Hi Gwen, Here is the text of my Cargo Cult article. I've edited it a little on the advice of a skeptical friend and it's now about 100 words longer than the original paper version. < and > indicate italics. Have fun Tom Napier November 13, 1997 The Journal of Cargo Cult Science Tom Napier I used to think that there were only three formal disciplines whose subject matter had never been proven to exist, exobiology, parapsychology and theology. It seems there is at least a fourth. Significant numbers of scientists, engineers and well-meaning amateurs are researching devices which generate more energy than they consume. Although this field has a five hundred year history of failure and fraud, it is also an area where it might, just, be possible to make a world-changing discovery. Of course it is also a field rife with honest mistakes and willful misreading of the laws of physics. Science says that "over-unity" devices can't work. Thus, to the chagrin of the enthusiasts, responsible scientific journals don't print papers on them. A number of more or less serious publications have sprung up to service this market. Some print tabloid-like articles along the lines of "Nikola Tesla invented the laser" but others, such as print conference proceedings, reports of work in progress, reams of mathematics, papers with dozens of references to other unskeptical journals, and page after page of patent specifications. One aim of is to promote cold fusion but it finds room to report on many other unorthodox sources of energy. Anomalous results abound; electrolytic cells sometimes get hotter than can be accounted for by their electrical input, plasma discharge devices are claimed to charge one battery more than they discharge another, powerful magnets are supposed to turn motors indefinitely. Even Dennis Lee and his free energy road show get a mention, albeit a less than encouraging one. One must admire the editors. It must be difficult to keep up the enthusiasm; to maintain, month after month, an air of impending major breakthrough. In every issue a new device is claimed to be on the point of solving the world's energy crisis. Rarely do we see, "The effect we made a big fuss about in our last issue turned out to be a measurement error," even though some of them must be. Although the editors have a mission, they do seem to have a sense of humor and they even let tiny hints of skepticism creep in. Over several issues, a variety of Japanese developed electric motors with "over-unity" outputs was described at length. At the end of 1995 it was reported that Japanese manufacturers were on the point of mass-producing electric scooters whose batteries would never need to be recharged. The message was that the US had better increase funding for free energy since the Japanese were way ahead. (Shades of the former psi-gap with the USSR!) Some issues later a small news item mentioned that one of these scooters had been tested in the USA. Its battery had run down after a hundred miles. Ah well, back to the drawing board! Many of the articles are quite technical and are full of invented phrases like "asymmetric self-regauging." This was one author's incantation to explain how a magnet which had driven a wheel part way round a circle would suddenly cease to work, allowing the wheel to return to its starting point without any energy input. It seemed to be an obscure way of saying "and here a miracle occurs." Page after page is taken up by reprints of patent claims. Yes, you can still sneak a perpetual motion machine past the patent office if you describe it obscurely enough. Unfortunately, modern patents are no longer written to describe clearly how to reproduce the inventor's device. They are written in legalese intended to give one as broad a claim as possible in the courts. Thus reprinting patents serves more to show the flag than to educate the masses. Much math is expended to show why a machine to work. Frequently it is based on the author's own interpretation of physics. There are many references to the ether, to zero point energy and to non-conservative fields. Sometimes experimental measurements are quoted showing more power, in some form, coming out of the system than is being put in. However, if any report has yet described the critical test, a machine which can drive itself from its own output, I must have missed it. I've selected one report to typify the genre. It is unusual, in that it is short and it describes a simple mechanical device. The January/February 1997 issue of described the "Segner-Marinov Turbine" and suggested that it would be suitable for home experimentation. One criterion for publication was that the author had been turned down by This turbine is a variant of the self-pumping waterwheel which Robert Fludd couldn't get to work in 1618. Its main component is a coffee can sized cylinder which is free to turn about a hollow vertical shaft. A right-angled tube extends from each side of its base so that if water is poured into the can it will turn like a lawn sprinkler. As the can rotates, the water in the can rises up the sides due to centrifugal force, its surface becomes a paraboloid. If the rate of rotation is high enough the center of the bottom of the can will be left bare. The author's theory was that if the expelled water is collected in an outer vessel, it will flow up the hollow shaft and back into the can. The external water supply can then be disconnected and the rotation will continue forever. The article starts with the obligatory self-congratulation of the inventor, "As we wonder how it was possible that the pre-Columbian American civilizations have not discovered the wheel, so future generations will wonder how was it possible that the pre-1996 world civilizations had not discovered the Segner-Marinov turbine." It continues with a description of the construction of the device, delivers a mathematical derivation of the expected power output, points out that the construction of power dams is now unnecessary and then describes the experimental results. After estimating the driving torque of his model, the inventor, for whom English is a second language, continues, "The friction torque evidently was larger, as the machine could not maintain eternally its rotation." Alas, he had not realized that, whatever cunning mechanism one uses, any power provided by falling water is more than consumed in pumping the water back to its starting point. As so many have done before, he attributed his failure, not to an immutable natural law, but to friction. He suggested that the next step would be to use mercury as the working fluid to increase the torque above the frictional force. More sadly, I recently learned that the author of this article has committed suicide. I suspect that the world is now a poorer place. Where would we be without some nutty ideas and the magazines which publish them? After all, someone's idea might actually work. Just so long as no one takes the ideas too seriously until they are proven. is published bi-monthly by Cold Fusion Technology, P.O. Box 2816, Concord, NH 03302. The annual subscription is $29.95. Definition: Cargo Cult Science: A activity which bears a superficial resemblance to real science but whose equipment, methods and theoretical bases are completely inadequate to achieve the desired aim. Analogous to the Cargo Cults of the western Pacific whose adherents build imitation runways and radar towers in the hope of attracting the flights of cargo planes which had supplied the American Forces during the Second World War. Tom Napier is a physicist and electronics engineer. He is the editor of the newsletter of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). ----------------------------------------------------------- Tom Napier, One Lower State Road, North Wales, PA 19454 (215) 643 5578 any time