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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.

21 of 933 comments (clear)

  1. Disproves? by rxmd · · Score: 5, Funny
    New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory
    No way, it's just Intelligent Redesign.
    --
    As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
  2. What kind of medic? by MouseR · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

  3. Target date by Mononoke · · Score: 5, Funny
    And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation.
    This is your advance invitation. Be sure to join them on the first day of April in 2006.
    --
    NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
  4. Let me guess... by Private+Taco · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  5. What would Homer say? by 1199200 · · Score: 4, Funny


    "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

    --
    Superb hosting 2400MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

  6. Re:Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding. by brian0918 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Come now, hot fusion used to always be 40 years away. Now, finally, it will always be 35 years away.

    That is progress.

  7. Re:The New New Science by jcr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Remember the Unabomber graduated from Harvard, for all that's worth.

    His devices worked, didn't they?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  8. Re:Wikipedia article on this guy by dirtsurfer · · Score: 5, Funny

    This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.

    Wow. Apparently our reputation precedes us.

  9. Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING. by Angostura · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seconded.

    Pop quiz. Can you come up with an IT equivalent of a typical slashdot psueudo-science headline? Let's have a go:

    1. Intel claims infinite number of transisters available on new chip
    2. Latest Linux release boots before PC is switched on
    3. Researcher claims open source licensing causes random memory corruption.

    I mean, come on guys.

  10. Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
  11. Re:Like They Say... by pegr · · Score: 4, Funny

    So now that they proved it is all wrong and stuff... will i get to pass my quantum phys exam again!?
     
    Just don't look at your grade... Until you do, your grade is all possible states...

  12. Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING. by jnana · · Score: 3, Funny
    4. New compression algorithm can be used repeatedly for infinite compression: all inputs can be compressed to 1 bit given enough compression cycles!!

    Oh wait, I think I read about that on slashdot a couple of years ago.

  13. Re:Like They Say... by st1d · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not a chance.

    Primary/Secondary schooling: Tests you willingness to learn under pressure from adults. (Translation: As long as you're walked through the steps necessary to do your job, and there are enough people to make sure you do as you're told, you'll be a highly trained button-monkey.)

    College: Simply a way to test your willingness to learn on your own. (Translation: On occasion, with enough peer pressure, you might be willing to learn spend a little of your free time learning how to do your job.)

    Graduate school: Tests your willingness to learn when the majority of your peers have given up on their education for the remainder of their lives. (Translation: Given enough incentive/money, you are willing to spend considerable time and effort to be successful in your career.)

    Post-Graduate school: Tests your willingness to expand upon what is currently understood and taught at lower levels. (Translation: You are willing to show others how to improve in their chosen career, but it's gonna cost 'em!)

    Continuing education: Tests your willingness to continue learning when most of your peers are worm food. (Translation: You're mildly psychotic.) :)

    The possible failure of the theories taught to you makes no difference in the outcome of your education, because you have proven that you aren't willing to put forward a serious effort to learn at the level you attempted. Had you been taught said "correct" theories, the outcome of your grades would most likely have remained the same, as your alcohol, drug, social and sexual indulgences during this time had no bearing on your belief that the items taught were facts. As such, your failure to learn them only reinforces the fact that you don't care about your own success in life. (Translation: You're a twit for asking something this redundant on Slashdot!)

    (heh, heh)

    --
    Microsoft has just released their much anticipated hands-free cordless mouse. Warning, it may hurt a little at first.
  14. Re:The New New Science by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    This guy's quakery works too, I am sure someone out there will give him money..

    Hey. You got something against Quakers?

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  15. Re:But he neve said. . . by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 3, Funny
    (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.)

    Wait...he's selling gallium arsenide semiconductor devices? *ducks*

  16. Emerging /. tradition: Celebrate Crackpot Sunday! by D4C5CE · · Score: 5, Funny
    To commemorate today's remarkable conjunction of breakthroughs providing sources of almost infinite energy as well as healthier cigarettes and flying cars riding on superstrings (or something), built e.g. by 8-year-old Asian physicists...:
    From now on, each year on the first weekend after Halloween, Slashdot (and probably academia as a whole) shall celebrate Crackpot Sunday. To mark the occasion, the year's best performers in freak science reporting shall be awarded an "exclusive" (or rather, compulsory?) rubber boat cruise through the Bermuda Triangle or across Loch Ness, providing journalists with a chance of their own to win fame and fortune at the forefront of research by helping disprove long-standing and broadly accepted theories - e.g. about man-eating monsters, alien abductions and anything else left unresolved on the "X Files".
  17. Re:Like They Say... by blincoln · · Score: 4, Funny

    NASA "enhances" photos and they make great posters.

    Yes, God damn NASA for not releasing X-ray, gamma, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, and radio-wave imagery in the original bands of the spectrum! My taxes line their bloated wallets and they can't even manage to put JPEGs on their site that emit hard radiation so I can see exactly the same thing they do with their so-called "space telescopes"!

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  18. The new theory by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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
  19. Re:As Einstein once said... by Jesus_666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next time someone posts "Einstein says", please have a source. Dead men can't refute so called 'quotes.'

    "Yes."
    -- Albert Einstein

    (I'm pretty sure that he said "yes" at least once in his life.)

    --
    USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  20. Re:But he neve said. . . by tsa · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mainstream Linux is also 5 years away! Watch me get modded down for this...

    --

    -- Cheers!

  21. Re:But he neve said. . . by PhaseChange · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine if all science was done the way ID proponents want it done. We'd see a phenomenon, like, say, gravity. Then we'd say, "Hmm. It's really hard to see how this could be. So God or Elvis or some alien makes it go." Then it would be settled. Great.

    Already been done. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512