Nicholas Kollerstrom
Encyclopedia
Nicholas Kollerstrom is an English writer and historian of science. He is a former honorary research fellow in Science and Technology Studies at University College, London (UCL), and a former lunar gardening correspondent for the BBC. He is the author or co-author of a number of books, including Gardening and Planting by the Moon (an annual series beginning 1980), Newton's Forgotten Lunar Theory (2000), Crop Circles (2002), and Terror on the Tube (2009).
Kollerstrom has been involved in the UK as a political activist regarding issues such as the 1982 sinking of the Belgrano by the British Navy during the Falklands War, after which he helped set up the Belgrano Action Group, and the 7 July 2005 London bombings
, which he argues may not have been carried out by the men accused of the attack. He came to public attention in April 2008 when he lost his fellowship with UCL after posting what he described as "revisionist" material about Auschwitz
on a website known for its Holocaust denial
.
from 1965 until 1968. He graduated in Natural Sciences
, specializing in the history and philosophy of science, after which he worked as a physics teacher. He received his PhD from UCL in 1995 for a thesis entitled, "The Achievement of Newton's 1702 Theory of the Moon's Motion." He became an honorary research fellow in Science and Technology Studies at UCL, and in 1999 received a grant from the Royal Astronomical Society
to work on the classification of correspondence related to the British discovery of Neptune
; along with William Sheehan and Craig Waff, he concluded in an article for Scientific American in 2004 that the British had wrongly taken credit for the discovery of the planet. He has a particular interest in the effect of the sun, moon and planets on plant growth and chemical reactions.
. The Action Group held an informal public inquiry in November 1986 at Hampstead Town Hall, addressed by Tam Dalyell
MP and Clive Ponting
, a former British civil servant. The proceedings were published as The Unnecessary War: Proceedings of the Belgrano Inquiry, November 7/8th 1986 by Spokesman Press in 1988.
He has also conducted research into the 7 July 2005 London bombings, arguing that the bombers were "patsies." His Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7, an Investigation was published in April 2009, and he was interviewed by the BBC for its series, The Conspiracy Files
, broadcast in June 2009.
, when he gave them an interview at the suggestion of Michèle Renouf
, a British woman known for her involvement with writers accused of Holocaust denial.
In "The Auschwitz 'Gas Chamber' Illusion," first published on the CODOH website in June 2007, Kollerstrom wrote that there were no "lethal gas chambers" in the Nazi's concentration camps, that cyanide
gas chambers
operated in Auschwitz only for the purpose of hygiene and disinfection, and that "the only intentional mass extermination program in the concentration camps of World War Two was targeted at Germans" in French and American-run concentration camps. In "School trips to Auschwitz," he wrote:
Britain's Index on Censorship
asked Brendan O'Neill of Spiked
and "Unity" of Liberal Conspiracy to comment on Kollerstrom's loss of his fellowship. Unity argued that it was justified because of the poor scholarship and lack of judgment, whereas O'Neill's position was that Kollerstrom was pursuing his ideas in his spare time and his dismissal amounted to a witch hunt. The Jewish Chronicle reported that Kollerstrom saw himself as the victim of a "calumny" by bloggers. Kollerstrom said he had no interest in the Nazi movement
, had always belonged to groups like the Green Party
, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
, and the Respect party, and regarded himself as having been accused of a "thought-crime."
Papers
Kollerstrom has been involved in the UK as a political activist regarding issues such as the 1982 sinking of the Belgrano by the British Navy during the Falklands War, after which he helped set up the Belgrano Action Group, and the 7 July 2005 London bombings
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
, which he argues may not have been carried out by the men accused of the attack. He came to public attention in April 2008 when he lost his fellowship with UCL after posting what he described as "revisionist" material about Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
on a website known for its Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
.
Education and career
Kollerstrom attended Corpus Christi College, CambridgeCorpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
from 1965 until 1968. He graduated in Natural Sciences
Natural Sciences (Cambridge)
The Natural Sciences Tripos is one of the several courses which form the University of Cambridge system of undergraduate teaching...
, specializing in the history and philosophy of science, after which he worked as a physics teacher. He received his PhD from UCL in 1995 for a thesis entitled, "The Achievement of Newton's 1702 Theory of the Moon's Motion." He became an honorary research fellow in Science and Technology Studies at UCL, and in 1999 received a grant from the Royal Astronomical Society
Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
to work on the classification of correspondence related to the British discovery of Neptune
Discovery of Neptune
Neptune was mathematically predicted before it was directly observed. With a prediction by Urbain Le Verrier, telescopic observations confirming the existence of a major planet were made on the night of September 23, 1846, and into the early morning of the 24th, at the Berlin Observatory, by...
