A skeptical look at the MEG claims of Thomas Bearden

This page found at http://www.phact.org/e/z/bearden.htm

Tom Bearden’s MEG device A rational review of meg claims  and Randi’s info and another good review

Note:  Bearden did go bankrupt in 1999.  The main email lists about Bearden are carefully censored, the following is not: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nut_meg

The following is a post from Shawn about Bearden’s math:

"The first key to understanding free energy electrical and magnetic machines is to realize that electrical current actuallyconsists of two currents coupled together. Our treatment of anelectric charge as a coupled system (Ø)(m) also means that electron current i = dq/dt is comprised of two coupled components [(dØ/dt)(dm/dt)]. This follows from simply invoking the operator d/dt; i.e., d/dt[(Ø)(m)] = (dØ/dt)(dm/dt), which is the same as[(dØ/dt)(dm/dt)]."

Bearden doesn't even invoke the product rule from the Calculusproperly. For a product,fg, of two functions, f and g, the productrule says that the derivative of fg is:
d/dt[fg] = f*(dg/dt) + g*(df/dt)

It's more elementary than this, even. We don't even need to knowCalculus to recognize the nonsense in this. His Ø he calls the"massless charge". Well, that will have units of charge, say, Coulombs. His mass variable, m, will have units of something like, kilograms. So the product of the two will have units of kilogram-coulombs.

Now, his equation above is: d/dt[(Ø)(m)] = (dØ/dt)(dm/dt)
Let's do a dimensional analysis on this equation. He is taking thetime derivative of something that has units of kilogram-coulombs. So,when the time derivative of this is taken, the final result on theleft side of the equation will have units of kilogram-coulombs/second. (kilgram-coulombs per second)

But look at the thing he has on the right side! It has units ofcharge times mass divided by time-squared:kilogram-coulombs/second^2. This is like saying that a newton isequal to a kilogram! It is complete and total (almost laughable, wereit not for so many people buying into it) NONSENSE!

Buyer beware.

Says Bearden in reference to parity violation and snell's law:
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/010903a.htm

======================================
Here is a summary of Dr. Evans' answer, though he is quite ill at the moment.

Basically the problem resides in the kappa dot r part of the U(1) electromagnetic phase factor in Maxwell Heaviside theory. Under normal reflection, the received view incorrectly asserts that kappa dot r goes to - kappa dot r and that under reflection kappa goes to kappa and r goes to minus r, giving for example an interferogram in Michelson interferometry. However, reflection is equivalent to parity inversion, and underparity inversion

kappa goes to minus kappa and r goes to minus r


so under parity inversion kappa dot r is unchanged and there is no interferogram in Michelson interferometry, for example.
===================================

The error in this analysis is so fundamental that it is shocking that any person could take Bearden seriously.  Refer to my post 4412.  I go
through this very exercise, and the result you see in 4412 with your own two eyes is NOT what Bearden shows here.  Bearden cannot even do
basic arithmetic properly.

Bearden's statement that Maxwell "asserts" that " kappa dot r goes to - kappa dot r" is wholly false!  I show in post 4412 what Maxwell's
solutions are and I do the parity inversion on them and one of the first statements I show is that kappa "dot" r remains unchanged under
parity inversion!

Shawn
http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/Final%20Secret%2013%20May%201994/index.html

The following are concerns about accuracy in experimental attempts to replicate Bearden’s claims from the nut_meg email list (they discuss Bearden):

Don't forget the possibility of capacitive coupling to the probe or its leads. Since the MEG output is pretty high voltage at 25-30 kHz and scopes generally have unbalanced inputs with high input Z, it wouldn't take too many pF of stray capacitance between the MEG output circuit and the probe leads to muck up the measurement.
If such be the case, the interference should lead the MEG output voltage in phase.
In order to check for this, you would need to move the output wire from the clamp as above while leaving it just outside the clamp and keeping the position of the output wiring relative to the probe leads unchanged- and then see if you get a zero reading.
Taking accurate electrical measurements is part of what I do for a living, and seeing the kind of sheer sloppiness Naudin habitually indulges is just plain irritating. Makes me want to go "Move over Rover and let a real tech take over".

