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Perpetual Motion Delorean?

An anonymous reader writes "An electric-powered Delorean that can supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge will be tested today beginning at 8am at the Nashville Superspeedway. They claim the vehicle uses 12 standard car batteries, so the invention appears to relate to recharging the batteries." I found a website offering current updates on the demonstration of this perpetual motion device: it appears they've suffered mechanical difficulties and cancelled the test.

129 of 522 comments (clear)

  1. Does it use the Casimir Effect? by selectspec · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The first posts today are more exciting that this story.

    --

    Someone you trust is one of us.

  2. Inventors of this car by egg+troll · · Score: 3, Funny

    I understand that this car was created by two professors named Pons and Fleischmann, so it must be true!

    --

    C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
  3. If I remember correctly by squarefish · · Score: 2, Funny

    from bad 80's jokes: isn't the Delorean the one that always follows the white lines better than others?

    --
    Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
  4. Will it be able to reach 88 miles per hour? by Navius+Eurisko · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. :)

    1. Re:Will it be able to reach 88 miles per hour? by AntiNorm · · Score: 2

      I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. :)

      I would think so, since the article (and the writeup here on Slashdot even!) says 'over 100 MPH'...

      --

      I pledge allegiance to the flag...
      of the Corporate States of America...
    2. Re:Will it be able to reach 88 miles per hour? by nlh · · Score: 2

      Ah yes...another example demonstrating what I call the "MIT humor dysfunction syndrome" -- this is something I saw at MIT all the time among nerds/dorks/geeks: They simply don't know when to end the joke, or just don't get it in the first place....

      "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

      "Why?"

      "To get to the other side!"

      "Ahahah...and yes, then he crossed back and went to the side again, right? eheheh...?"

      "um....dude...."

    3. Re:Will it be able to reach 88 miles per hour? by Clue4All · · Score: 2

      That wasn't the point. In the early 80's, most highways had speed limits of 55 (or lower). The gas shortage led to a lot of underpowered cars on the road (like that lovely 4 cylinder Mustang that couldn't make it up large hills). Of course there have always been cars that could do 120 without a problem, but there weren't many in regular use at the time, and the line "Let's see if you assholes can do 80" make sense for the time period. There is a distinct difference between that time and 20 years later when you can't buy a 4 cylinder car with less than 130 horsepower.

      --

      Is your browser retarded?
  5. Hrmm.. by Wrexen · · Score: 5, Funny

    10:45 am. Greater Things News coverage has logged 1000 visits

    *insert sound of maniacal laughter here*

  6. Difficulties by BlindSpot · · Score: 5, Funny

    > it appears they've suffered mechanical difficulties and cancelled the test.

    They obviously forgot what happens when you hit 88mph in a DeLorean!

    1. Re:Difficulties by Dwonis · · Score: 2
      but you could also simply turn off the time circuits entirely (easier to reach from the driver's seat) to prevent a time jump at 88 MPH.

      Maybe, but if you sneeze, they'll turn back on and flip you back a century.

    2. Re:Difficulties by CAIMLAS · · Score: 2

      ... but wasn't the delorean made out of alumnum? (sp?) I recall hearing that it had problems in high winds and high velocities due to it's light weight.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    3. Re:Difficulties by NewWazoo · · Score: 2


      As the owner of a modified RX-7 Turbo, I can definitively say that your car handles like butt. :)

      Just kidding - but I wouldn't class a DeLo as handling "like it's on rails"... it was great for the day, but the early RX-7s of the same era handled better (they were 300lbs lighter, but still)

      Brandon
      Just some friendly ribbing from a fellow sports car enthusiast.

  7. Duh by cscx · · Score: 5, Funny

    They claim the vehicle uses 12 standard car batteries, so the invention appears to relate to recharging the batteries."

    Of course there is a flux capacitor to store charge and recharge the batteries, amongst other things, such as powering the radio.

  8. Try it at home! by echucker · · Score: 2

    Amazingly enough, Delorean One sells reconditioned ones for as little as $62,500. Why take the Tilley Foundation's word for it when you can play the Marty McFly home game?

    1. Re:Try it at home! by CaseyB · · Score: 2

      I guess the reconditioning is to mint condition, because you can buy old Deloreans for less than $10K.

    2. Re:Try it at home! by Eil · · Score: 2


      I've seen lots of crappy DeLoreans that I wouldn't pay any amount of money for, so I would imagine ones that are still in decent condition are in pretty high demand. I also understand that there weren't a whole lot made.

  9. What is this? Hoax? No Details? by jsimon12 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems to be nothing other then an electrically powered Delorean? People have been converting gas powered vehicles to Electric for years. If this is some sort of perpetual motion machine is doesn't say how it works on the site, in any detail. So that would lead me to belive it is a hoax.

    1. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If this is some sort of perpetual motion machine is doesn't say how it works on the site, in any detail.

      That's because the only person who mentioned perpetual motion was the Slashdot Editor. Michael put it in the title of the Slashdot story - neither the article nor the site says *anything* about perpetual motion. The stats related in the article are:

      'hundreds of miles without recharging'' and can reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

      Which is scientifically plausable, if exteremely unlikely. It may well be a hoax, but they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is. We'll see when the thing is finished being demonstrated. It certainly would be a breakthrough, and while very rare, they do happen at times.

      If it were a perpetual motion device, I wouldn't even give it the benefit of the doubt. As it is, I just give it doubt. :)

      --
      Evan (no references, but I think the car's stats might be SciFi)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    2. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Nanoda · · Score: 5, Informative
      Not claiming to be perpetual motion?

      "...can run coast to coast without ever relying on the battery being charged from an outside source."

      and

      "The very essence of the technology to be demonstrated is the capability to keep the batteries "topped up" at all times with the "on board" device invented by Carl B. Tilley."

      and most importantly

      " In fact, as the demonstration will prove, at the end of the allotted time period the battery bank will still register a FULL CHARGE condition!"

      This is not a solar vehicle, people. This is a perpetual motion machine, and it's a sham.

    3. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
      D'oh - you are, Nanoda, totally correct. Break out the wet noodle for me; I goofed. They are appearing to claim that it is a perpetual motion device. I read the coast to coast as a (possibly overblown) statement of how efficient it was. The other two quotes point towards them claiming greater than 100% efficiency, and in my mind spin the pointer from "probable hoax" into "utter sham". Ah, well.

      --
      Evan (no reference)

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    4. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2

      Michael is right. If you look at the details on the site, it becomes obvious that what they are describing is equivalent to a perpetual motion machine. They describe an invention that somehow runs off of batteries, provides enough power to run a large motor, and also recharges the batteries it is draining. This is completely impossible without a source of free energy, and with free energy you have perpetual motion.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    5. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by thing12 · · Score: 2
      The idea is perfectly sound. It's no different than charging a watch battery or spring with the energy involved in walking, or a windup radio. It's called energy recycling.

      It's very different... not only is the energy required to power a watch just a small fraction of what is being put into it by being worn while walking, but you're forgetting that the energy from walking comes from the person wearing the watch -- not the watch itself! What you're describing is not energy recycling, it's energy transference. So, only if the car were powered by its driver, would we have a similar scenario.

    6. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Alsee · · Score: 2

      if the car were powered by its driver

      Just imagine how fast you'd burn off those extra pounds!

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    7. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Pfhor · · Score: 2

      Well, you do have inertia moving the machine forward.

      Althou I doubt one could build an effecient enough machine to not lose massive amounts of energy in the recharge phase, but it could be a more effecient way for an electric vehicle to operate.

    8. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2

      It is more efficient to recapture the inertia of the car while braking, and most efficient electric vehicles nowadays already use this method. You can never recover the large amount of energy spent combating friction though, and you can only recapture the inertia while braking, because recapturing the inertia slows the car down.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    9. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Insightful
      As the parent post observes, this is obviously a sham.

      I want to know--why has nobody on Slashdot mentioned the most important point?

      If the car "can run coast to coast without ever...being charged" and "at the end of the allotted time period the battery bank will still register a FULL CHARGE condition", why does it need a battery bank in the first place?

      If, as the Tilley Foundation web site states, "Your battery system will be fully charged at all times while in use", why do we need the batteries at all?

      --
      ~Idarubicin
    10. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by g4dget · · Score: 2

      Quite plausible--assuming the car carries a little nuclear thermoelectric generator, crawls along fairly slowly, and doesn't bother with too much shielding :-)

    11. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Moofie · · Score: 2

      Ummm...how much does YOUR watch weigh? Mine weighs an insignificant amount compared to the pendulum (my left arm) that it is attached to. Therefore, recapturing the energy from the harmonic motion of my arms (which is ultimately powered by my muscles) is not a big deal.

      Now, when you figure out how to run a car the same way, you write me a letter and I'll give you a cookie. Until then, I will continue my wrongheaded and irrational belief in the laws of thermodynamics.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
    12. Re:What is this? Hoax? No Details? by Nightpaw · · Score: 2

      All of those "transitions" were caused by your primary energy source (the gas in a regular car, the batteries in this one) in the first place.

      Any side to side motion in a car is from steering the front wheels, and steering is actually just scrubbing energy in exchange for going a new direction.

      Any upward movement is, again, powered by your energy source; in this case, buying potential energy from the planet. Any downward movement is the planet taking it right back. We can even ignore all the little ups and downs and just check which is higher, your origin or destination. There's only one way to get energy that way, and it was invented a while ago.

      Your forward movement is obviously being used to make you go forward (the whole idea of a car). With motion along this axis (and the other two), the more efficient your reclamation, the less you actually move. If you use energy to make something move, how can you reclaim 100% of that energy without completely stopping it? Or 50% without slowing it by half?

      And even if you figure all that out, you've got friction from all these moving parts just wasting energy into heat and noise (forms of energy that are very difficult to reclaim), all kinds of drag, and don't forget those 4 big, fat, black patches of friction that follow you everywhere you go.

