In response to Popisfizzy
Yeah, so we agree it doesn't need to be 100% efficient. The water vapor/hydrogen combustion engine example I gave earlier would rely on outside hydrogen and pure water. No electrolysis needed on-site. The concept is rock solid (basically just steam power), and the only limiting factor is our ability to produce cheap hydrogen. Of all the technology dealing with water, that one seemed the most clever and simplest approach, with the runner-up being the guy who discovered that salt water burns when hit with microwaves. I'm sure there's huge potential there, if we're willing to look.

[edit]
Sorry, radio waves, not microwaves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

Here's the japan model (not sure the method)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxfMz2eDME

Here's a domestic version from way back in the day: (Stan Meyers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1UrlDNkYSo

Here's the HHO torch I mentioned (watch the flame turn into water)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-sRqAsMEW8

I'm looking for the video of the water vapor/hydrogen van this guy designed, but there's a ton of videos on youtube on this subject and it's proving difficult to pick that one out of the bunch. Trust me, though, it's there.

Here's a brief on that tech coming out of New Zealand.
http://www.eskimo.com/~ghawk/rotary.html
In response to Xooxer
None of that is getting power from water. All of it is getting power from extraneous other sources that happen to involve water. They're all far less efficient than other alternative sources - a fuel cell is significantly more efficient than any of this nonsense.

HHO torches burn brown's gas which produces water.

So you're getting power from Brown's Gas. Water is just the byproduct. Basically, this is equivalent to "Petrol engines burn petrol which produces CO2. So we can get power from CO2". Splitting water into Brown's Gas and then burning it inside a car is just plain inefficient, and requires an external fuel source to split the water in the first place. You should be aware of this, so I'm not sure why you even bothered to bring it up.

Salt water can be hit with microwaves and made to burn.

This sounds inaccurate at best, to me. For starters, H2O is a pretty damned stable molecule, and H2O2 is not. I suspect sticking an extra oxygen (or more) onto water would be an endothermic process - the water isn't being 'burnt'. The mention of 'saltwater' makes it sound like what's happening is that sodium and chlorine ions are being oxidised - this is probably exothermic, but I can't imagine it being very exothermic. Furthermore, as the sodium and chlorine ions are being consumed, they are the fuel - the water is just there to hold the fuel. It's like claiming that a fuel tank can produce power.

Even if I'm wrong about the mechanism, and this really is working, than there's the incredibly obvious issue that you need to spit microwaves at this thing, and I really doubt its self-sustaining. The energy source is the microwaves (or whatever's producing them), not the water. I'm pretty damn sure you know that, too. You're smarter than this, Xooxer.

You can also use a mixture of hydrogen and water vapor to power a combustion engine, burning the hydrogen in the chamber and injecting water vapor which expands instantly to steam, giving you energy. Been done.

I'm not even sure what the claim is here. Yes, you can burn hydrogen to produce power, yes, water vapour can be used in pistons - but the water vapour isn't a fuel. The energy is coming from the hydrogen. Expanding water vapour is just like expanding air in the piston of a car - not a power source.

EDIT: Are you referring to something like this? If you are, note that the power is still being produced by the fuel being burnt - hydrogen or petrol - the water is merely a medium via which the heat produced can be turned into useful work.

Water hammers produce energy from cavitation, which some claim is producing overunity, though I'm not sure if any proper tests were conducted to verify it.

Quick websearchs don't find me anything on this, but I'm pretty damn sure this claim is bunkum too - you can't produce energy from cavitation. You need to put energy in to cause the effect, and it isn't self-sustaining.
In response to Jp
I refuse to reply to any of this on the grounds that vehicles already exist that run exclusively on water.

In response to Xooxer
Any reference for that bold and completely false claim?
In response to Jp
Yes.

Oh, did you want me to link it? I thought you would have seen it already, but ok. [link]
In response to Xooxer
Given that all of those use methods that are not, in fact, use of water as a fuel, you're quite clearly wrong. I thought you had some actual, y'know, evidence.

As I've already run through, the 'radio wave' method is equivalent to claiming that the fuel tank of a car produces power. Where does the power to emit the radio waves to (allegedly) 'burn' saltwater come from?

The Japanese model clearly runs on something other than water.

"While the company did not disclose much, its president claimed that they had "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA", Environmental News Network reported.

He also said that the mechanism was similar to the method in which hydrogen is produced by a reaction of metal hydride and water." From here.

