a a a Approved Fag Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-007&%jr000400100023-4 st SCIENCE Puthoff, Hyman said that he was abic to spot the “loopholes and inconclusive- ness” of each feat. He 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 a 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 Hyman, carefully observing Geller, noticed that the Isracli’s open eyes were visible through his fingers. Thus Geller was probably abie 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. (He did not.) Hyman notes that Targ did not feel that it was necessary to search Geller. Hyman’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 Puthotf 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- tecred to demonstrate his powers to TIME’s editors. Last month he appeared at the Time-Life Building in Manlfattan 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 cach 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 had 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. 112 ‘ i ' SPP MEA LAER RY MORRIS IN Ee PNREM IIT ATROTSES UREM TE te TE IOOREAE NSP TASS RT MEMND A NINA 6 NER TREE Sine ee Nia. axes PFW 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, F.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- quium in Manhattan, where Targ is scheduled to report on his studies and show a film of Geller in action. ON AT CAMBRIDGE JOSEPHS Supercocled Compuiers The essential characteristic of all modern computers is speed. Their pro- digious memorics 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 clectric 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 6e aft 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 [00 times faster than the fastest transistor uscd 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. “(At normal temperatures, an 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 N LICHTRER 2 ameter high-speed, supercooled electronic brains are not far in the future. *The disappearance of elcctrical resistance in cer- tain materials when they are cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero (—459.7° F.), TIME, MARCH 12, 1973 Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100023-4