I’m (just barely) enough of a writer that I can spend cycles on Steorn‘s claims without being branded a crackpot. After all, the novel I’m working on involves a similar device being invented 4,000 years ago. It’s all research.
Imagine if Earth’s gravitational field, instead of being a constant 1.0G, rocked back and forth between 0.99G and 1.01G at some fixed interval. That’d be perhaps not enough to feel, but enough to extract “free energy”. Arrange a heavy weight on a wheel, and time it so that it moves downward (doing work) during the heavier phase and returns to the top during the lighter phase. You’d have more than perpetual motion, you would be able to extract real work out of the device on a continuous basis.
Steorn’s claims are similar, but with permanent magnets instead of gravity.
Orbo is based upon time variant magnetic interactions, i.e. magnetic interactions whose efficiency varies as a function of transaction timeframes.
I get the feeling that they are being very, very careful about what they write. In particular, the word “efficiency” is very odd in this sentence. In my earlier example, it would sound unnatural to talk about the “efficiency of the gravitational interaction”. Unless one talks about the kinds of efficiency that go above 100%…. So let’s roll with it.
It is this variation of energy exchanged as a function of transaction time frame that lies at the heart of Orbo technology, and its ability to contravene the principle of the conservation of energy. Why? Conservation of energy requires that the total energy exchanged using interactions are invariant in time. This principle of time invariance is enshrined in Noether’s Theorem.
So some hitherto unknown process temporarily nudges a magnetic interaction in one direction, only for it to bounce back in the opposite direction, like in the gravity example. Get the timing right and presto, free energy. I don’t understand why they are so cavalier about “contravening” the principle of conservation of energy though. It seems to me that more observations would be in order. As in “the device produced 100 watts for 6 months straight, with no input power sources”–which could be true in various ways that don’t contravene conservation of energy. It’s almost as if they are deliberately being provocative in their statements. Go figure. -m