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.

Comments

As Einstein once said...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Re:As Einstein once said...

[homeobocks]

You can not mathematically prove a physical principle. Einstein once said something to the extent of "All the evidence in the world can not prove a physics theory, but a single reproductable experiment can disprove one."

Re:As Einstein once said...

[mikael]

That brings to mind the following web page on the great airship UFO flap of 1897.

We are looking into the Dellschau manuscripts and further researches on this mysterious N.B. gas. From the work of Walter Russell and his development of the Octave Periodic Progression of elements, there would appear to be somewhere on the order of 26 elements BELOW HYDROGEN. This is TOTALLY CONTRARY to any modern understanding of chemistry.


Airship inventors originally tried pumping all of the air out of their balloons figuring the vacuum would be lighter than air, but then they realized they had to fill it with something other than air otherwise the container would just collapse. So they had to start looking for different types of lighter than air gas (Hydrogen, Helium, etc...).

Re:As Einstein once said...

[Jesus_666]

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.)

Like They Say...

[stuffman64]

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.

Re:Like They Say...

[QuantumG]

effort.

None of it matters. If they release a product and it works then people have to take them seriously. Sure, they'll probably come up with an explaination that is completely different and fits with current physics theory, but whatever floats your boat. What matters is the technology.

Re:Like They Say...

[Rei]

From the wikipedia article on the hydrino:

In May 2005 Andreas Rathke of the European Space Agency has written an evaluation [1] to appear in New Journal of Physics. He concludes:

We found that CQM is inconsistent and has several serious deficiencies. Amongst these are the failure to reproduce the energy levels of the excited states of the hydrogen atom, and the absence of Lorentz invariance. Most importantly, we found that CQM does not predict the existence of hydrino states!

Robert L Park, a professor of physics, former chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland, and professional skeptic writes in his "what's new" [2] web page

Mills has written a 1000 page tome, entitled,"The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics," that takes the reader all the way from hydrinos to antigravity (WN 9 May 97). Fortunately, Aaron Barth...has taken upon himself to look through it, checking for accuracy. Barth is a post doctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute, and holds a PhD in Astronomy, 1998, from UC, Berkeley. What he found initially were mathematical blunders and unjustified assumptions.

Douglas Osheroff, Nobel Prize winner and professor of physics at Stanford University, has said that [3]

[Mills] may be creating compounds with unusual properties. This is obviously a rather clever guy, and he may be onto something, but he seems to think it's more fundamental than it really is.

Osheroff claims that hydrinos are a "crackpot idea."

James Viccaro editor of the Journal of Applied Physics defends the decision to publish Mills' paper.[4]

His paper underwent formal review and was accepted for publication based on review. The findings are quite interesting and the reviewers found them relevant to the field, ... I'm actually kind of interested to see what happens now, when the news hits.

Michael Jacox, assistant director of Texas A&M's Commercial Space Center for Engineering and a nuclear engineer, quoted by Erik Baard in the Village Voice [5]:

Researchers at other well-known government labs also say they are afraid to speak on record about their interest in Mills's work. One said that he plans to visit BlackLight Power on his vacation time. Jacox says his team found in the materials 'an anomaly that we could not explain with conventional theory but that we could explain with Randy Mills's theory. That does not necessarily validate the Mills theory, but gosh. '

Re:Like They Say...

[Buran]

Which they've reportedly had "just around the corner" (it's in one of the other comments in this story) for a while, hence the skepticism I showed. Sure, if they have something that works it will have to be explained by new theories, but always being "a few months away" or whatever doesn't really add to their credibility.

Re:Like They Say...

[pegr]

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...

Re:Like They Say...

[Buran]

No matter what it's called, the point/problem is that they don't clearly cite the citations. They make you work for it. Making it more difficult to find makes me wonder what they're hiding. Most research articles will say "According to research to be published in issue X of journal Y..." and this one does not.

Re:Like They Say...

[st1d]

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)

Re:Like They Say...

[samkass]

I'd venture to say that QM has come too far to be "disproved"... it could certainly be refined or integrated into a superset of a theory. But it simply describes too many observations with too great a precision and accuracy for it to be wholly wrong. Even if there exists new and unaccounted for forces, states of matter, or effects, QM describes too accurately what we've measured so far that QM would probably become the starting point for the next bigger theory.

Re:Like They Say...

[blincoln]

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"!

"If it seems too good to be true..."

[MrLizard]

"...it almost certainly is."

IIRC, this "company" has shown up on /. before, and it has always been "a few months away" from unveiling its secret power source.

