Sean's Answer of the Day and More!

Sean got back into the Questions discussion again today. I especially enjoyed the answer of the day.

Lister: Have the jurors (or at least some of them) seen the device and if so have they concluded that it works or have they concluded that it doesn't?

Steorn: It would only take a small amount of time see if we had faked a machine - I in fact agree with this statement. lol, there are only so many places to look for energy that is being added into a system in a hoax fashion. However this is of course not what we are doing, you can believe that or not - but it is a fact.

With respect to the current phase that the jury are engaged in, it is as I have said before a form of 'peer' review, despite some of your comments from last night these people do in fact have other careers and other demands on their time. The process is in depth and indeed our presentation of the effects behind the technology, and the Q&A's that follow this address the heart of the matter. It should also be said that I have little doubt that some of the tests that have been presented by us have been replicated by some of the jurors.

Have the jurors yet seen a machine? Ok well I answered this last night, and the
answer is no. Lol, I can already hear the cries of foul and deep intakes of breath as I write this. The physical test phase is scheduled to start soon, but IMO this will involve the selection of independent lab(s) and definition of tests to be conducted.

This was never going to be a fast process, it is going to take a lot of time and those who read stuff into this are mis-reading the situation. Of course these people are going to slow and cautious. I again stress that none of the above should be misunderstood, the core issues behind our technology are being addressed. For those who believe that this could be done in a few days staring into a machine, you are just wrong.

It's interesting that Sean speculates that some of the Jury have built their own machines. If the jury has Steorn's white papers, and they are clear enough to reproduce the device, you'd think the process would move a bit faster.

blue_energy: I have presumed that the forum must serve a longer range purpose for Steorn to have made it worth your while to have spent so much of your time answering our questions, etc. I have further presumed that the reasons would have to do with establishing some credibility with the public prior to the completion of the jury. With that in mind, I have 2 questions:

1.) In as much as the plan for the format of the jury tests, and the number of jurors, were published knowledge at the outset, what is the reasoning behind keeping the change in these things a secret until now?

2.) The web site alluded to you publishing detailed technical specifications at the completion of the first quarter. You acknowledged, earlier in this discussion, that what you published is not, in fact, 'detailed' - and you apologized for the disappointment that this has caused. However, you did not explain your reasoning for not following through with what you said you would do. Would you explain your reasoning?

Steorn: There was no real plan behind us having a forum, we have zero experience with forum life and boy what an eye opener it has been. Again I stress that we like to engage, and so since it is on our site, we will come in and correct things when we have the time. We have also be learning about this whole forum thing as time passes, I think that in hind site we should have moderated the forum better, but hey hind site is 20-20 and all that.

We really are not going to discuss the ins and outs of the process while it is in progress (and to be honest I am trying not to go into this now, because for all the fun that the debates in here are, the Jury process is far too important to mess with). Lets face it no one is watching Steorn at the moment, we do not want to be news and we are not news.

With respect to the 'detailed' technical specifications, this was my fault, we were never going to publish detailed specs and will not until the end of validation. So I have to say sorry for this, if it makes you feel any better I still have the whip marks from our lawyers for even suggesting that I would do it.

Rhaomi: 1) A few months ago, you stated this:

"Due to the fact that the US patent office does not allow patents with this claim we have filed a sequence of patents wich describe various aspects of the technology. "

However, according to the US Patent Office website: A working model may be requested in the case of applications for patent for alleged perpetual motion devices.

Has the Office's policy changed since Steorn sought an American patent, or were you guys simply mistaken about the process? Or perhaps you did not have a working model that was ready for transatlantic shipping and government inspection?

Steorn: We have of course applied for US patents, and I am not going to go into details on them. We do not see any problems at this time about getting these patents granted.

Sean doesn't come out and say it, but it doesn't seem like Steorn is patenting any claim towards OU, instead it sounds like he's patenting specific configurations of Steorn's discovery. I agree with Rhaomi here, it's hard to believe Steorn wouldn't attempt to show up at the USPTO with a working device in hand if they had one. Who knows, maybe they will on Validation day.

ro2778: What happened to the American demonstration?

Steorn: Good question - the answer is that we are going to try and get media attention. Only a few of us are prepared to stand in the public eye and it is just not practical for us to try and split this 'event' across two locations. I should point out that this does not mean that we will not be doing a demo in the US, its just that doing two at the same time would be too much of a stretch on the company, I doubt if the July thing will be the only demo that we do.

