In the Soviet Union’s final decades, researchers claimed that a mysterious property of spacetime could unlock faster-than-light communications, propellantless spacecraft, and energy drawn from the vacuum. Some invoked mathematical concepts explored by Einstein and Cartan, while others investigated unusual effects involving time and rotation. Their work attracted government funding, military interest, and fierce scientific criticism. By the Cold War’s end, torsion physics was widely dismissed as pseudoscience. But had Soviet scientists discovered a new force of nature, or mistaken ordinary phenomena for revolutionary discoveries?

The Russian Astronomer Who Tried to Measure Time

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev was an unlikely candidate to become one of the most controversial physicists in the Soviet Union. Born in 1908, Kozyrev established himself as a promising astronomer before his career was interrupted by Stalin’s purges. Arrested in 1936, he spent approximately a decade in Soviet prisons and labor camps before returning to scientific research. He subsequently resumed work at Pulkovo Observatory near Leningrad, investigating stellar evolution, planetary processes, and the mechanisms responsible for energy production within astronomical bodies. On November 3, 1958, Kozyrev obtained a remarkable spectrum from the central peak of the lunar crater Alphonsus using a 50-inch reflecting telescope at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. He interpreted the spectral features as evidence of escaping molecular carbon associated with volcanic activity, publishing his findings in Nature in June 1963. Although his interpretation of the lunar observations remained controversial, Kozyrev had genuine scientific credentials and an established record of astronomical research. His unconventional theories weren’t simply the product of someone unfamiliar with mainstream physics.

Kozyrev believed that conventional mechanics overlooked something fundamental about the physical nature of time. In his 1958 monograph Causal or Asymmetrical Mechanics in Linear Approximation, he proposed that time wasn’t merely a passive coordinate used to describe the sequence and duration of events. Instead, he argued that time possessed physical properties capable of influencing matter, transferring energy, and producing measurable mechanical effects. His reasoning began with the distinction between causes and consequences. Many fundamental equations of classical mechanics work equally well when the direction of time is reversed, yet real physical processes exhibit an unmistakable distinction between past and future. Kozyrev proposed that this asymmetry reflected an active physical property of time itself. He introduced a characteristic constant with the dimensions of velocity, which he eventually estimated at approximately 700 ± 50 kilometers per second. This wasn’t a demonstrated signal-propagation velocity, but a parameter within his proposed mechanics. Nevertheless, Kozyrev believed that its consequences could be measured using rotating equipment, precision balances, and sensitive mechanical instruments.

His most striking laboratory experiments involved gyroscopes suspended from precision balances or long filaments. In a 1967 technical paper, Possibility of Experimental Study of the Properties of Time, Kozyrev described a gyroscope with a 90-gram rotor, a diameter of 4.6 centimeters, and a peripheral rotation speed of approximately 25 meters per second. Under particular vibration conditions, he reported an apparent weight reduction of approximately 8 milligrams when the gyroscope rotated counterclockwise, while clockwise rotation initially produced no corresponding reduction under the same measurement conditions. An 8-milligram change in apparent weight corresponds to a force of approximately 78 micronewtons, or 0.000078 newtons. In another arrangement, a vibrating gyroscope suspended from a 2-meter filament reportedly produced a horizontal displacement of 0.07 millimeters, equivalent to a horizontal force approximately 35 millionths of its weight. These were exceptionally small measurements, particularly with mechanical instruments from the 1960s. Kozyrev acknowledged the difficulty of controlling vibration, noting that he had selected some operating conditions experimentally and that the instrument’s support structure influenced the results. He interpreted the observations through causal mechanics, including a proposed relationship with Earth’s rotation, but mechanical vibration, bearing friction, thermal changes, and coupling through the supporting structure presented substantial alternative explanations.

Kozyrev’s theories attracted enough attention that the Soviet Academy of Sciences established a nine-member commission on January 23, 1960, under astronomer Alexander Mikhailov. The investigation considered three subjects: the theoretical foundations of causal mechanics, the reliability of Kozyrev’s laboratory experiments, and his claims concerning asymmetries in the giant planets. Its conclusions, adopted on June 15, were critical but also specific. The commission found that Kozyrev’s theory lacked sufficiently rigorous mathematical foundations and that his experiments didn’t adequately exclude external influences. It recommended improved measurements rather than accepting the results as evidence of a new physical interaction. A further investigation in 1974 again found his experimental observations unconvincing because of their inconsistent and unpredictable behavior. The controversy revealed a fundamental problem that would follow Russian torsion research for decades: a sensitive instrument might register an unexpected effect, but identifying the cause required more than demonstrating an unusual reading. Even if a particular measurement was genuine, it didn’t necessarily establish the sweeping theoretical explanation offered for it.

