# Examining claim of free energy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 14, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819 "2016-08-14T19:40:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/41 "2016-08-15T19:55:39Z")
I am going to be nice to the OP. The guy starts out by making some points that sound like his magnetism only improves the efficiency of electric motors. _“I’ll show you a new kind of electric motor that can speed up and produce more power without drawing more electricity.”_ This is indeed possible. A engineer could tell use why it wouldnt work, but it’s not crazy. It violates no known laws of physics. A better rotor with less friction could make the motor run more efficiently, sure, easy. But here: \*Hence the fact that the sum of the total energy is ALWAYS more than the input energy because the pereptual gyroscopic mechanical nature of magnetic flux is an energy source. The trick is turning the gyroscopic mechanical nature of magnets into continuous work. The input energy is always accounted for 100% as a transformation from electricity to heat, but then there is the free mechanical motion created by the magnets, which is produced by the perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux. I only paid an electrical price in input energy - the mechanical energy is 100% free. The total energy summation is input electrical energy PLUS magnetically produced mechanical horsepower. The total energy summation of usable energy is always over 100%!\* He is basically saying you get more energy out than goes in- because magnets! This is impossible. So if his claim was “electric motors are inefficient, you get only 70%\* of the energy out, rest is wasted by friction, and my device increases that 70% to 90%” he might be _wrong_, but not _crazy._ But he is saying that 70% goes to 110%, which is flatly impossible. - pulling this number out of a hat. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/42 "2016-08-15T19:59:14Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I must say that I am VERY disappointed in the Dope right now. Very few people in this thread even tried to give an honest, useful answer. > > I was pretty sure, just from a casual overview, that the website I linked to was bunk, but I didn’t know **why**. I started this thread because I wanted to know **why**. > > **Is that really too much to ask???** It’s the wrong thing to ask, and the wrong people to ask. The guy you saw is making an outlandish claim. The burden of proof is on him. _ETA: Ask him how it works and make sure you get a plausible answer._ If he claimed that his saliva could cure cancer he’d have to demonstrate that to have any hope being taken seriously. It’s not up to others to prove his saliva can’t cure cancer – from a logical standpoint you can’t prove a negative, and from a practical standpoint we don’t have the time or the inclination to try to disprove every piece of malarkey some jackleg comes up with. Unless and until he provides an intelligible explanation of what his thing does and how it does it, we can’t explain why it doesn’t work because we can’t know how it’s supposed to work. He may as well be claiming he can fly or shoot lightning from his nose or turn into a wolf at night. You know he can’t do those things, but can you provide a rock solid explanation of why not? You can say no human has ever been known to fly, or emit lightning, or morph into a wolf – the equivalent of what we’ve said here about his free energy claims – but otherwise how would you explain to someone that people can’t do those things? Sorry to disappoint, but at this point I’m not sure there is a more honest, useful answer than “it’s bullshit that he made up.” ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/43 "2016-08-15T20:08:07Z")
I think somebody needs to pony up the $37. There is nothing to worry about because: > [@](#): > > This product is guaranteed to meet even your highest expectations. > > P.P.S. Remember, you’re not risking a single penny since it is 100% guaranteed! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/44 "2016-08-15T20:30:57Z")
**Flyer** , my posts explained why free energy in general is bunk. Therefore, we don’t need to disprove this specific claim. That’s how this works: We know it can’t ever happen, so we can attack it on those grounds without wasting our time and effort disproving a new iteration of bullshit. If it’s real, the onus is on the inventor to prove the world wrong. As it always is. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/45 "2016-08-15T20:42:24Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Flyer** , my posts explained why free energy in general is bunk. Therefore, we don’t need to disprove this specific claim. That’s how this works: We know it can’t ever happen, so we can attack it on those grounds without wasting our time and effort disproving a new iteration of bullshit. > > If it’s real, the onus is on the inventor to prove the world wrong. As it always is. You did, but you didnt explain what you meant by “free energy” or why the guy in the Op’s link was suggesting a perpetual motion machine that produced more energy than it used. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/46 "2016-08-15T21:03:31Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Or to put it another way, suppose your car broke down, and you asked Doperdom Assembled, “Why won’t my car’s engine work?” > > Unless you can give us detailed information about the state of your car’s engine, or let a mechanic look at your engine, how could we tell the reason your engine won’t work? > > Maybe the spark plugs are broken. Maybe you ran out of gas. Maybe you’ve got a banana in your tailpipe. Maybe the car has been sitting in a lonely field for 40 years and the engine is a lump of rusty metal. Maybe your battery is dead. Maybe the connector to your battery has come loose. > > There are literally thousands of ways that you car might stop working. There’s no reason to expect people to be able to figure out the specific reason your specific car doesn’t work without a lot more information than the sorts of things you gave us.[ It’s worse than that. At least a car is _supposed to_ work, therefore if a car is not working, there will be one or more genuine reasons why - they may just be unknown or undiagnosed. In the case of free energy schemes, they’re not broken examples of things that ever did work - so the question “why won’t it work?” is often most truthfully answered “there’s no reason why it should.” ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/47 "2016-08-15T21:10:56Z")
When he says “perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux” what he is really talking about is the pulling of virtual particles from the vacuum of space. Some of these virtual particles could have the same properties as electrons. Of course who knows what kind of havoc you may creating across alternate dimensions. Would you want to create a Big Bang event just because you were too cheap to buy double As? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/48 "2016-08-15T21:20:49Z")
“Perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux”-is that anything like “By the Eye of Agamotto” or “The Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth”? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/49 "2016-08-15T22:08:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “Perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux”-is that anything like “By the Eye of Agamotto” or “The Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth”? Strange you should ask… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/50 "2016-08-15T23:06:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “Perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux”-is that anything like “By the Eye of Agamotto” or “The Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth”? Actually it’s one of the tenets of [Frisbeetarianism](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Frisbeetarianism). They have a saint, Our Lady of the Perpetual Gyroscopic Nature of Magnetic Lines of Flux". She earned her sainthood by dying on the top floor of the Burj Khalifa, thus having the highest stuck soul in the world. ---
**Author:** ![joema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@joema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joema)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/51 "2016-08-15T23:06:55Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > …And if there was any merit to his claims, he should be publishing papers in _Physical Review Letters_ and waiting for a phone call from Stockholm, or filing patents and talking with investors about starting a company. Not selling DVDs for $37.00. Exactly. We can be highly confident there is no merit to his claims – technical analysis is not even needed, although that can be educational. A free clean energy source would be a huge strategic asset. It would eliminate the need for foreign oil, eliminate greenhouse gasses. No more oil spills, no nuclear reactors. Ocean water could be desalinated, deserts would blossom. The inventor would rapidly become rich beyond his imagination, and be lauded as the savior of humanity. He would be spending his time flying on private jets to receive awards. He would not be puttering around his garage and selling CDs on the internet. If any inventor had such a device he’d become rich or he would disappear, in which case there would be no person to discuss. It would not matter if his own country believed him or not. If any nation or non-state actor on earth felt there was any credibility, they would acquire him and his technology by any means necessary. If his own country was interested and he refused to divulge the “secret”, it would simply be seized as a strategic asset and mass produced or otherwise leveraged. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/52 "2016-08-15T23:13:57Z")
> [@Doubticus](#): > > When he says “perpetual gyroscopic nature of magnetic lines of flux” what he is really talking about is the pulling of virtual particles from the vacuum of space. Well, who knows what he’s talking about, since he’s basically just stringing together buzzwords. But I doubt he’s referring to virtual particles. He’s probably referring to the fact that magnetism can be produced by the spin magnetic moment of electrons in atoms. Ignore all the physics except the word “spin” and you can end up with “perpetual gyroscopic nature”. > [@Doubticus](#): > > Of course who knows what kind of havoc you may creating across alternate dimensions. On the off chance that you’re not joking, virtual particles have nothing to do with “alternate dimensions”, whatever that may mean. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/53 "2016-08-15T23:23:54Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > On the off chance that you’re not joking, virtual particles have nothing to do with “alternate dimensions”, whatever that may mean. > > –Mark 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/54 "2016-08-15T23:24:45Z")
