Talk:Royal Rife/Archive 3

I'm out of this one
Thanks for the ride, guys. I've now learned the definition of WP:WikiLawyering from firsthand experience, which I can define as "knowing the policy of WP:Ignore_all_rules and blindly and pedantically following one's prejudices anyhow." If this were happening only occasionally or on a distributed basis across all the entries I've made to Wikipedia, it could be construed as accidental; however, where there is a concentration of several persons on one entry doing this on a daily basis, I can only assume that they have a vested interest in the viewpoint they are pushing.

Since I have no vested interest here, I don't need the aggravation. Wikipedia has lost status as an impartial resource in my eyes, and has also lost an editor. Haiqu (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * sorry, Haiqu; this was a bad page to cut your teeth on. most of wikipedia isn't like this, but fringe topics have a poor track record with respect to civility, on all sides. unfortunate, but true.  try editing something non-contentious for a while; you seem intelligent, and you could probably contribute a lot.  come back to this after you've settle in a bit.  -- Ludwigs 2  05:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would agree that this article is so extremely biased that it does the subject matter little good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.234.206.14 (talk) 01:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Australia has a cure for cancer!!!???
The wiki states "In Australia, the use of Rife machines has been blamed for the deaths of cancer patients who could have been cured with conventional therapy."

"Conventional therapy" is surgical tumor removal, radiation, and chemotherapy (radiation in a pill). These are not even treatments for cancer, only for the symptom of tumor. Australia, according to this article has a "cure", and not just any cure, but a cure that is carried out by means of these three "conventional therapies".

The cancer lobby groups (AMA, ACA, etc...) have put themselves in over their heads on this one. It should be noted in the wiki that their claims, critical of Royal Rife and otherwise, are substantially invalid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dream2000 (talk • contribs) 19:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Rife microscope and holography
Dennis Gabor, the father of holography, is featured on Google today. Of interest is the fact that he developed the theory of holography back in 1947 (years before the laser) through experiments using a heavily filtered mercury arc light. Rife's use of a mercury arc light in his microscope is explicit here. AJRG (talk) 11:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Relevant PhD thesis (especially page 60 forwards) discussing direct imaging at the atomic scale using an X-ray photoelectron diffraction self hologram technique. AJRG (talk) 22:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes
This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Pending changes/Queue  are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

Cancer rates caused by germs link and percentages
The wiki article of Cancer has been updated some time ago. It increased the percentage of cancer cases due to infections. A number of infomercials have been broadcast recently that state that beyond carcinogens like tobacco smoking, infections are the next greatest triggers / causes for cancers citing a female researcher--See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cancer/Archive_4#This_article_is_cited_by_the_Royal_Rife_article

In section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife#Cancer_and_disease_treatment_claims, the figure of this Royal Rife article had been quoting an older figure of 15% should now be updated to what the linked cancer article specifies: 20% -- and have the link changed to the new link to the renamed section in that cancer article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer#Infection rather than the old one from a while prior to these cancer article updates.

A small part of the reason why the cancer article had to be updated was because of the work of the relatively recent Nobel Prize (Medicine) winning researchers who affirmed / confirmed prior theories that GI tract ulcers were caused by Helicobacter pylori bacterial infections, when mainstream opinion was seriously mistaken ("reversing decades of medical doctrine which held that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.").

Virus, bacteria, mycoplasma, fungus were thought not to be able to persist in various parts of the body without (symptoms) the immune system attacking and destroying them, but it turns out that some of these things are chronic infections some of which can trigger or serve as a co-factors in causing cancer. In Rife's day, military germ warfare labs had not developed the sophistication of recent decades so that fewer such disease agents existed in those days. Oldspammer (talk) 04:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * OK. If a reasonably reliable independent source credits Rife in some way, or even draws a link between him and the current understanding of infection-mediated carcinogenesis, then let's discuss that source here for possible incorporation into the article. MastCell Talk 16:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "OK?" Please carefully re-read the archived talk page for the cancer article linked above? WP:RS are linked there.  Verbiage of the Rife article DOES NOT materially change. (I was too slow, and an edit conflict delayed this entry) Oldspammer (talk) 21:24, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * There's also a more general issue here, which is that some of the material used to debunk Rife's theories now carries less weight because science has moved on. For example, the alleged resolution limit for optical microscopes has recently been breached.  It was done based on the 1931 doctoral dissertation of a future Nobel prize winner who had that year moved to America.  As another example, the future Nobel prize winner Dennis Gabor in 1947 used a  heavily filtered mercury arc light to invent holography.  AJRG (talk) 18:58, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Information supportive of Rife is ALWAYS gone pretty quickly. Extensive article history shows mention of 2-photon microscopes was in there, then deleted.  Also, the Gaston Naessens' Somatoscope mention was deleted.  Also, other optical virus microscopes mention was deleted.  Physicist's report of Rife microscope theory of operation was in there--gone.  Description of the components of the microscope as outlined in the reports--gone.  Mention of Rife-contemporary and modern day scientists supporting certain of Rife's theories--gone.  Clinical trials of the Beam Ray were in there--gone.  Particulars of Beam Ray Corporation court case trial--gone.  Explanations of the historical events surrounding conspiracy theories regarding Rife--gone.  These are "trimmed" on purpose.  The article was getting too supportive of Rife (a.k.a. large), and that is not the trend wanted by politically powerful and wealthy interests (that shall go unnamed) and their multitude of unreformed "well educated" minions.  If the business "powers that be" and their tax-exempt charitable foundations supported Rife's ideas, he would have been scientifically published / supported too; the disease cures would have been more widely clinically trialled all around the world; microscopes mass produced, and so on.  "Royal Raymond Rife" did not get a real doctorate, his microscopes had too many expensive components--were hand made--too small a market--unprofitable to manufacture, nor did Rife build any of those other supposed working optical virus microscopes, nor did Rife prove his prior theories correct by forcibly getting the peer-reviewed, establishment scientific press to publish his findings.  Would those findings oppose business interests?  Repercussions: stifle drug company profits, stifle grants to universities, stifle funding for research in fields rendered irrelevant, lower disease treatment expenses, inhibit depopulation efforts, possibly open the medical field to "less qualified curing machine operators."  I would invite anyone brave or foolish enough to revive any of the deleted material as long as reliable elite rich establishment sources could be cited. Oldspammer (talk) 21:24, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * How much of the removed information was based on independent, reliable secondary sources about Rife? MastCell Talk 23:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The court case should be usable. Also, sources don't all have to be independent - once notability is established, other sources are acceptable if used correctly.  So Rife's own lab notebook saying what he did might be quotable. AJRG (talk) 00:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Er, the only decent and notability-establishing sources discuss "Rife machines" as a particularly invidious form of quackery. What sources, exactly, do you have in mind? MastCell Talk 05:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This article isn't about other people's scams - it's about Rife himself. Start here. The last of his microscopes is in the Science Museum in London and the Smithsonian holds an archive (Science Service, Records, 1902-1965, Record Unit 7091, Box 129 of 459, Folder 10 - Rife-Kendall microscope, 1931. News reports of research in bacteriology by Royal Raymond Rife and Arthur Isaac Kendall) AJRG (talk) 09:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not totally true. Wikipedia articles are about anything related to the subject. This isn't a biography in the usual sense. It's more than just a biography. Anything about Rife, including (mis)use of his devices, is potentially eligible content. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This is indeed an interesting source. It reads, in part:
 * "... one can go to Google and search for Royal Raymond Rife. There you will find a rich assortment of conspiracy theorists and their various attempts to explain how Rife’s ingenious discoveries (including optical microscopic identification (magnification x 31 000) of living viruses and ‘silver bullet’, EMR-frequency therapy for polio, most tumours and viral infections, protozoan, bacterial and fungal diseases, stiff muscles, headaches, motion sickness and ‘prostrate’) have been suppressed by the medical/pharmaceutical establishment."
 * ... which makes me wonder if the author had perused Talk:Royal Rife. MastCell Talk 16:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Rife was all over the American newspapers in 1931 and 1932, has been the subject of TV programs and has accidentally spawned a whole subculture. Hopefully we can agree that he's personally notable and move on from there.  AJRG (talk) 16:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, the Rife article was updated to say 20% of cancers caused by infectios, but the cancer article link still is to a section that was renamed (as I initially stated above), and although the link takes you to the cancer article, it does not take you to the infections section (or whatever it is called now). Oldspammer (talk) 02:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Popular Science Magazine article on an earlier Rife Microscope with pictures
And the article says that motion pictures of pathogens were taken and after being developed were played back... These missing films would have been kept by Rife, but were obviously removed from his lab by someone knowing what they were.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9CcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=lockjaw+spore+hatching&source=bl&ots=GM-QW8nEeh&sig=qn7xCWlwmY48o7SxpaVnrzoiVqk&hl=en&ei=xXshTOauKoKB8gb71bmDAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=lockjaw%20spore%20hatching&f=false

One of the pictures claims to be at a magnification of 12,000x. If the size of the given spore is known, then maybe the claim can be validated that the physics limit was broken, maybe the staining with light claim was true, and maybe the description of operation by Rife of his own microscopes were accurate. Oldspammer (talk) 03:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The identification as typhus (Rickettsia prowazekii) surprises me - typhoid (Salmonella typhi) seems more likely. Without knowing the exact strain or the variety of hookworm, it's hard to judge size accurately.  The Abbe limit is typically 200 nm for visible light and Rickettsia are 300-500 nm wide and 800-2,000 nm long whereas Salmonella are 700-1,500 nm wide and 2,000-5,000 nm long. This article does, though, support Rife's personal notability in 1931. AJRG (talk) 07:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A quick check of the "typhus" image suggests that the largest bacteria are about 30pixels long and 6 pixels wide, which would be close to the Abbe limit for UV light if they're Salmonella typhi. AJRG (talk) 07:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Please clarify "pixels"--what DPI are you assuming? Do you know the size of the original image prior to the magazine publishing it?  If you are using the Google books viewing software, did you use the zoom function?  Was your screen size set to be huge?  Did you use alt-print-screen, and then examine the copied image from the application into an image editor to count the span of pixels?  The magnification of the bacteria image, did it have the magnification specified--I thought that one didn't?  I'm looking at the spore image and the fine detail available of the egg shell edge, and the new-born worm's cell wall thickness, etc.  That looks pretty good... Oldspammer (talk) 10:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to the highest resolution I could obtain from the source provided. When the "typhus" picture was first published (and more plausibly identified as typhoid bacilli) in the San Diego Union of Nov 3, 1929, the magnification was stated to be 16,000 diameters.  The Popular Science article doesn't appear to have a picture of a spore in it - were you referring to the Franklin Institute / Smithsonian paper?  AJRG (talk) 10:41, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the lede
In view of the Popular Science article and the piece in the New York Times (both from 1931) the lede should probably start with something like:

''Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 – August 5, 1971) was the American inventor of a specially designed optical microscope with which he became a pioneer of high magnification time-lapse photomicroscopy.'

(appropriately referenced). His beliefs and the subsequent controversy would follow. What do people think? AJRG (talk) 13:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "pioneer" is a value-judgement word that does not strike me as appropriate or accurate.  'pioneers' are generally people (or groups) who are among the first to do something that a lot of people later imitate - e.g. Walt Disney, who was a pioneer of animation because the tools, techniques and style he used influenced generations of animators.  I don't believe the same can be said for Rife.  -- Ludwigs 2  14:20, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The Popular Science article starts with the time-lapse film, so they apparently considered it unusual enough to be noteworthy. What words would you use to describe that?  AJRG (talk) 14:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The novelty of the films is underlined by this newspaper report. AJRG (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Popular Science is (and always has been) largely a science hobbyists' magazine - not a criticism, just a note that they usually lead with cool toys, because that's what their readership is into. however, the point I'm trying to get across is that I don't get the sense that Rife's techniques spawned a cottage industry of people building Rife devices (that didn't happen until decades later, and those devices were pure charlatan garbage, with no relationship to anything Rife might actually have done).  If you go somewhere but no one follows, you're not a pioneer.  an explorer, maybe, but not a pioneer.


