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they seem to be funding all types of zany ideas nowadays. the laser thing is especially attractive.

Well, I'm still crossing my fingers for Steorn to pull through. http://www.steorn.net/ ...mmm, here's hoping.

If you cared, you could easily find many pages debunking the "electric universe" theory. e.g. http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html

There are no shortage of crackpot physics theories supported by allegedly upstanding scientists. Often it's not even anyone's fault. Someone sees a sliver of evidence for some wild theory and latches on to it, wildly grasping at straws to support it. It's human nature, but most scientists manage to overcome the desire to selectively interpret evidence for their own purposes.

http://www.steorn.net/
http://www.rexresearch.com/coler/coler2.htm
http://www.blacklightpower.com/
http://www.relativitychallenge.com/
http://www.thefinaltheory.com/

If you want to debunk current science, start by learning modern physics and the experiments used to defend modern physics. You can't effectively criticize theories when you don't know what they say or how past experiments have validated them.

The above crackpot sites might not even be wrong. It could be that the scientific establishment is corrupt, misinterpreting evidence, and unreasonably trying to squash competing theories. However, the way those crackpots are going about trying to disprove currently accepted physics is simply the wrong way to go about it. If any of them would design a repeatable experiment that conflicts with existing theories, they'd become instantly famous. Why don't they? Either they're lazy or they're frauds. In either case, they have no business calling themselves scientists.

Even though many people consider it a hoax, Steorn claims to have a jury of scientists gathered ready to start analyzing their supposed technology. Hoax or not, it's definitely something to keep an eye on in 2007. http://www.steorn.net/challenge.aspx?p=1

Since it produces more energy than it consumes it should be easy to produce a full working example. For example a device consisting of a generator that feeds it's output to an electric motor that powers the generator.

"We have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy."

Soon, we won't need to burn fossil fuels to obtain our energy. We're fine.

Guys I think we are going to get our floating city soon. We take a few of these reactionless drives and hook them up the the free energy from these guys http://www.steorn.net/ and we are good to go.

Come on, when has Randell Mills every led us wrong? He and those Steorn folks will have us swimming in free energy, but everything will get a lot darker and heavier. I apparently have some of that dark matter hiding around my torso these days...

It isn't free or real, you have been hoaxed. Look here: http://www.steorn.net/en/ for the open directory. Look at the http://www.steorn.net/en/coverage.html page for the nice April 1st date. You can also note the barely there website, no history on it, and the translation sections aren't implemented fully. The website is just sitting there soaking up email addresses....

It isn't free or real, you have been hoaxed. Look here: http://www.steorn.net/en/ for the open directory. Look at the http://www.steorn.net/en/coverage.html page for the nice April 1st date. You can also note the barely there website, no history on it, and the translation sections aren't implemented fully. The website is just sitting there soaking up email addresses....

Seriously, check out the bios. Only one guy even has a bachelor's degree in engineering on their management team, and that's the CEO. And we have no idea what his background really is because the description is so vague - he worked in "projects" for "the energy sector" in several different continents.

They have no CTO or Chief Scientist or anything that would tend to go along with a company seriously researching energy production technologies. The CEO fills the role of "Chief Technical Architect" according to his bio blurb. Which would be more credible if we knew anything about anything he had done previously.

It unfortunately reeks of scam or publicity stunt or something equally unpalatable.

The server's running IIS ( http://www.steorn.net/en/something-random-to-get-a -404 )... And I think we all know only MS would do something like that!

-FL

They have built an e-mail address database of at least 20,000 addresses 2,000+ of them are scientists who will shorlty recive spam for ***DISCOUNT SPECTROMETERS***. They have done this within 4 days of publishing thier add, and please note that this was published in the Economist. While it may be respected, adds are adds and not particulary prone to verification and now they will certainly be getting some VC funding.

BTW can any one tell what the device in this image is supposed to do?
http://www.steorn.net/images/sean4_small.jpg

They say they where working on more efficent micro generators, well there is very little -micro- about that device and who knows how it generates.

