TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE: THE MAGICIAN AND THE THINK TANK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100023-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2003
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: March 12, 1973
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

THE SEXES
the "old-boy net" system of hiring, in
which department heads (invariably
male) ask other department heads for
recommendations. A study by a man-
agement consultant fine, commissioned
by the administration, found major dis-
crimination against women (70% of
those with salaries below the minimum
set for their category by the consultant
fine were women), and recommended
pay increases that would amount to
$350,000, if and when implemented,
("Soon," promises the university.)
Myths. "i'rouble is, say the women
at U. of M., even those innovations are
often sidestepped by a recalcitrant ad-
ministration. Grievance procedures are
slow and cumbersome, and women find
it extremely difficult to get the neces-
sary data (such as salary figures) to sup-
port their cases. Despite promises to do
so, the university has granted back pay
because of discrimination in only one
case. Although the school will make an
effort to determine whether some fac-
ulty women are still underpaid for their
present rank, it still refuses to consider
whether they are underranked because
of their sex.
The biggest stumbling block, the
women contend, is the sometimes un-
conscious discrimination evident in
mate attitudes. Now, when they think
they find that kind of discrimination, the
U. of M. women immediately challenge
it. Part-Time Student Claire Jeannette,
appointed to the university staff as
"women's advocate," was in a classroom
when a professor, in speaking of "the
face that launched a thousand ships,"
commented, "Personally, I've never
seen a piece of stuff that looked that
good." Jeannette objected to the remark
and the professor conceded, "You're
right. I'm sorry, dear." ("I should have
answered, 'Thanks, darling,' " says
Jeannette.) When an economics profes-
sor said, "Men work overtime because
women make them," she demanded
documentation, adding: "I suggest that
you don't perpetuate myths unless you
have the facts to back them up."
The battle has even been carried to
the pages of the University Record, the
official news organ of the university,
which recently printed a poem submit-
ted by James Crump Jr. of the Far East-
ern Languages department:
1 think that 1 prefer to see
A chairperson who is womanly
And, if the choice were up to me,
A fresh person who's a comely she.
Replied Myl Johnson, a female re-
search curator at Michigan's Kelsey
Museum:
Indeed we share
Your appetite for golden hair
And shapely figures slim and trim
And do admire a comely him,
But keep our minds upon our work
And tolerate each shapeless jerk
Outrankin-g us in pay and powers
Who would demand we all be
flowers.
3/09/10
The Magician
And the Think Tank
Sprawling over 70 acres of Menlo
Park, Calif., the Stanford Research In-
stitute is one of America's largest and
best-known think tanks. Its staff of
2,600 highly trained specialists solves
problems and does research in nearly
every field of human endeavor for both
Government and private industry. SRI
also does highly classified research for
the military, and has worked on coun-
terinsurgency programs in Southeast
Asia, explosives technology, chemical
and bacteriological warfare and anti-
ballistic-missile systems. For its ser-
ABBA EBAN & GELLER
Under u cloud.
vices, SRI last year earned revenues of
$70 million. Last week it became ap-
parent that in addition to its other proj-
ects, the institute has been seriously in-
vestigating the so-called psychic powers
of a questionable nightclub magician.
SRI is not alone in investigating psy-
chic phenomena. Indeed, the persis-
tence and growth of that search in an
age of science is testimony to the vi-
tality of the concept. But until psychic
researchers produce something more
than nebulous evidence, skeptics will
Continue to Scoff.
That is precisely what they did when
rumors began to emanate from Menlo
Park last December, Two men, it seems,
had been demonstrating strange and
wondrous powers for SRI researchers.
One of the men, a 25-year-old Israeli
named Uri Geller, was apparently able
to communicate by telepathy, detect
and describe objects completely hidden
from view, and distort metal imple-
ments with his psychic energy. The
word among staff members was that SRI
President Charles Anderson, who at first
had opposed the project, changed his
mind after witnessing demonstrations
by Geller.
Later in December, an SRI physicist,
Russell Targ, sent a letter to one of
the foremost U.S. scientific journals
proposing an article on the work of
an SRI team engaged in psychic re-
search. "I'arg said that the subjects with
whom he had been working had ef-
fected physical changes in laboratory
instruments without touching them.
