Myron Evans and the Origins of the Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies
Myron Evans and the Origins of the Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies
By Kerry Pendergast (kp.atl@btinternet.com) A.I.A.S. May 15, 2023
In the second half of the twentieth century, the key to achieving a better understanding of the nature of light and the enigmatic photon was found to be the study of the far infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Crucially, spectroscopists working in this region of the electromagnetic spectrum were in pole position to bring together chemical physicists from across Europe and subsequently the world, to learn from one another and to publish in journals, such as, ‘Advances in Chemical Physics’ and in the book series, ‘The Enigmatic Photon’. This cooperation facilitated the solution of the intractable problems that had thwarted the unification of electromagnetism with quantum theory and gravity. The breakthrough was made by following a paper trail to the sophisticated and elegant non-Euclidean geometry that was needed, so that finally, with the help of a general relativity textbook and a cold winter, Einstein-Cartan-Evans theory was born in the spring of 2003. This article gives a short account of how this post Einsteinian Paradigm Shift occurred and how the AIAS came into being to take this revolutionary theory forward. It shows how Myron Evans created and guided teams of scientists who were at the leading edges of their fields, and performed the advanced research that culminated in the unification of gravitation, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics, through Cartan geometry.
The Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS) is an intellectually independent Institute of theoretical physics that was founded by Myron Wyn Evans (1950 – 2019) in 1998 to advance the development of ECE theory. Its fundamental philosophy is the pursuit of objective truth through the scientific method (and therefore its models are required to account for all the data). The path to ECE theory and the AIAS starts with Professor Mansel Davies’ pioneering work, carried out at Aberystwyth, in the use of far infrared spectroscopy, which was made possible by his cooperative development work with the Grubb Parsons Company of Newcastle and John Chamberlain’s team at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Interpretations of far infrared spectra are dominated by the subject area of dielectrics, pioneered by Peter Debye in the early twentieth century and later by Mansel who, from 1954 to 1975, used dielectric loss and relaxation as a means of probing molecular behaviour.
Debye relaxation is the dielectric response, of an ideal non interacting population of dipoles, to an external field. The strong field of a light wave can interact with and induce a dipole moment in a molecule, causing it to change its orientation with respect to the field. In a suitable optical field, the permanent dipole of the molecule can fail to keep up, producing non-linear optical effects. So an optical field, in the far infrared, is a factor in molecular orientation and spin, which can be interpreted in far infrared spectra.
The far infrared region of the spectrum, with a wavelength starting at a few millimetres, is unique with regards to the picoseconds time domain of its interactions with chemical bonds, thus allowing photons to polarise the bonds and to induce molecules to translate (move forward), librate or spin. This physical interaction facilitated insights into the nature of electromagnetism that mathematical physicists could not have hoped to gain without the use of advanced far infrared spectroscopic equipment, giving chemical physicists the edge and direction of travel, and it was to become the area in which Myron Wyn Evans was to specialise.
Myron was one of Mansel Davies' last students and his brilliance was already seen in his undergraduate studies at the Edward Davies Chemical Laboratories (EDCL), where he graduated top first. Myron then chose to work with Mansel on far infrared spectroscopy and related dielectric studies, rather than with Sir John Meurig Thomas, the Head of Department.
After publishing his first research paper [1] with Mansel in the Journal of the Chemical Society, Faraday Transactions, Myron soon became Mansel's understudy and was sent across France to Nice and Nancy to augment Mansel’s strong links with Kielich and Piekara in Poznan, Poland by fostering more extensive European cooperation between groups working on molecular liquids. There he was briefed in the use of microwave spectroscopy and computer simulation at Nice by Professors Claude Brot and Jean-Louis Rivail, and NMR techniques at Nancy [2] by Professors Jose Goulon and Daniel Canet. Importantly, he also started to learn how correlation functions could be processed by computers, a key addition to his modus operandi. On his return, Myron was also sent to the NPL in Teddington, to enhance the EDCL links there, and to the Post Office Telecommunications Research Department at Dollis Hill, in London, to work with Graham J. Davies [3].
