Dear Peter,

Sorry, but I do not do interviews etc. these days, since I'm physically limited and still in some hypoxia and breathing difficulties from a heart attack in 2001, resulting from chronic mycoplasma (biological warfare kind, made by our guys) contracted in Canada in 1968 while stationed there. I survived in 1968 by the sheer determination of some fine French doctors in Quebec, but was left with a permanent loss of endurance.  The mycoplasma burrow up in one's red cells, hardening the hemoglobin shells and deteriorating one's aerobic system. Hence one has permanent loss of endurance (fatigue syndrome).  Resurgence of the malady in 2001 produced the heart attack and runaway heart fibrillation, has left me much reduced in physical capability, now with a fairly severe chronic fatigue syndrome.  I've just completed a really tough year on antibiotics for that malady.  I will not be recovering any further from the lung damage already done, although I've been rid of the mycoplasma at last, and I still require remedial oxygen daily.

The work speaks for itself, on my website, and in my book, Energy from the Vacuum: Concepts and Principles,  and the AIAS papers I've contributed to, that are published in physics journals such as Foundations of Physics Letters, Physica Scripta, etc.  Mostly the future work is up to the younger fellows now.  I tried to put down most of what has been uncovered, in my book, and in the AIAS papers to which I contributed.

What time I have remaining, as best I can do it, is being spent on struggling with the thermodynamics of COP>1.0 EM systems --- the solar cell, e.g., has a COP = infinity, which experimentally voids all objections that COP>1.0 EM systems are impossible.  To the contrary, they are fully permitted by physics, higher group symmetry electrodynamics (but not standard electrical engineering), and thermodynamics.  The thermodynamics of electrical COP>1.0 systems, however, is presently woefully inadequate and seriously flawed.  We are correcting that, very slowly, by using Leyton's hierarchies of symmetry, which applies directly to the source charge problem (to be discussed in a moment). Leyton's work, we believe, represents a great revolution in both physics and thermodynamics.  It has been solidly applied, very successfully, in robotics and pattern recognition.  Leyton originated a new object-oriented geometry, replacing the Klein geometry and Erlanger project that has driven physics largely since 1872.  The Klein geometry is a subset of Leyton's new and more fundamental geometry.  The new geometry, applied to the source charge, also seems to solve the greatest problem in thermodynamics: its asymmetry.  In other words, if only entropic interactions are possible, where the entropy either remains the same or increases, then how did the entropy ever get so low in the first place?  That problem has been unsolved for a century, but I believe (this remains to be upheld or refuted) that Leyton's hierarchies of symmetry --- applied to the source charge problem -- finally resolves the asymmetry of thermodynamics also.

The key to unlimited EM energy from the vacuum has already been solidly proven in particle physics, in 1957, by the discovery of broken symmetry, including the broken symmetry of opposite charges.  Lee and Yang strongly predicted broken symmetry in 1956-57, and Wu and her colleagues promptly proved it experimentally in early 1957.  So profound a revolution in physics was this, that the Nobel Committee moved with unprecedented speed and awarded the Nobel Prize to Lee and Yang that same year, in Dec. 1957.

A common dipole (with its opposite charges) thus has already been proven to absorb virtual photon energy from the vacuum, transduce it into real, observable EM energy, and pour it out in all directions, forming the associated EM fields and potentials and their energy.  A single "isolated" charge in the archaic classical Maxwell-Heaviside theory, when viewed through modern eyes (as in quantum field theory), is clustered around with virtual charges of opposite sign.  Hence the "isolated charge" is actually a special kind of dipole, and so it must exhibit the asymmetry of opposite charges.  That is, proven  by the work that gave Lee and Yang the Nobel Prize in Dec. 1957, the source charge continuously absorbs virtual photon energy from the vacuum, transduces it to real observable EM energy, and pours that real observable EM energy out in all directions.  One does not have to reprove that; its basis has long been proven in particle physics.

The standard electrical engineering model (based on the classical Maxwell-Heaviside model) does not even model the modern active vacuum and its well-known continuous exchange of energy with every charge --- and it certainly does not model an asymmetry in that exchange!  Because of this, the greatest problem in electrodynamics continues to be hidden from the students (and even many of the professors no longer realize it).  That is the problem of the source charge and its associated EM fields and potentials and their energy, expanding at light speed from the source charge in all directions from the moment of creation of the charge.  The charges in the original matter in the universe have been freely extracting and outpouring real EM field energy and potential energy for some 13.7 billion years, and they show no signs of running down or stopping.

In the conventional Maxwell-Heaviside classical EM model, it is implicitly (and unwittingly) assumed that the source charge freely creates --- right out of nothing -- all that continuous outpouring of energy that will continue freely and without ceasing, so long as the charge remains intact.

In short, present electrical engineering departments and textbooks assume that every EM field, EM potential, and joule of EM energy in the universe are freely created by nothing at all, by the source charge, and that every EM charge, field, potential, and joule of EM energy existing in the universe is and has been freely created this way, from nothing at all. Simply examine the model and seek the form and source of any input energy to the source charge that is producing its associated EM fields and potentials and their energy.

That is the gist of the horrendous problem, which Sen characterized as follows:

"The connection between the field and its source has always been and still is the most difficult problem in classical and quantum electrodynamics." [D. K. Sen, Fields and/or Particles, Academic Press, London and New York, 1968, p. viii.]

