On 15nov01 Ivor Catt lectured on "The
Catt Anomaly" to Cambridge University Engineering Society. Apart from
Ivor's friends, the attendance totalled four. (The attendance at the three
previous Engineering Soc. Meetings had been 30.)
This indicates that the invitation was a
mistake. Mistakes can always happen, even in Cambridge. We can see agreement
with my analysis in http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/wbdanbk3.htm at the point
where it says;
"It took further years for me to realize that the role of the professional institution was similar to that of the educational establishment. In the 1970's, when the IEE was obstructing our efforts to publish and to initiate discussion of fundamentals, we naively assumed that if only we could get past the 'decadent' officials to the 'vibrant' membership, all would be well. I am now convinced that this was a delusion, for the following reasons.
Those students who studied, learned, and passed exams in the IEE's static knowledge base developed subject loyalty and also a vested interest in its maintenance and defence against new knowledge. Some had even passed the IEE's own exams. They now paid their subscriptions to the IEE, not to encourage it to advance knowledge, but so that it would defend the knowledge base which was now their identity and their security. ……"
We had three cameras, so that the full record
of what happened will be available on VHS in the near future.
Ivor
Catt. 20nov01
***********************
30oct01. Howie CBE, FRS, refuses to slip down
the road for ten minutes to pick up a £100 fee.
Why did he complain to me that university lecturers were worse paid than
Polytechnic lecturers? Did engineering undergrads know that the Head of the
Cavendish was so frightened of them?-
Ivor Catt.
"Unfortunately, however, when the body of knowledge is bigger and the rate of inflow of new knowledge is smaller, more and more of the activity within the knowledge becomes 'celebration', more and more ceremonial rather than exercise in depth. As a result, a different calibre of person is attracted to the large knowledge, lacking the ability to understand and defend a body of knowledge with many levels of meaning. They are 'maintenance men' rather than 'builders'. The central body of knowledge ossifies, becomes brittle and disintegrates. …." - I. Catt, The Rise and Fall of Bodies of Knowledge, The Information Scientist 12 (4) December 1978, pp. 137-144. Available at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/w99anbk6.htm
http://www.ivorcatt.com/em_test04.htm
**************************************
1988. Note added on p302 in early 1988 for the 1988 reprint of my book; I Catt, Electromagnetic Theory 1, pub. C.A.M. Publishing 1979;
" …. …. All these advances and teaching have proceeded with no financial or other assistance, but rather with virtually total opposition, sometimes laced with ridicule and contempt, from all salaried and accredited functionaries, of all learned societies (notably the IEE and Inst.Phys.) and virtually all centres of 'learning' like Cambridge University etc. etc. The only (major) chink of light has been Wireless World, for whose service in this matter Science owes a great debt. [However, since 1995 the present editor Eccles has censored me out of Wireless World. - I Catt, nov01.] [ Mr. Catt returns 2003]
Any student trying to get any coherent written response - dialogue, monologue, or anything - from anyone who draws salary, fully or partly, from electromagnetism (ideally a Reader in Electromagnetism), is advised that I now rest my case on the Catt Anomaly, and it is the question that should be asked of the 'experts'. Try to get written, not verbal, response."
Where's
the Meat?
Ivor Catt will give a lecture "The Catt
Anomaly" to the Cambridge University Engineering Society on Thursday
November 15, 2001. The lecture will be at 6.30pm in Room LR4 in Cambridge
University Engineering Department, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ +44
(0) 1223 332600. Every effort has been made to cause relevant Establishment
Experts to speak at the lecture, both before and after Ivor Catt speaks.
The ruling ideology in Science, which I now
accept, is that Electromagnetic Theory was settled in around 1905. It follows
that there has been nearly a century for its details to have been worked out
and agreed. This includes the Transverse Electromagnetic (TEM) Wave.
"The Catt Question", wrongly called
"The Catt Anomaly", is a rudimentary question about the source of the
negative electric charge which appears on surface of the lower conductor when a
TEM wave travels in a vacuum, guided by two conductors.
This Question was asked in 1982 and regularly
ever since. There are two contradictory answers given by experts and
institutions. These are called the "Westerner" and the
"Southerner" answers. This is followed by a total refusal to address
the resulting problem. However, experts and institutions continue to pretend to
"teach" electromagnetic theory.
