So I don't see much of a problem yet with the PC setup, although I agree that a longer plot of the Accutron in a supposedly neutral environment would add more evidence to consider.
 
A few comments -

1) DePalma's experiment which claimed a 0.9 second discrepancy is hard to accept. Exactly how does one determine that two second hands are offset by 0.9 seconds?

2) DePalma's experimental setup, with a steel shaft poking up under an electric clock, looks like a great way to inadvertantly produce a magnetic field which interferes with the clock motor. I note that DePalma does not compare the two timepieces to a third, reference clock, or to a time signal such as WWV, which was availiable.

3) Until I see a detailed description of exactly how Hoagland imports the Accutron signal into the PC, his screen shot is worthless.

4) And finally, just to muddy the waters, quartz resonators can be used for inertial sensing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrating_structure_gyroscope
 
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ufology said:
Yes I've heard these things, and we can set aside Hoagland's fund raising efforts as they aren't relevant to the issue. Regarding the baseline for the device, lets just call it an Inertial Field Detector ( IFD ) for the sake of convenience, if you look at the way the IFD is setup, there are two timekeeping mechanisms in play, one inside the Accutron and another in the computer. According to Bulova, the Accutron watch itself is built to specifications of +- 2 seconds per day, which is as accurate than most quartz clocks, including those inside most PCs. I haven't found any extended time chart for the Accutron watch itself, however that doesn't mean there is no baseline because each session produces a new baseline at the start.

Specifically, if I understand what's going on correctly, the tuning fork in the Accutron vibrates at 360 Hz ( 360 times per second ), so it doesn't take very long to establish a baseline at the start of each session. In just 60 seconds you've got over 21,000 samples and the software automatically detects and records deviations from that baseline which are clearly visible in the charts. What we don't know is the cause of the deviations. The theory is that the PC's clock isn't affected by the inertial field the same way as the Accutron, and experiments independent of Hoagland's allegedly indicate that in the presence of a nearby spinning mass, the Accutron is somehow affected by some unknown force that manifests itself as an irregularity in the Accutron's timekeeping.

Original experiments were done with a Westclox unit as the secondary timekeeping mechanism. However, the clock in a PC ( when running ) is very accurate ( more accurate than when they are shut down ) and are capable of ultra precise measurements. So I don't see much of a problem yet with the PC setup, although I agree that a longer plot of the Accutron in a supposedly neutral environment would add more evidence to consider.
Click to expand...

The problem is that we have no way of knowing if Hoagland is measuring anything. A screenshot is not data. You can produce a graph that looks very much like Hoagland's without connecting it to any kind of watch or traveling anywhere beyond your living room couch.
 
abaddon said:
This Bruce DePalma?
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He claims to be "Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....", but a search of the alumni database at the Infinite Connection shows nobody named Bruce DePalma has an MIT degree of any sort.
 
paiute said:
He claims to be "Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....", but a search of the alumni database at the Infinite Connection shows nobody named Bruce DePalma has an MIT degree of any sort.
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From the link:

The turning point in DePalma’s scientific career came while he was a lecturer at M.I.T., in the late 1960′s when he began pondering the inadequacies of physical explanations regarding the gyroscope. Were there deeper principles operating in the behavior of rotating objects?
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And


At this time DePalma was a senior scientist specializing in photographic sciences with the Polaroid Land Corporation and lecturing part time at M.I.T. His expertise ranged from high speed stroboscopic photography, his mentor was the highly regarded Dr. Harold Edgerton, to Physics and Electrical Engineering.
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So I'm guessing educated at MIT doesn't mean graduated from MIT.
 
tsig said:
So I'm guessing educated at MIT doesn't mean graduated from MIT.
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Within the "DePalma's Inertial Field Experiment" link in post #10, you will find the address http://depalma.pair.com/Absurdity/Absurdity09/NatureOfElectricalInduction.html. Within this paper, DePalma claims
In my early schooling (M.I.T. class of 1958)
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. This makes him at least 70, so I wonder whose picture that is at http://www.brucedepalma.com/.

ETA - A little more googling suggests that this is not our Bruce. According to http://www.padrak.com/ine/DEPALMA2.html, a Bruce DePalma who was trying to develop an overunity device died in 1997.
 