Next, Myron was sent to Oxford for three years to work with the Dr. Lee’s Professor, Sir John Rowlinson FRS, who had been the external examiner for his Ph. D. He published his first paper in Oxford (his 16th) with Sir John [4] in Annual Reports, Progress in Chemistry (a yearly review journal published by the Royal Institute of Chemistry), and continued with his studies in the far infrared. He also continued building his trans--European links, which soon included Trinity College Dublin and the University of Amsterdam [5], and groups in Belgium [6], Germany and the Universities of Pisa and Bologna in Italy [7]. At Oxford, computer simulation was being pursued in Rowlinson’s group, which Myron would find most useful in the years to come. He was particularly impressed by Ph. D. student Dominic Tildesley’s ground breaking approach, and realized that this revolutionary new method could be used to produce the rotational velocity correlation function in the far infrared. Myron had taken up athletics in Aberystwyth and continued his afternoon sprinting routine in Oxford on the track at Iffley Road. One day there, Myron was amazed and thrilled, on one of his training sessions, to see Roger Bannister (the first man to run a mile in under four minutes) and his team of pacemakers, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, arriving and joining him on the track, reliving that great feat of 1954 together, for one last time, before the track was replaced by a synthetic one. Myron also took up residence in Wolfson College as a junior research fellow, becoming a Wolf!
Myron’s return to Aberystwyth was facilitated by his winning a British Ramsay Memorial Fellowship, and this was followed by a SERC Advanced Fellowship, which saved him from taking up a lecturing job in Swansea University. The most important thing Myron brought back from Oxford was a computer simulation programme written by Konrad Singer and Tildesley. On his arrival, Myron found that Sir John Rowlinson had acquired funding for the Grubb Parsons Company to send the latest state of the art far infrared spectrometer straight to the EDCL, for Myron’s use. At the EDCL Myron was soon assembling his own large post-doctoral team, taking over from Mansel and entrusting Gareth John Evans with the new spectrometer’s use, allowing himself to concentrate on the theory and computing aspects, running the group and applying for further funding.
At this point Kerry Pendergast (author) arrived to study solid state chemistry under Sir John Meurig Thomas, Mansel, Professor John Stuart Anderson FRS and Professor John Oswald Williams (later Principal of Owain Glyndwr University, then known as NEWI). Kerry learned the rudiments of far infrared spectroscopy from Mansel and was trained in the use of EDAX, electron diffraction and lattice imaging spectroscopy on the Siemens electron microscope, brought to the EDCL by JSA from Oxford, and the new Phillips machine procured by JMT, with funding from the Science Research Council (SRC). JMT later took the Phillips electron microscope to Cambridge after he was appointed Master of Peterhouse, but not before it had already been used to produce the world’s first graphene nanotubes! JMT, as Head of Department, took the opportunity to teach Kerry's first class, for the first hour that he was in the EDCL. At the end of his introductory lecture to the six new graduate students, John made an awesome prediction! He said, “Just yards from this room you will find the lab and office of Myron Evans, who has just returned from his three years of postdoctoral studies”. He then said, “I have already achieved much, but if anybody I have ever met is likely to achieve more, it is Myron”. With that the lecture ended. Interestingly, months later, JMT was awarded his FRS*, became a leading light at Cambridge and was then invited to be the Director of the Royal Institution. This made Myron's card being marked by JMT all the more extraordinary! So, if readers find some of what is written below a little unbelievable, just remember JMT's prediction!
A few months later, Professor J.O. Williams, JMT's right hand man was awarded the D.Sc. research degree, which signifies that the recipient has published many ground breaking papers and is a world expert in his field. Kerry congratulated him after reading the announcement in The Royal Institute of Chemistry’s magazine for members, Chemistry in Britain, and said, “You were young to receive this honour”. J.O. replied, “I thought I was fast, but Myron was awarded his D.Sc. at the same ceremony and only graduated six years ago!” Indeed, to be given this degree after just six years is a British and Commonwealth record to this very day!
The trips across France, funded by the French government, were formative on Myron and he went on to develop the correlation and memory function methods learned in France, to the level [8] which earned him both the Harrison Memorial Prize and Meldola Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, in 1978 and 1979 respectively, after recommendation by the NPL. This was the only time both medals had been awarded to the same person, and years later the medals were combined into just one award. Both of Myron’s medals are safely archived in Wolfson College.
*Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a “substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science”. Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour, and has been described by The Guardian as ”the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar”.
