Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 6 July 2007, 12:19 PM
Steorn cancels free energy demonstration
Folks,
We have had to make the unfortunate decision to deffer the public demonstration of our technology that was due to start on the 4th. I am very sorry that we have had to take this decision, I will provide a more detailed explanation of the reasons behind the decision later.
I would like to invite any of the forum members (SPDC or otherwise) who are in London to meet me at 15:00 here in Kinetica, were I will be available to answer any questions.
Very sorry about this, hope to see some of you at 15:00.
Thanks,
Sean
So there we have it. Or, rather...
There's a lot of unhappiness about this, not least among those who've spent time and money travelling to London to see something - anything - happen, more than a piece of plastic sit unmoving in a perspex box. The Kinetica Museum people are also said to be more than peeved, and I can only imagine what's going on in Steorn itself (actually, that's not true. I've never been able to imagine what goes on in there - let alone why).
If I can, I'll pop down to see what Sean has to say...
PreviousComments on this post
As a person who believes both in the principles of Science, _as well as_ the fact that mankind has a history of accomplishing things previously thought 'impossible', I must say how disappointed I am at the people from Steorn.
These people who, at this point, appear no more substantial than the famous flim-flam men who travelled from town to town in the American West in the 19th century selling everything from 'miracle cures' to 'rain to ease the drought'.
Have they no shame? To take our basic human need to progress and pervert it into nothing more than a Con!
How aggravating to feel so conflicted at having monitored their "progress" -the sceptic in my laughing all the way - and yet that voice inside saying "what if... what if"! To have my sense of wonder so roundly beaten to a pulp.
I guess that is what makes us human. The struggle between our desire to progress and learn, our need for accomplishment, our vanity, our pride, and ultimately our hubris.....
That's the good thing about science, though. Just because all of the hundreds of previous people claiming to do what Steorn has claimed to do, have been deluded or frauds, doesn't mean that Steorn _has_ to be one of those two things. (The probabilities aren't promising, mind). There's always a chance that something really new has turned up.
And that'll be true the next time, too, no matter what the truth behind Steorn is, and no matter how well we think we know physics. It's best to leave certainty to the religious, the mad and the editor of the Daily Mail.
Oh for pete's sake. Steorn made a stupid mistake. Heat will demagnetize magnets. Putting their device in a plexiglass "greenhouse" surrounded by spotlights was a very bad idea.
Their technology is almopst certainly real. It may not be powerful enough to change the world, but it is likely to be as groundbreaking as they say. Folks over at Magnetic Power Inc (MPI) are working on a device based on similar technology, though probably better-refined and more powerful. They have analyzed what Steorn has (as best they can from photos and conversations) and believe Steorn is correct, though they are going at it "the hard way". Then again, as of now, Steorn is the only one with a device they can point to... and as soon as they put in new magnets, it'll work, I think.
MPI had really hoped Steorn's demo would go well as that would have broken through the "disbelief barrier". So this is too bad for both companies. But soon enough all those scientists who have been evaluating Steorn's claims will publish their findings. I believe this will all turn out well.
I'm sorry, but that doesn't add up.
Heat demagnetises magnets above their curie point. I don't know what magnets are in the Orbo, but assuming they're neodymium then they'll have a curie point of around 300 degrees C - more than twice the melting point of perspex. The perspex wasn't melting - nor would you expect it to, under a small number of 12v spots. You get hot under TV studio lights (but not hot enough to melt perspex); Kinetica has no more thermal problems than a department store.
Steorn would have had spare magnets. If the device didn't work, then replacing the magnets (and there's nothing else to do) would have revealed the problem immediately, and had a working device to boot. Solution: turn off the lights. Get some fluorescents in. Fit LED spots. This isn't difficult.
Steorn is displaying all the signs of classic pseudoscience. We've seen it before. Why is it any different this time?
"Just because all of the hundreds of previous people claiming to do what Steorn has claimed to do, have been deluded or frauds"
There you got awfully close to the real topic. I can't believe you then fell for the standard propaganda. There are very little facts for an "all others where frauds" claim. You would be the first to try back up this FE fraud claim if you did. Isn't calling some-one a fraud without any evidence is already fraudulent in it self, then it's also some what appologistic for the OPEC scam.
