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In Appreciation of Maurice Allais (1911-2010)
The New Physical Field of Maurice Allais
by Laurence Hecht

October 24, 2010
Maurice Allais, French polymath and 1988 Nobel laureate in economics, died Oct. 9, 2010. We present here an appreciation of the work in physical sciences by this extraordinary genius, which included groundbreaking experimentation with a paraconical pendulum demonstrating the existence of a new physical field. Professor Allais graduated in 1931 from France’s École Polytechnique, first in his class. and later served as an administrator in the Bureau of Mines, professor of economic analysis at the École Nationale Supérieure and research director at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, among other responsibilities.
* * *
Maurice Allais’ physical researches are often viewed as a counter-position to Einstein’s relativity theory. Professor Allais indeed presented compelling evidence that the speed of light is not independent of its direction, and that therefore this precept, which is at the foundation of the special and general theory of relativity, renders the theory invalid. That shocking possibility much intrigued me in 1998, when I first learned of the work of this French genius whom I later came to know both as a friend and a source of scientific inspiration. I shall touch only briefly on that aspect of Allais’ work here, rather emphasizing his own experimental researches with the pendulum, leading to the identification of a new physical field, which I believe constitutes the most important of his contributions to science.
As Einstein’s unique formulation of the relativity of spacetime subsumed the existing laws of mechanics in a new and more comprehensive framework, it would only be the discovery of new physical phenomena that could fundamentally un-

dermine this conception. Einstein’s 1921 visit to American physicist Dayton C. Miller, and his later published comments on the Mount Wilson experiments, indicated his openness to this possibility. Miller, who had taught at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland with Albert Michelson’s collaborator, the chemist Edward Morley, was then attempting to demonstrate with an improved apparatus that the Michelson-Morley experiment had not produced a null result, but rather one which was in accord neither with the assumption of Einstein
that there was no ether—that is, a medium through which light and other electromagnetic waves propagated— nor with the older view of a stationary ether. Einstein encouraged Miller, noting that if the experimental results should prove him wrong, a new theory would be required. That exchange, and Miller’s experiments, played an important part in Allais’ thinking. However, that is not the best way to introduce the reader to the significance of his work.
The Paraconical Pendulum Let us rather go directly to certain experiments with a unique sort of pendulum, conceived in 1953 and carried out by Professor Allais and assistants from 1954 to 1960 in a laboratory in Saint-Germain, and during part of one year simultaneStudio Harcourt Paris ously in a quarry at Bougival, some kilometers distant. The idea for these experiments had come from Allais’ conviction that the propagation of the gravitational and electromagnetic actions requires the existence of an intermediate medium. It would not be precisely the ether as conceived by Augustin Fresnel early in the 19th Century, but a modification of it, for this ether could not be motionless in relation to the fixed stars, as had earlier been assumed. A magnetic field, whose geometric expression in the form of a whirl is easily demonstrable, would

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year later by use of a gyroscope to show the

same. However, as Allais lamented, despite

the installation of Foucault pendulums at

many universities and public buildings

around the world, no study of the finer mo-

tion of the pendulum had ever been con-

ducted over an extended time period.

Experiments with the glass ball pendulum

in magnetic fields of a few hundred gauss

did not provide definitive answers to his

original hypothesis, and, unable to obtain a

device for producing more powerful mag-

netic fields, Allais turned to a study of the

anomalies in the motion of a short pendu-

lum. For this purpose, he constructed a de-

vice which he called a paraconical pendu-

lum, suspended such that the full weight of

the pendulum rod and bob rested upon a

small steel ball. A precision ball bearing rest-

Courtesy of Case Western Reserve University Archives ing upon a plane surface provided a very

The interferometer used by Dayton Miller between 1924 and 1926 at the Mt. Wil- sensitive low-friction apparatus, which al-

son Observatory in California.

lowed the pendulum to swing to and fro in

any figure, and to change azimuth in re-

then correspond to a local rotation within this presumed me- sponse to whatever forces might drive it. The means of realizing

dium, or ether, in Allais’ view. And from this thought came his this can be seen in the photographs of the Allais pendulum. Fig-

idea for an experiment that could establish a never before ob- ure 1 shows the detail of the suspension. The weight of the pen-

served link between magnetism and gravitation. If the mag- dulum rests upon a small ball bearing which is held within the

netic field represents a local disturbance within the ether, it removable bearing surface S, made from aluminum. The pen-

should produce some subtle effect upon the motion of a non- dulum weight, rod, and stirrup (E) are made from bronze weigh-

magnetic body, falling, as does a pendulum, under the influ- ing a total of 12 kg. The horseshoe-shaped cutout in the large

ence of gravitation through that magnetic field.

