Bernard Haisch
Encyclopedia
Bernard Haisch is a German-born American astrophysicist
who has done research in solar-stellar astrophysics and stochastic electrodynamics. He has developed with Alfonso Rueda a speculative theory that the non-zero lowest energy state of the vacuum, as predicted by quantum mechanics, might provide a physical explanation for the origin of inertia
, and might someday be used for spacecraft propulsion. Haisch has advocated the serious scientific study of phenomena outside the traditional scope of science
and is known for his interest in the UFO phenomenon as well as a variety of other unorthodox topics.
Since 2002 Haisch has been involved with ManyOne Networks and related Digital Universe
projects which aim to produce, among other things, a multimedia online encyclopedia. In 2006 Haisch published a popular book in which he attempted to reconcile modern scientific belief with traditional religious belief. He attributes his spiritual interests to his educational experience at the Latin School of Indianapolis
(a high school affiliated with the Catholic Church), and at the St. Meinrad Seminary
and Archabbey.
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
in 1975 and thereafter spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado
in Boulder, Colorado
.
Haisch has worked at the Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory at Lockheed Martin
in Palo Alto, California
and served as deputy director of the Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley
. He has been a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
in Garching, Germany
and at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands
. His main research from the mid 1970s until the late 1990s was high energy astrophysics
, and specifically the ultraviolet
and X-ray
emissions from corona
e and flares on the Sun
and other late-type stars
.
Haisch has published more than one hundred research papers on a variety of topics, many in prestigious journals such as Nature
, Science
, Physical Review
, Astrophysical Journal
, and Annalen der Physik
. He also served for ten years as an editor of the Astrophysical Journal.
, Long Beach, California
, have developed a controversial hypothesis in the context of stochastic electrodynamics
. In his recent mainstream non-academic book (see section below), Haisch has summarized this "quantum vacuum inertia" hypothesis as follows:
This assertion, that accelerated observers experience a force due to the zero-point field, and that this "electromagnetic reaction force" is responsible for the inertia
of material objects, rests upon a computation in which Haisch and Rueda have computed a nonzero "zero point field Poynting vector
". (See the 1998 Foundations of Physics paper cited below.)
Computations by other physicists, such as Bill Unruh
, apparently contradict this result. The mainstream view is that the zero point field does not give rise to a physical force on observers accelerating with respect to "the vacuum". However, it is known classically that without the zero point field the spin state of all matter would collapse inward almost instantaneously.
, which publishes papers on "topics outside the established disciplines of mainstream science" such as paranormal
effects, the UFO phenomenon, and cryptid
s.
In addition to papers in mainstream journals and conference proceedings, Haisch has also published papers in Science and Spirit magazine and the Journal of Noetic Sciences, a parapsychological journal published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
, an organization mainly devoted to the study of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum and funded by private philanthropic money. The institute formerly employed five full time physicists doing research on string theory
, general relativity
and stochastic electrodynamics
. Haisch served as the institute's director from 1999 until 2002.
Haisch published a follow-up in 2010, "The Purpose-Driven Universe." Both books reject both atheism and traditional theistic viewpoints, favoring instead a model of Pandeism
wherein our Creator has become our Universe, to share in the actualized experiences therein manifested. Haisch provides as proof of his views a combination of fine tuning and mystical experiences arguments.
and led by Joe Firmage
. Since 2004 he has also served as president of the related Digital Universe
Foundation, which, among other things, aims to create a peer-reviewed alternative to Wikipedia
, seeking to provide a comprehensive and reliable account of current mainstream scientific theory, evidence, and belief.
Selected mainstream papers by Bernard Haisch on astrophysics:
A few representative publications regarding the proposed physical origin of inertia as an electromagnetic drag force and hypothetical spacecraft propulsion schemes: arXiv eprint arXiv version arXiv version eprint version from UFO Skeptic, Haisch's website devoted to encouraging genuinely objective and scientific inquiry into matters related to the UFO phenomenon.
