I’d like to thank Gene Steinberg for this rare and provocative interview. I’ve studied Boyd Bushman’s patents on and off for years, and they’re still a source of startling insights and scientific inspiration.
The hostile reception of this interview simultaneously saddens and angers me though. Boyd Bushman was a brilliant scientist and a kind man with a wonderful sense of humor. Having studied his work for so long, and knowing the precious gem that you have here in the form of this interview, it’s agonizing to hear the unkind suspicions and innuendoes at the wrap of the show, and to see those unfortunate conclusions reflected here. So I’d like to clear a few things up, in honor of Boyd Bushman’s legacy of achievements for our country as both a scientist and a patriot, and his valiant efforts to advance progress for the benefit of humanity.
Like all of us, it does seem that “Uncle Boyd” as it seems he was sometimes called among friends, had a tragic weakness. He seems to have trusted too readily – it appears that he actually believed John Hutchison’s fraudulent experiments for example, and there were others as well. But perhaps it’s even easier to be deceived when you’re accustomed to realizing heretofore “impossible” ambitions.
Why is this interview so valuable? And why do so few people recognize its intrinsic worth?
Let’s get the second part out of the way first. Two major factors conspired to make this an unusually challenging interview to comprehend: the rarity of scientific genius, and Boyd Bushman’s adherence to his signed debriefing agreement. Much of the content that Bushman presented here is well above the mainstream scientific median – he leaps from one startling finding in one branch of science, to another completely unrelated breakthrough, while the rest of us are still trying to figure out if the first claim is credible. So while you may find a scientist in one area who can confirm his statement on one subject, very few scientists possess the breadth of expertise necessary to evaluate the validity of his assertions collectively. So it’s not surprising that the average “internet science commentator” is wholly unqualified to accurately assess the significance of Bushman’s plethora of scientific assertions. And this becomes even more arduous a task, because Bushman often had to try to provide his answers obliquely, because of his commitments to secrecy. This is why it seemed that he was being evasive. But most of your answers were provided as directly as he was able to provide them, if you listen closely and understand the principles he’s describing. Many people attempt to discredit Bushman on a scientific level, but those efforts are all laughable. If the brilliance of his patents eludes a casual reading, then I suggest having a look at the forward citations on his patents, which are documented by the US Patent and Trade Office. The world’s most powerful defense contractors have continued to develop Bushman’s technological innovations: Northrop Grumman, Boeing, the US Air Force, Raytheon – all the big hitters. Yes, any idiot can file a patent. But bad patents aren’t routinely cited like an index of “who’s who among military industrial innovators.”
Boyd Bushman spoke quickly and covered a lot of striking topics – and it’s these statements that make this interview among the most distinguished and prized interviews in podcast history. You shouldn’t feel badly about not “controlling” the interview – he told us everything of significance that he could, and if you’d pressed him further to divulge national secrets it would’ve only disrupted his efforts to tell us what he knew in a legal manner. Here’s a partial list of the astonishing insights he offered, which sadly appear to have fallen predominantly upon deaf ears:
- A laser can be used to propel a jet by burning atmospheric nitrogen, thereby eliminating the need for on-board propellant – this is one of Bushman’s many brilliant patents. If this isn’t a startling and valuable discovery to you, then advanced propulsion concepts just aren’t your bag. Which is fine, but that hardly discredits the tremendous merits of this concept.
- Magnetic fields can be focused using other magnetic fields, akin to a lens (and it appears that this principle applies to all fields not just magnetism). Have you ever considered that opposing magnetic fields could be used to focus the pole of a magnet into a beam-like shape? Me neither, until I read Bushman’s patent describing this technique. It also requires –no energy- to focus a magnetic field in this manner, once the apparatus has been constructed. So now it’s possible to make MRI machines much smaller, safer, and more energy efficient, among a wide slew of applications. This is known as a “breakthrough patent” – an idea so fundamental that theoretical physicists should have discovered it, but missed it. For centuries in this case.
- Field propulsion is not only possible, but easy. Ever consider that Lenz’s law could be used to lift an aircraft high above the conductive saline ocean? Welcome to the club – physicists have known about Lenz’s law for over 150 years, but Bushman was the only scientist to realize its incredible lift potential for applied aeronautics.
