Alexandra A. Shpitalnaya
Alexandra A. Shpitalnaya | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Anti-relativist views; work on solar activity and the anisotropy of space |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy, Geophysics |
| Institutions | Pulkovo Observatory (Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences) |
Alexandra A. Shpitalnaya (A. A. Shpitalnaya) is a Russian researcher associated with the Pulkovo Observatory (the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences) near Saint Petersburg, known for her anti-relativist stance and for work linking solar activity, terrestrial processes and a proposed anisotropy of physical space. She is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Work
Shpitalnaya is described in accounts of the Pulkovo Observatory as one of a group of researchers there who rejected special relativity; according to these accounts she was among staff forced into early retirement and later reinstated.
She collaborated with the physicist Yu. A. Baurov, whose "byuon" theory posits a fundamental vector giving physical space a global anisotropy. Baurov, Shpitalnaya and I. F. Malov co-authored work relating this proposed anisotropy to the space velocities of pulsars. With Yu. A. Zakoldaev and A. A. Efimov she argued for a cyclic pattern in the evolution of geological processes tied to the Sun's motion through anisotropic interstellar space, and she wrote on the influence of galactic factors upon solar activity. These proposals lie outside the scientific mainstream.