Einstein, Cartan, and the Forgotten Geometry of Spacetime

The word torsion has several meanings in physics, and understanding the differences is essential to unraveling the Soviet research. In mechanical engineering, torsion describes the twisting of an object under an applied torque. A steel shaft transmitting 100 newton-meters of torque experiences internal shear stresses that depend on its diameter, geometry, and material properties. Torsion balances use a related principle to measure exceptionally small forces by suspending an object from a thin fiber and observing its angular deflection. These are established engineering techniques that don’t require any unusual physics. In gravitational theory, however, torsion refers to something quite different: a mathematical property of the connection describing how directions change between neighboring points in spacetime. In ordinary general relativity, spacetime curvature describes the gravitational field, while the mathematical connection normally has no torsion. A more general geometry can contain both curvature and torsion, with the latter associated with the failure of infinitesimal parallelograms to close when their sides are transported through spacetime. The concept is mathematically legitimate, but it doesn’t automatically imply a new force that can be generated using rotating machinery.

The modern mathematical foundations of spacetime torsion emerged through the work of French mathematician Élie Cartan during the early 1920s. Cartan extended the geometrical framework used in Einstein’s general relativity, developing methods that allowed spacetime to possess torsion in addition to curvature. Einstein himself explored related ideas between 1928 and 1931 while searching for a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism. His approach, known as teleparallelism or distant parallelism, introduced mathematical objects called tetrads, which assign four local reference directions to every point in four-dimensional spacetime. A tetrad contains 16 components, compared with the 10 independent components of the symmetric metric tensor used in conventional general relativity, although some tetrad components represent freedom in choosing local reference frames rather than additional physical fields. Einstein hoped that the richer mathematical structure could accommodate electromagnetism alongside gravity. His proposed unification didn’t succeed, but the geometry remained useful, and teleparallel formulations of gravity continue to be investigated by theoretical physicists today.

The connection between torsion and elementary particles became more explicit during the 1960s through the work of Dennis Sciama and Tom Kibble, building upon Cartan’s earlier ideas. Their developments helped establish what is now called Einstein–Cartan theory, in which matter’s intrinsic angular momentum, or quantum spin, can act as a source of spacetime torsion. An electron possesses spin angular momentum with a magnitude related to the reduced Planck constant, approximately 1.055 × 10⁻³⁴ joule-seconds. However, quantum spin isn’t equivalent to a tiny ball physically rotating on an axis, and a mechanical flywheel doesn’t become an extraordinary source of torsion merely because it rotates. In the simplest Einstein–Cartan formulation, torsion is determined locally by the spin density of matter and doesn’t propagate through empty space as an independent radiation field. The associated coupling is also extraordinarily weak under ordinary conditions because it is tied to gravitational strength. More elaborate gravitational theories can introduce propagating torsion, but doing so requires additional mathematical assumptions and experimentally constrained coupling constants. None of these established theoretical developments demonstrates the existence of the powerful macroscopic fields proposed by later Russian researchers.

The distinction between mathematical physics and unconventional technology becomes especially important when examining the origins of Soviet torsion research. Akimov and Shipov explicitly cited Einstein, Cartan, and later gravitational theorists when developing their ideas, but invoking their mathematical work wasn’t the same as deriving the claimed technological properties from it. Kozyrev’s causal mechanics and Veynik’s chronal physics emerged through largely different intellectual traditions, with substantially different physical assumptions. Some accounts have suggested an even older origin involving German wartime research acquired by the Soviet Union after World War II. That possibility deserves historical investigation because Soviet authorities did transfer substantial amounts of German scientific expertise following the war. Operation Osoaviakhim, conducted on October 22, 1946, forcibly relocated approximately 2,200 German scientific and technical specialists, many of whom worked on aerospace, military, and industrial technologies. However, the documented acquisition of German expertise doesn’t establish a connection to torsion physics, and claims about Nazi antigravity devices or secret spinning-field experiments haven’t produced a convincing documentary lineage leading to Kozyrev, Akimov, or Shipov. The demonstrable mathematical foundations of torsion theory predate the Second World War and were already available in published European scientific literature.

Soviet Science and the Search for the Physical Nature of Time

Kozyrev’s investigations eventually moved beyond rotating machinery and into astronomy, where he believed the universe itself could provide evidence for the physical properties of time. Working with engineer Viktor Nasonov, he developed experiments involving sensitive detectors attached to astronomical telescopes, including observations conducted at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory during the late 1970s. Their apparatus used changes in electrical resistance and other sensitive responses as possible indicators of an interaction associated with distant astronomical objects. In papers published around 1978 and 1980, Kozyrev and Nasonov claimed that certain stars and galaxies produced detectable effects at positions that differed from their ordinary optical images. Particularly remarkable was the assertion that they could detect three different positions associated with an astronomical object: its apparent position, representing radiation emitted in the past; its calculated present position; and a future position corresponding to where the object would be when a light-speed signal transmitted from Earth arrived. If genuine, this would imply a previously unknown relationship between distant events and local measurements.