This seems to be the week for bad slashdot science reporting (and falling for new 'free energy' con jobs).

Re:"If it seems too good to be true..."

[romka1]

Old Story They had a ground braking discovery in December of 1999 :) and then they got 25 million for it as the story claims

Re:"If it seems too good to be true..."

[MadEE]

Heck Reuters did an article on him back in 1997: http://www.keelynet.com/energy/hydmills.htm

Re:"If it seems too good to be true..."

[1u3hr]

And in 1999:

In response to criticism from theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, Mills says: "I'll have demonstrated an entirely new form of energy production by the end of 2000.

. Maybe it wasn't Y2K compatible.

Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding.

[Dr. Zowie]

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.

Wikipedia article on this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Wikipedia article on this guy

[dirtsurfer]

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.

Re:Wikipedia article on this guy

[honkycat]

If you get past high school physics, you may go on to learn that centrifugal force *does* exist, just not in an inertial reference frame. If you work in a non-inertial reference frame, you will find that you need to include "fictitious" forces (coriolis, centrifugal) in order to preserve Newton's laws. For example, in the reference frame rotating with the rotating sphere in your quoted paragraph, it does make sense to talk about a force balance between the Coulomb force and the centrifugal force. In the inertial reference frame, you'd think of it as the Coulomb force providing a centripetal acceleration, but both statements are equivalent.

Of course, I agree that this is a crackpot theory, but it's not quite so obvious.

Re:Wikipedia article on this guy

[MillionthMonkey]

This is a variant on the zero-point-energy scam that TLC and the Discovery Channel always cover in breathless interviews with crackpots. Basically this guy is saying you can make your electrons fall further into the nucleus from their ground state and pocket the energy as they go in. And all these billions of years, these electrons haven't bothered to make this energy transition until you came along because...?

This is actually related to a legitimate, clever idea that would be really cool if it actually worked: muon catalyzed fusion. You introduce muons into cold hydrogen and get them into covalent bonds between hydrogen nuclei. Muons are 200 times heavier than electrons so this means the orbital is small and tight, placing the nuclei so close to each other that they tunnel through a barrier and fuse into helium, releasing the muon to take part in further reactions. It isn't economical because muons are expensive to make (about 100 MeV) and decay in two microseconds into an electron and two neutrinos (which are notorious energy sinks- their energy is not even recoverable via thermalization, it's just gone). To become economical, the muon has to catalyze over a hundred reactions before it decays, but its lifetime is only a few percent of what is needed. Fusion is one bummer after another.

Re:Wikipedia article on this guy

[div_B]

From the wiki: Mills' hydrino theory was inspired by a physics paper by MIT electrical engineering professor, Herman Haus. This paper used classical physics to model radiation arising from the free electron laser. Mills reasoned that if classical physics could model radiation of the free electron it should be able to model radiation and non-radiation of the bound electron in an atom.

OK, so essentially, because the classical approximation to the quantum mechanical model largely reproduces the observed experimental results in the free electron laser, it must apply to a bound electron also. This guy is fucking clue-repellent. You can model atomic radiation classically (certain aspects of, up to a point), but the quantum mechanical description is much more accurate, ridiculously accurate in fact, and there are inherently quantum mechanical effects that arise only in a formal QED treatment, and are commonly observable.

Making crude approximations to the complete quantum mechanical description and getting a reasonable description of the system is what a whole lot of theoretical physics is about. Finding exactly how truthful the model must be to predict the correct (experimental) results is half the game.

Here's a clue: a free electron is often essentially particulate in behaviour, and quantum mechanics (largely) provides no correction to the classical calculations. When you bind an electron in a potential, is when it starts to behave quantum mechanically (i.e., wavefunction wrapped around the nucleus). That's why it's OK to model it classically in the one regime, but not the other, geddit?

Looks like it uses hydrinos

[Gothmolly]

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.

Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos

[Tim C]

You asked for correction... (your sig)

If enticing the electrons to move to a lower orbit releases energy, it's going to require energy input to make them return to a normal orbit. If and when the atoms "collapse", the reaction will be endothermic, not exothermic - you'll cool the surrounding matter, not cook it.

Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos

[NitsujTPU]

Not to mention that nuclear fission is the cleanest, safest, most abundant practical source of energy on the planet at the moment.

All that the environmental nuts caused was for us to burn MORE fossil fuels at diesel plants. So much for saving the planet.

Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos

[nathanh]

Not to mention that nuclear fission is the cleanest, safest, most abundant practical source of energy on the planet at the moment.

