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GERALD EPLING - Shimmering Leaf Inventor

How about another level of randomizing? I'd need to know more about the claimed abilities, but perhaps there could be a way to organize tests so that any one of multiple senders doesn't know if their attempt is going to count.

For example, assume a device that reacts only when two or more of the three senders think about boiling an egg. Each sender is isolated, when one is told to think about boiling, that sender doesn't know if the expected outcome is a reaction or not. If one sender had a remote control, it would be obvious upon analysis that the reaction correlated to that sender. Of course there are steps a dishonest sender could take to try and disguise that correlation.

It might be easier to try to detect or block any EM transmissions. When I worked for a defense contractor, there was a shielded room that some groups used for tests and measurements.

Another possibility is if a second detector could be set up out of "range" of any influence the sender might have and used as a control, but again we need Mr. Epling to speak on the feasibility of that idea.
 
rjh, its not a question of thickness, its a question of tightness. Cracks or slots in a cover, which means a strech where plates are not electrically connected, work like an antenna, provided they are not very short, compared to the wavelenght. And since the wavelength for a mobile phone is quite short (33 cm for 900mHz), even moderate slots will let signals in and out.

Thus, a good wrapping in alu foil is tight enough to keep signals in and out, but the fridge has a long slot all along the door (and probably part of the enclosure is not metal, but plastic), so it works fine inside that.

If it works inside your microwave oven, otoh, I'd give it a thorough check. However, it could be all right, because the microwave works on a much shorter wavelength, so the filters installed where wires to internal lightning, fans, etc. pass therough the enclosure may not be efficient at cell-phone frequencies.

PS: When trying a cellphone in a microwave, D.O N.O.T turn on the microwave :eek:.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
(good points snipped)
If it works inside your microwave oven, otoh, I'd give it a thorough check. However, it could be all right, because the microwave works on a much shorter wavelength, so the filters installed where wires to internal lightning, fans, etc. pass therough the enclosure may not be efficient at cell-phone frequencies.
(...)
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I guess a microwave oven is just not a good Faraday cage. It is just decent (hopefully) at it's own wavelength. Does this mean that my idea of using a Faraday cage is vindicated after all? Anyway, mr. Epling has not claimed to be able to communicate with an egg sealed in a Faraday cage. It may be a "telling a violinist to play the piano"-thing.
 
Ririon said:
I guess a microwave oven is just not a good Faraday cage. It is just decent (hopefully) at it's own wavelength. Does this mean that my idea of using a Faraday cage is vindicated after all? Anyway, mr. Epling has not claimed to be able to communicate with an egg sealed in a Faraday cage. It may be a "telling a violinist to play the piano"-thing.
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Perhaps make a large Farraday cage, and have the testee and the egg inside? Then you could use an EMF detector of some sort to determine if any signals were being sent within the cage.

Dunno the feasibility of that, but it's a thought. Mythbusters used a similar setup when they were testing cell phones and avionics equipment.
 
If we are testing a device that Mr. Epling has made, and not actually a paranormal ability of Mr. Epling. Do we even need to have him present during the testing?

Perhaps we could have a randomly selected person perform the test (or several people) who would not be in collusion with Mr. Epling?
 
Oh! Another idea!

The device has lead wires to connect to the "egg", right? Well, run multiple trials. In some, the device is hooked to an egg. In others, it's hooked to something else (a cucumber? I dunno). Run the lead wires into a box that covers the object it's hooked up to.

If he's right, the machine should only react when the object his machine is hooked to is an egg, and not when it's something else.
 
Huntsman said:
If he's right, the machine should only react when the object his machine is hooked to is an egg, and not when it's something else.
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I thought his device would work with any "living" object, but he just got better results with an egg? What if I was threatening the cucumber with pickling brine?

Does anyone else see a similarity between the shimmering leaf, and a Scientology E-meter?
 
Perhaps we could have a randomly selected person perform the test (or several people) who would not be in collusion with Mr. Epling?
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He could claim the person was not truly random, but a cohort of JREF; or incompetent in following directions how to operate the device; or not a true believer and the result was skewed by the 'negative vibes.'
 
webfusion said:
He could claim the person was not truly random, but a cohort of JREF; or incompetent in following directions how to operate the device; or not a true believer and the result was skewed by the 'negative vibes.'
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Perhaps I don't fully understand the claim, then. I thought all that was required was that the egg be threatened with the possibility of being boiled. I didn't realize that the thoughts of the person doing the potential boiling was part of the protocol?

All we're trying to do is eliminate the chance of tampering by way of hidden remotes?

What if the egg were shown photographs of other eggs being boiled?

I'm finding it really hard NOT to be sarcastic right now....
 
Also how far can the egg and the Shimmering Leaf™ be separated and still work?

The more I think about it the more I think this is a trick.
 
Protocol to address remote control

How about this as a test setup to address the concerns of remote and/or timed activation?
Use two detectors. One set of leads is conected to an egg, the other set of leads is conected to an "egg substitute", perhaps an egg shell full of salt water. The leads go to a plug board or switches that allows either detector to be connected to either target. The switches and the person who does the connecting are out of sight of the sender.
For each test, randomly determine whether the sender thinks about boiling the egg or not, and randomly determine which detector is connected to which target.
Mr. Epling would have to verify that his equipment will work with this setup.
The randomized send/dont send should satisfy any who suspects the device just activates randomly or after a fixed time.
The random target should satisfy any who think there is a remote activation (both devices would go off) or even addressable remote activation (half the time the wrong device would go off).
Everything would be videotaped to later verify success or failure.

