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Perpetual Energy Machine Getting Lots of Attention

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the swimming-in-snake-oil dept.

Many users have written to tell us about a magnetic machine promising "infinite clean energy". Engadget has the first picture of the device and is reporting that the announcement (along with a short video) of this supposed device will be released later tonight. "CEO Sean McCarthy tells SilconRepublic how it works. Namely, the time variance in magnetic fields allows the Orbo platform to 'consistently produce power, going against the law of conservation of energy which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.' He goes on to say 'It's too good to be true but it is true. It will have such an impact on everything we do. The only analogy I can give is if you had absolute proof that God wasn't real.'" In my experience if something seems too good to be true it generally is. I wouldn't get your hopes up.

63 of 965 comments (clear)

  1. As they say... by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a sucker born every minute.

    Seriously, why is anyone outside of Art Bell and George Noorey even giving this guy the time of day?

    1. Re:As they say... by TuringBirds · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes. This is a disgrace for SlashDot. Someone remove this news item!

    2. Re:As they say... by stonecypher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, why is anyone outside of Art Bell and George Noorey even giving this guy the time of day?
      Because several times, legitimate scientists have said this, really believing what they were saying, and the resulting systems were frequently quite difficult to understand in terms of deciphering the flaw.

      It's a lot like when people used to let high school math coaches claim to have solved Fermat's Little Theorem. We all knew they didn't, but there's a lot to be said for the puzzle of locating the coaches' mistakes.

      Now, like you, I think this guy is a snake oil shill, as opposed to someone making a legitimate error. Nonetheless, I find his device bizarrely fascinating specifically because I don't see his particular cheat just yet. And, as such, I'm glad to have exposure to the nonsense. It's fun.
      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    3. Re:As they say... by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here is how you know when a perpetual energy machine is fake (aside from the fact that it is supposedly a perpetual energy machine):

      If you invented something like that, you would be in secret negotiations with governments, militaries and major corporations. You wouldn't be wasting your time with youtube demonstrations and internet articles. You'd be involved in secret demonstrations with signed NDAs all around and massive bidding wars.

    4. Re:As they say... by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ' (aside from the fact that it is supposedly a perpetual energy machine)'

      The outlook that makes you put this comment in, assures that governments, militaries, and major corporations wouldn't give you the time of day. They would never know you succeded because they would never look at what you produced in the first place.

      Youtube demonstrations and internet articles would likely be the only way you would be able to stir up enough of a buzz to get someone to take you half seriously in the first place.

    5. Re:As they say... by MouseR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not only that...

        I bet the total energy output of this device's expected mtbf isn't big enough to cover the machine's construction in the first place. Thus, moot.

    6. Re:As they say... by misleb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Youtube demonstrations and internet articles would likely be the only way you would be able to stir up enough of a buzz to get someone to take you half seriously in the first place.


      It is the wrong kind of attention (buzz). It is the kind of attention that confirms to the people who matter that you're just another crackpot. If this were for real, he'd be going though a university or trying to get published in respected journal directly. But it isn't for real. So he just shrouds the device in secrecy in order to avoid the direct analysis that would expose the device for the hoax it most likely is.

      Bottom line is, if you've patented your idea, there is absolutely no reason to keep things secret and arrange for elaborate public "demonstrations." You just put the whole idea out there, drawings, equations, theory and all.

      -matthew
      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
    7. Re:As they say... by profplump · · Score: 4, Insightful

      unless acted upon by an outside force

      An outside force you say. Would someone trying to steal its kinetic energy to generate energy possibly be such a force?

      Just wondering.

    8. Re:As they say... by dinther · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why would you want to remove a story you perceive as untrue? It sounds just as ridiculous as religious folks wanting to remove posts that God doesn't exist. The statement is made and now you either ignore it or deal with it. Don't call for this statement to be denied to others after you received it.

    9. Re:As they say... by cyphercell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Piece by piece, patent everything that goes in to the machine, and no none else can build one. Kinda like software, you don't patent a website, you patent 1-click technology.