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ufology said:
What we could use is some verification about the software that Hoagland says is used to work on the Accutrons. Have a look at the screen shots of the chart readouts. Have you seen anything similar and do you have any composite screen shots of a readout that identifies aberrations over the course of say 10 or 15 minutes that could give us an idea what the baseline looks like for an Accutron?
Click to expand...

Actually, I have very good reason to believe that readout is fake. That doesn't look like data from a 360Hz tuning fork. Why? Let's start with the magnitudes. They're claiming that the tuning fork jumps from 360Hz to 455Hz for a period of 10 seconds? That's not "anomalous timing data", that's a leap from F# to A. If that really happened, it would be audible and readily noticed by people other than wacky crackpots carrying wacky instrumentation up pyramids.

I'm looking at the data and struggling to fit it into the mold of an actual timing experiment. This sort of measurement proceeds by counting---you wait for 1.0000 seconds, count how many times your clock has ticked, and get out an integer number. If the number is 360, you call it 360Hz. If the number is 361, you call it 361Hz. In such a system, there's no way to obtain "360.052000" Hz, which their screenshot claims as the last reading. Unless that means that you got 360 ticks, but in a measuring interval of 0.999856 seconds. That would be weird, but it's consistent with the display. OK, so if this is the case, how is it possible to have measured, for one second at 7:21:15, a value of 362.959 Hz? A number that differs from 360.052 by 2.9Hz? Not by getting 362 counts in the stated interval, nor 361, nor 363. The "anomalous" numbers cannot possibly have come from pulse-counting equipment, even if that equipment was actually varying from the claimed baseline.

A similar problem comes up from the claim of a "360.037Hz baseline" on an instrument reporting its last reading at "360.052Hz". If a real 360.037Hz signal were fed into an computer that counted pulses for 0.999856s at a time, it would not produce a flat line at 360.037Hz. It'd catch 360 counts per interval for 76 seconds, then one interval would catch only 359 counts, then another 76 seconds of 360-count intervals, etc.. This is called aliasing. There is no way for a counting experiment to produce the displayed data without showing these aliasing blips.

Is there an alternative? If you were not merely counting pulses, but interpreting pulse arrival times, you could maybe get data that looks like this; I find this hard to swallow to start with, but if it's what they're doing it's a lilke source of error; they may have some wacky rise-time-measuring routine, and such a routine is much more likely to trigger on noise (especially in inexpert hands) than a bare-bones, e.g., TTL pulse counter. Note that the "clock" only ever overcounts ("fast"), never undercounts ("slow"), which is the behavior you expect from a balky threshhold-measuring device, which may sometimes trigger on a burst of noise.
 
WhatRoughBeast said:
Within the "DePalma's Inertial Field Experiment" link in post #10, you will find the address http://depalma.pair.com/Absurdity/Absurdity09/NatureOfElectricalInduction.html. Within this paper, DePalma claims . This makes him at least 70, so I wonder whose picture that is at http://www.brucedepalma.com/.

ETA - A little more googling suggests that this is not our Bruce. According to http://www.padrak.com/ine/DEPALMA2.html, a Bruce DePalma who was trying to develop an overunity device died in 1997.
Click to expand...

Both DePalmas reference Tawari, Tawari references both DePalmas.

Looks like they are likely one and the same to me.
 
ufology said:
... Inertial Field Theory suggests that in the presence of mass, this space grid doesn't simply dent inward but also that when the mass is spinning, it drags space around with it a small amount resulting in a sort of elastic compression of the fabric of space.
Click to expand...

Sounds like gravitomagnetic frame dragging (Lense–Thirring effect) ?
 
ben m said:
Actually, I have very good reason to believe that readout is fake. That doesn't look like data from a 360Hz tuning fork. Why? Let's start with the magnitudes. They're claiming that the tuning fork jumps from 360Hz to 455Hz for a period of 10 seconds? That's not "anomalous timing data", that's a leap from F# to A. If that really happened, it would be audible and readily noticed by people other than wacky crackpots carrying wacky instrumentation up pyramids.