-Mark ______

The following is another criticism of the MEG claims:

I just re-read the original MEG paper for a laugh, and found especial amusement in the graph at the back, that projected 'COP' 45 @ 600v. It's very apparent, that whoever wrote the MEG paper, and one has to finger Thomas E. Bearden in this respect, has never heard of a B-H curve, or normal magnetization curve, for magnetic materials. 

This is about as basic as you can get in graduate level physics. 600v would massively over saturate the core. Any idiot can see that. It takes a mega idiot, to not see something that obvious. The more you look into it, the more the question becomes not 'why did the MEG project fail?' but rather 'how on earth did they manage to hold it together for so long.'

I know I've gotten kinda hooked on 'Bearden bashing,' as its now been termed, but if you look at the MEG project critically, its undeniable they repeatedly made basic errors, any half competant undergraduate student would be deeply ashamed about. It's hard to credit just what total bafoons they were in team MEG. The sheer awfulness of the research, beggers belief. How can one bash people this stupid? The words simply don't exist to describe this level of incompetance properly!

wthwthwthwth  wrote:

> I wouldn't count the MEG as a real experiment.  The MEG is a piece of hardware, and an incompletely documented one at that.  On Bearden's own web site (correspondence dated 3-29-02), he states, "We now see two additional patent applications to be filed, because of the rich physics that gets invoked.  So the first patent does not yet completely describe the MEG, but only one part of it."  In other words, don't bother trying to build a working MEG from Bearden's patent - it's not all there.  Of course, this also provides Bearden with the perfect excuse for failure when third parties attempt to replicate the claimed overunity operation of the MEG.

Exactly. There's *always* a ready excuse for why some particular attempt t MEG replication fails. You didn't use the right kind of wire, or the right kind of core material, or leave gaps in the core sections, or you didn't put exactly the right kind of "conditioned" load on it, or you didn't jump up and down three times clucking like a chicken before switching on the power, etc, etc.

These requirements are seldom (if ever) mentioned in advance; they're always post-hoc rationalizations heard only after a particular experiment has failed. Even if the failed attempt closely duplicated an earlier seemingly successful attempt, you won't hear the requirements until after the failure. It's really quite pathetic. These guys are *convinced* that MEG is real, and they're not about to be confused by mere facts.

> A properly documented scientific experiment should be a recipe that

> others can follow, i.e. a list of required components, a list of

> required input and operating conditions, a step-by-step procedure,

> and a detailed description of expected results.  In addition, the

> proposer should freely provide additional information to assist

> others in confirmation of the results.  I have never seen anything

> that even remotely approaches a real experiment in all of the

> pages that Bearden has written.  Something is always hidden, 

> or ambiguous, or proprietary, or missing, or just plain wrong. 

Right. And I find it amusing that he files patents with descriptions he later concedes are incomplete. To be enforceable, a patent must be "enabling", i.e., it has to tell a person with ordinary skill in the art everything he needs to know to replicate the invention. If it doesn't 

contain that information, then the patent can be ruled invalid in court. So why does he bother filing them in the first place if he knows a-priori that they're incomplete?

The simple answer, of course, is that he's just plain self-deluded, and doesn't have a clue as to what he's doing.

Phil

The following is information that I got that is skeptical of Bearden’s credentials:

Based on his own e-mail and the time frame (around 1999 to 2000) when he began claiming a Ph.D., Tom Bearden apparently received (or more accurately purchased) his bogus Ph.D. degree from Trinity College and University in the U.K.   Until April 2000, you could find this diploma mill at http://www.trinityuni.org, after which it vanished from the web.  Fortunately, the Wayback Machine web archive (http://www.archive.org) still contains the old web pages from Trinity College and University.  This web site lists every college in the UK that has the authority to
grant degrees.  Trinity College and University is not among them.  In fact, there's no degree-granting school with the word "Trinity" anywhere in its name on that list.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/recognisedukdegrees/index.shtml

 Looking at the home page on the Sept. 1, 1999 archive you can plainly see the statement "Degrees awarded based on prior experience and learning" for www.trinityuni.org.  Clicking on the "Contact Us" button brings you to a page pointing to phone numbers and addresses in the U.K.After April 10, 2000, Trinity College and University apparently "vanished" from the U.K.  However, for more than a year afterwards the old web site redirected visitors to www.internetuniversity.cc, a site that sells pre-packaged e-learning courses under the name of Degree
Consultants, Inc.

