THOMAS EDISON once remarked to Roger Babson, who is best known as a stock-market tipster, “Always remember, Babson, you don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. You’ve got to find something that isolates from gravity. I think it’s coming about from some alloy.”
Babson never forgot this remark, and in 1948, with an excess of capital on hand, he founded what is perhaps the most useless scientific project of the twentieth century. It is called the Gravity Research Foundation. Although the Foundation is interested in any and all types of work on gravity, its principal function is to stimulate a search for some type of “gravity screen”—a substance which will cut off gravity in the same way a sheet of steel cuts off a light beam.
This notion of a material “opaque” to gravity is a common one in early science fiction. In H. G. Wells’ fantasy, The First Men in the Moon, a spaceship operates by means of such a substance—a complicated alloy of metals (with some helium thrown in) called “cavorite,” after the name of its inventor. Since Einstein, however, the concept has become almost obsolete. The reason is that if relativity theory is correct, such a screen would be unimaginable. According to Einstein, gravity is not a “force” which pulls objects to earth, but rather a warping of the space-time continuum. The warping causes an apple to fall, but a “screen” between apple and earth would have no effect for the simple reason that there is no force to be screened off.
If Babson is aware of all this, he remains blithely undismayed. “I’m no scientist,” he told the press, “but I do know what I’m trying to find out and how I’m going about it . . . few people realize that Edison experimented with more than 8,000 materials before he finally hit on the right one that gave him a filament for his electric light bulb.”
Since there are millions of possible alloys and no conceivable reason why one should be tried before another, the process of testing all of them becomes a tedious one. Evidently Babson soon gave up the idea, because at present, the Foundation is conducting no chemical experiments of its own. Housed in a large brick building in New Boston, New Hampshire, its chief purpose is to serve as a clearing house and information bureau for all scientists doing research on gravity. New Boston was picked because it is a non-industrial, self-sustaining community a safe distance from Boston in case Boston is bombed in World War III.
The response of professional scientists to the Foundation’s work has been disappointing. “The mention of gravity too often brings a smile,” writes William Esson, one of the Foundation’s trustees, “as if the inquiry is not taken seriously. This has discouraged a frank discussion of the subject. Much experimenting which has been going on has been under cover. Hence a . . . purpose of the Foundation has been to get in touch with these people scattered throughout the world and let them know that they have at least one sympathetic friend.” Every person who writes to the Foundation is classified in its files according to the specific type of gravity research he is undertaking. When the Foundation finds several people working along the same lines, each is notified of the others. In this way they can exchange ideas and report their co-operative progress.
One scientist, Harold V. McNair of Middletown, Pa., died in 1950 after willing to the Foundation all his files and apparatus. He had been working for forty years on the possibility of harnessing gravity. “Unfortunately,” reads the Foundation’s second annual report, “his formula was clear only to himself. We have shown it to everyone we can think of and will continue to do so in the hope that some day his work may be carried on.”
In 1949, the Foundation ran a small ad in two magazines, Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, which read: “GRAVITY. If you are interested in gravity, write us. No expense to you.” This proved a dubious mode of public relations, and now the organization’s chief means of arousing interest in gravity is an annual prize essay contest. The essay must be limited to 1,500 words and deal with one of three topics—the possibilities of discovering (1) “some partial insulator, reflector or absorber of gravity,” (2) “some alloy, or other substance, the atoms of which can be agitated or rearranged by gravity to throw off heat,” (3) “some other reasonable method of harnessing the power of gravity.”
The awards are generous—$1,000 for the first prize, and five additional awards of $100 each. The 1949 contest brought a total of 88 essays, which Babson read with huge delight. “It was just like opening Christmas presents,” he said. The first prize went to David B. Wittry, a University of Wisconsin student, for a paper which surveyed some historical failures by previous gravity researchers. In 1950, a Princeton graduate student took first prize, and in 1951, top honors went to Dr. Myron J. Lover, of Ozone Park, N. Y. Dr. Lover wrote on Thermodynamic Aspects of Gravithermels. Time magazine devoted considerable space to a story of the 1950 awards and a Foundation report boasts, “Einstein’s new theory was announced on the same page, but we had a better story than they gave him.”
