Friedwardt Winterberg
Encyclopedia
Friedwardt Winterberg is a German
-American
theoretical
physicist
and research
professor
at the University of Nevada, Reno
. With more than 260 publications and three books, he is known for his research in areas spanning general relativity
, Planck scale
physics
, nuclear fusion
, and plasmas
. His work in nuclear
rocket
propulsion
earned him the 1979 Hermann Oberth
Gold Medal of the Wernher von Braun
International Space Flight Foundation and in 1981 a citation by the Nevada Legislature. He is also an honorary member of the German Aerospace Society Lilienthal-Oberth.
He is known for his proposal to put accurate atomic clocks on Earth-orbiting satellites in order to directly test General Relativity his fusion activism, his first proposal to experimentally test Elsasser's theory of the geodynamo, his defense of rocket scientist Arthur Rudolph
, and his involvement in the Albert Einstein
-David Hilbert
priority dispute.
, Germany
. In 1953 he received his MSc from the University of Frankfurt working under Friedrich Hund
, and in 1955 he received his PhD in physics from the Max Planck Institute, Göttingen
, as a student of Werner Heisenberg
. He later emigrated to the United States
, and became a U.S. citizen.
Winterberg is well respected for his work in the fields of nuclear fusion
and plasma physics, and Edward Teller
has been quoted as saying that he had "perhaps not received the attention he deserves" for his work on fusion. He is an elected member of the Paris-based International Academy of Astronautics
, in which he sat on the Committee of Interstellar Space Exploration. According to his faculty webpage, In 1954 he "made the first proposal to test general relativity
with atomic clock
s in earth satellites" and his thermonuclear microexplosion ignition concept was adopted by the British Interplanetary Society
for their Project Daedalus
Starship Study. His current research is on the "Planck Aether Hypothesis", "a novel theory that explains both quantum mechanics
and the theory of relativity
as asymptotic
low energy approximations, and gives a spectrum of particles greatly resembling the standard model
. Einstein's gravitational
and Maxwell's electromagnetic equations
are unified by the symmetric and antisymmetric wave mode of a vortex sponge, Dirac spinors result from gravitationally interacting bound positive-negative mass vortices, which explains why the mass of an electron is so much smaller than the Planck mass. The phenomenon of charge is for the first time explained to result from the zero point oscillations of Planck mass particles bound in vortex filaments." The theory proposes that the only free parameters in the fundamental equations of physics are the Planck length, mass, and time
, and shows why R3
is the natural space, as SU2
is treated as the fundamental group
isomorphic
to SO3
— an alternative to string field theories
in R10 and M theory in R11. It permits the value of the finestructure constant
at the Planck length to be computed, and this value remarkably agrees with the empirical value. He has published extensively on many aspects of physics from the 1950s through the present. In 2008, Winterberg criticized string theory and pointed out the shortcomings of Einstein's general theory of relativity because of its inability to be reconciled with quantum mechanics at the Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory conference and published his findings in Physics Essays.
using accurate atomic clocks placed in orbit in artificial satellites. At that time atomic clocks were not yet of the required accuracy and artificial satellites did not exist. Werner Heisenberg
wrote a letter to Winterberg in 1957 in which he said the idea sounded "very interesting". This idea was later experimentally verified by Hafele and Keating in 1971 by flying atomic clocks on commercial jets. The theoretical approach was the same as that used by Winterberg. Today atomic clocks and relativistic corrections are used in GPS and it is said GPS could not function without them.
. In particular Winterberg is known for the idea of impact fusion and the concept of the magnetically insulated diode for the generation of multi-megampere megavolt ion beams for the purpose of heating plasmas to thermonuclear fusion temperatures. He conceived of a nuclear fusion propulsion reactor for space travel, which is called the Winterberg / Daedalus Class Magnetic Compression Reaction Chamber, which was later developed at the University of Alabama at Huntsville's Propulsion Research Center. Most recently he has designed a giant spacecraft, propelled with deuterium micro-detonations ignited by a GeV proton beam, drawn from the space craft acting as an electrically charged up and magnetically insulated capacitor Winterberg also developed ideas for mining increasingly rare industrially crucial elements on planetary bodies such as the moon using fusion detonation devices. He became involved with the idea of using beam weapons in outer space in the late 1970s while working at the Desert Research Institute
.