There is a continuing refusal by experts and
by relevant institutions to answer the Question, or to institute a process to
address the Question, or to assert that there is no problem.
The precedent is of course Galileo, when the
clerics were the scientists. However, in Galileo's case, the Establishment
clerics (=scientists) asked the questions. Galileo did not ask questions of
them. The damage inflicted on the Church was massive, and lasted for centuries.
Our case will be different, and this time science will be saved, if a procedure
can be developed to cause the Establishment Scientists (= clerics) to state
their dogma. Ivor Catt has worked for two decades to create such a procedure,
which has been resisted.
Background.
In the nineteenth century Oliver Heaviside
formulated the concept of the Transverse Electromagnetic Wave to help him to
send Morse pulses down the undersea coaxial cable between Newcastle and
Denmark. It is now accepted Establishment theory. In Heaviside's time, it was
not clear that electric charge had mass, so that the problem was not apparent.
The success of wireless communication submerged the problem for a further half
century, until the 1960s. A scaled down version of Heaviside's problem was then
repeated when high speed logic pulses were delivered across the back plane of a
computer. However, now, electricity had mass. Ivor Catt, who pioneered the
interconnection of high speed logic, did not notice the problem for twenty
years, until 1982.
- Ivor
Catt, 121 Westfields, St. Albans AL3 4JR +44 (0) 1727 864257 ivorcatt@electromagmetism.demon.co.uk www.ivorcatt.com
27oct01
Animation illustrating "The Catt Anomaly"; http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/catanoi.htm
Book, "The Catt Anomaly, 1996 edition; http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/wbbanbk1.htm
Attempts to lecture to the Cambridge University Engineering and Physics Societies; http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/07091.htm
Cambridge University Engineering Society http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/cues/ Contact; Hayden Taylor, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ T 07879 637 052 E htaylor@iee.org
Cambridge
University Engineering Department, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ +44
(0) 1223 332600.
A
managerial revolution?
It seems that it would be wrong to deduce that
an academically incompetent managerial revolution has taken over Cambridge
University. The incompetence is more far-flung.
First class blunders cost Cambridge £10m
- John
Clare, Education Editor, Daily Telegraph, 2nov01, p1
Cambridge is so badly managed and governed
that its botched attempt to introduce a new computerised accounting system has
wasted £10 million of public money and almost brought the university to its
knees, said two reports published yesterday. ….
Cambridge, which prided itself on being a
"self-governing community of scholars" appeared to believe that that
academic success excused it from the need to be effectively run. …. The
"unmitigated" failure of a financial system introduced last year.
The university had not approached the project
in a professional manner, and no one appeared to be in charge of it. In a
corporate failure of management, "a risky proposition was transformed into
a surefire failure".
The university treasurer was not financially
qualified and the deputy had no experience of modern accounting systems. …. Its
procedure for appointing consultants and suppliers was seriously flawed. …. The
academics preferred the amateur approach ….
[Next article] Scientists at Cambridge
University were criticised yesterday for subjecting drugged mice to fatal doses
of loud dance music. ….
Guardian, 27nov02, p1
"[Cambridge] university's administration
is also in a catastrophic state …."
***************************************
The
Twin Towers Tragedy
I have to thank New Yorkers Margot Zengotita
and Joe Tumay for prompting the above analysis. Margot continued to email me
even after my initial inferior (perhaps offensive) reactions. Then I made the
mistake of thinking NY was 3 hrs from London, not 5, so I phoned Joe at his
6.50am. (3 hrs is the trans-US time difference.) He gave me crucial information
denied to the UK media. I only wish I had not been preoccupied with my 15sep01
conference (which exhausted me), so that this analysis could have come out 48
hours after the disaster. That would have been so much better. In the event,
some of it only came together yesterday evening during choir practice in
Watford.
Ivor
Catt 18sep01
ManKind
15sep01 conference.
This was an excellent conference with a host of fine speakers. Neil Hamilton's talk, which lasted for an hour, was very good indeed at every level. Videotape of the conference will be on sale in due course. I do hope someone will transcribe it onto my website. Ivor Catt 18sep01
Attempts
to lecture to Cambridge University Societies.
