Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Debate on YouTube: Real OR BOllocks?

Second Update: The folks over at Dispatches From the Future have links to working videos on YouTube.

Update:
Unfortunately the videos have been removed from YouTube due to copyright issues, see michael's posted below.

Singularity over in the Steorn Forums points us to YouTube, where michaeldoyle has posted what seems to be most of the university debate mentioned earlier. The video quality is unfortunately rough, so slides are next to impossible to make out, and the audio isn't great either.

Some of the highlights include Sean mentioning 4 PhD's that work for Steorn, the "take Conservation of Energy on Faith" comment by the rebutters, and also Sean reminds everyone that threats of physical violence were made by scientists towards Steorn.

If you can't make it through all five videos, make sure to watch the last one, which is a short Q&A session with Sean.


Steorn Part 1


Steorn Part 2


Steorn Part 3


Steorn Part 4


Steorn Part 5

41 comments:

Senthil Kumar said...

Specifically, it's 4 PhDs in Magnetics. Big difference. If true, we can atleast be assured that they could not have made obvious mistakes and it's not a ship of fools.

I thought I heard in the presentation that Cambridge was one of he universities to which Steorn presented their data. Also I heard a numerical figure of 200 Joules being extracted from their "arrangement" with the magnets themselves only have 2 Joules of energy in them.
This must be the continuous stuff (Sean mentions that this particular figure was obtained a few weeks ago)

Someone needs to verify all of the above (I heard it just once)

Anonymous said...

I'm not so sure. A google search on "PhD magnetics Ireland" gets half a million hits. There's more than enough to go around to fill a ship of fools.

There's also been plenty of time to create a demo that works 50% of the time. I can understand things going wrong - Murphy sounds like an Irish name! But to claim a gain of 100 and not have some kind of device that shows even a gain of 0.0001 half the time is just getting too far fetched.

My computer doesn't have speakers, I'll have to go steal my kids computer after they are in bed. Should be fun listening to the last vid anyway!

Anonymous said...

I understood it as 2200 joules being extracted from magnets having .2 joules in them and not seeing degradation in the magnets afterward.

Anonymous said...

factuurexpress in the Steorn forum:
"The spectator now knows magnetic fields DO NOT propagate instantaneous."

What do you mean gabby ?
Magnetic fields propagate at the speed of 299,792,458 m/s in vacuum(same as the speed of light).
Dont you believers know the most fundamental thing conserning magnetism and electricity ?
I believe you are supposed to learn this thing in the SPDC-club?
Sean is even teaches you that the magnetic domains need some time to align..... The propagation is at the speed of light, or are you confirming that Steorn is a hoax/fraud ?


http://www.physlink.com/
Education/askExperts/ae445.cfm


http://www.physlink.com/Education/askExperts/ae445.cfm

Anonymous said...

It was actually 2200 joules and also I just wanted to say that the UCD guy made a complete arse of himself for asking students to take CoE on faith alone. Sounds like the church to me!

Comparing Steorn to a Nigerian scam was below the belt and was just done for cheap laughs. Shame on UCD for sinking so low instead of using proper scientific argument.

Looks like UCD are Cambridge are just some examples of the closed minded claptrap that we have to put up with from the world of science these days.

The EGOS have landed.

Father Luke Duke said...

"Specifically, it's 4 PhDs in Magnetics. Big difference. If true, we can atleast be assured that they could not have made obvious mistakes and it's not a ship of fools."
------
But the names of these for PhDs are also secret? Right. Of course.

If Sean actually had PhDs working for him then he wouldn't turn up at universities and end up looking like a dick. He would come armed with pages of maths a solid grasp of theory. In fact why not just bring one of the PhDs along to slap down those nasty arrogant lecturers and impress the pretty students?

Ship of fools is spot on.

Thicket said...

Entertaining clips.

The 'rudeness' shown to Sean must be in the missing parts because the only rudeness I saw was by Sean.

Sean was allowed to give his presentation uninterrupted, yet Sean interrupted the second presenter twice.

Sean also forcibly broke the agreed upon protocol at the beginning of the question/answer period.

Sean certainly didn't exhibit a silver tongue. He was absolutely terrible in the question/answer period. He was pacing and fidgeting. His responses to the questions were disorganized, vague and evasive. He should be embarrassed.

The professor twice referenced potentianl investors contacting him. One was a few years ago when Steorn's machine was not working. The second was last year. The professor's personal experience was ample evidence that Steorn's focus is getting investor money. His Nigerian scam analogy was backed up by his personal experience.

Unknown said...