According to Dennis King, Winterberg shared his ideas on beam weapons with the U.S. Air Force and he speculated on the subject in publications for the Fusion Energy Foundation
(FEF), a part of the Lyndon LaRouche
movement
. The FEF published a book of Winterberg describing the design of the hydrogen bomb
, with the hope of getting research in inertial confinement fusion declassified. According to King the FEF also funded speaking tours for Winterberg overseas, and he was quoted as saying, in 1980, that he thought LaRouche's U.S. presidential campaign was the "most scientifically founded". Winterberg also contributed articles and interviews to the FEF magazine, Fusion, and its successor magazine, 21st Century Science and Technology. He also participated in a 1985 conference jointly sponsored by the FEF and the Schiller Institute
, speaking on the topic of X-ray laser
s, the Strategic Defense Initiative
, and intergalactic travel. The conference attracted a number of scientists interested in promoting fusion scientific research; Winterberg was never a member of any of LaRouche's political organisations.
On November 12, 2007, Winterberg addressed the American Physical Society Plasma Physics Convention in Orlando, Florida, encouraging efforts to achieve economically feasible fusion energy, and presenting his ideas for what direction the efforts should take. Winterberg stresses inertial confinement fusion.
Back in 1963, it was proposed by Winterberg that the ignition of thermonuclear micro-explosions, could be achieved by an intense beam of microparticles accelerated to a velocity of 1000 km/s. And in 1968, Winterberg proposed to use intense electron and ion beams, generated by Marx generators, for the same purpose. Most recently, Winterberg has proposed the ignition of a deuterium microexplosion, with a gigavolt super-Marx generator, which is a Marx Generator driven by up to 100 ordinary Marx generators.
, who had been brought to the United States after World War II
as part of Operation Paperclip
to work on the U.S. rocketry program. It was Rudolph who then designed the massive famous Saturn V
rocket that launched Neil Armstrong
to the Moon. In the early 1980s, Rudolph's record as a potential Nazi
war criminal at Mittelwerk
surfaced and became the center of a political controversy after the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) negotiated to have him renounce his U.S. citizenship, purportedly under duress, after which he returned to Germany. After a thorough investigation by German authorities, it was decided there was no basis for prosecution and his German citizenship was restored. Rudolph pursued lawsuits hoping to regain his US citizenship and was barred entry to the US in 1989.
Winterberg, characterized by King as "Rudolph's most outspoken supporter", lobbied vigorously to paint Rudolph as a victim, giving interviews to magazines and launching his own investigation into Rudolph.
In 1992, Winterberg received documents from the post-unification German Federal Archives showing that in 1983 the OSI had requested information about Rudolph's role as a director of the German "Mittelwerke" rocket factory from 1943 to 1945 from the GDR. The GDR replied by passing on the results of its investigation.
in a controversy over the publication of the general relativity field equations (both Albert Einstein
and David Hilbert
had published them in a very short time span of one another). In 1997, Leo Corry, Jürgen Renn, and John Stachel published an article in Science
entitled "Belated decision in the Hilbert-Einstein priority dispute", arguing that, after looking at the original proofs of the article by Hilbert, that they indicated that Hilbert had not anticipated Einstein's equations.
Winterberg published a refutation of these conclusions in 2004, observing that the galley proofs of Hilbert's articles had been tampered with — part of one page had been cut off. He argued that the removed part of the article contained the equations that Einstein later published and alleged that it was part of a "crude attempt by some unknown individual to falsify the historical record." He alleged that Science had refused to print the article and thus he was forced to publish it in Zeitschrift für Naturforschung. Winterberg's article argued that despite the missing part of the proofs, that the correct crucial Field Equation is still imbedded on other pages of the proofs, in various forms, including Hilbert's variational principle with correct Lagrangian from which the Field Equation is immediately derived. Winterberg presented his findings at the American Physical Society meeting in Tampa, Florida in April 2005.
