Jerry Shifman: Difference between revisions

Jerry Shifman
Jerry Shifman
Born	September 26, 1934; Paris, Tennessee, United States
Residence	Portland, Oregon, United States
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Known for	Aether, Gravitation, Neoetherics
	Scientific career
Fields	Electrical Engineer

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Latest revision as of 15:20, 17 July 2026

Jerrald Craig "Jerry" Shifman (born September 26, 1934) is an American retired electronics design engineer who developed an aether-based model of gravitation that he named Neoetherics. His work lies outside mainstream physics and forms part of the tradition of aether theories that seek a mechanical explanation for gravity as an alternative to the geometric account of general relativity.

Biography

Shifman was born in Paris, Tennessee, and graduated from high school in Whitefield, New Hampshire, in 1952. He earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (BEE) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1959. He later recalled being distressed that no one at the institute could explain to him how gravitation works, a question that shaped his later independent research. In the early 1970s he was living in Berkeley, California, where he had access to the University of California library system and began working on what he described as a common-sense explanation of gravitation.

Shifman later settled in Portland, Oregon, where he worked as an electronics design engineer before retiring.

Scientific contributions

Shifman began developing his ideas around 1971 and wrote his first essay on the subject in 1972. In 1985 he produced a more comprehensive essay and coined the term "Neoetherics" for his theory. He summarized his paper "Neoetherics: Visualizing Gravity" on the newsgroup alt.science.physics.new_theories, through which he became acquainted with others working on mechanical theories of gravitation. A short note titled "Addendum" added clarifying comments to the original essay. In January 1997 he published his Neoetherics paper on his website, neoetherics.com.

Neoetherics proposes a hydrodynamic aether that fills the universe and is in constant motion. In the theory, mass is treated as a location where aether flows inward and is annihilated, forming a "sink." As aether accelerates toward such a sink, the resulting velocity gradient in the surrounding medium causes nearby masses to move toward it, a process Shifman identified with gravitation. He presented the model as supplying the direct mechanical contact that Isaac Newton regarded as necessary and as clarifying the equivalence between gravity and acceleration.

In May 1997 Shifman presented Neoetherics publicly for the first time at the "Conference on the Fundamental Structure and Mechanisms of the Universe," organized by Ray Tomes and Ross Tessien. In July of that year he took part in "The Nature and Structure of the Aether," organized by Norm Silliman, where he met Steven Rado. In 1998 he met John Chappell, Jr. and became a member of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, participating in its May 2000 conference in Berkeley, California. In July 2000 he attended the "Fundamental Problems of Natural Science and Engineering" conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, for which he prepared a paper titled "Telling Fish About Water."

In November 2000 Shifman was contacted by Alexey Selin of Ukraine, who reported having built devices using a massive rotor spinning at 10,000 to 20,000 rpm that he claimed caused a test mass to lose more than 2% of its weight. Shifman regarded the reported result as supportive of their shared view of gravitation and set out to design and build his own version of the apparatus, which he called the "Selin Device," in an attempt to replicate the results.

Shifman's paper "Neoetherics: Visualizing gravitation" was published in the journal Physics Essays (Volume 30, Issue 1, March 2017, pp. 181–187).

Abstracts

2008 - "The Hundred Year Detour" (Read in full)
2002 - "Experimental Xenophysics "
2000 - "Telling a Fish About Water" (Read in full)
1985 - "Neoetherics: Visualizing Gravity" (Read in full)

