At 11:49 AM 8/16/2012, Ron Wormus wrote:
One would assume that the manufacturers of these engines have done
enough due diligence to know that it works before entering into a
license agreement.
What manufacturers?
Assume nothing about due diligence on the part of others. Often it is
missing. Welcome to the real world and the vast array of
opportunities for lawyers to be fully employed.
remember Orbo? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn
Steorn still exists, apparently. http://www.steorn.com/
They still have an Orbo page. http://www.steorn.com/orbo/
The Orbo "Papers" link has nothing since 2008.
http://www.steorn.com/orbo/papers/
The Orbo device seems to be totally dead.
Looking for recent news, I found
http://www.zdnet.com/steorn-behind-the-scenes-of-free-energy-dreams-4010025486/
He ends his article with "Just don't ask me to start on Andrea Rossi,
or we'll be here all week... "
Now, I also found some references to sources from 2011.
September, 2011:
http://pesn.com/2011/09/14/9501914_Steorn_Drops_Four_Bombshell_Documents_Validating_Orbo/
It begins, "PESN has been given the opportunity by Sean McCarthy, the
CEO of
<http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Steorn_Free_Energy>Steorn, to
review four documents that provide confirmation of their overunity
magnetic technology, named Orbo."
One of the reports, however, *is* available still on the Steorn site.
http://www.steorn.com/orbo/papers/jm-rice-report-28april-2008.pdf
P. 20 of the PDF contains "the key outcome." There is a reference to
p. 39 (a display of net energy with rotation with no ferrite core)
and p. 40 ( the display with a ferrite core). The latter display
shows what is mentioned in the text, rougly a mJ of energy
accumulation is apparently shown.
What actually happened here? The engineer "observed" tests conducted
by Steorn. The report is obsessively detailed with certain issues,
and yet, in the end, though repeatibility is part of the charge, it's
looking like this was a single rotation, showing no energy gain with
no ferrite core and a small gain with a core. 1 mJ per rotation, if
this accumulates, would be significant energy, perhaps. I don't see
that the report provides data to really judge this.
The circumstantial evidence leads to this: Steorn made or planned to
make money selling licenses or rights to investigate the effect they
allegedly found. They made or planned to make money selling equipment
to investigate magnetic anomalies. Those goals, done with sufficient
legal caution, are legal. The opportunity expired. Steorn seems to
have totally dropped this ball.
If Orbo actually worked, it would be an amazing thing, with vast
implications for science. If it actually worked, making a "toy" that
would demonstrate the effect would have been easy. This wasn't a
complicated machine. The toy could have been cheap. But there would
be a danger of making such a toy: someone might demonstrate that the
effect wasn't real excess energy, that it was an artifact. Perhaps
some energy can be extracted from ferrites for a time. Perhaps,
whatever. There are lots of ways for small amounts of energy to
appear. That's why we want to see, particularly for a small effect,
independent replications, where lots of people can actually examine
the nuts and bolts of it.
In addition, there is always the possibility of fraud. Orbo probably
avoided fraud. You can put on a nagic show in public, in which you
decieve observers. Last time I looked, it was totally legal. Just
don't take their money under false pretenses. That's illegal.
I came across a recent discussion, where the foreman of the "jury"
Steorn had convened to examine Orbo (not yet called that), Ian
MacDonald, answered questions. One of the first persons to answer
questions was our favorite writer, Mary Yugo. But to the point, here:
the answers seem to start on
http://www.moletrap.co.uk/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=3053&page=2
Search for "Ian MacDonald" to find his answers in this very long
thread. His early answers end on page 9 (see the URLs), and some more
answers start up around page 24, but don't see anything significant.
He stopped responding on page 27.
Is anyone still defending the Orbo? I don't know. I do remember many
discussions on Vortex from 2009 or so where people opined that a
company could not possibly be faking all this....
There is no sign of lawsuits from disgruntled Orbo investors or
customers. Some information developed that Orbo investors might have
been parents of some Orbo employees. Kept Little Johnny out of
trouble for a while....
The Papp Engine people are not, of course, responsible for what
Steorn did. I'm just pointing out that this "due dilignence" argument
is totally useless.
