Steorn: again, with the free energy thing

Image of Steorn's energy machine from story about Steorn at Depleted Cranium.

Steorn, the Ireland-based company that says it has a technology that produces more energy than it uses (aka, perpetual motion), has redesigned its website with a new video containing testimonies from scientists and engineers excited about the technology, dubbed Orbo. It's also announced a program to give free, non-commercial development licenses to 300 engineering companies.

[T]he Steorn site now features a page briefly explaining how Orbo works, and announces a series of talks to be given at engineering universities around the world, beginning in the Middle East this month, continuing to Europe in the summer, and finishing in the United States in autumn. It looks like Steorn is going ahead with the plans they announced in December, to begin the commercialization of Orbo in February. If it weren't for the fact that Orbo is supposed to be impossible, and that there still remains not a single photo or video of a spinning, self-sustaining device anywhere on Steorn's site, this would look like any other exciting but routine product launch. Orbo's promise of free energy feels closer than ever today, but yet again it's still too early to be certain that this isn't all just smoke and mirrors. Hopefully we'll learn more soon as these 300 engineers sign up and begin to try to replicate Orbo on their own.

Steorn opens Orbo to developers

Previously:

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

dross1260

Will it fit next to my desktop cold fusion?
http://www.princeton.edu/~chm333/2002/spring/Fusion/tour2/coldfusion2.html
Takuan

I’m holding up my end Arkie! Nothing but fear and good judgment holding me back and not much o’ that!
ChunkyMonkeyBrain

I can’t believe all the indoctrinated haters on this site.
I’ve personally seen the Orbo running Crysis on a full screen at 1600 X 900 resolution at over 30 fps.
nanuq

Once the hucksters disappear with the money of all the yokels who invested, conspiracy theorists will start buzzing about how Big Energy “silenced” them to keep The Truth from becoming known.
noen

@ #21 James Holden
“If they’d really invented an over-unity device, they’d strap it to a damn hovercraft and cruise up to to the TV studios with it, doing donuts in the car park.”

Sorry, I’m busy, my hovercraft is full of eels.

@ #49 GregLondon
“HOW LONG CAN STEORN KEEP THIS THING GOING?!!”

Forever. ZOMG! They have invented a perpetual marketing device!
bcsizemo

@ 62 Alex M.

And by that same idea, the things of boing boing will never come to pass. aka science fiction will never become science fact.

According to the standard laws of physics we can not travel faster than light, which makes space travel all but impossible. Now you could say we could work around that by doing what most sci-fi does, and create some type of tear in space or alternate space/time plane, all of which we have no idea how to start on.

I would imagine 100 or so years in the future this might be overcome, and looking back on it would be like us looking back at the industrial revolution.

I’m not saying that Steorn shouldn’t put a device out there and say, “Here’s your proof.” Everyone should be held accountable for what they say. Proof is required. But denial based on science just because it can’t be is a limited mind set.

You also realize that Tesla was not thought highly of, did not finish a degree, and yet most of our energy system is based on his work.

@66 Michael C.

True. But we take many things that make life work on this planet at face value. The fact we wake up every day and breathe air which contains oxygen is also a valid point. No one ever thinks about there not being oxygen. (The same could go for airborne bio weapons, which only military or like minded would think about).
maxoid

i don’t know a whole lot about this thing, but is this one built out of lego notably different, as far as function?
Anonymous

#8.

I disagree. PPT1 = free energy because real processes are irreversible.

Either way, it is also likely to be a PPT of the 2nd kind as well as PPT1.
Anonymous

But will it blend?
arkizzle

Yeah, I knew I could count on the pickle.
arkizzle

Maxoid.. I dunno, can you compare different modes of fake? Does cgi-fake trump hype-fake?
Anonymous

Why waste time and energy on publicizing these scumbags?

If they or blacklight or whatever the energy scam of the day is really come out with something that works, then there is no need for this fake publicity, and everyone in the world will come rushing to their door.

But since the odds are something like a trillion to one that they are just con artists, it would be far far better to just ignore them.
Spod Slugman

“In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”
-Homer S.
GregLondon

I think I saw one of those on Buckaroo Bonzai.
James Holden

Oh I am so fed up of this sort of thing now.