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    10. Re:As they say... by megaditto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I accept that other opinions exist, but that's not the point here. The point I am making is that these guys are apparently pushing out a vaporware at best or more likely a large-scale scam:

      1) They fail to exhibit a schematic for the device. And no, this would not hurt their chances of getting a patent at least in US: they can get a provisional patent almost automatically, then spend a year improving their research.

      2) They fail to submit to peer review of any kind. Again, it's in their interests to publish this as soon as they can, since this would also automatically establish their priority and give them a year to continue research and apply for a patent (and will not count as prior art for their patent for that one year).

      3) They fail to do any kind of transparent demonstration of their claims. Now they won't even release a video that they filmed themselves! FTFA: "Well, 6pm London time has come and gone. However, Steorn's site now says that the video will go live at 6pm "Eastern Time.""

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    11. Re:As they say... by samkass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This brings up a funny question in my mind. Basically, there are very few fundamental sources of energy for us to use: solar (photovoltaics, oil, gas, ethanol, etc) and nuclear (fission, fusion). But the rotational energy of the solar system and our planet in particular seem more difficult to tap. Some of it might be partially represented by geothermal power, but you can't exactly tie gears to the planets and attach them to a generator. But your comment makes me wonder if the magnetic field of the natural magnets in Earth's crust may or may not form a kind of energy storage device for past rotational kinetic energy that formed the Earth's dynamo and created the magnets in the first place.

      --
      E pluribus unum
    12. Re:As they say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Now as to those making jokes about the first and second laws of thermodynamics. If an object at rest remains at rest unless acted on by an outside force and an object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.... Is this not by definition perpetual motion? It keeps on doing whatever until forever.... Pretty obvious folks.
      This isn't really what is meant by a perpetual motion machine. Yes, what you have is something that will move indefinitely (through a change in reference frame); however, when people discuss PPMs they usually are trying to extract the energy, which is where the problem lies.

      Of course those who oppose the idea that we can arrive at energy by some means such as this, openly preach to us that the whole universe erupted out of the head of a pin, [Big Bang anybody?] and are quite happy for all of its mass and all of its energy to have erupted out of nothing in that event. [Logic anybody?] This should be fun. I haven't done anything here but skewer about a thousand sacred cows. No I haven't done anything but point out the truth and that isn't troll. Why don't people just get a life and accept that another opinion might exist.
      The claims about where the energy comes from vary greatly. It isn't necessarily coming out of nothing. Regardless, the conservation of energy derives itself from properties of this universe (time translation invariance); it doesn't have to hold before the universe was "created" whatever that means. You haven't skewered anything.
    13. Re:As they say... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Perpetual motion, per se, isn't a problem. You're right -- any object will stay in motion perpetually unless some force acts on it. The problem is, perpetual motion as an energy source requires that something move perpetually even when you apply a force countering that motion, which is how you'd draw energy from the device.

      Sure, there might be a loophole in the universe that lets something like that work, but it's very, very, very unlikely.

      Space probes do not make use of conservation-of-energy-breaking perpetual motion, they draw energy stored in the angular momentum of the planet they're looping around. Yes, you could do the same thing with a magnetic field but it would not be perpetual motion. The guy's statement about this device BEING perpetual motion implies that

      a) he doesn't know what he's talking about or how the device actually works
      b) he does know how the device actually works and he's lying, probably to scam someone
      c) he's overthrown one of the very basic tenants of physics and we're going to have to go back to, oh, 1700 and start over.
      d) the device doesn't work

      Of those, d is by far the most likely, closely followed by a and b. C is, uh, unlikely.

    14. Re:As they say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why don't people just get a life and accept that another opinion might exist.

      Physics is not a matter of opinion.
    15. Re:As they say... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, most people associate "perpetual motion machine" with a machine that breaks the laws of conservation of energy. So your e is covered by, uh, whichever the scam options were.

