'Hello,' I said, taking advantage of the awkward pause to introduce myself. 'I spoke with you this morning on the phone.'
'Yes,' came the slow but deliberate reply. 'I know. I've been expecting you. Won't you come in?'
The house was small but comfortable enough, and unexpectedly cool - a welcome change from the afternoon heat. A small, ancient aluminium fan was purring from its place on the sitting-room floor, sending a thin stream of welcome breeze back and forth across the otherwise silent room.
'Seat?' said the old gentleman, indicating an ageing and somewhat sway-backed sofa in the front corner of the room.
'Thanks,' I replied, looking around. 'You certainly seem to have found a comfortable enough means of keeping out of the world's way up here. I can't imagine you get very many visitors.'
'If I wanted visitors, I wouldn't be here,' he replied, fixing me with a slightly suspicious eye. 'Actually, I live comfortably enough, all things considered. No one bothers me much, and I don't bother anyone else either. I try to keep it that way.'
Speaking guardedly at first, Dr Rinehart slowly warmed to his topic.
'They still watch over me, you know. In fact, it's actually come to the point where I try to avoid going certain places in the town because of the sudden interest my appearance there seems to create - especially around certain buildings down at the university. I used to like to pay an occasional visit to that place, but the security guards seem somehow keyed to react to my presence there, so I don't go much any more. Same thing happens when 1 show an interest in purchasing travel tickets. Soon as I give my name, the security people perk up. I tried it once just to see if it wasn't my imagination. It wasn't.
'So you came all this way just to discover what I can tell you about that ship experiment, did you? You know, I've done a good deal of thinking about that since you first made contact. I'm an old man now, and that was a long time ago. Memory is a bit hazy on some of the details, but if you're willing to do a lot of listening, I'm willing to take a chance on you and let a few cats out of the bag - provided, of course, that you haven't forgotten your promise regarding my anonymity. That above all else is important. In fact, you might say it's become the key word of my life style of late.'
'I remember the promise,' I said, attempting a smile, 'and when it comes to an opportunity like this one, I can also be a very good listener.' I waited.
He stared at me a moment as if trying to clear away the last lingering doubts about what he was about to say. Then, settling back in his chair, he began to unravel one of the strangest tales I have ever heard.
'You know, of course,' he began, 'that an experiment first begins as an idea, then a thought proposition (tested by calculation or the like), then a project, and finally an experiment, or experiments, in the usual sense. The persons initially concerned with this one were very few. Most had somewhat varied immediacies to contend against.'
Again a pause, presumably for a moment's reflection on just how he should proceed. When he resumed speaking, the words came slowly and seemed to have been chosen carefully.
'The Unified Field Theory,' he resumed, 'has remained an incomplete structure -even today. No one can properly claim to have made a complete "recheck" of "that theory" in my view. Of course, there have been contributions toward the goal, and several papers with the title (the German is Einheitliche-Feld Theorie), but the substance of those papers is not "complete" in the sense in which the Special Theory of Relativity is "complete" and the General Theory is deeply developed. This, you understand, is my personal evaluation.' Another pause, and then the bombshell: 'I have thought this over,' he said, 'and have come up with a few fairly well-defined memory impressions of ideas and calculations on a project which quite possibly developed into a full-scale ship experiment.'
He was hedging, I thought. I could tell because his words had begun to take on that guarded, carefully chosen quality. 'I have impressions of wartime conferences in which I recall the participation of naval officers. In relation to the project in which you are interested, my memory persistently suggests an inception distinctly earlier than 1943, perhaps as early as 1939 or 1940 when Einstein was concerned with ideas in physical theory brought to him by physicists and others who had military applications in mind—
'By recalling a number of [events], I think I can say with some degree of certainty that the proposal initiators were Einstein and [Rudolph] Ladenburg. I do not know who should be named first; and if the initiators were "Blank," Einstein, and Ladenburg, then I cannot now recall Blank's identity. I do know that Professor Ladenburg ... had known Einstein since Switzerland in 1908. He was a reticent, meticulous sort of character with old Prussian aristocratic manners; but he was deeply respected by colleagues as a relaxed "lone thinker" and worker.'
During the course of this revelation, Rinehart had gotten to his feet and was now peering nervously out the window through a small chink in the Venetian blinds. Apparently satisfied that our solitude wasn't about to be disturbed, he went on with his story.
'Getting back to Ladenburg, he was quite an expert in the area of mines, torpedoes, and countermeasures against them. I particularly remember a large
conference or colloquium, during which a possible German weapon development came into discussion. My superior, the physicist, Dr W. W. Albrecht [pseudonym], was impatient with some not very bright ideas put forward by some uninhibited "names and ranks." Albrecht broke into the discussion by calling on Ladenburg as "the only person present who had had German military experience," and referred to him as having been a submarine commander or something during the Great War. I suspect that this remark may have been intended more for its possible shock effect than as a statement of fact. I'm not entirely certain whether Ladenburg ever was a submarine officer of any sort or not; but it really doesn't matter since the tactic itself proved successful. Ladenburg stood up stiffly at this point and proceeded to lay out in a few assured-sounding sentences what the Germans had and could do. The "names and ranks" promptly subsided, and the conference went back on track. Someone remarked to me later something to the effect that you would think that Ladenburg had just walked out of the Germans' front office.'