AC

The Yahoo article is dated August 18th. In the "News" section on the Steorn.net website all the news is dated August 17. In any case, I can't find an organization called the "Chernobyl Aid Hope Project". Perhaps they mean this?

The EN directory seems to be browsable, so we can see the dates on the files. Most of them were updated or created August 17 as well. Including an HTML file that doesn't seem to be on the site anymore. Press release? New technology? April 1? Sounds like April Fools' to me. The images directory is open too, and the dates on there seem to be from the past few months. It kinda looks like a new website, so it may just be coincidence. But what's up with this?

I'm not convinced. But I'll be the first to eat my words if it ends up being legit.

The Yahoo article is dated August 18th. In the "News" section on the Steorn.net website all the news is dated August 17. In any case, I can't find an organization called the "Chernobyl Aid Hope Project". Perhaps they mean this?

The EN directory seems to be browsable, so we can see the dates on the files. Most of them were updated or created August 17 as well. Including an HTML file that doesn't seem to be on the site anymore. Press release? New technology? April 1? Sounds like April Fools' to me. The images directory is open too, and the dates on there seem to be from the past few months. It kinda looks like a new website, so it may just be coincidence. But what's up with this?

I'm not convinced. But I'll be the first to eat my words if it ends up being legit.

The Yahoo article is dated August 18th. In the "News" section on the Steorn.net website all the news is dated August 17. In any case, I can't find an organization called the "Chernobyl Aid Hope Project". Perhaps they mean this?

The EN directory seems to be browsable, so we can see the dates on the files. Most of them were updated or created August 17 as well. Including an HTML file that doesn't seem to be on the site anymore. Press release? New technology? April 1? Sounds like April Fools' to me. The images directory is open too, and the dates on there seem to be from the past few months. It kinda looks like a new website, so it may just be coincidence. But what's up with this?

I'm not convinced. But I'll be the first to eat my words if it ends up being legit.

The Yahoo article is dated August 18th. In the "News" section on the Steorn.net website all the news is dated August 17. In any case, I can't find an organization called the "Chernobyl Aid Hope Project". Perhaps they mean this?

The EN directory seems to be browsable, so we can see the dates on the files. Most of them were updated or created August 17 as well. Including an HTML file that doesn't seem to be on the site anymore. Press release? New technology? April 1? Sounds like April Fools' to me. The images directory is open too, and the dates on there seem to be from the past few months. It kinda looks like a new website, so it may just be coincidence. But what's up with this?

I'm not convinced. But I'll be the first to eat my words if it ends up being legit.

In 2003 Steorn undertook a project to develop more efficient micro generators. Early into this project the company developed certain generator configurations that appeared to be over 100% efficient. Further investigation and development has led to the company's current technology, a technology that produces free energy. The technology is patent pending. ... Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

      1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
      2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
      3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

The sum of these claims is that our technology creates free energy.

This represents a significant challenge to our current understanding of the universe and clearly such claims require independent validation from credible third parties.

Anyone else notice how the Steorn web site (appears to be the main site for the company), has no products or services to offer the world? The closest portion of their web page to resemble anything like that is their "Our Technology" section which only talks about their "revoutionary technology", i.e. the free energy stuff, that doesn't seem to have it's own name (after three years?), or any photos directly accessible. There are photos though:

This being an article with a few
A discussion I started on their forum to find pics
and finally
PES Wiki

There's plenty more of this kind of stuff to be found, but here are a couple of quick links related to Steorn. The Steorn video can be seen on Google, where it's filed under hoax, snake oil and scam. Wikipedia already has an article on them. Oddly, the site makes mention of the "Bolton Trust, DIT, Steorn Student Enterprise Competition 2006, which I actually found record of on the Dublin Institute of Technology website. Here is Steorn ad. I don't think the DIT competition adds any credibility, though. I'm done even wondering if there's a chance this is real.

http://www.steorn.net/images/sean5_small.jpg
http://www.steorn.net/images/sean4_small.jpg

As an Irish person, I'd surely love for something scientifically significant to be invented here, if only so I don't have to endure racist comments for the rest of my life.
Sadly I think this is an elaborate marketing stunt or a bunch of marketing people who don't know their causality laws from warp-engine field theory.

