SIMPLE TIME-DISTORTION DETECTOR                          William J. Beaty

OTHER LINKS:

  Time Shift Detector J L Naudin's replication of the following

Several inventions in the "fringe" sciences have been claimed to locally
distort the speed of light or the "flow" of time.  One way to detect this
phenomena would be to directly observe optical distortion of images of the
surroundings of an operating device, use a "Schelerien" or "foucault
mirror test" optical system to observe small light deflections.  Another
method would be to make a long "optical lever" and look for deflections of
a laser beam.  However, what if the effect is real, but is far too weak to
detect by this method?

Here's a simple yet sensitive way to sense possible local changes in the
flow of time.  Build two crystal oscillators.  Use one as a reference, the
other as a probe.  Beat the output of the oscillators together and measure
the difference frequency, or even listen to it via a loudspeaker.  Place
the reference in a distant location, then use the probe to examine the
environment surrounding a purported "weird device."  (A Cheops pyramid
model would qualify as a "weird device".) Local changes in time will be
revealed as changes in the beat note.  The size of the affected area could
be investigated by changing the distance between oscillators. (Note: I
have NOT tested any "weird devices" yet, I make no guarantees of positive
results!)  (Another note: unexplained changes to the binding force of
quartz would also be detected as changes to "time flow.")

I put together a crude version of this device based upon a CD4049 CMOS
inverter and a couple of 32KHz digital watch crystals.(1)  Initial tests
revealed a small problem: when adjusted to produce a beat note, the
crystals would lock together in synch. Constructing two oscillators on
separate inverter chips did not eliminate the effect.  Power supply
coupling seemed to be the problem.  Two separate power supplies helped,
but coupling between the oscillator outputs still caused phase-lock.  Use
of two separate LM78L05 regulators, buffering the oscillator outputs, and
building them on two separate CD4049 chips cured the problem. 

To "bend" the frequency of one crystal in order to syncronize them, one
method is to vary the power supply voltage.  Another way is to vary the
bias point of the input pin of the CMOS inverter.  I didn't explore this
enough, but I intended to use those LM317 adjustable regulators in TO-92
packages to trim the frequency of each oscillator.

Yes, just as you'd expect, these crystals are temperature sensitive. 
Blowing warm breath on them throws the frequency way off.  Just the IR
radiation of your body seems to have a small effect, which would be a
large effect if you use 50MHz crystals.  And so you'll have to build a
"crystal oven" for each oscillator circuit if you intend to build a real
instrument.  I've not tried this, but I would put the whole CMOS chip and
crystal in a small metal can, and include a positive temp-co thermistor as
a combination heater/thermostat.  A PTC thermistor tends to self heat and
settle to a particular temperature where changes in temperature cause
negative feedback changes in resistance, which maintain constant
temperature even if the outside environment's temperature changes. 

Later, after playing with the 32KHZ crystals, I found a box of surplus
30MHz 5-volt oscillators.  These appear as low profile 1cm x 2cm shielded
"cans" intended to go onto processor circuit boards.  They are buffered
and contain some supply regulation, so they don't tend to phase-lock when
mounted near each other.  Most suprising, I found that out of ten
oscillator cans, one pair's frequencies matched within a few Hz!  These
oscillator cans seem to have some temperature compensation, but they still
require a constant-temperature enclosure to minimize errors from
temperature differential between "probe" and "reference" oscillator.

To display the difference frequency, I used one oscillator to trigger an
oscilloscope, and displayed the output of the other on the scope.  When
adjusted for identical frequencies the oscillators produce a static square
wave on the scope.  Small changes in either oscillator frequency causes
the square wave to begin drifting.  Other possible display methods:  set
the difference freq to a few hundred Hz, add the outputs through a diode
or and-gate, and listen to them with an audio amp and headphones. Another: 
apply the square waves to the Clock and Data inputs of a "D"  flipflop,
connect the output to an LED, then adjust for zero beat.  The LED will
flash slowly as the phase of oscillators drift.  Another method (from an
'aha!' or 'Duh!' realization,)  is to use the reference crystal in a
commercial frequency counter and simply measure the "probe" crystal's
frequency!  No separate reference oscillator need be built.  The counter's
numeric output should stay stable unless something causes either the
counter's internal crystal or the "probe's" crystal frequency to change. 
Doh!

My actual device?  As usual I didn't get past the breadboard stage, and
have yet to use it to look for changes in time flow around a "free energy" 
device, meditating person, or pyramid model.  There didn't seem to be any
unexplained time flow variations around my test bench at work.  Proximity
to a human being (aura?) had no easily detected effect.  And if
psychokinesis can alter quartz crystal frequencies, the circuit shows that
I personally have no fantastic abilities along those lines!  ;) 

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(1) An oscillator crystal is typically a thin quartz disk with electrodes
    plated on each surface, and they range in frequency from about 200KHz
    to tens of MHz.  However, 32KHz digital watch crystals have an entirely 
    different structure.  They are a small "tuning fork" about 4mm long and
    and 1mm across, with thin electrodes plated onto the tines of the fork.
    This gives interesting possibilities.  If you open the crystal's metal
    enclosure, you can immerse the crystal in gases of various densities,
    and this should affect the frequency.  Maybe make a CO2 or mercury
    vapor detector, or a pressure sensor?  If you reflect a laser off the
    tines, the beam should be scanned back and forth at the crystal's
    frequency.  Rotation of the crystal should produce tiny frequency
    deviations, so these crystals could possibly be used to construct some
    sort of gyroscope.  The crystals produce ultrasound (they really *are*
    tuning forks, after all) and perhaps this effect can be used.  Use
    them as microphones, and build grids of them for a sound camera image
    sensor?  If two bare crystals are held near each other, they probably
    will lock in synch through audio coupling.  If one crystal is held
    near an object while oscillating, there will probably be voltage
    changes because of sound echoes from the object's surface.