| 1) |
1985
- 2002 Background: In 1985 Dr.
LaViolette had published in a refereed journal a series of three
papers on a physics theory he had developed. The theory is called
subquantum kinetics. The editor of this journal (Intl.
Journal of General Systems) thought his theory to be significant
enough to warrant its publication as a special issue of the journal
entitled "Special Issue on Systems Thinking in Physics."
After its publication the paper received much favorable
response. Later he expanded on the astrophysical aspects
of his theory in subsequent refereed journal publications appearing
in the Astrophysical
Journal (1986) and in Physics
Essays (1992, 1994). |
| |
In
his 1985 foundation papers, and later in the 1994 edition of
his book entitled Subquantum
Kinetics, he had stated a key test of his theory which
predicted that if a maser signal was transponded between spacecraft
over a distance of many astronomical units, the return signal
would be found to be blueshifted. In these publications
he also stated the amount of the expected blueshift. In
1980 he communicated his prediction to JPL scientists who were
interested in studying maser signal Doppler shifts as a means
of detecting gravity waves. |
| |
In
1998 and again in 2002 a group of scientists led by John Anderson,
a member of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory group which LaViolette
had contacted in 1980, published papers announcing the discovery
of an anomalous blueshift in maser signals transponded from the
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft. The value that they
gave was within a factor of two of the value that Dr. LaViolette
had published over a decade earlier. |
| |
Thus
this Pioneer finding constituted a confirmation of his previously
published blueshifting prediction. He felt that it
was important to alert the physics/astronomical community of
this confirmation, so in April 2002 he submitted a paper on this
confirmation to a refereed physics journal. But, in addition,
he also intended to post his submitted paper simultaneously on
the physics archive. It is common practice for physicists
and astronomers to post papers on the physics archive even before
they have been formally accepted for publication. This
allowed the scientific community more ready access to such papers
since journal review can often be quite an extended process.
In fact, a large number of the papers posted on the physics archive
have never received journal publication. |
| |
Moreover
at that time, the Pioneer 10 maser signal anomaly was being very
actively discussed on the physics archive subsection dealing
with general relativity and quantum cosmology (ArXiv.org/gr-qc).
Not only had the JPL team posted their papers on this discovery,
but many other scientists had posted papers as well speculating
as to the cause of the anomaly. About half of these papers proposed
new physics explanations. Indeed, the cause of the anomaly
was not well understood. But none of these scientists had
made predictions prior to the discovery of the anomaly.
Their theories were all formed a posteriori. Dr.
LaViolette was the only one to have published a prediction of
the effect prior to its discovery. But none of the authors
of those papers were aware of his prediction. |
| |
So
he felt an urgency to post his paper on the physics archive to
inform the physics community about this prediction. However,
the archive was set up only to accept papers automatically from
email addresses ending in gov or edu. All other individuals
were required to have their papers endorsed by a sponsor. Dr.
LaViolette fell in this second group since he was affiliated
with a private research institute (the Starburst Foundation)
which had a dot-com website.
On April 16, 2002 he contacted the archive by email to
get approval to post papers to the archive. |
| |
Now,
more than more than 2-1/2 years later, they still refuse to allow
him to post this paper even though they have been contacted by
three physicists all offering to sponsor him for posting to the
archive, one of these individuals being a Nobel Laureate. One
can only conclude that their attempt to prevent his prediction
from being posted to their archive and being known to the physics
community amounts to unjust discrimination against him. |
| |
The
Pioneer Effect, if real, is something that is not predicted by
standard theories of physics, and many papers proposing new physics
have been allowed to be posted to the archive. So why in
LaViolette's case, when he even made a prediction that is now
confirmed, why would he be singled out to be blocked from posting
his paper? The history of his interchange with the archive
is presented below. |
| 2) |
April 16, 2002: LaViolette emailed the archive requesting that he
and his organization (The Starburst Foundation) receive permission
to be able to post physics/astronomy papers to the physics archive.
They responded sending him the following instructions:
Subj: RE: register
Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 4:24:33 PM
From: no-reply@arXiv.org
To: gravitics1@aol.com
Your register request has been deferred.
Ordinarily we require an appropriate institutional affiliation,
so if you are trying to register from a public access provider,
please use instead (for example) your university account.
If you are trying to register from an e-mail account with a research
employer that officially sponsors your work, then please send
a message to www-admin@arXiv.org with brief information on that
employer (including a pointer to that employer's web pages).