      Note that he says this specifically:

      CEO Sean McCarthy tells SilconRepublic how it works. Namely, the time variance in magnetic fields allows the Orbo platform to "consistently produce power, going against the law of conservation of energy which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed." He goes on to say "It's too good to be true but it is true. It will have such an impact on everything we do. The only analogy I can give is if you had absolute proof that God wasn't real."

      (boldface mine)

    16. Re:As they say... by Seumas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because, posting articles like this is no different than posting an article every time some hick claims they saw a UFO or were abducted by aliens. It's really not news and it's just promoting a total nut-job (or alternately, sham-meister).

      Or maybe I'm just overly tired of that Alex Chiu douchebag and his special life ring or whatever that Slashdot blathered on about for a solid four years.

    17. Re:As they say... by immel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We do harness the kinetic energy of the larger bodies of the solar system for practical use. One more obvious use of this is tidal power (generated by slowly affecting the kinetic energy of the Moon, IIRC, and harnessed by small turbines in coastal areas). One less obvious use of this is the planetary flyby technique used by spacecraft. By decreasing the velocity of Jupiter by [insert mathematically insignificant number here], a small space probe can go into a Jovian orbit at one velocity and exit this orbit at a significantly higher one in a different direction while using virtually no fuel.

      I'm not sure what you mean by the "energy storage" with natural magnets and rotational kinetic energy (Remember, the vast majority of ferrous material on this planet, and thus the source of the Earth's magnetic field, is in the core, not the crust), but there are techniques for using the Earth's magnetic field to produce energy. I saw a test of an apparatus on the NASA channel (Now that's good television) which used the spacecraft's movement through Earth's magnetic field to induce a current in a tether outside the spacecraft, which they then used to power stuff on board the spacecraft. But this was still not "free energy", because the magnetic field generated by the current interacted with that of Earth and decreased the spacecraft's velocity and altitude (as expected by NASA engineers and the law of conservation of Energy). This was mostly recoverable, though, because feeding current the other way through the cable increased the spacecraft's altitude again. The only way to get current out of a magnetic field is to move charged particles through it, which is convenient, because everything is made of charged particles. Energy must be expended to get those charged particles in motion in the first place, and once the current has been generated, the kinetic energy of the charged particles drops to zero.

      My point is, even by harnessing the kinetic energy or magnetic properties or what have you of the cosmos, you do affect them in a small way. Try that fly-by trick enough, and Jupiter will fall out of orbit. Some energy in space looks "free", but in actuality it's really just "insanely cheap" energy.

      --

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    18. Re:As they say... by Hucko · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Steady on, that has nothing to do with the perpetuity of energy creation. If the output energy is greater than initial input, it would not matter that it takes 3 times the initial input energy to create the device. The only thing that matters is that the output energy is greater than the drag forces bringing said device to a stop without further energy input.

      --
      Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
    19. Re:As they say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Care to name a single public demonstration of a breaking our understanding of physics that wasn't a hoax?

    20. Re:As they say... by innocent_white_lamb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Galileo.
       
      Note that I'm in no way endorsing this current chap's claims. But the answer to your question was too obvious to pass up.

      --
      If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
    21. Re:As they say... by node+3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Technically IIRC, this would not violate the laws. There is an outside force acting on it in the form of the magnetic fields. The real test of the devices is if it can create more power before the magnets degauss than it takes to create the machine and magnets. That depends. From the description it sounds like just another impossible machine. The only way it could both operate as described and fit what you are saying is if they are tapping into the Earth's magnetic field and drawing energy from it.

      On a side note, the demonstration has been canceled due to technical issues. I suppose "is impossible" would qualify as a technical issue.
    22. Re:As they say... by dinther · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Giving credibility to stories like this lowers the signal-to-noise ratio."

      Agreed. But who decides what is signal and what is noise? Majority? This machine is most likely a stunt or scam. But so is the "Global warming" myth but that doesn't stop articles about it.

