SRI International, based in the United States, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing Research. It was founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946 by the trustees of Stanford University as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in Later it became fully independent and was incorporated as a non-profit organization under U.S. and California laws. A corporation is a separate legal entity usually used to conduct business A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage The United States of America —commonly referred to as the California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. SRI's headquarters are in Menlo Park, California, near the Stanford University campus. Menlo Park is an affluent City in San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California Curtis Carlson, Ph. Curtis R Carlson (born 1945 is currently the president and CEO of SRI International and a prominent Technologist. D. , is SRI's president and CEO. Year 2006 revenue for SRI, excluding its subsidiary, Sarnoff Corporation, was $308 million. Sarnoff Corporation, with headquarters in West Windsor New Jersey, is the former RCA Laboratories Consolidated 2006 revenues were approximately $411 million.

SRI, a nonprofit research institute, performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage Research is defined as Human activity based on Intellectual application in the investigation of Matter. The phrase research and development (also R and D or more often R&D) according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies^[1]. A spin-off (or spinoff) is a new Organization or Entity formed by a split from a larger one such as a Television series based on a pre-existing

SRI's focus areas include communications and networks, computing, economic development and science and technology policy, education, energy and the environment, engineering systems, pharmaceuticals and health sciences, homeland security and national defense, and materials and structures. A telecommunications network is a network of Telecommunications links and nodes arranged so that messages may be passed from one part of the network to another over Computing is usually defined like the activity of using and developing Computer technology Computer hardware and software. Economic development is the development of economic wealth of countries or regions for the well-being of their inhabitants Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency In Physics and other Sciences energy (from the Greek grc ἐνέργεια - Energeia, "activity operation" from grc ἐνεργός See also Nature The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a terminology that is comprised of all living and Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and A drug, broadly speaking is any chemical substance that when absorbed into the body Health is a state of complete physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity The term homeland security refers to the broad national effort by all levels of government to protect its territory from hazards both internal and external natural and man-made Materials are physical Substances used as inputs to production or Manufacturing.

SRI has more than 1,000 patents and patent applications worldwide ^[2]. A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an SRI International conducts research and development in many areas, both independently and for hire, and sells reports on independent research.

In 1970, the Stanford Research Institute formally separated from Stanford University and, in 1977, became known as SRI International. Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays The separation was a belated response to Vietnam war protesters at Stanford University who believed that SRI's DARPA-funded work was essentially making the university part of the military-industrial complex. Opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War is significant because domestic protest in the U The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new Technology A military-industrial complex (MIC is a concept commonly used to refer to Policy relationships between Governments national Armed forces, and industrial

SRI has undertaken a number of research projects outside of the scientific mainstream, including research into expanded human consciousness and claims of extraordinary human abilities such as those attributed to celebrity psychic Uri Geller (see below). Uri Geller (אורי גלר born György Gellér ( Hungarian name December 20, 1946) is an Israeli British performer

Contents 1 Research History 1.1 1940s 1.2 1950s 1.3 1960s 1.4 1970s 1.5 1980s 1.6 1990s 1.7 2000s 2 Research outside of the mainstream 2.1 Clairvoyance and ESP 2.2 Psychokinesis 2.3 Replication Studies 2.4 Controversy 3 References 4 External links

Research History

The following is a summary of some important early SRI research projects. ^[3]

1940s

In 1948, SRI began research and consultation with the petroleum company Chevron to develop an artificial substitute for tallow and coconut oil used in making soaps. Year 1948 ( MCMXLVIII) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Tallow is a rendered form of Beef or Mutton Fat, processed from Suet. Coconut oil, also known as coconut butter, is a tropical oil with many applications SOAP (see below for name and origins is a protocol for exchanging XML -based messages over Computer networks normally using SRI's investigation confirmed the potential of dodecyl benzene as a suitable replacement, and later Procter & Gamble used the substance as the basis of their highly successful household detergent, Tide. Dodecyl benzene is a Petrochemical substitute for the Tallow and Coconut oil used in making soap Procter & Gamble Co ( P&G,) is a Fortune 500, American global corporation based in Cincinnati Ohio, that manufactures a wide A detergent (as a noun is a material intended to assist Cleaning. Tide is the name of a popular Laundry detergent on the market in Canada, the United States and other countries

1950s

In the early 1950s, the Disney brothers sought SRI's advice regarding a small amusement park called Disneyland which they intended to build in Burbank, California. The family of Elias Disney (son of Kepple Disney and Mary Richardson Elias Disney was born on February 6, 1859 in Huron County, Ontario Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County California, United States. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. SRI provided them information on such topics as location, attendance patterns, and economic feasibility. SRI also selected a much larger site, in Anaheim, and prepared reports covering many aspects of operation. They also provided on-site administrative support and continued an advisory role for some time as the park expanded.

