Posted on 01/22/2002 5:43:47 AM PST by blam
Inventor says he's found free energy
January 22 2002 at 07:07AM
By Kevin Smith
Dublin - It has been a pipe-dream of inventors since Leonardo da Vinci, but has the secret of free energy now been found in Ireland?
A cold stone outhouse on a windswept Irish hillside may seem an unlikely setting for the birthplace of such an epoch-making discovery, but it is here that an Irish inventor says he has developed a machine that will do no less than change the world.
The 58-year-old electrical engineer, who lives in the Irish republic and intends - for "security and publicity-avoidance reasons" - to keep his identity a secret, has spent 23 years perfecting the Jasker Power System.
It can be built to scale using off-the-shelf components It is an electro-mechanical device he says is capable of nothing less than replenishing its own energy source.
The Irishman is not alone in making such assertions. The Internet is awash with speculation about free or "zero point" energy, with many claiming to have cracked the problem using magnets, coils, and even crystals.
"These claims come along every 10 years or so and nothing ever comes of them. They're all cases of 'voodoo science'," said Robert Park, professor of physics at the University of Maryland in the United States. The makers of the Jasker - a name derived from family abbreviations - say it can be built to scale using off-the-shelf components and can power anything that requires a motor
. "The Jasker produces emission-free energy at no cost apart from the installation. It is quite possibly the most significant invention since the wheel," said Tom Hedrick, the only person involved with the machine willing to give his name.
There is mounting urgency in the quest for alternatives Hedrick, chief executive of a company set up with a view to licensing the device in the United States, said the technology shattered preconceived laws of science.
"It's a giant leap forward. The uses of this are almost beyond imagination."
Not surprisingly, this topic is red hot with controversy - sharply dividing a world scientific community still on its guard after the "Cold Fusion" fiasco of 1989 when a group of Utah researchers scandalised the scientific world with claims - quickly found to be unsupported - that the long-sought answer to the problem of Cold Fusion had been discovered.
Experts contacted by Reuters were wary, citing the first law of thermodynamics which, in layman's terms, states that you can't get more energy out than you put in.
"I don't believe this. It goes against fundamentals which have not yet been disproved," said William Beattie, senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
"These people (Jasker) are either Nobel prize-winners or they don't know what they're dealing with. The energy has to come from somewhere."
Undaunted, the inventor says that once powered-up, his device can run indefinitely - or at least until the parts wear out, adding that he has supplied all his own domestic power needs free for 17 months.
But he is keen to head off the notion that he has tapped into the age-old myth of perpetual motion.
"Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a self-sustaining unit which at the same time provides surplus electrical energy."
In a demonstration for Reuters, a prototype - roughly the size of a dish-washer - was run for about 10 minutes using four 12-volt car batteries as an initial power source.
Emitting a steady motorised hum, the machine powered three 100-watt light bulbs for the duration.
A multimeter reading of the batteries' voltage before the device started up showed a total of 48.9 volts. When it was switched off, a second reading showed 51.2 volts, indicating that, somehow, they had been reimbursed.
The machine went on to run for around two hours while photographs were taken, with no diminution in the brightness of the light bulbs, which remained lit during a short power cut.
"The draw on the batteries was estimated at more than 4.5 kilowatts. With any existing technology the batteries would have been drained flat in one and a half minutes," sai the inventor.
Modern theories of zero point energy have their roots in quantum physics and encompass the fraught areas of "anti-gravity machines" and "advanced propulsion" research.
Contributors to the debate range from serious exponents of quantum science to those who insist free energy secrets have been imparted to them by aliens.
Still others seem convinced that the US government is conspiring to suppress such discoveries.
Nick Cook, aerospace consultant to Janes Defence Weekly and author of The Hunt For Zero Point is not as quick as some to dismiss the possibilities.
"Zero point energy has been proven to exist, the question is whether it can be tapped to provide usable energy. And to that end, I think it's possible, yes. There are a lot of eminent scientists now involved in this field and they wouldn't be if there wasn't anything to it," he said.
"In my experience opinion in this field is extremely polarised... people either go with this area of investigation in their minds or they don't, and if they don't they tend to pooh-pooh it vehemently. It's very difficult to get an objective assessment," he said.