I'm looking at the data and struggling to fit it into the mold of an actual timing experiment. This sort of measurement proceeds by counting---you wait for 1.0000 seconds, count how many times your clock has ticked, and get out an integer number. If the number is 360, you call it 360Hz. If the number is 361, you call it 361Hz. In such a system, there's no way to obtain "360.052000" Hz, which their screenshot claims as the last reading. Unless that means that you got 360 ticks, but in a measuring interval of 0.999856 seconds. That would be weird, but it's consistent with the display. OK, so if this is the case, how is it possible to have measured, for one second at 7:21:15, a value of 362.959 Hz? A number that differs from 360.052 by 2.9Hz? Not by getting 362 counts in the stated interval, nor 361, nor 363. The "anomalous" numbers cannot possibly have come from pulse-counting equipment, even if that equipment was actually varying from the claimed baseline.

A similar problem comes up from the claim of a "360.037Hz baseline" on an instrument reporting its last reading at "360.052Hz". If a real 360.037Hz signal were fed into an computer that counted pulses for 0.999856s at a time, it would not produce a flat line at 360.037Hz. It'd catch 360 counts per interval for 76 seconds, then one interval would catch only 359 counts, then another 76 seconds of 360-count intervals, etc.. This is called aliasing. There is no way for a counting experiment to produce the displayed data without showing these aliasing blips.

Is there an alternative? If you were not merely counting pulses, but interpreting pulse arrival times, you could maybe get data that looks like this; I find this hard to swallow to start with, but if it's what they're doing it's a lilke source of error; they may have some wacky rise-time-measuring routine, and such a routine is much more likely to trigger on noise (especially in inexpert hands) than a bare-bones, e.g., TTL pulse counter. Note that the "clock" only ever overcounts ("fast"), never undercounts ("slow"), which is the behavior you expect from a balky threshhold-measuring device, which may sometimes trigger on a burst of noise.
Click to expand...

If you look closely at the screen shot, you might notice he also had Photoshop open in another window. Not everything (or anything?) on that graph was generated by measuring software.
 
ufology said:
Yes I've heard these things, and we can set aside Hoagland's fund raising efforts as they aren't relevant to the issue.
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Actually his fund raising efforts are an issue when it comes to deciding if the data he's generating is real. In the course of his fund raising, someone offered to provide much of the funding if Hoagland were willing to have the data he already generated analyzed by some independent experts the person offering the funding would provide. Hoagland's response was that he didn't want "total strangers" looking at his data, and so he declined the offer. In science, having total strangers look at your data is called peer review. If Hoagland were doing science, he'd know that.
 
dlorde said:
Sounds like gravitomagnetic frame dragging (Lense–Thirring effect) ?
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That's kind of what I'm taking away from it, but DePalma's work is older. As another poster points out, he's no longer alive. Any records of his education are therefore probably old hard copies that were stuck in some cardboard box someplace and never made it into the database. But essentially ... ya ... it seems like that's what he's talking about, or at least something really similar.
 
Chris L said:
Actually his fund raising efforts are an issue when it comes to deciding if the data he's generating is real. In the course of his fund raising, someone offered to provide much of the funding if Hoagland were willing to have the data he already generated analyzed by some independent experts the person offering the funding would provide. Hoagland's response was that he didn't want "total strangers" looking at his data, and so he declined the offer. In science, having total strangers look at your data is called peer review. If Hoagland were doing science, he'd know that.
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Sure, but let me clarify, I'm only using the information presented by Hoagland as examples to illustrate what the issue itself is, not to claim that Hoagland's claims are true. I don't care where the information comes from, the first thing we need to establish is whether or not there is some unexplained force that has the power to affect things like pendulums ( or Accutron watches ) when placed in near proximity to a spinning mass. Consider Hoagland's other claims as peripheral to this central issue. If we can first verify that the effect is real, then we can take a closer look at his and other experiments. I think you alluded to this yourself in an earlier post and I completely agree. We need some verification. I'm looking forward to the reply from our watchmaker ( Beanbag ) here or anyone else who can provide some independent scientific or objective corroboration.
 
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ufology said:
If we can first verify that the effect is real...
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Does that translate to "I want someone else to do this work that I'm interested in?", or am I misinterpreting it?

Do you have the resources to attempt to reproduce it? What resources do you see as being necessary for such an attempt?
 
BowlOfRed said:
Does that translate to "I want someone else to do this work that I'm interested in?", or am I misinterpreting it?