It gives us right-thinking, laws-of-physics-obeying, science lovin’ folks a bad name. >:-(

Of course it’s not over unity, there is nowhere for the energy to come from, and it seriously annoys me that the media just accepts a whizzy thing with some wires as proof that it’s real and works.

If they’d really invented an over-unity device, they’d strap it to a damn hovercraft and cruise up to to the TV studios with it, doing donuts in the car park.
Drhaggis

@10 the energy involved in the production of the parts is not included in determining the thermodynamic efficiency of a machine.

“free energy” devices (typically) try to take subtle, small forms of energy hat go unused and turn them into something productive.

“Over unity” devices try to break the laws of thermodynamics. “perpetual motion” is an older term meaning much the same thing.

Using sound engineering principles to design a device that would run (for all reasonable purposes) forever (with maintenance and upkeep) would not be considered “perpetual motion” except by marketing types. Even the Clock of the Long now is only a 10,000 year project.

Entropy always wins. No arrangement of magnets make it otherwise.
Jonathan

HOW LONG CAN STEORN KEEP THIS THING GOING?!!

Perpetually!!!!!!

Sorry. It was just hanging out there. Someone had to pick it up.

—

Maybe, just as people are peering over the last precipice of proof, Steorn will reveal it all as a marketing ploy?

I like how “SteornLab” just released some energy measurement tools. Those should be helpful.

Can’t believe I missed the shark.
GregLondon

denial based on science just because it can’t be is a limited mind set.

Science says you can’t get something for nothing. If someone says you can, they’re wrong.

If someone says they’ve figured out a way to do cold fusion, that’s a different matter. But these guys are saying they can extract power from this “motor” without anything in the motor changing.

If the magnets lost their charge, and the energy extracted matched the loss of energy in the magnets, that would work. If the magnets forced some molecules to undergo cold fusion, and the motor needed this fuel replaced, that could work.

If the motor produces power, but doesn’t need fuel and doesn’t change in entropy, science has come out and said such a thing is impossible.
Anonymous

Who’s footing the â‚¬2 million bill at Steorn?: http://www.steorn.com/about/investor/
Bill Beaty

Here’s the real question:

HOW LONG CAN STEORN KEEP THIS THING GOING?!!

:)
Michael C

bcsizemo (#57) Since science is all that and a bag of chips, care to explain how gravity works

We don’t know how gravity works, but we know that it works. When I go out of my front door, I’m not afraid that I’ll float upwards. I know that gravity will keep me comfortably stuck to the ground. I can even measure with great exactitude the force that gravity is exerting on me. Similarly, we cannot define exactly what energy is, but we know that it is a measurable quantity that doesn’t change when it flows though a machine. What goes in is what comes out, with the proviso that in what comes out there is always a proportion of heat energy that we can’t do any useful work with.

“Now most fifth graders know what radiation is.

And why do those fifth graders know what radiation is? Because of advances in science.

For all those who still hope that this thing might work, I strongly advise you to reflect on the dangers of a machine that actually produces more energy than it consumes. Apart from the fact that we’d have to rewrite just about every scientific law, the continual increase in energy from the millions of these devices that all those lovers of free energy would be using would cause our planet to rapidly heat up and become a pretty ball of flames ;)
Tom Hale

What would their life expectancy be if they were to build such a device? I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long enough for them to have advertised and develop a web site for it.
Brainspore

@bcsizemo #69:

I’m not saying that Steorn shouldn’t put a device out there and say, “Here’s your proof.” Everyone should be held accountable for what they say. Proof is required. But denial based on science just because it can’t be is a limited mind set.

When all scientific precedent says something should be impossible, using science to deny its existence is perfectly valid until contradictory evidence is presented.

If Steorn was issuing press releases saying that there are herds of elephants living on the moon, any respectable scientist would dismiss those claims out of hand because everything we know about elephants tells us that they could not survive in such a place. In order to change a reasonable person’s mind, Steorn would have to show some pretty compelling evidence that such elephants existed.

The onus is on the people who make fantastic claims to present evidence to back them up, not on everyone else to keep “an open mind.”
Jonathan

The greater story here may be why Steorn is still in business. Can they really market Orbo “perpetually”, or will their fate mirror Depleted Cranium’s description of magnet motor machines: they eventually “slow down, jiggle and then stop”. How are they going to avoid litigation by investors? Too embarrassed to sue? No grounds for a claim because Steorn has been careful with their phrasing? Bankruptcy? When does the jiggling begin?