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society]
Next we will see how Myron's work as Mansel's understudy came to fruition. At the NPL, in 1980, Myron and George W. Chantry founded the EMLG, the European Molecular Liquids Group, and Myron gave it its logo of a drop of water about to fall. A conference followed in Sicily in 1981, where the plan of work, the Delta Project [9], was discussed. Myron used a vast award from the SERC to acquire a new state of the art Apollo pulsed laser, which provided a rich source of photons, not previously available at far infrared and microwave frequencies. Eventually the laser was transferred to the University of Pisa as part of one of the endeavours of the Delta Project of the EMLG in those early days. The EMLG is still going strong and now has links with a similar Japanese group, the JMLG. Subsequent to the 1981 conference in Sicily, the EMLG has established and maintained a series of 38 international conferences (the EMLG/JMLG annual meetings) in 17 different countries, as a platform for information exchange between researchers and students. Some of those meetings were supported by NATO as NATO Advanced Study Institutes, and by the European Science Foundation (ESF) as part of the prestigious ESF conference series. Myron became the EMLG’s first scientific coordinator, while George became its Chairman, and Jack Yarwood its Secretary, and they were instrumental in the conferences held in Dublin in 1982 and Florence in 1983. Fittingly, the 1984 conference was held in Nice and organised by Professor Brot.
Ilya Prigognine, the Director of the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry, was the 1977 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry and the founder and series editor of the Advances in Chemical Physics Journal. Ilya had put great planning into the establishment of his journal and it had become the premier publication in its field. Whereas other journals came out in dribs and drabs throughout the year and had to be bound during the summer months when the students were away, Ilya had the foresight to plan a year or two ahead, so that the articles came out as chapters in an immaculately bound volume annually, complete with index, preface and introduction, and the whole series was shelved in the EDCL library. Bound as quality book editions, even though being in reality a journal, it naturally had an editorial board of most accomplished chemical physicists listed at its front. The aim of this journal is to keep chemical physicists up to date in their specific areas, and to also let non specialists know what is going on throughout chemical physics, thus facilitating diverse cross fertilisation to occur. Myron was seen as the world leader in his field by Prigognine, adding credence to JMT’s view that Myron was the man to watch! So, after contributing to Volume 44 with Gareth and Russell Davies in 1980, Myron was thrilled to be invited by Ilya to be the editor of a special volume, Volume 62 of Prigogine’s book series, and to select an international group of scholars to present the very important developments in the theory of relaxation processes. Here, for the first time, the basic equations of motion were being brought to the world in a form suitable for the computation of a variety of observable phenomena in several different disciplines, with Myron contributing a chapter on how molecular dynamics were affected by intense external fields. Myron had made many contacts on the way to forming the EMLG, so he was able to invite some of them to report their contributions in this field in this or later volumes. Myron had so many contacts respond for this venture that Ilya immediately asked him to edit a follow-on volume, as Advances in Chemical Physics, Volume 63 with both volumes being published in January, 1985. This was just the beginning of their twenty years of collaborations, which went on till Ilya, sadly, died in 2003. By then, Myron had also edited Volume 85, as well as the game changing Volume 119, which came out in three parts in 2001, and alerted the world that the Heaviside Paradigm was ending and the Post Einsteinian Paradigm shift was starting, bringing in the new physics, bang in time for the new millennium!
Myron could see that powerful computers were the way forward as he moved further into the computer simulations of molecular dynamics, and soon became the biggest user of the Manchester computer, Britain’s most powerful. This did not go unnoticed in the USA and Myron was soon to be head hunted to cross the pond! Myron’s farewell paper [10] was written with his EMLG colleagues of Trinity College, Dublin, and communicated to the Royal Society by Francis James Macdonald Farley FRS in April of 1986. It described the culmination of Myron’s far infrared work and how the inertia and polarisations of molecules relate to the Debye theory, rounding off Myron’s EDCL research adventure, which followed Mansel’s lead. This paper was selected by Farley, on its scientific excellence and originality and for representing a significant advance in our understanding of molecular dynamics, for publication by the Royal Society. It was Myron’s 210th paper, since his first in 1973, giving him a publication rate of 16 papers a year, equating to a novel new paper every three weeks over the eventful thirteen years!
