Slashdot Mirror
New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory?
An anonymous reader writes to tell us the Guardian is running a story that has quite a few physicists up in arms. From the article: "Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation." The only problem is Mills' theory is supposed to be impossible when using current rules of quantum mechanics.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Like they say: "I'll believe it when I see it."
Still, it would be nice to have some major shakeup in physics... there really haven't been any in my lifetime.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
If its not baloney the Saudis' will have it all bought up in about 10 minutes from now....
i for one welcome our blacklight overlor... oooo colors!
If he's really built a prototype, that is.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"...it almost certainly is."
/. before, and it has always been "a few months away" from unveiling its secret power source.
IIRC, this "company" has shown up on
This seems to be the week for bad slashdot science reporting (and falling for new 'free energy' con jobs).
These guys (energy crackpots) are always around on the sidelines; they pop up every once in a while when they need a new sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hventure capitalist to invest. The fractional-quantum-number chestnut has been around since at least the USENET days; I remember folks trying to use fractional quantum numbers to justify cold fusion among other things.
Hot fusion is always 50 years away; tabletop fusion is always 4 years away. Nothing to see here, move along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrino_theory
Article was probably submitted by somebody who stood to gain from the publicity. You Have Been Used (YHBU).
But hay, let's keep running pseudoscience stories on slashdot!
Theories are just that: theories. It's perfectly fine to disprove them. In fact, that's what science is all about.
If the current theories are shown to be inadequate or flat out wrong, then that's just how it is. It'll be up to scientists to create new, better theories that take into account this development.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Covered here.
Something that NASA is going to get involved with, per TFA(s). Basically, if you can get the electron to "orbit" the proton nucleus of a hydrogen atom at a lower level, you've produced a lot of energy.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel
So... was he a gynecologist?
Of Interest is the paper
"The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics Workshop" presented at the University of Eindhoven, Netherlands, February 28, 2005 (PDF Warning)
I think the title just about says it all
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Let me guess, that and a few million dollars away. You can get in on the ground floor.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I'm afraid to even get excited over this. I'd love to see a major shake up in the physics world. It would mean what we know is wrong and other paths need persued. But after reading the article I'm thinking this may be science along the lines of those fuel saving vacuum tornado devices rather than actual science.
As a side effect this may more solidly prove the current theory or have more people (far smarter than I) look into alternatives that may lead to actual discoveries. I guess with science no press is really bad press.
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
"We ran into this theoretical resistance and there are some vested interests here. People are very strong and fervent protectors of this [quantum] theory that they use."
Wow, sounds a lot like religion.
from all we know their "technical" hydrino explanation is a bunch of chimpanzee. If there realy is such a huge measurable effect, than it is realy something tremendous. That means something realy important that we we have not known about. But I think it is exceptionaly super highly unlikely - experimentalists have been looking for deviations from QED down to 15 decimal places for many years and found absolutely none.
"The Nature is out there and she will come out the way she is." RPF
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Despite my badassly low UID, I have no idea what quantum theory is and I'm wagering that a few of you don't either. Here's the Wiki link, but don't bother reading it unless you're a lot smarter than me because I still don't get it.
Indeed, suppose for a moment that this development does contradict various theories. If true science is being practised, then that would require the theories found to be faulty to either be reworked, or rejected.
But science is never that clear-cut. Politics always gets in the way. Many people have invested many years and much effort into such (potentially faulty) theories, and they won't give up easily.
We may even see a new schism form, but within the scientific community. It wouldn't be a matter of just differing theories. It could potentially be another evolution/intelligent design situation.
Indeed, we may only get a partial scientific revolution. There will be those who admit their theories were wrong, and then those who do not. Things could get very interesting, especially when large amounts of funding are involved.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Here is the abstract of his original paper submitted to Physics Essays in 2003. This was copied from the full text PDF, so there may be some typos.
"Despite its successes, quantum mechanics (QM) has remained mysterious to all who have encountered it. Starting with Bohr and progressing into the present, the departure from intuitive, physical reality has widened. The connection between QM and reality is more than just a "philosophical" issue. It reveals that QM is not a correct or complete theory of the physical world and that inescapable internal inconsistencies and incongruities arise when attempts are made to treat it as physical as opposed to a purely mathematical "tool." Some of these issues are discussed in a review by F. Laloë [Am. J. Phys. 69, 655 (2001)]. In an attempt to provide some physical insight into atomic problems and starting with the same essential physics as Bohr of e- moving in the Coulombic field of the proton and the wave equation as modified by Schrödinger, a classical approach is explored that yields a remarkably accurate model and provides insight into physics on the atomic level. The proverbial view, deeply seated in the wave-particle duality notion, that there is no large-scale physical counterpart to the nature of the electron may not be correct. Physical laws and intuition may be restored when dealing with the wave equation and quantum-mechanical problems. Specifically, a theory of classical quantum mechanics (CQM) is derived from first principles that successfully applies physical laws on all scales. Rather than using the postulated Schrödinger boundary condition "Psi -> 0 as r -> infinity," which leads to a purely mathematical model of the electron, the constraint is based on experimental observation. Using Maxwell's equations, the classical wave equation is solved with the constraint that the bound (n = 1)-state electron cannot radiate energy. By further application of Maxwell's equations to electromagnetic and gravitational fields at particle production, the Schwarzschild metric is derived from the classical wave equation, which modifies general relativity to include conservation of space-time in addition to momentum and matter/energy. The result gives a natural relationship among Maxwell's equations, special relativity, and general relativity. CQM holds over a scale of space-time of 85 orders of magnitude -- it correctly predicts the nature of the universe from the scale of the quarks to that of the cosmos. A review is given by G. Landvogt [Internat. J. Hydrogen Energy 28, 1155 (2003)]."
I've already got an old Fleishman Electronics Fusion@Home Jr. (TM) power plant... non-polluting and nearly cost-free, just have to remember to top off the reservoir now and then... so what does this new thingie do better?
It's a dead/alive hampster in a box, on a little wheel attached to a little generator...
If I could, I'd destroy you all.
The energy must come from locomotion! http://www.true-ringtone.co.uk/locomotion-kylie-mi nogue-ringtone-40827.htm
So if they aren't very good on statistics, they are going to buy it.
My city: Barcelona.
An electron orbiting a proton will have a preferred orbit. That orbit can be changed. In the presence of electric or magnetic fields, orbits change and you get different spectra. The fact that you have an electon in a non-standard orbit does not change quantum theory. Now, if the electron's orbit slowly decayed until the electron collided with the proton; that would prove that quantum theory is wrong.
http://science.slashdot.org/science/02/12/07/22522 59.shtml?tid=126
http://science.slashdot.org/science/02/06/07/21592 10.shtml?tid=134
What makes this case interesting is the length of time this "hoax" has persisted. The funding means nothing; a company with a large budget doesn't care to gamble with the amounts claimed. The validations of his energy claims are the most significant. Many laboratories have found anomalies in reproduced experiments (and some have failed). His theory does not have nearly as much support - nearly every qualified physicist I have given his book to has politely said he's wrong. His derivations just don't make sense.
Some of the more open minded physicists then said that doesn't mean he's wrong. There may be energy produced that current physics can account for, and at worst QM would need amends. This speculation is really irrelevant if he is claiming a product- all we have to do is wait a while and see how it pans out.
Company website: http://www.blacklightpower.com/ (download theory book for free)
Topping the headlines...
An upstart scientist imploded today when he activated his kitchen microwave oven. His appliance was powered by a new kind of energy that he had developed in his basement. In addition to warping the fabric of spacetime, he also burned his English muffin.
If the only article you find is on the Guardian, maaaybe its not such a reliable scientific story.
"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
--
Superb hosting 2400MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
Note the Slashdot -- I noticed a mistake: Instead of a little battery there
should be a little foot next to this post.
While I agree "blacklight power" is complete crap, I note that tabletop fusion is commercially available RIGHT NOW - fusors are on sale... as neutron sources. They're not for power, but for handy neturon beams.
Maybe.
But that is *no* reason to ignore him completely.
The article was quite comprehensive and looks like quite a bit of big guys are behind it.
I do agree that a distinguished list also stood behind ramar too, and which was disproved completely, but I believe we should keep an open mind towards these.
Maybe his deduction is wrong, but if his invention _works_, it means something else (currently unknown) is there.
maybe..
1. Hydrogen fuel
;-) I like the idea. Would be great if it works.
2. ???????
3. Profit!
Bear that joke
Quantum theory has many, many successful experiments, even applications backing it up. This Mills guy has still not a single successful experiment behind him.
As another Slashdotter pointed out (with simple elegance) in this thread, the "normal" state of hydrogen we all know and love is apparently the lowest-energy state. Bringing the electrons in closer to the nucleus would consume energy, not produce it, according to conventional wisdom.
Maybe this would-be physicist is smarter than all the quantum physicists, including Einstein, who came before him. But my money and Occam's is on the Establishment in this case.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Can we PLEASE have the editors do at least a cursory background check on these "scientists" before posting their pyramid scheme crackpot press releases? We've had five or more stories in the past TWO DAYS about how the rules of science were about to be rewritten by someone who can pull heat out of nothing for free, or extend wifi coverage for TEN MILLION MILES on a watch battery, or fly to the moon with a tablespoon of vinegar, or extend a battery's shelf life by nine million percent by putting a sticker on it.
Seriously, WTF? It's embarrassing. This place reads like the fucking National Enquirer when it comes to science. There are legitimate breakthroughs happening all the time in science; why do we have to cover these retard con men? Is it that pseudoscience is more FLASHY AND EXCITING than real science, or is it that our editors are too fucking brain dead to tell the difference?
In this lab we obey the laws of quantum mechanics!
But even if he wasn't, he's worried about the piddly energy released by the process? H with electrons orbiting closer would make fusion that much easier. Hydrino-ated deuterium might make all the difference in quite a few schemes. If he had a prototype that was really working, he'd be on the news demonstrating it right now, millions of housewives would be pissed as the soap operas were pre-empted.
The real thing would be raking in literally billions, right now. It wouldn't be fucking around with $5 million this, and $19 million that. That sounds like a nice haul for a con artist, but someone who just obseleted the oil industry shouldn't be worried about anything less than 3/4 of a trillion...
Is it all wrong? Most likely not. After all, we don't even know much about this supposed device at this point. We can't go forth and deem theories incorrect at this time.
Was the past funding a waste of money? Very doubtful. We have fiber optics thanks to such research, for instance.
Creationism is not scientific because it does not involve the scientific methodology. Like you said, it is based on historical claims rather than theory, experiment and observation. As such it should not be taught in a science class, much like science does not belong in a religion class. They are two separate beasts, and it is best not to confuse them.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
So basically the article is reviewed by peers, but if the review says 'this is garbage from beginning to end', it still can get published.
Get lost, motherfucker!
This guy if full of shit. Just because he graduated from MIT, deosn't mean he is that good. Remember the Unabomber graduated from Harvard, for all that's worth.
To all those "But, wait what if it is true! He is the other other Einstein" comments I would just have to say that this guy doesn't know quantum mechanics. He is a medic and an electrical engineer, what the fuck is he doing publishing papers on "The Fallacy of Feynman's Argument on the Stability of the Hydrogen Atom According to Quantum Mechanics". He has two or three equations and the rest is bullshit in "essay format". Check out his website. He might as well be selling tin foil hats to prevent damage from space death rays.
In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
It would seem Schrödinger's cat... is dead.
No, what I'M SAYING is that one barking looney seems to bring hundreds of others out of the woodwork.
If I could, I'd destroy you all.
Quantum theory simply states that the closer you come to knowing what quantum theory is, the less the probability that you actually do.
I wont be too hastey to discredit anyone, but often with this type of scenario, where many reputable scientist outright dismiss a given claim, it is usually because the person/s claiming given thing are desperately trying to get funding for themselves or their insitution by pandering often farcical claims to gullable bush-like administrations or investors, at the ultimate personal sacrifice of credibility. Examples may include "hafnium power", "cold fusion" and
Of course, the argument will inevitable become one of "great new ideas are always scorned, and ours is no different", but the chances of that being true is very low indeed.
I am so frustrated, i just forgot my third and best example of pseudoscience. If i remember it, i will re-post, otherwise, what are some other notable examples of pseudoscience you know? (i know a few, i just cant remember)
This theory has already been proven vastly inferior to http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/doofusino.ht ml
Arguing is pointless. If the good Doctor can provide a device, it's simple enough to prove whether it's generating or consuming power.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm not sure what tangible historical data you're referring to, but if it's anything like the historical data for Atlantis it should probably belong in Mythology.
Come now, hot fusion used to always be 40 years away. Now, finally, it will always be 35 years away.
That is progress.
He's always "months away" from revealing this invention. Can't he come up with a newer scam?? Even what he's found is real, I don't like his secretive methods.
4 5.shtml?tid=14
.. it is possible to create a wormhole by boiling a carrot in cat piss and one other secret ingredient ...without allowing others to reproduce the experiment how can this be disproved?" Although, the only way I could be right is if Einstein is wrong .. it's not a problem because I have just stated that "Einstein is wrong" .. You can call me a kook .. but the only way to disprove me is to provide 100% proof that Einstein is correct everywhere. Which is quite frankly impossible because physics is not like mathematics where axiomatic proofs are possible.
..and for all we know he might actually be telling the truth or at least believing it ..and quite frankly I hate censorship and support freedom of speech .. but this guy keeps reappearing .. What about the other kooks ..no equal time? At least make it comedic and original not repetition! If I was an electric universe theorist or a cold fusion proponent I'd be getting pretty pissed off ..
Link to the 1999 story..
http://science.slashdot.org/science/99/12/22/1092
Look the fact is, it's very easy to come up with a non disprovable theory in physics. If I say that "I have just found that Eintein's theory is wrong
Well Ok, One story is fine
RE:[It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.]
thats all i needed to read to not take it serously, until they have an actual product to put on the market that proves beyond any doubt...
enough said...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Blacklight power was last reported on in 1999 time frame where there was activity in the US Patent Office.
If any of the people reading this are going to report on Blackight Power, ask Mills:
1) Details on the battery claims on the old web site.
2) How these Hydrenos work thermodynamically. (going from a lower to higher energy state is going to need heat.)
The claims last time around were 'going to have massive funding soon' and 'in 7 years we'll have a battery product' - and that was 1999.
Good luck on getting an answer.
Who needs the wayback machine when you've got /.?
Quantum Theory has many, Many, MANY experiments showing that it correctly predicts the results.
... they have nothing.
Anyone can come up with any new "theory" they want. And they may be able to get it published.
But without the first experiment showing that they can do something that quantum theory cannot predict
To make this post somewhat topical, I'm actually in a Quantum Mechanics class this semester and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either, but if this guy is claiming to be able to get an electron into a fractional orbit, it would fly in the face of QM as we now understand it. Basically, the theory states that bound electrons can only exist in discrete energy states. An electron in the lowest orbit in a hydrogen atom has exactly the same amount of energy as every other electron in the lowest orbit of every other hydrogen atom. It can't be decreased, and if it is increased it must be increased by an amount that is exactly equal to an integer multiple of n in (n^2*h-bar^2*pi^2)/(2*m*L^2) where n is the level, m is electron mass, and L is the width of the atom. It would of course be against the nature of science to say that it is impossible that this theory could be wrong, but there is strong experimental evidence to suggest that it is correct.
If it had no evidence for it at all it wouldn't be a theory - it'd be a hypothesis - possibly even a conjecture (and it's the fact that so many people say theory when they mean hypothesis that gives so many of these pseudoscistists the apparant credibility they get).
James P. Barrett
What's this about "no waste"? If he's creating what he's claiming, "hydrinos", then he's partially collapsing a hydrogen atom. Once it's collapsed and thus energy released, it'll take energy to get it back to normal.