      Wading through the noise is not pleasant but you get to choose what is noise and what is signal. It is this wading and deciding that truly makes you informed. Not right but informed. The alternative is that a few censors get to rule what is noise or signal. Decisions based on the views of an uninformed majority (The earth is flat) or the views of a few with an agenda. Either way, without noise you never know what the signal is.

    23. Re:As they say... by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Maldive islands will disappear under the sea in less than 50 years. Why? Because icebergs melt, slowly but most surely. Why? I'll let you try and answer this last question.

      Thanks for the laugh. With luck I'll still be around in 50 years to see that your wrong. The IPCC, which is cited by Global Warming alarmists as the symbol of scientific consensus suggests that by 2100 sea levels will rise between 9-37cm from 1990 to 2100. Check the report yourself here if you don't believe me. The Maldive Islands are 2.3m above sea level, on average. A worst case rise of 19cm in the next 50 years then, would certainly have an impact. It is utter hyperbole though to suggest that they'll disappear under the ocean.
      It's ridiculous claims like yours that causes people to dismiss Global Warming as a myth, since arguments like yours have as much scientific basis as the notion that global climate is actually cooling.

  2. Wrong month. by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's the 4th of July not the 1st of April.

    Nice try, though.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  3. Kernel of truth in this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Clearly energy generation systems that turn alternating magnetic fields into energy are possible without violating thermodynmics. I just doubt that they could produce useful amounts of energy or we would be hooking generators to our compass needles.

  4. Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by Tatarize · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >>"The only analogy I can give is if you had absolute proof that God wasn't real."

    There's some really strong evidence that God isn't real. There's no strong evidence that PPM work. In fact, there's a number of things about the universe which strongly suggest that PPM are impossible, just as there's some things which strong suggest God is impossible. Really, even from a 'making an analogy' point of view: this machine is like having proof God exists.

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
    1. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Indeed. And, at the risk of burning karma, I'll say there's quite likely a statistically significant correlation between those who believe in god and those who believe in the possibility of perpetual motion machines.

      What's interesting isn't whether either can exist, but what causes some people to believe them, and the belief apparently being strengthened in face of logical arguments to the contrary. I find it fascinating.

    2. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by untaken_name · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How do you apply logical arguments to an illogical premise? (Note that I am not stating that the premise is faulty, just that it seems rather illogical to apply logic to this particular discussion)

      Also, most 'logical arguments' I've seen against God aren't really very logical. They're based either on a poor understanding of the Bible (which is certainly not limited to non-believers!) or assumptions which haven't been granted. Please don't flame me, as I'm not saying anyone is 'right' or 'wrong' about their faith. (yes, 'logical' 'rational' atheists also base their beliefs on faith, just as much as 'logical' 'rational' theists do.)

      --
      http://xkcd.com/386/
    3. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by Tack · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (yes, 'logical' 'rational' atheists also base their beliefs on faith, just as much as 'logical' 'rational' theists do.)

      I'm doubtful. At least in my experience, most modern atheists do not assert the non-existence of God, but merely do not accept theistic world views. Absence of belief does not require faith.

    4. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At least in my experience, most modern atheists do not assert the non-existence of God

      I'm guessing you havent been on the internet very long. The majority of all online forums appear to contain atheists vehemently asserting the non-existence of God. It's like there's a Godwin's Law, but for atheistic evangelism.

      --
      Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    5. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by E++99 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The premise of most monotheist religions is that God is singular, perfect, and omnipotent. However, the Torah/Bible/Quaran also ascribes to him qualities such as loving his creations and wanting them to live a just life. These views are contradictory. First, the premise that God is separate from his creations implies that God is finite.

      On the contrary, God being infinite and creation being finite necessarily separates Him from His creation. God being infinite is part of the essential definition of God. Being infinite also makes Him necessarily singular.

      Second, something which is perfect must logically be immutable. Any change in the state of a perfect thing would render it imperfect, or imply that the original state was not perfect to begin with.