 * I don't see any real reason to change the first line, which strikes me as reasonably factual. If you really wanted to, we could add in part of your suggestion: "Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 – August 5, 1971) was an American inventor, working on optical microscope and  time-lapse photomicroscopy, best known for his belief that he could observe and render inert a number of viruses which he thought were causal factors in cancer and several other diseases."  -- Ludwigs 2  15:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You've just proved that you can't be bothered to read the references. This is a quote from the Popular Science article (emphasis mine):
 * We were in the laboratory of R. R. Rife at San Diego, Calif. He is a pioneer in the art of making motion pictures of the microscopically small.
 * He was notable for his photomiscroscopy movies before he was ever notable for anything else - the Smithsonian has an archive of these newspaper reports from 1931 (his example was followed by John Ott). If you'd read the article you would also have found this quote at the very end:
 * In no way, however, Rife makes clear, does this idea uphold the claims of medical fakers that they can cure disease by applying electrical "vibrations" to the body of a patient.
 * Perhaps we should include that... AJRG (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * who's stopping you? though I'll tell you in advance, if you do it, I will modify it so it says "according to Popular Science Magazine".  that is, unless you can find a number of other sources that make the same claim.  -- Ludwigs 2  04:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How about early exponent of high magnification time-lapse cine-micrography then? A news item in Science reporting the California and Western Medicine paper has this to say (emphasis mine):
 * In the forthcoming article only meager details of the new microscope itself are given. It is made known, however, that all the optical parts are of quartz instead of the usual glass, that attachments make possible spectroscopic examinations and motion pictures ''of the material under the lens, and that magnifications up to seven thousand diameters are possible. The work on Dr. Kendall's filterable typhoid germs was done at a magnification of five thousand diameters.
 * "Filterable Bodies Seen with the Rife Microscope" Science Magazine - Vol. 74, December 11, 1931 AJRG (talk) 09:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Science doesn't say he was an "early exponent"; science said he could do it. see the difference?
 * You have a logical fallacy running here, AJRG. I'm fine if you want to say "Source X stated that Rife was A, B and C", assuming that source X is reliable and what they said about Rife was relevant.  However, if you want to say "Rife was A, B and C because source X says so" then I have to object.  The first statement is attributional - it says what a particular source thought about Rife and attributes it correctly, which is non-contentious.  the second phrase, however, is dispositional - it tries to assert that Rife was something in and of himself, based on the report of a source which may not be qualified to make that assessment.  "Popular Science thought Rife was a pioneer" - true; "Rife was a pioneer because Popular Science thought so" - false (or at least, not demonstrable).  -- Ludwigs 2  16:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ludwigs2, the microscopes were hand made, and cost a huge sum of money just for the quartz optics, and so few if anyone could afford to buy them so the market and markup were not worth the effort of them being mass produced by every microscope manufacturer around the world--although that might have been nice. Also, very few people were able to "patiently" make both the staining with light, and the optical focusing in order to examine samples--this is stated by the Museum in England guy's write-up when he says something to the effect that English Dr. so and so was unable to get his microscopes to work satisfactorily possibly because that Dr. would have to waste his valuable time tinkering with the adjustments for hours at a time just to get a nice image to appear, and since that Dr. did not want to set aside such large amounts of time to dink around fiddling with the thing, he complained that the first microscope sent to him had something wrong with it, later he received the number 5 microscope in its stead, but still had the same dilemmas with that one. The popular science article mentions in paragraph #4 that the equipment in the room cost about $50,000 in 1931 dollars (a large sum except for a millionaire / billionaire back when that meant something more than it means today) and that was describing the earlier Rife #1 or #2 scope, and not the more complicated #3 microscope of a couple of years later. To estimate the inflation of today's dollar value, the price of Gold was between $17 to $20 per Troy ounce in 1931, but today it is around $1240--you do the math--making the equipment cost more than $3 million in today's dollars.  Rife also was supposedly the inventor of a special sample cutting / shaving slice machine--the name of which escapes me--that could shave off a very thin tissue sample piece for use with his powerful set of microscopes. Anyone buying Rife microscope equipment would need a similar slicer for examining tissue samples?--also at considerable custom made costs.  It is understandable that everyone was not scrambling to buy all of this stuff--perhaps another reason why the English Dr. so and so was unable to view samples properly--because they were not sliced thin enough? Oldspammer (talk) 10:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * understandable, yes. but how (and to what) is it relevant? -- Ludwigs 2  16:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "Walt Disney ... influenced generations of animators. I don't believe the same can be said for Rife." Notable and popular are different things, and it is because Rife was not developing things for the masses that his technology was not more wide-spread / widely used / in daily use by more people than just two or three people including Rife himself. Isn't comparing Rife to Disney ridiculous?  Is it even fair?  If Rife was able to produce and sell his microscope technology for 10 cents (the price of cartoon theater tickets), then every kid in the world could be using these things now?
 * The WP article should probably mention the prohibitive costs of construction and therefore selling prices in terms of our current day inflationary dollar values even if just to apprise the reader (and some contributors) of a key reason for the lack of Rife's mass appeal / notoriety (or whatever adjective is appropriate). Oldspammer (talk) 01:04, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Cine-micrography / micro-cinematography
The earliest example I can find is J Comandon's collaboration with Pathé in 1909:
 * "Cinematographie a l'ultra-microscope, de microbes vivants et des particules mobiles"("Ultra-microscope cinematography of living microbes and moving particles"), J Comandon, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des sciences, 1909

which is mentioned in FA Talbot's 1912 book "Moving Pictures". Other attempts were made before the First World War, for example by F. Percy Smith, but a Popular Science article in May 1923 (How Movie Screen Shows Heart Throb Of Embryo Chick, p58) displays little progress.

Interest seems to have revived in 1928 with:
 * "Cinematograph demonstration of living tissue cells growing in vitro", RG Canti, Arch. Exp. Zellforsch. (Archiv für Experimentelle Zellforschung), 1928

which is widely cited and Rife could have seen, followed by
 * "A Standard Microcinematographic Apparatus" H Rosenberger, Science, Volume 69, Issue 1800, pp. 672-674. June 1929

which may have triggered the press attention. AJRG (talk) 10:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * An even earlier example: F.Martin Duncan's 1903 film series The Unseen World produced by Charles Urban. AJRG (talk) 16:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A useful survey by Rosenberger:
 * "Micro-Cinematography in Medical Research", H Rosenberger, Journal of Dental Research, Volume 9, Page 343, 1929
 * which gives an overview of the state of micro-cinematography in 1929. Rife's film would have stunned his contemporaries, and perhaps explains the newspaper excitement.  AJRG (talk) 16:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit
I've done a onceover here. I'm ok with rife.de being used as a source if they are hosting PDFs of articles in reliable sources, such as the Rosenow article, but barely-intelligible nonsense by this John Crane nobody certainly does not make the grade, and has been cut. Angio (talk) 05:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * At the same time as you (per your edit summary) fixed a variety of poorly-worded and misleading sentences, you also added a couple of poorly-worded, misleading and unsourced sentences. I have no problem with about half your edits, and the Crane reference can happily go.  However, the required technology would not have been available during Rife's time is unsourced and (rather surprisingly) untrue, and there is no evidence that Rife's devices were capable of doing so, or had any other therapeutic effect is contrary to reliable sources.  Applying a modern standard of medical proof to the past is an example of recentism and should be avoided.  His contemporaries believed that his devices did these things on the basis of the evidence available to them, whereas later attempts to replicate his work failed, for reasons unknown - both of these we can reliably report.  Several modern attempts have been exposed as fraud, but that doesn't tell us anything about Rife. I've reverted your edit for now so that we can discuss it.  AJRG (talk) 08:22, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevance of Maria Goeppert-Mayer to an appreciation of what Rife was claiming to do is apparent here:
 * Multi-photon excitation (MPE) microscopy plays a growing role among microscopical techniques utilized for studying biological matter. In conjunction with confocal microscopy it can be considered the imaging workhorse of life science laboratories. Its roots can be found in a fundamental work written by Maria Goeppert Mayer more than 70 years ago.
 * AJRG (talk) 09:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * AJRG: as a matter of Wikipedia convention, full reverts are discouraged except in extreme cases. If you truly "have no problem with about half of those edits" then I suggest that you self-revert your revert and go back in to surgically remove the material you disagree with.  try to preserve good content as much as you can - that way the article consistently improves, rather than just yoyoing betwen versions.  don't be lazy.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment on content, not on the contributor AJRG (talk) 16:20, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If your behavior is inappropriate with respect to content, then I will comment on your behavior. be warned, people who habitually revert without consideration for content almost always get themselves blocked in the long run.  -- Ludwigs 2  18:16, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * AJRG, I have gone through the talk page logs. I'm afraid I'm going to say little that Ludwigs hasn't already covered, but it seems to bear repeating. First of all, you have not shown one iota of proof that Rife's gadget had anything to do with any of the modern non-diffraction limited microscopy techniques. I am familiar with Goeppert-Mayer and the theory of two-photon microscopy. If you care to read about these subjects a bit, you will find that a.) two-photon excitation was not shown experimentally until the advent of the laser in the 1960s, and b.) two-photon microscopy is diffraction-limited, and wouldn't have helped Rife even if he had miraculously managed to stumble upon it. Whether the theoretical underpinnings of a particular technology existed at the time is irrelevant if there is no evidence that the technology itself existed. And just because it is now possible to break the diffraction limit does not mean that we should accept, without evidence, all previous claims to have broken it. To suggest otherwise is to commit a logical error. By analogy, since the 1960s, it has been technically possible to go to the moon. If we hear that Snoyal Snife claimed in 1930 to have visited that satellite, we should be skeptical even though the feat has since been accomplished, because the fact that the feat has been accomplished in modern times lends no support to the earlier claim.


 * It's very disingenuous of you to accuse me of "recentism." We are not discussing the social sciences or philosophy. You and I both know that Rife's microscope either accomplished its stated goals, or it didn't accomplish them. At this point, the preponderance of the evidence suggests the latter, and there is little convincing evidence for the former. Why is there so little discussion of how the microscope actually worked, other than some woo-woo handwaving about "optical heterodyning" and other such misapplied technical-sounding words? And if Rife's microscope was capable of 8,000x magnification as the article suggests, how come he never was able to describe the shape of a virus or any other sub-light resolution microstructure? Don't you think it is suspicious that the photographic evidence resulting from Rife's work is so slim? If Rife had simply described a few of the objects he saw, let alone took pictures of them, we would be a long way towards showing that his technology really worked. As it is, all he has to show for it, in the Rosenow article, are some "purple bodies" that are sparsely described and could be anything, including artifact or trickery. Moreover, the fact that Rosenow uses the word "virus" and "coccus" interchangeably should give you some idea about the state the art at that time. If anybody is engaged in "recentism," it is you, as you are co-opting modern technology to rationalize specious claims by investigators who were laboring in an age when medicine had little advanced from the work of Galen.