The complicity of the media is important too. For example, The Economist took Steorn’s money for a full-page ad. Then, they wrote an article branding Orbo as “impossible science” and “perpetual nonsense”. Did they not know this when they took the money?
Tom Hale

No, I’m sure God gave us magnets because he wants us to make a machine that produced more energy than it uses. I think its in the Bible.
RagManX

I, for one, welcome our new perpetual ovelrords.
maxoid

@18 Arkizzle:

i assume they’re both fake, sure, just trying to guage whether it’s the same basic idea.

i kind of wish steorn’s version were lego-based, too, rather than the acrylic thing in the photo. might give ‘em more credibility.
Jonathan

Again with the magnets.

Lots to be learned here. Not about perpetual motion, of course, but about perpetual marketing. And, how to manufacture credibility from refrigerator magnets (hint: start by piggybacking on the reputation of The Economist).

The presence of “scientists” does not guarantee the presence of scientific method. Here is one of my faves: The Resonance Project.

Can’t wait until someone (not me, of course, but someone else) remixes that vid.
bcsizemo

Wow, I love all the closed minded scientific types on here…

Since science is all that and a bag of chips, care to explain how gravity works (other than a bunch of matter put together makes it?)…

Or go back 60 years and you could tell the lovely people of Japan why they were throwing up and dieing a death far worse than I can imagine. We call it radiation. Now most fifth graders know what radiation is.

Science is a great thing, but to systematically say things are impossible because they do not fit with the current theory you know is limiting. It’s no better than what a computer could do.
Drhaggis

@24 Hi-larious. Well played. :)
Takuan

nope. They are saying the observed behaviour of the device CAN be explained by current science.
Brainspore

They may not have nailed “free energy” yet, but Steorn sure does have “free marketing” down pat.
I Like Cake

Bcsizemo raises an interesting point.

What about vague and overgeneralized allegations about ‘science?’ Have you guys ever stopped to consider that science can’t explain everything? How about the fact that many so-called ‘scientists’ accept money for their work and do not simply beg for food while writing papers?

Scientists are clearly hopeless conservatives stuck in the past. The fact that no new scientific research is ever produced and no new papers are ever published is evidence enough of that.

Furthermore, science changes its mind all the time. How do we know that resistance to perpetual motion isn’t just another fad which will be turned over when something new is discovered?

The idea that perpetual motion machines are impossible is just something the scientific orthodoxy wants you to accept simply because they don’t know any better and will remain that way until the research they won’t do because of their conservative nature makes them change their minds like they always do about everything.
benher

This is the same as the millions of other perpetual motion scams that came before it. Shy on proof / details. The less attention they are given, the better.
Alpinwolf

@74 Jonathan:

“Heya Rightie, how ya doin? Say, we have a new recruit here today, I’d like to introduce you. Right, this is Left Hand, our new intern. Left, meet Right Hand, our supervisor in the writing department. I think you guys might get along great, but for the time being, I’m going to have Left, here, start in the procurement and assistance department. I don’t think you’ll be seeing much of each other during regular operations, but perhaps on breaks, and whatnot? Anyways, I know we all have to get back to work. See you at the meeting, Right? Okay Left, lets get you started…”
rasz

good job perpetuating their scam, did they pay you for this post Mark?

That company turned out to be a scam after they failed to deliver for the first time.
LightningRose

#4 posted by banjology, FTW!
Alex_M

bcsizemo @ #57:

So, if Science doesn’t know everything – then everything is equally doubtful?
That’s ridiculous. We know the world isn’t flat. Do you think our opinion of that is likely to change?

We know more about some things than we do about others. We know relatively little about gravity. But we know a heck of a lot about electromagnetism. And we also know a heck of a lot about thermodynamics. The upheaval of the laws of thermodynamics relates to physics in much the same way as claiming the world is flat to a geographer.

