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May 16, 2006
It occurred to me that dinner at Trinity College might be an opportunity
to meet Brian Josephson, Professor of Physics, Fellow of Trinity
College, Nobel Laureate, Physics, and discoverer of the Josephson
Superconducting Junction. We have been exchanging email on "The
Catt Question" for several months. I emailed him and he replied
"I will meet you in the Parlour at 7:45- 7:50 PM", just
before dinner.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Kurt Metzer is picked up by Ivor Catt, arrives at Ivor's house.
I am his guest at High Table this evening. We depart for Cambridge
about 11:30 AM. We stop at a pub near Cambridge. Kurt tells us stories
of his life and family history in India, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
etc. We arrive at Trinity College and park near the dining hall.
We have a picnic lunch on a park bench by the river Cam, in front
of the Wren Library on The Backs. Ivor takes me to the [hospital
A&E] emergency room to remove something in my eye.
We come back and walk through King's College, Queens' College, a
couple others, and then land in the Trinity Library. The electromagnetics
section is quite sparse; the dept Library at the Cavendish would
have a lot more. I quickly review a few books- these have the same
catechism as found in all the other Establishment texts. I point
out the problem of the TEM wave in the waveguide to Ivor. His books
are in the stacks downstairs, which he says have much more than
what I saw. Ivor then shows me the dining hall, Newton's room, Byron's
tower, and other historical features around the Great Court, which
is bordered by the dining hall. He takes me into the Parlour area
and describes the dining protocol. He leaves me.
Dinner at High Table
Faux Paux
I arrive at the Parlour around 7:15 PM. Kurt Metzer is already
there, and one other gentleman. A portrait of Sir Isaac Newton graces
the mantle, other personages are on display about the room. Coffee
is on service. A dignified lady 'deputy manciple' stands outside,
I later learn from Brian that she is senior staff. The dinner list
is short, about twenty, with three guests including myself. High
Table seats about seventy at two long tables.
Brian Josephson arrives about 7:45 as he said he would. We make
introductions. Kurt immediately interjects with "so you are
here about the 'The Catt Question', eh?" (paraphrased). Prof.
Josephson appears to me to be uncomfortable. I hasten to defuse
this imagined situation by saying "we didn't come here to discuss
that over dinner". Now I have to stick to that. I didn't want
the occasion to become unpleasant. Brian then goes away for a few
minutes. I thought at the time he was considering whether to stay,
then I learn later he was simply fetching his gown. (Perhaps I've
been making too much of the fact that Modern Physics has no gown.)
He comes back and talks mostly to Kurt. The manciple calls us for
dinner.
Dinner at High Table
The room is reminiscent of the nave of a cathedral, with stained
glass windows rising to a vaulted ceiling. High Table is a low platform
at one end, where the altar would be, the two long tables arranged
as in *The Last Supper*. The undergraduates are seated in the main
area, where the faithful might be found.
We are seated for a time, enjoying an excellent shrimp and oyster
soup, before Brian asks "Is Catt here? Could you point him
out?" I say "he is sitting with his back to us, second
in from the right." He is speaking with the man on his right.
Josephson says "I made Sir Michael Pepper aware that Ivor Catt
would be dining this evening. Pepper decided not to take advantage
of this opportunity to talk to Catt" (paraphrased)
As an important aside, Pepper is of the 'Southern' school of "The
Catt Question" respondents, claiming that, in effect, electrons
rise up from within the wire to help the TEM wave pass. This violates
Gauss's law. Prof. Pepper made this claim in June, 1993, and then
went silent until December, 2005. He then answered a query posed
to him by Josephson about "The Catt Question". His reply
was inchoate [Note
1]. Three weeks later he is knighted by the Queen "for
services to physics".
We then discuss matters other than "The Catt Question".
After Dinner Coffee avec Ordeal
Brian Josephson and myself retire to the Parlour for coffee, while
Kurt, Ivor, and a few others go upstairs to the "Sanctum"
for port, wine, cheeses, and fruit. I am helping myself to coffee
when I hear right behind me-
"I've just had the most awful ordeal. I didn't expect to come
to dinner for that sort of thing." Do you know this fellow
Ivor Catt? He wouldn't stop talking about some anomaly in physics!"
(paraphrased). It was the fellow that Ivor was talking to at dinner.
