Has college dropout done the impossible and created a perpetual motion machine?
Mon, 2008-02-04 18:44
#1
Has college dropout done the impossible and created a perpetual motion machine?
Mon, 2008-02-04 18:44
#2
quote:
Feb 04, 2008 04:30 AM
Tyler Hamilton
Energy ReporterThane Heins is nervous and hopeful. It's Jan. 24, a Thursday afternoon, and in four days the Ottawa-area native will travel to Boston where he'll demonstrate an invention that appears – though he doesn't dare say it – to operate as a perpetual motion machine.
The audience, esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn, could either deflate Heins' heretical claims or add momentum to a 20-year obsession that has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters.
Zahn is a leading expert on electromagnetic and electronic systems. In a rare move for any reputable academic, he has agreed to give Heins' creation an open-minded look rather than greet it with outright dismissal.
It's a pivotal moment. The invention, at its very least, could moderately improve the efficiency of induction motors, used in everything from electric cars to ceiling fans. At best it means a way of tapping the mysterious powers of electromagnetic fields to produce more work out of less effort, seemingly creating electricity from nothing.
Such an unbelievable invention would challenge the laws of physics, a no-no in the rigid world of serious science. Imagine a battery system in an all-electric car that can be recharged almost exclusively by braking and accelerating, or what Heins calls "regenerative acceleration."
Read it [url=http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/300042]here.[/url]
Mon, 2008-02-04 19:14
#3
Sounds really exciting. The enemy of perpetual motion is friction. Nonetheless he may have something quite remarkable. If so, better watch his back. He may have stumbled onto one of the projects that Nikola Tesla was working an.
This man had to endure an incredible smear campaign, despite the fact that it was he who brought us alternating current.
Mon, 2008-02-04 19:43
#4
quote:
Imagine a battery system in an all-electric car that can be recharged almost exclusively by braking and accelerating, or what Heins calls "regenerative acceleration."
Oh groan, I hate to add to this guy's underdog image, but anyone knows that it's normal to generate some electricity by induction when you brake with an electric car. But this is nothing like perpetual motion. It's easy to see that the operative word here is [b]almost[/b], and that it's no wonder all those big names he drops do not return Heins calls or invest in his NOT perpetual motion thingamajig. This just seems like a very contrived way for someone to go on weaseling out of his child support payments by painting himself as a unrecognized genius/victim.
Interesting quote though:
quote:
In 1999 he ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Green Party of Ontario.
Caveat elector!
[ 04 February 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Mon, 2008-02-04 20:00
#5
So what ever happened to cold fusion anyway?
Mon, 2008-02-04 20:30
#6
Sven
quote:
Originally posted by aka Mycroft:
[b]So what ever happened to cold fusion anyway?[/b]
It fizzled.
Mon, 2008-02-04 21:06
#7
Well, it doesn't fizzle here. A fun film to watch - with an exciting plot:
[url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120053/plotsummary]The Saint[/url]