Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Monday 12 October 2009, 5:31 PM
Steorn renews perpetual promise to show free energy machine
One of my two favourite miraculous organisations — in the company, however unfairly, of xG and its magic morphing wireless broadband — is making noises again and promising great things. In this case, it's "a public display of various Orbo systems" by the end of 2009, with a video stream so that all of us out here in Webland can watch, wonder and then buy a very reasonably priced licence to use the technology.
Ah yes, the technology. You won't be surprised to hear that there's been no further disclosure about what it is and how it works, except that it now includes a "passive magnetic bearing technology, ZeroF". In an interview in Free Energy Times, Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy said that this was necessary because ordinary bearings act as speed bumps due to the "very strong radial forces that change direction in very small angular displacements". I think that means powerful magnets wobbling around a bit, but we'll have to wait and see.
Apparently, every bit of the Orbo perpetual motion over-unity energy-from-nowhere device is explicable by standard physics "except the net result". So far, though, the 'net result' in terms of the failed demo in 2007 and the disbanding of the independent review panel this year — their conclusion: nothing doing — has been thoroughly explicable by standard physics.
Steon has also filed two patents this year, but don't get too excited. One is for measuring energy transfer from an electromagnet to a permanent magnet, and the other is for measuring the torque of a rotating device. In both cases, they're in the class of patent best described as "stark raving obvious" — the latter incredibly so, as Sean appears to have reinvented the optical encoder.
Which leaves yet another intriguing question: if that's their IP, what on earth would they license?
PreviousComments on this post
Wow, so they are finally gonna do a public demo? Maybe they will get it right this time?
Whats all this about micro sized gyroscopic's ? never having to replace battery's in my tv remotes, or mob phones, keyboards & mice etc that kind of stuff.
So far the only thing I can see that Steorn is successful in doing is harversting tons of email addresses.
And we all know what can happen to a list like this.
This is an extremely esoteric way to build a mailing list! Other methods are available...
I don't know what's going on with Steorn. Previous experiences with technology companies offering the impossible normally involved maintaining a sufficiently bullish public front to keep the investors on board.
Meanwhile, The Economist has an interesting piece on developments in desktop (almost) fusion. This one -- aneutronic fusion -- involves creating tiny bubbles of plasma where hydrogen nuclei (aka protons) fuse with boron nuclei, which promptly decompose into three helium nuclei and a lot of energy. It's this sort of quirky yet impeccably kosher physics that, I think, will probably yield useful results much quicker than wobbling magnets around in a field of mystic flubbertigubber.
"It's this sort of quirky yet impeccably kosher physics that, I think, will probably yield useful results much quicker than wobbling magnets"
So true Rupert! I have been following the aneutronic fusion experiments and think that they have a lot of potential. One useful feature is that they are a lot easier to build that some of the other multi-billion dollar fusion prototype reactors. Also they are able to harness more of the energy since all of the helium nuclei are charged.
As for Steorn, I'm not sure it is safe to be messing with the 1st law of thermodynamics. I mean, think what the neighbors will think!
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