 * I have enough background in the sciences to determine that Rife's claims are most likely malarkey. But not all Wikipedia readers do, and I do not want people coming to this page and getting the idea that Rife's claims are reasonable. Any statement of the claims need to be leavened with a dose of reality, or the page will inappropriately lend the implicit backing of Wikipedia to pseudoscientific claims. If you can think of an alternatively-worded way to do this, please be my guest. Angio (talk) 17:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Now that you've reverted my edit again, I've gone and deleted the mention of modern exceptions to the diffraction limit. You can't have it both ways; if you want to mention modern advances (which are irrelevant) then there needs to be a statement that Rife's microscope has nothing to do with these advances. Ok? Angio (talk) 17:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an encyclopedia. You can't just say The limitations of light microscopes are such that even the best resolution of a conventional microscope (at roughly 200 nanometers) is inadequate to visualize most viruses because reliable sources contradict that. The technolologies required are Confocal Microscopy (a pinhole) and Two-photon excitation microscopy (a very bright single frequency coherent light source).  The first was used by Isaac Newton and the second by Dennis Gabor in the development of Holography before the laser was invented.  Rife patented a Mercury arc lamp for use in microscopy.  As I keep saying, I'm not claiming that Rife did break the Abbe limit - I'm insisting that claims of impossibility should be given less weight in the light of recent scientific discoveries.  AJRG (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Neither confocal microscopy nor two-photon excitation microscopy is a sub-diffraction limit technology. Confocal microscopy is a pinhole, and two-photon excitation microscopy a single coherent light source, in the same way that a car is a tire. Optical holography, while known to be possible, was not shown until after the advent of the laser; a mercury arc lamp is not a coherent light source.
 * But let's leave all that aside, shall we? The fact is that the sentence is correct, because it applies only to conventional light microscopes, i.e. the state of the art until the mid-20th century. Nobody is saying that it is impossible to image with sub-diffraction limit resolution; just that it is impossible with a vanilla microscope. There are a few technologies capable of doing it, but if you'd like us to believe that Rife's is one of them, you will have to show better evidence than you have thus far. Until then, this page will continue to reflect our understanding that Rife's inventions did not work as advertised. Angio (talk) 05:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Rife's first microscope worked well enough to produce films and photographs that attracted major news coverage between 1929 and 1932, and photographs from his third microscope were published by the Smithsonian. Claiming that they did not work as advertised is unconvincing.  Dennis Gabor used a Mercury arc lamp to develop Holography - I'm not denying that lasers do holography better, but they're not formally necessary.  If you want to discuss the history of microscopy, I recommend Milestones in Microscopy and this. Fraunhofer diffraction is a far-field phenomenon: both near-field observation and near-field illumination (such as fluorescence) potentially break the Abbe limit.  AJRG (talk) 09:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll give you that Gabor produced some rudimentary holograms using his mercury arc lamp, but you need to be careful throwing around technical terms like "far-field" when you don't fully understand them, as you will risk looking silly when you talk to somebody who knows what they mean. I don't doubt that Rife might have built nice light microscopes, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence that he achieved higher resolution than the diffraction limit. It is not sufficient to find news reports of people observing micrographs taken using his scope; lots of news organizations reported on Steorn's "Orbo" perpetual energy machine nonsense, but that doesn't mean that we have RS confirmation that the machine might have worked. If you can find some micrographs, and a modern RS verifying that they are valid, we might be onto something. Otherwise, I think you will find most editors of this page are uninterested in having it build a case for Rife's devices based on a web of circumstantial evidence, archaic sources, and hearsay. Angio (talk) 16:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think any news organisations have shown the "Orbo" working. Rife's microscope clearly worked well enough to make the film he showed to journalists in 1929 and 1931. There are prints of Rife's micrographs in several newspapers, the Popular Science article and in "The New Microscopes", by R.E. Seidel, M.D. and M. Elizabeth Winter, Journal of The Franklin Institute, Vol. 237(2):103-130, Feb. 1944 (reprinted in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution - 1944). AJRG (talk) 17:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Modern tech references
Most of your edits are ok, but I am not ok with the references to modern technology unless there is a clearer explanation as to how Rife's supposed advances relate to these modern technologies. As you have written it, the clear implication is that Rife's machines may have functioned in a similar fashion to modern devices, a claim which is both entirely unsupported and essentially impossible. The effect is to lend a degree of credibility to Rife which is frankly inappropriate given the paucity of the evidence. If you insist on their inclusion, please think of a wording that establishes that there is no evidence that Rife's devices worked along the same principles as modern devices. As you have correctly pointed out, the difficulty here is that there is unlikely to be RS confirmation of this fact. However, I feel that the burden is on you, since it is you who wish to include this possibly misleading information in the article. Ok? Angio (talk) 05:44, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand your enthusiasm to debunk modern fraudsters, but this is an encyclopedia. We don't pretend that things are impossible to pursue an agenda.  The Abbe limit doesn't necessarily apply to fluorescence microscopy, although extreme care is required to avoid it creeping in by the back door, and since the microscopy history reference I gave was to the website for Nature I'm very comfortable in claiming that this is a reliable source.  As for resonance, it's quite striking that the fundamental principle of what Tsen et al are doing is described in the same language (shattering a glass with a specific pitch) that Rife used in the 1930s. One of Tsen's papers explains why microwaves can't be used (water blocks the relevant frequencies).  Given the dates, I'd be surprised if anyone imagines that Rife had a near-infrared femtosecond pulse laser!  AJRG (talk) 07:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't be coy. It's clear that you have an agenda as well, and that is to legitimize Rife. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but it is an encyclopedia built on consensus. Since you seem to admit above that Rife's devices were not technologically related to the modern advances you cite, why not include this information in the article? Angio (talk) 16:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Angiotensinogen, but would go a bit farther. It's an obvious violation of WP:SYN to cite modern advances as if they were somehow related to Rife, unless a reliable source draws such a connection explicitly. Including a disclaimer, as Angio suggests, is a slight improvement, but still seems to violate policy by adding extra original synthesis to counteract the initial violation. MastCell Talk 16:36, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Angio's disclaimers definitely violate policy. We need a form of words that distinguishes principle from achievement.  Rife claimed in 1938 that viruses and bacteria could be destroyed by forced resonance.  Tsen et al have recently shown (in peer-reviewed journals) that this principle is sound.  Did Rife succeed?  We don't know.  The San Diego Evening Tribune reported that he did, but that doesn't constitute proof.  In the same way, the Franklin Institute published a paper in 1944 claiming that Rife's Universal Microscope breached the Abbe limit.  We now know that the Abbe limit can be breached.  Did Rife breach it?  We don't know.  A modern standard of proof is lacking.  AJRG (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Some guy living in cave thousands of years ago may have postulated that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than vice versa, but we don't credit him as an influence on heliocentrism unless there's actual evidence of his contribution. Scientists don't spend a lot of time going around publishing on long-discredited ideas or claims. If a claim has essentially disappeared from the scientific literature 70 years ago and you can find absolutely no mention of it today (even by scientists working on similar questions), then it should be clear that it has no modern acceptance, impact, or validity. Whether it was influential in 1930 is a reasonable subject to cover here, but not in a way that leaves readers with a false impression of Rife's impact. MastCell Talk 18:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good example. I suggest you review Aristarchus of Samos and then Heliocentrism for an example of how to handle this properly.  Copernicus gets the credit, but Aristarchus is noted as the first to suggest it.  AJRG (talk) 18:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems trivially easy to find reputable secondary sources crediting Aristarchus' contribution to heliocentrism. Are you aware of any such sources crediting Rife in connection with modern microscopy or virology? MastCell Talk 23:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be an example of recentism. To quote Zhitomirskii (translated from the Russian):
 * Aristarchus of Samos is a little-known but often cited precursor of Copernicus. All information about him derives from a handful of scattered references in Classical writers, plus a short treatise of his which does not mention heliocentrism. Accordingly historians often mention him, cite one or two facts and move on to another subject - after providing a few words of explanation that reveal much about the historians' biases.
 * S V Zhitomirskii, The heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchos of Samos and ancient cosmology (Russian), Istor.-Astronom. Issled. No. 18 (1986), 151-160.
 * He's known for an early non-heliocentric work called On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, from a tract by the Greek philosopher Cleanthes the Stoic (reported by Plutarch), arguing that Aristarchus ought to be indicted for impiety, and from a critical reference in Archimedes' Sand-Reckoner. Apart from Seleucus, (again reported by Plutarch) who unsuccessfully championed his views in the following century, and Vitruvius, who credits him as as the inventor of the bowl sundial, everyone else denounces him until Copernicus 1700 years later. AJRG (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure the repeated invocations of recentism are appropriate or relevant. It comes down to this: if you relate modern technological advances to things that Rife claimed to have done, there needs to be evidence to show that the comparison is appropriate. Otherwise, the article contains an unsupported original synthesis. Rife lived 50 years ago, not 2500, and there is apparently abundant coverage in the contemporary media of his claims and interactions with the medical community. It is entirely reasonable to ask for more some information from an RS about the technical functioning of the device. Angio (talk) 17:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an encyclopedia. We have to present science as it is presently understood, and see Rife in that context.  Trying to claim that things are impossible when they're not, in a misguided attempt to discredit Rife, is thoroughly unconvincing.  AJRG (talk) 17:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You are coming up against an editorial consensus on this page that was reached long before you registered for Wikipedia. You have repeatedly failed to acknowledge valid criticisms of your position by several editors, stalling for time by making the same flawed points over and over again, and then inserting your edits when you think nobody is watching. But it will not work; you will not achieve your goals unless you are willing to compromise. Angio (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * @ AJRG: No, AJRG, we have to present things in terms of what is present in reliable sources; we cannot interpolate 'what might have been' in terms of 'what we currently know' unless there is a reliable source doing that interpolation for us.


 * @ Angio, MastCell: argument is fairly futile here - there is nothing you can say that AJRG will accept as valid. I've merely been waiting for him to run out of steam so that I can go and rewrite the more obvious places where he is engaging in synthesis without a whole lot of drama.  I suggest patience.  I mean, we could post it at one of the noticeboards and get more people to explain to him how this is synthesis, but I don't think numbers are going to sway him any more than reason does, so...   -- Ludwigs 2  18:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to say that Rife achieved what he claimed, but I am insisting that you cannot claim impossibility against reliable sources. As for what might have been, it's unknown.  AJRG (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Since you've been asking for a modern reference to Rife, I suggest this, which offers a thoughtful review of his espousal of pleomorphism. AJRG (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You cannot import a reliable source to talk about something the source does not itself discuss. let's break it down:
 * did Rife beak the Abbe limit? no one knows...
 * Can modern researchers break the Abbe limit? apparently so...
 * do any of the researchers who claim to be able to break the Abbe limit discuss Rife or his work? no, not even a little bit...
 * Trying to use point 2 to make any claim whatsoever about point 1 in the absence of point 3 is synthesis. read the policy.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Throwing strawmen around doesn't contribute anything. Not sure how many times I have to repeat myself.  I agree with point 1 and point 2.  Point 3 is immaterial.  The Franklin Institute report claims that Rife and others broke the Abbe limit, so the possibility or otherwise of doing so is relevant.  Twenty years ago the scientific consensus was different, and we would have said so.  AJRG (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Point 3 is all that matters on wikipedia; period, end of sentence. If you can't understand that, you are always going to be violating NPOV.  But as I said, I sincerely doubt and argument is going to convince you you're in the wrong, no matter how clear.  so I'll just go back to waiting till you run out of steam.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter a bean whether Stefan Hell or anyone else who's broken the Abbe limit has or hasn't said anything about Rife. You made that up.  AJRG (talk) 20:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It does matter that someone, somewhere in the research field said something about Rife, yes. I mean, let's put the cards on the table: do you have a reliable source that says something like: "it's not impossible for Rife to have broken the Abbe limit, because modern research shows that the Abbe limit is not an absolute".  note that I did not ask you whether that statement was true; nor did I ask you whether you think that modern research shows that the Abbe limit can be broken; nor did I in any way, shape, or form ask you to give your assessment on the state of the research in microscopy or its relation to Rife's work (because - sorry - no one in the professional world cares one whit what you personally think abut it).  I asked if you have a source that makes the association. If you have a source that makes an explicit connection between modern research and Rife's work, out with it and I will cede your point.  If you do not have such a source, you are engaged in original research, and I would ask you to please give it up and stop arguing about it.


 * read the frigging policy for Christ's sake. -- Ludwigs 2  21:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You're failing to make a distinction between scientific principles (as evidenced in reliable sources) and individual detail. So the article should not give a misleading impression about scientific consensus, but neither should it give a misleading impression about Rife, about whose achievements reliable sources lack rigour. I'm quite content with statements that highlight lack of replication and uncertainty, but not with statements that claim impossibility or which pretend to quantify distinctions between technologies (for example Rife's and Hell's) that have never been compared in reliable sources.  AJRG (talk) 21:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * no I am telling you you cannot extend scientific principles beyond where scientists extend scientific principles. I have no problem with saying that current research seems to have gotten past the Abbe limit.  I do have a problem saying that this can be used to say anything whatsoever about Rife, since (in fact) no scientist has apparently made that connection.  Get th point: Wikipedia does not engage in new research.  even if the idea seems like a trivial extension of current research to you, it's still new research, and we don't do that.  -- Ludwigs 2  23:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to extend scientific principles beyond where scientists extend scientific principles. I'm quite happy with saying that current research seems to have gotten past the Abbe limit, and I'm quite happy saying explicitly that this doesn't say anything at all about Rife.  AJRG (talk) 23:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're happy with those two things, then please tell me what relevance the first point has to this article? -- Ludwigs 2 00:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Because the references talk about the Abbe limit. Since it's mentioned, it should be accurately presented according to reliable, up to date sources.  AJRG (talk) 00:15, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The article does no such thing. the article has a link to a page that discusses the Abbe limit (and your modern research would probably fit very well on that page), but all this article says is that the limitations of light microscopes is insufficient to view most viruses. which is true.
 * There is room for improvement here, as always. if you have a source that suggests Rife device was something different than a simple optical light microscope, then you could include that source, and people could follow the link to the Abbe limit page to find out more information.  but you cannot toss in the fact that modern researchers have found a way past the limit, because you have no sources which can compare what modern researchers are doing to what Rife was doing.  Even if we credit Rife with success (something for which there is precious little evidence), for all we know he achieved it by an entirely different means than the modern method, making the modern method superfluous.  o you see the synthesis your doing now?  -- Ludwigs 2  01:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * By your own argument, all this article says is that the limitations of light microscopes is insufficient to view most viruses. which is true is WP:SYN. You haven't provided a reference that directly links it to Rife.  AJRG (talk) 08:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Omissions
What about the trial?