If you have no suitable institutional affiliation, then please
find someone with such an affiliation, and with expertise in
the relevant subject matter, to sponsor your activities.
|
| 3) |
April 16, 2002: He follows the stated instructions and responds by
sending the following email:
To: www-admin@arXiv.org
subject: register
I am trying to register from an email account with my research
employer: The Starburst Foundation. Starburst Foundation is a
research institute that does work in astronomy, physics, geology,
systems theory, and psychology. You may view some information
about my institution at the following web address: http://home.earthlink.net/~gravitics/Starburst.html.
Please register me in the physics archives.
Paul LaViolette
|
| 4) |
April 17, 2002: He also contacts Dr. Mermin of Cornell physics dept.
who is on the review board for the archive. He emails him a copy
of his paper in confidence so that he can see that its topic
fits with the subject areas covered by the archive. Dr. LaViolette
writes:
To: ndm4@cornell.edu
subject: paper for posting on Cornell arXiv website
Dear Prof. Mermin,
Attached is the paper I would like to post on the arXiv website.
As we discussed, I am trying to register to get an email account
for my research institute, the Starburst Foundation, which does
work in astronomy, physics, geology, and systems theory.
Sincerely,
Paul LaViolette
Dear Professor Mermin,
I forgot to mention that I would like that you keep confidential
the paper I sent you. I have a few more changes to make
before I submit it for publication. For the present, this
copy is only for you to review.
Sincerely,
Paul LaViolette
Mermin writes back:
Subj: Re: paper for posting on Cornell arXiv website
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 10:02:38 PM
From: mermin@ccmr.cornell.edu
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
Please confirm that it will be OK to discuss with another
person connected with the arXiv, since I want to make sure that
my judgment agrees with his.
I had planned to talk with him about this on Friday and should
be back to you shortly after that.
Hope that's OK.
|
| 5) |
April 18, 2002: Dr. LaViolette responds to Mermin as follows:
Dear Prof. Mermin,
I think it would be Ok to discuss the paper with the person you
have in mind provided that they would not be a potential reviewer
of the paper during journal publication or are not any of the
authors cited in my paper.
Paul LaViolette
Mermin responds saying:
Subj: Re: paper for posting on Cornell arXiv website
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2002 10:26:11 AM
From: mermin@ccmr.cornell.edu
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
I'm sure that won't be a problem. There is an issue of arXiv
policy for which your article constitutes a useful test case.
Thanks for your patience.
____________________________
Prof. Mermin does not elaborate on what this
"test case" is about. But it is evident at this point
that the physics archive begins to take what could be construed
as discriminatory action against LaViolette. Based on the
archive's later unusual actions, we may surmise that at this
point Mermin and this other committee member (Ginsparg?) had
gone beyond the bounds of deciding if the subject area fell in
the appropriate physics/astronomy category. It is reasonable
to conclude that they passed some negative judgment on LaViolette
or on his paper. Did they disagree with the theory he was
proposing, based on their own personal biases? They
never did say that there was anything wrong with his paper.
|
| |
Or
did they conduct an internet search on Dr. LaViolette's name
to investigate his research interests, views posted on his website,
or what other people were saying about him on their websites,
and decided that they disagreed with his philosophical views
or that he delved into too many subject areas considered taboo
in the physics community? If so, what does such a "thought
police" investigation have to do with the scientific adequacy
of his paper? And, is blacklisting based on internet snooping
ethical? |
|
6)
|
One day later he receives the following response
from the archive:
Subj: Re: register
Date: Friday, April 19, 2002 4:17:40 PM
From: www-admin@arxiv.org
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
We are in the process of revising our policies with respect
to unaffiliated researchers. We insist that new submitters are
part of the academia or that they are suffiently [sic] networked
with it. If you have no recognized academic affiliation,
then you must find someone who does, and with expertise in the
relevant subject matter (your specific field of research), to
sponsor your registration with us.