Now it gets interesting.  Who is the registrant for internetuniversity.cc?  It turns out to be:

Albert Wainright 
2601 S. Minnesota Ave
Suite 105-103
Sioux Falls, SD 57105 US 605-330-8622
Email: albert@predacon.com

And just where is Mr. Wainright's address in Sioux Fall, SD?  It turns  out to be Mail Boxes, Etc., Store #2125 (www.mbe.com).

Apparently Mr. Wainright has decided to concentrate his current efforts in the U.S., because in 1999 a "new" version of Trinity College and University appeared at www.trinity-college.edu.  Again, this new "university" promises "college credit for what you know."  And who is the registrant for www.trinity-college.edu?

Registrant:
    Trinity College & University     2601 S. Minnesota Ave. Suite 105-103     Sioux Falls, SD 57105
   
(That's one busy Mail Boxes, Etc., isn't it?)

    Administrative Contact:
    Albert Wainright     Private     PO Box 7743     Delray Beach, FL 33482     UNITED STATES     (561) 736-2963     albert@predacon.com

Note that the "new" Trinity College and University has branches (i.e. P.O. boxes) in Pakistan, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Jordan, and Lebanon.  Apparently they do a booming business selling fake degrees to people throughout the world.  According to sources I've read, the U.K. address was just another P.O. box placed in Great Britain in order to take advantage of possible confusion between their diploma mill and Cambridge University's Trinity College.

Below are a few other web sites that discuss famous diploma mills, and cite Trinity College and University as a classic example.

www.degree.net (An authoritative web site on distance education.  You can find all sorts of gems about Trinity College and University here.)

www.degreefinders.com/news.html  (There's a link to a Trinity "graduate" who posted his 4,224 word doctoral dissertation on the web.  Unfortunately, the dissertation now seems to be gone.)

http://www.adn.com/24hour/nation/story/600189p-4642228c.html

http://courses.dsu.edu/cet749/unit3.htm (This story tells how South Dakota became a haven for diploma mills, and how Trinity College and University created its own accreditation agency to make itself look more legitimate.)

http://www.thisismoney.com/20011125/si40887.html (This article discusses the original Trinity College and University in the U.K. before it was shut down.)

Finally, it's important to note that many legitimate universities have the word "Trinity" in their names.  Legitimate Ph.D. degrees granted by such institutions require actual graduate course credits, at least one year of residency at the university itself, and an oral defense of a dissertation in front of a qualified faculty examination committee.

On the other hand, there isn't a legitimate university in the U.S. or the U.K. that will give a person a doctorate based on "lifetime achievement" and the submission of a dissertation by mail, particularly when that person doesn't even live in the same country!

Click this link to get the response from Bearden on the above

Matthew Zenkar  wrote:

> I'm not following here. Was his connection series or parallel? I'd

> expect that since he was trying to display current, his connection

> should have been series. Or am I missing something? Though thinking

> about this and assuming a parallel connection across the resistor, it

> sounds like that from the value of the resistor, the scale factor

> should have been .1 A per volt instead of 1 A per volt -

> since the definition of an ampere is the current generated by a

> voltage of 1 volt across a resistance of 1 ohm. Thus 1 V / 10 Ohm =

> .1A

I don't know of any oscilloscopes that measure current. All measure voltage. So if you want to measure the current in a circuit, you insert a small resistor in series with the circuit and measure the voltage drop across it.

Naudin's scope has a convenience feature for displaying current on its vertical scale axis. But it's really still measuring voltage, so you have to tell it the resistance of the external shunt. Then it can do the I = E/R computation for you and label your traces with current units.

But if you lie to the scope about your current shunt, then it will display incorrect current readings. This is what Naudin almost certainly did; by telling the scope to display 1000mA per V, he effectively told it that the external shunt was 1 ohm. Since it was really 10 ohms, the readings were 10x their true values.

This is either deliberate fraud on Naudin's part, or sheer incompetence. Having followed the free energy world for a while now, I'm becoming quite used to seeing both on a regular basis.

> The new stuff on his site appears to be independtly measuring current

> and voltage. Assuming he is not using the same ill-fated technique for

> current measurments (it does not appear that he is), his results are

> interesting. I'd like to know more...