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
who has done research in solar-stellar astrophysics and stochastic electrodynamics. He has developed with Alfonso Rueda a speculative theory that the non-zero lowest energy state of the vacuum, as predicted by quantum mechanics, might provide a physical explanation for the origin of inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
, and might someday be used for spacecraft propulsion. Haisch has advocated the serious scientific study of phenomena outside the traditional scope of science
Fringe science
Fringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, and is classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline....
and is known for his interest in the UFO phenomenon as well as a variety of other unorthodox topics.
Since 2002 Haisch has been involved with ManyOne Networks and related Digital Universe
Digital Universe
Digital Universe is a free online information service founded in 2006. The project aims to create a "network of portals designed to provide high-quality information and services to the public"...
projects which aim to produce, among other things, a multimedia online encyclopedia. In 2006 Haisch published a popular book in which he attempted to reconcile modern scientific belief with traditional religious belief. He attributes his spiritual interests to his educational experience at the Latin School of Indianapolis
Latin School of Indianapolis
The Latin School of Indianapolis served from 1955 to 1978 as a pre-seminary boys' high school for the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis. During its first two academic years the Latin School operated as part of , an all-boys Catholic high school founded in 1918. According to an article in ...
(a high school affiliated with the Catholic Church), and at the St. Meinrad Seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
and Archabbey.
Scientific career
Haisch was born in Stuttgart, Germany and earned a Ph.D. in AstronomyAstronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
in 1975 and thereafter spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
.
Haisch has worked at the Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory at Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
and served as deputy director of the Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He has been a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany.In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Physics and the...
in Garching, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. His main research from the mid 1970s until the late 1990s was high energy astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, and specifically the ultraviolet
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
and X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
emissions from corona
Corona
A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph...
e and flares on the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
and other late-type stars
Stellar classification
In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. The spectral class of a star is a designated class of a star describing the ionization of its chromosphere, what atomic excitations are most prominent in the light, giving an objective measure...
.
Haisch has published more than one hundred research papers on a variety of topics, many in prestigious journals such as Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
, Physical Review
Physical Review
Physical Review is an American scientific journal founded in 1893 by Edward Nichols. It publishes original research and scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical Society. The journal is in its third series, and is split in several...
, Astrophysical Journal
Astrophysical Journal
The Astrophysical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering astronomy and astrophysics. It was founded in 1895 by the American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. It publishes three 500-page issues per month....
, and Annalen der Physik
Annalen der Physik
Annalen der Physik is one of the oldest physics journals worldwide. The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers in the areas of experimental, theoretical, applied and mathematical physics and related areas...
. He also served for ten years as an editor of the Astrophysical Journal.
The Quantum Vacuum and the Principle of Inertia
In an extensive series of papers, Haisch and Alfonso Rueda, a physicist currently teaching in the Department of Electrical Engineering, California State UniversityCalifornia State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
, Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, have developed a controversial hypothesis in the context of stochastic electrodynamics
Stochastic electrodynamics
In theoretical physics, Stochastic Electrodynamics is a variant of Classical Electrodynamics which posits the existence of a classical Lorentz Invariant radiation field having statistical properties similar to that of the electromagnetic zero-point field of Quantum Electrodynamics...
. In his recent mainstream non-academic book (see section below), Haisch has summarized this "quantum vacuum inertia" hypothesis as follows:
This assertion, that accelerated observers experience a force due to the zero-point field, and that this "electromagnetic reaction force" is responsible for the inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
of material objects, rests upon a computation in which Haisch and Rueda have computed a nonzero "zero point field Poynting vector
Poynting vector
In physics, the Poynting vector can be thought of as representing the directional energy flux density of an electromagnetic field. It is named after its inventor John Henry Poynting. Oliver Heaviside and Nikolay Umov independently co-invented the Poynting vector...
". (See the 1998 Foundations of Physics paper cited below.)