      Yes, fancy new electric cars have a motor for each wheel and use regenerative braking to get back some energy, but everybody knows that if you want to get from here to there, it's ass, grass, or gas; nobody rides for free.

  10. WAKE UP!!! by AmigaAvenger · · Score: 2

    Read the details, it starts an electric motor, and then recharges itself from this motor. Laws of physics say you will still run out of energy, period! Electric motors are not very efficient, 50-70% for normal motors and maybe up to 90% if you are lucky for a decent 3 phase brushless design. and secondy, wtf is up with using a Delorean?? It is a car that is finicky and breaks often at best, and that is the normal dinosaur burning model... I keep expecting to see a 'Mr fusion' strapped on the back!

    1. Re:WAKE UP!!! by jkirby · · Score: 2, Funny

      I almost laughed my arse off on this one. This is the quintessential "Snake Oil" hoax. First and foremost, there is absolutly nothing, whatsoever, on any of the pages that discuss any technical aspect of the TEV. Nothing. Not even a hint at anything remotly scientific. Secondly, it is too well written and thought out. And thirdly, as all of us graduates of "The STar Fleet Academy" know; entroy rules.

      --
      Jamey Kirby
  11. Technical term by Quixote · · Score: 5, Funny
    it appears they've suffered mechanical difficulties and cancelled the test.

    There's a name for such "mechanical difficulties": friction. Get used to it.

  12. it's a trick! by jjeffries · · Score: 5, Funny

    They get it going up to 88, travel back in time a day or two and leisurely drive to their destination, perhaps seeing some sights along the way. They top off the gas tank and arrive an hour or so after they left, fooling the Newtonian masses by substituting one physical impossibility for another.

  13. Good Gawd. by Em+Emalb · · Score: 2

    This story screams for stupid Back to the Future jokes.

    Please folks, save your dumber ones for the sequel.

    On a related note, they got all this hype and crowds up....but didn't think to beef up the suspension, motor, drive train? Odd.

    It seems the website is proud of their 1000 hits too. Wait til /. gets done with you. You'll be begging for...{insert stupid joke here}

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
    1. Re:Good Gawd. by n9hmg · · Score: 2

      I can't imagine what the freaking problem is. They say the car can't take the stress on the track going that fast. I'd be quite impressed if they ran their distance at 30 mph. Surely, if it's capable of pushing itself along at >100, they can pick a lower speed and take a groove that doesn't stress the bearings.
      I think he's shooting for credibility amongst idiots. He'll come around after the failure, looking for "investors", claiming he was sabotaged by "big oil" or whatever.
      Here, you want perpetual motion - use the casimir effect, and lcds efficient enough to open and close one of the mirrors, and let that drive a piston, slowly. It's not really perpetual motion, but should be free energy, though at a low output.

  14. This should be under a better heading... by Etcetera · · Score: 2, Flamebait


    Seriously... if his system works as he says it can, this will be quite an important milestone (once they have the bearings issue worked out). We should be *encouraging* this kind of research, not laughing at it.

    Considering this is a website "for Nerds" I'd expect a better reaction out of people. Tesla had a lot of breakthrough concepts regarding electricity and the ability to sucking power out of one's environment.

    We should be promoting this kind of reasearch (you know, the kind large corporations might not take to kindly to). WTF is it that we'll bitch about the **AA putting down the little guy, but we're pooh-poohing someone who's trying to stand up to Big Oil and the Automakers?

    1. Re:This should be under a better heading... by Hans+Lehmann · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Tesla did some interesting work, but he never "sucked power out of the environment" without spending far more energy than he ever got back. The reason we Nerds poo-poo these stories is simply because they defy the laws of thermodynamics. This inventor shows all the usual symptoms of a perpetual-energy kook:

      "The Government/Big Oil/Big Auto knows that this really works, but they're trying to suppress it."

      They create mumbo-jumbo terms like "electromagnetic vacuum", that sound plausible to the average sucker investor that never bothered to take a high-school physics class, but are nothing but a bunch of crap.

      They're constantly stalling, while promising that their invention will be ready after "just a few more tweaks."

      When they are asked to demonstrate it under controlled conditions, they'll always come up with a story about "bad vibes from all these skeptics", or in this case "we've just got some bearing problems."

      Anyone that invests in this company deserves to lose every penny they own.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    2. Re:This should be under a better heading... by Nanoda · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I seem to remember hearing about this guy a few years ago. He apparently found out that more windings on a motor = more turning power! Wow! Except, of course, that this also adds to the self inductance of the coil, etc. (Meaning it takes more energy, and just because you have a motor with 100000 coils, running on a double A, doesn't mean you've done something cool).

      I may have read it in one of Andreas Schroeder's highly entertaining books about outrageous scams and fraud artists.

      I suggest you read one of them - this kind of "oh, we were all ready to prove it to the world, and then cruel fate stepped in oh no please send your financial support to..." stuff happens all the time with this kind of stuff. The only time stuff like this doesn't happen is when you aren't allowed to inspect the device afterwards. (ie, it's rigged).

      (A side note, what kind of "stress" do banked turns put on a car, anyhow? Answer: None! It relieves stress perpendicular to the motion of travel! Just more crap from this guy).

    3. Re:This should be under a better heading... by SetupWeasel · · Score: 2

      Real scientists don't keep their finds secret and expect others to believe them. Science is about putting up or shutting up. This guy talks the talk but has zero to show for it. No working car, no new theories on how to overcome friction, and certainly no proven equations. It is easy to fudge an outcome. Anyone who bought the Ronco GLH ("great looking hair") can of HEAD SPRAY PAINT can attest to that.

      If this guy wants money, investors better demand results before they give it to them. Hell this doesn't even look good on paper yet.

      SetupWeasel

    4. Re:This should be under a better heading... by theycallmeB · · Score: 2, Insightful
      As you say, read the site, not the spin:
      There is a new car on the road today. A car built with technology that defies the concept of fossil fuel powered cars, and can run coast to coast without ever relying on the battery being charged from an outside source.
      He is certainly selling it as a closed system, with no requirements that it be refueled or recharged (at least not for very, very long distances), so unless he really does have a 'Mr. Fusion' in there or has made a breakthrough in electro-chemical energy storage (ie. batteries), this is a perpetual-motion machine of the first kind (a PMM1, as my thermo book says) because he claims to be able to do a lot of work (drive from coast to coast) with comparably little energy input (at most, a single battery charge before you leave). If he has managed to invent fusion or a better battery, he wouldn't bother with putting it in a car when he could sell it for billions as is. Perhaps you should stop reading the spin on the site and try reading a textbook. Us poor engineering students have to read lots of them.
    5. Re:This should be under a better heading... by Hans+Lehmann · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, these laws are universal, except for the special case in which a coil is wound in just the right manner using just the perfect alloy of copper combined with the a Dynamic Flux Vector using Inverse Isobars(tm). This self-taught inventor from Tennessee, with a stock car driver providing celebrity endorsements, is the only one who truly grasps the concept. The rest of us are just too steeped in dogma from all those years of being brainwashed by the Secret World Order, but soon it will be possible to reveal the secret and save Humanity. They can't reveal the secret just yet, of course, so keep sending him money. It will be ready, he promises, any day now.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    6. Re:This should be under a better heading... by zephc · · Score: 2

      "Jesus, Tesla was a f**king crackpot whose major contribution to science was the Tesla coil, primarily used to generate big sparks at children's museums."

      Oh, and that little thing called alternating current

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
    7. Re:This should be under a better heading... by wedg · · Score: 2

      They create mumbo-jumbo terms like "electromagnetic vacuum", that sound plausible to the average sucker investor that never bothered to take a high-school physics class, but are nothing but a bunch of crap.

      http://physicsweb.org/article/world/15/9/6

      From another /. article earlier today. It explains the electromagnetic vacuum (a.k.a. vacuum fluctuations).

      --
      Jake
      Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
    8. Re:This should be under a better heading... by zerocool^ · · Score: 2

      "...taught inventor from Tennessee... ...all those years of being brainwashed by the Secret World Order,"

      If he's from Tennessee, that's probably supposed to be the New World Order. Ya know, Nw0, wrestling, WWF (WWE)??

      Hogan, Nash, Hall? Come on people, work with me here.

      ~Will

      --
      sig?
    9. Re:This should be under a better heading... by HorsePunchKid · · Score: 2
      Richard_at_work had a valid point, even if he didn't necessarily state it all that well. (Or perhaps the moderators were just to eager to flamebait it.) His point was that the thermodynamic laws aren't some kind of mystical inviolate property of being that we should not question. They're the result of hundreds of years of patient scientific observation. The fact that observations have borne out the laws so well is the only reason they've been elevated to the level of "laws" instead of remaining as lowly "theories" (e.g. relativity, QCD, supersymmetry; take your pick).

      It's a sort of linguistic distinction that unfortunately people take far too seriously. It comes up frequently for me in other contexts. People bash the theory of evolution, saying that since scientists admit it's only a "theory", it has no true merit. This is clearly flawed and really nothing more than exploiting our (err... my, anyway) language's shortcomings. The theory has plenty of empirical evidence. Not nearly as much as the laws of thermodynamics, but that's all the change of words means.

      Of course your original point still stands, and perhaps we shouldn't be attacking you about this detail :).

      --
      Steven N. Severinghaus
    10. Re:This should be under a better heading... by Aexia · · Score: 2

      As I recall, the Greeks not only knew the world was spherical but also had a very good idea of how big it was.

    11. Re:This should be under a better heading... by Kris_J · · Score: 2
      Breakthrough energy production will come via peer-reviewed publications and repeatable experiments. It will involve limited proof-of-concept engines under controlled conditions.

