It was on the evening of 15th January 1997 that I received a phone call from Richard Hill of Tonbridge Wells in England. He had seen a T.V. programme on the subject of predicting earthquakes. A Stanford University professor in California had discovered that the sensing of magnetic disturbances could give several hours advance notice of an impending earthquake.

He reminded me that we had both contributed articles to a U.K. magazine circulated within the Home Office sector of the U.K. Government ten or so years ago. I had suggested that the earthquake phenomenon involved disturbances affecting the aether, meaning that the aether itself could be subject to its own adjustments prior to the earthquake event. My thought was that the signature of such a phenomenon would be the generation of excessive noise in frequency modulated radio transmission compared with amplitude modulated transmission of the same signals. I pointed to the experimental support for this which had aroused the curiosity of a researcher in Switzerland, who had sensed an Italian earthquake in his radio system some time before the arrival of the shock wave of an earthquake in Northern Italy.

I refer readers to my paper: 'Earthquake-Related EM Disturbances', Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, v. 28, pp. 535-536 (1987). Abstract [1987d] in these Web pages.

Now, to come to my Research Note theme, I want to suggest that those who study earthquakes and wonder how they can be predicted are missing something vital in not paying attention to the reality of the aether. Bear with me for a moment on this and ask yourself how physicists in California could have progressed on this subject if they had held to the beliefs prevalent towards the end of the 19th century.

The Earth rotates and the aether within body Earth rotates with it, given that the Michelson-Morley experiment had shown that the Earth's motion around the Sun relative to the aether could not be detected. In those days physicists suspected that the aether had a mass density of the order of 100 gm/cc. It would therefore have a very substantial spin angular momentum owing to its rotation with body Earth.

Now, ask yourself a question. How does that aether affect the Earth's precession? The Earth's spin axis is steadily changing direction as it progresses during a 25,765 year cycle. What happens to that aether spin? It must adjust to keep in step and adjust the orientation of its own spin axis with the same 25,765 year cycle, but does it do that in steps or at a very steady rate? If it does it in a jerky fashion the aether will be disturbed and there are bound to be physical consequences affecting body Earth.

For example, suppose the changes occur by concentric shells of spherical sections of aether progressively adjusting in spin direction as the disturbing adjustments ripple radially through Earth from the ionosphere to its centre. That will certainly affect radio signals. It will also affect gravity!

It was not 19th century knowledge but research in our 20th century on offset precessing gyroscopes that revealed anti-gravity effects. This is the research finding of Professor Eric Laithwaite of the Imperial College in London, England. Note that, on this latter point, as I proceed in compiling these Web pages, I will be incorporating a copy of my paper entitled 'Ghost Mass and the Unseen Energy World as Revealed by the Anomalies of the Gyroscope' [The Toth-Maatian Review, v. 6, pp. 3169-3171 (1987)]. Web page abstract [1987j].

Reverting to my main argument, it follows that, since the Earth itself precesses and affects the aether sharing its spin, so that aether is subject to its own 'forced precession'. If that brings along a gravitational anomaly, a transient weakening of gravitational attraction on parts of body Earth, then earthquakes will ensue along fault lines where there are weaknesses in the Earth's crust. The trigger is the jerky migration of the spherical shells of aether in bringing about the reorientation of the aether spin axis.

Now, if you do not want to believe in the aether phenomenon, then you can contemplate strains in rocks setting up piezoelectric effects and changes in induced magnetism occurring as the strain is relieved. That occurs when the earthquake happens, but, accepting the aether proposition, before that earthquake happens there might be tell-tale signs beginning to develop in the aether itself. In the latter case the sensing of radio noise in frequency modulated transmission, as well as low frequency electromagnetic activity, can but offer prospect of prediction of an impending earthquake.

In short, though I believe in the aether anyway, I would have even greater reason to want to know more about the aether if I lived in the danger zone in California.

Stanford University has the only book store in the world that still regularly buys copies of my 1980 book 'Physics Unified' as a stock item. On its last page (p. 194), before the Appendix section, that book discusses earthquakes in relation to the aether and, as a footnote, includes the following references:
M. Markert, New Scientist, v. 70, p. 488 (1976). (This was the above mentioned account of the prior detection of the Italian earthquake).
R. E. Hill, 'The Radioquake Mystery', Intercom, p. 17, December 1978.
H. Aspden, 'A Perspective on a New Enigma', Intercom, p. 21, December 1978. See [1987d].

These latter references came to mind when I received Richard Hill's telephone call of January 15th 1997 that I mentioned at the outset of this Note. But now, having been reminded of the Earth's coupling with spinning aether, I want to suggest a research topic that may interest the theoretical physicist. My objective is not to educate by offering all the answers myself. Even if I could do that, my lifespan is hardly likely to match up to what is needed! No, I want you, the reader, to convince yourself that there is (or there is not) an aether to consider.

The problem, one I could never solve, is the task of calculating theoretically the time period during which the geomagnetic poles migrate around their geographic counterparts. Now, amongst my physics books there is one I received back in 1945 as a school Physics Prize. It says that the cycle of polar movement takes some 960 years. The angle of tilt between the two axes involved is said to be 17 degrees. My tentative interpretation, for many years, has been that this phenomenon was an indication that the aether spin inside the Earth is about an axis precessing around the Earth's spin axis, but that 960 year time period has eluded my efforts to give theoretical account of this figure.