Myron crossed the pond to work at IBM’s supercomputer facility in New York State with Enrico Clementi [11] and George Chiao-Jang Lie, the manager of IBM Kingston. He also worked with Professor Konrad Singer and David Heyes back at Royal Holloway College on his brief return to London [12]. At Kingston, Myron found that IBM were starting to operate an internal email system and had produced the world’s first personal computer, the PS1. This was to make it much easier to communicate with colleagues across the world as the Internet took hold, and saved Myron much on time and postage. Myron started to use the new technique of computer animation in Kingston, and produced twenty papers in the Clementi environment between 1987 and 1988. Myron was interested in field induced optical activity [13] and came across a paper by Wagniere on the inverse Faraday Effect, before relocating to Cornell University for three years to again use IBM’s supercomputers.
Myron was now getting interested in circularly polarised beams, and worked with Chris Pelkie to produce an award-winning animation of the inverse Faraday Effect, which used very innovative computer technology for its time [14]. The world’s leading team in polarised light applied in the field of chemistry was led by Dean George Henry Wagniere in the University of Zurich. Consequently, to facilitate a better collaboration between the IBM team in Cornell and the Wagniere group, Myron accepted Wagniere’s invitation and moved to Zurich during the middle year of his time at Cornell [15]. In Zurich, Myron gained unlimited computer time at the IBM computer facility at ETH University (Einstein’s Alma Mater). Back at Cornell in November 1991, Myron made a breakthrough in our understanding of light with his discovery of the B(3) field of electromagnetic radiation. This was based on the ability of circularly polarised light of any frequency to produce magnetization in matter, which Myron realized was evidence for a longitudinally directed and fundamental B(3) field. Vector analysis was used to show that the conjugate product of nonlinear optics must produce a longitudinal field in free space. This was published as three papers, [16] [17] in 1992 and [18] 1993 in ‘Physica B’. This was a huge step forward that allowed the development of O(3) electrodynamics in a generally covariant format when the longitudinal component of the photon was incorporated as the B(3) field. This caught the attention of Prince Louis de Broglie's assistant, Jean-Pierre Vigier, in Paris, who was on the editorial board of Physics Letters A. Vigier had been left Louis’ actual chair on his retirement, which Vigier proudly now sat on when pondering the nature of the photon at his desk. This led to a decade long collaboration between Myron and Vigier.
In the nineties and into the millennium, Myron and Vigier contributed to and jointly edited the ground breaking book series 'The Enigmatic Photon'. At this time, Myron was again invited by Ilya to edit another special volume of Advances in Chemical Physics, Volume 85 (in two parts), entitled ’Modern Nonlinear Optics’, with Stanislaw Kielich, of the Kielich Research Institute at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan in Poland, with both parts being published in 1993. However, Myron’s work in his area of chemical physics was so prolific that a few years later Ilya Prigognine, seeing that this subject area was at last coming of age, tasked Myron with being the editor of yet another special edition of Advances in Chemical Physics, Volume 119. The title of the volume was again 'Modern Nonlinear Optics' and with Myron going into overdrive, it had to be published in three parts, in 2001. Myron used his role as editor to repeat his success in forming the EMLG, but this time on a global scale. Modern Nonlinear Optics, Volume 119, presented a dialogue between the, by now, two prevailing schools of thought: one concerned with quantum optics and Abelian electrodynamics, the other with the emerging subject of non-Abelian electrodynamics and unified field theory. The older paradigm, the Maxwell Heaviside theory, was developed in fields such as quantum optics, antenna theory, and holography, but it was also being challenged using general relativity, O(3) electrodynamics, superluminal effects, and several other theories. This brought a new millennial interpretation to this area of physics and showed how things were now moving into a new paradigm, signalling the importance of non-Euclidean geometry for a better understanding of electromagnetism and its relationship to quantum theory and gravity. Volume 119 surveyed developments in nonlinear optics over the previous ten years, and included advances in light squeezing, single photon optics, phase conjunction optics, and laser technology. It reviewed thousands of papers emerging from both schools of thought and provided the most up-to-date and complete coverage available at that time.
Nonlinear optics was a subject area brought in to being by Debye, and the unit of polarisation, ‘The Debye Unit’, is named after him. This subject was highly specialised, and it was being developed mainly at Aberystwyth (Mansel Davies wrote Debye’s obituary for the Chemical Society), and in Poland by Kielich’s group. Myron had set about contacting groups and individuals worldwide who had expertise in nonlinear optics, and the nature of the photon and its interactions with chemical bonds. This led to nonlinear optics being coordinated worldwide for the first time, and catalysed its progression to a more main-stream subject in a world now needing to get to terms with the use of lasers, dielectrics and semiconductors in a new millennium full of new electronic devices.