I have that exact same clamp-on ammeter model. It has two range scales, 10mA/mV and 100mA/mV. Once again, Naudin has obviously miscalibrated his scope into reading far higher currents than actually exist. This time he had two ways to do it: by entering an incorrect scale value in the scope, and selecting an incorrect range setting on the amp probe. Note that his load is supposedly a "conditioned" 100K resistor, but if you 

just eyeball the traces it's obvious that they imply a much lower load 

resistance.

His "conditioned" resistor is an ordinary resistor that has been overloaded. Supposedly MEG produces overunity only when the load has been conditioned in this manner, but the reason why has never been explained. Actually, it is quite that this is just a diversionary tactic to raise questions about the true load impedance. I burned up my share of resistors when I was younger, and I never saw one go down in resistance. Only up. So it seems quite clear that his load resistance, if not 100K ohms, is even higher; his current readings are erroneously high; his output power is far lower than the scope traces imply; and MEG is decidedly NOT "over-unity". And Naudin (and Bearden) are either frauds, incompetents or both.

Phil

Ø      

I wouldn't count the MEG as a real experiment.  The MEG is a piece of hardware, and an incompletely documented one at that.  On Bearden's own web site (correspondence dated 3-29-02), he states, "We now see two additional patent applications to be filed, because of the rich physics that gets invoked.  So the first patent does not yet completely describe the MEG, but only one part of it."  In other words, don't bother trying to build a working MEG from Bearden's patent - it's not all there.  Of course, this also provides Bearden with the perfect excuse for failure when third parties attempt to replicate the claimed overunity operation of the MEG.

A properly documented scientific experiment should be a recipe that others can follow, i.e. a list of required components, a list of required input and operating conditions, a step-by-step procedure, and a detailed description of expected results.  In addition, the proposer should freely provide additional information to assist others in confirmation of the results.  I have never seen anything that even remotely approaches a real experiment in all of the pages that Bearden has written.  Something is always hidden,  or ambiguous, or proprietary, or missing, or just plain wrong.

WTH

Matthew Zenkar  wrote:
> It would seem that there is no disagreement that Naudin's claim of
> veryifing the MEG is questionable at best, and some find Naudin's
> procedure outright incorrect.

Absolutely. I looked at his stuff a while ago, fully expecting to spend a lot of time searching for something really subtle. So I felt a little cheated when I quickly found a blatant, really elementary error.

To measure the output current of his MEG, he used a 10 ohm shunt resistor. To this he connected an oscilloscope set to display current with a a scale factor of 1000 mA per volt. This gave him current (and output power) readings that were about 10x too high! When you correct for this error, it quickly becomes clear that MEG is a simple transformer operating well below unity. Nothing unusual is happening here.

Naudin actually conceded that he sensed something was wrong with his measurements, as his computed output power was greatly in excess of what his resistive load could safely handle. Yet instead of checking his technique, he simply handwaved the discrepancy away by saying that the excess power must be leaving as electromagnetic radiation! Incredible.

I've gotten myself effectively banned from two MEG-related Yahoo groups, intalek and MEG_builders, by pointing out these mistakes in Naudin's work. Those guys are not at all interested in the truth; theirs is a church, not a scientific research group. Bearden is God, Naudin is the Son of God, and no heresy will be tolerated on pain of excommunication and banishment.

Phil

-------------------------------------

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Matthew Zenkar wrote:

> http://www.ott.doe.gov/electromagnetic/

> It looks like there are some potentially interesting, publicly
> available papers on this site - NOTE - they are not written
> by Bearden - for all those who have an aversion to Bearden.

About a year ago, Bearden's papers were present, along with thelogo of AIAS, the "Alpha Institute for Advanced Study." AIAS is/was Bearden's very own scientific honor society, operated out of his home in Huntsville AL. The removal of Bearden and AIAS was the first step in disconnecting DOE from the stuff on that page. As mentioned earlier, DOE employee David Hamilton appears to have been the sole sponsor of this stuff, and it appears that somebody
higher up has revoked his write-access to the DOE web server.

