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Harold W Milnes

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Harold W. Milnes
Born(1925-06-09)June 9, 1925
DiedDecember 21, 2003(2003-12-21) (aged 78)
ResidenceLubbock, TX, United States
NationalityUSA
Known forSuperluminal propagation of electrical signals on fine wires; Galilean-invariant electrodynamics; criticism of relativity; founding and editing The Toth-Maatian Review
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, Electromagnetism, Relativity
InstitutionsTexas Tech University; editor and publisher of The Toth-Maatian Review

Harold Willis Milnes (1925-2003) was an American mathematician, experimenter and publisher who became one of the most persistent critics of Special Relativity and of the received interpretation of Maxwell's equations. Trained as a numerical analyst and later a professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University, he argued from both theory and bench experiment that electrical signals can propagate along very fine wires at velocities exceeding c, and — with Thomas E Phipps — that electromagnetism is better expressed in a first-order Galilean-invariant (Hertzian) form than in the Lorentz-covariant one. He is equally remembered as the founder, editor and publisher of The Toth-Maatian Review (1981-1994), an unrefereed journal that gave dissident scientists worldwide a place to publish.

Biography

Harold Willis Milnes was born and grew up in Detroit, where he was educated at home by his parents and studied operatic singing as a young man. He earned his MA (1952) and PhD (1955) in mathematics from Wayne State University. He then worked for various institutions including General Motors, Boeing, and NASA, and eventually became a professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

In his professional mathematical career he published on the numerical solution of partial differential equations, notably the "boundary contraction" method developed with R. B. Potts — "Boundary Contraction Solution of Laplace's Differential Equation" (Journal of the ACM, V6, N2, pp. 226-235, 1959) and "Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations by Boundary Contraction" (Quarterly of Applied Mathematics, V18, N1, pp. 1-13, 1960). This background in classical analysis and computation is the lens through which he later approached transmission-line theory and electrodynamics: his objections to relativity are, characteristically, objections about mathematics being applied without regard for the conditions under which its solutions are valid.

After retiring from teaching, he continued his intellectual pursuits with scientific experiments and publication of a unique journal, the Toth-Maatian Review, which from 1981 to 1994 offered freedom of scientific and literary expression to intellectuals around the world. His interests included gardening, metal and woodworking, electronics, laboratory experimentation in chemistry, and sculpture.

Thomas E. Phipps, Jr. wrote of him in an In Memoriam notice:

"Harold was a dissident's dissident, who 'wore no man's collar.' The Toth-Maatian Review, which he edited and published almost to the time of his death, was like no other journal. It had room for poetry, original short stories, essays, scientific and mathematical papers, and Harold's own 'Tales of Toth', a serialized fiction presenting in an original format his views on what is wrong with modern science. (Toth [Thoth] was the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic, Maat the goddess of truth, etc.) Here he exposed also, among other things, his own 'elementary' theory of gravitation. His editorial policy was unique. He worked without referees and, as far as I know, never denied publication to anyone who seriously sought it. The dire degradation of quality predicted by established editorial dogma never happened... Many original ideas in science originating from around the world first appeared in T.-M.R. - which will remain Harold Milnes's monument." — Thomas E Phipps, Galilean Electrodynamics, V17, N3, p. 42 (2006).

Scientific contributions

Superluminal electrical signals on fine wires

Milnes' best-known claim is that electrical pulses can travel along extremely thin conductors faster than light. He presented it first to a popular audience in "Faster Than Light?" (Radio Electronics, V54, pp. 55-58, 1983), which described a theoretical derivation together with a simple experiment in which electrical signals greatly exceeded the speed of light. Crucially for his argument, the derivation follows directly from Maxwell's equations; the special conditions required are extremely thin electrical conductors with very low capacitance and inductance. The effect is therefore not, on his account, an exotic addition to classical theory but something classical theory has always contained and which relativistic habits of thought had made invisible.

He returned to the problem experimentally in "On the One-Way Velocity of Electric Signals in Short Wires" (1985) and "Measures of the Velocity of Pulses on Wires" (1991), and supplied the full theory in "Superluminal Effects on Fine Wires, Part I" (The Toth-Maatian Review, V14, N3, pp. 6803-6837, 1999). There he located the theoretical basis of the previously observed superluminal transmission in "the existence of variables-separable type solutions, unrecognized heretofore, to the partial integro-differential equations of classical transmission line theory." The claim is a mathematician's claim: the standard treatment of the transmission-line equations quietly discards a family of admissible solutions, and those discarded solutions are the superluminal ones.

Related experimental work includes "A Circuit for Producing a Fast Light Pulse" (1985) and "Some Experiments That Apparently Counterindicate Coulomb's Law" (1991). A priority dispute over the fine-wire result is set out in "The Pappas-Obolensky Affair" (1989), in which Milnes charged that the "Thirty Six Nanoseconds Faster Than Light" result published by Panos Pappas and Guy Obolensky in Electronics and Wireless World (1988) had been taken from his 1983 Radio Electronics paper.

