| Revision as of 15:04, 10 August 2009 editMcGeddon (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers121,439 editsm Reverted 1 edit by Irrito; Rv erroneous edits as per ignored conversation on talk page - please discuss this there. using TW← Previous edit | Revision as of 15:23, 10 August 2009 edit undoIrrito (talk | contribs)209 edits It appears one of the editors has a financial interest in stoern and does a professonal job of blurring the facts via this articleNext edit → | ||
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| '''Steorn Ltd''' is a small, private technology development company in ], ]. It announced in August 2006 it had developed a technology which could produce "free, clean, and constant energy" in violation of the law of ],<ref name="orbo-claim" /> a fundamental principle of physics.<ref name="theage" /> | '''Steorn Ltd''' is a small, private technology development company in ], ]. It announced in August 2006 it had developed a technology which could produce "free, clean, and constant energy" in violation of the law of ],<ref name="orbo-claim" /> a fundamental principle of physics.<ref name="theage" /> | ||
| Steorn challenged the scientific community to investigate their claim<ref name="econ-ad" /> and, in December 2006, |
Steorn challenged the scientific community to investigate their claim<ref name="econ-ad" /> and, in December 2006, announced it had chosen a jury of scientists to do so.<ref name="jury-selection" /> In June 2009 the jury gave its verdict that Steorn's technology did not work.<ref name="irish-times-24062009" /><ref name="steorn-jury-announcement" /><br> An article in the the The Age, titled "Irish energy miracle 'a joke'", stated that Stoern is not the first company to claim it has suddenly discovered the miraculous property of magnetism that allows you to get free energy | ||
| == History == | == History == | ||
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| | work = ] | | work = ] | ||
| | date = 10 August 2008 | | date = 10 August 2008 | ||
| | accessdate = 5 November 2008}}</ref> Steorn said that they would seek no further funding while |
| accessdate = 5 November 2008}}</ref> Steorn said that they would seek no further funding while attemping to prove their free-energy claim in order to demonstrate their genuine desire for validation.<ref name="SunTrib10082008" /> | ||
| == Free energy claim == | == Free energy claim == | ||
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| | title = Steorn develops free energy technology and issues challenge to the global scientific community | | title = Steorn develops free energy technology and issues challenge to the global scientific community | ||
| | publisher = Steorn Ltd. | | publisher = Steorn Ltd. | ||
| | accessdate = 29 June 2009}}</ref> |
| accessdate = 29 June 2009}}</ref> | ||
| | date = 20 August 2006 | |||
| | url = http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1854305,00.html | |||
| | title = Scientists flock to test 'free energy' discovery | |||
| | publisher = Guardian Unlimited | |||
| | accessdate = 20 August 2006}}</ref> | |||
| At the time of the announcement Steorn said their technology, which would be available for license under the brand name "Orbo",<ref name="orbo">{{cite web | At the time of the announcement Steorn said their technology, which would be available for license under the brand name "Orbo",<ref name="orbo">{{cite web | ||
| Line 182: | Line 177: | ||
| | author = Dick Ahlstrom | | author = Dick Ahlstrom | ||
| | work = Irish Times | | work = Irish Times | ||
| | date = 24 June 2009}}</ref> The jury was headed by Ian MacDonald |
| date = 24 June 2009}}</ref> The jury was headed by Ian MacDonald.<ref name="irish-times-24062009"/> | ||
| In June 2009, the jury announced its unanimous verdict that "Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy".<ref name="steorn-jury-announcement">{{cite web | In June 2009, the jury announced its unanimous verdict that "Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy".<ref name="steorn-jury-announcement">{{cite web | ||
| | date= June 2009 | | date= June 2009 | ||
| | url = http://stjury.ning.com/forum/topics/jury-announcement | | url = http://stjury.ning.com/forum/topics/jury-announcement | ||
| | title = Jury Announcement}}{{Dead link|date=July 2009}}</ref> |
| title = Jury Announcement}}{{Dead link|date=July 2009}}</ref> McDonald concluded from this that the technology did not work.<ref name="irish-times-24062009" /> Steorn disputed the jury's findings<ref name="irish-times-24062009" /> and said that, due to difficulties in implementing the technology, the jury had only been provided with test data on magnetic effects for study.<ref name="steorn-jury-ack">{{cite web | date=June 2009 | url = http://www.steorn.com/news/releases/?id=1151 | title = Jury report}}</ref> Steorn also said that these difficulties had now been resolved and that a commercial launch was still planned towards the end of 2009.<ref name="irish-times-24062009" /><ref name="steorn-jury-ack" /> | ||
| ===Failed demonstration=== | ===Failed demonstration=== | ||
Revision as of 15:23, 10 August 2009
| File:Steorn logo.jpg | |
| Company type | Private Limited |
|---|---|
| Industry | Information and energy technology |
| Founded | Dublin, Ireland (2000) |
| Headquarters | Docklands Innovation Park, East Wall Road, Dublin 3, Ireland |
| Key people | Seán McCarthy (Chief Executive Officer) |
| Products | None (R&D based company) |
| Revenue | € 1,000 (2005) |
| Number of employees | fewer than 20 |
| Website | www.steorn.com |
Steorn Ltd is a small, private technology development company in Dublin, Ireland. It announced in August 2006 it had developed a technology which could produce "free, clean, and constant energy" in violation of the law of conservation of energy, a fundamental principle of physics.
