Leo J. Baranski

In 2005, the world celebrated Einstein Year to honor the many great contributions Albert Einstein made to science beginning with his special theory of relativity (1905). As part of this celebration, and with the kind permissions of Dorothy Lemay and Dr. James Watson, this website makes available the remarkable Temporal Characteristics of Dynamic Contour Perception, Ph.D. thesis of Leo Baranski. This dissertation was presented at Princeton University in 1959-1960 ostensibly for Baranski's completion of a doctorate in Psychology. Dr. Einstein participated as an advisor and reviewer of this important research paper and is said to have commented that if he had it all to do over again, he would begin with Baranski's approach. In this research Baranski performed a fundamental experiment that demonstrated the essentially quantum nature of perception. This means that the Observer himself is a quantum mechanical device. And human perceptual quanta are at the macroscopic scale!! The implications of this discovery should be apparent to any reasonably intelligent reader, which is probably why this research has been so thoroughly shelved for the past 55 years. Baranski was a brilliant scientist whose untimely death cut short a remarkable career.

In 1960 Dr. Baranski published his book Scientific Basis for World Civilization: Unitary Field Theory. This ambitious work was not a technical document addressed to specialists, but his vision presented to all mankind of how we got here and how we can create our own future. Using scientific methodology he attempted in one volume to encompass "The origins, evolution, current operation, and future destiny of the universe, life, mind, and the social group." He dedicated his work "To the men, women, and children of the world who, through their learning of science, grow in the understanding and knowledge of themselves, their universe, the earth and all its peoples, and through this understanding bring forth in our time a community of nations dedicated to living in peace, progress, prosperity, and freedom." With the kind permission of his family and friends I am posting this visionary document on this website. Dr. Baranski was a brilliant scientist and educator who strongly believed that we on this planet are in a position now to create a lasting and vibrant Enlightened Planetary Civilization. This document was one of his many unrecognized contributions. The pagination of the original document is given in the margins.

*Thanks to Dorothy Lemay, Dr. James Watson for making the text available. Thanks to Roger Anderton for valuable assistance in editing the typescript.

"An Outline Summary of Unitary Field Theory”

by Leo J. Baranski, Ph. D. 
In this paper Baranski provides some background sources of the Unitary Field Theory, outlines the basic concepts, and gives several examples of the unitary concept of a formative-organizing process drawn from various disciplines.

Here are some charts and drawings to accompany Baranski’s outline summary of UFT.

Influences on Baranski…

The Unitary Principle in Physics and Biology by Lancelot Law Wythe, 1949.

 

Baranski was strongly influenced by L.L. Whyte. Early in his career Whyte worked with Rutherford. Then he learned German and spent time at the Max Planck Institute with Einstein. Whyte and Baranski, though a generation apart, both spent time with Einstein. They later met several times to share notes on their research into the Unitary Theory. For historical background on the development of Baranski's ideas we present here this book by Whyte. To explore the development of Whyte's ideas from 1948 on, I recommend reading selections from his diaries.

 In this paper Whyte presents some arguments about the nature of atomic matter and the problems of the physical constants associated with them. He begins with the dimensionless "fine structure constant" which was noted quite early in the history of quantum mechanics by Einstein, Sommerfeld, Bohr, and others. The role of the constants, and especially their dimensionless groups such as the fine structure constant play an extremely important role in quantum physics that is still not well understood. Whyte challenged physicists and mathematicians to focus on probing more deeply into these issues to achieve an understanding of the atomic nature of matter. This is good background reading for the recent developments of Observer Physics.

 
 

This set of papers on the life and works of the Jesuit scientist, Roger Boscovich, throws light on a remarkable precursor of modern quantum physics. Boscovich was centuries ahead of his time.

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