The hydrino's being created from the process(es) ARE the waste product. What the hell are you going to do with collapsed hydrogen atoms? They won't behave like normal hyrdogen; compounds created from them won't behave in expected ways. What's he going to do, cycle hydrino's through the "reactor" until they've collapsed into a neutron? Then what's to come of these free floating neutrons? (neutrons don't stay neutrons when they're all alone.)
For my money, I think this guy slept through every physics class he's ever taken.
This isn't the first time I hear about some physics-defying whiz-bang solution to all our problems. They all have a few things in common.
- They're never peer reviewed, or if they are (like Cold Fusion), the peer review process finds out that an experimental error (or flat out lying) caused the purported violation of the laws of physics.
- They're promoted by businessmen/entrepreneur types, who are out for a lot of publicity and money.
- Aside from the ones that are peer reviewed, they inner workings are kept secret. To properly assess a discovery, it is necessary to replicate the machine or experiment.
Which all point to the conclusion that this person is either a money/publicity whore, or delusional. I think it's the former.
And speaking as a scientist, his idea has about a snowball chance's in hell of being true. Electrons existing in discrete energy levels is required to avoid having all atoms self-annihilate and explains why the orbiting electrons don't spontaneously emit radiation in their ground state. Entropy being shown false is more plausible than electrons being able to go under the ground state, and plenty of people have tried (and failed) to disprove that entropy never decreases.
Friend: pika
JLP: hey man, what's up?
Friend: wwwblacklightpower.com
Friend: grr
Friend: www.blacklightpower.com
Friend: These guys claim to have the unified field e]theory
JLP: submit it to slashdot, quick!
Friend: Like any science, it's under review.
JLP: slashdot is the best peer review around
JLP: or technocrat
JLP: one of them
Friend: It's been in seveal journals lately, but the company anonunce this first in 1999
JLP: sounds fishy
[o]_O
Nope. If he has a prototype it is a theory. Else it is just a hypothesis. Well, not exactly, but that something is a theory does not mean that it is not a fact. A theory is an explanatory system, a way to describe what is.
In fact, a well supported theory can be said to me MORE reliable than a fact, if that is possible. A fact is a single data point. A theory is a system of many data points supporting each other.
I'm not saying it doesn't produce lots of energy relatively cheaply since I haven't seen it work/not work, but let's step back for a moment.
He's a medic with a background in electrical engineering. There's little evidence of any extensive physics or chemistry training. Sure he probably took some intro courses for EE, but hardly enough to come up with a sound radical theory that throws nearly a century of solid work out the window.
If this device does work it probably doesn't work anything like the way he thinks it works. Odds are better that it's some obscure trick in physics that has been overlooked. On the otherhand, Slashdot has no end of crackpot posts and even an affiliation with a major ivy league university doesn't exempt him from being a loon.
Simple actually, and I've never studied Quantum mechanics:
1) Post a great story/discovery on the Net.
2) Wait a few days.
3) Get story posted on Slashdot
4) Wait a few minutes.
5) Hard drives will metl, AC will fail withing minutes.
6) ?????
7) Profit!!!
(Sorry, I didn't mean for 6 and 7, but by now are obligatory).
This "Slashdotting" as a source of power is more powerful force than anything. I am sure this is the source of this discovery. And as long as there are Slashdot readers, there will always be power.
Can someone at the guardian.co.uk (source of this article) concur?
Until then, this has all the hallmarks of hogwash.
I am also reminded of the "science" behind "Honey, I shrunk the kids!". If you can shrink a hydrogen atom, you should be able to shrink all the others by corresponding amounts. That would add a new plot twist to the movie. His shrinking machine is hooked to the California power grid. Shrinking the kids releases vast amounts of energy used to power CA A/Cs, and getting them back to normal requires putting all that energy back. Where will it come from? Actually, there was just one thing that bothered me in that movie, that my "willing suspension of disbelief" was unable to handle. How were they able to breath the air and eat the food? Isaac Asimov did a much better (more believable) job in "Fantastic Voyage".
I posted this on rllmukforum.com on Friday, in response to the posting of this article:
[quote="wikipedia"]Randell L. Mills was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry[/quote]
Looks like he'd be in good company with some other quacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_McKeith.
Also, I expect a LOT more from the Guardian, expecially after reading this.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/.
It was actually a question he posed to our Environmental Science class. Would we invest in his idea? It seemed bunk at the time, especially since the guy also supposedly wrote a 'unified theory of everything' book, also a holy grail. The professor also told us it was bunk.
Instead of using string theory and other multidimensional views, he had a simpler one that involved an even lower valence electron state of hydrogen. I guess I'll believe it when I see it.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I can use their power for my Phantom Game Console: Duke Nukem Forever edition.
"According to quantum mechanics, electrons can only exist in an atom in strictly defined orbits, and the shortest distance allowed between the proton and electron in hydrogen is fixed. The two particles are simply not allowed to get any closer." This is NOT the Quantum Mecanics that is in text books, and everyone learns about. This is the Dr Suess QM Model. Even Neils Bohr would reject this as simplistic thinking of a pre-college physics student. Actually, It's concept is sound. If you can suck out the energy of an Atom, so that molecular processes cease. You will have bounless energy! Imagine if you turned the Sun into a Absolute Zero ball of frozen primordial ice. All in a few seconds with your Ronco Sun Freezer. Availble for $49.95 + Shipping and handling.
Is appears that in the calculations, someone forgot to carry the 1, and also there was a decimal point error. The result the generation of heat 0.1 times more heat than that of conventional fuel. All the same, not bad for 4th graders.
While we are on this trip down memory lane, I will point you to a very old "What's New" piece. To quote Bob Park, "there is no claim so preposterous that a Ph.D. can't be found to vouch for it." When reading claims that "will turn physics on its head!", I like to think of all of the devices in our modern world that verify basic principles of quantum mechanics with their reliable operation. What follows is a very incomplete list of things whose invention relied upon the very principles of quantum mechanics that Mills claims to disprove with his power generator. These are technologies or devices that are very common.
transistors (FET, BJT, etc.)
giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads (read heads in your hard drive)
LEDs
LASERs
atomic clocks
nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
This list is not complete. Please feel free to add to it. If I were keeping score, quantum mechanics is ahead 6-0 (remember, Blacklight has yet to market a product).
blacklightpower have also about to release a perpetual motion device, a prototype will be produced imminently. Soon to be released into the market are perpetual yoyos!
I've always wondered about this, perhaps a particle physicist can explain further.
If you can have fractional quantum numbers, doesn't that mean the entire theory that energy can only exist in quanta is a load of bollocks? I have no problem with photons having wavelengths, but I have been taught that it is impossible to split down the energy in a rest-state photon without breaking quantum theory.
Actually... you know how in glasses of beer there seems to be an infinate number of bubbles from the same spot on the glass? Can't we harness that? </energy_crackpot_theory>
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Were I a betting man, I would bet this is an elaborate scheme to separate the investor from his money, rather like the "Holman Locomotive Speeding Truck Company".
The Holman Horror
Interestingly enough, their stock (at least the certificates for same) is worth more today than it ever was when the company existed!
Dog is my co-pilot.
Yes, it would still be a theory. And yes, he has apparently built prototype devices using "hydrinos". However that does not prove they exist, just that he built something he _thinks_ uses them. His papers describe his theory. If it is right or wrong it is still "just a theory" -- after all, quantum mechanics is also "just a theory".
This is the second time in as many days we've been treated to recycled bullshit from sci.energy, the infinite energy crowd and the established science oppressing us crowd. WTF? "News for dopes, stuff that's bullshit"
.max
It's been my experience that working with the false, obsolete, oppressive and illusory rules of "establisment science has been more useful than trying to apply raving website drivel.
But what do i know, [barney fife] i'm just the only person on earth making antiprotons, 16E10/hr of them, for about 130E10 so far today. ayep... [/barney fife]
ob.geek: and i ate pizza while i was doing it.
The claim is that this reaction requires a tiny amount of water (presumably for the hydrogen) to produce a tremendous amount of energy.
Just a practical question here: how can we have oceans if this bozo^h^h^h^hdude is right?
Bear with me here. If there is some magical state that you can push hydrogen (presumably bound up with oxygen in water) into that releases a bunch of energy, then it would seem to me that if you fed enough activation energy into a bunch of water you'd get energy back. So if you had a lot of water under a lot of pressure close to something hot, that should release a lot of energy... more energy than you started with. Maybe you'd even get a chain reaction. Cool.
Two words come to mind: undersea volcanoes.
Try posting it again when he shows something working. Anything working.
:v)
Vik
First the perpetuum mobile sticker and now this? A medic [sic] claims to have built a 1,000 times better power source which also happens to contradict quantum mechanics, ergo an anonymous reader considers the whole fucking theory of quantum mechanics disproved and this is a front page news on Slashdot Science? Can we finally have the pseudoscience.slashdot.org section please?
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Okay, we have two choices:
a) An MIT EE dropout who advertises his irrelevant association with Harvard turns physics on his head and has a working prototype that generates incredibly cheap energy.
b) Yet another cheap energy fraud/error/delusion.
I'd be thrilled if Occam's razor was wrong this time around, but this whole thing reads exactly like every other cheap energy scam/hoax/error in history.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Yet again, Slashdot editors fall for blatant crackpottery. Blacklight Power is a well-known and rather uninteresting crank.
This is really silly. Any second year physics student can show you why this is crap. If there were an energy level lower than the ground state of hydrogen, you would see it in nature.
If you have taken even an introductory particle physics course, you know that any decay that is energetically allowed will eventually happen. If there was some energy state below the ground state, the ground state would be unstable, and you'd see evidence in hydrogen absorption and emmission spectra as well as the spectra of other atoms.
I can't believe you guys even posted this.
Allwords defines "Up in arms" as meaning "Openly angry and protesting." In a field where new discoveries lead to a better understanding, and disproving theories means finding answers, why is this the case?
Twinstiq, game news
What does a hydrino look like? How does it behave? An element's chemical properties are intrinsically tied up in its electron shell; and a hydrino has an electron shell that's significantly different from a conventional hydrogen atom. So, what chemical properties does a hydrino gas have?
This sort of thing is quite important. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with an atomic mass of 2 instead of 1. It has noticeably different chemical properties to hydrogen, to such an extent that heavy water (water made with deuterium instead of hydrogen) is considered toxic.
If he's going to be producing large amounts of what amounts to a new element not found in nature and releasing it into the atmosphere, I'd expect him to do some careful chemical analysis of its properties first... nuclear physicists tend to be a bit careless when it comes to chemical properties of the atoms they're dealing with.
(Of course, because hydrinos don't seem to be found in nature despite having a lower energy level than ordinary hydrogen, I suspect he could well be talking out of his hat.)
Obviously all we know about Quantum Physics isn't wrong. If you feel like studying for about five years and getting a few million dollars with of equipment, there's a decent chance that you could test it experimentally. Electrons have been observed (can now easily be observed at most major universities) interfering with themselves. Bose-Einstein condensates have been created (decades after their prediction). Condensed Fermionic clouds too.
Next time you microwave a burrito, browse the Internet, drive on a newly constructed bridge, or receive a blood transfusion, I'll ask you to please thank science for improving, possibly even saving, your life. As yet, I don't think creationism has given you anything but an IOU.
Creationism is unscientific. Science consists of a well tested method. Creationism is not founded on this method--it is founded on discomfort with the results of correct application of this method. This is of crucial importance. For example, there are things that the Chinese teach in schools that would leave you feeling ill. Not because they are incorrect, just because they teach things in "history" class that should be taught in a "our theory of government" class. If you're going to teach Creationism, put it where it belongs--in a social studies class. Or at least offer it alongside, for example, Einstein's Cosmological Constant theories--an example of when something other than experimental evidence clouds a scientific mind. The intrusion of the weakness of the human mind intrudes on its ability to reason and function.
As for tangible historical data, I think that a hundred years of verifiable experiments works well compared to what little we have in the form of modern western religions. Islam is likely the most recent, at around 600 AD. Christianity falls in next. Judaism last. What we have of most of these are archaeological sites in varying states of dispute and ruin, various old texts, and a lot of oral tradition.
With evolution we have archaeological sites in varying states of dispute and ruin. Ignore the fact the these sites outnumber a hundredfold critical religious sites, are found all over the world (Jesus never visited Antartica that we've found), and the observations are objective. This is obviously less tangible than what has made it through hundred generations of strife, culture clash, and vested interests over a few hundred sites in one of the most conquered areas of the world. Ignore that your competing observations are of subjective phenomena of large cultural signifance. Ignore, well, reality.
I may have missed some sarcasm in your post, but I cannot repeat this defense too often. Bottom line, Science is testable by design. That it offers more than religion in this single respect is as undeniable as it is obvious. One of the greatest tragedies of the modern era has been the acceptance of people saying absurd things.
For Einstein, Copernicus, Galileo, and Archimedes to hold thier religious beliefs in check with regard to their observations was their greatest gift to mankind. They knew that the surest sign from their respective gods came in the form of the world they lived in. They understood that, where the religions of men conflicted with the world of God, it was obvious that divinity lived in reality, not in the words and beliefs of their confused, broken, and corruptible fellows.
Lack of appreciation of these facts belies misunderstanding of the tenets and goals of Science, and sadly focus on the cosmology of ancient religion shows a lack of appreciation for what great things there really are to glean from faith and history. Read the Bible. If you get more out of Genesis than Matthew, I you have my pity. I'm afraid I can't offer similar analogies for the Quran or Torah, but I think you get the idea.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Peer review is no substitute for physical experiment and duplicating results.
The universe is always invited to cocktail parties no matter who it pisses off.
You are jumping to a conclusion without looking at data.
Don't rant. Test.
If the guy is wrong, publish the results. If the guy is right, publish the results.
Irrational emotional explosions don't help anything.
On the other hand, some crazy ideas to turn the establishment upside down as history can attest. I have an undergraduate level education in Physics, but I do not understand Quantum Mechanics at the level necessary to debunk the claims of the article.
Something tells me that a person that entitles their post: "This is fucking embarrassing" in allcaps does not have the needed background either. If anything, I am more disappointed that you rated a 5, Insightful than I am that a Hydrino-oil Salesman's article made it onto Slashdot.
If you look carefully, you'll find Dr. Mills is the only person to publish any results supporting Hydrino theory. This is VERY suspicious, seeing as how science is founded on the idea that other people doing the same experiment reproduce your results. This doesn't mean he's overtly lying, but it could mean that some part of his experiment, he makes a mistake that his team doesn't catch because he's been doing it so long. The moral is: I'll believe when other people can reproduce the results.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hydrino Theory, Which Overturns Quantum Theory, Is In Turn Overturned By Doofusino Theory If you think you are missing something here, you certainly are. http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/doofusino.ht ml
Just never seems to go right for ScuttleMonkey
In other words,
"Ostracize the crackpots!"
(Dunno why I'm posting this. _Nobody_ will get the joke.)
It isn't like this guy published in a referred journal. He's just making press releases.
And besides, it doesn't take a genius to realize that if it sounds too good to be true, it is.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"Knowledge isn't important."
There's a big difference.
And, it's one that will bite the ass of anyone dumb enough to invest in hydrinos. (As it has everyone who has done so since Mills first floated ths idea way back in 1991, at which time he announced that commercial applications of his theory were, oddly enough, just a couple years off.)
You can rescue a theory from a contradictory observation by making up excuses on the spot. Also, calling your opponent a "doody-head" works quite well (ad hominem). In fact, rhetorics pretty much trump science any day.
These guys (energy crackpots) are always around on the sidelines; they pop up every once in a while when they need a new sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hventure capitalist to invest.
And they're always electrical engineers.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Factual or not I think that everyone could be overlooking a major problem with this technology. The process uses some of the energy to fuel electolysis.
So the initial fuel is water. It then releases first oxygen and then dihyrdino gas (not water)as exhaust. So we're looking to substitute water for our next non renewable resource?
