On January 26th, 2009, simultaneous observations of the reactions of two very light torsion balances (Kiev, Ukraine) and a paraconical pendulum (Suceava, Romania, 440 km away) were performed during a solar eclipse that was not visible at those locations but only in the Indian Ocean. Significant correlation between the behavior of the torsion balances and the pendulum was observed. The conclusion is that a solar eclipse influences the reactions of torsion balances and pendulums, even in areas of the Earth where it is not optically visible.
It has repeatedly been reported that during solar eclipses nonconventional physical effects are sometimes observed. During a total solar eclipse on June, 30th 1954, the Nobel laureate Maurice Allais observed an abrupt deviation of the oscillation plane of a short paraconical pendulum [
However the most easily repeated experiments are relatively simple ones with torsion balances of different designs and forms including horizontal and vertical, and experiments with a short pendulum supported on a ball (paraconical) and with tilt-meters and gyroscopes [
Nevertheless, Duif has attempted to analyze the available pool of provisional findings and has arrived at the overall conclusion that the most likely common factor behind all the successes and failures is a real phenomenon of some influence of solar eclipses on the reaction of physical devices that cannot be adequately explained in the current framework of Newtonian and relativistic physics [
In this publication, we present the results of synchronized measurements with very light torsion balances and with a paraconical pendulum that we obtained during the solar eclipse of January 26th, 2009.
In our experiments, we use miniature torsion balances (TBs), the mass of whose mobile element does not exceed 0.5 g. A straw of 110 mm length serves as an asymmetrical beam, at the end of whose short arm (l) a lead counterweight of mass
For this device, the following relation holds:
The mobile part of the torsion balance (beam, pointer, and counterweight) is suspended inside a sealed glass housing. An external webcam registers movement of the beam. Images sent by the webcam to a computer are analyzed by a special program which, once every minute, records the azimuth of the beam and the time (UT). This registration system has good noise immunity and provides high accuracy readings with the average error of one measurement being around ±0.175°, that is, about 10 arc minutes [
In addition, direct observations or statistical analysis of the observations revealed that TB does not respond to changes in gravitation potential; temperature of the device itself; meteorological parameters (wind, pressure, humidity); static electric field; moderate magnetic field; degree of ionization of the ionosphere; operation of electromechanical units; change in the load on the TB thread; possible microvibration of the floor; sound waves of moderate intensity; radio waves and cell phones; convective air movement inside the TB housing to a minimum; and it may not be the cause of significant vibration readings.
Five days before the eclipse, two nearly identical apparatuses WEB-1 and WEB-2 were installed in an insulated, heated, and dry room with tightly closed windows and doors. Access to the room was only available to the leader of the experiment (the first author).
Measurements began on 23 January at 17 h UT and lasted about 6 days without interruption, up to 23 h 59 m UT on January 28. Thus, the reaction of the TBs to the surrounding circumstances was tracked for about 3 days before the eclipse and 2.5 days after. The eclipse on Earth began on 26 January at 4 h 56 m UT and ended at 11 h 00 m UT. The geocentric conjunction of the Sun and the Moon in right ascension took place at 8 h 06 m UT. Since the eclipse was neither visible in Ukraine nor in Romania, no times of local maximum phase were defined.
As well as using conventional Foucault pendulums, recently, several observers of syzygy effects have begun to use shorter pendulums equipped with a special suspension proposed by Maurice Allais, in which the pendulum is supported upon a small highly accurate steel ball. Such a pendulum not only can oscillate in two perpendicular planes but also can rotate around the vertical axis.
Our paraconical pendulum consists of a 13.3 kg bob
A schematic representation of the PP experiment.
Also, an automated identical paraconical pendulum was installed in another place in the Planetarium.
The results obtained with these two pendulums, one monitored manually and the other automatically, were identical. This fact demonstrates that the human factor does not influence the behavior of the pendulum. An example is the graphs obtained with these two pendulums during the solar eclipse of August 1st, 2008 [
The results obtained on 23, 24, 25, 27, and 28 January are considered as being background or baseline measurements. They allow us to determine the response of the devices during exterior circumstances free of any eclipse effect. The analysis showed that in these days nothing particularly significant was registered, except for the usual minor daily variations.
Figure
WEB-1 observations: the averaged daily variation (in black and grey) and the variation on January 26th, 2009, the day of the solar eclipse (in blue).
The reduced “clean” result after subtracting the mean background is shown in Figure
Record of the solar eclipse freed from the influence of normal daily variations.
A similar result was obtained by observations with the instrument WEB-2 over the period 23–28 January. The procedure described above for measuring and subtracting the background fluctuations provided a clean result when applied to the WEB-2 observations, thus eliminating the influence of daily variations. Comparison of the “pure” results obtained with the instruments WEB-1 and WEB-2 is shown in Figure
Comparison of the “pure” results obtained with WEB-1 and WEB-2 devices on 26.01.2009.
Figure
Changes in the pendulum oscillation plane on the date of the solar eclipse. Numbers on the linear scale in the center of the figure indicate the sequential number of measurements that were taken every 11 minutes.
In Figure
It is well known that over time, due to the force of friction, the amplitude of oscillation is damped, and also the oscillations become very elliptical.
In order to eliminate these problems, the pendulum was started once every hour, during which the damping of the amplitude of the oscillations was small and the oscillations remained almost linear. In every hour, five readings were taken at intervals of 11 minutes, and the last five minutes was used for preparing to restart the pendulum.
The most negative values were observed in the period between measurement number 35 (04 h 48 m UT) and measurement number 45 (06 h 48 m UT). The extreme value of −4.2° was seen at 06 h 00 m UT, that is, more than 100 minutes before the geocentric Sun/Moon conjunction.