Do you have the resources to attempt to reproduce it? What resources do you see as being necessary for such an attempt?
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I consider the JREF to be a resource. Sometimes people here have already run across the information I'm looking for someplace. What's your problem with that? Why reinvent the wheel? And why start in on my work ethic? Do I "translate that" as some kind of subtle flame?

Do I have the resources to carry out a verification? No. If I did, I wouldn't be asking other people if they had any other information. I also doubt that at this point I'll ever have the resources. However that doesn't mean that the participants here may not have them or cannot provide further insights. Can you provide any constructive commentary?
 
ufology said:
Can you provide any constructive commentary?
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Yes. It's a load of complete bollocks promoted by a couple of crackpots, with the entire claim being based on some very poor "experiments" that may have been done with very poor equipment if they were actually done at all and not just photoshopped. Seriously, thousands of people are effectively looking at this sort of thing all the time. Accurate measurement of vibrations and frequencies is not some arcane mystery, it's absolutely vital to wide variety of different fields. The idea that someone would play around with an old watch rather than use actual scientific equipment is equal parts sad and hilarious.

We don't "need some verification". There's absolutely nothing to suggest there might be anything to verify. If you want people to waste their time seriously investigating wild claims by well known crackpots, you're going to have to provide a lot more than absolutely no evidence first.
 
ufology said:
I consider the JREF to be a resource.
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Yet you summarily reject any resource posted.
ufology said:
Sometimes people here have already run across the information I'm looking for someplace.
Click to expand...
Yet you ignore those. Why?

ufology said:
What's your problem with that?
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You ignore them. That's a problem.

ufology said:
Why reinvent the wheel?
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Why do you want to re-invent it?

ufology said:
And why start in on my work ethic?
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Well, because you require others to do the work, every time. Ergo, you have no work ethic.

ufology said:
Do I "translate that" as some kind of subtle flame?
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Yep.

ufology said:
Do I have the resources to carry out a verification? No.
Click to expand...

Yet you expect others to do so. Poop or get off the pot.


ufology said:
If I did, I wouldn't be asking other people if they had any other information.
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Yet you reject others information.

ufology said:
I also doubt that at this point I'll ever have the resources.
Click to expand...
You admit you have nothing to show for all your efforts.


ufology said:
However that doesn't mean that the participants here may not have them or cannot provide further insights. Can you provide any constructive commentary?
Click to expand...
Yet you ignore all of the construct efforts.

BTW: Why do you think posting in an odd font adds credibility to your posts?
 
ben m said:
Actually, I have very good reason to believe that readout is fake. That doesn't look like data from a 360Hz tuning fork. Why? Let's start with the magnitudes. They're claiming that the tuning fork jumps from 360Hz to 455Hz for a period of 10 seconds? That's not "anomalous timing data", that's a leap from F# to A. If that really happened, it would be audible and readily noticed by people other than wacky crackpots carrying wacky instrumentation up pyramids.

I'm looking at the data and struggling to fit it into the mold of an actual timing experiment. This sort of measurement proceeds by counting---you wait for 1.0000 seconds, count how many times your clock has ticked, and get out an integer number. If the number is 360, you call it 360Hz. If the number is 361, you call it 361Hz. In such a system, there's no way to obtain "360.052000" Hz, which their screenshot claims as the last reading. Unless that means that you got 360 ticks, but in a measuring interval of 0.999856 seconds. That would be weird, but it's consistent with the display. OK, so if this is the case, how is it possible to have measured, for one second at 7:21:15, a value of 362.959 Hz? A number that differs from 360.052 by 2.9Hz? Not by getting 362 counts in the stated interval, nor 361, nor 363. The "anomalous" numbers cannot possibly have come from pulse-counting equipment, even if that equipment was actually varying from the claimed baseline.

A similar problem comes up from the claim of a "360.037Hz baseline" on an instrument reporting its last reading at "360.052Hz". If a real 360.037Hz signal were fed into an computer that counted pulses for 0.999856s at a time, it would not produce a flat line at 360.037Hz. It'd catch 360 counts per interval for 76 seconds, then one interval would catch only 359 counts, then another 76 seconds of 360-count intervals, etc.. This is called aliasing. There is no way for a counting experiment to produce the displayed data without showing these aliasing blips.