Solar energy is the cleanest, safest and most abundant. As someone commented in an earlier Slashdot article, 1 million terawatt hours of solar energy falls on the Earth's surface each day. The problem is that we can't capture it economically. However the plants seem to be absorbing it quite efficiently. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of their book (!).

Even harnessing a small fraction of the world's wind power could produce 72 terawatts - the equivalent of 35,000 nuclear reactors - which is more than enough for the world's energy needs. I think you'd have an uphill battle arguing that nuclear power is cleaner or safer than wind power. I'm not saying wind power is entirely without problems, but they are small potatoes compared to the problems with nuclear power.

Yes, nuclear is cleaner than coal. Unfortunately that's faint praise. It's still pretty dirty.

The 2nd key point is that the amount of energy it takes to build and run nuclear energy plants and all the processes that go with it, means that it takes 7-10 years before nuclear power plants achieve net CO2 reductions (compared to wind power that takes 3-6 months). -- http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/TNEPArticlesNucl ear.aspx

As for the claim that nuclear fuel is abundant...

TNEP contributor and co-author Senior Lecturer at UNSW and Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University Mark Diesendorf wrote recently in the Canberra Times that "Nuclear power stations themselves do not emit CO2. But the nuclear fuel cycle is a complex process with many steps, some of which are large users of fossil fuels. The corresponding CO2 emissions have been calculated by several authors who are independent of the nuclear industry, most recently by Jan Willem Storm Van Leeuwin, a senior consultant in energy systems, together with Philip Smith, a nuclear physicist. As we might expect, they find that the energy inputs, especially to mining, milling and enrichment, depend sensitively on the grade of uranium used. For high-grade ores (i.e. those with at least 0.2% uranium oxide) the energy inputs are indeed much less than the electricity generated. But, the quantity of known uranium reserves with ore grades richer than this level is so small, that it would only last for a few decades at the current usage rate. For the more common low-grade ores (i.e. 10-20 times less concentrated than the high-grade ores), Van Leeuwin and Smith find that the total fossil energy consumption in uranium mining, milling, enrichment and power station construction becomes so large that nuclear power emits more CO2 than an equivalent gas-fired power station." -- http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/TNEPArticlesNucl ear.aspx

In any event, it is a non-renewable fuel, so it's hardly worth getting excited over.

All that the environmental nuts caused was for us to burn MORE fossil fuels at diesel plants. So much for saving the planet.

The environmental "nuts" want you to walk to the local shops instead of driving an SUV, to turn off the lights when you're not home, to wear a jumper instead of turning up the thermostat, to invest R&D in renewable energy sources rather than fossil or nuclear fuels, and to stop falsely claiming that opposition to nuclear is the same as support for diesel.

I personally oppose nuclear on economic grounds. Once again, from my favourite environmental scientist, because he writes some interesting stuff, Mark Diesendorf.

Mark Diesendorf again writes that "Nucle

Disproves?

[rxmd]

New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory

No way, it's just Intelligent Redesign.

What kind of medic?

[MouseR]

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?

Company web site

[Alien54]

papers, etc at BlackLight Power

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

Target date

[Mononoke]

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.

Abstract

[brian0918]

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)]."

Let me guess...

[Private Taco]

It's a dead/alive hampster in a box, on a little wheel attached to a little generator...

"Cautious optimism"

[quanminoan]

I've actually been following Dr. Mills for some time now. This theory of his, as well as his claims of energy production have been around for quite some time. Slashdot even covered it before:

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)

What would Homer say?

[1199200]

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

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

Re:Theories are meant to be disproven.

[servognome]

True, but part of disproving a theory includes a better theory which explains all observed phenomenon

No it doesn't. All it takes is a verified observation to disprove a theory. There are disproven theories in science that can remain for years without something better taking its place.

THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[Pendersempai]

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?

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[Angostura]

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.

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[Anonymous Coward]

6.8GHz 1TB RAM and 2TB HDD Laptop?

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[jnana]

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.

The New New Science

[drgonzo59]

Yesterday some inventor had plans for H-B fusion in a "coffee can" now energy from water. What is next? Time travel, UFO's and Zombies?

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.

Re:The New New Science

[jcr]

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

His devices worked, didn't they?

-jcr

Re:The New New Science

[ScrewMaster]

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

Hey. You got something against Quakers?

Re:Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding.

[brian0918]

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

That is progress.

Keeping Score

[Paul the Bold]

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).