aluminum disk S’ (labeled A) allows a rotation of the azimuth of

Allais began in 1952 with observations of a glass ball sus- the pendulum of just over two right angles.

pended on a thread about 2 meters long, but with no magnet-

ic field other than that of the Earth. “To my great surprise, I

found out that this movement did not reduce itself to the Foucault effect, but displayed very significant anomalies in relation to this effect,” Allais wrote in an autobiographical essay

.  See Maurice Allais, “Should the Laws of Gravitation Be Reconsidered” (1959) reprinted in 21st Century Science & Technology (Fall 1998), pp. 21-33. An electronic copy of that reprint is at http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/media10-1.htm. The paper was originally published in English by the American

completed in 1988, the year he won the No-

bel Prize in Economic Science.

In 1861, Léon Foucault had famously dem-

onstrated that a long pendulum, mounted so

that it was free to swing in any vertical plane,

would gradually change the azimuth of its

plane of oscillation, turning through a full cir-

cle to return to the starting position after a

length of time which depends upon the geo-

graphic latitude. At the installation in Paris

where Foucault first demonstrated the effect,

the pendulum took about 32 hours to return to

the starting azimuth, while at either of the

poles it would take just 24 hours. Foucault

had found a means to demonstrate the rota-

tion of the Earth from a point upon the Earth. It

was an astounding demonstration, followed a

.  “My Life Philosophy,” American Economist, Vol. 333, No. 2 (Fall 1989) as excerpted in 21st Century (Spring 1998), pp. 32-33, available at http://allais.maurice.free.fr/ English/media13-1.htm

Figure 1 DETAIL OF THE SUSPENSION
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Fall 2010 27

Figure 2 MEASURING CIRCLE
The experiment was conducted by allowing the pendulum to swing freely for a 14-minute period every 20 minutes. The azimuth attained was determined by a graduated measuring circle capable of attaining an accuracy of 0.1 centesimal degrees (Figure 2). (There are 100 centesimal degrees in a right angle and 400 in a circle.) On each re-launching, the ball bearing was replaced with a new one, and the azimuth attained on the previous trial was used as the starting azimuth. The bearing surface was changed at the start of each week. These observations were carried out continuously day and night for periods up to a
Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences at the recommendation of Wernher von Braun. It appeared in Aero/Space Engineering, Vol. 18, Nos. 9 and 10 (September and October 1959).

month during June and July 1955. Three years later, simultaneous experiments at two locations established the same results.
Because of an asymmetry or anisotropy in the modulus of elasticity of the upper support, S”, there was a preferred azimuth to which the pendulum might tend to return, barring other effects. (The direction is indicated by the arrow PQ in Figures 3 and 4.) As a result, the pendulum did not rotate through a full 360°, like the Foucault pendulum, but rather varied its azimuth over a range of about 100 centesimal degrees (one-quarter circle). It was the periodicity of the variations in azimuth which proved to be most interesting. After discounting for the Foucault effect and the “return effect” due to the anisotropy of the support, Allais found very strong evidence for a periodic effect, which could not be attributed to any known cause. Harmonic analysis by a mathematical technique known as a Buys-Ballot filter showed that the periodicity manifested itself on a cycle of 24 and 25 hours. Analysis showed that the unknown disturbing influence or influences giving rise to this periodicity was of a strong character, with a strength on average and as a whole about twice that of the Foucault effect.
Luni-Solar Influence? The rising of the Moon occurs later each day, by an amount varying from about 20 to 80 minutes and averaging about 50 minutes over the course of a month. Thus, the position of the Moon overhead obeys a cycle of about 24 hours 50 minutes. This fact might lead one to suspect that the observed cyclicity in the pendulum data is due to the gravitational effect of the Moon, or the combined effect of Moon and Sun. The behavior of the pendulum during a total eclipse of the Sun on June 30, 1954

Figure 3 THE ASSEMBLED APPARATUS

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Figure 4 SUSPENSION APPARATUS

gave added reason to suspect a grav-

nomena, which he supposed to be

itational influence linked to the

evidence of a dissymmetry or an-

luni-solar alignment. A sudden vari-

isotropy of space. Among these

ation in the azimuth of the pendu-

were the measurements carried out

lum of a magnitude never observed

by Ernest Esclangon in the 1920s,

in any other continuous observation

when he was the director of the

period took place at the start of the

Strasbourg Observatory. These in-

eclipse. Similar anomalous behav-

volved certain systematic shifts that

ior of a pendulum during solar

occurred in the sighting of a refract-

eclipses has since been observed by

ing telescope, depending on wheth-

others.