The implications would be extraordinary because astronomical observations are fundamentally limited by the travel time of light. A star located 100 light-years away is observed as it existed 100 years ago, while light from the Andromeda galaxy takes approximately 2.5 million years to reach Earth. Ordinary telescopes therefore reveal the past rather than the instantaneous state of the universe. Kozyrev proposed that the physical properties of time might permit a different kind of interaction, one that appeared throughout the universe without propagating through space in the conventional sense. However, establishing such an effect presents formidable experimental difficulties. Astronomers must distinguish a star’s apparent location from its predicted position using measurements of distance, proper motion, parallax, and the motions of both the star and Earth. Even a small pointing error, thermal change, electrical disturbance, or uncontrolled response in the detector could produce misleading results. The original experiments didn’t establish a reproducible instantaneous interaction under independently verified conditions. Today, high-precision astrometric data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, automated telescope control, and blinded detector measurements would provide much stronger tools for evaluating such claims.

Albert-Viktor Veynik approached the problem from an entirely different direction. Born in 1919, Veynik established a professional career in thermodynamics, heat transfer, and the physics of metal casting, becoming a doctor of technical sciences in 1953, a professor in 1955, and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR in 1956. Much of his conventional research involved industrial processes in which heat, mass transport, and solidification determine the properties of manufactured materials. His unconventional theories emerged from a broader effort to reconsider the foundations of thermodynamics and the nature of irreversible processes. In his 1991 book Thermodynamics of Real Processes, a 576-page work published in Minsk, Veynik argued that time and space possessed additional physical characteristics not recognized by conventional science. He introduced hypothetical chronal substances, chronons, chronal fields, and processes involving the storage or transfer of chronal quantities. He also discussed proposed measuring instruments and effects involving the interaction of matter with these hypothetical fields.

Veynik’s ideas shared Kozyrev’s conviction that the conventional treatment of time was incomplete, but the two researchers didn’t develop identical theories. Kozyrev focused on causality, mechanical asymmetry, and astronomical measurements, while Veynik attempted to reconstruct thermodynamics around additional physical substances and fields. Neither established a reproducible experimental basis for treating time as a material medium. Their ideas were nevertheless incorporated into a broader Russian alternative-science literature that increasingly associated rotation, unusual forces, time, and the vacuum. Later developments blurred the historical record further. The large spiral or cylindrical aluminum structures now commonly called Kozyrev mirrors, for example, became associated with post-Soviet research involving Vlail Kaznacheev, Alexander Trofimov, and others during the 1990s. These devices weren’t Kozyrev’s original astronomical instruments, even though their advocates invoked his theories. This retrospective blending of different research programs helped create the impression of a single, continuous school of Russian torsion physics when the underlying scientific ideas were often substantially different.

Akimov and Shipov: The Attempt to Engineer the Vacuum

By the 1980s, unconventional Russian research had entered a more ambitious phase. Anatoly Evgenievich Akimov promoted the idea that spin-related fields could represent a new class of physical interactions capable of supporting extraordinary technologies. His proposals attracted government attention partly because of their potential military and strategic applications. A hypothetical field capable of transmitting information through solid matter, operating over enormous distances, and bypassing conventional electromagnetic limitations would be particularly attractive to a government engaged in intense technological competition with the United States. In 1989, a Soviet government decision established a Centre for Unconventional Technologies under the State Committee for Science and Technology, with Akimov as its director. The organization pursued research that included so-called spinor and torsion fields, drawing on a mixture of theoretical proposals, laboratory demonstrations, and claimed technological opportunities. Its establishment demonstrated that elements of the Soviet government were willing to finance investigations of unconventional physics, although institutional support was never proof that the proposed interactions actually existed.

Akimov’s most important theoretical collaborator was Gennady Ivanovich Shipov, who developed an unconventional theory of the physical vacuum based on geometrical structures and additional rotational degrees of freedom. Shipov attempted to extend the mathematical foundations of gravitational theory and explain several fundamental interactions as different manifestations of an underlying vacuum structure. In their shared interpretation, the vacuum wasn’t simply the lowest-energy state of known quantum fields, but a structured physical medium capable of responding to electric charge, mass, and spin. Akimov and Shipov described hypothetical constituents called phytons, represented as paired electron and positron wave packets with compensating charges and angular momenta. They suggested that electrical charge could produce one form of vacuum polarization, mass another, and spin a third. The resulting framework treated electromagnetism, gravitation, and torsion as different polarization states of the same underlying system. This was a substantial departure from conventional quantum field theory, and neither the proposed phyton structure nor its claimed macroscopic behavior was independently established.

