Can any of you dopers give me a simple explanation on the Searle Motor and/or the Searle Effect? I have read a little recently on this guys work (John Searle) but I can’t get my head around the concept of how he makes it work (if it works at all). Has anyone seen this motor in action? He claims that he has given many demonstrations of his motor which runs with no energy input (ie. no gas, no fuel, no nuttin’). Is he a scammer or is his work credible?
Scammer. Check out the laws of thermodynamics if you want to know why.
-ellis
[Homer voice]
Dave Marini GET IN HERE!
In this message board, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
[/Homer voice]
It is very helpful when discussing things of this nature to provide a link for those not familiar with the subject:
[ul][li]Searl Effect Home Page[/li][li]Lengthy report by Gunter/Gunnar Sandberg[/li][li]Credulous Article by a paper/magazine with the authoritative title Atlantis Rising[/ul][/li]
It smells like a crock of, umm, poo to me. It is possible that he has found a way to circumvent all of known science with a bunch of magnets, but how likely is it? He claims to have demonstrated his technology at Andrews Air Force base and to a Canadian government official. Sure, Big Oil would want to shut him down, but don’t you think the Air Force would want a squadron of these things at Area 51/Groom Lake/wherever that they can fly anywhere in the world and hover at an altitude of 300 miles and drop bombs on Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden while munching on Cheetos?
Oh, and why isn’t Krispy O. touting this everywhere?
I especially like the part where the prototype he built accidentally flew off into space, never to be seen again. Whoops!
His pages are full of “I can’t prove the past, I have to start from scratch and get to the point where I can redemonstrate my technology blah blah blah.” Yeah, Big Oil has kept this guy down all his life. Him and the 200 MPG carburator. Whatever.
The “laws” of thermodynamics? You said it exactly. “Laws” are always subject to change, based on new information. I don’t agree with discrediting this guy on the basis that his invention couldn’t operate if it adhered to the “law” we already know. Isn’t that the essence of science itself - to discover and rediscover? To add to our knowledge as human beings? So his motor may not work if we think about it from the angle we already know. Perhaps he has done what science exists for - discovered something new.
I visited the home page and amongst other things found:
“He gave a demonstration at Edwards Air Force Base.
During the demonstration, he made a remote control turn to the tune of 25 Gs, which would kill
anyone inside a jet plane. The people at Edwards said, “Well that would kill anybody inside a
jet plane, and we don’t want to see it, because it’s just too dangerous, we can’t use that.””
There isn’t an airforce man ALIVE who wouldn’t wet his pants with joy at this kind of performance! Searle is lying. If his device is so easy to make and demonstrate (he allegedly built a load of them when he was a kid but lost them all because they flew off into space) the mainstream press would have leaped on it - they usually love this sort of stuff.
Well, since the laws of thermodynamics have been pretty well established, and this Searle guy is not, I think we should ask him to prove his effect. It would be really interesting if he could. If he can do so, great! The physicists will have a lot more to keep them busy then.
And perhaps he has done what scams exist for - gotten attention and money for selling an interesting, but false, story.
I think we should be very wary until his ‘effect’ is proven.
Well, since the laws of thermodynamics have been pretty well established, and this Searle guy is not, I think we should ask him to prove his effect. It would be really interesting if he could. If he can do so, great! The physicists will have a lot more to keep them busy then.
And perhaps he has done what scams exist for - gotten attention and money for selling an interesting, but false, story.
I think we should be very wary until his ‘effect’ is proven.
All I want is a simple explanation of what he says he’s doing… help?
Okay. I tried the Searle effect home page, but it is designed to give an absolutely minimal amount of practical information unless you part with $50 to access the members section. Not that I think it’s a scam or anything, but I wasn’t quite prepared to do this.
The Sandburg report was a little more helpful. The basic idea is this.
You know how you can magnestise a piece of iron or steel by placing it into a strong magnetic field? You can magnetise a screwdriver by stroking it with a strong magnet, which makes it useful for picking up screws.
Commercial ferrite magnets are magnetised in the same way, using a strong electromagnet to generate the field.
Searle says that instead of using a constant strength field to magnetise your ferrite magnets, you can use one whose strength varies slightly but very fast (10 million times per second). This allegedly gives the magnets some new interesting properties.
Now, you make three of these magnets. One big cylinder (the “ring”) and two little cylinders (the rollers.) You stick the rollers to the ring so they can roll round and round it. They take up positions opposite each other on the ring.
Now, you give one roller a push, moving it around the ring a little. This causes the other to move since it wants to remain opposite. But it overshoots, giving the first roller an additional push. And so both rollers speed up, rolling round and round the ring. This creates energy from nothing. Which personally I think is good news!
After this it gets progressively weirder. If you add enough rollers and incorporate the right materials, the thing apparently generates anti-gravity, and several have flown off, presumed lost in space. The device also becomes radar invisible, and is capable of exceeding light speed. Searle and his buddies have built “a ten metre craft” but they don’t seem to have buzzed MIT in it yet. Nor will they show you a photo of it unless you pay up your $50.
Don’t get me wrong, I so want this to be true! The world of today totally fails to live up to the promise of all the science fiction I read as a teenager. Where are the bases on the Moon, the jet packs and the robots to do all the work? BUT if such an easily demonstrated effect was real, you wouldn’t need money from the public to “finance research.” I think it’s a blatant scam, and I’m sure I could come up with a much better one. It’s very sad that apparently, you don’t NEED a better one.