Steorn's "Free Energy" Jury Comes Back To Bite Them

chiark writes "Remember Steorn? Free energy for all, coming soon, and a gauntleted slap in the face to the physics establishment: 'come be our jury, and prove us right or wrong.' Well, 2 years later, the jury's verdict is in, and it's not the validation Steorn was hoping for: 'Twenty-two independent scientists and engineers were selected by Steorn to form this jury. It has for the past two years examined evidence presented by the company. The unanimous verdict of the Jury is that Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy. The jury is therefore ceasing work.' Steorn had the choice to either accept this and move on, or attempt to rebut. Guess which approach they took?"

Comments

FP

[CheShACat]

I just can't believe that anyone wasted 2 fucking years of their life trying to "disprove" it.

What? No Mr. Fusion?

[spafbi]

And I bought a DeLorean in preparation just for this... Thanks a lot, Steorn. Bah!

Re:What? No Mr. Fusion?

[PhilHibbs]

Well, if they actually work, shouldn't they be in our past and present as well?

Because they haven't been invented yet. As soon as they are invented, then they will be in our past as well. Duh, did you skip Chronodynamics 101, or did you just think "I'll come back and study it when I invent my time machine"?

Re:What? No Mr. Fusion?

[gtall]

Personally, I think scientific laws should be open to voting. There are so many that are downright pesky and inhibit innovation, like the laws of thermodynamics. C'mon, these have been the single greatest impediment to free energy for over 80 years. It is about time we rewrite them and put new ones up for a vote. Even something as time-tested as the law of gravity. It's waaaaayyy past time for that law to die so it wouldn't cost so much to lift our satnavs. Come to think of it, the law of large numbers is a bit of a pest too.

The answer is obvious

[eln]

The solution to their problem is to form a lobbying group to get Congress to reform the Laws of Physics. Those laws have been around for centuries and are clearly woefully outdated. Sure, at first the so-called "Laws" of Thermodynamics were a good idea, but now they're just holding us back.

I failed physics and even I know this is junk.

[Garbad Ropedink]

The fact that people take these free energy claims seriously is the prime example of how scientifically illiterate people are, and it's a real problem. It's what allows things like alt-meds to gain a foothold, UFO abduction proponents to have a voice, and free energy claims to waste everybody's time.

Even somebody like myself with no scientific background whatsoever can understand basic scientific principles like thermodynamics. It's called scientific literacy, it's like regular literacy except you replace regular words with science words.

Re:I failed physics and even I know this is junk.

[Bigjeff5]

That last bit is key.

In order to think critically, you must be continuously re-evaluating your own ideas, as well as everything you hear. You don't write things off immediately, you take a stance of "sounds interesting, but I'm not ready to believe it yet" for just about everything. If evidence and experience verify what someone tells you, or what you have observed, you believe it. But when new evidence comes out, you must immediately re-evaluate your belief to see if the new data will change your belief.

In this way, when someone comes up with a new "free energy" scheme, they should never be written off immediately. However, if their data falls into the realm of what has already been thoroughly disproven, you should definitely not jump on their bandwagon, so to speak, until they have thoroughly proven that this is new science.

Re:I am using free energy right now!

[Wuhao]

From what it sounds like, this is more like:

I have free energy, and I invite you to come take a look. Oh, you've come to take a look, have you? Wonderful, just have a seat over there while I go work out where I put that damned free energy machine... Hmm... Yes, just be patient now, I'm sure it's probably in one of these cabinets. Or maybe one of the boxes? I've moved recently, and I must admit it might be in my storage shed.

In the meantime, let me tell you how it works. It's really quite simple, based on the principle of mag-- oh, HELLO Mrs. Reynolds! No, I'm not busy. How IS your cousin doing? Oh, fantastic... ...

Sorry about that, gentlemen, Mrs. Reynolds is a lonely widow, and needs all the social contact she can get. I'm so glad you're still here. In any case, down to business. The notion is really quite simple: use magnets and induction to generate unlimited power. Well, yes, there IS quite a bit more to it that that, but it's all quite technical. Oh yes, quite right, you are trained scientists and engineers, and I suppose you would be interested. All the necessary information is in my notes... Now, where did I put those...

You know what, I think my brother has a copy, I'll just drop him a note. He's living as a vagrant in Somalia, trying to explore the human condition. I'll just send him a quick e-mail, and when he makes his way to a city with working telecommunications infrastructure, I'm sure he can tell me where to find them. In the meantime, who's up for some Boggle? It's really a fantastic game. ...Wait, where are you going? Come back! Demonstrating free energy is a difficult task, and while I understand your frustrations with the process, you must be patient! Come baaack!

