How Perpetual Motion Works
Imagine I was an avid knitter. Not only that but that I’d created a new knitting technique that was by any measurable means superior to all other techniques. Where should I publish news of my discovery? Knitting World or International Finance Management?
Suppose I was a stamp collector and I found that there was an even rarer form of Penny Black. Should I tell Stamp Collectors Monthly or Money and Markets?
Steorn has some stunning news.
In 2003 Steorn undertook a project to develop more efficient micro generators. Early into this project the company developed certain generator configurations that appeared to be over 100% efficient. Further investigation and development has led to the company’s current technology, a technology that produces free energy. The technology is patent pending.
That is fantastic. This could be a new era for humanity. It’s utterly utterly wonderful. So where can I read about this amazing discovery? Nature? Science? No it’s an advert in the Economist.
Steorn have sent out a challenge [PDF]. What they don’t seem aware of is that there’s a standard challenge laid down to any scientist making a claim.
Prove it.
If their device works then this could be a new era for humanity. It’s stunning stuff, so if it’s genuine then it’s something to get really excited about. So how do you prove it to a sceptical scientific community?
You could take it to a conference. That would get you feedback straight away. It might not be positive, but you could use that to find out what it is that bothers physicists about your device and then tackle those problems or explain why they aren’t problems.
You could publish it. There’s Nature or Science who would love to publish this – if it’s true. You could also submit a pre-print paper to arXiv where it could be read anyway.
Instead this is a public challenge. How does the challenge work? You submit your name to Steorn as a scientist and they pick the most qualified and the most cynical to test their work. As it happens the most cynical scientists will assume it’s a scam and not waste their time, so the names they get will be the not quite so cynical scientists. Steorn pick their jury and then the “cynical”* scientists test the machine.
If they submitted their work to a journal their ideas would be tested, but they’d never know who those scientists were.
So this must be a pretty special device to spend your time testing. How does it work? It’s hard to tell visiting their site. There’s lots on what it can do. There’s not a lot on how it works. If you want to read about it you’ll find no explanation, no diagrams, no results.
There is a video. The explanation occurs at 1m50s and it’s magnets that do the work, which is typical of perpetual motion devices. So the thing being shifted around requires a friction-free surface, the electricity activating the magnets needs to travel along superconductors and be stored in a perfect battery. And along the way it needs to gain energy. How do you gain energy? It’s all explained at 2m03s:
Quite simply the analogy would be that you walk to the top of the hill and you walk back down to the bottom of the hill, but in doing so you’ve gained energy.
They’re right, their machine would be exactly like gaining energy by walking up and down a hill. It would also be like waving a magic wand and energy simply happening. It doesn’t explain how it works.
Traditional physics would state that as a body you gain no potential energy by moving up and down a hill – you’re back where you were so there’s nothing to gain. American schoolchildren learn this at K12. However you do convert chemical energy in your body into heat in making your muscles work to move you up and down a hill. This is a lot of work so you lose energy to the environment.
If they want to prove their work to cynical scientists then it’s not going to work. So why challenge via the Economist?
In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.
And what is a public forum? It’s a forum where you have to be validated and chosen by unspecified means by Steorn. The public have no access to the papers and are not invited. If I wanted to give a public demonstration then I’d fit the machine in a car and drive round Ireland for a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t prove perpetual motion, but it would be enough to make people want to buy a similar device for their car.
The challenge neither works for scientists or the public. So really why aren’t they being tested the same way as everyone else? In the video at 2m12s they explain scientists are the roadblock. They forsaw 5 to 7 years persuading scientists “…as a business that makes absolutely no sense.” But you don’t need to persuade all scientists. Just enough to get business to invest. This could be done in six-months if they had a model that worked and understood what they’re doing. Or two weeks if they had a car driving round Ireland. If the device works, then it works.
It’s a scientific trial, where Steorn decide who the jury is in a public forum where the public are excluded. And they’re picking “the most cynical scientists” to put them to the test by advertising in magazine where a tiny minority would be qualified to test their claims.
Somehow I don’t think the average reader of the Economist where they placed their advert published their challenge will fall for it. Perhaps Weekly World News would be a better target?