      It will not come via some independent inventor showing off a car to a bunch of journalists. Even if it is a really nice car.

  15. Re:Kind of remembers me... by Knife_Edge · · Score: 2

    What was that called? It had River Phoenix in it, if I remember correctly. They had some kind of magical alien circuit design that would allow them to generate a force field or something and they used that to surround a ship, right?

  16. Lost Reporter by unsinged+int · · Score: 5, Funny

    * 3:40 pm: Still haven't heard from Ken
    * 2:37 pm: Still no word from Ken.
    * 1:48 pm: Still waiting for our reporter, Ken, to call in.

    OMG! They killed Kenny!

    1. Re:Lost Reporter by guttentag · · Score: 5, Funny
      Great Scott! I was afraid this might happen, Marty.

      By building and actually testing the impossible perpetual motion machine, they have created a paradox -- sucking them and half of Nashville into a rip in the space-time continuum. Mental note to self: cross Nashville off the list of places I planned to someday visit.

    2. Re:Lost Reporter by selectspec · · Score: 2

      I think I see Ken's arm sticking out the back of the trunk.

      --

      Someone you trust is one of us.

    3. Re:Lost Reporter by leviramsey · · Score: 2
      Mental note to self: cross Nashville off the list of places I planned to someday visit.

      Why the fuck would you want to visit Nashville? The only way I'd go is if Shania Twain was guaranteed to sleep with me on my first night there.

    4. Re:Lost Reporter by mbadolato · · Score: 2

      The only way I'd go is if Shania Twain was guaranteed to sleep with me on my first night there

      So in other words, you're never going to Nashville? ;-)

  17. Slashdot's new tagline by nizo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Hoaxes for nerds". Or is it "Hoaxes that matter"? Remember, don't let reality interfere with a good news story.

  18. Re:Kind of remembers me... by benwb · · Score: 2

    The one where they steal a car from an amusement park ride, and the computer create a force field around it? Damn it, my day is ruined now. I can't remember the title.

  19. Re:Depends how much juice those batteries provide by JabberWokky · · Score: 2
    Ya know, I thought it was stupid too. Up until I met a physics professor and a scientist from Sri Lanka who both pronounced "Giga" as 'jigga'. That's when I found out that during the 50s (and in some places in the world today), the preferred pronuciation is with a soft G sound. They were being historically accurate, and the geeks who *think* they know better made fun of them.

    --
    Evan (no references)

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  20. Not a hoax by Knife_Edge · · Score: 5, Funny

    Look, I have seen a lot of comments to the effect that building a self-recharging vehicle that will run forever cannot be done. Well, Tilley has done it. I could not be more certain. Why? Because they have a web site. Go there now. You will soon see that they are completely credible, just like everything else on the web.

  21. In Other News... SOMETHING SMELLS by Ranma · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ''I don't think the oil or car companies understand what a significant breakthrough this is,'' Meland said...
    If Tilley succeeds, it ''completely changes our whole picture on energy, how to use this energy to free the planet from fossil fuel.''


    I bet you anything that we don't hear another peep about this (except maybe a repeat) again.

  22. Go figure by 00_NOP · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perpetual motion car - Delorean, built in Belfast

    Unsinkable ship - Titanic, built in Belfast

  23. Magiclly generated power? by jsimon12 · · Score: 2

    What is this about? They say they have invented some method of producing electric power without wind/solar/hydro or fuel? It all seems like snake oil to me. Anyone have any insight into this? I just seriously doubt people who make claims like this and then give absolutly NO evidence or even a suggestion of how it is done.

  24. Guilty until proven innocent... by Boulder+Geek · · Score: 2

    I read Tilley's web site a bit, and they seem to be making a small industry out of perpetual motion. Its clear that they really did modify a DeLorean to use an electric motor, but beyond that their claims are vague at best. They do claim a "power source" that "uses no inputs", which sure sounds like PM. They do claim that the DeLorean does not use the PM source.

    One thing is clear: they at least have the guts to show up at a public demonstration, even if they blew out a wheel bearing (no surprise on a DeLorean). Now if they would let a couple of qualified engineers take a look at the car before and after the test I'd feel better. For all I know they have a little gas powered generator hidden in the vehicle recharging the batteries.

    --
    A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
  25. *Shocked Look* by ffatTony · · Score: 2

    You built a time mach... I mean perpetual motion machine ... out of a Delorean?

  26. Lisa, get in here... by bhsx · · Score: 2

    Young lady, in this house we follow the laws of thermal dynamics!

    I was obliged to; sorry

    --
    put the what in the where?
  27. Re:This is not perpetual motion by compwizrd · · Score: 2

    A battery that is loaded down heavily will recover somewhat when the load is removed.

  28. What a load of shite! by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 2

    Excuse my French but this is just a load of crap.

    Just take a look at their website for a start...

    Not only do they have a totally sadistic site that insists on reloading a lame 288K flash animation every time you sneeze, but the home-page link titled "Check "Validation" page for information on the Tilley Electric Vehicle" takes you to the Nashville Speedway (Detail? Detail? We don't need no steenken attention to detail!).

    Did Delorean build the site as well as the original car?

    I suspect the shonky state of the website is just a small window into the attitudes and abilities that are behind the Delorean "Scammobile" they're ranting about.

    Anyone with a few minutes of spare time can trawl through Google and find half a dozen or more similar scams that are supposedly based around systems that cause electric motors to also act as a generator that can recharge the battery.

    Not a single one has ever been proven to work by a certified independent testing authority -- and I don't see the oil companies trembling in their boots either.

    But hey, if you believe this Delorean works as advertised then you probably already have one of these stainless steel supercars in your garage -- having believed GM's claims too.

    And, if you've got more money than sense, why not visit these sites for some similarly great investment "opportunities":

    Free Electricity

    Psitronics

    Ain't it a shame that so many really clever people just never seem to get an even break eh?

    ROTFL

    1. Re:What a load of shite! by Alien+Being · · Score: 2

      "But hey, if you believe this Delorean works as advertised then you probably already have one of these stainless steel supercars in your garage -- having believed GM's claims too."

      John Delorean once worked for GM (he was a manager on the GTO project), but the car called "DeLorean" was not a GM product.

  29. Should've used a dynamometer... by TheRealStyro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lets see - they plan to test drive a production car on a race track designed for much high performance vehicles... Real smart...

    Should have just put the thing up on a dynamometer type rack and hooked up some display for showing 1) the car, 2) speed and 3) mileage on a web-cam dohickey. Have some experts (advocates & opposition) to witness and document.

    --
  30. Don't be fooled. by AJWM · · Score: 2

    The thing is really powered by a "Mr. Fusion" in the trunk.

    --
    -- Alastair
  31. Don't be skeptical by fm6 · · Score: 2
    ... supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge
    Don't be so keptical! This project will sound more feasible with just a little white powder!
  32. Re:Depends how much juice those batteries provide by Lars+T. · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you pronounced G as Gay, you didn't get good grades in German - I hope.

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  33. How It Works by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You can find this e-mail supposedly describing how the system works at the greaterthings.com site. IMHO it is the worst kind of self-important pseudoscientific garbage that is commonly found on the Internet, with the usual "of course, various large corporations are actively suppressing this technology," and "it is actually very simple but people are too closed-minded to see how it works." My favorite quote is, "...it does first require a dramatic change in the mindset of the experimenters and a completely different view of what you were taught as "conservation of energy." Riiiiiight.

    Begin e-mail quote:

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Bob Colvin
    To: Sterling D. Allan
    Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 8:06 AM
    Subject: TEV - How It Works !!!

    WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENTS ARE HAZARDOUS. DO NOT ATTEMPT THESE EXPERIMENTS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED ELECTRICAL RESEARCHER, EXPERIENCED IN PERFORMING EXPERIMENTS WITH LEAD-ACID BATTERIES AND PULSE CHARGE AND DISCHARGE OF SAME, AND UNLESS YOU ALSO USE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS SUCH AS GOGGLES AND PROTECTIVE GLOVES, SLEEVES, AND APRON. YOU MUST NOT HAVE OTHER INFLAMMABLE LIQUIDS OR OTHER SUBSTANCES PRESENT WHICH COULD BE IGNITED AND BURN OR EXPLODE. SURGED LEAD-ACID BATTERIES PRODUCE HYDROGEN GAS, WHICH CAN EASILY EXPLODE SINCE SPARKING ALSO CAN OCCUR. THE ACID FROM SUCH AN EXPLOSION CAN EASILY BLIND YOU IF IT GETS IN YOUR EYES, AND IT CAN BURN YOUR SKIN. IN ADDITION, LEAD AND LEAD COMPOUNDS ARE POISONS, AND ARE TO BE HANDLED ONLY BY EXPERIENCED RESEARCHERS. THESE EXPERIMENTS ARE NOT FOR AMATEURS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, BUT ONLY FOR EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONALS WITH PROPER KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING,

    More than one inventor has discovered or rediscovered a magic thing about lead-acid storage batteries powering circuits, usually without understanding precisely what it is that he has really discovered. The chemical and electrical actions going on in a lead-acid cell are quite complex, and involve interactions in both the positive plate, negative plate, and in the electrolyte itself. The usual chemical interactions primarily specify the overall changes of the plate materials from one form to the other (i.e., for charge and for discharge conditions). However, there are many other ions (including both H+ which are free protons, and free electrons) involved in the reactions.

    Particularly significant is the double surface and overpotential effects. We state without further elaboration that the proper use of the overpotentials in these double surfaces can produce current that moves against the voltage. In other words, there are processes available in the battery that allow -- under very precise conditions -- parts of the battery to perform as negative resistors. When that action occurs, the very notion of charge and discharge is reversed.

    Further, the multiple currents and many nonlinear mechanisms involved, allow various currents to move in opposite directions; some with the voltage and some against the voltage. Again, we leave further analysis along that line to the experts, only appealing to them that time-reversal effects must also be considered.

