Laws of Physics Apparently Being Rewritten Today

is Independence Day like April Fool’s Day then?

I dunno. Might be. We’re a little out of my area of expertise here.

What? Really?

This better not be a marketing ploy for The Saint II–I didn’t think Val Kilmer was that hard up for cash…

No. Possible. Way.

This technology is no doubt based on that recovered from the crashed alien spaceship in Roswell. It would have come out sooner, JFK was going to make it public, but he was silenced.

Either that or it’s a fraud.

yeah, i was thinking about the Saint, too. Good movie.

This still smells like a viral marketing campaign for something to me.

LMAO @ “which of course is exactly how I would have approached the problem, too”

If this IS real, then it’s astounding. It will totally revolutionise the way we produce and consume power…

Just… Wow.

Paul - glad someone noticed that.

From steorn.com:
“Due to technical difficulties we will now be live from London on the 5th July.”

Law of conservation of energy is broken! While we are at it, lets get rid of Causality as well (ie the effect must occur after the cause, not before)!!!

Reminds me fondly of the time I was the elected crack pot theory mediator at the Department of Physics in grad school (little known fact but most Physics departments actually have one). I not only had to go through tons of the next theory of everything, I had to actually meet with some of these “scientists” to explain why we could not use the theory as our next graduate project!!!

My magneto-mechanical interaction formulas are rusty, but I’m pretty sure that Elizabeth Shue + explosions + bad guys that only listen to Techno == classic.

The demo page is giving me a 403 now, but there is some clips about Steorn on YouTube dating back about 10 months, including some official promo vids.

Re: claims of unending energy

There is no reason to verify or debunk any claim of someone creating something that generates more energy than it consumes without limit. All they have to do is hook it up to the power grid and start running their meter backwards and eventually they will have all the money assuming that they do not give other people the secret. These types of claims are generally designed to get people to give them money to make a “prototype” though they have demonstrated it at “small scale”. The only thing is, the scale doesn’t matter when you are talking about a machine that outputs more energy than it consumes. Just keep making enough energy to get enough money to make a bigger one. The whole idea that someone would actually tell someone else about what they have done is ludicrous. So, my advice to all those that have invented infinite energy machines, 1) don’t tell anyone 2) hook it up to the grid 3) profit.

Sam,

You are 100% right about that. That’s exactly what my company has been doing since May 2006. We’ve been setting up devices as fast as we can produce, although they currently only produce 10kwH/month, we are very close to hitting the point at which our revenue from the sellback will cover the costs of further production.

Steorn is obviously a joke–if they were smart enough to figure out the tech they would have been smart enough to figure out the business.

I prefer The Saint tv show from the 60s… now that was a classic.

I was going to beg TC to go back to its usual good reporting though sprinkled with conflicts of interest etc., but then realized it was a nice change of pace to see read total BS that doesn’t have anything to do with Web 2.0.

Cute. Thanks.

Update 4/7/07 23:30

Due to slight technical difficulties we will now be publishing the live stream as of Thursday 5th July.

http://www.steorn.com/news/releases/?id=1001

Your Independence Day is today? Independence from who?

we are due an advance in power generation, its been a while.

interesting to see the patent on it.

I believe from Great Britain. I’m not American though.

WOW,
I need that juice…………….

Vijay

Steorn = Stoner

# Slang

1. One who is habitually intoxicated by alcohol or drugs.
2. One who is a delinquent or failure.

——–

Go figure, they’re being delinquent right now. I’m going to call hoax.

Mike, we’ll soon be launching our Leprechaun Social Network where each invite you send to your friends comes with a free Pot O’ Gold. We believe we are at the cutting edge of Web2 in Ireland.

Just cos it’s Independence Day we’ll let ya away with this one. Next time we’ll set Darby O’Gill on you.

I guess to Steorn’s benefit, it also stands for “no rest” …

PS - By “energy” we mean hype.

Now if someone could just invent a machine that helps pasty white computer nerds get laid, then I’d be impressed.

Till then… free energy? pffffffft.

which of course is exactly how I would have approached the problem, too.

Very funny!

Not sure if you folks have heard of the guy that invented the Segway or not. I think his name is Dean Caine, although I can’t really remember.

Although the Segway never met the hype he created on launch, the guy did invent the kidney dialysis machine among some other very useful things. He’s worth quite a bit due to his inventions as well.

Some time ago he started devoting his efforts to the very same thing, a perpetual energy device. I remember seeing an early sample of his version,
albeit it wasn’t working when he displayed it. His mission was to give away the technology (when created) to change the world. A bit altruistic, but he does have enough money already and doesn’t need anymore. There are some people out there who really do want to make a difference and are not always thinking of the cash…….

