At 10:56 PM 12/19/2009, you wrote:
A Ponzi scheme is specifically a scheme for allowing *investors* to
make money even though the company has no source of income. It's
the lure of assured high return on the money which pulls in the
investors. In particular, investors who pull out before a Ponzi
scheme collapses make a profit. The (very plausible) scheme you
describe doesn't earn anything at all for investors which pull out;
they just break even. The *only* winners are salaried employees.
That's just "business as usual" in the startup world -- save that in
an honest startup, when things start to go sour, the officers often
stop drawing salaries, in an effort to bolster cash flow...
I wrote that it's a Ponzi scheme as an analogy, not as a literal
Ponzi scheme. I've also called Wikipedia a Ponzi or pyramid scheme.
Steorn has a source of income: those who pay for access to the
technology. That, in fact, is their core business plan, and they have
disclaimed any interest in making Orbo products. They also have
products: stuff used to test Orbo (or maybe other magnetic devices).
I've been reading over the history. Remarkable.
There are a lot of details, if you read between the lines. For
example, very low-friction bearings are crucial to the technology;
they are offering them and they make this statement about them. Now,
what does that imply? It implies that if there is any excess energy
here, it is very low, and that ordinary bearings aren't good enough.
The 2007 demonstration allegedly failed because the special
low-friction bearings got fried.
Now, if they believe that they have found some anomaly, they may also
know that the anomaly is clearly small. Any attempt to extract energy
from the rotor, of course, will act to slow down the rotor more than
an ordinary bearing would, so what this implies is that they haven't
succeeded in scaling up the effect they see or imagine.
And that, then, explains their business plan. They aren't going to
market practical devices. They are only selling licenses. So if they
can convince someone that the anomaly is worth researching, they make
their money selling the technology to produce the anomaly, as well as
bearings, hall sensors, and torque measurement equipment. Never mind
if it's totally impossible to scale it up, whether because it is
actually non-existent, is some kind of artifact, or even if it
exists. Scaling up cold fusion, as an example, even though the
reactions are clearly real, is an entirely different problem, and
solving it is really where the money will be, if that happens.
Steorn may well know that scaling up is extremely difficult, that is,
they do know the effect is very small, or they would not be stating
how important ultra low friction bearings are to Orbo.
And then that means that when they talk enthusiastically about
applications, powering cars with Orbo, etc., they are truly blowing
smoke, pure speculation. And if you read the licensing info that they
have, you'll discover that a whole series of applications aren't
available for commercial licensing, including automotive
applications. If you become a developer, the cheapest license,
apparently, you gain no rights at all, you can't market what you
develop. Interesting model, if I've read it right.
So: they ask for a scientific jury, they get, they claim, a thousand
applications, they send out contracts to a few and end up with over
twenty scientist for the jury. There is some rumor I came across that
Michael McKubre was on the jury....
And then, after something like three years, the jury announces that
it is quitting, that Steorn had not shown any evidence of energy
production. And Steorn doesn't exactly announce that. They announce
that "they understand why the members of the jury were frustrated,
but now Steorn has solved the problems and will be going ahead." And
then they use this jury that they picked in their ad, lumping it in
with knee-jerk rejection. It's highly deceptive.
Today there was a talk by Sean on the technology and the
demonstration. He showed an oscilloscope display of the coil voltage
and current, and claimed that the traces showed the absence of back
EMF, and that therefore all the battery power was going into Joule
heating, and that therefore the rotation was entirely free energy.
There is an immediate YouTube rebuttal up that shows another motor,
similar concept, with a hall sensor that pulses the coil voltage, and
he showed that the lack of variation of voltage and current with
rotor velocity was totally normal for a pulse motor.
In other words, the demonstration, even with some instrumentation,
was pure smoke.
