In Tuesdays Daily Mail (a popular daily newspaper in the UK) I came across an article titled: "Heard the one about the Irishman and the secret of perpetual motion?"
The editorial was of a story that has caused quite a stir in the world of science and engineering. A small Irish company called Steorn have allegidly created something they call "free energy technology" - see their claim here. To back up there claim they took out a £75,000 advert in the Economist challenging people to rubbish their claims.
How does it work?
Some year back Steorn was working on a CCTV system when instead of powering the cameras by the traditional method of batteries, they took the approach of implementing the power source through use of tiny wind generators. When designing these microturbines, Steorn claim, that they noticed something very peculiar: the magnets used in the turbines seemed to generate more power than was being put into them.
In essence, the claim is that if the magnetic fields are set up in a certain way and the magnet object is waded through the field, the magnet experiences a kick from (apparently) nowhere. There is no input from say an electrical source, and the magnets do not run down like an electrical source would do - i.e. they operate in perpetual motion and would theoretically run forever.
As with anything of this nature it draws a lot of criticism, not just for challenging the accepted scientific knowledge, but also for having potential alterior motives.
So what do you think? If nothing else, its got people talking about science!
Dave
The editorial was of a story that has caused quite a stir in the world of science and engineering. A small Irish company called Steorn have allegidly created something they call "free energy technology" - see their claim here. To back up there claim they took out a £75,000 advert in the Economist challenging people to rubbish their claims.
How does it work?
Some year back Steorn was working on a CCTV system when instead of powering the cameras by the traditional method of batteries, they took the approach of implementing the power source through use of tiny wind generators. When designing these microturbines, Steorn claim, that they noticed something very peculiar: the magnets used in the turbines seemed to generate more power than was being put into them.
In essence, the claim is that if the magnetic fields are set up in a certain way and the magnet object is waded through the field, the magnet experiences a kick from (apparently) nowhere. There is no input from say an electrical source, and the magnets do not run down like an electrical source would do - i.e. they operate in perpetual motion and would theoretically run forever.
As with anything of this nature it draws a lot of criticism, not just for challenging the accepted scientific knowledge, but also for having potential alterior motives.
So what do you think? If nothing else, its got people talking about science!
Dave