Steorn challenge to Energy Conservation, Advertisement to debunk

http://www.steorn.net/en/technology.aspx?p=5

Excerpt:
"Steorn’s technology appears to violate the ‘Principle of the Conservation of Energy’, considered by many to be the most fundamental principle in our current understanding of the universe. This principle is stated simply as ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form’.

Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).
The sum of these claims is that our technology creates free energy.

This represents a significant challenge to our current understanding of the universe and clearly such claims require independent validation from credible third parties. During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.

Steorn has decided to publish its challenge in The Economist because of the breadth of its readership. "We chose it over a purely scientific magazine simply because we want to make the general public aware that this process is about to commence and to generate public support, awareness, interest etc for what we are doing."

This qualifies for entry into The Amazing Randi's $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge, if true. Have they applied?

What scale is this? Nanotech, laboratory demostration, personal transport, MW plant?

This appears to be an electrical overunity device if I parse some hints on the web site. Because of various measuring techniques reliance on phase, a phase shifter can produce spurious meter readings for a non-overunity device. The true test of an electrical overunity device is to connect output to input and see if it is a perpetual motion machine. What's the run time in this configuration?

Please describe the technology. The site says "patent pending" which means they need to have filed somewhere. The USPTO requires full disclosure of inventions and you lose your patent if you hide stuff, so why is it so hard to figure anything about the technology from the website? Aren't websites supposed to supply information in the Information Age?

They have a patent on espacenet ( http://v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=EPODOC&...PN=WO2006035419 )which appears to be a way of 'switching' a magnetic field with minimal energy. They do this by having two opposite magnets and then moving a 'magnetic shield' between them. Potentially their idea could be to then generate electrical energy from a nearby coil, with the energy generated being greater than the energy required to move the shield. However, I would be surprised if this were true...!

Kohei Minato claimed a motor using rotating permanent magnets which also appeared to be violating laws of thermodynamics. He also claimed they had sold thousands of units based on such a motor.

I think there is an energy accounting problem that tends to occur when inventors use permanent magnets.

For example, the permanent magnet can increase the kinetic energy of an external object without consuming electrical power.

Where does the work come from to increase the kinetic energy?

I found this link helpful: http://www.phact.org/e/z/freewire.htm

It would qualify for Randi's price (i think) but considering the pratical applications for a free energy generator, a million is going to be nothing compared to what they could get selling the generators. Assuming it makes a reasonable amount of energy.

At least the inventors are inviting other scientists to test it and try to disprove it.

The gauntlet provided by Steorn Co. CEO Sean McCarthy appears a quite large.. It looks like serious thing.... well, again.




Concerning the patent listed here. It's an interesting arrangement of magnets and a magnetic shield on a linear slide, seems like the principle is to do with low energy switching of the magnetic fields.

But by Steorn this patent "refered to the low energy magnetic actuator is not a patent on the core steorn technology . The other patents are currently pre-PCT and will move to the PCT phase (and hence be available to the public) in the near future."

BTW The company's web site is pretty close to be hacked...

This post has been edited by Zephir on Aug 20 2006, 01:32 PM

The magnet provides the kinetic energy, but there's a catch - you have to give the energy back - in other words the magnet only loans you the energy.

Imagine the rotor, or moving part, 'falling' into the magnetic field of the magnet. However, once the moving part has fallen to the bottom of the magnetic well it can't accelerate any more.

This is basically the same scenario as if you have a cannon ball at the edge of a well, a tiny push will cause it to accelerate drastically as it falls down into the well. Where did the energy to accelerate it come from? It came from the gravity of the earth and the cannon ball.

Once the cannon ball has fallen to the bottom of the well, you can't get any more energy out. You have to lift the ball out of the well - putting energy back in.

It's exactly the same as with the magnet - once you reach the bottom of the magnetic well, you have to put energy back in to pull the object away from the magnet and get back to your starting position.

OK, so can someone help me out:

As far as I remember from back when I knew something, the energy stored in a magnetic field is given by 1/2 B dot H = 1/2 \mu_0 B^2

So... if I move a magnetic shield in front of a permanent magnet I've reduced the total energy of the system.

Is the work done by my moving the shield exactly equal to the energy 'lost' by the fact the field extends over a smaller space? If not, where does the energy go? And if it is, what if I were to put a coil (with electrical resistance) nearby, just away from the shield? When the shield is moved across, the flux will change through this coil and since it has resistance some electrical work will be done. The only way energy can be conserved is if the force on the shield is altered by the presence of this coil. Is this right?

Uhhh well, this is what the company calimed:

External Source

"We have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy.

This means never having to recharge your phone, never having to refuel your car. A world with an infinite supply of clean energy for all.

Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists - always off the record, always proven to work."

More info.
http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1784833525509845733

Its so far considered a hoax

But often new breakthroughs do seem crazy, so you never know.

What do Steorn actually mean by "energy".

What kind of energy is it, Kinetic? If so, have they build a *sigh* perpetual motion machine?

How is that going to charge my mobile phone?

As with Gravity, the magnetic pull is 'one way.' You get to the end of your trip, down hill, and you need a bus ride back. This I'm guessing is not a kinetic widget but rather a claim to tie into the force of magnetism in a non-mechanical way and turn it into electron motion - electricity.

Consider this. The problem isn't that there isn't energy everywhere and constant energy to boot - the problem is that in all the ways we currently know how to interact - the force is one way. You can feel the constant force of gravity by holding a heavy object over the earth with your arm extended. If you don't know where the earth is, drop some small object, it will fall directly towards the earth. So, while you are holding out that soup can, or 50lb weight, YOU are burning calories on an ongoing basis to counteract some force.

100% of these claims, and I'm sure this one, are bogus. BUT there does seem there might be a way to tap into gravity or magnetism and if so -- that is not 'FREE' energy nor a perpetual motion machine. It would be using (by some currently unknown means) a force that you can feel yourself. Gravity is what is making your bum press against your chair, reading this. Gravity and magnetism - pretty tempting forces to ponder for exploitation.

Well -- looks like I'm wrong. I see the pics now -- mechanical!

D'oh!

I'll go out on a limb here and say -- impossible.

Sorry dude.. I think all that steorn stuff is a joke. Seems to be
more of a test to see how long it takes an online community to completely disprove a theory, and if it can be done faster than having professionals do it..
I have questions because:

a)they way they have the counter on their site... what is their purpose besides so they know how many people are interested...are we feeding egos?
b)it says .com instead of .net on the header of the page... just seems to showy, and thrown together as all PR PR PR.
c)I've been trying to register to leave a comment in the forum for about an hour now... no luck
d)Check out the news portion of their site... weak
e)I see the CEO and Marketing guy... who else is a part of this company.. where is the group that helped to develop this.. prototype?
f)He says exploitation how many times in the video? (sounds about right)
g)Scientists have validated this project..OFF THE RECORD...riiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhhhttt.. the last time somebody brought me a brilliant idea, I wanted to be a part of it.. I didn't say.. great idea..never associate me with this.

def think this is all for show.... but damn do
I wish it were true.