- Bob Lazar’s story appears to be a cover story. This isn’t necessarily true, but I’ve enjoyed many hours of ufology interviews, and this idea has never come up until this interview with Bushman, who would know about these things. And it makes a lot of sense – more sense than any other explanation I’ve heard. And btw – everyone seems to fail to grasp the “island of stability.” We’ve only synthesized the short-lived proton-rich isotopes of elements 115 and 118. The “island of stability” where these elements may be highly stable, requires neutron-rich isotopes of these elements, which necessitates a different kind of facility to synthesize than our existing experimental labs. The existing isotopes are only considered to be at the very tenuous edge of the island of stability which still essentially remains beyond our technological reach. And we could get into the nuclear quadruple moments of transuranium elements and gravitational radiation, but that’s of mere theoretical interest at this point – it does however add an intriguing dimension to Bushman’s interpretation. I’m not suggesting that Lazar had any contact with “aliens,” necessarily, and neither did Bushman. Lazar’s MIT claim appears to be more likely as a cover story component than a reality, given the facts of this case. I’m not sure why Bushman’s supposition that Lazar is a disinformation agent inspired so much contention, frankly – Bushman was agreeing that a large portion of Lazar’s claims are lies.
- The forces of nature are manifest as a single equation via the binomial expansion of the Lorentz transform. Honestly I’m not yet certain if this is cover story or story – but what –is- valuable here is the elegantly simple idea of placing all forms of energy into a single equation, and using this summation equation to modify the gamma factor of Einstein’s mass-energy relation. It’s a brilliantly useful and simple idea. And it may yet prove to be the cornerstone of a unified field theory. Thank you, Boyd.
- “Follow the data, theory be damned” – Boyd Bushman’s motto isn’t just a cute slogan; it’s a fundamental axiom of quality scientific research. It’s a reminder that our attachment to theory blinds us to new discoveries. But today the vast majority of armchair physicists equate “science” with “cynicism,” which is a foolish mistake. If the existing theory were complete, we’d have a working model of quantum gravity. But we don’t, so obviously there’s a problem with our theory somewhere – and we won’t find that problem if we hold the existing incomplete theories sacrosanct.
- Autonomous acoustical levitation. I’ve studied acoustic levitation patents and theory extensively, and it never occurred to me to exploit the nodes and antinodes to produce aerodynamic lift in this manner. But there’s no doubt that it works, the principles of this patent are proven. So this is at least the second completely novel method of propulsion in Bushman’s unclassified patents. We can only wonder what’s in his classified patents.
- One’s obsessions are the key to one’s destiny, and the awakening of inner life. This isn’t science, but it’s wisdom – valuable insight from a thoughtful old genius.
- Ten Nobel laureates assert that entirely new forms of technology will change the world. Most of us are stuck trying to dream up new ways to use the existing technology to achieve exotic new and practical effects. This story highlights the idea that truly fundamental leaps of progress occur through altogether new technologies, employing novel physical principles. Metamaterial R&D is such an example – engineering matter to produce effects unknown to nature. What other new technologies might be awaiting discovery? How often has the idea even crossed your mind? Not often enough, but Boyd reminds us to think boldly.
- The speed of light is an optical and illusory barrier. I’ve heard this idea before, and it’s the only way to reconcile experimental observations with the relativity of motion. The cornerstone of special relativity is that the laws of physics –remain the same- regardless of your velocity. So the theory only states that one can’t reach the speed of light –with respect to the initial reference frame-. It’s a limit on observations, not an absolute limit of velocity: an absolute speed limit is in fact totally irreconcilable with the principle of relativity. And the “deaf Einstein” model is an ideal way of making this point about observables vs. realities.
[Because a lot of people are going to have trouble with this idea, I’ll offer a simple illustrative example. Let’s say that you have a method of propulsion that can transport you to the nearest star system roughly 4 light-years away, in a single hour. Since the propulsion system uniformly accelerates your craft and everything in it, no G-forces are produced. You arrive in an hour of time as indicated by your on-board clock, but it’s going to take roughly 4 years and one hour for the light of your arrival at that star system to reach an observer at the Earth. So four years and one hour after your departure, a space telescope at Earth photographs your arrival at your destination four light-years away – it appears that you came quite close to, but never exceeded, the speed of light. But upon your arrival at the distant star system, you turned around and came back to Earth in one hour of flight time. Upon your return, you see that 8 years and two hours have passed on Earth since you departed, although it only took you two hours to make your journey. From your point of view, it seems that you far exceeded the speed of light, but to the observer who stayed behind on the Earth, you never quite achieved the speed of light. So who’s right? Both, or neither – but you made your journey across 8 light-years in two hours of flight time, without violating a single postulate of Einstein’s theory of relativity.]
Those are just some of the myriad treasures in this interview. There are many others.
That’s why I feel that this may have been the most important interview that the Paracast has ever conducted. Even if it sails way over the heads of the average listener, it’s a beacon of inspiration to those who could follow it. So I hope you’ll reconsider your opinion of Boyd Bushman, and forgive him for not answering the questions that you asked that would’ve jeopardized his freedom and his family had he answered them directly.
Thanks again for offering this remarkable interview. He gave very few of them, and each one contained precious keys to genuine esoteric knowledge.