Presumably, Targ was referring to such
changes as increases in magnetometer
readings and the disturbance of elec-
tronic systems--all reported to TIME
by a team member. The research sub-
jects had also demonstrated remark-
able perceptual skills, including te-
lepathy. Working further with these
men, Targ suggested, would enable
SRI to understand psychical phenom-
ena. Written on SRI stationery, the
letter also bore the names of the
other members of the investigating
team: SRI Physicist Harold Puthoff,
Kent State University Physics Pro-
fessor William Franklin and former
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell,
Mitchell, who has retired from
the astronaut corps and set tip his
own foundation to investigate.psy-
chic phenomena, eagerly confirmed
some of the rumors during an inter-
view last month with TIME. "I caj- as-
sure you," he said, "that from
[Charles] Anderson down, SRI views
Uri Geller as legitimate. They find
the results valid and are ready to
stand on them." Said President An-
derson last week: "Mr. Mitchell does
not speak for SRI, and indeed the
statement is misleading. Mr. Geller
was provided to us as a subject
for experimentation. Measurements
were made in our laboratories, and the
work will stand on its merits."
News of the unusual activity at
Menlo Park reached the Department of
Defense, and investigators were soon on
the scene. One of them was Ray Ily-
man, a psychology professor from the
University of Oregon who is used fre-
quently by DOD as a consultant. Anoth-
er was George Lawrence, DOD projects
manager for the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA). Ile was accom-
panied to SRI by Robert Van de Castle,
a University of Virginia psychologist
and longtime researcher in parapsy-
chology. Van de Castle decided that
Geller was "an interesting subject for
further study," but neither Lawrence
nor Ilyznan was impressed. After spend-
ing a day with Geller and Physicists
Targ and Puthoff, Hyman was, in fact,
incredulous.
As Geller demonstrated ESP and
psychokinesis (ability to move or bend
objects without touching them) to the
delight and excitement of Targ and
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SCIENCE
Puthoff, Hyman said that he was able
to spot the "loopholes and inconclusive-
ness" of each feat. Ile also caught Gel-
ler in some outright deceptions that
Targ and Puthoff apparently did not
discern.
In one case, Geller asked Lawrence
to think of it number between one and
ten and to write it down, as large as pos-
sible, on a pad. While Lawrence wrote,
Geller made a show of concentrating
and covering his eyes with his hands.
But Ilyman, carefully observing Geller,
noticed that the Israeli's open eyes were
visible through his fingers. Thus Geller
was probably able to see the motion of
Lawrence's arm as he wrote, and to cor-
rectly identify the number, ten. Know-
ing how to read arm movements,
Hyman notes, is important to every
magician.
Later, Geller caused a nearby com-
pass needle to turn about five degrees.
Lawrence, noting that Geller had
moved his body and vibrated the floor,
did the same, causing the needle to de-
flect even more. Geller, startled, accused
Lawrence of using trickery, and Targ in-
sisted on examining the DOD man to see
if he had magnets hidden in his cloth-
ing. (Ile did not.) Hyman notes that
Targ did not feel that it was necessary
to search Geller. Ilyman's impressions
were admittedly based on observations
made on a day when normal testing rou-
tine was not in effect. Nevertheless,
Hyman wrote in a letter to a friend,
SRI'S tests of Geller were performed
with "incredible sloppiness"; the rec-
ords from previous days, which Targ
and Puthoff offered as proof of Geller's
powers, were "the most uncontrolled
and poorly recorded data I have ever
encountered."
Sensation. SRI continued to study
Geller seriously for another three weeks
(for a total of six), filming his feats, pay-
ing him a $100-a-day honorarium and
providing him with an automobile and
all expenses.
After leaving SRI,* Geller volun-
teered to demonstrate his powers to
TIME'S editors. Last month he appeared
at the 'Time-Life Building in Manhattan
and projected thoughts and images,
claimed to read minds and caused a fork
to bend-supposedly by using psychic
energy. After Geller left, Professional
Magician James Randi, who had been
present, duplicated each of his feats, ex-
plaining that any magician could per-
form them. The fork bending, said
Randi, was accomplished by sleight of
hand; after distracting his audience,
Geller h4i simply bent it with his two
hands.