External links

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 | alt = Jerry Shifman
 | birth_date = {{birth date|1934|09|26|mf=y}}
+| birth_place = Paris, Tennessee, United States
+| residence = Portland, Oregon, United States
+| nationality = USA
 | fields = [[Electrical Engineer]]
-| residence = Portland, OR, United States
+| alma_mater = Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
-| nationality = USA
+| known_for = [[Aether]], [[Gravitation]], Neoetherics
-| known_for = [[Aether]], [[Gravitation]]
 }}
-Born in Paris, Tennessee. Graduated from Whitefield, NH high school in 1952.&nbsp; BEE Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1959.&nbsp; Was seriously distressed that nobody at that school was able to explain to me how gravitation works.&nbsp; In the early 1970s I was living in Berkeley, CA and had access to the library system on the Cal Berkeley campus.&nbsp; So I started working on a common sense explanation of gravitation.
+'''Jerrald Craig "Jerry" Shifman''' (born September 26, 1934) is an American retired electronics design engineer who developed an aether-based model of [[gravitation]] that he named '''Neoetherics'''. His work lies outside mainstream physics and forms part of the tradition of aether theories that seek a mechanical explanation for gravity as an alternative to the geometric account of [[general relativity]].
-I began working on these ideas around 1971. In 1972 I wrote my first essay on the subject and showed it to a few people. Over the years I continued to puzzle over this and in 1985 I wrote a more comprehensive essay and coined the term "Neoetherics" for my theory. On the newsgroup alt.science.physics.new_theories I summarized my paper "Neoetherics -- Visualizing Gravity," and offered to mail a copy to anyone who was interested. Through this channel I gradually became acquainted with many people who were also trying to develop an understandable theory of gravitation.
+==Biography==
+Shifman was born in Paris, Tennessee, and graduated from high school in Whitefield, New Hampshire, in 1952. He earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (BEE) from [[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]] in 1959. He later recalled being distressed that no one at the institute could explain to him how gravitation works, a question that shaped his later independent research. In the early 1970s he was living in Berkeley, California, where he had access to the University of California library system and began working on what he described as a common-sense explanation of gravitation.
-The short note called "Addendum" adds some clarifying comments to the original Neoetherics essay.
+Shifman later settled in Portland, Oregon, where he worked as an electronics design engineer before retiring.
-In January of 1997 I published my Neoetherics paper on my website.After that, the pace picked up a bit.
+==Scientific contributions==
+Shifman began developing his ideas around 1971 and wrote his first essay on the subject in 1972. In 1985 he produced a more comprehensive essay and coined the term "Neoetherics" for his theory. He summarized his paper "Neoetherics: Visualizing Gravity" on the newsgroup ''alt.science.physics.new_theories'', through which he became acquainted with others working on mechanical theories of gravitation. A short note titled "Addendum" added clarifying comments to the original essay. In January 1997 he published his Neoetherics paper on his website, neoetherics.com.
-In May, 1997 I took part in a conference organized by Ray Tomes and Ross Tessian called "Conference on the Fundamental Structure and Mechanisms of the Universe." This was the first time I presented my Neoetherics theory in public. In July of that same year I took part in a conference organized by Norm Silliman called "The Nature and Structure of the Aether." Here I met Steven Rado.
+Neoetherics proposes a hydrodynamic aether that fills the universe and is in constant motion. In the theory, mass is treated as a location where aether flows inward and is annihilated, forming a "sink." As aether accelerates toward such a sink, the resulting velocity gradient in the surrounding medium causes nearby masses to move toward it, a process Shifman identified with gravitation. He presented the model as supplying the direct mechanical contact that [[Isaac Newton]] regarded as necessary and as clarifying the equivalence between gravity and acceleration.
-In 1998 I met John Chappell, Jr. and became a member of the Natural Philosophy Alliance. In May of 2000 I participated in an NPA conference held in Berkeley, California.
+In May 1997 Shifman presented Neoetherics publicly for the first time at the "Conference on the Fundamental Structure and Mechanisms of the Universe," organized by Ray Tomes and Ross Tessien. In July of that year he took part in "The Nature and Structure of the Aether," organized by Norm Silliman, where he met Steven Rado. In 1998 he met [[John Chappell|John Chappell, Jr.]] and became a member of the [[Natural Philosophy Alliance]], participating in its May 2000 conference in Berkeley, California. In July 2000 he attended the "Fundamental Problems of Natural Science and Engineering" conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, for which he prepared a paper titled "Telling Fish About Water."
-In July of 2000 I attended a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia on "Fundamental Problems of Natural Science and Engineering." I prepared a new paper for the conference titled "Telling Fish About Water".
+In November 2000 Shifman was contacted by Alexey Selin of Ukraine, who reported having built devices using a massive rotor spinning at 10,000 to 20,000 rpm that he claimed caused a test mass to lose more than 2% of its weight. Shifman regarded the reported result as supportive of their shared view of gravitation and set out to design and build his own version of the apparatus, which he called the "Selin Device," in an attempt to replicate the results.
-In November of 2000 I received email from Alexey Selin, who lives in Ukraine. He had found my website and was excited that my ideas so closely resembled his own insights into gravitation. He sent me some material he had written, and also told me that he had invented and built three versions of a device that uses a massive rotor spinning at 10,000 to 20,000 rpm to cause a test mass to lose over 2% of its weight. He felt that this result was strongly supportive of the veiw of gravitation that we shared. With his encouragement I decided to design and build my own version of his machine. I am calling it the Selin Device. I am currently trying to replicate his results.
+Shifman's paper "Neoetherics: Visualizing gravitation" was published in the journal ''[[Physics Essays]]'' (Volume 30, Issue 1, March 2017, pp. 181–187).
 ==Abstracts==
 * 2008 - "[[The Hundred Year Detour]]" ([http://www.naturalphilosophy.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_53.pdf Read in full])
 * 2002 - "[[Experimental Xenophysics ]]"
 * 2000 - "[[Telling a Fish About Water]]" ([http://www.neoetherics.com/telling.htm Read in full])
 * 1985 - "[[Neoetherics: Visualizing Gravity]]" ([http://www.neoetherics.com/grav1.htm Read in full])
+==External links==
+* [https://jerryshifman.blogspot.com/ JCS Blog]
+* [https://physicsessays.org/browse-journal-2/product/1566-11-jerry-shifman-neoetherics-visualizing-gravitation.html "Neoetherics: Visualizing gravitation" in ''Physics Essays'']
 [[Category:Scientist|Shifman Jerry]]
+[[Category:Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists]]