Possumblog

I bet Rosie would invest.

It defies the laws of physics, and the guy is convinced there's a government and oil-company conspiracy afoot to keep him silent!

Yes, what we used to call "crackpots" are now running loose through the asylum, and so you get stories like this: Energy machine pitch renewed

By DAN MURTAUGH
Staff Reporter


At 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds, Joseph Newman tinkered with a contraption hidden beneath a gray tarp painted with purple flowers and pink lightning bolts.

Dressed in a purple shirt and a silver tie, his white hair dangling around his shoulders, Newman spoke of God, gyroscopes and government conspiracies, while telling the 100 or so people gathered there that his invention would rid the world of pollution and oil dependency.

This device, he said, harnessed energy from matter at a 100 percent conversion rate, allowing it to produce more energy than was put into it. [...]

Newman sued the patent office, and a federal judge ruled that the government had to test it to see if it worked. The National Bureau of Standards said the device put out only 27 to 67 percent of the energy that was put into it, and Newman lost his court case.

Newman said Wednesday what he has said so many times since his suit was thrown out: that the government improperly used his device by grounding it, which caused it to lose energy. [...]

After the demonstration, Newman said he will need between $25 million to $100 million to obtain worldwide patents and manufacture the device. [...]

I bet it can't melt steel with fire, though.

Anyway, sounds like a great way for wealthy stupid people to invest money.

But what I'm more miffed about is the way in which stories like this are covered, with that affectless reportorial "balance" that pretends to be the same thing as objectivity. Objectively, the guy's machine cannot work in any way as it's described, and to give him any more credit than that is idiotic and a waste of ink. Acting as though his claim is of exactly equal weight with the scientific counterclaim (scientist say perpetual motion can't work, but inventor says it can) does no one any good, most especially the people who read the newspaper. (Not that anyone does anymore, but still.)

The real story in the article is not the machinery being shilled--it's the fact that the only thing perpetual is the desire of suckers to be parted with their money--

"I'm definitely going to invest," said Paul Headley, 71, of Pine Hill. "Anything to get us off our dependency on Arab oil."

One wonders if Mr. Headley also has a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.

In any event, if you want a way to while away several hours, take a look at the Museum of Unworkable Devices, and a column from James Randi that has some additional information on our intrepid white-haired "inventor."

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 10, 2007 11:42 AM