; along with William Sheehan and Craig Waff, he concluded in an article for Scientific American in 2004 that the British had wrongly taken credit for the discovery of the planet. He has a particular interest in the effect of the sun, moon and planets on plant growth and chemical reactions.
Activism
Kollerstrom was a founder member in 1986 of the Belgrano Action Group, set up to campaign for information about the sinking of the Argentinian ship, the Belgrano by the British Navy during the 1982 Falklands WarFalklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
. The Action Group held an informal public inquiry in November 1986 at Hampstead Town Hall, addressed by Tam Dalyell
Tam Dalyell
Sir Thomas Dalyell Loch, 11th Baronet , known as Tam Dalyell, is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005, first for West Lothian and then for Linlithgow.-Early life:...
MP and Clive Ponting
Clive Ponting
Clive Ponting is a British writer, former academic and former senior civil servant. He is the author of a number of revisionist books on British and world history...
, a former British civil servant. The proceedings were published as The Unnecessary War: Proceedings of the Belgrano Inquiry, November 7/8th 1986 by Spokesman Press in 1988.
He has also conducted research into the 7 July 2005 London bombings, arguing that the bombers were "patsies." His Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7, an Investigation was published in April 2009, and he was interviewed by the BBC for its series, The Conspiracy Files
The Conspiracy Files
The Conspiracy Files is a British documentary television series broadcast on BBC Two, investigating various modern day conspiracy theories...
, broadcast in June 2009.
Holocaust denial controversy
UCL announced on 22 April 2008 that it had removed Kollerstrom's honorary fellowship after articles of his were published on Holocaust denial websites. The college wrote that he had expressed views "diametrically opposed to the aims, objectives and ethos of UCL, such that we wish to have absolutely no association with them or with their originator." Kollerstrom's "The Auschwitz 'Gas Chamber' Illusion" and "The Walls of Auschwitz" appeared on a website run by the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), and a third, "School trips to Auschwitz," was published in March 2008 in Smith's report, a newsletter and website run by the co-founder of CODOH, Bradley R. Smith. The articles came to the university's attention after Kollerstrom attended a book launch about the 2005 London bombings, where he expressed the view that the men accused of the attack were not involved in it, leading survivors and bloggers to make inquiries about him. On 14 April, one blog reported him as a Holocaust denier. In May 2008, "The Walls of Auschwitz" appeared on the website of the Iranian government's Press TVPress TV
Press TV is a 24-hour English language global news network owned by the Iranian government. Its headquarters are located in Tehran, Iran, with bureaux in Beirut , Damascus , London , Seoul and Washington DC ....
, when he gave them an interview at the suggestion of Michèle Renouf
Michele Renouf
Michèle Suzanne, Lady Renouf , is an Australian-born advertising model, now a British national, and a lifelong international television commercials actress with a thirty year membership of British Actors Equity....
, a British woman known for her involvement with writers accused of Holocaust denial.
In "The Auschwitz 'Gas Chamber' Illusion," first published on the CODOH website in June 2007, Kollerstrom wrote that there were no "lethal gas chambers" in the Nazi's concentration camps, that cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
gas chambers
Gas Chambers
Gas Chambers is a fast, hollow and shallow point break type of wave. Being that it is a high performance wave it is well suited for the average to pro level surfer. Gas Chambers is located on the North Shore of Oahu about a 1/4 of a mile north of Ehukai Beach Park and 1/2 a mile west of Sunset...
operated in Auschwitz only for the purpose of hygiene and disinfection, and that "the only intentional mass extermination program in the concentration camps of World War Two was targeted at Germans" in French and American-run concentration camps. In "School trips to Auschwitz," he wrote:
Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors are properly taught about the elegant swimming-pool at Auschwitz, built by the inmates, who would sunbathe there on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while watching the water-polo matches; and shown the paintings from its art class, which still exist; and told about the camp library which had some forty-five thousand volumes for inmates to choose from, plus a range of periodicals; and the six camp orchestras at Auschwitz/Birkenau, its theatrical performances, including a children's opera, the weekly camp cinema, and even the special brothel established there. Let's hope they are shown postcards written from Auschwitz, some of which still exist, where the postman would collect the mail twice-weekly. Thus the past may not always be quite, as we were told."