Whether this company has truly created one or not will come to light over the next day or two, and whether Mr. Segway will come up with one is also yet to be seen. This isn’t my area of expertise either but I for one will be looking forward to the day someone comes up with some energy source where we’ll all say, holy sh*t - now why didn’t I think of that. It will come!

Interesting to see that the collective IQ of Tech Crunch readers is markedly higher than the mouth-breathers who comment on Engadget. A significant chunk of the Engadgetites believe that this story could be real.

With these things around, I wouldnt mind running the AC 24/7. Know what im sayin’

Len:

Dean Kamen is not now, nor has he ever been, working on a “perpetual enegy device”. There were however a lot of scientifically illiterate journalists bandying about the phrase “perpetual motion” in connection with his famous scooter.

“Perpetual energy” and “perpetual motion” fall into the category: “impossible, full stop”. Not in this universe. Not ever.

Len,

It’s Dean Kamen who invented the Segway

Dean Cain(e) was Superman. But, he could generate perpetual energy too with his laser eyes or by flying around the earth really fast…

Wow. If TechCrunch is not covering this sarcastically, they need to take a little high school physics. Or at least history. “Perpetual motion machines” have been a favorite scam of con artists for literally millenia.

For my taste the Cleantech bubble is much more fun than the Internet bubble (I mean the last one in the late 90’s). On the Internet, you usually speak to very dry and hardworking engineers who have build some really complex software technology. Whether the market will buy it or not was a different question. However, over the last 18 months I was pitched machines that cool down computing centers with their own warm air, pump water with the water pressure itself, and make biofuels from … oil. I love it.

So I did a wiki after posting, and yes I had his name wrong, as well as what he was working on. He has been working on a stirling engine,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

My mistake.

Anyway, Steve…lighten up. If you’re going to refute someone in a forum, blog, etc… at least post some backup and not just nasty attitude.

I do remember seeing something about a perpetual energy device (not in Marvel comics either), just can’t remember who it was that was working on it, and confused it with Dean Kamen (something I read about over 5 years ago). And no it wasn’t anything I read from “scientifically illiterate journalists” on the Segway.

Anyway I did say I was looking forward to a “new energy source”, and not necessarily a perpetual one!

Mitch: very funny, loved your response.

http://www.steorn.com/orbo/validation/challenge/

Has a video. They do look like believers, anyways.

This is easy. What you do is take two rechargeable batteries. Hook them to each other and then hook up your favorite device. You will have unlimited power since as one battery drains, the other one will re-charge it, and vice-versa. If you don’t believe me, try it!

all this is fine but how do we plug this darn thing ?

Remember John Galt’s motor anyone ?

I think this news story is similar to http://zapMeals.com

I’ve found an unlimited source of energy right in my house. It’s this thing on the wall… up until now, I never realized what it was. I tried sticking my finger in it before, but it sparked and burned.

Who would have thought that my house could produce free energy from the walls?!

Can I put one in my car? Fuckin’ gas prices are killing me.

I don’t get it. If you live in United States. you can see in some state. Sometimes you can’t.

For example, IP address can identify that if you are christian, Jews, catholics. they strict banned that video site. Some states might be against evolution theory or breaking laws of phycis. It’s like having gay marriage or abortion or anti-war protesting or patriotic protesting.

If you decide to built Anti gravity or free energy stuff for real. But sometimes you have to be careful with life, experiment, government, and MIB people.

Like Wright brothers. Both of brothers were rised christian values. They were so against government for using airplane as war machine. One of wright brothers failed to write anti-war plane on his journal. He never wrote it.

Today, you see government rebel. F14, F117, Stealth bomber, black bird, MiGs, F16, madness war planes all over the world, etc….

Peace process… Nope.
Peace hopes… Nope…
War… Yes…

Within minute chance that this is not bogus and can produce even a small amount more energy than already exists in this universe does anyone else wonder what the effects of having more energy would have on the earth? I mean if we haven’t figured out how to get rid of energy then what will become of all of this extra energy running around?

This simply seems bogus, There is nothing on earth that exhibits perpetual motion, right? WRONG. In fact, something inside you right now is moving with the property of perpetual motion. Actually Quadrillions of things inside you exert perpetual motion. Give Up? The simple Electron. Its not a massless particle like a photon (mass = 9.10938188 × 10-31 kilograms), yet it constantly moves at the speed of light around the nucleus of an atom in predetermined orbitals. In fact, the only way to stop an electron from moving on its own is to freeze it to absolute zero, a temperature that simply CANNOT BE REACHED within our universe. I’m not saying Steorn actually has a product, but I am saying lets have a conversation with an open mind toward what wonders our universe holds just beneath the surface.

