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Yet Another Perpetual Motion Device
The Star reports on this inventor breaking all the laws of physics as far as free energy goes. It even provoked interest from "esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn". I would like to know how this seemingly backyard enthusiast's experimental set up has not been tried a million times over the years. It seems so simple and too good to be true. The article has links to a multi-part video demo of the device accelerating an electric motor under load for free!
So, if this is yet another crack pot with a perpetual motion machine then why post this to slashdot? Further, why did slashdot accept the article? Doesn't this just encourage news sources to print garbage science? I think we should be working to increase the scientific integrity of popular science articles rather than giving the bunk ones creedence.
WTF is wrong with you? The linked article is has perpetual motion in its *title*. What idiot modded this crap informative?
-knewter
How does your comment deserve a +5 Insightful?
WTF?!
'Or do you think scientists are so stupid that, after more than a hundred years of research, they would have overlooked a basic principle that a dyslexic cook can discover by himself?'
Yes. A hundred years is a very short period of time. I think dyslexic cooks will be making science redefine its principles in 10,000 years. It may not be this dyslexic cook but a scientist is only trained in what is currently known, their thinking processes are trapped in the box of current theory and they are unlikely to come across any fundamental groundbreaking change. That doesn't mean there aren't fundamental groundbreaking changes to be found it just means that those who have traveled too far down the academic path will be constricted to changes that are mostly consistent with what they have experienced and that experience is anecdotal evidence.
We did not get to our current state of understanding in one hundred years, it has taken billions of years. To think we have unraveled all there is to know about the universe from a mere hundred years worth of observation is folly. It isn't even sensible. We have all seen processes that appear to be perpetual if you don't watch long enough, in the scale of the universe that could mean effects or limits on effects that appear to be 'laws of the universe' and are really only local phenomena that persist for a billion years.
We are ants and we no more know how the universe works than ants do. If we lived on their scale we would no doubt believe the universe to be a forest on a plane that extends forever because after a hundred years the best instrumentation we have been able to develop can not find an end to it. You keep your forest and I'll keep my lawn tyvm.