    In other words, in addition to the external charges of molecules and atoms that they normally consider, there are also ongoing a huge variety of nuclear currents and charging that presently do not appear in any book on batteries, at least any I know of.

    There are at least three major currents in such a battery: (1) the ion current in the electrolyte, (2) the electron current in the conductors (electrode materials, terminal connectors, etc), and (3) charge transfer reactions at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. For our purposes we shall consider primarily only the ion current and the electron current, and we consider only lead-acid batteries. For an introduction to various kinds of batteries, we refer the interested reader to a fine little text by Vincent, and to other similar texts on modern batteries. For deep understanding of the electrochemistry, we refer the reader to the full series of 13 volumes by Bockris and Conway.

    We shall also rather ignore the double layer effects, which are in fact quite important because they are responsible for the producing overpotentials, phase shifting of currents, etc. The present analysis can be materially deepened by taking into account the double surface layers, their redistributions of charge, the internal resistances of the cell to the various currents, etc. We leave that for the experts and encourage that it be done. Here we just wish to get at the basic servomechanism overshoot mechanism that one can evoke, which usually does not appear in conventional analyses at all. This mechanism can be used to produce (1) currents (either ion or electron or H+) moving against the voltage, (2) opposition charge densities which are then volumetrically squeezed to produce large overpotentials not normally connected with the charge transfer interactions at the double surfaces, and (3) specific phase shifting of currents.

    It is our contention that, by achieving proper timing of these overshoot effects in battery in ionic current resonance, one can produce an asymmetrically self-regauging battery which charges itself and also powers its load. For the purist, there are also other mechanisms involved that are still unknown, hence accounting for the adjustments and tuning that usually must be meticulously performed.

    For an equal charge, the ions in the lead ion current (say, in lead sulfate) are several hundred thousand times more massive than the electrons in the electron current. They are on the order of more than 200 times more massive than the H+ ions in that ionic current. Further, the ionic current will resonate (and probably other currents simultaneously as well, since resonance in this case probably represents a coordinated resonance among different currents) as shown by Ahluktenko, usually in the multi-megahertz range. Since the battery is so highly nonlinear in its dynamics, subharmonic and harmonic resonance effects also are present, particularly subharmonic resonances. We believe that it is also possible to couple and synchronize molecular oscillations, ion current oscillations, and material lattice oscillations in the electrodes, in harmonic and subharmonic oscillation fashion, but that is a quite different subject. Such more subtle (but can be powerful) effects may occur onl

    So you can resonate the ionic current, or the coordinated currents. Relatively speaking -- that is a coordinated current dominated by massive ions with lots of inertia and overshoot when the current tries to change intensity or reverse direction, due to Lenz's law (an induced emf in a conductor is always polarized in a direction so as to oppose the change that causes the induced emf). In this case we have a multiplicity of Lenz's law effects induced when we try to change the ionic current. Some of the accompanying currents can be affected quite differently from the ion current. Because of this Lenz law complex dynamics, a simple back pop to oppose the ion current, or to accelerate it, is not a simple current and voltage matter at all. Indeed, the exact relationships in such are a quite worthy study for some exotic physical chemistry.

    So we just grossly summarize, with rules-of-thumb, and delay the precision to future detailed studies by very fine laboratory teams.

    Here's the rough secret: the chemistry of the battery is largely dominated and affected by the ion current in the absence of overriding electron current, while the external load is dominated and affected by the electron current alone. You can easily pick a point in the ion current resonance cycle (say, when the ionic current in resonance is in the battery-charging half cycle), and just instantly switch the electron current to oppose it.

    That's a bit of an oversimplification; you actually must get the phasing correct to properly form new and increased overpotentials, precisely at the proper times so as to charge the battery and/or powering the load. Note that with currents moving in opposite directions, the intention is for one current to predominate in the battery in charging mode, while another current or group predominates in the load in discharging mode. If you powerfully oppose the ion current, Lenz's law is evoked powerfully, so that the ion current actually increases its charge capability for a moment, due to its massivity. The Lenz law emf and the back-popped emf also produce a tremendous stress potential (a scalar potential by another name), energetically lifting the ions and particles to a higher potential state.

    That is, you momentarily increased the reaction cross section of those ions and electrons etc., and so you increased the collector systems' dipolarity. Thus they momentarily receive and collect excess energy from their increased asymmetry in their active vacuum exchange. In short, they momentarily asymmetrically self-regauge, which is taking on free excess energy from the vacuum. We note that the generation of the Lenz law emf effect actually comes from the atomic nuclei, but do not further explain it.

    The point is, you just legitimately extracted excess energy from legitimate environmental sources. You converted the system into an open dissipative system, removing any necessity for it to conform to classical thermodynamics because it momentarily is far from equilibrium with its active vacuum environment.

    Further, the inertia of the ions together with the Lenz law effects, causes the ions to continue in charging mode. This in turn volumetrically squeezes the opposing charges into a smaller volume, further increasing the charge density and thereby the potential magnitude (i.e., further increasing the asymmetry of all those charges in the vacuum exchange, and thereby absorbing more energy from the vacuum). The production of that charge density squeeze produces a new kind of overpotential that we can use to power the load (i.e., in electron discharge mode) at the same time that the ion current continues to charge the battery.

    You've just got yourself a true free energy or negative resistor effect, if you can master it and use it with proper timing. Note that by simple switching (very sharply, in 5 nanoseconds or less) and phase relationships, you can take power electron current in the external circuit in the discharge mode, by simply letting this overpotential be connected to the external circuit to energize the Drude electrons. And you are momentarily doing that while you are still charging the battery.

    Since you are going to be producing discharge pulses of Poynting energy flow from the overpotentials onto the external circuit in brief spurts, it is wise to use the pulse discharging to also charge a current smoothing capacitor of proper capacitance. Therefore you convert your overpotential pulses in the external circuit into smoothed rippling current through the load.

    If you elaborate on these processes and play with them for awhile (like several months!), you can also see how to phase things in either DC through the load fashion, or AC through the load fashion.

    But the point is, you really can induce one or more processes that allow simultaneously charging the battery (changing the chemistry in the charging mode) while discharging energy onto the Drude electron gas in the external circuit, powering them up and thereby powering the load.

    And you have not violated any laws of physics or thermodynamics, and the conservation of energy law is enforced at all times.

    Presently I know of no other book or paper that has such as its stated goal. The books and current research seem to all try to coherently organize and synchronize the various battery processes and currents to maximize charging and maximize discharging efficiency, while keeping the two completely separate. On the other hand, our purpose is to decoherently organize and synchronize the various battery processes and currents, to accomplish charging of the battery and discharging through the load to power it, simultaneously. In short, we seek to convert the battery and its processes into an open dissipative system capable of overunity operation, and all the way to self-powering operation while powering a load also.

    The ion current can only sluggishly slow to a stop for its reversal; it requires it a finite amount of time to do that. So it continues right on charging the battery for awhile. During that ion current hysteresis or overshoot time, you have a tremendous charge density squeeze occurring. This gives you an overpotential to use, and you can use it in dramatically different manners, simultaneously, on differing current types.

    So you produce a large overpotential in spike or very sudden buildup, essentially for free or nearly so. The other end of that overpotential can be connected (switched onto) the load to deliver a surge of power (sorry for the normal terminology!) in the load because of the surge of the overpotential across it. If you time it correctly, you can get a much higher voltage surge from that overpotential, across the load's impedance. And that means you generate a higher electron current through that load, which consequently produces greater power because of the overpotential, than what you yourself had to pay for.

    Clever devil that you are, you used that massive old ion current's overshoot to squeeze the charge density dramatically upward and almost freely form that overpotential for you. Then you adroitly (and quite suddenly) connected that overpotential near its peak, right across the external circuit electrons, to power the load, and let 'er rip.

    After all, applying a voltage V to a circuit is in fact asymmetrically regauging that circuit and changing its collected energy. The magnitude of D V or overpotential is a measure of the additional amount of asymmetrical self-regauging of the system you obtained. It's a measure of how much more the system was opened to receiving excess energy freely from its active vacuum potential environment.

    Who says you must have all the currents in the entire battery-external circuit systems all in phase or nearly so? Simply put, you wish the ion current in the battery to be about 180 out of phase with the electron current in the load. And as the ion current oscillates, you wish it highly overpotentialized in the charge mode, and very much less potentialized in its discharge half cycle (for resonance conditions).

    You need just the opposite in the electron current through the load. You need that current highly potentialized whenever it is flowing through the load. If you use DC power in the load, you must disconnect the overpotential formed by the back-popping squeeze and let the smoothing capacitor discharge to power the load, during the discharge half of the ion current

    Let me warn you that you must use microwave switching techniques, and you must switch in 5 nanoseconds or less; one nanosecond is better. The entire overpotential is likely to be over in about 20 to 40 nanoseconds, depending upon the specific battery, load, and other circuit conditions. Capacitance effects may extend this in some cases up to a microsecond. So if all you know is ordinary motor switching, go get the services of a microwave switching engineer first. The average motor switching fellow will be amazed at the notion of switching so suddenly. The microwave switching engineer will simply shrug his shoulders and say, Piece of cake! He does that every day without a second's hesitation.

    But as you can see, working your way through all this and getting everything timed just right, is still a significant undertaking. It's not a simple thing at all. You can also see why so many ordinary switching guys have failed at it, and why most of them were incapable of replicating John Bedini's little battery-popping self-powered motor system.

    If you are very clever with your measurements and timing, you can get that ion current to keep on resonating, and use it as a very stiff oscillating spring on which to store and release larger amounts of energy in terms of electron charges and potentials. You can manipulate the potentials, including the overpotential.