Rinehart chuckled lightly to himself and continued.
'Ladenburg had been working in the Princeton physics laboratory on fission experiments in the summer and fall of 1939. I think I read somewhere that he is thought to have discussed these with Einstein. In any event, I think I recall from about 1940 that the proposal I associate with the pre-ship projects was supposed to be the result of discussions between Ladenburg and Einstein on using electromagnetic fields to counter mines and torpedoes, and that... Einstein himself [was] the actual proposal writer....
'Einstein and Ladenburg were forward people in advancing project proposals, but they were quite content to be rear-rankers in dealing with the brass. Von Neumann [Dr John von Neumann, 1903-57, early pioneer of the digital computer and well-known mathematician] was a modest-seeming person who found it interesting to try to influence and activate the powerful. On some proposal, very possibly the one at hand, von Neumann was asked by the Navy brass whether he was talking about this war or the next....
'Anyway, it was von Neumann who talked to Dr Albrecht on this proposal, and it was one or the other of them who obtained an indication of future cooperation on it from the Naval Research Laboratory. The proposal partly overlapped ideas developed by the physicist R. H. Kent [Robert Harrington Kent, 1886-1%1, noted American theoretical and research physicist] many years before during the course of design and experimental work with the solenoid chronograph. If you think about the principle of the solenoid chronograph, you will see why work with it would suggest all kinds of ideas about detection and defence against missiles by the use of electromagnetic fields.'
Rinehart evidently assumed that I knew what a solenoid chronograph was. I didn't, but an interruption at this point didn't seem in order. He continued:
'I think it was Kent who was the inventor of the solenoid
chronograph. He was at least its most important development man, and the first to use it to measure accurate drag coefficients for projectiles at high Mach number. He was likely to demonstrate the principle by dropping a magnetized iron slug through a solenoid and showing the current waveform resulting on an oscilloscope. If the audience included physicists, he also dropped the solenoid past the slug and obtained the same results. He then said, "See, the laws of physics are the same for any pair of inertia! coordinate systems." This, of course, was Einstein's second postulate in his 1905 paper on Special Relativity.
'I recall a story circulating to the effect that after learning of von Neumann's interest in such a project, Kent tried to locate some idea papers he had written on some similar topic away back when. According to the story, which I got from a friend of mine who was working in Kent's department down in Maryland at the time, his files had been moved from one location to another on several occasions, and what he wanted was not to be immediately located. Kent's reaction to this annoyance was said to have been to impress his entire office staff to aid in the search - a process which resulted in the entire place being literally turned upside down and creating one devil of a mess. Anyhow, a pair of ancient brown papers was unearthed at long last from a file and presented to him triumphantly.
'Following this incident, Kent proceeded to talk to physicists and engineers he had known many years before, possibly as far back as his Harvard days, but more likely from association during the First World War, or shortly after. One of these, I believe, was Professor Charles M. Allen.'
'Allen?' I started. 'Any connection to the Carl M. Allen we discussed in our correspondence?'
Rinehart stared at me and laughed. 'No,' he said, 'I don't think so. Not Carl Allen ... Charles Allen. Charles Metcalf Allen, I think. This fellow was a professor in hydraulic engineering up at Worcester Polytechnic at the time. Knew a great deal about ships, models, mines, and so on, and would have been a likely candidate with whom to discuss ideas. I must admit that I hadn't considered the similarity of names before; but no, I don't think they're connected. At least not closely, anyway. Professor Allen was an old man then, and quite distinguished. He must have been at least seventy when the war began.
'Now that I think about it, I feel confident that the idea of producing the necessary electromagnetic field for experimental purposes by means of the principles of resonance was also initially suggested by Kent - possibly as a result of these discussions with Professor Allen. I recall some computations about this in relation to a model experiment [i.e., an experiment conducted using scale models rather than real ships] which was in view at the time. I have the impression that the Navy "took hold" not long after these discussions between Kent and Allen. It also seems likely to me that "foiling radar" was discussed at some later point in relation to this project. I recall this vaguely in relation to some conference.
'To get back on the right track, however. It was most probably von Neumann who proposed the idea for such a project to what was then, in late '39 or early '40, known as the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), and it seems likely that Professor Kent gave him considerable support in pushing the proposal along.
My own personal contact with it did not come until after these initial steps had been taken and the NDRC people had expressed an interest in pursuing it further.'
'I wonder,' 1 broke in, 'what do you suppose was the reason for their interest in such a project?'
