Antigravity
* T. Towsend Brown was jubilant when he returned from France in 1956. The soft-spoken scientist had a solid clue which could lead to fuel-less space travel. His saucer-shaped discs flew at speeds of up to several hundred miles per hour, with no moving parts. One thing he was certain of; the phenomenon should be investigated by the best scientific institutions. Surely now the scientific establishment would admit that he really had something. Although the tall lean physicist-handsome, in a gangly way- was a humble man, even shy, he confidently took his good news to a top-ranking officer he knew in Washington, D.C.
* Instead of congratulations on the French test results, at the Pentagon he ran into closed doors. Even his former classmate from officers’ candidates’ school, Admiral Hyman Rickover, discouraged Brown from continuing to explore the dogma-shattering discovery that the force of gravity could be tweaked or even blanked out by the electrical force. “Townsend, I’m going to do you a favor and tell you: Don’t take this work any further. Drop it.”
* An arrogant academia ignored his findings. Given the cold-shoulder treatment, Brown spent family savings and even personal food money on laboratory supplies. Perhaps he would not have had the heart to continue his lonely research if he had known in1956 that nearly thirty more years of hard work were ahead of him. He died in 1985 with the frustration of having his findings still unaccepted.
NO COMMOM SENSE
ANALYZE THE EXAMPLE
* Which supports and barriers were in play?
* What were the dynamics?
* Who, or what, won the Tug-of-War?
* Discuss the outcome with your friends and family.
* Use Post #4 as a reference for the dynamics, and the relationships, between supports and barriers.