    You can essentially do what Nikola Tesla did in his circuits: You can shuttle potential and potential energy in different directions in different parts of your overall circuit, use multiple currents and multiple current directions. You can control what you do energetically in the various parts of the circuit. And you can eliminate the back-emf phenomenon that in the normal current loop with single current type is responsible for always killing the source dipole. Now you can continually restore the dipole and power the load independently, simultaneously.

    There are many variations on the above, at least four major ones. There are many additional ones when you apply other timed oscillations (LC oscillators), inductors, etc. to the circuit. In all, there are at least a hundred or more major variations you can make to this basic circuit operation. All have something to be said for them. Various inventors have discovered various ones of them.

    The end result is the partial removal of the Lorentz condition that is normally restored by forcing the killing of the source dipole. Now you can dramatically reduce the amount of killing, and in fact have a net restoring, while at the same time increasing the power in the load.

    A Recommendation to the Department of Energy

    We urge the experienced electrical laboratory teams in the DOE to give this one a real try. It's nearly all just ordinary theory, only with multiple currents having dramatically different response characteristics, all in the same circuit loop. There is also a little servomechanism theory involved, as well as the charge density squeeze to provide a large overpotential. You need microwave switching, and asymmetrical self-regauging thrown in. It's quite straight forward, it can fairly readily be made to work by an experienced lab team, and it's not expensive. But it does first require a dramatic change in the mindset of the experimenters and a completely different view of what you were taught as conservation of energy. If you cannot get past that orthodox practice of accounting only for the dissipated Poynting energy component, you will never understand it or do it. You are also treating and using a battery as the highly nonlinear system it really is, not just as

    We again strongly warn the reader against casually experimenting with this, unless you are an experienced researcher, know what you are doing, and take proper precautions! This is for experienced lab people only. Even then, they must use all the proper procedures and precautions. You experiment with this at your own legally assumed risk.

    Still, big financial empires don't give up their empires without a real fight -- by fair means or foul. And that fight includes the ruthless suppression of true negative resistors. Such as the really excellent battery poppers.

    Bedini's Battery-Popper Motor

    http://www.icehouse.net/john1/john.html

    John Bedini is one of the most creative inventors on this planet. He is also a close friend and colleague. It was my great privilege to be able to work with John for several years. Though it was sad that he had such an inept pupil!

    John built several experimental motors (both electrical and magnetic) in the overunity area, and performed successful transmutation experiments. John is a recognized genius in high-end sound amplifier development. Many audiophiles worldwide still swear that the Bedini amplifier is the best and sweetest-sounding audio amplifier ever built. Even the test engineers for leading audiophile magazines have said so.

    One of John's battery-powered electrical motors, e.g., ran continuously off its battery for about five years, and kept the battery charged. When you realize that such a small electric motor is only about 35% efficient, then you realize that about 65% of the energy flowing out of the battery was being dissipated in the motor as heat, core losses, etc. So the unit was continuously performing work for that five years. The 1/8 hp motor represented a load in which the continuous rate of work being done (the rate of energy dissipation) was about 0.08 hp.

    The little device was a battery-popper, and we have already covered the theory of such units in the treatise above. We need not repeat it here.

    John built a variety of other motors and generators, some of extremely novel design. Several of these units did work at overunity performance.

    John also was active in assisting other young inventors to get started.

    I can assure you of one thing. If I personally ever succeed in this area, then there are a few people who are going to be endowed. John Bedini is right up there at the top of the list.

    Nelson's Self-Regenerating Back-Popped Battery Power Unit

    WE CALL THE READER'S ATTENTION AGAIN TO THE PREVIOUS WARNING IN BOLD PRINT. DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH THIS UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED EXPERIMENTER, PROPER QUALIFIED, AND TAKE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS. YOU EXPERIMENT AT YOUR OWN ASSUMED RISK.

    Microwave switching engineer Bill Nelson and a colleague became interested in Bedini's little motor. So they met with John several times, discussed the theory of its operation at length, and even called me a time or two to see what thoughts I had... Once they thoroughly understood the principles, they reasoned that the motor was just a load, and all the action was in the battery as controlled by the switcher. Bedini confirmed that this was correct.

    Being expert microwave switching engineers and not motor engineers, they just used an ordinary lamp for the load. In the theory of such battery poppers below, we will see that microwave switching techniques are required. However, that posed no problem for Nelson and colleague.

    Before very long, they had a battery-popper working in the overunity, self-powering mode. It would keep its battery charged and also power the lamp.

    Nelson took his little demonstrator to his work (a large aerospace engineering firm) and showed it to his fellow engineers and scientists to test their reactions. He stated that (1) a few were naïve and would believe anything anyway, (2) some would instantly become hostile and disturbed and promptly leave, (3) some would become agitated and immediately wish to argue, even in a tirade, and (4) a few would closely examine the unit, with real scientific curiosity and open-mindedness though skeptical...

    At one time Nelson investigated putting a little kit on the market, but legally it was inadvisable. Popped lead acid batteries produce hydrogen gas and can explode. Someone very naïve would have hurt themselves, and entered a lawsuit.

    So there the matter rested. We corresponded sporadically for a few years, then that was that. But Nelson and colleague had demonstrated both the necessary and sufficient things to prove the concept and mechanism: (1) independent replication and (2) independent qualified testing which showed overunity operation.

    Watson's 8 kW Battery-Popper Motor

    WE CALL THE READER'S ATTENTION AGAIN TO THE PREVIOUS WARNING IN BOLD PRINT. DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH THIS UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED EXPERIMENTER, PROPER QUALIFIED, AND TAKE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS. YOU EXPERIMENT AT YOUR OWN ASSUMED RISK.

    Jim Watson successfully replicated Bedini's device (with direct advice from Bedini). Watson made improvements and modifications, and eventually was able to build one and adjust it as he wished. He demonstrated an 8 kW device at the first International Tesla conference in Colorado Springs.

    Later Watson was moving toward development and marketing.

    Then Watson and his entire family disappeared. Neither Bedini nor I could locate him. Neither could his financial backer, the late R. J. Reynolds III. This was a researcher and friend whom I was in contact with several times a week. Then bingo! Nothing further.

    He abruptly and completely broke off all communication with everyone. A squirrelly message was left on his answering machine for a few days, saying he had moved (but not in Jim's voice). Then it too was removed. And that was that.

    Eerily, it seems that if you call the police in the town where Jim Watson lived, they will tell you he still lives there on the same street in the same house. At least that's what they told a friend of mine who checked a few months ago, which is years after Jim and his family originally disappeared. And that check may be the oddest thing of all. The police implied on the phone that Jim and his family never disappeared. Everything fine. AOK. And that's a bald-faced lie. He and his family did disappear. No one could find them, regardless of how they tried. His financial backer couldn't even find him.

    The clear implication is, stay away from that one. Somebody from the dark side may have made Jim the offer he could not refuse. One may never know what really happened, whether or not Jim ever surfaces again -- or has already surfaced again and is living there very, very quietly. But Jim's entire overunity motor effort ended abruptly, even though highly successful. And even though the motor was almost ready to be put into production.

    Watson has not been seen at an energy conference since that sudden mysterious disappearance. No one has had a phone call from him. I have not found anyone I trust who has seen him again.

    You have not seen a Watson overunity power system go to market. You almost certainly never will.

    Yet Jim's device was perfected to the point where he could make the things like pretzels, adjust them readily, and they worked every time. They could have been put into mass production very easily. Obviously that made him a grave threat to the Energy Cartels around the world.

    At rare intervals, the Energy Cartel does suppress an invention and an inventor by making the inventor an offer he cannot refuse, in Mafia terms. Presently the going price when that offer is made, is $10 million. You take your $10 million, quit all research, quit your contacts, and you live. But you live very quietly, although you live very well financially.

    The engineers who measured Jim's 8 kW machine there in Colorado Springs are still alive. And they know what they measured.

    There's one other little thing. At that same International Tesla Conference in Colorado Springs, the folks who were in charge (for the energy barons) of suppressing all successful overunity devices in the Western world were also there when Jim demonstrated his 8 kW device. There is a certain effect which happens in a battery sometimes for a large overunity battery popper unit like that, if the device is for real. Time-reversal operations and wave transductions can occur, resulting in time-excitation charging inside the battery materials, in a negative time charge sense (remember, the overunity operation is a negentropic operation). After a machine of that type and with that particular internal effects has been used to furnish energy for quite a while, you can make a definitive test on it. Simply hook it to a normal battery charger for that size battery, and start to charge it. You then may find to your surprise that the power will just seem to disappear in that batte

    The reason is that wave transduction occurs of your charging spatial energy into time-energy, and so you have to furnish rather enormous energy to get a little bit of that negative-time charge reversed. After you fill that seemingly bottomless pit, then suddenly the negative time-charge will have been eliminated, and at that point the battery will start to charge up in quite normal fashion.

    It is significant that Jim's battery was stolen right out of the machine. Whoever did it, almost certainly knew how to test it to find out if Jim's generator was actually a true overunity device. If so, then they tested it and found that indeed it was genuine.

    And there was only one group there who would have known that little tidbit.

    Dated: 1999

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    1. Re:How It Works by Croaker · · Score: 2

      My favorite exerpts:

      On the other hand, our purpose is to decoherently organize and synchronize the various battery processes and currents,

      Decherently. Organize. Um, yeah. Is that like an orderly scramble?

      The other end of that overpotential can be connected (switched onto) the load to deliver a surge of power (sorry for the normal terminology!)

      Translation: I wish to apologize to my fellow crank inventors for making a statement someone might almost understand... it was late, and my bullshit generator had run low (damn thing was supposed to work perpetually!)

      And, of course, no crank science screed would be complete without the paranoid ranting:

      Still, big financial empires don't give up their empires without a real fight -- by fair means or foul. And that fight includes the ruthless suppression of true negative resistors. Such as the really excellent battery poppers.