In 1952, the Technicolor Corporation contracted with SRI to develop a near-instantaneous electro-optical alternative to the manual process of timing during film copying. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation In 1959, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the Scientific and Engineering Award jointly to SRI and the Technicolor Corporation for their work on the design and development of the Technicolor electronic printing timer which greatly benefited the motion picture industry. The year 1959 ( MCMLIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( AMPAS) is a professional honorary organization ostensibly dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of Motion

In 1954, Southern Pacific asked SRI to investigate ways of reducing the losses due to damage during rail freight shipments by mitigating shocks to loaded railroad box cars. Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) This investigation led to the development of the Hydra-Cushion technology which remains standard to this day.

In the 1950s, SRI worked under the direction of the Bank of America to develop ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting), and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) which as of 2007 is still the industry standard in automated check processing. Banc of America Securities Bank of America () is the largest bank by asset and second largest commercial Bank by deposits and Market capitalization in United ERMA, for Electronic Recording Machine-Accounting, was a pioneering Computer development project run at SRI under contract to Bank of America Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, or MICR (pronounced my-ker or micker) a character recognition technology adopted mainly by the banking industry to The ERMA project was led by computer scientist Jerre Noe, who was at the time SRI's Assistant Director of Engineering. Jerre Noe ( February 1, 1923 &ndash November 12, 2005) was an American computer scientist.

1960s

Doug Engelbart was the primary force behind the design and development of the oN-Line System, or NLS. Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor. NLS, or the "oN-Line System" was a revolutionary Computer collaboration system designed by Douglas Engelbart and the researchers He founded SRI's Augmentation Research Center (ARC), and his team there developed the original versions of many modern computer-human interface elements. Stanford Research Institute 's Augmentation Research Center (ARC was founded by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools These included: bit-mapped displays, collaboration software, hypertext, and precursors to the graphical user interface including the computer mouse. In Computer graphics, a raster graphics image or bitmap, is a Data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of Pixels Collaborative software (also referred to as groupware or workgroup support systems) is software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their In Computing, a mouse (plural mice, mouse devices, or mouses) As a pioneer of human-computer interaction, Engelbart is arguably SRI's most notable alumnus. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2000. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly known as the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar.

In 1964, Bill English, then chief engineer at the ARC, built the first prototype of a computer mouse from Engelbart's design. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. William "Bill" English is a Computer engineer who contributed to the development of the Computer mouse while working for Douglas Engelbart at Originally they intended to call it a "turtle," but when a mouse ran across their workbench they changed their minds.

In the 1960s, liquid crystal display (LCD) technology was developed at RCA Laboratories, which is now the Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned SRI subsidiary. The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 Sarnoff Corporation, with headquarters in West Windsor New Jersey, is the former RCA Laboratories

From 1966 through 1972, SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center developed the first mobile robot to reason about its actions. Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. Year 1972 ( MCMLXXII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A robot is a mechanical or Virtual Artificial agent In practice it is usually an electro-mechanical system which by its appearance or movements Named "Shakey", the robot had a television camera, a triangulating range finder, and bump sensors. A professional Video camera (often called a television camera even though the use has spread is a high-end device for recording electronic moving images (as opposed In Trigonometry and Geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either A rangefinder is a device that measures distance from the observer to a target for the purposes of Surveying, determining focus in Photography, or A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument Shakey the Robot used software for perception, world-modeling, and acting. Shakey the Robot was the first mobile Robot to be able to reason about its own actions The Artificial Intelligence Center marked its 40th anniversary in 2006. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Hewitt Crane and his colleagues developed the world's first all-magnetic digital computer^[4], based upon extensions to magnetic core memories. Hewitt D Crane (1927 Jersey City New Jersey — June 17, 2008, Portola Valley California) was an American engineer The technology was licensed to AMP, who then used the technology to build specialized computers for controlling tracks in the New York City subway and on railroad switching yards. Tyco International Ltd is a highly diversified global manufacturing company incorporated in Bermuda, with United States operational headquarters in Princeton New The New York City Subway is a Rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency

In 1969, ARPANET, the world's first electronic computer network, was established on October 29 between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's lab at UCLA and Douglas Engelbart's lab at SRI. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The ARPANET ( Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) developed by ARPA of the United States Department of Defense, was the world's first operational Events 437 - Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor, marries Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of his cousin Theodosius II Leonard Kleinrock PhD (born June 13, 1934 in New York) is a Computer scientist, and a professor of computer science at UCLA The University of California Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Westwood Los Angeles, California, United Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor. Interface Message Processors at both sites served as the backbone of the first Internet^[5]. The Interface Message Processor (IMP was the Packet-switching node used to connect computers to the original ARPANET in the late 1960s and 1970s The Internet backbone refers to the main "trunk" connections of the Internet. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks

In addition to SRI and UCLA, UCSB and the University of Utah were part of the original four network nodes. The University of California Santa Barbara ( UCSB) is a selective research-oriented public university located on the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara County California The University of Utah (referred to locally as ' The U' or ' the U of U') is a publicly funded Research university in Salt Lake By December 5, 1969, the entire 4-node network was connected. Events 63 BC - Cicero reads the last of his Catiline Orations. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

1970s

In the 1970s, SRI went on to develop many other technologies, including packet-switched radio (the precursor to today's wireless networking), over-the-horizon radar, Deafnet, malaria treatments, vacuum microelectronics, laser photocoagulation (a treatment for some eye maladies), and software-implemented fault tolerance. Packet switching is a network communications method that splits data traffic (digital representations of text sound or video data into chunks called packets, that are then Over-the-horizon radar, or OTH (sometimes also beyond the horizon, or BTH) is a design concept for Radar systems to allow them to detect targets Deafnet was created as a demonstration project in 1978 by SRI International (previously known as Stanford Research Institute at Washington's Gallaudet University Malaria is a vector -borne Infectious disease caused by Protozoan Parasites It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions including The PASCAL Photocoagulator is an integrated semi-automatic pattern scan Laser Photocoagulation system designed to treat Ocular diseases using a single shot This article contains specific implementations of fault tolerant systems

In 1972, Dr. Year 1972 ( MCMLXXII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Harold E. Puthoff, then a researcher at SRI, put forth a series of proposals to study quantum mechanics in life processes. Harold E Puthoff, PhD (born 20 June 1936) is an American physicist who earlier in his career was involved in research on paranormal topics Usually a researcher or scientific researcher is someone who is professionally engaged in Scientific research, technological research or Engineering research Quantum mechanics is the study of mechanical systems whose dimensions are close to the Atomic scale such as Molecules Atoms Electrons This resulted in a series of studies in parapsychology, including the now controversial remote viewing programs that have been discontinued and partially declassified since (see below). Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to demonstrate the existence and causes of Psychic abilities and life after death using the Scientific method Remote Viewing (RV refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or Extra-sensory perception.

In the late 1970s, Arnold Mitchell, a social scientist and consumer futurist, created the Values and Lifestyles psychographic methodology (VALS), to explain changing U. In the field of Marketing, Demographics, opinion research and social research in general psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality The acronym VALS, (for "Values Attitudes and Lifestyles" is a well-known psychographic segmentation S. values and lifestyles. VALS was formally inaugurated as an SRI International product in 1978 and was later cited by Advertising Age as "one of the ten top market research breakthroughs of the 1980s. Advertising Age (or AdAge) is a Magazine, delivering news analysis and data on marketing and media "

