# Steorn now offers an explanation of how its "Orbo" perpetual-motion machine works **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765 "2010-04-02T19:22:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/21 "2010-04-04T00:31:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Fluidic space. Sounds kinda Lovecraftian . . . ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/22 "2010-04-04T01:17:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don׳t get it. Where is the energy supposedly coming from? From the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance…kind of a crude approach, really. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/23 "2010-04-04T01:25:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Sounds kinda Lovecraftian . . . _Star Trek, Voyager._ ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/24 "2010-04-04T02:37:26Z")
I don’t know what any of you are talking about, and I want it to stop. ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/25 "2010-04-04T02:51:18Z")
Just the line of decoupling the “Counter Electromotive Force (CEMF) from torque for electromagnetic interactions” is hilarious. I cannot believe, that yet, in 2010 (by the common calendar), there are still crackpot’s with (a following of) believers in perpetual motion machines. They are talking about essentially, a motor. Were it possible to “Decouple” the electromotive force from the counter-electromotive force, the only thing achievable would be a motor that instantaneously accelerated to infinite speed. Of course, long before then, it would have exploded into shrapnel. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/26 "2010-04-04T02:56:30Z")
> [@Khendrask](#): > > They are talking about essentially, a motor. Were it possible to “Decouple” the electromotive force from the counter-electromotive force, the only thing achievable would be a motor that instantaneously accelerated to infinite speed. _takes out wallet_ Go on… ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/27 "2010-04-04T03:36:11Z")
The website looks like it’s gotten an overhaul, but they first stated this explanation at least a few years ago. Steorn and Orbo is really the darndest thing. They’ve been making this claim of defying physics for years now. I honestly expected that they would long ago have absconded with their investor’s money to a Caribbean island. But they’re still around, still saying exactly the same thing they said three years ago, still with not a scintilla of proof, asif they themselves are trapped in a time warp. I wonder if maybe the company’s partners haven’t deluded themselves. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/28 "2010-04-04T03:39:41Z")
Too add a little variety…here’s Homer scolding Lisa about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics…[auf Deutsch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrcu8S30sxo&feature=related). ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/29 "2010-04-04T04:46:54Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The website looks like it’s gotten an overhaul, but they first stated this explanation at least a few years ago. > > Steorn and Orbo is really the darndest thing. They’ve been making this claim of defying physics for years now. I honestly expected that they would long ago have absconded with their investor’s money to a Caribbean island. But they’re still around, still saying exactly the same thing they said three years ago, still with not a scintilla of proof, asif they themselves are trapped in a time warp. I wonder if maybe the company’s partners haven’t deluded themselves. There’s a little part of all of us that has real trouble believing that nice ordinary seeming guys with professional level communication skills can be scheming lying evil assholes knowingly telling total and complete untruths, still more that they are doing this with the express purpose of fraud. Yet viewed objectively this is quite clearly precisely what they are doing. Frankly, I have the tiniest bit of begrudging admiration for their sheer audacity, their scheming brilliance and their front. They have taken a very old scheme that, were it done half heartedly, would be an obvious, tired, shabby and instantly recognisable con. They instead presumably realised that if they pursued a quite astonishingly bold Big Lie strategy, an old con could be given a makeover sufficient to work. So they didn’t merely announce their scheme quietly to the gullible: they took out a massive and expensive advertisement in a very major newspaper read by influential, sober people. Presumably they did this precisely because, as I’ve said, the ole’ perpetual motion scheme would be obviously just that but by turning it up to eleven, some people could be made to believe there must be something in it. It has paid off brilliantly it seems: no doubt the advertisement was expensive, but 8m Euros would still be a very nice little return. Since then much of their stuff has been in line with the standard con: big announcements of demonstrations that get cancelled or don’t work due to “minor technical hitches” and so on. Constant talk as if “commercial development” is a forgone conclusion yet they don’t even have anything they can demonstrate. The other great trick I think was the whole jury thing: I was surprised when they announced they were going to appoint a jury of eminent scientists and engineers to examine their invention, the more so when they actually seemed to permit a jury that