Ian J Cowan

Ian J. Cowan
Born	(1952-07-25)July 25, 1952
Residence	Terenure, Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Known for	Electrodynamics, Relativity, Gravitation, Cosmology
Scientific career
Fields	Engineer

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.

CNPS talks

Cowan is the principal host of the CNPS online livestream seminar series, and has also presented several talks of his own.

Talks presented

• "Observations and Theoretical Basis of the Galilean Composition of Light" (26 April 2025)
• "Electrodynamics Experiments and Theory: a Kinetic Synthesis" (20 July 2024)
• "Longitudinal Electrodynamic Radiation - Use in Vehicle Detection and Ranging" (29 April 2023)
• "Kelly's Experiments on Unipolar Induction" (18 December 2022)

Sessions hosted

• "Introduction to Plasma Tectonics & Electric Geology with Bruce Leybourne" (7 June 2026)
• "Did the 1979 Brillet Hall experiment Detect the Aether? with Jim Marsen" (23 May 2026)
• "Deconstruction of Light Speeds in Moving Refractive Media with Joe Sorge" (9 May 2026)
• "A Tenable Electron, Positron, Proton, & Neutron Model, with Dennis Allen and David M. Bower" (25 April 2026)
• "Neo-Newtonian Mechanics and Electromagnetism" (28 March 2026)
• "A Velocity Factor in Coulomb's Law with Musa Abdullahi" (28 February 2026)
• "Hubble Tension in World-Universe Cosmology with Vladimir Netchitailo" (14 February 2026)
• "A proposed grand unified theory based on a new Fundamental Theorem Of Measurement with Jeff Baugher" (31 January 2026)
• "Solving the Aether Conundrum with Toby Grotz" (3 January 2026)
• "The Structured Atom Model with Edo Kaal" (20 December 2025)
• "Maxwell's Final Wave Equation in A & His Accompanying Remark with Akinbo Ojo" (6 December 2025)
• "Competing Mathematical Models Explaining the Michelson-Morley Experiment with James Arathoon" (22 November 2025)
• "Refutation that Experiments Verify Relativity and a Reasonable Proof of E = mc2 with Jorma Jormakka" (9 November 2025)
• "Physics Follies with James Keene" (25 October 2025)
• "Relativity Predicts a Variable G with Frédéric Lassiaille" (11 October 2025)
• "Tests of the Lorentz Ether Theory by Stephan Gift" (13 September 2025)
• "Special Relativity and time dilation: Einstein's Calculation Errors with Alasdair Beal" (16 August 2025)
• "Collapse of GRT by Sankar Hajra" (3 August 2025)
• "Collapse of Special Theory of Relativity by Sankar Hajra" (19 July 2025)
• "The Fundamental Geometrical Flaw in GR/SR with Jeff Baugher" (5 July 2025)
• "A New Theory of Gravity with Stephan Gift" (7 June 2025)
• "Computational Electromagnetism with Moving Matter with Professor Halim Boutayeb" (25 May 2025)
• "World-Universe Cosmology with Vladimir Netchitailo" (10 May 2025)
• "Alfred O'Rahilly by James Arathoon" (29 March 2025)
• "Deriving Primary & Secondary Constants with James Keene" (15 March 2025)
• "A New Approach to Superconductivity with Stephan Gift" (1 March 2025)
• "The Fine-Structure Constant with James Arathoon" (2 February 2025)
• "Relativity Predicts a Variable G with Frédéric Lassiaille" (19 January 2025)
• "Anti-relativity lessons: Lesson 1 with Roger Anderton" (21 December 2024)
• "Perform a Michelson-Morley Experiment in Space with Jim Marsen" (7 December 2024)
• "Critique of Special Relativity with Jerry Harvey" (23 November 2024)
• "What is Charge? and What is Mass? with James Arathoon" (26 October 2024)
• "Dark Energy: Is General Relativity Inside Out? with Jeff Baugher" (14 September 2024)

Abstracts

• 2021 - "On Oblique Wave Propagation" (Read in full)
• 2018 - "Electromagnetic Waves: Anomaly? No, Analogy!" (Read in full)
• 2010 - "Further Comment on MMX" (Read in full)
• 2005 - "In Memorium: Dr. Alf Kelly" (Read in full)
• 2004 - "Update on the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (Read in full)
• 1999 - "Obituary: Patrick J. Fleming, 1938-1998, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society" (Read in full)
• 1998 - "Relativity" (Read in full)

Books

• 1995 - "Conflict and Morality: A Study of Human Behaviour and Attitudes" (Read in full)
• 1984 - "The Irish Solar Pilot Test Facility: Final Operational Phase" (Read in full)
• 1984 - "The Irish Solar Pilot Test Facility: First Operational Phase" (Read in full)
• 1982 - "The Irish Solar Pilot Test Facility: Design, Construction and First Period of Operation" (Read in full)
• 1979 - "Energy Conservation Options in Housing (Vol. 1 & 2); for Householders (Vol. 3) (joint authorship)" (Read in full)

YouTube Videos

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

• Investigating the Alfred O'Rahilly Archives — a Relativity Critic (29 March 2026)
• Fluid and Electrodynamics (8 February 2026)
• The Sagnac Effect (23 November 2025)
• Red Shift Through Energy Dissipation (with Harry Ricker)
• Rømer's Observations (2 March 2025)

External links

• Talks by Ian J Cowan in the Cosmology discussion sessions on Roger J Anderton's Cosmology YouTube channel