“This simply seems bogus, There is nothing on earth that exhibits perpetual motion, right? WRONG.”

why are you triumphantly coming up with the example of an electron - a subatomic particle not directly observable that occupies a probability shell around an atom - why not just state that the ‘earth moves perpetually around the sun’? (etc)

so i’ll just assume you did that, raise the example of an orbiting body, and then answer that something that orbits is not generating energy, it is merely following a basic law of physics: once a body is in motion it stays in motion unless acted on (etc etc)

There are surely wonderful things in this universe, but the fool in this “news” article is wasting everyones time.

Raj, that is a very good suggestion. There are many natural phenomena entailing both perpetual motion and “free energy”. Space itself, in the total absence of matter and radiation, fulminates with virtual photons and electrons. The Casimir experiment is conclusive proof of lab-harnessable free energy.

>will be published momentarily
Let’s hope we don’t miss it

If this is ture .. we are surely in the dawn of a new ERA !!! ….. jus thnk …. cell phones that need not charged life long …. no electricity bills ….. even fuels wil be replced with never ending energy … wow .. cool …. CARS and vehicles need not be fueled for lifetime ….. remember the saying ..” one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” …

This is true and has been in the media for over a year now.

This technology is from an Irish company based in Dublin. You can watch the report from the RTE Irish News website (equivalent of BBC or CNN)

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/07.....1,null,200

WAKE UP EVERYONE…. THIS IS A JOKE!!!!

Everything points to a complete pile of BS….

1) Names of the ’scientists’ is not featured anywhere…
2) Demo is going to be in an Art Gallery???
3) They are having technical difficulties caused by the heat from lights around the machine… GIVE ME A BREAK.

This is nonsense…

Mike I thought your job was to filter out the bs for us, and only give us actual news?

And the Orbo is….. the London Eye?

Sterno is an amazing thing: those little cans burn for hours! Oh, wait, this is Steorn. Oh, sorry about that…

From the Steorn website now:

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.

The most amazing invention since heat-in-a-can, and the demo was canceled due to, um, light bulb heat?

Nick, you can’t be serious?? Your system would lose energy because no electric device is 100% efficient. Your batteries would run out after a while (plus one battery is enough in your idea)

@cedric - yes, he is serious. I’ve tried it. It works. Don’t dis until you’ve tried it too.

I’ll admit at first read, I thought WOW, that’s total exciting; admittedly I don’t know much about electronics or physics. I just figured it must be a force or principal yet undiscovered. I think back before the discovery of electro magnetism. One day we new nothing about it, the next we understood it. Everything is possible. A fact is mealy the point when investigation ceases.

This is real;

- I have a friend who leans toward engineering more than scientific study; He made this motor - that used a strong magnetic field, and used electromagnets to change the polarity of these every couple mili-seconds ..

- he couldn’t get it to work all the time, but when he did it produced 140% energy -(enough to run it self + 40%) .. it was perpetual except for mechanical failure.

- he is also working on a hydraulic feed gravity motor - that will produce on paper 300% power.

-RB - this is real; although it would change economies, so it might get shut down

If this turns out to be true, this will be a great turn for humanity.
If this turns out to be fake, someone should go to jail. Im sick and tired of companies claiming the impossible, and when its time to deliver the goods, they fail. We need to start charging companies for false claims.

Congrats on the WIRED feature this month, Michael!

We had a story about mobile app to find restrooms. Now about device which is more efficient than perpetuum mobile. Within this trend I guess that next month we’ll read TC post about UFO.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think their demo resembles an art gallery installation.

Unfortunately, even if they had invented some energy source it would never make it to the US — perputual motion machines can not be patented and without patent protection no company would try to commercialize it

Now this is cool, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6272752.stm
and plausible
mind you, only generating microwatts. not going to power my cappucino machine on that.

Has anyone seen these pages? They talk about a “K-toy” that is being developed… http://steornpower.googlepages.com/home Is this related somehow to the subject?

The Saint? A good movie? Arrington, you’re out of your depth there too.

If what this site says is true about Johann Bessler

http://www.besslerwheel.com/pm.html

then why cant the steorn guys be correct. Feels way out of conventional wisodm, but hey, have we all lost even the slightest time to consider someone’s appeal before writing it off…

C’mon people. Think about this. The CEO has no academic credentials and no academic credentials, nor university affiliations, can be found on their website? Their telling us they are revolutionizing science as we know it, yet are not a part of any academic institution and have no phds? Hawking was at Princeton, Einstein at ETH, Galileo at the University of Padua, Maxwell at Cambridge. Who are these guys? Charlatans.