      Yes, as is confirmed many times in the Bible (and probably Koran and Vedas). God is unchanging.

      Thus, God cannot love anything, or want anything for his creations. He cannot think, feel, reason, or want, because all of these things imply mutability. Indeed, perfection and omnipotence are incompatible, because action implies change!

      I'm not sure how he made this leap, but probably from temporal thinking. God's consciousness is infinite and transcends time, while we progress linearly through time. God's actions in the finite world, like the creation itself which comes from Him, are finite manifestations of the infinite. God's love and God's actions don't imply change in Him, only a change in us relative to Him.
    6. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by SEMW · · Score: 2, Insightful

      both positive and negative integers are contained within the set of real numbers, which are also infinite, but have a higher cardinality. Careful with what you're trying to imply there. Both the positive and negative integers are also contained within the set of all integers, which has exactly the same cardinality as the positive integers and the negative integers. The cardinality of the union of two sets of cardinality aleph-null is aleph-null. So your next sentence doesn't follow.

      Not that trying to apply set theory to the question of the existence of God isn't just a bit ludicrous, IMHO. The same goes for the Axiom of Choice, Godel's incompleteness theorem, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle; all of which I've seen dragged into and horribly misused in philosophical and theological arguments.
      --
      What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
    7. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      God's consciousness is infinite and transcends time, while we progress linearly through time.

      Which, of course, nullifies any concept of free will. For example, take the story of Eden. If what you say is true, God tempted Eve with the apple, but he did so knowing full well what her decision would be, because, hey, he transcends time. IOW, knowing the outcome already, he manipulated her into sinning (why he would do that is another question entirely).

      And this principle applies universally. The bible claims that humanity was given free will, that we would come to God of our own chosing. But God, being transcendant of time, knows every choice and every action I will ever perform, and can manipulate me as he sees fit. Therefore, I can't possibly have free will, as all my choices, from God's perspective, are entirely predetermined.

    8. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I know many atheists and when pressed we all will say we think the idea of a god existing is wildly improbable given the evidence, but none I know will say with belief that there is no god. Tell that to Richard Dawkins. As for the stamp thing, you're right, not collecting stamps isn't a hobby, and for many atheists, not believing in God is good enough. But if you read books about how great not collecting stamps is and go to meetings about not collecting stamps, then not collecting stamps is a hobby, and, unfortunately, some people feel the need to bastardize true atheism by turning it into a pseudo-religious belief.
    9. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by E++99 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which, of course, nullifies any concept of free will. For example, take the story of Eden. If what you say is true, God tempted Eve with the apple, but he did so knowing full well what her decision would be, because, hey, he transcends time. IOW, knowing the outcome already, he manipulated her into sinning (why he would do that is another question entirely).

      And this principle applies universally. The bible claims that humanity was given free will, that we would come to God of our own chosing. But God, being transcendant of time, knows every choice and every action I will ever perform, and can manipulate me as he sees fit. Therefore, I can't possibly have free will, as all my choices, from God's perspective, are entirely predetermined.

      If you gave me a true list of everything you did yesterday, does my knowledge of your actions nullify the free will you had in doing them? Of course not. What if I invented a time machine and traveled back to the beginning of yesterday? Does my time machine nullify your free will? It would only nullify your free will if I shared that information with you (which is why God doesn't typically share that information with us). The idea that foreknowledge implies determinism is based solely on the experience of our temporal life, since for OUR knowledge, that correlation DOES usually exist. But it is a fallacy to extrapolate that correlation to one transcendent of time.