1980s

In the 1980s, SRI developed, among other things, Zylon, stealth technologies, improvements to ultrasound imaging, two-dimensional laser fluorescence imaging, a multimedia electronic mail system, intrusion detection expert systems, theory of non-interference in computer security, a multilevel secure (MLS) relational database system called Seaview, LaTeX, and order-sorted algebra. Zylon is a Trademarked name for a range of Thermoset Polyurethane Synthetic polymer materials manufactured by the Toyobo Corporation Stealth technology also known as LOT (Low Observability Technology is a sub-discipline of military Electronic countermeasures which covers a range of techniques used with Not to be confused with Supersonic. Ultrasound is cyclic Sound pressure with a Frequency greater than the upper Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy ( FCS) is a common technique used by physicists chemists and biologists to experimentally characterize the dynamics of fluorescent species In Information Security, intrusion detection is the act of detecting actions that attempt to compromise the Confidentiality, Integrity or Availability An expert system is Software that attempts to reproduce the performance of one or more human Experts most commonly in a specific Problem domain, and is Non-interference is a strict Multilevel security policy model first described by Goguen and Messeguer in 1982 and amplified further in 1984 Multilevel Security (also written as multi-level security or abbreviated as MLS) is the application of a computer system to process information with different sensitivities A relational database is a Database that groups data using common attributes found in the data set LaTeX (ˈleɪtɛ Algebra is a branch of Mathematics concerning the study of structure, relation, and Quantity. On January 17, 1986, SRI. com became the 8th registered ".com" domain.

1990s

In the 1990s, SRI developed, among other things, ground- and foliage-penetrating radar, Open Agent Architecture (OAA), dry-powder drugs, remote surgery (aka telerobotic surgery), bio-agent detection using upconverting phosphor technology, an easy-clean oven surface, the cancer drug Tirapazamine (now in clinical trials), ammonium dinitramide (ADN) - a novel environmentally benign oxidizer, network intrusion detection system, the Maude system (a declarative software language), the INCON and REDDE command and control system for the U. Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR is a form of Radar in which the highly-directional (and thus very large rotating antenna used by conventional radar is replaced with many low-directivity Remote surgery (also known as telesurgery) is the ability for a doctor to perform Surgery on a patient even though they are not physically in the same location Tirapazamine (SR-4233 is an experimental anticancer drug that is activated to a toxic radical only at very low levels of Oxygen ( hypoxia) A network intrusion detection system ( NIDS) is an Intrusion detection system that tries to detect malicious activity such as Denial of service attacks The Maude system is an implementation of Rewriting logic developed at SRI International. Command and control can be defined as the exercise of Authority and Direction by a properly designated Commander over assigned and attached Forces S. military, IGRS (integrated GPS radio system), an advanced military personnel and vehicle tracking system, natural language speech recognition, assisted hydrothermal oxidation for safe, cost-effective disposal of hazardous materials, an advanced letter sorting system for the United States Postal Service, PacketHop, a revolutionary peer-to-peer wireless technology to create scalable ad hoc networks, electroactive polymer aka “artificial muscle”, and several landmark education and economic studies. A vehicle tracking system is an electronic device installed in a vehicle to enable the owner or a third party to track the vehicle's location Generally Tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a model e Speech recognition (also known as automatic speech recognition or computer speech recognition) converts spoken words to machine-readable input (for example to keypresses Electroactive Polymers or EAPs are Polymers whose shape is modified when a Voltage is applied to them

2000s

In the 2000s, SRI developed, among other things, new uses for diamagnetic levitation; the Deployable Force-on-Force Instrumented Range System (DFIRST), which uses GPS satellites, high-speed wireless communications, and digital terrain map displays to train armored combat units during battle exercises; live-virtual-constructive training systems for the California National Guard; Pathway Tools software, which aims to accelerate drug discovery by using artificial intelligence and symbolic computing techniques to analyze complex biological processes; BioCyc, SRI’s growing collection of genomic databases and software tools used by biologists to visualize genes within a chromosome, complete biochemical pathways, and the full metabolic maps of organisms; the advanced modular incoherent scatter radar (AMISR), a novel relocatable atmospheric research facility under construction for the National Science Foundation; the Centibots, one of the first and largest teams of coordinated, autonomous mobile robots that explore, map, and survey unknown environments; and speech recognition and translation functionality for the VoxTec Phraselator handheld speech translator, which has enabled U. Magnetic levitation, maglev, or magnetic suspension is a method by which an object is suspended with no support other than Magnetic fields The Basic concept of GPS operation A GPS receiver calculates its position by carefully timing the signals sent by the constellation of GPS Satellites high above the Earth The California National Guard is the component of the United States National Guard in the U Genomics is the study of an organism's entire Genome. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale Genetic A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and Protein that is found in cells. Metabolism is the set of Chemical reactions that occur in living Organisms in order to maintain Life. The National Science Foundation (NSF is a United States Government agency that supports fundamental Research and Education in all the non-medical Speech recognition (also known as automatic speech recognition or computer speech recognition) converts spoken words to machine-readable input (for example to keypresses The Phraselator is a Weatherproof handheld language translation device developed by VoxTec a former division of the military contractor Marine Acoustics located S. soldiers overseas to communicate with local citizens in near real time.