In short, it runs on metal hydride.

Given that Stan Meyer's vehicle basically was a perpetual motion machine, it can't possibly have worked. Given that nobody attempting to make a modern version of it have ever succeeded in making a functional version, it's pretty clearly bunkum. He was convicted of fraud over it, remember?

I've already pointed out what's wrong with using Brown's Gas (otherwise known as HHO) to fuel a vehicle - you're fuelling it on Brown's Gas, not water.

Finally, the New Zealand motor, while interesting and certainly a useful invention, is running on hydrogen, not watter. As I suspected, it's just using water to recover some of the energy lost as heat when burning the hydrogen. Clever, yes. Useful, yes. Water-powered? No.

EDIT: Crap, just realised the New Zealand motor wasn't what I thought it was. No, it's bunkum and it won't work. I thought it was more like the Crowe six-stroke.

The vast majority of these are less efficient than just burning hydrogen, let alone a fuel cell.
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
Given that all of those use methods that are not, in fact, use of water as a fuel, you're quite clearly wrong. I thought you had some actual, y'know, evidence.

Oh really? Funny, I could have sworn the reporter for the Japan Water Car story clearly stated, and I doth quote:

"With oil prices soaring and fuel protests spreading across the globe, it almost sounds too good to be true; a car that runs on nothing but water."

And now I shall quote the representative of the company who built the car:

"The main characteristic of this car is that no external input is needed. The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water inside to add from time to time."


Sure sounds like power from water to me. Though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the interpreter was incompetent and only thought the man said it ran just on water. Maybe Reuters got it wrong, too, huh?


As I've already run through, the 'radio wave' method is equivalent to claiming that the fuel tank of a car produces power. Where does the power to emit the radio waves to (allegedly) 'burn' saltwater come from?

The burning of the saltwater produces heat which can be converted into motion, which can be converted to electricity. Or you can skip the motion and go straight from heat to electricity. It doesn't even take a lot of power to produce the burn. I've seen people do it with household RF devices (like those that can transmit video or audio through the house via radio). I believe it was a 900 watt transmitter they used. Point being, you can burn saltwater at very high temperatures with such a setup. How you harness that power is up to you.

The Japanese model clearly runs on something other than water.

Wrong again.


"While the company did not disclose much, its president claimed that they had "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA", Environmental News Network reported.

Oh, so a well known process makes the water something else before you put it into the car? Wow. Really. Wow.

Ok, let me get this straight. I put water in the car, I turn on the ignition, the car goes. Where is this "other" fuel you speak of? I only put water in, there should be no other fuel necessary.

He also said that the mechanism was similar to the method in which hydrogen is produced by a reaction of metal hydride and water." From here.

In short, it runs on metal hydride.

No, it runs on water. You're not pulling up to a metal hydride station (if that is what they're using), you pull up to a water station. Water is the fuel. Water goes in, nothing else.


Given that Stan Meyer's vehicle basically was a perpetual motion machine, it can't possibly have worked. Given that nobody attempting to make a modern version of it have ever succeeded in making a functional version, it's pretty clearly bunkum. He was convicted of fraud over it, remember?

Yeah... right. I'll leave this one alone for now. I'm well aware of how much controversy surrounds him, and I'm also well aware of how his machine worked. You probably wouldn't like the fact that people are feverishly replicating all these technologies at home, nor that many of these new technologies were based off of Meyer's work. My friend has a water fuel cell in his car, and guess what? It improved his gas mileage. You can tell me it's bunk, but I know it's not.


I've already pointed out what's wrong with using Brown's Gas (otherwise known as HHO) to fuel a vehicle - you're fuelling it on Brown's Gas, not water.

Stan's machine makes brown's gas from water. The HHO torch also makes brown's gas from water. Yes, they require electricity to do this, but they do it.


Finally, the New Zealand motor, while interesting and certainly a useful invention, is running on hydrogen, not watter. As I suspected, it's just using water to recover some of the energy lost as heat when burning the hydrogen. Clever, yes. Useful, yes. Water-powered? No.

Oh, right. Because you can't get hydrogen from water at all. No sir. Not here on this little blue rock.

Oh, wait... we can.

EDIT: Crap, just realised the New Zealand motor wasn't what I thought it was. No, it's bunkum and it won't work. I thought it was more like the Crowe six-stroke.