      To put it another way, distinguishing between God's past knowledge and God's future knowledge is an artificial distinction. The challenge in thinking about God is in the constraints we put on our thinking that arise from our close association with time and space.
    10. Re:Flawed... even down to the analogy. God? by Experiment+626 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If atheism is a belief system then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

      That's a catchy quip, but suppose someone doesn't just happen not to collect stamps. Rather, they go around ridiculing and/or debating stamp collectors, lobbying the postal service to stop printing collectible stamps, encouraging others to start hanging around wehatestampcollecting.org to get a better idea of what anti-stamp-collectors are all about, and so on. It's what they like to do with their free time, kind of like... a hobby. Likewise, if you hold to the belief that there are exactly zero gods, and base your actions in life on that theological assertion, some people might describe that as your belief system.

  5. If it were real... by Chris+Snook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...they wouldn't need to convince anyone. They could just sell the energy, use that money to make a bigger device, sell more energy, lather, rinse, repeat. You don't need investors when you can print money.

    --
    There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
  6. Free Energy != Instant Hoax by camperdave · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just because the guy is saying he is generating free energy doesn't mean he's gone off the deep end. I can produce free energy by sticking a specially shaped piece of metal in the air. You say bunk. I say wind turbine. Now who's laughing? Maybe the guy is somehow tapping the ambient magnetic field of the Earth, or has tapped into the tidal forces caused by the planet's rotation, or maybe it is bunk. We'd have to examine the device to say for sure. However do just dismiss it out of hand is unscientific.

    Mind you, the guy's website is short on details, and long on hype and begging for money, like most hoaxers. So, I'm not holding my breath.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Free Energy != Instant Hoax by PMW · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you go to their website they have the following statement:

      Our Claim Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy - that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely. The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles. The principle of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form. Because of the revolutionary nature of our claim, not only to the world of science but to the world in general, Steorn issued a challenge to the scientific community in August 2006 to test our technology and report their findings. The process of validation that has resulted from this challenge is currently underway, with results expected by the end of 2007. That's a claim to a perpetual motion machine. To their credit, they aren't hiding the claim, they're throwing the claim right out to the public. The whole thing is obviously a con-job to get money from suckers with more $$$ than sense. I really wish slashdot wouldn't post this kind of nonsense.
  7. Re:Breaking the Law by Ballinasloe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Someday someone is going to create a real perpetual motion machine and no one is going to believe them.

  8. Re:Mr. Madison... by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's just completely incoherent - the law of conservation of energy is that the total energy in a closed system is constant OVER TIME. How can it possibly leave out time? Worse yet, the law of conservation of energy actually spills out as a consequence of Noether's theorem, and the time symmetry of the laws of physics -- that is, the fact that the laws of physics should be the same today as they will be tomorrow. CoE is, in a sense, a consequence of time.
    --
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  9. Re:What a complete waste of everyone's time by Brad1138 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE. NEVER EVER EVER NEVER NEVER EVER. Can we, as a species, please get over it?

    Although I agree with your statement for the most part, It is short sided to say "NEVER EVER EVER NEVER NEVER EVER". There have been a lot of things that scientist (and others) claimed could never happen, just to be proven wrong in the future (ie we can never go faster than the speed of sound). We have a few hundred years,if that, of "modern" science under our belts. In a few million years, our level of knowledge will be a lot closer to a caveman then a scientist. Never say never.

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  10. Re:Not really perpetual motion, though. by catbutt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In the same sense that windmills change the climate by slowing down the wind, I suppose you are right.

  11. And what do they have ? by aepervius · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If they don't have a first machine, and only equation, they have NOTHING. On paper I can fly to the moon with only a big 7 foot stick , 77 inches of blue string (MUST be blue) and 3/4 gallon of milk. They HAVE to have a physical demonstration of PMM/OU or they are one of those thousands of other scam artist (Stan Meyer, Mark Golde, Dennis Klein...) which pretend to have something they don't really have : PMM/OU, or are quite near, SOOOO NEAR, we only need a bit of reengineering, to get a final solution to the free energy problem (yeah, right). Steorn pretend they worked 3 years (now 4) on this and they would never have a ready machine ? No generator ? Nothing ? (YEAH. RIGHT.).