      Are battery poppers anything like jalapeno poppers? Man, I bet they would pack quite a kick...

    2. Re:How It Works by zephc · · Score: 3, Funny

      "YOU MUST NOT HAVE OTHER INFLAMMABLE LIQUIDS OR...."

      "Inflammable means flammable?! Boy, what a country!" - Dr. Nick, The Simpsons

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
    3. Re:How It Works by amasci · · Score: 2, Informative
      "Source dipole?" "self-regauging?" "Drude electrons?" I've heard those terms a few times before. Sounds somebody's been reading articles by Col. Thomas "MEG Device" Bearden.

      Hey everyone, please get your crackpots straight. Perpetual Motion crackpots just want their devices to keep spinning constantly. Give them a maglev bearing and a vacuum chamber and they're happy forever. It's only the "Free Energy" crackpots who want their devices to keep going faster and faster (or to drive uphill, or to drive against friction, etc.) I should know; I'm a FE crackpot myself. See http://amasci.com/freenrg/fnrg.html

      This current inventor is making the usual mistakes: doing everything but PUBLISHING. He seems to start out right: trying to get his idea out into the public. Yet nobody else can build a test model, since the critical parts simply MUST be hidden inside a wooden box... to prevent all the idea thieves from taking the secret and becoming billionaires! :)

      So let's see... the goal is to convince the disbelievers. Yet the critical parts must remain secret. So we can show "convincing demonstrations" and give explanations to the experts, but we simply HAVE to keep those experts from ever learning the details, otherwise they'll find out how to build their own version.

      Isn't there something wrong with this picture?

      If a "free energy" inventor comes up with a genuine discovery, he won't need any oil companies to suppress him as long as he follows the usual path and keeps the critical details a secret.

      Note: "pseudoscience" doesn't mean making up your own terminology. After all, most cutting-edge advancements will require some new words to be coined. Pseudoscience means "fake science;" something that gives the surface appearance of science, yet is nothing of the sort. I certainly agree that this battery-car is pseudoscience, since a central goal of a genuine scientist is to teach colleagues how to do it. Hold nothing back. No excuses, no paranoia, no "naive experimenters might hurt themselves." Explain in great detail how the actual device in use was built and adjusted. If there are "idea thieves" trying to steal the device, make damn sure they succeed!

      As for me, I don't want the problems with my own demonstrations to be weak wheel bearings. I want to have problems with incoming guided missles as I'm demonstrating my antigravity ideas by buzzing the White House in my plywood/duct-tape flying saucer!

      --

      ((((((((((((( ( ( ( (o) ) ) ) )))))))))))))
      SCIENCE HOBBYIST amasci.com

    4. Re:How It Works by cybercuzco · · Score: 5, Funny

      From http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

      THE CRACKPOT INDEX
      A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics.

      1. A -5 point starting credit.

      2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.

      3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.

      4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.

      5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.

      6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.

      7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).

      8. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".

      9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

      10. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.

      11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.

      12. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.

      13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.

      14. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".

      15. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.

      16. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

      17. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

      18. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

      19. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.

      20. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

      21. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.

      22. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.

      23. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".

      24. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".

      25. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)

      26. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

      27. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).

      28. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.

      29. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.

      30. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

      31. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.

      32. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

      33. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

      --

  34. Re:"How It Works"....I really love this part! by Dr_Marvin_Monroe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well...there's this one.....
    Again, we leave further analysis along that line to the experts, only appealing to them that time-reversal effects must also be considered.

    And there's also this one......
    under very precise conditions -- parts of the battery to perform as negative resistors. When that action occurs, the very notion of charge and discharge is reversed.

    And of course...my personal favorite....
    energize the Drude electrons!

  35. why are all automotive scientific experiments... by Ubergrendle · · Score: 2

    ..carried out on a Delorean? Seriously, there's the obvious Back to the Future refernece, this experiment, and I remember several early solar powered car experiments being conducted with Deloreans. The car hasn't been built in *years*...surely it's easier to grab a 2nd hand Honda Civic than find some vintage 80s sportscar and retrofit it. Maybe it's the "coolness" factor...plus they can't afford Ferraris.

    --
    John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
  36. It's Simple Really by Krueger+Industrial+S · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. DeLorean 2. Batteries 3. ??????? 4. Profit!!!

  37. Well it's easy by Hugonz · · Score: 2, Funny

    They just travel back in time to recharge the batteries....

  38. SLA == sealed lead acid (nt) by Bishop · · Score: 2

    SLA == sealed lead acid

  39. Re:A couple notes by caferace · · Score: 2
    Actually, if the banking is designed for vehicles traveling in the 170 mph range, and a vehicle is on the same banking at only 70-90 mph the load will be quite intense, to the point where the driver literally has to turn right to keep the car from sliding down the track.

    Grabted, the rest of the piece is total crap. Their flywheel is probably made out of an LP being scanned and sampled as a .wav file but the part I mentioned before is true.

  40. Re:scam artist by topham · · Score: 2

    Something I was just thinking about, why not recharge the batteries via-induction while your in the pits?

    Say, an appropriate metal plate under the car while it's in the pits, maybe attached to a service dolly or something.

  41. Shoot... by chazzf · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...we can't moderate the story. Even if we could, there's no (-1, Crackpot) or (-1, Scam), so all we could is mod it funny.

    ~Chazzf

    --
    No statement is true, not even this one.
  42. Obligatory Simpsons quote by mangu · · Score: 2

    Methinks Homer's "In this house we follow the laws of thermodynamics" is quite appropriate to this story.

  43. Re:This is not perpetual motion by topham · · Score: 2

    This thing is the perfect joke.

    Somebody should find, and post a graph for the typical discharge of 12v car battery. (It might help with the following...)

    You have 160volt at full charge, you drive the car for a period of time until you notice the voltage has started its significant decline and pull the car into the pits at 135volts (more or less).

    There you do multiple tests with a voltage meter and show how the charge on the betteries is increasing. This isn't exactly true as your testing the batteries without a load and it is a common known effect. Never mind that batteries react with heat as well, and the batteries are likely to be cooling off now that you've stopped drawing a charge from them.
    While everybody acknolwedges you haven't done the full test you were supposed to due to mechanical problems you how them this and they leave with the understanding this shows promise..

    when really, it shows the typical, standard reaction of a car battery under load and the typ[ical response to that load being removed.

    Had this actually worked the car should have had a charge of about 160 volts in the pits UNDER LOAD. Never mind less than 140 without a load.

  44. Re:Delorean...embelezlement...corruption...anderso by mangu · · Score: 2

    I think your memory is wrong. Zachary DeLorean (it was Zachary, wasn't it?) didn't run away. He was caught by the FBI trying to buy about 50 kilos of cocaine. IIRC, he was caught on a secret camera with a kilo bag in each hand saying "this is better than gold!" or something like that.

  45. The next Junkyard Wars project should be.... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Build a perpetual motion machine

  46. More info on another website... by Mr.Sharpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is more info on this on another website about zero point energy. It seems a little fantastic to me. Check it out, and search for "Carl B. Tilley" on google for other dubious resources. Zero Point Energy

  47. They figured this out in the movie. by Above · · Score: 2

    It's called Mr Fusion. Makes you wonder why they need all those batteries. Does kind of make you wonder why other cars don't come with one though.

  48. Math and physics by d2ksla · · Score: 2

    Ok, let's see here:

    100's of miles at 100 Mph. => 2 hours @ 70 horsepowers (very low estimate).

    70 hp => 70 hp * 700 W/hp => 50kW.

    50 kW * 2 hours = 100 kWh.

    1 car battery is 500 Ah (very high est) @ 12V = 6 kWh.

    100 kWh required / 6 kWh per battery = 16 batteries.

    I hope I didn't get my math wrong, but this doesn't look totally unrealistic as far as the energy goes. The real numbers would probably come out much lower though. The batteries would probably weigh around 500 kg, adding significantly to the horsepowers needed. And I don't think the batteries can sustain hundreds of amps for hours...

    1. Re:Math and physics by Naikrovek · · Score: 2

      you don't need 70 "horsepowers" to keep a car moving, you need probably about 20, if you're on a race track (this negates any wind concerns; headwind on one leg means tailwind on another).

      But the honest fact is that batteries & motors are not efficient.

      That, and you can't get energy from nothing. Unless there's a Mr. Fusion portable fusion reactor on the car somewhere, they're not going anywhere for long on batteries.

      Naik.

  49. Lameass geniuses... by supabeast! · · Score: 2

    Why are so many smart people such complete dorks? They come up with a car that handles electricity so well, and what do they make it out of? A fucking Delorean. How lame is that? They probably could have done it with an Accord or a Camry and have earned a great sponsorship with parts that wouldn't break down, and could be easily replaced, but they choose a fucking Delorean... sigh.

  50. I was at the Nashville Superspeedway today ... by timholman · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...and watched the demo.

    First, a little background. Tilley's "miracle" electric vehicle has been getting a lot of media coverage here in Nashville over the past week, and it's been a topic of conversation at work. One of my colleagues and I decided to check it out for ourselves, out of pure curiousity.

    This is not the first time Mr. Tilley has been in the Nashville news. About a year and a half ago he got some publicity by claiming that he and another inventor had created a "free energy" machine, a la Tom Bearden, Dennis Lee, and Joe Newman. When people tried to follow up on his claims, he dropped out of sight. Now he had resurfaced with a claim that he was using this machine to power an electric car. What really made it interesting was that Bobby Allison was apparently promoting Tilley's claims, both on his own web site (http://www.bobbyallison.com), and by driving the car at the Superspeedway.