The extraordinary scope of their claims became clear in a 1995 preprint titled Torsion Fields and Their Experimental Manifestations. Published through the International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics associated with the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the 31-page document described a broad technological program involving energy production, propulsion, communications, metallurgy, geophysics, and astronomy. Its reported print run was just 100 copies, a strikingly small circulation for a document proposing such consequential discoveries. Akimov and Shipov claimed that torsion fields differed fundamentally from electromagnetism. According to their model, like torsion charges attracted rather than repelled, the fields could pass through ordinary matter without appreciable absorption, and their effects could persist even after the generating source was removed. Most remarkable was their assertion that torsion waves could propagate with group velocities at least a billion times faster than light. At that speed, a hypothetical signal could cross one light-year in roughly 32 milliseconds. Such properties would have enormous implications for communication, astrophysics, and the causal structure of spacetime, but the preprint didn’t provide independently verified experimental evidence establishing them.

The technological possibilities were almost limitless within the assumptions of the theory. A torsion transmitter might communicate through rock, seawater, or the plasma surrounding a spacecraft entering Earth’s atmosphere. A torsion generator might alter the crystallization of molten metals without conventional heating or electromagnetic processing. Rotating machinery might interact with the vacuum to produce unusual forces or enable new forms of propulsion. The vacuum itself might provide an energy reservoir accessible through carefully engineered spin interactions. These possibilities were particularly attractive because their proponents suggested that useful effects could be generated with electrical inputs measured in milliwatts rather than kilowatts or megawatts. Yet the gap between a mathematical proposal and a demonstrated technology remained enormous. A legitimate engineering breakthrough would require calibrated instruments, repeatable measurements, quantitative performance characteristics, and independent verification. The existence of a theoretical model or a prototype wasn’t sufficient to establish that a new fundamental interaction had been discovered.

Faster-Than-Light Communications, New Materials, and Propulsion

One of the most striking claims in the Akimov–Shipov preprint concerned an alleged communications experiment conducted in Moscow during April 1986. According to the authors, a torsion transmitter was positioned on the first floor of a building, while a corresponding receiver was installed in another building approximately 22 kilometers away. The intervening urban environment included buildings and terrain that prevented a direct line of sight. Akimov and Shipov estimated that the signal’s path encountered obstruction equivalent to more than 50 meters of reinforced concrete. They reported transmitting binary information using the M2 start-stop telegraph code, with the transmitter consuming approximately 30 milliwatts of electrical power. Their account stated that the signal was received without errors and that its detected intensity remained unchanged when the transmitter was subsequently moved next to the receiver. These were extraordinary claims because conventional electromagnetic signals weaken with distance and can suffer significant attenuation through conductive or absorbing materials. However, the published description lacked the independent controls, receiver specifications, raw signal records, and systematic exclusion of conventional communication paths needed to establish a new interaction.

The actual propagation speed was a separate question. An ordinary electromagnetic signal takes approximately 73 microseconds to travel 22 kilometers through a vacuum, so even a relatively modest timing system could potentially distinguish conventional propagation from an exceptionally fast interaction. But the reported Moscow experiment didn’t establish a calibrated transit time showing that information traveled faster than light. Nor did a lack of apparent attenuation necessarily prove that the signal violated the inverse-square behavior normally associated with propagating radiation. Receiver saturation, automatic gain behavior, unintended coupling, and other conventional effects would need to be excluded before drawing such conclusions. The alleged communications system was therefore much more significant as a proposed experimental challenge than as a demonstrated technological achievement. If a 30-milliwatt transmitter could reliably send independently selected information through extensive shielding over tens of kilometers without using electromagnetic, acoustic, or mechanical coupling, the result would deserve immediate scientific attention. The essential problem was that the published evidence didn’t establish that this had actually occurred.

The same preprint described experiments involving the microstructure of solidifying metals. Akimov and Shipov attributed research conducted between 1989 and 1993 to collaboration with the Institute for Problems of Materials Science of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. They reported that molten tin exposed to an alleged torsion field modulated at 8 hertz developed larger, more uniform grains than untreated material. Other experiments involving copper reportedly produced changes in grain structure and crystal twinning. During 1994 and 1995, they claimed that similar effects were demonstrated using industrial furnaces, including grounded metal enclosures that supposedly blocked ordinary electromagnetic interference. The most dramatic assertion involved structural changes in as much as 200 kilograms of steel using a torsion generator consuming approximately 10 milliwatts of electrical power. That input is just one-hundredth of a watt, an extraordinarily small amount relative to the energy required to melt industrial quantities of metal. The authors interpreted the result as an informational influence on crystallization rather than conventional energy transfer. Yet solidification is sensitive to numerous ordinary variables, including temperature gradients, cooling rates, impurities, stirring, and nucleation conditions. Without controlled metallurgy, statistical measurements, and independent replication, the micrographs couldn’t establish that torsion fields were responsible.