    --
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  12. You're out to lunch by p3d0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Mods, don't be blinded because he started his post with "at risk of Karma".

    This device which is really nothing more nor less than the exact same technology that NASA uses for orbital flyby which is how we get probes into deep space is just an application in electromagnetic fields rather than G fields.

    Wrong. The gravitational slingshot technique conserves energy, so it could not be the basis for a perpetual motion machine.

    Now as to those making jokes about the first and second laws of thermodynamics. If an object at rest remains at rest unless acted on by an outside force and an object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.... Is this not by definition perpetual motion? It keeps on doing whatever until forever.... Pretty obvious folks.

    Don't be dense. Perpetual motion usually (as it does in this case) refers to a device that produces more energy than it consumes.

    Of course those who oppose the idea that we can arrive at energy by some means such as this, openly preach to us that the whole universe erupted out of the head of a pin, [Big Bang anybody?] and are quite happy for all of its mass and all of its energy to have erupted out of nothing in that event. [Logic anybody?]

    I'm not an astrophysicist, but my understanding is that time also began in the big bang. It's not like one moment there was lots of mass and energy when there was none the previous moment. There was no previous moment.


    No I haven't done anything but point out the truth and that isn't troll.

    Correction: you're not an intentional troll.

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    1. Re:You're out to lunch by syntaxglitch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't be dense. Perpetual motion usually (as it does in this case) refers to a device that produces more energy than it consumes. Well, really it just refers to a machine that runs forever without energy input, which implies either nonconservation of energy, or some sort of process with no losses to friction or other effects that runs forever on inertia. The latter would be just as interesting in many ways, and certainly also violates the laws of physics, but it's not really the same thing.

      I'm not an astrophysicist, but my understanding is that time also began in the big bang. It's not like one moment there was lots of mass and energy when there was none the previous moment. There was no previous moment. The usual analogy is "what's north of the north pole?" Not only time itself but all the laws of physics "began" at the big bang, so forget causality and conservation of energy as well.

      Correction: you're not an intentional troll. No, actually, I'm pretty sure he was being 100% intentional there.
    2. Re:You're out to lunch by rdt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      quote: That's not known..If you can provide a proof of that, I am sure the science community would enjoy a look. /quote.

      It _is_ known (see Einstein's theory of relativity) and has been pretty well proven. The fact that you don't know it doesn't make it so.

  13. What if it's true? by Danathar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We all know what will happen if it does not work. That's just plane boring to talk about. Also reading people make jokes about snake oil is boring too.

    What's more interesting is to think of what WOULD happen if it were true. How would the politics of the world change? Would it plunge the world into war? Would peace brake out?

    As a thought experiment independent of this being true how would the world change in 3 months, 6 months, 6 years if unlimited engergy was discovered?

  14. Re:Breaking the Law by couchslug · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Easily dealt with.
    Build a working model, and offer it and the plans to build more for public inspection by a variety of scientists.

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  15. Re:Not really perpetual motion, though. by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have not just one but SEVERAL methods for converting sunlight into electrical energy. I will share plans for these devices with you for a low fee.

  16. Build your own perpetual motion machine! by ancientt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't that what solar cells are? 'Practical' perpetual energy? I know there are issues with the breakdown of materials, and eventual cooling of the sun, but if you invented the solar cell and called it a 'perpetual energy' machine, then where would you be? Much like where this guy is I suspect, being called a scam artist before you even get a chance to exhibit, being ignored because you weren't in negotiations with governments and pushing for NDAs.

    I'm hoping that this will turn out to be something similar. I'm hoping that the demonstration will show way of harnessing energy we previously mostly ignored or didn't use the same way. We've got geothermal energy mostly untapped, wave energy mostly underfunded and immense, practically immeasurable energy flung by the sun into space, benefiting nobody. It isn't as if the energy sources don't exist, we just don't have the technology to tap most of the big ones yet.

