Mario Rabinowitz

Mario Rabinowitz (born October 24, 1936) is an American physicist and inventor with 61 patents, who has published 170 scientific papers on a wide variety of subjects such as Meissner effect, ball lightning, black holes, superconductivity, classical tunneling,  nuclear electromagnetic pulse,  equivalence principle, physical electronics, electrical discharges, surface physics, and vacuum physics.

He has written four articles for the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology: on Advanced Electric Power Transmission (featured in Yearbook, 1981), the Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (featured in Yearbook, 1986), Electrical Insulation (1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2002), and Superconducting Devices (1989).

He wrote chapters in three astrophysics books. One chapter is "Black Hole Paradoxes". He is co-author of the 2011 self-published book Rachel, The Little Lady that Could: Her Life, Wisdom, Wit, Poetry, and Singular Insights, which received an Honorable Mention in the 2012 New York Book Festival.

Childhood
Mario Rabinowitz was born an American citizen in Mexico City to an American father and a Ukrainian mother. He was the soap box derby champion of Vancouver, Washington at the age of 13 in 1950.

Education
Rabinowitz received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Physics in 1959 and 1960 at the University of Washington. He was a George F. Baker Scholar at Reed College where his senior year was curtailed by the Asian Flu pandemic in 1958. He was awarded the PhD. degree in Physics by Washington State University in 1963.

Career
He was on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity for many years. His publications are in journals such as Physical Review Letters, Physical Review, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Concepts of Physics, Applied Physics Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, Nuclear Physics, Physica, Astrophysics and Space Science, Chemical Physics Letters, Modern Physics Letters, International Journal of Modern Physics, Foundations of Physics, etc. He has over 60 patents.

Rabinowitz was Senior Scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) from 1974 to 1995. Prior to joining EPRI, he did research at Stanford University's SLAC for 7 years. Previously, he was a Manager at Varian Associates, and a Senior Physicist at the Westinghouse Research Center. He has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, Univ. of Houston, Virginia Commonwealth Univ., Case-Western Univ., and Boston Univ. He has also taught at Stanford Univ. and San Jose State Univ. He received the 1992 Washington State Univ. Alumni Achievement Award.

Wave-particle duality
The wave-particle duality is the quintessential mystery of quantum mechanics. Young's two-slit interference experiment is the arch prototype of actual and gedanken experiments used as a testing ground of this duality. Quantum mechanics predicts that any detector capable of determining the path taken by a particle through one or the other of a two-slit plate will destroy the interference pattern. In 1995, Rabinowitz was the first to predict that one could determine which slit a particle/photon goes through while still preserving the interference pattern in the Young’s two slit experiment. His concept was to have the source emit a particle-antiparticle pair. The traversed slit is inferred from measurement of the entangled particle’s location and using triangulation.

Black-hole radiation
Rabinowitz was the first to show that the complicated Stephen Hawking equation for black hole radiation can be reduced to a linear equation with only one parameter, the black hole density $$\rho$$, yielding the simplest possible equation :$$P_{SH} = {G \rho \hbar \over 90}$$. He also derived the power radiated from a black hole by gravitational tunneling radiation.

Ball lightning and dark matter
Based on his theory of black hole radiation, in the 1990s Rabinowitz was the first to present a detailed model that ball lightning is a manifestation of excitation and ionization of air due to the tidal force of highly mobile Little Black Holes traversing the earth’s atmosphere. He further proposed that Little Black Holes, as relics of the big bang, are ~90% of the mass of the universe known as Dark Matter. These Little Black Holes are typically ~ 1 g in mass and 10−28 cm radius, and create a much larger glowing ball in their path. They radiate by gravitational tunneling radiation which is considerably less than Hawking radiation.

High-Q superconducting cavity breakdown
Rabinowitz was the first to develop a theory that predicts why the Q ~ 1011 of a superconducting cavity, drops precipitously at a magnetic breakdown field, well below the critical field of the superconductor. He showed that the power dissipation from at least one oscillating fluxoid accounts for the steep drop in cavity Q. The fluxoid is trapped in either a type I or type II superconductor due to an incomplete Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect as the superconductor is cooled below its transition temperature.

Flux trapping in a superconductor in violation of the Meissner effect
Following his insightful fluxoid trapping model to account for losses in superconducting cavities, Rabinowitz together with his colleagues succeeded in purposely trapping large permanent magnetic fields (with high fidelity to the original field) transversely to the axes of hollow superconducting cylinders. This is a virtual violation of the Meissner Effect, and it was quickly confirmed, and stable magnetic fields in excess of 100,000 Oersteds have since been successfully trapped.

General equation for superfluids and wide range of superconductors
Rabinowitz derived a basic and inherently simple equation which agrees well with the superconducting transition temperatures for the heavy-electron, cuprate, oxide, organic, and metallic superconductors, metallic hydrogen, and neutron stars; and also works well for the superfluid transition temperature of 2.6 mK for liquid 3He. Reasonable estimates are made from 10−3 K to 109 K -- a range of 12 orders of magnitude.