Steorn challenged the scientific community to investigate their claim and, in December 2006, announced it had chosen a jury of scientists to do so. In June 2009 the jury gave its verdict that Steorn's technology did not work.
An article in the the The Age, titled "Irish energy miracle 'a joke'", stated that Stoern is not the first company to claim it has suddenly discovered the miraculous property of magnetism that allows you to get free energy
History
Steorn was founded in 2000 and, in October 2001, their website stated that they were a "specialist service company providing programme management and technical assessment advice for European companies engaging in e-commerce projects". Steorn (Template:Pron-en in English) is a Norse word meaning to guide or manage.
In May 2006, The Sunday Business Post reported that Steorn was a former dot.com business which was developing a microgenerator product based on the same principle as kinetic energy generators in watches, as well as creating e-commerce websites for customers. The company had also recently raised about €2.5 million from investors and was three years into a four year development plan for its microgenerator technology. Steorn has since stated that the account given in this interview was intended to prevent a leak regarding their free-energy technology.
The company's investment history shows several share allotments for cash between August 2000 and October 2005, the investments totalling €3 million. In 2006, Steorn secured €8.1 million in loans from a range of investors in order to continue their research, and these funds were also converted into shares. Steorn said that they would seek no further funding while attemping to prove their free-energy claim in order to demonstrate their genuine desire for validation.
Free energy claim
In August 2006, Steorn placed an advertisement in The Economist saying that they had developed a technology that produced free, clean and constant energy. They admitted that this amounted to a violation of the principle of conservation of energy and asked for scientists to form a "jury" to perform independent tests of their technology and to publish the results.
At the time of the announcement Steorn said their technology, which would be available for license under the brand name "Orbo", had already been found to work by eight independent scientists and engineers but that none of them were willing to publish their results for fear of becoming embroiled in a controversy. The company has declined to name these scientists, citing mutually binding non-disclosure agreements.
Views on the technology
No specific details of the workings of the claimed technology have been made public. Seán McCarthy has stated in an RTÉ radio interview that, "What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy." Barry Williams of the Australian Skeptics has pointed out that Steorn is "not the first company to claim they have suddenly discovered the miraculous property of magnetism that allows you to get free energy".
Following a meeting between McCarthy and Professor Sir Eric Ash in July 2007, Ash reported that "the Orbo is a mechanical device which uses powerful magnets on the rim of a rotor and further magnets on an outer shell". During this meeting, Steorn referred to the law of conservation of energy as scientific dogma. However, conservation of energy is a fundamental principle of physics and Ash said that there was no comparison with religious dogma since there is no flexibility in choosing to accept that energy is always conserved. Rejecting conservation of energy would undermine all science and technology. Ash also formed the opinion that McCarthy was truly convinced in the validity of his invention, but that this conviction was a case of "prolonged self deception".
Many people have accused Steorn of engaging in a publicity stunt although Steorn deny such accusations. Eric Berger, writing on the Houston Chronicle website, commented: "Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the "free energy" promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas." Thomas Ricker at Engadget suggested that Steorn's free-energy claim was a ruse to improve brand recognition and to help them sell Hall probes while Josh Catone, features editor for Mashable, believes that it was merely an elaborate hoax.
Jury
Steorn's advertisement in The Economist was intended to attract the attention of scientists to form a "jury" to test the technology. On 1 December 2006, Steorn announced that a jury had been selected and the validation process began in February 2007. The jury was headed by Ian MacDonald.
In June 2009, the jury announced its unanimous verdict that "Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy". McDonald concluded from this that the technology did not work. Steorn disputed the jury's findings and said that, due to difficulties in implementing the technology, the jury had only been provided with test data on magnetic effects for study. Steorn also said that these difficulties had now been resolved and that a commercial launch was still planned towards the end of 2009.
Failed demonstration
On 4 July 2007, an example of the technology was to be displayed at the Kinetica Museum, Spitalfields Market, London. A unit constructed of clear plastic was prepared so that the arrangement of magnets could be seen and to demonstrate that the device operated without external power sources. The public demonstration was delayed and then cancelled because of technical difficulties. Steorn initially thought that the problems had been caused by "excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area" but later blamed the failure on damage done to bearings due to a greenhouse effect within the box.