Thus an expert group of chemical physicists and mathematicians came forward to contribute to the two-part ground breaking volume “Advances in Chemical Physics” (Volume 85, 1993), and in so doing laid the ground work for the formation of the Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies. The AIAS came into being initially in its prototype form as the Institute for Advanced Studies, Alpha Foundation Institute, in 1996, with around twenty founding members. When Myron started writing books and papers with Vigier in the early nineties, Vigier’s collaborators Nils Abramson and Bo Lehnert, who had already written papers with Vigier, got to know of Myron’s work and vice versa and became founding members of the AIAS alongside some contributors to Modern Nonlinear Optics, who were similarly well placed to join the AIAS. In 1998, Myron was elected Director of the AIAS, and in 1999 the group started having papers published collectively as the “AIAS group”. Their laboratories were listed individually and a research institute address in Hungary was also used as a central contact point (until the creation of the AIAS website).
As such experts on the nature of electromagnetism continued to pool their knowledge and ideas into Myron’s twin projects, the continuing ‘The Enigmatic Photon’ series and the three-part ‘Modern Nonlinear Optics’, Volume 119, our knowledge of this fascinating area of physics leapt forward. Some of the contributors came forward to become a part of the fledgling AIAS. In addition, Professor John Hart of Xavier University, the organiser of the famous 1962 Conference there, was thrilled to become a founding member.
Boris Podolsky, Einstein’s famous assistant, completed his career at Xavier University. Einstein, Boris and Nathan Rosen came up with the EPR Paradox as an attempt to prove to mathematical physicists, led by Neils Bohr and his supporters of the Copenhagen interpretation, that quantum theory was deterministic and not governed by probability in an unrealistic way. Einstein and Rosen also came up with the idea of an Einstein Rosen Bridge, which is featured in modern science fiction films, such as ‘Thor’ (and Podolsky and Rosen were featured in the Meg Ryan film IQ, with Einstein being played by Walter Matthau).
Professor John Hart, as Podolsky’s Head of Department, took the opportunity to organise the famous Xavier University Conference there in 1962, with Podolsky, Rosen, Eugene Wigner and Paul Dirac as some of the illustrious attendees. John proclaimed ECE theory to be the physics of the next two hundred years, and had a big sign erected on his detached house in the Xavier campus, with the AIAS website proudly shown.
Ilya Prigognine died in Brussels in May, 2003, at the age of 86, leaving a vast scientific legacy. The AIAS is grateful for the help he gave in getting our physics out into the world. This gap left by his departure was only partially filled by our book series, ‘Generally Covariant Unified Field Theory’, a cluster of other books and our website becoming increasingly well known, which allowed us to publish our own new Unified Field Theory (UFT) series of papers directly on our website. To date, we have over 450 UFT papers and we are working on publishing further textbooks.
The first AIAS website, on which our preprints could then be posted, took off thanks to Bob Gray at Biophan Inc. in New York State, who constructed it in May 2002. Myron was thrilled to find that for the first time he was getting feedback in real time of the interest being shown in his work. Through the website, Myron was able to present the progression from O(3) electrodynamics to a theory that included gravitation, and then to a unified field theory, in a rapid, comprehensive and coherent manner. The website was later improved and redesigned by Sean MacLachlan.
The Alpha Institute utilises the maths of Hamilton, Lagrange, Bernoulli, Euler, Riemann, Clifford, James Clerk Maxwell and Cartan, and applies it to describe the geometry of the spacetime of electromagnetism, gravity and quantum mechanics. The AIAS builds on the insights of the Civil List Scientists, Dalton, Joule, Herschel, Faraday, Heaviside and Myron Wyn Evans. The ground breaking work of Planck, Debye, Davies, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, Prince Louis de Broglie and Jean-Pierre Vigier, and their contribution to our understanding of quantum theory and electromagnetism, are extended and described using non-Euclidean geometry to model the nature of spacetime and its intimate links to electromagnetic potentials and fields.