Exaggerated effects of nuclear electromagnetic pulse
Rabinowitz was the first to show that the claim that one high-altitude nuclear burst could black out the entire USA was an exaggeration that violates conservation of energy. This negated the strategy of immediate massive retaliation upon the detection of a single incoming warhead, as a large segment of the USA would be unaffected. Thus a rogue power could not instigate a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. Rabinowitz furthermore showed that multiple concurrent nuclear bursts would not have an additive effect, but would interfere to produce less EMP than a single burst because the ionization produced by each burst severely attenuates the EMP that the others can produce.

The equivalence principle classically and quantum mechanically
Rabinowitz pointed out that despite the outstanding success of Einstein's General Relativity (EGR), there  are virtual exceptions to the Equivalence Principle which is the very cornerstone upon which EGR is based. He considered a gedanken experiment with three spherically symmetric masses  in a straight line with mass M (e.g. the earth) an equal distance between m2 and m1 with M >>  m2 > m1, and equal radii for m2 and m1. When let go, the three bodies accelerate toward their common center of mass (C-M). Since the center of mass of the system is between the centers of M and m2, m2 will have a shorter distance to fall toward the C-M; and m1 will have a longer distance to fall than m2 to reach the C-M. All three bodies must reach the C-M at the same instant because the C-M cannot move in the absence of an external force. Since the lightest mass m1 has to go the farthest distance to reach the C-M, it must go the fastest relative to the C-M. (The same conclusion holds if the masses are not collinear.) This is a virtual violation of the Weak Equivalence Principle and hence the Strong Equivalence Principle in Classical Mechanics; however Rabinowitz has shown that these are violated in Quantum Mechanics. Such considerations may need to be incorporated to create a successful theory of Quantum Gravity.

Internal inconsistencies in quantum mechanics
Rabinowitz found discrepancies and accords between quantum (QM) and classical mechanics (CM) related to expectation values and periods for both the simple harmonic oscillator (SHO) and a free particle in a box (FPB), which may apply generally. These indicate non-locality is expected throughout QM. The FPB energy states violate the Correspondence Principle. Previously unexpected accords are found for the expectation values of X2 and beat periods for the SHO for all quantum numbers, n.

Classical tunneling
Cohn and Rabinowitz were the first to show that a classical representation of an extended body over barriers of height greater than the energy of the incident body is shown to have many features in common with quantum tunneling as the center-of-mass literally goes through the barrier. They showed that a distribution of body lengths around the de Broglie wavelength leads to reasonable agreement with the quantum transmission coefficient.

Solar energy
Among Rabinowitz' 61 issued patents are 24 on a micro-optics solar energy concentrator utilizing micro-mirrors that track and focus the sun.

Rabinowitz was noted in 2010 as one of the top ten patent holders in both the solar thermal and solar photovoltaic categories.

Publications

 * Rabinowitz, Mario (1995) “Examination of Wave-Particle Duality Via Two-Slit Interference”.  Modern Physics Letters B 9:  763 – 789.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2007) "Dark Matter in an n-Space Expanding Universe". Adv. Studies Theor. Phys. 1: 5-27.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2006) "Black Hole Radiation & Volume Statistical Entropy". Int'l J. Theo. Physics 45: 851-858.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2006) "A Theory Of Quantum Gravity May Not Be Possible Because Quantum Mechanics Violates The Equivalence Principle". The Concepts of Physics, 3: 323 - 335.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2005) "Black Hole Paradoxes" pp. 1–45 in Trends in Black Hole Research, Nova Sci. N.Y.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2001) "n-Dimensional Gravity: Little Black Holes, Dark Matter, and Ball Lightning". Int'l J. Theo. Physics, 40: 875-901.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2005) "Little Black Holes as Dark Matter Candidates with Feasible Cosmic and Terrestrial Interactions" pp. 1–66. in Progress in Dark Matter Research, Nova Sci. N.Y.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2002) "Electrical Insulation". Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.  McGraw-Hill.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2003) "Consequences of Gravitational Tunneling Radiation" pp. 85 – 108 in Focus on Astrophysics Research, Nova Sci. N.Y.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (1993) "Basic Connection Between Superconductivity and Superfluidity". Int'l J. Theo. Physics 32: 565-574.
 * A. Cohn & M. Rabinowitz (1990). "Classical Tunneling". Intl. J. Theo. Phys. 29: 215-223.
 * C.N. Vittitoe & M. Rabinowitz (1988) "Radiative Reactions and Coherence Modeling in the High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse". Physical Review 37A: 1969-1977.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (1987) "Effect of the Fast Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse on the Electric Power Grid Nationwide: A Different View". IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, PWRD-2, 1199-1222.
 * M. Rabinowitz, S.D. Dahlgren, & H. Arrowsmith (1977) "Dependence of Maximum Trappable Field on Superconducting Nb3Sn Cylinder Wall Thickness". Appl. Phys. Letters 30:607-609.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (1971) "Analysis of Critical Power Loss in a Superconductor". J. Appl. Phys. 42: 88-96.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2006) "Micro-Optics Solar Energy Concentrator". U.S. Patent #7,133,183.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (2009) "Quantum and Classical Disparity and Accord". International Journal of Theoretical Physics 48: #3 pp 706–722.
 * Rabinowitz, Mario (1999) “Little Black Holes: Dark Matter And Ball Lightning”. Astrophys. Space Sci. 262: 391-410