    Being firm believers in the second law of thermodynamics, my co-workers and I expected one of three things to happen:

    (1) Tilley would attempt to hide an internal combustion engine somewhere in the Delorean, and prevent people from examining it up close (unlikely, as people would hear the engine running). He might also hide extra batteries to extend the running time.

    (2) The car would make very frequent pit stops in a screened area (so as to prevent the "secret" from being stolen, of course), during which the batteries would miraculously recharge themselves.

    (3) The car would suffer an unfortunate "breakdown" well before the distance limit imposed by the maximum energy storage of the twelve lead-acid batteries in his vehicle.

    As it turned out, #3 was the winner. In the middle of the 13th lap, the announcer suddenly announced that the vehicle had a bad rear wheel bearing. It looked to me as if the batteries were quickly reaching the end of their charge, as the car was running very slowly on that last lap. In the 12th lap, the car had zipped by fairly quickly, about 60 mph on the track, with no visible problems. Amazing how quickly a wheel bearing will go out on you, and how some people can diagnose it while the car is still moving. :-)

    Once the car had coasted into the pit, I left. I knew the demo was over, although some people in the crowd didn't (and apparently stuck around for hours afterwards!).

    A few comments: my co-worker arrived earlier than me and got to see the car up close before the demo. According to him, two men with guns were standing guard and preventing anyone from looking UNDER the car. He took that as a sign that either extra batteries or an internal combustion engine must be visible from the underside.

    I was in the stands with a crowd of about 50 to 60 people, maximum. Judging from the conversations around me, many of them were either investors or True Believers. I heard the usual claptrap about conspiracies, death threats by oil companies, etc., that get tossed around by the proponents of these scams.

    What troubled me, of course, is that many of the investors looked like normal middle class folks, using their own savings and hoping to cash in on a world-shaking invention. They, and people like them, were the true targets of Mr. Tilley's exhibition.

    As for Bobby Allison, he was there at the beginning and drove the first couple of laps, then apparently left. For his own sake, I hope he distances himself from Mr. Tilley as quickly as possible.

    Finally, for those who are interested, I made a Quicktime movie of the car making the final lap (out of the pit, around part of the track, and back into the pit). You can see for yourself how slowly the car was going before the "breakdown".

    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wthwthwth/tilleyde mo .html (remove any spaces)

    Someone please mirror this! I have no idea how much bandwidth Comcast will let me have, but I'm willing to bet I'll find out. :-)

    1. Re:I was at the Nashville Superspeedway today ... by vrt3 · · Score: 2
      Half of all people are below median intelligence. Average is different than median.

      Yes, but in case of a Gaussian distribution (amongst others) the median is equal to the average (and to the modus as well). And I might be wrong here, but I think it is safe to assume that intelligence follows a Gaussian distribution.

      --
      This sig under construction. Please check back later.
  51. TEV by cheese_wallet · · Score: 2

    He forgot to mention that the magic TEV charger is a gasoline engine, remarkably similar to the gasoline engine of a delorean.

  52. Not the first, either by CaptainCarrot · · Score: 2
    I remember an electric car with exactly these claims having been invented about 20 years ago. The now-defunct Omni Magazine had a story about it. In that instance, the heart of the "invention" was an elecric motor with some absurdly large number of turns.

    It shouldn't shock anyone that this other vehicle was always plagued by "mechanical problems" whenever it came time for a public demonstration as well.

    Does anyone else remember the Omni article? I can't remember the name of the "inventor" right now.

    --
    And the brethren went away edified.
  53. People, people by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 2

    There is no such thing as perpetual motion. Didn't your parents ever teach you that? Given the choice of the transport module, with its stainless steel construction, it is obvious that they are powering the vehicle with energy stolen from... THE FUTURE!

    Work it out, it does not violate thermodynamics. In fact, it actually accelerates the rate of entropy expansion.

  54. USPTO patent search by schlach · · Score: 2, Funny

    I did a search at uspto.gov, turned up nothing.

    Searching 1996-2002...

    Results of Search in 1996-2002 db for:
    (magic AND delorean): 0 patents.


    Guess I'm gonna have to be skeptical, too ;)

  55. Give them the benefit of the doubt by serutan · · Score: 2

    The photos on their website seem to show these guys indeed converting a Delorean to electricity, and they put up enough money to lease an actual racetrack. You gotta admit that puts them at least a notch above anybody claiming, for example, to have played old vinyl records through a flatbed scanner.

  56. The wheel bearing part is BS by A+non-mouse+Cow+Herd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The little blurb on the web sit about how 'ordinary' wheel bearings couldn't take the stress of a banked track is 100% bovine excrement. Plenty of people drive stock and near stock vehicles on the track at speed for long periods of time. Even cheap ones like Datsun 510s and Honda accords.

    Now it might be that the 20 year old delorean bearing were already going bad, but you'd think that if they actually wanted to demo the vehicle, they would have done some informal testing to make sure that it was roadworthy. Which leads us to the obvious conclusion that they *didn't* want to demo the vehicle, they only want to make it look like they could. Gee, why would nice Mr. Tilly do that ?

    The whole delorean thing is funny too. Why use a rare, expensive collecter car to demo your technology ? A $500 ford escort would do just as well, and you could zip over the local NAPA autoparts, who would have your wheel bearings in stock, and you could swap them out in a couple of hours. OK, maybe the $500 escort is too ugly for publicity purposes. How about a $5000 Honda ? Maybe all that stainless steel is needed to sheild the dilithium crystals.

  57. "it appears. . . by kfg · · Score: 2

    . . . they've suffered mechanical difficulties and cancelled the test."

    Yeah, they suddenly discovered the second law of thermodynamics. In an interview they said, " why didn't somebody tell us?"

    KFG

  58. Well Obviously by The+Dobber · · Score: 2

    They didn't use 30 weight oil on the ball bearings in the Fetzer valve and......damn, wrong movie.

    Well then the problem was John BigBoote stole the Osillation Overthruster and.........crap.

    What movie had a Delorean?

  59. please be more accurate by g4dget · · Score: 2
    This is what Slashdot says:

    can supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge

    This is what the article says:

    the car can drive ''hundreds of miles without recharging'' and can reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

    See the difference?

  60. TEV = Over Unity device by BrookHarty · · Score: 2

    I've heard of over unity devices for years, and everyone says they are a scam. But I have not heard of anyone actually building one to test. So, I did a quick google search, found some schematics. http://www.geocities.com/theadamsmotor/solidstate. html

    -
    Fnord.

  61. "Selected Engineering" my ass... by cryptor3 · · Score: 2, Funny
    The description of the car is quite a load of crap. It throws out irrelevant, and even misleading, specifications.
    It has 4 wheel disc braking for fast progressive, fade-free stopping. ... The rear sporty louvers are aerodynamic designed so that it almost eliminates any drag effect. All this with a stainless steel body makes for a great car.
    • Standard disc brakes are hardly fade-free. Regardless, this specification is mostly irrelevant.
    • The rear louvers (window slats) probably increase drag compared to a rear windshield only by creating turbulence behind the car.
    • Stainless steel is heavier than a regular steel body. Is that a good thing?
    When making the decision as to what car would be converted as the Tilley Electric Vehicle it was decided that the DeLorean would be best suited for several reasons. It was far ahead of its time with a stainless steel body, looks with its gull wing doors, modern interior and most of all it made a statement. In short it was one sharp looking car.

    A 1981 DeLorean was therefore selected that had less than 21,000 miles on it. Great condition of the body and interior.
    Rather than get a car that will give you the best chance for success, they choose a technologically outdated car with a bad reliability record. Why? Because it looks like it will work.

    Perhaps a racing stripe will make it faster?

  62. Re:"On-board device" by WEFUNK · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The very essence of the technology to be demonstrated is the capability to keep the batteries "topped up" at all times with the "on board" device invented by Carl B. Tilley."

    I bet this so-called device is an internal combustion engine. They said it didn't need "recharging" but they never said anything about refuelling.


    Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Can't you read the story? It's very clear that the "on-board device" that is "the very essence of the technology" is a faulty wheel bearing that was strategically "invented" by Mr. Tilley the day before in his "laboratory". This device enables the car's batteries to remain "topped up" at all times, mostly while parked in the pits or his garage. The car is also able to travel for "hundreds of miles" without recharging, usually while being towed back to his home after the awesome power of his mighty "faulty wheel bearing" invention is demonstrated to potential investors. I for one, can't wait to see the patent...

    --
    My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
  63. Re:Someone sent me an email once... by WEFUNK · · Score: 2
    I dont know who they were, but this is what they said:
    "I took a drive in a vehicle once, and we went 200mph on the desert in New Mexico... then I drove it and we went 200mph again. Then I looked inside the hood, and I saw something the size of a shoebox... I figured it must have been nuclear."
    Sounds like the front trunk of a Lamborghini or possibly a Porsche. Both have models that can reach 200mph and both put their trunks under the hood, with just enough room for a shoebox. Sometimes crazy people and their spammer friends buy these to race around in New Mexico, usually after raising a bunch of money in a perpetual motion scam and starting a new life in the desert.
    --
    My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
  64. Re:Show me how this is not perpetual motion. by Shimmer · · Score: 2

    I don't know anything about superconductors, but if the magnet is moving in a circle, it is undergoing a constant acceleration towards center of the circle. That's Physics 101.

    Thus, in your scenario, it seems to me that the the "boat" will quickly rub against either the superconductor or the inside surface of the glass pipe itself. The friction from this interaction will halt the boat's motion.

    If you want a better example of "perpetual" circular motion, I suggest you consider a satellite in orbit.

    -- Brian

    --
    The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
  65. Maybe it's really a hybrid by Animats · · Score: 2
    If I wanted to fake that demo, I'd build a hybrid. Do the conversion to electric, and hide a small 20HP aircraft APU somewhere in the vehicle. APUs (auxillary power plants) are the small turbine engine/generator combos that provide ground power for aircraft. APUs for small bizjets are small cylindrical devices, less than a cubic foot, so they can be hidden, or disguised as something else. Above 35MPH or so, the APU cuts in and starts recharging the batteries. The turbine whine is easier to explain away than ordinary engine noise. ("Oh, that's the overthruster...")