I later learn from Ivor that this gentleman appeared to be interested
in what Ivor had to say, even stating that he wanted to hear more.
Catt states later "he urged me to go on, saying it was very
interesting. It may have been necessary for him to want to hear
more because it consisted of allegations of professional misconduct
by his colleague, Sir [Michael] Pepper." (A new web page has
this.)
Brian then introduces me to his friend as "have you met Forrest
Bishop, a follower of Catt" (paraphrased). The topic immediately
shifts, his friend wanders off, and we go sit with our coffee. Brian
asks "What
are the differential equations" for Theory C? I reply they are
the same equations, used in a different way. (I was being agreeable,
as this is not quite the case. Maxwell's wave equations, as well
as parts of the duplex equations, have been shown to be trite, incorrect,
and mathematically illegal, along with other problems.)
I mentioned the idea that superfluid helium may be a frozen, monoatomic
powder, and cited some of the evidence. Brian did not appear to
be interested in this hypothesis, or may have been thinking of other
things. I said I would like to go upstairs to join Catt and my host.
We said good night.
The Inner Sanctum Sanctorum
The walls are decorated with illustrious Trinity men of the past.
The sterling is marked "Trin Coll xxxx 1914", which I
found interesting for the date. (This is an important year in the
ongoing decline of Western civilization.) The port is in a decanter,
the white wine is a '95. A nice selection of fruit and cheese is
put out. I don't the name of this room, but I'm sure that it has
one. (The Combination Room)
About ten gentlemen are in attendance, all but myself in black gowns
of various types to indicate their status. Ivor is engaged in a
lively monolog on suppression in general, "The Catt Question",
and other curiosities of Modern Physics. His audience of three across
the table is young professors or lecturers, I think. Two are biochemists,
who do not appear to be following along very well. The man in the
middle is an electrical engineer cum artificial intelligence researcher.
He says he works in a (Bill) Gates Building for computer science,
where everyone uses Linux. The rest of the party is not paying any
attention to Ivor.
I missed most of Ivor's discussion, as I am seated next to Kurt
who engages me in conversation. Ivor leaves the room for a moment,
asking me to explain what he was talking about to one of the three.
I ask the young professor what was it he wished to know; he replied
with "nothing".
Forrest Bishop
==========
Forrest Bishop, of San Diego, California, has been
a student of electromagnetic theory for decades. Until last year,
he was cut off from Ivor Catt's contributions by comprehensive Establishment
obstruction and censorship.[Power
versus Scholarship in Cambridge.] However, since he stumbled
on Catt's material on the www last year he has put in a lot of work
on it, and gained a remarkably good grasp of it. He says that Catt's
writings resolved many of the unresolved problems and confusions
in electromagnetic theory that had frustrated him from his school
days onwards. He had always been confronted by gobbledeygook like
Pepper's
and McEwan's
.
Ivor Catt 30 May 2006
@@@@@@@@@@@
"Teaching of physics in steep
decline"
- Liz Lightfoot, Daily Telegraph, 11 August 2006,
p8
Physics in schools and universities is in the grip
of a downward spiral with little prospect of recovery, academics
warn today.
The lack of suitably qualified teachers and the perception
that the subject is difficult has deterred pupils from studying
it in the sixth form, says a report by Prof Alan Smithers and Pamela
Robinson.
Exam entries for A-level physics have halved since
1982, with only 3.8 per cent of sixth-formers taking the subject
in 2004. There are also significantly fewer physics undergraduates
and there has been a 28 per cent fall in students on home courses.
The authors warn that the problem will get worse as
fewer physics graduates train to teach in schools.
Physics
is disappearing
@@@@@@@@@@@
The
suppression of inconvenient facts in physics
The
Politics of Knowledge ; The
Politics of Knowledge
The
Rise and Fall of Bodies of Knowledge
The
Clever take the Brilliant
The
End of Science
My
co-author, the late Dr. Arnold Lynch
Electromagnetic
Theory vol. 1 by Ivor Catt
Riposte
I make the commitment that anyone wishing to counter any assertion
made on this site will be guaranteed a hyperlink to a website of
their choosing at the point where the disputed assertion is made.
(Possibly we need a standard word for this. I suggest "Riposte",
or the symbol [R] .) Ivor Catt. 24dec98.
Later
developments
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