The interest in anti-gravity by two private investors, Roger Babson and Agnew Banhson, changed the course of general relativity.

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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.

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