JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA (02/08/84)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Newman's Impossible Motor [a condensation of the article in Science, 10 Feb 84, v223#4636] The story is about Joseph Wesley Newman, the inventor who claims to have built a more-than-100%-efficient electric motor. The patent office denied him a patent, but he claims that the machine is not a perpetual motion machine, but converts mass to energy. He is suing the patent office for a patent. Newman's invention is hard to describe, partly because its behavior seems to be at odds with the laws of physics, and partly because the details are being kept secret while the litigation goes on. Newman says his own theory of magnetic fields that underlies the invention is "10,000 times more important" than the invention itself, which he built to demonstrate the concept. He claims to have discovered the mechanical principles of a gyroscopic particle of matter that orbits in a magnetic field much as an electron orbits in an atomic shell. Several readers of his theory say it is incomprehensible and would not get attention were it not for the illustrative devices. The patent Newman seeks is for an "Energy Generation system having Higher Energy Output than Input." Those who have seen it say it is a crude direct current motor powered by a bank of lantern batteries with a heavy, rotating magnet at its center. [...stuff about TV coverage in New Orleans and Mississippi...] Newman has benefitted from the television coverage and from several weighty endorsements. Foe example, the television station engineers backed him. Last year, Robinette [newscaster] dragged two reluctant engineers on WWL-TV's staff to Newman's garage in Lucedale, Mississippi. They were skeptics at first, but, after looking at oscilloscope readings, and watching the machine recharge batteries, they agreed with their anchorman that the claims seemed valid. Engineer Ralph Hartwell described the tests he ran. When he arrived at Newman's house, he connected some weak penlight batteries he had brought along to a conventional motor in Newman's back yard. It was allowed to run until the batteries were drained of power, taking about one minute. He then moved the dead batteries over to the smallest of Newman's three demonstration motors, connected them as a power source, and started this motor spinning. It ran until it was time for the camera crew to leave, for something between 1 and 2 hours. Finally, the batteries were taken from Newman's machine back to the conventional motot and reconnected. This time the motor ran for three minutes. Hartwell ran another experiment on a large device and concluded that it also appeared to generate more power than it used. Other readings were taken with oscilloscopes and current meters, but these readings have been questioned. After signing a confidentiality pledge, Hartwell was allowed to examine the machine's inner wiring. He is certain that there is no hidden source of energy. Although he still feels uncomfortable about it, he says he could not disprove Newman's claim and would like to see a controlled test. Newman's key endorsement comes from Roger Hastings, a solid-state physicist for Sperry Univac. "I used to teach physics at North Dakota State University," says Hastings, "and we would get three or four people a year who had some kind of device that was going to save the world. I assumed this was the same." Newman talked Hastings into flying down for a visit anyway. He returned five times, testing and retesting the motors, until he was satisfied that he had made no mistake. He eventually signed an affadavit describing the invention in detail and stating unequivocally that it runs at greater than 100% efficiency. Two electrical engineers from MSU tested one of Newman's devices last March. The conditions were unfavorable, because the motor kept breaking down every few minutes, as a huge spark from the induction coil shorted out a switch on the commutator. Thus, while it was fairly easy to measure the power going in, it was not easy to tell what was coming out. The engineers found that the motor was between 55 and 76% efficient. However, they hedged, saying that it was impossible to measure the mechanical energy lost in the machine. They declined to call it a breakthrough, but said it was remarkably efficient "given its obviously crude configuration". Robinette (the newsman) maintains that while the MSU engineers were testing the machine, they agreed that it was producing more energy than it used. But "when they went back, they wrote a very ambiguous report that didn't say it didn't work and didn't say it did." Some who might otherwise voice skepticism seem to sympathize with Newman because of the way the patent office rebuffed him. In court filings, the office concedes that Newman is correct that it rejected his claim without fully reading the documents he submitted; that his application was handled by an examiner who seems to specialize in rejecting perpetual motion machines, who said that he would not allow a patent no matter how much supportive evidence was provided; that patent officials never tested Newman's device for efficacy and refused to observe oscilloscope readings of its input and output; and finally that the office issued a patent in 1979 to a man named Howard Johnson for a perpetual motion machine that Johnson has since agreed is inoperable. If there were an association of militant patent rejectees, Newman's battle with the patent office could be its rallying cause. But there is no such association. However, Newman has done reasonably well attracting attention by himself, especially in New Orleans. Soon he will get his day in court. * * * * * * * Personally, I suspect that Newman has come up with some clever electrical way to deceive himself and some other engineers and physicists. He may have built a machine, for example, that slowly demagnetizes a large permanent magnet, draining the energy from its field. Obviously I can't tell for sure, since all I've seen is this remarkably uninformative article. However, the patent office should have given him the patent. It grants thousands of patents each year for the most useless, idiotic gimcrackery, that is is a great waste of time and money to indulge in court cases like this to continue a pretense of rectitude. If, as is most likely, the gadget doesn't generate energy, Newman will will be unable to claim that he was held back by artificial restrictions, and his patent won't mean much anyway because nobody would bother to copy his device. The patent office wouldn't even have to appear to give credence to Newman's claims. They could merely patent it as "improved electric motor/generator" and allow him to try to develop it into something that would produce useful amounts of energy, if he could. --JoSH -------
RP%SCRC-TENEX@MIT-MC.ARPA (02/08/84)
From: Richard Pavelle <RP%SCRC-TENEX@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Return-path: <Mailer@SCRC-TENEX>
Received: from MIT-MC by SCRC-TENEX with CHAOS; Wed 8-Feb-84 04:12:05-EST
Received: from Rutgers.arpa by sri-unix.arpa with TCP; 7 Feb 84 13:10-PST
Date: 7 Feb 84 16:10:26 EST
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: The Mississippi Perpetual Motion Machine
To: physics@SRI-UNIX.ARPA
Newman's Impossible Motor
[a condensation of the article in Science, 10 Feb 84, v223#4636]
...
...
It is my understanding that the PTO will no longer consider Perpetual
Motion Machines, rejecting them outright. They have always applied their
own standards to patent applications. For example, several years ago,
sexual aids were rejected automatically whereas now they are acceptable.
Last century working models were required and for many years have not been.
I think they got sick of looking at PPMs and this person is in for years
of frustration if he wants them to look at his device. murray@t4test.UUCP (Murray Lane) (02/17/84)
Excuse me for asking what is probably a stupid question (I'm not a physics major, only a lowly electronics engineer), but how does one drain the magnetic field off of a permanant magnet. That's one trick I didn't learn in school. Murray at Intel - t4test