Sponsorship should be informed and enthusiastic, as if that
person felt comfortable being co-author of your works. It
should not be granted merely to support freedom of speech or
to help out a friend.
arXiv admin
So it is apparent here that to deal with his
request (their test case) they were revising their rules, making
them more stringent than the rules they had sent him in their
April 16th email. The last paragraph of their email is especially
stringent. This special treatment came after they had a
chance to read a pdf copy of the paper he intended to post.
|
|
7)
|
April 21st & 22nd, 2002: Subsequent interchange with Dr. Mermin:
Subj: arXiv
Date: Sunday, April 21, 2002 10:18:35 AM
From: mermin@ccmr.cornell.edu
To: gravitics1@aol.com
Dear Dr. Laviolette,
I have checked with those responsible for arXiv on your wish
to post
your article. As you may know, arXiv has recently moved
from Los Alamos
to Cornell and the Cornell people have begun to develop a formal
policy statement, which will include the scope and goals of the
arXiv
and spell out the rights and responsibilities of users,submitters,
and
administrators. If you wish to pursue the matter further
you would
need to contact the relevant people at the Cornell University
Library
via Edward Weissman <esw3@cornell.edu>, though it is likely
their
response will be delayed until the new formal policies are in
place.
Meanwhile, especially if you are concerned with priority,
I would advise
you to submit your paper to an appropriate peer-reviewed journal.
A submission from the Starburst Foundation would receive the
same
response as the one you attempted, so getting an email account
for the
Foundation is not the answer.
With best wishes,
David Mermin
4/22/02
Dear Professor Mermin,
Thank you for looking into this matter.
I have always planned to submit my paper to a journal, but journal
review incurs delays and I wanted to put the matter before the
physics community as soon as possible, which is why I am pursuing
archive posting in parallel with submission.
Since there would be a delay in deciding this matter via the
Cornell library, would it not be possible for the Starburst Foundation
to be sponsored by an organization that already has access to
the arXiv, e.g., like someone at NRL or at the Naval Observatory?
If so, what procedure should they follow? Who should they
contact?
Best wishes,
Paul LaViolette
____________________________
He received no further response
from Mermin. So he proceeded to contact Dr. Chubb of the
Office of Naval Research who felt he was qualified under the
criteria for sponsorship stated in the April 16th email.
|
|
8)
|
April 25, 2002: Dr. Chubb writes the following very persuasive email
to the physics archive offering to sponsor Dr. LaViolette's paper
and research institution (The Starburst Foundation).
|
Subj: Endorsement of Starburst Foundation
Date: Thursday, April 25, 2002 11:00:32 AM
From: chubb@ccf.nrl.navy.mil
To: www-admin@arxiv.org
cc: gravitics1@aol.com
To whom it may concern, I am writing to endorse the idea that
a particular manuscript by Paul LaViolette, of the Starburst
Foundation (website: http://home.earthlink.net/~gravitics/Starburst.html),
should be included in the Cornell preprint archive. The
Starburst Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization engaged
in scientific research and education. The paper which is
titled, "The Pioneer Maser Signal Anomaly:Possible Confirmation
of a Photon Blueshifting Effect?" provides an important
prediction, based on a novel theory, associated with an effect
(an anomalous gravitationally induced blueshift in photon frequency)
that potentially has important implications, both at a fundamental
level, and in practical terms.
In particular, as a research physicist at the Naval Research
Laboratory, I have been involved over the years with issues related
to maintaining precision time and frequency standards in space,
and related topics, including the effects of gravitation and
time dilation on microwave transmissions in the Global Positioning
System (GPS). Through this work, I have become aware of
a number of anomalies associated with precision measurements
of photon frequency that have direct bearing on practical, precision
applications of and improvements to the GPS. The kinds
of innovative, theoretical developments suggested by Dr. Paul
LaViolette in this paper not only may very well have implications
in addressing these anomalies, but because of their relevance
to the GPS, these kinds of ideas may spawn new, important, practical
developments that could have national importance.
As a government employee, working for an established institution
(the Naval Research Laboratory) that is permitted to submit papers
to the archive, not only do I approve of and strongly endorse
the work in this paper, but in more general terms, I endorse
the work that I have been exposed to from the Starburst Foundation,
associated with this particular topic. This foundation
promotes innovative approaches for solving and addressing important
problems. As a worker in the field, I think that by including
this work by Paul LaViolette, in particular, as well as additional
papers by Starburst Foundation, associated with the topic presented
in this paper (and in related areas), you will help to foster
meaningful dialogue about important, fundamental ideas, related
to an important area of science.
