A Linear Pendulum Experiment: Effects of Operator Intention on Damping Rate

Abstract-An attractive pendulum consisting of a two-inch crystal ball sus-pended on a fused silica rod is the focus of an experiment to measure possible effects of conscious intention on an analog physical system. The pendulum is enclosed in a clear acrylic box, and provided with a computer controlled me-chanical system to release it from the same starting height in repeated runs. A high speed binary counter registers interruptions of photodiode beams, to measure velocities at the nadir of the pendulum arc with microsecond accura-cy. In runs of 100 swings, taking about three minutes, operators attempt to keep swings high, i.e. to decrease the damping rate (HI); to reduce swing am-plitude, i.e. to increase the damping rate (LO); or to take an undisturbed base-line (BL). Over a total of 1545 sets, generated by 42 operators, the HI- LO difference is significant in the direction of intention for five individuals, and the differ-ence between intention and baseline runs is significant and positive for five other operators. The overall HI- LO difference is reduced to non-signifi