Via “Engadget”:http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/04/steorns-orbo-free-energy-machine-demonstrated-tomorrow/ comes news that “Steorn”:http://www.steorn.com/ are back with an allegedly working demonstration of their magnetic “free energy” (i.e., perpetual motion) machine, the “Orbo”:http://www.steorn.com/orbo/. You may remember them from “last year”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/08/22/free-lunch-and-irish-breakfast/. As before, the reading on the kookometer is over in the red, as the device is being pitched directly to the media, the demo is taking place as a show at an “art museum”:http://www.kinetica-museum.org/new_site/, and some convoluted jury system “challenge” is in place to validate it. The smart money, I believe, is of the view that Steorn — if they’re not just charlatans — have honestly reinvented some version of the magnetic motor, a mainstay of perpetual motion cranks.
{ 21 comments }
dearieme 07.04.07 at 10:07 pm
Probably the best way to power your car as you drive over your just-purchased Brooklyn Bridge.
abidemi 07.04.07 at 10:28 pm
Didn’t Ayn Rand have something similar in Atlas Shrugged?
I guess she knew physics as well as she knew psychology.
Fr. 07.04.07 at 11:12 pm
(To Kieran)
Off-topic post suggestion about LaTeX and BibTeX for the social sciences:
As you point out at the end of your workflow-apps text, Kieran, the LaTeX user is a minority in the soc. sciences.
What makes it even worse is that (1) some elements of LaTeX are set up by default in modes that are not common in social science, such as the preference for numbered bibliographies, and (2) there is no centralisation of LaTeX and especially BibTeX resources for the social sciences.
Maybe I’m wrong, especially on (2). Is there a hidden place I’ve missed somewhere online, where I could get (at last!) a proper collection of author-year style (I’m looking for something that would produce this precise style)? where I could get cls templates? I believe the currently most discouraging aspect of LaTeX for the social scientist is the absence of such a place.
conchis 07.05.07 at 12:25 am
fr.
Have you tried natbib?
RnBram 07.05.07 at 9:42 am
Abedimi,
In Atlas Shrugged, the hero created a motor that used electrical energy in the atmosphere …so it was not really perpetual motion… that electrical difference is really there, as every lightning storm reveals. Miss Rand took physics very seriously (if you think of the other things her heroes did. She actually studied it very seriously in the last few years of her life, but died before she was ready to start writing on it,
Fr. 07.05.07 at 11:38 am
I have, yes. Alas, what I am looking for is between plainnat and apalike. Bibliography is my main issue, along with multilingual documents.
greensmile 07.05.07 at 1:50 pm
Wait! Isn’t this just the sort of energy innovation Dubya was calling for in his State of the Union speech? What foresight that man has!
dsquared 07.05.07 at 2:05 pm
I wandered down to have a look, but no dice. According to the website:
Important update on the Kinetica demo:
We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. Our initial assessment indicates that this is probably due to the intense heat from the camera lighting. We have commenced a technical assessment and will provide an update later today. As a consequence, Kinetica will not be open to the public today (5th July). We apologise for this delay and appreciate your patience.
Ginger Yellow 07.05.07 at 2:14 pm
“We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London.”
I’m stunned.
Alex 07.05.07 at 2:43 pm
“We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. We believe this may be due to an inability to temporarily suspend disbelief..”
Davis X. Machina 07.05.07 at 2:59 pm
All made possible by the recent 5-4 decision of the US Supreme Court striking down the second law of thermodynamics….
P O'Neill 07.05.07 at 4:46 pm
I read somewhere that they had first proposed using the free energy demonstration to power a lightbulb but decided against it on the grounds that the extra wires might contribute to doubts about the science of the whole enterprise.
Clayton 07.05.07 at 5:41 pm
So, essentially, it only works if it’s not being looked at with the lights on. I guess both parties are coming closer to agreement.
mds 07.05.07 at 8:03 pm
“We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. We believe this may be due to an inability to temporarily suspend disbelief..â€
Damn those Men in Black and their enforcement of the dominant paradigm!
Ginger Yellow 07.05.07 at 10:17 pm
“So, essentially, it only works if it’s not being looked at with the lights on.”
Schrodinger’s perpetually purring cat?
pietr 07.06.07 at 5:20 am
Hey Abidemi,
FOAD!
Cheers!
Mickey Mulligan 07.06.07 at 12:07 pm
Update on this here .
Kieran Healy 07.06.07 at 1:29 pm
Reading that forum is pretty entertaining. Or depressing. So many of them desperately want to believe it’s real.
pietr 07.06.07 at 4:20 pm
Kieran,
you mean the Perpetual Motion Machine or Ayn Rand’s Books?
I don’t think perpetual motion will ever happen, because physical actions convert energy and it has to come from somewhere, no matter how much disguised.
It simply cannot be.
As for Ayn Rand’s books, they are definitely real, I bought several.
As for Ayn Rand’s reality, that too is real.
You could take my word for it, but frankly I don’t give a damn.
abidemi 07.06.07 at 6:19 pm
Awfully fragile little flower, aren’t you?
bi 07.08.07 at 11:12 am
RnBram: The hero’s machine turns out to be a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, so no dice.
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