The postings below are separated into individual blocks corresponding to single e-mails or a group of e-mails from an exchange of ideas on a single topic.
< Back
to previous page
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 98 17:44:57
+0000
To: nids@anv.net
From: Richard Burke-Ward
Subject: Tesla, Marconi and Todd.
Dear Sirs,
RE: AN HISTORIC REPORT ON LIFE IN SPACE: TESLA, MARCONI, TODD by C. D.
Jackson and R. E. Hohmann
Thank you for posting the above article for your site — and
for having the courage to do so without comment. Ultimately, of course,
it can do little more than pique the interest because the detail is not
there. Were you by any chance able to obtain a copy of the promised second
article noted at the end (Ref 20)? It might just answer many of the questions
this article begs.
I have e-mailed the AIAA (was the American Rocket Society
and one other organisation merged in the 1960's to form the AIAA) - but
they didn't reply.
With best regards.
Richard Burke-Ward
To: Richard Burke-Ward
Subject: AN HISTORIC REPORT ON LIFE IN SPACE.....
Send reply to: nids@anv.net
Date sent: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:43:20 -8
Dear Mr. Burke-Ward:
Thank you very much for your kind e-mail, and for taking the time to look over the Jackson-Hohmann paper. Regarding your question on obtaining a copy of Ref. 20 mentioned in Jackson-Hohmann's paper, I have been working with Steve Dick of the Naval Observatory and Paul Shuch of the SETI League in trying to track Ref. 20 down. We have not had any success so far, unfortunately. My belief is that it was indeed submitted for presentation at either the 1963 or 64 Annual Rocket Society meeting. (The American Rocket Society later merged with the Aeronautical Engineering Society to form the AIAA.) Another possibility is that Jackson failed to do so under unknown circumstances.
AIAA does not archive papers older than 1985. You have to go
to the Linda Hall Science and Technical Archives Library (Kansas City,
MO.) because they are the repository of all AIAA and predecessor society
conference papers before 1985, as well as papers from other society conferences
and related technical books, etc. We paid Linda Hall library a small fee
to do an author search (global library database) on C. D. Jackson and
they only came up with the Jackson-Hohmann paper. We are debating on whether
to spend $45 more for them to do a more extensive search with no guarantee
of success.
I also called IBM Corporate Personnel office to get info
on C.D. Jackson since he was employed there (Kingston, NY and later Bethesda,
MD during 1960's). They have absolutely no employee archives at all, and
privacy laws prevent them from sharing any info with me if they did have
it.
Steve Dick says that Todd was an astronomer at Amherst
who engaged in SETI work during the 1920's. Todd got the entire U.S. military
apparatus to shut down their radio communications traffic for a couple
of days one summer (1924, I believe) in order to record any space transmissions
intercepted by his Jenkins radio-camera. Dick says that Todd might have
his work archived at Amherst, so we are going to try that route to obtain
what we believe C.D. Jackson was to allegedly present in Ref. 20. Also
note in Jackson-Hohmann, that the authors thanked Todd's daughter for
lending them her father's research materials.
There you have it. Frustration at every turn. I believe
that if Jackson did present his paper, it would have already been found
by the Linda Hall Library. If it does exist, then it just needs to be
found through more extensive searches than what we paid for. And then
Jackson may have abandoned the paper because Frank Drake would have said
(after his 1961 SETI papers) that Todd, Tesla and Marconi all detected
decimetric and decametric whistler noise from Jupiter. This could have
discouraged Jackson from going through with his Ref. 20 paper. Although,
such Jovian noise is well known and documented, it does not guarantee
that this is what Tesla, Todd and Marconi detected as there are other
parameters involved in that regard.
Best regards to you and VERY Happy Holidays for you and
your family and colleagues,
Eric W. Davis, Ph.D., FBIS
NIDS
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 98 09:55:24 +0000
From: Richard Burke-Ward
To: Dr. Eric Davis
Subject: Re: AN HISTORIC REPORT ON LIFE IN SPACE.....
Dear Dr Davis,
Thank you so much for your prompt and tantalising reply. I am so glad that there are people such as yourself with the energy, commitment and expertise to investigate such questions. I am constantly baffled and frustrated that the 'mainstream'
SETI community spends so much energy insisting that they are scientists that frequently they forget that two key ingredients of the scientific approach are a neutral attitude and an openness to anomalous data. It encourages me that people of Steve Dick and Paul Shuch's calibre are prepared to work alongside you to get to the bottom of this and seek out whatever substance there may be in it. (Don't worry, I won't tell anyone else at the SETI League!) No primary data, no story...
>I believe that if
>Jackson did present his paper, it would have already been found by
>the Linda Hall Library.
...or it may exist only in private hands. Are there any
folk who have been prominent in the AIAA in the last 20 or so years, who
would also have been active back then? It might be worth placing an ad
in one of their current journals. I also wonder if the British Library
retains copies — they claim to have pretty much everything. Sadly, I don't
have the time to research it.
Even if more solid data is forthcoming, and supports
the story further, I would have reservations about interpreting this information
as evidence of a 'contact' event (say from a Bracewell-style repeater
probe), much though I would like to do so. In particular, such early signals
are likely to have been very weak. Also there would have to be some correspondence
in transmitted and received frequencies (which may be the case of course).
But the biggest issue is what makes the transmissions in question different,
or whether there is evidence of other such VLDE's — and whether they form
a pattern when taken together — because otherwise there are just two anomalous
data points despite almost a century of radio transmissions from Earth.
Thank you once again for your time and insights. Do please
let me know if you strike lucky — I am increasingly concerned that conventional
microwave SETI is at best only a small part of the opportunities SETI
(and SETA) should be exploring.
With best wishes for the New Year,
Richard Burke-Ward
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:15:25 -0700
To: Dr. Eric W. Davis
From: Todd Sauke
Subject: Re: Paper on historic SETI
Copies to: fdrake@seti.org
Dear Dr. Davis,
I have read with interest the paper you referred to.
It contains much interesting historical information and brings together
numerous early references to the SETI enterprise, demonstrating the broad
intellectual heritage of the enterprise. However, it is my professional
opinion that the premise that Marconi and Todd received replies of the
Morse code broadcasts of Tesla and Marconi, respectively, sent 22 years
previously is fanciful, naive and extremely unconvincing. Perhaps you
could contact the president of the SETI Institute, Frank Drake, who is
prominently referenced in this paper, for a more authoritative opinion
regarding the paper. He may be able to provide an interesting historical
context for the paper as well as a wealth of references to state-of-the-art
research, theory, and experimentation in the field of SETI. He can be
reached at fdrake@seti.org. Good luck.
Sincerely,
Todd Sauke
SETI Institute
Date sent: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 13:30:10 -0700
To: Dr. Eric W. Davis
From: Louis J. Allamandola
Subject: Re: Error in my last e-mail
Dear Dr. Davis,
I have just scanned the paper and found it interesting.
My hunch is that these folks-and they were stars — may well have detected
an authentic and interesting signal of unknown origin. However, as this
was in the early days of the game, at a time that opening up new areas
of the electromagnetic spectrum was still new and the details being worked
out, it is difficult for me to judge the reliability of their attributing
this to an extraterrestrial source. Going further to try to comment on
the nature of the source would be pure speculation for me. Recall that
quite recently, at a time humans believe that this sort of radiation physics
is reasonably well understood, the discovery of pulsars caused quite a
stir and many extreme suggestions were put forward to account for this
before what is currently accepted.
Sincerely,
Lou Allamandola
