I watched a video interview of Rohner. It was interesting to see his
apparatus, the single cylinder that he fires by pushing a button, and
the method of measuring the force applied by the cylinder firing. If
that force is even over the distance of motion of the cylinder, which
was shown and which would be easily measured, then the energy release
involved in the chamber reaction is calculable.
The interview was done by a fellow who has a totally new theory of
physics that purports to explain the Papp engine. However, he didn't
actually show or ask the most important questions about the engine.
How much energy is supplied by the spark plugs, with each stroke? And
how much energy is shown by the measurement method? That is, for each
cycle, what is the net energy release?
There were other imnporant unasked questions.
It was as if the fact that the piston moved was OMG! AMAZING! That,
right there, served to nail it for me that this joker had no clue.
Rohner himself seemed utterly inarticulate, which doesn't mean much.
Lots of people can do stuff they can't explain in words.
The history of the Papp engine should put all of us into a very
cautious position. Lots of people, with Joseph Papp, were very, very
impressed, and invested buckets of money. All lost, because of Papp's behavior.
Papp, is seems very likely, faked his submarine "accident," when he
found that he couldn't do what he'd promised. He apparently later
shot himself in the shoulder, claiming he was kidnapped and shot,
when he was having trouble with a demonstration of the engine. If he
would do those things, which we must consider possible, given his
general behavior and personality, then he could have faked any of it.
(people who are very afraid that others are going to cheat them will
then justify whatever they, themselves, do, because it is necessary
in context, lest "they" win.)
I'm fully aware of the attractiveness of the Papp engine. The story
of the Feynman fiasco lends credence to its reality. Yet there was
always something that stopped Papp from completing his work and
coming up with a real commercial product. Most of all, Papp himself
seemed to be the obstacle. In order to have a commercial engine, he
needed to disclose how it worked, and he was terrified that if he
disclosed it, he'd be cheated. The extremity of this is that even
when he was dying from cancer, he did not disclose the secret.
We cannot, unfortunately, trust the Rohner claims. However, Rohner is
totally welcome to create a demonstration kit, and apparently he is.
If so, then we should all know very soon about whether or not this
thing works. I have, in fact, suggested that Rossi and Defkalion,
even if having problems creating a reliable system, ready for full
commercialization, could patent and make *demonstration models* that
don't have to be large-scale or even particularly reliable, as long
as they are cheap enough and work often enough. Your kit doesn't
work? No problem, return it and we will send you another. We see this
with about 10% of the kits this month. We're getting better....
I'm not going to pony up a few hundred dollars and the necessary time
to buy and build a kit, but there are people for whom that would be
entertainment money. Be careful, though! Remember what happened to
the hapless engineer who got creamed by a piece of the exploding Papp
engine. Messy.
If the kit is a single cylinder like in the video, maybe it's safe
enough. But I'd still like to have some barrier between me and the
cylinder, given that *we don't really know what's going on in there.*
What if it blows up, seriously overproducing pressure, one time in a thousand?
But with more experience, that possibility can be ruled out.