Is there an alternative? If you were not merely counting pulses, but interpreting pulse arrival times, you could maybe get data that looks like this; I find this hard to swallow to start with, but if it's what they're doing it's a lilke source of error; they may have some wacky rise-time-measuring routine, and such a routine is much more likely to trigger on noise (especially in inexpert hands) than a bare-bones, e.g., TTL pulse counter. Note that the "clock" only ever overcounts ("fast"), never undercounts ("slow"), which is the behavior you expect from a balky threshhold-measuring device, which may sometimes trigger on a burst of noise.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I was thinking. It's impossible to get both fine grain frequency info and high time resolution without increasing noise a lot. Such a clean baseline would require particularly low noise samples from the accutron. Seems like an unlikely experimental result as described.
 
Cuddles said:
Yes. It's a load of complete bollocks promoted by a couple of crackpots, with the entire claim being based on some very poor "experiments" that may have been done with very poor equipment if they were actually done at all and not just photoshopped. Seriously, thousands of people are effectively looking at this sort of thing all the time ... bla bla bla ...
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Great ... could you please provide a link to what you think the most credible research from those "thousands of people" you mention who are working on "this sort of thing" ( Inertial Field Theory ) because we really need some non "crackpot" scientists who have actually tried the experiments themselves to tell us whether or not there is some unexplained force near massive spinning disks that could produce the effects DePalma claims occurs.
 
ufology said:
Great ... could you please provide a link to what you think the most credible research from those "thousands of people" you mention who are working on "this sort of thing" ( Inertial Field Theory ) because we really need some non "crackpot" scientists who have actually tried the experiments themselves to tell us whether or not there is some unexplained force near massive spinning disks that could produce the effects DePalma claims occurs.
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Competent scientists call them "precision gravity tests", or "fifth force searches", "equivalence principle tests", and there are indeed thousands of experiments (many with really extraordinary precision), zero of which have seen anything at all. Look up papers by Eric Adelberger to start with. And that's just the dedicated experiments ... there's also the century of casual experience with facts like, "if the biologists' ultracentrifuge is running, it does not disable/screw up every experiment in the building."

No one calls it "inertial field theory". There is no such theory, just some nonsense Hoagland made up.

Hoagland is a notorious crackpot. This is a guy who looks at JPEG compression artifacts on zoomed-in images from Apollo web pages, and interprets them as evidence of a tiny cities of an lunar civilization. When I reject his conclusions and say "I reject it because it came from Hoagland", that's as true (and more or less as scientific) as saying "I can't use these readings because the voltmeter's battery is dead." In terms of accurate reporting of error-free results, Hoagland is a broken instrument.
 
ben m said:
Actually, I have very good reason to believe that readout is fake. That doesn't look like data from a 360Hz tuning fork. Why? Let's start with the magnitudes. They're claiming that the tuning fork jumps from 360Hz to 455Hz for a period of 10 seconds? That's not "anomalous timing data", that's a leap from F# to A. If that really happened, it would be audible and readily noticed by people other than wacky crackpots carrying wacky instrumentation up pyramids.

I'm looking at the data and struggling to fit it into the mold of an actual timing experiment. This sort of measurement proceeds by counting---you wait for 1.0000 seconds, count how many times your clock has ticked, and get out an integer number. If the number is 360, you call it 360Hz. If the number is 361, you call it 361Hz. In such a system, there's no way to obtain "360.052000" Hz, which their screenshot claims as the last reading. Unless that means that you got 360 ticks, but in a measuring interval of 0.999856 seconds. That would be weird, but it's consistent with the display. OK, so if this is the case, how is it possible to have measured, for one second at 7:21:15, a value of 362.959 Hz? A number that differs from 360.052 by 2.9Hz? Not by getting 362 counts in the stated interval, nor 361, nor 363. The "anomalous" numbers cannot possibly have come from pulse-counting equipment, even if that equipment was actually varying from the claimed baseline.

A similar problem comes up from the claim of a "360.037Hz baseline" on an instrument reporting its last reading at "360.052Hz". If a real 360.037Hz signal were fed into an computer that counted pulses for 0.999856s at a time, it would not produce a flat line at 360.037Hz. It'd catch 360 counts per interval for 76 seconds, then one interval would catch only 359 counts, then another 76 seconds of 360-count intervals, etc.. This is called aliasing. There is no way for a counting experiment to produce the displayed data without showing these aliasing blips.