Yet again, wrong. I've seen the engine run in a van. It wasn't this exact team from New Zealand, but the concept is the same.


The vast majority of these are less efficient than just burning hydrogen, let alone a fuel cell.

Uh huh. Tell that to Japan as they drive by in their water-powered cars and laugh at you.
In response to Jp
Oh, sorry. The water hammer appears to reference the common effect in plumbing that lead him to this device. (this video doesn't say that, but I've seen others that do) Namely, when the tap is cut off, the pressure "bangs" in the pipes. I'm sure you've experienced it. He calls it a hydrosonic pump. I've seen it referred to as a water hammer as well. A quick search on youtube for "water hammer" brings a news release up as the first result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh_-DUKQ4Uw

The inventor was trying to make an efficient water heater, not free energy, even though he claims to have recorded overunity. His heater is currently being used in a firehouse, though I can't seem to find the video that covers that installation, which I believe was done gratis to promote his business.

And no, I was not referring to that engine you linked. The engine I'm thinking of injected the hydrogen and water vapor into the same chamber, though at different times. Basically, the injected hydrogen was ignited just before the vapor is introduced, which absorbs the heat from the ignited hydrogen and expands to move the pistons.
In response to Xooxer
Sigh. Perpetual motion crap. Learn some thermodynamics.

Sure sounds like power from water to me. Though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the interpreter was incompetent and only thought the man said it ran just on water. Maybe Reuters got it wrong, too, huh?

Sounds like hyperbole from the marketing department, considering the statement I've quoted in my post, that you obviously haven't understood.

The burning of the saltwater produces heat which can be converted into motion, which can be converted to electricity. Or you can skip the motion and go straight from heat to electricity. It doesn't even take a lot of power to produce the burn. I've seen people do it with household RF devices (like those that can transmit video or audio through the house via radio). I believe it was a 900 watt transmitter they used. Point being, you can burn saltwater at very high temperatures with such a setup. How you harness that power is up to you.

So it's fed back into the system - use a hundred joules of energy to produce ninety joules of energy, and claim success. Wow. I'm impressed.

And once again, the water isn't consumed - it's just there to hold the sodium and chlorine ions, as I've already mentioned. That is, if this crap has anything to do with what this machine actually does. If it even does anything.

No, it runs on water. You're not pulling up to a metal hydride station (if that is what they're using), you pull up to a water station. Water is the fuel. Water goes in, nothing else.

No. Water goes in, water goes out, metal hydrides are used up. The metal hydrides are consumed in producing the hydrogen. You're putting water in, sure, but it's not a fuel - it's a catalyst, pretty much. On-demand hydrogen generation is certainly a useful technology, but it's not using water as a fuel. It's impossible, short of nuclear fusion. Water is just too stable. You may as well try and run a car on helium.

Meyer's machine can't possibly have worked. That's all I'm saying. It's a physical impossibility. It takes just as much energy to ionise water as you can get out by putting it back together, and there's no way to avoid it. This isn't 'new physics', this is 'ignoring all previously established rules of physics'.

Stan's machine makes brown's gas from water. The HHO torch also makes brown's gas from water. Yes, they require electricity to do this, but they do it.
(Emphasis mine).

So, in short, they require external energy input - there's no energy being produced by the water, it's being fed in externally. The fuel is whatever made the electricity, not the water. Note that it's not consumed. If it's not consumed, it's not a fuel.

Yet again, wrong. I've seen the engine run in a van. It wasn't this exact team from New Zealand, but the concept is the same.

1 - Making hydrogen from water takes, at minimum, as much energy as burning hydrogen produces.
2 - Hydrogen cannot burn at a hot enough temperature to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen naturally, because that would violate the laws of chemistry. Pretty badly. This isn't like thermodynamics-violation, this is more like being-in-three-places-simultaeneously-while-posessing-imagin ary-mass violation.
3 - I doubt this engine actually ran on water. Because, y'know, it would change the entire basis of physics, what with it completely breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Seriously, man, get a grip.
In response to Xooxer
This "ShockWave Power Generator", according to the website:

" The Shockwave Power Reactor™ efficiently converts mechanical energy in the form of shaft horsepower into shear heating and mixing in fluids. The heat is scale free, flameless and therefore intrinsically safe. The SPR provides process intensification in a very compact footprint to mix and process fluids with unmatched efficiency. Scale-free heat allows evaporation of difficult fluids to minimize waste or to concentrate oilfield fluids including clear completion fluids, drilling muds, and even produced water." (emphasis mine). from here

Water is not being used as a power source. I'm going to disregard the claims of over-unity, other than to note that I wouldn't trust the engineering credentials of the person behind the device if they claimed it.

