FWIW This is what I think as well.
Or, more specifically, I think they are either genuinely convinced they’re onto something, or else, this is some kind of “proof of concept” for some advertising method or something.
-FrL-
Yeah, except if you’ve really got a “free energy” engine, you don’t have panels of jurors to certify that the fucking thing works. You just build the fucking things and they work, and you sell billions of them and penis ensues.
When you have to have “panels” to “certify” that these things “work” so you can “get” more “money” to “invest”, well, you’re probably going to get better results investing in a company that claims to be able to generate energy from “quotation marks”.
Exactly.
But does it? Say they built the things and said “Look here - it works! Buy one!”
Who would believe that? They’d say “No it doesn’t - you’ve got some hidden wires up your trouser leg or something.”
So I can kind of see why they are not “just building them”. Who would believe them?
The effect they’re claiming to have discovered isn’t a subtle one; they’re talking about machines that are circa 400 percent efficient (tell me that doesn’t sound ridiculous put like that). It’s not like that guy who thought he might have discovered some kind of antigravity because in some experiments, he measured reductions of a fraction of a gramme in the weight of some component - if they could build a machine that reliably outputs 400% of the energy put into it, it would be bleeding obvious that the things worked. Skeptics would not remain unconvinced for very long at all.
But my point is, would you hand over hard cash for one, based on watching it “work”? I know I wouldn’t.
Anyway, this is a small company on an industrial estate in Dublin. They hardly have the wherewithal to churn out thousands, or even dozens, of super-generators. So they will have to get a manufacturing firm to build the things. And would you take an order to build x thousand magnetic motors from a dodgy Irish fella, without being reasonably sure that they could sell them and pay you?
If it is a scam, it has to be one of the dumbest ever and i cannot see how they intend to make a penny from it. It will be fascinating to see what comes of it though. Interesting to see the Steorn website has been updated – I did wonder a few weeks ago whether it had all fizzled out.
Colophon: you overestimate the possibility of an over-unity device being possible, underestimate the depths of (certain individual’s) human nature, and really underestimate the gullibility of certain people.
If they had even their prototype up for sale at 10x what it cost them to make, there would be someone, somewhere, who would buy it. Hell, it’s supposed to work just on magnets alone, no electricity. Give me an hour with your demo model and I’d buy one.
Carl Tilley got millions out of big and small investors alike for at least a decade selling snake oil just like what Steorn claim to have under wraps. Con artist Joseph Newman claims to be fighting to patent his device (over-unity machines aren’t patentable anymore 'cause they waste the patent office’s time), was offered one if he’d agree to have his machine tested by the university of his choice, but turned it down.
Yeah, they’ve only made over 3.25 million U.S. from it already. It’s a scam man, pure and simple.
I don’t think that’s talking about the same device.
-FrL-
I disagree, but if you think it means good things that they’ve sunk 3 million in to device A and are now changing their minds to flog device B, go right ahead.
I’m telling you, take a look at that Wikipedia link I posted; if I lived next door to these jokers I’d have extra fire insurance.
Why would I think that? I don’t.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the “changing their minds” part of that, though. All I’ve seen is that there are at least two devices they are marketing. Nothing wrong with that.
Are they the same device or different ones? Well, the thing you linked to is said to work on some kind of kinetic principle, while the device in question in this thread is supposed to work on some kind of magnetic principle.
I’ve said all that, but please be clear: I’m just pointing out I don’t think they’re the same device. This is not supposed to constitute a “defense” of the company. I do not think they have the goods they claim to deliver.
-FrL-
You don’t really believe the big oil companies will let this product go to market, do you? They will buy it up and bury it.
Just like the motors that run on water.
Frylock - My apologies; ‘over-unity’ wackos tend to play fast and loose with scientific terminology - I wouldn’t try reading too much in to their blather.
(Though the quote is “the firm’s products were based on the same principle as kinetic energy generators in watches.”, which could be fairly accurate… the only way their magnetic machine is going to turn is if they crank it by hand ;))
Hogwash. If you want me to start saying things like “you’ve got some hidden wires up you trouser leg” you make outlandish claims, never produce anything, show your invention to a mysterious select group of people etc. It’s the way Steorn is working, and the way such scams have been working for centuries.
If you can actually produce something that runs forever without batteries, the world would beat a path to your door. If everyone is super skeptical (yeah, like we live in a world where everyone’s super skeptical) and won’t buy one, give a few away. Give them away to engineering students. Give them to skeptics. Give them to journalists.
You’d have people offering you more money than the GDP of Ireland for the patent within a week.
I certainly do not “overestimate the possibility of an over-unity device being possible”. I rate the possibility the same as any other rational person: zero.
But I do not think it is a scam. I still think these guys really believe they are on to something. Clearly they have not broken the laws of physics, but they seem to believe they have. I just find it interesting, but I do not believe their claims, as you suggest.
Princhester, you say “If you can actually produce something that runs forever without batteries, the world would beat a path to your door.” OK, but by definition they will only do that after “forever”. And if you’ve given away working devices for free, then how are you ever going to profit from it? People will be reverse engineering them immediately. Quite apart from the fact that you can’t patent an over-unity device, for obvious reasons…
Except… how is it actually possible to be mistaken about this? How could you accidentally build a machine that tricks you into thinking it outputs 400% of the energy it consumes, and remain in possession of this machine for any length of time, and fail to notice that actually, it doesn’t output 400% of the energy it consumes?
I guess if they’ve been eating the nice mushrooms they found in the meadow, they could be mistaken, otherwise, it has to be a scam.
You know, I never really got that little meme. Sure, the oil companies are powerful, but they’re not as powerful as every other industry on the planet, combined, who would looooove to pay less for fuel. The airlines alone could probably outbid them.
And don’t forget, once something is invented, it’s likely you’re at the level of technology required for that device to be invented- so it’s likely someone else will invent it. Keeping that technology buried would be like whack-a-mole.
Years ago, during the cold fusion debacle, I asked a friend’s father, a self-made multimillionaire in the oil industry, what his field would do about a power source like that. His response was, “We’d do our very best to get in on the ground floor.”
Rubbish. It doesn’t have to run forever to be interesting. It only has to run for longer than it would run if it were running on a conventional power source to be interesting. And the longer it runs after that, the more it gets interesting.
Heck, a device that runs 50% longer than a device running on current battery technology could, would be a major advance for which battery companies would pay millions.
By charging for the devices once people realise the devices work. Surely that is obvious.
This is a problem (to the extent that it is a problem) no matter what they do. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to stop people with real devices from actually making money.
As a matter of policy patent offices will not consider attempts to patent over unity devices because they are a waste of time because they never work, not because there is some law against it. If you could produce an actual over unity device that put out up to 400% more than you put in, you’d just *apply * for a patent (thus getting in first and getting protection) and then you’d give away a few devices etc as above. Before you knew it you’d be a gazillionaire and the patent office would have changed their policy once it became obvious from the surrounding buzz that this one actually worked.
How about they build enough of them to take their factories, warehouses and offices off of the grid? It would be difficult to impossible to hide that much energy going into a system.
All this talk of a scam, ha! You will be singing another tune when my Steorn investment pays off later this year! :dubious: Now, where is my pony?
What a well-played delivery though. Waiting this long to get the next part out is pretty good, I had almost even forgotten about the whole thing already.
Brendon