creation of energy

[eppie]

I did not read the whole idea yet, but this is a too interesting subject not to post it here on the lounge.

http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx


A company that says it has made a device that 'creates energy'. So not obeying the laws of thermodynamics.

They now put out a challenge (in The Economist) to scientists (physisists mainly) to propose measurments that could prove they are wrong (or right).

eppie

[Drasca]

Ha. No. Marketing scam. You want to believe anything just because? Some investors might fall for it, they can throw some money around on some high risk investments some of the time.

Creator of Diesel engine was a good inventor for making a high efficiency engine, but a MUCH better salesman. Sold investors around the world to believe it was a lot more effective than it was. His engine was good (esp compared to the gasoline engines of his era, 1892 when he patented engine), what was around, but not as great as he was able to sell to those that invested in it.

[gekko]

Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists - always off the record, always proven to work

That's not the way good science works. The onus is on you to prove your work is valid, not on others to prove it is not.

This sounds to me more like the two scientists who claimed they had created cold fusion. Even though it has since been proved they were liars and cheats, they've received huge grants to continue their research. When you make a claim people want to believe baddly enough, and you have enough intelligence and wiles to convince people you could be telling the truth, you can squeeze quite a lot out of them.

gekko

[Jester]

I did not read the whole idea yet, but this is a too interesting subject not to post it here on the lounge.

http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx
A company that says it has made a device that 'creates energy'. So not obeying the laws of thermodynamics.

They now put out a challenge (in The Economist) to scientists (physisists mainly) to propose measurments that could prove they are wrong (or right).

eppie

Complete junk.

The laws of thermodynamics have yet to bow before any macroscopic phenomena whatsoever. Not on earth, not in the stars, not as far as science can see. (Quantum effects, I don´t know enough to say, but I don´t think there either.)

And these folks have found not only the exception to the first law, but have already found a way to turn it into a useable source of energy before anyone else has even verified this completely unique scientific phenomenon?

I put the odds at about a zillion to one. The anecdotal method by which they support it should alone be enough to dissuade people from taking this seriously.

-Jester

[eppie]

Complete junk.

The laws of thermodynamics have yet to bow before any macroscopic phenomena whatsoever. Not on earth, not in the stars, not as far as science can see. (Quantum effects, I don´t know enough to say, but I don´t think there either.)

And these folks have found not only the exception to the first law, but have already found a way to turn it into a useable source of energy before anyone else has even verified this completely unique scientific phenomenon?

I put the odds at about a zillion to one. The anecdotal method by which they support it should alone be enough to dissuade people from taking this seriously.

-Jester

As a scientist myself I agree with you. The way I found this story was actually via the webpage of nature magazine, where they displayed a quote about this call for physisists to think about ways to prove them wrong. Most likely their 'invention' will not really work, but this whole idea about going to the real scientific community is very interesting, and scientifically very good I think.

Lately I read the 'comments' on papers that have been published in the same journal often...this is many times very amusing. In some parts of science a lot of 'rubbish' is published, just because of the way papers are reviewed. The oldfashioned heavy discussions you see in some hollywood movies are sadly not very common in real science.

[LemmingofGlory]

A company that says it has made a device that 'creates energy'. So not obeying the laws of thermodynamics.

They now put out a challenge (in The Economist) to scientists (physisists mainly) to propose measurments that could prove they are wrong (or right).

There's reason why they published their idea in The Economist instead of a physics journal, and I suspect it's the same reason you won't see perpetual motion devices in physics journals.

-Lemmy

[Rhydderch Hael]

There's reason why they published their idea in The Economist instead of a physics journal, and I suspect it's the same reason you won't see perpetual motion devices in physics journals.

-Lemmy

The fact that the scientists' bodies haven't been found, bound and gagged, under the concrete foundations of Exxon/Mobil's newest refinery renovations kind of tells me that their theories are bunk.

[eppie]

There's reason why they published their idea in The Economist instead of a physics journal, and I suspect it's the same reason you won't see perpetual motion devices in physics journals.

-Lemmy

They didn't publish the idea, they published an ad asking for control experiments.
Another reason they did not publish this in physics journals is that they have a patent pending.

Anyway, I still did not read the whole idea yet. Of course it is highly unlikely this is true, but lets see.
The law of conservation of energy requires you to know all kinds of energy. Before knowing about chemical energy the law seemed to be wrong most of the time.....while in fact it was right.

[Nystul]

The fact that the scientists' bodies haven't been found, bound and gagged, under the concrete foundations of Exxon/Mobil's newest refinery renovations kind of tells me that their theories are bunk.

Yeah, right! Like anyone ever finds the bodies...

[ima_nerd]

From their site:

Code:

   1.  The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
   2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
   3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

They never truly claim to be breaking the laws of thermodynamics since number 3 is an open statement. They just haven't identified the outside source of energy yet. If this is even real at all, that is.

A friend of mine found their patent application and if I remember correctly, their technology is an electric motor involving no electromagnets. He speculated (with only 2 years of college level physics under his belt, be nice) that perhaps it somehow feeds off the Earth's magnetic field. That seems much, much, MUCH more likely than a case of energy from nothing.