er the instrument was aimed toward

However, an analysis by Allais

the northwest or northeast, and

showed that the difference in gravi-

showing a periodicity which coin-

tational attraction exerted by the

cided with the sidereal, but not the

luni-solar alignment upon a point

mean, solar day. Prior to this, Es-

on the Earth could not give rise to

clangon had made an analysis of

such variations in the pendulum, for

166,500 hourly observations of the

the order of magnitude of such ef-

Adriatic tides, which he interpreted

fect is 100 million times smaller

as demonstrating a dissymmetry in

than the gravitational field that Jacques Bourgeot, laboratory director, operating the the sidereal space, not affected by

drives the pendulum’s fall. The dif- Allais paraconical pendulum, photographed by the luni-solar alignment.

ference between the attraction of Maurice Allais. He is operating the measuring circle Allais believed that the varia-

the Sun and Moon upon the center for the pendulum, which allows measurement of the tions noted by Esclangon were

of the Earth, as compared to a point direction of the swing and the two axes of the flat el- closely related both to the results

on the Earth’s surface, is of the order lipse which the pendulum bob traces out.

of Dayton Miller’s extended obser-

of 10-8, a value of such insignifi-

vations at Mount Wilson with the

cance that none of the 19th Century authors who worked on upgraded Morley-Miller interferometer, and to his own results

the theory of the pendulum ever took it into consideration. In from the paraconical pendulum. Indeed, Allais suspected that

addition, for the change in luni-solar force to affect the azimuth a wide variety of anomalous periodic behaviors might also be

of the pendulum, one must take into account the difference be- comprehended by this conception of spatial anisotropy. It is

tween the attraction at the mean position of the pendulum and instructive to reproduce the list of such effects, which he in-

its magnitude at a nearby point, a difference in force of a tiny cluded in his 1959 paper, “Should the Laws of Gravitation be

order of magnitude, equal to 10–13 that of the pull of gravity at Reconsidered?”:

the Earth’s surface.

1. Abnormalities in the tide theory;

Thus, neither the regular cyclical variation of the pendulum, 2. Motions of the top of the Eiffel Tower;

nor the anomalous behavior at the time of solar eclipse, can be 3. Size of the deviations to the South noted on falling bod-

explained by the presently understood theory of gravitation. ies;

Something else is at work.

4. Variations in the amplitude of the deviations to the east

noted on falling bodies;

Other Possible Causes

5. Abnormalities noted in the action of terrestrial rotation on

In order to arrive at an explanation, Allais considered a wide the flow of liquids (Tumlirz’s experiments);

range of known periodic phenomena, including the terrestrial 6. Abnormalities noted in the motion of the horizontal gyro-

tides, variations in the intensity of gravity, thermal or barometric scope of Föppl;

effects, magnetic variations, microseismic effects, cosmic rays, 7. Abnormalities noted in the experiments carried out with

and the periodic character of human activity. Yet, on close ex- the isotomeograph;

amination, the very peculiar nature of the periodicity shown by 8. Abnormalities noted in experiments carried out with a sus-

the change in azimuth of the pendulum forced the elimination pended pulley;

of all of these as cause. For the pendulum, the amplitude of the 9. Various abnormalities noted in geophysical measurements,

25-hour wave was of the same order of magnitude as that of the ascribed until now to experimental errors;

24-hour wave, and very much greater than the amplitude of the 10. The apparently unaccountable results obtained by Louis

12 and 12.5-hour wave. Yet for all of the phenomena consid- Pasteur (a general in the French Medical Corps, not the 19th

ered as possible causes, the total of the amplitudes of the waves Century scientist) in his experiments on the oscillation of the

having periods close to 25 hours is small as compared to the pendulum (1954);

24-, 12-, or 12.5-hour series.

By the elimination of such causes, Allais was led to his hy-

pothesis of spatial anisotropy which I first learned of on reading a review of his 1997 book, L’anisotropie de l’espace (The Anisotropy of Space). On closer examination of this work, I discovered the existence of many little-known anomalous phe-

.  Maurice Allais, “The Experiments of Dayton C. Miller (1925-1926) and the Theory of Relativity,” 21st Century (Spring 1998), pp. 26-34, available at http:// allais.maurice.free.fr/English/media12-1.htm, and the accompanying background piece, Laurence Hecht, “Optical Theory in the 19th Century and the Truth about Michelson-Morley-Miller,” 21st Century (Spring 1998), pp. 35-50.

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Fall 2010 29

pleasure to meet Maurice Allais.