Spiritual Beggar: If (hypothetically!!) Steorn did not release it's technology (or pretend you never discovered it!) What do you think the chances would be, of another company/individual/university/boffin discovering the effect by accident? Is it so incredibly obscure that it could go unnoticed for another 100 or 200 years??

Steorn: Well first thing to say is that there is nothing that is going to stop us releasing our tech, whats going on at the moment (the validation and the development of a developers forum) is really about ensuring rapid and widespread deployment. On the other point, what one man discovers another man can.

rubentherat: How do you explain to yourself how a couple of hundred years of science and engineering could have missed the effect.

Steorn: I do not think that they did. Gosh now I am writing this I know I am going to get a forum beating, but thats how I see it.

salvnaut: This is the winner for The Sean's Answer of a Day.

Sean, I remember you explaining how you thought that discovery of this technology wouldn't had been possible without todays technology of precise measuring instruments and easy access to information (Internet). Has something changed with your understanding since then? Or should we understand those two as not at all contradictory statements?

Steorn: The point that I was making is that a group of people like us could would not have made this type of discovery 20 years ago. It is simply a question of money, the type of measurement equipment, computing power and so that is necessary to rule out measurement error would simply have priced us out the the possibility of discovery 20 years ago. If we had the initial measurements 20 years ago with the type of equipment that a normal company could afford I have no doubt that we would just have written it off to measurement error.

granthodges: Any more on "I do not think that they did?"

Steorn: Well I think that it is a question of mindset, once we discovered and proved to ourselves the initial anomaly, we got very interested. After some research we found that we could explain the results with known effects, i.e. the result itself could be expected. But we went one step further, which is rather than just accepting classical explanations of these known (if little known) effects (and there are indeed many views on what causes these effects over the years) we decided to do what our engineering educations taught us to do, which is to design tests and make up our own minds on the matter. We did this by the way because we could not find a consensus position on what drove these effects within the third party white papers, the approach seemed very much a 'rule of thumb' approach and so we got at it.

I read this as saying Steorn believes that the discovered phenomena is right under scientists noses, that it won't be some new form of energy like ZPE or quantum foam that explains what is going on. Fascinating!

ro2778: Do you foresee, sometime in the future, orbo, on an industrial scale, being able to compete with standard power generating technologies e.g., solar, nuclear, fossil fuel, wind etc. in terms of useful energy output?

Steorn: Yes, we are a small company and can only take the development so far, thats why we are releasing the technology in the way that we are, the more, smart, fast companies that work on this for their own commercial interests the better for everyone.

Dovetailed: 1) What are you going to do if/when the jury comes back divided or unwilling to accept your claims without even further testing? Have you given them any time constraints or other forms of constraint to deal with potential (for want of a better word) filibustering or wilful obstructionism?

2) Psychologically, how does it feel to believe/know (you’ve said you 100% believe your claims before) that you will go down in history?

Steorn: On (1) I guess that I do not see this as a real possibility, if it happens (and I do not think that it will) we will face the issue at that time.

On (2) - its embarrassing to be honest, I want this to be over so that I can go off and work on some other stuff.

I hate to do this to Sean, but if what Steorn has is real, they could be the next Google squared. It's embarrasing to hear the CEO say "I want to move on" and "we're just a small company". Google started off in a garage, and all they started with was a clever way to rank search results. Now they have a market cap of $150 billion. ARG!

Fez_2007: With out giving away the configuration can you tell us the exact elements (period table) that interact to produce the effect. I presume a soft magnetic element of Fe and Neodymium magnets? Will the device only work within a particular temperature range? (Discounting the fact that it will stop working above curie temp) Does the device involve the principle of magnetic saturation? In particular over saturation of the soft magnetic material?

Will there be a second round of SPDC entries, I'm dying to talk with other engineers scientists on the idea. - I' have emailed you my details

Steorn: Ok, temperature (other than the curie point) is not important and its based on hard magnets - mail Cathy on the SPDC comment!

Dovetailed: "Steorn: Again I cant comment on how long the process will take, if we feel that we are heading into many years then we will discuss with the Jury ways to deal with this, but again I do not see this as being a problem."

Is there a reason why you are so confident this won't be a problem? Or is such a reason un-commentable again?

Steorn: Ok, well I think that people need to think about the details of our claim. In essence we are saying that it can be proven experimentally that magnetic forces are not in fact conservative. While such a claim must be treated cautiously, it is also not an overwhelming task to deal with the claim. But again its really not up to me how to do this, time will tell.