I have not seen other Journalist ask any questions about Steorn. This in contrast with people who created whole websites about the topic. This puts you in an interesting position, everyone is going to value your opinion and reprint it. It should be every one's own decision if they are going to play with magnets all night. Peeps just decline their own ideas. Seems like we are waiting for you to give the start signal. hehe
Steorn could present a good motivation to chart out the global magnet industry and describe the history of magnets. Say.. Witnesses confirm that John Searl was using NEO magnets many years before the US military first showed them to the public. He observed his free energy generators emit a Rife frequencies. I don't think he knows the work of Royal R Rife, he just described his observation. Health changes have to be quite big to notice them. It was Rife who described it as a medical technology not Searl. Half of Searls magic is confirmed by science, mostly years later but it is confirmed. The other half is equal to magic and still ignored, some of it cant even be produced anymore by lack of industry.
Searl didn't know how to stop his generators in a decent way, then one day spend 45 min explaining how his generator didn't use any fuel and that it would never stop. A camera man walked up close and his cam light stopped the generator. Searl reverseengineered the effect to shut down his generators.
A light bulb is using at least 80% of it's energy to emit all kinds of strange wavefields. It means that slaying the magnetmotor with a floodlight is a known effect. No one can make it an unknown effect anymore, we already knew means we already knew. Convince me I didn't already know this? ehm lol?
History is full of Perpetual motion machines that get debunked in most spectacular ways. People would bet big money on the debunking, labor was cheap, a few cents buys a witness. They would go as far as to rebuild the machine in a fraudulent shape. People are not dumb, they are resourceful and creative specially in the old days.
I'm convinced the steorn effect is something real, even tho it may be 100% metaphysical. (haha) I think they only have an energy seed technology, not the means of amplification, there are no gravitation fields or superconducting effects described. Their tech is a nub but it's real tho. :-) From the display it looks like it's the same effect as Kohei Minato describes in patent 4751486.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT4751486
http://www.rexresearch.com/minato/minato.htm
Such can spin for hours. The losses are far smaller as they 'should be'. Steorn probably uses high quality bearings to push it over the 100%. Eventually the whole thing 'drops' in a circle like a brick until you dramatically change the resonance (for example with a spot light). There are much better ways but this is a great start.
Could also try focus on Steorns charity activity. This is PR work they deserve all credit for. Ask them if they are going to sponsor Ryanswell.
http://www.ryanswell.ca
They have the coins for a million pumps. If they want peoples objective opinion they can just buy it here. Buy a thousand pumps and we would all be willing to listen to what ever pseudoscience they have to offer.
Or not?
http://steorn.go-here.nl
Hi, Mary
Yes, I was directed to the fizzx.com site this weekend and saw these figures. Thanks for that link too.
Seeing that Sean told me personally that the company was not looking for investment, and regardless of the semiotics of his statement left me with the clear impression that this meant that it wouldn't be receiving any significant investment, until it had proven its technology, I feel that I'm now much closer to understanding what exactly is going on at Steon.
I received a kind explanation of why my comment was deleted and the moderator is correct. I should not have used the "L" word. Here is the ammended comment which I hope will be acceptable:
You may wish to publish this link below to a spreadsheet apparently taken from public records. It suggests that Steorn collected millions of euros from investors in 2006. This casts some doubt on Sean's statement that Steorn was not accepting investments until the "technology" was proven by the "jury". (I put those in quotes because I doubt that they exist at all).
This is the location of the spreadsheet:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pwtWM-p3XIKyaGg6no6xkbg(clickable link)
You may need a gmail sign on to access the sheet. In 2007, the sheet shows investment income of 7 million euros (5284 shares at appx 1584 euros per share (sorry, not sure how to make a euro symbol).
You can read more about this issue at an uncensored forum:
http://www.fizzx.com/viewtopic.php?t=232 (clickable link)
The thread is entitled "Who really made the profits at Steorn".
A reminder -- another uncensored forum/blog is here:
http://freeenergytracker.blogspot.com/ (Clickable link)
Be sure to read the comments.
Of course, I have no way to verify the remarks made elsewhere about Steorn's finances however they seem credible-- more credible than the proposition that Steorn has an overunity motor and was unable to demonstrate it at Kinetica last week!
I deleted the comment below this one myself because it is now redundant.
Again thanks to Rupert and company for their excellent reporting and responsible moderation of comments.
This comment is now redundant and can be deleted.
As to the spreadhseet and other financial remarks elsewhere, I have of course no way to know how much of it has been verified and is true but if even part of it is, it's extremely interesting.