Have you any idea why the Earth's magnetic poles should be ever-moving around the geographic poles? If you believe in Einstein's theory of relativity, then see how far you can get using his mathematical abstractions in that quest! The aether looks a far better bet, faced with that alternative. However, I will offer you something to work on, but point out that it is something that has only occurred to me during these last two days since Richard Hill contacted me. My energy technology pursuits have priority so I cannot take this proposal forward at this time. At this point I need to refer to the mass density of the aether, which I know is effective in its spin state. I cannot go into the details of the calculation here, but point to an easily available reference, namely my paper (jointly with Dr. D. M. Eagles) entitled 'Aether Theory and the Fine Structure Constant' [Physics Letters A, v. 41, pp. 423-424 (1972)]. This is reference [1972a] in the abstract section of these pages. There you will see that the reciprocal value of the fine structure constant, which is 137.036, equates to 36(s/d), where s is the Compton electron wavelength h/mc or 2.426x10^-10 cm. From this you can deduce the value of d as 6.373x10^-11 cm. That paper also shows that the mass of each aether particle in each site of a simple cubic aether lattice of side dimension d is (1/24.52) of the electron mass of 9.105x10^-28 gm. From this you can calculate the mass density of the aether lattice to find it is 143.53 gm/cc.

Now, concerning the Earth's precession rate and the precession rate of the geomagnetic poles, we can say that body Earth is locked in a state of spin with the Earth's aether lattice. If, together, they are subject to a force couple C tending to twist their common axis of spin, then there will be precession at the rate of: C/(A.M.) rad/sec, where A.M. is their combined angular momentum. This will be one revolution every 25,765 years, because that is what is observed, but C and A.M. need evaluation to support our aether theory.

At this time I have not discovered how to determine C from first principles. That is a challenge for the reader too, but (A.M.) can be calculated from the data given above, noting that Earth has a mean mass density of 5.6 gm/cc.

The feature of this Research Note which is worth noting is, however, the thought that C might be an interaction couple between the atomic substance comprising Earth plus its aether lattice system and something else that sits inside the sub-quantum world within body Earth.

I have in mind here that sea of leptonic activity that is not structured but which accounts for the real power underlying all regions of space, whether within or external to matter forms. It comprises mainly virtual mu-mesons, muon pairs, which are the building blocks forming protons in the creative and regenerative activity of the vacuum medium. Amongst those leptons there are the electrons and positrons, especially in the vicinity of matter, and everywhere there are the gravitons, mainly the tau particles or taon family of leptons. Particle physicists refer to the muon as the 'heavy electron', but they do not have a clue as to the role it performs. The reason is that they have no insight into the aether and the way the aether interacts to create protons from the muonic background. Nor can they see those gravitons, which exist as virtual particles in a 'ghostly' association with matter. These are the seat of action giving us the force of gravitation and it is by reference to the graviton form and its properties that G, the constant of gravitation, is derived in the author's principal writings on this subject.

For our immediate purpose it is the graviton system in body Earth, with that 'ghost' mass of 5.6 gm/cc dynamically connected to the Earth's mass, that we look to for a separate precessing system within our Earth. The force couple C is the same as governs the 25,765 year precession, because these two systems interact magnetically with one another. However, whereas the mass density contributing to the A.M. quantity is 143.6 gm/cc plus 5.6 gm/cc, the mass density effective for the graviton system is simply 5.6 gm/cc. In short, the graviton system will precess at a faster rate, in the ratio 149.2:5.6, which, as you can work out, is a rate of one cycle per 967 years.

Now, given that I set out to cast some light on the precession rate of the geomagnetic poles and took the 960 year figure as my guide, I am rather pleased with this result. It is still only a guide to the ultimate truths governing this phenomenon, but it is something to work on. It suggests that the induction of the Earth's magnetic field is governed by a phenomenon involving a reaction effect in those heavy leptons, at least in the way it is deflected from the Earth's axis of spin.

I cannot go further with this until I find new inspiration, but think it worth mentioning the following further note. We know that the angle of 23.5 degrees represents the tilt of the Earth's spin axis in its precession cycle, whereas approximately 17 degrees is the angle of tilt of the geomagnetic polar axis with respect to the Earth's spin axis. Maybe there are further clues here. In developing the theory for the strength of the geomagnetic field and calculating its overall magnetic moment, using my aether theory, I did have to factor cosine 23.5 degrees into my equations. That analysis is in my published work dating from the 1960 book 'The Theory of Gravitation'. Therefore, the following relationship may have some relevance: (1-cosA)=2(1-cosB), where A is 23.5 degrees.

You can deduce that B is, to the nearest whole unit, 17 degrees. My early research led me to what I termed a 'half-field reaction effect' that is at work in the process of electromagnetic induction, so I may come to see a connection here which justifies the equation just presented. However, I must now end this Research Note and put it on my Web pages.