Just because you believe in something (or don't) does NOT mean it IS or IS'NT true
Check out http://www.technocrat.net/ . It's /. for adults.
They put the story up Friday (though with the caveat stated up front in the summary that it could be hokum).
Free Adam Smith! (Or best offer.)
The Geek journal has an article about a poet with a degree in computer science who claims to have invented a video card that outperforms the most advanced offerings from Nvidia, and the card can be mass produced for a dollar.
The inventor claims to have millions of dollars in backing,a nd indpendent graphics artists have tested the board.
"we plan to produce 20 million cards a year soon, say CEO J Anklsy"
This is just an FYI for a link to more info about Deuterium toxicity:
t ml
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mheavywater.h
I would have thought that Deuterium would have been just fine, but I can understand perhaps that large quantities of Deuterium can indeed slow down some metabolic processes enough to cause some problems. I was thinking more along the lines of Tritium toxicity, but being radioactive that should make a little more sense. Deuterium is atomically stable but unusual because it is consumed quickly in stars to become other atomic products (the source of most deuterium found in nature). It is much harder to combine two simple hydrogen atoms to become Deuterium through fusion.
Yeah, the Hydrino would likely behave quite a bit different from normal hydrogen, but in this case it is more like an even lower quantum state than typical quantum state for hydrogen. I don't know where the "inventor" of this idea comes up with yet another elemental name for this quantum state, however. A photon hitting the electron is going to push the electron back into a more "typical" quantum state anyway, at least with current theory.
I have seen muon catalyzed fusion taking place using a theory similar to this one where the muon takes the place of the electron to form an exotic atom. The problem with muons, however, is that they have a relatively short half-life and are therefore not useful for large scale fusion production.
Not to validate this guys claims....
But it WAS college dropout patent office flunkie that published one of the greatest works of physics EVER. Einstein's work was dumped on by other scientists.
Like I said, not to validate this guys claims. But to dismiss it outright without even really looking at it (or ignoring actual results) puts one in the same class of people who dismissed Einstein.
they would have published in Science or PRL. Most of the articles in their list are 'sumbitted', for conferences, or off-topic of their main QM related claims.
I've noticed quite a few crackpots getting airtime on Slashdot in recent months. These guys pop up quite frequently. Of course if they were actually onto something they'd be the richest people in the world already. But that's the thing about crackpots, they never let a little thing like reality get in the way of their ideas.
>I have an undergraduate level education in Physics, but I do not understand Quantum Mechanics at the level necessary to debunk the claims of the article.
You understand enough to ask the right questions, though.
Here's someone claiming that hydrogen atoms have at least one lower energy level than what we call their "ground state".
Why haven't they all fallen into it? Why don't we see spectral lines from somewhere in the universe corresponding to transitions between the aleged fractional quantum states and the conventional ground state?
What makes the hydrogen atom an exception to the uncertainty principle? If the electron were any closer to the proton then we'd know its position and momentum more precisely than the Heisenberg limit.
Questions like this aren't really "debunking", because the inventor might have answers like "because I created conditions in my lab that occur nowhere else in the universe" or "the uncertainty principle is the result of assumption X which doesn't apply here because of reason Y". But they're enough to make most people cross their arms and say "show me".
Why do all these stories seem to have a rubber stamp quality? Always has something revolutionary that breaks physical laws, they have millions availible from investors and they aren't quite ready to unviel but they have already had independent verification. It's like saying I have CU photos of Bigfoot but it'll take a few weeks to get them back from the one hour photo shop. There's always a delay in providing the goods to drag things out. Inspite of their "investors" I'm sure in the meantime they are willing to take additional investment dollars. 'Never mind the cord plugged into the wall we are actually pumping electricity back into the grid'. I thought Snake Oil went out in the 1800s?
Cold fusion, not hot fusion. Hot fusion happens inside of the sun at about 10 million degrees (K). Cold fusion involves starting fusion at a lower temperature. That doesn't necessarily mean cold as in human cold. It can mean cold as in really really hot as opposed to really really really really really really hot.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
They can't disprove quantum theory, it took me so long to figure it all out in the first place! Now I have to re-learn everything!
Something weird I noticed about the article... They cite a Professor Rick Maas, described as "a chemist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNC) who specialises in sustainable energy sources." A little 'net research shows that Professor Maas is indeed a chemist, but is part of the Environmental Studies Department @ UNC Asheville, and is a water/air quality expert. I haven't been able to find any work published by Maas that's related to energy... Now it's certainly possible I missed something, but something doesn't seem right.
Ha! He mentions that he has 65 peer-reviewed citing and discussing his theory. Search scholar.google.com for RL Mills. The second entry is his book. Click on the Cited link, and you'll notice that there are indeed many papers citing his work. And sir Mills himself is first author on just about all of them.
----------------- Oink. Moo. rarr! -----------------
Check out the date of the article... :-)
I'm not completely sure on the numbers there, web searches involving forums are only so reliable. :)
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
Actually... you know how in glasses of beer there seems to be an infinate number of bubbles from the same spot on the glass? Can't we harness that?
I think the amount of gas dissolved in a particular volume of beer is finite.
-or-
So that's where all the greenhouse gases are coming from.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Sounds like the Keanu (Whoa!) Reeves movie, Chain Reaction... I don't suppose Dr. Mills is working with Donald Sutherland...
Maybe by now this is redundant, as someone else might have replied already. In the most basic level, this guy claims that electrons can "orbit" around the nucleus of the hydrogen atom much closer than allowed. This is fine, as long as we don't have any experimental prove that this is impossible.
This can be shown by using the spectral line of hydrogen atom. We know (from both theory and experiments) that from photoelectric effect, electrons from excited energy level "drops down" to a lower energy level by giving off a photon. So in an experiment, one can excite a hydrogen atom and and observe how how the hydrogen atom goes back into the ground state by giving up a photon.
Again, through both experiment and theory, we know that the spectral line is discrete. You can look at the first excited state, second excited state, and
so forth. I'd refer you to wiki and various web resources for the details.
Now, the basis of this guy's whole theory is that electrons in the hydrogen atom, by some magical means, can actually be closer to the nucleus - in another words, we should see another spectral line below the lowest possible state. The question is of course, "How is it possible that we haven't seen this spectral line before."
I only skimmed through his paper, what amazes me is that amount of calculations he's actually done. However, that being said, there seems to be a whole bunch of crap - crap being things he just sort of assumes. I am much more dubious when I see lines such as = [quantity A]/[quantity B]. I'd suggests that at the level of physics he's supposedly doing, things aren't necessarily so simple. A lot of times very important results are barried very deeply inside an equation. (Anyone who's studied Green's function can attest to this.) Mathematics is very powerful tool, but one must be very careful as to what physically we're extracting from it. Otherwise, it's all going to be just garbage.
This is not to say that he didn't actually go to MIT, but it does raise some suspicions in my mind that he's pulling our collective legs.
If anyone who went to Harvard is reading this, could you check on your alumni accociation's website to see if this person really went to Harvard Medical School?
I do have the background to judge the believability of this claim (Ph. D. in theortetical elementary particle physics) and I'll tell you: this is fucking embarassing.
Here's a simple way to judge these sorts of claims that doesn't require any scientific training: major breakthroughs in fundamental physics are not made by people developing a secret product that will solve the world's energy problems.
I'm serious - I want to hear his pseudo-science talk on Art Bell tonight...
The weird thing is that I'm 1 degree of separation from Mark McCutcheon - freakazoid of the universe...
If they release a product and it works then people have to take them seriously.
Not necissiarly, I renember back in the 80's some engineer invented a machine that was supposed to supply unlimited energy, it was based off of a 'new physics'.
Well it worked!!! The only problem was that the machine worked by creating a series of sharp and short spikes in the electricity supply (that 'primed' it). Under those conditions the electricity meter didn't register the spike, so it looked like it was producing more energy than it took in. Bzzt. Wrong! He he, I think they eventually tacked a big induction coil onto the meter and the whole thing went to hell.
It sounds like something very similar could be going on here.
Anti-science, or pseudo-science?
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Remember when ZeoSync claimed compression breakthrough? http://slashdot.org/science/02/01/08/137246.shtml
Haven't heard from them for a while.
Will be interested if this energy invention sees the light of day.
Maybe they can use this source of cheap energy to power a scooter that won't fall over.
I think the most important part of the article is the economic forecast of 1.2 cents per KWh to generate electricity with this method. That's not 1000 times cheaper, but still significantly cheaper. And it doesn't seem nearly so quackish as saying "my new technology is 1000 times better than everything else." So, let's wait and see if anything becomes of it. I wouldn't mind saving 5 cents per KWh on my electric bill.
- Inventor has no relevant education
- Ignores valid critiques of his theories
- Continually produces lab results nobody else can duplicate
- Has been six months away from commericializing the technology for over a decade
- Just needs a bit of cash from you to make it big
Damn, where's my chequebook?
OK, so what if he does have something that is 1,000 hotter than conventional fuels, but his explanation of it is totally bogus? Wouldn't it still be a huge breakthough? Couldn't we still use it to rival good ol' hydrocarbons or perhaps even nuclear power (given the fact that the meltdown potential makes everybody nervous)?
I've read the article and I also think this is another one of those "pie in the sky" stories, but what if he really does have something, just his explanation is totally wrong? I want to believe.
Why don't we harness all the hot air coming out of the mouths of these crack pot scientists... that should power all the housholds in the world for a few years
welcome our new, non-polluting, post-quantum overlords.
of course
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
...if he allowed someone to publish an article which did not closely hew to a strictly dogmatic materialist line.
It's still wait and see time WRT hydrinos. When I see a working demo in controlled and verifiable conditions, I'll be impressed.
Holy Coincidence!
Alright believe me when I say that the company Blacklight Power is based in my hometown (Cranbury/East Windsor NJ), and their office is located across the street from where my dad used to work (Lockheed Martin Commercial Space, but they moved to Newtown, Pa) and my last name is Mills.
BUT I AM IN NO WAY RELATED TO HIM.
God Alighty, hopefully nobody will attention to this, and no employers/Grad schools will think there is a connection between me and this nut job.
Did you ever stop to wonder if the /. editors don't post these things just to get the activity level a little higher around here? There is always a lot more posts on flamebait political subjects and quack science then for for most of the other things that appear around here... And besides, it's a lot of fun to listen to the collective intelligence of the /. community go ballistic on some crackpot, almost as much fun as it is to watch the more gullible parts of the same community defend those crackpots! In my opinion, post away at this crap: maybe /. needs a new story category for them, crackpot science and flamebait politics. They can even give it a little tin-foil hat emblem (the crack-pot scientists always think the establishment is out to get them...). Then, when I'm in the mood to be amused by this stuff, it'll be here waiting for me.
If QM is correct, then won't your watching it affect the dis-proof? And then maybe it won't be disproved after all. Or maybe it would have been disproved, but your watching prevented it. My head hurts.
(Thank the gods that QM doesn't work at macroscopic scales or else we'd never get any work done)
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
Every single transistor in the computer you typed your post on is a working example of Quantum Physics in action.
Every one of them. That's hundreds of millions of examples right in front of you.
Look around at the world. Quantum physics is *everywhere* and we make a lot of use of it. It's demonstrated in just about everything technological, it's verifiable using equipment (not cheap equipment, but you *can* do it) and it's well-documented and understood.
You say you want "TANGIBLE evidence" ? It's right there, literally in front of you. You just need to understand your world better.
Intelligent Design offers nothing to help us understand the Universe better. It draws a line in the sand and says "This side is ineffable. You cannot know anything more about it." That's the exact antithesis of Science, which is about saying "Why does this occur and how can we predict it?"
What does ID give you? How can we make use of that 'knowledge'? How can we use it to predict future events? Why should we stop questioning the Universe, and isn't that a fundamental abrogation of the intelligence that (ID believers say) we were given?
It's not science, any more than saying "Quantum Physics is wrong! My tests (which I won't give you the details of) prove it beyond all doubt!"
Pump 'n' Dump
Hype it up, get a few million more in funding, then reveal (in mock astonishment) that the extra heat in the lab was coming from Dr. Bubba's partially digested burrito.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
I smell a scam here. I'll wager that when push comes to shove they haven't submitted this to peer review, it hasn't been reproduced and they're going to try to cash in before the whole thing comes crashing down. Any real breakthrough would go through the proper channels first.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
After reading through the company page, the Wikipedia article, and the HSG last nigh (I found it linked to by a forum I frequent) I'll try to cover some of the most basic issues that are in dispute:
The Wiki article, his company site, and the HSG all agree that he received a full Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard and that he spent time at MIT doing graduate Electrical Engineering work.
At some point while reading through either his site or the HSG I saw mention of the number being a 100x increase. This may be a case of the Guardian reporter doing some of that crappy science reporting we always hear about and accidentally adding an extra '0'. In general, Mills' claim seems to be that the process produces energy output higher that a chemical reaction but lower than a nuclear one.
His company site, as well as the HSG, are specific in claiming that the process creates new, unexplored, materials that have potential uses in material science. This also ties in with his claims that his theory explains the existence of "dark matter" since he claims that "dark matter" are hydrinos with the electrons at extremely low levels.
Documentation hosted on Mill's site as well as comments on the HSG claim that he already has a great deal of funding from a number of major corporate backers. He has never, according to anything I've seen on any of these pages, looked for private donations like many of the other "free energy" scam artists. This doesn't mean he isn't running a hoax, but it lends doubt to that idea.
All sources agree that he has had a number of major, third party, labs (including a NASA lab, an MIT lab, and a Westinghouse lab) run experiments on his prototype hydrogen cell. The reports from these labs are reportedly linked to on the HSG. Mills has been doing this research for many years. If these reports were fabricated then it would be expected that someone from one of those labs would have stepped forward long ago to discredit them but no one has. Even his harshest critics in the physics world don't seem to be claiming his experimental results are fabricated.
The simple fact is that it has been well documented that something special is actually going on in these hydrogen cells that he's been sending out to be tested. Some critics have come up with a short list of possible, conventional, explanations for why the reaction appears to be producing more heat than a chemical reaction would seem to allow but most of them have been refuted by the labs doing the experiments.
While I'm as skeptical of his Grand Unified Theory as the next person (as convenient as it would be when compared to the mess that is Quantum Physics. Heck, even I understand most of it and I'm not even a physicist). The experimental results of his technology suggest strongly that there is something pretty special going on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there seems to be a little more involved here than most other "free energy" claims or even "cold fusion". Maybe we should all put away the anti-crackpot rhetoric and give this guy a chance to prove his claims with actual high-minded discourse.
-GameMaster
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
It seems frustrating to me that so many scientists can dismiss these claims so easily. "It doesn't comply with our laws of quantum physics" SO! Our laws of quantum physics should really be described as works in progress. 100 years ago or so we were told the sun was made of coal...err but it only has enough mass to burn for 1 million years, yet the earth is at least several hunder millions of years old...hmmm... lets just sweep that under the carpet for now. Then came nuclear fusion, suddenly it all made sense. The laws of quantum physics are not set in concrete and I have now doubt they will be refined and some point, maybe the time is now, or maybe not.
Here's an interesting trick that demonstrates the interference of light:
Hold you hand out with your fingers together in front of some light source. Squeeze your fingers together until they make a tiny slit. Look at a source of light through the slit. You will notice bands between your fingers. They are interference fringes due to the wave nature of light.
is probably the best argument against this being a viable technology.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
First, Mills tosses the following concepts from QED
Second, he states with some proof and handwaving that quantum mechanics can be derived 100% with classical physics equations and Einsteins relativstic equations (gamma).
Third, he states the electron is really a 2D current loop which when captured by a proton becomes a 3D sphere called an orbitsphere.
Fourth, he states that the ground state of the Hydrogen atom can be lowered. He claims this can be accomplished with a chemical reaction and a catalyst. When this happens, the Hyrdrogen atom releases energy which can be used for useful purposes, like creating heat or electricity.