At the time Sen published that statement, the basis for the solution to the problem had already been in particle physics for 11 years, following the award of the Nobel Prize to Lee and Yang.

Applying that proven basis in 1998 and 1999, we published the solution to the source charge problem in 2000, and also in my book in 2002.

So as it turns out, no one has ever built a single EM system or device that DID NOT take all its EM field energy and EM potential energy directly from the seething local vacuum, via the charges in the circuit or device.

Extraction of copious EM energy from the vacuum --- as much as one wishes --- is easy.  Catching it and using it properly is the only difficulty. Set a charged capacitor or electret on a permanent magnet so that the E-field of the electrical device is at right angles to the H-field of the magnet, and that optimizes EXH --- the Poynting energy flow.  That silly thing will sit there and freely pour out real EM energy, forming and continuously replenishing its associated static E and H fields , so long as you wish.  Even the conventional Poynting energy flow theory guarantees that one has an energy flow from that beast.  This is usually just swept under the rug, by using a disposal remark.

To extract the energy from the vacuum, just make a big charge or a strong dipole, and by the proven asymmetry of opposite charges it will sit there and extract and transduce and pour out real EM energy from the vacuum, establishing what we call static fields.  As Van Flandern pointed out, these are like "waterfalls", in that, inside the "static" potential or field, there are structure flows of energy continuously.  This was also rigorously proven by E. T. Whittaker, a well-known mathematical physicist, in 1903 and 1904.  His 1904 paper initiated a subject known as "superpotential theory".  It showed that any EM field pattern, wave, etc. can be decomposed into two scalar potentials.  In his 1903 paper, he had further shown that the scalar EM potential further decomposes into a harmonic set of bidirectional longitudinal EM wavepairs.  Hence all static electrodynamic fields and potentials are "envelopes" (such as Van Flandern's waterfall) made of internal bidirectional longitudinal EM waves.

Again, one does not have to re-prove that; it has been proven for a century.

So the only problem in completely solving the energy crisis forever, and taking energy freely from the vacuum whenever and wherever one wishes, is to learn how to intercept and capture some of that freely flowing EM energy in its special form, collect it in circuits, and dissipate it in loads --- without using half of the collected energy to destroy the source dipole inside the generator.

The gauge freedom axiom in quantum field theory already assures us that we can freely change the potential of a system --- and therefore freely change its potential energy -- at any time.  All electrodynamicists and gauge field physics utilize that axiom, which is well-established both theoretically and experimentally.

Presently, the ubiquitous closed current loop circuit used by our engineers for all our electrical power systems and distribution systems self-enforces Lorentz symmetrical regauging, which means that it uses half the collected "free energy from the vacuum" caught in the circuit, to do nothing but destroy the source dipole inside the generator.  The other half of the collected energy caught in the external circuit is dissipated in the external losses and the loads.  Hence the circuit gets less energy into those loads to power them, than it uses to destroy its source dipole which is extracting the energy from the local vacuum.

Well, to restore the dipole even in a perfect lossless generator requires as much shaft energy be input again, as was used by the circuit in destroying that source dipole.  That means we must crank in more energy than we got out in that load. Ergo, this rather inane circuit self-enforces COP<1.0.  We pay the power company to engage in a giant Sumo wrestling match inside its own generators, and LOSE.

And that is really the only energy problem there is.  Whenever the scientific community will allow the young grad students and post docs to work on this problem -- how to intercept and capture some of the freely flowing energy from the source charges (source dipole), and dissipate more of the caught and collected energy in the load than is used to fight the back emf and kill the source dipole (the source of all the EM energy, being extracted from the vacuum) --- and fund their graduate work, doctoral theses, and post doctoral work, then in less than three years the problem will be completely solved.  And it will be solved forever.  It will allow cheap CLEAN electrical power, easily furnished anywhere, and it will allow poor nations to achieve a much better economy and standard of life. (All modern economies are based on cheap energy, largely cheap oil at present, and cheap natural gas and cheap hydroelectric power).  It will also enable a very appreciable cleaning up of the environment, presently being more and more polluted.

I have not been able to identify any real scientific program in DoE, National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, etc. in extracting practical and copious EM energy from the vacuum.

Instead, we find much screaming about perpetual motion and COP>1.0 EM power systems being impossible.  The mere existence of the solar cell experimentally proves that COP = infinity (self-powering EM systems analogous to a windmill turning in the wind) are possible, because it IS one. No amount of theory or pontification can falsify that experimentally well-known fact.  However, its active environment is a more conventional environment, already understood in electrical engineering.  The vacuum as an active environment is understood in particle physics, but particle physicists do not build electrical power systems --- the electrical engineers do.  And the electrical engineers do not even model the active vacuum and its asymmetry in its exchange with every charge and dipole in the universe. Instead, those engineers implicitly assume that the source charge freely violates the conservation of energy law, by CREATING every EM field, EM potential, and joule of EM energy in the universe.

Until we force the use of a higher model that will include the active vacuum and its asymmetrical energy exchange with the charge and the dipole, and includes conservation of energy to include both virtual and observable energy, then we will not solve the energy problem, nor will we clean up the biosphere.

The scientific community must simply apply the science it has developed in particle physics, to the area of electrical power systems and their design and development.  It must not continue billions of dollars into hot fusion, which has never produced a single excess watt on the power system above what has been required to run the fusion machine.  A few hundred million dollars, carefully spent to turn the young grad students and post docs loose, will do the trick.

Best wishes,

Tom Bearden