SRI researchers made the first observation of visible light emitted by oxygen atoms in the night-side airglow of Venus, offering new insight into the planet’s atmosphere. The airglow is the very weak emission of light by the Earth's atmosphere; as a result the night sky is never completely dark The VENUS ( V ictoria E xperimental N etwork U nder the S ea project is a cabled sea floor observatory operated by the University SRI education researchers conducted the first national evaluation of the growing U. S. charter schools movement. Charter schools are elementary or secondary schools in the United States that receive public money but For the World Golf Foundation, SRI compiled the first-ever estimate of the overall scope of the U. S. golf industry’s goods and services ($62 billion in 2000), providing a framework for monitoring the long-term growth of the industry.

In 2006, SRI was awarded a $56. 9 million contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to provide preclinical services for the development of drugs and antibodies for anti-infective treatments for avian influenza, SARS, West Nile virus, hepatitis, and more. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH which is an agency of the United States Department An infection is the detrimental Colonization of a host Organism by a foreign Species. For the H5N1 subtype of Avian influenza see H5N1. Avian influenza, sometimes Avian flu, and commonly Bird flu refers West Nile virus (or WNV is a Virus of the family Flaviviridae; part of the Japanese encephalitis (JE antigenic complex of viruses it is found in Hepatitis (plural hepatitides) implies injury to the Liver characterized by the presence of Inflammatory cells in the tissue of

Also in 2006, SRI announced it has selected St. Petersburg, Florida as the site for a new marine technology research facility. St Petersburg (often shortened to St Pete) is a city in Pinellas County Florida, United States. The new facility will be called SRI-St. Petersburg and aims to accelerate research and development of technologies related to ocean science, the maritime industry and port security. Shipping is physical process of Transporting goods and Cargo. Port security refers to the defense law and treaty enforcement and counterterrorism activities that fall within the port and maritime domain SRI's expansion into Florida is a collaboration with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science and its Center for Ocean Technology, and is supported by the City of St. Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the The University of South Florida ( USF) known within its system as USF Tampa, is a public research University system located in Tampa, Florida Petersburg, Pinellas County, and the state of Florida.

SRI celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2006.

Research outside of the mainstream

Clairvoyance and ESP

In 1972, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ initiated a series of human subject studies to determine whether participants (the viewers or percipients) could reliably identify and accurately describe salient features of remote locations or targets. Harold E Puthoff, PhD (born 20 June 1936) is an American physicist who earlier in his career was involved in research on paranormal topics Russell Targ is an American physicist and author an ESP researcher and pioneer in the earliest development of the Laser. In the early studies, a human sender was typically present at the remote location, as part of the experiment protocol. A three-step process was used, the first step being to randomly select the target conditions to be experienced by the senders. Secondly, in the viewing step, participants were asked to verbally express or sketch their impressions of the remote scene. Thirdly, in the judging step, these descriptions were matched by separate judges, as closely as possible, with the intended targets. The term remote viewing was coined to describe this overall process. Remote Viewing (RV refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or Extra-sensory perception.

In order to explore the nature of remote viewing channel, the viewer in some experiments was secured in a double-walled copper-screened Faraday cage. A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material, or by a mesh of such material Although this provided attenuation of radio signals over a broad range of frequencies, the researchers found that it did not alter the subject's remote viewing capability. They postulated that extremely low frequency (ELF) propagation might be involved, since Faraday cage screening is less effective in the ELF range. Extremely low frequency (ELF is the band of Radio frequencies from 3 to 30 Hz. Such a hypothesis had previously been put forward by telepathy researchers in the Soviet Union^[6]. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

The first paper by Puthoff and Targ on psychic research to appear in a mainstream peer-reviewed scientific journal was published in Nature in March 1974; in it, the team reported some degree of remote viewing success^[7]. Nature is a prominent Scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869 One of the individuals involved in these initial studies at SRI was Uri Geller, a well-known celebrity psychic at the time. Uri Geller (אורי גלר born György Gellér ( Hungarian name December 20, 1946) is an Israeli British performer The research team reported witnessing some of Geller's trademark metal spoon-bending performances, but admitted that they were unable to conduct adequately controlled experiments to confirm any paranormal hypothesis about them.