And no, I was not referring to that engine you linked. The engine I'm thinking of injected the hydrogen and water vapor into the same chamber, though at different times. Basically, the injected hydrogen was ignited just before the vapor is introduced, which absorbs the heat from the ignited hydrogen and expands to move the pistons.

So it burns hydrogen. Not water.
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
Sigh. Perpetual motion crap. Learn some thermodynamics.

No. Learn that the universe doesn't play by your rules, no matter how much you believe it does.

Sounds like hyperbole from the marketing department, considering the statement I've quoted in my post, that you obviously haven't understood.

Actually, I never read it. I figured from your remarks you didn't watch any of the videos I linked, so I failed to see why I should pay any mind to your link.


So it's fed back into the system - use a hundred joules of energy to produce ninety joules of energy, and claim success. Wow. I'm impressed.

And once again, the water isn't consumed - it's just there to hold the sodium and chlorine ions, as I've already mentioned. That is, if this crap has anything to do with what this machine actually does. If it even does anything.

Oh, so burning things doesn't produce energy now? Explain to me how burning water isn't consumed, if THE THING IS ON FIRE!!!!

You burn the water only when it's excited by the radio waves, otherwise it is stable and will not burn. You're not burning radio waves, which is the only other ingredient here, you're burning the water itself. The water IS consumed: by FIRE. Wrap your little head around that for a sec. I'll wait.


With me now? Oh, I didn't think so.

Ok, you burn oil, but to do so it requires the proper environment. You provide that environment with a spark plug. That requires energy. That energy comes from... that's right, the burning oil produces heat which is converted to motion which is then converted back into electricity which sparks the gap and ignites the oil which burns and produces heat..., with plenty of juice left to make the beast move from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds.

You say that oil is different, because it's consumable. So is water in these conditions. If it were not, it would not burn at all. Something has to be consumed for flame to exist. Obviously, a flame exists, so therefore your argument is quite invalid, again.

No. Water goes in, water goes out, metal hydrides are used up. The metal hydrides are consumed in producing the hydrogen. You're putting water in, sure, but it's not a fuel - it's a catalyst, pretty much. On-demand hydrogen generation is certainly a useful technology, but it's not using water as a fuel. It's impossible, short of nuclear fusion. Water is just too stable. You may as well try and run a car on helium.

You put water in. It runs. It runs on water. Does it matter it uses metal hydride? No. You don't put that in the car, you put water in the car. You put water in, and it runs. Am I getting through to you? Water in, power out. Vrooom. If water was the catalyst, it wouldn't need replenishing, would it?


Meyer's machine can't possibly have worked. That's all I'm saying. It's a physical impossibility.

According to the church of JP, maybe. I'd rather believe my eyes, thanks. You can keep your hokey religion.


It takes just as much energy to ionise water as you can get out by putting it back together, and there's no way to avoid it. This isn't 'new physics', this is 'ignoring all previously established rules of physics'.

So you've been told.

Stan's machine makes brown's gas from water. The HHO torch also makes brown's gas from water. Yes, they require electricity to do this, but they do it.
(Emphasis mine).

I'd like to point out that your original argument which this statement is replying to claimed that these didn't use water, but this funny brown's gas. I'm pointing out that a few produce HHO from water, which again invalidates your original statement.


So, in short, they require external energy input - there's no energy being produced by the water, it's being fed in externally. The fuel is whatever made the electricity, not the water. Note that it's not consumed. If it's not consumed, it's not a fuel.

But if it is, then it is, right? Can we agree on that at least? Because I'm pretty sure burning something is consumption. If it burns it's fuel. HHO burns, it is fuel. Meyers (and others) use very little power at all. Less than an amp, in fact, is reported by most people who've reconstructed his cell.

The system can be fed back to power itself and other devices, though most researchers are focusing on the hydrogen production for a gasoline engine hybrid, which is more practical on a grass roots level than designing and marketing a new engine to run on brown's gas exclusively.


1 - Making hydrogen from water takes, at minimum, as much energy as burning hydrogen produces.

Nope, thanks for plying!

