Perpetual Motion Claim Probed?

Reign-Mack

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Perpetual Motion Claim Probed
12:00 PM Aug, 21, 2006

Sean McCarthy believes his small Irish high-tech company has overturned one of physics' most fundamental laws.

It happened by accident, he says. His company Steorn was looking for an efficient way to power closed-circuit TVs that spy on ATMs, and instead stumbled on a technique they think produces more energy than it consumes.

The company hasn't released specific details about the process, other than to say it involves magnetic fields configured in precisely the right way. Using the magnets results in a motor that's more than 100 percent efficient -- essentially creating energy, McCarthy says.

For scientists and engineers, this is the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, and is almost unanimously viewed as flat-out impossible. McCarthy, an affable former energy company engineer, knows just how preposterous his claims sound. So, he advertised in this week's Economist for a panel of the "most cynical possible" physicists to help validate them.

"If we're right, that will come out in due course," McCarthy says. "If we're wrong, that will come out. It's such a big claim that it has to be validated by experts."

A big claim it may be, but hardly original. The clamor of voices saying they've invented revolutionary new "free energy" technologies has grown tumultuous in recent years, driven perhaps by the internet's capacity to connect and inspire would-be tinkerers, or simply a that lay people are more fascinated with science.

The American Physical Society was worried enough about the trend a few years ago that its executive board put out a statement in June 2002, warning against such claims.

"(We are) concerned that in this period of unprecedented scientific advance, misguided or fraudulent claims of perpetual motion machines and other sources of unlimited free energy are proliferating," the group said. "Such devices directly violate the most fundamental laws of nature, laws that have guided the scientific progress that is transforming our world."

McCarthy says he's not using his claims to raise money, at least not yet. Steorn is privately funded, but is not seeking new investment until after the tests have been done, he contends.

The company has, however, filed patent applications on some of its work, and hopes to commercialize it by creating batteries for mobile phones and laptops, both markets that can respond quickly to new technologies. In the unlikely event it is borne out, it could also radically transform the automotive business and other industries.

The drive to create an engine that powers itself, or a self-replenishing source of energy, has long been a holy grail for the tinkering class, with a history stretching back nearly a thousand years. Like alchemy, its medieval pseudo-scientific counterpart, it has attracted high names and low, scientists and faith-based researchers, believers and outright scam artists.

Among the most notable investigators was Leonardo da Vinci, who included drawings of several self-driving devices inside his notebooks. However, he was publicly critical of such schemes, comparing them to the alchemical quest to transmute lead to gold.

Documenters of such schemes nevertheless find an unbroken string of subsequent proposals, tests, and failures that stretch to the present day, occasionally crossing over lines where would-be inventors are accused of running out-and-out con operations.

Perhaps the most famous recent claimant is a flamboyant only-in-America figure named Dennis Lee, who has spent much of the last decade churches and auditoriums across the United States promising "free electricity," among other inventions, and selling rights to open "dealerships" for thousands of dollars at a time. His efforts have led numerous state attorneys general offices to seek sanctions, including a recent string of fines and court orders in the state of Washington.
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Call me old fashioned, but I'll beleive it when I see a practical demonstration or the story is substantiated by a reliable body such as the BBC or The Nursing Mother.
 
Well... It appears Steorn have finally got their prototype running ;) More information and videos at http://www.steorn.com - the engineers video is definitely worth a watch. Now... I'm as sceptical as the next person but what if, just, what if this is true. It's completely game changing. If it does prove to be true I can see the oil markets collapsing which could be catastrophic for many parts of the world.
 
Steorn Ltd is a small, private technology development company in Dublin, Ireland. It announced in August 2006 it had developed a technology which could produce "free, clean, and constant energy" in violation of the law of conservation of energy,[2] a fundamental principle of physics.[3]

Steorn challenged the scientific community to investigate their claim[4] and, in December 2006, said that it had chosen a jury of scientists to do so.[5] In June 2009 the jury gave its unanimous verdict that Steorn had not demonstrated the production of energy.[6][7] Nevertheless, Steorn maintain that they will be launching their technology commercially at the end of 2009.[6][8]


Interesting reading....;)

No doubt this exciting new development in perpetual motion machines will be sabotaged, or the rights bought by the evil oil companies only to be locked away in their deepest darkest vaults along with all the other perpetual motion machines.