An equally ambitious application involved reactionless propulsion, particularly devices called inertioids that used internal rotating masses to produce apparent directional motion. Russian engineer Vladimir Tolchin had developed versions of these mechanisms, describing them in a 1977 publication. Shipov interpreted their behavior through his unconventional geometrical framework, suggesting that controlled imbalances in inertial forces might accelerate a system without conventional external propulsion. Akimov and Shipov described arrangements in which rotating masses were periodically accelerated and braked, producing reported changes in translational velocity of approximately 10 centimeters per second during portions of the operating cycle. The crucial issue was whether these movements represented genuine acceleration of an isolated system’s center of mass or merely locomotion produced by interactions with an external support. A mechanism can move across a tabletop by exploiting friction, vibration, impacts, and asymmetrical contact forces without violating momentum conservation. Truly reactionless propulsion would require sustained net acceleration in an isolated environment without exchanging momentum with surrounding matter or fields. No independently established result from these inertioid experiments demonstrated that such propulsion had been achieved.

The possibility of extracting energy from the physical vacuum added another dimension to the research. Quantum field theory predicts that vacuum states possess fluctuations, and phenomena such as the Casimir effect demonstrate that vacuum-related quantum effects can have measurable physical consequences. However, the existence of vacuum fluctuations doesn’t mean that unlimited usable energy can be extracted from the vacuum through a repeating cycle. Akimov and Shipov argued that torsion fields might provide a mechanism for manipulating vacuum polarization without the enormous electrical fields required by some conventional quantum-electrodynamic processes. Their 1995 preprint also cited reports by other unconventional-energy researchers claiming apparent efficiencies of 300–500 percent, interpreting such results as potentially compatible with energy obtained from the vacuum. These were claims drawn from separate experimental traditions, not independently verified demonstrations of torsion-powered generators. Any practical device would have to deliver sustained net energy into a calibrated load, account for every electrical and mechanical input, and exclude stored energy, measurement artifacts, and hidden environmental sources. Without that evidence, the vacuum-energy proposals remained speculative interpretations of an extraordinary technological possibility.

When the Soviet Scientific Establishment Turned Against Torsion

The Soviet government’s interest in torsion physics eventually produced a confrontation with the country’s scientific establishment. Prominent physicists were increasingly concerned that a substantial government research program was promoting technologies whose underlying principles hadn’t survived conventional theoretical or experimental evaluation. Physicist Evgeny Alexandrov became one of the leading critics, challenging the program’s scientific foundations and questioning the government resources being allocated to it. Eduard Kruglyakov and other prominent researchers later described how extraordinary claims involving military communications, weapons, and other technologies helped attract official attention. The combination of secrecy, strategic promises, and unconventional physics complicated independent review. A government interested in revolutionary military capabilities might be willing to finance high-risk investigations that conventional research institutions considered implausible. At the same time, classified projects could avoid the normal scrutiny that exposes theoretical weaknesses and experimental errors. The resulting controversy concerned not just the validity of torsion fields, but also the responsibility of scientific institutions to evaluate extraordinary claims before substantial public funds were committed.

The dispute became public in 1991, during the final year of the Soviet Union. Alexandrov raised the issue within the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and its Division of General Physics and Astronomy subsequently appealed to the Soviet legislature. On July 4, 1991, the Committee of the USSR Supreme Soviet on Science and Technology adopted a resolution addressing what it called the improper financing of pseudoscientific research from government sources. The Centre for Unconventional Technologies was subsequently dissolved, and Akimov lost his position as director. Later accounts by Kruglyakov and other critics claimed that as much as 500 million Soviet rubles had been allocated to torsion-related research, an enormous nominal amount for the period. However, the distinction between funds proposed, authorized, committed, and actually spent remains important, especially in the absence of complete contemporary budget records. The criticism also predates the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This chronology challenges the suggestion that Russian torsion physics was rejected primarily because post-Soviet scientists wanted to conform to Western academic standards.

The controversy continued after the Soviet collapse, although the scientific and economic environment changed dramatically. Russian research institutions experienced severe financial pressure during the 1990s, while private laboratories, independent scientific organizations, and commercial technology ventures expanded into areas once dominated by government programs. Akimov and Shipov continued promoting torsion-related ideas, including through their 1995 preprint. Their association with the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences sometimes created confusion because its name closely resembled that of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the country’s established national scientific academy. The two organizations weren’t equivalent, and association with the former didn’t imply endorsement by the latter. During the late 1990s, the Russian Academy of Sciences established a formal commission devoted to combating pseudoscience, with Kruglyakov and later Alexandrov among its prominent figures. Torsion-field generators, unconventional energy devices, and purported medical technologies became recurring targets of scientific criticism, particularly when their proponents offered commercial applications without convincing independent evidence.