    A few people have built hobby vehicles that way. Surplus APU turbines aren't that expensive if you don't insist they be flight-qualified. Perhaps that's what they did, and they had an APU failure.

  66. Volts != Energy by rufusdufus · · Score: 2

    I didn't see anybody else point it out, but you know voltage is not the same as power, or energy. On their web site, and many other overunity electrical sites, they always talk about voltage going back up to the starting point after use. This does not violate any physics laws at all, as it is energy that is conserved, not voltage. All it would take is a device which maintains constant voltage at any current setting, even if the current is almost zero.

  67. overload by phriedom · · Score: 2

    I think 12 or 16 big car batteries actually COULD overload the suspension and break something, including the bearings. Not that I think that happened in this case. I seems more likely that Tilley faked the problem. I'm just saying it isn't completely out of the question because lead=acid batteries are heavy.

    --
    Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
  68. A simple test by Dirtside · · Score: 2

    It's funny how perpetual motion machines are always showing up, but their "inventors" never want to test them under meaningful conditions.

    How about this for a test. You take this car, you put its drive wheels (rear wheels on a DeLorean, right?) on one of those two-wheel spin-mount jobbies that lets a car basically spin its wheels in place, you pit a brick on the accelerator, and you see how long it goes until it fails. Another part fails? Replace it and keep going.

    Of course, they would never submit to such a test, no matter what -- because it would be far too easy to show that they're full of crap.

    --
    "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  69. Re: Britannic by dstone · · Score: 2

    What about their triplet ship, the Britannic?

    Here are some lovely barnacle-encrusted underwater shots of the Britannic. She was even bigger than her sister ships and was originally named Gigantic. (No, I'm not making that up.) She ended up served as a hospital ship during WW I, and was sunk.

  70. The REAL question is... by bluephone · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The REAL question is why have batteries at all if the car can keep them at 100% the whole time, and still move. Drop the batteries, save a few hundred pounds of weight, and let the dohickey that charges the batteries drive the motor.

    Of course, there is a REASON why they do this. It's yet another 'perpetual motion' device. You show me a molecule that will last forver, and then MAYBE I'll waste valueable toilet-reading time to your device. :)

    --
    jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
  71. Re:Come again? by Nightpaw · · Score: 3, Funny

    Here, I translated it to German, then to French, and back:

    There is a certain effect which sometimes arrives in a battery for large a overunity battery of unit of measuring popper like that, if the unit for truth is. Turning of time of the operations and vague transductions can appear, and that involves that the excitation of time in materials of battery, in a loading of time the direction negative auflaedt (you remember who is overunity an operation a negentropic operation). After an apparatus of this one standard and with that which was used certain effects intern, can form for energy when you to provide completely, a final test on him.

    Wow, it really holds up. It must be true!

  72. Press release by doru · · Score: 2, Funny

    Tilley Demo Prematurely Terminated by Wheel Bearing Failure Due to Snake Oil Shortage.

  73. Already debunked by Hadley · · Score: 2, Informative

    This exact story was already debunked in Voodoo Science. I think it was a Chrysler instead of a Delorean, but it's the same story and almost certainly the same 'inventors'.

  74. Re:scam artist by LarsG · · Score: 2

    why not recharge the batteries via-induction while your in the pits?

    They were (supposedly) using standard lead-acid car batteries. If you try to fast-charge them, they start to boil.

    Ockham's Razor implies that this is just a regular scam-job, the car was run until the batteries were nearing the dipping point. (voltage doesn't drop linearely with the discharge of the battery, a top charged car battery with no load shows ~13V while a battery that is getting close to empty is ~10V)

    Then they faked a blown bearing.

    --
    If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
  75. 88 mph was a cruel joke by grahamsz · · Score: 2

    If you've ever been in a delorean (the ones at universal studios excepted) then you'll realise that the speedometer is pinned at 85mph.

    Still I have no doubt that it could do that speed without too much effort.

    My other concern would be the fact that deloreans are fecking heavy beasts - completely the opposite of any other pure electric (or even hybrid) car i've seen.

    1. Re:88 mph was a cruel joke by grahamsz · · Score: 2

      Well I'm in the UK.

      We have our small cars and 2700lb is quite a lot more than just about anything on the market.

      But I'd never seen a car with such a low speedo pin - just struck me as really strange. Revving it, Im' sure it could go a lot faster than 88.

  76. Re:It's called an "Alternator" by Ada_Rules · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hmm..A big part of my brain is screaming Troll alert but on the off chance that you were serious, I thought I should reply.

    Adding an alternator would be of no help whatsoever in keeping the batteries charged. They would actually cause the batteries to drain faster because the energy the alernators put out would never be equal to or greater than the energy drain the consumed from the batteries (via the motors).

    As for "making up the difference via solar...." Not any time soon....And also not ever on earth moving a vehicle of that weight/drag at 100 MPH. Even if we could make solar cells that convert the entire spectrum of solar energy that reaches the surface of the earth at 99% efficiency there would still not be enough power available to keep the batteries charged. In reality, peak conversion efficiency on these things is actually somewhere around 20-25% right now.

    --
    --- Liberty in our Lifetime
  77. Re:But.. by GreyPoopon · · Score: 2
    I would be remis if I didn't say, however, that a blown axle just before the batteries were supposed to have given out is just a bit too convenient.

    Actually, it was just a wheel bearing, but I know from experience that that'll make a car undriveable -- the wheel eventually locks up. However, you're right. It was just a little too convenient. Almost like they had the excuse ready to go. I mean, if wheel bearings are a common point of failure on these cars, wouldn't you think they'd have replaced them just prior to such a high profile demonstration? Duh.

    Maybe this Delorean works about as well as the one in "Back to the Future." He should have just slammed his head onto the steering wheel, and it would have started working again.

    --

    GreyPoopon
    --
    Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

  78. Re:Depends how much juice those batteries provide by Lars+T. · · Score: 2
    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /geru/ram/a_g.ram on this server.

    Anyway, I'm German. I know how to pronunce the letter G - and it's not "gay". Unless I don't know how to pronounce "gay".

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  79. Re:The Simpsons: Corporate Mind Control by Scrameustache · · Score: 2

    Just look at a site like Slashdot.org, supposedly visited by intelligent people.

    Oh! You were expecting some kind of elitist intellectual website? Sorry, they haven't instituted a minimum IQ level yet, but I'm sure your offtopic blasting of a humorous cartton is a first step towards making /. a new and better place for intelligent people to discuss things that really matter.

    The Simpsons is insidious corporate tool designed to use irony and cynicsm to lure people into complacency. [...] Sad they don't realize that they have surrendured the ability to think for themselves to a frivolous cartoon.

    "Oh, Marge, cartoons don't have any deep meaning. They're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh."

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  80. Where's the University of Utah when you need them? by BigBlockMopar · · Score: 2

    The REAL question is why have batteries at all if the car can keep them at 100% the whole time, and still move. Drop the batteries, save a few hundred pounds of weight, and let the dohickey that charges the batteries drive the motor.

    For sure. Without the device, it allegedly goes for 9.8 miles using conventional battery power. Fine. If you need 144V with reasonable power capability, you don't need to carry around 12 car batteries; 12 gel-cel batteries or even a big stack of Ni-MH D-cells ought to get the thing moving for a second or two to kick in The Magical Device. They claim ordinary car batteries, which are about 40lb each.

    Of course, there is a REASON why they do this. It's yet another 'perpetual motion' device. You show me a molecule that will last forver, and then MAYBE I'll waste valueable toilet-reading time to your device. :)

    Oh come now. You know this is powered by cold fusion. Fleischman, Pons and the University of Utah are somehow behind this one, too. [grin]

    If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Especially when it disobeys the most fundamental laws of nature. Take the silly little golf cart motor out of the DeLorean they butchered, put the original Renault-Volvo V6 back in there, and stop dreaming about saving the world with Radio Shack science.

    Tesla would be rolling over in his grave over having his name being spouted in the same sentence as these guys.

    --
    Fire and Meat. Yummy.
  81. Wasn't that the point I was trying to make? by Shimmer · · Score: 2

    Except the boat in the vacuum chamber will never work for very long (for the reason I described).

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    The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
  82. Re:Free energy exists!! by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2
    HAHAHAHA! You really believe that because it's patented, that makes it the least bit more credible? HAHAHAHAHA! I'll believe in free energy the day I can buy a cellphone that never needs recharging, and not before. If I knew you, I'd seriously bet you a million dollars right now that this invention is total baloney. The only problem is, I'd never be able to collect because this guy would never admit he's wrong. When the invention failed to work for the umpteenth time under scientific scrutiny, he would have an explanation, and somebody would believe it. That's the way these guys work. There's a sucker born every minute.

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    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  83. Re:But.. by ncc74656 · · Score: 2
    Do the Sears Diehard batteries still have a lifetime guarantee?

    AFAIK, no car battery carries a lifetime warranty anymore. The longest I've seen lately has been 7 years or so. You can get brake pads & shoes with lifetime warranties...given that they're known to wear out after a few years, you have to wonder why they still do that.

    (The last lifetime-warranty battery I can recall was one my father bought at Kmart for his '73 Cutlass back in '76 or '77. Each time the battery conks out, he takes it in and gets another one free--no prorating or anything. It's been through several batteries over the past 25 years and will probably go through a few more in the years to come.)

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    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  84. Autobahn by harmonica · · Score: 2

    Actually there are a lot of speeed limits on the autobahn these days. And if there are none, traffic is so crowded that you can't go fast anyway.