2 - Hydrogen cannot burn at a hot enough temperature to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen naturally, because that would violate the laws of chemistry. Pretty badly. This isn't like thermodynamics-violation, this is more like being-in-three-places-simultaeneously-while-posessing-imagin ary-mass violation.

I never said that's what it did. You see. This is why I don't think you bother to read my posts before diving in to debunk them. I said it was basically a steam engine. I never said anything about burning the water with hydrogen. Seriously, I've only said like 4 times now. Perhaps the multitude of technologies has you confused, but I thought I was quite clear.


3 - I doubt this engine actually ran on water. Because, y'know, it would change the entire basis of physics, what with it completely breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Seriously, man, get a grip.

I have a grip, and I'm gonna hold fast. You stuffy has-beens are the ones who need to come to terms with reality. Your physics is dead. Long live the impossible.
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
Water is not being used as a power source. I'm going to disregard the claims of over-unity, other than to note that I wouldn't trust the engineering credentials of the person behind the device if they claimed it.

I know it's hard, and it's not your fault, but your deep seated beliefs are not at all becoming a man of science.
In response to Xooxer
Xooxer wrote:
Jp wrote:
Water is not being used as a power source. I'm going to disregard the claims of over-unity, other than to note that I wouldn't trust the engineering credentials of the person behind the device if they claimed it.

I know it's hard, and it's not your fault, but your deep seated beliefs are not at all becoming a man of science.

ARE YOU CALLING HIM, JP, CLOSE-MINDED?!?!
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
3 - I doubt this engine actually ran on water. Because, y'know, it would change the entire basis of physics, what with it completely breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Seriously, man, get a grip.

I'm not going to argue any of your points (as Xooxer is doing that quite ineffectively (close-minded are you?)) but what in the hell do we know? Nothing. You and I both know nothing about truth in science. Ideas are changing all of the time--as a scientist, you need to keep an open-mind or you will go nowhere. Nowhere.

You can't use existing observations in science as proof for anything because in reality, we can't prove the existing observations to be true at all. That's why hypotheses are shaped the way they are, "If such and such law is correct and I do this, then this will happen." Science is guesswork. You absolutely need an open-mind.

Everything you know today may be proved incorrect one day. Until we know everything about science, we truly know nothing.
In response to CaptFalcon33035
I'm only saying that if you're not willing to consider the possibility that the laws of thermodynamics are faulty or wrong, you have no scientific basis for your stance on anything that has to do with breaking the second law. Blind faith is not science, it's religion. What he, and most people I talk with about this subject, seem to think is that the second law of thermodynamics is utterly sound and can never ever be broken, no matter what we learn, invent or discover. It's a position of absolute refusal to be reasonable. Just because we haven't discovered a loophole or way out doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Science needs to concern itself not only with what we know, but also with what we don't know. If you're only arguing from a position of absolute knowledge, your argument is no longer scientific, it's religious. That I have no patience for.

But Like I said, it's not really his fault. Just think for a second what it would mean if the second law of thermodynamics was proven false.
In response to Xooxer
Okay Xooxer, let me put this in a way you might understand: Believing that it's very unlikely thermodynamics will be violated is very much the same as believing it's very unlikely gravity will be violated. The inherent disbelief that someone just floated to the ionosphere of their own free will is analogous to the disbelief that perpetual motion device has been created. A verified, repeatable example of thermodynamics has never been observed, and likely never will be. All the evidence there is points to thermodynamics being correct. If you don't understand that, you have no base in trying to argue science, as you clearly don't understand it.

And argue if you wish, but you're just a nutcase or a troll, and arguing with you is an absolutely waste of time. So, this is my last post in this thread, relating to you.
In response to Popisfizzy
Popisfizzy wrote:
And argue if you wish, but you're just a nutcase or a troll, and arguing with you is an absolutely waste of time. So, this is my last post in this thread, relating to you.

If this is true, then why even bother in the first place? If you think me so trollish and unworthy of your time, you hardly show it with the vigor you show in reply to anything I say that you believe is an in to bash my character. At least I'm arguing from a platform of reason. You're just calling people names.
In response to CaptFalcon33035
I don't want to be so open-minded that my brain falls out.

Really, you're missing an important point - science is not about being open-minded. At least, not in the sense you're implying. Science is about having a filtered mind. When someone presents an idea, you need to consider it, consider how it fits with what you know, and if it doesn't make any sense, disregard it as likely to be nonsense. If you get a lot of things conflicting with something you know, that's when you start considering whether what you know is wrong.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, too, and making a car run soley on water is a pretty extraordinary claim. Given that basically all of Xooxer's examples are also perpetual motion machines, I think I'm quite justified in noting it as nonsense and moving on.