Yours Truly,
SCOTT CHUBB
|
|
|
9)
|
May 2, 2002:
More than one week had gone by and neither Dr. LaViolette nor
Dr. Chubb had received a response back from the archive regarding
approval of Dr. Chubb's offer for sponsorship. LaViolette sent
the following email, but no response was forthcoming, just silence:
Subj: status of registration request
Date: Thursday, May 2, 2002 12:47:35 PM
To: www-admin@arxiv.org
Dear webmaster,
I was wondering if you have reached a decision about allowing
my organization, the Starburst Foundation, to register with your
archive. A scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory has
emailed you a sponsorship letter. Is that one sponsor sufficient?
Keep in mind that I am a full member of the American Astronomical
Society and have published papers on my research in journals
such as the Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices, Earth, Moon,
and Planets, and Meteoritics.
Sincerely yours,
Paul LaViolette, Ph.D.
|
| 10) |
May 24, 2002: Having received
no response to his email, LaViolette contacted Jean Poland of
the Cornell University library who is affiliated with the hosting
of the physics archive project. He wrote to her as follows, following
it with a copy of Dr. Chubb's recommendation:
Subj: Admission to physics archive
Date: Friday, May 24, 2002 8:06:47 AM
To: jp126@cornell.edu
One month ago Dr. Chubb emailed to the archive an endorsement
for my organization, the Starburst Foundation, recommending that
we be allowed to post papers to the physics archive. I
have a paper that I would like to post and have been waiting
to receive a user name and password, but have not had any return
communication. I was wondering why there is such a long
delay. Could you tell me who to contact or have them contact
me about this?
I have followed the instructions on your archive site. This
said that if the organization's url does not end in edu or mil,
an endorsement would be necessary to allow participation in the
archive. The Starburst Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
scientific research institute and we have engaged in both research
and education types of activities. Below is a copy of the endorsement
letter emailed by Dr. Chubb.
Sincerely,
Paul LaViolette, Ph.D.
|
| 11) |
May 28, 2002: Jean Poland responded to his email as follows:
Subj: Re: Admission to physics archive
Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 8:34:09 PM
From: jp126@cornell.edu
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
Dr. LaViolette - Thank you for your inquiry. We are currently
reviewing
our submission policies. At the time you and I talked I
suggested a
sponsor who is an expert in your area and has articles appearing
on the
arXiv might be appropriate. We are currently working with
our physics
colleagues and legal counsel to come up with review policies
that will help
us develop the arXiv at Cornell. This is a more complex
process than it
might seem and I appreciate your patience. I will let you
know when the
policies are determined.
Jean Poland
|
| 12) |
June, 2002: Based on Jean Poland's response, he concluded
that the physics archive may not have acted on Dr. Chubb's offered
sponsorship because they felt that his area of expertise was
not sufficiently close to the subject of my paper. So at
this point he wrote a letter to Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe hoping
that his endorsement might be sufficient. Dr. Bethe had
coauthored as many as 9 astrophysics papers posted to the physics
archive during the previous four years. Moreover he had
received the Nobel Prize for astrophysics work he did on explaining
nuclear fusion processes occurring within the Sun. The
photon blueshifting effect discussed in LaViolette's paper on
the Pioneer anomaly had substantial bearing on stellar energy
processes, which would fall precisely within Dr. Bethe's area
of expertise. Although Dr. Bethe is retired, he nevertheless
is affiliated with Cornell University as Professor Emeritus.
Since he did not have email, LaViolette faxed him the following
letter along with a copy of his paper:
|
To: Dr. Hans Bethe
From Paul LaViolette
President
The Starburst Foundation
6369 Beryl Road, #104
Alexandria, VA 22312
703-256-4887
email: gravitics1@aol.com
Dr. Dr. Bethe,
Dr. [M. Y.], who is a personal friend of my parents and myself,
suggested you might be able to help me out. I am trying
to get authorization from people at Cornell to post a paper I
wrote to the general relativity and quantum cosmology section
of the physics arXiv, a website that Cornell monitors at which
physicists may post papers they have written on various topics
of mutual interest for mutual comment. Since I am not associated
with a university, I can only be given permission to access the
site if I first get someone to sponsor me saying that they feel
that I should be given permission to have such access, i.e.,
that the paper I am posting is of such a nature that it should
be of interest to the physics community. The organization
I am affiliated with is a nonprofit research institute, but since
it is not a university some form of sponsorship is needed.