Announced commercialisation
On 4 February 2009, Steorn announced that they were beginning commercialisation of their technology and asked for 300 engineers and engineering organisations to sign up to a testing process to be completed by the end of 2009. They also released a video of three engineers saying that, having witnessed an experiment and studied the testing equipment and software generating output graphs, they were generally supportive of Steorn's excess energy claims. Following the announcements, Steorn was criticised for its continued failure to provide a public, working demonstration or to release information without non-disclosure and licensing agreements.
See also
References
- "Steorn Investor Relations". Steorn Ltd. 9 February 2006. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
- ^ "Steorn: Our Claim". Steorn Ltd. Retrieved 12 April 2007.
- ^ "Irish energy miracle 'a joke'". The Age. 20 August 2006. Retrieved 20 August 2006.
- ^ "Copy of Steorn advertisement featured in The Economist, hosted by dispatchesfromthefuture.com" (JPEG). Retrieved 21 January 2009.
- ^ "Steorn finalises contracts for jury to test its free energy technology". Steorn (archive copy from archive.org). 1 December 2006. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
- ^ Dick Ahlstrom (24 June 2009). "Irish "energy for nothing" gizmo fails jury vetting". Irish Times.
- ^ "Jury Announcement". June 2009.
- "Wanted: scientists to test free energy technology". Irish Examiner. 20 August 2006. Retrieved 20 August 2006.
- ^ Daly, Gavin (21 May 2006). "Firm strives to extend mobile battery lifespans". ThePost.IE. Retrieved 25 October 2006. Cite error: The named reference "post-ie" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- "Energy Issues". Steorn. 1 October 2006. Retrieved 26 October 2006.
- "Steorn Company Submissions". Companies Registration Office. Retrieved 16 October 2006.
- ^ Downes, John (10 August 2008). "'Free energy' firm generated €8m in funding". Sunday Tribune. Retrieved 5 November 2008.
- ^ "Steorn develops free energy technology and issues challenge to the global scientific community". Steorn Ltd. 18 August 2006. Retrieved 29 June 2009.
- "Orbo - The Magnetic Free-Energy Generator from Steorn". Steorn Ltd. 29 February 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "These men think they're about to change the world". The Guardian. 25 August 2006.
- "Irish company challenges scientists to test 'free energy' technology". Yahoo! News. 18 August 2006. Archived from the original on 3 September 2006.
- ^ "The perpetual myth of free energy". BBC News. 9 July 2007. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
- Chris Vallance (23 August 2006). "Caught in a Tale Spin". Pods&Blogs. BBC. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
-
Berger, Eric (19 August 2006). "Steorn and free energy: the plot thickens". SciGuy. Houston Chronicle blogs. Retrieved 21 August 2006.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - Thomas Ricker (25 June 2009). "Steorn gives up on free-energy, starts charging for USB-powered divining rods". Engadget. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
- Catone, Josh (15 July 2009). "Top 15 Web Hoaxes of All Time". Mashable. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
- "Steorn announces plans for widespread deployment of its free energy technology post-validation". Steorn. 11 January 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
- ^ "Jury report". June 2009.
- "'Free' energy technology goes on display". The Irish Times. 4 July 2007. Retrieved 5 July 2007.
- ^ "Irish firm promise to display 'free-energy' machine". Belfast Telegraph. 5 July 2007.
- "Steorn announcement: Kinetica Demonstration". 6 July 2007. Retrieved 5 June 2007.
-
Schirber, Michael (2007). "Harsh light shines on free energy". Physics World. 20 (8): 9.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - "Steorn launches SteornLab and sets out plans for 2009 launch of Orbo". Steorn. 4 February 2009. Retrieved 4 February 2009.
- Gregory Daigle (5 February 2009). "Steorn Raises the Magnetic Curtain". OhmyNews. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
- Nilay Patel (4 February 2009). "Steorn returns, promises to open Orbo specs, give you a pony". EndGadget. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
- Rupert Goodwins (5 February 2009). "Steorn is at it again!". ZDNet. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
External links
- Steorn official website
- "7 minute television interview with Seán McCarthy". Sky News. 8 September 2006.
- Steorn Informational video (19 August 2006). "Steorn launch revolutionary free energy". Google Video.
- Steorn (6 July 2007). "Video of Steorn's CEO Seán McCarthy apologising for the indefinite delay of the demo". Kinetica Museum, London: Google Video.
- Search for Steorn patent applications
- Michael Hanlon (28 August 2006). "Have scientists unlocked the secret of perpetual motion?". Daily Mail. Retrieved 8 March 2009.
- "Free, Clean Energy For All?". ABC News. 23 August 2006.