I'll say this, right now - there will never, ever, be a water-fuelled car, or any other device. Ever. If one comes to the market in however many years, feel free to refer to this post and comment on what an idiot I've been. But I'm pretty sure I'm right here. Incidentally, the following things don't count:
1 - Fusion. I've noted that fusion would work, and none of the examples Xooxer has mentioned claim to fuse water.
2 - Hydrogen-on-demand systems. As an example, you put in water, it is electrolysed by electricity coming from a large battery you charge up, and the hydrogen is then passed through a fuel cell. If you look closely, the water isn't a fuel - you get it back out the other end. The electricity is the fuel.
3 - Things that just happen to involve water but don't use water as a fuel. For example, the Crower six-stroke.

The simplest way to figure out whether water is being used as a fuel or not is to consider whether it's coming out the other end. If the waste product of one of the 'fuelling' reactions happens to be water, in the quantity that you put in, it's probably not being used as a fuel.
In response to Xooxer
What would it mean if the laws of thermodynamics were wrong?

Hmm, let's consider:
1 - It would mean our understanding of gases is completely and utterly wrong, on the deepest level.
2 - It would cast doubt on atom theory.
3 - It would require us to doubt statistical mechanics.
4 - It would imply we do not, in fact, understand anything about any engine of any sort - they all use thermodynamics as the basis for our understanding.
5 - It would mean that pretty much all scientific observations can be called into question. If we can't guarantee energy has been conserved, there's no way to demonstrate that, say, those by-products of a particle collision have the properties you think they have.
6 - In short, all of modern science becomes very shaky.

So yeah, it's a big deal.

Basically, thermodynamics ties in with so much, and thermodynamics is such a long-standing law, that it takes extraordinary evidence to disprove it. My mind is as open as it needs to be. I am quite capable of admitting that thermodynamics (or any other scientific law or theory) is wrong... but only with a suitable quantity and quality of evidence.

Sure, science needs to consider itself with what we don't know. Sure, scientific tests of these claims should be carried out. But I know enough to know it's unlikely that they'll find anything out of the ordinary. I also know it's unlikely that any of these machines will ever get tested, because however deluded their inventors are, they've got some sense of self-preservation. And that's not even considering the ones that are just frauds, or oversold by the marketing department (See - japanese car)
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
Basically, thermodynamics ties in with so much, and thermodynamics is such a long-standing law, that it takes extraordinary evidence to disprove it. My mind is as open as it needs to be. I am quite capable of admitting that thermodynamics (or any other scientific law or theory) is wrong... but only with a suitable quantity and quality of evidence.

Thank you. That's all I ask. I get very frustrated when people dismiss any inquiry or discussion by holding up this law as some sort of absolute judge of what can and cannot be talked about. It's akin to faith, which we can do without.


Sure, science needs to consider itself with what we don't know. Sure, scientific tests of these claims should be carried out.

Again, thank you. At least we agree on this much. A great majority of people I've tried talking to about this don't think anything that claims to violate thermodynamics should even be mentioned, let alone tested. It's taboo beyond taboo, from what I can tell, to even suggest it's mutable, evidence or non.


But I know enough to know it's unlikely that they'll find anything out of the ordinary. I also know it's unlikely that any of these machines will ever get tested, because however deluded their inventors are, they've got some sense of self-preservation.

Actually, I think these things largely go untested by anyone who would be qualified to do so (home projects by youtubers, interesting s they are, prove little to nothing without real science to back it up), mainly because of this taboo. You don't keep your tenure for researching something that every scietist "knows" is wrong, even if you're right. Like UFOs and alien life, it's a death note for any academic career.

And that's not even considering the ones that are just frauds, or oversold by the marketing department (See - japanese car)


Frauds abound in these fringes because science refuses to chime in when legitimate questions are raised, instead leaving the whole debate up to laymen and charlatans. Although, recently it seems more and more qualified folks are looking into these technologies, if only to finally lay them to rest. Lack of attention from real authorities is what is giving frauds a way in. If science paid a little mind to what's happening in it's darker hallways, a good majority of these scammers would have to face the light of reality, and perhaps then some productive research into what remains can begin.
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