I am faxing with this letter a copy of my paper, which I am
also submitting to the Journal of Physics. The paper comments
on the Pioneer 10 signal anomaly in which John Anderson and his
group at JPL believe they have found evidence of anomalous blueshifting
in maser signals transponded from the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer
11 spacecraft. Some 17 years ago I had published a prediction
stemming from a physics theory I had developed which not only
predicted that photon blueshifting would be observed but also
predicted the amount to within 40% or so of what is found. Since
your opinion is highly respected by the physics community and
since you also have close ties with Cornell, I thought they would
value your opinion on this matter.
Posting this paper on the physics arXiv website would allow
me to bring this apparent confirmation of my theory to the attention
of the physics community at the earliest possible date, regardless
of the outcome of journal peer review. Note that a large
majority of the papers posted on the arXiv are not published
so it is not necessary to have prior acceptance for journal publication.
If you feel you could recommend to the caretakers of this
arXiv that they give me access for posting my paper, you could
email your support to the webmaster at: www-admin@arxiv.org and
send a copy of the email to: jp126@cornell.edu. If you
prefer the telephone, you may contact either Jean Poland, the
associate university librarian (607-255-xxxx), or Prof. D. Mermin
at 607-255-xxxx.
I greatly appreciate your time in looking over my paper and
helping out on this.
Best wishes,
Paul A. LaViolette, Ph.D.
|
|
|
13)
|
September 23, 2002: Some months passed and finally Dr. Bethe had a chance
to read the paper. He communicated to LaViolette that "he
felt that he may have something there" and that he "doesn't
know of anyone else who has proposed something similar."
However Dr. Bethe's phone calls to the physics archive
went unanswered. He was given the name Prof. Paul Ginsparg
as a person to contact. But, Ginsparg did not return his
phone calls. So at this point LaViolette emailed the following
letter to Dr. Ginsparg, copying it also to Dr. Mermin and Jean
Pollard:
Subj: Dr. Bethe is trying to get in touch with you
Date: Monday, September 23, 2002 10:43:01 PM
From: Gravitics1
To: ginsparg@cornell.edu, Gravitics1
cc: mermin@ccmr.cornell.edu, jp126@cornell.edu
ndm4@cornell.edu
To:
Dr. Paul Ginsparg
Administrator of the Cornell Physics Archive
Dear Dr. Ginsparg,
Dr. Hans Bethe tried to get in touch with you today by telephone.
I am contacting you also by email since Dr. Bethe does not have
email. He wanted to let you know that he is willing to
sponsor my paper entitled "The Pioneer Maser Signal Anomaly:
Possible Confirmation of Spontaneous Photon Blueshifting"
so that it can be posted to the physics archive. He can be reached
at.
I had first contacted the archive webmaster 5 months ago requesting
permission to post this paper. Shortly after that I had also
emailed an endorsement written by Scott Chubb of the Naval Research
Laboratory. But I had no response. I hope that now
that Dr. Bethe also recommends it to be posted that you will
send me a user name and password so that I may post my paper
to your site. Please note that my paper attempts to call
attention to data confirming a theoretical prediction that I
had previously published and which was apparently unknown to
the authors who published the confirming data, so your immediate
action on this would be greatly appreciated.
Paul A. LaViolette, Ph.D.
|
| 14) |
September 29, 2002: Instead of making an effort to respond to Dr. Bethe,
who has no email capability, the archive sent LaViolette an anonymous
email reprimanding him for attempting to contact one of their
committee members by telephone. They wrote:
Subj: RE: Dr. Bethe is trying to get in touch with you
Date: Sunday, September 29, 2002 3:04:15 PM
From: register-query@arXiv.org
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
Your message has been forwarded to this address for processing.
Note that this is the only address that should be used for such
communications,
and under no circumstances are telephone calls accepted.
Endorsements must come from currently active archive users
intimately familiar
with the work in question. Neither of your proposed sponsors
qualifies.
Your attempted submission has been determined to be inappropriate
for this
resource. You should sumit [sic] it instead to a conventional
journal.
____________________________
Here they state that they
do not consider Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe as qualified and give
no reason why. Yet contrary to what they state he is a
currently active archive user since he has coauthored many papers
posted to the archive. They raised their barrier to entry
by requiring now that the sponsor be "intimately familiar
with the work in question." Indeed, Dr. Bethe had
not written papers specifically on the subject of the Pioneer
anomaly. But was this not going a bit overboard? It
certainly was not the same standard they were using to permit
other physicists from posting their papers. Moreover, people
who receive permission to post papers on the archive are allowed
to post on any subject that deals with physics or astrophysics.