Over the winter of 2002 and into 2003, the new ECE theory crystallised when Myron came across the well-known book by Sean Carroll: ‘Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity’, which brought to Myron the geometry of Elie Cartan, opening the way to the promised land of the grand unified field theory that had been Einstein’s quest in his later years.
Myron was transfixed by Chapter 3, which is a brief synopsis of the geometry developed by Cartan in the 1920’s. The geometry was elegant, but abstract, and Myron set about turning it into a form that is more practicable and better understood by non-specialists, a process that he would pursue for the rest of his life!
Cartan had recognised that torsion was a fundamental property of geometry and could be used to extend general relativity in the ways that Einstein needed. However, Einstein had developed his general theory of relativity from 1905 to 1915, before Cartan geometry had been formulated. Consequently, Einstein’s use of curvature for gravity was just an approximation and only suitable up to the scale of the Solar System, beyond which the inverse law tells us that the curving of space would become weaker and torsion effects would become significant. As such, the incorporation of torsion was needed to correct the approximations used in the twentieth century and to allow unification to take place. Cartan had told Einstein as much in the 1920’s, but developing the Riemannian mathematics for the Einstein-Hilbert equation had taken both Einstein and Hilbert to their limits. So, after corresponding with Cartan in the twenties, Einstein left for the USA and the Institute for Advanced Studies and that was that, while Cartan continued developing his elegant mathematics back in France. While torsion had also been ignored by mathematical physicists throughout the twentieth century, the inclusion of the chapter on Cartan mathematics in Carroll’s textbook showed that some could see that it was important, but could not extend it in the way that was needed. However, Myron could!
In fact, Cartan geometry was a piece of cake to Myron. He had been dealing with non-Euclidean geometry all of his working life, in the form of Riemann geometry and Clifford algebra, combined with the work of Lagrange, Hamilton, Bernoulli and Euler. In comparison to the Clifford algebra he had been using to describe the enigmatic photon and electromagnetism, it was a breath of fresh air, and a form of geometry that Myron could master in just three months!
Torsion is defined in the first structure equation of Maurer and Cartan in terms of the tetrad and spin connection. Myron noticed that the first structure equation, written in terms of differential forms, had the same format as some vector equations of O(3) electrodynamics. That brought to mind the words of Kepler “Ubi material, ibi geometria” – “Where there is matter there is geometry”.
In March, 2003, Myron inferred the first ECE hypothesis - that the electromagnetic potential is a Cartan tetrad with a scalar proportionality, A(0). It then followed that: a) the electromagnetic field is the Cartan torsion within the same proportionality constant A(0); b) the gravitational potential is also a Cartan tetrad within another scalar proportionality; and c) the gravitational field is also Cartan torsion. Cartan’s elegant geometry meant that the B(3) field could be incorporated naturally into classical electrodynamics. There is also a counterpart to B(3) in gravitational theory. This work in March of 2003 was the start of the first successful unified field theory in the history of physics!
In 1977, Sir John Meurig Thomas FRS had suggested that Myron may outperform him in their scientific careers. That year was a watershed for the EDCL and indeed for chemistry in Britain. For the EDCL to have JMT as its Head of Department, Mansel Davies as his deputy, and Professor John Stuart Anderson FRS, Professor J.O. Williams and the rising star Myron Evans in the department all at the same time was remarkable and a high point in the history of chemistry in the whole of the University of Wales. However, things were changing in the world of chemistry and physics. The EDCL had doubled in size in the sixties, with an extension connecting to the main building, complete with a large lecture theatre and library. However, as the number of students going to universities rocketed, the number of students opting to study chemistry and physics to the final year of their degrees plummeted across the UK. This was because, until then, the main courses in colleges reflected the ‘A’ levels being offered in schools to gain university entrance. However, universities now started offering more and more courses, and more and more topics outside the main subjects of chemistry and physics. So as student numbers soared, the numbers taking chemistry and physics diminished rapidly, causing departments across the UK to close in quick succession. Today, there is a shortage of chemistry and physics teachers as the chickens have come home to roost. Similarly, the Chemical Society had to merge with the Royal Institute of Chemistry, to become The Royal Society of Chemistry. In 1978, JMT left for Cambridge and Mansel retired, and soon J.O. would leave and Myron would cross the pond. It would be hard to say who was the best out of Mansel, JMT and Myron, and that would not even be a relevant question to ask. It is better to marvel that they were all in the same department in the same time frame. However, there is no doubt that JMT went on to have a glittering career and fame. On the other hand, Myron’s work was soon to cause a paradigm shift in physics, a view that some mathematical physicists contest as if their lives depended on it. After the formation of the AIAS, Myron ran into difficulties caused by these mathematical physicists, and so he returned to Wales to set out the next phase of his scientific life, back home in the little cottage in which he was born in the Swansea Valley. From there he directed the operations of the AIAS for twenty years. Like Einstein, who ended his career at the Institute for Advanced Studies, probing the nature of the universe through non-Euclidean mathematics, Myron was to do the same, but from his home by using the power of the Internet to communicate rapidly and intensively with his AIAS colleagues worldwide, such that the last twenty years of his life were to become the most productive.