Computations by other physicists, such as Bill Unruh
Bill Unruh
William George Unruh is a Canadian physicist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, who discovered the Unruh effect. Unruh was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He obtained his B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba in 1967, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D...
, apparently contradict this result. The mainstream view is that the zero point field does not give rise to a physical force on observers accelerating with respect to "the vacuum". However, it is known classically that without the zero point field the spin state of all matter would collapse inward almost instantaneously.
Non-mainstream publications
Haisch is a former editor of the Journal of Scientific ExplorationJournal of Scientific Exploration
The Journal of Scientific Exploration is a quarterly scientific journal of fringe science published by the Society for Scientific Exploration that was established in 1987...
, which publishes papers on "topics outside the established disciplines of mainstream science" such as paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
effects, the UFO phenomenon, and cryptid
Cryptid
In cryptozoology and sometimes in cryptobotany, a cryptid is a creature or plant whose existence has been suggested but is unrecognized by scientific consensus and often regarded as highly unlikely. Famous examples include the Yeti in the Himalayas and the Loch Ness Monster in...
s.
In addition to papers in mainstream journals and conference proceedings, Haisch has also published papers in Science and Spirit magazine and the Journal of Noetic Sciences, a parapsychological journal published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics
In 1999 Haisch founded the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Scotts Valley, CaliforniaScotts Valley, California
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles south of downtown San Jose and six miles north of Monterey Bay, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,580...
, an organization mainly devoted to the study of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum and funded by private philanthropic money. The institute formerly employed five full time physicists doing research on string theory
String theory
String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...
, general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
and stochastic electrodynamics
Stochastic electrodynamics
In theoretical physics, Stochastic Electrodynamics is a variant of Classical Electrodynamics which posits the existence of a classical Lorentz Invariant radiation field having statistical properties similar to that of the electromagnetic zero-point field of Quantum Electrodynamics...
. Haisch served as the institute's director from 1999 until 2002.
UFO Skeptic
Haisch has also created a website called UFO Skeptic, which promotes the investigation of the UFO phenomenon by professional scientists.The God Theory
Haisch has recently published a book entitled The God Theory, in which he writesHaisch published a follow-up in 2010, "The Purpose-Driven Universe." Both books reject both atheism and traditional theistic viewpoints, favoring instead a model of Pandeism
Pandeism
Pandeism or Pan-Deism , is a term describing beliefs incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of pantheism and deism Pandeism or Pan-Deism (from and meaning "God" in the sense of deism), is a term describing beliefs incorporating or mixing logically reconcilable elements of...
wherein our Creator has become our Universe, to share in the actualized experiences therein manifested. Haisch provides as proof of his views a combination of fine tuning and mystical experiences arguments.
Digital Universe
Since 2002 Haisch has been Chief Science Officer of ManyOne Networks, which is headquartered in Scotts Valley, CaliforniaScotts Valley, California
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles south of downtown San Jose and six miles north of Monterey Bay, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,580...
and led by Joe Firmage
Joe Firmage
Joseph Firmage is an American Internet entrepreneur. He founded several business ventures prior to and during the dot-com boom and currently is involved with two closely linked organizations: ManyOne Networks, of which he is CEO, and the Digital Universe Foundation, of which he is a co-founder and...
. Since 2004 he has also served as president of the related Digital Universe
Digital Universe
Digital Universe is a free online information service founded in 2006. The project aims to create a "network of portals designed to provide high-quality information and services to the public"...
Foundation, which, among other things, aims to create a peer-reviewed alternative to Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, seeking to provide a comprehensive and reliable account of current mainstream scientific theory, evidence, and belief.
Book and publications
Selected mainstream papers by Bernard Haisch on astrophysics:
A few representative publications regarding the proposed physical origin of inertia as an electromagnetic drag force and hypothetical spacecraft propulsion schemes: arXiv eprint arXiv version arXiv version eprint version from UFO Skeptic, Haisch's website devoted to encouraging genuinely objective and scientific inquiry into matters related to the UFO phenomenon.