Thus it does not make sense to grant permission on a paper-by-paper
basis. Why should a sponsor be "intimately familiar"
particularly in this particular area. Would it not be enough
that he is an astrophysicist with a general knowledge of physics
and astrophysics as is the case for Dr. Bethe?
They also state that LaViolette's "attempted
submission has been determined to be inappropriate for this resource."
This may be interpreted as meaning that his submission
of Dr. Chubb and Dr. Bethe as sponsors was determined as being
inappropriate. But as we shall see from later communications,
they are implying here that they have determined that LaViolette's
paper is inappropriate - without stating their reasons for reaching
this conclusion.
|
|
15)
|
September 30, 2002: Thinking that they would want the opinion of a sponsor
who had previously written on the subject of the Pioneer anomaly,
LaViolette then contacts Dr. Lou Scheffer of Cadence Design Systems
Corp. who had posted several papers to the physics archive on
the Pioneer anomaly. He sent him the following email:
Subj: Paper on the Pioneer 10 blueshift effect
Date: Monday, September 30, 2002 1:07:05 PM
To: lou@cadence.com
Dear Lou,
Thank you for taking a look at my paper, which is the attached
pdf file. Let me know if you would be interested to sponsor
it for posting on the physics archive (gr-qc section). I
have also submitted it for journal publication and am waiting
to hear the decision, but that can take a long time. Since
this topic has been actively discussed on this archive, and since
my paper calls attention to an earlier prediction of the effect
from a previously published theory which was apparently unknown
to the authors Anderson et al. who published the confirming data,
I would like to get it posted as soon as possible without waiting
for the long process of journal publication.
I would also be interested in any comments you may have.
Best wishes,
Paul LaViolette
|
| 16) |
October 11, 2002: Dr. Scheffer then emailed the following letter
to the physics archive notifying them that he was glad to sponsor
LaViolette for posting papers:
|
Subj: No Subject
Date: Friday, October 11, 2002 8:45:43 PM
From: lou@cadence.com
To: register-query@arXiv.org
cc: gravitics1@aol.com
Dear Sirs,
I've read Paul LaViolette's paper "The Pioneer Maser Signal
Anomaly: Possible Confirmation of Spontaneous Photon Blueshifting"
and believe you should allow him to post it to the archive. I
don't believe in this theory myself (I think the Pioneer effect
can be explained by conventional physics), but it meets the test
of a scientific explanation:
- It makes a numerical prediction of the effect predicted by
the theory.
- It compares the theory to experiment and finds no contradiction.
- It specifies other measurements which could be used to prove/disprove
the theory.
Of course if the proposed effect is real there would be serious
revision required to standard astrophysical explanations, as
outlined in the paper. However many others have speculated
on possible new physics indicated by the Pioneer anomaly without
detailed examination of all the other consequences of their theory
(including the authors at JPL, the authorities in the field)
so I think Dr. LaViolette should be allowed to add his explanation
to the long list of proposed explanations.
The paper is short and can be read quickly, so although I don't
personally believe it, I'd rather err on the side of inclusion
and let the possible explanation stand or fall on its own merits.
As for my background, I've posted several papers to the archive
on the same effect (most recently gr-qc/0108054 ). They've been
cited (though not believed) by papers which have made it through
review and into the refereed journals, and my paper is following
the same course. I've got lots of other publications in
the field of electronics.
Lou Scheffer
|
|
| 17) |
October 15, 2002: LaViolette also emailed the archive stating that
he would like to consider Dr. Scheffer as a sponsor and also
he requested that they reconsider Dr. Bethe's offer for sponsorship
as well:
|
Subj: Sponsors recommending that I be allowed to post
astrophysics papers
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 10:21:01 AM
To: register-query@arXiv.org
Dear Sirs,
Dr. Scheffer has had an opportunity to read the paper that I
wish to post to the gr-qc archive and has recently emailed his
recommendation to you. I wanted to request that you consider
him as my sponsor supporting your decision to allow me to post
papers to the archive.
I also request that you reconsider allowing Nobel Laureate
Hans Bethe to act as my sponsor. I believe he conforms to your
stated requirements for being a sponsor. During the past
4 years he has coauthered as many as 9 papers that have been
posted to the archive, mostly to the astro-ph section. He abbreviates
his name as H. A. Bethe. After reading my paper he feels
that "I may have something there" and he does "not
know of anyone else who has proposed something similar".