If the device can detect an egg detecting the sender's intention to boil an egg, then only the correct device should activate, and only when the sender is thinking abut boiling an egg. "Only" should be taken to also read "within the stated accuracy of the device"

rjh01 said:
The more I think about it the more I think this is a trick.
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I suspect it doesn't work too, but I'm trying to come up with a protocol that's fair and protects both sides anyway. It's a fun challenge.

ETA: rjh01's quote and my response.
 
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rjh01 said:
I take everything back. One layer of alfoil will block a mobile phone signal. Or a steel saucepan.
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Make sure any Faraday cage for RF shielding has a good earth ground! If you're using your cage to work on high tension lines, then I'd suggest skipping that step and connecting your cage to the same phase line that you are working on....
 
macgyver said:
I thought his device would work with any "living" object, but he just got better results with an egg?
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Though I'm pretty honored that Mr. Epling would mention me in his response to Jeff, I'd like know the answer to my other question, one that touches on your quote, Macgyver --

Does the egg have to be fertilized? If it's an "ordinary" i.e., unfertilized, egg, what in the egg is "reacting" to the threat of being boiled? If it's unfertilized, is Mr. Epling hypothesizing that there is some kind of "spirit" or awareness in all things, living and non? If so, he could hook up the egg to /anything/ and "threaten" it, and get a response, yes?

I know that Mr. Randi and the JREF don't care how something works, but THAT it works, but I think we need to know how it's supposed to work in order to come up with a good way to proof against trickery. What does the "Shimmering Leaf" actually detect?

By the way, I like both of the ideas of randomizing times and also the Faraday cage. I'd rather come up with something other than "intent" sensing, because I could stare at a picture of a crocodile for 5 minutes or otherwise be distracted, but could always claim that I thought of "hurting" the egg if my experiment didn't go the way I wanted. Would it be possible to get some people who didn't know about what was going on, and then just simply have them boil random things without telling them why? Some might randomly be chosen to boil and egg, and others might be randomly chosen to boil, say, a rock.

(Problem, of course, is finding a way to guarantee that the people don't actually know what's going on.)

Other questions:
- Does the Shimmering Leaf(TM) only detect HUMAN intent, or could it detect future possibilities? If the latter, then you'd just program a rube-goldbergian device to randomly either drop an egg into boiling water or not...
- Has Mr. Epling tried hooking the Shimmering Leaf(TM) up to an already hard-boiled egg? How about a copper pipe?
- Would anyone like to pool together the money to buy one of these things and experiment with it or take it apart? On the one hand, I don't want to encourage quacks. On the other hand, I love taking things apart...
- Could someone with a multimeter please try and see if they can duplicate the effect?

-- Kat
 
Jackalgirl said:
I know that Mr. Randi and the JREF don't care how something works, but THAT it works, but I think we need to know how it's supposed to work in order to come up with a good way to proof against trickery. What does the "Shimmering Leaf" actually detect?
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I do not agree. We need to know the claim and the exact setup, but the theory behind is not necessary. If trickery is involved, the theory is in any case made-up to conceal the true workings. It is also possible that mr. Epling has no idea how it works, but that would not prevent the JREF from making a proper test.
 
The applicant should first test the setup to make sure it is OK. My first thought on a protocol was to put five possible things to boil (including an egg) under little cardboard boxes. Maybe some broccoli, a cup of pasta, some Styrofoam, a glass ball, whatever is acceptable to applicant as NOT setting off electronic thingy.

1. Get a pot of water to a roiling boil.
2. A tester (who preferably has no idea what is being tested) draws a number out of a hat (or uses some other random means) and goes into the room.
3. Tester uncovers the corresponding box and dumps the contents into the pot.
4. Wait however long applicant has pre-determined that we should wait for effect.
5. Any beeps from the electronic thingy are recorded.
6. “Wash, rinse, repeat.” Reset the electronic thingy if needed. Dump the pot. Fill it with water again and put it on the stove. Replace "sensory egg" with new egg. Take any solids that were dumped from the pot out of the room for disposal. Repeat starting at step 1 for all five items.

Applicant is not involved in test at all and doesn’t even know when test starts. Test passes if electronic thingy beeps only when egg is boiled, but does not beep in any other cases. I’d probably want to see three trials of this same test with positive results to eliminate any chance of the beeps going off randomly and just by luck going off during the egg trial.

However, I do like SkepticScott’s suggestion of using another detector as a control. Have the control detector hooked up to a single long piece of foil so that it does require any “replacement egg”.

Considering the simplicity of the test, it seems you should be able to have both a control detector electronic thingy and control boiling objects. Test passes if only test (egg-hooked-up) detector beeps during egg test and neither detector beeps in any other circumstance. No fancy stuff required.

We don’t know how much “time passes” in the given video, but I assume about 5 minutes would be sufficient for each test. So it would take about 25 minutes to do each test. To do the complete test three times with random starting times would take maybe 2-3 hours. The applicant and the head of the testing team could go watch a movie, or go to a restaurant, or play some golf, or whatever while some other tester (who preferably has no idea what is being tested) conducts the video-taped tests. :)
 
On June 8th, I responded to the questions that Mr. Wagg presented on June 7th. Mr. Wagg has not acknowledged receipt of my responses and he does not respond to my email to challenge@randi.org or pm here at the randi.org website. Perhaps, if I post my responses from June 8th here, someone could draw the attention of Mr. Wagg to those responses?

Gerald Epling
 
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