Sean has said the jury will take a long amount of time, and then he goes and says that it's not an overwhelming task to deal with. Do these two points jive? As you can tell from some of my comments, I'm a bit frustrated. I'm guessing we all are. I feel like I'm watching Lost or 24, and have to wait till next week, and then another week, and so on. Oh how I wish I could just rent the DVD set and watch the whole thing unfold over a weekend!

External Steorn Forum Comments

I've seen a few comments asking to either host a forum or have a link to fizzx.com. I'm interested in everyones opinion on this topic. I don't want to compete with the Steorn Forum, and Sean has stated that he'll be opening it up again to everyone this July. Also, I unfortunately don't have time to moderate a forum. So here are my questions for you:

Does fizzx.com meet the needs of those who don't have access to Steorn's Forums?

What could fizzx.com or another forum do differently?

Should we launch an "Until Steorn opens back up" Forum?

Thanks for your thoughts on the topic!

The Day After Questions

Today Sean posted this to the forum:

After all the disappointment of yesterdays 'news', drop any questions in here and I will try to answer.

Unfortunately Sean wasn't able to keep up with the gazillion questions from everyone, including myself. He did address many of the questions and concerns. Here are most of Sean's comments broken into sections:


On The Jury Process and the Demo:

SteornTracker: ...Do you have any plans between July and December to keep up the publics awareness? What impact do you expect the July demos to have on the Jury?

Steorn: Hi ST - the July demo was never in the original plan, it is a 'opportunistic' move on our part. Again I have to stress that I cannot with any degree of confidence say when the Jury process will end, its just not up to me/Steorn in any way. We have no other plans at this point, but I would not rule out anything at this stage either.

duncan torus: do you promise that come July if the constant motion version is not ready you will still demo the original "start/stop" device?

Steorn: The demo will happen, we fully expect to have a constant speed device, if not we will demo a 'stop-start' device.

Dovetailed: What is the principle reason for Steorn's current level of secrecy?...

Steorn: There are several reasons, on a very basic point it will make no difference to our time to market, since we are obviously waiting until validation anyway. There are IP and patent issues also and clearly there is a risk of giving counterfeiters and competitors a heads up.

The decision on the July demos was a risk/reward decision for us - we feel that the public exposure will be worth taking some of the risks highlighted above. And it is also about the time that we need to engage with main stream media again.

Sean didn't explain why Steorn needs to engage the main stream media again before the Jury process is over, that'll be a question for a future discussion.

nleseul:Have the jury members seen a working device? (If this is something you can comment on.)

Steorn: They are currently in part I of the process (an addition at the request of the applicants), this is a form of 'peer' review and is paper based. We have confirmed visit dates set for the near future, but I am not going to go into this any further for obvious reasons.

nleseul: Unfortunate that the skeptics are going to love spinning that one, though.

Steorn: They are entitled to their views, the non-believer/believer war will not be resolved until the Jury process is complete, and for the truly crazy this will in fact be part of the scam as well. Its all noise, lol Seamus was showing me some of the comments from another forum, its pure vitriol, according to the stuff that I was shown I had already made 750k from sale of Steorn shares (I have for the record made zero from the sale of Steorn shares), there are crazy theories surrounding the Steorn Nominees thing and so on.

We do far more than most companies would be bother do do about demonstrating that we are about the validation process, and not a fraud. People will always make their own minds up about this. It is never the reaction of the fringes of either side of the argument that matter, it just seems that way because the fringes tend to be very vocal!

spinn3er: General expectations (at least here on the forum) for the jury to conclude phase 1 was from 5min to a month maybe. Now after more than 3 months, what is going on? Thanks for the answer. (i hope)

Steorn: Yes, but again I have to state that the addition to the process was done at the request of many applicants. We are very much slaves to the process that we have engaged in, it was never going to be fast, some parts may be faster than we expect and some may be slower. I personally believe that the current phase of the process will in fact speed up the overall process, because the fundamental 'science' issues are being looked at, but as always time will tell.

We've learned a lot more about the current state of the Jury process this past week. From a closure standpoint, it's sad to learn that the Jury process may go on for a much longer period then what was initially expected.


On The Technology and Orbo Product:

my_pen_is_stuck: Can you please tell me the colour, length, width, etc of the 100K orbo toys?

Steorn: They will fit on a desk, but I wont say anymore than that at this time, sorry!