-----------------------------

Tom Bearden’s MEG device A rational review of meg claims   inconsistancies in his theory and Randi’s info and  very good skeptical information on Bearden Greer’s offer  Bill Muller and questioning Bearden’s mental health  free energy scams  

back to Eric's main Dennis Lee page    what about Joe Newman? Also, Amin, Mills (who may be legit?) Tilley, Perendev, Bearden Lutec and Tewari Genesis World Technology

  http://www.tinaja.com/pseudo01.html - a look at psuedoscience on the web

  my $1000 prize for proof of free energy of     Carl Tilley’s free energy scam EXPOSED

·  The Museum of Unworkable Devices  a great overview of them

·  INE Free Energy Devices Database -  - another great list of FE claims
 his skeptic pages and crack pot pages
 Milt's discussion of Free Energy and Ceti
A excellent history of perpetual motion machines from an Australian skeptic

 Free energy FAQs

·  how to become a Free Energy con man

what about 300 mpg carburetors?

·  Eric's discussion of real forms of free energy

·  A more believing history of free energy claims

·  Another good overview of Free energy claimants Crank Dot Net | free energy

·  Bob Schadewald claims to have invented a Perpetual motion machine - but will the big conspiracy stop him?

·  EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS REQUIRE EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE!

·  . FREE ENERGY FAQ

he writer of it doesn't understand that many fraud perpetrators claim they've been offered outrageous sums to hook investors and then disappear after being detected to avoid incarceration - which gets interpreted by believers as evidence of a conspiracy.

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The following is some more analysis by Shawn of Bearden’s claims:

WTW writes the following:

Ah, Bearden's infamous "adiabatic charging of capacitors proves my theories" statement from his "Secret of Free Energy" paper.

Bearden loves to cite legitimate sources and legitimate scientific principles and claim that they validate his crackpot ideas.  He runs into problems when someone who actually knows about the subject then stands up and flatly contradicts him.

There is absolutely nothing mysterious about stepwise capacitor charging.  Not only is this technique completely explainable using standard circuit theory, but computer manufacturers even use it in portable display technology.  You can find many links about it using Google, e.g.:

http://www.isi.edu/acmos/stepwise/stepwise-intro.html

So what is stepwise capacitor charging all about?  In a nutshell, if you connect a battery to a resistor and capacitor in series and charge the capacitor to the battery voltage, it can easily be shown that the resistance will dissipate one half of the energy that the battery has supplied during the charging process, and the capacitor will store one half of energy.  Interestingly enough, this is true no matter what values of resistance and capacitance you pick.  Even if you connect the battery directly to the capacitor, the intrinsic internal resistance of the battery and wiring will still dissipate 50% of the energy.

However, let's suppose that you charge the capacitor in two steps.  First you connect your resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit to a voltage source of voltage V/2.  Once the capacitor is completely charged, you then connect your RC circuit to voltage V, and allow it to fully charge to the final voltage.  If you do this, you'll find that your  resistor only used 25% of the total energy during the charging  process, while the capacitor stored 75%!  Furthermore, it's easily shown that increasing the number of charging steps reduces the  "wasted" energy even further.  An infinite number of charging steps results in 0% energy loss in the resistor.  100% of the energy supplied by the infinite number of sources ends up in the capacitor.

So why doesn't everyone use the technique to eliminate wasted energy when capacitors are charged?  The answer is in the amount of time required to charge the capacitor.  Each charging step requires a finite amount of time, which can be predicted from the value of R and C, i.e. the RC time constant.  One charging step
requires about 5 RC time constants to complete, two charging steps require 10 RC time constants, and so on.  In other words, you can charge a capacitor with 100% efficiency, but you'll have to wait an infinitely long amount of time to do it.  In addition, you have to consider the power requirements of the switching and
control circuits, and the need for multiple voltage sources.  As a result, 2-step charging pretty rapidly hits the point of diminishing returns for practical applications.  Manufacturers have used this technique to reduce power consumption in laptop computer displays, and some researchers have used it to create experimental low-power logic circuits.  It is not commonly used, but it is hardly mysterious either.

So what does stepwise capacitor charging have to do with Bearden’s free energy theories?  Absolutely nothing.  At most, you can only obtain 100% charging efficiency, and then only if you're willing to wait (literally) for eternity.  You do not get energy from nothing, and you do not violate the laws of thermodyamics.  Bearden is not only a very bad physicist, but a complete joke as an electrical engineer.

WTH

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