SRI claims that it was aware that
Geller had "detractors" before he ar-
rived in California. Presumably the Cal-
ifornia scientists knew that he had been
something of a sensation in Israel. In
1970, TIME'S Jerusalem Correspondent
Marlin Levin reports, Geller began ap-
pearing before soldiers' groups, in pri-
*The other psychic, a New York artist named
Ingo Swann, is still being studied.
vate homes and on the stage, perform-
ing his repertory of tricks and claim-
ing to have psychokinetic powers. At
first he was widely acclaimed; he came
under suspicion when a group of psy-
chologists and computer experts from
Hebrew University duplicated all of
his feats and called him a fraud. Even-
tually, Geller left the country in
disgrace.
l;Ven so, SRI insists that its research-
ers were not duped. "Whether the sub-
ject be a saint or a sinner," said an SRI
spokesman, "has nothing to do with our
measurements concerning the so-called
psychical awareness of individuals."
How objective those measurements
were may well become apparent this
week at a Columbia University collo-
quiurn in Manhattan, where Targ is
scheduled to report on his studies and
show a film of Geller in action.
Suporcodded Computers
The essential characteristic of all
modern computers is speed. Their pro-
digious memories can be probed with
split-second precision; they can race
through reams of complex equations
with astonishing agility. Their swift skill
is made possible by a battery of rela-
tively simple devices, transistors that
can turn an electric current off and on
in as little as a billionth of a second.
In effect, those switches speak the
"yes-no" binary language of computer
technology. Their simple answers can
be combined to solve intricate prob-
lems. But fast as such combinations can
be made, computer speed is often not
fast enough. The big machines strain
to their limit to handle the demands of
space travel; they are also too slow to
process in time the vast amount of me-
teorological data necessary to make the
detailed and accurate five-day weather
forecasts the U.S. Weather Service
would like to achieve.
Now help may be at hand. After
five years of effort, IBM's research labs
have developed an electronic switching
device that can be turned on and off in
less than ten trillionths of a second
-more than 100 times faster than the
fastest transistor used in computers.
What is more, IBM's development re-
quires only about one ten-thousandth
of the power necessary to run these tran-
sistors; it gives off only a tiny fraction
of the heat they radiate. And it is tran-
sistor heat as much as switching time
that limits a computer's skills. For when
transistors are packed closer together
in order to speed up the flow of signals
between them, the risk of overheating
is sharply increased.
IBM's switch is based on a phenom-
enon first predicted in 1962 by a Brit-
ish scientist named Brian Josephson,
who was only 22 at the time. While
studying superconductivity,* the Cam-
bridge graduate student determined
mathematically that pairs of electrons
would "tunnel" through material that
is normally an electrical insulator if it
is thin enough and sand-
wiched between two super-
conductors. If the flow of
electrons through the insula-
tor were kept below a cer-
tain critical value, he found,
there would be no difference
in voltage from one side of
the insulator to the other.
electric current never flows
unless there is a voltage dif-
ferential.) Josephson also
predicted that if an external
magnetic field were applied
to the junction, a voltage
drop would appear.
Later verified by exper-
iment, the so-called Joseph-
son effect has been widely
used to construct extremely
sensitive laboratory measur-
ing devices, including a mag-
netometer that can detect fluctuations
in a magnetic field only one five-bil-
lionth as strong as the earth's. But IBM
scientists found a more practical use.
They knew that they could produce a
voltage drop across a Josephson junc-
tion by applying a weak magnetic field;
generating that field would require only
a fraction of the energy required to
switch a transistor. Furthermore, the
presence or absence of that voltage
across a Josephson junction could be
used to represent the same "yes" or "no"
information conveyed by a transistor.
For competitive reasons, IBM will
not reveal the precise chemistry of the
lead alloys used in its junctions. In fact,
the company is cautiously refraining
from predicting when they will be used
in practical computers; many design
problems must be overcome before
computers can be built to operate at su-
perconducting temperatures. Nonethe-
less, IBM's laboratory triumph and con-
tinuing research by the world's largest
computer manufacturer suggests that
high-speed, supercooled electronic
brains are not far in the future.
*The disappearance of electrical resistance in cer-
tain materials when they are cooled to within a
few degrees of absolute zero (--159.7' F.).
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