July 17 Excerpts from The Engadget Interview: Sean McCarthy, CEO of STEORN
http://www.steorn.com/news/coverage/?id=1121 One particular quote which I thought was revealing: [SEAN] "...the biggest mistake that we've made and obviously we have to learn from our mistakes was to pre-announce the London demo. We've paid the price for that, we won't do it again. But we will be doing probably an awful lot more than we had intended. Basically when it happens we'll be letting people know. It will not be that far away." [Perhaps they should ask Emp. Jed for suggested demo strategies. ;-)] * * * * * Other selected excerpts from the interview: .... [SEAN] So we spent a good six months ourselves just looking at the systems and not full-time six months. We wouldn't jump on it and say, you know, this is the solution to the world's energy crisis. We did it in a fairly calm, rational manner and over a course of the six months we began to realize that hey this, these readings are not due to some measurement anomaly and that these readings are real. There are these energy anomalies at certain speed ranges with certain magnetic configurations and that's pretty much how we managed to convince ourselves that it was worth pursuing. [Sean's use of the term "certain speed ranges" does seem to suggest to me that magnetic viscosity could indeed be a key principal, allegedly. - svj] ... [Q] As this is supposedly scientific phenomena that -- by your terms -- redefines the laws of physics, shouldn't this be demonstrable consistently? Of the machines that you brought, which by all appearances looked like a very simple closed system, why did only one machine work? [SEAN] First of all, we only planned to get one machine working just in the time frame. The spare bearings that we had we took from the other systems, so at the end of the day we ended up on Thursday morning with six bearings of which we had damaged five for whatever reason. We were pretty sure we know the reasons whether people believe them or not. I then had to make the decision to defer because the reason that actually happened has nothing to do with the bearings, the reason it happened was just the ridiculous time frame that we were doing it in. So we will be doing a demo, again. Obviously people will believe it when they see it and I can understand the skepticism about that. It is a deferral, our guys are currently in the process of rebuilding some more robust systems and changing some parts to prevent the engineering thing from happening again and we'll be back out in the near future with it. [Q] So do you have a time-frame that you're looking at for the next demo? [SEAN] What we've decided to do this time, is rather then beating ourselves with a stick, we're going to get it running in a location and then we are going to announce that people can watch it online. So we are actually physically getting it operating, it will be the same. The principle behind London, which was clearly a failed demo, was that it wasn't for for a sequence of webcams to people to watch, but it was equally physical, so that people could go there. We put in some PCs so they could chat about it and so on. So the principle will be identical, that it's both a physical location where people can go view it. Obviously not everybody can do that, so people can watch it online and chat directly with people there and discuss theories of where batteries might be hidden and so and so on. It's a deferral, we have decided that we will only announce it when it's actually live and in place this time which is a mistake that we made last time. We should have done that but didn't. ... [SEAN] Again, obviously if I'm delusional, whatever answer I give is going to be based on my own delusions. The only thing that I can say -- I can say a couple of things about it. First thing is that the answer that anybody looking at us and wants to know will ultimately be delivered contractually. It's going to happen whenever it happens from a bunch of scientists. So unless they're delusional as well, if they agree with us then we deal with that at the time. If you stand back from the failed demo and say ok, I don't think anybody should believe this -- I wouldn't believe this in the circumstances, demo or no demo -- there is a process that's in place that's a real process where real scientists are going to draw a conclusion and that conclusion will be made public. [SEAN] The other side of it which I think is why people have taken the delusional route is because an awful lot of people had expected us to rig the demo. They expected us to have a hidden battery or whatever it is. If we were in that business, believe me, there would have been a spinning wheel. But we're just not in that business, the business of scamming people or rigging demos. It failed, it's prototype technology. Huge disappointment to us. We'll redo it. But the answers to the question -- the demo doesn't answer the question, it provides some thoughts from supporting evidence when it happens. But the answer to the question will be done by professionals and then were either be found to be delusional or not. ... [Q] So what are you guys planning to do going forward that will improve this process for the general public who is paying close attention to what you're up to? [SEAN] Obviously we are going to have to redo the demo. There is no question that we are not going to do the demo. We will, as I said before, not pre-announce it this time. We will get it set up properly, but the ground rules will be identical. The ground rules will be physical public access to the device, online webcams so it will be as open as possible. If anybody has seen the intended device and then realizes that it's, well, not impossible obviously to hide a certain energy source, it becomes quite a convoluted process. So we are going to try and demonstrate the technology in it's simplest, simplest format in a place with public access where people can watch online and talk to people there. [SEAN] That will be one thing we have -- and to invite skeptics along. We have to do that. We have to embrace the skepticism. But equally to understand, these are not intended to be slam dunk results, because they won't be. There will always be issues and rightfully so a simple demo, no matter how long it lasts, isn't proof of the claim. Proof of the claim is scientific analysis. But we are going to have to do other things as well. I won't go into details, but the biggest mistake that we've made and obviously we have to learn from our mistakes was to pre-announce the London demo. We've paid the price for that, we won't do it again. But we will be doing probably an awful lot more than we had intended. Basically when it happens we'll be letting people know. It will not be that far away. **************************** Naive as it may sound, I guess I remain guardedly optimistic. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