What happened to the research and microscopes?

Where are the citations for each claim that the research was not independently verified? What were the attempts to independently verify the claims?

A clear line should be drawn between Rife and fraudulent businesses that use his name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.255.199.12 (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. But... "Where are the citations for each claim that the research was not independently verified?" Wouldn't it be like having to prove god or Loch Ness' Monster don't exist?

"A clear line should be drawn between Rife and fraudulent businesses that use his name." Totally, but there seems to be people very interrested in maintaining the confusion. 64.18.184.229 (talk) 16:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Fringe Theories
This article has been treated as WP:FRINGE in line with reliable sources. Recently, however, mainstream science has been catching up - notably in the breach of the Abbe resultion limit and the destruction of viruses by electromagnetic means. Of interest is the realisation that the technology involved was (just) available in the 1920's.

What Rife claimed to be doing was therefore not impossible per se, and so reliable sources that claim impossibility should now be given less weight. AJRG (talk) 08:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * As soon as independent, reliable sources start treating Rife as anything besides an obscure fringe scientist, and his claims as anything other than quackery magnets, then we will do so as well. MastCell Talk 05:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a balance to be struck here, and it has shifted very slightly. Rife was not obscure in 1931, as shown by the New York Times report and many others like it in US newspapers, though he is now.  Over the years, reliable sources have said that everything he was claiming was impossible.  After two Nobel prizes (Goeppert-Mayer, Gabor) and other recently published work, that view appears dated.  With the benefit of hindsight, we now have to weigh those reliable sources and tease out the ones that still stand up.  Despite the weight of formerly reliable sources, Wikipedia doesn't pretend that the Earth is in the centre of the cosmos, because science has moved on.  AJRG (talk) 09:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's easy to find independent, reputable verification for the idea that the Earth isn't the center of the cosmos. It's difficult (or impossible) to find any independent, reputable verification that Rife's claims are credible today. I'll repeat my earlier request, since it seems to have been ignored: do any independent, reliable sources link Rife in any way to the more recent work you cite? Do any such sources argue for a reappraisal of Rife's claims, or extend them any sort of credibility? I'd rather talk sources than your personal opinions, or mine, since that's what policy requires. MastCell Talk 18:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You're asking for a source that says "X was right when he claimed Y". That's unnecessary - all that is needed is a reliable source that confirms Y.  It doesn't affect any other claims made by X, or indeed say anything about the integrity of the original claim, but being encyclopedic requires being up to date with what is (and isn't) considered possible.  AJRG (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * AJRG: that's not correct. What MastCell is asking you to provide is some indication in reliable sources that this modern research has any relationship to Rife's work - that means a researcher who specifically says that his work is inspired by a reconsideration of Rife's work, or a third-party author who explicitly draws the comparison between what Rife did and what these researchers are doing.  Similarity is not sufficient grounds for asserting that a relationship exists.  You don't get to sleep with a woman because she happens to look like your wife, and you don't get to rehabilitate Rife because what he did happens to look like what modern researchers are doing.  There needs to be a more substantive relationship described in credible sources.  -- Ludwigs 2  18:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ludwigs2 - that's exactly what I was getting at. MastCell Talk 18:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not about people being inspired - it's about basic science, such as the Abbe resolution limit. AJRG (talk) 19:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. Has any independent, reliable source linked the Abbe resolution limit to Rife's claims? Has knowledge of the resolution limit triggered any demonstrable re-evaluation of Rife's claims by reputable sources? I will note in passing that the 1932 Science article claims that Rife's microscope was not necessarily able to visualize very small particles, but rather employed novel staining methods. (The article also speculates that Rife had shown poliomyelitis and HSV encephalitis to be caused by streptococci, which is of course now known to be incorrect). MastCell Talk 21:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You're misquoting the Science article, which in any case was by Rosenow and not by Rife. The Abbe resolution limit was discussed in relation to Rife and others in The New Microscopes, A Discussion By R.E. SEIDEL, M.D. AND M. ELIZABETH WINTER, Journal of the Franklin Institute Volume 237(2):103-130 (1944). AJRG (talk) 21:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Please correct my misunderstanding. MastCell Talk 22:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Your statement that 'the 1932 Science article claims that Rife's microscope was not necessarily able to visualize very small particles' is just wrong. What it actually says is:
 * Examination under the Rife microscope of specimens, containing objects visible with the ordinary microscope, leaves no doubt of the accurate visualization of objects or particulate matter by direct observation at the extremely high magnification (calculated to be 8,000 diameters) obtained with this instrument. AJRG (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. I suppose I was reading the part that says: They are not visible by the ordinary methods of illumination and magnification, not because they are too small, but rather, it appears, because of their peculiar non-staining hyalin structure. Their visualization under the Rife microscope is due to the ingenious methods employed rather than to excessively high magnification (emphasis mine). The point being that it was his staining methods, rather than high magnification, which was believed to be the actual breakthrough. In light of the fact that streptococci, or "turquoise bodies", or what-have-you are now known to be uninvolved in the pathogenesis of HSV encephalitis and polio, it seems these findings have lapsed into obscurity. MastCell Talk 22:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Now you're misrepresenting the words by reframing the context and putting your own spin on it. The article does not support your contention that 'The point being that it was his staining methods, rather than high magnification, which was believed to be the actual breakthrough' - what it actually says is:
 * Proper visualization, especially of unstained objects, is obtained by the use of an intense beam of monochromatic polarized light created by rotating wedge-shaped quartz prisms placed between the source of light and the substage quartz condenser. AJRG (talk) 04:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Now we're talking past each other, because the excerpt you're quoting doesn't address the excerpt I quoted. Actually, both excerpts seem to support the idea that high magnification was not integral to Rife's microscope - so why are we perseverating about the Abbe resolution limit again? MastCell Talk 05:07, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The article doesn't 'support the idea that high magnification was not integral to Rife's microscope' at all - its 8000x magnification [which certainly breaks the Abbe resolution limit, though this particular article doesn't say so] is mentioned twice. The point of the text you cherry-picked was that a specific sample couldn't be stained, and so was not visible by ordinary methods. AJRG (talk) 05:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this just degenerating into a Koffee Klatch discussion if Rife's work? Brass tacks, AJRG: I'm not a physicist or a medical doctor, you're not a physicist or a medical doctor (not to my knowledge). neither you nor I are qualified to judge whether the modern research is in any way related to Rife's research. That's why we need a reliable source for this - we need someone who is qualified to make the judgement, making the judgement. If not, I might as well just go get my uncle Louie (and heaven help you my 14 year old nephew - they both are quite certain they know everything, despite the fact that they usually disagree). If we're not going to use reliable sources, they are just as good sources as you and I are. Is that what you want?

Get some sources that prove your point for you, or let the issue go. it's that simple. -- Ludwigs 2 05:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't have any need to 'rehabilitate Rife' and you shouldn't have any need to denigrate him. If you don't consider yourself qualified to comment on basic science then I respect your assessment.  This isn't about 'Koffee Klatch' discussions - it's about proper use of reliable sources.  AJRG (talk) 05:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Reliable sources which you have not yet provided. These two sources would be perfectly fine for articles about (say) the Abbe limit, or microscopy, or antiviral techniques, but neither of them draws any relationship to Rife.  not even a hint.  I mean, I'm really not getting you here - do you understand that your own personal assessment of the scientific relationship between this modern research and Rife's research is not acceptable grounds for including something in wikipedia?  because I don't see anything here except your personal assessment that the two are related.  If you don't understand that point, you don't understand wikipedia, and you don't really understand the concept of an encyclopedia.  Encyclopedias are boring little things that don't say anything new or exciting; they simply plod out material that is already well-established in other sources and regurgitate it.  You want to say something here that nobody else anywhere in the world is saying - that's way too exciting and original for the likes of wikipedia.


 * If you want to do something new and interesting, go get your Md PhD and publish your new, interesting material in one of these journals. and when you do, MastCell and I will joyously regurgitate it into wikipedia. until then...  no.-- Ludwigs 2  07:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * An assessment of Rife's last microscope by Neil Brown, former Senior Curator, Classical Physics, Science Museum has already been cited above. Among other things, it discusses the [Abbe] limit of resolution of a light microscope in relation to Rife. AJRG (talk) 08:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but (a) it is written by a museum curator (whose area of expertise, assumedly, is history, not physics or medicine), and (b) it does not mention the modern research at all. let me spell out exactly the logical error you are making here, so we're clear on it:
 * ✅ Rife made an instrument that operated on (unknown) principle X
 * ✅ One critique of Rife's instrument was that it couldn't work because of the Abbe limit
 * ✅ Modern research has (apparently) surpassed the Abbe limit using principle Y
 * ❌ Rife's original instrument may have worked, because the critique in point 2 has been removed
 * this last logical point fails because (a) there is no reason to believe that the Abbe limit was the only critique of Rife's instrument, and (b) there is no scholarly source which claims there is any relationship between the unknown principle X that Rife used and the known principle Y that modern researchers use.
 * Give a source that establishes these last two subpoints, and then you have a case for including this material in this article. -- Ludwigs 2  14:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Since you don't provide evidence of Neil Brown's qualifications (or lack of them), I'll take it that you have no knowledge of them...
 * The Journal of the Franklin Institute paper mentioned above (and reprinted in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1944, pp 193-219) contains two photomicrographs taken using Rife's third microscope, so (a) is hand waving. I'm not trying to establish that Rife did break the Abbe limit (the Franklin paper believes that he did, but an adequate modern standard of evidence is lacking) - as stated above I'm pointing out that it's not an impossibility. Your characterisation of X as an unknown principle is an overstatement, as we have most (though not all) of the details:
 * From the Deposition of Royal Raymond Rife in "The People of the State of California Vs. John Marsh, Lallas Bateson, and John Crane", 1961:
 * This slide is placed on the microscope stage of any of the five virus microscopes that I designed and built. A special risely prism which works on a counter rotation principle selects a portion of the light frequency which illuminates these virus in their own characteristic chemical colors by emission of coordinative light frequency and the virus become readily identifiable by the colors revealed on observation. 8,000 to 17,000x magnification is sufficient to see them.
 * A Risley prism is shown here. In modern language he was using fluorescence microscopy.  AJRG (talk) 16:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * there's the problem right there: who says that "in modern language he was using fluorescence microscopy." I don't see that in any of the sources you've presented.  Do you have a source that says Rife was using fluorescence  microscopy, or are you yourself comparing what is known about what Rife did to assert that it was fluorescence microscopy?  The first might be a valid source for wikipedia if you have it, but the second directly violates wp:SYN (you are taking material from two sources - the deposition given above and the description of the modern research - and combining them to produce a conclusion that does not appear in either source).  Wikipedia does not allow editors to do that, for very good reasons.  -- Ludwigs 2  18:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * From the Science Museum report:
 * Hubbard believed that Rife had somehow managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy, but he does not attempt to explain how this might have been done. AJRG (talk) 20:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Is that what you're suggesting for a source? the somehow managed and does not attempt to explain bits are not really a convincing claims that Rife was using fluorescence microscopy.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:47, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It depends on your opinion of a Professor of Pathology at the State University of New York in Buffalo. Microscopy (of all kinds) would be a large part of his job.  AJRG (talk) 21:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it depends on whether he explicitly draws a connection between Rife and fluorescence microscopy, or whether that's something you're doing for him. If he says it explicitly, then I'm in no position to question it.  if you're doing it, well...  are you a Professor of Pathology at the State University of New York?  -- Ludwigs 2  21:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If he counts as a competent authority on microscopy, then his characterisation of the Rife microscope as a combination of fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy is valid. Text already quoted on this page would support all three.  No one knows completely how Rife actually used the microscope, so "somehow managed" is inevitable.  AJRG (talk) 21:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * See now, you avoided my question, and that's not nice. does he explicitly draw a connection between Rife and fluorescence microscopy, or is that a connection you're drawing for him?  -- Ludwigs 2  07:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The connection is explicit in the quote above: Hubbard believed that Rife had somehow managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy - the uncertainty is not about the kinds of microscopy used, but as to how (if at all) they could be made to work together, and Hubbard does not attempt to explain how this might have been done. AJRG (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * that is not explicit, that is implicit - check your dictionary. Note the following problems:
 * Hubbard was making these claims in the 1950's or 1960's, and would have had no knowledge of the technique of fluorescence microscopy being researched in the 21st century.
 * "Somehow managed to" is not a methodologically authoritative statement. A teenager who was playing with the correct chemicals and "somehow managed to" blow up his garage can not be said to have invented C4 (at least not until a scientist examining the rubble with proper methodology says he did).
 * No one is completely sure how Rife's process worked; no one is completely sure that Rife's process produced results that were meaningful, reliable, or valid; no one in the scientific literature is saying that Reich used what modern researchers would call fluorescence microscopy - if they were, you'd have quotes to that effect, and would not need to rely on an archaic quote filled with speculation and hand-waving.
 * I am tired of arguing with you on this point - we keep pointing out that you cannot do what you're doing under wikipedia policies; you keep talking past that point and trying to suggest that your perspective is true for scientific reasons. From wikipedia's perspective, it does not matter whether you think it's true or whether you can logically/scientifically prove that it's true.  You need to find someone in the literature who thinks/proves it's true in explicit terms that require no interpretation on our part.  what you are doing now is a textbook example of tendentious editing, and I suggest you read that essay before you continue pushing this point.  -- Ludwigs 2  14:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, since you raise the history of fluorescence microscopy, you might usefully look at Two-photon excitation microscopy.