The pendulum was operated in a chamber at Suceava Planetarium, where the temperature was substantially constant at 20°. Also outside (as can be checked via the Wolfram Alpha service), the temperature on January 26th, 2009 varied very little (as is normal during winter at our location). The air pressure was not constant on that day but increased a few millibars quite steadily with no relation to the eclipse (which was not visible in Suceava).
Since all the measurements were essentially qualitative in nature and no theoretical or quantitative model of the phenomenon yet exists, the only possible procedure for analysis is comparative. A positive outcome of the analysis would be to demonstrate that the rotations of the TB arms and the deflection of the plane of oscillation of the pendulum during this solar eclipse were not aleatory, but resulted from some external cause, the nature and structure of which remain to be elucidated.
Figure
Correlation of readings of WEB-1 versus WEB-2 during the time interval
Comparison of the PP and the TB observations is of particular interest.
From preliminary visual comparison of the results, it appeared that the TB graph in the interval
Cross-correlation function for the series of pendulum and torsion observation.
The crosscorrelation function reaches a maximum at a correlation spacing close to one and a half hours. An accurate numerical analysis shows that the correlation spacing is 1.59 hours, the correlation coefficient being equal to 0.921. This means that the observations with the TB repeated the observations with the PP with a very high degree of similarity, but lagging behind in time by 1 hour 35.4 minutes.
In order to confirm the high degree of similarity of the results of the PP and TB observations in the range
Correlation and the correlation coefficient between these series of observations at a correlation spacing of 1.59 hours.
The above data gives grounds to assert that the changes in the azimuth of the paraconical pendulum oscillation plane and the changes in the angles of the TB beams on January 26th, 2009 were not accidental. The behavior of the two TBs indicates that, in the period from −2 h to 11 h UT, the beam angle variations were similar in nature. Moreover, in the time interval
To illustrate the high degree of correlation of the results between these essentially different types of apparatus (the TBs and the pendulum), we present Figure
Comparison of the results of observations in Kiev (blue and purple) with observations in Suceava (red line). In order to align the curves, the graph for the PP is shifted forward by 1.59 h.
However, the most important point is that the very high correlation between WEB-1, WEB-2, and the paraconical pendulum was only noted in the interval
These nonconventional solar eclipse observations have shown that this phenomenon is accompanied by effects that cannot yet be explained within the current physical picture of the world.
Comparing these observations with other available data collected from previous years reveals several features that characterize, to some extent, all the observations. Within a few hours before the solar eclipse, the readings of devices are minimized and remain stable within a narrow fluctuation band. This trend is clearly seen in observations of some past solar eclipses [ The most significant fluctuations of the arm pointer do not coincide, as a rule, with the optical phenomenon maximum. In most cases, an active reaction of the TB to an eclipse seems first to be manifested as a pointer rotation clockwise as seen from above, with subsequent relaxation in the opposite direction afterwards. In most cases, when several instruments were used, their reactions were similar to each other, but always there were significant differences of unknown nature. We consider that, most likely, this is associated with differences of the devices from one other.
Another independent confirmation has been obtained of the previously established fact that at the time of solar eclipses, a specific reaction of the torsion balance can be observed. During a solar eclipse, the readings of two neighboring TBs seem to be correlated. This fact demonstrates the nonaleatory character of the reactions of TBs. Consequently, the reaction of these devices is deterministic, not random. A solar eclipse is such a determinant, since upon termination of a solar eclipse, the correlation becomes insignificant. This conclusion is supported by the PP observations. The PP graph and the TB graphs showed obvious similarity, with the coefficient of correlation of these two independent curves being close to 1.
This is the second collective observation, which has registered both TB reaction and PP reaction during an astronomical phenomenon. The first observation referred to the solar eclipse on August 1st, 2008 when simultaneous reactions of several TBs, two PPs, and one Foucault pendulum was detected [
It is noteworthy that a significant correlation between the reactions of the pendulum and the TBs was valid only in the time interval when the lunar shadow was passing over the Earth. Outside this time interval
The reason for the time shift between the TB and PP readings remains unclear, although it can be assumed that the shift is due to the difference in geographic coordinates of the observations. It is possible that some unknown effect in the form of a wave was moving in space at a relatively low speed (on the astronomical scale).
The effects described above are specific in themselves. Nevertheless, they cannot be contradictory to the universal laws that are actually manifested in the external universe. They organically complement a whole set of nonconventional phenomena including other phenomena observed during solar eclipses. Most of these are not yet understandable. In particular, we wonder how any physical momentum can be transferred to our instrument during a solar eclipse. Gravity can hardly suffice as an explanation even for understanding the results of the PP measurements. The gravitational potential grows slowly and smoothly over a number of days before eclipse and then declines smoothly afterwards without any sudden variations, but we see relatively short-term events. Moreover, gravity is certainly not applicable to the explanation of the results of the TB observations, since the TB is not sensitive to changes in gravitational potential.
The cause of the time lag between the response of the device in Suceava and the reactions of the devices in Kiev also remains unknown. What can be this force which acts so selectively in space and time?
The anomalies found, that defy understanding in terms of modern physics, are in line with other anomalies, described in a recently published compendium “Should the Laws of Gravitation be reconsidered?” [
Both authors thank Thomas Goodey for help with the preparation of this article. A. F. Pugach thanks D. P. Vorobiov for maintenance of the apparatus, and D. Olenici thanks Professor Stefan Pintilie and students Alina Puha and Ionel Popescu for help with the observations.