Corry, Renn, and Stachel authored a joint reply to Winterberg, which they claimed Zeitschrift für Naturforschung refused to publish without "unacceptable" modifications, and unable to find a publisher elsewhere, they made it available on the internet. The reply accused Winterberg of misrepresenting the reason why Science would not publish his paper (it had to do with the section of the journal it was scheduled to appear in), and also misrepresenting that the paper published in Zeitschrift für Naturforschung was the same paper he had submitted to Science, and had in fact been "substantially altered" after Winterberg had received their comments on an earlier draft. Actually, Winterberg in his Final Comment had clearly stated that the paper submitted to Science had been a previous version. They also contended that Winterberg was writing in "the paranoid style" (as discussed by Richard Hofstadter
) and making vague accusations of conspiracy. They then argue that Winterberg's interpretation of the Hilbert paper was incorrect, that the lost part of the page was unlikely to have been consequential, and that much of Winterberg's reasoning about what could be in the missing piece was incorrect (down to noting Winterberg claims that 1/3 of the page was removed, when actually over half a page is missing total from the two cut off pages) and internally inconsistent. They further argued there was a likely "non-paranoid" explanation for the missing part of the page.
Later, the original reply to Winterberg was removed from their website and replaced with a much shorter statement saying only that Winterberg's conclusions were incorrect, specifically that he had focused on the missing page fragment, "a fact without any bearing on the matter at hand", while failing "to address the substantive difference between the theory expounded in the proofs" of Hilbert. The statement further said that Winterberg had apparently indicated that he was "personally offended" by the original response, the "Max Planck Institute for the History of Science has decided to replace the original, more detailed response to his paper with this abbreviated version". This was, apparently, because the original reply had contained two very derisive statements against Professor Winterberg; later, the Max Planck Society released a note distancing itself from those two statements, without commenting on the underlying scientific dispute.
More recently, Winterberg has written an article saying that the general theory of relativity has not been definitively tested but nevertheless constitutes the basis of Einstein's notoriety, which he refers to as the "Einstein myth".
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theoretical
Theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at the University of Nevada, Reno
University of Nevada, Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno , is a teaching and research university established in 1874 and located in Reno, Nevada, USA...
. With more than 260 publications and three books, he is known for his research in areas spanning general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
, Planck scale
Planck units
In physics, Planck units are physical units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of five universal physical constants listed below, in such a manner that these five physical constants take on the numerical value of 1 when expressed in terms of these units. Planck units elegantly simplify...
physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
, and plasmas
Plasma (physics)
In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
. His work in nuclear
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
propulsion
Spacecraft propulsion
Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. There are many different methods. Each method has drawbacks and advantages, and spacecraft propulsion is an active area of research. However, most spacecraft today are propelled by forcing a gas from the...
earned him the 1979 Hermann Oberth
Hermann Oberth
Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.- Early life :...
Gold Medal of the Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
International Space Flight Foundation and in 1981 a citation by the Nevada Legislature. He is also an honorary member of the German Aerospace Society Lilienthal-Oberth.
He is known for his proposal to put accurate atomic clocks on Earth-orbiting satellites in order to directly test General Relativity his fusion activism, his first proposal to experimentally test Elsasser's theory of the geodynamo, his defense of rocket scientist Arthur Rudolph
Arthur Rudolph
Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph was a German rocket engineer and member of the Nazi party who played a key role in the development of the V-2 rocket. After World War II he was brought to the United States, subsequently becoming a pioneer of the United States space program. He worked for the U.S...
, and his involvement in the Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
-David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
priority dispute.
Biography
Winterberg was born in 1929 in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. In 1953 he received his MSc from the University of Frankfurt working under Friedrich Hund
Friedrich Hund
Friedrich Hermann Hund was a German physicist from Karlsruhe known for his work on atoms and molecules.Hund worked at the Universities of Rostock, Leipzig, Jena, Frankfurt am Main, and Göttingen....
, and in 1955 he received his PhD in physics from the Max Planck Institute, Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
, as a student of Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...
. He later emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and became a U.S. citizen.
Winterberg is well respected for his work in the fields of nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
and plasma physics, and Edward Teller
Edward Teller
Edward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
has been quoted as saying that he had "perhaps not received the attention he deserves" for his work on fusion. He is an elected member of the Paris-based International Academy of Astronautics
International Academy of Astronautics
The International Academy of Astronautics is an international community of experts committed to expanding the frontiers of space. It is a non-governmental organisation established in Stockholm on August 16, 1960....