Re:Keeping Score

[cbr2702]

If Mills' theory actually predicts that these devices would act differently, then yes, his theory is clearly flawed. But if his generator does something different than quantum theory would predict, then quantum theory is also flawed. You don't compare two theories by counting the things each explains; you take the simplest one that explains all the data, and if niether Mills' theory nor quantum theory does that then you make a new one.

The important thing here is to first make sure of two premises:

1. That Mills has really got device that does what he says it does.
2. That the actions of Mills device cannot be explained by quantum theory.

As we know that the devices you listed work, we then need to look for a theory that accounts for both, acknowledging that it may be niether Mills' nor quantum theory.

Re:Keeping Score

[lionheart1327]

There's always room for refinement.

I'm as big a fan of our current theories as anybody, but we still have no scientific explanation of high-temperature superconductors even though there's plenty of commercial products that use them.

Don't worry, they'll figure it out in a few years.

But I'm saying that just because we think its impossible right now, doesn't mean it is.

Re:Keeping Score

[Paul the Bold]

You are absolutely right, you need a theory that can explain all observed effects. My argument was intended to dissuade people from jumping on the Hydrino bandwagon because there is a great deal of evidence supporting quantum mechanics. Most people have not made measurements of quantum phenomena, but we rely daily upon devices that are only explained by quantum phenomena. Some of those devices (FET, MRI, LASER) were predicted by quantum mechanics long before their invention. Quantum mechanics has a remarkable record. I was trying to give people evidence supporting quantum mechanics without requiring that they step into a laboratory.

You make a great point when you say, "If Mills' theory actually predicts that these devices would act differently, then yes, his theory is clearly flawed." Quantum mechanics already explains these things. If Mills wants to replace quantum mechanics, then the burden of proof is on Mills.

If we were to observe something that cannot be explained by quantum mechanics, then I would eagerly study this new thing. I would be thankful to live in such an exciting time. However, I am not convinced that Mills has something new. When he opens his lab to the world, when he allows everybody access to his methods, when he stops making claims that it will be ready in just a few months, when he ships a working product, then I will be convinced.

Wonderful

[Mensa Babe]

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?

Occam's Razor

[Chris Snook]

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.

The Weakness of Men

[KagatoLNX]

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.

Look for publications by other authors

[ETEQ]

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.

But he neve said. . .

[munpfazy]

"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.)

Re:But he neve said. . .

[Mr. Underbridge]

(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*

Re:But he neve said. . .

[Rutulian]

Nevertheless, like the *theory* of evolution, it is well established by quite a bit of math and experimental evidence. It isn't perfect by any means; physicists have been trying to unify it with other theories like relativity for quite some time, and haven't succeeded yet. But you don't just toss it out the door on a whim. Anything that claims to "disprove" quantum theory is going to be heavily criticized before it has a chance of being accepted.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[lambadomy]

There is no reason it couldn't be in the middle, or some Intelligent Designer started evolution, etc. The whole ID vs Evolution problem is that ID isn't an actual scientific theory, it's just "well...god did it". Not testable, not provable, makes no predictions, etc. So the debate isn't whether or not people can go and believe in ID all they want, or if the two are compatible...but whether or not ID should be taught in science class with all the actual science.

So while people taking theories as gospel is a problem sometimes, a bigger problem is people not understanding what *theory* means, and assuming it's just a guess to be tested. No, thats a hypothesis. Most of these theories are pretty well tested. And as for taking it as gospel...the whole point is that not only are they tested, but we continue to test them and modify them if we need to. People don't come up with discoveries that blow away well-tested theories very often.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[wpmegee]

It also has the distinction of being the ugliest, least elegant, most complex theory ever invented, with totally arbitrary quantum numbers, numbers of particles, and other insanity. There is no rhyme or reason whatsoever behind quantum mechanics. It simply is and we have no idea why or how. We have no idea what it means as far as physical reality. Don't even get me started about parallel universes, sum-over-histories, and other lunacy. Quantum mechanics *can't* be the ultimate theory of the universe. It's totally counter-intuitive that God's left hand works differently than his right. God isn't schizophrenic. The only thing quantum mechanics has going for it is that it's unquestionably correct, mathematically speaking.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[ChuckleBug]

The problem is that so many people take these *theories* as gospel and set out purposely to make anything that might contradict them in the least fail, ignoring evidence or worse. Theories are ideas, not hard fact. A lot of people have lost sight of that and seem to be trying to turn science into the new religion.