    The way I understand it, perpetual energy isn't even really impossible, sub-atomic particles pop into and out of existence all the time and sometimes get separated, thus Hawking radiation and for all practical purposes, perhaps all purposes, demonstrate perpetual motion. The trick would be in harnessing them, tricky bit that, what with the black holes and all. If you figure out how to do it you'd get a lot of cool points.

    Failing any of the big payoff candidates like black holes or tapping the sun, maybe you could harness the magnetic properties of the earth? I think they're mostly a product of the earth's kinetic and maybe heat energy, they aren't truly perpetual, but it would be a neat trick to actually find a way to use them.

    Yes, I know, this has the earmarks of a scam, but why not wait until we get a chance to find out more before we dismiss it entirely? You're not spending anything but your time, and to my way of thinking, anything that makes you think and reconsider your notions of what is possible is not a waste.

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  17. Power from the Moon's Gravity: by MDMurphy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tidal power. Massive amounts of water moving towards and away from shore, pulled mostly by the gravity of the moon.

    1. Re:Power from the Moon's Gravity: by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And there was me thinking that the tides every twelve hours were caused by
      1: The moon pulling a bunch of water towards it (tide 1) 2: The centripetal force caused by the fact that the centre of rotation of the system is off-centre with relation to the centre of the Earth (tide 2) A 3m shift in tectonic plates every day is going to cause a bunch of earthquakes isn't it?

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    2. Re:Power from the Moon's Gravity: by fredklein · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Um, ocean-going ships appear to "withstand the beating and corrosive power of salt water" quite well.

  18. The particular cheat by BooleanLobster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I read the Steorn patent a while ago (the last time it was posted on /.), and I spotted the flaw pretty easily. The machine is meant to move a metal plate around to selectively block the magnetic field from a permanent magnet. If you could do that without using too much energy, then it would be a viable perpetual motion machine, but moving conductors around in magnetic fields takes precisely "too much" energy.

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  19. Re:Use finesse by fabs64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a FORCE, you can't "tap" it any more than you can tap gravity.

  20. Re:Use finesse by SEMW · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Funny you should say that. Because this IS not a perpetual energy machine, but is actually just using a "novel form" of acquiring energy.
    And it doesn't break any laws of thermodynamics. Not more as a simple dynamo or a magnetic brake. Ummm, what?

    From http://www.steorn.com/orbo/claim/:

    "The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy"

    "The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%"

    That's 2 out of the three lawys of thermodynamics broken, by my count.

    The only "catch" is that they tap the energy of Earth's magnetic field. You can't get energy from a static magnetic field. (You can get it from a changing magnetic field, and the Earth's magnetic field is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small.) Doing so would basically be tantamount to breaking the first law of thermodynamics.
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  21. Windmills by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Windmills harness the power of air moving under force from both solar and the Earth's rotation. One of the oldest transducers known to industry, after the waterwheel.

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  22. Re:Yes and No by Matt+Edd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Twelve hours later it's being thrown away from the Earth by centrifugal force. It's actually the Earth being pulled away from the water.
  23. Their Disclaimer... by Franklin+Brauner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm a good judge of character..and these guys strike me as, at minimum, sincere. I want badly for it to be true -- bring on the Holodeck next -- and replicators! I'm ready for the future!

    However, the proof of the pudding is under the crust. Have a look a their Disclaimer, which says it all:

    "Steorn and its suppliers further do not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within the Materials or Ideas."

    Indeed.

  24. magnets by mzs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seriously when you hear a claim of a perpetual motion machine, then at the instant that you hear the word magnet, you should think scam.

  25. Re:2nd Law convenient when you want it to be by makomk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm no physicist, but I think the rough answer is that people would have to be really dumb to use the 2nd law of thermodynamics as an argument against evolution, not just because they'd be wrong, but because they'd be arguing against the existence of life in the first place. (Seriously - all living organisms have to stave off the effects of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it's fundamental to their survival. The reason they don't violate it is that the processes involved create more entropy elsewhere.)