Hydrino Theory & Black Light Power

[ogmios]

To see what I’m talking about, hit: http://www.blacklightpower.com
When I first heard of this, it sounded like the usual something-for-nothing perpetual motion pipe dream, but THEN I hit their website, and found out that certain investors are throwing millions of dollars at this, and they have oodles of “scientific” support for their wacked-out theories. As an engineering student, I know enough basic chemistry and physics to start laughing when someone says “lower than the ground state,” but I don’t have the background to comprehend all the other reasons why this can’t possibly work according to known laws of physics. Naturally, I turn to the concentration of genius that is The Strait Dope. Lets hear in layman’s terms why Black Light’s scheme can’t work (or maybe why it can), and why they’re getting millions in funding when I’m not.
-og

[heptapod]

The strait dope? Would this be in reference to a particular imbecile who lives at Gibraltar?

[ogmios]

It’s late, and there’s no spellcheck. If any citizens of Gibraltar (or Taiwan, for that matter) care to respond, they’re welcome.

[Popup]

Seeing as I made a reference to the Gibraltar Straight the other day, I would seem qualified to reply.
I just had a quick look at the site, and I must say that they have collected a whole lo of scientific mumbo-jumbo in a few paragraphs. They claim to have combined Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity, and claim further:

In closed form equations with fundamental constants only, CQM gives the deflection of light by stars, the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, the particle masses, the Hubble constant, the age of the universe, the observed acceleration of the expansion, the power of the universe, the power spectrum of the universe, the microwave background temperature, the uniformity of the microwave background radiation, the microkelvin spatial variation of the microwave background radiation, the observed violation of the GZK cutoff, the mass density, the large scale structure of the universe, and the identity of dark matter which matches the criteria for the structure of galaxies.

Now, if that was true, I’d be impressed. But I think I would have heard from it from the Nobel committee instead… (Or, as they are always 15 years late, maybe Science, Nature etc.)

The Hydrino theory is an old bone of contention. Randy Mills has written a 1000 page tome, entitled,“The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics”, where he claims to have solved everything. I believe I’ve seen it severely debunked, but cannot find any references. Look here for a start.

[RM_Mentock]

Originally posted by Popup *
**
Now, if that was true, I’d be impressed. But I think I would have heard from it from the Nobel committee instead… (Or, as they are always 15 years late, maybe Science, Nature etc.)*

Always fifteen years late? Then how come these guys got theirs a couple months ago?

[RGillen]

I haven’t read much of this site (yet), but it looks to be a serious, skeptical evaluation of black light power.

http://www.phact.org/e/blp.htm

[Britt]

Eek, that’s bad.

A gaseous catalyst is formed from a source of catalyst by the exemplary methods of heating a nonvolatile catalyst such as potassium metal to form atomic potassium catalysts or by ionizing a gas such as helium to form catalyst. The catalyst causes the normal hydrogen atoms to transition to lower-energy states … which releases energy…

OK, well actual very much not OK, I am going to have to translate parts of the above into some human language structure (one in which the word catalyst appear no more than once).

[Translation]
We use either heated potassium or ionized helium to cause hydrogen to transition to lower-energy states.
[/Translation]

See not that bad really. So you have hydroden forming a covalant bond with helium or a metalic bond with potassium.
Slight problems being that the ioisization of helium is expensive, the bonds formed are endothermic and are at least in the case of potassium/hydrogen (and probably helium/hydrogen) unstable.

Now I haven’t read past the first paragraph, but i doesn’t matter how much money they have conned or who’s possibly valid work they have managed to shang-hi into there little setup. It doesn’t look like this bird has no wings no beak or for that matter a head, so lets not call it a bird or a theory at best this is a conjecture with no supporting theoretical basis.

[Wonko_The_Sane]

I work a few miles from their “alleged” location. I’m driving over after work to see if it really exists, or if the pics of buildings and such on their website is all BS.

[Popup]

*Originally posted by Britt *
See not that bad really. So you have hydroden forming a covalant bond with helium or a metalic bond with potassium.
Slight problems being that the ioisization of helium is expensive, the bonds formed are endothermic and are at least in the case of potassium/hydrogen (and probably helium/hydrogen) unstable.

Well, that’s not the end of it. They claim that the hydrogen has acually transmogrified to a new state ‘Hydrino’, which supposedly has lower energy than normal hydrogen. And the difference is usefull energy.
The only problem with the theory is that there is no empirical support for it, and the only theoretical support comes from Mills own monster book, “The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics”, which supposedly is riddled with errors.
I can recomend some reading in the link provided by RGillen. There are some supposedly reputable physicists who pick the entire theory/website to pieces:

Bottom line: there is no mathematically consistent theory which predicts the existence of the hydrino. Mills’s theory does not correctly predict anything whatsoever. There is no theoretical reason to believe that there is any such thing as a hydrino.

[Wonko_The_Sane]

I couldn’t find the place last night. The address numbers don’t run too normal around there. I’m checking again at lunch today, when it’s light.

[Wonko_The_Sane]

Found the place just before lunch. About 20 cars in the lot.