In the fall of 1951, the Foundation held its first Summer Conference in New Boston. The audience heard lectures on gravity as well as a few speeches on business conditions by staff members from the famed Babson Institute. Special “gravity chairs” designed to aid blood circulation were available, and guests who complained of pains in their arms and legs were told about “Priscolene,” a patent medicine which Babson is currently promoting as an “anti-gravity pill” to aid circulation. The conference also placed on display the original bed of Isaac Newton, recently acquired by the Foundation—presumably because Newton at one time rested on it by the force of gravity. “It is the hope,” reads a bulletin from the Foundation, “that New Boston will gradually become the center where physicists, engineers, metallurgists and others especially interested in the causes and the possibilities of gravitation will come as a mecca in the summer.”
One of the organization’s trustees, Clarence Birdseye,1 had the thought that perhaps some laboratory worker would stumble on a gravity insulator while he was working on something else. This prompted a mailing of literature to 2,500 laboratories in addition to usual mailings to colleges, secondary school science teachers, and scientific journals.
The Foundation maintains a library of books on gravity. It is growing steadily, although it is handicapped at the moment by not having anyone on the staff who reads French or German. Friends of the organization are being asked to “remember the Gravity Research Foundation in your will by leaving your gravity files or apparatus to us, where they will be in friendly hands and your work can be carried on.”
An idea that has fascinated the Foundation since its inception is that variations in gravity caused by changing relations of the sun and moon have a measurable effect on human beings. Babson is convinced, for example, that it is easier to go upstairs during a high tide, apparently unaware that the difference in weight is so infinitesimal it would be much more effective to toss away a dollar bill before making the climb.
Nevertheless, the Foundation is busily engaged in compiling statistics about human affairs and seeking to correlate them with variations in the moon’s pull. For several years, a number of mental hospitals have been collecting data for the Foundation on how mental conditions of patients are affected by phases of the moon. During full moon, the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the earth, working against each other, which may possibly disturb something in the brain or spinal fluid. Several hundred letters were mailed to police chiefs to find out if they had more calls during full moon. Replies indicated they did. Insurance companies were asked to report whether accident rates correlated with the moon’s phases.
When a disastrous train wreck occurred in New Jersey on February 6, 1951, the Foundation noticed it was a day of no moon. Fifty-four railroad companies were immediately notified of this fact and requested to be on the alert in the future. President Truman decided to fire General McArthur on April 5, 1951, also in the dark phase of the moon. “This,” according to the organization’s third annual report to trustees, “dictated another mailing.” The report also reveals that a twenty-year file of Time magazine has been purchased, and “we have just started to go through all the issues picking out important news events to see how they correlated with various phases of the moon.” Each year the Foundation issues an almanac showing the moon’s phases so that anyone interested can study the moon’s effect on his own thoughts and actions.
Recently the Foundation has been mailing out questionnaires in which a person’s weight (i.e., the degree gravity pulls on him) can be checked against various body types and temperaments. The Foundation suspects that weight (gravity) will be found to have a greater effect on temperament than one’s body type has. If this is true, then a gravity screen would be able to change a person’s weight and thereby alter his temperament! Until this is discovered, however, the Foundation points out that it is still possible to change one’s personality traits slightly by altering one’s posture.
“Certainly the gravity pull on a person’s brain is different when lying down,” a bulletin reads, “or when rocking, or when bowing. ... anyone can test this by changing the position of his head when mad or unduly excited. The results from bowing in prayer are partly due to changing the direction of the gravity pull on the brain.”
Moreover, the same bulletin states, “many thoughtful people believe that spiritual forces can modify the pull of gravity as illustrated by the story of certain Old Testament prophets having risen to the skies, and the Ascension of Jesus. The incident of Jesus walking on the water should not be ignored. People often ask why Angels are always shown defying gravity. . . .”
The ability of birds to defy gravity has also long fascinated Babson. On one occasion Thomas Edison pointed to a flying bird and said, “The bird can do what no man can do—namely, fly under its own power. I wish, Babson, you would take a greater interest in birds. . . .” This led Babson to make a collection of birds. It is now on the campus of the Babson Institute, but eventually will become the property of the Gravity Foundation. “Since starting the Foundation,” writes Trustee Esson, “various cartoonists have portrayed the Foundation’s trustees as flying through the air with wings. . . . Yet . . . it is very possible that a wing will someday be constructed of some anti-gravity alloy which will enable lightweight, muscular persons to fly under their own power. Animals such as flying squirrels are an illustration of what may be accomplished along these lines.”
