Helmut Schmidt (parapsychologist)

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Helmut Schmidt (born February 21, 1928 in Danzig ; † August 18, 2011 in Las Vegas (New Mexico) ) was a German-American physicist who became known as a parapsychologist .

Life

Schmidt was born in Danzig and studied in Göttingen (MA degree in mathematics 1953) and in Cologne (doctorate in physics 1958). He taught theoretical physics at universities in Germany, Canada and the USA.

He met Kläre Niessen in Cologne and married her in 1955. They emigrated to the USA with their three children in 1965, where he initially worked for five years in research at Boeing in Seattle . Subsequently (from 1969) he was one of the first physicists at the Rhine Research Center at Duke University in Durham and at the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio (1974-1993) to study parapsychological phenomena.

The "Schmidt machine"

He developed one of the first random number generators , the "Schmidt machine" named after him, and researched the influence of human consciousness on machines ( psychokinesis ). The machine was based on the purely accidental decay of radioactive strontium-90 atoms. Such disintegration started the Geiger counter and lit one of four lights on the machine. The test subjects had to press one of four switches beforehand to guess which light would come on next.

Together with Henry Stapp (* 1928), a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he developed experimental arrangements for retropsychokinesis.

In 1993 he retired and moved to New Mexico .

His experiments have been repeated in numerous laboratories around the world. Over 800 research reports from 68 laboratories confirmed his findings that our traditional assumptions about the role of consciousness in the material world are incomplete.

Publications (selection)

  • Quantum Processes Predicted? New Scientist, October 1969, pages 114-115.
  • Mental Influence on Random Events. New Scientist and Science Journal 1971, pages 757-768.
  • Psi as an interaction between mental processes and external quantum processes. Psi and psyche (E. Bauer, editor). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Stuttgart, 1974, pages 187-195.
  • Toward a Mathematical Theory of Psi. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69 (1975) pp. 302-319
  • PK Effecton Pre-Recorded Targets. The Journal for the American Society for Psychical Research 70 (1976) pp. 267-291
  • Can an Effect Precede Its Cause? A Model of a Non-causal World. Foundations of Physics 8, June 1978, pp. 463-480.
  • Experiments in ESP and psychokinesis with the ATARI computer. San Antonio, Tex., 1982
  • Randomness and the Mind. Looking for Psychic Effect in Games of Chance. Creative Computing, April 1983, pages 180-186.
  • "Additional effect for PK on pre-recorded targets", Journal of Parapsychology, 1985, Vol. 49, pages 229-244.
  • The Strange Properties of Psychokinesis. Journal of Scientific Exploration 1 (1987) pp 103-118
  • Observation of a Psychokinetic Effect Under Highly Controlled Conditions. Mind Science Foundation 1993 (also in Journal of Parapsychology 57 (1993), pages 351-372)
  • Random generators and living systems as targets in retro-PK experiments. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 91 (1997) pp. 1-13

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.obitsforlife.co.uk
  2. Stapp, H. (1994). Theoretical model of a purported empirical violation of the predictions of quantum theory. Physical Review A, 50, 18-22
  3. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Helmut+Schmidt%3A+1928-2011.-a0280004576 Obituary by Marilyn Schlitz (English)