Fifth, Mills believes that the mysterious "dark-matter" in the universe is composed of Hydrinos and believes the Big-Bang theory is wrong and has proposed and alternate theory.
In my opinion, Mills needs to put-up or shut-up. He has been screaming breakthrough for 5-years, but hasn't produced a practical device. I believe he is an incredibly smart and talented man. I believe he gets no respect because he is a chemist, and not a physicist. I hope his hydrino theory is true and that we can harness new forms of energy by decreasing the ground state of Hydrogen atoms. A single hydrogen atom possess an amazing amount of energy, it's simply a matter of figuring out how to release it in a controlled and safe way.
Until I see a working reproducable experiment, I won't believe Mills has done it. I need a demonstration. However, I think Mills is keeping his research secret due to patent concerns, since the trick to creating hydrinos (if possible) is probably fairly straghtforward chemical reaction and simple to copy.
are not, but quantum physics contradicts probability so where are we then in this determination? Should we go with something that is probably right, possibly right or contradicts probability. Everyone here seems to vote for the one that contradicts probability (quantum mechanics).
:)
I'm getting dizzy
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Hey back in my day it was always 20 years away ... anyone remember the Zeta Machine ? [ sound of cricket chirping ]
Bitter and proud of it.
The difference is that ID isn't science. By the two tests: is it disprovable? Do scientists think it is science? ID fails both. So yeah, teach ID in schools if you like, just teach it in something other than the science classroom.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Quantum Physics is wrong! My tests (which I won't give you the details of) prove it beyond all doubt!"
Whoa, is Jack Thompson getting into Physics now?
You mean those ZPMs on Atlantis ... don't ... really ... work???
[insert look of utter disillusionment here]
I think this guy has focussed on the big and sexy issue of QM and whether it's the Last Word because it's a dazzling distraction. The real hard-to-swallow issue here is thermodynamic. Namely, how is that almost every atom in the Universe has, from the Big Bang right up until 2005 and Dr. Mills' clever insight, remained conveniently "stuck" in a high-energy state?
Frankly, I would more easily believe QM is rubbish than believe that. He's asking us to believe nearly every atom in the universe is not in its lowest energy state. Well, why not? What pushed all of them up there? Why have they stayed up there for umpty billion years, and, for that matter, continue to stay up there everywhere in the Cosmos except for the environs of 493 Old Trenton Road, Cranbury, NJ, 08512?
It's not that it would be hard to know if atoms occasionally fell down into states lower than the "lowest" predicted by QM. When they did, if they did, then as Doc Mills says they would emit visible photons. That is, they'd broadcast their activity far and wide: "Yoo hoo! Here I am! Falling to a lower orbit than you thought existed! Whee.....!" The light from this process could hardly be missed by all those folks with giant telescopes peering into the heavens.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that Doc Mills has stolen a march on Wolfgang Pauli and assorted quantum mechanics. They're only human. But...believe he's discovered a natural process that just happens to not occur anywhere else in the Universe, and just happens to have not happened here on Earth any time from 4,500,000 BC right up until Mills filed his patent? Erg, that's a bit much to swallow.
My recommendation on Blacklight stock would be Hold, at best.
While the Sun's core is really, really, really hot, and yes, fusion takes place in the Sun an accounts for the current temperature and physical state of the Sun, the reaction rates are really, really, really low. Think of it -- the Sun has lasted about 5 billion years in its present mode of fusion and is predicted to last another 5 billion years before it goes red giant. And it won't go red giant because it has exhausted all of its hydrogen -- because it has a non-convective core, it just needs to exhaust enough hydrogen in the core to start hydrogen shell burning, which turns it into a red giant.
Not only is the core of the Sun enormously hot and dense compared to even the inside of a Tokomak fusion reactor experiment, the Sun is so freaking huge and massive that even a very low reaction rate that allows it to stretch out its fuel for 10 billion years allows it to put out massive amounts of energy. Of course it is doing hydrogen fusion instead of deuterium or tritium, but when you think of a hydrogen bomb, the H-bomb is doing something quite unlike what happens in nature -- it is burning up its exotic fuel in the blink of any eye -- a hydrogen bomb is more supernova-like than star-like.
What got me thinking along those lines was supposedly the cold fusion thing got going when this Steve Jones fellow was working on some theory about very low rates of fusion happening inside the Earth to account of geothermal heat. I was wondering that these must be very low rates of fusion indeed, but I was going through an astronomy textbook talking about the Sun, and I thought, hey, wait a minute! The Sun is actually doing fusion at very low rates indeed, although whether fusion is taking place in the solid state inside the Earth is another matter to consider.
Otherwise, I would ask to to stop embarrassing yourself with such childish behaviour.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I read this article and that was my first reaction, "yeah right." But he went to harvard and MIT, which I know shouldn't add any credibility to his claim, but if you are smart enough to go to those schools why in gods name do you need to come up with your own personal scam. I think I also read somewhere that he (Mills) was the only one to graduate from Harvard medical school in 3 years... although I could be wrong about that.
If this was the catholic church or any other religous organization. He would be burned at the cross for proposing what he was saying and going against the system.
1. Intel claims infinite number of transisters available on new chip
Intelligence reports secreted out of North Korea's super-secret semiconductor labs claim a new way to pack semiconductors on silicon at infinite densities, using new technology which packs electrons closer to protons than normally allowed. Remember folks, only North Koreans need dense computer chips.
2. Latest Linux release boots before PC is switched on
Kinetic Distributions, Inc. is shipping a computer that's turned on by kicking it. Remember folks, in Soviet Russia, computers boot you.
3. Researcher claims open source licensing causes random memory corruption.
Slashcode causes random memory corruption in Slashdot editors. All your pseudoscience are belong to us.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Seriously, this is a great idea.
/. editors, Mensa Babe has a great idea.
It's practical - it puts pseudoscientific drivel all in one place for easy searching.
It's funny - now I don't have to read the tabloids for a good laugh.
Seriously,
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They're still giving out 4 number UID's
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
An excellent point.
/. UID. Lost the passwords and eventually the email addresses for the first two. And yes, I am an old fogey (43), why do you ask? (-:
FWIW, I'm posting from my 3rd
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Come now, hot fusion used to always be 40 years away. Now, finally, it will always be 35 years away.
Perhaps it's something like the "doomsday clock" of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Currently at 7 minutes to midnight (where it started back in 1947) it has been adjusted as close as three minutes and as far out as seventeen.
Which makes one wonder what a "minute" is supposed to mean, anyhow. (Obviously, like time-to-product, it doesn't mean what it says.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Please read this article, published in Physical Review, which is quite arguably a mainstream physics journal: http://focus.aps.org/story/v16/st14 They are pointing out discoveries of flaws in the previous understanding of the Quantum model. The discovered behavior was not predicted by Quantum theory. So it's possible there are subtleties in Quantum physics that we have not yet accounted for.
...leather interior.
Quoting? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Hell, it stands on more known TANGIBLE historical data than quantum physics (or evolution, for that matter).
Be careful w/ the word tangible. The bible is as tangible as my morning oat meal. But the words on it are too smooth to really feel. What the bible is is basically a natural-science Journal of authors long dead and editors alive and very well. It represents a form of "common sense" (which is historically considered an insult) of do's and don'ts for "God, the World, and You". But this is about as relevant as a similar book written by Dr Phil. Both have very charismatic roots, and make sense to the common man. But would you go to war over something that Dr Phil said in a book? Many Muslims would, and historically, many Christians have (namely the divine authority of the Pope).
So why is teaching creationism or ID unscientific? Because it's about as useful as teaching about Santa Clause to encourage the idea that children should be good all year and force their parents to be consumers during Christmas time. You'd likely find greater ethical value in encouraging biblical beliefs, but it's the same thing. There is no basis for following the arbitrary doctrine of Santa Clause, and likewise the Doctrine of any of the THOUSANDS of Christian denominatinos in the US. I'm sure that you would be offended if we arbitrarily decided to read from the Koran to school across the country because there was some "common sense" wisdom emparted by a couple phrases.
Science is (as most side posters have stated) a validatable system. ID and creationism are inherently the opposite (faith based).. But modern empirical evidence shows that you absolutely can not trust religious figureheads.. Maybe their ideas, or those common to a majority of them, but individuals have time and time again shown to have mislead their flock, and been personally corrupted by the fame and power afforded to them. And the problem is that the Bible was written over a thousand years.. So nobody has inherent understanding of the poetry recited in each epoc.. You NEED scholars in the field to interpret the texts for you. But each of the Modern Christian religions is polluted w/ 2 thousand years of political corruption w/in the competing powers that were.. Rome was the greatest polluter of the Christian lineage. Virtually all of the non Jewish dates that are celebrated in modern Christianity are perversions injected by Rome and their aftermath (most noteably Sunday as the day of worship.. Look it up some time, no apostle ever worshiped on Sunday). The books that were chosen to be included as the new testiment themselves were perverted due to the agenda of the people of the day.. Not that there were any more truthful books that really should have been included, but that there was so much crack-pot writing, that it was decietful to suggest that those books that presented an agenda were divinely significant. The reality was that there were many competing philosophies post Jesus. Many having completely incompatible messages for how you should live your life. Look at the Egnostics as one small example; they were systematically erradicated.
I do not claim that the Bible and that creationism is not valid, correct, historically accurate or even devine.. I claim that it is founded on completely reprehensible Scientific principles. Unreproduceable, pollitically filtered, post-event documented (in many cases 30 to 100 years later). If this is what we're trying to teach our children, then we will fall even further behind the rest of the world w/ our children.
-Michael
Every single time I post this random Einstein quote at the beginning of a Slashdot discussion, it ALWAYS gets modded Insightful, Informative, etc, no matter how off topic it is. The Slashdot crowd really is a bunch of idiots.
My professor once compared fusion energy to the Brazilian economy - "the next big thing. Always has been, always will be" :)
I like to think of ID as the Theory Of Our Own Ignorance (TOOI).
Mr. Science: "Today, class, we are going to test the Theory Of Our Own Ignorance, sometimes also known as Intelligent Design, or ID. OK, who wants to volunteer?"
Johnny: "I will, Mr. Science!"
Mr. Science: "Fine, Johnny. Now, I want you to look at this bird. Do you know what kind of bird this is Johnny?"
Johnny: "Yes, sir. It is a finch."
Mr. Science: "Very good, Johnny! Now, can you tell me how the wings of this bird came to be?"
Johnny: "I suspect that they grew, Mr. Science."
Mr. Science: "No, no, Johnny. I mean, do you know how the wings of this finch evolved?
Johnny: "Gosh, no. No, I don't."
Mr. Science: "Very good, Johnny! You have confirmed my test."
Johnny: "What test is that, Mr. Science?"
Mr. Science: "I was testing to see if you knew how the wings of this bird evolved. The Theory Of Our Own Ignorance predicted that you would not know, and since you did not, this validates our theory - that we do not know how this bird developed wings!"
Class: "Awesome!"
And I am especially qualified to say so.
Entropy just isn't what it used to be.
This is BULL SHIT!!! Plain and simple!!! When this fails to materialize (AND IT WILL) the pervaiors of this BULLSHIT should be publically executed!!! This destroys the credibility of real scientists!! Additionally, the reporters who are such SUCKERS to fall for this BULL SHIT by reporting on such obviously wrong science should also be executed!!! I am so sick of such general stupidity!!
It's about the only sensible reason I can think of for so many of these crackpot stories hitting the front page lately.
i owned stock in conectiv power (now delmarva) and learned they made a significant investment in black light power. i kinda freaked because their website looked like it was part of the heavens gate cult. so i sold my stock.
that's all.
In one of his "papers", his first 15 references are to "papers" by himself, thereby giving the aura of credibility and peer-review. Most of these papers are published in obscure journals or on his company website. I don't think any real scientist would give him much credibility, and I don't think he deserves it. I'm sure he is a very smart man, and a fine medic (whatever that is), but I don't think he makes a very good physicist (coming from a physicist, though admittedly, not a good one.)
This is why I didn't go into anthropology (other than the money sucked)... the only time a new theory in anthro is accepted is after the major proponents of the old theory die off, and I didn't want to be part of such a backward profession. Unfortunately, I'm starting to realize that humans in general do the same thing in all areas of life... political parties, office politics, professional football... we all seem to want to be part of a "winning team" because of the emotional boost we get when "we" win something.
I'm almost certain there's a biological reason for this, but I won't investigate further because there's no way to change current anthropological theory anyway.
Erik
Furthermore, acc to Quantum theory, there is a limit to how much each of the theories can be correct. When you increase the correctness of one theory, you reduce the correctness of the second theory by the same proportion.
From above, it is trivial to show that both of the theories cannot be wrong. Mathematically, the two theories are each 100% correct in their domain of operation.
In other words, Dr Mill gets his energy and all you other sceptics who do not believe do not get nothing.
Hey Dr. Mills, I will be bringing my wheels to have that lill gadget you are working on inserted. May you live longer.
This isn't realy news, when I googled this I found a lot of similar articles most of which where writen before the turn of the century. p.s. All science has been wrong and been replaced by science that was sub-sequently found wrong and replaced by etc... what makes quantum theory any different
I can easily imagine your post as written a century ago by a critic of Albert Einstein.
Sometimes you have to wait for a few older scientists to die. But major scientific revolutions have happened several times in the past couple of centuries, and most of them have been accepted very quickly. It didn't take long for Einstein or Watson&Crick to revolutionize their fields. Not everybody accepts it, but a good theory opens up new avenues of discovery, and people jump on them. They quickly crowd out the people making only the slow, dull, plodding progress that characterized most of science, especially when they're pursuing a theory that has run its course.
Scientists have an attachment to progress. You're not a researcher if all you're doing is defending the status quo; there's simply no money in it. Present a new theory that actually works and you've opened up a thousand new PhD theses.
Of course for every genuine revolutionary there are a thousand people claiming that their own genuine revolution is being repressed by the orthodoxy. Could all of them be wrong?
Well, yeah. They can.
In dealing with lots of these "major breakthroughs" in science, it is impossible or very, very to point at specific errors: it is not the case, usually, that one is dealing with a reasoning which goes all well until a point where a mistake occurs, and from there everything is logically fine. Most of this "breakthroughs" are completely misguided.
I am a mathematician, so I will not give examples in physics, but in math. You may remember that last year (or was it two years ago?) that a swedish student claimed to have proved Hilbert's sixteenth problem; this call quite widely covered by the media. The paper had been accepted by a respected journal, and it was supposed to have withstood peer review. While the subject of that particular problem is not my area of expertise, as soon as the journal published an electronic version of the paper (mostly due to "public" pressure) I downloaded it, printed it out, and sat down and read. Only by looking at it it was clear that there was absolutely no way that paper could have solved the 16th problem. It's not that there was a particular mistake (say, something you can point at: "the equation on page 4, line 5, has the wrong signum"). But it was plain to anyone who'd reached what's known as "mathematical maturity" that that did not any way imaginable solve (not even partially) the problem.
The same thing happens quite frequently when grading work done by students...
His process makes new, unexplored materials? So that means this process has never occured naturally before, at least on Earth? Otherwise we would have seen these materials before. Why do I think that's unlikely?
As to him not angling for money, a common angle for money is to claim you don't need it. "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "Well, we're entering a greater phase of development. And although I don't need your money, with it we could accelerate our plans." Classic con. I mean, people are more happy to give their money to someone who already has some, not someone who is desparate for it.
His stuff has been verified by a NASA lab? You think they would have come forward and said it isn't true if it weren't true. Well, I have to ask, if it isn't true, who would have come forward? He says "a NASA lab", not a specific one. Did you expect there is someone out there who checks with all NASA labs every time someone says they worked with any of them? Same with the other labs he mentions. Being non-specific is the scammers' best friend.
