Researchers challenge gravitational waves report for Director of National Intelligence

December 23, 2008 | Source: KurzweilAI

A recent report on High Frequency Gravitational Waves (HFGW) for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence “seriously misrepresented theoretical research by Gravwave LLC and other researchers,” according to Gravwave CEO Dr. Robert Baker, a pioneer in HFGW research since 1961.

Baker said theoretical research by Gravwave scientists and other scientists suggests that HFGWs could eventually lead to the ability to communicate or “see” through the Earth, eliminating the need for satellite and many other forms of communications, and could pose a threat to U.S. security. The report, prepared by the legendary JASON defense science advisory panel, dismissed Gravwave’s research as “pseudoscience.”

However, Baker, who ironically co-chaired the first HFGW Workshop at MITRE Corporation (which runs the JASON panel) in 2003, pointed out several flaws in the report that “caused the authors to make specious technical estimates.” The patented (U.S. 6417597 and 6784591 and P. R. China ZL200510055882.2) Li-Baker HFGW detector is “not based on the Gertsenshtein effect, as stated in the report, but rather on a different effect found by Dr. Fangyu Li of Chongqing University, and also supported in many other peer-reviewed publications,” he said. He also pointed out that the Gravwave generator is based on a variant of the quadrupole (first found by Einstein in 1918), again not on the Gertsenshtein effect, as stated.

Baker also cited other organizations developing HFGW detectors, including Birmingham University, England and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

Dr. Baker has written some 35 peer-reviewed papers on HFGW technology, and has been granted six patents on HFGW devices, including the Li-Baker HFGW Detector.

Dr. Eric W. Davis, senior research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, also challenged a recent statement in New Scientist based on the report, dismissing the idea of gravitational waves propelling interplanetary spacecraft as “rubbish.”

Davis, who is author of the forthcoming Frontiers of Propulsion Science, published by the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (2009), pointed out that “a very well known example of the rocket propulsion effect that can be produced by gravitational waves is that of a star undergoing asymmetric octupole collapse, which achieves a net velocity change of 100 to 300 km/s via the anisotropic emission of gravitational waves,” citing J. D. Bekenstein in Astrophysical Journal.

Davis also said a gravitational wave rocket will perform exactly like a photon rocket. “It will have the maximum possible specific impulse with light-speed exhaust velocity because gravitational waves propagate through space at the speed of light.”