Is there an alternative? If you were not merely counting pulses, but interpreting pulse arrival times, you could maybe get data that looks like this; I find this hard to swallow to start with, but if it's what they're doing it's a lilke source of error; they may have some wacky rise-time-measuring routine, and such a routine is much more likely to trigger on noise (especially in inexpert hands) than a bare-bones, e.g., TTL pulse counter. Note that the "clock" only ever overcounts ("fast"), never undercounts ("slow"), which is the behavior you expect from a balky threshhold-measuring device, which may sometimes trigger on a burst of noise.
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Well Ben ... at least your actually thinking about the issue. I'll give you credit for that. On your first point. You are correct that if a tuning fork changes frequency then it should be heard as a different tone. Apparently you can even hear the tuning fork inside the Accutron if you listen very closely. I've never heard of any experiments done using a microphone to measure the audio frequency directly. Interesting idea.

When you say, "there's no way to obtain "360.052000" Hz", I would have to respectfully disagree. The vibrational rate is literally the number of times the metal in the tuning fork moves between its farthest and closest points during a 1 second interval, if those forks vibrate 360 times and a bit more ( .0520 of the distance ), you would get exactly that number. How you would measure that number is another story.

The Accutron pulses are sent to a PC and from there the software somehow compares the signal to the PC's clock ( which one exactly I don't know ). Modern PC clock rates can be in the GHz range. So the software is probably synchronized with that and then samples the Accutron pulses to determine the relative frequencies.

On the issue of "aliasing blips", I'm not sure where you are applying them in the context of how the device functions. I've looked at several articles about PC timers and clocks, but I don't see it mentioned. Perhaps you could clarify that for me?

Thanks for your constructive input!
 
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ben m said:
Competent scientists call them "precision gravity tests", or "fifth force searches", "equivalence principle tests", and there are indeed thousands of experiments (many with really extraordinary precision), zero of which have seen anything at all. Look up papers by Eric Adelberger to start with. And that's just the dedicated experiments ... there's also the century of casual experience with facts like, "if the biologists' ultracentrifuge is running, it does not disable/screw up every experiment in the building."

No one calls it "inertial field theory". There is no such theory, just some nonsense Hoagland made up.

Hoagland is a notorious crackpot. This is a guy who looks at JPEG compression artifacts on zoomed-in images from Apollo web pages, and interprets them as evidence of a tiny cities of an lunar civilization. When I reject his conclusions and say "I reject it because it came from Hoagland", that's as true (and more or less as scientific) as saying "I can't use these readings because the voltmeter's battery is dead." In terms of accurate reporting of error-free results, Hoagland is a broken instrument.
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  • Whether or not Hoagland is a crackpot isn't relevant. What we're looking for is evidence that either confirms or rejects DePalma's claims. Hoagland just happens to be someone using DePalma's device and presenting some of DePalma's findings.
  • The effects DePalma reported would not have any effect on a wide range of devices such as "every experiment in the building".
  • The name "Inertial Field Theory" is something we're using because of the examples given by DePalma and Hoagland ( we have to start somewhere ). The principles behind it supposedly go back to Einstein.
  • Ideas like what Dlored mentioned sound pretty much the same "gravitomagnetic frame dragging (Lense–Thirring effect)"
  • Also here's another thing I just ran across: Confirming Frame Dragging Effect Using Laser Ranging
Please try to remember that this is a discussion about the alleged observations of a repeatable experiment. So we should be able to dispense with Hoagland bashing and other unconstructive activities and try to focus on obtaining evidence and having a rational discussion to determine whether or not it carries any weight.
 
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As a certified horologist -- and probably the ONLY person in this forum who's actually REALLY worked on a Bulova Accutron movement -- please allow me to make a few comments.


The Bulova Accutron is a remarkable development in horology. It was a stupefying leap in wristwatch timekeeping. For once, you could wear a timepeice on your wrist that when properly maintained and adjusted could keep more accurate time than a bench or wall clock. Indeed, one of the biggest issues Bulova dealers had was when people came in claiming their Accutron wasn't keeping correct time. The typical issue was that whatever standard the owner was comparing their watch to wasn't keeping correct time. Just about every store selling Accutrons would keep a short-wave radio set to WWV so they had a reliable time standard for the client to compare their watch to.


