Gravity Research Foundation

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The Gravity Research Foundation, established in 1948 by businessman Roger Babson (founder of Babson College), was an organization designed to find ways to block or reduce the effect of gravity. It closed in the late 1960s, although it has maintained an annual contest rewarding essays by scientific researchers on gravity-related topics.

1 History
2 Monuments
3 See also
4 External links
- 4.1 Links about monument stones

[edit] History

The foundation was established in several scattered buildings in the small town of New Boston, New Hampshire, which Babson chose because he thought it was far enough from big cities to survive a nuclear war. Babson even put up a sign declaring New Boston to be the safest town in North America if World War III came, but town fathers toned it down to say just that New Boston was a safe place.

In an essay called Gravity - Our Enemy Number One, Babson indicated that his wish to overcome gravity dated from the childhood drowning of his oldest sister. "She was unable to fight gravity, which came up and seized her like a dragon and brought her to the bottom," he wrote. (The essay can be found in the appendix of Gravity's Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves by Harry Collins.)

The foundation held occasional conferences that drew such people as Clarence Birdseye of frozen-food fame and Igor Sikorsky, inventor of the helicopter. Sometimes, attendees sat in chairs with their feet higher than their heads, to counterbalance gravity.

Most of the foundation's work, however, involved sponsoring essays by researchers on gravity-related topics. It had only a couple of employees in New Boston.

The Gravity Research Foundation monument outside Shrader Hall at Eastern Nazarene College

Over time, the foundation shed its crank-ish air, turning its attention from trying to block gravity to trying to understand it. The annual essay prize drew respected researchers who didn't mind a shot at a few thousand dollars—including physicist Stephen Hawking, who won several times.

The physical Gravity Research Foundation disappeared some time after Babson's death in 1967. Its only remnant in New Boston is a granite slab in a traffic island that celebrates the foundation's "active research for antigravity and a partial gravity insulator."

The essay award, however, lives on. With prizes of up to $5,000, as of 2006 it is still administered out of Wellesley, Massachusetts by George Rideout, Jr., son of the foundation's original director. Recent winners include California astrophysicist George F. Smoot, who later won the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics.

[edit] Monuments

The Gravity Research Foundation monument at Tufts University.

In the 1960s, stone monuments, apparently paid for by Babson to spread word about the Foundation, were placed on a number of college campuses, including:

Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida
Colby College in Waterville, Maine
Eastern Baptist College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania
Eastern Nazarene College in Wollaston, Massachusetts
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts
Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York
Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire
Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont
Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts
Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama
University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida
Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois

The monument at Emory University.

The monuments are inscribed with a variety of similar sayings, such as "It is to remind students of the blessings forthcoming when a semi-insulator is discovered in order to harness gravity as a free power and reduce airplane accidents." and "It is to remind students of the blessings forthcoming when science determines what gravity is, how it works, and how it may be controlled."

Hobart College's "H-Book" contains a description of the circumstances surrounding the placement of its Gravity Monument: "The location of the stone on campus was linked to a gift to the Colleges of 'gravity grant' stocks, now totaling more than $1 million, from Roger Babson, the founder of Babson College. The eccentric Babson was intrigued by the notion of anti-gravity and inclined to further scientific research in this area. The Colleges used these funds to help construct Rosenberg Hall in 1994. Two trees that shade the stone are said to be direct descendants of Newton’s famous apple tree."
The stone at Colby College was once in front of the Keyes Building on the main academic quadrangle. Students would often knock it over in an ironic testament to gravity's power. When this became a problem for the administration, the stone was moved to a more obscure location near the Schair-Swenson-Watson Alumni Center.