Steorn: The colour, like the device itself we will only 'reveal' following validation. They are all going to be the same colour though!

Neutrino:what progress do you have with the continuous motion testing? Do you observe this effect at all, if so, how much more effective it is than the start/stop version, does it it make all your existing patents obsolete? Well, any news in this direction?

Steorn: Yes, we have made huge progress on this - we expect to be demoing this version in July. Again I have to say sorry and say that there is not a lot of detail that I can go into at this time.

babcat: Could you share any more technical specifications of the technology with us (start/stop or constant motion)? ... is there anything you could tell us about the general direction the specifications (for example power densities or power to weight ratios) are headed?

Steorn: Hi babcat, the answer is no at this point. Of course the very limited details we put on the site yesterday in no way could be considered 'detailed', and I am genuinely sorry about the disappointment that this caused. With respect to the direction, the version that we are currently developing will have a significantly greater power density than the 0.5 watts/cm3 quoted yesterday.

I appreciate Sean accepting the fact that yesterday was a bit of a let down for us.

rubentherat: How far are you on the road to continuous motion. An estimation? 50%, 60%,70%

Steorn: I would say 80-90% of the way.

uomipoika: What's the basic difference between start/stop and continuous motion devices? Does the start/stop mean that the device must be restarted and restarted all over again to keep it running? Or does it mean that the device is startable and stoppable? (Once you start it, it rolls until someone presses the stop-button?)

Steorn: Stop/start devices stop in the middle of a cycle, there is no manual intervention.

Chilean One:Does the Continuous motion involves electromagnets?

Steorn: Nope

icuken: What is the cycle timeperiod for the start/stop device?

Steorn: Well obviously it depends on the config, they can be pretty fast, I do not know off the top of my head, sorry.

smarthousesys: Sean, Any unfamiliar elements used in Orbo (Neo is a familiar element) - just looking for a yes/no? Thanks

Steorn: No!

J i O: You've publicly stated that your intention all along was not to move forward with the development of continuous motion. Yet that decision was reversed? What did you learn or ascertain that motivated this reversal?

Steorn: Well we obviously continue to look at methods of implementation (mostly from a patent standpoint), one of these concepts we spent some time building a test rig and testing and the results from these tests lead us to believe that the development would d be worth the investment.

On the SPDC and Near Term Activities:

Suomipoika: Question about crank's and drmike's visit. Have those visits been scheduled? If not, why?

Steorn: The answer is that no they have not yet been scheduled, the reason is that we have been extremely busy for us. Cathy C keeps our to-do list and she has started to hassle me about it so I think that these will get set up pretty soon.

my_pen_is_stuck: I'd like to know your reaction to the progress of the SPDC. Are they living up to about what you expected?

Steorn: Again another slow process - we are pushing content up as fast as we can produce it, but it takes time. I guess the real question would if the members feel that it is living up to expectations, if I were a member I might be frustrated with the speed of content .

On the Media, the Documentary, and Everything Else:

my_pen_is_stuck: ... So, are you guys deliberately trying to look like nutters to avoid attention?

Steorn: lol, we never had any doubts that we would be viewed as nutters from the outset, and we have rejected any media interviews since early September, we have no more to say of an substance until the key question is answered.

Neutrino: Since Steorn technology is known to public for 8 months now, have you been contacted by some influential people, e.g. governments, military, UN, European Commission, greenpeace, individuals?

Steorn: We still get contacted by loads of people from across the spectrum, we do not meet any of them to be honest, there is just no point until the validation process is complete.

Neutrino: I remember you said that the validation should be completed before the documentary will be released. What is the planned format: one episode 45 or 90 minutes long or whole series dedicated to one of the greatest inventions/discoveries of XXI century? Any clues from the production company?

Steorn: My understanding is that it will be a single 60 min documentary.

With all the video that has been captured and the magnitude of the claim, I expected at least a mini-series!

my_pen_is_stuck: At this point, the fence sitters still don't know if it's real or not. Are they wasting their time? Or are they in for the most exciting ride of a life time? We just want to know if the bloody thing works or not.

Steorn: I understand that, but to be honest the if it works or not is up to the Jury, it has always been. I must admit to being shocked at how much time people spend debating us, I think that in a way that Steorn is just the topic that allows the people in here to get into debate, it could just as easily be religion or something else. The answer to the question is still some time off.

