Reading Room

MK-CHIRON

CONTROL: / ONLY

13 February 1956

SUBJECT: Summary Report, Bench Trials Twelve through Twenty, Conducted 14 November 1955 to 31 January 1956

TO: W. Seaton, Director, MK-CHIRON

The undersigned forwards the present summary in respect of the bench trials enumerated above. The trials were conducted at the facility under the technical direction of the undersigned in accordance with the schedule agreed with the Director in the period following Bench Trial Eleven. The complete instrumental record of each trial, together with the photographic plates and the materials examination reports, is retained at the facility and is available upon application.

The trials are summarized in tabular form below, with such commentary as the undersigned considers necessary for the Director’s understanding. The trials are arranged by displacement vector.

REARWARD TRIALS

Bench Trial Twelve was conducted on 14 November 1955. Test article: steel sphere of one inch diameter. Displacement: thirty days rearward. The article was recovered with surface deterioration of a character not previously observed in trials of this magnitude. Mass reduction: approximately two per centum. The surface exhibited fine pitting of irregular pattern. The undersigned notes that the pitting was not observed in the rearward trials of the preliminary phase at comparable magnitudes; the magnitude is, however, the first conducted under the present apparatus configuration. The pitting has been tentatively attributed to the modification of the coupling.

Bench Trial Fourteen was conducted on 28 November 1955. Test article: steel sphere of three inches diameter, of identical specification to that employed at Trial Nine of the preliminary phase. Displacement: five hundred years rearward, to the year 1455. The article was recovered with positional drift of approximately fifty-eight inches. Surface alteration: extensive pitting and discoloration. Mass reduction: approximately seven per centum. The undersigned draws the Director’s attention to the fact that the mass reduction at five hundred years rearward in the present trial is substantially greater than that observed in the same article at the same magnitude during the preliminary phase, in which no mass reduction was detected. The undersigned does not, at present, have an explanation for the difference. The matter is under investigation.

Bench Trial Sixteen was conducted on 19 December 1955. Test article: a composite assembly consisting of a steel hull section of forty pounds mass with attached instrumentation of the type contemplated for operational use. Displacement: one hundred years rearward, to the year 1855. The assembly was recovered. The steel hull section was found to be unaltered save for fine surface pitting. The instrumentation was found upon examination to be non-operative; specifically, the wire of certain electrical components had become brittle and the insulation had cracked, in a manner consistent with prolonged exposure to dry heat. The chronometers fitted to the assembly were found to be running, but to read a time approximately fourteen minutes in advance of the laboratory chronometer at recovery. The matter of the chronometer discrepancy is reserved for further investigation. The undersigned offers no explanation at this time and resists the temptation to speculate.

Bench Trial Eighteen was conducted on 16 January 1956. Test article: a similar composite assembly. Displacement: one thousand years rearward, to the year 956. The assembly did not return. No alteration was detected in the apparatus at recovery, and the field was reported by Dr. (materials) to have dissipated normally. The assembly is presumed retained by the agency referred to in the documents of the program. The undersigned notes this as the first bench trial in which an article of less than ten tonnes mass has been retained. The matter is under investigation. No further bench trials of the rearward type have been undertaken at magnitudes in excess of five hundred years pending the conclusion of the investigation.

FORWARD TRIALS

Bench Trial Thirteen was conducted on 21 November 1955 as a replication of Trial Eleven at the same magnitude. Test article: steel sphere of one inch diameter. Displacement: seven days forward, to 28 November 1955. The article was recovered. Surface refinement: present, consistent with Trial Eleven. Mass change: none within instrumental tolerance. The undersigned considers the forward refinement phenomenon established as reproducible at this magnitude.

Bench Trial Fifteen was conducted on 12 December 1955. Test article: steel sphere of one inch diameter. Displacement: thirty days forward, to 11 January 1956. The article was recovered. Surface refinement: present and substantially greater than at Trial Thirteen. The surface, upon microscopic examination, exhibits no irregularity at the resolution of the laboratory’s instruments. has expressed the view, which the undersigned shares, that the article appears upon examination as if it had been finished by a process not available to this laboratory and not, in his view, available to any laboratory of his acquaintance. The mass is unchanged. The undersigned notes that the article, when it was recovered, was already in the apparatus chamber at the moment of recovery in advance of its translation. That is to say, the chamber contained both the pre-translation article and the post-translation article for the four-second duration of the trial, the pre-translation article being the one we placed in the field and the post-translation article being the one we received. The two articles were briefly in the same chamber. Dr. (materials), upon his own initiative, photographed the chamber during the duration. The photographs are appended to the present report. They show two spheres.