“[Back EMF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perepiteia)” is one of those weird effects that exists, but since it has very little practical application, most scientists and engineers don’t study it very much, and as such, have a hard time explaining what’s going on when some backyard tinkerer thinks he’s found the key to perpetual motion. The key is in these sorts of claims: “I’ll show you a new kind of electric motor that can speed up and produce more power without drawing more electricity.” There have been many demonstrations of motors that will “speed up” when people fiddle with them to try to exploit the back EMF. The problem comes in when you try to show the “produce more power” part of the claim. The relationship between the speed of a motor in RPM, the torque applied to the motor, and the energy or power output by the motor is a complicated one (See a presentation [here that discusses the issues](https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjIvJ3Tx8TOAhXGRSYKHTfBBBAQFghDMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drhenrylouie.com%2Fuploads%2F21-Torque_BackEMF.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEZfVhLoT2rXOf5RtFpmtwlYpTD8g&sig2=Uk--PCXlIkCvDmVVSfoc9A)). The key is, although the motor is spinning faster, it is generating less torque, and so there is no more power being generated. Demonstrations of this effect will invariably be done with systems in which the spinning shaft is being operated with no load, so that the real relationship is obscured. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/55 "2016-08-15T23:34:31Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > …or filing patents and talking with investors about starting a company. Not selling DVDs for $37.00. Alas, he does [have a patent](https://www.google.com/patents/US8860273). Which raises the question of, if he got the patent on Oct. 14, 2014, why isn’t he just selling the device, rather than the DVDs? I’ve done some work in explaining several methods by which guys like this can get patents even though their technology doesn’t work, but I don’t know enough about this area to pinpoint exactly which dodges he used to get this one issued. Although I noted it’s classified in [US Patent Class 310/156.43](http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/uspc310/defs310.htm#C310S156430): > [@](#): > > 156.43 Specific magnetization: > This subclass is indented under subclass 156.38. Subject matter wherein at least one permanent magnet has a specific magnetization pattern. …which makes me think he’s claimed his device in a manner that deliberately obscures what it is he’s actually doing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/56 "2016-08-15T23:44:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Horatius** : > > The relationship between the speed of a motor in RPM, the torque applied to the motor, and the energy or power output by the motor is a complicated one (See a presentation here that discusses the issues). What’s complicated about a three-variable equation? Power equals torque times rotational speed. The only way you can get any complication at all out of that is to use an inconsistent set of units, and even then, all you’ll do is introduce a single unit-conversion factor to the equation. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/57 "2016-08-15T23:48:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What’s complicated about a three-variable equation? Power equals torque times rotational speed. The only way you can get any complication at all out of that is to use an inconsistent set of units, and even then, all you’ll do is introduce a single unit-conversion factor to the equation. Well, I meant “complicated for people who don’t get why free energy isn’t possible” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@Simple\_Mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Mind)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/58 "2016-08-15T23:56:17Z")
I am living in the Philippines and for many years this guy, [Daniel Dingel - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dingel), manages to draw attention to his invention… "Daniel Dingel was a controversial Filipino engineer who claimed to have invented a “hydrogen reactor” - a device which he claims to have used to power a water-fuelled car. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/59 "2016-08-15T23:58:13Z")
If he’s patented it and is selling DVDs explaining it, and the technology actually works, why aren’t we seeing Chinese knockoffs by now? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819/60 "2016-08-16T00:40:07Z")
it’s like herbal/alternative medicine. if alternative medicine is shown to be effective and reasonably safe, it _becomes medicine._ I mean, aspirin got its start by people chewing the bark of willow trees. if it never gets anywhere, and the inventor has to beg and plead people to look at it, it’s probably not legit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examining-claim-of-free-energy/762819.md?page=4)