Thane Heins Perepiteia.

[LarryC]

If anybody wants to see the interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJIh70IZua8 

LarryC trying to walk, just watch the beginning, rest is boring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5BMVmOWzfk 

This will kill you, Elephant stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qqE_WmagjY 

Enjoy, L

[JustMe]

Hi, JM - great photo, by the way!

Thanks baby...you too!

[hoptoad]

Thanks baby...you too!

[LarryC]

Thanks baby...you too!

The Thanemanian Devil Club members have met and now decree that you are forthwith the Divine Miss JM. Live long and prosper, and may there be no limit to your powers, Divinest.

Your loyal subjects,  L,T,A,I,H,S, etc.

[JustMe]

Hi, JM - great photo, by the way!

I think it would be as well to allow for the possibility that Dr Zahn, and others, rejected this on the basis of a rational analysis rather than through some irrational bias of the mainstream establishment. After all, those folks know a great deal more about how this stuff works than you, or me, or Thane, or anyone else on this forum for that matter. And you'd have thought that after decades of this concept being "out there" at least one of those smart guys would have latched onto it and made his fortune, wouldn't you?

So when multiple people with letters after their names keep repeating the observation that this effect is completely explained through magnetic braking applied to the torque-speed curve of the standard induction motor, then I think one should at least consider the possibility that they may be, well, right. At the very least, it sets the scene for very simple experiments that could be done to refute their explanation - for example, to demonstrate the effect with a prime mover other than an induction motor, let's say?

Rational analysis? Dr. Zahn wanted nothing to do with it - overnight - because it got publicly associated with quackery. From the Toronto Star follow-up after Zahn withdrew his active interest, paraphrased from the rather stern original: "I told him I would having nothing to do with it if he mentioned perpetual motion". Worth mentioning here too that the only people I noted calling it perpetual motion were the skeptic organizations. This is not meant to disparage Dr. Zahn, indeed Thane only speaks well of him, but to restate that mainstream science can't be relied on to bless all pursuits equally.  It's naive and silly to imagine otherwise.  Naive and silly to think that 'Science' and it's people and methods are infallible and invulnerable to fundamental human nature.

To me your reasoning is weak all the way down.  Appeal to authority is never a particularly strong argument, especially when that authority has a demonstrable bias against an idea, however grounded in popular wisdom that bias may be. And it's pretty tough to latch on to something if you ignore it in the first place.

Anybody could be right about anything, including you.  But once one moves from simply claiming (correctly) that Thane hasn't proven his hypothesis to providing an alternate explantion the onus moves to the person making the alternate claim to provide the proof. It seems to me that this is a basic tenet of skepticism.  Proof here will not come from pictures of torque-speed curves, no matter how 'accessible' they may be. Thane doesn't have to take on the burden of proving anybody else wrong, he only has to prove himself right. Is it a long shot? Probably.  Are his goals worthy ones deserving of our support? I think they are.