D0wsery / General Chatting / Forums

Forums

4hv.org :: Forums :: General Chatting

« Previous topic | Next topic »

D0wsery

1 2 3 next

Move Thread

LAN_403

Part Scavenger

Sat Mar 31 2007, 03:31AM

Registered Member #79 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 11:35AM
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 673

I hope I don't get in trouble for this...but this is too good to pass up.

Has anyone else dowsed for water before? I was skeptical, but I did it today, it's insane! I was able to track a 2.5" PVC water line with little difficulty using brass L rods. My dad found my Gmother's well that way several years ago. It feels like someone is pushing the tips of the rods inward, and in some cases you CANNOT keep them from moving not matter how hard you squeeze. I looked all over the internet but (other than a bunch of creepy sites) only found this:

I'm convinced it's a magnetic or electric field for several reasons. First, it you don't go perpendicular to the water, nothing will happen. Second, I found that attaching them together via an alligator clip to the bottom of the rods kept them from responding to anything, and just letting it dangle from one (like an antenna) really lessened performance. Third, they seemed to react to my power lines (I couldn't tell because another water line runs right along side of it, I didn't know which was causing the reaction.) Also, if you use only one, it does absolutely nothing so they must be attracting each other. Finally, it just "feels" magnetic, it has a bit of a bounce/resistance just like a magnet.

Another thing I noticed is that if you start too close to the source (like 5' instead of 10) the rods won't move. If, after they cross, you stop and force them back parallel, they won't move back and you can't feel the field anymore. You must out and walk back into the field again.

Secondly, they think it is caused by the flow of water, which has been proven to cause a magnetic field...but the pipe I was tracing wasn't flowing.

Turns out it was in a different place than I first thought, but the location has been confirmed.

My question is, what kind of (shape) field would cause the parallel rods to cross to a 90 deg angle and then put themselves back when you are out of the field? ...and why is it that one must walk perpendicular to the source?

Michael W.

Sat Mar 31 2007, 03:50AM

Registered Member #50 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:07AM
Location: Vernon, B.C, Canada
Posts: 324

As I think "Part Scavenger is nice, Mods please don't flame him..."

ragnar

Sat Mar 31 2007, 04:46AM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

Skeptical, but thanks for using the 'zero' in the thread title.

I'm strongly inclined to think, if anything, it's a psychic effect -- you were already aware the pipe was there (somehow), and your brain's just reminding you.

ShawnLG

Sat Mar 31 2007, 01:40PM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

My dad has shown me this when I was a little kid and I sinced forgot what it was called. Till this day I do not know if D0wsing really works or not. When I find some metal coat hanger, I can do some scientific tests to find out if D0wsing is only a myth.

Bjørn

Sat Mar 31 2007, 01:52PM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

This thread is started on the General Science and Electronics forum. It put forwards a spectacular claim while completely ignoring the scientific method.

Read these pages carefully:
Http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-blind

Then perform a double-blind experiment to confirm your abilities. After the experiment you can tell us what the result was. The result does not matter as long as it is scientifically valid and not influenced by personal bias.

Any further posts to this thread that contains opinions or speculation will fall directly under pseudoscience and it may be the last post by that member on this forum.

Part Scavenger

Sat Mar 31 2007, 02:39PM

Registered Member #79 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 11:35AM
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 673

BjÃ¸rn BÃ¦verfjord wrote ...

Any further posts to this thread that contains opinions or speculation will fall directly under pseudoscience and it may be the last post by that member on this forum.

YIKES!

I'm very sorry indeed! I did not classify this as pseudoscience because I was convinced that something else is moving those rods, not me and assumed there was some scientific explaination you guys could help me with. The effect was really neat and I wanted to share it with you guys. I guess I got too excited about it and you will hear no more on the subject from me. I would be happy to do that study, but I'm not sure how I'd do it with just me.

Bjørn

Sat Mar 31 2007, 03:38PM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

I am not claiming that the rods did not move and I am not claiming that it was something else than water that caused the movement if they moved. I am saying that there is a simpler, well tested and more likely explanation that we will use until there is scientifically valid proof that it is not causing the movement.

The ideomotor effect is surprisingly strong and it is capable of tricking anyone that discovers it by chance. This is why we have the double-blind experiments, to be 100% sure we are not fooling ourselves.

The first you have to do is to identify exactly what to test. Something that works with close to 100% accuracy and that is practical enough that you can carry it out.

Try on a bucket of water, if the rods move you only need one extra person to flip a coin to decide if he should fill the bucket or not before covering it up. It would not be a double blind test but it would give an idea if it is worth performing a full blown test.

ShawnLG

Sat Mar 31 2007, 03:45PM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

Thanks for the links BjÃ¸rn. I can build a D0wsing device that can cancel out the The Ideomotor Effect by using a brace that will keep the handles of the L-rods perfectly parrelel with each other at all time. I would also mount a bubble level on the brace so the user can keep the apparatus tilted slightly fourward at all times. As for the double-blind test, I can find some subject to test the original D0wser and the modified one.

"I would be happy to do that study, but I'm not sure how I'd do it with just me."

You can also do this test. More results is always better. Don't tell your test subject the details. Only tell them that the test d0wser is a "high tech modern" version.

Marko

Sat Mar 31 2007, 03:47PM

Registered Member #89 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145

What's happening with this forum alltogether?

Part Scavenger: you firstly failed to interpretation of what you called 'dowsing' is incomplete and inconclusive.

You ''feel something magnetic'' wich moves the tips of brass l-rods of unknown dimensions ''inwards'' when you approach a 2,5" pipe with standing water (not told where it is).

Then you hugely ignore occam's razor by concluding it must definitely be d0wsing (and even naming the thread like that) and completely taking out the way more probable explanations like human factor.

Water, being electrically pretty much neutral, no matter if moving or standing can't produce practically any magnetic feld.

Even if you blame your power line passing near the pipe, generated eddy current effect would again be tiny and insignificant on distance you described.

Any kind of electric field that may exist on water pipe would be shielded off and nullified by conductive earth.

Without any more possible physical interactions to describe it, and all controlled experiments failed, d0wsing was concluded as pseudoscience. (afaik).

Some people even had a very good reason ($1million randi's challenge) to disprove that and nobody seems to have suceeded.

So, it makes all look Part scavenger opened this thread with sole purpose of showing off his superpowers to us, wich I know isn't true.

I think this thread could be fixed into something productive and scientific, if it was rewritten, without altering it's point. (For example, 'what could be causing this effect?')

I really like Part Scavenger, and last thing I would want is to see him banned.

Steve Conner

Sat Mar 31 2007, 06:52PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Let's move this to the chatting board, shall we? Also, Scavenger should try the double blind bucket test that Bjoern proposed, and post his results.

1 2 3 next

Moderator(s): Chris Russell, Noelle, Alex, Tesladownunder, Dave Marshall, Dave Billington, Bjørn, Steve Conner, Wolfram, Kizmo, Mads Barnkob