Pari Spolter: Difference between revisions

Pari Spolter
Pari Spolter
Born	January 30, 1930; Tehran, Iran
Residence	Granada Hills, California, United States
Nationality	Iranian-American
Alma mater	University of Geneva; University of Wisconsin–Madison
Known for	Gravitational Force of the Sun (1993); alternative theory of gravitation
	Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry, gravitation

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Revision as of 07:55, 17 July 2026

Pari Spolter (born January 30, 1930) is an Iranian-American biochemist, publisher, and author. Trained as a biochemist, she is best known outside her original field for her 1993 book Gravitational Force of the Sun, in which she challenges the accepted theories of gravitation of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein and proposes an alternative formulation in which gravitational force is independent of mass. Her ideas lie outside the mainstream of physics and astronomy and have been published chiefly through her own imprint, Orb Publishing Company, rather than in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Biography

Spolter was born in Tehran, Iran, on January 30, 1930. She earned a licence ès sciences chimiques, mention biologiques (a degree in biochemistry) from the University of Geneva in Switzerland in 1952, and subsequently a Master of Science (1959) and a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1961) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

From 1952 to 1957 she taught at the University of Tehran. In 1957 she immigrated to the United States, and about a year later she married the pediatrician Herbert Spolter; the couple had four children. She held academic and research posts as a research associate and instructor at Temple University in Philadelphia (1961–1965) and as a research biochemist at the Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco (1965–1968). Her laboratory research during these years was supported by government grants.

After raising her family, Spolter turned to independent research without an academic affiliation. In 1988 she established the Orb Publishing Company in Granada Hills, California, through which she has published her books. She has said that she chose to publish her own work rather than submit it to scientific journals in order to avoid the peer-review process, which she regarded as a risk to the priority of her ideas.

Scientific contributions

Spolter's central work, Gravitational Force of the Sun, was first published in 1993, with a revised second edition in 2014. In it she argues that the mass of a body is not a necessary factor in gravitational attraction. Aligning herself with Johannes Kepler rather than with Newton or Einstein, she proposes that the gravitational force of the Sun can be expressed as the product of acceleration and the area of a circle whose radius equals the semimajor axis of a body's orbit—a quantity she holds to be constant for all planets, asteroids, and artificial satellites and independent of the mass of the orbiting body. From this she derives a force equation of the form F = a·A (force equals acceleration times area).

She further contends that the sequential mean distances of the planets from the Sun follow an exponential law (relating her results to the Titius–Bode relation), from which she concludes that gravitation is quantized. In two chapters she also questions Einstein's general theory of relativity and the interpretation of the Michelson–Morley experiment. Spolter has noted that, although her doctorate is in biochemistry rather than physics, she considered her experimental training an advantage, contrasting a data-first laboratory approach with what she viewed as an overly theory-driven method in modern physics and cosmology.

Critical response to the book has been mixed, with much of the favorable notice coming from outside the university-based scientific mainstream, including publications associated with alternative-energy and fringe-science communities. Reviewers such as T. E. Phipps, Jr., writing in Infinite Energy, praised her erudition and independence while noting her limited formal preparation in physics; others in the mainstream scientific community did not accept her conclusions. A second book, The Dance of the Moon, followed in 2015.

Honors

Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, Marquis Who's Who (2019)
Listed in multiple editions of Who's Who in the West
Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, and the New York Academy of Sciences

Selected reviews and articles

Yale Scientific, spring/summer 1994, p. 25.
Rapport, June–July 1994, p. 32; September–October 1994, p. 60.
Book Reader, fall 1994.
Choice, May 1994, p. 1457; October 1994, p. 252.
Nexus, December–January 1996, pp. 4–5; June–July 1996, p. 60.
New Energy News, July 1996, pp. 20–21.
TESLA: A Journal of Modern Science, first quarter 1997, pp. 39–40.
Infinite Energy, January–February 1997, pp. 46–47; July–August 2001, pp. 4–5.
On Wisconsin, May/June 1997, p. 40; January/February 1998.