Additionally, I want to mention that rumors of US government involvement or funding of his projects also means nothing. The government funded HAARP and MKULTRA.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
...if it looks too good to be true, it probably is ... going to be on Slashdot's frontpage sooner or later.
And duped.
Yes, that's fairly close to what many of them thought. It was only after the ideas of quantum physics explained many long standing puzzles of physics (e.g. the stability of the atom) and many new phenomena in the laboratories of many researchers that the ideas began to gain credibility. This work is, so far, lacking all those things, so as of yet there's no reason to take the theory seriously. Moreover, this theory seems to contradict most of known quantum theory without satisfactorily explaining how quantum mechanics has been so successful for all this time. There may be reason to look for the effect, but so far there's no reason to give the theory too much credence.
You do realize that the stability of the atom (the fact that it does not collapse due to radiative damping) was one of the great successes of quantum mechanics, don't you? Your statement about the hydrogen atom is completely incorrect, as far as I can make sense of it. Schroedinger's equation itself does not predict radiative damping directly. Did you perhaps mean Dirac's equation? You have to either use a semiclassical or quantized field approach. The quantized field picture (the more exact treatment) is based directly on Maxwell's equations and so agrees with them by design. One can also verify that the ground state will not radiate in that treatment.
Without having read the details of Mills' claims, I can tell you why is sounds like nonsense. An atom is dissipative system, because it interacts with the electromagnetic field. By that, I mean that if it is given energy, it will eventually lose that energy because it emits light (the rate may be very small in some states, of course). One would expect to find hydrogen in whatever the lowest energy state is, then, because if it's in a higher state it will eventually emit light and drop to the lowest state. Thus, the idea of a state lower than the ground state then seems pretty doubtful, even if you were to forget for a moment that the modern theory of the atom (quantum electrodynamics) is probably one of the most exactly tested theories in history. To put it another way, you'd have to overturn not only quantum physics but also thermodynamics. Futhermore, one must ask why, when the vast majority of the baryonic mass of the universe is Hydrogen, this effect has never before been noticed in the emission and absorption lines of materials either in the lab by physics or anywhere else in the Universe by astronomers.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Quantum physics models do state that various things happen in discrete quanta -- i.e. you either transfer a photon, or you don't -- but that doesn't mean that there is only one such quantum level of change -- different frequencies of light are photons at different energy levels, etc. (here's a calculator to find the energy of photons at a given frequency)
So when you hear someone talking about transferring half quantums of energy, they probably just have the frequency wrong... There are also, as I understand it, systems where you can jump something up two energy levels with two photons, and then emit one of a different frequency in one double-level jump (like those cards to help you see infrared led's at Radio shack, you charge them up with blue or green light, and then shine a remote control at them, and they glow visible red from the infrared pulse).
So it is possible there is a system where normally we double-jump energy levels in both directions, and there is a halfway level you can get to with the right frequency of photon; but that doesn't gut/break the model, it just means there's a very rare state that got left out of the model. Of course, there should be a corresponding gap in the overall energy of the model if that were true, as I understand it, and I don't think CQM has such gaps left in it anymore; but I suppose there could be a gap so small it's basically round-off at 6 or 7 signifigant figures. But it would be correspondingly really really really rare, so being able to provoke such a state repeatedly within your lifetime (i.e. enough to generate actual usable power) should be essentially impossible.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
i think what you've said lends them a little more credibility. but that still doesn't explain why a website about 'science' requires a macromedia flash plugin.
This is not the first time somebody claims to have made some major scientific breakthrough, leading to almost limitless energy. As usual, nothing ever came out of these claims.
I suggest everbody heads straight to James Randi's website http://www.randi.org/ to look at some of these claims. I am also not surprised that if some of these scientists looked at this particular claim were fooled by chalatans. It's not the first time this happened, either. You need a magician to see through these tricks.
Rick Maas, a chemist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNC) who specialises in sustainable energy sources...
From the UNC catalog:
Richard Preston Maas (1987) Professor of Environmental Studies B.A., Bucknell University; M.S., Western Carolina University; M.S.P.H., Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"M.S.P.H." is "Master of Science in Public Health". His field is water quality. He's been an expert witness on lead leaching from bronze parts of water systems.
And where are the "65 peer reviewed papers"?
Discovery of Oxygen??? was not a single unique discovery by a chemist, but rather a collaboration of 'scientists' over decades.
:)
When a piece of evidence does not fit a theory or law (like Einstein's Theories vs Newton's Laws), then it gets convieniently put to one side as an anomaly. In time, other pieces of evidence get added until this collection of anomalies hits some kind of critical mass. When it does, the critical mass becomes more significant than the theory or law. So the paradigm changes or otherwise we'll still be thinking in terms of phlogiston and ether in space!
If Randall Mills and his hydrino theory is sunk, but the 'energy anomaly' still exists, then we're in for a milestone as the current paradigm changes.
But there are diehards (like me), who personally think that Einstein was wrong, and that Aristotle WAS RIGHT and that's why I don't fly in planes because we're not meant to!
After all, the whole Quantum physics schamozzle is really irrational and proponents of it should be burned at the steak
Pehaps when we work at the boundaries of the universe on the microcosmic scale, and try and compare that to the far-sightedness of astronomical discoveries billions of years into the past, then maybe we're looking at different things.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
"Documentation hosted on Mill's site as well as comments on the HSG claim that he already has a great deal of funding from a number of major corporate backers. He has never, according to anything I've seen on any of these pages, looked for private donations like many of the other "free energy" scam artists. This doesn't mean he isn't running a hoax, but it lends doubt to that idea."
This makes no sense. You don't wind up with "a great deal of funding" without looking for it. The notion that "major corporate backers" have beat a path to his door and begged him to accept their funding, all unsolicited by him is just not credible. The fact that the major corporate backers are unidentified adds to the scamlike quality of the whole deal.
Digging around on Google got me a link to the Resonant Transfer Plasma Propulsion Project which is an investigation of the Black Light Plasma Thruster and is a formal 3rd party investigation of Mills claims by Rowan U for NASA.
The site included a PDF which is a full report to NASA detailing their success in building a prototype and the test launch of a Black Light Plasma Thruster:
get PDF here
The link provides photos of the engine being both built and test fired and full disclosure on their findings.
While much further work is required, it seems that enough success was achieved by the 3rd party to warrant further study. The author even goes so far as to state:
"Scientists at BlackLight Power, Inc. have explained the above phenomena based on a hypothesis that, under certain conditions, hydrogen atoms can undergo transitions to energy levels corresponding to fractional principal quantum numbers. However, since the theoretical explanation of the BlackLight Process has entailed a reworking of quantum mechanics, the theory has not been readily accepted in the scientific community. Regardless of the theoretical explanation, the experimental data suggests that these plasma systems have unique characteristics that warrant further exploration for propulsion applications. "
Appearantly, they've seen through experimentation the behavior Mills has been claiming.
Quite an interesting turn of events.
While at first glance this seems to be a wild, science-shaking claim, there seems to be one key thing that is left out of this fact:
I click the link, and there's everything!
I have freaks! I did something right...
I for one welcome our new physics overthrowing overlords.
Because the website isn't about science. The website is about his startup company that is supposedly trying to market the technology he is developing. The science is going on as a secondary thing because he is using his Grand Unified Theory in an attempt to explain the experimental results he has supposedly obtained.
If you look at the websites of many other, legitimate, corporations you will see that they very often use flash as well. Honestly, I found his companies website to be a decent use of the tech in a reasonably non-garish manner.
-GameMaster
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Nothing in the reports I looked at suggested that they were barred from looking inside. However, even if they were the argument has been largely mitigated. Some of the labs were able to run the cells constantly for months at a time. This would tend to disqualify the possibility that he's hiding a battery (another thing "free energy" cranks often try) or something similar. The point they make is that even if he was hiding a battery or something in the cell (or if the cell is working on some other principle than the one he claims) they are still putting out abnormal amounts of energy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is possible that he's running a hoax but, in my opinion, he's provided enough exposure of his tech to enough high profile, third party, labs to warrant a limiting on the anti-crank rhetoric.
-GameMaster
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Just because you know a few lines of perl...this article and yesterday's on "Mr. Fusion" are pure quackery--and you just credulously go and make headlines of them.
Please elucidate in light of Acts 20:7, assuming you agree that "breaking bread" in this context refers to the Lord's Supper, as it does often in scripture (e.g. 1 Corinthians 11) and not an ordinary meal. If you do not, I believe there are other suitable verses.
I agree with much of what you say. I am a Christian, but while I believe in the Bible's infallibility as originally inspired, I do not believe in the infallibility of my own interpretation of its complexities: therefore I do my best to not reject new information because I can't figure out how to reconcile it with what I believe.
Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Karma: Positive (mostly due to rash moderations)
I wonder whether that'll be good or bad for global warming...
Just a thought.
A theory is not the same as a hypothesis (or conjecture), despite the fact that a lot of people confuse the terms.
A theory is a framework for describing a certain natural phenomenon. It's a formalized, systematic, predictive, logical, and testable expression of all previous observations that has never been falsified.
It's definitely a bit more than "a working idea".
There was never a "theory of the Earth being the centre of the universe" (and, BTW, it's perfectly acceptable to consider the Earth's position as your universe's "fixed point" - it just makes most calculations a lot harder). Nor was there ever a "theory of the flat Earth" (in fact, no observations would support that conjecture, so it could never become a theory).
RMN
~~~
a way to vote on stories for follow-up or Slashback. I would love to see where this one goes!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
"The only problem is Mills' theory is supposed to be impossible when using current rules of quantum mechanics."
Yes, and galaxies spin too fast using current rules of General Relativity. This has been verified by many top scientists. Oh, wait, no they don't!
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
If you'd RTFA you would know that it isn't free energy. They are stating that an electron spins closer to the atom's nucleus. When an electron moves closer to the nucleus it changes energy state and releases energy.
Oh, BTW. Lern too spel
My point was that major corporate backers are, in general, more capable of performing due diligence when deciding to invest in a new technology. They are less likely to fall for a scam than that nice elderly couple down the street that most of the "free energy" cranks target for investment.
;-) ). In fact, one of the articles directly quotes a Morgan Stanley representative. This might also explain why Westinghouse is one of the labs that tested a cell. Their investment may have resulted from the wording of the report in which the writer concludes by stating that the company should investigate the technology further. Of course, as all the other reports do, he refuses to support Mills' explanation of fractional electron states for as being the cause of the anomalous heat.
The backers themselves have been identified on the HSG site as well as in some of the news pieces as including Morgan Stanley, Westinghouse, as well as some utilities. Yet again, I simply abreviated that part because I didn't want to write a book (would it really hurt to read some of the linked to pages?
-GameMaster
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
"The Flying Spaghetti Monster moves the electrons into a closer orbit, releasing vast amounts of energy," said Mills. When asked why such deenergized hydrogen atoms were not found in nature, despite the fact that changing back to regular hydrogen would require massive amounts of energy, Mills changed the subject.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
All that the environmental nuts caused was for us to burn MORE fossil fuels at diesel plants. So much for saving the planet.
Yes, because everyone knows the government and industry are controlled by the "environmental nuts" and not, say, the energy lobbies...
On the whole, people in France are probably a lot more "eco-friendly" than here in the USA, and 75% of France's electricity comes from nuclear plants. Other countries wanting to kick their oil addiction and go nuclear have to jump through hoops not to be included in the "axis of evil" and bombed into oblivion. You won't buy our oil? Well, you get our bombs for free, then.
Why do people keep saying that? What possible value could something like that EVER have in a classroom? Maybe it'd be useful to study the political motivations and actions of the people supporting it, but there isn't any value in the actual idea itself, so how come people keep suggesting that?
The Farewell Tour II
He's been on the board since 1991. It's a startup? When are they going to start?
0 .html?tw=wn_story_related for you which both speaks of NASA spending $75K on Hydrions (but not with this man) and also two experts in the the field (whom you say have never attacked him) calling him a "crackpot" and his work "voodoo". It is significant to note that unlike what he says, NASA has not independently verified or proved Mill's statements. Well, at least we have no info that they did, since the link on their site http://www.blacklightpower.com/techarchive.shtml is 404.
As to the scientific community not publishing reports saying he is a charlatan. Well, that's how the respectable scientific community treats crackpots. Now, as to you saying there isn't proof he's a total charlatan? How about a reaction that produces 100X more heat than it should? That's all the proof actual scientists need. They aren't going to give this man any respect by bothering to discuss his idiocy.
If this man is for real, let him prove it in the regular, scientific way. Not in the press and blogs.
I apologize over the lab thing, I looked at his website (and I feel unclean for it), but under the "science" link there wasn't anything about independent verification. I just couldn't find it. I'm sorry. I should have done a search (as I did below).
The major operative factor here is gullibility. Yours included. There is no scientific acceptance of Hydrinos. How you construe this as somehow not refuting what this man says, I dunno.
The real thing is that if hydrogen could assume this quantum state, it would in nature. I mean, it would be the lowest energy state of hydrogen, the rest state. How come we never find hydrogen in that state? No hydrogen atom never dropped to that state on its own? Or if it did, how did it get back out, as it requires a lot of energy to get back.
Here's a nice link http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51792,0
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Sorry this is OT - but that's gotta be the greatest quote I've heard all year:
.sig :-)
"Fusion is one bummer after another."
I'm gonna use that as a
mas
I would only believe this if the research was being done on Black Mesa.
Seriously....
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
I guess all that work I did in school modeling electron behavior in solid-state materials was wrong, so the computers we're typing this on don't really work, and there's no such thing as a blue LED.
And Cold Fusion really does work.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Look, I'd certainly like to see a good debunking of various crackpot theories, but the bottom line is that Slashdot is not really the right forum. Articles are only on the front page for a day and usually only receive significant attention for a few hours. That's not a good format for a detailed intelligent exchange, not to mention the lack of good resources for formatting equations and diagrams. We may lack people with enough time and the appropriate expertise in our audience, and even if we have them we'll also have a lot of "armchair physicists" in the mix creating a lot of noise in the discussion. Finally, if you want to read actual exchanges on the technical details of scientific theories and really understand them you need the appropriate background (like, say, a B.S. in Physics), which undoubtedly the /. audience overwhelmingly lacks. The point is that there's a place for debates about the scientific validity of a new theory: scientific journals. There the reviewers and the readership have the background to address the details properly and completely.
Could there be someone out there on the net with a revolutionary theory just waiting to be discovered? Perhaps, but for each one of those there are hundreds or thousands of crackpots. Slashdot is not equipped to properly decide which is which. If Slashdot continues posting stories about supposed breakthroughs without the requisite evidence of plausibility (which I discuss a bit here), then at best it is wasting the time of the readers, and at worst it is helping to perpetuate scientific hoaxes that are used to swindle the gullible out of their money.
As to scientific reasons why this fellow's theory may be incorrect, I have not looked into it in detail. I gave some reasons that it seems implausible at first glance here. It strikes me, however, that there is almost certainly another problem with this theory, which is that it violates Bell's Theorem. I glanced at Mills' book, in which he claims that his theory is based upon the classical, macroscopic laws of physics, which would make it what is called a "local realistic hidden variables theory". John Bell (and others) proved a theorem that states any local realistic hidden variables theory must obey certain relationships, known as "Bell's inequalities", (e.g. the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality), while quantum mechanics violates them in some cases. This means that if any Bell's inequality is violated, no local hidden variables theory can explain that phenomenon. Over the years, many tests of Bell's inequalities have been done (e.g. A. Aspect et al., "Experimental Tests of Realistic Local Theories via Bell's Theorem", Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 460 (1981)) and shown them to be violated, meaning no local realistic hidden variables theory could be true. Thus, it seems, Mills' theory should be already experimentally ruled out. Appreciating why Bell's inequalities must be true requires some knowledge of quantum mechanics, but I hope you can get the gist from what I've said here and the Wikipedia article.