Secondly, you seem to be unaware of the context of the quote in the Science Museum report:
 * Most of the background information about the persons involved in the Rife microscope saga comes from comments made by a Professor Hubbard when he visited the Wellcome Museum to see the microscope in 1978. ... It is worth quoting extensively from the notes of his comments. ... Hubbard positively identified the microscope then housed at the Wellcome Museum as Rife 5. ... The curator of the Wellcome Museum, who wrote the notes of the conversation with Hubbard, added comments of his own. Hubbard obviously understood optics well and was technically skilled. ... Hubbard believed that Rife had somehow managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy, but he does not attempt to explain how this might have been done.

Neil Brown is quoting from notes written by the Director of the Wellcome Museum of a conversation he had with Hubbard in 1978. AJRG (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * What's your point - that it was 1978 rather than 1960? it's still not peer reviewed, not a scientifically framed, not a definitive statement.  you fail to get the point here, so let me put it in bold: Wikipedia does not care if you are right, wikipedia only cares if you have sources.  this is a report of a conversation between some museum curator and a medical doctor who (apparently) never tested the device in question and would have no knowledge of modern fluorescence microscopy techniques.  That is not an adequate source.


 * since you are simply failing to get the point, the next step (if you want to continue arguing this) is to take the question over to Reliable sources/Noticeboard, where you can find a greater number of people who will repeat to you exactly what Mathsci and I have been saying. how many people will it take to convince you that this is not a reliable source for the claim you're trying to make?  -- Ludwigs 2  16:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My point is that it does no harm to get the facts straight. I'm trying to refresh your memory of the history of Fluorescence Microscopy.  Oskar Heimstädt built the first successful fluorescence microscope in 1911 and modern fluorescence microscopy techniques are based on knowledge that was already current by 1931 when Maria Goeppert-Mayer wrote her doctoral thesis.  You'll find her credited at "Milestone 15" in Milestones in Microscopy. It's the technology that has moved on, rather than the basic knowledge.  AJRG (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * then you should be able to find good sources that explicitly link Rife's work to fluorescence microscopy. and yet, all you are presenting is this vague, indirect, third-hand suggestion that there might be a relationship.  why are you trying to use such a poor source if there are better sources?  -- Ludwigs 2  17:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me ask you a question. Is the (in this case hypothetical) statement Martin Lersch believed that Hester Blumenthal somehow managed to combine roast scallops, white chocolate and caviar, but he does not attempt to explain how this might have been done. evidence that Hester Blumenthal used roast scallops?  AJRG (talk) 18:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * again, you've avoided my question, and that's not nice. but to answer yours: the fact that Martin Lersch merely believed this to be the case means that that text is not a reliable source for the fact that she did this.  Evidence doesn't matter, because on wikipedia we don't consider evidence about content issues; we only consider evidence about the reliability of sources. Martin Lersch may believe all sorts of things that are wrong, and that piece of text gives no reason to believe that Martin Lersch is right on this point.  Most people believe that nuclear power works, but our article on nuclear power is not filled with testimonials from believers about nuclear power. do you see the difference?  -- Ludwigs 2  18:42, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Better sources for what? I'm using it because it's to hand.  Is the (reasonably accurate) statement Diarmuid MacCulloch [a Professor of History at Oxford University] believed that Ivan the Terrible somehow managed to combine Orthodox Christianity with extreme cruelty, but he does not attempt to explain how this might have been done. evidence that Ivan the Terrible was Orthodox?  AJRG (talk) 19:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * again, the fact that Diarmuid MacCulloch merely believed this to be the case means that that text is not a reliable source for any fact, except the fact that MacCulloch believed it. MacCulloch - as a notable history professor who has (assumedly) studied the matter - is certainly entitled to that belief, and in an article about Ivan the Terrible that belief would certainly have a place among other notable perspectives.  Please note the differences, however: Ivan the Terrible's religious beliefs and cruelty are a matter of thoroughly studied historical record; Rife's research techniques are not.  No claim is being made by MacCulloch that Ivan the Terrible's beliefs are equivalent to modern orthodox beliefs; you are claiming that Rife's research is equivalent to modern research.  Obviously, It's doubtful that MacCulloch would make such a vague statement as you gave above in scholarly works (because such a statement would not be accepted by his peers) and such a statement would not generally be considered a reliable source for the topic (except as his personal belief) unless there was a significant amount of support for it from other more authoritative sources.
 * and you know as well as I do that I asked you for better sources that Rife was using something equivalent to modern fluorescence microscopy. If you can't handle an honest debate, say so and I'll switch tactics.
 * Keep in mind, AJRG, that I can continue explaining this for as long as it takes you to get tired of evading the issue. the source you're offering cannot be used for any reliable claim about Rife's techniques or their relationship to modern techniques.  it could be used to source Hubbard's opinions about Rife's techniques, but Hubbard was not in a position to make claims about methods used by modern researchers that were unknown in his time (and it's questionable whether Hubbard is sufficiently noteworthy for his beliefs to be important).  -- Ludwigs 2  20:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me deal with the straw man first - I'm not claiming 'that Rife's research is equivalent to modern research'. I believe we've made some progress.  The Science Museum report quoted reliably records that in 1978 a Professor of Pathology at SUNY Buffalo, who was both a published author on Microscopy and had made a detailed study of the Rife microscopes, believed that Rife used Fluorescence Microscopy (a technique known since 1911).  AJRG (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * well, that is not precisely what he said, is it? he said "Rife had somehow managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy."  now, why would he say that?  If we assume that he was acquainted with fluorescence microscopy (as we must assume for your argument to make sense) why didn't he just say 'Rife was using fluorescence microscopy'?  why the 'somehow managed' bit?  This is like a physicist looking at a catapult and saying "It somehow combines leverage and gravity to make the cannonball fly through the air, but I'm not going to explain."''  it's an oddly vague statement for a professional in the field to make.
 * but let's give him (and you) the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he was having an aphasiac moment. What does it prove?  Hubbard thought that Rife's device might have involved fluorescence microscopy - he doesn't know that it did (or at least, he doesn't say that he knows that it did).  Further, even if he was correct in his belief, the fact that fluorescence microscopy can be used to break the Abbe limit (which wasn't, apparently, demonstrated until 2009) does not mean that Rife's device could break the Abbe limit (any more than the fact that it's possible to break 200mph in a car means that any car can break 200mph - try it in a Kia).  For this source to be meaningful in the article, it needs to confirm at least one of those points, because those are the points that are in contention in the article. it confirms neither, and merely gives Hubbard's vague and ill-formed opinion about the first.  see what I mean? -- Ludwigs 2  00:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * To be strictly precise, the statement was reported by the Director of the Wellcome Museum, so the exact wording was his. Let me repeat what I said earlier:
 * I'm not trying to establish that Rife did break the Abbe limit (the Franklin paper believes that he did, but an adequate modern standard of evidence is lacking) - as stated above I'm pointing out that it's not an impossibility. AJRG (talk) 06:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * well, if you're "not trying to establish that Rife did break the Abbe limit", then what relevance does any of this discussion have on the article? The article doesn't say that Rife couldn't have broken the Abbe limit (not unless he was using a regular optical microscope).  what are you arguing for?  -- Ludwigs 2  07:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Rife claimed very high magnifications and his contemporaries believed him to have broken the Abbe limit. Until recently, that was considered a scientific impossibility.  My point is that it is no longer a scientific impossibility.  Whether Rife succeeded or not is now moot, with neither sufficient evidence to prove that he did nor a scientific impossibility to prove that he didn't.  The Popular Science photomicrographs put him at the Abbe limit for UV (see below), whereas those in the Smithsonian report appear to show him below it.  Without the original negatives we cannot be sure.  AJRG (talk) 08:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, what relevance does this have to the article? or better put, what do you want to change in the article using the fact that the Abbe limit may no longer be a scientific impossibility? -- Ludwigs 2 14:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, if I say "Columbus somehow managed to beat Minnesota 4-2 after being down 2-0 at the end of the first period." I am stating that Columbus beat Minnesota despite other factors. In the same spirit, "Rife had somehow managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy." should be understood as 'Rife had managed to combine fluorescence, polarization and interference microscopy. But the exact path taken is unknown or unverrifiable at the moment, or simply not explained'.

In the very case of the argument on that sentence, AJRG would be right IMO.

"now, why would he say that?" That is a good question. Was he able to study the microscope used first-hand, and for long enough? 64.18.184.229 (talk) 16:53, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Modern revival, marketing, and health fraud
The coverage of the Folsom case has become excessive and needs to be slimmed down. AJRG (talk) 17:42, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The discussion on the Jim Folsom Trial here is extremely biased. A much more balanced discussion of what happened can be found on the Rife Wiki and the contents of that page should be used to balance out the discussion here. At the very least, a link to that page should be added to the Jim Folsom section. http://www.rifewiki.org/wiki/Jim_Folsom_Trial LetsGetItRight (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Possibly useful sources
I've learned about this subject only today and have no particular interest in promoting or debunking anything related to it. I feel far too little qualified to pass judgment on the topic at hand. But I've found that the two following sources, which have made me aware of the subject, are not linked in the article, even though they seem relevant and possibly useful:

(a favourable source hosted on rife.de, scan of an old newspaper article)

(another favourable source, a long technical article)

Both articles appear on superficial inspection to be legitimate and should therefore be considered for inclusion and examined by more knowledgeable editors interested in the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The first article, published in NAJ (which, after an unreasonably long time of Googling, I discovered to be the initials of the no-longer-published "New Age Journal") says that Rife's microscope proves that cells are actually made of smaller cells, which are themselves composed of smaller cells, and so on for 16 levels. The second makes the startling claim that if Rife's supposed results conflict with modern physics, it must be that modern physics is wrong! The author proceeds to unfold a "unified field theory," which is long on text but short on equations. Sorry, these sources are hogwash. Angio (talk) 04:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ... although the first source refutes the hypothesis that it's turtles all the way down. In fact, there are only 16 levels of turtle. Or something. :P MastCell Talk 19:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing the digging, because I really couldn't be bothered to even skim all the way down through the texts. I guess it was a wise decision, because it's still all bunk, apparently. Those texts just happened to be my first contact with the matter, and I was like "uh, who knows, there might be something to it after all, but there's no way I'm gonna wade through all this stuff". So I understand it turns out there really isn't anything to it and we can go back to our regularly scheduled programme. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:44, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