"Basically, no one wants to be the first to stick his head above the parapet."
Impervious to scepticism, Jasker's makers see the first practical application of their technology as a stand-alone generator for home use, although the automotive industry could also be a near-term target given the huge investment in developing substitutes for petrol-fuelled engines.
With world oil reserves running down, there is mounting urgency in the quest for alternatives.
If the Jasker men really are onto something, it could be the most important Irish invention since Guinness.
- Reuters
They may be about to change their minds, however. Two researchers in the US are pointing out that physicists have swept some "humiliating" problems with black holes under the carpet. By confronting these problems, they say, they have found an alternative fate for a collapsing star.
Emil Mottola of theLos Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina in Columbia think it mightturn into an exotic bubble of superdense matter, an object they call a gravastar.
I read this somewheere
It means they're not likely to be forthcoming, O Lord. RightWhale was asking for details; do you think he's likely to get them?
(If, on the other hand, you're making an insinuation about my anonymity, try clicking on my screen name and you'll find out exactly who I am. It used to be possible to list one's email address along with one's screen name on FR; I made a point of including mine with every post or reply I made. It is sterner@sterner.hep.upenn.edu.)
Personally speaking I'd have to say Black 47 are the best Irish music export! :-)
Try here. You might also find out why we think there are black holes, even though we've never seen them.
Not bad, but Stiff Little Fingers gets my vote.
Examples? Well, Bell and his Telephone, Ford and his "Horseless Carriages", and let's not forget Ron Popeel and his Pocket Fisherman.
I beg to differ, both these men were highly respected. This idea that past "crackpots" have ended up being right is a canard. The vast majority of crack-pot ideas, at least in the modern, scientific era, have turned out to be bullsh*t. There is a difference between being "unorthodox" and crackpot. Perpetual motion is just about the most cracked of the crackpot ideas there is.
Black helicopters come and take you away. ;-)"If it is a more efficient widget, he should get a patent."What happens if it has military or national security applications (or implications), and is deemed something that would be dangerous to same if it was allowed to fall into the hands of the country's adversaries?
You can still file your application but it becomes secret. You also cant file a foreign application, IIRC.
patent +AMDG
:-)
Agree completely. I keep hearing lets keep an open mind. However, lets not open it so far all of the brains fall out!
The Office of Patents and Trademarks [if he files in the US] will classify the device as perpetual motion anyway and reject the claims out of hand. He might get a design patent for a magnet configuration, but nothing more.First, the PTO rejects all claims out of hand, regardless of what you are claiming, perpetual motion machine or a new dishwasher. I can count on one hand the number of patents I have seen issue without the claims being rejected. It happens, but rarely. If you want a patent you then have to respond to that objection and demonstrate why you deserve a patent.
Second, if you have a halfway competent attorney it wont be classified that way. It all depends on how you characterize it, etc. The issue is what he claims. If he claims a perpetual motion machine he wont get a patent. If he claims a more efficient widget and submits data to back that up, he likely will.
patent +AMDG
Until one of them started spray-painting his own head, anyway.
"Superconducting magnetic levitation."
In a vacuum.
Until the people from the power company discovered the meter bypass line....
Ha, there's always a skeptic. I'm sure that was a major breakthrough for some folks out there.
Before:
After:
I'm sure it works better than any Irish perpetual-motion machine, anyway.
Static electricity is not an available source of electricity waiting to be tapped. It is the result of the forceful re-distribution of positive and negative charges in air. It takes work to get these charges distributed correctly and there is always loss in the forceful re-distribution, hence, the Laws of Thermodynamics are still in effect.
You still don't have free energy lying around. It's just like other forms of energy; they are all potential forms of energy and the conversion of energy makes it useful, whether it's oil or Hydrogen from water or natural gas, etc.
Not so. The standard car battery voltage can vary all the way up to 13.8 volts. The total when they started (48.9) was more than 12 x 4 = 48 volts anyway. The way they conducted the test was not an unreasonable assumption about energy transfer back to the batteries but who the heck knows what was in that "black box"? Sounds suspicious.
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