Prompt's TechBlog
Another year, another Free Energy Machine
22 August 2006
Posted by Lance Concannon
Not a year goes by that some self-publicising crackpot claims to have invented a machine which generates more energy that it consumes, thus solving all of the world's energy problems and rewriting all know laws of physics in one stroke. This year's contender is Steorn, which took out a full page advert in this week's Economist inviting applications from scientists to evaluate its new invention - a machine which generates free energy by somehow exploiting the interaction of magnetic fields. A generator which produces more power than it consumes, thereby delivering an endless stream of free, clean, safe energy.
Pretty much everybody is understandably cynical about this claim, but if it's a hoax of some sort, then they've gone to a lot of trouble to pull it off. The company has a slick website, and the advert it bought in the Economist was a full colour right hand page close to the very front of the magazine - a high profile and expensive slot.
A little research into the company's history reveals that until recently it sold itself as a 'technology project risk management' consultancy. Although there's little detail about what this actually means, or any clients they may have worked with. Nevertheless, designing free energy machines seems a radical departure from this business.
So, a company with no discernable experience in this field is suddenly making some extremely outrageous claims and going to a lot of trouble to publicise those claims. What's the deal? Theories in our office fall into two main camps:
a) It's an audacious scam - somebody somewhere will be stupid enough to plough a lot of money into the company on the back of their claims.
b) They're setting up some sort of viral marketing business, and are using this whole thing to demonstrate how good they are at generating interest, although it's a pretty cheap shot because anybody can make an outrageous claim to get people to pay attention to them.
Of course, while everybody's maintaining a healthy level of scepticism about it all, we all desperately want it to be real. Which is why Steorn will probably succeed with whatever stunt they're trying to pull.
Pretty much everybody is understandably cynical about this claim, but if it's a hoax of some sort, then they've gone to a lot of trouble to pull it off. The company has a slick website, and the advert it bought in the Economist was a full colour right hand page close to the very front of the magazine - a high profile and expensive slot.
A little research into the company's history reveals that until recently it sold itself as a 'technology project risk management' consultancy. Although there's little detail about what this actually means, or any clients they may have worked with. Nevertheless, designing free energy machines seems a radical departure from this business.
So, a company with no discernable experience in this field is suddenly making some extremely outrageous claims and going to a lot of trouble to publicise those claims. What's the deal? Theories in our office fall into two main camps:
a) It's an audacious scam - somebody somewhere will be stupid enough to plough a lot of money into the company on the back of their claims.
b) They're setting up some sort of viral marketing business, and are using this whole thing to demonstrate how good they are at generating interest, although it's a pretty cheap shot because anybody can make an outrageous claim to get people to pay attention to them.
Of course, while everybody's maintaining a healthy level of scepticism about it all, we all desperately want it to be real. Which is why Steorn will probably succeed with whatever stunt they're trying to pull.
# posted by Lance Concannon at 4:37 PM 
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