Pah. The scientific establishment has ONCE AGAIN proven that they are unwilling to consider new ideas. Now, where DID I put that perpetual motion machine...

Re:If you believe in zero viscosity

[Draconian]

Perpetual motion is actually a fundamental property of the universe, though we usually call it inertia: a body will not stop moving, unless somebody moves it. Therefore, linear perpetual motion is the norm, with change of velocity depending on an outside force.
To make it even more interesting: non-linear perpetual motion is actually also present in all molecules, at any given temperature, even at 0 Kelvin. Quantum chemistry shows that vibrational motion in a molecule changes by energetic quanta, where at least half a quantum is always present in a vibrational degree of motion (so-called zero-point energy). Hence, the atoms in a molecule are always in motion, even at 0 K, and the motion is non-linear. In first approximation, especially for diatomic molecules, it can be described as an oscillation with a parabolic energy profile, for multi-dimentional molecules one usually gets ergodic movement that is a bit more complex to describe, and is usually considered chaotic where only the statistical properties are relevant.
But no free energy, of course.

Don't bash the jury.

[sifi]

Look, I admit that their claims sound unlikely, but you can't just dismiss all claims out of hand because "they break the laws of physics". The fact is that they break the current laws of physics.

Hell, there could be all sorts of unlikely explanations that don't even break the current laws of physics (like perhaps some mass is being converted into energy)

Real Science means conducting experiments and taking measurements. The 'laws' of physics are only as good as the experiments and measurements taken.

The fact is that the experiments have been conducted, and it appears that it doesn't work. It doesn't mean that the Jury are 'idiots' for trying to test it - it means that they are scientists.

Re:Don't bash the jury.

[Minwee]

My dick tastes like taffy. Go on, test it, or else I shall dub thee "Not a scientist."

Well, if you say so. I'll get a sharp knife and start preparing some samples for the double blind trial.

Or was this kind of experiment more what you had in mind?

Re:I am using free energy right now!

[Chris Burke]

Pah. The scientific establishment has ONCE AGAIN proven that they are unwilling to consider new ideas. Now, where DID I put that perpetual motion machine...

*and just after the last scientist leaves the room, closing the door behind them with an angry scoff*

Oh here it is! It was behind the copy machine the whole time along with the free energy machine! Gawd I'm such a dunderhead sometimes!

Guys! Guys! I found it! Oh... they're all gone. Well I guess they just aren't interested in the best thing ever. Their loss!

*tosses the free energy machine into the basket on the perpetual motion machine, and effortlessly flies off into SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!*

Free Energy, what I would do if I invented it.

[jameskojiro]

If I invented a free energy machine, here is what I would do.

1. Create a "Solar Panel Farm" on my Property. The panels would be cheap panels of glass spray painted silver on one side. In an obscure shed would be the "AC/DC converter for the cells" which in actuality would be chock full of my amazing magnetic free energy engine thingies. I would produce about 2x as much energy as I would if the solar cells were actually real. :) Have another shed with "batteries" to supply the grid at night, in reality, they are filled with more of my machines and used batteries that don;t work with GNDN (goes nowhere, does nothing) wiring.

2. Sell the energy to the electric company and take the money to buy more land and build more "fake solar farms or fake windmills" more nondescript sheds built housing my free energy devices.

3. Keep repeating my process of making "fake" solar energy farms and maybe some real ones that produce more electricity that they should, (wink wink), selling electricity till I have built up a war chest enough to buy a region power company. Take several coal powered plants and fill them with my machines and only burn enough coal to make a diffuse small amount of smoke so no suspicions are raised. Lower my electricity rates as well for the consumers cause I don't have to buy so much coal to make power. Start selling power to other companies and take them over in the same way.

4. Once I have over 52% of total electricity in the country being produced by my free energy devices I would then open a chain of plants that would extract CO2 from the air, break sea water down and make hydrocarbons the hard way, sure it would be energy intensive, but what do i care, I gots free energy! Disguise them as refineries and buy a token amount of crude from domestic producers, make about 20x the amount of hydrocarbons for the amount of crude processed. Sell the produced oil to China and Russia first and then to the US, take over the oil companies the same way I did for the electric companies. Build enough infrastructure to crush the middle east and OPEC financially.

5. When the whole world is dependent on my free energy, then come clean about how I did it and how I made free energy and laugh my ass off from my personal moon base which is powered by my free energy machine.