Natural Philosophy Alliance

Natural Philosophy Alliance

Abbreviation	NPA
Successor	John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society
Formation	1994
Founders	John E. Chappell Jr., Neil E. Munch, and others
Founded at	United States
Dissolved	c. 2014 (effectively defunct)
Type	Nonprofit scientific organization
Legal status	Largely inactive
Purpose	A forum for scientists and independent researchers critical of mainstream physics and cosmology — especially Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity
Headquarters	United States
Membership	400+ international members at its peak (40–60 active at annual meetings)
First president	John E. Chappell Jr. (1994–2002)
Key people	Francisco Muller; Domina Eberle Spencer (past presidents); Cynthia Kolb Whitney, Greg Volk, David de Hilster (proceedings editors)
Publication	Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance; quarterly newsletter
Website	worldnpa.org

The Natural Philosophy Alliance (NPA) was a nonprofit scientific organization founded in 1994 to provide an open forum for scientists, engineers and independent researchers who dissent from mainstream physics and cosmology — above all from Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. For two decades it was the principal gathering place of the English-speaking dissident-science community, holding annual conferences, publishing proceedings, and maintaining a directory of critical researchers worldwide.

The NPA is the direct predecessor of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society (CNPS), which was formed by the great majority of its members in 2014 and which maintains this wiki. Much of the material catalogued here — thousands of papers, and the biographies of the researchers who wrote them — descends from the NPA's own records.

Origins

The NPA grew out of the work of Dr. John E. Chappell Jr. (1933–2002), a historian of science and geographer with a doctorate from the University of Kansas. Before founding the organization, Chappell organized and chaired sessions at annual regional meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) devoted to critical discussion of contemporary physics and cosmology. These sessions attracted scientists from around the world and were recognized at the time — in journals such as Galilean Electrodynamics and Apeiron — as the largest such gatherings ever held in the United States.

In 1994 Chappell, together with the engineer Neil E. Munch and others, formalized this activity as the Natural Philosophy Alliance. Chappell served as its first president and director, organizing meetings, writing a quarterly newsletter, and compiling an annual Directory-Bibliography of NPA members and other critical scientists — an early ancestor of the catalogue this wiki now maintains.

Purpose and outlook

The NPA's premise was that mainstream physics had come to rest on interpretations that were treated as settled but had never been adequately examined, and that scientists raising such questions were excluded from conventional journals and conferences rather than answered. It therefore offered what those venues did not: a place where relativity, the Big Bang, quantum orthodoxy, the aether and the foundations of gravitation could be challenged and debated openly.

The organization did not endorse a single alternative theory. Its members advanced widely differing and often mutually incompatible positions — neo-Lorentzian relativity, Autodynamics, Electric Universe and plasma cosmology, intrinsic redshift, new-energy research, and many others — united by the conviction that these questions remain open.

Leadership

Chappell led the NPA from its founding until his death in 2002. The presidency subsequently passed to Francisco Muller and then to the mathematician Dr. Domina Eberle Spencer of the University of Connecticut, who presented over fifty papers at NPA meetings and remained its president into the 2010s.

Conferences

The NPA held annual conferences, typically hosted at universities in the United States, with occasional meetings abroad. These were the organization's central activity: several days of presentations, debate and discussion among researchers who had few other opportunities to present such work to an informed audience. Attendance at the annual meetings typically ran between 40 and 60 people, drawn from an international membership that at its height exceeded 400.

Publications

• Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance — the published proceedings of the annual conferences, issued as numbered volumes from 2004 to 2013 and produced as print-on-demand books. Editors included Cynthia Kolb Whitney, Greg Volk, David de Hilster and Nina Sotina. This wiki catalogues roughly 600 papers from the series.
• Quarterly newsletter — written for many years by Chappell, carrying news, correspondence and debate among members.
• Directory-Bibliography — an annual listing of members and their publications, compiled and distributed by Chappell.

The NPA also maintained close ties with kindred journals, notably Galilean Electrodynamics — long edited by NPA member Cynthia Kolb Whitney — and Apeiron.

Awards

The NPA recognized sustained contributions to critical science through two honours documented on this wiki:

• The Sagnac Award, for lifetime achievement. Recipients included Peter Graneau (2009), the astronomer Halton C Arp (2011), and in 2012 both Donald E Scott and Lt. Col. Thomas E. Bearden.
• The John Chappell Memorial Lecture (and Memorial Paper), instituted in Chappell's honour after his death. Lecturers included Francisco J. Müller (2010, on the Doppler effect in moving astronomic bodies) and Wallace Thornhill (2011, "Stars in an Electric Universe"), with further lectures in 2012 on cold fusion and in 2013.

Notable members

Among the many researchers associated with the NPA whose work is catalogued on this wiki are Domina Eberle Spencer, Neil E Munch, Peter Graneau, Halton C Arp, Francisco J. Müller, Cynthia Kolb Whitney, Greg Volk, Charles William Lucas, Tom Van Flandern, Ricardo Carezani, Martin Kokus, Steven Bryant, David de Hilster and Bob de Hilster.

The 2013 split and the founding of the CNPS

In 2013, under new directorship, the NPA membership voted overwhelmingly for the president and secretary to step down. Citing the organization's bylaws, the directors refused to do so. In the dispute that followed, some 97% of the membership left and, in 2014, formed a new organization — the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society — named in honour of the NPA's founder and explicitly continuing its mission under a governance structure accountable to its members.

After the split the NPA held a single conference in 2014. With almost no remaining membership it has since ceased to function in any meaningful sense, though it remains the nominal owner of the worldnpa.org website.

Legacy

The NPA's twenty years of conferences and publications constitute one of the largest sustained bodies of organized dissident scientific work in the English-speaking world. Its proceedings series continues as the Proceedings of the CNPS (2015–present), its annual meetings as the CNPS conferences, and its directory of researchers as the catalogue maintained on this wiki — which preserves the papers, books and biographies assembled over the NPA's lifetime.

Links

• www.worldnpa.org — the former NPA website
• www.naturalphilosophy.org — the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society, successor organization

See also

• John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society
• John E. Chappell Jr.
• Proceedings of the NPA
• Galilean Electrodynamics
• Index of Journals