Whether the research was also harmed by institutional stigma is a more difficult question. Scientific establishments can become hostile toward controversial subjects, and researchers may avoid promising investigations if association with a discredited theory threatens their careers. The Soviet and post-Soviet history of torsion physics contains enough political, financial, and institutional conflict to justify examining that possibility seriously. However, the presence of professional hostility doesn’t establish that a rejected theory was correct. Critics pointed to weak experimental controls, unsupported mathematical interpretations, extraordinary applications that hadn’t been independently demonstrated, and public spending on claims that bypassed rigorous scientific review. Proponents argued that established physicists were unwilling to consider unfamiliar mechanisms and that the consequences of a successful discovery justified additional investigation. These explanations aren’t mutually exclusive: institutional disputes can be real even when the underlying scientific claims are mistaken. The strongest historical conclusion is that Russian torsion research encountered substantial scientific opposition before and after the Soviet collapse, while the available evidence doesn’t establish that Western pressure was the principal cause of its rejection.

Could Modern Experiments Resolve the Torsion Mystery?

Kozyrev’s mechanical experiments offer one possible starting point because they involved specific instruments and measurable quantities. His reported 8-milligram change in apparent weight, corresponding to approximately 78 micronewtons, is readily within the measurement range of contemporary precision force sensors. But the challenge isn’t simply detecting a force of that magnitude. It’s determining whether the signal represents a genuine external interaction rather than a mechanical artifact produced by the apparatus itself. A modern replication could use a balanced rotor with carefully characterized bearings, optical displacement sensors, accelerometers, temperature probes, magnetic-field monitoring, and automated measurements that eliminate observer adjustments during each run. The experiment would need to compare clockwise and counterclockwise rotation, multiple speeds, different instrument orientations, and deliberately introduced vibration levels. Blinded operating sequences could help determine whether a reported signal remains present when the analyst doesn’t know which operating condition is active. The decisive measurement would be a stable, repeatable force correlated with a clearly defined physical parameter after conventional vibration, thermal, and electromagnetic effects had been excluded.

The alleged torsion communications experiment could be tested through a similarly direct engineering approach. A modern transmitter would generate a randomized binary sequence unknown to the receiver operator, while the receiver recorded its entire output without communication between the two experimental teams. Both systems would require electrically isolated power supplies, independent time references, calibrated electromagnetic monitoring, and shielding arrangements designed to suppress unintended conventional signals. At a distance of 22 kilometers, measurements would need to report transmitted power, receiver sensitivity, modulation bandwidth, signal-to-noise ratio, bit-error rate, and the timing relationship between transmitted and received information. Control runs with the transmitter disabled or replaced by a dummy load would be essential, as would tests at multiple distances and with independently constructed equipment. Reproducible reception of information through carefully controlled barriers would be an important experimental observation, but it wouldn’t automatically establish a new force or superluminal propagation. Demonstrating faster-than-light communication would require accurate measurements of signal delay, careful treatment of synchronization errors, and complete exclusion of ordinary communication paths.

The reported metal-processing effects might be investigated using techniques that weren’t widely available during the original experiments. Modern scanning electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, X-ray diffraction, and automated microhardness testing can characterize grain size, crystal orientation, dislocations, phase structure, and mechanical properties in extraordinary detail. Identical metal samples could be randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, processed under matched furnace temperatures, and evaluated by analysts who don’t know which specimens were exposed to an alleged torsion generator. Tin, copper, or steel samples could be examined for changes in crystallization, grain boundaries, twinning, tensile strength, hardness, and electrical conductivity. The investigation would need to control melt chemistry, temperature gradients, cooling rates, furnace atmosphere, magnetic fields, and mechanical disturbances. Even if repeatable changes were discovered, identifying their origin would require additional experiments. An unexpected metallurgical result could be valuable without proving that spacetime torsion caused it, just as a conventional electromagnetic or thermal effect might initially be mistaken for an unfamiliar physical interaction.

The propulsion claims are especially well suited to independent engineering evaluation because conservation of momentum provides a precise standard for success. A motorized inertioid can be placed on a force balance or torsion pendulum designed to minimize mechanical contact with the outside world. Its electrical input, mechanical vibration, thermal behavior, and electromagnetic emissions can then be characterized throughout the operating cycle. The essential question is whether the device produces a sustained external force or only oscillatory motion that averages to zero when measured correctly. Advanced force balances, vacuum chambers, optical interferometers, and vibration-isolation systems make it possible to investigate exceedingly small thrust claims with much greater precision than was available to the original Soviet experimenters. Meanwhile, mainstream physicists continue searching for previously unknown spin-dependent interactions using atomic comagnetometers, specialized magnetic sensors, and precision torsion balances. A theoretical proposal published in January 2026 described a spin-sensitive torsion-balance system with a projected torque sensitivity of approximately 1.2 × 10⁻¹⁸ newton-meters. Although that work doesn’t validate Russian torsion physics, it illustrates how dramatically experimental capabilities have advanced and how specifically defined new interactions can be tested using contemporary instrumentation.