That said, I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone attempting measurements in inertial field detection would go with an Accutron movement as part of their detection scheme. From a '60's Steampunk aspect, I admit there's a certain appeal to using such a unit, but from a standpoint of reliability, precision, and accuracy, there are MUCH better standards or references to use.


First, the Accutron is an electronically-driven MECHANICAL device. The electronics in it are extremely simple, on the order of what a ten-year-old could reliably assemble: a single transistor, a couple capacitors, several resistors, and some small wire coils. NO integrated circuits, nothing fancy, just discrete components soldered together.


The vibrating tuning fork drives the display mechanism through a ratchet-and-pawl assembly directly attached to one of the vibrating tines. This is a mechanical connection, one subject to wear, damage, lubrication issues, and requires precise adjustment to make it work correctly. It's analogous to having a small reciprocating engine driving a plunger back-and-forth 360 times a second, knocking a ratchet wheel forward one notch for each cycle.


An Accutron tuning fork DOES NOT come out of the box at the perfect frequency. It has a set of regulators – moveable eccentric counterweights – that allow you to tweak the fork into the correct frequency. The system is also magnetically-driven, originally designed to use a 1.35-volt mercury battery to drive the tuning fork coils. What you have is a system designed to operate at low magnetic field intensities; therefore, it's also sensitive to external magnetic influences as well.


For example, a direct quote from the Bulova Accutron Service Manual Series 214, page 32:
“The ACCUTRON hour and minute hands are steel. On some models, depending on the length and design of these hands, the tuning fork rate changes slightly when the hands are set near the tuning fork magnets. For this reason, it is good practice to set both hands in the lower portion of the dial before measuring the rate of an ACCUTRON timepiece with the rate recorder.”


Mind you, this is with just the hands – slivers of steel with less material than a sewing needle. The manufacturer tells you they are likely to jack with your reading. While this would be disastrous for taking “instantaneous” measurements, for regular timekeeping purposes this is NOT an issue, because over the long run the errors will average each other out. If you're measuring intervals from one “tick” to the next, however, you might as well be using a Slinky ™ as a ruler.


I like Accutrons. I think they're neat. I also think they're cranky, irritable bitches that require regular service by a trained technician who knows what they're doing, has access to the service manuals and the specialized test equipment and fixtures needed to maintain them, AS WELL as access to replacement parts. Take this to heart: A) you don't find that many trained Accutron watchmakers in the world these days; B) the manuals can be found if you dig long enough (I photocopied a set from watchmaking school); and C) while you might find some of the test gear, replacement parts are GONE. Period. Finito. Maybe some old geezer watchmaker has a stash of index wheels (the part most commonly worn out) in their bench, plus a few other expendables, but there is NO place where you can send off an order and expect to get something back other than a “you gotta be kidding” note.


The Accutron magnets are also 60's technology, namely alnico (if I remember correctly). They are KNOWN to lose their magnetism over time. Bulova mentions this also in the service manuals. Their solution? Replace 'em. But you can't get 'em any more.


Based on these shortcomings, let me ask this question: who in their right mind would base an experimental apparatus to detect such a minute phenomenon around a detector that hasn't been produced in well over thirty years, with no available parts for refurbishing what would have to be a used unit, few (if any) people available to work on it, and has such well-known sources of error?


A few other issues come to mind. I don't know if the transistor used is germanium or silicon. Because of the low operating voltage, 1.35 volts, I would guess germanium because of the lower band-gap voltage. Regardless, either germanium or silicon, there is NO temperature compensation in the driving circuitry. None. Change the temperature of any transistor (germanium or silicon), and you change the operating characteristics. And with germanium, the temperature effects are greater. It wouldn't be a problem in a wrist watch because, surprisingly, the temperature inside the metal watch case remains fairly constant, since it's against a warm body nominally around 98 degrees F. Built in to some test apparatus, however, it's hard to say what the temperature would be. Any sign if the Accutron movement was inside a temp-controlled housing?


Because the tuning fork is mechanically-linked to the rest of the watch drive train, problems with the movement “downstream” will actually be reflected in the action of the tuning fork. If, for say, one of the gears (actually called wheels in watchmaking, even if they have teeth) further down in the train has a worn or defective tooth, that will cause a regular disruption in the driving system every time that tooth rotates around and engages another wheel, causing the preceding wheels to bog down, causing the index wheel not to move as freely, thereby “fighting” the next impact from the pawl on the tuning fork arm, causing a change in the normal free vibration. The tuning fork is not a “free” mechanism, but interacts directly with the rest of the movement by physical contact.


