What's the Best Explanation for Steorn's Behavior (Claiming free energy Orbo technology)

FreeEnergyTimes ^ | 1/14/2010 | freeenergytimes

[Pessimist]

Let me save you some time. The author’s view is basically that they must have an over unity device because they said they do.

[capt. norm]

The "free energy" scenarios always play out like the mail-order devices Wile E. Coyote keeps buying from the Acme Company:

...and they always get the same results that Mr. Coyote gets.

[capt. norm]

The "free energy" scenarios always play out like the mail-order devices Wile E. Coyote keeps buying from the Acme Company:

...and they always get the same results that Mr. Coyote gets.

[PIF]

Video 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzcZDr1AcEU&feature=player_embedded

Video 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSftoc9Pm1U&feature=player_embedded

Video 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMOTqzjm8eM&feature=player_embedded

Video 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7b3IfpZAdI&feature=player_embedded

Video 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-tv1aBAfUE&feature=player_embedded

[Secret Agent Man]

I don’t believe in over-unity machines.

If this machine works without tapping conventional energy sources, it’s either a fruad that will be discovered eventually, or they have found an energy source that nobody else currently knows how to tap. Probably tapping into whatever source Tesla tapped into when he redesigned a car to tap into an energy source he claimed to be able to use to power a car that had it’s gasoline engine removed. From what I know about him, I don’t believe Tesla was a fraud.

[WackySam]

If string theory proves to be correct devices like these could be possible.

[Brett66]

Bump for after work viewing.

[AFreeBird]

Tesla was most decidedly NOT a fraud.

As for tapping into unknown power sources - why not? The universe is really a pretty energetic place.

[dangerdoc]

Improbability drive.

[wolf78]

If string theory proves to be correct devices like these could be possible.

Please do explain (i.e. the actual equations you base your statement on, not just the broad strokes).

[chrisser]

If anything else, it is an interesting little electric motor design.

I went here: http://jnaudin.free.fr/steorn/html/steornv1en.htm

This "experimenter" has put up some simple test equipment he built.

The theory behind it seems to be this...

If you have a ferrite toroid (basically a donut made up of iron particles), a magnet is attracted to it.

Now wrap the toroid in magnet wire.

If you put a current through the magnet wire, it disrupts the magnetic attraction between the toroid and the magnet.

The key is the assertion that the amount of current required to interrupt the attraction is not dependent on the magnetic attraction. The inference being that you could set up a machine where the attraction was sufficiently large to generate more power than the current required to energize the toroid coil.

So put magnets on a wheel and toroids wrapped with wire at fixed points around the wheel. The magnets are attracted to the toroids. The wheel turns. As the magnets pass the toroid, you switch on the current, disrupting the magnetic field. Now the toroid that was pulling the oncoming magnet doesn't try to pull it backwards as it passes. Effectively, the magnet/toroid pairs would be adding kinetic energy to the wheel, but never subtracting it.

So that's a pretty neat little motor.

Where things get a little kooky is in the (so far undemonstrated) assertion that the power that could be generated by this device if hooked to a generator would be larger than the power consumed to energize the toroids (and friction).

[Desron13]

It would seem that this should be fairly easy to either prove or disprove. Attach a high efficiency generator and feed back the output to run the device. Kick it off and if it is still running after say a month or so, you’ve probably tapped into a here to fore unknown source of energy. If it works, eventually we will find where the extra energy is being pulled from. Who knows, maybe they have discovered a function of the elusive “dark matter” that is holding the universe together.

[chrisser]

It would seem that this should be fairly easy to either prove or disprove

Yeah. I'd like to give these guys the benefit of the doubt - maybe they just measured wrong or something - but you don't go around claiming you violated the known laws of physics without being darn sure of yourself. And from the history I've read, the three times they've carted their machine out for demonstration, it either didn't work, or didn't produce the results they predicted.

That makes me lean towards fraud/hoax than towards mistake or discovery.

[Desron13]

Here’s a question for the more physics oriented members out there. You take two rare earth magnets and attach them to the bottom of a steel plate. From one magnet you suspend a weight that is just under the weight required to separate the magnet from the plate. From the other magnet you suspend a weight half that of the other magnet. It would seem to me that work is being performed and energy expended to keep the two weights suspended. My questions are these. First, is the energy required to hold the weights suspended depleting in any way the energy contained in the mass of the magnets or the steel plate to which they are attached? Second, will the magnet with the heavier weight release before the magnet with only half the weight if it releases at all?

[Normandy]

I am sure we haven’t figured out everything regarding energy yet. Electricity was once a mysterious, unknown and unusable phenomenon - look where we are now.

That’s partly why I’m willing to have an open mind regarding Steorn. Perhaps they have figured out something that will be useful.

[thackney]

It is difficult to claim work is performed without mass being moved or heat being generated.

The sidewalk overcomes gravity by supporting my weight but it is not performing work.

[wolf78]

It would seem to me that work is being performed and energy expended to keep the two weights suspended.

That assumption would be wrong. Work is being performed if you move objects through that kind of a.) magnetic and b.) gravitational field. That work would be the line integral:



C is the path or curve traversed by the object;
F is the force vector; and
s is the position vector.

If they remain stationary no work is performed. As thackney points out it doesn't matter if you put a heavy object on a shelf or if you suspend something magnetically. A car on the other hand does work because it has to overcome resistance along its trajectory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_integral

Most inventors of perpetuum mobiles can't do proper integration, so no wonder they think their machines work ;).

[Desron13]

"The sidewalk overcomes gravity by supporting my weight but it is not performing work."

Yes, but it is doing so through molecular bonds and the fact that the entire mass of the planet is supporting it. Why exactly is magnetism different and immune from the normal laws that would generally apply? If I'm holding on to a beam I most definitely have to expend energy to do so. Gravity is acting on my mass and attempting to pull me off the beam. It seams to me that the same force should apply to the magnets suspending a mass below a steel plate. The connecting force is purely magnetic. Where is that energy coming from?

[wolf78]

If I'm holding on to a beam I most definitely have to expend energy to do so.

Not in the physical sense. If you hold a beer keg 5 inches above the ground, you're muscles will exhaust, because of the way they work, but you're not doing work in the physical because you're not lifting the weight up against gravity. Think of it as if you were holding a car still on an incline with your clutch. You have to expend energy which is wasted as heat (the same as with your muscles), but you're not actually doing work. You could as well use the handbrake - which doesn't use energy - and the result would be the same for the outside onlooker.

Because the magnetic force is greater than the gravitational force (i.e. the force of the handbrake is greater than the gravitational pull down the slope), the object is locked into place. No energy whatsoever is expended, as the system is stationary. In physics, mechanical work is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance. No distance, no work. The fact that muscles have to use energy doesn't mean they turn that energy into useful work when holding an object still, they just produce waste heat.