(hairykrishna)
Interesting lunchtime viewing, thanks for posting them. Here is my capsule review:

He’s still banging on about Noethers theorem being violated by different energies being required to move magnets together at different speeds. It would only be a violation if EVERYTHING about the two cases was the same apart from the speed.
If Seans definition of a violation was true even his ball drop example would fail as air resistance scales with velocity, leading to different work done at different speeds.

His comment about ‘only a few papers dealing with magnetic viscosity’ is a nonsense. It may not be taught particularly at undergraduate level but it has certainly been investigated: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=magnetic+viscosity&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search

Or

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=anomalous+energy+loss+transformers&btnG=Search


Second video. Relaxation phenomenon do not lead to a violation of CoE. The state of a system lagging the driving force is not an unusual physical phenomenon.
What next – capacitors violate CoE? Inductors? I can’t believe they sat their and let him get away with this. I thought they were ‘rude’? If he was presenting at my uni (assuming he got through the Noethers theorem bit) this is where he would have been interrupted and corrected.

Woah there. Galactic spin problem? Have you run out of relevant content so quickly?

In summary: Sean talking crap, floundering around throwing out random physics that the general public might have heard of and mixing it in with more obscure stuff to make their ‘effect’ sound plausible. Nothing new here.


Now we get to the most interesting few minutes. The beginning of the other guys presentation. A friend with a ‘wonderful investment opportunity’, around 250,000 euro. A machine / test rig that ‘wasn’t working that day’. This tell us two things; Steorn have accepted investment while ‘researching free energy’. When the only qualified person we know has definitely seen the machine (or test rig) saw it, it wasn’t working. The rest of the presentation isn’t that interesting – basic explanation of the fact that we understand magnets well, potted history of PM claims (and an explanation of how people fool themselves with magnets).
I found the ‘take it on faith’ bit interesting – I think the guy has been misrepresented. He explains that faith in CoE is based on hundreds of years of experiment he is in no way asking people to accept something without evidence. At the end he mentions another person wanting to invest in them (last year).

His closing comment compares them to a 419 scam.

I don’t understand the allegations of rudeness. If you thought that Sean got harsh treatment there (and in the questions) you are sadly mistaken. I have seen people who are doing real research, with real results, get harsher treatment than that after giving descriptions that were too ‘hand wavy’.

The only difference was that they implied Steorn are a scam (a reasonable guess in my view) as opposed to incompetent.

Please excuse my over long post!

Unknown said...

@senthil

I think he claimed 2200J. No indication of if this was excess, magical CoE violating, energy or just the energy extracted in total though.

I'm 'extracting' about this per second from my wall socket, via my kettle.

Senthil Kumar said...

I must agree with the previous comments, without a working prototype to show, Sean's words are just that; Mere words.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I am just not used to Irish accents but Sean comes across as a smarmy, whiny, condescending, and sanctimonious prick. Too be fair maybe he is just showing frustration. Not what I felt but a possibility.

It was almost like 7 or 8 were giving the speech.

Just show us a working machine Sean. Stop with the theatrics, you suck at them.

I really liked his answer when asked why he didn't just bring a machine.......

What a crock!

Anonymous said...

I still don't understand why Steorn is marketing this claim. Why waste the time and energy? Sean claims that they had to get scientific interest. Sean says that they now 22 “…world class scientists and engineers” validating their device so why are they still marketing their claim? Why not just shut the website, cancel all public interviews, and lectures until they are willing to supply empirical evidence?

In April Sean made a few statements that seemed to indicate that they “jury members” had not actually gotten their hands on a device. In the current video, he says the “jury members” have been working on validation since January 9. This makes no sense. But then again why go to the trouble trying to convince everyone? Just build the damn thing and move on.

To me the illogical actions of Steorn in marketing their “claim” coupled with the inconsistencies in Sean’s statements make Sean look like an idiot, and make Steorn look like some kind of scam. If they have what they claim they have, they should keep their mouths shut until they are willing to supply empirical proof.

Anonymous said...

Now Sean has another problem; How to get rid of Dr. Mike?

Sean will engage Mike at every opportunity now, trying to frustrate him into saying something 'Ban-worthy' before July so he can cancel the 'Mike-demo'. Desperation on the cusp of idiocy seems like the same old Sean M.O.

Of course I don't think Mike will fall into the trap and Sean's desperation to get rid of him will increase and become more obvious.

Or Sean could show all us 'skeptics' what fools we are by SHOWING US A WORKING MACHINE!!!! (yes, I know ..... July........we'll see if it happens.)

Anonymous said...

Sean certainly didn't exhibit a silver tongue. He was absolutely terrible in the question/answer period. He was pacing and fidgeting. His responses to the questions were disorganized, vague and evasive. He should be embarrassed.