'Well,' he replied, 'that's simple enough to answer. From its beginnings this was strictly a defensive-measures type project rather than any attempt at creating offensive capabilities. The initial idea seems to have been aimed at using strong electromagnetic fields to deflect incoming projectiles, especially torpedoes, away from a ship by means of creating an intense electromagnetic field around that ship. This was later extended to include a study of the idea of producing optical invisibility by means of a similar field in the air rather than in the water.
'One day, probably early in 1940, at about 8:00 in the morning, Dr Albrecht, my superior, arrived in his office to find two or possibly three visitors from NDRC already waiting for him. Since this was not an especially unusual occurrence, I didn't think too much about it until about 9:30 or so, when Captain Gibbons came down the hall and put his head in at the door. He put up his finger, which was the signal for me to come out into the hall as he had something to say which could not be said in front of the whole office. I remember this because I was involved with some rather complicated theoretical work at the time and was busy talking to a computer on the telephone.' (Ed. note: These were the days before the advent of electronic computers. The 'computer' referred to here was a person who was particularly adept at performing rapid computations mentally.)
'Realizing that the matter must be of some importance, I broke off my work and went out into the hallway. Gibbons led me down the hall to the boss' office, where I found myself in the midst of a conference already in progress between these two (or was it three? NDRC people on the one hand, and Dr Albrecht and Dr von Neumann on the other. Von Neumann didn't stay long, however, and his purpose there may have been only to introduce the NDRC people to Albrecht and to briefly outline what the meeting was all about. He was frequently involved in carrying messages to and from Washington involving various NDRC and military projects, and so this would have been a normal role for him even if he hadn't been personally interested. Not to be overlooked, however, are the obvious advantages of such a position for promoting those ideas in which he was interested - this project included. In any event, he left the room soon after I arrived.'
Rinehart was up again and headed for another look out the window. Apparently satisfied at what he saw (or didn't see), he resumed his story.
'There was quite a discussion in progress when I came in concerning what was eventually to become this project you are interested in. Albrecht was the type who felt an obligation to stay in a discussion to keep it going, and frequently when he wanted some computations done he would send out for someone rather than leave the discussion to do them himself. Apparently he felt that I was the only one of sufficient background in gravity and relativity to get mathematical results of the
type he wanted in a hurry without asking too many questions about it, so I was called in.
'Albrecht had two or three sheets of paper, one of which had on it the small, spirally handwriting peculiar to only Dr Einstein. He wanted these sheets looked into while he was busy talking to these people, and he continued to try to talk to them while at the same time giving me instructions as to what I was supposed to do. He had on one part of a sheet a radiation-wave equation, and on the left side were a series of half-finished scratches. With these he pushed over a rather detailed report on naval degaussing equipment and poked fingers at it here and there while I marked with pencil where he pointed. Then Albrecht said I could see what would be needed to get a bending of light by, oh, I think 10 percent, and would I try to complete this enough to make a small table or two concerning it. I said, 'How long have I got?'
And he said, 'Not long.' Then he looked at the others and they started to talk and spoiled his train of thought
'I think,' he continued, 'that the conversation at this point had turned to the principles of resonance and how the intense fields which would be required for such an experiment might be achieved using this principle. I didn't really get an answer as to how long I had, but Albrecht nodded his head at me to go out and get to work; so I went back down the hall to Captain Gibbons and said to him, 'When do you think W. W. [Albrecht] has got to have this?' Gibbons thought a moment and said, Til take them to the Officers' Club and you can have through the lunch hour, but nothing more.' By one or two o'clock, no more.
'Albrecht's notes were not easy to follow, and I think that anyone with less of a mathematical and theoretical background than I had would have been pretty well lost. As it was, I saw what it was he was trying to do. This is not to say that there weren't other men in the department who could
have handled it just as well given the proper time, but Albrecht wanted to have figures on it right away and so it was left to me.
'It must have been a quick lunch, because Gibbons was back at 1:15 and I was still after it. I said to him that I wanted to make a memo out of it and a typed copy, and that I could have it ready by 3:00 if he could delay them that long. Gibbons said that wouldn't do, and that there was to be absolutely no typed copy. It was to be in pencil as it stood. "Miracles," I said, "Always they want miracles! ... Listen," I said, "Give me twenty or twenty-five minutes more and I'll see what I can do.' Gibbons wasn't happy about it, but there wasn't much else to be done if he wanted results. I got the twenty minutes.
'Somehow, I managed to finish a couple of small tables and a few sentences of explanation and brought all back as a memo. We went in to Albrecht, who looked it all over and said, 'You did all this regarding intensities [of the field] at differing distances from the [ship's] beam, but you don't seem to pick up anything fore and aft.' Albrecht always was a stickler for detail. I hadn't included this because I wasn't quite sure what it was he wanted exactly, and because there was more work
The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility Page 12