As may be seen, the blueshifting phenomenon that my paper
proposes has broad application to astrophysics (e.g., resolution
of the solar neutrino problem, hypernova, etc.). Nevertheless
because the paper also deals with quantum phenomena that have
cosmological significance (photon frequency stability) it also
is relevant to the gr-qc section where currently there is an
active discussion of the Pioneer 10 effect.
So I request that you consider both Dr. Bethe and Dr. Scheffer
as my sponsors.
Sincerely yours,
Paul LaViolette, Ph.D.
The Starburst Foundation
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18)
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October 16, 2002: The archive responded to Dr. Scheffer, denying
his request to sponsor LaViolette. Quoting parts of his
letter, they respond as follows:
-----Original Message-----
From: register-query for arXiv.org [mailto:register-query@arXiv.org]
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 7:35 PM
To: Louis Scheffer
Cc: Gravitics1@aol.com
Subject: RE: Sponsors
>I've read Paul LaViolette's paper "The Pioneer Maser
Signal Anomaly:
>Possible Confirmation of Spontaneous Photon Blueshifting"
and believe you
>should allow him to post it to the archive.
We have already explained that at this point Mr. LaViolette's
only
option is to submit to a conventional journal. If it is
not suitable for a
conventional journal, then it is not suitable for this resource.
> As for my background, I've posted several papers to the
archive on the
> same effect (most recently gr-qc/0108054 ).
Due to numerous problems, the policies have been changed since
a year ago.
____________________________
"What else can we call this
other than shameless blacklisting?"
So even after Dr. LaViolette took
time to find someone who had expertise in the specific subject
that his paper deals with, following the directions that they
had given him, they still refused to allow him to post his paper.
It seems that when they could no longer find a reason to
deny LaViolette's sponsorship on the basis of his choice of people
to act as sponsors, they then resorted to just a flat denial
saying that he would have to prove that his paper was suitable
by having it first accepted for publication by a "conventional"
journal. But, two years later Dr. LaViolette submitted
a paper that had been accepted by a conventional journal and
was again denied access (see suppress2).
As mentioned above, other physicists who use the archive
are not held to this same standard. They are allowed to
post their papers prior to receiving notification whether their
papers are accepted for publication. And if they are not
accepted, they are still allowed to keep those papers posted.
It is undeniably evident that the Cornell physics archive
chose to break their own rules of sponsorship in order to bar
LaViolette from posting his paper. What else can we call
this other than shameless blacklisting?
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19)
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October 22, 2002: In response Dr. LaViolette emailed to the archive
the following letter of complaint:
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Subj: Concern about your procedures for archive sponsorship
Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 12:45:26 PM
To: register-query@arXiv.org
cc: lou@cadence.com, chubb@ccf.nrl.navy.mil
Dear Sirs,
I have now submitted to you three people who are willing to
act as my sponsors.
Initially, Dr. Chubb of the Naval Research Laboratories sent
you a letter to this effect requesting that I be allowed to post
papers to the physics archive. But no response was forthcoming
from your committee. Why, I don't know. Was it because
Dr. Chubb had himself not previously posted a paper to your archive?
Then I left a telephone message on Dr. Ginsparg's answering
machine indicating that Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe was trying
to contact him to inform him that he would act as my sponsor.
But on September 29th, you rejected Dr. Bethe stating:
"Endorsements must come from currently active archive users
intimately familiar
with the work in question. Neither of your proposed sponsors
qualifies.
Your attempted submission has been determined to be inappropriate
for this
resource. You should submit it instead to a conventional journal."
Your rejection of Dr. Bethe, Professor Emeritus at Cornell
University, surprised me. Besides having coauthored as
many as 10 astrophysics papers posted to your archive in the
past 4 years, his opinion is highly respected in the physics/astrophysics
world.
Thinking that your refusal was because Dr. Bethe had not written
papers specifically on the Pioneer 10 anomaly, I then contacted
Dr. Scheffer who has posted papers to your site precisely on
this subject. He emailed you a letter agreeing to act as
my sponsor. But you rejected him also. Dr. Scheffer forwarded
to me your October 15th response which states:
"We have already explained that at this point Mr. LaViolette's
only
option is to submit to a conventional journal. If it is not suitable
for a
conventional journal, then it is not suitable for this resource."