, in which he sat on the Committee of Interstellar Space Exploration. According to his faculty webpage, In 1954 he "made the first proposal to test general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
with atomic clock
Atomic clock
An atomic clock is a clock that uses an electronic transition frequency in the microwave, optical, or ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum of atoms as a frequency standard for its timekeeping element...
s in earth satellites" and his thermonuclear microexplosion ignition concept was adopted by the British Interplanetary Society
British Interplanetary Society
The British Interplanetary Society founded in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest space advocacy organisation in the world whose aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration.-Structure:...
for their Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible unmanned interstellar spacecraft. Intended mainly as a scientific probe, the design criteria specified that the spacecraft had to use current or near-future technology and had to...
Starship Study. His current research is on the "Planck Aether Hypothesis", "a novel theory that explains both quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
and the theory of relativity
Theory of relativity
The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
as asymptotic
Asymptote
In analytic geometry, an asymptote of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as they tend to infinity. Some sources include the requirement that the curve may not cross the line infinitely often, but this is unusual for modern authors...
low energy approximations, and gives a spectrum of particles greatly resembling the standard model
Standard Model
The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, which mediate the dynamics of the known subatomic particles. Developed throughout the mid to late 20th century, the current formulation was finalized in the mid 1970s upon...
. Einstein's gravitational
Einstein field equations
The Einstein field equations or Einstein's equations are a set of ten equations in Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity which describe the fundamental interaction of gravitation as a result of spacetime being curved by matter and energy...
and Maxwell's electromagnetic equations
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits. These fields in turn underlie modern electrical and communications technologies.Maxwell's equations...
are unified by the symmetric and antisymmetric wave mode of a vortex sponge, Dirac spinors result from gravitationally interacting bound positive-negative mass vortices, which explains why the mass of an electron is so much smaller than the Planck mass. The phenomenon of charge is for the first time explained to result from the zero point oscillations of Planck mass particles bound in vortex filaments." The theory proposes that the only free parameters in the fundamental equations of physics are the Planck length, mass, and time
Planck time
In physics, the Planck time, , is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length...
, and shows why R3
Euclidean space
In mathematics, Euclidean space is the Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, as well as the generalizations of these notions to higher dimensions...
is the natural space, as SU2
Special unitary group
The special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU, is the group of n×n unitary matrices with determinant 1. The group operation is that of matrix multiplication...
is treated as the fundamental group
Group (mathematics)
In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an operation that combines any two of its elements to form a third element. To qualify as a group, the set and the operation must satisfy a few conditions called group axioms, namely closure, associativity, identity...
isomorphic
Isomorphism
In abstract algebra, an isomorphism is a mapping between objects that shows a relationship between two properties or operations. If there exists an isomorphism between two structures, the two structures are said to be isomorphic. In a certain sense, isomorphic structures are...
to SO3
Special unitary group
The special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU, is the group of n×n unitary matrices with determinant 1. The group operation is that of matrix multiplication...
— an alternative to string field theories
String field theory
String field theory is a formalism in string theory in which the dynamics of relativistic strings is reformulated in the language of quantum field theory...
in R10 and M theory in R11. It permits the value of the finestructure constant
Fine-structure constant
In physics, the fine-structure constant is a fundamental physical constant, namely the coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. Being a dimensionless quantity, it has constant numerical value in all systems of units...
at the Planck length to be computed, and this value remarkably agrees with the empirical value. He has published extensively on many aspects of physics from the 1950s through the present. In 2008, Winterberg criticized string theory and pointed out the shortcomings of Einstein's general theory of relativity because of its inability to be reconciled with quantum mechanics at the Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory conference and published his findings in Physics Essays.
Proposal for direct test of General Relativity
In a 1955 paper Winterberg proposed a test of General RelativityGeneral relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
using accurate atomic clocks placed in orbit in artificial satellites. At that time atomic clocks were not yet of the required accuracy and artificial satellites did not exist. Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...
wrote a letter to Winterberg in 1957 in which he said the idea sounded "very interesting". This idea was later experimentally verified by Hafele and Keating in 1971 by flying atomic clocks on commercial jets. The theoretical approach was the same as that used by Winterberg. Today atomic clocks and relativistic corrections are used in GPS and it is said GPS could not function without them.
Fusion activism
Winterberg has published numerous articles in the area of inertial confinement fusionInertial confinement fusion
Inertial confinement fusion is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium....