"Discuss first"
My recent edits were reverted with an edit summary saying "Discuss first on talk page". OK, here I am. Why were the edits reverted? I explained the rationale for each in the accompanying edit summary, and I will happily explain further here in response to specific questions. When you revert, it would be helpful to give an explanation at the time. To be clear, this article's sourcing is extremely poor. I'm trying to improve it. Lynes' book does not, in any way, shape, or form, meet sourcing criteria, so I don't think it should be cited as a source. Likewise unitedearth.com, and likewise some auction website. These aren't encyclopedic sources; if you think they are, then we've got a serious problem. http://www.rt66.com/~rifetech/ is pretty clearly Some Guy's Website, but we present it in an encyclopedia article (!!!) as "the original Rife site", based on... what, exactly? We spend about 3 paragraphs on the legal odyssey of one James Folsom, which is of tangential relevance to Royal Rife and should be summarized briefly. Category:Health fraud is undeniably appropriate, since essentially every independent, reliable source on the subject discusses the fraudulent nature of "Rife devices". And so on... I could elaborate, but first I'd like to get the sense that this wasn't just a knee-jerk revert. So let's start with those issues. MastCell Talk 04:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll stick my nose in and say the James Folsom material was given too much weight and support MastCell's revision. Agnostic on the rest Ward20 (talk) 04:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * On the Folsom material I agree (per my previous comment above). Modern "Rife machines" have  often (though not always) been mired in fraud, but their connection to Rife's actual research is tenuous at best.  Using them as a stick to beat Rife with is unsourced character assassination.  As for the rife.de site, it acts as an accessible archive of relevant old newspaper and magazine articles concerning Rife.  Using it for that purpose is entirely acceptable.  AJRG (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you agreed about the Folsom stuff, why did you revert my edit? Do you see why it might look like those were just knee-jerk reverts? I didn't remove the rife.de site from external links, but it is pretty clearly inappropriate as a reliable source for article content. I assume you're OK with removing http://www.rt66.com/~rifetech/? And what about unitedearth.com and Some Auction Website? I understand that you believe that Rife devices are only tenuously connected to Rife himself, but is this belief reflected in independent, reliable sources? Given the near-total lack of useful sources about Rife himself, it would probably be best to retitle this article "Rife device", and focus there - because that's where the reliable sources are. But to get back to the issue at hand - you reverted quite a few edits. Could you elaborate on the others? MastCell Talk 23:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You made a series of Bold edits, I Reverted, and now we're Discussing them. The ~rifetech link has some photos of Rife's original equipment; unitedearth.au has Rife's obituary, which is clearly notable; the Bonhams auction site has the lot description for Rife's 1932 microscope.  Blanket judgements about sites are not helpful - you need to consider each link on its merits.  A discussion of some of the differences between Rife's research and his imitators can be found here. Rife himself was notable, as evidenced by newspaper and magazine coverage at the time, and his imitators are also collectively notable.  It would be cleaner to have two separate articles.  AJRG (talk) 21:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're seriously confused about WP:BRD if you think you should revert edits you agree with, solely to generate discussion. I did consider these links individually. The ~rifetech site is clearly inappropriate for a serious, respectable reference work and would never survive if this were a featured article (or even a Good Article, or even C-class), so it should be removed per site guidelines. If the fact that the page is clearly full of nonsense is not sufficient, it also fails specific criteria in WP:ELNO, such as #2 ("Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research") and #11 (which recommends excluding "personal web pages"). unitedearth.com is subject to WP:RS, since it's used as a source in the article text, and clearly fails those criteria. If you believe that it meets our criteria for "reliable published sources", then I really don't know what to say. If your sole argument is that the site contains his obituary, then we should link the actual obituary, even if it's not available online. If no serious, reliable sources published an obituary of Rife, then that's a pretty convincing indication that he's not notable, rather than a reason to lower our sourcing standards to find an obit. Right? Likewise with the auction site: this is interesting to someone deeply immersed in the universe of Rife-iana, but not useful for an encyclopedia. If the auction of this microscope was notable, then it would be mentioned in some independent, reliable secondary sources (like a newspaper article saying "Famous microscope sold at auction!") That doesn't seem to be the case, so again we're turning this into a Rife fansite for the enjoyment of Rife enthusiasts, rather than a serious reference work for the general reader. As to splitting the article, we currently lack the sources to write even one decent article, so I don't see how splitting it would help. Quite the opposite, we'd end up with 2 poorly sourced, low-quality articles instead of just the one we've got now. MastCell Talk 23:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't revert because I agreed with one of your edits, but because you made so many (some controversial) at the same time. Rife's obituary appeared in The Daily Californian and is correctly referenced.  Feel free to check the microfilm in the Newspaper/Microform Collection, Room 40, Doe Library at U.C. Berkeley.  A better link is here.  Rife is notable because he was famous in his own time - as evidenced by newspaper reports and magazine articles - and his Universal Microscope appears prominently in the 1944 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.  AJRG (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * When people are "famous in their own time", they generally leave behind a trail of independent, reliable sources testifying to that fame. People write books about them. They have a demonstrable impact on later generations of individuals. That doesn't seem to be the case here. Incidentally, the Daily Californian obituary prominently mentions that Rife's ideas were scientifically discredited during his lifetime. Hell, it's right there in the title, which suggests that it was a key point the source wished to communicate. Why doesn't our article reflect that? Why do we leave the reader with the impression that he might have been onto something, when in fact his claims are described as discredited even during his lifetime? To be clear, I don't have a problem citing the Daily Californian. I have a problem linking rifevideos.com, which clearly fails this site's sourcing criteria. We do not need to link rifevideos.com in order to source the obituary. MastCell Talk 16:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * How many different news articles do you think you need? The Smithsonian has a whole folder of them at RU 7091 Series 1, Box 129, Folder 10. AJRG (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you think that every event covered by a handful of newspapers in 1931 deserves a lengthy article on Wikipedia? Again, if this individual were truly notable, I don't think you'd have to dig through the basement of the Smithsonian for scraps of 90-year-old information about him. Moreover, you haven't answered my question about why we're not accurately conveying the content of the Daily Californian - do you have any comment about that, or should I go ahead and fix it? MastCell Talk 19:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to follow up in a more constructive manner: this is what I think the article ought to look like if we're aiming for an encyclopedia instead of a Rife fansite. MastCell Talk 20:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Why don't you archive the obituary and point at the archive link? The concept of starting from the obituary is good, but you haven't fairly summarized it.  You need to do a better job of writing for the enemy.  For example, the obituary mentions viruses (which you've removed) and says his microscope had "a magnifying power 20 times as great as any then in existence".  It also says he saw "some of what he considered his most import work discredited by the medical profession" - not all of it, as you imply by your wording.  AJRG (talk) 22:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I don't think I'm ready to take advice on writing for the enemy from you. After all, previous summaries of the obituary conveniently neglected to mention that Rife's ideas were discredited by the scientific community, and that he became embittered and blamed powerful conspiracies as a result. That's sort of a central point of the obit, so I'm not quite clear on why it was used to reference minor points and dates while ignoring the inconvenient truth about the scientific rejection of Rife's claims. I think my edit accurately conveys both the content of reliable sources and the current, encyclopedic state of knowledge on the subject. If you know of some reliably sourced, modern evidence that some of Rife's views are not discredited, and are still current, then please present it. MastCell Talk 23:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't have a source that says that all of Rife's views were discredited, so why are you trying to say that? I've given two examples of the spin you've introduced, and I could give more.  Please address the content issues.  AJRG (talk) 22:35, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't really get to move the goalposts and demand a source that says exactly what you want to say. You're demanding extremely close parsing at the expense of accurately conveying the content of the sources. I think existing reliable sources are quite clear: Rife's ideas (his "most important ideas", if you like) were discredited during his lifetime by the scientific community. At present, his name is in circulation in the alt-med community, in conjunction with a variety of fraudulent devices, but there is absolutely no reliably sourced evidence that his ideas have any scientific currency. All of these points are clear from existing reliable sources, although there seems to be entrenched resistance to conveying them to readers of this article. MastCell Talk 23:29, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request
editsemiprotected Current research which validates Royal Rife's findings:

http://www.livescience.com/health/080205-virus-shattering.html

Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death.

'''"The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated."''' Recent experimental evidence has shown that laser pulses tuned to the right frequency can kill certain viruses. However, locating these so-called resonant frequencies is a bit of trial and error.


 * I realize that this text is merely copied from another website, but is it possible that some common sense could prevail here about the difference between the electromagnetic spectrum and sonic waves? The electromagnetic spectrum (comprised of gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, radio waves, and long waves (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum)) are energetic particles with a wave function (radiation). Sonic wave energy which passes through a medium, such as air or water via mechanical, longitudinal waves (compression and rarefaction (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound)) cannot travel through a vacuum like electromagnetic radiation does. While it may be possible that sonic wave energy could shake a micro-organism apart like it can shatter a glass, electromagnetic radiation in the form of a laser beam will never shake anything. Bombarding something with photons is entirely different than shaking something, regardless of the frequency. Both sound and light have a wave function component, but that is where the similarity ends!!!
 * Jjaybird (talk) 05:09, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

"Experiments must just try a wide variety of conditions and hope that conditions are found that can lead to success," Sankey told LiveScience.

To expedite this search, Sankey and his student Eric Dykeman have developed a way to calculate the vibrational motion of every atom in a virus shell. From this, they can determine the lowest resonant frequencies.

As an example of their technique, the team modeled the satellite tobacco necrosis virus and found this small virus resonates strongly around 60 Gigahertz (where one Gigahertz is a billion cycles per second), as reported in the Jan. 14 issue of Physical Review Letters.

A virus' death knell

All objects have resonant frequencies at which they naturally oscillate. Pluck a guitar string and it will vibrate at a resonant frequency.

But resonating can get out of control. A famous example is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which warped and finally collapsed in 1940 due to a wind that rocked the bridge back and forth at one of its resonant frequencies.

Viruses are susceptible to the same kind of mechanical excitation. An experimental group led by K. T. Tsen from Arizona State University have recently shown that pulses of laser light can induce destructive vibrations in virus shells.

"The idea is that the time that the pulse is on is about a quarter of a period of a vibration," Sankey said. "Like pushing a child on a swing from rest, one impulsive push gets the virus shaking."

It is difficult to calculate what sort of push will kill a virus, since there can be millions of atoms in its shell structure. A direct computation of each atom's movements would take several hundred thousand Gigabytes of computer memory, Sankey explained.

He and Dykeman have found a method to calculate the resonant frequencies with much less memory.

In practice

The team plans to use their technique to study other, more complicated viruses. However, it is still a long way from using this to neutralize the viruses in infected people.

One challenge is that laser light cannot penetrate the skin very deeply. But Sankey imagines that a patient might be hooked up to a dialysis-like machine that cycles blood through a tube where it can be hit with a laser. Or perhaps, ultrasound can be used instead of lasers.

These treatments would presumably be safer for patients than many antiviral drugs that can have terrible side-effects. Normal cells should not be affected by the virus-killing lasers or sound waves because they have resonant frequencies much lower than those of viruses, Sankey said.

Moreover, it is unlikely that viruses will develop resistance to mechanical shaking, as they do to drugs.

"This is such a new field, and there are so few experiments, that the science has not yet had sufficient time to prove itself," Sankey said. "We remain hopeful but remain skeptical at the same time." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.9.65.183 (talk • contribs) 03:54, March 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ I added a line at the end of the intro about it.--Aervanath (talk) 05:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not a good edit. First of all, the source says nothing - nothing - about Royal Rife, so at best this is straightforward original synthesis. Secondly, presenting this LiveScience article as "vindication" of Royal Rife makes no sense. It's like pointing to a Boeing 737 to vindicate a guy who thought that people would someday take flight by strapping wings to their arms and flapping hard. MastCell Talk 06:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with mastcell - there was really no consensus for this edit. -- Ludwigs 2  18:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How Was He Discredited?
I think many readers would like to know the exact details of what the good people at AMA did and what they found that discredited him. In fact if you could provide the details you might save people some trouble who would've otherwise gotten into it. Otherwise how do they know the AMA didn't just run one experiment and call him discredited? A thorough discrediting would need to run many tests of different types. Some things only work under certain circumstances, such as maintaining a good diet. I'm sure the competent people at AMA were sure to run many different types of experiments before declaring him discredited, but someone should dig up that information and specify it in the article.75.133.90.126 (talk) 09:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * He was discredited unscientifically by the American Cancer Society's unqualified, unnamed authors of the CA - A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 44:115-127, 1994, where "they" looked at text that described how the machine operated, and decided that "it could not have worked" based on no particular scientific reasons other than the whim that ionizing radiation being in the range of UV light and above were well above the RF frequencies employed by Rife's machines. Since lower frequencies mean lower energy levels--supposedly energy levels were insufficient to act in the pathogen bond breakage ways claimed by Rife & his machine operators.  That ACS article says that energy levels would have theoretically been insufficient to affect cancer cells or the viruses that can trigger such malignancy.  This is in keeping with the financially conflicted electrical utility companies, US Navy, and cellular telephone industries that claim that experiments that were conducted by bio-electric pioneer Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D., co-author of the 1985 book "The Body Electric: Electromagnetism And The Foundation Of Life" & other books--"never happened," and that these experiments could never have shown biological effects of non-ionizing RF radiation. Oldspammer (talk) 21:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

What Is the Difference Between the Electromagnetic Spectrum and Sonic Energy?
The thing that bothers me more than anything else about the discussion of the science behind this machine is that so many do not seem to understand the difference between electromagnetic radiation and sound waves. Promoters of this device speak as though sound is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but this is absolutely false. If this were true, then the speed of light and the speed of sound would be the same speed. Please note that the speed of light and the speed of sound are, in fact, very different. Also, if this were true, in theory, you would be able to see sound as you do light, and hear light, as you do sound. Please note, just for the record, that any attempt to place sound and light on the same spectrum is totally contrary to the established laws of physics.