Abstracts

2011 - "Kepler's Second Law and Conservation of Angular Momentum"
2011 - "Kepler's Second Law and Conservation of Angular Momentum" (Read in full)
1997 - "Gravitational Force of the Sun - A New Theory"
1997 - "New Concepts in Gravitation"

Books

1994 - "Gravitational Force of the Sun" (Read in full)

External links

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 | alt = Pari Spolter
 | birth_date = {{birth date|1930|01|30|mf=y}}
-| fields = [[Author]]
+| birth_place = [[Tehran]], Iran
-| residence = Granada Hills, CA, United States
+| residence = Granada Hills, California, United States
-| nationality = Iranian / USA
+| nationality = Iranian-American
-| known_for = [[Gravity]], [[Solar System]]
+| fields = [[Biochemistry]], [[Gravity|gravitation]]
+| alma_mater = University of Geneva<br>University of Wisconsin&ndash;Madison
+| known_for = ''Gravitational Force of the Sun'' (1993); alternative theory of [[Gravity|gravitation]]
 }}
-Born in Tehran, Iran, Pari Dokht immigrated in 1957 to the US, where a year later she married&nbsp;pediatrician Herbert Spolter.&nbsp; She earned her University of Geneva, licence es Sciences Chimiques mention Biologiques in 1952 at the University of Geneva, and her MS (1959) and PhD (1961) at the University of Wisconsin, just as she was beginning her family of four children.
+'''Pari Spolter''' (born January 30, 1930) is an Iranian-American biochemist, publisher, and author. Trained as a biochemist, she is best known outside her original field for her 1993 book ''[[Gravitational Force of the Sun]]'', in which she challenges the accepted theories of gravitation of [[Isaac Newton]] and [[Albert Einstein]] and proposes an alternative formulation in which gravitational force is independent of mass. Her ideas lie outside the mainstream of physics and astronomy and have been published chiefly through her own imprint, Orb Publishing Company, rather than in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
-''(from Contemporary Authors)'' Working without the benefit--or perhaps without the hindrance--of an official academic position, Pari Spolter, Ph.D., has written a book that intends to challenge contemporary physics. With The Gravitational Force of the Sun, published in 1994, Spolter sets out to illustrate how the views of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein on the nature of gravity were largely misconceived, and to replace their equations with those of her own. Aligning herself with the early astronomer Johannes Kepler rather than with the two aforementioned thinkers, Spolter analyzes why, in her view, the mass of an object is not a necessary factor in its gravitational attraction. "Gravitational force of the sun is given as the product of the acceleration and the area of a circle with radius equal to semimajor axis of revolution," her book asserts. "This quantity is constant for all the planets, asteroids, and artificial satellites." Spolter also claims that the sequential mean distances of the planets from the sun follow an exponential law; this in turn leads her to conclude that gravity is quantized. Additionally, in two of her twelve chapters, Spolter seriously questions both Einstein's general theory of relativity, which is usually viewed today as explaining gravity, and the Victorian-era Michelson-Morley experiment which inspired Einstein's thought. Spolter chose to establish her own publishing company in order to produce her book, rather than sending it to the usual scientific journals and subjecting it to the process of peer review. She has stated, according to Rapport magazine, that her reason for doing so was a desire to avoid the risk of having her ideas stolen by more senior, well- connected scientists.
+==Biography==
+Spolter was born in [[Tehran]], Iran, on January 30, 1930. She earned a ''licence ès sciences chimiques'', mention biologiques (a degree in biochemistry) from the University of Geneva in Switzerland in 1952, and subsequently a Master of Science (1959) and a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1961) from the University of Wisconsin&ndash;Madison.
-Critical response to her theories has been mixed and many of the positive responses have come from outside the university-based scientific mainstream. Scientifically knowledgeable reviewers in a number of publications, however, have hailed not only Spolter's determination but her erudition. T. E. Phipps, Jr., in Infinite Energy, wrote: "It is striking . . . how well informed [Spolter] seems to be in the field of astronomy or celestial mechanics." Phipps, remarking upon the stifling of independent thought that occurs in many academic environments, commented that, "as a physicist, [Spolter] may be somewhat lacking in formal preparation; but the topics she treats are so fundamental that more preparation might merely stand in her way."