Further, when it comes to perpetuum mobile, there are centuries of failure to go with it. Do you know WHY it is that people who claim to have invented these things almost invariably lack a science background? Because scientists know how well-proven these laws are. When they run into an experiment that appears to be putting out more energy than is put in (and that happens all the time) – they go back and find the error. And so far, it’s ALWAYS been an error.

It’s not closed-mindedness to ignore an outrageous claim made with no evidence. These guys have NOT demonstrated any working machine (and never will) NOR do they have any working theory on why their machine would work.

As someone with a degree in physics, I’ll make you a deal. Demonstrate a REAL, WORKING device and I (and many others) will be happy to spend the rest of our lives studying this thing. But until you do, shut the hell up about the ‘close-mindedness’ nonsense.
chetoverton

yet again it’s still too early to be certain that this isn’t all just smoke and mirrors

Is it really?
grundie

I strongly suspect that this device is actually one of those ‘magnetic ball bearings in a ring going through coils’ battery charger thingies. The clear plastic thing in the above picture kind of looks like such a device. It’s free-ish energy (someone or something has to move it) but can not be described as perpetual motion.

I live and work in Dublin and they are seen as something of a joke amongst many in the Dublin business community. No one can take them seriously, especially since they will not reveal any details about their miracle device.

I would so love for this device to be real as it could really help the Irish economy right now, but as others have said I’ll believe it when I see it.
gigantimous

#30 correct

It is not too early.
SednaBoo

Someone NEEDS to get one of these licenses! Frauenfelder maybe? Someone who’s handy….
noen

Michael C makes a good point. Any real free energy device would be an infinite bomb. You should be able to blow up the universe with one.
randomcat

I suspect the energy source is hidden in his pimpin’ phat pinky ring.
lumpi

What’s more revealing than any scientific discussion is how the site is set up. They have a logo, but not a single product to sell. For years. They have a site that looks just… wrong.

Look at the stock photos on top of each section. The mobile guy, the green grass, the blue bubble… the SHARK(?!?) on the privacy statement site…

It looks like a fake viral-site for fictional companies for a movie.

A “scientific breakthrough” like this would start as a paper from a university. Not as an internet-fad.
Jonathan

Steorn seems to be making judicious use of NDAs.

The blog on which this story broke, DispatchesFromTheFuture.com, would make me feel more comfortable if the domain name wasn’t privately registered.

Check out these Orbo limericks from the Steorn.com forums.
fordprefect

Steorn needs to bring on the Orbo-powered jetpack before I’ll believe they can defy the basic laws of physics.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
- Marcello Truzzi (and Carl Sagan)
elharley

We know these things have no merit, yet we publish information about them regardless. Which is what all these companies want. Without any media coverage this is just another crackpot invention.
With media coverage they can continue to perpetuate their bogus claims. They don’t need a working device, all they need is an audience willing to believe that they can do it.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  With media coverage they can continue to perpetuate their bogus claims.
  
  CATCITFP – Complaining about the candy in the free piÃ±ata.
wgmleslie

Does Steorn purchasing electricity for their office? If so, why?
minamisan

watching that CEO talk reminds me of conversations with psychics, alternative medicine practitioners, and christians: a legitimate belief in and enthusiasm for something everyone else knows to be a load of bollocks.
airshowfan

Drhaggis, #22: Entropy always wins. No arrangement of magnets make it otherwise.

Great, now you’ve caused me to feel existentially depressed about the inevitable heat-death of the universe. All we are is dust in the wind. Thanks a lot.

(And no, I’m not serious. Not entirely).
Clifton

“Any real free energy device would be an infinite bomb. You should be able to blow up the universe with one.”

You say that as if it were a bad thing.
NoahApples

@50

if this were all an elaborate ruse to set us up for that punchline, I would have so much more faith in the world.
Takuan

entropy always wins – in the long term. Otherwise there would be point to sex.
Takuan

(That’s an offshoot of Owist teachings by the way, it’s called a “Groan”)
Charlie Lesoine

I think they also have a really great bridge for sale.
Anonymous

Heat pumps on millions of homes deliver more watts of heat than watts of electricity they consume. That’s right, they are over 100% efficient. They do not violate any laws, the energy is not magically produced. The produced heat can’t be turned into more electricity than was consumed.