Many short essays on gravity by Babson and others are available from the Foundation for ten cents each. The vapidity of this literature is almost unbelievable. An essay on “Gravity and Posture” by Mary Moore points out that a properly fitted corset “prevents gravity from pulling us too far forward or too far backward, which in so doing, makes us old before our time.” “Gravity and Sitting” by Babson is an attack on chairs. He recommends sitting cross-legged on the rug, or on a low bench “with the knees raised” and “balancing on the buttocks.” He thinks a careful study of sitting should be made, and concludes with an unconscious pun by stating, “It is very possible that the balancing school of thought will win out in the end.”
Babson also feels that one should sleep in a foetal position with one or both knees drawn up. “To prevent sleeping on one’s back,” he writes, “a rubber ball—two inches in diameter—may be buttoned in the rear center of the neck band of one’s night clothes. This can best be accomplished by having a pocket back of the neck into which the ball would be kept during the night, and yet from which it could be removed when the night clothes go to the laundry. All of the above shows that the entire problem deserves much more study.”
Another essay by Babson, “Gravity and Ventilation,” discusses a topic in which he has long been interested. When a young man, Babson became ill with tuberculosis and was advised by his doctor to remain in the West where he had gone to convalesce. He chose instead to return to his home in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. To insure an abundance of fresh air, he refused to close any of his windows. During the freezing winter, he wore a coat with an electric heating pad in back and his valiant secretary did her typing by wearing mittens and hitting the keys with rubber hammers. Babson got well and has been a fresh-air fiend ever since. He thinks children should be trained to enjoy fresh air blowing against their face from a fan, and that air from pine woods has “chemical and/or electrical qualities” of great medicinal value. His essay suggests that gravity should be used to clear bad air from a building by giving a slight slope to all the floors and having air outlets at the lower end of the room. Apparently this drains off the bad air in the way a sloping roof drains water. Such a house has actually been built in New Boston, with floors sloping a half-inch to the foot.
In a bulletin titled “Weather Conditions and Political Victories,” Babson develops the thesis that gravity affects crops, crops affect business, and business affects elections. He analyzes twenty-seven presidential elections, from 1844 through 1948, to prove that in 75 per cent of the cases, a party continued in power when weather and business were good, and was tossed out when weather and business were bad.
An essay by Trustee Esson deals with the possibility of finding an alloy which will give out heat when gravity acts on it. It would be formed into wires, with weights suspended on the ends. “When such an alloy . . . is discovered,” Esson writes, “the next step is to attach various sized weights thereto and ascertain the comparative results of such experiments. . . . There are also interesting experimental possibilities such as placing these wires in a vacuum or in certain gases; but these factors can be studied after the original experiments of heating an element with tension (or compression) have been developed.” One must applaud Esson for having the scientific insight to realize that the alloy should be discovered first before its properties are carefully explored.
The present president of the Foundation is George M. Rideout who is also vice-president of Babson Reports, Inc. Some conception of Rideout’s scientific attainments may be gained by reading his essay “Is Free Power Possible?” He begins by outlining his private theory that “gravity is a form of stored up ‘magnetic’ waves which, for a billion years, have been thrown out from the sun and absorbed by every particle which now attracts any other particle.” He is not sure this is true, but in any case we do not have to know the source of gravity in order to harness it. All we need, he writes, is a gravity insulator which we can place under one side of a rotating wheel. The result would be, of course, a simple perpetual motion machine. Rideout speculates at some length on the tremendous economic and social changes which would result from such a discovery of unlimited free power. He is careful to point out, however, that this need not harm established public utilities. “Central power plants will continue to be used; but their expansion could take place without increasing the consumption of coal, oil or gas. These valuable natural resources could be conserved for the chemical and other industries which would merely change their form instead of destroying them.”
The Foundation resents the label of “perpetual motion machine” for its projected gravity device because so many crackpot attempts to create perpetual motion have been made. “These machines, as a rule, work by levers and weights,” writes Trustee Esson. “None of these have been really satisfactory, although the one that has been most publicized was that known as Keely’s Motor. Not having seen this motor in operation, the Foundation is not prepared to comment on it, but it soon hopes to make a study of this motor.” Apparently Mr. Esson is unfamiliar with the well-authenticated story of John Keely’s famous confidence swindle. If he is interested, he should read the concluding pages of Charles Fort’s Wild Talents where he will find an interesting Fortean analysis of how the fraud operated.
Whether the Gravity Research Foundation will ever build a perpetual motion machine is problematical, but there is no doubt that Babson, now in his late seventies, is thoroughly enjoying the search. He is a tall, silver-haired man, with a white mustache, tiny goatee, humorous eyes, and a fondness for bow ties that look as though they might light up. He neither smokes nor drinks. In fact in 1940, he was the Prohibition Party candidate for president. Of late, gravity has been making it increasingly hard for him to climb stairways, an inconvenience that stimulates his interest in the Foundation.
There is little danger of Babson’s running out of funds. He has a finger in hundreds of business operations, most of them fabulously successful. His chief enterprise, Babson Reports, Inc., which gives stock-market advice, brings in a net profit of more than $100,000 annually. It is a branch of his holding company, Business Statistics Organization. In addition, he is whole or part owner of such diversified enterprises as a company that supplies lobsters, a firm manufacturing fire-alarm boxes, a sand and gravel company, a dime store chain, an office building in Boston, the Babson sheep-ranch lands in New Mexico and Arizona, a cattle ranch in Florida, and a diamond company. He has written over fifty books, most of them on money and investment, and several hundred newspapers carry his weekly column on business trends.
In addition to the Babson Institute, a business college in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, he has also founded two other business schools —one for women in Florida, and Utopia College, at Eureka, Kansas. Babson picked Eureka as the site for Utopia in 1946 because it was the exact geographical center of the United States, and therefore least likely to be hit by an atom bomb. Buildings of the college are connected by underground tunnels. As another precaution against World War III, which he regards as inevitable, he has deposited $1,000 in each of one hundred different banks throughout the central states.
Babson attributes his interest in gravity to the drowning of his seventeen-year-old grandson in 1947. It reminded him of the similar death by drowning of his oldest sister when he was a small boy. To him, it seemed as though gravity were a “dragon” that had seized both of these loved ones and dragged them to the bottom. “Since Michael’s death I have become more and more interested in the subject of gravity,” he writes poignantly.
Long before this accident, however, Babson was a great admirer of Isaac Newton. He claims that his method of predicting stock-market changes is simply an adaptation of Newton’s third law of motion—namely, that for every action there is an equal reaction. Apparently he interprets this in the image of a ball bouncing off a wall. After the stock market has gone down, Babson starts predicting it will come up again. After it has gone high, he predicts it will come down. The prediction which first brought him renown was in 1929 when he announced the great stock-market crash a few months before it happened. He does not like to remember, however, that a year later he was predicting the depression would soon be over, and that investors who followed his advice lost heavily.
Babson’s autobiography has the Newtonian title of Actions and Reactions, and his wife owns one of the worid’s largest collections of books by and about Newton. As much as Babson admires Newton, however, there is one respect in which he has failed to emulate the great scientist. He has failed to acquire more than an elementary knowledge of physics.
And this, of course, is something of a tragedy. At the present stage of physical theory, no one has the foggiest idea of how to go about looking for a gravity screen. To establish an organization dedicated to this search is like setting up a foundation to study craters on the other side of the moon. Eventually, astronomers will map these craters, perhaps before the end of the sixties, but to devote an institution to it now would be premature and an absurd waste of funds.
Although Babson is an engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he confesses he hated most of his courses. Rideout, president of the Gravity Research Foundation, has had no training as a physicist. Nor are any scientists affiliated with the organization beyond the task of serving as judges for the essay contests. All this may explain why the Foundation has not, in the four years of its existence, issued a single scientific statement of any value.
There is no question that Babson, a kindly, devout Congregationalist, has the best of intentions in keeping the Foundation going. But surely there is a touch of the sin of pride in his refusal to accept advice from competent physicists on how money could best be spent for the good of science and humanity. Surely there is a touch of willful stubbornness in his inability to see the essential ludicrousness of his undertaking. He would do well to ponder Chesterton’s remark that Satan fell by the force of gravity.