Now, I have no idea if the effect Mills' claims to see is real. It's possible the effect is real, but he just has a completely incorrect explanation. It could also be some sort of systematic error. Personally, I wouldn't give it much credence until an independent group with a good background in spectroscopy can repeat the experiment and consistently get the same result.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Why don't you add every chemical reaction to your list of what QM explains? You do realize, I hope, that the exact structure of the Periodic Table of Elements, and all it implies about chemical reactivity, is a direct result of quantum mechanics?
Exemplii gratia, it is no accident that the first row of the Periodic Table holds two elements and the first electron shell holds two electrons, that the second row of the Table holds eight elements and the second electron shell holds eight electrons, and so on. Furthermore, because QM predicts that the second shell will be more stable when exactly filled with eight electrons we can predict that hydrogen (one outer electron) and oxygen (six) will form a compound with the formula H2O.
If we follow the implications out further, as legions of teenagers are taught to do in high school and their first year of college, we can go on to predict that carbon will form a compound with hydrogen with the formula CH4 (methane), and that this compound will combine with oxygen gas (i.e. burn) to produce CO2 and H2O, a fact which everyone verifies for himself daily, when he turns on the gas stove to cook dinner.
Same reason they teach religion in the classroom. Oh wait, you were talking about US public schools right? Well in that case, no, it has no place in that classroom.
How we know is more important than what we know.
....If he's really built a prototype, that is....
If the prototype power source can run a car 200 miles on a gallon of water, who cares what the theory behind it is? The academicians can figure out later what if any laws of physics are broken, affirmed or newly discovered. Until then, I would not hold my breath or argue back and forth.
All theory is gray
Yes but, cold fusion is at least potentially doable, and probably plausable- not it doesn't have some whacko's in it, I meen sure their was the two idiots who baked some numbers. But cold fusion at least is doable. With all do respect to Miller, what he's proposin isn't just improbable it's so incocievable unlikely it's funy. Then their's the complete lack of diagrams-Ok so mabie quantum mechanics needs revising. That's not hard to swallow. But just because one say "1,000 times more heat than a conventional power generator" one needs to clarify what kind. If he was comparing: A fire to a thermonucear fision reactor not a hard streach. What does heat have to do with it?-Isn't energy and wats in and wats out better meaure? For example fusion, their has been so much attention because it's more effiecent, now its a matter of getting more energy potential out then in. Please post facts-numbers, something that explains how this actually works, and not just a bunch of soundbytes.
.....If he has a prototype it is a theory....
No! If the prototype actually does what is claimed, it is a working model, living proof that it works by producing the huge amounts of energy. Explaining HOW or WHY it works as claimed would be the theory. Until such a working model actually exists and can be demonstrated publicly, it appears to be in the same catgory as the "cold fusion" business of some years ago, namely a hoax.
All theory is gray
Why do people keep saying that?
Because it's politically correct to pretend like you respect others "ideas", no matter how stupid, idiotic, or deranged.
"We've done a lot of testing. We've got 50 independent validation reports, we've got 65 peer-reviewed journal articles,"
I don't think he was talking about citations; he's talking about published articles in the course of "hydrino" research.
Bullshit! ... next...
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
This story is a dupe. It comes up every three years or so.
My MY...everybody talking about theory and whether one is 'right' or not. Nobody seems to grasp the implications of this if it is right. A true 'hydrino' if it exists, could be quite stable and live far 'down the energy hill' from its normal brethren. Now if the hydrino was the evangelistic sort and able to recruit other hydrogen atoms to convert to below ground state quantum energy no matter how chemically bound at the time, why all the world's oceans would be at risk to a truly stellar conflagration of blue violet light of near nuclear energy release the like of which the solar system has never seen and will never see again.....unless the hydrino products reach the sun and send it to supernova. Bet no one thought of that! No matter, if it happens we will not survive to witness it. The wonder is if there are or ever have been any natural hydrinos and where and when are or were they...etc.
I have often noticed that medical doctors and engineers seem to make the best crackpots. Interestingly, this guy seems to be both. The reason seems to be that engineers and M.D.'s have enough science and math training to think they understand science, and can do math well enough to think they have 'proved' their crackpot theory. They don't, however, have enough background to understand how things like quantum mechanics and relativity actually work, and they aren't really trained in the scientific method so they don't understand how to actually support or refute a theory.
Let's just say I'm from Missouri. Until then here's my check list of equally probable events.
So, let's see
Pigs flying...check
Microsoft has released MS Linux...check
Satan handing out ice skatss...check
Bill Gates has published the source code to Windows XP...check
New month "Never" has been added to the calendar...check
Apple is #1 desktop in North America...check
Scott McNealy (Sun CEO) licences Java to Microsoft...check
SCO drops all litigation...check
Novell drops prices...check
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
I just spoke to my friend who works at black light power. I am posting AC for obvious reasons. He told me right out that the positive result was nothing more than measurement errors ignored by management.
The whole operation is a scam.
There's nothing magical about integers in quantum mechanics. Whether the energy gap between electron orbits is 1 or 1/3 or 0.4456788897 is just a question of what units of energy you use. Nor are the energy gaps guaranteed to be equally spaced. In fact, only in the unusual case of a harmonic potential does that happen. Usually they are unequally spaced.
What QM says that is strongly in disagreement with classical mechanics is that the observable energy of any degree of freedom that is confined (like an electron confined to an atom) must be discontinuous -- i.e., energy gaps must open up between the states, and in particular between the energy of any confined state and the unconfined state. Formally, this means that the set of all possible states, which can be mapped to the set of all real numbers in classical mechanics, can be mapped to the set of all integers in quantum mechanics. This is actually the only way in which "integers" are a necessary part of QM.
Furthermore, and this is where it gets interesting for electrons in atoms, the size of the energy gaps grows with increasing confinement. In other words, the smaller the volume of space to which the particle is confined, the larger grow the gaps between allowed states. Now think this out for the atom: as we confine the electron to smaller and smaller volumes, closer and closer to the nucleus, the gap between energy levels grows and grows. Furthermore, the gap between the energy of the unconfined electron and the lowest-energy confined state grows and grows.
For a while, the extra energy needed to confine the electron is more than supplied by the energy released by allowing the electron to fall closer to the nucleus, to which it's attracted by the Coulomb force.
However, eventually we reach a volume of confinement where the least amount of energy we need to confine the electron to this volume exceeds what we can get by allowing the electron to get that close to the nucleus. This is the ground state. We can't confine the electron to smaller volumes, because the energy of attraction to the nucleus isn't enough to supply the energy necessary to confine the electron.
A more conventional way of putting this is that over-confining the electron drives its kinetic energy so high that the potential energy of attraction to the nucleus is insufficient to make the total energy lower than that of the free electron, so the electron always escapes.
I remember reading about some inventor that started a company that was about to make a huge breakthrough in energy. Apparently they found a way to bring hydrogen to a lower energy level. The company had sufficient financing and was about to release their products to the public in a mere couple of months.... that was five years ago.
From then on blacklighgt and their miracle have been in the scientific press sporadicaly always releasing some similar claims.
I will only believe them when they shopw me a box that makes electricity out of water.
this guy has been around for quite a long time. the last time i heard about blacklight power in the "news" (that is, the last time someone slipped it past the editors on slashdot, which was at least 3 years ago, they were also about to bring some revolutionary new power source to market based on a quantum state of 1/2 for the hydrogen atom. a younger man and much more naive back then, i was very excited. well here we are and nothing has come out yet. let me be the first (if not the first, then the loudest) to say if this man solves the world's energy problems, then he deserves all of our praise. still, while it is widely believed that quantum mechanics is only an approximation of some more precise theory, it seems unlikely that this person has discovered that theory. his self-published book and lack of actual product agree with me.
please, i do not want to hear any more about Randell Mills's "claims" until the "hydrino" is providing me with electricity.
Its good to see that human arrogance continues to dominate closed-minded science. There are so many people ready to shut this guy down because they see flaws in his theory. It seems very few here are willing to step up and offer alternative explanations or confirm the results themselves before offering their opinions.
When you speak from a position of ignorance only to detract from someone else, you do a diservice to everyone. I'm just glad the guy didn't post his theory here asking for advice and is instead working with real scientists to figure out these interesting observations and release practical applications.
Moral of the story, if you think your Einstein, then don't run your mouth discrediting others when you simply don't have the experience or resources to test the theories, present your own theories and leave the debunking to those with the resources.
"If you could fuck around with the hydrogen atom, you could fuck around with the energy process in the sun. You could fuck around with life itself," claims Dr. Phillip Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics at Princeton University. "Everything we know about everything would be a bunch of nonsense. That's why I'm so sure that it's a fraud."
They thought the world was flat and if you went to far you would fall off the edge of the world. They thought the Earth was the center of the universe and when those that new otherwise tried to convince the "powers that be" they ran the risk of being labeled heritics and consorting with the devil.
We have all heard stories and tales of this type and the real trick to these is that when it's happening in present time people have a hard time believing it. However, when viewed retrospectively these notions agreed upon as "undeniable" facts, such as the world is flat" are now considered to be the product of superstition and ignorance.
The fact remains that we are still in the very early stages of understanding the construction of "everything" - aka the unified theory. Einstein gave us a tool in which to understand the world around us that much better, but it presented a whole new set of questions and problems to be addressed. Hence the Quantum theory.
The Quantum theory addresses many of the problems Einstein's theories presented, but in turn it gave rise to a whole new set of question. The part that I can't seem to escape reflects back to the first part of this post. So many people back in the day were "convinced" that one could actually sail of the edge of the planet.
Now he have someone that has shaken the proverbial "ivory" tower and the powers that be keep insisting that this is hogwash - despite the inventors claims of 50 independent validation reports and 65 peer-reviewed journal articles we see, as reported in the article, that others are offering "theorhetical" resistance to this latest advent.
Frankly, if they think it's so much hogwash then why aren't those putting up such a noise about this doing what they're getting paid to do? That would be using the scientific methods they revere so highly to find out the "FACTS"?
Perhaps, as further stated in the original article, they have some ulterior motives that preclude them from finding out if there's any merit to this - gee they might just learn something. But then again I think this might be more a matter of ego and tenure.
If this proves to be true then the question is now what will it mean. The article mentions that they intend to release the findings soon and have wheels in motion to get it "to market". What's that supposed to mean. Is this a discovery or a product? Hmmmm.....!
Actually you could just click the link to the PDF file on the Black Light website that provides the list of 65 published papers. That's what peer review means: a paper has been reviewed by scientific peers as a requisite for publication. It doesn't mean that somebody else has published their own research that directly correlates to your own.
What I don't hear anyone saying is what the leftover hydrino whatchamacallit is going to be minus all the energy. Fat hydrogen? http://www.newpath4.com/01manhattanproject20056789 fromnewpath410302005.htm . Another small observation: The cue ball is an easy target but how does he think he can cause a controllable action that keeps hitting the cue balls exactly perfectly? Won't the new presence of the altered hydrogen molecules taint & alter the entire process??? Each cueball strike changes the equation. Each new fat molecule will get in the way...
People always take the path of least resistance.
Which is easier: convincing a bunch of venture capitalists or a bunch of PhDs? Well, it depends. VCs are looking for risk/reward. That ratio is pretty much set, since the actual proof is over the heads of businessmen (no offense intended, just reflecting PhD level work for the layman). If there's no proof that can stand up to scientific review, then it's easier to get money from VCs.
However, if there is reviewable evidence, then scientists (with the exception of a few with everything to lose) will get downright giddy with the thought of a new fundamental discovery. Convince them first, then reap the benefits of changing one of the fundamentals of science.
Let's see... Which one did Einstein do and which one did Dr. Mills do?
"Here's a simple way to judge these sorts of claims that doesn't require any scientific training: major breakthroughs in fundamental physics are not made by people developing a secret product that will solve the world's energy problems."
This is exactly it. Picking apart his "article" is really missing the point. Slashdot editors should look at the blurb and KNOW that it's garbage. I'm a law student, for heaven's sake -- my background doesn't begin to approach the most basic foundations of what it takes to evaluate the rigor of a physics paper -- and I knew it was a bunch of snake oil just from the blurb. Even if I did have the background, Slashdot isn't conducive to rigorous scientific review. That takes months; these stories are up for hours. Of course I don't expect the editors to have the background or the resources to evaluate the merit of complicated scientific claims. I just want them to look at the source and the situation for the TEN SECONDS that it takes to know that this guy is a con man.
Their mountain of evidence has to be big and strong enough to topple my mound of evidence.
No, their evidence just has to be verifiable. One fact is enough to disprove a theory. You only need a mountain of evidence to demonstrate that a theory appears to be true.
Now, it's quite possible to have a theory or model that is USEFUL because it fits MOST circumstances -- we use those all the time in science. But eventually you have to realize that it is only that -- useful, not law.
Can you elaborate on what "considered fact" means? Most definitions of "fact" revolve around "knowledge or information based on real occurrences". Since there are no "real occurrences" of ships falling off the edge of the Earth, a flat Earth could hardly be considered as a "fact". If you just mean "it was believed to be true by a lot of people", then yes, but so was (and is) a lot of other nonsense.
As to the Earth being the centre (meaning the "fixed point") of the universe, well, it's a "fact" that you can do all you calculations based on that assumption (you can even decide that your navel is the fixed point of the universe). It's just a lot more complicated. Astronomers use whichever referential is more practical for the type of work they're doing (that can be the Earth, the Sun, some other star, the centre of a galaxy, etc.).
RMN
~~~
In a few months it should be on the market? Good, let's see if it actually does that, and review it's performance then. Until that time, this is just another free energy hoax as far as I'm concerned.
If something this big really did breakthrough on the first of april... Imagine the guys in the lab, having to wait 'till the next day to be taken seriously ;) "But we really do have fusion!!!" "Yeah yeah..."
Mind the frickin' laser...
In this house, we obey the laws of thermaldynamics!
right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrino
----
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people and assume they deserve it" - Dogbert
My uni years are far far away in the past, so I might be deadly wrong ehre, but I thougth the uncertaintly principle (generalized) says that conjugated variable of a quantum system will always have an upper limit on the measurement precision made on them.
So far you ahve velocity and movement quantity (the imfamous delta.v*delta p>h bar) you also have delta.E*Delta.t>a (can't remmember this one, wasn't it about diffraction/wave?), delta.n*delta.phi>c0 measurement can only be made on photon intensity or the phase but not both) and so forth.
Any time you have two variable conjugated A and B you have by nature of the equation Delta A*Delta B>C where C is a constant.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
No useful results that is. They were unable to measure the exhaust velocity (produced energy) in the thruster. Yet they suggest it is worth putting more money in. I'd say that too if I were going to be the one to receive the money.
This study does claim to reproduce other aspects of Mills work. But honestly, from the descriptions, it sounds suspiciously like they just reused the same equipment Mills had already used (it definitely reuses the charts and diagrams). It certainly doesn't sound like skeptical, independent work.
I do agree Quantum Mechanics is under strong attack lately. But the real impacts are being made by people other than crackpots such as this. It isn't by people who state that hydrogen seems to rest indefinitely and routinely in a state other than its lowest energy state.
I did note the article mentions Mills by name. It also explicitly mentions he isn't receiving the money from NASA (although he apparently did indirectly receive at least $7500, as he sold equipment to the researchers).
The operative point here is Mills says that NASA has independently verified his results, when the actual results are completely inconclusive. Non-hucksters don't need to misrepresent their positions and who supports them. Furthermore, this doesn't give me good feelings about his other results cited.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Its more the debate between the theory of evolution Vs the dogma of Genesis. "Intelligent design" is the middle ground.
What gets me is how new religious ideas pop up in this middle ground to try get in on the debate. Now i know nothing about the truth of the "wedge document" that is supposed to explicitely say that this idea is to undermine the evolution theory, but i have seen many examples of "definitave evidence" for intelligent design that just dont have any basis in reality.
