BRAIN WAVES AND ALPHA RHYTHM

© Harold Aspden, 1997

Research Note: 06/97: March 31, 1997

Schumann Resonance

Did you know that there are electric field effects in the atmosphere that affect your brain? We need to solve the mystery of why it is that your alpha rhythm, as measured by detectors sensitive to brain waves, has a frequency equal to that detected by the study of weak electric field oscillations in the atmosphere. The frequency is 7.8 Hz, about one sixth or one seventh of the frequency of electricity supplied to your home. It was Tesla who first discovered those atmospheric oscillations. He even embarked on research to exploit the phenomenon, aiming to transmit power to homes everywhere around the world by low frequency 'radio waves'. That was deemed to be a venture that could put power companies out of business. How would they be able to charge for the service? So now we have to concentrate instead on the power of our own brain waves to progress in the world of 'free energy'.

It was Schumann's research reports which gave formal scientific recognition of this physical phenomenon of our atmosphere and so it has the name 'Schumann Resonance'. When I first heard about this from Tom Valone at a conference I attended in Canada in 1988 I was mildly interested. I was there to air my views on how one might be able to generate power using magnetism as a catalyst in tapping aether energy. I was told not to use the expression 'free energy' in the title of my talk as that might destroy my credibility! So I was a little restrained in my pursuit of the technological implications of my 'brain child' and atmospheric resonance effects were not uppermost on my mind - or so I thought! What I did learn was that the Schumann resonance was deemed to be a phenomenon occurring as electromagnetic waves travelled around the Earth in the concentric spherical cavity between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere. If one takes the circumference of Earth and compares it with the speed of light then one finds that electromagnetic waves travelling around body Earth would set up a kind of standing wave resonance effect at 7.8 Hz. This is the alpha rhythm frequency. So we, meaning our brains, may be phase-locked in some way with body Earth and its atmosphere. The expression 'phase-locked' means that everything in this merry electrical dance is in step and moves at the same frequency.

Aspden Resonance

Dare I now put my name on another interpretation of this resonance phenomenon? I leave it to you to judge. Firstly, as background I note that in 1988 my interest in aether theory led to contacts between me and Dr. P. E. Rowe of Mashpee, Massachusetts, USA . I had a theory which explained how protons were created from the aether. Dr. Rowe had experimental evidence that protons were created inside his electrical discharge tubes which he operated at 50,000 volts and he too believed the aether was the source. It seemed to me that he had found a way of focusing the work done by the aether in creating matter so that, in a sense, he was harnessing the power of Creation! I saw in this also the danger of effects on our bodies if we were near enough to electric power lines to be in the 'proton creation zone', but far enough away not to be electrocuted. I then wrote the paper (abstract 1988f in these Web pages). I had forgotten 'Schumann Resonance' because my mind was on my own theory and protons, deuterons, neutrons etc. There was not much I could do anyway, even though I was aware that if protons could be created inside my body in existing atomic nuclei I might suffer some consequences. I wondered about DNA and whether its chemistry took account of isotopes. It may have been A. A. Berezin, an academic researcher in Canada, who pointed out that there were more people in the world than possible DNA combinations of atoms in the DNA molecule but yet we were all different. The implication I saw in this was that there could be different isotopic combinations in the DNA structure.

Maybe the odd deuteron replacing the proton in the hydrogen atom in DNA can make a difference! If so, then the odd proton causing a transmutation to a deuteron could make the odd DNA molecule a misfit in our composition. Would that promote cancer? I do not know but I do know that someone somewhere should be researching that possibility. I may have done no more on this theme if it had not come to my attention that an electric blanket manufacturing company had sought certain assurances from staff members of the Electrical Engineering Department at my local University. They wanted to be assured that the electrical and magnetic fields produced by their blankets were so weak as to be non-harmful to health. I was a Visiting Research Fellow in that Department pursuing my own research on energy from a technological viewpoint, but I was not consulted on that question, nor was there any reason for such consultation. Measuring those electric and magnetic fields is quite straightforward, given the necessary test equipment. In my opinion, thinking about the matter privately, it was not sufficient just to measure the strength of those weak fields and assume that they could do no harm. If the medical world said there was evidence of a problem, then there was a problem!

