Re: solution to the world's energy needs

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

> Need I add, ;-) ?  (But in anticipation of Bill Beatty's scorn for my
> closed mindedness, I WILL believe it when it is shown to work.)

:)


My philosophy:  believe everything provisionally, so that emotional
blindness does not interfere with your investigations.  But assume that
you might be insane, and that everything you see might be delusion.  Then
keep your hand on your wallet!  Both hands.  Better yet, leave it at home.



On perpetual motion machines of the 2nd kind...  crackpots have for years
been saying that entropy does not increase globally, that there are
entropy-reversing phenomena which physics has yet to discover... and that
western science provides "death technology", and doesn't use "life
technology" in the form of perpetual motion machines of the 2nd kind.

If this is true, then where are all the PM machines?

Good question.

If nobody can ever supply us with a genuine PM machine, then the answer to
the question is obvious.

However, if a genuine PM machine is found, and if all hell breaks loose as
a result, then why did it take so long for us to find such a device?  Was
there some sort of dark conspiracy to suppress these devices, as so many
crackpots claim?  Or is it simply these two forces:

  "It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative
  scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the
  preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible.  When
  this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their
  prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them."
   - Arthur C. Clarke, 1963

 "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled,
  the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in
  them?' "    - H. G. Wells


Once a single PM machine is proved to be genuine, then we will realize
that there are hundreds of PM-based phenomena in the everyday world,
staring us in the face.  Something similar usually occurs whenever a
fundamental new discovery is made.  (But this doesn't help much at
present.  It takes numerous people with funding to prove the existence of
such phenomena, and those people must not be staunch disbelievers.)


Unfortunately the situation is made complicated by the fact that anyone
can chose to believe that the centuries-old lack of PM machines proves
that such machines are impossible.  We look around us and see no obvious
PM-based physics taking place.  Others can believe that our blindness
closes our eyes to such phenomena, and that genuine PM machines have been
discovered time and time again, but the discoveries have been squelched by
the two forces detailed in the above quotes.  Their opponents say that
this is not so, but instead the scam artists have CLAIMED time and time
again to posess genuine PM machines, but the scam is always revealed in
the end.

Who's right?  They are two alternate interpretations of one reality, yet
one position must be right and the other wrong.  Absence of evidence is
not evidence of absence.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence.

If the Wright Brothers had encountered too big a barrier, and if all
lesser inventors had an even smaller chance of bringing Powered Flight
into the world, then "flying machines" might even now be in the same
situation.  Crackpots would point to failed glider experiments and claim
that powered flight just needs more funding.  Skeptics would point to
failed glider experiments and say that the failures illustrate the folly
of wasting funding on crackpot ventures.  In that case, the Skeptics would
be the bad guys, and would be suppressing the invention of aircraft
because of their closemindedness.

On the other hand, what if PM machines of the second kind are physically
impossible?

:)

Yuh flips the coin and yuh chooses yore "religion."



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