My Library

Thus, the "magnetometer" at Stanford was actually a quark detector, the first of its kind, still unique in 1972, and had been constructed at very great expense and with copious work in an effort to capture the passage through it of one of those sub-particles. The whole of this contraption was encased in an aluminum container and insulating copper canister. As well, it was in a supercooled, hence superconducting shield. The centerpiece inside the detector was a Josephson junction and which would "detect" any variation magnetic flux in the supercooled equipment. The whole of this was buried in solid concrete some five feet down in the floor beneath our feet. The horrible implications of all this dawned on me without much difficulty. I was being asked to "poke around" with a "target" I could not see, or even know exactly where it was in the ground beneath. In retrospect, I don't know why I got angry. But my eyes narrowed upon Puthoff -- because he and I had already discussed the desirability of a subject being completely informed regarding the experiment he or she was to undertake. We had also discussed the matter of observers and witnesses. In order to give the subject the best chance possible, why should the experimental task be made more difficult by the presence of unneeded witnesses who would make the subject nervous. Subjects could easily be affected in many ways by the presence of other people. An experiment, after all, was not a stage performance for the enjoyment of others. In this case, there were no less than nine people in the area -- and some of whom were smirking with certainty that nothing would come of this.