Galilean-invariant electrodynamics

With Thomas E Phipps, Milnes argued that Maxwell's equations in their usual form contain a hidden preferred observer. In "First-Order Modification of Maxwell's Equations" (The Toth-Maatian Review, V1, N1, pp. 54-59, 1983) the two authors observed that the equations "allow field-source motions but not field-sink motions", and that correcting this "unwarranted suppression of instrumental degrees of freedom" yields generalized equations for electromagnetism that are Galilean invariant to first order in detector velocity. The extra parameters describing detector motion enter the wave equation and spoil the spherical symmetry of radiation propagation, supporting their earlier hypothesis of radiation convection by the absorber together with the physical non-occurrence of the Lorentz contraction.

The mature statement of this programme is "Microphysics Needs an Invariant Electrodynamics" (Galilean Electrodynamics, V13, N4, pp. 63-70, 2002), where Phipps and Milnes reappraise the first-order Galilean-invariant covering theory of Maxwell's vacuum equations first proposed by Heinrich Hertz. Hertz's substitution of the total time derivative for the Maxwellian partial time derivative is shown to be logically necessary under broadly applicable conditions, and the Hertzian formulation is argued to be physically superior in the weak-field limit. Milnes' long serialized treatise "Theory of Electricity", which ran through most of the volumes of The Toth-Maatian Review from V6 to V12, was his most sustained development of these ideas.

Criticism of relativity and of relativistic astronomy

Milnes attacked relativity on observational as well as formal grounds. In "Astronomical Counterevidence to Relativity" (Journal of Classical Physics, V2, N1, pp. 23-31, 1983), Phipps and Milnes showed that routinely applying the Lorentz transformation to the arrival times of two photons emitted simultaneously from a star predicts large time differences between observers moving in opposite directions at Earth's equatorial rotation or orbital velocity — for the binary star Rigel at 250 pc, a discrepancy of 11.05 hours for opposite equatorial stations and 29.59 days for opposed points of Earth's orbit. Since no such anomalies are observed, they concluded that the principle that light has velocity c relative to every observer is false and that the Lorentz transformation equations cannot validly be applied to astronomical observation. The paper also casts serious doubt on the general validity of the reciprocity of inertial reference frames, drawing on Zeeman's experiments with moving quartz rods.

He offered an alternative reading of the classic null result in "A More Reasonable Ad-Hoc Explanation of the Michelson-Morley Experiment Than Lorentz-Fitzgerald Contraction" (1992), and with Juan A Morales published "Demonstration That Fresnel's Convection of Light Does Not Exist" (1991) and "Gravitation Would Produce a Blue Shift in Place of a Red Shift According to General Relativity" (1991), the latter arguing that general relativity, consistently applied, gives the opposite sign to the gravitational shift usually claimed for it. In cosmology he questioned the interpretive foundations of the expanding universe in "A Critical Evaluation of Hubble's Theorizations About Stellar Redshifting" (1992) and examined "The Spectroscopy of Binary Stars & Discussion" (1989).

His own positive programme in optics was "The Transmission Theory of Light", serialized in the Review from 1984 onwards and covering aberration and refraction at moving boundaries, alongside "A Theory of Light Propagation" (Speculations in Science and Technology, V2, N3, pp. 285-302, 341-349, 1979) and "New Viewpoints on the Refraction and Dispersion of Light" (1991). He also developed an "elementary" theory of gravitation, published as "A Theory of Gravitation" (1994, 1995), and wrote on quantum interpretation in "On the Meaning of the Word 'Complementary' & the Young Double-Slit Experiment Involving Electrons" (1992) and on classical mechanics in "Essays on Rational Mechanics: Third Essay on the Laws of Buoyancy" (1992).

The Toth-Maatian Review

From 1981 to 1994 Milnes edited and published The Toth-Maatian Review from Lubbock, Texas, a quarterly named for Thoth, the Egyptian god of reason, and Maat, goddess of truth. It carried scholarly criticism, original scientific and mathematical papers, essays, poetry and fiction, and it operated without referees. Each issue opened with an installment of his own "Tales of Toth: Fairy Tales of Physics", a sarcastic and witty serialized polemic against the assumptions of mainstream physics that ran to eighteen numbered tales across the journal's life.

Published exchanges

Milnes' work drew published replies and he answered them at length. "A Theory of Light Propagation" (1979) was answered by Zigmantas L Budrikis in "Comments on Milnes' Paper and Epilogue" (Speculations in Science and Technology, 1979, pp. 350-352), and Milnes responded with "Reply to Comments on my Papers " (Speculations in Science and Technology, V3, N4, pp. 499-508, 1980). A second exchange took place in his own journal, where Paul E Rowe published a 25-page "Response to Milnes' Comments on Rowe's Paper" (The Toth-Maatian Review, V10, N1, pp. 4563-4588, 1992) — an illustration of the unrefereed, open-argument editorial policy Milnes practised.

Discussed in CNPS talks

Milnes' fine-wire superluminal results have been taken up in the CNPS online seminar series by Roger J Anderton:

  • "Faster-Than-Light Signals with Roger Anderton" (30 June 2024) — Anderton discusses Milnes' demonstration of faster-than-light electrical signals and the resistance it met from defenders of relativity, arguing that Milnes' training as a mathematician is precisely why he saw what others missed.

Works

Mathematics

  • 1960 - H. W. Milnes and R. B. Potts, "Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations by Boundary Contraction", Quarterly of Applied Mathematics, V18, N1, pp. 1-13
  • 1959 - H. W. Milnes and R. B. Potts, "Boundary Contraction Solution of Laplace's Differential Equation", Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, V6, N2, pp. 226-235

External links

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