Perpetual motion machine introduction delayed

Steorn is an Irish company which has announced that it's developed a "free energy" machine. "Free energy" is another name for "perpetual motion." As you may recall from high school physics, perpetual motion is theoretically impossible according to the known laws of physics. "Pshaw" says Steorn (figuratively, anyway).

So, time for the Big Unveiling came...and went. "Technical problems" says Steorn. Gee, you'd think that a company which has a paradigm-shattering technology would make sure that everything was ready to go before announcing a demo, wouldn't you? No worries, though, they're going to unveil it on the Fifth. I'm sure that every oil company executive will be anxiously sitting in front of his computer, terrified of the machine that will inevitably put him out of work. And then pigs will fly like 747's above the landscape.

Perpetual motion at long last?

UPDATE:

Per mo no go

UPDATE II:

Steorn device linked to Intelligent Design

MORE: Smirk as a Steorn exec "explains" their device's failure:

Schadenfreude

UPDATE: Let the lying begin!

Steorn CEO tries to explain

Gaze upon the Orbo, disbelievers!

Con Artists Free Energy Technology

Posted on Thu Jul 05, 2007


Comments

"Free energy" is another name for "perpetual motion."

Well, technically that's not true. A perpetual motion machine only needs to waste zero energy while moving in any sort of way (a brick by contrast wastes zero energy but doesn't move). A free energy machine must do more than that -- it has to produce a positive amount of energy at every cycle.

So you basically have three types of machines: the regular kind, which lose some amount of energy at every cycle, typically via friction and/or heat; the perpetual motion kind which neither loses nor produces energy; and the free energy kind, which produces energy from nothing.

From a theoretical point of view, in an ideal (but still realistic) world, perpetual motion machines should be feasible. But free energy machines are just cheating all rules we live by, hence their even theoretical impossibility.
Posted by Gutza  on  Thu Jul 05, 2007  at  08:19 AM
B.S.
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Thu Jul 05, 2007  at  08:24 AM
Speaking as someone who works in oil & gas industry...I'm not worried.
Posted by Captain Al  in  Vancouver Island, Canada  on  Thu Jul 05, 2007  at  09:38 AM
TANSTAAFL
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Thu Jul 05, 2007  at  05:27 PM
There's a fourth kind of machine: that which converts an available but not easily tapped source of energy. Technically, it's the first sort, but if you're able to make something that efficiently converts, say, cosmic background radiation, into usable power, then it might as well be 'free'.

Solar's really only about the closest thing we've currently got to free energy. Even nuclear power is woefully inefficient: the most powerful source of energy we can produce, and we use it to boil water..
Posted by Bobcat  on  Fri Jul 06, 2007  at  04:16 AM
You are aware that large scale solar plants also 'boil water', aren't you? It has something to do with requiring mechanical power to turn that dynamo. Solar cells just don't cut it.
Posted by Charybdis  in  Hell  on  Fri Jul 06, 2007  at  09:15 AM
Bobcat's point was that instead of extracting the nuclear energy directly, we essentially convert it to (1) heat, then (2) mechanical power, and finally (3) electricity. With solar power, you start with heat, which you convert to (1) mechanical power and (2) electricity -- one step less.

Also, when you start with heat (from solar), it's ok to assume low-tech methods such as heating water -- but when you consider such a high-tech thing as a nuclear power plant, many people are surprised to find they're essentially boiling water in there.

But then again, wouldn't it be nice if we could at least find a way to convert heat directly to electricity in an efficient manner?
Posted by Gutza  on  Fri Jul 06, 2007  at  09:37 AM
Removing a step doesn't necessarily make the process more efficient, just simpler. Nuclear power also has the added benefit of continuing to provide electricity when the sun isn't shining.

I'm not advocation one over the other, they really need to work in conjunction. But to say that nuclear power is inefficient because it involves boiling water is simply false.
Posted by Charybdis  in  Hell  on  Fri Jul 06, 2007  at  11:04 AM
Well... no, it's not false. You're talking in the terms of technologies available right now -- in that context, yes, removing one step certainly doesn't make the process more efficient, otherwise they would've done it already. But starting with the very reasonable assumption that each conversion has an imperfect conversion ratio, surely you must agree that replacing all three steps with a single step with an efficiency ratio comparable to any of the three steps being replaced would improve the efficiency. Of course, we don't have that technology yet, which is why the entire conversation is related to how things could theoretically be done vs. how they are currently done.
Posted by Gutza  on  Fri Jul 06, 2007  at  02:17 PM
There is a norwegian artist named Reidar Finsrud who claims that he's buildt a perpetuum mobile.

Se links here:

http://www.galleri-finsrud.no/sider/mobile/foto.html

http://www.galleri-finsrud.no/index.html

There is a video-clip too, click download on the bottom of the page.
Posted by volf 63  on  Sun Jul 08, 2007  at  03:23 AM
Steorn's CEO stumbles his way through yet another "explanation" of why his gadget failed:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/17/the-engadget-interview-sean-mccarthy-ceo-of-steorn/
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Thu Jul 19, 2007  at  05:11 AM
surely you must agree that replacing all three steps with a single step with an efficiency ratio comparable to any of the three steps being replaced would improve the efficiency. Of course, we don't have that technology yet, which is why the entire conversation is related to how things could theoretically be done vs. how they are currently done.
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Posted by jack  on  Thu Dec 03, 2009  at  10:45 PM
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