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Ian J Cowan

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Ian J. Cowan
Ian J. Cowan
Born(1952-07-25)July 25, 1952
ResidenceTerenure, Dublin, Ireland
NationalityIrish
Known forElectrodynamics, Relativity, Gravitation, Cosmology
Scientific career
FieldsEngineer

Ian Jeremy Cowan (born 25 July 1952) is an Irish chartered engineer and independent researcher into experimental and theoretical physics. Trained at Trinity College Dublin, he spent his professional career in energy research and in national and international standardization, becoming a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland. Since the mid-1990s he has published and lectured on a critical reassessment of Special Relativity and on a proposed synthesis between electrodynamic experiment and theory, work presented largely in the journal Galilean Electrodynamics and, more recently, in the online Cosmology discussion sessions hosted by Roger J Anderton.

Biography

Ian Jeremy Cowan graduated in 1973 in Arts (Pure and Applied Mathematics, and Economics) and Engineering (specializing in Electrical and Electronic Engineering), and obtained a doctorate in 1977 for research entailing mathematical modeling and computer simulation of the thermal response of buildings, from the University of Dublin (Trinity College). He spent the summer of 1972 as a trainee, under the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience, in the research laboratories of the Jutland Telephone Company, Aarhus, Denmark, where he was engaged in the development of a two-way amplification system for the telephone network.

In 1977 he joined the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, Dublin, where he was engaged in mathematical modeling and computer simulation of energy conservation options and optimal control strategies for the Building Industry Division, prior to becoming Project Leader in 1979 in the Energy Services for the construction and operation of the Irish Solar Pilot Test Facility, one of eight such facilities constructed in various locations across Europe under the research and development program of the Commission of the European Communities. He was named the Institute's Alternative Energy Specialist, and worked on national and international projects dealing with technologies such as cogeneration and the use of heat pumps, as well as in consultancy in building and industrial energy projects. In 1980 he sat on a committee of the National Board for Science and Technology investigating alternative fuels for transport, and in 1984 on one of An Foras Forbartha on the efficient use of energy in buildings, reports to Government providing the various options resulting. He served on advisory committees of the Commission of the European Communities on the management of projects supported under its research and development program. He was engaged in UNESCO collaboration projects in renewable energy, and presented at meetings on water heating in Belgrade in 1984 and on heat storage in Moscow in 1985. He served terms as Hon. Secretary (1983-5) and Chairman (1985-7) of the Solar Energy Society of Ireland, the Irish branch of the International Solar Energy Society.

In 1986 he moved to the National Standards Authority of Ireland, first within the Institute, and subsequently within EOLAS-The Irish Science and Technology Agency, and Forfás-Ireland's policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation, and from 1997 an independent authority responsible for standardization, certification, and maintenance and surveillance of metrological standards. His responsibilities have been in the areas of standards development and conformity assessment for electrotechnology and information and communications technology, and specific industry sectors such as security, including participation in the relevant technical committees of the European and international standards bodies, principally the European Committee for Standardization, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the International Organization for Standardization, and the International Electrotechnical Commission. A Chartered Engineer, he served a term (1989-91) as Chairman of the Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering Division of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, and was awarded a Fellowship therefrom in 1991; in 2010 he was presented with a Distinguished Service Award by the Electro-Technical Council of Ireland. He has served as External Examiner for Certificate, Diploma, and Degree courses in Electronic Engineering at Institutes for Technology, and was External Supervisor for a doctoral degree in Engineering.

In 1977 he was one of the founders of the Philosophical Association of Ireland, and became its second Chairman in 1979. His particular interest in experimental and theoretical physics was largely revived in the early to mid-1990s consequent to reviewing presentations made in Dublin by John Bell on quantum entanglement and by Alphonsus Kelly on questioning relativity theory. He has since published and presented on his subsequent endeavours to provide a synthesis between electrodynamic experiments and theory, including informal presentations to the Dublin Scientific Club, a group established in 1868 as an adjunct to the Physical Sciences section of the Royal Dublin Society and including at that time scientists such as Stoney and Fitzgerald as members, now a separate dining group meeting during the academic term for after-dinner scientific presentations. In 2010 he was asked by Astronomy Ireland to give the winter-spring and autumn-winter series of evening classes held in Trinity College, Dublin, to members wishing to learn the elements of the subject.

Views and research

Cowan's physical work centres on a critical reassessment of Special Relativity and on a reanalysis of the experiments that are usually cited in its support. His interest was revived in the mid-1990s after he reviewed the work of the Dublin engineer Alphonsus (Al) Kelly, whose challenge to Einstein's relativity theories (published through the Institution of Engineers of Ireland in 1995-96 and later collected in Challenging Modern Physics) Cowan endorsed as essentially correct.

In "Update on the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (Galilean Electrodynamics, 2003), Cowan argues that if electromagnetic energy generated on the Earth is treated as being approximately carried by its co-ordinate frame in the solar orbit, then a reanalysis of classical electromagnetic theory that retains the small but non-zero term involving the electric conductivity of free space yields a satisfactory account of the observed phenomena. On this basis he calls for a reassessment of the relativistic and cosmological theories developed over the twentieth century. A revised and expanded version was presented at the VIII International Scientific Conference Space, Time, Gravitation at the Baltic State Technical University, Saint-Petersburg, in 2005.

A recurring theme of his later papers is the propagation of a wave through a medium that is itself moving obliquely to the wave motion. In "Electromagnetic Waves: Anomaly? No, Analogy!" (Galilean Electrodynamics, 2018) and "On Oblique Wave Propagation" (Galilean Electrodynamics, 2021) he establishes a general relationship between the propagation speed and the still-medium speed as a function of the obliquity, and reconsiders the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment in the light of that relationship. His engagement with the Michelson-Morley result also appears in "Further Comment on MMX" (Galilean Electrodynamics, 2010). His original monograph "Relativity" was presented to the Institution of Engineers of Ireland and discussed in the Engineers Journal in 1998.

Since 2025 Cowan has been an active contributor to the Cosmology discussion sessions convened on Roger J Anderton's YouTube channel, where he has given talks on the Sagnac effect, on fluid and electrodynamics, on red-shift through energy dissipation (with Harry Ricker), on Rømer's observations of the speed of light, and on the archives of the Irish relativity critic Alfred O'Rahilly.

Abstracts

Books

YouTube Videos

Talks presented in the Cosmology discussion sessions on Roger J Anderton's YouTube channel (@rogeranderton418):

External links

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