Bench Trial Seventeen was conducted on 4 January 1956. Test article: a small fragment of seasoned oak. Displacement: thirty days forward, to 3 February 1956. The article was recovered. Mass change: none. The fragment, however, exhibited a phenomenon the undersigned did not anticipate. The fragment as recovered was of the same external dimensions as the fragment as dispatched, but the internal grain structure, upon sectioning, was found to be different. The growth rings as recovered were tighter and more regular than the growth rings as dispatched. The fragment, in short, appeared to be of the same oak but of a piece more carefully selected. The undersigned does not offer an explanation. He observes that the forward direction does not merely refine surfaces. It appears to refine substance.

Bench Trial Nineteen was conducted on 23 January 1956. Test article: a steel sphere of three inches diameter. Displacement: five years forward, to 23 January 1961. The article did not return. No alteration was detected in the apparatus at recovery. The field dissipated normally. The undersigned notes this as the first bench trial in which a forward article has been retained, and as the magnitude at which the retention occurred. The matter is under investigation. The undersigned observes that the magnitude is the same order as the lower bound of magnitudes at which rearward articles have been retained.

Bench Trial Twenty was conducted on 31 January 1956. Test article: a steel sphere of one inch diameter. Displacement: one year forward, to 31 January 1957. The article was recovered with refinement of the character observed in earlier forward trials. Mass unchanged. The undersigned notes that the magnitude at which forward articles are recovered, and the magnitude at which they are retained, are separated by a comparatively narrow margin. The transition from recovery to retention is, in the forward direction, sharper than in the rearward direction.

OBSERVATIONS

The undersigned offers the following observations upon the body of the work to date.

The forward direction continues to exhibit refinement. The refinement is not confined to surface finish. It extends to internal structure, as Trial Seventeen has shown. The mass of articles is conserved across forward translation. The undersigned considers it established that the agency, or whatever process, that operates in the rearward direction to degrade articles operates in the forward direction to improve them.

The rearward direction continues to exhibit deterioration. The pattern observed in the preliminary phase is confirmed. The undersigned, however, draws the Director’s attention to Trial Fourteen, in which the mass reduction at five hundred years rearward substantially exceeded that observed at the same magnitude in the preliminary phase. The undersigned offers two hypotheses. The first is that the modification of the apparatus has altered the character of the rearward translation. The second is that the agency’s disposition toward articles dispatched by the apparatus has changed in the period between the preliminary phase and the present. The undersigned cannot at this time distinguish between the hypotheses. He inclines to the second.

The retention of articles by the agency in the rearward direction has commenced at smaller magnitudes than was previously observed. Trial Eighteen, at one thousand years rearward, retained a composite assembly of forty pounds mass. The May trial, at two thousand years rearward, retained a vessel of fifty tonnes. The progression is consistent with a tightening of the agency’s tolerance for our operations.

The retention of articles in the forward direction at magnitudes of five years and greater is a new phenomenon. The undersigned does not know whether the retention in the forward direction is by the same agency as in the rearward direction, or by a different agency, or by no agency at all but by some property of the manifold itself. The forward retentions have not been accompanied by any of the phenomena that characterize rearward retention. There has been no shadow. There has been no field disturbance. The articles simply do not return.

The undersigned considers the program now to be in possession of capabilities materially exceeding those it had upon Trial Eleven. He proposes that the program advance to a series of field trials in the forward direction, at magnitudes to be agreed with the Director. The proposed object of the forward trials is the systematic exploration of the forward direction at magnitudes the rearward bench trials have not yet been able to address, and the characterization of the conditions of forward retention. The proposed test article for the first forward field trial is a small aircraft of advanced design, to be obtained from . The proposed displacement is two years forward.

The undersigned is at the disposal of the Director.

LORENZ

Principal Technical Officer

MK-CHIRON

Inclosure: Photographs, Bench Trial Fifteen, showing two spheres in chamber during translation duration (under separate cover, )