Welcome to the 25th Special Issue of the SHAPE Journal, and the first in a new seies on Couder’s experiment.

Over the past few months this author has been moved to write some 22 papers arising from the crucial experiment by Yves Couder, wherein he has been able to arrange, in the macro area of physics, for very similar phenomena to what occurs at the sub-atomic level.

According to the current consensus in this area of study (The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory) such phenomena are meant to be physically impossible outside of that specific area. Over almost a century, a philosopical standpoint and experimental method at variance with those employed elsewhere in physics, had become established. Couder’s work disagrees profoundly with this, but his position also differs from the usual pre- Copenhagen standpoint and methods in rejecting the principle of Plurality, for a much more holisitic approach to experimentation. Instead of isolating and analysing phenomena, he has been pursuing an approach involving their construction, wherein known forms and behaviour are artifically modelled using areas much easier to observe and study.

His successes have thrown the Copenhageners into crisis, and they have been at haste to denounce what he is doing as merely coincidental, and certainly not profoundly important. But they are wrong to dismiss this work. These papers are an attempt to make clear the importance of Couder’s experiment to sub-atmic physics, the potential philosophical ramifications, and its crucial role in forming a new holisitic approach to science.

The papers will be published in over the next few months in three Special Issues of SHAPE:

1. Towards the New Science
2. Explaining Couder’s Experiments
3. Standing Waves.

Jim Schofield
MAR 2014