How Perpetual Motion Works

There’s a perpetual motion device under one of the cups, but which one?Photo by hardboiled.

Imagine I was an avid knitter. Not only that but that I’d created a new knitting technique that was by any measurable means superior to all other techniques. Where should I publish news of my discovery? Knitting World or International Finance Management?

Suppose I was a stamp collector and I found that there was an even rarer form of Penny Black. Should I tell Stamp Collectors Monthly or Money and Markets?

Steorn has some stunning news.

In 2003 Steorn undertook a project to develop more efficient micro generators. Early into this project the company developed certain generator configurations that appeared to be over 100% efficient. Further investigation and development has led to the company’s current technology, a technology that produces free energy. The technology is patent pending.

That is fantastic. This could be a new era for humanity. It’s utterly utterly wonderful. So where can I read about this amazing discovery? Nature? Science? No it’s an advert in the Economist.

Steorn have sent out a challenge [PDF]. What they don’t seem aware of is that there’s a standard challenge laid down to any scientist making a claim.

Prove it. If their device works then this could be a new era for humanity. It’s stunning stuff, so if it’s genuine then it’s something to get really excited about. So how do you prove it to a sceptical scientific community?

You could take it to a conference. That would get you feedback straight away. It might not be positive, but you could use that to find out what it is that bothers physicists about your device and then tackle those problems or explain why they aren’t problems.

You could publish it. There’s Nature or Science who would love to publish this – if it’s true. You could also submit a pre-print paper to arXiv where it could be read anyway.

Instead this is a public challenge. How does the challenge work? You submit your name to Steorn as a scientist and they pick the most qualified and the most cynical to test their work. As it happens the most cynical scientists will assume it’s a scam and not waste their time, so the names they get will be the not quite so cynical scientists. Steorn pick their jury and then the “cynical”* scientists test the machine.

If they submitted their work to a journal their ideas would be tested, but they’d never know who those scientists were.

So this must be a pretty special device to spend your time testing. How does it work? It’s hard to tell visiting their site. There’s lots on what it can do. There’s not a lot on how it works. If you want to read about it you’ll find no explanation, no diagrams, no results.

There is a video. The explanation occurs at 1m50s and it’s magnets that do the work, which is typical of perpetual motion devices. So the thing being shifted around requires a friction-free surface, the electricity activating the magnets needs to travel along superconductors and be stored in a perfect battery. And along the way it needs to gain energy. How do you gain energy? It’s all explained at 2m03s:

Quite simply the analogy would be that you walk to the top of the hill and you walk back down to the bottom of the hill, but in doing so you’ve gained energy.

They’re right, their machine would be exactly like gaining energy by walking up and down a hill. It would also be like waving a magic wand and energy simply happening. It doesn’t explain how it works.

Traditional physics would state that as a body you gain no potential energy by moving up and down a hill – you’re back where you were so there’s nothing to gain. American schoolchildren learn this at K12. However you do convert chemical energy in your body into heat in making your muscles work to move you up and down a hill. This is a lot of work so you lose energy to the environment.

If they want to prove their work to cynical scientists then it’s not going to work. So why challenge via the Economist?

In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.

And what is a public forum? It’s a forum where you have to be validated and chosen by unspecified means by Steorn. The public have no access to the papers and are not invited. If I wanted to give a public demonstration then I’d fit the machine in a car and drive round Ireland for a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t prove perpetual motion, but it would be enough to make people want to buy a similar device for their car.

The challenge neither works for scientists or the public. So really why aren’t they being tested the same way as everyone else? In the video at 2m12s they explain scientists are the roadblock. They forsaw 5 to 7 years persuading scientists “…as a business that makes absolutely no sense.” But you don’t need to persuade all scientists. Just enough to get business to invest. This could be done in six-months if they had a model that worked and understood what they’re doing. Or two weeks if they had a car driving round Ireland. If the device works, then it works.

It’s a scientific trial, where Steorn decide who the jury is in a public forum where the public are excluded. And they’re picking “the most cynical scientists” to put them to the test by advertising in magazine where a tiny minority would be qualified to test their claims.

Somehow I don’t think the average reader of the Economist where they placed their advert published their challenge will fall for it. Perhaps Weekly World News would be a better target?

Updated: SciGuy Free energy: Is this a crock or what? links to an excellent news story at Reuters which includes the line:

The concept of “free energy” — which contradicts the first law of thermodynamics that in layman’s terms states you cannot get more energy out than you put in — has divided the scientific community for centuries.

True. In the same way that the idea of turning lead into gold has divided the scientific community. It’s divided them from cranks. But don’t take my word for it. It’s your money if you want to help fund them.

*Scare-quotes because I am that cynical.

technorati tags: physics, perpetual+motion, skepticism, scepticism, energy