The interest in anti-gravity by two private investors, Roger Babson and Agnew Banhson, changed the course of general relativity. Sponsor: Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/TOE for 20% off - Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal (early ad-free audio podcasts) - Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-with-curt-jaimungal/id1521758802 - Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything - TOE Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch THANK YOU: Thank you to David Kaiser, Eric Weinstein, Jeremy Rys, David Chester, and Jesse Michels for helping bring this to my attention. LINKS MENTIONED: - The Price of Gravity (Kaiser, Rickles): https://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www/HSNS4803_03_Kaiser.pdf - Chapel Hill Conference's Report (The Role of Gravitation in Physics): https://edition-open-sources.org/media/sources/5/Sources5.pdf - Behind the scenes of the 1957 Chapel Hill Conference: https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/journal/154-2-Rickles.pdf - Gell-Mann's Shelter Island Notes: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/files/Gell-Mann_ShelterIslandII_1983.pdf - Louis Witten's Recollections (video): https://youtu.be/iH8btReqv4c?t=6448 - Louis Witten speaks to Rickles: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/36985 - Physical Interpretation of Antigravity by Bars: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.05128.pdf - Garry Nolan's podcast on TOE: https://youtu.be/g3bk1UXjKLI TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Roger Babson & Agnew Banhson 00:07:09 - Gravity Research Foundation's "Essay Contest" 00:12:22 - Anti-gravity and Amendments to General Relativity 00:16:43 - Operation Moonwatch and UFOs 00:18:36 - Ed Witten's father (Louis) and Burkhard Heim 00:25:43 - Summary 00:26:32 - Chapel Hill Conference 00:27:58 - Revival of General Relativity (Hawking & Penrose) 00:30:44 - String Theory and the Legacy of Babson & Banhson 00:33:01 - Dean Rickles, David Kaiser, and Other Documentaries CLARIFICATIONS: - Technically it was George S. Trimble who started the RIAS. Witten’s supervisor was someone named Welcome Bender. I had this in the original script but it was becoming extortionately bloated with various names, and since Trimble was the CEO of Glenn Martin, I decided to phrase it the way I did in the script. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.