wasn’t a bunch of yes men and woo woos. But again they did brilliantly by dragging out the process for two years before the jury pulled the pin: quite possibly because the jury realised that they were being used. I would strongly suspect that Steorn’s cunning plan (which they’d had all along and which showed their usual courage and Big Lie style) was to deliberately appoint a jury that had a great deal of credibility but then drag the process out. In this way, they could rake in the cash from gullible investors by saying “we are so confident in our invention that we’ve appointed a truly powerful and independent inquiry into our own work” and the cash would be stashed beyond reach before the jury finally made it clear they were not being given any data and the wheels fell off. I very much doubt that the partners in Steorn have deluded themselves at all. The sad tales that come out of cons like this usually involve people with more money than sense who have bought in early, have an emotional investment in believing they are not being conned and are slowly bled dry. Steorn will keep up the facade till the last gullible sap in their web has not a penny left, or they are jailed. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/30 "2010-04-04T06:40:52Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > If we look at the fundamental forces of physics, we find that they are all time-invariant. So where does time invariance come from? In terms of the apparent “arrow of time”… ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/31 "2010-04-04T07:03:38Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > I don’t know what any of you are talking about, and I want it to stop. But it NEVER stops! It just keeps going round and round forever and ever. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/32 "2010-04-04T08:26:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Fluidic space. So after it produces power, there’s less fluidic space? ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/33 "2010-04-04T13:00:05Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So after it produces power, there’s less fluidic space? No, since any fluidic space that is removed is immediately replaced by the local quantum space-time “foam”. ---
**Author:** ![MeDrewNotYou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@MeDrewNotYou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeDrewNotYou)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/34 "2010-04-04T17:48:12Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > Too add a little variety…here’s Homer scolding Lisa about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics…[auf Deutsch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrcu8S30sxo&feature=related). Totally OT, but that reminds me of one of my favorite Homer lines. Marge: Where are you going Homie? Homer: I’m off to the nuclear plant to, uh… Count the atoms! Conservation of mass! It’s the law! ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/35 "2010-04-04T18:47:19Z")
For a very interesting and fun read on this sort of thing, get the book “Perpetual Motion” by Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume (quite a moniker, that) that goes deeply into P.M. over the centuries. I remember some years ago the local paper ran a full page article about a P.M. machine that the invnetor had shown to one of their reporters. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite running yet because of some unforseen friction problems. The interesting thing was you could tell that the reporter fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The machine was based on hydrostatics, and any first year engineer could spot the fatal flaw. The reporter didn’t have a clue. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/36 "2010-04-04T18:59:41Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > No, since any fluidic space that is removed is immediately replaced by the local quantum space-time “foam”. Which Species 8472 loves on the top of their beer… ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/37 "2010-04-04T19:27:23Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > No, since any fluidic space that is removed is immediately replaced by the local quantum space-time “foam”. And that foam is eventually consumed? I just want to know what the fuel is. I may not know much about physics, but I know that if you have energy, you need fuel. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/38 "2010-04-04T22:21:29Z")
Well you dry out the foam into blocks, and then it can be burnt, just like cow manure. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/39 "2010-04-05T04:03:31Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I used to think there was a possiblity that they were sincere, but mistaken. I don’t think that any more - but I don’t think it’s a scam either - I think it’s just a way of drawing attention to their company, which happens to be in the business of making and selling electronic test equipment (that operates under the normal laws of physics). It’s an oblique advertising campaign. Would YOU buy test equipment from a company that can’t tell it didn’t invent a perpetual motion machine? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765/40 "2010-04-05T04:56:03Z")
It sounds like the physics equivalent of kiting checks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steorn-now-offers-an-explanation-of-how-its-orbo-perpetual-motion-machine-works/534765.md?page=3)