Myron’s prodigious work over thirty eventful years was widely seen as deserving recognition, by the Welsh and British governments at the highest level, after Bo Lehnert contacted them to point out the extent of Myron’s contributions to British science. It was soon accepted that the award of a Civil List pension would be appropriate, if supported by the relevant Royal Societies and senior scientists who had deep knowledge of Myron’s work. Civil List pensions are granted by the sovereign from the Civil List upon recommendation of the First Lord of the Treasury. They can be rarely awarded for attainment in literature and the arts, as has happened with William Wordsworth, Lord Byron's mother and more recently Molly Parkin. Much more rarely, a Civil List pension is awarded for useful discoveries in science, as was done for the dozen or so Civil List Scientists such as Faraday, Joule, Dalton, Herschel and Oliver Heaviside. The Civil List scientists are members of a famous and historically important group whose work has often been so significant, that it is associated with a paradigm shift. It has also been awarded to give recognition to scientists whose work is important, but who have been seen as not getting the recognition they deserve, as was the case for Alfred Wallace. The theory of evolution by natural selection is widely attributed to Charles Darwin, but Darwin asserted that it could be argued that Wallace had an equal claim to the theory and campaigned successfully for Wallace’s’ contribution to be recognised by Queen Victoria and the state, by the award of a Civil List pension to him.
In 2003, no scientist had been recognised in this way for over one hundred years. However, Professor Bo Lehnert had now started the ball rolling and Myron was being actively considered for this high honour. The Royal Society was consulted and the Royal Society of Chemistry took the lead role in the nomination process, starting in 2003 by contacting the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gordon brown). A cluster of international referees were consulted, which included Professor Alwyn van der Merwe and Professor John Hart. Professor Van der Merwe of the University of Denver was yet another close contact of Myron concerning his publications and collaborated with him on many ventures in the nineties. Alwyn had translated one of Prince Louis de Broglie’s books from French to English and was the founding editor of Foundations of Physics Letters in 1988. After due consideration, it was decided that the award of a Civil List Pension was desirable and so Gordon Brown passed the process on to Tony Blair, his neighbour in Downing Street, where international references were again taken up. On the 27th of September, 2004, out of the blue, Myron received a letter from 10 Downing Street from Tony Blair’s Appointment Secretary, telling him that his contribution to British science was being considered for a Civil List Pension, having been nominated by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
On March 14th, 2005, in accordance with Section 5 of the Act of 1837, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth signed the Warrant and stated she was graciously pleased to grant the Warrant in recognition of Myron's services to science in the 54th year of Our Reign. So, in 2005, by Act of Parliament and Royal Ascent, Myron became the first Civil List Scientist for over one hundred years, and was also invited to Buckingham Palace. In 2008, he was also given his own Coat of Arms, which is featured in the right-hand corner on the home page of this website.
Myron then gained permission from his various publishers to create an Omnia Opera, a list of his vast collected works, with hyperlinks to them. It is a feature of this website, which boasts around twenty thousand pages of new science and displays the hundreds of his papers that were published in the world’s best journals, vastly more than that of his detractors. The AIAS website is also archived by the National Library of Wales as a scientific website of national importance.
This article is only about the origins of the AIAS, and only goes as far as the millennium. What follows that is again hardly believable, but is well documented on this site in the form of the Unified Field Theory (UFT) Papers. They are also available by list and hyperlink, but be aware that they take some reading, because there are over 450 of them and they rewrite most of modern physics!
Enjoy!