What Remains of the Soviet Torsion Mystery?

One of the most important distinctions in this history is that mainstream physics never abandoned the mathematical study of torsion. Einstein–Cartan theory remains a legitimate extension of general relativity, while teleparallel gravity, metric-affine geometry, and other theories incorporating additional geometric degrees of freedom continue to receive serious theoretical attention. The search for previously unknown spin-dependent forces is also an active area of experimental physics. A comprehensive review published in Reviews of Modern Physics in June 2025 examined exotic spin-dependent interactions that could arise from hypothetical particles such as axions, axionlike particles, dark photons, and other proposed force carriers. Such investigations employ precision instruments to search for effects beyond the four established fundamental interactions while placing increasingly stringent limits on possible new couplings. This doesn’t mean that Akimov’s torsion generators or Shipov’s physical vacuum theory have been vindicated. It means that serious scientists continue investigating new gravitational structures and hypothetical interactions involving spin, provided those models make sufficiently clear and testable predictions.

The historical record also raises an important question about the fate of the original Soviet experiments. Kozyrev reported unusual mechanical and astronomical observations, Veynik proposed unconventional thermodynamic phenomena, and Akimov and Shipov described devices that allegedly affected communications, materials, propulsion, and energy production. Much of this work appeared in Russian-language books, preprints, conference proceedings, and institutional reports that received limited international attention. Some publications are readily available today, but the surviving public record doesn’t always include the complete laboratory notebooks, calibration procedures, raw measurements, or independent test reports needed for a definitive evaluation. Recovering these materials could clarify exactly what the researchers observed and whether their results were consistent across repeated trials. It might also reveal that some experiments detected real but conventional effects that were interpreted incorrectly. Scientific history contains numerous examples of measurements that were initially misunderstood before improved instrumentation identified their actual causes. Determining what happened in these Soviet laboratories requires examining the experiments individually rather than treating every result as evidence for or against an entire school of physics.

The broader story is also inseparable from the scientific culture of the Soviet Union. Soviet researchers had already achieved extraordinary successes in nuclear physics, aerospace engineering, rocketry, and space exploration, creating a research environment in which ambitious technological programs could attract serious institutional interest. The Cold War encouraged investigations that promised strategic advantages, even when the underlying scientific concepts were unconventional. Military secrecy sometimes protected legitimate discoveries, but it could also conceal weak experiments from independent scrutiny. After the Soviet collapse, economic instability and changing institutional priorities complicated the survival of speculative research programs. Scientists who had worked within government organizations increasingly encountered private markets eager for revolutionary technologies. These conditions help explain both the enthusiasm surrounding torsion physics and the hostility it eventually encountered. The history doesn’t require imagining an organized international campaign to suppress Russian discoveries, nor does it justify dismissing every unconventional researcher as incompetent. It demonstrates how scientific ambition, government funding, theoretical speculation, and inadequate experimental verification can become entangled in ways that are difficult to separate afterward.

Did Soviet scientists discover a new force of nature? The evidence currently available doesn’t establish that Kozyrev, Veynik, Akimov, or Shipov demonstrated an independently reproducible fundamental interaction beyond conventional physics. Their work included legitimate mathematical concepts, controversial theoretical extensions, reported experimental anomalies, ambitious engineering proposals, and substantial institutional disputes. Some claims are strongly challenged by established physical principles, while others remain too poorly documented to evaluate conclusively. What makes the Soviet torsion mystery worth investigating isn’t the assumption that its proponents were right, but the opportunity to reconstruct what they actually measured and determine whether any specific observation survives modern experimental scrutiny. If one of these experiments reveals a genuine interaction that cannot be explained by electromagnetism, gravity, thermal effects, mechanical forces, or known quantum phenomena, the result could be revolutionary. But the evidence must come from measurements that independent investigators can reproduce, not from government interest, mathematical speculation, or accusations of scientific suppression. Ultimately, the Soviet torsion mystery can only be resolved in the laboratory, where extraordinary claims must either become reproducible discoveries or yield to more conventional explanations.