Updated: SciGuy Free energy: Is this a crock or what? links to an excellent news story at Reuters which includes the line:
The concept of “free energy” — which contradicts the first law of thermodynamics that in layman’s terms states you cannot get more energy out than you put in — has divided the scientific community for centuries.
True. In the same way that the idea of turning lead into gold has divided the scientific community. It’s divided them from cranks. But don’t take my word for it. It’s your money if you want to help fund them.
*Scare-quotes because I am that cynical.
technorati tags: physics, perpetual+motion, skepticism, scepticism, energy
Comments seem to run about 90% pre-judged and 10% open-minded. Those who already ‘know’ the outcome are the same as the relgious authorities who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope and count the number of planets, as they already knew the outcome from their Biblical knowledge. Only their ‘HOLY’ book could be right. Same argument, different book, and a different time. Most people (90%) are only comfortable in known surrondings, the unknown is too scary for them to open their eyes and look. These are the people who never make discoveries, they only re-prove the same old ones over and over. Discoveries are made by adventurous people who say ‘why not?’ and then proceed to walk an unknown path. Let us not burn them at the stake until at least one more open mineded, third party is allowed to examine the data. After all Einstein was a stake candidate for along time, and I think he did in the end have something worth while to say.
The religious analogy doesn’t really hold because the Bible was divine revelation. The first law of thermodynamics is tested on a daily basis. You may have done it yourself in science class? You might also notice I link to their site so you can examine their case for yourself. It’s not a very efficient way of burning them at the stake.
Your Einstein analogy doesn’t work either. When he presented his case it was tested and accepted, possibly because Einstein presented his case using the scientific protocols of his day. What Einstein didn’t do was take out an advert in Das Ekonomist and select his own jury of “cynical scientists” to test his ideas. He didn’t decide the scientific process simply didn’t apply to him.
It’s not a case of refusing to look through the telescope. Steorn are refusing anyone except their chosen few to examine their work. We just have to take their word for it without a shred of evidence or explanation.
I’m glad I’m open-minded judging the case on the evidence provided rather than dogmatically insisting there might be something in it regardless of any evidence.
I can’t believe that this is STILL in the press, Internet or otherwise. Jesus H. Christ in a cardboard Box, is this still, still being report on? Why not Hitler’s brain alive in a jar in Argentina, for Pete’s sake?!!!
Dear Alun:
Please READ your history before speaking. You will look less foolish then. I can not argue with the uninformed. Because, it them becomes only a argument of emotions, not fact.
There’s stuff about Galileo and Copernicus on site. They both published their ideas using the scientific protocols of the day rather than publishing a challenge in a Renaissance magazine. Neither were burned at the stake as I recall. Perhaps you’re thinking of Giordano Bruno?
I really can’t remember seeing Einstein’s advert announcing the Photoelectric effect and the careful vetting that he did to allow handpicked “cynical scientists” to test it. He didn’t decide that the same rules that apply to everyone else didn’t apply to him because he was special.
All I ask is you keep an open mind and think back to your own high school experiments which tested basic concepts. To paraphrase Groucho Marx “Who are you going to believe? Steorn or your own eyes?” Please visit Steorn’s site examine their evidence and compare it to what any teenager has done in science class.
Your position may seem obvious and well-reasoned to you, but from this side of the screen I can’t see any evidence to support your assertions. Simply telling me to read history in capital letters without some suggestions could be interpreted as dogmatic. Though I’m not forcing you to provide evidence or to post here. You may prefer to start your own weblog. You can do it in a couple of minutes at http://wordpress.com if you want.
Dear Alun:
It is not my job to educate you, nor is it in my interest to open a blog to do so. READ. Again you show your ignorance of history and display largely your emotions. What does it matter if Steorn were to require all testing scientists to have an ‘R’ in their name? Your ignorance and declared emotions make for a public spectacle, not a debate forum. Several well known illusions are based on the precept that our “eyes” can not be trusted, they do ‘lie’ to our brain. We are required to use more than emotions and our eyes. Get over it and read something, anything. Or did you stop reading after high school, since you knew everything there was to know, at that time? P.S. the web is not THE source of knowledge, books are. Try reading something on paper. Might do your argument a world of good. Most public libraries will allow you to check out books and will perform inter-library loans for books not on premise. Good luck on your new reading program.
