It was on February 17 that I was sent an E-Mail message by John Shelburne. His message bore the title: 'A question regarding the future'. He expressed interest in what might happen in the event that all conventional electromagnetic communications methods were to fail. He then stated:

"This is vaguely similar to your discussion concerning the Earth proceeding to an area in space where the aether charge polarity was flipped. You said this may cause all atomic charges to change polarity, I think? In any case, do you think that the Earth's proceeding into the new area in space would cause a communications breakdown?
Respectfully, John"

My immediate reply to this is presented below as I feel I should share these thoughts will others. I can also say that it caused me to write the comments now recorded in these Web pages as LECTURE NO. 12.

Dear John,
In reply to your enquiry concerning what will happen when the earth eventually makes its next crossing of a domain boundary separating the regions of different charge polarity, the effects on radio communication will only last for about a minute - whatever time it takes for Earth moving at some 400 km/s to pass through a planar boundary plus a little upset thereafter. That is the least of the problems confronting humanity. Gravity will be affected for the same period. There will be enormous earthquake effects and they will not be local; the whole surface of body Earth will suffer in the same event. Fish will have a far better chance of survival than will humans. This is a scenario that no amount of planning can cater for, especially as there will be no advance warning. Even if astronauts are on a mission, how will they ever get back to Earth? Maybe a submarine can survive the upheaval! That is something you might think about. If my theoretical interpretation is correct, and it is hardly possible to disprove what I say, then there is reason for concern, but .... well, I will say no more. Just ask yourself why our history of the human race as a developed community on Earth seems to date back for just a few thousand years - why not a million or a hundred million? Take note that a nearby star of the order of 4 or so light years away might move through the boundary ahead of our transit, but we are moving at about one thousandth of the speed of light, so the effect of the transit on that star occur 4,000 or so years before we encounter the domain wall. We would need to seek out data going back 4,000 years and more to see if there was a kind of nearby supernova owing to that traversal by the star and, on that data base, judge whether we have a problem in the near future. Frankly, it is better not to worry about it all. I am satisfying my own scientific curiosity in exploring Nature, as by explaining why the proton has the mass it has and how it is created. There is scope for science fiction in what I say, but I fear all this is not fiction, but reality. Thanks for your interest. Mankind has an energy problem on the horizon. There is probably ample time to solve that and enjoy the benefits before the ultimate, but recurrent, disaster strikes. So my efforts will go into that venture.

Best regards,

Harold Aspden