Read the Irish state media coverage here.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0818/steorn.html

More pictures

http://pesn.com/2006/08/21/9500298_Steorn_free_ene rgy_gauntlet/

Patent application

http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Steorn_ Free_Energy?coral-no-serve

http://www.steorn.net/images/sean5_small.jpg
http://www.steorn.net/images/sean4_small.jpg

As an Irish person, I'd surely love for something scientifically significant to be invented here, if only so I don't have to endure racist comments for the rest of my life.
Sadly I think this is an elaborate marketing stunt or a bunch of marketing people who don't know their causality laws from warp-engine field theory.

Read the Irish state media coverage here.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0818/steorn.html

More pictures

http://pesn.com/2006/08/21/9500298_Steorn_free_ene rgy_gauntlet/

Patent application

http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Steorn_ Free_Energy?coral-no-serve

Check out the "news" page : http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2 Posted on 17th of August 2006 http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2&id=31 "The winning team will be presented with a cheque for 5000 on the night of the final - March 29th 2006 - by DIT President Professor Brian Norton." and on the 17th of August 2006 "Congratulations to Blackhawk, winners of the 2006 Steorn/Bolton Trust/DIT Student Enterprise Competition. 17 August 2006" But from http://www.dit.ie/studententerprise "Results: 1st Prize: Nighthawk 2nd Prize: Snacks on Tracks" Just a typo, I suppose

Check out the "news" page : http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2 Posted on 17th of August 2006 http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2&id=31 "The winning team will be presented with a cheque for 5000 on the night of the final - March 29th 2006 - by DIT President Professor Brian Norton." and on the 17th of August 2006 "Congratulations to Blackhawk, winners of the 2006 Steorn/Bolton Trust/DIT Student Enterprise Competition. 17 August 2006" But from http://www.dit.ie/studententerprise "Results: 1st Prize: Nighthawk 2nd Prize: Snacks on Tracks" Just a typo, I suppose

http://www.steorn.net/en/coverage.html

Press Coverage
Steorn Announce "Free Energy" Technology

Irish company Steorn have announced a revoloutionary free energy technology. More
The Guardian | 1 April 2006

We have free energy at the end of the world.

What Steom is actually claiming is quite possible, but uninteresting. Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

The coefficient of performance is not efficiency. It's the reciprocal of efficiency. Most refrigerators and heat pumps have a coefficient of performance greater than 100%. 200-350% is typical. The coefficient of performance of an ideal heat pump, and the efficiency of an ideal heat engine, both working between the same temperature difference, will have a product of 1.

So Steom can meet its claims with any off-the-shelf heat pump.

Since they talk about "magnetics" so much, they're probably fooling around with something exotic like a magneto-caloric heat pump. This is a cute idea that's been around for a while, requires very strong magnetic fields, is sometimes used for cyrogenic cooling, and has been considered for auto air conditioners. There are buzzword friendly papers like "Preparation of Superferromagnetic Lanthanide Nanoparticulate Magnetic Refrigerants" on the subject. If they've made that work, they may have something with product potential. Maybe. But it's not "free energy".

Here's a larger image of the device they are using.
http://www.steorn.net/images/sean5_large.jpg
It's at the bottom.

Since when did Bill Murray become CEO of this company?
http://www.steorn.net/en/press.aspx?p=7

They claim they are trying to have scientists and other find an interest in their technology, and prove or disprove their claims.

Funny thing is that even on their own web pages http://www.steorn.net/ there is no products, description, pictures, technical info, general overview or *anything else* that describes the technology.

I call this bogus