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Edward Henry Dowdye
Edward Henry Dowdye
Born(1943-11-13)November 13, 1943
Washington, D.C., United States
DiedDecember 31, 2020(2020-12-31)
ResidenceGreenbelt, MD, United States
NationalityUSA
Alma materHampton University, University of Heidelberg, Howard University
Known forExtinction Shift Principle, emission theory, gravitational lensing critique
Scientific career
FieldsLaser optics, Laser spectroscopy, Electromagnetism, Gravitation
InstitutionsNASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Edward Henry Dowdye, Jr. (13 November 1943 – 31 December 2020) was an American laser optics physicist, retired from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the author of the Extinction Shift Principle — a purely classical emission theory offered as an alternative to both special and general relativity.

Dowdye was unusual in this literature on two counts. First, his objection to general relativity was observational rather than philosophical: he argued that light bending near the Sun occurs only at the thin plasma rim and not in the vacuum beyond it, which is what refraction predicts and not what gravitation predicts, and he pursued this claim through the published deflection and timing data. Second, he was by his own description the only working emission theorist of his generation — the tradition having lapsed since Walter Ritz (1878–1909) — and his version was distinctive in applying to gravitation as well as electromagnetism, where earlier emission theories addressed light alone.

He was one of the featured scientists in the feature-length documentary Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year (2013), in which he appears alongside Patricia Anne de Hilster, Robert de Hilster and David de Hilster.

Biography

Education

Dowdye was born on 13 November 1943 in Washington, D.C. He took B.S. degrees in mathematics and electronics technology, with further study in physics, at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.

He then studied in Germany, supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), earning the degree of Diplom-Atomphysik from the Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg. His research there was in experimental atomic physics — nuclear magnetic resonance, using optical pumping techniques (Kernresonanzmessung durch optisches Pumpen) on free atoms and ions in vapour form confined in an optical resonance vessel. He undertook further study in astronomy and astrophysics at Heidelberg, taught experimental physics there, and mentored German graduate students while completing his degree.

Later, while working as a physics instructor, he was awarded a grant from the Preparing Future Faculty Program at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he took the Ph.D. in laser spectroscopy physics at the Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory, supported by the Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres.

He was multilingual, fluent in German and Spanish with conversational French.

NASA and engineering career

Dowdye worked extensively in communication systems engineering, on the propagation of electromagnetic radiation and on high-data-rate satellite uplink and cross-link relay communication systems, in government and aerospace.

At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center he worked as a laser optics physicist and electronics engineer on satellite-borne laser systems — precision laser optics and the lifetime performance of the non-linear crystals used to generate specific harmonics of a high-energy Neodymium-YAG infrared laser. Systems of this kind are used for lunar surface mapping, atmospheric probing and polar ice monitoring. He retired from the laboratory in later life.

He stressed that his work in classical electromagnetism and gravitation was independent research, unrelated to his occupation at NASA.

Teaching

Dowdye taught physics, engineering and computer science at Lincoln University and Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, at Marymount University in Northern Virginia, and at Southeastern University and Howard University in Washington, D.C. He lectured frequently at universities, schools and churches, and was described as a mentor and role model for future scientists. He was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland, and formerly of Florida Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., his birthplace.

The Extinction Shift Principle

Dowdye's theory is an emission theory: light is emitted at speed c relative to its source, and the transformations between frames are Galilean, in ordinary Euclidean space geometry. There is no spacetime curvature, no length contraction and no time dilation; the effects attributed to them are re-derived from classical optics.

What distinguishes it from the emission theories of the early twentieth century is scope. Ritz and his successors applied emission ideas to electromagnetism; Dowdye applies the same principles to gravitation as well, and so presents the Extinction Shift Principle as a challenge to general relativity and special relativity together. In his book he offers classical solutions to a series of problems normally taken as relativistic territory: the invariance of the wave equations, the Sagnac effect, gravitational redshift, solar light bending, the perihelion shift of Mercury, and the perihelion shift of the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16.

The work is set out in Discourses & Mathematical Illustrations Pertaining to the Extinction Shift Principle under the Electrodynamics of Galilean Transformations, published in editions from 1991 through 2001 and 2012, and summarised in "Extinction Shift Principle: A Purely Classical Alternative to General and Special Relativity" in Physics Essays (2007).

The gravitational lensing argument

Dowdye's most developed and most testable claim was that gravitational lensing does not occur in empty vacuum space — the argument he pressed in a series of papers from 2009 onward.

His reasoning turns on the impact parameter, the perpendicular distance of closest approach of a light ray to the Sun. If general relativity is correct, the deflection of starlight should fall off smoothly with impact parameter and remain easily detectable well beyond the Sun's thin plasma rim, out in the vacuum. What the observations show, on his reading, is deflection appearing only at the minimum impact parameter corresponding to the solar plasma limb and not beyond it.

That, he argues, is the signature of refraction in the ionised plasma atmosphere of the Sun, not of gravitation acting on light. Light bending is an optical effect in a medium; where there is no medium, there is no bending. He extended the same analysis to the Shapiro delay, reporting that microwave propagation delays are frequency-dependent as well as impact-parameter dependent — frequency dependence being characteristic of a plasma and not of a gravitational effect, which should be achromatic.

He applied the argument to observations at the galactic centre as well, reporting no evidence for a time-resolved gravitational lensing event at Sagittarius A* of the kind general relativity predicts, and concluding more generally that astrophysical evidence shows no direct interaction between gravitation and electromagnetism in empty vacuum space.

The structure of the argument is worth noting: it is not a claim that the observations are wrong, but that the pattern of the observations — where the bending appears and where it does not, and its dependence on frequency — fits a plasma-optical explanation better than a gravitational one. It is therefore an argument that can be checked against the same data both sides accept.

Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year

Dowdye was one of the featured scientists in Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year (premiered December 2013), the documentary directed by David de Hilster following his mother Patricia Anne de Hilster as she travels the country meeting scientists working outside mainstream physics. Dowdye appears as one of the film's principal figures, and the film's cast is generally given as Patricia de Hilster, Robert de Hilster, David de Hilster and Edward Dowdye. The film won best documentary at the SciFlix film festival in Boca Raton, Florida in 2015.

Death

Dowdye died on 31 December 2020 at the age of 77, after a long battle with cancer.

A memoriam published in March 2021 by Yvonne Lorenzo described him as "a remarkable, kind, Christian man," called him "the American Einstein," and expressed frustration that mainstream science had not engaged with his findings. It summarised his central conclusion in his own words:

A direct interaction between gravitation and electromagnetism occurs nowhere in plasma-free space.

Reception

The Extinction Shift Principle was set as a graduate seminar project in mathematics and physics at the Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie in Germany for two consecutive years, 2007 and 2008, under Dr. Edgar Kaucher, professor of applied mathematics and physics (retired).

Dowdye published in peer-reviewed venues including Physics Essays and Astronomische Nachrichten, was a member of the American Physical Society, and founded Pure Classical Physics Research as the vehicle for his independent work. He also presented at Electric Universe conferences, including EU2014, on solar gravitation and solar plasma wave propagation.

His conclusions are not accepted in mainstream astrophysics, which holds gravitational lensing to be well confirmed across a wide range of scales, from solar deflection measurements to cluster lensing and microlensing surveys.

Abstracts

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Books

Media

See also

External links

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