Religion and science are not mutually exclusive. There are many who believe in a divine being, but its just that he doesnt really meddle in our plane of existance very often...
Personally, I believe that religion is all too often used to explain things that cant be explained yet. Someone famous said it well, i just cant remember who or how exactly... something along the lines of "technology of today is so advanced that it could have only been described as being controlled by magic a century ago..."
Hmmm ... sounds quite strange.
There is plenty of experimental evidences of the quantum theory both very simple and rather complex.
And there is a number of everyday things that work thanks to the QT, starting with our beloved PC we are all using right now!
It would be very interesting to see the experimental tests that confirm this new theory and negate the old one.
And explain why my PC is still working. (Easy: I don't use Windows!)
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Does this mean we should take every crackpot seriously? No, of course not. What it does mean, though, is that serious scientists should be encouraged to not rule something as meaningless merely because it is likely incorrect as stated. If we'd done that, we'd never have learned anything about anything.
A trivial example is the "Cold Fusion" fiasco from Fleich and Pons (spelling may vary) from Utah. Well, I doubt anyone seriously expected anyone from Utah - especially chemists - to stumble onto anything interesting in physics. And, surprise surprise, they didn't. What they DID stumble onto, however, was a very interesting form of fuel cell that can store fairly large amounts of hydrogen within the cell.
ObTrivia: The problem with Apollo 13 was that hydrogen and oxygen stored for use by the fuel cells was vented into space after an explosion. Conclusion: If the fuel was stored in a chemically stable form, which could be electrically released to generate more power than was used to release the fuel, then you'd have an fairly accident-proof fuel cell. If the fuel was then contained wholly in the cells, you would need no fuel tank or fuel lines, removing a problem with existing hydrogen technology.
Can these claims have any meaningful value? I don't know, but I do know that if they do and they are 100% ignored because they're meaningless as is, we never will know. The trick is to learn what is useful without being burned by the useless, discarding that which cannot be usefully learned from without discarding information which would save time to examine closer.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And pigs do fly fairly well, for short periods of time, given enough thrust. It's just that steering and landing aren't particularly their strong points.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"When someone tells me they can "disprove evolution," or "disprove quantum theory," I am immediately very skeptical and would require a lot of convincing to take them seriously."
I fully second this.
When Einstein's relativity took on the classical mechanics, it didn't "disprove it", it showed it to be a peculiar case (working 99% of time) in a more general picture.
Tell me about a new theory that would *include* quantum mech. as a specific case, I'll start being interested.
Herve S.
Hmmm. And the reason it's no longer happening would be...?
Also, I thought "dark matter" was dark in part because it doesn't emit or absorb light.
Ordinary hydrogen, as we know, readily absorbs light. Then, after a short time as an excited atom, it re-emits the light, producing a beautiful red glowing nebula in the sky whenever clouds of hydrogen are found near light sources, e.g. stars.
So, why would hydrogen atoms when they fall to the "true" ground state suddenly stop acting like ordinary hydrogen atoms, and refuse to absorb any light? Why don't we see glowing nebulae whenever these clouds of hydrinos are located near stars?
College tests my desire to learn about as much as shooting someone tests their desire to deflect bullets. My burning desire to learn translates into 18 hour semesters of nothing but CS and math (and the occasional crazyass science elective), which results in an occasional C, lowering my GPA to... well, it's a 3.something, but still not too hot. If I wanted to, I'm absolutely certain I could have a 4.0 studying Japanese at Small Liberal Arts University, but instead I'm studying CS at friggin Chambana, because I want to learn this stuff and be challenged. The amount of drugs, alcohol, social, and sexual indulgences I am guilty of are about equal to the number of problems I can get on the qual exam. And so my willingness to learn but slight inadequacy of IQ lands me in the lower end of the GPA spectrum here. Pretty bad test. I agree with the point though. I took a neuroscience course where the material about neurogenesis ended up being proved wrong the following year. But if it weren't for learning the wrong material in the first place, I never would have understood the new on my own...
Extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence...
Since he's doing the press-release thing with no real evidence to support his claims, I can't see any reason to put any credibility in this. We should all just be ignoring him.
That said, I'd be quite open to hearing about cases of quantum physics or relativity being broken. There are already numbers of cases where either one doesn't quite match reality. Most common being black holes, speed of light, etc.
Well-established and repeatedy proven scientific theories have been wrong in the past, again and again. Flatly saying that the current theories are right shows a great deal of ignorance of how science works, and of history... But what do I know? You can go back to pretending that you have the slightest idea what gravity really is now.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I call bullshit for one simple reason: if the normally observed state of Hydrogen is not really the lowest energy state, what is it doing like that and why isn't it commonly found in the actual lowest energy state? If hydrinos are at the bottom of the energy hill, then where are all the hydrinos, and why all the hydrogen? That's a really big question to which I haven't seen an answer.
The register agrees: Surely, if a lower energy level than the ground state exists, wouldn't electrons prefer to sit in it? What on earth is keeping all the electrons in hydrogen atoms and ions sufficiently excited that they stay is their theoretically less stable 'orbit' in the ground state?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
So i guess that means the 8 year old who could explain the schrodinger equation wasn't so smart after all then.
...I can still tell you that without a doubt, this is all hype and very unlikely to happen. Quantum physics has its limits and often undergoes refinements (and if this 'hydrino' were real, it would easily undergo another refinement), however you just can't analyse any atom with classical physics, because it just doesn't work. Classical physics tells us that the electron is orbiting the atom, therefore it must be accelerating (circular motion), therefore as an accelerating charge, it must give off radiation. If it's giving off radiation, it's losing energy, therefore it will collapse into the centre of the atom! There's also many other things classical physics fails to predict when used at such a small scale.
The damning statements for this, are that they claim to have made a new H-isotope, and that they plan to use it to create a household heater! Does this company have the resources to run a nuclear reactor? And how on Earth do they plan to build nuclear-reactors small enough to fit in someone's home!? At the very minimum, such a device would be giving off extremely high amounts of gamma-radiation. It's a complete crock. And before you say that this physicist is closed-minded, I'm used to thinking about things differently, as a practising Witch!
Just as much as the goatse guy does
Looks like a Mr Mills might not be a 100% trustworthy person... I'm not exactly sure what these things signify, but I don't think they are good... A search on epls.gov (excluded parties list system) reveals: > Name : Mills, Randell L. > Class : Individual > Record Type : Primary > Exclusion Type : Reciprocal > DUNS : > Address : 41 Great Valley Park Way, Malvern, PA, 19355 > Description : -- -- > CT Actions -- > 1. Action Date : 21-OCT-1999 > Term Date : Indef. > CT Code : R > Agency : OPM > Agency POC : OPM Contacts > 2. Action Date : 20-JUL-1999 > Term Date : Indef. > CT Code : Z1 > Agency : HHS > Agency POC : HHS Contacts CT Code R means a person has either "(a) conviction or a civil judgment for fraud, violation of antitrust laws, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, false statements, false claims, or other offense indicating a lack of business integrity or honesty; (b) violation of the terms of a public agreement or transaction so serious as to affect the integrity of an agency program; or (c) other causes specified in the agency implementing regulations, or such other cause of a serious or compelling nature affecting responsibility." Just thought I'd throw that into the mix... and, of course, this might be an entirely different Randell L Mills Rob
but I have a sneaky feeling he's selling us vapourware. What's the bet that when he reveals this to the world there will be one or two little problems still to solve that he will claim need a couple of million and a year or so to fix. After 10 years and 10's of millions they will be deemed impossible. Why do investors keep falling for these crack pots?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Kernels 2.4 and 2.6 have come about since then, but essentially we're icing the cake with stuff that is consumer-friendly: udev does a nice job of detecting your USB/1394 devices; WLAN support has improved; there exist distributions that do a good job of working the ACPI magic with recent notebook computers.
Microsoft's 'innovation' for consumers is prettification and commoditization, which the GNU/Linux distributions are having to do the same. My computer is a household appliance and is used when I need to use it (otherwise it's off). Linux will be ready for the desktop when it has a convenient 'appliance' distribution.
They claim to have patented this method... So if you search for 'blacklight' in the US Patent Office Database you get this.
As happy as I would be to believe in ultimate and clean renewable energy, it turns out Blacklight Power Inc. is more interested in things as 'rear view mirrors' and ' Liquid crystal display devices' than quantum mechanics.
is merely a hypothesis?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
My big issue is software installation. 3rd party repositories are a fundamentally flawed system- I can't install most applications as they either arn't in a repository, or my distro (FC3) is not supported [anymore].
After 10 years of using Linux, I still have trouble installing software. My mother can do it on windows.
It's the same kind of deal, conceptually, as bootstrapping the supply rail of the voltage amplifier stage of an audio power amp from the output terminal. Or more literally, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Or low-tech-wise, holding a carrot on a stick in front of the donkey that is pulling your cart along.
Couldn't the converse occur? Hypothetically his experiment might be possibly flawed.
My UID is prime is yours?
Is this the same thermodynamics framework that holds that every atom in the universe should have reached thermal equilibrium by now? Their theories seem more suspect than ever now!!
May the Maths Be with you!
Looks a little like an article published on April 1st, 1997... http://www.keelynet.com/energy/hydmills.htm
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
"I can't install most applications as they either arn't in a repository, or my distro (FC3) is not supported [anymore]."
It's your own fault for not using debian...
Actually, hot fusion is about 8 light minutes away. Or 40 of the last minutes of our lives.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
I'm surprised that the other paragon of insight, www.theregister.co.uk, did not report it as fact first.
Don't be
i dont see how this is funny!
it should have been moded down to "narrow minded fool"
Thank god some people had dreams like copernic thinking that the earth was round!
It's not because it defies logic explanation but i'm pretty sure everything in the world isnt explained and the scientist of today havent discovered EVERYTHING!
Your flying cars will be a reality some day and infinite energy too! You just dont have the potential to use the rest of your brain.
I remember hearing about this some years back. His claims are not new at all either. Let's see where it goes from here though.
In 2003, Dr. Randell L. Mills was nominated for the James Randi Educational Foundation's Pigasus awards for other claims: http://www.randi.org/jr/061303.html
It is getting very old that EVERY science article turns into a debate about Evolution vs Intelligent Design. If we could harness the energy spent on beating this dead horse, we wouldn't need any other power sources for eons. I propose a new moderation scheme where any article that mentions Evolution or Intelligent Design be modded to Flamebait. We know the arguments for both, we have heard them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, so let the dead horse lie (wrong spelling?) already. I know the parent doesn't mention Intelligent Design, but his post has the clear intent of stirring up the same old argument (not worth the label debate).
to disprove a powerful theory like Evolution or Quantum Mechanics. all you have to do is show a clear example of where it doesn't work, or where the theory says something is impossible, but it stil works. That's what Dr. Mills says he's done. If they do produced working devices, then Quantum will have to change. It's happened 4 or 5 times in the last 100 years. It will again. Scientists are a fractous bunch, so it will happen with a lot of noise and name cslling, but it will happen. Physics is not like biology where there has been evidence that evolution needs to be modified for over 30 years, and they just ignore the evidence. But you should realize that the 'new' quantum theory will most likely just be a modification of the old one that allows the new process to work. That's how the last few upheavals worked out. In another 40 or 50 years, after the present power structure is all safely dead, the same thing will probably happen to evolution.
In biology's case, the problem being swept under the rug is called Punctuated Equialibrium. The current theory can't explain it, and the evidence says it did happen. Give it time. Evolution took 50 to 75 years to reach acceptance, it looks like it will take a similar time to change it.
"And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation."
Every power unit will ship with a free Duke Nukem Forever.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Surely the collaborative way in which the GNU/Linux experience comes about makes it necessary to cooperate upon the how software comes together. Rarely are there software packages which come to you in a cathedral-built lump (one example is Codeweavers' Crossover Office), and the 'peculiarities of each distribution' remains the justification I use for repositories and getting software by yum and aptitude (where appropriate).
Regarding FC3, I use FC3 at home and the chatter on their site tells me that FC3 still has security updates and should still have software support because it has not moved to Fedora Legacy yet. The FC4 install disks will upgrade your computer from 3 to 4 if you should so wish (at reasonably low risk of brokenness), and I found the repositry files from http://www.fedorafaq.org/ (be careful to read the FAQ for FC3 because the root page is for FC4) good for all my software needs, but I must admit that I'm happy to type yum install xine at a console.
What you feel on a merry-go-round is in fact the centripetal force exerted by your mount on you, and your inner ear feels the acceleration -- toward the center (which you probably identify as "left" or "right" rather than "centripetal"). We're just used to such accelerations being associated with "being slung" the other way, and so we think of them that way.
This is not to disparage the use of centrifugal forces in mathematical analysis, or their reality in non-inertial reference frames, but they really are second-class.
Huh?? I don't understand... what is this mysterious "switching off" operation that you perform on you rocmputer?
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
The old theory still "hold". For example you do not use relativistic physic for description of a moving vehicule, unless specific condition are met (relativistic movement quantity, etc...). In other word newtonian physic was not made "wrong" and abandonned when relativistic theory was found. newtonian physic was still correct within certain assumption because it explained a lot without having to have relativism needed. The same would hold for a new theory having to replace (or rather add on) quantum physic. Unless the new model complatly replace QM ,which is doubtfull at that point.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Due to the small scales, this has no influence on the devices you mention. The devices you mention make mostly use of the discrete energy levels of the electron in the atom. This can be just as well explained with classical radiation theory. It is just more complex, but people have attempted this and succeeded partially.g lie-bio.html, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/) but just as with many other theories there are still many open questions wich leave room for improvement/change of the theory.
Furthermore, present day QM is not what many people learn in school, but is based on certain paradigms. Most common is the de Broglie interpretation (http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1929/bro
This does not change the fact that the true theory must conform to all the correct predictions that QM does. I doubt Mills' theory is correct, but also he stands on the shoulders of giants in his search to an alternative theory. Many people write theories that are local, just to give a recent one which has a lot of text that is understandable to non QM/RM people: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0508104
When the article talked about small furnaces to boil water to turn small turbines for homes I instanlty thought of Atlas Shrugged and how "the engine" could revolutionaize the world. Would be something if this really works.
"Relativity : the Special and General Theory" by Albert Einstein
k _files=12465&pageno=12
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?f
There is not real need for another ...
http://slashdot.org/science/99/12/22/109245.shtml
On their web site they claim to solved the dual nature of elctrons as they pass through the classical two slit experiment. They claim:
"The free electron is a plane lamina disk of charge obeying the de Broglie relationship that arises from Maxwell's Equations (see the Classical Physics of the de Broglie Relationship section of Chapter 3 of R. Mills). As the free electron approaches the slits, its angular momentum vector (shown in black) is randomly oriented. The electron charge induces mirror charges on the slits; the resulting interaction causes the electron to become polarized so that the angular momentum vector is either parallel or antiparallel to the z-axis, the axis of propagation and the normal to the plane of the slits."
They then go on to explain the rest, but the key phrase in the passage is the part about the electron inducing a charge on the slits. It seems to me that because photons are electrically nutral that it completely omits all of the dual nature of light, and thus is a load of bunk. I was wondering if I am incorrect in that assumption.
There is no Randell Mills listed in the MIT Alumni directory, I just checked.
Just because someone "studied at MIT" doesn't mean they completed a degree there, or that they are particularly smart. I have two close friends who I met as an undergrad at MIT, neither of them have MIT degrees. Neither of them are trying to rewrite QM, either.
And being a "Harvard medic" doesn't mean one has an MD, or even attended Harvard as a student. He could have been an EMT employed by the school or Cambridge.
'creationism/ID (yes, they are the same thing).'