References

Original Soviet and Russian research

• Causal or Asymmetrical Mechanics in Linear Approximation (Причинная или несимметричная механика в линейном приближении) — Nikolai A. Kozyrev, Pulkovo Observatory, 1958. Original Russian monograph, 88 pages, available through the Russian State Library.
• Possibility of Experimental Study of the Properties of Time — Nikolai A. Kozyrev, 1967. English translation of Kozyrev’s theoretical and experimental account, including his gyroscope and balance experiments. PDF.
• Volcanic Phenomena on the Moon — Nikolai A. Kozyrev, Nature, Vol. 198, pp. 979–980, June 1963. Original publication concerning his lunar observations.
• Astronomical Observations Using the Physical Properties of Time (Астрономические наблюдения посредством физических свойств времени) — Nikolai A. Kozyrev, 1977. Original Russian report describing his unconventional astronomical measurement methods. PDF.
• On Some Properties of Time Discovered by Astronomical Observations (О некоторых свойствах времени, обнаруженных астрономическими наблюдениями) — Nikolai A. Kozyrev and Viktor V. Nasonov, 1980. Russian paper discussing the alleged detection of astronomical objects at past, present, and future positions. PDF.
• Thermodynamics of Real Processes (Термодинамика реальных процессов) — Albert I. Veynik, Minsk, 1991. Original 576-page Russian book discussing his unconventional thermodynamic and chronal theories, with a downloadable text archive.
• Torsion Fields and Their Experimental Manifestations (Торсионные поля и их экспериментальные проявления) — Anatoly E. Akimov and Gennady I. Shipov, Moscow, 1995. Original 31-page Russian preprint describing the claimed torsion generators, communications experiments, materials processing, propulsion, and energy applications.
• Torsion Fields and Their Experimental Manifestations — English Conference Version — Anatoly E. Akimov and Gennady I. Shipov, 1996. English-language conference text; the linked page contains an excerpt rather than the complete original preprint.
• The Theory of Physical Vacuum: Theory, Experiments and Technologies (Теория физического вакуума) — Gennady I. Shipov, second edition, Moscow, 1997. Russian monograph presenting Shipov’s geometrical vacuum theory and proposed applications.

Scientific criticism and historical investigations

• Article About Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev (Статья о Николае Александровиче Козыреве) — Historical biographical account discussing Kozyrev’s scientific career, causal mechanics, and the Soviet Academy’s 1960 investigation.
• Torsion Fields of Irrigation: On the History of the Commission Against Pseudoscience (Торсионные поля орошения) — Evgeny B. Alexandrov, 2021. Historical account of the Soviet torsion controversy, reproducing the July 4, 1991, parliamentary committee resolution. Russian.
• The Theory of Physical Vacuum: Theory, Experiments, and Technologies by G. I. Shipov — Valery A. Rubakov, Physics-Uspekhi, Vol. 43, pp. 309–310, 2000. Published scientific critique of Shipov’s theory, available in English.
• What Threat Does Pseudoscience Pose to Society? (Чем угрожает обществу лженаука?) — Eduard P. Kruglyakov, Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Vol. 74, No. 1, pp. 8–27, 2004. Discussion of pseudoscience and the Soviet torsion-field controversy. Russian.

Experimental investigations of rotating gyroscopes

• Anomalous Weight Reduction on a Gyroscope’s Right Rotations around the Vertical Axis on the Earth — Hideo Hayasaka and Sakae Takeuchi, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 63, pp. 2701–2704, 1989. Reports a milligram-scale apparent weight anomaly in rotating gyroscopes.
• Null Result for the Weight Change of a Spinning Gyroscope — J. M. Nitschke and P. A. Wilmarth, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 64, pp. 2115–2116, 1990. Independent tests reporting no significant anomalous weight change.
• The Mass of Spinning Rotors: No Dependence on Speed or Sense of Rotation — T. J. Quinn and A. Picard, Nature, Vol. 343, pp. 732–735, 1990. Examines apparent gyroscope weight changes and conventional measurement effects.

Established torsion physics and modern experimental research

• Einstein–Cartan Theory — Andrzej Trautman, Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 2, pp. 189–195, 2006. Explains the relationship between spacetime curvature, torsion, and intrinsic angular momentum.
• The Teleparallel Equivalent of General Relativity — José W. Maluf, Annalen der Physik, Vol. 525, pp. 339–357, 2013. Review of the established geometrical formulation of gravitation using tetrads and torsion.
• Spin-Dependent Exotic Interactions — Lei Cong and collaborators, Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 97, 025005, June 2025. Comprehensive review of hypothetical spin-dependent forces and modern experimental limits.
• Novel Torsion-Balance Approach to Probe Exotic Spin-Dependent Interactions — Physical Review D, Vol. 113, 015043, January 2026. Proposed precision experiment with a projected torque sensitivity of approximately 1.2 × 10⁻¹⁸ newton-meters.

Cold War historical context

• Operation Ossawakim — Deutschlandmuseum. Historical overview of the Soviet transfer of German scientists, engineers, and technical equipment on October 22, 1946. Relevant to the proposed German connection, but not evidence that German torsion research influenced the Soviet program.