Now an electric blanket and an overhead power line have something in common. Unlike the cables which come into your home and in which the forward current carrying wire is wrapped around the return current carrying wire, the overhead power line and the electric blanket have these wires well spaced. In one case it is to reduce the risk of bad contacts causing hot spots and so a fire hazard. In the other case it is because the voltages are so high that the wires need to be well spaced to preclude arcing. The point nevertheless is that, if wires are well spaced, they do set up stray pulsating electromagnetic fields at the power frequency. They may be too weak to matter in normal physical terms but they may be too strong to be tolerated in biophysical terms! The reason for this is 'resonance'. Now, I like to think that I am not stupid. I also have an aptitude for understanding something new, otherwise I could hardly have spent my working life in the world of invention. As a corporate patent attorney in the high technology world of electronics and power engineering one needs to be able to grasp what is new and find a rational way of explaining in terms meaningful to a patent examiner.

So, the obvious question, if resonance is involved, is why electric blankets and overhead powerlines have harmful effects in U.K. and in USA, where the electric power frequencies are 50Hz and 60Hz respectively. To answer this I asked myself what was different about the human body versus action in a metallic conductor when it came to reaction to a low frequency alternating magnetic field. Now, although I was experienced in patent attorney work, I happen to have a Ph.D. for experimental research on the energy anomalies involved when metal reacts to such fields. I was aware of a kind of resonance in copper or iron when subjected to a magnetic field, what is termed a diamagnetic reaction which occurs even in a steady d.c. field. In copper or iron there are free electrons moving about and setting up that reaction. In our bodies, in our blood, there are instead ions relatively much heavier than electrons set up that reaction. If there are two types of reacting ion present then, within a limited range, one can screen the field of the other to the extent needed to adjust the effective field to the optimum resonance of one or other of the ion masses. I knew this could explain the 50Hz-60Hz resonance question.

The expression 'Aspden Resonance' refers to my suggestion that the field oscillations in the Earth's atmospheric cavity, as bounded by the ionosphere, are encouraged by cyclotron resonance involving ionized oxygen or ozone. Now, I say cyclotron resonance here, but I must qualify that statement. In physics there are two Larmor formulae. The first, which is called the 'Larmor formula', is the one applied to the cyclotron. It applies to the effect of fields which pump energy into the ion motion. The second formula, that termed the 'Larmor precession', applies to an action in which the motion in orbit is perturbed, with the result that the plane of the orbit alters the direction of the axis about which the ion moves. This sets up a radiated field disturbance at the precession frequency, which is half that of the cyclotron resonance frequency given by the 'Larmor formula'. Now, owing to the Earth's magnetic field, the resonant frequency of the ionized oxygen molecule, which comprises two oxygen atoms, would be about three times that attributed to the Schumann resonance. Also the ionized ozone, which comprises three such molecules would imply a resonance that is about twice the frequency of the Schumann resonance. In short, therefore, there would be harmonics of the basic cavity resonance set up and the relative strengths of the components observed in the harmonic spectrum of radiation should tell us whether this interpretation is viable. To take this further I need to deflect your attention along different routes according to choice. You may choose to follow my account of the basic cyclotron resonance theme, which may hold the secrets of the hazards we risk from using electric blankets or living too close to overhead power lines. Alternatively, you may be more interested in the question of those brain waves and the Schumann resonance and Aspden resonance topics. The latter has a special interest from the viewpoint of my aether theory.

A feature of my theory is that there is a phase-lock throughout domains in space set by the range of gravity force. The phase-lock merely implies that electric charges are all moving in a common rhythm, keeping their separation constant and so not exchanging energy. I predicted long ago that this was an ongoing state in the aether. As can be seen also from the pattern of electron field cavity resonance illustrated on page 51 of my book 'Aether Science Papers', the phase-lock action is at work in containing the electron's energy in a way which explains what is known as the anomalous g-factor of the electron. Therefore the Schumann resonance theme, which involves a phase-lock having a much smaller frequency than that of the aether or the electron, has a special significance in defining an enclosing boundary, not just for a weak form of radiation, but also for the aether system which is carried along by body Earth. See my Research Notes 03/97 on Cyclotron Resonance and 07/97 which expands a little on the Schumann Resonance theme. Alternatively see my Energy Science Report No. 10, which includes both of these Research Notes and also the paper I wrote in 1988 on the proton hazard theme referring to Dr. Rowe's research.

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