No, they are not the same thing. They are both philosophical and theological theories, and not scientific theories at all, of course, but that doesn't make them the same thing any more than it makes gravity and conservation of energy the same thing. Creationism is a fundamentalist point of view that god actively created the world (in the extreme case, literally in 7 days). Intelligent design is compatible with creationism, but it's also compatible with the Theist notion of the divine clockmaker - the notion of a God who created the universe by giving it a push at the dawn of time, and since has been hands off. (Intelligent design would hold that such a god would have had to be very selective in the direction of his push, of course.) Not that I'm endorsing these views, but, claiming that they are the same is oversimplification, and including such errors weakens your whole argument. (Not as badly as claiming ID is a scientific theory weakens your opponent's arguments, of course.)
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Uhhhh.... Forgive me for I have sinned. [To self: The least said, soonest mended. Keep quiet and hope this blows over. Did you really think you could post to Slashdot mentioning doing stuff away from the computer? And do you think you'll be able to get away with it by a quick reference to The Slashdot Basement Joke? Really?]
Some signs of quackery:
1) Inventor requires new laws of physics to be written for his device.
2) Inventor won't simply take out a patent and start marketting the device. Instead it remains eternally a trade secret.
3) Inventor shows device to only hand picked scientists under conditions they control. They never show up at a press conference and let a reporter take a 2,000 mile test drive in there car that is supposed to get 200MPG.
4) Inventor makes a smoke screen by attacking 'narrow minded scientists' who refuse to simply take his word for the greatest invention since relativity. How ever unlike Einstein no papers are published proposing tests of the theory that any person can reproduce. If a paper is published its scientific looking nonsense, enough to fool a reporter but not someone whose had physics 101.
5) Inventor always seems to have some impressive credentials. "Graduated from MIT", worked at "Los Alamos labs" (scrubbing toilets?), or was CEO of a floor wax company.
This article scores a 5 on the quack scale.
What do you mean by "evolution"? Are you referring to the theory of natural selection? If so, it's very much a scientific theory.
Darwin's book was called "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". Nothing about "evolution" (although it is the mechanism of a kind of evolution).
The concept of "evolution" is somewhat ambiguous. Most people interpret "evolution" as "improvement". Natural selection simply rewards mutations that give organisms an advantage in their environment. They "improve" in the sense that they become better adapted to that environment, but that adaptation may cost them later, if the environemnt changes, or might make it impossible for them to move into new environments (as they lose abilities that are useless or detrimental in their current environment).
RMN
~~~
No, obersvation does not support it, unless it's seriously flawed observation. If you consider the hypotheses "the Earth is flat" and "the Earth is round", and proceed to test both hypotheses (ex., by measuring the shadows cast by itdentical vertical sticks, at the same time, in different places - think Eratosthenes), you will conclude that the "flat" hypothesis does not explain your observations. Maybe there's something else making the shadows different, but Ockham's razor says go with the simplest explanation.
Simply looking at ships slowly disappearing beyond the horizon will show that the Earth is curved (although it might not necessarily be a sphere). The shadow of the Earth on the Moon, during a lunar eclipse, is round. Couple that with the fact that the Moon isn't always in the same place, and it becomes obvious that the Earth cannot simply be a flat disc (and that the more likely shape is a sphere). In fact, the Earth was considered spherical long before Eratosthenes (he was just the first to measure its diameter). The fact that the Bible got it wrong is hardly surprising (it wasn't cutting-edge even back then).
You're right when you say that someone travelling within the mediterranean doesn't usually need to take the Earth's curvature into consideration (they couldn't even measure time accurately enough), but what that really means is that a theory regarding the shape of the Earth was not necessary. It does not tell you that there was a theory (in the scientific term of the word) saying the Earth was flat.
RMN
~~~
I would just like to note that I saw this guy's site over a year ago, and that I've been citing it whenever someone asks for a Completely New Thing in physics since then.
These aren't isotopes, you can't make that parallel. Isotopes pick up extra neutrons, this is a system collecting energy and holding it until a miracle catalyst releases it.
These are quantum states. If the radius of the electron falling released energy, why doesn't it fall in nature? Why do we always see it higher than it could be?
If hydrogen could fall farther, we'd expect to see other elements that when we find them in nature, they're at a higher quantum level than their ground state. Can you name any of those?
If solar radiation or heat tends to raise hydrogen to a higher level, how come it would fall in this experiment? The system runs above ambient temperature (at least a little) and so should absorb heat to re-raise itself if heat is what raises it. As to light, I doubt this lab is as brightly lit as outdoors, but even if it were, if it takes energy from the lights in the lab to get the "excess energy", then the energy isn't excess at all, you're putting it in.
Quackery.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I haven't read TFA (hey, this is Slashdot - I'm not supposed to), and remain very sceptical about any wild claims, and I'm quite willing to accept that it is utter crap. But just because something conflicts with the CURRENT laws of physics, doesn't mean that it's wrong. In fact, history has proven conclusively that the various previous laws of physics WERE wrong. Sure, they were applicable in some areas, but useless in others. It's been like that
This easily leads to the conclusion that the current laws of physics are, in fact, WRONG. Only not very much so, and much less than ever before. But it is arrogance to assume that the theories of physics can NOT be wrong.
</rant>
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Gotta love the "crackpot" comments. He might be - but give it a chance.
Based on some of the closed minded comments posted - some of you must have forgotten what we come from, and why we have what we have. Remember our history - brilliant minds were killed for mentioning things like "The Earth Orbits The Sun" - KILL HIM!
By inventing, breaking the rules, and learning we strech our limits, and achieve greater things.
To say that Physics as we know it is done, and perfect - that's a crackpot statement, right along with "Intelligen Design".
If he's wrong, and never produces the proof - then tear him apart.
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
Mod me down, but saying "mod me down" or similar on an obvious matter equals a karma whore!
^_^
"...Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market."
/.
Most marketing firms would have stuffed a sock in this person's mouth at this point; Because without a working model, it's just noise that wakes up any competitors. But consider the Venture Capitalists here. V.C.'s make their money by selling the idea to investors, not advertising by talking to the likes of
On a positive note. This V.C. Founder just might be the first to do it; Then I'll say, "I'm sorry."
OK, you're not going to read it, so i'll give you this gist: imagine that there is a computer with a matrix of numbers in it (like pretty much all von neuman machines) and the matrix is being manipulated (like pretty much all von neuman machines) ... ok, so this big array of numbers is the quantum representation of the universe, we live in the bits, and the transformations are the passage of time for us, and none of it has any bearing on the real universe that our BOFH lives in.
http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/digital_mechanics _book.htm
This is not to say a quantity of the form m*c^e can't exist, just that it would not be an energy. It would be something else.
To my knowledge there is nothing fundemental that prevents physical quantities from having a unit that can only be expressed as a non-rational power of one or more base units. In fact I suppose that you could dig up quite a number if for some reason you are interested in physics in fractal spaces or other mathematical constructions where non-rational powers abound.
If you look at the places where non-rational exponents show up in "normal physics" they are mostly scaling relations, where the base number is dimensionless and the exponent does therefore not impact the dimensionality of the result. Transport phenomena are infamous for taking this approach.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
Don't tell that somthing worked in "supply unlimited energy" if it didn't.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
To which, Tesla replied, If Edison thought more clearly, he wouldn't have to work so hard.
- James Burke (Connections / The Day the Universe Changed)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Wow. I don't know what to say. You totally missed my point, like many other close-minded scientists who can't accept the idea that they might be wrong.
Let me point it out to you clearly so you will only have your thick skull to blame when you don't understand. I also feel that I need to tell you that I am not allied with either 'camp' of thought.
I never said that the evolution of species was in question, (in fact I acknowledged evolution can be viewed on a small scale - and yes, according to geologic time, ALL evolution is on a relatively small scale), what I said was baseless was how life came to exist. Evolution, to put it quite simply, (I know some of you have issues with this), claims it happened, and tries to explain how. BUT the problem is, there is NO EVIDENCE other than deductive logic on how that happened. If a scientific hypothesis needs some evidence to become a theory, this particular part of the 'theory' of evolution is still a hypothesis... just as you claim ID is. (I would agree, by the way, but since evolution is seen as a theory - in this instance - and still has NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, it places itself in the same camp as ID.)
The point of my post, you intelligently evolved being, was that you cannot compare the ID -vs - Evolution debate to this current 'new discovery' that could change the way we look at quantum physics. Why not? Because there is 'actual proof' for this change... as there was 'proof' that ushered-in the quantum physics theory in the first place. The explanation of how life BEGAN, however, is all conjecture. I know this is not a popular topic on /. but you need to realize that the very thing that infuriates evolutionists is the same thing that grants credence to ID proponents. --neither is based on observable fact.
NEWS FLASH --> The 'Theory' of evolution still has holes in it. Big ones, like; how did life come to exist? (The question of how life 'evolved' is well explained and fairly supported by 'evolution.' No one is questioning that.)
The problem with the beginnings of life as explained by 'Evolution,' is that they go against basic laws of nature... like Entropy. The natural world does not tend to order itself into highly complex and specific chemical reactions in just the right amounts. The PROBABILITY of everything required coming into the correct order at the same time, same place is so small statistics argue that it simply will not happen. That's as close to a 'fact' proving ID as you are going to get and I will admit it, but you can't deny it either.
On the other hand, saying that 'time' revolves around us and life only 'evolved' here, or evolved here first, is audacity at its peak. One would be an imbecile to rule out the possibility, even under evolution, that another species/being exists/existed and could have 'helped us along.'
Being close-minded like that does not advance science, it hinders it. And, by-the-way, scientific proof is only accepted as 'proof' if it is repeatable and predictable. In which case, NEITHER evolution or ID has proof behind it as to the beginnings of life, and the only theory that we could 'prove' is ID, for reasons stated in my previous post.
You ask me to state the "scientific theory of" ID... you are right that "there is no such thing," because science has correctly said it doesn't follow the rules... but as you can see, neither does Evolution's hypothesis on how life began. But you want a link? Do I have to google for you as well as think for you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design Read the wiki for a quick and dirty explanation.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to govern any other" -John Ada
first postulate: it is impossible to read minds. ...
.. so something must be wrong!
if a system exists that allows you to read minds,
the system/theorie is wrong
lately i'm getting the feeling alot that
i'm being mind read
(you know the soon up coming bird flu pandemic
for example)
He HAS got a patent:
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6024935.WKU.&OS=PN/6024935&RS=PN/ 6024935
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
So what do you think of that?
- http://ej.iop.org/links/q02/iKLoM1SRDYaTEfvY62LGw
g /njp5_1_127.pdf
The "New Journal of Physics" is a peer reviewed open access online journal:What does the value of Pi have to do with the Earth being flat...??
RMN
~~~
No, the Bible never says the Earth is a square, nor have I heard anyone claim that it does. The Bible does say the Earth is a "circle" (and the word used is "circle", not "sphere" or "ball" - in every language, including the original Hebrew). It also says that the whole Earth could be seen from the top of a tall tree or a tall mountain, which is obviously impossible for a sphere. At most, you'd be able to see one hemisphere. Clearly, whoever wrote those passages of the Bible though the Earth was a flat disc (or flat enough to be described as a "circle", instead of a sphere or even a hemisphere). This was a common belief in some less civilised parts of the world, at the time, and unfortunately the Bible served to reinforce that (false) belief.
Here:
http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Flat_Earth.htm
RMN
~~~
As with any theory that has been repeatedly tested, it's highly unlikely that any new observations will invalidate all previous results, but it can certainly be found to be incomplete, and it is conceivable that the processes it describes will change over time, making the theory useless for predictions.
When something attains the status of "theory", it's because it has been shown to be accurate at least in respect to known phenomena. A conjecture or a hypothesis may be shown to be false. Unless there were some major screw-ups in the experimentation and verification of a theory, though, it will usually only be shown to be incomplete (or to apply only to a sub-set of the phenomena it was originally thought to describe).
Even if a theory does explain a certain set of phenomena accurately, that theory is likely to be discarded if a new theory comes along that is (at least) equally accurate and a) is simpler or b) explains a bigger set of natural phenomena.
Newton's theory of gravitation is known to be incomplete, and inaccurate in some situations, since it does not take relativity into account. But it's still widely used by scientists, engineers, etc., because it gives accurate results in most situations. Was it "falsified" by relativity? Not really, it was just shown not to be quite as complete and "universal" as Newton thought.
RMN
~~~
What you don't seem to understand is that both views are perfectly valid. You can pick any point in the universe and use it as your fixed referential. Using the Sun as the fixed point simply makes it a lot easier to deal with the orbits of other planets. And when you're dealing with a galaxy, you'll usually pick the centre of that galaxy as the fixed point, and so on.
The problem with the geocentric theory is not that the Sun goes around the Earth (that's a perfectly valid construct). The problem was that it said the other planets orbited the Earth.
No sane person describes the orbit of the Earth in relation to the actual "centre" of the universe (the centre of mass, or the geometric centre, or the point where the big bang is thought to have occurred, etc.).
The "historical" geocentric models had a lot of other problems (circular orbits, everything going directly around the Earth etc.), but there is absolutely no reason why you cannot use a geocentric referential (if you're a mathematical masochist). The other planets clearly don't orbit the Earth, but you can still describe their orbits around the Sun as a function of their position relative to the Earth.
So, the "fact" that the Earth is the centre of the universe is perfectly valid. The "fact" that Venus, Mars, etc., rotate around the Earth, following circular trajectories, is false, and would not have been confirmed by any obervations (in fact, Ptolemy realised this, even using his geocentric model). In other words, it wasn't so much a "fact" as an incorrect belief, based on uninformed hearsay, not on any real facts or observations.
RMN
~~~
This is insightful? It's just plain wrong.
Just because he graduated from MIT, deosn't mean he is that good.
Ya, MIT students are stupid!
Yes, this guy and this process has been published in refereed journals. Like a total of 3 dozen different articles. The findings are being argued about, and are very controversial, but to claim the findings haven't been published in peer reviewed jjournals is flat wrong.
Intelligent Design advocates have only gotten one article in one peer reviewed journal... and it was immediately pulled and the editors apologized. There is no data/evidence to base intelligent design on to even attempt to dispute.
This is completely different. These people have a working prototype which is available to experiment on, and a whole pile of data/evidence anyone can use to prove or disprove what is happening.
You have violated the most basic rule of the scientific method by jumping to a conclusion with no evidence.
This guy has a working prototype, and a pile of data/evidence. People ranting he's wrong without looking at his prototype or his data/evidence IS NOT disproving what the guy is doing. It's stating an uninformed opinion.
The laws of physics are the same as they we're going back at least to the first few seconds after the big bang. Humanity's ability to observe the laws of physics has changed dramatically.
Our ability to experiment and record the existing laws of physics improves every day. According to you, the improving quality of experimental equipment to observe the laws of physics can make absolutely no difference in the ability of humanity to accurately observe the laws of physics. According to you, the whole Hubble Telescope thang was pointless scientifically because none of the data gathered by the Hubble was any better to observe the physical universe than the apple that dropped on Newton's head.
Actually, it's you who's using creationist rules of science. You are the one taking it on faith that the current physics textbooks are inerrant and complete and incapable of improvement... just like the creationists claim the Bible is inerrant. You are the one who ranting "black-box mystery" when in actuality the group has been very open about the processes they are using, what is input into the process, and what is output from the process. There's piles of evidence and data, and more than 3 dozen peer-reviewed journal articles based on this pile of data generated by the process as well as the details of the process itself.
I guess it's sort of like those "past lives" people. They were always someone rich and/or famous in a previous life. No one ever claims "I was an illiterate peasant in a previous life."
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Mills specifically addresses Bell's theorem in Chapter 37 http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/TOE%2002.10. 03/Chapters/Chapter%2037_110805.pdf
and claims that "CQM is not a hidden variable theory. It is a deterministic theory of classical quantum mechanics, and Bells theorem does not apply to it."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
and AT&T couldn't *give* away the service. I have heard industry insiders say that they think that people would pay more *not* to have video capacity on the telephone....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP