Allais effect
The Allais effect consists of anomalous precession of the plane of oscillation of a moving pendulum during a solar eclipse, and was initially speculated to be unexplained by standard physical models of gravitation. It was first reported in 1954 by Maurice Allais, a French physicist who went on to win the Nobel prize for Economics. The most recent published observation of a possibly related effect was by Wang et al. in 2000, for an experiment carried out during the March 9, 1997 total solar eclipse in the Mohe region of northeast China — however, the same authors later (2002 and 2003) published papers showing how their observations could be explained by conventional thermal phenomena (e.g. temperature and pressure changes) caused by the eclipse. A recent published article on the topic in a mainstream scientific journal (Flandern, 2003) concludes that there have been "no unambiguous detections [of an Allais effect] within the past 30 years when consciousness of the importance of [experimental] controls was more widespread." Exotic explanations for Allais effects have therefore not gained significant traction among mainstream scientists.
References and external links
Maurice Allais, "Should the Laws of Gravitation be Reconsidered?" (AeroSpace Engineering, 1959). The only documentation Allais has ever produced in English. Available on www.allais.info/ Maurice Allais, "The Allais Effect and my Experiments with the Paraconical Pendulum 1954-1960" (Memoir prepared for NASA on the occasion of the 1999 solar eclipse in Europe). Translated and available upon www.allais.info/
- T. van Flandern and X. S. Yang, "Allais gravity and pendulum effects during solar eclipses explained," Phys. Rev. D 67, 022002 (2003). (A paper that, deep in the main text, admits that it does not fulfil the promise of its title.)
- X. S. Yang and Q. S. Wang, "Gravity anomaly during the Mohe total solar eclipse and new constraint on gravitational shielding parameter," Astrophysics and Space Science 282 (1), 245–253 (2002).
- Qian-shen Wang, Xin-she Yang, Chuan-zhen Wu, Hong-gang Guo, Hong-chen Liu, and Chang-chai Hua, "Precise measurement of gravity variations during a total solar eclipse," Phys. Rev. D 62, 041101(R) (2000). Full article available on www.allais.info/
- M. Allais, C. R. Acad. Sci. URSS 244, 2469 (1959); 245, 1875 (1959); 245, 2001 (1959); 245, 2170 (1959); 245, 2467 (1959). Some translated on www.allais.info/
- Chris P. Duif, "A review of conventional explanations of anomalous observations during solar eclipses," arXiv gr-qc/0408023 v3 (8 Oct 2004). (Unpublished preprint claiming that Allais observations do not satisfy conventional explanations, with a general survey of the field.)
- Dave Dooling, "French Nobel Laureate turns back clock", Science@NASA (Oct. 12, 1999). A 1999 NASA attempt to observe an Allais effect; no results are reported. No results were ever published; this matter is discussed on the following web site.
- Thomas J. Goodey, "Professor Maurice Allais — a genius before his time — as are they all" (Web site claiming to be the internet base of researchers studying and publicizing the Allais effect.)