Slashdot Mirror
News Media Scammed by 'Free Energy' Hoax
The General Electric corporate empire was scammed - they modified the story with a skeptical headline but otherwise left it alone. The AOL/TimeWarner corporate empire didn't have any problem with the story. The Environmental News Network, which probably should know better, didn't.
Now I know that wire stories are often run with minimal verification - each paper or website assumes that Reuters, or UPI, or AP has checked the story for veracity before it went out. And I know that reporters and editors can't be experts on every field of endeavor that they report on.
But this is Basic Science. The Three Laws (everyone loves the Second Law[1]) are not a new thing, and they're not going away any time soon. This should have been taught in junior high. There's a simple, well-known test that Reuters could have applied to this story: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". This claim is the most extraordinary of all - free energy, perpetual motion, whatever you want to call it, and it demands proof beyond question. Reuters is running this story based on an anonymous inventor. Is that extraordinary proof?
But wait, I said perpetual motion. The phrase "perpetual motion" is one which sets off alarm bells in people's heads, so the anonymous inventor was quick to head off that thought process:
"But he is keen to head off the notion that he has tapped into the age-old myth of perpetual motion. ``Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a self-sustaining unit which at the same time provides surplus electrical energy,'' he said."
This quote is simply embarassing. It parses to "Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a perpetual motion unit." The inventor must be snickering in his Guinness right now to have snuck that one past.
The story gets better when you read it several times. Three 100 Watt light bulbs created a drain of 4500 Watts, according to the nameless inventor. That would be an impressive feat all by itself, except that it's total nonsense.
The piece would have made a good humor article. A properly skeptical and properly educated Reuters reporter could have examined these claims, poked holes in them, and published a story that simultaneously reported on the claims and educated the public about why they are a load of hogwash. Too bad that's not what happened.
Maybe you'd like to take a crack at evaluating their claims? You think you can examine their device a little more critically than Reuters? Give them a call.
And I have a second task as well. Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary. My theory is that the difference between Slashdot and other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate, so readers are left with a false picture of accuracy. To test this claim, I'll send a Thinkgeek t-shirt to the first person who finds a retraction of this 'free energy' story published by Reuters or any of the newspapers/media outlets that ran the original story. *Any* of them. I don't expect to pay out.
Update: 01/24 16:38 GMT by M : CNN has updated their story with a new headline and several new paragraphs at the end, which qualifies. A couple of people also noted that ZDNet appears to have taken their copy of the wire story down. Lucas Garsha was the first to email, so he gets a t-shirt. I wasn't clear whether the claim should be email or in the comments, so I'll also send a t-shirt to the first commenter noting this, which appears to be skia.
[1] This is a fine world that we live in, where I can find a website devoted to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Somebody got up on the wrong side of the keyboard this morning. ;-)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
science demands that we ask "what if this is true?"
Quite simply, no it doesn't. Science is if nothing practical. Practically speaking, the laws of thermodynamics are laws for a reason. Common sense tells you that you cannot get 'free' energy. No matter what kind of machine it is, the energy has to come from something. Why burden real world scientists with obvious crap? If you must, get some grad students together and have them do a paper on it. Then at least we will have applied the scientific method to it.
More importantly, how many of you, within two tries, could have guessed which of Slashdot's Village Idiots posted this story?
I can't help put wonder if Taco or any of the other Editors I respected would have posted this, along with the pandering Tshirt and "check your local newspaper" thing. Can't help but come up with a big-ass no.
Man, I wish Timothy and Michael would just go away.
Okay, mod me down as Flamebait/Troll/Off Topic now.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
or prints things that aren't even stories, or are most likely hoaxes. This AOL/Redhat thing, the "microsoft e-mail" that said "don't forward this! I'm watching you"! Come on, I really and truly love reading Slashdot, but don't claim to be some kind of credible news source.Please.
By the way, since it was in the story, it's not off-topic, but mod me down anyways, I know you will
Wow..Run for 2 years...By that standard one
would have to assume that Windows NT is a hoax
since I have never seen a windows box even approach that much uptime.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
Family Guy? You've got to be kidding me. It is one the stupidest, most immature shows on TV, IMHO.
Dinivin
The MPAA and the RIAA will slap down on this one bigtime with some help of whatever cabal controls power. Energy shouldn't be distributed for free, you have to pay royalties to the people responsible for its creation! If this takes off what will happen to those poor starving energy monopolies of the developed world? Why they would lose their only source of income and be unable to finance their lobby groups and buy senators by the dozen. Why, Governments might actually start do things for people rather than big industry, we can't let that happen! It will destroy the world as we know it.