Also in attendance were the bio-

physicist Vladimir Voeikov, Allais’

associate Henry Aujard, Remi Sau-

mont of the CNRS (National Center

for Scientic Research), and others. I

recall the enthusiasm with which

Allais responded to the suggestion

that an international organization

be created to carry out investiga-

tion along the lines similar to those

I have outlined here. That proposal

did not take off at the time. Now,

however, in a new generation of

thinkers associated with Lyndon

LaRouche’s Basement Project, it

has taken shape.

Henry Aujard

Maurice Allais (right) in Paris in 2001, with (left to right) his wife, Jacqueline, Laurence

Beyond Sense Certainty

Hecht, Emmanuel Grenier, and Marjorie Mazel Hecht.

What is most intriguing about

the new physical field, of which Al-

11. Remarkable characteristics of the Solar System, for which lais’ experiments give evidence, is the suggestion of an effect

there has been, until now, no satisfactory explanation.

not clearly linked to visible objects, nor to any sensible phe-

To these considerations, we would like to add one other case nomenon of which we are presently aware, even including cos-

of an unexplained periodicity corresponding to the solar and lu- mic rays as presently understood. The introduction of the sort of

nar day, as well as to longer cycles, which came to our attention considerations epitomized in F.A. Brown’s works, allows us to

only recently. The nature of it is such as to lend an added breadth more easily view the matter from the standpoint of a universal

to the considerations raised so far. These are the periodicities in field not limited to physical effects, in the strict sense, but acting

metabolic activity observed in organisms as diverse as crabs, upon the three domains of living, non-living, and cognitive as

salamanders, potatoes, seaweed, and carrots, as reported some identified by V.I. Vernadsky.

decades ago by Northwestern University biologist Frank A. Here I raise a point of difference with Allais in his formulation Brown and colleagues. In one especially provocative series of of an anisotropy of space, my objection being not so much to the

experiments, Brown and collaborators observed the cycle of anisotropy, but to the space. There is no empty space; on this

shell opening and closing in oysters that had been transported in point we would not have differed. However, I believe one must

a photographic dark box from New Haven, Conn. to Evanston, go beyond filling the apparent distance between the objects of

Ill. Maintained under conditions of artificial light, pressure, and naive sense certainty with a medium, of whatever composition.

temperature, the bivalves nonetheless gradually changed their Rather than space, time, and matter, we might better say a uni-

time of opening to correspond with high tide as it would have versal continuum with singularities, borrowing these, actually occurred in their new, landlocked location. How they received imprecise, terms from mathematics, for lack of a better image.

the time signal remains a mystery. Brown later found an inverse Thus, the radiation-filled interstellar space is not truly distinct

correlation of the metabolic activity of these and other organ- from the objects which appear to fill it, and from this flows the

isms to the intensity of cosmic ray flux.

necessity of the next revolution in our scientific understanding,

The similarities and differences of these observations of cycli- to reconstruct the Periodic Table of Dmitri Mendeleyev from the

cal activity exhibited by living organisms, compared to those of standpoint, not of particles, but of a universal cosmic radiation

a purely physical nature noted by Allais, are worth closer study. or field. I believe that Allais and myself would have found com-

As the experiments of Allais and Brown occurred within the mon ground, if not perfect agreement, on this approach, had we

same epoch, some very precise comparison of data may be had the opportunity for extended discussion of the matter.

possible.

Immortality exists as a real and even measurable phenome-

I am reminded of a meeting in Paris in the Spring of 2001 at non, far more than most today are willing to recognize; the

the offices of the political movement associated with Jacques greater the soul, the more manifest. Herein spiritual greatness is

Cheminade. That was one of two occasions on which I had the distinguished from the common sort of passing fame, which is

never won without moral compromise. For such unfortunate

cases, in the end, after all the ceremony and intoning of empty

.  See, for example, Frank A. Brown, Jr., M.F. Bennett, and H.M. Webb, “Monthly Cycles in an Organism in Constant Conditions during 1956 and 1957.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 44 (1958), pp. 290296.
.  Frank A. Brown, Jr., M.F. Bennett, H.M. Webb, and C.L. Ralph, “Persistent Daily, Monthly, and 27-Day Cycles of Activity in the Oyster and Quahog,” J. Exp. Zool., Vol 131, No. 2 (March 1956), pp. 235-262.

words is over, there is little left. It is quite the opposite with great souls, who leave behind a legacy of thought and action from which the living still wish to learn and with which they still desire to consult. In the renewed dialogue I here initiate with my dear friend Maurice Allais, that elementary truth is about to be proven once more.

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