And yet with that kind of charisma, he still managed to get 8 million euros out of investors with no device, no data, no proof of any kind, only words? Curiouser and curiouser. ;-)

Anonymous said...

This was just posted by Sean: (*** my comments ***)

Hi Grant,

I have to say that I had zero expectations on anything other than a bit of fun on Friday. It was the last day of college before the exams start and I was pretty sure that the whole thing would end up as an student prank. It was not that, so be it. With respect to being laughed at, so what? It is not in my nature to back down, even though we had been repeatedly lied to about the event by the organizers we went through with it, we expected nothing more than the treatment that we got.

***me victim, feel sorry for me, they lie (unlike Sean) ***

I will continue to do this kind of thing because I think that its the right thing to do, if someone asks me to talk about it to a group of people who I think might have a genuine interest in it I will talk to them, if I have the time. They can decide to debate the issues or call names, this says more about them than me.

***me victim, feel sorry for me, they are name-callers***

The UDC thing was just another day in this forum, people get emotive about the claim and revert to cries of foul - this says a lot more about them than me.

***me victim, feel sorry for me, see how bad they are***

Sean


After watching the vids and then seeing this comment.......

Persecution complex anyone? Superiority complex anyone?

Notice the focus is about the people not the tech. Why is that?

Shut them all (and me) up Sean, prove your claim, and show us proof!

Your words have no worth anymore, if they ever did.

Call the cops yet Sean? If not why? You obviously know who the threatening 'scientists' are. Need sympathy more than security? What about the guy phoning your house?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said:

"Sean will engage Mike at every opportunity now, trying to frustrate him into saying something 'Ban-worthy' before July so he can cancel the 'Mike-demo'. Desperation on the cusp of idiocy seems like the same old Sean M.O."

This is happening right now- see the Steorn thread titled 'Lecture on Steorn's perpetual motion machine....'. Sean is baiting Mike. We'll see what happens. The faithful have rallied round Sean on this 'lecture' debacle. To them it is more evidence of the 'close minded' scientists. We haven't actually seen any more evidence of an actual PPM, however.

Anonymous said...

I've been following with curious interest since August. I'm an open-minded sceptic, meaning that I don't rule out the possiblity of overunity or space aliens or homeopathic cancer cures or anything else for that matter. But I'm not willing to buy in without actual concrete evidence(which apparently means I've been brainwashed by the evil science cult.)

Though I watch with amusement, bemusement, and foolish hope, I am weary of the game of "we don't expect anyone to believe us"/"how dare you impugn our honesty!" and "we absolutely have what we claim"/"we can't provide evidence yet because (insert plausible reason here)"/"the naysayers provide no evidence that we are wrong."

The good news is that things appear to be coming to a head. The public demo needs to happen before July 31 (of the regular, not Gregorian, Mayan, hexadecimal, reverse Polish, or ancient druidic lunar semi-modified meta-fiscal calendar). And it needs to be an unequivocal demonstration of overunity, with sceptics such as drMike given the opportunity to thoroughly check for any more conventional explanations.

JTerry said...

@ Dr. Mike:

Sir, has Steorn yet arranged for your trip? Last I heard they had not made the actual arrangements for your travel. I hope you are not required to spring for tickets/lodging yourself. That would be outrageous. If that is the case, please let us know. I'm sure an appropriate donation can be found to finance your trip from interested skeptics; I would be happy to make a contribution.

I would love to watch this entire lecture/debate/whateveritis, but simply cannot stand the crummy quality. Does anyone have a link to anything with a superior version?

As to the issue of Steorn investments, remember the case of the investment scheme. This allows people to invest tax free money into Irish companies that are creating jobs and encouraging or creating new technologies. This would be a strong inducement to anyone who wants to shuffle money around and avoid tax problems.

Anonymous said...

It's oh so fun to watch you cynics at work.

Notice please that the rebuttal contained NOTHING substantive about the technical points that Sean raised.

Notice that the professor used the word FAITH in the same sentence as CoE. Sean said that NOTHING should be taken on faith, neither his claim nor the "laws" which the UCD faculty want to drill into their students as iron-clad and requiring no factual argument.

Let me make an analogy for you in case you don't get my drift: Sean is Noam Chomsky and the UCD professors are Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.

Judging by that claptrap, this place is a sad example of not an institution of learning, but rather a "conformity factory."

You jump all over Sean's tits about attacking the duplicitous way in which the uni treated the event, switching posters at the last minute to make Steorn look like a joke, preventing them from filming the event with their own crew for bullshit reasons, but then you don't address the shortcomings of the other side and engage in your own ad-hominems.