I think you're missing something, though. A theory isn't a guess, it's a body of knowledge that explains/describes observed facts. In evolution's case, this theory is built on a massive pile of evidence from biology, genetics, geology, astronomy, and on and on. It, like all scientific knowledge, could be superceded by something else, but that something would have to be very, very, VERY well supported and undergo a huge amount of scrutiny. Same thing with Quantum Meachanics. It's very well supported, and has been verified over and over again empirically. For someone to claim to overturn that, it would take a lot more than one anomalous claim. That's how it's supposed to work.

When someone tellss 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. That's how it's supposed to be. If they really can overturn well supported theories, they have to bring with them enough evidence to do the job. That's not religious dogmatism--it's just sensible. If they're right, that QM is no good, then they should be able to demonstrate that. Their mountain of evidence has to be big and strong enough to topple my mound of evidence.

On top of that, we have a constant barrage of crackpots claiming to have built perpetual motion machines or have a new form of energy. Yes, their "evidence" is often ignored, but that's partly the fault of crackpots. They've cried wolf too many times, and most scientists (and science teachers) don't have time to closely examine every claim. Life's too short to waste on chasing wild geese. Yes, there are some doozy examples of scientists ignoring someone who was right. That's because science isn't perfect, but it does have self-correcting mechanisms. People talk about Wegener being laughed at when he proposed continental drift. That looks foolish now, but the evidence won out in the end. The scientific process works, even if it sputters a bit now and then.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[Fnkmaster]

You are way off base. Every theory backed by sufficient evidence has to be subsumed in future theories (i.e. they have to explain those results as well). Nobody ever "disproved" Newtonian physics, they just came up with more complete theories that reduce to the old Newtonian physics for most normal, human scales (i.e. quantum mechanics and all that came from it for the very small stuff, and general relativity, for the very big stuff).

So if you have a new theory that explains otherwise unexplainable results, great, but it better also explain why my toaster over, and my CRT, and my LCD, and my computer, and my car and so forth all work too, or else it's worthless.

BTW, a huge amount of very useful physics is still done using Newtonian mechanics. To think that physicists "discarded" a useful theory because there were more accurate ones for other domains is foolish. I think most physicists would tell you that quantum mechanics is useful and accurate, but I am sure most will tell you that they don't think it's "right" in the sense of being complete and correct. That's old news. If this guy has something that's more complete and correct in that it explains all the old stuff and some new stuff too, I am certain physicists will embrace it, though it will probably take somewhere between a few years and a decade to convince themselves that it all works out (similar things happened with GR and QM).

Also, not every new discovery is "revolutionary". Plenty are simply minor modifications to the existing theories to account for new results. That seems plausible here to me. That or this guy is defrauding investors big time. Which seems to still be the most likely explanation.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[utnow]

But where did the "only takes one exception to disprove an entire theory" thing disappear to? I was under the impression that scientists were just looking at evidence and deriving unbiased models to explain it. Repeat his experiment... if you get the same results, and those results fly in the face of Quantum theory... then it needs to be thrown out. It dosen't matter how many years of existing evidence or experimentation exist for it. When did scientists become creationists?

Re:But he neve said. . .

[Flawless Void]

Actually, the structure of quantum mechanics is quite simple--objects (states) that are defined on a linear vector space are about as simple as you could possibly get. The axioms of the theory have analogues in optics and wave mechanics--are those any less beautiful or elegant? Some of the quantum numbers are in fact not arbitrary--they are constrained by the solutions to the partial differential equations from which they are derived (example: the spherical harmonics in the solution to the hydrogen atom--not Mills' version...). Quantum mechanics, and its relativistic extension into quantum electrodynamics has provided us with the most accurate measurement of any physical quantity (the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron). I'd say the theory deserves a little more than only being correct "mathematically speaking". Feynman's (and Dirac's) "sum-over-histories" path integral approach to quantum mechanics is actually quite beautiful, and even has applications in "nonquantum" physics. It might be the genesis of the theory that will eventually subsume quantum physics. It took Euler, Lagrange and Hamilton a century or so to bring classical mechanics to a new level. Don't be too hard on the quantum. It's still quite young.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[feyhunde]

Quantum Mechanics is unwieldy.

But it's an outgrowth of observations.

And there's about a thousand experiments that back it.

Quantum is messy because the universe is. Newtonian Physics isn't flat out wrong. Neither is Einstein's or traditional EM. They are right, to a point.

Einstein doesn't change Newton's laws. They enhance them. Newton's laws hold most of the time, so does EM. But their are cases where things change.

We believe that QM is a good descriptive theory. But it lacks explanation. Energy States of Atoms is pretty much the stupidest thing you can attack because daily there are thousands of experiments that require Splitting and hyperfine splitting to work. You may be able to prove something else can happen, or does, but that doesn't change the fact that modern transistor theory, as well as laser theory such that created the computers and internet depends on these. QM maybe be incomplete, but it's not wrong.