Britain's Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
asked Brendan O'Neill of Spiked
Spiked
Spiked can mean:* Spiked , a British Internet-based magazine* Spiked , hairstyles featuring spikes* Spiked!, a Hardy Boys novel- See also :* Spike * Spicata, a Latin word with the same meaning...
and "Unity" of Liberal Conspiracy to comment on Kollerstrom's loss of his fellowship. Unity argued that it was justified because of the poor scholarship and lack of judgment, whereas O'Neill's position was that Kollerstrom was pursuing his ideas in his spare time and his dismissal amounted to a witch hunt. The Jewish Chronicle reported that Kollerstrom saw himself as the victim of a "calumny" by bloggers. Kollerstrom said he had no interest in the Nazi movement
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, had always belonged to groups like the Green Party
Green Party (UK)
The Green Party was a Green political party in the United Kingdom. It has been succeeded by three political parties:* the Green Party of England and Wales* the Green Party in Northern Ireland* the Scottish Green Party- PEOPLE, 1973–1975 :...
, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
, and the Respect party, and regarded himself as having been accused of a "thought-crime."
Selected works
Books- with Best, Simon. Lunar Planting Manual 1980-81. W Foulsham & Co Ltd, 1980. ISBN 0572010591
- Gardening and Planting by the Moon, a series of annual books beginning 1980.
- Lead on the Brain: A Plain Guide to Britain's No. 1 Pollutant. Wildwood House, 1982. ISBN 0704504766
- Astrochemistry: A Study of Metal-planet Affinities. Emergence Press, 1984. ISBN 0946937001
- with Farebrother, George (eds.). The Unnecessary War: Proceedings of the Belgrano Inquiry, November 7/8th 1986. The Belgrano Action Group, Spokesman Press, 1988.
- The Metal-Planet Relationship: A Study of Celestial Influence. Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, 1993. ISBN 0945685149
- with O'Neill, Mike. The Eureka Effect: Astrology of Scientific Discovery. Auriel, 1994.
- Newton's Forgotten Lunar Theory. Green Lion Press, 2000. ISBN 188800908X
- Crop Circles: The Hidden Form. Wessex Books, 2002. ISBN 1903035112
- (ed.) The Case against War: The Essential Legal Inquiries, Opinions and Judgements Concerning War in Iraq. The Legal Inquiry Steering Group, 2003.
- with Campion, Nicholas (eds.). Galileo's Astrology. HR Wallingford Ltd, 2004. ISBN 1898485089
- Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7, an Investigation. Progressive Press, 2009. ISBN 1615770070
Papers
- "The Lawther Report: Whitewashing leaded petrol", The Ecologist, Vol 10, Nos. 6/7, July, Aug, Sept 1980.
- "Thomas Simpson and 'Newton's method of approximation': an enduring myth", British Journal for the History of Science, 25, 347–354, 1992.
- with Yallop, Bernard D. "Flamsteed's Lunar Data 1692–95, Sent to Newton," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 26, 237–246, 1995.
- "Newton, Halley and Uranus", Astrological Journal, August 2002.
- "Galileo as Believer", Culture and Cosmos, Vol 7, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2003.
- with Steffert, Beverly. Sex difference in response to stress by lunar month: a pilot study of four years' crisis-call frequency, BMC Psychiatry, 3:20, December 10, 2003.
- with Sheehan, William, and Waff, Craig B. The Case of the Pilfered Planet, Scientific American, December 2004.
- "Galileo's first trial", Astronomy Now, Vol. 18, No. 7, 33–36, 2004.
- "Galileo and the new star", Astronomy Now, Vol. 18, No. 10, 58–59, 2004.
- "John Hershel on the Discovery of Neptune, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 9(2), 151–158, 2006.
- "Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism", Astronomy Now, Vol. 21, No. 3, 32–35, 2007.
Further reading
- Terror On the Tube, website by Kollerstrom about 7/7 London bombings, accessed 12 August 2010.
- "Gardening and Planting by the Moon, another website run by Kollerstrom, accessed 12 August 2010.
- The Belgrano Inquiry, accessed 12 August 2010.
- Aaronovitch, DavidDavid AaronovitchDavid Aaronovitch is a British author, broadcaster, and journalist. He is a regular columnist for The Times, and author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country and Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History...
. "Red and green meet brownshirts", The Jewish Chronicle, 1 May 2008. - Kollerstrom, Nicholas. Discussing the sinking of the Belgrano and 7/7, accessed 26 November 2009.
- Lawson, DominicDominic LawsonDominic Ralph Campden Lawson is a British journalist.-Background:Educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford, he is the elder son of a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson and socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the Lyons Corner House empire, who died of...
. "Iran's British stooges are staring right at you", The Times, 5 July 2009.