1. M. W. Evans, Mansel Davies, and I. Larkin. Molecular Motion and Molecular Interaction in Nematic and Isotropic Phases of a liquid Crystal Compound. Journal of the Chemical Society, Faraday Transactions 2, 69(7), 1011-22 (1973).
2. J. Goulon, D. Canet, M. W. Evans, and G. J. Davies. Reinvestigation of the Methyl and Methoxy Group Hindered Rotation in p-Dimethoxybenzene by Comparison of Dielectric and Far Infrared Spectra with Carbon-13 NMR Relaxation Data. Molecular Physics 20(4), 973-95 (1975).
3. G. J. Davies and M. W. Evans. Far Infrared Manifestation of Intermolecular Dynamics in Compressed Gaseous and Liquid Chlorotrifluoromethane. Journal of the Chemical Society, Faraday Transaction 2, 71(7), 1275-92 (1975).
4. J. S. Rowlinson and M. W. Evans. The Motions of Simple Molecules in Liquids. Annual Rep. Prog. Chem., Sect A: Phys. Inorg. Chem., 72, 5-30 (1975).
5. G. J. Evans, M. W. Evans, J. H. Calderwood, W. T. Coffey and G. H. Wegdam. The Planar Itinerant Oscillator. A Discussion in its use in Reproducing Experimental Data from Three Separate Sources. Chemical Letters 50(1), 142-6 (1977).
6. E. Kestermont, F. Hermans, R. Finsy, R. Van Loon, G. J. Evans, and M. W. Evans. Numerical Solution for Itinerant Libration in Two Dimensions. Chemical Physics Letters 58(4), 521-4 (1978).
7. P. Grigolini, M. Ferrario and M. W. Evans. Probability Diffusion in non-Markovian, non-Gaussian Molecular Ensembles: A Theoretical Analysis and Computer Simulation. Zeitschrift fur Physic B, 41(2), 165-76 (1981).
8. M. W. Evans. Correlation and Memory Function Analysis of Molecular Motion in Fluids. Mansel Davies, Ed., Dielectric and Related Molecular Processes 3, 1-44 (The Royal Society of Chemistry, London, 1977).
9. M. W. Evans and J. Yarwood. Proposals for a European Project on the Consistent Evaluations of Molecular Dynamics in Liquids. Advances in Molecular Relaxation and Interaction Processes, 21(1) 1-87 (1981).
10. W. T. Coffey, P. Corcoran, and M. W. Evans. On the Role of Inertial Effects and Dipole-Dipole Coupling in the Theory of the Debye and Far-Infrared Absorption of Polar Fluids. Proc. Roy. Soc. London, A, 410(1838), 61-88 (1987).
11. M. W. Evans, G. C. Lie, and E. Clementi. Molecular Dynamics of Liquid Water in a Circularly Polarised Field. Journal of Chemical Physics 87(10), 6040-5 (1987).
12. M. W. Evans and D. M. Heyes. Brownian Dynamics Simulation. In E. Clementi ed., MOTECC 89, Chap. 9 (Escom, Leiden, 1989).
13. M. W. Evans. Chirality of Field Induced Natural and Magnetic Optical Activity. Physics Letters A 146(4), 185-9 (1990).
14. M. W. Evans and Chris Pelkie. Optical NMR Theory, Simulation and Animation. J Opt. Soc. Am., B-Opt Physics 9(7), 1020-1029, (1992); and Scientific Excellence in Supercomputing, The IBM 1990 Contest Prize Papers, Volume 1.
15. M.W. Evans, G. Wagniere and S. Wozniak. Molecular Dynamic Simulations of Nonlinear Optical Effects, Electric Polarization due to Optical Rectification in a Circularly Polarized Laser. Physica B, 173, 357 - 385 (1991).
16. M. W. Evans. The Elementary Static Magnetic Field of the Photon. Physica B 182, 227-236 (1992); also in Ref. 378, pp. 112 - 126.
17. M. W. Evans. On the Experimental Measurement of the Photon’s Fundamental Static Magnetic Field Operator B: The Optical Zeeman Effect in Atoms. Physica B 182, 237-243 (1992).
18. M. W. Evans. The Photon’s Magnetostatic-Flux-Density B(3): the Inverse Faraday Effect Revisited. Physica B 183, 103-110 (1993).
I would like to thank Gareth Evans, Horst Eckardt and John Surbat for reading this work and helping with valuable suggestions.