+From 1952 to 1957 she taught at the University of Tehran. In 1957 she immigrated to the United States, and about a year later she married the pediatrician Herbert Spolter; the couple had four children. She held academic and research posts as a research associate and instructor at Temple University in Philadelphia (1961&ndash;1965) and as a research biochemist at the Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco (1965&ndash;1968). Her laboratory research during these years was supported by government grants.
-This opinion is similar to one Spolter expressed to CA; she admitted that she had been taken to task for writing about a branch of science different from the one in which she was trained (her doctorate is in biochemistry rather than physics), but she averred: "I believe that my background gave me an advantage rather than a disadvantage. In a biochemistry lab, you first measure the ingredients, run the reaction, get the results, and then try to find an explanation for the data. In some branches of physics and cosmology today, the theoreticians first write complicated mathematical equations, and then try to fit nature to it."
+After raising her family, Spolter turned to independent research without an academic affiliation. In 1988 she established the Orb Publishing Company in Granada Hills, California, through which she has published her books. She has said that she chose to publish her own work rather than submit it to scientific journals in order to avoid the peer-review process, which she regarded as a risk to the priority of her ideas.
-Phipps commented that Spolter's book demonstrated both the strengths and the weaknesses of independent scientific theorizing, the strength being the opportunities it presents for originality, and the weakness being the fact that an isolated scientist is not readily available for intellectual exchange. "Still, her originality is so excessive that timid intellects like mine tend to recoil from some of her insights," Phipps declared. "Certainly, one longs to argue with her on some of her more cherished points." One point with which Phipps agreed strongly was Spolter's validation of the Bode-Titus theory that describes an apparent regularity in the spacing of the planets; for this reason, he wrote, her book "constitutes an important milestone in both physics and astronomy." Other reviewers, too, applauded both Spolter's independence and her insight: "She may be the grand mistress of all iconoclasts, but this volume presents impressive evidence on her side," attested Rapport's Brian W. Firth. "Spolter is widely and deeply read. . . . She raises many and far from trivial questions." A Book Reader contributor called Gravitational Force of the Sun "revolutionary thought that is sure to evoke derision from her colleagues. . . . Clear and thorough, this will blow dust off old, accepted laws of physics."
+==Scientific contributions==
+Spolter's central work, ''Gravitational Force of the Sun'', was first published in 1993, with a revised second edition in 2014. In it she argues that the [[mass]] of a body is not a necessary factor in [[Gravity|gravitational attraction]]. Aligning herself with [[Johannes Kepler]] rather than with Newton or Einstein, she proposes that the gravitational force of the Sun can be expressed as the product of acceleration and the area of a circle whose radius equals the semimajor axis of a body's orbit—a quantity she holds to be constant for all planets, asteroids, and artificial satellites and independent of the mass of the orbiting body. From this she derives a force equation of the form F = a·A (force equals acceleration times area).
-&nbsp;A Nexus reviewer declared that "Gravitational Force of the Sun is a well-argued, well- documented, thought-provoking volume," and called Spolter's contributions to scientific inquiry "important." New Energy News editor-reviewer Hal Fox proclaimed: "This is the most readable technical book that it has been my pleasure to review. . . . Each conclusion is buttressed by careful explanation of the facts. . . . We promise that you will be much less ready to accept the lecturing of physics instructors or the writers of textbooks as being the sole or ultimate truth!" Yale Scientific's Ankur Mehta also characterized the book as "delightful reading" and "stimulating" for its "simple and lucid style" as well as its novel ideas.
+She further contends that the sequential mean distances of the planets from the Sun follow an exponential law (relating her results to the [[Titius–Bode law|Titius–Bode relation]]), from which she concludes that gravitation is quantized. In two chapters she also questions Einstein's [[general relativity|general theory of relativity]] and the interpretation of the [[Michelson–Morley experiment]]. Spolter has noted that, although her doctorate is in biochemistry rather than physics, she considered her experimental training an advantage, contrasting a data-first laboratory approach with what she viewed as an overly theory-driven method in modern physics and cosmology.
