Allais effect

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The Allais effect is an anomalous precession of the plane of oscillation of a pendulum which is sometimes observed during a solar eclipse.

The effect was first reported in 1954 by Maurice Allais, a French polymath who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. He reported another observation of the effect during a 1959 solar eclipse.

A published observation of what was initially claimed to be a possibly related anomalous gravitational effect (claimed variation of terrestrial gravitation as measured by a sensitive gravimeter) was by Wang et al. in 2000, for an experiment carried out in 1997 in a remote region of China during a total solar eclipse. Further observations which the same team performed in 2001 and 2002 during solar eclipses in Zambia and Australia appear to have yielded much weaker evidence of similar anomalies. However, the same authors later (2002 and 2003) published papers explaining that their observations could be explained by conventional phenomena such as temperature and pressure change caused by the eclipse. In their 2002 paper, they posited a more conventional explanation based on temperature changes causing ground tilting, but they suggested that this explanation was unlikely. In their 2003 paper (Flandern and Yang, 2003), on the other hand, the authors argued that atmospheric motion induced by temperature changes was both plausible and sufficient to explain the observed anomaly.

Another anomalous effect during a solar eclipse, an increase in the period of a torsion pendulum, was reported by Saxl and Allen in 1970, but subsequent attempts to replicate this experiment (under different eclipse geometries and with much smaller pendulum bobs) failed to observe any effect (Kuusela, 1991; Jun, 1991). Jeverdan in Romania claimed to have observed anomalous pendulum behavior during a solar eclipse in 1961 (Jeverdan, 1981) – decrease of the period by about 1 part in 2000 – the so-called ‘Jeverdan effect’, but his report was not published in a mainstream English-language scientific journal.

A published article on the topic in a mainstream scientific journal (Flandern, 2003) concludes that there have been "no unambiguous detections [of an Allais effect] within the past 30 years when consciousness of the importance of [experimental] controls was more widespread." This paper also suggests a mechanism that might cause slight gravitational variations during an eclipse (high speed high-altitude winds). They point out that "the gravitation anomaly discussed here is about a factor of 100,000 too small to explain the Allais excess pendulum precession… during eclipses" and from this conclude that the original Allais anomaly was merely due to poor controls.

A possible but yet controversial explanation is the so-called van Flandern–Yang hypothesis by van Flandern and Yang's article,^[1] which conjecture the effect is due to the gravitational effect of an increased density spot in the upper atmosphere created by cooling during the solar eclipse.

A self-published review article by Chris Duif, which surveys the field of gravitational anomalies in general, concludes that the question remains open, and that such investigations should be pursued, in view of their relatively inexpensive nature and the enormous implications if genuine anomalies are actually confirmed – but the article has not undergone any peer review.

During the solar eclipse of January 26, 2009, a correlation was found between anomalous behavior of a pendulum and torsion balances, located at two different points outside the shadow zone.^[2]

Eight gravimeters and two pendulums were deployed across six monitoring sites in China for the solar eclipse of July 22, 2009.^[3] Although one of the scientists involved claimed in an interview to have observed an Allais effect,^[4] the result has not been published in any mainstream peer-reviewed scientific journal.

An automated Foucault pendulum was used by H.R. Salva and found no evidence for a precession change of the pendulum's oscillation plane (<0.3 degree / hour) during the Solar eclipse of July 11, 2010.^[5]

Prof. Allais’s explanation for this and other anomalies is that space evinces certain anisotropic characteristics, which he ascribes to motion through an aether which is partially entrained by planetary bodies. He has presented this hypothesis in his 1997 French book L’Anisotropie de l’espace. This explanation has not gained significant traction amongst mainstream scientists.

• Maurice Allais, Ten Notes published in the Proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences (Comptes Rendus des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences), dated 4/11/57, 13/11/57, 18/11/57, 13/5/57, 4/12/57, 25/11/57, 3/11/58, 22/12/58, 9/2/59, and 19/1/59, available in French at www.allais.info/alltrans/allaisnot.htm, some also in English translation.
• Maurice Allais, "Should the Laws of Gravitation be Reconsidered?", Aero/Space Engineering 9, 46–55 (1959).
• Maurice Allais, "The Allais Effect and my Experiments with the Paraconical Pendulum 1954–1960" (Report for NASA, 1999)
• Maurice Allais, "L'Anisotropie de l'Espace" ("The Anisotropy of Space"), Clement-Juglar, 1997, 800 pp. (no English version available)
• T. van Flandern and X. S. Yang, "Allais gravity and pendulum effects during solar eclipses explained," Phys. Rev. D 67, 022002 (2003).
• Qian-shen Wang, Xin-she Yang, Chuan-zhen Wu, Hong-gang Guo, Hong-chen Liu, and Chang-chai Hua, "Precise measurement of gravity variations during a total solar eclipse," Phys. Rev. D 62, 041101(R) (2000).
• X. S. Yang and Q. S. Wang, "Gravity anomaly during the Mohe total solar eclipse and new constraint on gravitational shielding parameter," Astrophysics and Space Science 282 (1), 245–253 (2002).
• Luo Jun, Li Jianguo, Zhang Xuerong, V. Liakhovets, M. Lomonosov, A. Ragyn, "Observation of 1990 solar eclipse by a torsion pendulum," Phys Rev. D. 44, 2611–2613 (1991).
• T. Kuusela, "Effect of the solar eclipse on the period of a torsion pendulum," Phys. Rev. D. 43, 2041–2043 (1991).
• T. Kuusela, J. Jäykkä, J. Kiukas, T. Multamäki, M. Ropo, and I. Vilja, "Gravitation experiments during the total solar eclipse," Phys. Rev. D. 74, 122004 (2006).
• Erwin J. Saxl and Mildred Allen, "1970 solar eclipse as 'seen' by a torsion pendulum," Phys. Rev. D. 3 (4), 823–825 (1971).
• G. T. Jeverdan, G. I. Rusu, and V. Antonescu, "Experiments using the Foucault pendulum during the solar eclipse of 15 February 1961," Biblical Astronomer 1 (55), 18–20 (1981).
• Chris P. Duif, "A review of conventional explanations of anomalous observations during solar eclipses," arXiv gr-qc/0408023 v3 (8 Oct 2004). (Unpublished preprint claiming that Allais observations do not satisfy conventional explanations.)
• Dave Dooling, "French Nobel Laureate turns back clock", Science@NASA (Oct. 12, 1999). A 1999 NASA attempt to observe an Allais effect; no results are reported. No results were ever published.
• Thomas J. Goodey, "Professor Maurice Allais — a genius before his time — as are they all" (Web site claiming to be the internet base of researchers studying and publicizing the Allais effect; includes copies/translations of several of the above papers.)
• Göde Wissenschafts Stiftung "Experimental measuring results with the paraconical pendulum
• Ed Oberg "www.iasoberg.com" This site has been established by Ed Oberg to facilitate and promote research into the Allais Effect and to distribute the resulting findings. The launch of this site (23 November 2007) coincided with the launch of a hypothetical field model developed by Ed Oberg.