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Jack Sarfatti

 
Wikipedia: Jack Sarfatti
Jack Sarfatti

Jack Sarfatti in November 2007
Born September 14, 1939 (1939-09-14) (age 70)
Brooklyn, New York
Residence San Francisco, California
Citizenship American
Nationality American
Ethnicity Sephardi Jew, Italian, Macedonian
Fields Theoretical physics
Institutions San Diego State University, 1967-71 (assistant professor of physics)
Birkbeck College, London, 1971-2 (research fellow)
International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, 1973-4 (work with Abdus Salam)
Esalen Institute
Joe Firmage's ISSO exotic propulsion group in San Francisco, 1999-2000
Alma mater University of California, Riverside
Doctoral advisor Fred Cummings
Other academic advisors Hans Bethe
Known for controversial work on quantum physics and consciousness

Jack Sarfatti (born September 14, 1939) is an American theoretical physicist and the author of a number of popular works on quantum physics and consciousness. He is known for his iconoclastic ideas, and is interested in what he sees as the breakdown of the paradigm that posits science and the humanities as separate disciplines, arguing that physics — which he calls "the Conceptual Art of the late 20th Century" — [1] has replaced philosophy as the unifying force between science and art. [2]

Sarfatti's main interests lie in Timothy Leary's "SMI²LE" program of Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension.[1] His views include Colonel Philip J. Corso's speculation that UFOs may be of extraterrestrial origin or could be "terrestrial time ships" originating from our own future; that parapsychological phenomena may be real; that "retro-causal" (future-to-past) faster-than-light communication may be possible; and that a warp drive could be achieved by a controlled, possibly "psychokinetic" (mind manipulating matter), local warping of "emergent curved and torsioned" spacetime.[3] in "the fuselage of the flying saucer using nano-engineered 2D quantum wells with anyon condensates" ("Super Cosmos").

He is the author of the self-published books Super Cosmos (2005), Destiny Matrix (2002), and Space: Time And Beyond II (Dark Energy) (2002), and co-author with Fred Alan Wolf and Bob Toben of Space-Time and Beyond: Toward an Explanation of the Unexplainable (1982). He is a frequent contributor to Usenet [4] and has set up a website where he discusses his ideas. [5]

Contents

Early life and academic background

Sarfatti was born in Brooklyn, New York to Hyman Sarfatti, an Italian Sephardi Jew from Macedonia and his wife Mildred.[6][7][8]

He completed his B.A. in physics at Cornell University in 1960, where he wrote an honors thesis under the guidance of Hans Bethe, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967. His first published paper, "Quantum-Mechanical Correlation Theory of Electromagnetic Fields," appeared in 1963 in Nuovo Cimento, the journal of the Italian Physical Society.

He obtained his Master's, also in physics, from University of California, San Diego in 1967, and in the same year, "The Goldstone Theorem in the Jahn-Teller Effect," which he co-authored with Marshall Stoneham, was published in Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, and "Laser Self-Focusing Analogue to the Landau-Ginzburg Equation of Type II Superconductivity" in Physics Letters. [2]

Jack Sarfatti (left) and Fred Alan Wolf in Paris 1973

From 1967-71, he worked as an assistant professor of physics at San Diego State University, obtaining his Ph.D from University of California, Riverside in 1969, where he wrote his thesis under the supervision of Fred Cummings. In 1970, he and Cummings co-authored "Beyond the Hartree-Fock Theory in Superfluid Helium," which was published in Physica Scripta in Switzerland.[2]

From 1971-2, he was employed as a research fellow under David Bohm, the American quantum physicist, at Birkbeck College, London.[2]

From 1973-4, he worked with Abdus Salam, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.

He then left academia. In 1975, Dr. Sarfatti founded the Physics Consciousness Research Group to do research on parapsychological phenomenon such as telepathy. This research group was funded by Werner Erhard.