Hypocrisy, table for two.

I think you're all going to be eating humble pie and crow for a very, very long time. But even if you don't, your conduct is telling at this very moment.

Thicket said...

What are the possible reasons for Sean to make a presentation at a college?

1. Propogate his 'Steorn against the scientific establishment' agenda. It's great fodder for gullible investors.

2. Preparing his defense for legal charges of fraud. Making presentations at colleges increases Steorn's credibility of having made an honest mistake when their free-energy scheme collapses.

3. Preparation for a negative jury report by nasty, close-minded scientists.

4. Sean simply likes attention, even if it's negative.

5. A belief that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

6. Maintain the illusion of activity with impatient investors who wonder what their money is being spent on.

Anonymous said...

7. They asked him to do it, and he's a nice guy.

8. He believes what he says and enjoys a good fight.

9. Dancing alien robots.

Unknown said...

(hairykrishna)

@thicket

I would also add to this list the fact that the profs not presenting a 'technical rebuttal' seems to have increased Steorns credibility, again, amongst the various loons. How it is possible to critique technical details when there are none I'm not sure.
To me as a scientist he looked out of his depth and uncomfortable. As I said before, I’m surprised they let him get away with spouting so much nonsense.

I'm not sure what's with Seans baiting of drmike. Is he fishing for an energy calc including anomalous loss (or some unexplained losses) so he can go 'ah ha! I told you so' ?


The people ridiculing the idea of getting a professional magician to have a look at Steorns device (over on the forum) are fools. In a case where deliberate fraud is likely magicians make excellent witnesses.

Anonymous said...

There is a very nasty rumor circulating regarding one of the jury members. Without getting too deep into details, it seems he is fed up with Steorn at this point because Steorn has refused some requests he made or some such thing. One of these requests has to do with Steorn not giving the jury anything to test but just throwing numbers at them with no substance behind the numbers. Appears that this guy wants to go to the press and reveal that Steorn is a sham. He has said that the NDA be damned and that the NDA is not valid anyway when its purposes are related to less than honest dealings. Has anyone else heard this or is it just a wild rumor?

Anonymous said...

All three presenters prepared their presentations in advance. It's difficult for a professor to wing it on a few minutes notice, when Sean spouts technical jargon with nothing substantive to back it up.

Just about anything Sean does increases his credibility in the eyes of believers. It's an interesting study in human behavior.

I was particularly interested in Crank falling hook, line and sinker for the 'poor Sean, nasty scientists' fantasy. It makes me wonder whether she was at the same event that we saw on the clips.

To anonymous who said,

Quote
Notice please that the rebuttal contained NOTHING substantive about the technical points that Sean raised.
Unquote

Well doh!! It's because Sean said NOTHING technically substantive. Spouting 'magnetic viscosity', 'Noether's theorem' and 'BH curves' may impress those without scientific training. I'd say the scientific audience at the presentation was decidedly unimpressed.

Thicket

Father Luke Duke said...

"Notice please that the rebuttal contained NOTHING substantive about the technical points that Sean raised."
----
He didn't bring anything to argue with. Maths is the language of physics, it's how you communicate your ideas. If he's not going to bring a device or even any data, then he should be a mathematical description of the effect. He has 4 PhDs working for him - surely one of them could write it up? Or perhaps they are PhDs in golf course management or similar.

All he brought with him was some mangled ideas based around theories he found on wikipedia. What kind of rebutal can you give to that?

Anonymous said...

"Quote
Notice please that the rebuttal contained NOTHING substantive about the technical points that Sean raised.
Unquote

Well doh!! It's because Sean said NOTHING technically substantive. Spouting 'magnetic viscosity', 'Noether's theorem' and 'BH curves' may impress those without scientific training. I'd say the scientific audience at the presentation was decidedly unimpressed."

Whether they are "impressed" or "unimpressed" is not the issue.

And how wonderfully haughty of you to crawl inside the students' minds and speak on their collective behalf.

Once again: the rebuttal did not address anything about the points that McCarthy raised. NOTHING.

It was merely a weak defense of CoE, saying it was iron-clad and should be taken on FAITH (this alone lost the argument by any standard).

So this is the best that a tenured, supposedly respected professor at an accredited engineering school can do? And he's not even being asked to cite or argue with data, but ideas he should be well familiar with?

Pathetic.

Cynic's blindness: if we shout hard enough about our precious ideas, we can dismiss contradicting ideas without trying to consider them seriously for even one moment.

Anonymous said...

"If he's not going to bring a device or even any data,"

Cynic-translation: I hear what I want to hear.