Thus denying mankind limitless free energy and condeming us all to certain death at the hands of global warming.

Damm the New World order and the oil companies!

However it looks like we're all saved as they're licencing the technology, just send them a stamped addressed envelope with your cheque enclosed and no doubt you'll recieve an exciting information pack explaining their limitless investment possibilities!

Who's going first then?
 
If this is true my Dads going to be a bit peeved off,he's been trying to crack this little chestnut since i was a kid.

He even took his lathe to Spain when he went to carry on his work.
 
One of the first things you learn at school in science class is energy can neither be created nor destroyed. At the moment I'm filing this as marketing ploy. Would be nice if it was true though.
 
One of the first things you learn at school in science class is energy can neither be created nor destroyed. At the moment I'm filing this as marketing ploy. Would be nice if it was true though.

Exactly, they're claiming that the laws of energy don't apply any more. Personally, I've got my fingers crossed :rotfl:
 
They've probably cracked the Panther electron//bounce theorum. Just think of the possibilities.:thumbsup:
 
There has to be losses, just has to be! otherwise my mind will impolode!!

I await credable testing, not some small interent firm saying they did it.

AVF HAS NUCLEAR REACTORS THAT CAN POWER A MOON BASE . . .there. IT must be true.
 
There has to be losses, just has to be! otherwise my mind will impolode!!

I await credable testing, not some small interent firm saying they did it.

AVF HAS NUCLEAR REACTORS THAT CAN POWER A MOON BASE . . .there. IT must be true.

lol, GAINS man GAINS! Losses are for losers. We'll soon be driving along and pumping power back INTO the national grid at the end of our journey. Did you watch the engineers video? Some well respected and sceptical engineers came out and said "I either have to believe what I've seen with my own eyes or I have to deny it. I can't deny it."
 
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I had to laugh when I saw that their demonstrator was attached to a rechargeable battery, which was naturally being recharged by the machine's excess.:rotfl:
Would the machine stop if the battery wasn't attached, that's the $64m question!

I suspect it would, there would be nowhere for the excess energy to go, the machine would slowly grind to a halt as it reached equilibrium with the universe.;)
 
Hey his opinions expressed here do not represent those of the AV Forums or its associated websites nor does he belive in this witch craft op posted!! BURN HIIIIIMMM
 
OK AVF boffins, where do we think the extra energy is coming from?

a) nowhere it's a hoax...

b) from the magnets

c) ?

Dave
 
What they may have is a near 100% efficient rotory machine.

It spins, with such a minimal loss that it has not been detected yet. Sort of like freezing elec cables to absolute zero to negate energy loses (hasnt been done but close too it has been done)

but i cry hoax. Otherwise we just solved global warming and other world issues in 1 step. Strange that it comes around the same time as the world is focused on cuting energy pollution etc in copenhagan.
 
OK AVF boffins, where do we think the extra energy is coming from?

a) nowhere it's a hoax...

b) from the magnets

c) ?

Dave

To be pedantic it hasn't been proven, or even demonstrated that there is any extra energy liberated.

If they did manage to prove it then.....a) for sure.
 
This guy very publicly came out a few years ago and said he was going to give a live, public demo of the technology he was using. Unsurprisingly, they cancelle, claiming "technical issues" at the last minute, and had pretty much disappeared off the radar until now.

No doubt he'll be asking for another huge investment of cash to "improve" his concept for the next 5 years before releasing a commercial product, and they we'll see him disappear into nowhere.

If he really had "invented" perpetual motion, he'd be screaming from the hilltops, looking for as much scientific backing as possible, instead of working in this very clandestine way, surely? He'd be lauded as the saviour of the planet and be a billionaire from the publicity alone, so why bother trying to make money out of it this way?
 
What they may have is a near 100% efficient rotory machine.

It spins, with such a minimal loss that it has not been detected yet. Sort of like freezing elec cables to absolute zero to negate energy loses (hasnt been done but close too it has been done)

but i cry hoax. Otherwise we just solved global warming and other world issues in 1 step. Strange that it comes around the same time as the world is focused on cuting energy pollution etc in copenhagan.

Imagine it though ! (or if say Fleishman and Pons had been (or are!) correct)

It might solve an lot of problems, but politically and economically it would create thousands more.
 

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