Electroencephalography (EEG) techniques were also used by team to examine ESP phenomena. In these investigations, a sender, who was isolated in a visually opaque, electrically and acoustically shielded chamber, was stimulated at random by bursts of strobe-light flickers The experimenters reported that, for one receiver, differential alpha block on control and stimulus trials were observed, which showed that some information transfer had occurred. In contrast, this person's expressed statements of when the stimulus occurred were no different than that which would be expected by chance. The researches were unable to identify the physical parameters by which the EEG effect was mediated^[8].

Psychokinesis

Another series of experiments in the early 1970s focused on psychokinesis, which concerns how human consciousness may influence the behavior of external physical systems. The term psychokinesis (from the Greek ψυχή, "psyche" meaning mind soul heart or breath; and κίνησις, "kinesis" In these studies, the support came from NASA on a contract administered by JPL. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA, ˈnæsə is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program They involved building an electronic apparatus that would randomize images presented to an individual, who was asked to predict them in advance. By coupling the randomizer with encouraging feedback and reinforcement for successful predictions, the system was intended to measure how individuals develop their clairvoyance or other telepathic powers. Clairvoyance (from 17th century French with clair meaning "clear" and voyance meaning "visibility" is the apparent ability to gain Telepathy ( Greek τηλε tele meaning "distant" and πάθεια patheia meaning "to be affected by" describes the purported transfer The entire data-gathering process was supposed to be automated, in order to limit the potential for experimenter interference. However, this part of the protocol had been violated for several experiments. A JPL review of the final report noted that, when these parts were omitted from analysis, no evidence of ESP performance could be identified. NASA concluded that there was no basis for further support of this work^[9].

Replication Studies

After the publication of these findings, various attempts to replicate the remote viewing findings were quickly carried out. Several of these follow-up studies, which involved viewing in group settings, reported some limited success. They included the use of face-to-face groups,^[10][11] and remotely-linked groups using computer conferencing^[12].

The various debates in the mainstream scientific literature prompted the editors of 'Proceedings of the IEEE' to invite Robert Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering at Princeton University, to write a comprehensive review of psychic phenomena from an engineering perspective. Professor Robert G Jahn is Dean Emeritus of the School of Engineering and Applied Science of Princeton University. Princeton University is a private Coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. His paper^[13], published in February 1982, includes numerous references to remote viewing replication studies at the time.

Controversy

The descriptions of a large number of psychic studies and their results were published in March 1976, in the journal Proceedings of the IEEE ^[14]. Together with the earlier papers, this provoked an extended debate in the mainstream scientific literature. Numerous problems in the overall design of the remote viewing studies were identified, with problems noted in all three of the remote viewing steps (target selection, target viewing, and results judging). A particular problem was the failure to follow the standard procedures that are used in experimental psychology ^[15]. Experimental psychology approaches Psychology as one of the natural sciences investigates it using the experimental method.

Several external researchers expressed concerns about the reliability of the judging process. Independent examination of some of the sketches and transcripts from the viewing process revealed flaws in the original procedures and analyses. In particular, the presence of sensory cues being available to the judges was noted^[16]. A lengthy exchange ensued, with the external researchers finally concluding that the failure of Puthoff and Targ to address their concerns meant that the claim of remote viewing "can no longer be regarded as falling within the scientific domain"^[17][18].

Procedural problems and researcher conflicts of interest in the psychokinesis experiments were noted by science writer Martin Gardner in a detailed analysis of the NASA final report ^[19]. Martin Gardner (b October 21, 1914, Tulsa Oklahoma) is a popular American mathematics and science writer specializing in Recreational mathematics Also, sloppy procedures in the conduct of the EEG study were reported by a visiting observer during another series of exchanges in the scientific literature^[20].

References

External links

• SRI International website

• SRI International is at coordinates 37°27′27″N 122°10′35″W / 37.45758, -122.17650 (SRI International)Coordinates: 37°27′27″N 122°10′35″W / 37.45758, -122.17650 (SRI International)

A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system.

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