As a physicist, I view this development with an open mind. On one had the breaking of the law of conservation of energy is a pretty ambitious claim, but on the other hand, we all thought that Newton had sewn up the laws of motion, until Special Relativity was found/discovered/invented, depending on your philosophical viewpoint. There are many strange things in this world, relativity being just one, quantum mechanics, wave/particle duality, superconducitivity that all challenge and sometimes disproves the convention. Maybe this is another one...?
However, the way in which Steorn has promoted this just smells 100% of fraud. They have been making schoolboy errors. The device doesn't work under spotlights...last time I was in Ireland, they did have electricity & lighting there, so I find it hard to believe that they hadn't even checked it works under spot lighting before. If they haven't even just done basic checks & tests, then how are we to believe that what they are claiming is true and that they just haven't examined it properly, or worse, a hoax? For all we know, it could just be a spinning spindle in a friction-free vacuum with some well oiled bearings.
Other claims, such as them willing to release the IP to the community...come on, please. This could make you richer than the Forbes top 100 combined, and you're just going to release it for free?
Shrouds of secrecy, company debt and failings to do even the most basic of checks just make this particular device smell of excrement. That's not to say that it isn't possible, just that I believe Steorn haven't done it.
That's the conclusion I came to when I talked to them last August: regardless of whether they've got something or not (and really, the chances of them stumbling across such a fundamental discovery in a field like that, so extensively understood and explored... Maxwell really did tie that baby down tight), Sean and friends were proceeding in a way absolutely characterisable as pseudoscience. You could (and can) tick off the checkpoints.
I said as much in a phone call with Steorn, and some impassioned shouting later we came to the agreement that I didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing if it wasn't pseudoscience, that Sean couldn't explain that to me, but that this is what they were doing and that was that.
@Rupert
Did Sean have a good excuse for never showing *you* (or other press)a video or a working device? I know you wouldn't sign an NDA (good for you) but how could simply showing you a working device that Sean planned to exhibit publicly soon reveal any secrets? Did you ask him about that? A single reliable report by someone impartial and trustworthy that they had seen a working "Orbo" would be a start towards credibility-- just a *small* start but they have never even done that!
At this point, if I had your position, I'd be calling Steorn regularly and asking them when and where the new demo is going to be scheduled, when they will release a video of a working Orbo, what the names of the scientists and universities are that confirmed Orbo to start with, and many other embarrassing questions I am sure you can come up with without help from me!
Edited 11 July:
Dr. Mike is back and has written a new post. His preliminary suggestion is that Sean may have made up the entire story but believes himself. Mike wasn't shown or allowed to examine anything of substance. He will file a full report and diary of his trip on his web site. In the meantime, you can read his initial statement at this link to Steorntracker's blog.
The report also appears on Steorn's Forum however that is a censored venue so it's hard to be sure anything posted will stay there.
I think Dr. Mike's eventual detailed report will be most interesting-- as will Sean's reponse, should he decide to make one.
My 2 cents worth... A permanent magnet doesn't just become a magnet, it is magnetized by movement (stroking or vibration) in a magnetic field, so it is essentially storing energy from an external source (just like a battery). Also, a 'permanent' magnet gets demagnetised when acting in a magnetic field that is not in alignment with its own (as any permanent magnets pushing Steorn's little wheel have to be).
So bottom line, even though Steorn could get more energy out of their contraption than they put in, it won't be violating Newton's laws, because the extra energy is energy that has been stored in the magnets. And these magnets will eventually run out and have to be replaced.
So its no different from a battery-operated children's toy really, is it?
There's virtually no energy stored in the domain alignment process, as far as I know - I don't pretend to understand the equations, but I can't find any sort of significant term for this.
And no, I never got a good reason why they wouldn't show me anything outside NDA - the schtick that they didn't want to demonstrate it before they had an explanation didn't wash then, and nothing's changed except now they want to demonstrate it in an unexaminable way.
I've got little interest in pestering them for more information; as far as I'm concerned, they've done more than enough to underline my initial conclusion that it's hokum. They can do what they like now. If they've got something worth checking out, they know where I am if they want me to look at it.
I think the conclusion that Dr Mike comes to is very plausible, possibl;y even over-charitable - and that it's fair to say that Steorn, as of now, is a busted flush.
R
Thank you James, that was a brilliant explanation of unperpetual magnetism.