. In particular Winterberg is known for the idea of impact fusion and the concept of the magnetically insulated diode for the generation of multi-megampere megavolt ion beams for the purpose of heating plasmas to thermonuclear fusion temperatures. He conceived of a nuclear fusion propulsion reactor for space travel, which is called the Winterberg / Daedalus Class Magnetic Compression Reaction Chamber, which was later developed at the University of Alabama at Huntsville's Propulsion Research Center. Most recently he has designed a giant spacecraft, propelled with deuterium micro-detonations ignited by a GeV proton beam, drawn from the space craft acting as an electrically charged up and magnetically insulated capacitor Winterberg also developed ideas for mining increasingly rare industrially crucial elements on planetary bodies such as the moon using fusion detonation devices. He became involved with the idea of using beam weapons in outer space in the late 1970s while working at the Desert Research Institute
Desert Research Institute
The Desert Research Institute is the nonprofit research campus of the Nevada System of Higher Education , the organization that oversees all publicly-supported higher education in the U.S. state of Nevada...
.
According to Dennis King, Winterberg shared his ideas on beam weapons with the U.S. Air Force and he speculated on the subject in publications for the Fusion Energy Foundation
Fusion Energy Foundation
Fusion Energy Foundation was a non-profit think tank cofounded by Lyndon LaRouche in 1974 in New York. It promoted the construction of nuclear power plants, research into fusion power and beam weapons and other causes. The FEF was called fusion's greatest private supporter...
(FEF), a part of the Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. is an American political activist and founder of a network of political committees, parties, and publications known collectively as the LaRouche movement...
movement
LaRouche movement
The LaRouche movement is an international political and cultural network that promotes Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. It has included scores of organizations and companies around the world. Their activities include campaigning, private intelligence gathering, and publishing numerous periodicals,...
. The FEF published a book of Winterberg describing the design of the hydrogen bomb
Teller-Ulam design
The Teller–Ulam design is the nuclear weapon design concept used in most of the world's nuclear weapons. It is colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb" because it employs hydrogen fusion, though in most applications the bulk of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission,...
, with the hope of getting research in inertial confinement fusion declassified. According to King the FEF also funded speaking tours for Winterberg overseas, and he was quoted as saying, in 1980, that he thought LaRouche's U.S. presidential campaign was the "most scientifically founded". Winterberg also contributed articles and interviews to the FEF magazine, Fusion, and its successor magazine, 21st Century Science and Technology. He also participated in a 1985 conference jointly sponsored by the FEF and the Schiller Institute
Schiller Institute
The Schiller Institute is an international political and economic thinktank, one of the primary organizations of the LaRouche movement, with headquarters in Germany and the United States, and supporters in Australia, Canada, Russia, and South America, among others, according to its website.The...
, speaking on the topic of X-ray laser
X-ray laser
An X-ray laser is a device that uses stimulated emission to generate or amplify electromagnetic radiation in the near X-ray or extreme ultraviolet region of the spectrum, that is, usually on the order of several of tens of nanometers wavelength.Because of high gain in the lasing medium, short...
s, the Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
, and intergalactic travel. The conference attracted a number of scientists interested in promoting fusion scientific research; Winterberg was never a member of any of LaRouche's political organisations.
On November 12, 2007, Winterberg addressed the American Physical Society Plasma Physics Convention in Orlando, Florida, encouraging efforts to achieve economically feasible fusion energy, and presenting his ideas for what direction the efforts should take. Winterberg stresses inertial confinement fusion.
Back in 1963, it was proposed by Winterberg that the ignition of thermonuclear micro-explosions, could be achieved by an intense beam of microparticles accelerated to a velocity of 1000 km/s. And in 1968, Winterberg proposed to use intense electron and ion beams, generated by Marx generators, for the same purpose. Most recently, Winterberg has proposed the ignition of a deuterium microexplosion, with a gigavolt super-Marx generator, which is a Marx Generator driven by up to 100 ordinary Marx generators.
Rudolph controversy
In 1983, Winterberg became involved in a scandal which erupted over the engineer Arthur RudolphArthur Rudolph
Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph was a German rocket engineer and member of the Nazi party who played a key role in the development of the V-2 rocket. After World War II he was brought to the United States, subsequently becoming a pioneer of the United States space program. He worked for the U.S...