It is suspicious that they don’t appear to be operating the way a business would operate if they had a working technology. The time and expense they’re putting into their “challenge” could be put more effetively into developing a prototype (of, say, a small perpetual “battery” — even if it’s big and clunky at first, it would have profitable applications for which they could raise big money). Why should they care about gaining agreement from the scientific community first? Clearly, they must be seeking to benefit from the hype (to raise money?) because they don’t have a usable technology.
Mr. Salt:
This statement is **WRONG**::
” ….. the first law of thermodynamics that in layman’s terms states you cannot get more energy out than you put in — ….”
It would be right, were it put this way:
” ….. the first law of thermodynamics that in layman’s terms states you cannot get more energy out than **is** put in — ….”.
And that means, Mr. Salt, from **ALL** sources, including energy from the Vacuum of Space, otherwise known as the Quantum Vacuum.
In such a case, there may be output energy greater than the amount the **OPERATOR** puts in, but *not* greater than the total from all sources. Naturally, it would be agreed that the efficiency in such cases would be less than 100% due to losses, but with astute engineering, the Co-efficient of Performance, ie., Output Energy/Operator’s Input Energy could well exceed 100%. That’s the science we Free Energy types have been accessing. It uses Quantum Physics, and Quantum Electro-dynamics, flying in the face of those who are wrongfully convinced one cannot engineer the energy from the Vacuum of Space. It’s being done, Mr. SAlt, yes, with difficulty, but with a lot less difficulty than the “work” of the “hot fusioneers” who’ve been taking the billions of our tax money for the last 50 years on a most UNlikely Tokamak system, and would spend billions more for the next 50 or more years at ITER, also (sigh…),a Tokamak – Ho Hum…
Steorn may very well have tapped Vacuum energy – you know, the waves that our hero Maxwell posited? I would remind you, Mr. Salt, that Maxwell originally had **TWENTY** equations, which were eventually cut back to 4 revised, relatively easy ones (not for me, of course), first by Heaviside, then Lorentz, and before his death, reluctantly by Maxwell himself, because even Maxwell couldn’t understand where his Hamiltonian maths were taking him in developing his electromagnetic theory in late 1864. They’ve been used in the current (no pun intended) “dipole-killing” electrical engineering up to the present time, with the exception of Tesla and other “Free Energy” inventors.
Some physicists and electrical engineers believe that permanent magnets, rather than being “storehouses” of a finite amount of magnetic energy which would eventually be depleted through work done on loads, are really “portals” to Vacuum energy, converting some amount of that energy through same-direction electron spin to magnetic energy, which can give rise to electric currents per Faraday, albeit with losses due to conversion.
I think you’ve shown why Steorn isn’t helping the Free Energy community. In the example above you’ve said why I’m wrong and given a reason. Additionally you’ve shown that it in your case the work isn’t purely free-standing but draws on what has been done before. A quick search in arXiv shows there are many papers examining the Casimir effect, which might be exploitable.
In contrast, Steorn might have tapped vacuum energy, but there’s no way to tell. They haven’t mentioned it on their site as I recall. They give no explanation beyond “It’s magnets.”
Scientifically the Steorn claims aren’t interesting because they’re not making any scientific claims. In the case of magnets being quantum portals I can read the papers and say that I disagree, magnetic fields in coils are a product of Lorentz transformations, but they could then turn around and say “That doesn’t work as an explanation because…” You can have a meaningful discussion. I’m not a good physicist so it’s likely I’d learn something. In the case of Steorn they’re only claiming their device works. You can’t move beyond “Does” “Doesn’t” “Does” “Ok, show me” “Not going to, so there”
Socially it’s interesting because it’s clearly not an attempt to influence Scientists. It’s an appeal to the public, but they’re not even providing superficial proof. Nor, so far, are they asking for money, they’re only chasing publicity.
It could be a publicity stunt and the next announcement will be “We can create public interest in your tech products around the world – and the Free Energy campaign proves it!” Yet that makes no sense because the campaign would be intentionally damaging their credibility. This could be a problem if vacuum energy becomes associated with the Steorn campaign.