The Dune Encyclopedia
The non-canon Dune Encyclopedia (1984) by Willis E. McNelly invents an extensive, alternate origin and description of the Holtzman effect. In this version, it is discovered by Ibrahim Vaughn Holtzman (born 7593 B.G.):
Young Holtzman was nearly killed in a tragic accident in a racing 'thopter ... He became the first of very few persons to undergo a brain transplant: his brain was placed in a prototype axlotl tank and wired into a large host computer with an unprogrammed personality blank, on the assumption that Holtzman would imprint his own personality on the machine. The process was marred by an induced psychosis: afterwards, Holtzman suffered from intense paranoia and refused treatment. Since Holtzman's was the first brain transplant ever performed, the extent of his powers was not fully understood.
The son of the planetary governor of Liesco II, Holtzman has a specialized ship constructed and "escapes" into space to "think." His mathematical genius is enhanced by the exponentially-increased mental processing made possible by his new computerized form (which also allows him to exist for nearly 7500 years). He focuses on analyzing the suspensor-nullification effect, which (as Frank Herbert established) makes interstellar travel possible. According to the Encyclopedia, this effect had been discovered 5400 years earlier but is not fully understood. Holtzman's first related discovery is an "instantaneous interstellar communication device" later called the Holtzman Wave.
Until this point, interstellar travel had effected a widespread population of the universe which could no longer be controlled by the Imperial House Ceres. The development of Holtzman Wave generators gives mankind the means to easily communicate across vast distances and results in the long and "ferocious" Wars of Reunification. Holtzman himself remains in seclusion, returning to civilization five times. On his third return, over 2000 years after his original escape, he gives humanity his next related discovery: defensive shields. On his fourth return millennia later, "Holtzman 'published' his unified theory, linking the various effects into a single hierarchy of phenomena." The last intelligent machine left in existence after the Butlerian Jihad, he is apparently destroyed in 108 B.G. Knowing his ship is booby trapped with a dormant laser aimed at a defensive shield, the Jihad fleet send a volunteer to board the ship, thereby setting off the explosion which results from shield-laser interaction.
According to the Encyclopedia, the three-dimensional suspensor-nullification effect is discovered thousands of years before Holtzman explored the associated phenomena; his name is eventually applied to all manifestations of the Holtzman effect.
Read more about this topic: Holtzman Effect