odannyboy
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'free energy'
Aug 19, 2006, 19:09
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Irish company challenges scientists to test 'free energy' technology.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060818/bs_afp/irelandscienceenergy
Dan :-{)
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handofdave
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Re: 'free energy'
Aug 19, 2006, 20:47
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That would be so monumental...
I just hope this isn't another 'cold fusion' hyperfizzle.
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wheelbarrow man
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Re: 'free energy'
Aug 19, 2006, 23:22
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One thing that encourages me, and discourages me at the same time is the fact that magnetism has been largly ignored by science since its discovery. Encouraged, because there's a lot of unknown. Discouraged, because measuring the fields that the object passes through is difficult, due to lack of understanding.
But I hope it leads to something good!
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grufty jim
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Re: 'free energy'
Aug 20, 2006, 00:40
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wheelbarrow man wrote: One thing that encourages me, and discourages me at the same time is the fact that magnetism has been largly ignored by science since its discovery.
It really hasn't been you know. Some of the finest scientific minds in history devoted almost their entire careers to the study of magnetism and electromagnetism (including Faraday, Shockley, Tesla and Gottlieb). Even Einstein spent a significant portion of his life researching (and explaining) electromagnetic fields.
However it's really since the potential of magnetic storage (initially tape but eventually magnetic discs such as floppy and hard drives) became known that industrial-scale research began. It's actually a fairly well understood subject these days.
I believe it is important to realise that in a time of depleting fossil fuels there's a huge commercial interest in new energy projects. So when people announce that they have disproved the laws of thermodynamics and energy conservation (fundamental physical laws that have stood up to rigorous scrutiny by some of humanity's finest minds for a couple of centuries) it's probably best to assume that they have either made a mistake or are trying to big-up their company and gain investment.
It's all very well to quote Shaw... "all great truths begin as blasphemies". But what Shaw was well aware of, though it doesn't get mentioned as often is this: 'Of course, so do many blasphemies'.
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handofdave
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Re: 'free energy'
Aug 20, 2006, 01:16
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It's possible, even if they have not found a way around the laws of physics, that they've come across some method of improving electric motors and generators. That would still be worth something, potentially something useful.
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wheelbarrow man
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Re: 'free energy'
Aug 21, 2006, 22:53
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I stand corrected. Forgot about magnetic tapes; was thinking of energy.
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grufty jim
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Edited Aug 22, 2006, 13:49
Re: 'free energy'
Aug 22, 2006, 00:55
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Thing is... magnetism isn't a form of energy. It's a force. Which is a rather different thing entirely.
I've been reading a bit more about this Steorn "free energy machine" and there's a lot that doesn't add up. In fact, there's speculation on physics message boards that it's actually part of a viral marketing campaign for something else entirely (possibly something as mundane as a computer game).
The EU patent application made by Steorn is available to study here...
http://v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2006035419&F=0&QPN=WO2006035419
According to that document...
An actuatable shield is positioned in relation to the plurality of magnets so that it effectively blocks the magnetic field...
This isn't possible. There's no known material that can "block" a magnetic field (though obviously certain materials can redirect a field... but that's a very different proposal indeed).
If this isn't a pure scam / marketing campaign (bear in mind that Steorn started life in the dot com boom as an ecommerce firm) then at best they've developed a new form of magnetically driven motor (using some form of field-rotation, possibly driven by the motion of these "shields"). In which case, it ain't free energy.
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