Thereafter, he worked at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. In 1999-2000 at Joe Firmage's ISSO exotic propulsion group in San Francisco with a budget of several million dollars. [9][citation needed]

Observation of Uri Geller

On June 21, 1974, Sarfatti was one of a number of scientists and other interested parties — a group that included Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur Koestler, David Bohm, John G. Taylor, Bernard Carr, [10] and John Hasted — who conducted observations of Uri Geller while the latter displayed what he said was telekinetic energy.

Sarfatti was initially impressed by Geller, and commented: "My personal professional judgement as a Ph.D. physicist is that Geller demonstrated genuine psychoenergetic ability at Birkbeck, which is beyond the doubt of any reasonable man, under relatively well-controlled and repeatable experimental conditions." [11] He later revised this opinion after discussing the matter with James Randi. He wrote in a letter: "On the basis of further experience in the art of conjuring, I wish to retract my endorsement of Uri Geller's psychoenergetic authenticity." [12]

Bernard Carr on Jack Sarfatti

Bernard Carr makes the following comment that outlines some of Jack Sarfatti's ideas regarding the relationship of quantum theory and consciousness:

More generally, Jack Sarfatti [13] has argued that signal non-locality could still be allowed in some form of ‘post-quantum’ theory which incorporates consciousness. He regards signal locality as the micro-quantum limit of a more general non-equilibrium macro-quantum theory. The relationship between micro and macro quantum theory is then similar to that between special and general relativity, with consciousness being intrinsically non-local and analogous to curvature. His model involves non-linear corrections to the Schrödinger equation and may permit retrocausal and remote viewing effects (2002).[14]

Publications

Written works

Broadcast

  • Paramount Pictures "Star Trek IV" DVD has commentary on time travel by Sarfatti: "Time Travel: The Art of the Possible runs eleven minutes and 14 seconds and provides information from 'three prominent quantum physicists'. We get comments from Dr. Nick Herbert, Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, and Dr. Jack Sarfatti." [15]

Mention of Jack Sarfatti in books by other authors

  • Sarfatti's ideas on physics and consciousness have been cited in a number of popular and scholarly books, including Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson, Bohemia by Herbert Gold, Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension by mathematician Rudy Rucker, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will edited by philosopher Robert Kane, White Holes by physicist John Gribbin, Rocket Dreams by Marina Benjamin, books by Stanislav Grof, Dancing in the Light by Shirley MacLaine, The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav and Exo-Psychology (Reprinted in second edition as Info-Psychology) by Timothy Leary. Sharon Weinberger, an editor at Aviation Week, mentions Sarfatti in her book Imaginary Weapons, in reference to his early work with Hans Bethe at Cornell on the idea for a nuclear isomer gamma ray laser.

Notes

  1. ^ a b weird science
  2. ^ a b c d The Universe, As Seen From North Beach
  3. ^ UFOs and the New Physics
  4. ^ Google Groups search
  5. ^ Stardrive
  6. ^ UFOs and the New Physics
  7. ^ Stephen Schwartz lies
  8. ^ My Story by Hyman Sarfatti (pdf)
  9. ^ CNN - Silicon Valley CEO continues alien quest despite skeptics - January 12, 1999
  10. ^ "Can Psychical Research Bridge the Gulf Between Matter and Mind?" Bernard Carr Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol 59 Part 221 June 2008
  11. ^ Science News, vol. 106, July 20, 1974, p. 46.
  12. ^ Science News, December 6, 1975, p. 355.
  13. ^ Jack Sarfatti, 1998, with M.C. Levit, "Are the Bader Laplacian and the Bohm Quantum Potential Equivalent?", Causality & Locality in Modern Physics (Series: Fundamental Theories in Physics, Vol 97), Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp 353-358. ISBN 0-7923-5227-0
  14. ^ "Can Psychical Research Bridge the Gulf Between Matter and Mind?" Bernard Carr Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol 59 Part 221 June 2008 Page 30
  15. ^ Star Trek IV commentary

Further reading

References

External links



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