Sean cited data from (IIRC) a domain test, recently completed, they had been doing for a very long period of time.

Did you even watch all the videos?

Go to bed and pull the covers around yourself extra tight.

Anonymous said...

Regarding video 5 Q&A.

Forget the science and technical details. Pretend you had never heard of Steorn and just happened upon this video. Based on this alone, would you,

Buy a car from Sean?

Lend him money?

Ask him to look after your house?

Leave the kids with him of an evening?

Hire him to work for you?














Me neither.......

In fact his behavior in the video kind of creeps me out. He looks about to snap and is certainly uncomfortable with scrutiny, displaying nervous and evasive behaviors. Not inspiring any confidence in his speaking or physics skills in me at least.

Anyone else find his mannerisms disturbing?

Gaby de Wilde said...

factuurexpress in the Steorn forum:
"The spectator now knows magnetic fields DO NOT propagate instantaneous."

lol! priceless!

You mean I was unreasonable and talking rubbish?

I think it had exactly the desired effect. Finding it here makes it even more funny anonymous coward.

hahahaha

Anonymous said...

Just about anything Sean does increases his credibility in the eyes of believers.

And anything he does decreases his credibility in the eyes of the cynics. This is equally fascinating.

Just for one example. If he posts a video in which he's being eloquent and persuasive, he's a BSing salesman or PR guy who is not to be trusted.

On the other hand, if he posts a video in which he is tongue-tied, nervous, and uncharismatic, then he's just "creepy" and not to be trusted.

Anonymous said...

The bottom-line is that none of Sean’s actions makes sense. Why is he wasting time and energy trying to sell his “claim” without proof? Initially he said that Steorn had to market their claim in order to make science “…mad enough...” to look at the device. Well, that’s done. Sean claims that the jury has been examining the device since January 9. So why does he continue to try so hard to sell his unsubstantiated claim? Why does he do interviews and lectures if he is not ready or willing to provide proof? At first, Sean’s approached just seemed a bit unorthodox, now his actions look suspicious.

I don’t believe he has a free energy machine, but if Sean believes, he needs to go silent until he’s ready to publish or provide supporting evidence. Trying to promote such a fantastic claim without proof makes him, and his company, look suspicious.

Anonymous said...

@jterry

No tickets yet. Promise was for next week. But I have something to read up on, so I can wait! For fun, check out:
joam.infim.ro/JOAM/pdf6_2/Grossinger.pdf
and read up on Sv.

@all

To quote a famous book "the game is afoot!" Let's play the game and see what happens.

@anonymous

Seems like we all first heard the rumour here :-)

Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike

Father Luke Duke said...

"And anything he does decreases his credibility in the eyes of the cynics. This is equally fascinating. "
---
nleseul - when are you going to wake up and smell the magnetic viscosity?

Perpetual motion doesn't exist. All people who claim perpetual motion are either scammers or fantasists. At what point will you give up on Steorn?

Anonymous said...

To me it seem that Gabby is studying the Free Energy Tracker in detail. Is the Steorn forum to dull for Gabby ? Are there no "trolls" to insult in the Steorn forum?

Unknown said...

Due to copyright of self image issues, I have had to take the videos down.

Will Gorman said...

Hello michael,

Who asked for the videos to be removed?

Father Luke Duke said...

"To me it seem that Gabby is studying the Free Energy Tracker in detail. Is the Steorn forum to dull for Gabby ? Are there no "trolls" to insult in the Steorn forum?"
---
I don't think Gaby has a job or a girlfriend/boyfriend etc so he spends all of his time in various forums spouting crap.

Anonymous said...

"I don't think Gaby has a job or a girlfriend/boyfriend etc so he spends all of his time in various forums spouting crap."

Pot, kettle, black?

Get real ya limey prick. How many forums do you follow trying to knock Steorn anyway possible?
Under how many handles?

Father Luke Duke said...

"Get real ya limey prick. How many forums do you follow trying to knock Steorn anyway possible?
Under how many handles? "
----
Ah..energyman8. I would recognise that rapier like wit anywhere.

"limey prick"? Where do you get this quasi-american nonsense from? Do you think you are in Hill Street Blues?

Anonymous said...

And oh look your paranoid as well.

How many handles? On how many forums? How sad. How futile.

Go on, up the lane you go now.

Anonymous said...

This is Seans reply on the financials that Thicket has posted.



Sean - "Well its a clear and obvious misunderstanding of the records. There has been zero new investment in Steorn since August 18th."


A nice, clear statement.

But where is the misunderstanding? Where did Thicket error? Or is this another case of "Sean said" and that should be enough?