I think Steorn is full of crap, but please use real arguments to discredit them, not “over unity” is impossible BS.
mdh

Upset Science? (his t-shirt)

Does that mean turn science over entirely for a fresh perspective, or just bite at it’s ankles until it gets pissed off?
zuzu

“Stones into bread”.

A “working” device doesn’t explain where the “free” energy originates from.
Anonymous

Hmmmm…”we developed a device that should get us a Nobel prize if its true but we’re not going to develop it, we’re just going to license it…”

…yah, right…..
banjology

I won’t believe it until I see a youtube video of it spinning along on a treadmill while researchers jab at it with a spork. Now THAT’S science I can get behind!
Takuan

“Eric Berger, writing on the Houston Chronicle website, commented that:

Recall that Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the “free energy” promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas. If so, it’s a pretty brilliant strategy.[31]
“
zuzu

I won’t believe it until I see a youtube video of it spinning along on a treadmill

But does the device takeoff?
arkizzle

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3241144762266261027

This is the OC MPMM (Overconfident’s Magnetic Perpetual Motion Machine), reverse-engineered (more like rumour-engineered) version, developed independently in the Steorn forums by Overconfident and Alsetalokin.

It was quite an exciting series of developments, keeping up with the videos.. There was of course HUGE debate over whether it was true or not, and Alsetalokin (who actually built and claimed the capabilites) was hounded by the forums and blogs alike. He eventually made another video, of himself dropping the machine in the bin.. high drama!

Many more attempts were made by others (youtube|: Whipmag or OC MPMM), but I’m not sure any ever achieved Alsetalokin’s great results.

Anyway, Steorn’s version looks extremely similar. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if they took the Overconfident design and perfected it :)
Takuan

and the missing “no” in front of “point”is called a stupid typo.
Robert

The problem with getting one of the licenses is the Fifth Law of Magic: If it doesn’t work, you did it wrong.
Kennric

Erm… perpetual motion != free energy. Free energy, i.e. “over unity” devices give you more energy than you put in. Perpetual motion devices just keep moving forever. For some definitions of the word “perpetual”, a device that continues moving forever may just be an engineering challenge, whereas an over unity machine is simply not possible – it would have to produce energy from nothing (that, most physicists agree, is the tricky bit), not just fail to dissipate its energy completely before the heat death of the universe.
arkizzle

#36 Drink!

(Did we all go teetotal for the last few months? I nerry remember the call to booze for ages.. Maybe just the quality of the complaints has gone down.)
GregLondon

You told me the whole story. You were standing on your toilet, and you were hanging a clock, and you fell, and you hit your head on the sink. And that’s when you came up with the idea for the Flux Capacitor!
decartesman

“Any real free energy device would be an infinite bomb. You should be able to blow up the universe with one.”

Finally, some weapons of mass destruction! George W. Bush = vindicated! Ireland, Iraq, whatever. Just phone the joint chiefs & launch the invasion force!
GregLondon

Their video here is hilarious. 20 seconds into the vid, the guy says “we’re not interested in manufacturing batteries or cellphones or (blah), we’re interested in licensing this technology”.

Well, of course you are, cause if you build it, you know it won’t work. and there’s no money in that.
Anonymous

Why spend time with this Hoax. Whatever they say, it’s not true, they won’t unveil anything.

If someone somehow invent something that works for real, you won’t hear about it on YouTube, they won’t need to create “interrest” on the web.
Spike Curtis

Seems like they’d like to just conveniently forget about that pesky “validation” program they so enthusiastically recruited. Not a word from them in 2+ years…

http://www.steorn.com/news/releases/?id=911

Must not be going so well…
arkizzle

Greg, they aren’t going to sell very many licenses if it doesn’t work, either.
eagleapex

Can anyone tell me how much energy is required to make and magnetize material to make it a “magnet”?
You follow me?
arkizzle

Me@7

To be clear:

I’m not saying this is real or not, just relating the background. I would love it to be true, but until it is built in a commercial context and is powering my hover pants, I’m not holding my breath (I do enjoy the whole shenanigan immensly, though).
BlackPanda

I distinctly remember reading a book by some Scottish guy called Sandy Kidd or something, claiming he’d created an anti-gravity device using gyroscopes. :S

I suspect this is similar.
Dillenger69

I’ll believe it when I can see one powering something.