The electromagnetic spectrum is an umbrella term for particles of energy that can exist across a range of possible wavelengths. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy. The electromagnetic spectrum is comprised of gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, microwaves, radio waves, and long waves (see: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html). Gamma rays have a wavelength no bigger than the diameter of a proton and are very damaging to humans. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another form of electromagnetic radiation that people might have heard of are called radio waves, and this class of electromagnetic radiation spans wavelengths from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. In the middle is visible light, from about 390 nanometers (violet) to 750 nanometers (red). As you can see, the eyes/brain interpret different frequencies as different colors. Frequencies below the visible light spectrum tend to cause cellular damage to living organisms. If you've ever had a sunburn, this is caused by overexposure to ultraviolet light. Please note that sound is nowhere to be found on this spectrum, and you can't get a sunburn from listening to music, regardless of it's volume or frequency.

Sonic wave energy is dependent upon a medium for transmission such as air or water. The way sound waves travel through air, for example, are exactly the same way that waves travel through water in the ocean. Sound energy cannot travel through a vacuum like electromagnetic radiation does when it travels to us through 90 million miles of hard vacuum from the sun. Instead, sound energy is transmitted via mechanical, longitudinal waves in the form of compressions and rarefactions (see: http://www.schoolforchampions.com/science/sound.htm). The energy of a sound wave is transmitted much like the way one billiard ball collides with another, and in so doing, passes on some kinetic energy. Like electromagnetic energy, sound energy also exists across a continuum of wavelengths. The human ear can hear down to 20 hertz (Hz) or cycles per second, all the way up to about 20,000 Hz. Although the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation can be stated in terms of Hz also, this is not usual.

While it may be possible, in theory, that sonic wave energy could shake a micro-organism apart like it can shatter a glass, electromagnetic radiation in the form of a laser beam, or any other form, will never shake anything particularly. Bombarding something with photons is entirely different than shaking something, regardless of the frequencies involved. Electromagnetic radiation might burn or irradiate a microorganism to death, but it won't cause it vibrate. If it did, it would not be because it was vibrating in sympathy with the frequency of the radiation, unless you were making the case that this is happens at the quantum scale. I don't think anyone here is making the case for that. Excessive electromagnetic energy might cause glass to melt, but it will never shatter it, regardless of the frequency. Both sound and light have a wave function component (oscillation), but that is where the similarity ends. Don't believe me, look it up for yourself!

I don't know anything about this machine, but if the science that the Rife machine is based on somehow manages to put both sound and light on the same continuum, then it is based on pseudoscience. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. Jjaybird (talk) 05:09, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Modern revival, marketing, and health fraud
This section is getting way too much weight for an article about Royal Rife. Ward20 (talk) 00:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Royal Rife had nothing to do with these machines.  I don't know why most of the article is about people selling machines that he was not involved in, had no part in designing or making. A small section about how people have used his reputation to sell machines would be appropriate, but putting more details about this than about Royal Rife is totally inappropriate.  --stmrlbs | talk  01:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The machines are marketed by using his name and his claims. If "most of the article" is about these machines, that's because the only coverage this topic has in independent, reliable sources concerns the fraudulent marketing of these devices. If you took out the material on Rife devices, there would be essentially zero independent reliable sources here, and the article would fail pretty much every content and notability guideline even more epically than it already does. I guess what I'm saying is that we follow the reliable sources. They tell us that Rife is notable mostly for the fact that his name has been leveraged to defraud ill people. One could argue that this article should be renamed to Rife devices, to reflect the balance of reliably sourced coverage, but to exclude the reliably sourced material would be the wrong way to go, assuming the goal here is to produce a serious reference work. MastCell Talk 03:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Mastcell, you say "They tell us that Rife is notable mostly for the fact that his name has been leveraged to defraud ill people". Who is They? --stmrlbs | talk  04:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * There's as much or more verifiable material in, "THE SMITHSONIAN REPORT" From the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution - 1944, "The New Microscopes", by R.E. Seidel, M.D. and M. Elizabeth Winter, Journal of The Franklin Institute, Vol. 237, Feb. 1944., Observations on bacillus Typhosus in Its Filterable State and "Observations with the Rife Microscope of Filter-Passing Forms of Microorganisms" in Science Magazine Aug. 26th 1932 in real WP:RS sources, as there is about bogus forms of machines bearing his name. There is also this one that seems to be promising. I've not found the full text on, "Suppression, bias, and selection in science: The case of cancer research Accountability in Research," Volume 6, Issue 4 July 1999, pages 245 - 257. There is also this interesting book review but I don't know if it meets WP:RS http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/116-1177/507/content.pdf Ward20 (talk) 07:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think there is a limited amount we can wring out of a 65-year-old report or a 75-year-old primary journal article, though the age and obsolescence of these sources have not stopped other editors from trying to pretend that they are the last word on current scientific knowledge. Stmrlbs, "they" are the reliable secondary sources cited in the article. There aren't many of them, but if you can't identify them by scanning the article, I will list them here. My biggest problem with this entire article and discussion page is simple: it represents a focused and sustained effort to promote and advocate for this subject, rather than an effort to produce a serious, respectable reference work drawing from independent, reliable sources and reflecting the current state of human knowledge. That bugs me, I guess. MastCell Talk 01:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * My problem with this premise is that we are talking about a scientist of the 1930s, and therefore documentation on him is going to be from this time. I agree, the article should not be about advocating the theories - that is not what Wikipedia is about (even though I see plenty of  this on both sides of the alternative fence on Wikipedia), a fair article about Royal Rife has to involve past documents.  First, you have to fairly state just what his theories were, before you can talk about the current state of human knowledge and how this relates to his theories.  This article really does none of that.  But, to be honest, I think trying to present his theories - not trying to prove or disprove them, just presenting them, is a lost cause, because even that will be seen as "advocacy".  --stmrlbs | talk  02:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Of the 1930s, yes. A scientist?  No.  Midgley (talk) 00:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * No, the problem is that a group of editors refuse to contextualize Rife as a scientist of the 1930s. An honest characterization would inform the reader that his ideas were little-investigated even during his heyday, and have completely dropped off the scientific radar since the 1940s. Instead, this article and talk page basically consist of a sustained effort to obscure or downplay that obvious truth in favor of obscure, unsourced fringe claims. MastCell Talk 03:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it the job of editors of a page to present what information is available in a proper context. If information does not exist, it cannot be presented. Unfortunately, proper context is a rather subjective thing. Perhaps this article should be split into a stub on Royal Rife and a page on Rife machines. I think *some* of the arguments on this page are the result of perceived goals for this page being different for different editors. I believe that some method of dividing those goals for this material is necessary to solve those conflicts. Jjaybird (talk) 10:03, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I think leaving this section in is important. I came to the page because of these claims. I think many people do as well. I would like to see more evidence for or against these claims. Right now, it is really one sided. There has to be more information on people who have tried to replicate it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.162.179.217 (talk) 18:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

doctor
According to Merriam-Webster:

A doctor is d: a person awarded an honorary doctorate (as an LLD or Litt D) by a college or university

Why does this article on wikipedia have different standards and definitions than one of the most reliable sources around? Ward20 (talk) 02:02, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Doctor?
There are a couple of editors who wish to identify Rife as a "doctor" in the first sentence of the article lede. I presume that this is because Rife held a doctorate (Ph.D. degree) of some sort, and not because he held any sort of medical degree (MD or similar). In usual English usage, only individuals with medical degrees are referred to as "doctors". Compare, for example, with any of Wikipedia's many articles on biological scientists. In the 1930s, there were two Nobel laureates in the category of Physiology or Medicine who did not have medical degrees, but who did have Ph.Ds: Thomas Hunt Morgan and Hans Spemann. In our articles, we identify Morgan as an "evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist", while Spemann is introduced as an "embryologist".

Unless someone has a source which identifies Rife as a medical doctor, it would be inappropriate and confusing to name him a "doctor" here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Rife Machines: By What Principle Is It Claimed They Operate?
I don't think we can call this page thoroughly considered or complete without some sort of statement regarding the principle by which this type of device is at least claimed to operate in theory. Merely trying to ferret that out might help us sort out to what degree this machine is either legit or bogus. I know someone who owns one of these machines and swears by it, but personally, I am very suspicious of extravagant claims, especially when the fundamental principle behind it's operation either cannot be completely defined, or else doesn't make any sense. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Are Rife machines an effective, or even at least potentially effective cure for anything, or are they just a health fraud? Can anyone here explain how they are at least in theory supposed to work?

I've spent a bit of time with Google to try to figure out anything at all about how this device is at least claimed to function. Despite all the confusion about "sound waves," "audio frequencies," "mechanical vibrations," and shattering wine glasses, I've succeeded in finding out that it claims to be a device that uses electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves (lower frequency than visible light).

I was prompted to look into this again because of this week's episode of the radio show This American Life entitled, "So Crazy It Just Might Work." Act I of this episode features audio excerpts from a forthcoming documentary film The Cure about the on-again, off-again, partnership between a music professor at Skidmore College, Anthony Holland, and one of his former students, who has his own biology lab at another university, and their quest to prove that cancer could be cured using a Rife device. Anthony Holland has spent several years and a bunch of his own money to try to scientifically prove that these radio frequencies can and do rupture single-celled microorganisms, and he's captured several examples on film of what he claims are microorganisms being destroyed by "pulsed radio frequency plasma waves" from a Rife-Bare machine. This is "interesting" and I'm curious to see if anything comes out of any of this. However, if this is legit, and whatever the principle is really does work, I thought it was notable that it still took him 15 whole months to find a frequency that would kill what he was looking at. I guess if you don't have a full biology lab, so you can't observe whatever it is you're trying to cure yourself of (like most people who buy these machines) it might take you a little bit longer to get results.

According to a website that probably sells these things: "It uses audio frequencies like many bioelectronic devices do, but instead of just holding onto the outputs of a function generator or other pad device, the audio frequencies are combined with a radio frequency (RF) carrier signal, amplified, then output to a 'plasma tube' which is a sealed glass tube usually filled with mostly argon and some neon gas. This tube emits 'the ray beam'..."

I have to admit, that none of this makes any sense to me at all. "Audio frequencies combined with an RF carrier signal"? Isn't that exactly what a ham or CB radio does when it broadcasts? Are we talking AM or FM? Oh, but then there's the whole plasma part. Like a fluorescent light bulb. So I guess it emits a "radio ray beam." But then how is this radiation converted into mechanical energy? And how does the frequency of the initial audio source, or perhaps, how does the frequency of the radio band you're transmitting on, get converted back into a mechanical vibration? How does radiation, regardless of the wavelength, regardless of how it is modulated, incite sympathetic mechanical vibration, unless you have a "radio" with a speaker in it to translate that modulated RF back into a mechanical vibration again? Unless these microorganisms have portable radios, I just don't get it.

Anthony Holland's work is intriguing, but the explanations so far about how it's supposed to work make no sense to me at all. Can anyone explain it?