I first began to write letters to the
Cambridge University Engineering Society, of which I am a member, offering to
lecture on electromagnetism, some 15 or 20 years ago. Through the years, all my
letters have been ignored, except for one, some fifteen years ago, when the
Secretary, who was a Lecturer, replied that they were full for that year. When
I suggested lecturing the next year instead, I received no reply. During the
latest 10 years, I have offered to lecture on e-m in general and The Catt
Anomaly in particular. There has never been any reply, to my letters or emails,
until I received the invitation to speak dated
13aug01.
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:17 PM
Subject: Offer to speak
Dear Mr Catt,
I understand from Maral Shamloo that you have very kindly offered to lecture to
our Society about electromagnetic theory. [You could say that. http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/07091.htm
Ivor Catt 14aug01.] The research associated with the Catt Anomaly certainly
sounds extremely absorbing, and I think that many of the people studying in the
Department of Engineering would be interested to learn more about it. I would
suggest 15 November, but if you would rather come on another date then please
do suggest one that would be convenient for you…. I do hope that we can arrange
this talk.
With best wishes;
Hayden Taylor
Trinity College
Cambridge CB2 1TQ
T 07879 637 052
E htaylor@iee.org
19june01
British
Library.
I telephoned the secretary to the Chief
Executive. She said she had seen copies of material on my case. I told her that
I needed a definitive rejection of the Permaweb proposals. Would an email from
me to her making that request secure the rejection from the BL Chief Executive?
She said yes, so on 18june01 I sent her such an email, also including it at the
end of 12125 on
my website. [28aug01. Still no comprehensive rejection of Permaweb from the BL
Chief Executive.] [28aug01. See "British Library in Peril", at the
end of 12125.]
Electromagnetic Theory. The Catt Anomaly.
Huxley.
My Dublin friend got me to promise to leave
Huxley for a year, to give him time to take action over the Catt Anomaly. He
has taken no action, and the year has run out.
I went to the Royal Society HQ to look at
their Rules of Conduct for members, and for the President, which is what Huxley
was. The Rules seemed to have nothing that could put pressure on an RS
President or ex-President to do something about a problem like The Catt
Anomaly. Next time, I shall ask to see their 300 year old Royal Charter, to see
if it requires them to do something.
[The aug01 invitation to talk to Cambridge
University Engineering Society takes the whole business one step forward. I
Catt 28aug01]
Second copy sent 18sep01
From: Ivor Catt <ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk>
To: <j.o'reilly@ee.ucl.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 2:26 PM
Subject: Catt Anomaly
To Professor John O'Reilly, Head of Department, Department of Electronic and
Electrical Engineering, University Colege, London. I am giving a presentation
on the Catt Anomaly http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/catanoi.htm
http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/wbbanbk1.htm
to the Cambridge University Engineering Society on 15nov01, see their
correspondence at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/07091.htm.
I was anxious to give presentations on the same subject earlier than 15nov01
elsewhere. To that end, I shall cover the same subject at the University of
Hertfordshire on 10oct01.
I hope you can invite me to give a talk on the same subject in UCL on a date
before 15nov01.
Ivor Catt 5sep01
5sep01 further copy sent slomail, including suggested cartoon for publicity.
***********************
Second copy sent 18sep01
----- Original Message -----
From: Ivor Catt <ivorcatt@electromagnetism.demon.co.uk>
To: <d.nethercot@ic.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 10:34 AM
Subject: Catt Anomaly
To Professor David Nethercot, Head of Department, Department of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering, Imperial College.
I am giving a presentation on the Catt Anomaly http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/catanoi.htm
http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/wbbanbk1.htm
to the Cambridge University Engineering Society on 15nov01, see their
correspondence at http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/07091.htm.
I was anxious to give presentations on the same subject earlier than 15nov01
elsewhere. To that end, I shall cover the same subject at the University of
Hertfordshire on 10oct01.
I hope you can invite me to give a talk on the same subject in Imperial College
on a date before 15nov01.
Ivor Catt 5sep01
5sep01 further copy sent slomail.