I received with surprise your rejection of Dr. Scheffer's
sponsorship offer. You now indicate that you require proof
that my paper is suitable for publication in a conventional journal,
implying that you are changing the rules in the instance of my
submission, placing yet another hurdle for me to surmount. This
is not the same standard that you have applied in the past for
other scientists since most papers posted to your website have
not previously been accepted for publication, although many are
in the process of undergoing review. By the way, I prefer
to be addressed professionally as Dr. LaViolette, not "Mr.
LaViolette." Moreover on the contrary, you had not
"already explained that at this point my only option is
to submit to a conventional journal." In your September
29th email, quoted above, where you stated: "Your attempted
submission has been determined to be inappropriate for this resource,"
most people would understand as referring to my submission of
Dr. Bethe's sponsorship. It does not specifically refer
to the paper I wish to post.
Nevertheless, I have submitted my paper to a conventional
refereed journal at the time that I also approached your committee
to obtain a password for posting my paper. My paper is
still under journal review. On April 22nd I wrote to Professor
Mermin (on your committee) and said that I, "have always
planned to submit my paper to a journal, but journal review incurs
delays and I wanted to put the matter before the physics community
as soon as possible, which is why I am pursuing archive posting
in parallel with submission." Later I indicated in
a conversation to Jean Pollard that I had submitted the paper
for publication. So your organizing committee should be
aware that my paper is submitted to a journal and hence there
is no need for you to suggest in your letter that I submit for
publication.
I indeed had emailed a copy of my paper in confidence to Dr.
Mermin. But I did not expect that it would be given a formal
review. Dr. Mermin and perhaps one other person are the
only ones to whom I gave permission to read my paper and so far
Dr. Mermin has not stated any disagreement with its contents.
So I find this censorship rather puzzling. It appears
that someone on your committee happens to disagree with the contents
of my paper and that to prevent me from posting it you are going
to the extreme to change the rules you had previously posted
on the archive website.
I have spent the past six months seeking out three potential
sponsors. To now change your rules, just in my case is
really quite cruel. It shows a callous disregard not only
for the time I have spent, but also is disrespectful of Dr. Chubb,
Dr. Bethe, and Dr. Scheffer who took time to carefully read my
paper and make contact with your committee. What you have done
is not right. Until you change your rules and post new ones,
you are obliged to conform to the sponsorship rules you have
previously posted. Since I now have fulfilled the requirements
of those rules quite adequately, rules that you yourselves had
directed me to follow, I request that you give me a user name
and password so that I may post my paper.
Sincerely yours,
Paul A. LaViolette, Ph.D.
The Starburst Foundation
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20)
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October 27, 2002: The archive responded to his letter with the
following arrogant email which failed to address any of the points
he had brought up:
Subj: RE: Concern about your procedures for archive sponsorship
Date: Sunday, October 27, 2002 3:00:57 PM
From: register-query@arXiv.org
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
The response from this address has been consistent:
please find an alternate outlet for your work.
No further messages are necessary.
================================
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 15:03:26 -0400
From: register-query@arXiv.org (register-query for arXiv.org)
To: Gravitics1@aol.com
..
Your attempted submission has been determined to be inappropriate
for this
resource. You should submit it instead to a conventional
journal.
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| 21) |
At that time Dr. LaViolette felt that
the archive committee was discriminating against his paper because
of personal biases that their committee members happened to hold.
Such suppression of a scientist's ideas when he is attempting
to notify the physics/astronomy community about the confirmation
of a prediction he had published, is quite unethical particularly
when the archive gives no reasons as to why they find his paper
unsuitable for posting and particularly when he did not send
them the paper with the intention that they would review it for
publication. Dr. Carlos Castro Perelman, one of LaViolette's
physicist colleagues, feels that the reason that the Cornell
archive is so avidly trying to prevent the posting of LaViolette's
work is because they consider it as a threat to established physics
assumptions which they see as vulnerable to collapse if Dr. LaViolette's
findings were to be communicated to the physics community. So
perhaps it is not the quality of the paper, but that they are
afraid of it.
Could the suppression be because
his paper
is seen as a threat to the status quo?
The behavior of the Cornell physics archive
cabal is extremely disconcerting. It is not a policy that
fosters scientific progress (e.g., see the de
Broglie quote).
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If you think matters could not get any worse,
then read Part II which catalogs developments
from October 2004 to the present: click
here |
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