And yes, I'm a physicist.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[tsa]

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

Re:But he neve said. . .

[DrSkwid]

As Tesla said "If he had thought a bit more, he would have had to sweat so much"

Besides, he didn't even invent the lightbulb :

Additionally, Joseph Swan, a British inventor, obtained the first patent for the same light bulb in Britain one year prior to Edison's patent date. Swan even publicly unveiled his carbon filament light bulb in New Castle, England a minimum of 10 years before Edison shocked the world with the announcement that he invented the first light bulb. Edison's light bulb, in fact, was a carbon copy of Swan's light bulb.

http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/edison .asp

Re:But he neve said. . .

[ChuckleBug]

You can argue with this all you like, but the fact is

This sounds a lot like "La, la, la, I can't hear you."

f you think you can disprove intelligent design, you don't understand the 'theory.'

I don't have to disprove it. The burden of proof is on the proponent of a theory. ID isn't a theory, anyway. It's just throwing up one's hands and saying "God^H^H^HSome really smart being must have done it." That ain't science.

ID posits that life didn't just appear, but was orchestrated/designed/set-into-motion by some intelligent source while evolution declares that it just happened.

"Just happened" is an absurd summation of what evolution is about.

(Really, what science means by this is that they don't know, but it obviously happened, and these materials are needed, so they must have been there when it happened. But we weren't there when it 'happened' so we can't say for sure if anyone was stirring the pool with a stick or not, but we'll say there wasn't.

Direct experiment is not the only means of verifying scientific theories, and the claim that it is is a canard dreamt up by ID/Creationism proponents. If the theory predicts that certain things should be observed in nature, then those observations are confirming factors. You can disprove evolutionary theory: Just find, say, hominid fossils in strata older than dinosoaurs.

The whole "you weren't there" thing is nonsense. I notice that the religious never find that a problem with their creation stories. If science is only restricted to what happens in a lab, say goodbye to astronomy and geology.

-this being taught as 'fact' in schools is what irks many, especially when the scientific community insists evolution is solid and doesn't give any credence to any other ideas, even when they are just as possible/probable.)

But these other ideas aren't as possible or probable. The theory of evolution is supported by actual, real evidence. ID isn't even a scientific theory. People like Behe keep saying it is, but when pressed, all they can say is, "Well, it looks to us like it was designed." End. No more investigations. He even admitted in court that ID is only scientific if the definition of science were extended so broadly that it included astrology!

If their theory is scientific, how can it be falsified? What experiment or observations could show it is wrong? ID can be confirmed by anything at all, so it's useless.

Evolution happened. In that sense, it is a fact, and all that remains is to explain how it happened. Without evolution, modern biology makes no sense. It is the unifying principle of biology, and if you want to discard it, you have to discard biology as we know it. All those miraculous drugs, all the research on stem cells, all of it goes out the window.

What really irks many about statements such as I just made is that the idea of evolution is odious to them for reasons having nothing to do with science. They just don't like it, and strain to find a "scientific" way to discredit it. Problem is, none of them have. I dare you to find anything, any evidence whatsoever in favor of creationism/ID (yes, they are the same thing). Even if you consider them as separate ideas, all their champions do is try to say evolution is wrong for this or that reason.

How about this: State the scientific theory of Intelligent Design. Give us something that can be confirmed by evidence or disproven. There is no such thing.

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.

Quantum physics, on the other hand, can be disproved here and now, if and only if, something outside the 'laws' of quantum theory is discovered to work..

And all that has to happen is that something has to be demonstrated and replicated. Hasn't happened yet.

I don't have time to keep going around about this. If you want the last word, be my guest.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[PhaseChange]

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

And I have a bridge for sale cheap

[Belseth]

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?

65 Peer Reviews? *cough*

[Oink]

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.

When were you born?

[chazR]

Still, it would be nice to have some major shakeup in physics... there really haven't been any in my lifetime.

How old are you?
Inflation as a solution to cosmic microwave anisotropy

Problems with General Relativity: Dark Matter?

Dark Energy. 90% of everything.

Pioneer anomaly.

Every year, in every field, we answer more and more questions. However, every answer raises many more questions. We are still exploring our ignorance, but we know more about it every day. What are you doing to help?

Possible corrections for some of the confusion...

[GameMaster]

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding exactly what Mills is claiming. I'm not saying he's necessarily correct in his theory, but if you read his site and the Hydrino Study Group (HSG), both linked to by the Wikipedia article, they are much clearer about it.