, who had been brought to the United States after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as part of Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...
to work on the U.S. rocketry program. It was Rudolph who then designed the massive famous Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket that launched Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....
to the Moon. In the early 1980s, Rudolph's record as a potential Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
war criminal at Mittelwerk
Mittelwerk
Central Works was a World War II factory that used Mittelbau-Dora forced labor in 2 main tunnels in the Kohnstein. The underground facility produced V-2 rockets, V-1 flying bombs, and other Nazi weapons.-Mittelwerk GmbH:...
surfaced and became the center of a political controversy after the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) negotiated to have him renounce his U.S. citizenship, purportedly under duress, after which he returned to Germany. After a thorough investigation by German authorities, it was decided there was no basis for prosecution and his German citizenship was restored. Rudolph pursued lawsuits hoping to regain his US citizenship and was barred entry to the US in 1989.
Winterberg, characterized by King as "Rudolph's most outspoken supporter", lobbied vigorously to paint Rudolph as a victim, giving interviews to magazines and launching his own investigation into Rudolph.
In 1992, Winterberg received documents from the post-unification German Federal Archives showing that in 1983 the OSI had requested information about Rudolph's role as a director of the German "Mittelwerke" rocket factory from 1943 to 1945 from the GDR. The GDR replied by passing on the results of its investigation.
Einstein-Hilbert dispute
Winterberg was also involved in a dispute relating to the history of general relativityHistory of general relativity
-Overview:General relativity is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915...
in a controversy over the publication of the general relativity field equations (both Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
and David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
had published them in a very short time span of one another). In 1997, Leo Corry, Jürgen Renn, and John Stachel published an article in Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
entitled "Belated decision in the Hilbert-Einstein priority dispute", arguing that, after looking at the original proofs of the article by Hilbert, that they indicated that Hilbert had not anticipated Einstein's equations.
Winterberg published a refutation of these conclusions in 2004, observing that the galley proofs of Hilbert's articles had been tampered with — part of one page had been cut off. He argued that the removed part of the article contained the equations that Einstein later published and alleged that it was part of a "crude attempt by some unknown individual to falsify the historical record." He alleged that Science had refused to print the article and thus he was forced to publish it in Zeitschrift für Naturforschung. Winterberg's article argued that despite the missing part of the proofs, that the correct crucial Field Equation is still imbedded on other pages of the proofs, in various forms, including Hilbert's variational principle with correct Lagrangian from which the Field Equation is immediately derived. Winterberg presented his findings at the American Physical Society meeting in Tampa, Florida in April 2005.
Corry, Renn, and Stachel authored a joint reply to Winterberg, which they claimed Zeitschrift für Naturforschung refused to publish without "unacceptable" modifications, and unable to find a publisher elsewhere, they made it available on the internet. The reply accused Winterberg of misrepresenting the reason why Science would not publish his paper (it had to do with the section of the journal it was scheduled to appear in), and also misrepresenting that the paper published in Zeitschrift für Naturforschung was the same paper he had submitted to Science, and had in fact been "substantially altered" after Winterberg had received their comments on an earlier draft. Actually, Winterberg in his Final Comment had clearly stated that the paper submitted to Science had been a previous version. They also contended that Winterberg was writing in "the paranoid style" (as discussed by Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...
) and making vague accusations of conspiracy. They then argue that Winterberg's interpretation of the Hilbert paper was incorrect, that the lost part of the page was unlikely to have been consequential, and that much of Winterberg's reasoning about what could be in the missing piece was incorrect (down to noting Winterberg claims that 1/3 of the page was removed, when actually over half a page is missing total from the two cut off pages) and internally inconsistent. They further argued there was a likely "non-paranoid" explanation for the missing part of the page.
Later, the original reply to Winterberg was removed from their website and replaced with a much shorter statement saying only that Winterberg's conclusions were incorrect, specifically that he had focused on the missing page fragment, "a fact without any bearing on the matter at hand", while failing "to address the substantive difference between the theory expounded in the proofs" of Hilbert. The statement further said that Winterberg had apparently indicated that he was "personally offended" by the original response, the "Max Planck Institute for the History of Science has decided to replace the original, more detailed response to his paper with this abbreviated version". This was, apparently, because the original reply had contained two very derisive statements against Professor Winterberg; later, the Max Planck Society released a note distancing itself from those two statements, without commenting on the underlying scientific dispute.
More recently, Winterberg has written an article saying that the general theory of relativity has not been definitively tested but nevertheless constitutes the basis of Einstein's notoriety, which he refers to as the "Einstein myth".
External links
- Winterberg's faculty page at the University of Nevada, Reno.
- A site dedicated to Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg. There are biography, list of published papers, links, photos, etc.