No, an Accutron isn't even a decent choice for a detector. I think they chose it because it hearkens back to the Good 'Ol Days and lends a character of common sense and when Right was Right. It's nostalgic. However, there are MUCH better detectors that use the same principle, like a quartz crystal. Drive it electrically, but you can measure its frequency WITHOUT having to connect to it mechanically, say with an acoustic sensor, so you're not influencing it while taking your measurement.


You get more readings as well. With an Accutron, you get 360 per second. With even a modest crystal used in a cheap quartz watch, you get 32768 “readings” a second, two orders of magnitude better.


In short: In my opinion, this guy's study was built on a foundation of Silly Putty.:catfight:


Regards;


Beanbag
 
The reason the Accutron was used is twofold:

1- Back when DePalma was thinking about this was when the Accutron was available,
2 - The mechanical tuning fork, and its mechanical movement, provided a (theoretical) equivalence to the original pendulum. Quartz resonators don't do this.

If you go to the Eclipse page http://www.enterprisemission.com/Hyperdimensional-Eclipse.htm and scroll down about 2/3 of the way, you will find a schematic of the experimental setup. A little Googling suggests that the measuring device is a MicroSet http://www.bmumford.com/mset/model3.html. An acoustical sensor listens to the sound of tuning fork driving the mechanism, measures the period to 1 microsecond, and sends that to the PC via an RS232 link with an update rate of 1 Hz. The PC software converts the period measurement to frequency and displays it.

An obvious problem is the acoustic pickup, which may well be picking up noise.

Also, the displayed frequencies are not compatible with microsecond resolution.
 
Thanks for the info. Either way, the Accutron is still a poor choice. Way too susceptible to magnetic interfereance and mechanical issues.

Beanbag
 
At the Munford site, I see the pickup for an Accutron is inductive. There's a chance they were getting "noise." I would be more impressed if they had TWO rate detectors going simultaneously, one with the Accutron, and one without. Watch rate machines tend to be made "idiot-proof," with a lot of settings under software control so they can configure themselves and set detection levels. It puzzles me that IF the effects they are finding are so large, why haven't they shown up in other systems? There ARE such things as tuning-fork gyroscopes, and the effect should be apparent there as well as in an Accutron.

I suspect the "enhanced" resolution comes from whoever programmed the firmware and software for the rate machine not understanding significant figures (do they even teach that concept any more?).

Beanbag
 
Beanbag said:
As a certified horologist -- and probably the ONLY person in this forum who's actually REALLY worked on a Bulova Accutron movement -- please allow me to make a few comments.

The Bulova Accutron is a remarkable development in horology. It was a stupefying leap in wristwatch timekeeping ... ( see original post )

Beanbag
Click to expand...


Excellent post! Thank you so much for posting that useful information. Also take note of WhatRoughBeast said regarding why the Accutron was chosen ( because of its relationship to the pendulum experiments DePalma was doing ). No other type of watch at the time would be suitable. Although I suppose that today the quartz tuning fork ( resonator ) inside quartz clocks should be as good or better because they aren't made of anything magnetic.

At any rate, from the information you have provided, we can clearly see that the variables present in the engineering of the Accutron require that we examine DePalma's setup closer. According to DePalma there were measures taken to magnetically shield a number of components. But I haven't run across anything really detailed. Without further information we still can't draw any certain conclusions about what was giving rise to the observations made.

Hypothetically we should be able to perform a similar experiment using a quartz resonator and a spinning weight. The weight in DePalma's experiment was reported as a 29.5 pound steel flywheel spun at 7600 RPM.
 
Yet another observation from the test setup photo on the Eclipse page, where they're on the pyramid: They have a black dial watch laid out in open air on top of the pickup for their rate machine. Stay with me here -- what happens when a black object is left in the sun? And what happens when the black object left in the sun suddenly goes in the dark, like when an eclipse occurs?

First answer: it gets hot. Second answer: it cools.

I'm going to write this one off as unreliable due to 1) no controls; and 2) failure to eliminate, reduce, or account for sources of external error.

Beanbag
 
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