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 article says he is a medic
  
  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.
  
  
• The Guardian article says he is claiming a 1000x increase in energy output over traditional fuel.
  
  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.
  
  
• People in this forum have been claiming that there is no explanation of what happens to the hydrogen after it's made into a hydrino
  
  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.
  
  
• People in this forum have been claiming he's angling for money like other "free energy" people.
  
  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.
  
  
• People in this forum claim there has been no experimentation done by outside authorities to prove his claims.
  
  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

Mills in a Nutshell for Physics fans

[Proudrooster]

First off, I struggled to get through quantum mechanics and found a lot of the theories that were taught to be unbelievable. However, I have read Mills's paper on CQM (Classical Quantum Mechanics) and like it a lot. It is a bit short in the derivation department, but so was my quantum mechanics book. So here is Mills in a nutshell.

First, Mills tosses the following concepts from QED

1. Schrödinger's equation
2. Bohrs interpretation of the Schrödinger's equation as a probability density
3. Standard Model
4. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
5. Entanglement and correlation

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.

I'd say thermodynamics is more an issue than QM

[Quadraginta]

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.

Re:I'd say thermodynamics is more an issue than QM

[outback_jack]

Actually, the Mills theory is quite clear that achieving lower hydrogen energy states is not by emission of photons but by using a catalytic transfer, as is common in many chemical reactions. The core of his argument is that the electron energy levels are non-radiative states, as defined by a Maxwell equation boundary condition. Ground state and above are able to radiate/absorb via phtons as per Planck's laws, thus the dogmatic doctrine of quantum mechanics was formed. Non-radiative energy transfers (via good old particle collision) are old hat and left behind by the physicists for the chemists around 1915, but they do still happen and obey well-defined, indeed intuitive even, laws.

Mills claims to access lower energy electron levels of hydrogen by collison interaction with ions of other elements that have correctly sized energy holes. Such lowered electron level hydrogens, if they were to occur in nature, would be lighter than hydrogen and rarer even than hydrogen at sea level. If they do exist, they will probably have some pretty funky chemistry since the electron about determines that for most elements. And who knows about toxicity, plutonium doesn't occur naturally but is the product of fission heat release of uranium, and is notoriously stable.

Re:I'd say thermodynamics is more an issue than QM

[arminw]

.....He's asking us to believe nearly every atom in the universe is not in its lowest energy state. Well, why not?....

Perhaps a related question to this is: Why don't the orbiting electrons of the atoms radiate all their energy away and the electrons "fall" into the nucleus and the atom self destructs? When an electron from an accelerator is subject to acceleration by deflecting it by a magnetic or electric field from a non-linear path, it radiates energy called Cerenkov radiation. This does not happen when the electrons travel nonlinearly around a nucleus. It is not known how electrons "know" they are traveling in a curved path as required by the electric fields of an atoms vs when they are deflected by a magnetic or electric field in a vacuum. Some theories posit that this energy loss does happen, but that the energy the electrons lose this way is made up by an exactly equal energy input from the "zero point energy" of space itself. Zero point energy is the energy left in space that has been cooled to absolute zero temperature.

The amount of energy needed to keep the electrons of all atoms in orbit has been calculated to be truly astronomical. So far, in all our technology, we have only managed to exploit DIFFERENCES in energy. In a heat engine for example it is the difference in pressure and temperature that enables it to do useful work. In a hydroelectric station it is the difference in the potential energy of the water at the two elevations that is utilized by the turbine to do useful work. It is the difference in voltage that drives electrons through a circuit that provides power.

This zero point energy is rather evenly distributed in all of space. It is not easily available to be used as an energy source. However, if a way could be found to utilize even some tiny differences in this unfathomably huge energy, the results would be amazing. Perhaps changing or re-arranging the energy of the orbital electrons of atoms may be a way to extract some this energy in a useful form without violating any well established quantum physics.

Emerging /. tradition: Celebrate Crackpot Sunday!

[D4C5CE]

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".

Re:Capslock: the Tool of Quantum Master Mechanics

[msuarezalvarez]

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...

This is indeed embarassing

[internic]

You think this is ridiculous? Imagine being a hard-core scientist when the crazy equivocations of quantum mechanics were first unleashed upon the public in the 1900s. Science? Bullshit! Just a bunch of fuzzy, mystical mathematics. Nothing to do with physical reality.

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.

If you take the time (and have sufficient background) to read some of Dr. Mills papers, you'll find he (and others) have exposed some inconsistencies in quantum mechanics - such as the n=1 state of hydrogen being non-radiative, contrary to the predictions of Schrodingers Equation (which also violates Maxwells equations in this case).

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.

Theory != Hypothesis

[Rui del-Negro]

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
~~~

Re:Theory != Hypothesis

[nickco3]

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).

If you're an ancient Greek ship captain in 1000 BC, the current theory is a flat Earth surrounded by a rotating-sphere of fixed-stars. The observations support it and it's an entirely usable theory. You can use that knowledge to navigate around the Mediterranean. Like Newtonian mechanics, it's accurate enough for 99% of real-world cases. For our captain, a round-Earth concept is an unnecessary complication.

Consider this: how often do you navigate with a map in preference to a globe? That's an implicit acceptance that the ground beneath your feet is flat like the map, and not curved. The flat map is accurate enough, right? Your own observations are supporting a flat Earth model. You aren't observing to a high enough accuracy to detect the error.

The old flat Earth idea is a useful way to demonstrate how incorrect theories can still be supported by the evidence, and even used in real world applications.

The new theory

[penguinoid]

"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.

It's not just embarassing, it's a waste of time

[internic]

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.

Re:What would this thing produce?

[k98sven]

Atomic mass comes from the nucleus, not the electrons. The number of electrons in deuterium and hydrogen is exactly the same. Moreover, the chemical properties of H2O and D2O are exactly the same. Deuterium is slightly toxic for altogether different reasons than chemical properties.

Informative my ass. That's just plain wrong. If you'd bothered to study chemistry beyond the high-school level you'd probably come into contact with a rather central part of chemistry named kinetics. Kinetics has everything to do with nuclear mass. Since deuterium weighs twice as much as hydrogen, it moves at half the speed.

This means different bond strengths. Different vibrational energy levels. And most importantly: completely different reaction kinetics. If a reaction involves the forming or breaking of a hydrogen bond (thus moving the hydrogen atom), it will proceed much slower if a deuterium atom is involved instead. This is called the "kinetic isotope effect" and is a frequently-used method for investigating reaction mechanisms. Google for it.

And this is precisely the reason why deuterium is toxic. The enzymatic catalysis going on in the body are sensitive to this kind of stuff. If a certain step in a multiple-step reaction moves to slowly, the next step may not be able to occur. Hydrogen ions are directly involved in some of the cells most critical reactions, such as the in ATP synthase.

Besides which, your words fall on their own unreasonableness. If the chemical properties aren't the reason for deuterium's toxicity then what the heck is the reason? It's not radiation - deuterium is stable. It certainly isn't mechanical toxicity (as with asbestos).

It can't be anything other than chemical effects.

It's not a matter of measuring evidence piles

[Ahnteis]

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.

Re:It's not a matter of measuring evidence piles

[ChuckleBug]

No, their evidence just has to be verifiable. One fact is enough to disprove a theory.

But look what you've done. You've gone from "evidence" to "fact" in one fell swoop. One fact can be enough to disprove a theory. But determining that the fact is indeed a fact will take a lot of evidence. It is only right that extreme scrutiny be applied to claims of facts that disprove well-established theories. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." So yes, you will need a lot of evidence to overturn the second law of thermodynamics or QM. Evolution is such a far-reaching and complex theory that I find it hard to imagine a single fact that could disprove it. Maybe you can give an example of one?

Usually, facts like these don't result in well-established theories being discarded. They result in theories being modified. It always bothers me when, for example, people will claim that Newton's theories were proven "wrong," when in fact they were merely incomplete. The Mars rovers got there on Newtonian physics. Quantum theory isn't useful for orbital mechanics. So, I agree with you about models being important in proportion to their usefulness.

I don't know about the usefulness of discussions of the semantics of the word "law". If someone wants to call the laws of thermodynamics "suggestions," I don't know what's gained or lost.

P.S. Sorry for any typos. I checked, but I seem to always miss some. I cut my finger and am trying to type with a big ol' bandage on my left index finger.

"disprove" is suspect when "include" wouldn't

[Herve5]

"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.

Re:Problem

[idkk]

I am curious about your claim on Fermat. He was - I think mathematicians agree - a great mathematician. Granted he had personality problems (don't all geniuses?) but to claim that that "virually everything written" by him was wrong is either to appeal to the (possible) fact that virtually everything ever uttered however by whomsoever is also wrong, or just an incorrect statement. I believe, sir, you are incorrect.
And, yes, IAAM (I am a mathematician).

That said, don't you just love cold-fusion scams^H^H^H^H^Hdiscusions?