I give another example of howlers I've seen where people then go and run off on a wild goose chase with faulty underlying assumptions:
#1 A man builds some kind of trolled with two rotating arms which swing around in synchrony. He tries it on ice and sees that is moves around. He puts it on a pendulum and kicks one way. He's cracked reaction-less propulsion and broken CoM! Dedicates his life to it. 'Educates' me about long jump athletes, 'you see that's why they swing their arms and legs'. We go up to BAe special projects system and around the table their brains say things like 'differential friction'. I chip in you can punt across an ice rink if you resolve the normal reaction force to a horizontal component down the pole. It dawns on us that the weights are shifting the centre of mass about and it's rocking on its base. #2 A man builds some rings and rollers and sees (so he thinks) the magnets accelerating as he touches them slightly. No it's just a low friction system with complicated, cusp-like forces and you disturbed the equilibrium. #3 A man observes an electron tube burn out. He takes it to and expert and the expert comes up with some circular vacuum drum (he hid batteries in it BTW) then it mutates to a linear tube with magnets on the outside. 'How's does it all work then'. 'Err, err it's a rate of change of flux'. 'No you are saying V = dBA/dx 'cos the field is tapering when it's V = dB/dt.' 'So what you saying is that if I shake a charge on the other side of the galaxy I get instantaneous communication (in classical physics) and transference of mass energy'. #4 A man builds a ramp with a tapering track with magnets either side and sees a ball dragged up it and fall off the end perhaps to do it all again. No it's a system of field building a potential well (like a harmonic oscillator but more complicated) and the reason why your ball got dragged up the ramp is that it is not in the equilibrium position and hence you started the oscillation like a pendulum to one side. Just watch it damp down. And so on. Faulty premises. We all do it but if you're honest you censor yourself. The cosmic censor is going to do it for you anyway.