Jjaybird (talk) 06:46, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The most reliable sources say it doesn't work. The article says that. It's original research and beyond the scope of Wikipedia for editors to speculate on how the machine was supposed to work. There are primary sources that state that, but the article needs secondary reliable sources for documention of how is was supposed to work. Those seem hard to come by. By the way I personally agree with your anaysis. I would like to see more meat in the article about Rife supported by reliable secondary sources however. Ward20 (talk) 07:31, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I've actually attempted to contact Anthony Holland, and since he's been doing research supervised by a bona fide researcher in Philadelphia who has his own research lab, and he seems to be able to kill microorganisms and cancer cells with it, perhaps he can shed a little light on the nitty gritty of how he's achieving this, rather than just speculation. By the way, I'm not trying to claim that even if this is a real result, that I believe it's necessarily going to cure cancer, because it still has to leave healthy cells alone, which it might not. But if he really is able to rupture cells with a Rife machine, then just that alone is something that I honestly thought was not going to be possible. Jjaybird (talk) 09:44, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * If you talk to him, please encourage him to publish his results in the reputable peer-reviewed scientific literature. MastCell Talk 18:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I think that is what Dr. Jonathan Brody who is overseeing the research has in mind, but only if they can manage to prove something. This is exactly what all the Rife believers should want more than anything, to have the technology given a fair shake, and put to the test in a true scientific way, so that it can be vindicated as the miracle cure they want to believe in, right? If it really is the cure for cancer, then I would be all in favor. Too soon to say if it's going to pan out though... Jjaybird (talk) 01:50, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Question about revision and edit summary by MastCell
Here is a PDF from the rife website that supports the version that was reverted. . Mastcell, do you dispute that it is authentic? If you do on what grounds? Ward20 (talk) 06:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a lot of back and forth here over this. I don't think "authenticity" of this obit is the real issue. Can we just agree that an obit written a journalist who previous to receiving the story assignment, had probably never heard of the guy, is not going to be a very authoritative source to establish much of anything? Maybe better sources can be found? Jjaybird (talk) 07:09, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Where is there back and forth over this? No I can't agree on speculation that, "an obit written a journalist who previous to receiving the story assignment, had probably never heard of the guy, is not going to be a very authoritative source to establish much of anything?" I haven't found any better source to confirm or deny. Ward20 (talk) 07:15, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not convinced that the rifevideos.com site (which abjectly fails our sourcing criteria contains an accurate copy of the obit. Or, rather, I think they've added some of their own commentary without making clear that it's not part of the obit. If you Google around, you'll find several versions of the obit (all hosted on websites that are not appropriate Wikipedia sources); in many cases, the copies hosted by these other sites don't include the claims about Heidelberg and his "honorary" title of "doctor". I am highly dubious, and as this claim rests on a patently unreliable source, I am not convinced that the source actually supports our wording. MastCell Talk 18:36, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * MastCell, did you look at the link I gave above? The link presents the complete copy or photograph of the original article in the Daily Californian. It's not a transcript and it supports the wording. Ward20 (talk) 20:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ward, The back and forth I am referring to is under the heading "Discuss First." Jjaybird (talk) 01:50, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Please stick to the topic. The discussion was about whether the source (The Daily Californian) may or may not support the material. The link I presented above shows the source clearly supports the wording. There is no other source that I know of that disputes this. You don't know what I believe. I don't know what you believe. What we believe is not relevant to the sourcing and verifiability standards of Wikipedia anyway. Ward20 (talk) 03:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, gotcha, Ward. I'm new to the Wikipedia editing process, so thanks for the links. I'll retract my former comment. I see that you are correct, Wikipedia only cares that somebody else wrote it down before you did somewhere else first. The word "reliable" is pretty subjective too, so it doesn't really mean very much. I can see why there are so many disagreements here about sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjaybird (talk • contribs) 05:21, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * @Jjaybird, It would seem that The Daily Californian was reasonably accurate with the "title" material they printed. I know the verifiability and sourcing policies seem somewhat odd at first, but they do tend to limit endless arguments over what each editor believes is their own truth. Ward20 (talk) 07:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ward: No, actually the verifiability and sourcing policies do not seem odd at all. I understand it completely. The stated policies cannot be otherwise and still have a workable Wikipedia. And yet, while I acknowledge this fact, it is also a fact that they leave a rather large-sized hole, in that I could go searching for published statements that I personally know to be false, and then come back to the discussion page and argue that these statements should be published in Wikipedia also, if I felt like being perverse. And I could do that while being in full compliance of all Wikipedia editing policies. Thing is, I don't need to be perverse to do this, I just need to have an agenda. The reason why this "edit war" is going on is because the skeptics feel like the proponents are trying to reproduce previously published, yet palpable falsehoods on this Wikipedia page. Meanwhile, the proponents feel like the skeptics are blocking their beliefs and trying to use this Wikipedia page to sully Rife's good name to boot. Since I am scientifically minded, I am generally a skeptic. I want to see some good evidence that something is true before I am willing to invest in it, and believe in it. I know a few people personally who are willing to believe too many things without having very good reasons for doing so. Generally their willingness to believe is not based on solid evidence for it, rather, it is merely based on a worldview. Usually it is a worldview that is essentially conspiratorial in nature. If a person winds up believing a thing for no other reason than because of a worldview, I expect the probability of that thing being true to be no better than a coin toss. As a skeptic, I would hope and wish that people here would be judicious, reserved, and careful--aiming for the high side of the intent of the word "reliable" as stated in the policies. Unfortunately, what I see here is too many people aiming for the bottom edge of it AT BEST. I understand why though. It's not because they want to publish falsehoods, it's because they have a vested interest in being careless.In life, you have to pick your battles. I think this is a battle I will sidestep as being not important enough to invest my energy into. For this reason, I think I will stick to less controversial topics. It was an education though. Don't know about y'all, but I'm keepin it real, homies. Jjaybird (talk) 08:26, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It might be helpful if Ward20 could locate some of those bona fide medical journals which identified Rife as "Dr. Rife"&mdash;though how he might have chosen to style himself is probably not an important biographical detail. Reading between the lines, we have someone who didn't complete a medical degree or a Ph.D. who nevertheless liked to call himself doctor, possibly on the basis of an honorary degree that he received at some point.  While potentially interesting, we should be very careful not to grant undue weight to an honorary title.  Universities and colleges regularly bestow honorary degrees on notable or interesting individuals as a quid pro quo to secure their participation in graduation ceremonies.  Some other individuals who could be called "Dr." on the basis of honorary degrees include Dr. Tim Allen (doctor of fine arts), Dr. Mike Tyson (doctor of humane letters), Dr. William Shatner (doctor of letters), and Dr. Bob Barker (doctor of humane letters).  Bluntly, the few people who insist on being addressed as "doctor" on the basis of an unearned degree are silly egoists.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:06, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * @TenOfAllTrades, I found 4 scientific organization or journal papers that refer to him as Dr. or Ph.D. Filterable Bodies seen with the Rife microscope OBSERVATIONS WITH THE RIFE MICROSCOPE OF FILTER-PASSING FORMS OF MICROORGANISMS OBSERVATIONS ON BACILLUS TYPHOSUS IN ITS FILTERABLE STATE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION (search for Rife)


 * The proposed wording does not grant undo weight to his honorary title. It specifically states he was not an MD, and was addressed as "Dr." on the basis of an unearned degree. The reader is free to form their own opinon of that aspect as you did.

Ward20 (talk) 07:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
 * ""His obituary stated Rife studied optics in New York and Heidelberg, Germany for seven years, and his research spanned over 50,000 experiments that he carried out in his laboratory. He didn't obtain a medical degree, but in journal articles his title was given as "Dr." Rife which was thought to be bestowed as an honorary degree.""

There seems to be consensus for the above wording but I am not going to edit it in until the IP edit warring stops. Ward20 (talk)


 * I cannot see where there is 'consensus'; it appears that you're the only editor who supports your wording. If Rife was awarded one or more honorary degrees (or actually holds a real Ph.D. degree from some institution) we ought to be able to locate sources to substantiate this claim.  Relying on what looks like a best-guess by a college newspaper's obituary writer – that Rife might have received a degree of some sort, from somewhere, at some time – falls far short of Wikipedia's standards for reliable sourcing in a biography.  We shouldn't be discussing hypothesized degrees&mdash;we ought to be able to name the exact degree awarded, the institution that awarded it, and the date (at least the year) that it was awarded. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I found more sources, not great ones though. Will write later, real life taking priority. Ward20 (talk) 06:41, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I find this deplorable. A request was made to find bona fide sources acknowldging the man as a doctor. Honoary or not ,the title is there and it was given with the reference that was request. FOUR REFERENCES IN FACT. And yet.. some arbitrary editors just disregard this...It is flat out bias. It is wrong. CLEARLY WRONG! Some editors are moving the goal posts so that they can never be appeased. Editors need to stop double teaming this article to fit an editoral view they approve of. 108.247.104.253 (talk) 09:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Latest Research
This article is highly biased. Here is a link http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/music/aholland/PlasmaTwo.htm

Anthony Holland PHD has done recent published preCLINICAL cancer research with Rife style machines.

He makes videos on youtube too so you can wittness it there if you search for it.

Rife and his discoveries and work was supperessed, continues to be suppressed even in light of current acidemic research.

This artical needs an over haul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.247.104.253 (talk) 06:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Below you will read mastcell ask for a link... it is not that he can not see this link. It is that he is ignored it to perpetuate the ignorance of this page.

Please stop flaming this article mastcell. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.247.104.253 (talk) 15:34, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 February 2013
This article tells nothing about in 1934 how USC clinical trials had sent 16 patients from the Pasadena hospital to Rife San Diego labs for testing. supposedly they all were cured of their illness. Not to mention the death of the USC head who was going to tell the public about the testing. With his papers lost and never to be found. Maybe about the labs of Rife burning down to arsonist. How about the other labs destroyed who where helping rife on his research. You also don't talk about how in around 1938 the majority of the 44 doctors who attended the banquet for rife "The cure for all diseases" denied knowing him or ever meeting him.

Im not saying you have to put that in there. Maybe have rifes side of the case as well. like "Rifes Suppression" You only show one side the case and talk twice about the fraud. You show no information really about when this all went down. you jump straight to 1950 when the mainstream did not accept it and then jump to 1980 about he book. All of this was going down in 1929 - 1940.

MeloWise (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not clear what changes you are actually proposing be made to this article, nor have you identified any sources (particularly reliable sources) to support any changes. For example, if there were a 1934 clinical trial, where were its results published?  For the "Cure For All Diseases" dinner, are you able to identify any independent, contemporaneous accounts (news reports, etc.) identifying the attendees?  (Indeed, in looking at the present version of our article there isn't actually any supporting source to confirm that the dinner took place; I've flagged this problem in the text.)   TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:48, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The changes look clear to me and others on this page. The source you ask for tenofalltrades is the first source given in the reference section of the article.... You want something to be cited that is the founding citation. I think your intent to inhabited the educational merit and honesty of is article is crystal clear. Perhaps you should consider stepping away from this article. A news report is the first reference and yet you are so out of touch with the article you ask for what has already been given. If nothing at all else please at least make yourself more familiar with the article your dominerring.98.200.208.230 (talk) 08:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: enough with the personal attacks, please. The idea of an edit semi-protected request is not to send some editor scurrying around looking for things and drafting text, but to identify the exact changes requested and the sources to be used. If the sources are already used in the article, you can point to them, but they have to be explicitly identified. Editors who service edit semi-protected requests are often making their first visit to an article (as I am to this one), and if we didn't, the backlogs would quickly become enormous. Besides, we're all volunteers, and not available to be ordered about. --Stfg (talk) 09:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

article protection abuse
This article is protected soly to abuse the content. A petty tyrant insist upon saying things that are not true and ignore facts that others want introduced into this article.

And regardless of mast cells over zealous regulation of this article... Anthony Holland is still using rife bare machine to investigate and legitimze  a cure for cancer. And their is nothing you can do about that to change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.247.104.253 (talk) 00:24, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

How wrong I was. Regardless I think an edit update is required because some of rifes works was duplicated and independently verified

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_bacteria

ther researchers and clinicians who worked with the theory that bacteria could cause cancer, especially from the 1930s to the 1960s, included Eleanor Alexander-Jackson, William Coley, William Crofton, Gunther Enderlein, Franz Gerlach, Josef Issels, Elise L'Esperance, Milbank Johnson, Arthur Kendall, Royal Rife, Florence Seibert, Wilhelm von Brehmer, and Ernest Villequez.[22]

So now that it is proven that some bacteria do indeed cause cancer and that Rife worked with that theory then as A pinoeering researcher it would be fair to say that some of his work helped validate and contribute to the modern understanding of cancer bacteria.

NPOV needs to be ressisitated here. 1zeroate (talk) 10:06, 15 December 2013 (UTC)