http://www.wired.com/news/technology/gizmos/0,71626-0.html?tw=wn_index_5

Quote :

" Perpetual Motion Claim Probed 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. The flaw with such claims lies in one of the most fundamental principles in basic physics, known as the first law of thermodynamics. In layman's terms, the first law states that energy is always conserved inside a closed system. It can be transformed into different forms inside the system, such as heat or work, but it can't be created or destroyed. "Thermodynamics is largely an empirical field, and everything we've observed is consistent with the first law," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Ian Waitz. "When you make enough observations over a long period of time, things that start as hypotheses turn into things we call law. This would be not consistent with all other observations, which is a reason to be skeptical." In the past, most claimants haven't met a standard of ordinary proof, much less an extraordinary one required to overturn a fundamental pillar of modern science. In most cases, sincere claimants have found that they simply didn't calculate the energy produced and consumed correctly. Some of the most flamboyant inventors have found that their devices were coincidentally broken or burned out when testing time rolled around. Others have simply been exposed as obvious frauds, with batteries or a generator hidden out of sight. While outlandish, McCarthy's claims have stirred up enough interest to at least hope for a thorough vetting, if not confirmation. His Economist ad, quoting playwright George Bernard Shaw's dictum that "All great truths begin as blasphemies," is seeking a jury panel of 12 physicists to perform public tests. Whatever the unorthodoxy of that approach, he says the researchers will have no constraints on their work. They will be given full access to the company's work, will be able to take the technology home to test in their own laboratories, or recreate the process themselves. According to the company's website(http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx), nearly 1500 scientists have "expressed interest" in testing the technology as of late Monday, and more than 17,000 people had signed up to receive word of the results. "Ultimately the aim is so large, that the people involved, and the process that goes on, has to be purer than pure," McCarthy says."

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 7:26 PM. Reason : a]

8/22/2006 7:20:58 PM

and another one that wont pan out

8/22/2006 7:24:58 PM

http://www.rpi.edu/~markhn/sounds/laws.wav

8/22/2006 7:26:06 PM

2500+ scientists have signed up thus far.

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 7:30 PM. Reason : website]

8/22/2006 7:29:55 PM

What is their definition of a scientist, a crank with a BS in engineering from fourty years ago who rails against relativity on his website?

8/22/2006 7:33:27 PM

I imagine Ph.D.s and the like. They have an online screen http://www.steorn.net/en/register.aspx?p=9.

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 7:37 PM. Reason : a]

8/22/2006 7:35:36 PM

NATURE'S HARMONIC
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE

8/22/2006 7:36:48 PM

You imagine but you don't know.

In anycase, what's the deal with crackpots and magnetic fields? The latest dumb product I've seen is
using small magnets to improve the taste of wine:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-08-06-wine-wizard_x.htm

8/22/2006 7:38:54 PM

Right, because if I knew, I'd say it. You should stay mute more often than just winter.

8/22/2006 7:40:28 PM

Goddamn irish and their failure to obey laws.

Admit it, you were wasted when you invented perpetual motion.

8/22/2006 7:51:31 PM

they arent really claiming perpetural motion. just free energy.

8/22/2006 8:03:27 PM

LISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

8/22/2006 8:47:50 PM

Quote :

"they arent really claiming perpetural motion. just free energy."

Oh, that's all

8/22/2006 8:52:37 PM

theres a difference

8/22/2006 8:53:53 PM

btw

these people are hucksters

you know how I can say this

because people like this have been doing these sorts of things for CENTURIES

if they had a real technology, they wouldn't have to show it to scientists

THEY WOULD JUST FUCKING SELL IT

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 8:55 PM. Reason : .]

8/22/2006 8:55:18 PM

No there isn't.

8/22/2006 8:55:24 PM

yes there is

8/22/2006 8:57:09 PM

8/22/2006 9:00:00 PM

Perpetual motion implies free energy.
Free energy implies perpetual motion.

For all practical purposes, they are the same thing.

8/22/2006 9:07:01 PM

[old]

8/22/2006 9:19:59 PM

Quote :

" Free energy implies perpetual motion."

wrong

8/22/2006 9:21:23 PM

does anyone have the official reasoning or accepted answer to why magnets could not be used to "make" perpetual motion?

im being serious with this...i understand the first law of thermo as it relates to the issue...as covered in the article above...im just curious

8/22/2006 9:29:28 PM

I see no reason behind your claim.

8/22/2006 9:33:06 PM

the reason is that they are two entirely different ideas that exist independantly

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 9:37 PM. Reason : 234 ]

8/22/2006 9:36:50 PM

Lewizzle, you must remember, Josh is the guy that proclaimed a car had been built that ran on tap water converted into hydrogen and then fed into a fuel-cell to produce the electricity needed to both drive the car AND convert more water into hydrogen.

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 9:42 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/22/2006 9:41:51 PM

I have a question.

Why are there so many dogmas in a thread about science?

8/22/2006 9:44:27 PM

People who support OIL COMPANIES that gouge consumers are naturally opposed to other fuels like hydrogen, and while criminal oil company promoters like^^ would have you believe that cars couldnt run on hydrogen or electricity, they certaintly can.


Id rather be accused of believing in perpetual motion then beign accused of supporting criminal OIL COMPANIES.



[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 9:46 PM. Reason : 243]

8/22/2006 9:44:58 PM

Here's mine:

Quote :

"Id rather be accused of believing in perpetual motion then beign accused of supporting criminal OIL COMPANIESbelieving wholeheartedly in the doctrines of any one religion, philosophy, or political party."

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 10:15 PM. Reason : pedantry]

8/22/2006 9:50:16 PM

what the fuck are 'unabased policies'

8/22/2006 9:51:27 PM

a synonym of 'independantly'

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 9:53 PM. Reason : a]

8/22/2006 9:52:52 PM

Quote :

"does anyone have the official reasoning or accepted answer to why magnets could not be used to "make" perpetual motion?"

It depends how you are using the magnet to produce power. If you are relying on its ability to attract other magnets then it is just like gravity, although power can get generated by allowing the magnets to fall towards each other (Work = Force times Distance), to reset the system you must put all the energy back into the system to get the magnets apart again.

If you mean electrically, as in a generator, then it is the reverse tractive force created as the wires pass through the magnetic field, which induces a current in the wires, which produces a proportional and contrary magnetic field which pushes/pulls the wires against the direction of rotation.

To feel this, get a disconnected DC motor and try turning it, depending on the motor it should be fairly easy as all you are pushing against is kinetic friction. Now, short the motor and try turning it again, you will notice it has become much more difficult to rotate the motor.

8/22/2006 9:53:14 PM

^^ I agree. You make no sense.

8/22/2006 9:58:17 PM

you know

amongst a crew of smart people Lewizzle was always considered one of the "smarter ones"

so you must understand how funny I find your comments

8/23/2006 9:32:38 AM

btw

why Lewizzle did those ridiculous majors is beyond me

it's not what he was "supposed" to do



[Edited on August 23, 2006 at 9:37 AM. Reason : .]

8/23/2006 9:36:17 AM