-Phipps, concluding his review, asserted that overarching the specific rights or wrongs of Spolter's theories stood an important general truth, which was "that for all the boasted beauty of [contemporary physicists'] string theories and the brassily-resounding immodesty of our Theories of Everything we still stand barely toe-deep in Newton's ocean."
+Critical response to the book has been mixed, with much of the favorable notice coming from outside the university-based scientific mainstream, including publications associated with alternative-energy and fringe-science communities. Reviewers such as T. E. Phipps, Jr., writing in ''Infinite Energy'', praised her erudition and independence while noting her limited formal preparation in physics; others in the mainstream scientific community did not accept her conclusions. A second book, ''The Dance of the Moon'', followed in 2015.
-Spolter told CA: "Nature has fascinated, challenged, and aroused the curiosity of people throughout the ages. To discover laws, to understand the underlying mechanisms, and to uncover the hidden order in the operation of our solar system and our universe are genuine cravings that laymen, as well as scientists share. "I was engaged in scientific research in various laboratories for many years. The programs were funded by government grants. Like all other scientists, I was under pressure to publish papers frequently--and I did. Then, I was home with my two babies--a full time mother. As the children grew, I found time to do research and study on my own. I was very lucky--my husband supported me. I could take as long as it was necessary to thoroughly investigate a particular topic, and I was free to choose the subject of my own interest. I did not have a boss. The result was Gravitational Force of the Sun, published in 1994, and two more books in progress. "I enjoy my work. I have great enthusiasm for what I do. I have been criticized for writing a book in physics and astronomy, when I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry. I might mention that Isaac Asimov was also a Ph.D. in Biochemistry who wrote, among numerous other topics, books in physics and astronomy. Nobody questioned his qualifications for straying from the primary field of his academic background. That is because Asimov simply recycled the textbooks in physics and astronomy for general public consumption. He did not question the validity of the assumptions. He did not question the validity of the assumptions. He did not challenge the establishment, as my book does."
+==Honors==
+* Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, Marquis Who's Who (2019)
+* Listed in multiple editions of ''Who's Who in the West''
+* Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, and the New York Academy of Sciences
-[http://www.thelivingmoon.com/47john_lear/02files/Pari_Spolter_000.html ]
+==Selected reviews and articles==
+* ''Yale Scientific'', spring/summer 1994, p. 25.
-<b>Articles:</b>       * Yale Scientific, spring/summer, 1994, p. 25.
+* ''Rapport'', June–July 1994, p. 32; September–October 1994, p. 60.
-* Rapport, June-July, 1994, p. 32; September-October, 1994, p. 60.
+* ''Book Reader'', fall 1994.
-* Book Reader, fall, 1994.
+* ''Choice'', May 1994, p. 1457; October 1994, p. 252.
-* Choice, May, 1994, p. 1457; October, 1994, p. 252.
+* ''Nexus'', December–January 1996, pp. 4–5; June–July 1996, p. 60.
-* Nexus, December-January, 1996, pp. 4-5; June-July, 1996, p. 60.
+* ''New Energy News'', July 1996, pp. 20–21.
-* New Energy News, July, 1996, pp. 20-21.
+* ''TESLA: A Journal of Modern Science'', first quarter 1997, pp. 39–40.
-* TESLA: A Journal of Modern Science, first quarter, 1997, pp. 39-40.
+* ''Infinite Energy'', January–February 1997, pp. 46–47; July–August 2001, pp. 4–5.
-* Infinite Energy, January-February, 1997, pp. 46-47; July-August, 2001, pp. 4-5.
+* ''On Wisconsin'', May/June 1997, p. 40; January/February 1998.
-* On Wisconsin, May/June, 1997, p. 40; January/February, 1998.
-</p>
 ==Abstracts==
 * 2011 - "[[Kepler's Second Law and Conservation of Angular Momentum]]"
 * 2011 - "[[Kepler's Second Law and Conservation of Angular Momentum]]" ([http://physicsessays.org/resource/1/phesem/v24/i2/p260_s1?isAuthorized=no#tabs_1_1405178_1291041801_tab1 Read in full])
 * 1997 - "[[Gravitational Force of the Sun - A New Theory]]"
 * 1997 - "[[New Concepts in Gravitation]]"
 ==Books==
 * 1994 - "[[Gravitational Force of the Sun]]" ([http://www.amazon.com/Gravitational-Force-Sun-Pari-Spolter/dp/0963810758/ref=sr_1_1/102-4912839-1307347?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191258009&sr=1-1 Read in full])
+==External links==
+* [http://www.thelivingmoon.com/47john_lear/02files/Pari_Spolter_000.html Pari Spolter page at The Living Moon]
+* [https://prabook.com/web/pari.spolter/3747684 Pari Spolter biographical entry (Prabook)]
 [[Category:Scientist|Spolter Pari]]
 [[Category:Gravity|Spolter Pari]]