I do enjoy a good debate. Good observation Sean! And finally, iscore4ever wanted to know how Sean felt about the technology somehow being thwarted by big oil, governments, or some other entities:

Steorn: Ok first, we do not file patents in the US only, second we will not only rely on patent protection and finally our 'market' is the internet.

I wonder what else they will rely on besides patent protection. With their claimed licensing model, and the Jury publications digging into the fundamental physics of the phenomena, it doesn't sound like they plan on holding any trade secrets. Sean's comment on the market being the Internet sounds a little dot-com'ish to me. Maybe he was getting a little tired by this point!

I appreciate Sean's willingness to confront some of the more ardent skeptics in Steorn's Forum. I hope he continues the dialog. There are so many more questions!

More Jury Clarifications from Sean

Today Sean cleared up lingering Jury questions. chili fries asks:

I also can't resist asking (though I understand if I don't get one) for clarification. Are they only testing the devices with Steorn's measurement apparatus? Are they building the devices for themselves? Are they building and testing the devices at their places of business, or is the validation process only taking place at Steorn in Dublin?

Sean's reply:

Well I can't in fact 'tell' the Jury what to do. They will not rely only on Steorn data, who would? They will not only do tests in Steorn, who would? I doubt that they would rely on Steorn provided systems (the ones with our hamsters in them!), who would?

This talk about the supposed 'test limits' placed on this process by Steorn is false and mis-leading. Part of someones game no doubt.

Here are some additional comments from Sean today:

I fully expect that the method of reaching their conclusions will form part of the final assessment. The only purpose of 'information control' is to allow these people to do their work, without the need to deal with media or bloggers and to allow the results, once ready, to be released in a coordinated way to the media, that simple.

In regards to how the Jury is going:

Well I guess that the first thing to understand is that our original view of the process was modified based on input from people who where applying. Basically the suggestion was that an additional phase was added to the process that in effect involved a 'peer review' of white papers, test methods and test data provide by Steorn. This will not of course be the basis of the final evaluation report but was included, by request, so that they have a very clear understanding of what the technology is about. This is reflected in the jury contract posted on the main site, part I being, in effect a form a peer review and part II being selection of independent labs (by the Jury), definitions of tests and so on.
...
The whole point about the Jury process is that it is not conducted under any form of pressure, hence we will not be in the business of predicting when, how and so on. So I guess that the best that I can say is that we will give another update at the end of Q2.

It looks like we'll be waiting a while for the next jury update. Let's hope they've made a lot of progress on phase 1 testing by then. Here's more from Sean:

We said from the outset that this would be a long and involved process, others of course have views that this could all be over in 10 mins, this was never going to be the case and we have repeatedly stated this from the very start . No credible scientist is going to throw out hundreds of years of experience in the blink of an eye. The process will be must be in-depth and run at a pace dictated by the Jury.
...
...we have no doubts about our claims - but we have never expected anyone in the public domain to believe us. The role of the Jury is to provide a deep technical analysis of our claims, at that point I will ask you to believe us. Up till then I will simply ask you to believe that we are genuine about the process.
...
Not only the people involved and the methods used to determine a result will be available, but also the details about how we came to select the 22 and so on. There is no point at all in this process if its details are not in the public domain AFTER the result. I stress after for the simple reason that while doing this, the last thing the people involved need to do is (1) deal with some of the crazy bloggers that are out there or (2) give a false or misleading impression of what is going on. As always the answer to the question we pose is far too important for all of us to allow it to be influenced by some of the very cynical bloggers or indeed the crazy ones. It really is a case that the full story will be known at the end, but it will only be known at the end.

It's been an eventful week, but my hunch are things will slow down around here before they get busy again. Sean is holding his cards close. I hope between now and Q2 we can make some progress with Dr. Mike's visit and also with crank's activities with Steorn.

The "Technical Specifications" have been published...

From Steorn's Website:

Orbo is based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. The core output from our Orbo technology is mechanical. This mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using standard generator technology either by integrating such technology directly with Orbo or by connecting the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology. The efficiency of such mechanical/electrical conversions is highly dependent on the components used and is also a function of size.

Orbo technology is subject to continuous development. This development is focused on improving the manufacturability of the technology, production costs and power density. Orbo was initially developed as using stop-start mechanisms (with a power density of 0.5 Watts per cm3), Steorn is currently finalizing the development of constant motion systems and a significant improvement in power density is anticipated.

Not exactly what I expected, but hey, this is their show, not mine.