Experiment in Water Dowsing

Abstract

Dowsing is a folklore process used to locate an unknown, such as the best location for a water well, by the use of a hand-held device. The process is commonly know as water witching, divining, dowsing or radiesthesia. The practice continues despite the lack of a proven scientific basis. This research develops an experiment to test the claims of a dowser. Specific procedures are established and statistical theory is applied to determine if one man can identify which of five water lines has flowing water in it better than a chance operator could achieve. The statistical analysis uses Abraham Wald's sequential analysis procedures for establishing when to accept a hypothesis in a binomial situation. The dowser's performance proved to be better than chance. Further research is recommended.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA284789

Entities

People

  • David I. Gaisford

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Check Valves
  • Flow
  • Generators
  • Groundwater
  • Literature Surveys
  • Materials
  • Observation
  • Observers
  • Pipes
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Sequential Analysis
  • Statistical Inference
  • United States
  • Valves
  • Water Flow
  • Water Wells

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Regression Analysis.