This is a telling video about the “CEO” talking about how he discovered free energy by working on credit card fraud after the dot com crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAk3tiaOewo

Yeah right.

(btw those “magnetic fields” their using? erm, magnetic fields are produced by electric currents. Electric currents aren’t free. )

To Hoax Supreme:

I can’t argue what you say about the ceo, and how going from working on credit card fraud to perpetual motion is a stretch.

However, technically electricity comes from magnetic force, not the other way around. Basics stuff there, any mechanical engineer can tell you that.
You had a point with your first statements, and ruined it with your “btw”.

It is very clear that we humans understand little about the forces out there, and that goes for all of us……

Hoax:
It makes perfect sense that the Charlatans, behind such tunes as North Country Boy, would have also extended their brilliance beyond the musical sphere and in to theoritical physics.
Hawking was at Tiger Tiger last night. Tryied to pull on the dance floor but couldn’t get his leg over.

Len,

“It is very clear that we humans understand little about the forces out there, and that goes for all of us……”

I don’t disagree with this. What’s puzzling is how a group of people with no credentials are shamming the world simply because they are “incorporated” and have a website. Free energy is great, but it will be discovered by scholars at MIT, not LLC conmen doing youtube videos.

Steorn is taking a significant amount of people on a ride (mark my words), and that is just wrong.

I just happened to be by the Steorn exhibit today in London…and I read this post…what a coincidence.

Just an FYI…the exhibit was closed today…due to malfunction of the unit. So the doors to the exhibit were closed. I’ll have to say, the place was in the middle of a very nice highly trafficed area…and the space itself, i would imagine, is pretty expensive to lease.

I couldn’t see the machine…just looked like a big empty gallery space with lots of lights and some iMac monitors. There were windows all around, like a typical retail space, and banners prominently displayed at every window…with famous quotes and sayings from well known scientists and inventors, all to the effect of challenging traditional thought to make groudbreaking discoveries.

my 2 cents after seeing the demo site in London…looking at the propaganda banners…and watching the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAk3tiaOewo …I think this is a publicity stunt to AWAKEN the scientific community. Consider this a big social experiment…to build up all this hype…build up credence…build up a ‘case’…and see if the scientific community will even bat an eye and try to prove, or disprove, these assertions (which is what they should do). If the scientific community does nothing…it would show that they are so entrenched in their ‘beliefs’, they are not doing justice to their profession.

So what’s their motive for doing all this? Well…perhaps their gripe is that humanity is not pushing the boundaries of science as much as they should…or not trying desperate enough to challenge the traditional ways of thinking to truly innovate and solve some of the world’s problems. This makes me think of the Tesla motor company…I think it’s great when people take the extra step to challenge the traditional ways things are done…think about how much we as a society loves to just cling on to the existing ways of doing things.

Whatever is going on here, it’s pretty interesting. Someone is spending a lot of money on either a real technology (which would be great)…or…spending a lot of money as a marketing ploy to push the boundaries of science (which is also great).

What the hell? What’s with all the people who are falling for this crap?

I hate to tell ya, but if it “runs on electromagnets” it’s not “perpetual motion”. You’re feeding power into the thing! C’mon people, use your heads. This very same trick has been tried before. You use a fast switching electromagetic source to “pump” the system. Geez, it’s called a motor!

I know you don’t all have degrees in physics. But please at least apply a little bit of common sense.

The demo was cancelled due to technical difficulties caused by “intense heat” from camera lights?

LOL

I love it. A physically impossible machine that is claimed to work only when it isn’t actually being observed. I’m going to have to assume that it was built from a box, a cyanide capsule, a decaying radioactive source… and a cat.

WTF, this thing relies on magnets. Magnets degrade overtime.

The history of ‘free energy’ and perpetual motion is littered with scams, and Steorn is just another in the long line. The blog Mike linked to has ample evidence of this. Steorn is no different from a dozen different American inventors in the last hundred years.

In the end, these scams always come down to money. Amazingly, Steorn managed to raise millions of dollars from investors, proving the old adage about a sucker and his money.

No working scientist has the time or interest to run around disproving the endless numbers of crackpots out there. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and the burden of proof is on the claimant, not the rest of us. Steorn haven’t met even the most basic level of confirmation beyond press releases and a slick website.